Trust Me to Know You Read online

  Trust Me to Know You

  (Trust Me #1)

  Jaye Peaches

  Published by Jaye Peaches

  Copyright 2013: Jaye Peaches

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

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  Gemma Marshall, a young woman with a secret past, resigns from a good job to work as an intern for J.D.Lucas Ltd in the heart of the City of London. Within weeks, the company boss, Jason Lucas, seduces her.

  A whirlwind of weekend trysts at his country mansion leads to revelations from both of them. Her terrifying nightmares are re-awakened by him and his need to dominate her. Their passionate and highly erotic affair reaches crisis point when her ex-lover comes to seek retribution from her.

  Can Gemma survive another relationship with an alluring master of the bedroom? Will she find love at last or turn her back on her natural impulses?

  ****

  Chapter 1

  Prologue

  I was in his bedroom, his fantastically colossal bedroom. A floor to ceiling bay window showed off his ornamental garden, which was barely visible under the moonlight. The emperor size bed had short wooden posts at each corner and white silk sheets. No duvet or quilt was necessary given the warmth of the night. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished with cushioned cream carpet and plain sapphire walls. Everything appeared to be spotlessly clean and frugal. The bed was an enormous piece of furniture and yet it did not fill the vast room. There was substantial floor space in the middle of the room and I stood there, waiting and fidgeting.

  I nervously fiddled with my dress seam as he strolled over towards me. He looked straight at me with a slight quirky smile on his face. Halting within arm’s reach, he helped me with the side zipper.

  “You’re sure about this?” he asked gently. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “I’m fine – excited. It’s been a few months since I last, you know did this,” I murmured as he pulled my dress down past my pink bra. The closer he was, the more overpowering the thought of him lying on top of me, entering me.

  Let him be every bit as good in bed as he is handsome, please, I implored.

  “It’s going to be good, Gemma, real good,” he said as if in answer to my unspoken thoughts.

  Too nervous to speak, I nodded in agreement and looked up at his blue eyes. He grasped the dress with renewed vigour and tugged the straps off my arms. The rest fell away to my feet. In a matter of seconds, he had pushed me on to the bed and knelt down to take my shoes off. Breathless and eager, I realised how quickly he had stripped me down to my underwear. He started to undress himself with efficiency and was quickly down to his boxers.

  “Do I need condoms?”

  Did he just use the plural! No matter, I did not need them.

  “No, I’m on the pill, didn’t seem any point in mucking about with it,” I smiled, remembering why I needed them in the first place, when sex was a bloody fantastic thing in my life.

  “Any other reason why I should need one?” he probed further. His face would be crestfallen if I had given him a reason.

  “God no, I’m clean,” I returned his gaze with confidence. I was familiar with the status of my health. “What about you?”

  “I’m good, babe, don’t worry,” he said and I believed him, his face exuded trustworthiness.

  Why, oh why, had I previously failed to spot signs of deceitfulness in another? I must have been a walkover, an easy target for him. No, not tonight, there was no way I was ruining the evening with unnecessary memories. I blanked them out.

  I lay back on the bed and shut my eyes. Finally, after what seemed a lifetime of being on hold I was going to have sex and not with any ordinary everyday bloke. I was going to be fucked by Jason Lucas - yes fucking yes!

  Chapter 2

  Nearly three months after my twenty-fourth birthday I quit my well paid job as a financial analyst. The resignation was out of necessity and unavoidable. Over the summer, when my meagre savings began to dwindle to nothing, I started a low paid internship, which I hoped meant a return to a successful career. I was lucky to be offered the job and I endeavoured to impress my immediate boss Andy and his team. After four weeks, Andy gave me a good probationary report and extended my contract for a full year. Then began the week in which the direction of my life was to change forever.

  I was in the communal open plan area by the lifts and waiting to use the photocopier. The area was windowless and the air always felt full of the smell of ozone and hot paper. I could not use the machine because someone was there cursing it.

  “Fuck, what now!” he raised his fisted hands in frustration.

  Tall and wearing a shirt, grey silk trousers and a dark tie. He looked like one of those senior suits who occasionally came out of their offices and lurked menacingly. I was not fazed by them. I knew what intimidated or daunted me. He was glaring in frustration at the photocopier with his hands on his hips. I felt the urge to intervene to help.

  “If you open all the compartment doors and shut them again, it often clears the error code,” I suggested to his square-shouldered back.

  He turned to look at who had spoken and stared at me for a few seconds. He seemed lost in thought. His blonde hair was short and slightly wavy with blue eyes that were bright and piercing, they went right through me. A narrow straight nose with high cheekbones, made his face appear distinguished and ageless. I could not stop myself from holding his gaze, an unnatural reaction for me. Dragging my eyes back to the stalled photocopier, I peered at the error message displayed. Bemused at my suggestion he let me come forward and I busied myself with sorting out the ridiculous machine. I bent over to open the lower paper compartment and was grateful I was wearing one of my longer pencil skirts. The green light came on and I stepped back with delight.

  “There it’s ready to go.” I felt quite smug at my achievement and rocked on my toes.

  “Thanks,” he said pursing his lips fleetingly.

  He took his photocopy and original off the machine and once again he looked me up and down, as if I was parading on the catwalk.

  “You’re welcome,” I grinned.

  He was the handsomest man on legs. I did not know the company kept such good-looking males on their staff. I could not take my eyes off him, even his age was difficult to estimate. I sensed my skin flushing pink and I was mortified by the speed at which my dormant sex drive had been put back into gear.

  The lift behind him opened and he turned to watch another suited bigwig step out. I was out of the picture as he strolled over to talk to the waiting man. As I walked back to the door of my communal office I almost bumped into Penny as she came bounding out.

  “Gemma, you’re here. Did you get your ticket?” she blurted out loudly. Then seeing the men by the lift, blushed brightly and looke
d away quickly.

  “No. They’re all gone,” I replied, but I did not think Penny was interested in what I was saying. “It’s frustrating I’ve always wanted to hear Poulenc’s Stabat Mater in a big venue and now I won’t...” My voice trailed off as I watched the increasingly alarmed face of Penny staring back at me.

  Penny grabbed my elbow and pulled me back towards the office door.

  “Just come will you,” said Penny with agitation and she looked incredibly uncomfortable as she jerked her head back towards the doorway.

  I glanced at the two men. The man who came out of the lift was busy talking away. My photocopy man was staring intently at me from across the open space. It was my turn to feel like blushing. Whatever he was thinking was not clear from his expression. I could not think why I was drawing his attention so much. I glanced down at my clothes, perhaps I had spilt coffee or laddered my hold up stockings. I felt seriously self-conscious and vulnerable.

  In our office, I turned to speak to Penny but she had scuttled off and I was none the wiser about what had made her go into a spin. I sighed and returned to my small desk. Its dimensions were typical of the office. My desk was set against a wall with a small shelf above and a pedestal filing cabinet tucked underneath. I had no privacy and the noise from the rest of the office drifted around the room. In my previous job, I had my own cubicle, not grand but I was not overlooked by anyone.

  For the rest of the day I was distracted by unpleasant memories, which would have been better served by being eradicated. Regrettably, they were written indelibly in my mind. I wondered if anything would succeed in distracting me from them. I had put my hope in a new job. The plan did not always work and I doodled on a sheet of paper. A teardrop descending down a cheek and within it I trapped my disconsolate face. How I wished I could cry properly and find those tears released from their holding place.

  The day after my photocopier rescue, I was in a meeting with Andy and two of his colleagues working on another project. We were sitting around a large table in one of those communal, bland meeting rooms. The air-conditioning was fierce and directly above my head. A chill descended my neck and back. I was aware my stiffened nipples were showing through my flimsy cotton top. I would not wear it again for work. My tits were definitely not for show. I was determined to present an unsullied appearance to my masculine colleagues.

  The coldness kept my mind sharp and focused. The discussion was keeping to the agenda, something I keenly sought in business meetings. I managed to answer all their queries using the documents I had brought along with me or by accessing information from my laptop; its screen projected on the white board opposite us. Not a difficult project review as I was in my comfort zone and the methodologies I described were used on a daily basis in my previous job. From out of the blue, I heard the door behind me open. Andy immediately got up, fumbling with his tie.

  “Mr Lucas, I wasn’t expecting you for this meeting,” he looked seriously disconcerted.

  Mr Jason Lucas, Managing Director and proprietor of J.D. Lucas Ltd, had entered the room. I froze in my seat and listened to Andy as he lost all momentum in his speech.

  Why was Mr Lucas hijacking the meeting? I had heard plenty about him since I had started working for the company. A tough son-of-a-bitch who did not suffer fools, he ran a tight ship and would lash an incompetent idiot with his tongue. He especially did not like time wasters according to Andy. I turned and looked over my shoulder, I gaped visibly, my photocopy man. Now I knew why Penny had scarpered back into the office so quickly. I quickly glanced down, hiding away my red cheeks and the presence of my embarrassing flushed skin.

  Jason Lucas looked like a man who dropped into meetings to torment the participants. He seated himself at the head of the long table, crossing his legs and swinging back in the chair. Then he began to drum his fingers in quick succession on the table top. It made a playful drilling noise. If its purpose was to draw our attention towards his presence, the technique worked. The tapping was mesmerising and I had to look up at him. Those blue eyes, thin hard lips and strong jaw bone. Each time I dwelt on him, I could not stop thinking about sex - crazy thoughts that should not be there. Part of my forgotten persona had been dragged back from a prison cell, where she had lingered locked away and neglected.

  If he remembered me from my photocopier rescue, he appeared uninterested in my presence and the lack of recognition reinforced my lowliness in the proceedings - a mere intern and insignificant.

  He wanted an appraisal of the project and its status. “Well, fill me in quick,” he said with impatience. “I’ve only got five minutes.”

  I watched with my toes curling as my boss blustered his way through the salient points of our discussion. When the work I had done was mentioned, Mr Lucas turned in his seat and directed his eyes at me. Were they always so intense? I took a deep breath and held my ridiculous thoughts in check.

  “Show me,” he snapped his fingers and I passed him the documents. “You did this with the new software kit?” he asked me. Trapped by his blue eyes my pulse rate rose dramatically.

  Breathe, goddamit!

  “Yes, sir. I used it all the time in my last post to do these calculations,” I replied with a clear voice.

  “These look good,” he hesitated and took his mobile from his pocket. The ringtone must have been on vibrate. “Yes, Carla, I’m coming now.” He stood up and held on to the documents.

  “I’ll keep these,” and then he was gone out of the door, not even a thank you.

  A whirlwind first encounter, but I did not bother with over-analysing the psychology of my encounter with the Jason Lucas, Managing Director, Chief Executive, whatever! The man was way out of my league and I concentrated on the rest of my day, shelving my dredged up sexual yearnings back to their rightful home: forgotten. At four o’clock, my desk phone rang.

  “Gemma Marshall,” I said on pick up.

  “Carla Duke here. Mr Lucas wants a meeting with you. Tomorrow eleven o’clock, come up to his office.” Certainly not a request but an order; she made the directive clear in her voice.

  “Sure. Err why?” I asked. My heart was thumping. What did I do wrong?

  “He wants you to bring your laptop and show him the software you’ve been using.”

  Oh, thank the lord! I slumped in my seat with relief.

  What did he want to see me for? Silly thoughts out of my head now!

  “I’ll be there,” I said brightly, attempting to sound unfazed.

  I was planning on going for a drink with friends that evening. In the end, I decided I needed my beauty sleep before such a tumultuous meeting. Not that sleep came to me as all night I tossed and turned while lying on top of my bed. I made a solitary figure laid out in my t-shirt and knickers, my increasingly wet knickers – I could not stop seeing blue eyes and blonde hair.

  The dying summer heat lingered in my apartment and the resulting humidity appeared to have concentrated in my bedroom. I had lived in the unappealing place for over three years. The rooms had grown increasingly shabby and tired with the wallpaper peeling off in the hallway and the bedroom carpet threadbare at the edges. The cupboard spaces were crammed with my things. My untouched neglected hobbies and interests stuffed into inadequate storage facilities. Books shelves stacked with well-thumbed romantic novels, textbooks and self-help books. The latter I had ceased to read as they were of no help whatsoever.

  Though cluttered I kept my little flat clean, very clean. I had been conditioned to clean regularly and I had not lost the habit. At least I did not use a toothbrush. I smiled as the ludicrous memory remerged briefly. Only now I was following a train of reminiscences and they were going in the wrong direction. How I wished the blurred images could be readily dismissed, back to where they lay buried and one day may be eliminated. The sudden arrival of unwanted recollections put a dampener on my pathetic arousal over an unavailable executive.

  I was screaming. The terrifying sound was in my head. I did
not think I actually was screaming aloud. I was drenched in sweat, soaking cold damp perspiration. I could not remember the details of my nightmare and the moment I sensed the screaming I buried the fear and repulsion. Looking about the room, as the street lights flooded through the gap in the curtains, I calmed down. The darkness did not scare me. It was being alone which hurt and frightened me. I was very alone, not just physically, but mentally I was solitary and empty.

  I lay there on my bed and pined for a life long gone, a happy-go-lucky Gemma Marshall, who had enjoyed the company of others, who had shared herself and was confident in her abilities, her special skills. That Gemma Marshall I feared was destroyed. Tears, the silent unfulfilling kind, streamed down my face wetting my ears and then down on to the pillow. My career was all that was left now, my refuge from madness.

  Next day I was quaking inside. My inner strength, the one I had tucked away, came to my rescue and I looked outwardly confident, as I knew I could look. The lift took me to the top floor where Mr Lucas reigned from on high. It seemed he occupied the entire floor, which included an expansive lobby with potted shrubs and polished white tiled floor. My heels clicked and echoed around the open space. No carpets to hide somebody’s approach and I felt as if I was walking the stone cold floor of a cathedral nave. I walked through the glazed double doors into the inner sanctum where Mr Lucas’s Personal Assistants presided over his appointments and correspondence.

  He had three Personal Assistants and Carla was the chief. Her demeanour demonstrated her status as his gatekeeper, first point of contact and filter of timewasters and annoying trivial matters. Set back from her desk were two others. Melissa, a slightly timid looking woman who did the legwork for Carla and, I had been told, was under Carla’s thumb. Whether it was true or not, I could not tell, but she did glance up and give me a welcoming smile. Next to her, with his head buried behind folders and files was Oliver, Mr Lucas’s researcher. Andy had told me the man was tasked with finding out anything Mr Lucas needed to know with regard to business, finance or legal issues. A demanding role I decided.