The Grand Duel (The Grand Men #4)

Chapter 1

ONE

Lissie

L ondon City Centre ate my ass this afternoon.

Not literally, obviously.

But I would say it’s a perfectly acceptable way to summarise getting sandwiched on the tube between bodies and eyes I refused to meet whilst some vile excuse of a human dipped their hand into my bag and took my purse.

It was enough. I was rattled. And then the universe whispered in my ear, “ Lissie, you’re not just going to let them run off with your purse, are you? ”

Being the proactive, positive woman I am, I said, “Absolutely not,” and off I went. My favourite pair of Christian Louboutin’s? Well, they said sit down. On the dirty tube station floor. Sprawled out like a fucking fish.

I hope they needed it.

I hope my cashless purse changes their life for the greater good, and that anus-faced prick goes on to find the cure to every disease known to man.

Positive, positive, positive. I am the face of positivity. It lives within me. It’s my body. My next step. It’s?—

“Alright, darlin’. Need me to give you?—”

“Fuck off.”

—missing.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I left my positivity somewhere between North Greenwich and the dirt I ate on the ground at London Liverpool Street.

The job interview I’m on my way to is nestled down a sleepy side street on the outskirts of Shoreditch, a law firm owned by a thirty-something rich guy, who is in need of an assistant.

I googled him last night over a bottle of wine.

And then there’s me. Lissie Elton. A twenty-four-year-old rich girl, who, apparently, is far more stubborn than her mother gives her credit for.

Case in point: the stupid girl with an honour’s degree in criminal law and a trust fund that could feed a small country, hobbling towards the doors of a position as an assistant, purseless and technically homeless.

Let’s hope they haven’t googled me.

I straighten out the skirt of my dress and look up at the building in front of me.

Feeling as ready as I’ll ever be, I force open the door to Charles Aldridge’s offices.

Only it doesn’t budge.

“I’m so sorry, but the position you’re interviewing for today is no longer available.”

My jaw drops as I stare at the woman who stands half in, half out of the doorway. What? “But…I thought…but it was only just listed yesterday.”

You’ve got to be joking.

This job would have been perfect.

The woman sighs a sigh that tells me she’s as done with this day as I am. “Come inside. Please. Let me get you something warm to drink.” She holds open the door for me, her smile fake but wide, pleasant even, considering she’s just ruined my entire week with one sentence. “Come on. It’s freezing out there. I’m not taking no for an answer.” She ushers me inside with the flick of her head.

I match her sigh and follow her through the doors.

As if this day could get any worse.

I’m going to end up crawling back to my parents with my tail between my legs at this rate.

“I can explain the mix-up,” she assures me, leading me into a small side office.

I pause on the threshold and look up at the name on the door.

“Edna, but everyone calls me Ed around here. Tea or coffee?” She starts around the room, doing what she can to tidy the mess.

“You really don’t have to do this. I can see you’re busy.”

She looks up from the files she’s gathering on her desk, eyeing me through her thin gold-rimmed glasses. She’s got to be in her midfifties, insanely stylish in her cream roll-neck jumper she’s half tucked into her rolled-up jeans and paired with black boots. “I am,” she confirms. “I’m rushed off my feet Monday through Saturday and I need—needed some help. I don’t like having my time wasted, Miss Elton, and I’ve wasted yours today. The least I can do is make you a cuppa. Come, come on, sit down. I could do with one anyway.”

With little to no feeling in the tip of my nose, I drop down in the seat opposite her side of the desk and remove my jacket. “Thank you. And it’s Lissie. Just Lissie is fine.”

She nods. “So, tea? Coffee?” Her lips turn down in contemplation. “Something a little stronger?”

I break a smile.

If we truly wore our hearts on our sleeves, I’m pretty sure this woman—Edna—would have “stressed” printed in capital letters on hers. “I’ll take a tea, thank you.” Although it is four p.m. on a Friday, and I’d kill for a glass of wine right now. I’m just not sure if she’s joking, and if she isn’t, what kind of potential employee did that make me look?

Not that there’s a job available here now.

I run my hand over my forehead once she leaves the room, not minding what it’s likely doing to my makeup. I have more pressing issues to worry about. Like what I do now. Where I’m going to live.

Keep looking for a job, Lis. Something will come up.

“Edna Harrison?”

I turn in the chair to find a large bouquet of flowers hovering in my face, the delivery person’s head hidden behind a pretty bunch of red roses.

“No, she’s just making tea,” I say, not immediately standing.

It’s been the longest week.

“Are you able to sign for them?”

I stand. “Sure.”

I take the arrangement, admiring the extravagance of such a gesture.

I’ve had a hatred for flowers since I was little. Not the actual flower itself, but more the gifting of them.

Flowers are a rich man’s pacifier. In my opinion, anyway. A way of manipulating women into thinking they’re sorry or thinking of them.

I still remember the day my dad sent flowers to my hospital bed when I was eleven years old. At first, I thought they were pretty and so thoughtful of him, but then they got uglier and uglier until they started to smell bad, and the nurse threw them out.

“Thanks.” The delivery lady dips out of the office before I can fully lift the pen off her pad.

I place the flowers down on Edna’s desk and spy the card nestled in the middle.

“ Lovely Ed —” I read aloud. “Huh. What an ass.”

I bet he’s sorry .

“I made a pot of tea instead—oh, Luna!”

I turn at the commotion, my brows lifting when a tiny golden spaniel puppy barrels into the door frame, beating Edna to the office. It shuffles its bottom into the small room, excitedly bouncing on small paws until it backs into a plant pot and knocks it over.

“Oh Christ.” Edna places the tray down as the puppy jumps at me, laddering my tights. “Luna, out. I’m so sorry,” she says to me, flustered.

“It’s okay.” I chuckle. “Hello.” I rub behind the puppy’s ears.

“No, it’s not. It’s—oh, Dais, not you as well!”

A second puppy, identical to the first, comes bounding into the room. “Two of them?” I say with glee.

Edna looks about ready to explode.

“They belong to Mr Aldridge. I’m so sorry about this.” She tries to grab their collars, but they spin, bouncing around as if it’s a game. “Luna!”

The puppy barks.

Bending, she reaches out and scoops up the smaller of the two. “Gosh, you’re a handful, girls.”

It’s not until a laugh slips past my lips that I realise how wide my smile is. I bend and pick up the other puppy, just about managing to hold it in my arms. “You had flowers delivered,” I tell Edna, nodding towards the arrangement as my cheeks ache.

She rolls her eyes and steps over the fallen plant pot. “Impeccable timing, Mr Aldridge,” she mutters. “Do you mind?” she asks, eyeing the door. “They have a room of their own to play in.”

The dogs have a playroom?

I follow her down the corridor to a room three times the size of Edna’s office. “Wow.”

“A couple of princesses is what they are.”

I snigger, placing the dog down as I take in the space. When I turn back to Edna, she’s using her hand to fan her face, her hair is slightly dishevelled, and I’m pretty sure she has some kind of dribble on her jumper.

And in this moment, regardless of being jobless, purseless, homeless—technically—and having my favourite pair of heels broken, I can tell Edna is having a worse day than I am. Maybe.

“Edna,” I say to her, and she glances over at me. “Did you have anything a little stronger?”

She shakes her head, tears brimming her eyes, maybe a little at a loss. And then she laughs. “I have a really nice bottle of Frerejean Frères in the fridge that we planned to open if the case went the way we wanted today.”

I grin and nod.

“What’s the story with the dogs?” I ask as I drain a third glass of champagne. It’s nice. Vintage. At least the owner has good taste in his champagne.

And employees.

Ed is a babe.

She chuckles softly from her spot on the floor beside me. “I’m pretty sure Mr Aldridge is having a midlife crisis.”

I snigger and stroke the head of the puppy lying in my lap. Daisy is her name. “They’re cute. That one is a little…”

My head dips to my shoulder as the puppy’s muzzle gets wedged in the toe of my discarded, broken heel. She shakes her head until she frees herself, sneezes, and then pounces on top of it.

“Luna. Luna doesn’t stop,” Ed says, filling up our glasses. “She’s out of control.”

“Maybe she just hates being cooped up in here. She seems to want out.”

“They’re walked four times a day. They have a dog walker who comes in and this room to run free, and they have me. I spend half my day with them.”

My lips purse in amusement.

She drops her head back against the wall. “It’s like having kids, but I’m nearing bloody sixty, and I can’t keep up.”

“They’re cute kids.” The serotonin boost I got when they first rushed me in that room is unmatched.

Fuck the flowers.

“He came in one morning with them—Mr Aldridge—said he was talked into having the two of them by his friends’ wives.” She stares at Luna, who’s now rummaging around in a box of files she’s pawed over and across the rug. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him what a terrible idea it was. They’re part of the furniture now, of the team. I sort of love the little shits.”

I smile. “So, it was Daisy and Luna who stole the job position out from under me?”

Edna laughs. “I wish that was the reason. But no. That’s down to a man who’s as stuck in his ways as the wind. There’s no telling him. He came in this morning and asked me to cancel all interviews. I’m sorry again that I missed you off the list.”

I wave her off. “It’s fine. He sounds stubborn.”

I can think of harsher words, but I get the sense Edna actually likes the man she calls her boss.

“Stubborn. Selfless. Busy—he really is busy right now with this case, and it’s a heavy time of year for him on top of everything else he tries to spin. He’s currently at a prison in Thameside waiting on a man who hasn’t accepted visitation for the two years he’s been incarnated, but will he listen to me and stop going…” Edna’s face grows sad, and I frown, watching her. “He doesn’t mean to be such a bastard about it. And we do need an assistant, he knows that, but I think I may have collared him at the wrong time.” She looks across at me, guiltily, her eyes glassy from the champagne. “Do you have other interviews lined up?”

I shake my head. “But I will.”

“I feel awful. I’ve wasted your entire afternoon.”

She hasn’t wasted my entire afternoon. Mr Aldridge has. Dickhead . Valuable time I could have spent searching for more jobs, or even squeezing in another interview before the week’s end, but I don’t tell Edna that. I peer down into my glass, to the sweet puppy in my lap, then take a sip of champagne instead. “It’s really not wasted.”

Luna canters towards us, catching us both off guard and knocking Edna’s glass, sending the contents into her lap and up my arm. “Jesus, dog.”

I laugh, grabbing Luna’s collar and pulling her close to scratch her chest. She sits, her head dropping to my lap next to her sister’s.

“You’re good with them. Maybe I can talk Mr Aldridge into hiring you as the dog whisperer instead.”

After the day I’ve had, Mr Aldridge can kiss my ass if he ever thinks of trying to hire me again.

I spot a piece of card stuck on the bottom of Luna’s paw and reach for it, the emerald green catching my eye. A business card. Unsticking it, I flip it over, pushing Luna away with the back of my hand when she tries to eat it.

I frown.

“The Nightingale?” I trace the gold-foiled letters with the pad of my thumb and turn my head towards Edna when she starts laughing.

“Would you believe me if I told you we’re never this unprofessional? This day…” She reaches over and swipes the card from me.

Her laugh is reminiscent, infectious—or maybe it’s the champagne. “What?” I ask.

“This—” She holds up the card. “This is a members-only club down on Ganton Street.” She puts emphasis on the words, letting me know exactly the type of club it is.

My brows rise. “Why’s it in here?” I ask incredulously.

She gives me a look, her cheeks flushing pink.

“Oh.” Wait, is it hers?

“Yeah,” Edna mutters, done. She’s so done. “You know, Lissie, this club is currently looking for fresh faces, and they pay…very well. Even for bar work.” She shrugs, reaching back over with the card. “If you want to keep hold of it.”

And apparently, Edna has had too much champagne.

I stare at her, at the card, done myself and ready to go home. But I’m not sure what that word even means anymore. Because the idea of knocking on my parents’ door and telling them that I’ve lost my job, my apartment, and that I need them…

It’s been three years since my sister and I packed up and moved out. Since they told us what a burden a child can be to a couple of kids.

“It’ll make me feel better knowing this wasn’t a complete waste of your time,” Edna adds.

I’d love to say I took the card and tucked it into my pocket to make Edna feel a little better, but that would be a lie.