Breaking Joseph Read Free Page A

wasn’t
planned.” I almost choked in my rush to speak. “We’re not having a
secret affair. He has said things that make me wonder if he wants
more, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested…but I don’t
know.” The admission lingered between us, swelling silently.
    Matt flexed
fingers from balled fists. “If something does happen, will you tell
me? I don’t want to hear it from anyone else.”
    “I will.”
    “Shall we walk
back to the hotel?”
    It was a relief
to walk away from that claustrophobic little bench. “Are you out
with Aidan again this evening?”
    “No idea. I
last saw him at about two AM and he wasn’t looking particularly
conscious.”
    “Oopsie.”
    “I was teaching
him to play rugby in the hotel car park,” he said. “We got an
American football from…er…I don’t remember. I hope we didn’t steal
it.”
    “Aidan probably
swapped it for sexual favours in an alley, or something.”
    “He is a bit
slutty, isn’t he?”
    I grabbed hold
of his arm as we dove into a group of pedestrians, and once again,
he didn’t flinch or shake me off.
    “Don’t tell me
you were never slutty, Matt.”
    “I’m not in his
league.”
    “And what
league might that be?”
    “I think he
phrased it well with three cocks away from syphilis ,” he
said with a wince.
    As we walked, I
let his arm slip from mine. In that touch, there were echoes of a
lost intimacy that I had mourned ten times over. Back at the hotel,
I was surprised when the lift zipped past his floor, but I didn’t
voice it–just glowed in our rekindled friendship, sudden and
fragile as it seemed.
    We stopped at
my door and I was reminded of the night of his rugby fundraiser–the
ridiculous uniform we’d escaped home in, the awkward longing to
drag him into bed. We had just decided we were a couple, then.
    Now we were two
separate entities again. No point being nervous.
    I reached up
and wrapped my arms around his neck, squashed my face against his
shoulder. He stiffened…but then his hands spanned my back, and he
hugged me so tightly I thought I might split down the middle.
    My breath hit
his first, and then his mouth. It was a sweet little kiss, slow and
deliberate, barely lips brushing lips, and yet the history behind
it all meant it felt ten minutes long.
    “I didn’t want
that awful Saturday to be the last time I kissed you,” he said
softly.
    “S’okay. It was
nice.”
    “Yeah.” He
knotted a hand into his hair, looking away. “I suppose I’ll see you
around, then.”
    “Later.”
    “Right.” He
went to walk away. Paused. “If you…well…you know where I am if you
want me, Leila.”
    “Okay.”
    Joseph waited
on the other side of the suite door. Between the black marble
tables, cream velvet sofas and dishes spilling scarlet roses, he
looked every inch the wolf, groomed and stuffed into a suit.
    “He thinks
you’ll go back to him,” he said, not looking up from his file.
    I nodded.
“Perhaps.”
    “Is that what
you want?”
    “Yes.” The word
felt prickly. “But not enough.”
    “He grates on
you.”
    “That
sounds…mean. But like you and Isobel, we’re badly matched, I
s’pose.”
    He sat back.
“And did you set out to corrupt him too?”
    “I think you
did.” I sat in his lap and he nudged my legs apart, making me
straddle him. It all felt so easy. “I didn’t mean to change
him.”
    “He thought he
could change you, though.” He gazed up, bit his lip. “All those
things he liked least about himself.”
    And I had
wanted Matt to change me. Did Joseph know that too?
    “Are you sure
you did law, and not psychology?”
    He
laughed–rich, dark. Unsettling. “I did study psychology, as it
happens.”
    I pulled his
head back by a handful of hair. “Oh?”
    “You really
want to know?”
    “I do.” I
pushed his lips apart with a fingertip. Kissed him like I hadn’t
had breakfast.
    “I started my
degree in psychology. At Cambridge.” He tugged my hips in and
mashed the gusset of