Because I Need You Read online

  Because I Need You

  Just Because, #1

  Drew Duncan

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Drew Duncan

  About the Author

  BECAUSE I NEED YOU

  Copyright © 2020 Drew Duncan

  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction, all names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  EDITING BY: Karen Sanders Editing

  FORMATTING BY: Formatting by Leigh

  Prologue

  Aiden

  “The fucking word for this is incompetent!”

  I was beyond angry. For the third time that week, the girl had been incapable of following even the most basic of instructions, and it was only Monday afternoon.

  Tears welled in her eyes. Jesus Christ.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Monroe,” she sobbed. “I’ll get it right next time. It’s just that you scare me, and I get all flustered.”

  Scare her? “Ms Gibbs, you have been a little bit more than flustered, and if you didn’t spend as much time on fucking Facebook while at your desk, perhaps you would be able to follow a basic instruction.”

  The sound of her blowing her snotty nose echoed around my office, and I started to lose the will to live.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Monroe.” She punctuated every word with a sob.

  I didn’t understand it. Was there really something so difficult about going down to a different floor, speaking to one specific person, and asking him to provide you with the financial review amendments to the reports from quarters two and three? I mean, I had asked her in English. I’d even said please.

  “For the love of Christ, will you stop with the fucking snivelling!” I ran my hands through my hair. I couldn’t cope with this any longer. She was just too much. “Ms Gibbs, I think it’s best that you gather up your things and go home.”

  She wiped her nose and smiled. “Thank you, Mr Monroe. I think that would be wise, and I can come back tomorrow ready to give it my all. It’s just that my boyfriend dumped me, and I...”

  I sighed and cut her off. She wasn’t getting it. “No, Ms Gibbs, you misunderstood. Again. I don’t want you to come back to the office ever again.”

  A high-pitched yelp erupted from her. “You’re firing me?”

  Finally, the penny had dropped.

  “That’s the idea.”

  The high-pitched noise was back. I lifted my phone. “Douglas. Yes. Right now. My office.” I hung up.

  Minutes passed, and the noise and the tears and the snot continued. A hard knock on my door signalled Douglas’s arrival, and thankfully, this whole fiasco would soon be over. “Come in!” I shouted over the noise.

  Douglas, our big, burly security guard, came into the room and took one look at me and then at the woman crying uncontrollably in front of me. He walked over to her, put his arm around her shoulder, and whispered against her ear.

  She stopped sniffling, looked at him with red, wet eyes, nodded, and quietly went with him.

  Thank. Fuck.

  I moved to my drinks cabinet, poured myself a scotch, knocked it back in one, then went back to my desk. I grabbed my phone and dialled an all too familiar number. “Elizabeth... Yes, Aiden Monroe here.”

  “Am I to assume you need another member of staff, Mr Monroe?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Can I ask what happened with this one, sir?”

  “Incompetence, unapproved internet use, and she stood crying in my office talking about having been recently dumped.”

  “Ah.”

  “Indeed. I expect a new assistant first thing in the morning, Elizabeth. And I would like this one to be at least partially decent or I will be forced to take my business to another recruitment agency. Are we clear?”

  “We are very clear, Mr Monroe, but I would also suggest that might not be the best solution for you, as we both know I’m the last recruitment consultant in London who is still willing to send you any staff.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll have someone with you in the morning, Mr Monroe.”

  I didn’t say anything further. I simply hung up. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I had burned through all the other recruitment agencies in London. In fact, the last time I went looking, several of them turned me down by reputation alone. Elizabeth at Fulton Executive Recruitment was my last chance and my last hope.

  Chapter One

  Ellis

  “I’m telling you, Liz, it’s a damn good job I love your face.” I laughed when Liz told me who I would be working for.

  “I know, I know. He has a reputation.” She shook her head.

  I groaned. “That’s putting it mildly, chick. He’s a fucking nightmare. Even I know he’s been through more PAs than we both care to think about. I don’t know how you deal with that shit.”

  She shrugged. “He’s a well-paying bastard.”

  “Fine. But I don’t want you holding it against me for any other work that comes up after this when he sacks me.”

  Liz agreed and said she would email me the details; I’d start in the morning at eight. I left the agency office and headed out onto the busy London streets for Victoria Station.

  Now, when I said I knew what this guy was like, I didn’t actually know him, I merely knew his reputation. From that reputation, I knew he was a tyrant. A lot of the London PAs I knew were in a secret group on Facebook; we talked about the bosses we had, we talked about who was a nightmare to work for, who was hiring… all of it. And one name that regularly came up for being a complete and utter wanker was Aiden Munroe.

  I remembered one girl about six months ago who had come into the group to post about him. Her grandmother had died, and she had needed a few days off to help with the funeral arrangements and the funeral itself. He had started with an email and text here and there to ask her about the work he expected her to be doing at home while grieving. Apparently, by the time her grandmother’s funeral arrived, he was calling her five or six times an hour and went ape shit when she didn’t answer while she had been in church for the service. Poor girl quit the next day. Liz told me off the record that he had called her to see if she would fire the girl anyway because he ‘found her level of tardy completely unacceptable in a professional capacity’. Without a doubt, Aiden Munroe was a top-class knob.

  Forty-five minutes later, I got off the train in Sutton and started to walk the short distance to the house I shared with my daughter and mother-in-law on Grove Road.

  “Honeys, I’m home!” I called out as I opened the door. I heard a little gasp as my daughter ran out of the living room at high speed into my arms.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” she yelped as she jumped up, and I grabbed her for a big squeeze.

  “Hello, monster. Did you have a good day at school today?” I asked my four-year-old, giving her a big kiss on the cheek before carrying her into the living room. “Hey, Sylvie.” I smiled and set my daughter on the sofa beside her nan, kissing the older woman on the cheek too.

  “Hello, son. How was your day?”

  I rolled my eyes. “New assignment in the morning. I’ll tell you about it when the little walls with big ears aren’t around.”

  “Nanna, what’s a walrus with big ears?” Addison asked.

  Sylvie scooped up her granddaughter and laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it later. Let’s go make dinner while Daddy gets cleaned up.” She winked at me and hustled into the kitchen with my little monster following. I headed upstairs to jump in the shower and wash away the grime of the day.

  “Is she asleep?”

  Sylvie nodded. “Only took two readings of The Last NooNoo.”

  “Bloody Marlon the Monster.” I laughed as Sylvie nodded to the kettle.

  “Want a cuppa, love?” she offered.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Is that research on the new job?” She nodded in the direction of my laptop, where I sat with it at the breakfast bar.

  I grumbled, and she laughed. I read over the pages of information that I could on Munroe Holdings PLC. They owned property—a lot of property—and had since Aiden Munroe’s great-great grandfather set up the company in 1912.
Jackie Munroe moved to London from Edinburgh in 1898 at the tender age of twenty-three. By the time he was thirty, he owned three properties. Rumour has it, old Jackie was a bit of a gambler, and a good one at that. So good, in fact, that Jackie won those properties in a game of poker. He was shrewd as hell and an amazing reader of people. He spotted their bluffs, poker faces, and tells. The man was a machine. By the time 1919 arrived, Jackie owned sixteen properties and thought that the best way to protect them was to put them into a holding company. By then, he had also attracted the attention of a younger woman called Estelle. He went on to have six children with her and was a millionaire by the age of fifty. After that, the company was passed down the family from father to son, until it had been passed just three years ago from Carter Munroe to Aiden.

  I was staring at several photos of Aiden when Sylvie came over and set the mug of tea beside me. Looking over my shoulder, she gasped.

  “Bloody hell, Ellis. Who’s the hotty?”

  I rolled my eyes. “That would be the new boss. Aiden Munroe.”

  “That the one who wouldn’t let the girl go to her mum’s funeral?”

  I laughed. “Yes, him, but it was her grandmother’s funeral, and he let her go, but then harassed her for work while she was off.”

  “Bit of a knob then, love?” she scoffed. “Good luck with that one. I hope Liz isn’t going to hold it against you when you can’t work with him anymore.”

  I pulled her against my hip and kissed her cheek, laughing. “Sylvie, my darling, I would be lost without you. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, I know that, son.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the photos of Aiden. “Shame he’s with a woman in all of them. Mustn’t bat for your team. I wonder if he likes older women.”

  I burst out laughing again and slapped her backside, and she walked off to the living room with her cup. I sat there for a minute, looking at the pics on the screen. Sylvie was right. Aiden Munroe was a beautiful man. But, as she had pointed out, in almost every single image, he had some gorgeous woman hanging off his arm. Working for a man that attractive was going to make for an interesting distraction.

  If his behaviour didn’t make me want to kill him first.

  Chapter Two

  Ellis

  I was at work by seven-thirty. I wanted to make a good impression on my first day, and I thought that being in thirty minutes early would have been it, but when I arrived, Aiden was already in his office.

  “Oh, good. You’re finally here.” He set an envelope in front of me and walked back into his office. “Read that and do what it says. When you’re done, get into my office and we can get started.”

  His office door slammed shut, and that was the introduction over. No hello, no welcome to the company. I had to be honest; this was pretty much what I had been expecting from Aiden Munroe. The bit I hadn’t been expecting was just how much more attractive the man was in real life. I had seen all those photos last night and figured that someone somewhere had been generous with a few filters in Photoshop, but no. He was utter perfection to the eyes in real life too.

  I lifted my envelope, opened it, and found a letter inside detailing my duties, a username and password for the computer, what my email address would be, and a few other details I would need, including an online ten-minute test I needed to complete. I logged in, sorted out my email, and got stuck in to the test. Fifteen minutes later, I knocked on Aiden’s office door.

  “Enter,” came the call from inside. I entered the office and paused. “Some ground rules before you begin. I expect you here at seven a.m. every morning. You will be finished for the day by six unless I tell you differently. You will comply with this without complaints about your social life. I expect you to get me coffee, lunch, and anything else I ask you to, including dry cleaning if necessary.”

  I groaned internally. The man really needed a dogsbody or a wife, not an assistant. “You will type, take shorthand, copy, and anything else I need. You will be responsible for liaising with the heads of departments to ensure that every Friday I have all of their weekly reports. You will manage my diary, arrange my travel, and you will have a company credit card to do all the things I ask you for. Anything purchased on it without my permission will have you dismissed instantly. You are my representation to the whole business. I expect you to be polite, presentable, and amicable. Are we clear?” The man didn’t even look up from the report he was making notes on.

  Rude.

  “Clear as crystal. Anything I can get for you right now, Mr Munroe?”

  “There’s a coffee place around the corner. I would like a cortado and a salted caramel muffin. There should be a petty cash tin in the top drawer of your desk until you get your corporate card later today.”

  No eye contact. Nothing.

  Dickhead.

  “Okay. On my way.” I smiled and left his office without another word, sighing when the door closed behind me. This was not going to be easy at all. The man was living up to his reputation already. I checked my desk for the money he was talking about, found it, and headed back out into the busy London streets.

  I returned with his coffee and muffin and left them on his desk for him. He glanced up, and I was greeted with the most beautiful dark eyes I’d ever seen. I froze for a second when we made eye contact, but a brash, ‘That will be all, Mr Baxter,’ brought me back to reality, and I nodded and left his office for a second time.

  The rest of the day was reasonably uneventful. Aiden stayed mostly in his office, emailing me his demands and calling from time to time to follow up on whether I had completed the tasks that were assigned to me. I had time in HR to file the paperwork they needed for me; various rules, regulations, and a non-disclosure agreement. I was sent to the finance department and collected my company credit card. I had to sign a contract agreeing to repay anything that they ever found to be dishonest use of the card, and that I understood that in such an event it would result in my immediate dismissal. All pretty standard stuff.

  When six p.m. rolled around, Aiden emailed me to tell me that was all he needed me for today and that he would see me at seven in the morning. I grabbed my coat and headed home to spend time with my little girl and tell Sylvie all about my new boss and how much of an arsehole he really was.

  Chapter Three

  Aiden

  I walked over to my assistant’s desk outside my office door and let my eyes take in everything I saw. “Oh, good. You’re finally here.” I set an envelope in front of him and headed back into my office. “Read that and do what it says. When you’re done, get into my office and we can get started.” I closed the door behind me and went to sit at my desk.

  Damn. This wasn’t what I had been expecting at all.

  I had known I was getting a man this time instead of a woman. Part of me hoped that, not only would he be excellent at his job, but that he would also be the kind of man who was nothing to write home about. Well, I got one of those wishes.

  According to the agency, Ellis Baxter was amazing at his job. He was fast, he was efficient, he did exactly what he was asked when he was asked; basically he knew what he was doing. I was sure he would be all of those things, but there was just one problem with Ellis.

  The man was gorgeous.

  And I don’t mean in an obvious pretty boy and he knows it kind of way. This was a subtle beauty that came from a man who knew how to carry himself, who was confident of his position in the universe, who had lived and probably lost, and knew how to make it through to the other side of that. Yes, he had beautiful hazel eyes that I could, and probably would, from time to time, get lost in. Yes, he had a handsome face that was perfect in every way. Yes, the boy could dress and dress well. But there was something about him. Something that came with a little maturity and life experience that shone from within.