Blackwood Elements – Book 5
After a run-in with her new boss costs junior doctor Roksana Bartosz her job, her friend Sofia has the perfect solution—a short break in Virginia to take her mind off the problem. Little does Roxy know that Sofia and Emmy Black are intent on playing matchmaker in the craziest way possible.
Gideon Renard avoids relationships, especially with girls as fragile as Roxy. Taking a new job in Washington, DC seems like the perfect way to put space between them. But his friends have other ideas, and in between hunting down three missing assassins, resisting the temptation to strangle his ex, and fighting the demons of his past, he has a big decision to make. Can he walk away from Roxy for the second time?
Platinum is coming on 15 November – pre-order now!
Excerpt 1 – Roxy…
The windows rattled as I slammed the front door of Albany House. The daytime security guard-slash-porter who sat in a small office off the hallway poked his head out, took one look at me, and stepped rapidly backwards. A wise move.
Ruth appeared through the archway beyond the stairs. “It didn’t go well, then?”
“No, it didn’t go well,” I said, then burst into tears.
Shit.
To say this morning’s meeting had gone badly was like saying the September Campaign was a minor disagreement. Every atom in me still vibrated with anger, and the only saving grace was that I hadn’t missed when I threw the bedpan at Gareth Roper afterwards. The rest, I wanted to forget.
“What happened? Dare I ask?”
“He lied. He lied to the disciplinary committee and said I’d come on to him.”
Ruth’s mouth formed a perfect O. “I thought he was an old man?”
“At least fifty. But he’s had hair implants and probably a facelift too.” A little bit of sick rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. “He said I tried to kiss him in his office, and he had to fight me off.”
“And they believed him?”
Yes. Yes, they did. Because he had “evidence.” First, the bruise where I’d grabbed his wrist, and also… I screwed my eyes shut, cringing at the memory. The memory of the HR manager holding up my copy of Gray’s Anatomy and removing the bookmark from the chapter on development of the nervous system I’d been reading yesterday morning. Her waving said bookmark in front of me. The utter horror that rolled through me like a freezing fog when I realised what I’d doodled on it.
A heart. A heart with the initials GR inside it.
Gareth Roper had come into the staff room just as I’d closed the book, and he must have seen it.
“That’s not what you think,” I’d told the committee.
“It isn’t your bookmark? The back of it seems to be a delivery note for a parcel to your home address.”
“No, I mean, it’s mine. I wrote that. But GR isn’t Gareth Roper.”
Their expressions didn’t change. Two men, one woman, and they all stared at me stony-faced.
“Oh?” the woman said. Mary Robbins, director of administration, complete with twinset and pearls. “Then who is it?”
“Just…someone. An old friend.”
“Riiiight.” She gave a slow nod, pretending to agree while at the same time letting me know she didn’t believe a word I was saying. “And this ‘old friend’… He just happens to have the same initials as the man you behaved inappropriately towards yesterday?”
“I didn’t behave inappropriately. Well, not until after Mr. Roper grabbed my bottom and tried to stick his tongue down my throat.”
“I must admit, I find your story slightly difficult to believe, Roksana. Mr. Roper has an impeccable record at this hospital, and he’s been married for over twenty years.”
His poor, poor wife. “His record isn’t impeccable. He got accused of sexual assault last year.”
“The committee investigated those allegations and found no basis in fact.”
“He’s probably groped every woman in the hospital.”
Mary Robbins turned a funny shade of pink. “I can assure you, he’s done no such thing to me. Miss Bartosz, I’m afraid we have no tolerance for attention-seekers at St. Mary’s, and honesty is the trait we value above all others. We can’t let you walk into Mr. Roper’s department and disrupt it in this manner.”
The two men on either side of her wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I knew at that moment she was going to fire me. Fuck it. Might as well go out in style.
“Really? He hasn’t groped you?” I looked her up and down. “I guess I’m not surprised.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“It means the pervert’s too afraid of having his dick frozen off to come near you.”
“Well… I… That’s…”
“And don’t bother firing me; I quit. If you can’t see the problem with sexual harassment that’s going on under your own noses, I don’t want to work here anyway.”
I’d marched off to collect my belongings from my locker, and that was when I saw him. Gareth Roper and his jowly face, smug because although he hadn’t fucked me in quite the way he’d intended, he’d still screwed me over in the end. And when a nurse walked past carrying a full bedpan, I just hadn’t been able to help myself.
But now… Now I was back at Albany House, and the cold realisation of what I’d done began to set in. I was jobless. The career I’d been working towards—albeit slowly—for the last seven years was gone. I wasn’t homeless, at least, and the one thing that stopped me from panicking was the money I had in the bank. A lot of money. For the last year, a thousand pounds a week had landed in my account every Friday without fail. At first, I’d thought it was from Emmy, but she’d denied it. Ben said it wasn’t from him or Augusta or his sister either. That left GR. Gideon Renard. The filthy French fox. At least, he had a reputation for being filthy, but he treated me more like a china doll and it drove me crazy. And when I’d asked him about the money, he just changed the subject.
“Of course they believed Gareth Roper,” I told Ruth. “They can’t afford to lose him, but there’s an endless supply of medical students. They’ll just swap me out for someone more compliant.”
“You mean they sacked you?”
“They were about to, I’m sure of it, so I quit first.”
More tears came as I cried over the death of my career. Why hadn’t I picked a safer option for my first post? Geriatric care, perhaps?
“Come here, child. You look as if you need a hug.”
She squashed me against her, and I sniffled again. What was wrong with me today? Even after everything that happened last year, I’d barely shed a tear as I healed, but Roper’s actions left me gushing.
“Gareth Roper, you said?”
A voice came from behind me, and I froze. Shit. Of all the people I didn’t want to see my meltdown, it was Ben’s sister. Although she’d never been anything but kind to me, there was something wrong with her. Sofia Darke had a twisted soul. Darke by name and dark by nature, that’s what they said. Dark hair, dark eyes, a dark demeanour, and now she was leaning against the door jamb, a casual pose while the vibes rolling off her were anything but.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
Excerpt 2 – Gideon…
Gideon Renard took a sip of his coffee and straightened his cuffs, desperately trying to stay awake. As the newest member of the Climate 2050 Security Committee, he was already playing catch-up as representatives from the other countries whose leaders were attending the upcoming parade in Richmond discussed how to safeguard the event.
And when he said discussed, he meant argued. Each country would be sending its own security team, and getting them all to coordinate was no easy task. Why would none of these people listen to each other? From the way the Swiss delegate was talking, it was almost as if he’d had no experience of executive protection whatsoever.
On any other day, Gideon might have attempted to restore order, but he’d only been drafted into attending this debacle at the last moment after his boss had a heart attack. And he’d only had the heart attack because he’d been screwing a twenty-three-year-old blonde who wasn’t his wife.
At three o’clock in the morning, Gideon had been tasked with moving the body from the zero-star Golden Plaza Inn to somewhere more befitting a French diplomat. Another nine hours were taken up by panicked briefings, and just when he’d considered taking a nap in his office, his ex-boss’s boss had called to inform him of his illustrious appointment as the French liaison for Climate 2050 in place of ce putain d’idiot, Jacques.
A trip to the West Wing and another fucking meeting with men who loved the sound of their own voices, all talking about the political equivalent of a carnival, was exactly what Gideon didn’t need on the Monday afternoon of his fifth week in Washington. Twenty-five world leaders, two-and-a-half-thousand participants, ninety-seven floats, and half a million people expected to line the route—what could possibly go wrong?
Platinum also comes with a FREE extra story! Just look for the download link after the last chapter.
