He pretends to consider. ‘I don’t know. Do we need something? I know I need something. I always need something from you, but you don’t care, do you? You’re buggering off for two weeks.’ He squeezes my bottom before sliding his hand down the back of my thigh. When he finds the hem of my dress, he burrows underneath it and moves his hand upwards. My entire body goes still, and there’s a flash of heat across my face and neck.

‘Brendan,’ I hiss.

‘What? Like I said, you’re fucking off for a fortnight. I think you owe me. Who here thinks this pretty little lady owes me?’

There’s another rowdy chorus that apparently sounds to Brendan’s drunken ears like assent, because his hand moves even higher. I clench my thighs together, trapping it. I want to reach down and slap his hand away. I want to run for that door, but I’m frozen to the spot. All I can focus on is the smoothness of the fancy Sullivan pen in my hand and on the ruddy cheeks of the guy sitting closest to Brendan.

I wonder if he knows champagne makes him go red?

Or maybe it’s having his host try to finger his assistant in plain sight that has his colour heightened.

These men are all strangers. All people who have actual business dealings with Brendan. People with whose assistants I’ve probably had email contact. Phone contact. Outside of my specific arrangement with Brendan, I’ve conducted myself with perfect professionalism these past few weeks. I’m representing both him and his firm at the highest level, after all.

And here he is treating me like a two-bit whore in front of his drunken cronies.

‘Open up, baby,’ he stage-whispers now. His voice sounds so nasty.

‘No.’ Every muscle in my body is tensed so hard that I’ll probably pull them all. I glare down at him, because I cannot look at anyone.

‘Aww, come on, darling,’ someone jeers from the other end of the table.

Brendan edges his fingers further up, working against my locked thighs. ‘Look, there’s no reason to be shy. They all signed NDAs before they got here—they know the score. I’ve told them all about you. We’ve had lunch, but I’ve promised them a little show for dessert. They want to see your tits, and they want to taste your sweet, sweet cunt, and Anthony over there was hoping you’d blow him because it’s his birthday this weekend. So why don’t you do us both a favour and remind yourself exactly what I’m paying you for?’