I don’t answer what seems like a rhetorical question, but I do open my legs wider as he slides down my body, kissing my nipples and my stomach as he goes.

He was right earlier. It’s far easier to think of this as a random hookup, a “slutty first date”, than a transactional precursor to an even more transactional working relationship. Right now, I need to remember that I’m not a mother driven by terrified determination but a woman in her twenties, sprawled out naked in a fancy nightclub and in the—very competent—hands of one of London’s most gorgeous and eligible bachelors.

Lean into that, I urge myself. Look at him! He’s heaven! And he wants to eat you! Just let him!

At this point, Brendan crouches between my legs and finds my most sensitive parts with his lips and tongue and fingers, and my inner Mel Robbins shuts the hell up, because the fires of sensation are licking at my flesh and everything else is impossible.

His moves are filthy and decadent and carnal, and they have my nervous system ricocheting between running for the hills and setting off the fireworks.

‘I’ve wanted to do this since the second I met you,’ he mutters against my clit, sliding two fingers back inside me and twisting them in a way that’s as gratifying as it is painful. ‘Been imagining it so much. So fucking delicious. God.’ He illustrates his point with a lavish lick.

I raise my head so I can stare down at this incarnation of the vision that’s been terrifying and titillating me since Athena suggested I interview with Brendan: his broad shoulders between my open legs, dark hair dipped so I can only see the crown of his head, face hidden as he feasts on the most private parts of me, and his huge hand splayed bossily across my stomach, holding me down.

His confession is the most real, raw thing he’s said to me, and it sends a tide of heat racing over my skin. I couldn’t be more vulnerable right now, and I know this guy probably goes down on a different woman every day of the week, but he makes it sound like he’s vulnerable too, somehow. That he has skin in the game, even if I’m not much more than a conquest. A trophy sought and won.