It Had to Be You Read online

  It Had to Be You

  A romantic comedy by

  Lynda Renham

  About the Author

  Lynda lives in Oxford, UK. She has appeared on BBC radio discussion programmes and is a prolific blogger, Twitter and Facebook contributor. She is author of the best-selling romantic comedy novels including Croissants and Jam, Coconuts and Wonderbras, Pink Wellies and Flat Caps and The Dog’s Bollocks.

  Lynda Renham

  The right of Lynda Renham to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN 978-0-9927874-3-1

  first edition

  Cover Illustration by Gracie Klumpp

  www.gracieklumpp.com

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Thanks to:

  The real Muffy for allowing me to use her name.

  Copyright © Raucous Publishing 2013

  www.raucouspublishing.co.uk

  Chapter One

  Don’t you just hate Christmas bonuses? Well maybe you don’t and generally I don’t either, so when my boss drops a subtle hint about giving me one I didn’t for one minute imagine he was talking about a quickie up against his desk. Well you wouldn’t would you? A bonus normally smacks of a little brown envelope with a nice wad of crisp new notes inside doesn’t it? Well it does from my experience but maybe it smacks of a quickie up against a desk for you. I avert my eyes from the developing bulge in his trousers and scan the desk for the said brown envelope.

  ‘It’s Christmas,’ he says, like I’ve somehow overlooked the fact, and takes my hand, rubbing it erotically over the bulge. God, I feel sick. I fear the overload of Christmas sausage rolls, turkey sandwiches and mince pies that I had guiltily consumed thirty minutes earlier at the office Christmas lunch will burst forth and decorate the lovely oak desk I am pressed up against.

  ‘I’m not sure what that’s got to do with it,’ I say hesitantly. Well you have to agree I do have a point. The boss is supposed to give me the present isn’t he, not the other way around? Although, on reflection perhaps he considers a quick shag over his desk on Christmas Eve is a good present; I’d much prefer a Body Shop voucher to be honest, or a family bag of M&Ms.

  ‘Goodwill to all men and all that crap,’ he whispers, launching his open mouth towards my neck like a vampire, engulfing me in champagne fumes. I think a vampire would be preferable, at least it would be over quicker. I don’t believe this is happening. I mean, this sort of thing doesn’t happen to women like me. Don’t get me wrong, when I say women like me; I’m not saying I’m twenty stone with unsightly moles on my face. Not that there is anything wrong with being twenty stone of course, or having moles on your face come to that. If you’re happy that’s what counts right? But you know what I mean. I’m just your standard size fourteen, ordinary looking woman. I wouldn’t call myself a blonde bombshell by any means. That’s the thing with Christmas, isn’t it? Things happen in offices that would never happen at any other time of the year. When else would you consume alcohol at lunchtime and it be deemed acceptable to continue working half-pissed for the rest of the day? Not to mention that secret Santa thing. I always get unstuck with that bugger, and this year has been no exception. I usually pay over the odds too. Well, what can you buy for a fiver these days? And what happens? The one who was supposed to buy my present didn’t bring it in and is now off sick, with a hangover no doubt, which means I go home empty-handed. Obviously I shrug it off as no big deal and I don’t really mind, but I know I won’t get anything now and it does seem a bit unfair. I’m Binki Grayson by the way, and that’s Binki with an i by the way. I don’t mean I only have one eye obviously. I most certainly have two and I’m not off the telly. I live in Notting Hill which I assure you, is very different to Chelsea. Just as nice you understand but different. I may as well tell you this now while I’m pinned up against an office desk by my sleazy boss as I may not get a chance later. You’re probably wondering how I came to be in this pickle, and I’m wondering that too. My boss, who I have to say is very much a wolf in sheep’s clothing, has taken me totally by surprise. I never imagined he had it in him. I’ve worked at Temco Advertising for five years now. Three of those I was a junior sales assistant but the past two years I have been working as the senior sales assistant directly under Ben Newman; not literally under him you understand, that would be a bit gross. In all that time he has never had me pinned up against a desk. I’ve worked really hard to get here too. I don’t mean pinned up against Ben Newman’s desk with an unsightly bulge pressed against my thigh, just in case you thought I did. I mean, I’ve worked hard to climb my way up in the company and this is the last thing I need. I am, after all, a soon-to-be-engaged woman. At least that is what Oliver has been hinting. I know he has visited Hatton Garden on the quiet because my friend, Muffy, saw him there in her lunch break last week. I’m expecting him to propose over the Christmas holiday, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am. Oliver is my boyfriend by the way, but I expect you guessed that.

  ‘I’ve wanted you for months,’ Ben Newman mumbles, salivating so much that I feel sure that’s a dribble running down my neck. I shudder and attempt to duck under his arm but he pushes me back and I feel the desk cutting into my buttock. His hand slides up the inside of my thigh and I start to panic. Good heavens, this has never happened to me before in my life.

  ‘You know you want it,’ he says huskily. He releases one hand to yank down the zipper on his trousers.

  ‘Your gorgeous silky blonde hair and cute little dimpled cheeks really turn me on, and that tight little arse of yours. Ooh sugar, you drive me crazy.’

  ‘Oh,’ I hear myself squeal. I don’t think I have ever driven a man crazy in my whole life, and that includes my boyfriend Oliver.

  ‘I’ve seen you giving me the come on,’ he slurs.

  He has? I wonder when that was. I hope he isn’t mistaking me for someone else. I don’t know if I should be relieved or insulted if that is the case. It is rather flattering to be lusted after, it’s just a shame I couldn’t do any better than Ben Newman.

  ‘You want it don’t you?’ he dribbles as his hand swoops down the front of my dress and grabs a breast.

  I’ve never wanted it less in my whole life.

  ‘Surprisingly enough I don’t,’ I say firmly as my elbow squashes a sausage roll that sits drying up on his desk.

  What is it with these creeps? And what does he imagine I find so irresistible about him? He surely can’t think it’s his disgusting alcohol and tobacco breath, or his greasy floppy brown hair? Or maybe he thinks it is his enormous erection that I want so desperately. I can’t think of anything worse than being rammed by that awful … Oh my God, he’s got it out. It’s all purple and veiny. Now I am going to be sick. I slide sideways and get a prick from a cocktail sausage stick. It seems pricks are everywhere but this one is way out of control. I so wish I was back, thirty minutes earlier, at the lunch eating a cocktail sausage rather than being pricked by one.

  ‘You can’t tease me all these weeks and then start playing Miss Prim,’ he hisses as he tugs at my knickers. ‘You know you want my thrill drill in your pussy. I know you’re gagging for it.’

  Oh purleese, thrill drill? I’ve heard it all now. I really can’t imagine being thrilled in the least by this veiny looking drill. I bring
my knee up and thrust it roughly into his well-exposed groin. He falls back groaning and I quickly pull my panties up. Oh dear, I somehow feel this is not helping my job prospects.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, what was that for?’ he cries, clutching the pink and now very soft appendage.

  I can’t believe he has the cheek to even ask.

  ‘You can stick your thrill drill somewhere else Mr Newman, Christmas or no Christmas,’ I say haughtily, straightening my dress.

  He gives me a filthy look and zips up his trousers.

  ‘Playing Miss Innocent are we? I tell you what, why don’t you think this through, we’ll discuss it again at the New Year’s Eve party,’ he says breathlessly, tucking in his shirt before taking a brown envelope from a drawer.

  I don’t think we will. He leans towards me and I back away. God, he’s so ugly I swear he would win the world finals of the Ugliest Man competition. I mean, that wart on his nose, what’s that about? He scoffs and flicks his hair back with his hand.

  ‘Here’s a little bonus, but I expect you to work harder next year. Do you get my drift? Put in a few extra hours, that kind of thing.’

  I seriously don’t believe this. Christmas Eve and I’m about to throw my job in. What else can I do? I can’t have this moron drooling over me for the whole of next year, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I snatch the envelope just to be on the safe side.

  ‘Mr Newman, I really can’t do any extra hours. Forty hours a week is more than enough, and my boyfriend would be really unhappy.

  His hard eyes meet mine and I realise, right there right then, that I really have no choice but to resign.

  ‘I think you will do extra hours Miss Grayson. I really wouldn’t want to tell the powers that be how you threw yourself at me, a happily married man with two children, on Christmas Eve because you couldn’t hold your drink.’

  What a pig.

  ‘They would never believe you,’ I say lamely, knowing full well they would. He’s a bloody director after all. He gives me a smug smile and I cave in.

  ‘Under the circumstances, I think perhaps you should find yourself another sales assistant for the New Year,’ I hear myself say and cringe inwardly. What am I doing? Oliver and I have only been in the new luxury apartment in the most sought-after residential area of Notting Hill for two months. I’m twenty-nine years old with ten months on a tenancy agreement. I’ve a gorgeous boyfriend who is climbing the surveyor’s ladder and is most certainly going to ask me to marry him over Christmas because men do that at Christmas don’t they? I mean, they do, don’t they? All I need is to be out of a job now with a wedding coming up. I hold my breath, you never know, Christmas may just bring out the good side in my boss.

  ‘Well, if that’s how you feel Binki,’ he says, leaning forward and reaching for the envelope.

  I quickly push it into my bag and head for the door.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I say shakily. ‘Shall we say it is for services rendered? Or shall we take our chances in court, sexual harassment and all that. What would the wife say?’

  ‘Why you …’

  The thing is I can’t stay, can I? He’ll make my life unbearable and the last thing I want is the stigma of sexual harassment. Everyone at work looking at me and thinking, maybe she asked for it. Like anyone would choose to throw themselves at wart-nose Newman but all the same, you get my drift don’t you?

  I dive out of the office faster than you can say Father Christmas and wonder if I offer Oliver sex when I get home he’ll take the bad news better. Maybe he’ll even storm up to the office and punch Ben Newman’s lights out; then again, knowing Oliver and his bad back, maybe not.

  Chapter Two

  I saunter miserably towards my car, juggling a tin of Foxes chocolate biscuits under one arm and a box of Roses under the other.

  ‘A little something from the company,’ Brian, our office manager had said proudly. ‘Everyone gets something at Christmas.’

  It would be my luck that my little something turned out to be Ben Newman’s erect penis wouldn’t it?

  ‘Yeah, like another stone overweight you mean?’ Sophie had quipped.

  ‘An extra fifty quid this month would have been better,’ Sally the receptionist had moaned. ‘I’ve just started dieting.’

  Honestly, who starts a diet before Christmas? That’s plain self-torture isn’t it?

  ‘Well,’ a confused Brian had said, ‘a couple of days off your diets won’t do any harm will it?’

  Men honestly, what do they know about diets? I’d accepted my biscuits gratefully, after all, in the next few weeks that may be all we have to eat with me not working and us coping on just Oliver’s salary. I’d discreetly swiped the photo of Oliver and me from my desk, along with the M&Ms I’d kept in the drawer, and said brightly,

  ‘See you all after the holiday.’

  Well, I don’t want everyone knowing do I? Not just yet anyway. I can just picture their sympathetic smiles while knowing they are thinking,

  ‘Poor cow, and at Christmas too.’

  I sigh at the sight of a traffic warden hovering by my Kandy and hurry towards him. Kandy is my lovely little Ford KA by the way.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I call. ‘I work here, so I am allowed to park there. I have a pass.’

  Honestly, it comes to something when you get booked for parking in the office car park. What is it about the sight of a traffic warden that brings out the murderous in even the most placid of people? I don’t know the guy but already I want to throttle him.

  ‘Sorry love, you’re nicked,’ he says in a bad Sweeney imitation. ‘The pass is not clearly evident and you’re in a disabled parking space,’ he adds bluntly before slapping the ticket onto the windscreen. I feel like he has just mugged me of my little brown envelope.

  ‘Oh come on,’ I say in my let’s be mates about this voice. ‘It’s the festive season. Goodwill to all men and all that,’ I trill, accidentally dropping the box of Roses at his feet.

  Blimey, I sound like Ben Newman. Not that I’m asking the warden to get out his thrill drill just in case you thought I was. God, the end of my day is becoming more sordid by the minute. But seriously, who gives parking tickets on Christmas Eve? He steps back feigning a surprised look.

  ‘Are you trying to bribe me miss?’

  What? I didn’t mention thrill drills did I? I only thought it. He tips his head towards the Roses.

  ‘Because it won’t work I’m afraid.’

  ‘I dropped them,’ I say innocently, ‘but if …’

  He holds his hand up.

  ‘I’d stop there if I were you miss. The ticket is on the windscreen now,’ he says, and I swear he clicks his heels. Bloody little Hitler, don’t you just hate them?

  So now, because it is on the windscreen, it can’t be removed. Has he stuck it on with superglue or something? I look at my pass which is, to be fair, upside down but …

  ‘The pass is in date though,’ I argue. ‘Couldn’t you have just twisted your neck a bit then you would have seen it was in date?’

  ‘Not with my ankylosing spondylitis,’ he says dryly. ‘I’ll end up in a neck brace.’

  He may still end up in a neck brace if he carries on like this. I was only asking for a small twist, not a full 360 degree turn like Regan Mcneil in The Exorcist.

  ‘What if I put it the right way up?’ I suggest hopefully, giving him my nicest smile.

  ‘That won’t take you out of the disabled space will it?’ he says gleefully.

  What a pig. I hope he isn’t expecting a chocolate after this. He takes a tube of fruit pastilles from his pocket and sucks on one slowly. I find myself wishing he would choke on it. No, that’s awful Binki, stop it.

  ‘I only like the black ones,’ he says, offering a red pastille to me.

  It’s all right for him but if I’d said that I’d be hauled in for making a racist comment.

  ‘I’m actually not in a disabled space,’ I say patiently.

  He points nonchalantly and I foll
ow his grubby finger to a rusty sign.

  ‘But no one takes any notice of that,’ I argue. ‘Look, I’ve just lost my job,’ I say appealing to his human side.

  ‘Huh,’ he scoffs, ‘If I had a pound for every time I heard that. I suppose your mum is sick too.’

  ‘Actually she is,’ I say tearfully. ‘How did you know?’

  Well, OCD is a sickness isn’t it? So it does count.

  ‘It’s on the windscreen now, so that’s it.’

  He makes it sound like sodding bird shit. I sigh and unlock the door.

  ‘I hope you can sleep at night,’ I quip before climbing into my car.

  ‘I take Boots extra strong sleeping pills, works a treat.’

  Bastard. I start the engine, give him the finger and drive out of the car park. God, I hope the saying that things come in threes that my mum rants on about isn’t true. I don’t think I have the energy for a third calamity on Christmas Eve.

  Chapter Three

  I’m winking at everyone, including the bloody greengrocer. What’s worse, I’m standing under a huge sprig of mistletoe. I look like I’m giving the biggest come on ever. I’ve just dragged a heavy Christmas tree into the shop, practically poking my eye out with the stupid needles in the process. My hands are blue with cold and I can barely feel my toes. Christmas trees, who invented them? They’re lethal, they really are. Whose bright idea was it to put a tree inside your home? Now, I’m stuck with this needle in my eye, and I can’t get it out for love or money. Brian, the greengrocer, gives me an odd look as I continue to wink in a say no more, say no more manner.

  ‘Something up?’ he asks as I knock over a tray of satsumas.

  ‘No, everything’s fine,’ I say, fumbling to retrieve the little suckers while hanging onto the tree and winking at the fifteen-year-old behind me. Christ, I’ll be arrested for consorting with minors next.

  ‘You sure?’ pushes Brian.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I smile through a watery eye.

  Oh yes, everything is dandy. I’ve only just lost my job and what now feels like my eye, not to mention half of my bonus on the exorbitant fine for parking in the right place. I reach the front of the queue.