Primrose Thrills (Harry Styles mature)

Chapter 3

I hated Fridays. They were long, hectic, and full of people running around trying to cram in the work that they hadn't managed to complete during the week. And with the weekend so close, they always dragged. In fact, this past hour, I'd looked at the clock twenty times at least, watching the second hand lazily drag itself around the face. It was painful to watch, and despite the upbeat summery music coming from my Mac speakers, that illusive Friday feeling continued to be very much just that.

Working in corporate events was fun but highly stressful a lot of the time, and I was having a particularly bad Friday today. The phones were manic and emails even more so, and it was about 29 degrees too hot to be stuck in an office. I wanted to be in Hyde Park with a nice cold cider. Or sprawled out on my bed in front of a massive industrial fan. My hair was a frizzy, humid mess and my cheeks were hot and rosy. I looked like I'd run two marathons, and this probably explained why clients were looking at me with sympathetic eyes as I showed them around the venue.

"Warm today, isn't it?" one elegantly dressed woman had remarked, to which I had to quickly dismiss my approaching scowl and force a smile. Naturally, she was turned out immaculately, with a cool self-possession that mirrored how unaffected her body was by the heat. I couldn't help but curse her with quiet envy.
I felt slightly better when face to face with a fat, balding middle-aged businessman though, who had to keep wiping his forehead with a ready handkerchief in his hand. I caught sight of his wedding ring and couldn't help but grimace as I imagined him hot and sweaty in bed with his wife. I smirked to myself as I pictured her rolling away from him with a half-arsed "Not tonight, I have a headache."

But despite this drab mood, I still felt fantastic, and I felt fantastic because of Harry. My stomach was a constant whirlwind of butterflies and I was completely dizzy with lust. I hadn't experienced any other feeling quite like it before. As I wandered around East London on my lunch break, I reminisced about the day we'd spent together on Tuesday. After a rather heated shower, we'd sat and talked and laughed about anything and everything for hours, until we were forced to say our goodbyes because of a charity event he had to attend. Music, books, films, London, growing up... We even had a conversation about favourite cheeses. It was a relief to hear that Harry's childhood had been a good one, just like mine. No dark secrets to eventually take hold and rear their ugly heads. No obvious complications. The way he'd been the other night wasn't because of some painful memory or psychological defect, like so many novels decided to portray. It was him and how he was. He was just lucky that I was the way I was. Since reading a book called Exit to Eden when I was 15, I'd been led to another world which had me completely intrigued and captivated, and it was then that I knew I'd always be after that that little bit more than most. For the first time in a long while, I actually felt good about myself, and I had Harry to thank for that.

When I got back from lunch, there was a medium-sized shallow matt black box on my desk, held together by a thick, black satin ribbon.
"What's this?" I turned to my manager with inquisitive eyes.
"No idea. It came about half an hour ago. Hand delivered."
I squinted my eyes as my brows knitted together, well and truly clueless as to what it could be. I hadn't ordered anything online and my birthday wasn't for another month. I eyed the box up and down as I thought, and my pulse began to pick up as the element of surprise coursed through me and I conjured up one hundred and one possibilities of what it might be.

"Gotta dash anyway - got a meeting with our accountant, which I'm sure will be as riveting as ever!"
I laughed as my boss rolled his eyes and gathered some folders together before darting out of the room in a hurry, leaving me and the mysterious box alone.

I took the box by its sides and lifted it. It was light and there was little sound when I shook it gently, giving me no clue as to what the contents could be. I felt like a child on Christmas morning- with eyes lit up and a soaring excitement. I placed it back down on my desk and slipped the ribbon from its neat tie, before pulling the lid from the body. A layer of pretty pale pink tissue paper kept me guessing. It wasn't until I'd pulled the right-hand side open to reveal delicate black silk that my curiosity was appeased. My pulse quickened and lips quirked as I saw the back of the card with the Agent Provocateur script, and I took it in my hand and turned it over.