Angus MacLeod was sitting in a corner looking like he could colonize me any day! I was in a tuxedo dress because I wanted to look powerful but also cute and harmless. Commission-able but make it chic. I wanted to say You can trust me to get the job done but also remember I'm in no way threatening to your masculinity! I was looking proper, innit, and I had prepped for bagging this commission, we all know this yeah?

So tell me how then fam, tell me how I walked to the table all confident and lush, ready to sign the heck out of some contracts and manz his Lordship stands up to greet me with a wide smile on his face and sitting there yeah? Sitting there at the fucking nook of the table is my boss! My fucking boss! He was supposed to be in America chasing after them babes in California or something yet here he was, looking like Whitlam's answer to the question what if Heath Ledger had been in 21 jump street instead of Johnny Depp. No one asked that question fam! Allow it!

"This is her. Funke! Glad you could make it. I already ordered breakfast for us, I hope you don't mind." Angus MacLeod says reaching his hand to greet me before I can squalay innit

I'm so shook I actually reach for his hand, so now I'm stuck here amen't I! Fucking hell!

How do you know that you're cursed?

No seriously... I would like to find out if I'm cursed, if there's some afrosinema uncle or aunty somewhere back in Ikorodu city, Nigeria who hated my mother so much she hexed me. Me! an innocent me! Ok, fine, so maybe I wasn't so innocent, but that was no reason for me to end up having to go through these hurdles!

"Glad you could join us, Funke. Angus was just telling me about you." My boss says to my side as I try and figure out how to play it

To make it worse it's like them ones in the kitchen were waiting for me. They're already placing breakfast on the table! Was I late to this meeting blud?

"Only good things of course. This is my brother in law, Lucas. He's an architect like you, has a firm too, The Arc. Have you heard of it?" Angus is carrying on while I reconsider the fact that I'd ever wanted to put my foreign land on his fucking face!

The Arc? I WORK there your Lordship you fucking tourist!

"I think I have." I say instead, smiling as innocently as possible at my boss as he shakes my hand, hoping he didn't recognize me under the make-up and with my hair this tame

It was a long shot of course but I was ready to tell him not all black people with the same exact name in the same profession look alike. I'd do it too! Honest!

"Lucas just flew in from California. He really wants this commission you see." Angus says as my boss pulls a chair up for me, a smirk on his face

Your lucky this food is looking delicious mate! Otherwise this meeting is looking long!

"Is it?" I pry smiling widely at Angus as if this was news, as if I hadn't stolen Angus' contact details and pitch brief from work files back at the Arc.

There was no hope that Lucas didn't recognize me and the fact that all these colonizers are related to each other is so ugly! Why? Why spread the empire across the globe just to come back and marry each other? Brother-in-law! The nepotism! The shame! The lack of flavour! Also congrats to Carlen, Lucas' sister for doing what needed to be done when it came to the nuptials!

"Bacon, Salmon or Egg?" Lucas wonders softly at me as if to not interrupt Angus

"Bacon." I whisper back

"Dammit I wanted bacon as well..." He sighs and I can already tell he's biting his lip and his eyebrows are furrowed

I want to turn around and ask him why he offered me the bacon if that's what he wanted but I'm in the middle of a fucking meeting here!

"Fine, I'll have the salmon." I whisper as calmly as I can

"I've never tried the salmon actually..." He ponders, which is mad but also typical Lucas Roland if I'm being honest

"Twos me then mate." I grunt as softly as I can, hoping none of this counted towards my getting this commission

"Tell you what, to be fair I'll split both the bacon and salmon in half and we can have half of each." He decides after a bit more thinking

I'm too focused on smiling at Angus to care at this point, so I'm giving Lucas air. That's literally what I'd just asked him to do!

"They all have egg by the way." He adds as he plops a half of something onto my plate

"Lucas... you were explaining how badly you wanted this commission." Angus says, pulling us both out of the reverie of breakfast, Lucas more than I.

"Right...well... when Angus told me he was considering another firm, a new firm, Esthétisme?, I just had to fly in and see my competition for myself." Lucas says, that edge in his voice, them one when he was getting unnecessarily competitive

He's already fucking your sister bruv, allow it! You getting this commission is bait! Besides, I'm not Luna, Ok!

"Is it?" I chime, turning to Lucas

So what was this? A tv episode of undercover boss? Was he going to reveal he'd been spying on me and this was a sting operation? Mxm, release me bruv! Which is it?!

"Lucas is worried that a firm as small and inexperienced as yours won't be able to deal with a commission this big." Angus reveals and I do my best to not suck my teeth at the Earl of Whitlam for even leading with that

"Smaller firms usually just...lack the capacity." Lucas agrees

I couldn't be a bigger firm if I didn't have big commissions, and I couldn't get big commissions if I wasn't a bigger firm. The chung tosser was trying to fry me bruv! He gives me that knowing smirk too, Lucas, my boss, Hugh Grant and Jude Law's evil lovechild. The balls on this one! Slavery was done with mate, you can't own me!

"Everyone in the firm comes with their own experiences and connections your Lordship. I can assure you we're more than capable." I state, still trying to be powerful but cute

"Which one do you like best?" Lucas suddenly asks of the breakfast sourdough with smokey bacon, sausage, tomato, leek, mushroom, spinach, egg and cheese or the smoked salmonwith spinach, leek, salmon, crème fraiche, egg and cheese.

"Bacon, but it'd be more interesting if instead of sourdough it was a portobello mushroom this gigantic yeah." I decide

"A stuffed portobello instead of sourdough... that sound's delicious. And you're right there's just something about this bread that's just...off." He agrees

"It knows too much. You're bread's not supposed to have experienced that much life." I shrug informatively as Angus chuckles across the table from us

I remind myself that he has a lot of money and I need this commission, so I smile back at the colonizer.

"I think you two should work together." He announces and I almost dash him a runny egg for the suggestion but then I remember that he has a lot of money and I would like some of it

"Work together?!" Lucas hisses in disbelief

Bare unprofessional this lad! Like, yeah this is your brother-in-law and all of that but he's your lordship, your money bag having lordship! Show some respect, you know!

"Yeah, Luc you have the winning capacity and Funke has the winning idea and you seem to get along well enough. It'd be your chance to mentor someone and yours at a commission this large. I mean other than the fact that you'll have to use Tosh and Harrigan once you've settled on a shape to things and that I need it in eight months, you'd be pretty free to explore where the commission takes you." Angus says as I struggle to keep my smile

Your Lordship, Mate, do you understand that I WORK for this man?! I've worked for him for almost two years and the entire commission was so that I DIDN'T have to WORK for him again! He's not entirely horrid or whatever but the point was freedom!

"Unless of course you'd rather I give it to someone else completely." Angus offers in what was definitely a threat to us both.

Fucking Colonizer!