I had not seen a single hair of Lucas Roland in two and a half weeks. I received an email from his assistant Charlie which simply stated that he had some kind of emergency and fully trusted that I'd be able to handle the dealings of the project. At first I was slightly miffed because, and I don't know if you remember this, the man had chastized me for thinking I could do everything on my own shortly before we had... sex, and now that we'd had... sex, suddenly I could do everything on my own.

It had taken me a bit to decide that it was for the best, my firm wasn't going to have a huge team and it was best that I did this on my own. However, if you think drinking Tosh and Harrigan under the table had made things easier between us then you were most definitely incorrect. It had convinced them to join the project but it had done absolutely nothing for my credibility in their eyes. They second guessed each decision I made, asked if Lucas had approved of it and at our last meeting had accused me flat out of hijacking the project from Lucas.

So yeah, I wasn't having the easiest time with the Hardy Boys, and Lucas wasn't replying to my emails or texts or even my calls. I'd just come back to the office from the site visit where the lovely Hardy Boys had accused me of pushing Lucas out of the project when I found my work desk had a new message for me. I needed a smoke, I had to get them from my desk, which had a SLUT written across it in bloody red lipstick. I thought I was imagining that everyone had gone quiet and was looking at me as I walked in today. I'd been imagining it for weeks since the incident with Lucas. If anything this was worse than the anxiety I had when I was dating Luna and working for her.

I look at the handwritten design detail on my desk, too scared to look up and see the entire office staring at me, too anxious to even start guessing who it could be, how they'd found out, what they thought of me now or even what they thought I'd done. I put a shaky smile on my face. This was full circle Funke, this had to be some kind of disease of the vagina, always sleeping with my boss! A rare vaginal disease!

I pick up my bag and take in a deep breath, trying to keep the tears at bay as I decide it's been enough of a day already yeah? The world's beaten me enough today. I walk out of the door as firmly and casually as I can, trying my best to give the impression that I hadn't seen anything unusual on my desk. I even stop by Lucas' gardenia bush and stick one into my hair. I was going to have a great day! It could only get better from here and I had every intention of making it better.

How then, as I was rounding the corner to the front of the house, did I hear a familiar voice with a french twang' scream my name? I turned around, confused, because I didn't even think she knew my name. By she, I meant Marie Frances, the answer to the question what if Snow White and the evil queen were the same person permanently stuck in the 60s but also pretending to be French for no reason. She was stomping towards me too and I was feeling a long conversation coming on. Marie Frances is one of Lucas' many lovers, some people would say she's the number one, the den mother, the main attraction of his harem of 60s bombshell dolls or whatever they were called, the smokey eye sex slaves.

Charlie Robertson as Marie Frances Dupont

"Hiya..." I pry, confused by this new attention she was giving me

"Don't Hi me you SLUT! What do you think you're trying for here?!" She hisses slapping me, the fake french affect lost to her voice now that Lucas wasn't here to hear it

"Trying for?" I was confused and she was proper nutters if she thought she could run up to me on the street like this, the sting was doing nothing to keep me calm

She was in red lipstick which should have been my first clue as she threw her beret at me angrily. I jumped away from the beret as if it had some kind of bomb to it.

"You think you can just waltz in here with your filthy fat hips and your ugly hair and steal him from me?" She screams, charging at me now

fat hips... madame, do you mind repeating that in front of Aunty Simon whose always complaining that I won't be able to give birth with hips this slim?

"Pretending to be a lesbian for two years so you could drive him mad with a desire to defile you! Stealing his clients so he'd notice you! Always endangering yourself so he'd rush in and save you! You think I don't see your games?!" She cries at me, poking me with each accusation

I, at this point, can only assume she is mad with french mad cow disease or something because she wasn't making any sense. The gumption to sit there pretending to be french and then accuse me of games? Pretending to be lesbian...for Lucas Roland and his abominable dick? Pretending to be lesbian for THREE YEARS for LUCAS ROLAND?

"First of all it is clear that there needs to be some kind of pansexual awareness or sensitivity course that everyone here needs to take because newsflash sexuality is a spectrum and some people exist blissfully somewhere between gay and straight!" I announce, poking her back before I remember that I am black and the person who is most likely to get arrested from this entire bloody fucking altercation

She levels a punch at me and I dodge it.

What was I supposed to say? That it was a mistake? That I was drunk on aphrodisiac infused scotch? That I didn't mean to fuck him? That part of me didn't even believe I'd done it? That he'd done it for his own nefarious purposes that had nothing to do with me personally and everything to do with sabotaging my life and project?

"I don't care if you're hard-boiled-egg-sexual you fucking bitch! Who do you think he came to each time you frustrated him? Each time you got in his way? It's my pussy! Mine! That's what he always comes back to! It's no different this time! You think you're the first bitch to play him? You'll bore him in a week you fat pig! He'll be back!" She growls at me, pushing me this way and that as if anything she was saying made sense

"Sod off!" I sigh scowling and pushing her off

She screams like a wounded seagull at me. This bird was obviously bonkers and had me confused for one of his concubines. How had she found out anyway? Unless... the bloody bastard told her! The newest form of the rivalry between him and Luna was to see who would ruin my life most completely!

"I thought you were french?" I add, feigning concern that her accent was very american

"I'll show you french!" She hisses, jumping on me

I do my best to shield myself and push her off

"Putain! Salope! Vache! Encule toi salope!" She cries hitting me, she was actually punching my breasts, which was confusing for me, oddly erotic yet furious (Whore! Bitch! Cow! Fuck you whore!)

I'd covered my face with my hands so her punches were aimed at my itty bitty ethnitities. I tried to reach for her hair and pull it all the while someone was shouting for us to stop somewhere in the background. We had an audience of one. Suddenly a hand lifts me up and away from Marie Frances. I try to scratch and claw at her as I'm pulled away

"Putain! j'en ai plus rien à foutre!" the woman growls at me as I level a kick at her face. (Whore! I couldn't give a flying fuck!)

I only miss because whoever this was swings me away from Marie Frances. They were wise too because the carceral state would see me serving 25 years in prison for scratching this white girl and I had a future!

Oh, so you're french now? I'll show you flying fucks! I slide out of the stranger's grip and towards Marie Frances, we end up on the floor and I consider ending her. We had a witness though, and I was so young for jail... I slap her up a little, politely even when she rolls me onto the ground, straddles me and grabs my neck, wringing it tightly and banging my head against the concrete hard.

Again the hand around my neck was erotic without meaning to be and I didn't mean to have a sex flashback to Lucas growling "Say my name mo ghràdh!" into my ear with his hand around my neck, but as I said, my pussy is a terrorist! The pleasure raves up my spine as if I wasn't being murdered in cold blood right now!

"Conasse! Salope!" Marie Frances is shouting as someone carries her off of me (Cunt! Bitch!)

The pain! The bloody pain of the back of my head against the concrete! It jolts right to the front of my head, to the space between my two eyes like lightning striking me there. I laugh because it's the only thing I can do to not cry, to push Lucas choking me out of my mind, to keep the pain at bay. Had I asked this day to get better mate or was it truly just in my mind? Everything feels dizzy, arse over tits, and I think I imagine that Marie Frances cries and runs off, leaving me to bleed out on the street and die I suppose. If she's murdered me and my brains are leaking on the pavement I hope this witness will tell my story! I hope the coroner keeps the fact that I got a little wet from having my boobs punched and my neck choked to themself! God! Mum was going to kill me for dying out here like a proper wanker! She was going to kill me for dying!

All this over a man! A man! Who would even believe it?

There was someone hovering over me, I couldn't see him clearly because death was inching closer to me. He looked caucasian, the jawline of a young Gerard Butler, no... Cillian Murphy...eyes as blue as Chris Pine's... this was the man who'd be taxed to tell the story of an American harlot pretending to be French and how she'd killed me because I accidentally once slept with her boyfriend that she shares with six other women! Everything is so light and dizzy and suddenly he is close enough for me to smell him, wood and patchouli and spice, and vanilla. It feels like a fall scent, woody fires and wine and good food. There are deep base notes, wood and leather, and patchouli. I lean in and try my best to hug him, this man, this absolute dashing stranger, the last person to witness me breathing.

"Thanks." I mumble against his chest

I look up at him, now that he was close I could look upon his pretty face like a sculpted cherub, a greek one maybe, the last face I would ever see in my life. I smile, I always wanted to die smiling.

Sean O'pry as Herve McClure

"I didn't think she'd jump me in the street like that." I add holding on to him, I didn't know if this was hell or if I was a floating soul about to be led to the afterlife and I didn't want to go, not like this, not over Lucas Roland the Earl of Whitlam, not at my young age.

"You saved me; now I save you." I decide brightly, deciding I will not die no matter how dizzy things got

I didn't want him framed for my death, but it felt like my soul was leaving my body and all I could do was hold on to him

"I think you might have a concussion." He says in a soft deep voice

"You could be right. I've never seen a devil this handsome before." I agree turning a drowsy smile up at him before everything swirls into tepid darkness.