“Look, if I tell you, you have to let me fully explain it all before you react, okay?” I asked as seriously as I’d ever asked anything in my life.

She didn’t respond, she just studied me as I stood helplessly on the spot.

“Spence?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said flatly, pushing past me to claim the spot on the edge of the table where she’d once been attempting to remove my clothes.  She didn’t look very comfortable, but I doubted even a king size bed would provide enough comfort to cushion her from what I was about to tell her.

“I mean it, you have to hear it all before you say a single word and before you judge me, okay!?” I asked desperately.  I just needed to know she’d at least try to hear me out before she jumped to conclusions or made a drastic decision that could ultimately ruin us before we were really started again.  It was all too new, and too soon to end it… to end something that could and would be so beautiful.

“Okay, Ash, okay,” she sighed, raising her hands to me.  “Just get on with it.”

“Okay,” I nodded, “good.  God, I don’t even know where to start.”

I snorted a nervous laugh which she looked less than impressed by.

“The beginning?” she suggested humourlessly.

“Yeah, that’d be a good place,” I agreed, my hands wringing together behind my back as I struggled for the words.   “So I made a bet that I could sleep with you before anyone else, and now we’re together, but if I sleep with you I win loads of money and that could ruin us.  I’m a pig and you shouldn’t forgive me… forgive me?”

“Okay, it began the morning I first saw you at DJC,” I started, finally finding my voice.  “Before you came into the office and before I even knew you were going to be working here, Aiden approached me with this… game he’s had running for years.”

I looked at her and noted the tilted head and the perfectly plucked arched eyebrow.  She was already less than impressed.  I mean, who am I kidding – she knows Aiden, I’m sure she can guess what the game’s about.