The Mister Read online

  ALSO BY E L JAMES

  Darker

  Grey

  Fifty Shades Freed

  Fifty Shades Darker

  Fifty Shades of Grey

  Copyright © 2019 by Erika James Limited

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Arrow, an imprint of Cornerstone, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London.

  Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 9781984898326

  Ebook ISBN 9781984898333

  Cover design and photograph © Erika Mitchell

  Cover image reproduced with kind permission of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932590

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v5.4

  ep

  183

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by E L James

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Alessia’s Music

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Tia Elba

  Thank you for your wisdom, strength, good humour, and sanity,

  but most of all for your love

  daily

  /’dāIlī/

  noun

  informal

  1. a newspaper published every day except Sunday

  “The trial was reported in all the popular dailies.”

  BRITISH dated

  2. a woman who is employed to clean someone else’s house on a regular basis

  “My daily comes every day…”

  Prologue

  No. No. No. Not the black. Not the choking dark. Not the plastic bag. Panic overwhelms her, forcing the air from her lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. The metallic taste of fear rises in her throat. I need to do this. It’s the only way. Be still. Be calm. Breathe slow. Breathe shallow. Just like he said. This will be over soon. It will be over, and then I will be free. Free. Free.

  * * *

  Go. Now. Run. Run. Run. Go. She runs hard and fast but doesn’t look back. Fear drives her forward as she dodges a few late-night shoppers in her quest to flee. Luck is with her: the automatic doors are open. She flies under the gaudy holiday decorations and through the entrance into the parking lot. On and on she runs. Between the parked cars and into the woods. She runs for her life, down a small dirt path, through brambles, small branches slapping her face. She runs until her lungs are bursting. Go. Go. Go. Don’t stop.

  * * *

  Cold. Cold. Too cold. Fatigue fogs her brain. Fatigue and the cold. The wind howls through the trees, through her clothes, and into her bones. She huddles beneath a bush and gathers the fallen leaves to build a nest with numb hands. Sleep. She needs sleep. She lies down on the cold, hard ground, too tired to be afraid and too tired to weep. The others. Did they get away? She closes her eyes. Did they escape? Let them be free. Let them be warm…How did it come to this?

  * * *

  She wakes. She’s lying between trash cans, wrapped in newspapers and cardboard. She’s shivering. She’s so cold. But she needs to move on. She has an address. She thanks her nana’s God for the address. With shaking fingers she unfurls the paper. This is where she needs to go. Now. Now. Now.

  * * *

  One foot in front of the other. Walk. It’s all she can do. Walk. Walk. Walk. Sleep in a doorway. Wake and walk on. Walk. She drinks water from the sink at the McDonald’s. The food smells enticing.

  * * *

  She’s cold. Hunger claws at her stomach. And she walks and walks, following the map. A stolen map. Stolen from a store. A store with twinkling lights and Christmas music. She holds the scrap of paper with what little strength she has left. It’s worn and torn from so many days hidden in her boot. Tired. So tired. Dirty. So dirty and cold and frightened. This place is her only hope. She raises her trembling hand and presses the doorbell.

  * * *

  Magda is expecting her. Her mother wrote and told her. She welcomes her with open arms. And then backs away quickly. Jesus, child. What’s happened to you? I was expecting you last week!

  Chapter One

  Mindless sex—there’s a lot to be said for it. No commitments, no expectations, and no disappointments; I just have to remember their names. Who was it last time? Jojo? Jeanne? Jody? Whatever. She was some nameless fuck who moaned a great deal both in and out of bed. I lie staring at the rippling reflections from the Thames on my ceiling, unable to sleep. Too restless to sleep.

  Tonight it’s Caroline. She doesn’t fit the nameless-fuck category. She’ll never fit. What the hell was I thinking? Closing my eyes, I try to silence the still, small voice that is questioning the wisdom of bedding my best friend…again. She slumbers beside me, her sleek body bathed in the silver light of the January moon, her long legs entwined with mine, and her head on my chest.

  This is wrong, so wrong. I rub my face, trying to erase my self-loathing, and she stirs and shifts, waking from her doze. One manicured fingernail skims down my stomach and over my abdominal muscles, then circles my navel. I sense her sleepy smile as her fingers slip toward my pubic hair. Catching her hand, I bring it to my lips. “Haven’t we done enough damage for one night, Caro?” I kiss each finger in turn to take the sting out of the rejection. I’m tired and disheartened by the nagging, unwelcome guilt that gnaws at my gut. This is Caroline, for heaven’s sake, my best friend and my brother’s wife. Ex-wife.

  No. Not ex-wife. His widow.

  It’s a sad, lonely word for a sad, lonely circumstance.

  “Oh, Maxim, please. Make me forget,” she whispers, and plants a warm, wet kiss on my chest. Tossing her fair hair away from her face, she gazes up at me through long lashes, her eyes shining with need and grief.

  I cup her lovely face and shake
my head. “We shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t.” She places her fingers on my lips, silencing me. “Please. I need it.”

  I groan. I’m going to hell.

  “Please,” she begs.

  Shit, this is hell.

  And because I’m hurting, too—because I miss him, too—and Caroline is my connection to him, my lips find hers and I ease her onto her back.

  * * *

  When I wake, the room is flooded with bright winter sunshine that makes me squint. Turning over, I’m relieved to see that Caroline has gone, leaving behind a lingering trace of regret—and a note on my pillow:

  Dinner tonight with Daddy & the Stepsow?

  Please come.

  They are mourning, too.

  ILY x

  Fuck.

  This is not what I want. I close my eyes, grateful to be alone in my own bed and glad, despite our nocturnal activities, that we decided to come back to London two days after the funeral.

  How the hell did this get so out of hand?

  Just a nightcap, she’d said, and I’d gazed into her big blue eyes, brimming with sorrow, and known what she wanted. It was the same look she’d given me the night we learned of Kit’s accident and untimely death. A look I couldn’t resist then. We’d almost danced the dance so many times, but that night I resigned myself to fate, and with an unerring inevitability I fucked my brother’s wife.

  And now we’d done it again, with Kit laid to rest only two days ago.

  I scowl at the ceiling. I am, without doubt, a pathetic excuse for a human. But then so is Caroline. At least she has an excuse: she’s in mourning, scared for her future, and I’m her best friend. Who else could she turn to in her hour of need? I’d just pushed the envelope on comforting the grieving widow.

  Frowning, I crumple her note and toss it to the wooden floor, where it skitters to a stop under the sofa that’s piled with my clothes. The watery shadows float above me, the light and dark seeming to taunt me. I close my eyes to shut them out.

  Kit was a good man.

  Kit. Dear Kit. Everyone’s favorite—even Caroline’s; she did choose him, after all. A vision of Kit’s desolate, broken body lying beneath a sheet at the hospital mortuary appears unbidden in my mind. I take a deep breath, trying to dispel the memory, as a knot forms in my throat. He deserved better than dear Caro and me—his wastrel brother. He didn’t deserve this…betrayal.

  Fuck.

  Who am I kidding?

  Caroline and I deserve each other. She scratched my itch, and I scratched hers. We’re both consenting and technically free adults. She likes it. I like it, and it’s what I do best, fucking some eager, attractive woman into the small hours of the morning. It’s my favorite recreational activity and gives me something to do—someone to do. Fucking keeps me fit, and in the throes of passion I learn all I need to know about a woman—how to make her sweat and if she screams or cries when she comes.

  Caroline is a crier.

  Caroline has just lost her husband.

  Shit.

  And I’ve lost my big brother, my only guiding light for the last few years.

  Shit.

  Closing my eyes, I see Kit’s pale, dead face once more, and his loss is a yawning space within me.

  An irreplaceable loss.

  Why the hell was he riding his motorcycle on that bleak and icy night? It’s beyond comprehension. Kit is—was—the sane one, the safe pair of hands, Lord Reliable himself. Between the two of us, it was Kit who brought honor to our family name, upheld its reputation, and behaved responsibly. He held down a job in the City and managed the substantial family business as well. He didn’t make rash decisions, he didn’t drive like a madman. He was the sensible brother. He stepped up, not down. He was not the prodigal mess that I am. No, I’m the other side of Kit’s coin. My specialty is being the black sheep of the family. No one has any expectations of me, I make sure of that. Always.

  I sit up, my mood grim in the harsh morning light. It’s time to hit the basement gym. Running, fucking, and fencing, they all keep me in shape.

  * * *

  With dance music hammering in my ears and sweat rolling down my back, I drag air into my lungs. The pounding of my feet on the treadmill clears my mind as I concentrate on pushing my body to its limits. Usually when I run, I’m focused and grateful that at last I feel something—even if it’s just the pain of bursting lungs and limbs. Today I don’t want to feel anything, not after this fuck-awful week. All I want is the physical pain of exertion and endurance. Not the pain of loss.

  Run. Breathe. Run. Breathe.

  Don’t think about Kit. Don’t think about Caroline.

  Run. Run. Run.

  As I cool down, the treadmill slows, and I jog through the final stretch of my five-mile sprint, allowing my feverish thoughts to return. For the first time in a long time, I have a great deal to do.

  Before Kit’s demise my days were spent recovering from the night before and planning the next night’s entertainment. And that was about it. That was my life. I don’t like to shine a light on the vacuity of my existence. But deep down I know how bloody useless I am. Access to a healthy trust fund since I turned twenty-one means I’ve never done a serious day’s work in my life. Unlike my older brother. He worked hard, but then again he had no choice.

  Today, however, will be different. I’m the executor of Kit’s will, which is a joke. Choosing me was his last laugh, I’m sure—but now that he’s interred in the family vault, the will has to be read and…well, executed.

  And Kit died leaving no heirs.

  I shudder as the treadmill comes to a stop. I don’t want to think about the implications. I’m not ready.

  Grabbing my iPhone, I swing a towel around my neck and jog back upstairs to my flat on the sixth floor.

  Stripping off my clothes, I discard them in the bedroom and head into the en suite bathroom. Beneath the shower, as I wash my hair, I consider how to deal with Caroline. We’ve known each other since our early schooldays. We each recognized a kindred spirit, and it drew us together, two thirteen-year-old boarders with divorced parents. I was the new boy and she took me under her wing. We became inseparable. She is and always will be my first love, my first fuck…my disastrous first fuck. And years later she’d chosen my brother, not me. But in spite of all that, we managed to remain good friends and keep our hands off each other—until Kit’s death.

  Shit. It has to stop. I don’t want or need the complication. As I shave, solemn green eyes blaze back at me. Don’t fuck it up with Caroline. She’s one of your few friends. She’s your best friend. Talk to her. Reason with her. She knows we’re incompatible. I nod at my reflection, feeling more resolved about her, and wipe my face free of foam. Tossing the towel onto the floor, I head into the dressing room. There I gather up my black jeans, which are embedded in a pile on one of the shelves, and I’m relieved to find hanging a newly pressed white shirt and a dry-cleaned black blazer. Today I have lunch with the family solicitors. I slip on my boots and grab a coat to defend myself from the cold outside.

  Shit, it’s Monday.

  I remember that Krystyna, my ancient Polish daily, is due later this morning to clean. Taking out my wallet, I deposit some cash on the console table in the hall, set the alarm, then stroll out the front door. Locking up behind me, I forgo the lift and take the stairs.

  Once I’m outside on Chelsea Embankment, the air is clear and crisp, marred only by the vapor of my frozen breath. I stare beyond the gloomy, gray Thames on the other side of the street to the Peace Pagoda on the opposite bank. That’s what I want, some peace, but that may be a long time coming. I hope to have some questions answered over lunch. Raising an arm, I hail a cab and order the driver to take me to Mayfair.

  * * *

  Housed in the Georgian splendor of Brook Street, the firm of Pavel, Marmont and H
offman has been the family’s solicitors since 1775. “Time to be a grown-up,” I mutter to myself as I push open the ornate wooden door.

  “Good afternoon, sir.” The young receptionist beams, a flush staining her olive skin. She’s pretty, in an understated way. If these were normal circumstances I’d have her number within five minutes of conversation, but that’s not why I’m here.

  “I have an appointment to see Mr. Rajah.”

  “Your name?”

  “Maxim Trevelyan.”

  Her eyes scan her computer screen, and she shakes her head and frowns. “Please take a seat.” She waves toward two brown leather chesterfields that are situated in the paneled hall, and I slump into the nearer one picking up that morning’s edition of the Financial Times. The receptionist is talking on the phone with some urgency while I peruse the front page of the paper but take nothing in. When I glance up, Rajah is coming to greet me himself, striding through the double doors with an outstretched hand.

  I stand.

  “Lord Trevethick, may I offer you my sincere condolences for your loss,” Rajah says as we shake hands.

  “Trevethick, please,” I reply. “I’ve yet to get used to my brother’s title.”