“Well, I wouldn't say you were a full-on pompous arse. Maybe more of a supercilious butt cheek.” 

Basically, what I needed was a way of trying to get in touch with my dad that left me with as little chance as possible of having to be in touch with my dad.

Alex's club was called Cadwallader's and it was exactly like you'd expect a club called Cadwallader's to be. Lurking discreetly behind a door just off St James's Street, it was made entirely of oak, leather, and men who'd been occupying the same armchair since 1922.

His name tasted bright and sharp on my tongue. Sugar and cinnamon.

“It’s hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn’t want you in their life.”
I snorted. “Have you met me?”
“Please don’t laugh this off. I mean it.”
“I know. It’s just easier to push people away than watch them leave.” The words hung there, and I wished I could suck them back into my mouth.

He smelled of familiarity, of homecoming, and of the night I’d spent wrapped in his arms. And he made me feel so fucking precious I wasn’t sure I could bear it. 

“Well, I can’t really talk about it, but we’ve recently acquired a very promising new author who specialises in high-concept science fiction. And it got a starred review in Publishers Weekly and everything, and there were some wonderful pull quotes and the one we decided to run with especially recommended it to fans of another, more famous author of high-concept science fiction. So we put it on all the posters and there’s big campaign all over the Underground and it’s on the front of the book and it’s too late to change any of it.”
Oliver was looking perplexed in a way that made me want to hug him. “That seems unalloyedly positive, Bridget.”
“It would be.” She threw herself into the nearest free chair. “Except the more famous author in question was Philip K. Dick. And the pull quote was, ‘If you like Dick, you’ll love this.’ And no one spotted it until we started getting extremely disappointed reviews on Amazon.”

“I feel compelled to point out," said Sophie finally, "that you've just refused to take money from me now because I'm drunk. But you've invited me to a party where you presumably try to get a lot of people drunk and then ask them for money."
"Yeah, it's not unethical if you print invitations.”

These weren't yeah whatever kisses. They weren't take it or leave it, get your coat you've pulled kisses. They were everything I thought I could never have, everything I'd been pretending I never wanted, telling me that I was worth it, that he'd be there for me and put up with me, and wouldn't let me drive him away.

“In any case, I wasn’t prepared for the truth of you.”

“I'm conscious this could be rather burdensome to hear, but you remain the thing I have most chosen for myself. The thing that's most exclusively mine. The one thing that brings me the deepest joy.”