Annabelle Slator, "Risky Business"

Annabelle Slator grew up writing stories in the depths of the British countryside. After achieving a degree in Creative Writing, she spent most of her twenties working with brands and start-ups in London and New York. Nowadays, if she isn’t spending time writing, you can almost always find her obsessing over niche internet drama, practising her fencing parry or mooching around vintage fairs and flea markets with her husband and two dachshunds, Gruffalo and Gryffin. The Launch Date is Annabelle’s debut novel, inspired by her time working in the wild world of dating apps. Risky Business is her second novel, inspired by her experiences working in the tech and start-up industry.

 

About Risky Business, by Annabelle Slator
Tech founder Jess Cole, desperate to keep her start-up afloat, is forced to pose as her brother’s assistant during a tech competition, hoping a male-led company will be taken more seriously, only to find her secret identity "Violet" compromised when she has a hot one-night stand with the head of the competition’s assistant.

You can read more about Risky Business on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a short excerpt from the novel. 

From Risky Business

"You made it." His low timbre coats the seething anxiety flowing through my veins.

I turn my chair on the swivel, laying my phone face down on the bar and cocking my head to the side, "Disappointed?"

Oliver stifles a smile, chin lowering to meet my eyeline. "Far from it, I was hoping you'd show." His fingers pinch the sides of a sweating glass.

I balance on an elbow, glancing at the drink. "So you can throw a beer on me and finish the job?"

"How about I just buy you one instead?" He gestures to the empty seat beside me, and I nod, rolling my eyes and crossing my legs. He doesn't hold himself with the same buzzing energy most in this room do, like they are desperate to impress their bosses and one another. He has a commanding presence, a mixture of laid-back and authoritative that I can't quite get a handle on.

He settles into the chair and leans his forearms onto the bar, his shoulder muscles tensing under the crisp white shirt. I feel a quiet thrill in his company, like an echo of adrenaline.

His chin shifts to me, the tea lights in red jars on the bar casting his cheekbones in a devilish glow. "What made you decide to come?"

I shrug, glancing awkwardly from him to the shelf of bottles with brightly coloured Italian labels. "I was having a mental breakdown in the area so thought it would be rude not to."

He huffs a laugh, hazel eyes twinkling. "Bad day?" The words roll off his tongue so smoothly that I imagine he was a cigarette-lighting bartender in another life.

I contemplate lying, but something about him is making me want to tell him the truth, to drop the pretences. I lean my elbow on the bar, resting my chin in my palm. "Bad year."

He whistles, almost impressed. "We better make it a double then." He gestures to the bartender with two fingers.

I shake my head, the background noise returning to the room with a pop as I come out of the minor trance. "You don't need to buy me a drink."

He shoots me a fake-appalled look. "Listen, I'm just trying my best to charm you over from the actively disliking me camp to a more neutral zone. I owe you at least one." He holds up a shiny black credit card. "Besides, this is my boss's card." He hits me with another winning smile.

"Oh, well, in that case, I'll have a Negroni." I sit back, relaxing into the chair. "How come your boss lets you run amok with his credit card?"

He taps the short edge of the plastic on the wooden bar. "Because I'm the only one who knows how to get his coffee order right, and knowledge is power."

"The keys to the caffeinated castle," I add with a nod.

He points at me with the shiny card. "Exactly."

"If only you could deliver them in one piece," I add, brow arched.

"Well, then I'd be running the whole company, and nobody wants that."