Chapter Fourteen
Andrew
I waited impatiently outside the airport for my driver to pull up, irked that he wasn't there as soon as I walked out the sliding doors. My business trip had gone well, remarkably so, but I was jetlagged and exhausted now that I was back in Seattle. I regretted not having broken my return up into shorter hops, first London to New York to check in on our offices there, and then New York to Seattle a few days later. Something about being thirty made these trips seem a lot more difficult.
Or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't been sleeping all that well, plagued by thoughts of what I was about to come home to.
I threw my bag into the back of the car and climbed in after it, sliding across the leather seats and relaxing back. My driver greeted me, but I was in no mood to talk, so after a curt “hello,” I quickly closed my eyes, signaling that I wanted my peace and quiet.
Despite the fact that that peace and quiet gave me far too much time to think some more.
It was almost a relief when my phone rang. Almost a relief, until I saw that it was Renée who was calling. I steeled my nerves and answered the thing, reasoning that it was better to answer her call now and get it out of the way than to wait and call her back once I was at home, where Lexi might overhear me.
“Hey babe,” Renée said as I answered the phone. “I assume you made it back all right?”
“Right on schedule,” I said, feeling a tightness forming around my eyes.
“You've been so quiet lately,” Renée said, and I could practically hear her pout. “You only called me once the whole week that you were gone. I've been lonely.”
“I've been busy,” I said with a small sigh. “You know how important this trip was for me. Plus, remember how I said, if this trip went well and we expanded to London, you and I might get to take a trip there sometime in the near future?”
“I remember,” Renée said. “But I still missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I told her, even though I wasn't entirely sure that was true.
I'd spent the whole week running from one meeting to another, and whenever I'd had the scantest moment to even breathe or to inhale some food, I'd been thinking about what to do with Lexi and Emma. I'd even gone so far as to make a couple calls to make sure that Emma would have a place in a great daycare for the summer.
But I wasn't about to tell Renée any of that. Better that I lie and let her think that I'd spent all my free time thinking about her.
“Did you bring me back something from London?” she asked, and I rolled my eyes. She was predictable. Bring her a nice gift and she never stayed sulky for very long.
“I did bring you a little something, as a matter of fact,” I told her. “Or rather, I bought you something and I had it shipped to you. You should receive it in a couple days.”
To be honest, it had slipped my mind to bring her anything. I probably wouldn't have had the time to find something for her, even if I had remembered to. But I could order something online and have it rush delivered to her. Or even better, I could have my secretary order something online and have it rush delivered to her. It made no difference to me.
“When do I get to see you?” Renée asked, her voice going sultry.
I sighed. “I'm not so sure about that,” I told her.
“How about I come over tonight, and we have some fun?” she suggested. “That would give you the afternoon to have a little nap, take a shower, and get yourself all ready for me.”
I grimaced. I could only imagine the scene we would have if she showed up at my house that night and found Lexi and Emma there. “As tempting as that offer is, I'm really exhausted,” I told her. It wasn't a lie.
“You're working too hard again,” Renée said, and that pouty note was back in her voice. I barely bit back a groan of frustration.
“Unless I wanted to stay in Europe for twice as long as I did, yes, I needed to cram in a bunch of meetings with a bunch of different people, on a bunch of different topics. I couldn't help that. And then after those meetings, I went to dinner with some of the guys from their offices. I had to build rapport to make sure that this expansion goes as smoothly as we want it to. But it's not just because of work. I'm also jetlagged. It's only two in the afternoon here, but according to my body, it's already ten p.m. And I'm only going to get more tired as the day wears on.”
“You can make time to go to dinner with the guys at work after you've been in meetings with them for the whole day, but you can't make any time to see me?” Renée asked, her tone acidic. “I'm not even asking you to go out to dinner with me. I know I couldn't get you to agree to leave the house tonight. But you could at least let me come over.”
“Renée,” I said, feeling even more exhausted the longer this conversation went on.
“I wouldn't make you do the work,” she promised. “I'll give you a blowjob to get you started, and then before you come, I'll—”
“Renée, stop,” I interrupted. As hot as she was and as much as I enjoyed blowjobs, my dick barely stirred at the thought of it. I was just too stressed out about the Emma situation, and I really was worn out. “I don't want to see you tonight.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “You never want to see me anymore. I can hardly even get you to talk to me anymore.”
“I've just been busy,” I sighed. “That's what happens when you run a large company, especially when that large company is hoping to expand its offices.”
She still didn't respond, and I cast around in my head for something that I could say to placate her. I had already told her I was having something shipped to her from London. I should have saved that for later in the conversation.
“Why don't I take you out to dinner later this week?” I finally settled on. “We'll have a nice, romantic evening, just the two of us. And then we'll go back home, and I'll take my time getting you off. Tease you nice and slow, just like I know you like.”
“That sounds nice,” Renée finally said grudgingly. “Are you sure you can free up time in your busy, busy schedule for that, though?”
“I'll make time,” I promised. “Let me call around tomorrow and see where I can get us a table, and then I'll let you know.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Just give me a couple days to decompress, hand over all the information to the guys at the office so that they can further the project along, and get some sleep. You know the sex will be better if I'm not half-dead with exhaustion at the time.”
“Just don't work yourself too hard over the next few days, then,” Renée said with a sigh.
“I won't,” I promised, even though I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep that promise. “I'll save up all my energy for you.”
Renée giggled. “You're going to need it. I've been thinking of some different things that we could do.”
“Oh, have you?” I asked, wearily amused by the mischievous note in her voice.
“I missed you,” she said simply in response.
“Well, I'll see you soon enough,” I promised.
“Good.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. I stared morosely down at the phone in my hands as we continued to make our way through the traffic and back to my house. I had a headache already, and I hadn't even made it home yet.
I didn't know what the state of things would be at home, once I got back. I had told Janice to only call me in case of emergency. Since she hadn't called, I assumed that everything had been fine. But I wondered whether Lexi had managed to find a job. I wondered how Emma was settling in. I wondered if they had brought all their things over from Lexi's friend's place.
Part of me hoped that she hadn't moved her things over yet. I was going to need to figure out what to do with her, and quickly.
I couldn't keep putting Renée off like that. She was jealous by nature, and I could only imagine the types of suspicion she must be feeling at the moment. She had to assume that my interest was waning. The last thing I wanted was for her to find out about Lexi and Emma on her own, but there was no way I was going to tell her about them either.
Best to just make the problem go away and kick it under the rug.
It wasn't as though I was in love with Renée. I knew I should be. She was beautiful and intelligent, although she tried to hide it, and driven to succeed. I liked all those things in a woman. Our sex was great as well. And she loved me. I knew that had to count for something.
But the longer I stayed with her, the more I realized that something was missing. She didn't excite me in the ways that I needed her to. If she were in Lexi's position, if we'd had a one-night stand and then gone three years without seeing one another, I doubted I would have remembered her name or what the sex was like.
That said, my relationship with Renée was the longest relationship that I'd ever managed to have. I had to figure that if I was going to fall in love with anyone, it was going to be Renée. I was just still waiting for that to happen.
My thoughts strayed again to my dad. They'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since Emma had come into my life. I wondered if my dad had ever loved my mother. Had he ever loved me or Katherine? Did he love the bimbo that he'd run away to the Bahamas with?
Maybe I was just as cold and emotionless as he was. Maybe I was never going to be able to feel love for someone, not Lexi, not Renée, not Emma.
It wouldn't be so surprising.
I swallowed hard as we pulled up in front of my house, already steeling myself for what was waiting inside. But the one bright patch in this whole thing was the thought of Emma's face when she saw the stuffed animal sloth that I had brought back for her. I couldn't help but smile, thinking of that.
I got out of the car, grabbing my bag and heading up towards the front door.