Chapter 12

Oliver

“I’m sorry, how soon?”

I held the phone to my ear and tried unsuccessfully to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“By the end of the week, if you can make it,” the man on the other end of the line replied.

He was British, so I couldn’t tell if the calculated impassivity in his voice was a built-in feature or if he was actually trying his hardest to keep his temper with me.

“And that’s the only time they’ll meet with me?” I clarified.

This call had come out of nowhere, and I found myself desperately trying to make sense of what I was hearing – that the Masterson group would meet with me at the end of the week, and that it was the only time they had clear to meet face-to-face for the next six months. Six months!

“That’s correct, sir,” the man replied, coolly. “Can I pencil you in for this Thursday?”

“I’ll make it work,” I agreed before I had a chance to think about the implications of what I was saying.

“Excellent,” he replied, and I heard the tapping of computer keys at the other end of the line. “I’ll be in touch soon with the details. Thank you for your patience.”

He hung up the phone and left me standing in the middle of my office wondering what the hell had just happened, because it felt a lot like I’d agreed to fly out to the UK on a few days notice, just to get a chance at a meeting with the people I’d been trying to get on board for years.

I turned to look out the window. The view always helped to clear my head, to remind me of how small I was in comparison to the sprawling city below.

This was a power move, no doubt about it. A way to get me off my guard and have me scrambling to meet their needs. They were trying to figure out just how committed I was to the deal, and I had some heavy news for them – there was nothing they could do to put me off, no roadblock they could dump in my way that would make me feel anything other than more motivated to hunt them down and get them on our side.

I was going now, no doubt about it, and I felt a burst of excitement as I realized just how big a deal it was for us. I grabbed the phone and pulled up Neil’s number at once, tapping my foot impatiently as I waited for him to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Neil, it’s me,” I greeted him. “It’s about the Masterson account. They’ve asked me to fly out and meet with them.”

“Holy shit, you serious?”

“Yep.”

I nodded, running my hand over my head as though to keep my overflowing thoughts intact. “And they want me to go this week.”

“This week?” he spluttered. “Can you? Are you?”

“I think I have to,” I admitted. “I mean, I can’t afford to turn this down, can I?”

“No, you’re right, you can’t,” he agreed. “When exactly?”

“Thursday. That’s when they said they could meet with me,” I replied. “I’m going to book the flights, is that okay with you?”

“Flights? Who else is going?” he asked, sounding a little confused.

“Mona,” I replied, as though it should have been obvious, and there was a pause from his end. I knew at once what he was thinking.

“Oh, come on,” I sighed. “It’s not like that. You know how good she is with stuff like this.”

“You know if you sweep some girl off on a world tour on company money, I’m going to rip you a new one,” he remarked, almost offhand.

I pressed my lips together. I knew he had reason to think I was going to pull something like this. I knew he wasn’t pulling it out of his ass, but still, it was hard not to feel like this was some kind of personal attack, a comment on the kind of person I was, even if I knew he was just making sure I didn’t land us in more hot water.

“I’m not doing anything like that, Neil,” I assured him. “Please, I just want to get this meeting on lock. Can I get the go-ahead?”

“Of course,” he sighed. “I’ll make sure the finance department knows that this is work-related.”

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’ll come by your office later, and we can go over the details, okay?”

“For sure,” he agreed, and I hung up.

I glanced over at Mona’s door. I guess I would have to ask her if she wanted to come, first. That would probably be the best course of action. I took a deep breath, made my way over to the door, and knocked.

She opened it, and I felt for a moment like I had turned up at her apartment and she was answering her door to me. She looked oddly chilled-out and calm like she had just come out of a long bath with a glass of wine.

“What’s up?” she asked, smiling up at me. God, but she had a sexy smile.

“Are you free this Thursday through Sunday?” I asked before I could think of how it would sound. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, but I cut her off to clarify before she could say anything.

“It’s for a work trip,” I added quickly, adrenalin pumping hard in my veins. “I’ve been invited to fly out to the UK to meet with the Masterson group, and I’d like you to come with me. As my assistant, of course.”

“Of course,” she said in response, and I could almost see the gears in her brain turning as she tried to process the news.

“So, can you go? We need to book tickets as soon as possible,” I urged her and found my stomach twisting in knots.

I felt as though I was asking a crush out to prom all over again. Last time, I’d been rejected, but as she opened and closed her mouth trying to come up with an answer, I could see her face lighting up.

“For sure,” she said, and although she was trying to keep her voice professional, I could hear the excitement in there too. “For sure. I’d love to.”

“Great!” I said, and though I should have backed out to get the tickets booked already, I found myself lingering in the doorway a little longer.

“I’ve never been to the UK!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never even left the country.”

“Then you’ll need to get packing.”

I flashed her a smile and she smiled back. She was giddy and it was cute as hell.

“I’m going to,” she promised and stepped back into her office to get back to work.

I watched her for a moment and turned back to my desk. The reality of the situation finally began to settle in. I was going away with this woman. I mean, away, away. Far away from the office. Far away from our day-to-day lives. Far away from all of this, all of the taboo that had swirled around us from the moment she walked in the door.

I sat down at my desk, closed my eyes, and my mind filled with thoughts of Jeannie. The memory of her was a solid reminder that going after Mona, no matter what the circumstances, was only going to end badly. The details flooded my brain, the memory of her, everything that had happened washing over me like a bad dream.

After we had hooked up, things started going downhill. Well, not at first. At first, of course, it was fun. It wouldn’t have gotten so intense if it hadn’t been fun in the beginning.

For the first few weeks, maybe the first month, I was having a good time, and so was she. It was sexy, fun, deviant – the two of us sneaking into each other’s offices and hooking up whenever we got the chance. I enjoyed it, and I assumed she did, too. But I saw it as nothing more than the fling and I was sure she did too. Anything else would have been ridiculous. If it wasn’t fun, then what was it?

Well, as far as she was concerned, it was the beginning of a relationship. I can’t believe I was so blind that I didn't see it at the time. the way she looked at me, how she lingered late at the office to spend time with me. I thought she had just been angling for a promotion.

As we continued hooking up, though, I grew bored. That was the kind of asshole I was when it came to women. I got tired of them as quickly as they sparked my interest, and all being with her for a few weeks proved to me was that we were not a good match.

She was a little nervous, maybe even neurotic, and while that made for a good assistant, it didn’t interest me outside of work. I also assumed she was seeing other people because, well, why wouldn’t she have been?

We had just been hooking up, after all. I hadn’t slowed down at all in the dating other people thing. I dropped a couple hints to her, but she didn't seem to take them seriously. She thought I was joking and brushed them off like they were nothing until, that is, the big blowout.

As my assistant, she had an intimate knowledge of my schedule. When I planned a date with a model I’d been chatting with for several weeks, Jeannie blew her top. She came storming into my office clutching the printed-out email in her hand.

“What the fuck is this?” she scoffed slamming it down on the desk in front of me, and I looked up at her, brow furrowed.

“I have a date?” I replied, confused.

She was furious, her cheeks flushed red with rage as she gulped in deeps breaths to try and calm herself.

“You have a date,” she repeated for clarity, and I nodded.

“What’s the problem?” I asked gently, reaching out to touch her waist. She jerked away from me, looking down at me with such contempt, I actually felt my blood chill.

“But we’re together,” she shouted, and I widened my eyes at her in surprise.

I had to suppress a laugh. Not at her, but at the fact that she seriously thought there was something between the two of us beyond just fooling around.

“Jeannie, no.” I said softly, shaking my head. “I don’t want to be an ass, but this is just… it was just fun. I thought you knew that?”

“How can you say that?” she cried out and threw her hands in the air. “After everything we did, after everything you…?”

Her shoulders slumped and I felt a cold, creepy feeling sneak up my spine as I realized this problem wasn’t just going to go away.

Things unraveled from there. I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't realize how bad until that day a week later when it all came to a head.

I assumed that we would just go on as normal. Sure, I knew things would, of course, be awkward for a while, but we had ended our sexual relationship, and she seemed to have accepted things.

I still caught her looking at me with these odd, wistful stares every once in a while, but it was nothing more than that.

I was out on the date with the model – I can’t even remember her name right now, because she never called me again after that night – at some fancy restaurant she’d insisted on taking me to, halfway across town.

I was tired, slightly bleary from work, and trying my best to turn on the charm, but I had been having an uneasy feeling at the back of my mind. Something was wrong. Then, I saw her.

She was standing outside the restaurant watching us, and as soon as our eyes connected, my stomach lurched with panic. The sounds around me became muffled. My date was halfway through a sentence that immediately vanished to nothing as it came out of her mouth. My jaw dropped, and to my horror, Jeannie went to the entrance and began to walk in.

“What’s going on?” the model asked nervously. She tried to follow my gaze but didn’t immediately spot Jeannie as she marched toward us. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“So, you actually went through with it?” Jeannie questioned me, gesturing angrily between the two of us. The model looked from her to me and back again, clearly confused.

“Who is this?” my date had asked, her voice clipped but polite, given the circumstances.

“Who is this?” Jeannie repeated in an aggressively mocking tone. “I’m his girlfriend, bitch.”

“No, you’re not,” I said firmly. I rose to my feet and looked around the room in an attempt to catch the attention of a staff member, but there was no one in sight. Maybe they had seen the bullshit that was about to unfold in front of them.

“Oliver, please,” Jeannie begged, desperately, and I took her arm lightly, steering her toward the exit, so I could get her the hell out of there. My date was ruined.

I got her out of the front door and on to the street, and she tried to reach up to put her arms around me. I pushed her away, placing my hands firmly on her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length.

Her face had sunk, and she finally understood. She looked up at me with her eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them. It was as though I’d delivered a blow straight to her chest, like I’d knocked the wind out of her.

“Don’t come in to the office on Monday,” I said, lowering my voice.

We were getting looks from people going by us on the street as her lip began to tremble, and I didn’t want any of them to overhear what our conversation was about.

“And I never want to hear from you again. This is over, do you hear me? It never even started.”

“Oliver, I love you,” she pleaded, but I cut her off before she could go any further.

I didn't want to hear it. It had been a long time since anyone had told me they loved me, and I had no idea how to react to the knowledge that Jeannie had felt that strongly about me. The last time I said it had been to my first, post-college girlfriend, and that was so long ago I was hardly able to remember it.

Since then, it was nothing but flings, one night stands, and fun, specifically designed to ensure that nobody would ever get too attached to me.

“No, you don’t,” I assured her, finding my voice again, as though I wanted everyone to hear it. “You don’t. You just think you do, and I need you to rid yourself of that delusion, sooner rather than later, and let me get on with my life.”

Tears streamed down her face, as though they had always been there waiting to be released, and her entire body collapsed against mine. I waved down a cab, not sure what else to do. I eased her into the back seat, and she slumped down against the leather. I closed the door and hoped to God it would be the last I ever saw of Jeannie.

She turned up at the office a few more times, but I hadn’t actually laid eyes on her, thank goodness. She kept coming, telling anyone who would listen what had happened between us and how I had forsaken and abandoned her when she had done nothing but care for me.

We had to get a restraining order against her, and it became official about three months ago, long enough now that I hadn’t seen her in what felt like forever. She never tried to violate the order, to my knowledge, and I had no interest in spending the rest of my life peering around every corner to make sure she wasn’t there. She was gone, and that was all that mattered.

I had no interest in seeing any of that go down again. I shuddered at the thought.

Still, it was a few days out of the country together, just Mona and me. No matter what, I had to remember the downsides to an affair with Mona, no matter how tempting she was, how gorgeous she looked, how much I wanted to wrap my arms around her, kiss her, and feel her tongue against mine. No matter how hot the thought of that was making me.

I reached for my laptop and went to book our tickets, banishing those thoughts from my mind. At least for now. While I still could.