Ethan
Usually, I didn’t like flying, especially long haul. Today it didn’t bother me. I had too much to do to distract me from the fact we were thirty thousand feet up in a metal tube and the pilot was probably asleep, drunk or fucking the cabin crew. I had too much to think about. Tomorrow was a big day. I had to prepare. I’d not read the communications pack that had been couriered to my apartment yesterday and we were having interviews with press and meetings with clients all day tomorrow, and before that a meeting with the staff at 10 a.m. to announce the merger.
And then there was Anna to think about. I should never have brought her back to my apartment on that last night. Since then, I’d seen her in every room. She looked so fucking amazing coming in my bed. It was all I could see when I tried to sleep in there. I’d started spending my nights in the guest room because those images of her refused to leave me.
I liked that I could make her laugh out loud and that when she did, it was unaffected, with her whole body. We’d laughed a lot. I didn’t normally have fun with women—it had always been about the sex before Anna. And she’d seemed to understand about the demands of my job, which had surprised me. She hadn’t been sulky or demanding when I had to work—she got it. What I liked most of all was that she didn’t seem to give a shit about all the New York pretenses—the parties and the important people. She was real and she had gotten under my skin in a way no woman ever had.
When the tin tube in which I was so precariously sitting hit the tarmac at London Heathrow in six hours, we would be in the same city. Breathing the same air. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Part of me was excited that I might see her again and part of me thought that that spelled complicated and I didn’t do complicated.
If I wanted to find her, there were ways. But I hadn’t decided if that was what I wanted. I knew I wanted to fuck her again but I knew that my dick didn’t always have my best interests at heart. My brain knew I didn’t need the distraction—work was going to be demanding. And she might be distracted with someone else. It had been months and she had an appetite as voracious as my own. The thought churned my stomach. I hoped it was her vibrator keeping her hunger at bay rather than some prick who didn’t know how to make her come.
“Would you like another whiskey, sir?” The blonde flight attendant leaned over, giving me a view of her less-than-perfect tits.
She wasn’t my type. I wasn’t sure what was my type anymore. I was going through a dry spell. I was busy at work and well, every woman I met I compared to Anna and they just didn’t seem to make me laugh like her, or get me hard like her or do that cute thing waving their hands in the air when they talked like her.
“No. Thank you,” I replied.
She lowered her voice. “Well, if there’s anything you want, anything, you just let me know.”
There was nothing subtle about her. Not her overly made up face, not her fake tits and not her come-on.
“No, thank you,” I replied again. I didn’t want her hovering around me for the rest of the flight. She should go and find someone who would be more appreciative of her lack of subtlety.
I’d been sent over to London by the New York office. Apparently, according to our communications manager, I wasn’t allowed to say “head office”. Fucking politics. New York would be head office. This wasn’t a merger, it was a takeover. I would be overseeing the “merger” of the New York law firm, where I was partner, with the London law firm Allen & Smith. Our firms had been in talks for months about a transatlantic merger but when Allen & Smith posted less than stellar profits three months ago, we knew the time was right. They were vulnerable, and we were ready. Without us, Allen & Smith would have probably gone into liquidation. I had been assigned to London for three months to head up integration. I wasn’t sure if integration was strictly the correct word. I was here to make sure London was doing what New York told them to do.
When I got the first few days over with, I’d decide what to do about finding Anna. I didn’t need to think about it until then. I needed to work. To focus. I opened up my laptop and started preparing for Monday.
* * * * *
My sister had become mildly hysterical when I’d announced I was coming to London. As soon as I’d told her, she’d started making plans on the spot. She had me mentally moved into their guest room in Hammersmith, wherever that was, and firmly palmed off with one the single mothers she knew. Eventually she gave in to me living on my own on the promise that I would have dinner with her and James and baby Izzy at least once a week. Izzy was a woman I could cope with. Jessica, not so much. I don’t know how James put up with her.
She still insisted on meeting me at the airport as if I were a child. I would have preferred to wait to see her when Monday was over but it was one less argument to have with her. Jesus, she was hard work at times. But I couldn’t help but grin when I saw her and James waiting for me with a placard with my childhood nickname, Bond, written on it when I came out of baggage. I was obsessed with James Bond as a kid. The fast cars, the booze, the women. What wasn’t to like?
I scooped Jessica up in a hug as soon as I saw her. “Stop nagging me,” I said.
“I’ve not said a word,” she said, pushing me away.
“Yes but you were about to,” I replied, ruffling her hair.
“Don’t touch my hair.” She slapped my arm. “I don’t nag. I wouldn’t know how.” I looked at James who rolled his eyes as we shook hands. I chuckled.
“So where’s my favorite girl?” I peered into the stroller to see Izzy fast asleep.
“Don’t wake her. She’s being a terror at the moment,” Jessica said.
“Like mother, like daughter,” I teased.
“Better that she’s like me than you.” Jessica sneered at me.
Why did we revert to being thirteen around each other? I needed not to take the bait. “Come on—I need to prep for tomorrow so I need to get checked in to my hotel.”
“Why won’t you stay with us?” Jessica whined. She did nothing but give me a hard time but she wanted me living with her? She was full of contradictions.
“Because you’re a terror and I’m going to be working a lot. We discussed this. Come on.”
We drove into the city and they dropped me at my hotel. I was going to stay here and see apartments the following week. I was here for three months so I didn’t want to be living in a hotel the whole time. As I checked in at the desk, I scanned the lobby. She could be here. What was she doing? Had she woken up with someone this morning? My gut clenched. I needed to focus. Tomorrow was a big day. It was an important time for the firm. There wasn’t room for distractions or complications.