Ethan

I sat at my desk trying to concentrate on my emails. I had twenty minutes until my next meeting and despite the fact I’d not had any sleep, I hadn’t used my insomnia to keep on top of work and emails from clients were piling up. I forwarded a lot of them to my assistant in New York but he wouldn’t be in the office for hours. If the volume of meetings continued like this, I was going to start to lose clients. I needed some people, a team, here in London, if this was going to work. And I needed to sleep. Despite being awake all night, I’d not been doing what I should have been and working through my in-box, instead I’d been going over the booklet of associate details I’d been handed when I arrived. Of course, there was only one associate I was interested in. It didn’t tell me much. Just her department, her office number and her personal contact details.

I left the dinner earlier than was polite. I needed some time to think. I wanted to speak to her. It had been so good to see her. She had looked fucking amazing. I wanted to kiss her, touch her, bury myself in her. 

Walking through the corridors at the office, I kept scanning the people scuttling around me, trying to find her . . . but nothing. It was irritating because I kept catching people’s eyes as I looked for her. Everyone clearly knew me so I’d been trying to keep to my office between meetings.

I flicked open the booklet. I could call her and invite her to lunch or something. I dialed her number.

“Anna Kirby,” she answered, sounding . . . irritated.

“Anna, it’s Ethan,” I spoke softly.

Silence.

“Anna?”

“What do you want?” she snapped.

It was not the response I’d expected and my body clenched. I hadn’t thought this through.

“I want to speak to you.” I would have thought it was obvious.

“I’m at work.”

“Anna.”

“You’ve got all the information you could ever need about Allen & Smith, I don’t know why you need to speak to me about anything more.”

She hung up. What was that? Did she understand that it was me? Did she get me confused with someone else?

My secretary Theresa, interrupted my thoughts and gave me some papers for the next meeting. Anna would have to wait.

“Can you get me in with Frank after this and before my lunch? I need to talk to him about resourcing my client work,” I asked.

“No problem,” she replied.

I liked her. She was efficient and pleasant but not a people pleaser and she wasn’t trying to blow smoke up my ass. She was the only one not being a kiss ass and I was grateful to her for it.

* * * * *

Back at my desk, I tried Anna’s extension again. No answer. It was 6.p.m. I’d declined a dinner invitation that evening so I could catch up on things but I wanted to speak to Anna, get to the bottom of her brush off earlier and, I don’t know, hang out with her, hear about what had been going on with her. What the hell was the matter with her? I worked out from her extension that she must be on the fourth floor so I went down in search of her. She couldn’t ignore me if I was stood right in front of her.

I wandered left out of the elevators. All the floors were the same layout—a mixture of open plan seating and rows of offices Where to start? What was I going to say to her when I found her?

One of the corporate partners, Al, found me before I had time to decide.

“Ethan, Frank spoke to me earlier, I was just about to brief a couple of assistants I’ve identified to work with you. Do you want to come with me and meet them? They’re a couple of real stars, ready and eager to help you with whatever you need,” he said.

“Sure,” I replied. Was there another appropriate response? It was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to find Anna.

I followed Al as he went on about the associates he’d lined up and we walked across the floor, between the desks. I saw her before she saw me but only just. I smiled and she looked back down at what she was working on. Al charged into her office and she was forced to look up. She avoided looking at me.

“Anna, have you met Ethan?”

She stood up and came out from behind her desk.

“No, we’ve not met. I’m Anna Kirby.”

I followed her lead and pretended not to know her. I took her hand to shake as she offered it to me. Her skin was as soft as I remembered but I wasn’t used to seeing her in formal work wear. She gave me a tight smile and focused on something over my shoulder, not looking at me. What the fuck? My eyes glided down her body, taking in skin above her shirt, her tight skirt, the bump on her thigh gave away that she was wearing a garter belt. I wondered who else had noticed. Who was she wearing that for?

“Anna is one of our brightest associates and is going to be helping you out while you’re in London.” Al said.

Al clearly hadn’t given Anna the heads up. She looked like she might vomit at the thought.

“Anna, why don’t you put some time in Ethan’s diary?” He paused and looked at me. “Is tomorrow morning soon enough?” I nodded. “Invite Richard as well. The two of you will be assisting Ethan.” Al then turned to me. “Then if you need more resources, we can find more people. Does that work?”

“That’s great, Al. I’m sure I’ll enjoy working with Anna.” I tried to catch her eye but she was looking everywhere except at me. I wanted to ask Al to leave us, leave me to say hello properly, to trail my hands across Anna’s thighs, underneath her skirt, to push into her underwear. Fuck, focus Ethan.

“I have to get back but it was nice to meet you, Anna.” She didn’t respond.