Chapter7
She was sitting at her desk after lunch at Sam’s when Dane walked into her office again, and she looked up at him in surprise and wondered if it would be discourteous to ask him to knock before he walked in, as he never did announce himself first.
He closed the door behind him and then walked slowly over to her desk with a thoughtful look on his face. Taking a seat, he eyed her curiously.
“What can I do for you?” she asked curiously, reminding herself as she caught herself gazing at his body that she was cutting herself off from him, and she made herself look only at his face and his eyes. They were inquisitive but impassive. She could not tell at all what it was that he was thinking, but she could definitely feel the familiar pull toward him even from her place across the desk. Her eyes left his for a moment and flashed to the sofa behind him, and her breath caught in her throat as she remembered riding him hard there, his mouth on her flesh, her reeling with unthinkable pleasure and passion.
She tried to restrain her thoughts, and she met his gaze again. He seemed to be distracted himself for a moment. “I want you to come with me on a business lunch tomorrow.” He looked as if it wasn’t an option that he was giving her but rather a request.
“Okay. I can do that.” She made a note on her calendar. “What time?”
“Let’s say we’ll head out at eleven,” he suggested, and then he gave her a strange look, almost as if he was peering into her, trying to see more inside of her head than he could get at from the outside.
“Is there something else?” she asked, curious about what thoughts might be going through his head.
He held his breath a moment and then let it out and looked openly at her. “Yes, there is something else. I know it’s none of my business, but I want to know. Who is Paul? What was he really doing here? I feel that if you and I have had the intimate relations that we’ve shared, then I should have some kind of ground to come to you and ask you about another man who is here saying he’s your boyfriend.”
She nodded. “You do have a right to ask, and I don’t have anything to hide from you. Paul was my boyfriend when I was back in San Francisco. We were together for six months. We had just begun talking about moving in together when I got the job offer to come here.” She sighed, thinking back on all the drama and trouble, all the fighting she had gone through with Paul when the call had come in for her.
Dane listened intently.
“I took the offer, and he refused to move with me, so we broke up. We were finished. I moved out here and took the job, and then I met you.” She looked away from him as she felt her cheeks warm, thinking back to the night they had met.
“Why is he really here then, if you two broke up?” Dane asked, pressing further.
She looked back at him then, meeting his gaze. “He’s here because he thinks he’s going to win me back and move in with me.”
Dane was thoughtful for a long moment. “Do you want him back?” he asked, eyeing her closely.
Nicole felt frustration building in her as she sat there across from Dane explaining so much to him, not really sure how much of it was truly his business and how much of it wasn’t. “I don’t know what I want,” she finally stated flatly.
“Okay,” Dane said with the same even tone. He stood up and walked over to her door, glancing once at the sofa in the corner. She saw him do it, and she saw his lips part as if he had lost his breath just looking at it.
Then, he turned toward her and gave her a nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch.”
She watched him leave. “Yes, eleven,” she agreed, and he closed the door behind him. With a sigh, she buried her face in her hands and wondered if anyone was in the Zen room.
Picking up her phone, she called Jeffrey, and he answered with a smile. “There she is! How are things going today? No shenanigans I hope?” he asked lightly.
“Jeffrey, it’s barely ten in the morning.” She scowled gently.
“So?” he asked realistically. She sighed and closed her eyes.
“There have been shenanigans, but not the good kind.” She groaned miserably.
“Oh no! What happened?”
“Paul was here waiting for me when I got to my office this morning,” she announced simply.
There was a loud gasp at the other end of the line. “What? No!”
“Yes.”
“What in god’s name was he doing there? What does he want?” Jeffrey sounded completely horrified at the very idea of it.
Nicole leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling in her office, wishing there was a Zen projector that would lower itself from the ceiling tiles and make her whole world go away without her having to bother to go down the hall for the same effect.
“He wants me back. He came to tell me that he misses me, he loves me, and he wants to get back together and move in with me. I was right all along. He’s figured out that he can work from Hawaii, and that’s his plan.” Her tone was snarky and sarcastic, but she felt absolutely justified in it.
“He wants to move in with you and work from Hawaii?” Jeffrey sighed, and she could picture him closing his eyes and trying to find his own peace and patience. “After you asked him to do that exact same thing about thirty seconds ago, when you were offered this job and you took it. He was so dead set against it that the two of you broke up, and now that you have begun building this beautiful new life, he wants to move in with you and work from here.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him to get the hell out? What did you tell him?” Jeffrey sounded slightly worried then.
“I told him that he can’t move in because you live there, although I wasn’t totally honest with him, because I didn’t actually admit to him that you are only here temporarily. So, there was that omission. Then I told him to get out of my office.” She had been only somewhat proud of that part of it.
“Did he leave?” Jeffrey asked hopefully. “He must have, you’re sitting there talking with me about it.”
“Yeah, he left, but not before two un-great things happened.” She frowned in dejection.
“What things?” Jeffrey’s tone grew serious.
“Well, he wouldn’t leave before I promised him that I would go to dinner with him. I didn’t want to, but if I didn’t agree to it, I don’t think he would have left. I think he’d still be here.”
“Fabulous. So, you’re trapped into a dinner date. What’s the other thing?” Jeffrey sounded as if he didn’t really want to know.
“He forced a kiss on me. It was sudden and sort of spontaneous, but he did it, and just as he was doing it, Dane walked in and saw it.” She felt miserable that Dane had seen it. She had enough going on with him without having to add any other trouble to it.
“Oh, honey,” Jeffrey said quietly. “What a messy morning.”
“Very.”
“Well, you just brush those boys off. You can cancel your dinner date with Paul and tell him to fly on back to San Francisco, and you aren’t going any further with Dane, so you don’t have to worry about him catching you lip locked with your ex. It’s all water under the bridge. Focus on the work and tell the boys off, honey. It’ll all work out.” He sounded as encouraging as he could.
“I will do that. Thank you for the talk, Jeffrey. I appreciate it.” She smiled, and he sent her a hug through the phone and then ended the phone call.
When she came into work the next morning, there were a dozen red roses waiting for her in a crystal vase with a card attached. Wishing she didn’t have to open the card, she did, and she sighed in frustration when she read it.
‘Can’t wait to see you at dinner, love Paul’
She was going to have to message him and tell him that she wasn’t going to have dinner with him. If she messaged him, there would be less of a possibility of him overruling her declination and him trying to talk her back into it.
Dane came in at eleven that morning and stopped when he saw the massive bouquet of red roses on the table behind her desk. “Who sent you roses?” he asked in as offhand a manner as he could without sounding too jealous.
Nicole sighed. “Paul sent them. More of his attempt to win me back, I guess.” She picked up her purse and her sweater. “So, we’re going to lunch, right?”
Dane pulled his gaze from the bouquet of roses and looked at her. It was then that he smiled genuinely, and his face seemed to light up. “Yes. Lunch. You look really lovely, by the way.” He gave her a smile and held the door for her as she couldn’t resist a smile back at him, and he followed her out of the door.
Forty-five minutes later, he was parking his car in a small parking lot before some tall pine trees, behind which massive mountains shot straight upward out of the ground, at just a slight distance from where they were. He had driven them through a big and beautiful graveyard to get to the parking lot, and though Nicole had said nothing about the graveyard, it had given her some questions as to where they were going and why, but as she stepped from the car in the pretty morning light, she was stunned by what she saw before her.
At the tops of the mountains, the clouds had gotten caught again, and there was a misty rain falling softly, but it was gone halfway down the mountain, and it was perfectly sunny where she and Dane were.
At the base of the mountains was a great dark brown and red framed temple with a large lake out in front of it, and a bridge over a deep ditch where a river flowed between the parking lot and the temple.
“What is this place?” she asked in hushed awe as he came to her side.
“It’s the Byodo-in Temple. It’s beautiful isn’t it? The biggest statue of Buddha outside of Asia is kept in the main room of the temple. Let’s go see it; I’d love to share this with you.” He held out his arm for her, and she took it, following behind him as they walked leisurely over the bridge, surrounded by tall trees, green meadows of grass, and flora and fauna everywhere they looked.
Floating along the surface of the great pond before the temple were several black swans, but just beneath the surface of the water was the biggest school of Koi fish that Nicole had ever seen. There had to be hundreds of them swimming in there, so many different shapes and colors, all red, orange, white, and black, though some had a bit of yellow on them.
She marveled at it all, and when he walked her over to the massive bell just outside of the temple, she was hesitant to ring it. Dane explained that most of the visitors ring the bell, that it’s a common practice.
She whispered a secret prayer in her head and pulled the log back that was tied with rope to the beam above them. She let the log go, and it swung forward and hit the side of the bell, sending off a low gong over the lake and through the temple, up the side of the mountain and all the way up to heaven for all that she knew. She hoped that it took her silent prayer with her.
Dane gave her his arm again, and they went to the edge of the first open walled hallway that led into the side of the temple. He took his shoes off as a sign of respect, and she did the same, glad that she had just had a pedicure.
Together they walked in silence, passing the side of the pond and walking around the front of the temple to see the carefully raked rock garden, created with absolute precision. It was huge and beautifully done. When they had gotten a good look at it, they walked inside the front doors of the temple, and she saw the enormous statue of Buddha sitting inside of the temple. Before him was an altar, and on the altar, apart from many offerings of things from money to flowers to food, was a big round brass bowl, inside of which there was sand, and in the soft sand there were several sticks of incense.
Together, they lit one of the sticks of incense, and they placed it before the Buddha, offering up their prayers and then leaving a contribution of money for the temple. When they walked out, Nicole felt a strong sense of peace in her, and she walked with Dane to a bench where they sat together, apart from the other people who had come to the temple to visit.
“I never knew that any kind of place like this existed, especially here in Hawaii.” She shook her head and gazed at the beautiful structure in wonder.
“It’s a smaller version of the same temple in a bigger place in Asia,” he told her thoughtfully, and then turned to face her. “I wanted to share this with you before lunch. This is a place of true peace. I come here sometimes to regroup. It’s important to me, and I enjoy being here. I knew that you would like it, and I wanted you to see it with me. I wanted to share this special place with you.”
“Thank you so much.” She smiled happily at him, but then she gave him a curious look. “Can I ask you something personal? What is it that draws you to being submissive?”
He didn’t even have to stop and think about it; he simply answered her honestly right then. “I’m able to handle the constant pressures of running an international billion-dollar corporation, but I need release and relief from it sometimes, and I’ve discovered that I can find that through submissive sex, but there’s never been anyone who makes me feel the way that you do.”
Dane stared at her and lifted his hand to her face, tracing his fingertip lightly down her cheek and making her lose her breath. “I’m so amazed by you. You’re intelligent, beautiful, you’re a powerhouse, and you’re sexy as hell.” He smiled a little then, but the seriousness returned to him. “Even so, with all of that, you still make me feel things that I’ve never felt before, and I’m addicted to them now. I’ve seen beautiful women all over this world, but I’ve never had such an electric connection to one. Especially right from the start, but I do with you. I did… right from the start.”
Nicole nodded. “I understand,” she said simply, hoping that he knew just how much she did understand it.
He grew curious again then, and he looked at her with questioning eyes. “What did you feel when you first saw me?”
Everything in her stirred at the memory of it. She smiled bashfully and closed her eyes, remembering it as if it was happening right then. “I felt like everything around us disappeared, like it was only the two of us in the room, or even in the whole universe. I was so stunned by you. There was this pull toward you, this kind of magnetic pull, and I needed to be near you. I needed to be alone with you. When I met you, I saw the way that you were looking at me, watching me, and it turned me on like nothing else ever has. It was electric, and you looked so hungry for me. It made me feel the same.”
She opened her eyes again and saw that his gaze had grown intense on her, and his lips were parted slightly. He closed his eyes and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her softly, sweetly, deeply, and she couldn’t help but give in to it and kiss him in return, sighing softly has he held her close in his arms and tasted her mouth with his, sharing her breath and some of her spirit.
He finally let her go, and she felt lightheaded, as if she had stood up too fast or spun around in a circle too many times, and everything inside of her was spinning. Taking his arms from around her, he stood up and shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I have the hardest time resisting you. That electricity is still there for me.” He sighed and slid his hands into his pants pockets.
She stood up beside him and looked up into his warm brown eyes. “I know. “
Dane lifted his brows. “Can you feel it too?” he asked breathlessly.
“Every moment that we are together,” she answered him honestly. She didn’t even regret saying it; it was the truth, plain and simple.
Dane nodded, and with visible difficulty, he turned from her and walked away, and she followed him. They saw a little more of the temple and the grounds, and then got back into the car and headed into Kailua for their business lunch.
He stopped at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a back street a few blocks from the center of town, and they got pulled pork meals to go. Then, he drove them to Lanikai beach, where the sand was like white powder from heaven, and they sat together on a big blanket beneath a tree that hung far out over the beach and gave them shade as they watched the waves rolling in.
They were halfway through lunch when she looked at him and frowned. “Hey, I thought you said we were going on a business lunch today.” She was confused that they hadn’t met anyone else, though she wasn’t about to complain about the great time they were having. Even the tension between them seemed to have abated enough that they were relaxed and enjoying one another’s company.
He laughed and nodded, almost as if he had just remembered it himself. “Oh, yeah. So, we’re flying out to New Zealand on Friday.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?” she asked with wide eyes and a pounding heart.
“Yeah, it’s your plan. Your expansion plan. You and I are going to New Zealand to check it out on Friday. It’s a long flight. I thought we’d make a long weekend of it. Plus, I haven’t been there yet, have you?” he asked, taking another bite of his lunch.
She shook her head, astounded. “No, I haven’t been there yet.”
“Great, then we’ll go get a good look at it. I thought we’d take the company jet.” He smiled widely at her, and she could not help but laugh at him.
“Wait, this is your idea of a business lunch?” She shot at him with a teasing laugh. “To take me out for pulled pork and sit on the beach and tell me we’re going to New Zealand?”
He shrugged lightly. “Yeah, that’s about it.” He chuckled then and gave her a mischievous look. “It was the only way that I could get you out of the office with me.”
She laughed at him again, and they finished the rest of their lunch. With it gone, they walked along the water line, letting the small waves wash up on their feet. The water was aquamarine blue, and it felt like she was dreaming again, it was so beautiful. He held her hand as they walked, their fingers entwined, and though she knew she shouldn’t do it, she let him, just as she let him take her into his arms and kiss her long and slow when they had reached a far end of the beach where no one else was around. She loved the feeling of being in his arms and kissing him. It still felt to her as if the whole world had vanished away, and there was nothing left in it at all but just the two of them.
After a long afternoon, he took her back to the office, and she felt a sense of bubbling joy, almost to the point of giddiness, and nothing could take the smile from her face. She felt as if she was walking on air and glowing, all at once. Tia didn’t say anything, but she smiled wide when she saw Nicole, and she gave her the new messages and then later on she bid her goodnight and left. Nicole left shortly after Tia did, going home still sailing on her pretty cloud of bliss.
Jeffrey didn’t see anything really unusual about her, though he did ask her if she had a good day, and she beamed when she said yes, she had a great day, and she left it at that. He seemed preoccupied with his interests in Pono, and she let him enjoy those while she enjoyed her own.
She slept with sweet dreams in her head, dreams of beaches and kisses and travel and his hot hard body against hers, making her feel more pleasure than she ever had. She woke with a smile still on her face, and it didn’t fade until she walked out of the elevator the next morning and saw Paul sitting there just a few feet from Tia’s desk, and Tia sitting behind her desk with a renewed scowl barely hidden in her expression.
“Paul!” Nicole exclaimed in surprise as she stopped almost in mid-step. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled and stood up out of his chair, grinning at her as he walked over to her with his arms outstretched. She let him hug her, and then she stepped back to avoid any further advance from him.
“I came to see my girl!” he began with a friendly tone.
She sighed and leveled her gaze at him. “Paul, we talked about this. I’m not your girl.”
Turning from him, she began to walk to her office. She knew that whatever he was there to talk with her about, it would be subject matter that she didn’t want the whole office to know. She and Tia only had one part of the office. There were other employees, other secretaries, and other people coming and going from the main area where they were, and she didn’t want any of them to hear her conversation with Paul.
He followed her like a puppy into her office and took a seat at her desk as she closed the door behind them.
“Oh good! You got the roses that I sent you!” He looked completely pleased about it, seeing them sitting in the crystal vase on the table behind her desk.
“Yes, I did. That was sweet, Paul, and thank you, but you shouldn’t have done that.” She sat down with a soft sigh and wished that he wasn’t sitting in front of her.
“Yes, I should. I should have done a lot of things differently, and I am here to make up for what I haven’t done right. I’m going to do it all right this time. You’ll see. I’m going to win you back. You are going to be my girl again. Now please, come to dinner with me. Give me a chance here, okay?” he implored, his eyes searching her face.
She looked away from him. “I said I would go.”
“Great!” He looked as if he might have just won the lottery. “Can I pick you up at your house? Tonight? I’ll need the address of course.”
Nicole shook her head. “No, I’ll meet you. Where do you want to go?”
“I was thinking we could go to Duke’s.” He looked hopeful. “I hear it’s some of the best on the island.”
“Sure. That’s fine. I’ll meet you at Duke’s.” She resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get out of it.
“At seven?” he asked as he stood up, his eyes still on her.
“See you at seven, now please… Paul, I have to get back to work.” She felt a little guilty about her defensive mood toward him, and she gave him a little smile. “Go explore the island and have some fun, and I’ll see you later. Have a good day.”
His face was alight with joy. “I’ll do that! See you tonight.” He walked backward toward the door and didn’t turn away from her until he had to walk out of the room. Paul waved, still smiling at her, and then he left.
She dropped her face into her hands and groaned, wondering how anyone had the patience to deal with more than one man at a time. Putting the awkward morning behind her, she turned her attention to her work, and in no time at all, the day slipped right past her, and before she knew it, it was time to go.
Opting for the nice side of casual, Nicole wore a dress that buttoned up the front. The hem lay just below her knee, and the sleeves were just above her elbow. Her hair was in a braid down the back of her head, and she slipped her feet into stylish sandals. She wanted to look nice without drawing any more of his attention.
At seven that evening, she walked into Duke’s and found him waiting for her. He rose quickly from his seat by the door and grinned at her, giving his head a shake.
“You look incredible, but then you always do. Even first thing in the morning. I miss that. Seeing you first thing in the morning.” He looked wistful for a moment, as if he was longing for that moment to suddenly become a morning for them.
“Did you get a table?” she asked, keeping him on topic.
He nodded. “Yes! Yes, I did. Let’s go sit down.” He smiled again, and they were taken to a table with a little bit of privacy. She was grateful for that.
When their drinks were ordered, she turned their conversation to the serious matter at hand.
“Paul, I’m not really sure what it is that you’re doing or why you’re in Hawaii, but you can’t keep coming by the office and pressuring me to come back to you.” She said it as kindly as she could, but she could see that it was a blow to him.
He looked sad for a long moment. Then, with a shake of his head, he leaned toward her and spoke in a low voice. “Look, Nicole, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer to you. I want you back. I love you. I want to live with you.”
She closed her eyes for a second and sighed, making herself take a deep breath before she spoke again. “I know you said that, and that’s not what I meant. I mean… why. Why are you doing all this? Why does it suddenly matter now? Why didn’t it matter back in San Francisco when I took the job and you freaked out and said I had to choose the job or you, and when I chose the job and asked you to move here with me, just weeks ago, you wouldn’t hear a word about it! You wanted no part of this new life.
Now, all of a sudden, you’re here and you’re begging me to give you another shot and take you back, and you have no greater wish that to be with me and move in with me! How on earth could everything have changed so much in a matter of weeks that you’re suddenly willing to change your whole life, when you were dead set against it before? Why does it matter now all of a sudden when it didn’t matter at all before?”
It was the most frustrating, confounding thing to her, and she couldn’t stand the confusion.
His eyes widened, and he looked as if he had been shot with adrenaline. “I didn’t realize then just how much I love you and how much I need you! I know it sounds awful, but I guess I just got so used to having you around that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and then all of a sudden, you were gone, and there was nothing but emptiness. I don’t like the emptiness and I don’t want it. I want you. I want things back the way that they were before or better. I can make sure that it’s better,” he vowed seriously.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “So, you’re willing to totally relocate when you flat out refused before.”
He nodded. “Well, yeah, I mean it’s a big move. Huge. It’s an enormous sacrifice for me to leave California behind. All of my friends are there, my home is there, my whole life is there! Coming here meant that I would have to give that all up, and I just wasn’t ready to do that.”
Nicole arced one eyebrow. “And now, you’re suddenly ready to make that enormous sacrifice just to be with me, when I didn’t mean enough to you to make that same sacrifice just weeks ago, and now I suddenly mean enough to you that you are willing to drop your whole life and make that sacrifice.” She didn’t believe him at all, but she didn’t think she should say it to him.
“Yes!” he replied emphatically. “Yes! I am so ready to make that sacrifice for you now because now I know just how much it sucks that you’re gone. Now, I know what I had when I had you and us, and it’s all gone! I mean… I am miserable!” He leaned even closer and searched her eyes. “Aren’t you miserable?” he implored.
She stared at him. She could see that he meant it. He really did mean it, and reality closed in on her. She wasn’t miserable without him. She wasn’t unhappy without him at all. There was no heartbreak. There was no sadness. There wasn’t even a shadow of disappointment. There was less than that. There was nothing. He was miserable, and to her he could have been just another stranger on the street.
She couldn’t say it to him, though. Not to this man who was sitting on the edge of his seat before her, hoping, wishing that she would take him back. It would be cruel. She had to think of some other answer.
Nicole could not hide the impatience in her voice. “Paul… look. I’ve just started a new job, the biggest job of my life. So, I’m busy with work. I’ve just moved into a new house, and Jeffrey is here with me, so that’s been an adjustment, and we’re working all that out, and I’m trying to get settled into my new home, and I just haven’t had time to think about anything to do with us or our past.
We broke up, Paul. I put it behind me. I moved on. We’re done. I don’t have the time or the energy to mope about overanalyzing all of the troubles we had and add all that romantic drama to my plate. I have a whole new life going on here. I have been focusing on building that.”
It was mostly true. The part that she had left out was that he no longer mattered to her. He hadn’t mattered to her in a while, but she hadn’t brought herself to the point where she could admit it until it was time to make the choice about changing her whole life for the job in Hawaii. If he had mattered to her at that point, she might not have gone, but it was because she was already over him and didn’t realize it that she was able to take the job and walk right out the door of a six-month relationship without really batting an eye.
Panic flooded his eyes. “Are you seeing someone else? Is that it?” he asked, his heart in his throat.
She shook her head. “No, I’m not seeing anyone else. Didn’t you just hear what I said about how busy I am building my new life? I’m too busy for that! Everything is up in the air, and I’m working to pin it all down right now.”
“You’re going to have time,” he told her earnestly. “You’re going to have some time soon to think about it all, and when you do, you’re going to realize that you do miss me. You’re going to think about me all the time and miss me, just like I miss you, and when that happens, I am going to be right here, ready and waiting to romance you right back into my arms again and win you back. I am going to do it. You will be mine again. My girl.”
“I’m not your girl, Paul, and the reason I’m not your girl is because you made the decision to break up with me rather than coming here with me. This ended relationship between us? It’s because you ended it. You’re sitting there saying that you miss me, but we’re done because that was the choice that you made, not me. My choice was that you move here with me, but you didn’t want that, and you didn’t want me. So, we’re done.” She leaned back in her seat and sighed, crossing her arms over her chest.
He lifted his chin as if he was accepting a challenge. “Okay. All right. I’ll own that. I made a big mistake, but even if I have to start from scratch to fix this, I’m going to. I won you once. I can do it again.”
She sighed and shrugged. “Look, I can’t stop you. You do what you think you have to do, but I’m asking you now to give me some space. I can’t have you around all the time, coming to the office, trying to come after me like you are. I already told you, I have a new job and a new home and a brand-new life that I’m trying to build, and I do not have time for old flames trying to rekindle in my life.” She hoped that she had made herself crystal clear.
“Nothing is going to stop me.” He looked as if he had been handed a torch, and it might be his life’s mission to complete his set task.
“Look, Paul… I’m sorry, but I’m just not hungry now. We’ve talked, and we had drinks, but I need to go. I can’t stay here and keep hashing this out like this. Thank you for the drink.” She stood up. They hadn’t ordered their food yet, and she knew that if she was going to go, it was the best time to do it. Cut the night short with a swift, clean cut.
He looked crestfallen, but he accepted her choice and walked her out to her car, kissing her cheek before she left.