“I remember.” We were opening a small office in London to expand to new interests and reach more opportunities. “Do you need anything from me before your trip?”
“No, I have all the files. I should be there only for a month or so, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“Okay.”
Instead of leaving, he plopped himself in one of the lounge chairs across from me. “Now that that’s out of the way, you want to tell me what you’re doing with jailbait out there? I didn’t know we could hire people we wanted to sleep with.”
“I don’t want to sleep with her,” I growled at him.
“Okay,” he said with heavy sarcasm.
“He did go get her personally,” Jared chimed in, pulling my glare to him.
Ian pressed his hand to his chest and gasped like a damsel in distress. “What?”
Dragging a hand through my hair and over my face, I gave the rundown of the previous few days. Explaining how we found her and how I ended up bringing her home with me.
“What are you going to do now?”
I was getting annoyed with the questions.
“I don’t know. And please stop fucking asking.”
Both men sat across from me and stared with wide eyes. I always had a plan before I took action. This time threw me for a loop and no one in the room was used to me not knowing what the hell the next step was. The only thing I knew for sure was that I had her for a month. What I did with her during that month, I had no fucking clue.
Jared sat forward. “May I suggest a plan?’
At the moment, I would have taken advice from a psychic on a street corner.
I nodded and the more he spoke, the more I liked.
I just needed to get Alexandra on board.
7
Erik
“How old are you?” Alexandra asked from the passenger seat.
“Thirty-one.”
“That’s kind of amazing that you already own your own successful IT company and you’re already looking to branch overseas. Will you be moving to London?”
“No. We’re not quite sure what we are going to do. If Ian will go or if we’ll hire a business manager while we visit.”
“Did you always want to work in IT?”
I laughed. “No, actually. Ian and I played baseball growing up. He got picked up for college, but I had a pretty bad tear in my shoulder that required surgery my senior year.”
“Do you still play?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Not really.”
She’d been an endless fountain of questions since we’d left work. She’d begun her interrogation slowly when I’d seen her on her lunch break, asking only a few questions here and there. Each time I saw her as the day went on, she talked more, like being around other people—being able to focus on something other than the current situation had allowed her to relax. I assumed this was more of her everyday personality and I was surprised by how happy she seemed.
Nothing about what she told me about her life led me to imagine the girl currently rattling off her day in the seat next to me. She had a resilience I’d never seen before. At least not in the last five years.
The last girl I knew that was that positive had been snuffed out like a candle in the wind. And I missed her every day.
Thankfully the apartment came into view, halting that train of thought. Rather than pull into the garage, I stopped at the front doors.
“Are you not parking in the garage?”
“No. I’m dropping you off. I’ve already called the front desk and they have a key waiting for you. There should be enough cash on the counter to order whatever you want for dinner.”
She stared, wide-eyed and blinking. “You’re not coming in?” she asked, her voice almost childlike.
No. I needed to get out of there. Watching her be closed off and reserved was one thing. It made her look vulnerable and scared. But the chipper young woman I’d watched throughout the day, watching her smiles and easy interaction with everyone, was an entirely different beast I wasn’t ready to battle.
“No. I have dinner plans and probably won’t be home until late.”
“Oh.” Her eyes dropped and she nodded.
I could only imagine she assumed I had a date and I didn’t say anything to correct her. Throughout the day, her smiles had been increasingly directed at me. She began giving me soft looks that lingered rather than the hesitant nods and blank stares. I needed to squash any vision she may—or may not—be concocting in her head about me. It was better safe than sorry.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When she got out, I watched the black pants stretch over her round bottom. She looked thinner than she should which I can imagine was due to the lack of food. But she hadn’t lost any of her ass. I bit my lip, holding back the moan as I imagined her full ass only getting more plump and firm. The car door slammed, pulling me out of my daydream. Maybe I really needed her to think of me as an ass so she stayed away from me and removed any temptation.