“I wouldn't make you do the work,” she promised. “I'll give you a blowjob to get you started, and then before you come, I'll—”
“Renée, stop,” I interrupted. As hot as she was and as much as I enjoyed blowjobs, my dick barely stirred at the thought of it. I was just too stressed out about the Emma situation, and I really was worn out. “I don't want to see you tonight.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “You never want to see me anymore. I can hardly even get you to talk to me anymore.”
“I've just been busy,” I sighed. “That's what happens when you run a large company, especially when that large company is hoping to expand its offices.”
She still didn't respond, and I cast around in my head for something that I could say to placate her. I had already told her I was having something shipped to her from London. I should have saved that for later in the conversation.
“Why don't I take you out to dinner later this week?” I finally settled on. “We'll have a nice, romantic evening, just the two of us. And then we'll go back home, and I'll take my time getting you off. Tease you nice and slow, just like I know you like.”
“That sounds nice,” Renée finally said grudgingly. “Are you sure you can free up time in your busy, busy schedule for that, though?”
“I'll make time,” I promised. “Let me call around tomorrow and see where I can get us a table, and then I'll let you know.”
“Okay,”
she said.
“Just give me a couple days to decompress, hand over all the information to the guys at the office so that they can further the project along, and get some sleep. You know the sex will be better if I'm not half-dead with exhaustion at the time.”
“Just don't work yourself too hard over the next few days, then,” Renée said with a sigh.
“I won't,” I promised, even though I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep that promise. “I'll save up all my energy for you.”
Renée giggled. “You're going to need it. I've been thinking of some different things that we could do.”
“Oh, have you?” I asked, wearily amused by the mischievous note in her voice.
“I missed you,” she said simply in response.
“Well, I'll see you soon enough,” I promised.
“Good.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. I stared morosely down at the phone in my hands as we continued to make our way through the traffic and back to my house. I had a headache already, and I hadn't even made it home yet.
I didn't know what the state of things would be at home, once I got back. I had told Janice to only call me in case of emergency. Since she hadn't called, I assumed that everything had been fine. But I wondered whether Lexi had managed to find a job. I wondered how Emma was settling in. I wondered if they had brought all their things over from Lexi's friend's place.
Part of me hoped that she hadn't moved her things over yet. I was going to need to figure out what to do with her, and quickly.
I couldn't keep putting Renée off like that. She was jealous by nature, and I could only imagine the types of suspicion she must be feeling at the moment. She had to assume that my interest was waning. The last thing I wanted was for her to find out about Lexi and Emma on her own, but there was no way I was going to tell her about them either.
Best to just make the problem go away and kick it under the rug.
It wasn't as though I was in love with Renée. I knew I should be. She was beautiful and intelligent, although she tried to hide it, and driven to succeed. I liked all those things in a woman. Our sex was great as well. And she loved me. I knew that had to count for something.
But the longer I stayed with her, the more I realized that something was missing. She didn't excite me in the ways that I needed her to. If she were in Lexi's position, if we'd had a one-night stand and then gone three years without seeing one another, I doubted I would have remembered her name or what the sex was like.
That said, my relationship with Renée was the longest relationship that I'd ever managed to have. I had to figure that if I was going to fall in love with anyone, it was going to be Renée. I was just still waiting for that to happen.
My thoughts strayed again to my dad. They'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since Emma had come into my life. I wondered if my dad had ever loved my mother. Had he ever loved me or Katherine? Did he love the bimbo that he'd run away to the Bahamas with?
Maybe I was just as cold and emotionless as he was. Maybe I was never going to be able to feel love for someone, not Lexi, not Renée, not Emma.
It wouldn't be so surprising.
I swallowed hard as we pulled up in front of my house, already steeling myself for what was waiting inside. But the one bright patch in this whole thing was the thought of Emma's face when she saw the stuffed animal sloth that I had brought back for her. I couldn't help but smile, thinking of that.