Never Too Late

Chapter One

Sex with Cillian King was never anything less than gut-wrenchingly spectacular and today was no exception. He was laughing when he finally lifted his head, the sound a joyous melody that gouged a line into my chest with a blunt knife and waggled it around a bit.

Force of habit had me reaching up to brush a lock of sweat-dampened hair back from his brow. He beat me to it, tucking it behind his ear as he rested his elbows on either side of my head and gazed down at me. “You, Finlay Prescott, were like a man possessed today. What got into you?”

“Are you saying I’m not usually good in bed?”

His lips quirked up at the corners. “I’m saying no such thing. I wouldn’t dare. You’re usually a ten out of ten, but today…” He let out a low whistle. “Today, I’d give you an eleven. At least.”

Eleven out of ten . Cillian was never stingy with compliments. That’s what made the rest so difficult. Words were nothing without actions to back them up. At least that’s what my friends told me every time I spilled my guts about Cillian to them. Talk to him , they said. Tell him what he’s doing wrong.

Yeah, talk to him. They made it sound so easy. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried. I had, on more occasions than I could count. Cillian was always so in demand that interruptions invariably prevented me from speaking.

And if I was honest, I feared being laughed at, of him leveling me with an amused look and asking me what I’d expected when I’d hooked up with the CEO of an international company. He’d started it from the ground up and nurtured it into the hugely successful thing it was today, many of their clients household names. King Enterprises was his baby, his lifeblood, and I was just… Well, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was to him.

I’d thought I knew. I’d thought we were heading toward something long-lasting—until a nagging sense of unease had settled in. It had started off as a niggle, something easy enough to ignore. But then it had grown, pushing itself to the forefront of my mind and demanding to know why I was letting someone treat me the way he did.

Cillian bent his head to drop a soft kiss on my lips and I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping a hand around the back of his neck to make the kiss last longer. If this was the last time I ever got to kiss him, I wanted to remember it. I let my hand stray down his back as we kissed, following the ridges of Cillian’s spine until it turned into the swell of his arse. He had a body most men would kill for, a room converted into a gym in his swanky Knightsbridge flat at least partially to thank for that.

Thoughts of Cillian’s flat reminded me we weren’t there. Neither were we at my more modest flat where, in contrast to Cillian’s gym, I didn’t have so much as an exercise bike, never mind a spare room to stick it in.

I rolled my head to the side to take in the view. Even though the alcove hid the bed where we lay, I could still see the corner of Cillian’s huge mahogany desk. The bed was for when he pulled such long days that going home wasn’t worth it. He had everything here: clothes, a shower, a small fridge. None of those things stopped this from being his office. And the sad truth of the matter was that we’d had sex here far more times than we ever had in either of our respective flats, Cillian frequently squeezing me in between appointments. I let out a hiss as he reached down to pull out of me so he could get rid of the condom. “Sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

A slight furrow appeared on his brow. “For hurting you.”

Now, or in the past few weeks? Physically? Or emotionally? I didn’t say any of that. That conversation had been my whole reason for coming here today, but starting with such an antagonistic statement would do nothing but put Cillian on the defensive. We’d never argued. Probably because arguments required spending more time in each other’s company than we did. Whatever the reason, I intended to keep that record intact. I’d been silent too long, but Cillian gave no sign of having noticed, already off the bed and extracting a fresh suit from the cupboard where he kept spare clothes.

I swung my legs off the bed, sweat still drying on my skin. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Hmm…?” Trousers on and shirt buttoned, Cillian had a look of concentration on his face as he knotted his tie in the mirror.

I started putting on my own clothes. “I’ve been thinking of making some changes. In my life, I mean.”

That got his attention. Cillian’s hands fell away from his tie as he swung to face me. “Like what?”

I took a mental deep breath. “Lately, I’ve been feeling…” I paused as the phone on his desk trilled. Maybe he’d ignore it this time and I’d get to finish what I was saying.

Cillian held his hand up. “Hold that thought for a second. I have to take this. I’m expecting an important call.”

And there it was in a nutshell. Further proof, if any were needed, that the conclusion I’d reached in the last few days was correct. There would always be a call more important than what I had to say. And if not a call, a meeting. Or a client. I came bottom of the list, and I wanted… No, I needed to be top of that list. Not all the time. I wasn’t that selfish. But at least sometimes, and I didn’t think my expectations were that ridiculous. But I couldn’t recall a single occasion where he’d put me first. “Cillian,” I said, not even trying to keep the pleading out of my voice. “If I could just…”

He continued reaching for the phone and brought it to his ear. “One minute, sweetheart.”

The casually dropped “sweetheart” was like an arrow to the heart. Would he have stopped in the middle of fucking me if the phone had rung then? I wished I could say with any certainty he wouldn’t have, but I wasn’t sure. I finished dressing as he conversed quietly with whoever was on the other end of the line, only the occasional word reaching me with Cillian’s back to me. I glared at it, wondering if he’d sense it and turn. He didn’t.

“Yeah, I’ll hold,” he said, his voice louder. He did turn then, his gaze flitting from my fully clothed state to the still rumpled sheets. If he thought I was acting like his maid and making the bed before I left, then he was sadly mistaken. “It’s been too long,” he said, his gaze still on the sheets. “Two days is too long.”

“Four days, actually,” I corrected.

Whether it was the waspishness in my tone or the fact that I rarely corrected him on the differing way time passed in his world compared to mine, it had him frowning again. “Really?”

“Really,” I said. “We were supposed to have dinner on Wednesday, but you cancelled because something came up.”

Cillian grimaced. “That’s right. We had to reshoot the advert for one of our biggest clients. It was an emergency.”

“An advertising emergency,” I muttered. “Someone should have called an ambulance instead of you.”

Cillian frowned. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

I sure was making him frown a lot today. I shook my head before bending over to tie my shoe. “Nothing.”

“We’ll have dinner tonight!” Cillian announced. “I’ll take you to your favorite restaurant.”

With both shoes now tied, I straightened, a small kernel of hope growing in my chest. Perhaps over dinner we’d talk. I could ask Cillian to turn his phone off. The world wouldn’t end if clients and business associates couldn’t reach him for an hour or two. “My favorite restaurant?”

“The one in Covent Garden we went to a couple of weeks ago.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I knew the restaurant he meant, and it was far from my favorite. If I had to come up with one word to describe it, I’d go for pretentious, most of the food so tiny a morsel that I’d left the restaurant almost as hungry as when I’d arrived. I racked my brain for what had made Cillian think I liked it so much and came up blank. Still, it was spending time with Cillian that mattered. Whether that was in Burger King, or somewhere that cost considerably more. I opened my mouth to tell him dinner would be nice, but didn’t get so much as the first syllable out before Cillian swore under his breath.

He gave me an apologetic look and I already knew what was coming before he spoke. I knew because it had happened many times before. “I’ve just remembered I can’t tonight. I promised to sit in on the new campaign and give them my input. Sorry. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

And then tomorrow night, it would be something else. I couldn’t do it anymore. There was a time to admit defeat, and this was it. Cillian wasn’t going to change, and the talk would never happen.

I turned away as Cillian resumed talking on the phone, the foibles of his Irish accent becoming more pronounced in a way that usually made me smile. I had no smiles in me today as I stared at the sheets and replayed the way we’d fucked like bunnies only a few minutes ago.

Despite my earlier vow that I’d do no such thing, I moved to smooth and straighten the sheets. It wasn’t making the bed in my mind; it was erasing the memory that I’d come here to talk and, in my weakness, ended up in bed with Cillian instead.

“Do that,” Cillian said as he hung up the phone.

I seized my chance. “I’m thinking of changing jobs.”

“Yeah?” Cillian didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “I thought you liked what you do.”

“I did. I do.”

“Talk to Amrita.”

“Amrita?” Amrita was Cillian’s right-hand woman. Part personal assistant, part confidante. If it wasn’t for her being female and Cillian being gay, I might have wondered about the two of them given how close they were. “Why would I speak to Amrita?”

“Tell her what you’re looking for and she’ll sort something out for you. She has contacts in numerous fields. She’ll talk to them. Get you an interview. Grease the wheels, so to speak.”

“I don’t need her to—”

The phone rang again, Cillian snatching it up and offering a greeting before I got a chance to protest. Not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference. I studied him as he embarked on a conversation, his handsome features animated. Had he always been such a bad listener? I suspected he had and I just hadn’t wanted to see it.

Apart from the sex, this ‘relationship’ had been a car crash from the start. I’d thought I was a boyfriend on my way to being more. More fool me. Cillian didn’t have time for a boyfriend. He didn’t have time for anything except a fuck buddy, so that’s the category he’d neatly filed me under. And the frustrating thing was that I’d let him. What did I really know about him beyond what he did for a job, what his flat looked like, and what he liked to eat when he went to a restaurant?

Six months, and it was all surface level. What did that say about me? That all I needed was a hard body, good looks, and expensive gifts to fall in love? Because, despite his many faults, I’d fallen hard for Cillian King. It was just that sometimes that wasn’t enough. I’d learned that the hard way.

With nausea bubbling in my gut at my own naivety, I retrieved my jacket from where Cillian had thrown it in his rush to strip me out of my clothes. How long ago had that been? Ten minutes? Less? Now I came to think about it with this new spirit of enlightened honesty, sex always happened in a rush. Where was the extended foreplay? Where was the basking in the afterglow? If Cillian felt an ounce of what I felt for him, he’d be clearing his schedule for the rest of the day.

He was still talking on the phone, the sound nothing but background noise over the whirring of my brain as I beat myself up for being a doormat. My steps were automatic as I headed for the door, the path to outside clear in my head. I just had to get there. Fresh air would help. And not looking at Cillian. Looking at him would feed the tiny seed of doubt, the one that kept telling me to give it more time, that questioned what harm a couple more weeks would do when it had already been six months?

“Finn?”

My name was said with an air of confusion. I fought against the urge to keep walking as I turned with a bright smile on my face. “Yeah?”

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

I gestured at the phone still in Cillian’s hand. “You were busy. I didn’t want to interrupt.” My voice sounded flat, like every iota of emotion had been squeezed out of me.

Cillian must have heard it too, his face contorting into the third frown caused by me in the space of only a few minutes. Not having me in his life would be far better for his complexion. Too much time spent in my company and he’d end up with premature wrinkles. I almost laughed at the rather bizarre thought. I was the human equivalent of whatever the opposite to Botox was. Perhaps Cillian could come up with an advertising campaign for me. Used too much Botox? Face too expressionless? Spend some time with Finlay Prescott and he’ll reverse the effects in no time. How would it work? Would I have to move in with them? Given there was only one of me, I’d have to charge a hell of a lot for the service.

“I’m never too busy for you.” I did laugh then, Cillian’s frown deepening. “Are you alright?”

How to answer that when I was about as far from alright as it was possible to be? Maybe if I said no, this would be when we talked. Only, there was still someone on the other end of that phone. Someone who presumably could hear every word we said. And I no longer had the stomach for it. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, my throat thick. Clearing my throat helped. Enough that I could manage words. “I need to go. I have a…” Every single activity that had ever existed deserted me. “Yeah…” I spun on my heel and headed for the door.

“I’ll call you tonight. We’ll talk then.”

“Sure!” Despite the breeziness in my voice, my fingers had a slight tremble to them as I pulled the door open. Amrita raised her head from her desk outside, her expression knowing. One look at my face and it changed, though. “Are you alright, Finn?”

I forced a smile. “Never been better.”

She didn’t look convinced. “If you need to talk, I have time. We could go for a coffee. There’s a nice little place around the corner.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Well… you know where I am if you change your mind.”

My exit from the building from that point on passed in a blur until I was out in the fresh air I’d craved so much. Needing to put some distance between me and Cillian, I walked a block before sagging against the wall of a building. A bank? A baker’s? An undertaker’s. It could have been any of them for the amount of notice I took. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I stared at the screen for a few seconds before calling a number.

Jules answered with the name of the company on the third ring, his French accent thick.

“It’s Finlay,” I said. “Finlay Prescott. I’ve had time to think about your job offer.”

“Oh?”

I let out a slow breath. “If I haven’t kept you hanging on for too long and it still stands, I’d like to accept.”

“It still stands. When can you start?”

“As soon as possible.” My words came out in a rush. “I don’t know how long these things usually take.”

“I’ll speak to HR and we can get things rolling. They’ll email the contract to you this afternoon. We’ll help you with arrangements on this end as much as we can.”

“Great.”

“We look forward to welcoming you to Paris, Finlay. I’m sure you’ll add a lot to our team.”

Once I’d said goodbye and hung up, I leaned my head back against the rough brick to contemplate what I’d just set in motion. Although, that wasn’t quite true, was it? I’d set it in motion a couple of weeks ago when I’d applied for the job on a whim and gone through with the online interview. My defense, if questioned, would be that I’d never expected to get it. And when they offered me the job, I still planned to refuse it. Leaving my friends and moving to Paris was an enormous step. Except, I’d just accepted it. And once I signed that contract, my decision would be final.

No more London.

No more friends.

No more Cillian King.

And that was the driving force behind it. The only way to ensure a clean break where he couldn’t convince me otherwise was to put space between us. I figured two hundred and eighty-two miles should be enough.

True to Jules’ word, the contract came through within a couple of hours. I downloaded it, but left it on my computer screen without signing it, spending a nervy evening staring at my phone and waiting for it to ring. It stayed stubbornly silent, Cillian’s assurance that he would call me coming to nothing and not hurting any less for expecting it. Only once the minute hand had ticked into the following day did I electronically sign the contract and press the button that sent it winging its way to Paris. I’d waited for Cillian and he’d let me down. Again.

Before going to bed, I deleted all the photos I had of Cillian. I didn’t have many—photos required the subject to stand still long enough to take them. After ten minutes of weighing everything up and going through every eventuality, all of them seeming to end with me caving in to giving him another chance if I saw him or spoke to him, I blocked his number. Then I called my closest friend and asked if I could stay with her so Cillian wouldn’t know where to find me. It might be the coward’s way out, but I didn’t trust myself when it came to Cillian King.