Chapter 58
Gen
Alchemy feels different when I walk back in on Monday morning.
I suspect it’s that I’m different.
My time in France felt like far longer than four nights.
How could it not? Four days and nights wrapped around Anton.
Sleeping in his arms. Talking and kissing and fucking.
Devouring each other. Seeing one of the most beautiful places in the world through his eyes.
Letting myself be suspended from real life for a short time in a bubble of desire and hedonism.
How could I not feel like a different person after that?
The wrench I felt leaving his villa yesterday was agonising. But the atmosphere on the plane was lighthearted, especially because Max had stayed the weekend too and regaled us with hilarious tales of his rapacious French lover. Anton insisted on giving me a lift home.
And then he insisted on coming in.
And then he insisted on kissing me until I had to practically push him out the door to rescue his illegally parked driver.
And then he called me as I was getting into bed. It turns out he’s highly accomplished at phone sex.
No surprise there.
He really is a dirty bastard.
So I haven’t had much time to feel bereft. And he’s given me no reason to believe that the end of our crazy, Mediterranean fuck-fest marks the end of everything for us.
On the contrary, as he lathered up my hair in his huge stone shower yesterday morning, he explicitly told me I wouldn’t be getting rid of him.
I believed him.
So it’s with a happy heart and a spring in my step that I arrive at work. What I’m not expecting, as I walk into our front meeting room, is for four people to take one look at me and burst out laughing.
I put my Birkin down and cross my arms. ‘What?’ I demand in my sternest voice.
‘Holy shit,’ Cal says, getting to his feet, ‘I have never, ever seen an orgasm glow quite that good on anyone. They could see you from space.’
‘Fuck off,’ I tell him, but he wraps me and my crossed arms in a huge bear hug.
‘You look fucking amazing,’ he says into my ear.
‘I assume Maddy blabbed?’ I ask the room at large when he’s released me.
‘Sure did,’ she singsongs cheerfully.
‘Not that she needed to,’ Zach adds. ‘Your silence on Thursday and Friday spoke volumes. Usually you’re all over us when you’re away, nit-picking everything we’re up to.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say halfheartedly as I take my seat next to Rafe on the sofa. But I’m too happy to argue the point more aggressively.
‘You look fab,’ Rafe says. ‘Clearly it was sunny over there.’
‘Yeah, the weather was beautiful. We got a bit of sunbathing in.’ Between being tied up on boats and the rest of it.
‘Oooh!’ Maddy shrieks. ‘We. You hear that? They’re already a we.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Grow up, for God’s sake. Who’s made me a coffee?’
‘We didn’t know if you’d make it in this morning,’ Zach points out, ‘or if you were too busy shagging.’
‘Pot.’ I glare at him and Maddy, who’s practically sitting on his lap. ‘And kettle.’
‘Give the woman a break,’ Cal says.
I turn to him. ‘Thank you. I knew I liked you.’
‘Seriously, though,’ he says. ‘Tell us everything. And I don’t mean the venues. You had a good time with him, yeah?’
I let my head fall back against the sofa. ‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ I say. ‘It was the best long weekend of my life.’
* * *
I haven’t heard from Anton yet this morning, which is quite understandable.
After all, the guy has a global business empire to run and an EA to redistribute, at his insistence.
Still, I’m feeling disgustingly needy and uncharacteristically co-dependent.
It’s only natural after such an intense few days together—we went from nought to sixty in the space of a single evening—but I still despise myself.
Sometime after twelve, as I’m sipping what I tell myself will be my last espresso of the day, the doorbell rings.
Maddy, like the good little girl scout she is, scampers off to answer it with Norm plodding behind her.
She comes back through the double doors to our desk area, eyes wide and the biggest smirk on her face.
‘Flower delivery for you, Gen,’ she says.
I don’t have time to ask her where the flowers are, because hot on her tail is none other than Anton, looking tanned, gorgeous, and uncharacteristically bashful. He stops in the doorway, his arms full of an enormous bouquet.
‘Afternoon,’ he says with a nod at the room in general.
‘Hi!’ I squeak in a voice so uncool that Cal actually sniggers as I jump up from my desk.
I shoot him daggers and round my desk, stopping in front of Anton as the others sling casual greetings his way.
Before anyone can do anything embarrassing, I usher him out into the front room and pretty much slam the double doors shut.
As soon as I do, he backs me up against them, looming over me and looking so tall and broad and hulking that I feel a little swoony.
I look up at his handsome, bronzed face and I just fucking beam at him, because he’s in my office, and he’s brought me flowers, and I’m done trying to act cool around him.
‘When Genevieve Carew gives me a smile like that,’ he says softly, dumping the beautiful bouquet unceremoniously on a side table and closing the gap between us, ‘it makes me think I must have done something right in my life.’
And then he’s tugging me into his arms and kissing me, and I finally understand why smelling salts have their place, because I’m swooning so hard that if he lets me go, I may slide to the floor in a pathetic, love-sick pile.
But he doesn’t let go.
He bands one arm more tightly around my waist and clamps the other one around my neck in such a way that he drags his thumb and forefinger down the skin there, and I’ve never felt anything better.
His mouth is firm on mine, his tongue warm, and I swear when he slides it into my mouth it makes me want his dick inside me.
I abandon myself to him. To our kiss. I’ve never been one of those dainty women men can sling over their shoulders or pick up with one arm.
In fact, my mother has distinctly referred to me as ‘a big girl’ on more than one occasion.
But he’s so massive, and protective, and so fucking alpha that right now I feel positively waif-like.
‘Last time I was here you kissed me on the cheek,’ he whispers against my mouth when we finally break our kiss, ‘and it was the first time I really felt like I had a chance with you.’
It’s an oddly chaste, poignant, thing for someone as overtly sexual as him to share, and it may just finish me off. It’s also too generous a gesture on his part for me to leave him hanging.
‘I’ve never spent a second in your company without torturing myself over what it would be like to kiss you,’ I confess, and I feel, rather than see, that sensual mouth curve into a grin.
‘Glad to hear it.’ He smacks my arse.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
He pulls away and surveys me. ‘Well, there’s no one to fuck at work anymore, so I thought I’d come over.’
I smack him ineffectually on his formidable bicep.
‘Ouch. Too soon?’
My only reply is a goofy smile.
‘I missed you,’ he says, ‘and I wanted to see if you missed me, or if you’d moved on like the callous little ice queen you are.’
‘I think we both know you melted her a few nights ago,’ I admit.
‘Yes, we do. And I wanted to deliver these in person.’ He picks the bouquet up again and holds it out to me, clearing his throat. ‘They felt more appropriate than camellias, given you’re no longer pretending to be all proper and buttoned-up.’
They are a stunning hand-tied bunch of early season white peonies, blousy and luscious and imperfect and undone.
The man is a master of symbolism, and I’m so touched I can barely speak.
‘They’re perfect,’ I tell him softly. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ll have to leave them here tonight,’ he says, ‘because I also wanted to ask you to dinner. I’d like to cook for you.’