Chapter 22
NATHAN
Yet another weekend spent working all of it; it’s now Monday and I feel like I could go back to my bed for several hours. But I can’t do that as I have upcoming cases to prepare for.
“You need to relax.” Arianna steps into my office as I slam the lid of my laptop shut.
“What I need is for Hargreaves Pharmaceuticals to admit they had manufacturing errors that led to the contamination of their medication.” I drag my hands down my face.
“There’s more chance of you going on vacation to Mars. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Alert now, I sit up straighter.
“You need something to help you chill out, Nathan.”
“I need to work.” I can’t leave.
“Which you can do later, but first I want to take you somewhere. You don’t need your jacket.” She exits my office and before I’m on my feet she’s telling Joseph to take messages if someone calls and not to transfer any to my cell.
“I’m waiting for Franklin Edwards to call me.”
“He can wait.” Arianna picks up her desk phone to make a call. “Hey, Jenkins, could you get the car ready, please?” She waits for his reply. “Great. Be down in five.” Replacing the handset, she waves to Joseph. “We’ll be back soon.”
“Soon? How soon is soon?” I can’t afford to take any time off today.
“A couple of hours. Maximum.”
“Two hours?” That’s a long time out of my working day.
“Stop questioning me. Just trust me.”
Standing on the other side of her desk, I rest my hands on my hips, eye the ceiling and curse under my breath. Arianna has been sent to me from the big man above to test my patience, I’m sure of it.
“Then I can come back to the office?” I ask, like the fucking pussy I am, because I can never say no to her and part of me is curious as to what she has planned.
“Yes.” She winks, fucking winks at me.
How can I refuse? She’s irresistible.
“This is your plan?” I push my sunglasses up my nose.
“Yes, a walk on the beach will help you destress and unwind.”
“I’m not making sandcastles.”
“Neither am I. What we are going to do though”—she pulls two bottles of water out of the back of the limo and hands them to Jenkins—“is walk, chill, and talk. But not about work. Cell phone.” Laying the palm of her hand out flat, she does a gimmie gesture with her fingers.
“I’m not giving you my cell.”
“Give it to Jenkins then. Here’s mine.” She passes her cell to Jenkins. “We’re having a digital detox.”
“I’m never without my phone.”
“And that’s half your problem, Nathan.” Head tilted to the side in challenge, she smiles with satisfaction as I hand Jenkins my cell. “You have too many clothes on.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised by her admission. Judging by the way her lips curve up, it’s clear what I’m amused at.
“Shoes and socks off, and roll up your pants,” she clarifies, pointing to my feet.
“What?”
“Just do it, Nathan. We’re going to dip our toes in the ocean.”
“I’m not doing that in the middle of the day.” Who the fuck has time for this bullshit?
“Yes. You. Are.” Before I can argue, she steps toward me then does something most unexpected. She undoes my tie in the same way she did the first night we had sex, only this time she’s not sucking my tongue into her mouth.
Pity.
It’s as if someone’s punched all the air out of my lungs; being this close to her makes me want to kiss her.
“Much better,” she says, removing my tie completely then unbuttoning the top two buttons of my dress shirt.
I gulp, remembering everything we did on that first night, feeling hotter than before under the Californian sun.
She bends and slips her shoes off her feet. “I’m glad I didn’t wear silk stockings today.”
So am I. My mind wanders off, trying to work out what color panties she has on under her pale pink dress today.
White, I hope.
“Thanks, Jenkins.” Arianna takes a bottle of water from him, replacing it with her heels and my tie.
“Roll your pants up and grab your water.” She breezes past me and in the blink of an eye she’s walking down over the golden sand toward the shoreline.
“Just go with the flow, Nathan,” she shouts, not looking back.
“Sir?” Jenkins breaks my mesmerized ogling at the woman who is sliding into my every thought and my heart more and more as the weeks go by. ’Cause she’s fucking sneaky like that.
“She’s not going to back down on this, is she?” I ask him quietly.
“I would suggest you ‘go with the flow,’ sir.”
This is a conspiracy, I’m sure of it.
Exasperated, I take my shoes then my socks off and roll my pants up, before taking my water from Jenkins and running down the beach to catch up with Arianna.
That’s right, I’m fucking chasing after her, at two o’clock on a Monday afternoon, when what I should be doing is working.
What the hell is she doing to me?
I feel like I’m playing hooky.
“So what do we do now?” I ask, almost out of breath. I shove my bottle of water into my pocket so I can free my hands and roll up the sleeves of my shirt.
“We walk.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, Nathan, it’s called enjoying the view, taking a breather, having a break.”
I look out over the ocean. “Were you sent from hell to annoy me?”
“Nope, I was sent to you to show you that there is more to life than working.”
There’s a lot of truth in that.
In silence we stroll up the long stretch of sand, and I enjoy watching Arianna dipping her toes into the water and rubbing the sand between her perfectly manicured toes.
She loves the beach.
“Do you do this often?” I already feel less tense. She was right; this is exactly what I needed today.
“At least twice a week. We have some of the best beaches in the world right on our doorstep. Are you telling me you don’t come down here at the weekends?” She motions to the ocean and the crashing waves that make the sand fizz along the shore.
“Never.”
“Well, that needs to change. You need to add more down time into your crazy schedule.”
I need to add her into my schedule, and the ball can’t come quick enough.
“From now on, I’m going to block out time for relaxation into your calendar,” she declares confidently.
“I play tennis on Saturday.” Isn’t that enough?
“That’s an adrenaline rushing activity. What you need is something to help you decompress and sleep better.”
She must have overheard me complaining to my mom on the phone earlier that I didn’t sleep well again last night.
“Okay. Do it,” I agree.
“Great.” Her smile has an air of mischief about it.
What the hell am I letting myself in for?
“Besides walking the beach, do you have any hobbies?” I ask. Having spent dinner with her the other evening, I want to unpeel even more layers to her life.
“When I was younger, I was a gymnast and I was great at Beam, and while I can’t do it anymore, I still try to go to the gym a few times a week. I’m not into watching sports, but when the Olympics are on, I watch it all.”
Interesting.
She adds, “I love watching fantasy movies and reading romance novels. Romantasy is my favorite.”
“Romantasy, what’s that?”
“Romance and fantasy mixed together.”
“Do they have a happy ending?” I ask, intrigued by her love of romance novels.
“The ones I read do, yeah.”
“Do you believe in happy ever afters?”
“I believe we all deserve one, only some of us don’t believe we are worthy or that we will ever find our one true love.” She stops walking, takes a sip of her water and looks out across the horizon to watch the handful of surfers riding the waves.
“Do you think you deserve love, Nathan?” Her voice is full of wonder.
“I didn’t think so until recently.” That’s the truth.
“What changed?” she asks, not looking my way.
“Someone came into my life and made me question everything.” It’s crazy and it sort of annoys me. It all happened a bit fast and hit me without warning.
“Is she special?”
“Very.”
“Do I know her?” she fishes.
“Extremely well.”
“Is she staff?”
“Yes.”
“Pity, she could have been your one chance at playing out the perfect office romance. However, if you really meant what you said about burning down the world for her, are you also burning your self-inflicted law around not dating staff?”
“I make the rules, Arianna, and I burned it, it’s gone. I don’t think that way anymore.” Not since her. I mentally torched it for her. Only her.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I give her a little head space.
Eventually she says, “She might need some time to think about his offer of never letting her go, because it all sounded a bit overwhelming.”
“I’m an all or nothing guy, Arianna.” I love the way her name rolls off the tip of my tongue, and I love saying it.
“And what are you going to do, make him sweat first while you consider what he said? Although, it doesn’t have to be anything serious, or overwhelming.
It could just be a bit of fun?” I backtrack on my loose tongue from the records room.
What the hell was I thinking? Clearly, I wasn’t.
But I feel myself smiling, my heart blooming in my chest. I knew she was playing with me and I know she wants me as much as I want her.
But if she needs time, that I can give her.
I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone special like her.
She scares the shit out of me, but at the same time, I see myself with her.
Something I never saw coming.
“I might have been drunk when I said those things.” My cover-up is terrible.
“Sure you were.” She rolls her eyes at my lie.
And there is no one else I would leave work midafternoon to walk on the beach with.
She’s changing me, giving me a different perspective on my life, and I like it.
I clear my throat, feeling a million degrees hotter than I was, and change the subject. “Did you get a dress for the ball?”
“It’s gold.” She sighs, sounding blissed out. “It’s beautiful.”
She’s beautiful. “I can’t wait to see you in it.”
“Well, if the rules about not dating staff no longer apply, you might just see me out of it.”
Fuck me to hell.
“But first, we have to get back to work. I have some appointments to make for you.” She’s already five steps ahead of me and strolling back up the hot golden sand toward the car.
“What kind of appointments?” I already hate myself for allowing her to book relaxing shit for me to do, but I follow her anyway.
“You’ll see.”