17. I’m supposed to go straight to him and kiss him
I’m supposed to go straight to him and kiss him
Vicky
Lottie squeezed my wrist under the table again, but I couldn’t drag my gaze from beyond the conference room, because he was right there .
Felix cleared his throat.
“Vics? You had the figures on that? Did you want to…?” Felix trailed off as I stood up from my seat, turned on my heel, and practically ran out of there.
Mike’s eyes widened as I burst through the double doors and headed straight to him.
I didn’t stop until I’d grabbed onto the front of his flannel shirt with my body against his, tilting my head back to look up at him.
“Hi,” he said with a bemused smile as he stared down at me, and his arms closed around me, pulling me closer.
“Hi,” I breathed, then went up on tiptoes to try and press my lips against his, but he was too tall.
Seeing my intention, Mike closed the distance, dipping his head to kiss me.
It was brief and closed-mouthed, but just like everything with Mike, it was completely fantastic.
Being in Mike’s arms, surrounded by his warmth and his clean, woodsy scent was better than anything I’d ever experienced. Better than making my first million, better even than hedgehogs. It was everything. He pulled back slightly to smile at me, and that was fantastic as well.
“What meeting did you just walk out of in there?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It’s a new development Felix is planning. I’m securing the investment for it.”
He glanced over at the wall of glass beyond us, where I knew everyone would still be sitting around the table. The negotiations were far from over.
Mike looked back at me, and gave me a squeeze.
“Baby, were you supposed to just walk out? Felix looks like he might have a heart attack.”
I frowned. “Of course I was supposed to. You said, remember?”
His eyebrows went up. “I said what?”
“You told me that when I greet you, I should come straight to you and kiss you.”
His arms gave me another squeeze, his body shaking with silent laughter as he leaned down to give me another brief kiss.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked in confusion. “Did I do the wrong thing?”
Mike glanced at the conference room again, then back at me.
“Nope,” he said in a smug voice. “This is perfect. Exactly right, love.”
I smiled up at him. I very much liked hearing that I had done the right thing, and I was finding that I responded very well to praise, especially when it came from Mike.
It had been three weeks since our first official date, and a whole week since I’d seen him again.
I’d missed him so much, I was worried that it might be an abnormal amount.
When I focused on something I never really managed to do it in half measures, and I was very focused on Mike.
All this waiting for sexual intercourse he seemed to insist on didn’t help matters. Nor did the fact that being with Mike was just so… easy.
He hadn’t once told me I was weird.
That first date, as soon as he knew I was uncomfortable in the restaurant he’d taken me to, he didn’t roll his eyes or call me a “fussy bitch,” both of which I’d experienced with other men in the past. No, we just up and left.
Since then, I’d come back to Little Buckingham again once to see him.
He’d offered to come up to London, but I wanted to see his cabin again.
This time, he made sure that I’d like the food.
When I told him that the fish and chip shop in the next-door village was one of the only options, he’d frowned at my apologetic tone.
“I bloody love fish and chips, sweetheart,” he told me firmly. “Got to say, I’m relieved as fuck that you’re not dragging me to those fancy shitholes your brother likes.”
We’d taken the fish and chips back to Mike’s comfy sitting room and eaten them from his beautiful coffee table, watching Britain’s Secret Hedgerows on the television.
Apart from the fact Mike still wouldn’t have sex with me, it was just about the most perfect evening I’d ever experienced in my life.
Lottie and Ollie’s ongoing dramas had taken up much of the following week.
Thankfully, they were back together now, which meant Lottie was back to smiling, and Ollie wasn’t ringing me twenty-four hours a day, asking her whereabouts, if she was okay, what she was eating, or how I thought he could earn her forgiveness.
Given my limited social and emotional intelligence, I had no idea why Ollie asked my advice on that score.
But even without my advice, Ollie had managed to win her back, and I was so, so relieved.
Lottie and Ollie were two of my favourite people. Just because I couldn’t express emotion in the normal way, didn’t mean I didn’t feel it. If anything, I felt too much, and I’d been devastated by their unhappiness, and my inability to do anything helpful to heal the rift.
With all that going on in London, and Mike’s huge projects he had to finish in Little Buckingham, there hadn’t been time to see each other.
But now, Mike was here in my office, and I was in his arms again, which I took as a very good sign.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Felix’s angry whisper-shout pulled me out of my Mike Haze.
“What do you mean?” I said, frowning at him.
He was standing next to Mike and me with his arms crossed over his chest, glowering at both of us.
Lottie was by his side, but she certainly wasn’t glowering; if anything, I would have guessed Lottie was trying to suppress a laugh—her lips were pressed together, and her shoulders were shaking.
This was good, because ever since her fight with Ollie, Lottie’s smiles had been few and far between.
“Vicky, we are in the middle of contract negotiations for a deal that’s been in the pipeline for months, championed by you .
I don’t know the numbers. I don’t even understand the numbers.
Nobody in that room does. That’s because no bastard can understand those numbers except you .
But then, you simply stand up at one of the crucial points in a very sensitive meeting, leave the bloody room like someone’s chasing you, then run out here to kiss this great big lug in front of the whole bloody conference room. ”
“Well, when I see Mike, I’m supposed to go straight to him and kiss him. He was very specific.”
Felix’s eyebrows shot up at this declaration as he turned to Mike. “That right, mate? You tell her to do that? Does Ollie know about this?”
Mike sighed. “Leave the Duke of Fuckingham out of this,” he told Felix.
“Leave him out of it? Listen up, carpenter-boy. You’ve been deliberately ignoring Vicky for months. What’s your game now? Neither Ollie nor I want her mucked about. So you better tread carefully. Understand me?”
“Look, I do understand what a dickhead I’ve been, believe me. But I didn’t have all the bloody information, did I?”
“I don’t think you’re a dickhead,” I told Mike, my voice annoyed.
He turned to me and smiled.
“I was a dickhead, love,” he said softly. “And Felix is right. I don’t deserve a chance with you, but I’m going to take it anyway.”
“I just hope you’re being careful with her, Mike,” Felix clipped.
“I am being careful with her,” Mike shot back. “Far as I can see, I’m about the only one who’s been proper careful with her for a bloody long time, mate .”
“Felix, why are you so cross?” I asked in total bewilderment. “Oh, of course. Sorry, I’m messing up the meeting, aren’t I?”
Felix’s expression softened as he turned from Mike to me. “Vicky, I’m not only angry about the meeting, although you do need to get your little genius arse back in there. I’m angry because I don’t want Mike messing you about if he’s not fully invested, and Ollie will feel the same.”
“B-but why do you care?” I blurted out. “I mean, I’m your business partner. Oh, is it because I might not be at peak performance?”
Felix was frowning at me now. “Vicky, I care about you. Surely you…” he broke off and rubbed the back of his neck—a sure sign of Felix’s discomfort. “Surely, you know I care about you?”
I bit my lip. This was one of those questions that Lottie would advise me not to answer.
“See what I mean, you tosser,” Mike muttered, giving me a squeeze and then setting me away slightly as he turned from Felix to me. “Go do your genius numbers stuff , love. I can wait with Lucy.”
I glanced over at the glass wall to Felix’s office to see Lucy in her window seat where she tended to hang out and write whilst her fiancé conducted his business.
She was grinning across at me and Mike, waving frantically with an excited expression on her face.
I managed a small smile and waved back, relief surging through me that the sight of me in her brother’s arms did not seem to be provoking anger.
Lucy was one of the few people who didn’t have a pecuniary interest in me and still wanted to be my friend. I put that down to her slightly quirky, extremely forgiving and unbelievably kind nature.
“Okay,” I said, a little sadness leaking into my tone.
I didn’t want to go back to the meeting. I wanted to stay with Mike. It was the first time I’d ever truly not wanted to work. Normally, work was really all I had, to be honest.
“Great,” Felix muttered. As we walked back to the conference room, he shoulder-checked Mike, which I thought was completely unnecessary.
“Well, that was interesting,” Lottie said in an excited whisper as we walked to the double doors. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with your brother.”
“Half-brother,” I corrected automatically.