Chapter 4
CLARK
I’m going to kill him. Actually. Not just a half-baked attempt.
I’m going to kick his arse for this. It’s one thing that Teddy and I joke around and prank each other, but this…
This is not funny. I want Dayna back, I know that now, and after the industry dinner last week when she made clear by swapping the place cards on the tables to sit as far away from me as possible that it’s going to be a long road.
Pissing her off by gatecrashing her birthday is going nowhere towards where I want to be.
Teddy waited until we were through security, then casually dropped it in to conversation, and only because I prompted him by asking who else was coming.
I should have left then. Turned around and walked out of the airport.
But the screwed-up thing is there was a small, tiny part of me that thought this might be a good idea. Idiot.
I flag a flight attendant and order a Bloody Mary, then I sit back in my seat.
It’s tough shit now. I’m in this whether I like it or not.
And, hey, if I feel like it’s all going pear-shaped, I’ll just ski and drink.
I’ll be polite and avoid her, and hopefully I won’t do any irreparable damage to my cause.
I flick through the selection of programmes on my TV and select a Bear Grylls series, trying to keep my eyes forward and ignore my body’s reaction to sitting just feet away from the only woman in the world who really gets my blood pumping.
I’m just about to hit play when I hear a sound.
A whimper, or hum, maybe a groan. I recognise it immediately.
There’s a good chance I imagined it. But I watch Dayna across the empty seat between us.
She’s licking her lips, a sight that makes my cock half-stiff.
I lean back so I can see her screen and catch a glimpse of the movie she’s viewing.
She’s watching a couple get down to business. I didn’t imagine that sound at all.
The flight attendant leans over me to offer her a snack, and I snap my focus forwards, hoping neither woman noticed the colour in my heated cheeks.
I take out the duty-free mag to hide my semi-on.
Sitting so close to my greatest temptation, knowing what she’s feeling…
it’s too much. I jump up and head for the toilet.
I don’t even need to take a leak, but I do need to get a handle on my fucking testosterone.
I brace my palms on the sink and stare at my reflection.
So maybe I use this weekend to convince her I’m not Satan’s protégé, which, arguably, I am.
It’s a mountainous task. Somehow, I just don’t think, Hey, Dayna, sorry I crashed your thirtieth and sorry I broke your heart.
Can we be together now? is going to cut it.
What am I doing here? This is insane. That face, that body, the sound of her fucking erotic moan.
My breathing thickens. I move my hand to my hardening dick and close my eyes to see the plump flesh of her red lips.
The smooth skin of her breasts. Her small, tight nipples.
I rub my crotch, remembering moving into her, remembering the feel of my cock moving inside her.
There’s an exaggerated, impatient cough outside the door. Shit. Now I kind of do need a piss, but there’s not a hope in hell of going unless I’m keen to redecorate the place. I think of anything. Everything. My sister. Fuck, that’s wrong. My brother. Better. My mother. That’s sick. Harold Layton.
Yep, thoughts of my dad will kill a hard-on.
I flush, give it twenty seconds, then head out.
‘Sorry, cleaning my teeth,’ I tell the suited man who stands outside the door, proverbial foot tapping.
* * *
What I’ve learned in the last two hours is that Dayna Cross and me in a confined space equals a disaster. Correction: a painful disaster. My cock feels like it’s been grated with heavy sandpaper from being pressed rock-solid against my fly.
We wait by the conveyor in Geneva Airport’s baggage reclaim. Spencer is talking to me about the latest documentary he’s making, but all I can think about is getting out of these goddamned jeans.
I shoot Teddy daggers across the belt – we’ll be having words – and jump to action when I see my ski bag coming out.
When the others have their luggage, we head into arrivals.
We’re greeted by a sign saying Layton, which is held by Hans, a six-foot-five hairy man who’s been the family’s chalet and ski manager for as long as I can remember.
‘Guten tag, Clark, Spencer.’
‘Hello, Hans.’
‘Are you ready, sir?’
I nod, and we follow him out to three four-wheel drives.
‘How’s the ski, Hans?’ I ask once I’m seated in one of the cars with Spencer, and Tim and Matty, who seem like decent guys.
‘Gut, sir. A lot of snowfall last night. Are you heading straight out?’
‘Too right we are,’ Spencer chirps from the backseat. He’s wedged between Tim and Matty, who are much broader and squeezing him into the middle seat. I banter with them at Spencer’s expense as we head out towards the mountains.
God, this feels nice. Laughing with my brother. Guy time. No work. No women. Easy.
We pull up at the chalet. The two other drivers start taking our kit bags inside as Hans gives me the keys and tells me a few things about the chalet, mostly bigging up his management skills. I don’t need to know it, but I shake his hand and drop him a twenty regardless.
My phone bleeps from the back pocket of my jeans to tell me I have an email. ‘All set,’ I tell the others as I retrieve the phone.
I see the subject heading on my screen and stop still.
Round One: Results.
I’m typing in my passcode when, from the corner of my eye, I see Dayna fumbling eagerly in her bag for her phone.
So she bid for the well, too.
We both stand at the bottom of the path as the others head up to the house.
My email takes a second to load, which makes me ratty and gives me another chance to glance at Dayna. Her eyes flick up to me. My guess is hers is loading too.
I scan the email. Instructions. Five bidders have been marked. The top three go through to the second round, where they’ll be given a chance to improve their bids or put forward an alternative bid. I click the spreadsheet attachment to the email and wait for it to open.
Dayna meets my eye again. She’s nervous. She should be. Everyone knows she’s done well to get SP back on its feet, but it’s also highly unlikely she has enough money to win a dogfight with the companies that have been invited to bid against her.
It loads.
The bidders are anonymous, not that I don’t know who they are, but I don’t know the order in which they’re ranked.
Bidder 5 – Incomplete. Rejected.
Bidder 4 – Rejected.
Bidder 3 – Proceed to round 2.
Layton Oil – Proceed to round 2.
Bidder 1 – Proceed to round 2.
So I’m in. In with a chance of proving my father wrong.
But my thoughts about that are drowned out by the question I’m desperate to know the answer to: is she in?
I watch her shaking fingers as she scrolls through the information I just read, and I wait for her reaction.
It comes. The faintest twinkling in those damn gorgeous browns.
She straightens her back, slips her phone back into her bag and heads up the path to the chalet. I can’t stop myself from smiling. She got through, I’m almost certain. And that swagger in her walk tells me she doesn’t want me to know it. She’s stubborn as hell but Christ, she’s hot.
I stride up close to her and state the obvious. ‘You bid.’
‘Looks like it,’ she says without turning.
‘And you’re through to the next round.’
‘If I told you, surely it would defeat the object of anonymous bidding.’
I snort.
She turns to face me, and I brace myself for a tongue-lashing.
‘Thank you,’ she says unexpectedly. ‘For this place. It’s… really nice.’
I don’t know why I look at the chalet, perhaps because staring at Dayna is just too intense.
But she’s right, it is nice. It’s more than nice; it’s a place I love.
The three-storey wooden structure towers above us.
Snow caps the roof and the railings of each balcony.
All ten bedrooms overlook the snow-covered mountains and the best route out of here: on skis, burning through the white plains, glorious sun beaming down on your cheeks, the reflection from the glittering snow blinding your eyes.
‘You’re welcome. And Dayna, just so you know, Teddy didn’t tell me you were going to be here.’
She turns her back on me. I guess that conversation is over.
She steps into the house and considers the open space: lounge, diner and kitchen separated by wooden posts that match the beams in the ceiling.
The log fire is roaring, and before it are sheepskin rugs spaced around the slate-tiled floor.
Her lips part slightly as she tips her head back and follows the spiral staircase, the skin of her neck pulled taut yet still pale and delicate.
‘Clark, I have put the equipment in the cloakroom. Where should we take the bags?’
I direct Hans to the nicest room, on the top floor with a king bed, and tell him to put Dayna’s things in there. I put Tim, Amy and Matty in rooms on the second floor with Spencer. Rachel, Teddy and Yvette take other rooms on the third floor with Dayna.
‘I’ll take the bedroom down here,’ I tell him. It’s out of the way of the others, the easiest to stagger into if I have one too many, and it’s got the biggest en-suite.
Dayna rolls her eyes. ‘I suppose we should thank you for sparing us from the noise.’
That’s what she thinks of me. Player. There are so many things I’d like to retort to her shitty remark, but I tense my jaw and literally bite my tongue. She follows Hans to the top floor.
I knew this would be an uphill battle but I’m starting to think I’m climbing fucking Everest.
I lug my gear to my room and unpack what I need to, then drop back onto the king bed to take a proper look at the email about the Persian Gulf well.