Chapter 3
This was supposed to be a relaxing day. I expected to find myself slinking away from the others to sneak a peek at my emails and check the financial world hadn’t collapsed. But instead of relaxing or sneakily disappearing to check my inbox, I was distracted from real life, bracing myself and holding my breath with every corner I turned and room I entered, wondering if another encounter with the man from the bar was written in the stars. And if I would die of pleasure from the thrill. Because that’s what it was. A thrill, despite my not being able to perform basic human functions in his presence.
And it pains me to admit that.
“A few more laps?” Abbie says as we reach the indoor end of the indoor/outdoor pool.
“I’m not ready to go home yet,” Charley grumbles, her head firmly above water, not daring to get her hair wet. I appreciate it. I’ve had to wait while she dries it on the one day of the week she washes it. It’s a mammoth task, and all three of us have yet to find a blow-dry spray that actually speeds up the painful process.
“I need to catch my breath.” Charley holds on to the edge as I haul myself up and sit on the side. “How is work, anyway?” she asks, breathless. “Any closer to partner?”
“Hey, we agreed no work today.” Abbie joins me and scowls down at Charley where she’s bobbing in the water.
“No, you made that agreement with yourself.” I elbow her. “Humour me for a moment.”
“Fine.”
“It’s good. I’m on target and hoping to win a few more clients to beef up my portfolio.” Opportunities for partnership are rare, and this one was quite unexpected and came up much sooner than I anticipated after one of the senior partners was taken ill and decided not to return to work after doctors diagnosed a ministroke. I just need to accelerate my momentum and prove I’ve got what it takes. That means hitting targets. Actually, it means smashing them, and I’m on track. It’s a good thing, since the end of the financial year is looming.
“If I was stinking rich, I’d give you all my money,” Charley says, and I smile. “But I’m not, so I can’t.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
“Is that slimy prick still ruffling your feathers?” Abbie asks. “What’s his name?”
“Leighton Steers.” I grimace at the mere mention of him. “He’s my only competition to make partner, but he’s solid competition.” And ruthless. “I just need to stay one step ahead of him.”
“You’ve got this.” Abbie slaps my wet knee and slips back into the water. “Another few laps?”
“I’m in.” Charley pushes off the side of the pool.
“I might go in a steam room,” I say as they swim away, a nice, peaceful, steady breaststroke. I watch them disappear under the glass wall into the outside area. The pre-spring sunshine is strong. Mum always says March was historically dull before I was born. The sun today is backing her up, reflecting off the rippling water, casting arrows of light up every glass wall surrounding me. It’s unusually mild for this time of year.
I look up to the vaulted glass roof, where climbing plants twine around the steel beams that support the glass structure. A modern twist on a classic, I think, as I brush my wet hair back. It seems to be a theme around Arlington Hall. I plant my hands on the tile either side of my thighs and glance around. It screams tranquillity. The entire place.
Breathing out, I get to my feet, collecting a white Egyptian cotton towel from the wicker basket by the white glass door that leads into the ladies’ changing rooms, wiping my face as I push my way through and wrapping the towel around my waist before retrieving my mobile. Two missed calls from Nick. I wince. Delete. One text.
Amelia, please answer my calls. Nick xxx
Another wince. Delete. I load my inbox, chewing the inside of my cheek as I do, scanning down the dozens of emails that have come in while I’ve been unplugged. My heart hammers a little bit faster. I’m going to be up all night clearing these down. I spot one from my boss, Gary, and the subject line catches my attention. I open it.
To: Amelia Lazenby
From: Gary Panter
Re: I wouldn’t usually disturb you on your day off, but ...
I just heard a rumour that Tilda Spector is winding down.
I bite down on my bottom lip, not wanting to get ahead of myself. It’s just a rumour, after all. Tilda Spector is a renowned independent adviser, massively respected in the industry. She’s a force, and if she’s thinking of winding down, that might mean she’s looking for someone she can trust to take on some of her clients. This could push my portfolio from impressive to really impressive. The first time I met Tilda Spector was about a year ago at the FSA Annual Finance Conference; this year’s event is coming up next week. We hit it off immediately, and she’s kept in touch ever since, dropping me an email every few months or so to say hi and to see how I’m getting on at LB&B. Gary joked he was worried she was looking to poach me. I just smiled. That would be a massive compliment, if it were true.
My mobile rings in my hand, startling me, my ex’s name flashing on the screen. “Damn.” I throw it back into the locker and slam the door, the guilt borderline unbearable, then walk away, the ringing getting quieter until it’s gone when I’m out of the changing rooms. It’s been a few weeks since I walked out. We clearly want different things, and I don’t know how else to remind him of that.
So I stopped taking his calls.
A Turkish bath greets me when I push through some double doors, and around the white tiled room are a dozen or so doors leading to various steam rooms and saunas.
I unravel the towel and hang it on a hook outside a steam room, then open the door. Steam billows out, knocking me back a bit as I step in and check the digital dial on the wall, pulling the glass door closed behind me. “Jesus,” I whisper, feeling the burn on my face immediately. I quickly knock the gauge down from fifty degrees Celsius to forty-five and move through the cloud of steam, lowering to the built-in bench and propping my feet up on the one opposite, stretching my legs, feeling the tug of my muscles.
Exhaling loudly, I let my body loosen and my breathing fall into a steady, deep pace. My head drops back, my eyes close, and I take a moment in the quiet to just ... be.
Just ten minutes. Sweat out the impurities, cleanse my skin.
Get rid of the stress.
The guilt.
Quiet.
Breathe.
Relax.
Bliss.
I hum, wondering if I should reach out to Tilda Spector, let it be me checking in with her for once. It’s got to be two months since I last heard from her. I make a mental note to check. Or would it be too obvious if I contacted her now, given the rumours? I hum again. Only if the rumours are true. Are they?
The door suddenly opens, and I’m engulfed in cool air. It’s a brief reprieve from the intense heat, and the door is soon closed again, whoever’s joining me not wanting to lose the temperature in this sweatbox. Fuck, it’s hot. I wait for a hello or a hi and get nothing. So I follow suit and say nothing too, squinting as a body cuts through the steam, just close enough to see it’s a man’s body. A big body. A tall, lean, hard body. He lowers to the bench opposite me, becoming a hazy silhouette, and my wet, hot skin starts to tingle.
Oh no.
I inhale, inflating my lungs and burning them at the same time. It’s suddenly a lot hotter. Something skims my ankle. And hotter. Fuck. Electricity charges the steam-filled space, and I quickly pull my legs down from the bench as he moves across a bit more, putting himself directly in front of me. I can’t see him clearly, but I can feel him. Then he leans forward, his elbows on his knees, and I see his fingers lace, his hands joining. My eyes remain locked there. Those fucking hands.
Instinctively pushing back against the tile wall, I feel bare and vulnerable, despite knowing he can’t possibly see me clearly either. Does he know it’s me in here? I glance at the panel on the wall, noting the temperature has dropped to forty-six degrees Celsius. Then why in hell does it feel like it’s getting hotter? I breathe in, breathe out, reach for my brow, and wipe away the beads of water. Breathe in, breathe out.
Hotter.
I can’t stand it.
I get up and move through the unbearable heat, bursting out of the door and taking in air urgently, shaking like a bloody leaf. “Shit,” I whisper, quickly closing the door and staring at the glass. I should get a towel and dry myself. I should go back to the changing rooms. I should jump in an ice bath to snap myself from this fluster.
The door opens, steam billows out.
Oh fuck.
He emerges from the mist like some kind of mythical creature, and I’m useless once again. My lungs have drained. I can’t talk. Can’t think. He’s so bloody good-looking. Dangerously good-looking. My eyes drop.
Remember that word, Amelia. Dangerous.
I’m staring at his bare feet. Then his calves.
His thighs. His cut stomach. His chest. His neck.
His face.
Our eyes meet briefly before his lazy gaze falls slowly down my body, his lip lifting at the corner. “Are you okay?” he asks.
No. “Yes.” I quickly grab my towel and wrap my exposed body, and he pouts. It’s so cheeky, his dimple deepening.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he says, his voice low.
I shudder. For fuck’s sake. “You didn’t disturb me.”
“So you usually only last a few minutes, huh?”
I baulk at him.
“In the steam room,” he adds, rubbing his chest with his hand, through the sheen of sweat and over glistening, solid muscles.
Have mercy.
He pulls a towel off a nearby hook, and all the signs suggest my torture is about to extend.
“It was particularly hot today,” I murmur. Because I had company. My eyes nearly cross when every one of his muscles flexes and rolls as he rubs himself down. This is bloody unbearable.
“Wasn’t it?” he muses, his eyes burning into me, making me shift on the spot. What the hell is wrong with me? I feel like every sense I possess, including my sense of reason, has done a runner on me. I can’t find my tongue either. “What do you do?”
I withdraw. “Pardon?”
“What do you do?”
“For work?”
His smile is mild. Is he going to cover himself with that towel, because I’m really struggling? “Yes, for work.”
“What is this?” I ask.
“This is me asking you what you do for a living.”
“Why?”
“Should I save meaningful conversation until our first date?”
I laugh, stretching his smirk. “Very good. I’m a financial adviser.”
“So you’re gifted with numbers?”
“I guess I am.”
“Well, I’m really gifted with my hands.”
My eyes drop to those hands on a slight hitch of breath. “And what do you do with your hands?” My wondering is unstoppable. He was wearing a suit. Businessman?
“Come for dinner with me and you might find out.”
I laugh again, and it’s so fucking obvious I’m doing it because I have no idea what to say. “You want me to go for dinner with you?” I would love to go for dinner with you. “No.” I shake my head.
“Why?”
“I don’t know you.”
“Would you like to?”
I’m stumped. Totally. And I find myself looking at his hands again. I’m standing here half-naked, as is he, and he’s asking me out on a date?
“I’m not going for dinner with you.” No dating. No men. No distractions. I hate myself right now for making that promise to myself. Stick to the plan, and the plan is making partner. “But thanks for the offer,” I add, smiling.
He starts rubbing over his tight black swimming shorts. “You know where to find me when you change your mind.”
“In a steam room?”
“Or at a bar. Or on the end of a phone.” He smiles, and I am done for. Don’t tell me that every woman he’s ever flashed that smile to hasn’t passed out on the spot. I’m dizzy. My knees are knocking. My insides are furling. “You’re good with numbers,” he goes on. “So you’ll remember mine if I give it to you.”
He’s hoping. I can’t even remember my name right now.
Extending the perfect form of his torso by lifting his arms, he dries his hair with the towel. I can’t take it.
I look away and walk away, hotter now than I ever was in that sweatbox. I also pray for some restraint to keep myself from fantasising about him. I’m stronger than that. I reach for my temple and rub. Be strong, Amelia. Remember you’re in the aftermath of a breakup.
“My number is zero, seven—”
I hold up a halting hand, working hard to keep walking.
“Good talking, Amelia,” he calls.
I stop dead in my tracks, staring forward, knowing I will do myself no favours turning for another look. How does he know my name? Maybe he heard one of the girls talking to me. Or Anouska.
“Good talking.” And disintegrating.
And as I stand here, still staring forward at nothing, in a total mental meltdown, my towel loosens and drops to my feet. I peek down my body—my bikini-clad body—feeling his eyes on my arse. Shit.
Cringing to high heaven, I dip, trying not to jut my backside out too much, then try to walk away as normally as possible, feeling the heat of his stare following me.
And as soon as I’m out of the spa and back in the safety of the female changing rooms, I collapse to the wooden bench and gasp for air. “Pure class, Amelia,” I breathe, burying my head in my hands. Pure fucking class.
“Hey, what’s up with you?” Charley asks, breezing in as she unravels her hair from the hair tie. Abbie’s behind her, and both of my friends look at me questioningly.
“I just went in the steam room,” I say, needing to get this off my chest. “And someone joined me.”
Abbie’s eyes widen, and Charley is sitting beside me in a second. “The barman?”
“No, not the barman.” I laugh.
“The God?” Abbie breathes.
I nod. “He asked me out to dinner.”
“In a steam room?”
“No, outside the steam room.”
“In your bikini?”
“I had a towel on,” I mumble, mortified. “Until it fell off. Oh my God, he asked me to dinner while I stood there in front of him sweating my fucking tits off—and only partly because I was cooking in the steam room—red in the face, hair everywhere, while he dried his obscenely perfect, sweaty, hard body with a towel.” With a smirk on his face, and that tells me all I need to know. He’s a player.
“Hard?” Abbie asks.
“Yes, hard, cut, dazzling.” Fucking perfect.
“You can just tell if a man’s got a good body under his clothes,” Abbie says. “And I looked at him and knew there was something special going on under all those expensive threads.”
Charley rolls her eyes, even though I know she agrees. “What’s his name?”
I frown. “I don’t know.” But he knew mine.
“And you agreed to dinner, right?” Abbie presses.
“No, I did not agree to dinner.”
“Why?”
I stall, thinking. Yes, why? Because he shows all the signs of a player? But he also looks exactly like the kind of man who wouldn’t want anything serious right now. Like marriage and kids.
That’s perfect.
Isn’t it?
“Wise move,” Charley says, patting my bare knee and standing. “Because hot bod and a face like a god aside, we all know a fuckboy when we see one.”
I laugh half-heartedly, taking the towel to my hair and rubbing.
Dangerous. Fuckboy.
Avoid at all costs.