Chapter 34
I wait in the bathroom while Zach goes to the door. He initially tries to look through a keyhole but gives up on the idea and instead says, ‘Can I help?’
‘Oh, you’re still awake!’ It’s Andrea. ‘Have you got a minute?’
I involuntarily roll my eyes and only then realise I’d been holding my breath.
‘Uh . . . well, I was heading to bed. Is everything all right?’
‘I’ve got your wallet,’ she says.
He picks up the jacket he’d discarded earlier and pads it down, confirming that it’s missing. ‘Oh. Damn. Okay gimme a sec.’
He mouths something to me as I grab his shirt and fling it to him. He pulls it on but leaves it unbuttoned. I close the bathroom door and hover next to it to listen.
‘Oh!’ exclaims Andrea as she presumably catches a glimpse of his torso.
‘Well, this was stupid of me,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’
‘It had dropped out under our table,’ she explains.
‘Good job you’re perceptive.’
‘I don’t know about that!’ she laughs, coquettishly. ‘So . . . do you like your room?’
‘Oh, yeah. It’s very nice. Thank you.’
‘They offered an upgrade when we checked in and I thought . . . well, I know how you men enjoy all your bells and whistles.’
My eyes roll involuntarily again.
‘Thank you,’ he says.
There’s a short silence.
‘You’re sure you couldn’t be persuaded to come and have a little snifter downstairs?’
‘A . . . what? ’
‘Snifter, you know. Another beverage,’ she clarifies.
‘Oh, thanks, but I have an early train.’
‘Well, me too but that never stopped me,’ she says, with a seductive growl.
Another silence.
‘I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?’ she says.
‘Thanks,’ he replies pleasantly. ‘I’m very grateful for the wallet.’
‘Any time!’ she sing-songs and I hear the door click.
The bathroom door opens. He’s smiling. I’m smiling. We both collapse into a fit of stifled giggles, before I hold my finger over my mouth and attempt to say, ‘Shhh!’
He presses his lips together, desperately trying to stop himself laughing.
‘Fucking hell, do you think Andrea was trying to seduce you?’
He shrugs. ‘I have no idea. Though . . . that lingerie she was wearing just now was very revealing . . .’
My jaw drops.
‘Kidding,’ he says, as I swipe his arm.
Then we stop laughing and I slide my arms around his waist. ‘Where were we?’ I murmur.
When I kiss him, it only takes a moment to realise that something has shifted in his response. Suddenly, instead of equal dancing partners, I feel as if I’m the one leading. I pull away and study his expression.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ask.
His eyelashes lower. There’s a tightness in his features now. He takes a deep breath. ‘Come in here,’ he says.
He takes me by the hand and leads me into the bedroom, but I already instinctively know we’re not here for more pleasures of the flesh. I sit on the bed as he leans on the edge of the dresser, directly in front of me, his shirt still open.
It takes an age before he eventually says, ‘This is suddenly feeling a little . . . complicated.’
My heart seems to stop as half a dozen awful scenarios skip through my head. Is he still married? Still involved with Sara? Or someone else?
‘That email you wrote me. The one about your reputation and how much that matters.’
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Surely he knows that my reputation is the last thing on my mind right now. All I care about at this moment in time is the very real compulsion I have to slide my hand into his flies, to bewitch him into growing hard again.
‘Zach, I . . . that was then, this is . . . things are . . . I just . . .’
I don’t even know what I’m saying. It’s nothing more than a series of incoherent protestations. When I finally stop, he closes his eyes briefly and tells me what’s on his mind.
‘I’m going back to the States,’ he says.
The words are like a punch in my gut. ‘What . . . when?’
‘June 14.’
Three weeks away.
‘I only took this position to be with Mila while she was in the UK. She starts school in September, so the plan was that Sara would go back with her at the end of August – and so would I. Only, my departure has been brought forward.’
‘Is this about the kickback you mentioned from your senior team?’
‘Actually, no. I’ve been promoted. You’re looking at MotionMax+’s soon-to-be-announced Global Head of Partnerships. Susan wants me back, like, yesterday, but we’ve agreed June 14.’
Our CEO always did have a reputation as being uncompromising.
I swallow. ‘So, you’re going to be a board member? God, that’s amazing Zach. Congratulations.’
‘I didn’t even apply for the job, but thanks.’ He looks at the floor. ‘The reason I’m telling you is that I know in my gut that you and me . . . getting entangled is going to make things difficult. For both of us.’
I nod silently. ‘Yeah. I mean you’re really senior now and—’
‘Not because of that,’ he scoffs, in disbelief. ‘I don’t care about that . I just didn’t want to sleep with you and then tell you in the morning that . . . this thing between you and me. It can’t go anywhere, Lisa. We’re going to be in different continents. We couldn’t ever be a couple. Or have a relationship. And . . . I may be wrong but, even before that email, you never struck me as someone who made a habit out of having some mindless fling. Which is all this could ever be.’
‘Right.’ I cross my legs. Then my arms. If I crossed any more of me I’d be knotted from head to toe.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘You don’t need to be. You’ve been honest. And . . . I knew about Mila being the reason you’d come here. I suppose I didn’t follow that through and put much thought into where she was going to live long-term.’
I finally look up at him. At the tension in his jaw. The regret in his eyes.
‘If it means anything, Lisa, I wish things could have been different.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Me too.’