14. Mary
Mary
‘Are you going to take the redundancy?’
I vaguely heard my colleague Maggie asking the question, but my head was fuzzy from lack of sleep and still too full of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. I felt like giggling again. I felt drunk. Drunk from so many orgasms.
‘What is wrong with you?’
My brain snapped back to reality. I was sitting on a seat in a massive convention centre in the city, in the front row, waiting for the keynote speaker to appear. The man who had single–handedly revolutionised the global recruitment industry with new software.
I looked at Maggie, and tried to behave normally. ‘Nothing, I just didn’t sleep so well – maybe I’m overtired.’
‘You look weird … like, tired, but also … like you’ve been doing drugs.’ Maggie gasped. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve taken coke or something.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘No, Mags, I have not taken drugs.’
She sat back, still looking at me a little suspiciously, ‘So, the redundancy?’
I diverted my sex-overloaded brain away from last night.
The redundancy. Our company was slimming down and anyone there for over five years – moi – was being offered a nice package.
Nice package. I had the urge to giggle again, but stopped myself.
Because I also felt a pang to think that I’d walked away and left the most enigmatic, amazing man behind.
Maybe it had just been some sex-deprived hallucination?
But no, it had taken some amount of make-up to cover up the beard rash along my jaw. And between my legs felt tender enough to keep me moving gingerly on the chair. I couldn’t deny that maybe I was walking a little like John Wayne in my slim-fitting, very boring trouser suit.
The redundancy. ‘Um, I don’t know Mags …
’ The truth was I’d thought about it, but this job was the only one I’d had since I was twenty.
For the first two years after our folks had died, we’d had enough of the inheritance money to live on.
Then the job had become my safety net. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let it go and step out into the world and do … what?
What you always wanted to do? suggested a voice.
That sense again of finally being able to live my life for myself hit me.
It was like standing on the edge of a vast canyon.
Terrifying, but exciting. So much easier to stick to what was safe and comfortable, and yet last night had propelled me out of my comfort zone pretty comprehensively.
‘Ooh, look, here he comes now …’ Maggie stopped talking, then said reverently, ‘Fecking hell, Mary, check him out, I thought he was meant to be some CEO billionaire tech nerd, not a total sex god.’
Actually, the entire convention centre seemed to have hushed all of a sudden. I said, ‘Heh?’ and looked up at the stage just a few feet away from us, where a man had walked out to meet the emcee of the Q&A that would take place after he’d delivered his speech.
Nothing happened for a moment. I simply couldn’t compute what I was looking at.
Or who. The man whom I’d left in a gorgeous naked sprawl in a hotel bed mere hours before.
John. Who wasn’t John at all. He was Cameron Delahunt and I hadn’t even bothered to look at his bio or photo in the conference brochure because my brain had still been too full of … him.
I knew Dublin was small. But this was ridiculous.
And then it hit me that it was actually him and it was like being punched in the belly.
The breath left my lungs. My skin prickled all over.
I felt light-headed. I thought I might faint.
I went hot and cold. Then hot again when a slew of X-rated images spooled through my mind.
I had a particularly vivid flashback to the shower when he had taken himself in his hand and orgasmed on me. My belly and breasts, specifically. Marking me. And I’d loved it.
I squirmed and now it had nothing to do with my tender sex, and more to do with the mortification and realisation that I was in the front row and mere feet away from my one-night sex-drought-ending hook-up.
He looked even more astoundingly gorgeous in the stark surroundings of a convention centre. Dressed today in a dark blue three–piece suit, with a grey tie. Like his eyes.
From behind me I heard a not so discreet, ‘I definitely would let him inspect my software package anytime.’ There were sniggers and giggles.
My face was flaming so much I was afraid the heat would reach out and get his attention, but he seemed focused on the presenter, a perky, slim blonde who I suddenly hated.
‘Are you sure you’re not coming down with something, Mary?’ Maggie said in a whisper. ‘You’re burning up. Maybe you should go home.’
I wanted to groan. I couldn’t even get up and leave without drawing attention to myself.
You couldn’t hear a pin drop in the place now as everyone waited with bated breath for this god to speak as he stood behind a lectern.
And then he did, and that familiar, low, gravelly voice emerged, and there seemed to be a collective sigh of appreciation in the room.
I swear my clitoris pulsed as if recognising the fathership.
I sank down as much as I could in the seat and whispered back, ‘I’m grand – maybe it’s early menopause.’
Someone behind shushed us and at that moment, while John – no, not John – Cameron Delahunt was talking, he glanced in the direction of the ‘shh’, which happened to be right in my direction.
His eyes skated over me and I held my breath, and he looked back out at the crowd.
I thought I’d got away with it and was feeling simultaneously relieved and also disappointed that he hadn’t recognised me, when suddenly those distinctive eyes snapped back in my direction and landed squarely on … me.