Chapter 18 Tori
Tori
Isat alone in the front of the private plane, my bodyguards in the back talking quietly. Staring out at the clouds outside the window, I replayed everything that happened last night.
After I’d kicked Steve and Rick out of Hailey’s apartment, I’d tried to talk to her about our future, but she’d distracted me by dragging me into the bedroom and eating me out until I damn near forgot my name.
Then we ordered pizza and ate it naked in bed, watching old episodes of Hey Vicky on her laptop.
“I’m getting a cavity watching this show,” Hailey grumbled.
“It’s a kids’ show,” I reminded her. “It’s supposed to be sweet.”
“It’s no Scooby Doo,” she teased. “Now that was a good show. At least they were doing cool stuff like solving mysteries. Scooby is hilarious. Although you were cute…”
After we digested our dinner, we made love for hours, slow and gentle, staring into each other’s eyes before drifting off to sleep. We both woke up early, and in the pre-dawn hours, we finally talked about us.
“I want to see you again,” I said, tracing my fingers around her breast. The tip hardened, turning a darker pink.
“I don’t see how that’s going to work,” she said softly. “You live like fifteen hundred miles away.”
“We can fly back and forth on weekends.”
Hailey shook her head sadly. “We knew going in that this wasn’t going to work. We’re from such different worlds and have such different lives. I think it’s best that we just say goodbye and leave this with the good memories that we have.”
Her words hit me like a knife to the solar plexus.
“Are you saying you don’t want to see me again?” I asked, the hurt evident in my voice.
“Tori. If you lived in Seattle and had a normal job that didn’t require bodyguards and dealing with paparazzi, I’d be asking you to be my girlfriend.
Hell, I’d be packing up a U-Haul and moving in with you.
But you don’t have a normal job, and there’s no scenario where a boring barista works in your glamorous L.A. life.”
When I started to argue, she pressed her finger against my lips. “Let’s just enjoy the time we have. Please.”
This time we made love with the desperation of people who would soon be separated. It felt like goodbye, but I was going to do my damnedest to make sure it wasn’t.
“I’ll miss you,” I said, staring into her eyes while I ground my thigh between her legs.
“I’ll miss you too,” she said, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “But I’m grateful for the time we had. I’ll cherish it. Always.”
I slipped out of bed before her alarm went off, gathering the bag I’d packed and heading downstairs to where my team waited in the alley, ready to whisk me off to the airport. But as I flew farther and farther away from Hailey, I knew I had to figure something out. This couldn’t be goodbye.
***
“You just need to woo her,” Pepper told me a few days later. “Every woman likes to be wooed.”
“Hailey’s different. She’s not like other women. She’s special.”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you told me that, because I didn’t understand that Hailey is special the first fifteen times you told me.”
Four days. I’d been away from Hailey for four whole days, and it felt like I’d lost a limb.
In some part of my mind I thought – or maybe I’d hoped – that what I felt for her was some forced proximity crush.
It wasn’t. I loved her more today than I did when I kissed her on the forehead and slipped out of her room before the sun rose.
“Bring her here,” Pepper suggested. “Show her your mansion. She’ll see how much easier things will be for her here.”
I shook my head. “I asked her to come and she said no.”
Pepper sighed like I was particularly stupid pupil. “What’s that saying about if Mohammad won’t go to the mountain…?”
“Great idea. But I need to spend some time with her without being mobbed.”
Pepper popped out of her chair. “On it. Let me find some restaurant where you can have a private dinner. Do you want me to book you a hotel suite too?”
I shook my head. “No, I can stay at Hailey’s. If she’ll agree to see me again.”
“Doesn’t she live in a dumpy little one bedroom over a coffee shop? That’s what Rick told me,” she asked, distaste thick in her voice. I’d never realized how snobby everyone was in L.A.
“Yeah, she lives over a coffee shop.”
She stared at me and I just stared back until she finally shrugged. “Whatever you want boss.”
I texted Hailey, impatiently waiting until she responded hours later. I didn’t take it personally, I know she only turned her phone on after she was done with work. If she remembered. She was the only person I knew who didn’t have her phone attached to her palm twenty-four seven.
Tori: How about dinner tomorrow night? I want to take you out on a proper date.
Hailey: How would that work with you in L.A. and me in Seattle?
Tori: I’m coming up to Seattle.
Hailey: For work?
Tori: For you.
Hailey: I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
Tori: Because you don’t want to see me?
Hailey: Because I do. Too much.
Tori: I’ll pick you up at seven.
Hailey: Will you be wearing a disguise?
Tori: I won’t need one. See you tomorrow.
The next day I flew to Seattle, then Rick and I picked up a black SUV with dark windows, an FBI issued vehicle he’d called in a favor for. Normally I would have rented a limo, but I knew that Hailey wouldn’t appreciate me coming to pick her up in something so ostentatious.
Rick was still grumbling about my insisting that only one guard accompany me, even though I had no doubt he’d planted some undercover contractors around the area. I just ignored him, daydreaming about my date with Hailey.
Against Rick’s objections, I ran up the stairs to pick her up at the door.
As soon as I saw Hailey, I felt my body and mind settle.
She was wearing a simple black skirt the fell just above the knee, leaving a few inches of bare flesh between the skirt and the black boots that stopped at the top of her calf.
The combination made her legs look a mile long.
She’d paired it with a thin sweater, a necklace with some kind of crystal on it, and in a nod to the Seattle weather, a black hooded raincoat.
I pushed her back into the apartment, my mouth crashing against hers, kissing her until I felt lightheaded from lack of oxygen. Then, and only then, did I pull away, although I kept my hands on her shoulders.
“Wow, you really know how to greet a girl,” Hailey teased, her voice light and breathless.
“I missed you.” I met her eyes so she could see the truth of my words.
Her face softened. “I missed you too.”
“I want nothing more than to fuck you, but I promised you a proper date, so…,” I gave her my arm, “shall we?”