Page 25 of Naughty or Nice

I go in. My sanity well and truly gone. There’ll be time for that tomorrow. I need him inside me now...filling me, making me whole.

I enter the cubicle and he’s there, slicked up, his eyes dark and needy. I step forward and my smartwatch beeps. I don’t know why I look at it. Maybe it’s because he does. But I immediately wish I hadn’t.

The incoming text message glares up at me, and with it everything changes.

I can’t un-see it.

I wish I could. But I can’t.

I should be grateful. But I’m not.

CHAPTER FIVE

FIVE DAYS SINCE I’ve seen her.

Five days since she told me to finish my shower and leave.

I’d blame it on the fact that I lost my load like an inexperienced fool if not for the fact she was so turned on by it. She told me so herself and I believed her. It was written on her face...in her actions.

And then her watch beeped and she morphed into someone else entirely.

A cold replica.

She had no time for me...for us.

Not that there would ever be an ‘us’—but, hell, in that moment in her kitchen...before, during, after... I felt things shift between us. I thought it felt right, picking up where we’d left off ten years prior, saying to hell with everyone and everything else.

Clearly I was wrong.

She offered no explanation. Nothing. As if I didn’t even warrant one. And I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of grovelling for justification.

I cleaned up, dressed and left.

Two days later Monday morning hit, and my PA informed me that my meeting with her had been scheduled for a week Friday.

I laughed. Actually laughed. Did she really think she could keep me hanging on for two weeks like some insignificant prospect?

But you’ve only got yourself to blame.

I’ve hardly covered myself in glory, following her around like some fool, giving her the impression she can wrap me around her little finger.

But no more.

It’s time she saw the real me. The one who stays in control.

So now I’m here, in her building, more than a week early and ready to face the music.

I know she’s not going to like this, but I have a score to settle. Not just professionally, but personally too.

‘Mr Waring, I’m afraid Miss Beaumont has an appointment with Houston Logistics right now,’ her PA says to me, her smile polite but confused. ‘I believe we have an appointment scheduled for next week on Friday?’

I give her a smile loaded with charm. ‘That was the case, but Houston and I have decided to swap.’

‘To...swap?’

Her brows lift past the rim of her thick black glasses and I want to laugh. It’s a worrying sign. Laughter tells me that I’m nervous. And I’m never nervous.

Control, Lucas. Control.