Ethan
I sat at my desk trying to concentrate on my emails. I had twenty minutes until my next meeting and despite the fact I’d not had any sleep, I hadn’t used my insomnia to keep on top of work and emails from clients were piling up. I forwarded a lot of them to my assistant in New York but he wouldn’t be in the office for hours. If the volume of meetings continued like this, I was going to start to lose clients. I needed some people, a team, here in London, if this was going to work. And I needed to sleep. Despite being awake all night, I’d not been doing what I should have been and working through my in-box, instead I’d been going over the booklet of associate details I’d been handed when I arrived. Of course, there was only one associate I was interested in. It didn’t tell me much. Just her department, her office number and her personal contact details.
I left the dinner earlier than was polite. I needed some time to think. I wanted to speak to her. It had been so good to see her. She had looked fucking amazing. I wanted to kiss her, touch her, bury myself in her.
Walking through the corridors at the office, I kept scanning the people scuttling around me, trying to find her . . . but nothing. It was irritating because I kept catching people’s eyes as I looked for her. Everyone clearly knew me so I’d been trying to keep to my office between meetings.
I flicked open the booklet. I could call her and invite her to lunch or something. I dialed her number.
“Anna Kirby,” she answered, sounding . . . irritated.
“Anna, it’s Ethan,” I spoke softly.
Silence.
“Anna?”
“What do you want?” she snapped.
It was not the response I’d expected and my body clenched. I hadn’t thought this through.
“I want to speak to you.” I would have thought it was obvious.
“I’m at work.”
“Anna.”
“You’ve got all the information you could ever need about Allen & Smith, I don’t know why you need to speak to me about anything more.”
She hung up. What was that? Did she understand that it was me? Did she get me confused with someone else?
My secretary Theresa, interrupted my thoughts and gave me some papers for the next meeting. Anna would have to wait.
“Can you get me in with Frank after this and before my lunch? I need to talk to him about resourcing my client work,” I asked.
“No problem,” she replied.
I liked her. She was efficient and pleasant but not a people pleaser and she wasn’t trying to blow smoke up my ass. She was the only one not being a kiss ass and I was grateful to her for it.
* * * * *
Back at my desk, I tried Anna’s extension again. No answer. It was 6.p.m. I’d declined a dinner invitation that evening so I could catch up on things but I wanted to speak to Anna, get to the bottom of her brush off earlier and, I don’t know, hang out with her, hear about what had been going on with her. What the hell was the matter with her? I worked out from her extension that she must be on the fourth floor so I went down in search of her. She couldn’t ignore me if I was stood right in front of her.
I wandered left out of the elevators. All the floors were the same layout—a mixture of open plan seating and rows of offices Where to start? What was I going to say to her when I found her?
One of the corporate partners, Al, found me before I had time to decide.
“Ethan, Frank spoke to me earlier, I was just about to brief a couple of assistants I’ve identified to work with you. Do you want to come with me and meet them? They’re a couple of real stars, ready and eager to help you with whatever you need,” he said.
“Sure,” I replied. Was there another appropriate response? It was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to find Anna.
I followed Al as he went on about the associates he’d lined up and we walked across the floor, between the desks. I saw her before she saw me but only just. I smiled and she looked back down at what she was working on. Al charged into her office and she was forced to look up. She avoided looking at me.
“Anna, have you met Ethan?”
She stood up and came out from behind her desk.
“No, we’ve not met. I’m Anna Kirby.”
I followed her lead and pretended not to know her. I took her hand to shake as she offered it to me. Her skin was as soft as I remembered but I wasn’t used to seeing her in formal work wear. She gave me a tight smile and focused on something over my shoulder, not looking at me. What the fuck? My eyes glided down her body, taking in skin above her shirt, her tight skirt, the bump on her thigh gave away that she was wearing a garter belt. I wondered who else had noticed. Who was she wearing that for?
“Anna is one of our brightest associates and is going to be helping you out while you’re in London.” Al said.
Al clearly hadn’t given Anna the heads up. She looked like she might vomit at the thought.
“Anna, why don’t you put some time in Ethan’s diary?” He paused and looked at me. “Is tomorrow morning soon enough?” I nodded. “Invite Richard as well. The two of you will be assisting Ethan.” Al then turned to me. “Then if you need more resources, we can find more people. Does that work?”
“That’s great, Al. I’m sure I’ll enjoy working with Anna.” I tried to catch her eye but she was looking everywhere except at me. I wanted to ask Al to leave us, leave me to say hello properly, to trail my hands across Anna’s thighs, underneath her skirt, to push into her underwear.
Fuck, focus Ethan.
“I have to get back but it was nice to meet you, Anna.” She didn’t respond.
Anna
I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to request I work for him. What a total dick. He’d tried to call me again but I’d not picked up when I recognized the number. What could he possibly have to say to me that I wanted to hear?
My phone rang again and it was him. Again. He needed to stop harassing me. I sent the call to voicemail and logged off. If I wasn’t in the office, he couldn’t find me. Maybe I’d call in sick tomorrow. I was going to have to find an excuse not to work with him.
I picked up a bottle of wine on the way home and collapsed on the sofa with a huge glass. Hangover or no hangover, I needed some kind of sedative. I considered calling Leah but I couldn’t risk her babbling on about fate or the universe or something equally ridiculous, so I switched on the TV and started to open my post. My mobile started vibrating on the coffee table, I didn’t recognize the number but I answered it.
“Anna, it’s Ethan. If you hang up, it will take me about thirty seconds to be at your front door.”
“Are you stalking me? How do you have my home address?”
“The Partner Booklet of associate details.”
“Fucking hell, isn’t that a breach of my human rights or something, that’s outfuckingrageous—”
“Let me in Anna.”
“Where are you?” I peered through the peephole and saw him standing against the wall opposite my door.
“You know where I am. You just checked your peephole.” He was very calm, just like I imagined a psychopath would be.
“Why are you even here? You got what you wanted. You made a fool out of me, now just pretend I don’t exist.”
“Let me in.”
“No.”
“Let me in.”
“I said no.”
“Do you really want to continue to have this conversation through the door for all your neighbors to hear? I’ll stay here all night if I need to. It’s not like I’m sleeping anyway.”
What was the matter with this crazy guy? This flat was cursed. I couldn’t wait to move.
“If I let you in, do you promise to leave after ten minutes?” I asked.
“I told you that I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“You are full of total bullshit.”
“What the fuck Anna? What is it that has made you so angry with me? We agreed I wouldn’t call you, that we wouldn’t stay in touch. I thought that’s what you wanted.” He raised his voice—it was the first time I’d ever known him to be ruffled.
I opened the door and looked at him, unwilling for the neighbors to further witness to my dating disasters.
“I’m not angry you didn’t call, I’m angry because you used me.”
He stepped toward me and I stood to the side to let him in. We might as well have this out as he was right in front of me.
He stepped inside my flat and I closed the door and lent back.
“I’m not a stupid guy but I’m having a hard time following your logic. We agreed it was going to be uncomplicated fun. I’m not pretending it wasn’t about sex for me but you can’t pretend it wasn’t about sex for you. I thought we were on the same page. If I’d known you’d expected me to call . . .”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t expect you to call.” My voice had dropped to almost normal. I was exhausted from being so angry at him.
“Then I don’t follow you,” he said.
We stood in silence for a long minute. Thoughts were racing through my head and none of them made sense. Having him so close was not helping my clarity of thought. He was near enough to touch, to . . .
“Do you want a drink?” I asked. He nodded and I headed to the kitchen and poured two glasses of whiskey. Another thing to be mad at him for—whiskey and Ethan were synonymous for me now.
“Can you stop swearing at me for just a few minutes and talk to me?” he asked.
I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t look at him as I handed him his drink and then moved past him into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.
“Anna.”
“You should have been honest with me from the beginning,” I said calmly.
“About what? That I was a lawyer?”
I glanced at him and he looked confused.
“Jesus.” Was he being deliberately stupid?
“Anna, seriously? What?”
“About the fact that you knew exactly who I was, that you wanted information about Allen & Smith, that you were using what you knew about me to get laid or something.”
“What? When?” he asked.
“In New York.” He couldn’t think I hadn’t realized what he’d been doing.
“You think I knew you worked for Allen & Smith when we met?” he asked, his voice lighter. I didn’t respond. “How would I have known?” he asked.
Silence.
“What, and I arranged for you to be in New York, at the same bar as me?” I hadn’t quite worked out how he’d managed to bump into me.
“And at lunch the following day.” I prompted.
“Well, yes, that’s true. I did know you were going to be at lunch at that place the next day.”
My head snapped round to look at him.
“I didn’t tell you because it made me look like a stalker but I wanted to see you again and the only information I got from the concierge about you was where you were going to be.”
“Oh. My. God.”
I knew it. I knew it.
“And how did you know I’d be in that bar?”
He stood up from the chair opposite me and took his jacket and tie off and came to sit next to me. I didn’t move a muscle.
“Is that what you think? That I arranged the meeting with you to get information about Allen & Smith?”
I stayed silent.
“You are officially crazy,” he said softly.
“Don’t try and make me out as crazy. You’re the one stalking me,” I huffed.
“Think about it Anna. What information did you pass me about Allen & Smith?” I did think about it. I hadn’t even told him I was a lawyer, let alone anything about where I worked.
“I found out you worked there during the announcement—when I saw you.”
I looked at him sideways.
“Then how did you know my name was Anna?”
He reached out and pulled me onto his lap. I didn’t resist him. Maybe I should have. But I wanted to believe what he was saying.
“I didn’t know, beautiful. I just thought it suited you.”
My stomach fluttered as he called me beautiful.
Damn you stomach.
“And you strong-armed the concierge to find out where I was lunching the day after we met? That’s weird.”
He nodded. “Yes, a little out of character for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you again. Haven’t I told you, you’re fantastic in bed?”
He grinned and then nuzzled into my neck and I let him.
Ethan
It felt so good to have her in my arms again. Too good. She’d calmed a little, but she seemed so stressed I wasn’t sure how long it would last.
“So it was coincidence? Meeting at the bar and my name?” she recapped.
“Yes,” I spoke into her neck, trailing my lips across her skin.
“And your firm’s take-over or merger or whatever of my firm is coincidence?”
“You think I arranged the
merger
so I could see you again? You’re not that good in bed.”
She laughed and I felt her relax against me.
“So that’s a lot of coincidences,” she mused, ignoring my erection that was pressing against her hip.
“Uhuh,” I mumbled and nodded.
She lay her head on my chest and I stroked her hair.
“It’s nice to see you again,” she whispered.
“It is? I was getting the distinct impression you were thinking the exact opposite,” I teased her.
She moved to look at me, our noses almost touching. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .”
“Don’t, it’s fine.” I moved my hand to cup the back of her head and she leaned forward, just a fraction. Did she want this?
“Ethan,” she whispered so softly I wondered if I’d heard it in my head. “Ethan,” she said, louder this time.
I pulled her head toward me took her bottom lip between my teeth.
I had to taste her. I slipped my tongue between her lips and I slid my hand under her shirt and down the back of her skirt, under her underwear to the base of her spine. I loved the feel of her skin against mine.
Sharply, her hands pushed against my chest forcing our lips apart but I continued stroking my fingers on her bare back. “Ethan, no. You’re my boss now. We need to have rules.”
I knew she was speaking sensibly but I didn’t care. “Later, beautiful. We can agree to rules later. Right now, I want to taste you.”
Her breath hitched and I knew that I would be inside her soon.
“You don’t have roommates due back do you?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask the concierge?” she quipped, giggling at herself. She wasn’t going to let me get away with that lightly.
I lifted her up and put her down next to me and slid to my knees in front of her. Roughly, I pulled her hips to the edge of the sofa and reached under her skirt. “You are looking for trouble, Miss Anna,” I said and her cheeks pinked slightly. God she looked beautiful. I hooked my fingers into either side of her underwear and pulled them down. They pooled at her feet.