“Sorry, my mistake, though I thought we were friends as well as rivals.” He peered at her. “Haven’t lost hope that we could be more than friends, if I’m honest.”
Apparentlymy type is hot young single dads, not smarmy bootlickers.“We’re colleagues,” she stated firmly. “And that’s all we’ll ever be.”
“Still on that career trip? No time for a relationship?”
“Yes.”
“If it wasn’t man trouble distracting you in that meeting,” Stuart said, “what was it?”
Olivia plastered a sweet smile on her face. “It’s just the two of us now, so you can stop the false concern. And next time Simon asks for an evaluation of one ofmycompanies, you might find it less embarrassing to ask me to do it rather than having me point out all your inaccuracies.”
With a sharp nod in his direction, she marched off. In her office, she slumped onto her chair.Men. First Connor messing with her carefully placed goalposts, then Simon and Stuart with their gentleman’s-club crap.
As she debated whether a caffeine hit would help or agitate her churning stomach, her phone screen lit up with a notification from Connor.
Made this today and thought of you.
The photo was of a plate of lobster tails.
Five messages followed in quick succession.
Not that you remind me of a lobster.
But lobster reminds me of our picnic on the beach.
And that reminds me of skinny-dipping with you.
And that reminds me of what we did before the swim.
And now I’m waiting at the school gate with a semi. Damn, got to go. See you later. C x
With a despairing shake of her head, she slipped the phone into her pocket and headed for the coffee machine. A smile tugged at her lips.
Connor stepped off the tube and headed for the address Olivia had sent him, his mind playing through the last couple of hours.
The guilt when he’d told Ellie she needed to go to her grandparents because he had to work late tonight.
The look on his mother’s face as he’d dropped his daughter off. “You can lie to Ellie to appease your conscience, but not to us. We’ve lived with your lies, Connor.”
As if he’d been a serial liar and not just a teenager acting up to get some attention from them, even if it was the wrong sort. The sort that meant he’d bunked off school to go to the cinema or got caught smoking weed behind the portacabins. Or having sex with Beth in the back of her Fiesta.
“You’re right,” he’d admitted, “I’m not working tonight, I’m going to see a woman. She’s gorgeous, smart. I like her, Mum.”
“I’m sure you do,” she’d retorted. “But you have a daughter, Connor. You can’t just expect us to drop everything when you want to get laid.”
The crude description had stung, the pain sharp yet fleeting. The guilt, though... that lingered. Ellie would rather be with him tonight than with her grandparents. Fact. Did going to see Olivia make him a selfish bastard? Yes. Could he contemplate continuing to see only a two-dimensional version of Olivia? No.
So here he was, following Google Maps to... fuck, was that really her building? The sleek ten-story block of glass and steel sitting right on the river? His apprehension increased as he walked through the automatic doors into the lobby. Plush leather and chrome sofas, fresh flowers in glass vases, a guy in uniform behind a black marble reception desk.
“Er, I’m here to see Olivia Davies.”
The man checked his computer and nodded toward the lifts. “Tenth floor.”
Yeah, he could have guessed that, he thought as he stepped into the lift. Not a lowly ground floor for the woman he was naive enough—no,ignorantenough to think he could persuade to date him.
His heart thumped wildly as he got off the lift and damn near ricocheted off his ribs as he pressed the doorbell, reasons why this was the worst idea he’d ever had swarming through his head like a nest of disturbed wasps. He was going to crash and burn, that was as much of a fact as his barely in the black bank balance.
The door opened, and he gaped at her like a schoolboy staring at his favorite pinup. “Hi.” He swallowed, mouth feeling like a sandpit as his gaze roved over the loose black loungewear that clung to her curves like a second skin. “I’d forgotten how gorgeous you are.”
