Tempt Me (The Macintyre Brothers 1)

I spent the rest of the day trying to recover from my meeting with Ella in the photocopier room.

Damn, that woman was becoming too much of an obsession. I couldn't get her out of my mind, wanting her every moment of the day. Hoping that she would agree to come to Bali with me and let me live out my own fantasy of time away from everything with a woman who was mine to enjoy as I wanted.

The truth was that I would have been happy to start a sexual relationship with Ella and not care about the fact she was technically an employee, although unpaid, of my company. I wasn't cheating on anyone so it wasn't like what we were doing was a betrayal.

I called down to Jerome, who took care of my travel arrangements and rescheduled my trip to California. It could wait another week or even two. Work was ongoing at the new office of MBS, and my trip there was more to check on progress. Nothing was written in stone about the timing.

Before my next meeting, I got a text from Marcella, asking me to call her.

I did, dialing her number and leaning back in my chair, wondering what she wanted to talk about, considering we had a meeting already scheduled.

"Hello, Marcella, what can I do for you? I thought we already had a meeting planned."

"I'm hoping you can come to a charity event I'm hosting. There will be a few of my candidates at the event and you could mix and mingle with them, meet them and feel them out."

I rubbed my forehead. Going to a charity event to meet some of Marcella's picks for me was the very last thing I wanted. I only wanted Ella.

"Sorry, but no can do. I'm totally swamped with work for the next two weeks."

"I didn't tell you what day it was…"

"I don't have any days open," I said, really wanting to avoid it at all costs.

"It would just be for half an hour or an hour. Surely you could spare some time on Tuesday?"

"Nope. I'm really booked right up."

I heard her sigh on the other end. It was then I realized that my heart was just not into the whole matchmaker thing.

"Look, Marcella. This isn’t going to work out. I really can't wrap my head around this right now. I don't want to approach this like it's a business decision, so please, give my regards to your candidates and tell them I wish them best of luck in the future but I just can't go through with it."

"May I ask what made you change your mind?"

I sighed. "I met someone who made me realize that it's not the pedigree or the resume that matters in this. It's the person. It's the chemistry. Trying to treat it like some kind of computer algorithm just seems bloodless and emotionless to me. I need to feel that chemistry first before anything else."

"Okay, Joshua. If you change your mind, you just have to give me a call. There will always be dozens of young appropriate women who are more than happy to meet you."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence," I said and I meant it. "Best of luck and if I do change my mind, I'll let you know."

I hung up, glad to get that out of the way. It really didn't appeal to me and never really had, other than the fact it would make it easier for me to meet women, but meeting Ella made me realize you couldn't force chemistry.

You either had it or you didn’t.

Next, I called David to let him know I wouldn't be coming until the following week.

"What's up? You were really looking forward to this trip."

"I had something personal come up and will be taking a trip to Bali. It was short notice but I need to rearrange things to accommodate it."

"Personal? What? You're going to Bali instead? Is it a conference or something?"

"No," I said, cringing internally that I didn't have a good excuse.

"Is it business?" he asked.

"No," I replied. "It's just personal. Let's leave it at that."

"It's a woman," he said, his voice satisfied. "Tell me the truth, bro. You don't cancel a business trip and go to Bali for any other reason.