“We don’t have to talk shop,” I said. “Sometimes it’s good to keep work in the office.”
“Exactly,” he said with a fervor that seemed a little misplaced.
He didn’t like the idea of me working for him and sleeping with him. That must be why he was keeping up this charade. “You like to keep your home life and work life separate?”
“Completely,” he replied.
Maybe he was worried about abusing his power or position. The MeToo movement hadn’t just happened in America, and the British were uptight at the best of times. I could assure him that he didn’t have anything to worry about on that score—it wasn’t as if this was a long-term gig for me. This time next year, there was no way I would still be working at Blake Enterprises. I thought carefully about how to phrase my next sentence without trampling on our game.
“I suppose when I get my real career going, I might feel the same.”
The corner of his lip lifted in amusement. “Your real career?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be some big-shot’s assistant for the rest of my life. I have an MBA and I’m ambitious. I want to be the big shot. The job I have at the moment is a means to an end. I have things to figure out in London. Being an assistant isn’t the job, if you get what I mean.”
“You’re not looking for a promotion or—”
“I’m looking for a paycheck until I get done what I need to get done. Then I’ll go find myself a career.”
Andrew’s shoulders seemed to lower and his brow smoothed. “Can we get out of here and go back to yours?”
“We can,” I said. “When I’ve finished my cocktail.” I wasn’t on the clock. I didn’t have to ask how high when he told me to jump.
“I’ll make you a cocktail when we get to yours.”
I shook my head. “A, no you won’t. And B, I like this one.”
He spun his stool back to the bar and almost snarled, but he didn’t argue, which I appreciated. There was something so completely attractive about this alpha male knowing when not to assert his dominance. Still, I found myself drinking my cocktail a little faster than I usually would.
As we stepped out onto the street, he flagged down a cab.
“I bet you’re slumming it coming back to Kilburn. Where do you live?” I asked as the taxi pulled out.
“Old Gloucester Street.” He said it like I should know what that meant. “It’s just around the corner.”
Andrew always had the capacity to surprise. “You live around here? I thought all the houses had been converted into offices.”
“They have mainly. But some are still residential.”
“I expected you to be in some fancy Mayfair apartment, overlooking Hyde Park or something. Not that it’s not fancy around here. Just . . . more low key.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, fancy is very much not me. More like my friend Joshua. Pre-fiancée anyway.”
“You have friends?” I asked. “Consider the shit shocked right out of me.”
The corner of his mouth rose in a half smile. “What I have is a very small, close group of friends. What I don’t have is an endless list of people I know. Well, I have that too, but I don’t consider those people my friends.”
For a second, I imagined Andrew with his friends. Was he as serious with them as he was in the work place? Did he swap jokes and talk about . . . soccer? The weather?
“A small group of friends is nice. Natalie and my mom are my two best friends. And then I have a couple of girls who I met in college that I see regularly. But . . .” What did I want to confess? That my father’s abandonment made me distrustful? That would be too deep. Too much. And now that I was talking to my father, I wasn’t sure what the foundations of my approach to life had been built on.
“Natalie,” he said, almost to himself. He’d never mentioned Natalie before. I’d told him we were roommates and nothing else had ever been said. His mention of her name was the closest we’d ever come to him admitting that he was Andrew and not James.
“She’s an amazing friend. Loyal and fun and super clever.”
Andrew stayed silent as we continued our journey.
It wasn’t like he was actively denying that he’d ever known her, but he wasn’t admitting it either. There were lines he wasn’t ready to cross, and I had made my peace with that somewhere around my second orgasm the first time we were together.
It was part thrilling, part downright weird.
“I’ve only had one drink tonight,” I said, half to myself as nerves tugged in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of being with him again or our pretense that set me on edge.