Which is unfortunate, considering that at this moment, blackmail can get me what I want, very easily.
I toss the drive back into the drawer and leave the desk. I walk along the length of the glass walls, staring outside, while my mind works furiously.
There’s no way I’m going to lose my company to Toby Felt’s need to massage his ego. No damn way.
Carole’s terms, of course, are out of the question. I need to get control of the situation on my own terms.
I glance at my watch. It’s almost four o clock. I’ve already asked Linda to find the phone number for the gift shop in Ashford. Efficient as always, she has it printed on a sheet of paper on my desk.
With everything I have on my mind, the sensible thing would be to call Sophie, and tell her how sorry I am that I can’t take her to dinner.
And I would do that, if I didn’t have this strange compulsion to see her blush again.
Chapter Three
STEVE DRIVES ME OVER TO MY apartment, where I take a shower and change my clothes. I drive myself to Ashford, taking the BMW convertible. I’m not keen to have Steve trailing along on a date.
The image of Sophie’s face stays in my mind as I drive. The logical part of my brain keeps asking why the urge to see her again is so incredibly strong. I frown, tapping my fingers on the wheel. I have too much to worry about to be driving out of the city just to have dinner with a girl, and yet, in half an hour, at almost exactly five o clock, I’m pulling into the front of the gift shop.
I step out of the car, looking into the shop through the glass. The lights are on, but it looks empty. At first, I get a sick feeling that she has gone, but then I see her enter the shop through a door at the back, and overwhelming relief floods through me.
What is happening to me?
I like my relationships uncomplicated. I don’t do romance, I don’t do commitment, and women have learned not to expect those things from me.
What I do is sex. No. Strings. Attached.
A concept which, I’m sure, is alien to the eighteen-year-old girl inside the shop looking at me. This is bound to end in complications. This is something I don’t need.
Yet I can’t stay away.
I watch her as she runs a hand over her hair, smoothing her ponytail. I wish she would let it hang free. I can imagine the soft waves framing her face and falling to her shoulders. I can imagine a lot of things, and none of them are halfway decent.
She comes towards the front of the shop, locking it up behind her as she steps onto the sidewalk.
“Hi.” She says, her soft voice washes over me, reminding me why I’ve abandoned everything I have to do, to come here, to her.
“Hello Sophie.” She’s blushing. I don’t know why, but I find her flaming cheeks enthralling. “Ready?” I ask.
She nods.
I turn towards the car, placing one hand on her back to guide her. My fingers are itching to touch her, and just that slight contact causes a distinct heaviness in my groin.
I want her so badly I need a cold shower just thinking about it, and right now, the cold shower seems like the best idea. The alternative is just asking for trouble, and trouble is exactly what I don’t need.
“So where do you want to go?” I ask, as I slide into the driver’s seat.
She frowns. “Where would you like to go?” She replies.
I pause. I have no idea where anything is in this town. I suppose I should have thought of where to take her, since I made the invitation. I chuckle inwardly as I consider driving to the city, but I doubt she would want that.
She ought to be able to recommend a place though. “You know the town,” I ask.
“Don’t you?”
She shakes her head, silent. I don’t know many eighteen year olds, but I doubt there are many left who aren’t savvy about everything around them. But then, she’s unlike any eighteen year old I have ever seen. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.
“You didn’t grow up here?” I ask.