People have said a lot of shit about me over the years. I have a PR team at AHP that searches out and destroys most of it before it ever hits the news sites. I’ve had a lot of casual sex with a lot of women, but never at the expense of their feelings. I always make sure that they know what they’re letting themselves in for, and mostly I only fuck once, maybe twice, before moving on. Three times seems to be when women really start to get attached. I certainly wasn’t intending for things with Nicole to progress much past our simultaneous orgasms, but I didn’t want her to leave with tears in her eyes.
Shampoo thoroughly washed from my hair and body clean, I towel off and grab my sweats from the closet. Dressed and with some wax in my hair, I jog down the stairs and pick up the keys to my most basic car, a Volvo XC90. I love the high driving position and the fact that no one seems to notice me in a relatively ordinary SUV. The heavily tinted windows help, of course. In the parking garage, I walk past my five other cars, looking longingly at my favorite, a black McLaren F1. I love to drive it but it draws way too much attention.
There is traffic on the way to the hotel, and I’m antsy and frustrated at the delay. When I finally pull into the lot, I’m out of the car and through the lobby like a shot. The journey in the elevator is tediously slow, and when it finally arrives on Nicole’s floor, I find myself jogging down the hallway. My heart is beating, not from the exercise but from anticipation. I don’t doubt there is going to be confrontation before resolution, but I’m shocked at how much I care about getting through to that point with Nicole. The look on her face as she left flashes before my eyes — the hurt. In the bar on that first night, and later in her hotel room, I’d seen sadness in her eyes, and I didn’t want to add to whatever pain she was already going through. I promised to make it good for her. I told her there was no risk.
Robert has made a liar of me.
Pausing outside her door to take a deep breath, I run through what I’m going to say to her in my mind and then knock.
I wait.
There’s no answer and no noise coming from inside.
I knock again, louder. The thumping sound rings out in the deserted corridor.
I wait.
Nothing.
I look up and down the hallway, considering what I should do next. I don’t have a phone number for her. I know my security team could get it for me, but not immediately. Maybe by tomorrow, but that isn’t soon enough. Nicole is only in Atlanta for two days, so she may be flying out tonight or tomorrow morning. I can get my hands on a lot of information, but flight manifests are something else entirely, and I have no idea which airline she’d traveled in with. Instead, I decide to go with an idea I rejected earlier in the day when I’d been trying to work out how to seduce her again.
Flowers and an apology.
I call my personal assistant on the way to the elevator and arrange for a bouquet of white roses to be delivered to Nicole’s hotel room. Dictating the card to Sandrine is an experience I’d rather forget, but I know I have to make it heartfelt to stand a chance of Nicole getting in touch before she returns to England.
I don’t want her to leave without saying goodbye. I need to see her again, just once, and then I’ll move on as I always do.
I won’t fuck her again. I won’t break my own rules, but I would kiss her and eat humble pie for my idiot of a brother.
Nicole deserves that much.15
NICOLEAfter I leave Aaron’s condo, I manage to hail a cab and return to the hotel. At the reception desk, I explain that I want to change rooms, and they’re happy to allow me to move up a floor. I have a feeling Aaron will try to apologize in person. I think I’ve seen enough to know that Aaron isn’t the type to let someone walk away without trying to get the last word in. He’s a control freak through and through.
I don’t want to see him again, especially as it would likely involve him trying to worm his way back into my affections. He tried to tell me he didn’t know that man was watching – whoever he was – but I don’t believe him. Aaron has proved himself to have numerous kinks: bondage, a predilection for inflicting minor pain, and sensory deprivation. I suspect that voyeurism is another of his sexual fetishes. Maybe the man on the stairs wasn’t supposed to reveal himself, but Aaron certainly knew he was there. He blindfolded me so that I couldn’t see we had an audience.