Hate at First Sight (13 page)

The kiss was nothing but a tempting exploration. I didn’t realize how much I actually wanted to taste those lips again. Nothing changed, I was still crazy about Megan. I kissed her hungrily, as if we hadn’t kissed for centuries and not just a week. But the most surprising thing was her reaction to my kiss. She didn’t even try to stop me. She responded to it, as if she still wanted the same things I did.

I let her hands go and squeezed her hips lightly, enjoying the way our bodies reacted to each other. Where was my common sense at the moment? I had no idea….

All I could think about now was Megan. And no matter how angry I was at her, right now and there I didn’t care. I wanted to be with her, and I knew that she wanted to be with me too.

Suddenly she broke the kiss.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, breathing heavily.

“Have you lost your mind, Aiden?” She stepped aside, readjusting her jacket and skirt. God, they looked so sexy, outlining every curve of her body that I was dying to touch.

“You didn’t seem to mind kissing me a few seconds ago.”

“Exactly! It took me too long to realize what was going on!”

Ouch….

“Stop fooling yourself, Megs. We both liked it.”

“Don’t you dare to touch me, Aiden. Ever again,” she hissed, looking at me angrily.

“As you wish, Dear. But if you ever change your mind, call me. Maybe I will be able to find some time for you.”

“In your dreams!” she snapped, before she left, shutting the door behind her.

And here I thought that my life couldn’t get any worse.

“Serves you right, idiot,” I muttered to myself.

Why on earth couldn’t I leave without seeing her? I didn’t have any questions. All I wanted was to see her one last time. And I wasn’t going to kiss her, but apparently I couldn’t help myself. She had some power that I couldn’t resist, and she knew it.

The moment I entered the boardroom and saw her, standing near the table in that black suit of hers, and heels that reminded me of the night we spent together, I could barely concentrate on anything, but her lips and her voice that were slowly taking me into the vortex of the dreams that had been haunting me for nights; with her and me, making love, again and again. I thought the meeting would never end. The list of questions seemed endless, and even though I could barely hear what those questions were about, I could see how well Megan managed to answer all of them. She knew what she was doing, and I liked it. Beautiful, smart and sexy….

“Mr. Murphy, I’m sorry for bothering you,” the secretary said. “But I would like to know if you are going to stay for tonight’s cocktail party?”

“What’s the occasion?”

“It’s a traditional thing here. Every time new people join our team, we arrange a party for them. And there are a few new employees we haven’t welcomed properly yet.”

“Oh …” So that meant Megan would be there too. “Sure, count on me. Where is the party taking place?”

“Downstairs, in the café.”

“Okay, thanks for the invitation.”

“It will be our pleasure to see you there, Sir. Your father never misses our parties.”

Yeah, my father
always cared about his employees. Everyone knew that if he or she had any questions or problems, they would be answered and solved in no time.

I wasn’t going to stay in London for that long, but my plans changed, and I needed to call to Bristol to ask Shelli to take care about the appointments that I was going to miss. I didn’t tell her about the date of my return, because I didn’t know how long it would take me to get the answers to the questions that I couldn’t let go. Owen was right, Megan and I needed to talk.

The greeting party started at about six, and I immediately became the center of everyone’s attention. Not that I was thrilled about everything going on around me, but I couldn’t let my dad down, and I needed to impress the audience. So I thought it would be great to start with a short speech. I took the microphone and turned to the guests, my eyes immediately found Megan’s. She was standing right in front of me, with that mysterious smile I never knew how to decipher. She took a sip of her champagne, her eyes never left mine.

I cleared my throat and looked back at her, saying, “First of all I’d like to welcome the new members of our team. I’m sure everyone of you is special and worth being here. I hope you will enjoy every day of your work, and if you ever have any questions or complaints, don’t hesitate to contact me.”

Even from a distance I could see Megan’s smirk. Well, my last words were mostly addressed to her, and she knew it. She shook her head slightly, emptied her glass and headed for the exit. I thanked everyone for their attention and ran after her. The party wasn’t supposed to end so soon.

“Already leaving?” I asked, closing the door of her office. She didn’t look like she was surprised to see me there. Did she know I would follow her upstairs?

She put some documents into her bag, closed her laptop and looked up at me. “Yes. It was a long day, and I need to get some rest before tomorrow.”

“How about a drink?”

“I already had one, Aiden. And I’m too tired to go anywhere, but home.”

“What if I give you a lift?”

She crossed her arms and stared at me. “Do you really think I will say yes?

“Um … yes?”

“Huh, and I thought you were so much smarter than that.” She took her bag and was just about to leave the office, when I caught her by the hand.

“You are running away, again. May I ask why you keep doing that?”

“Doing what, Aiden?” Her eyes flashed angrily, as she turned to face me. “Don’t you think it’s rather late for drinks and friendly talks?”

“Actually I think it’s about time to talk.”

“I don’t have any desire to talk to you. Let me go.”

“What if I don’t?” I said, leaning closer. My eyes slipped to her lips, and damn they looked like they were begging me to kiss them.

“I’m not going to fall into your trap again. Once was more than enough.”

“Wrong answer, Love,” I said, touching her cheek with the back of my hand. “Once was just a bite of what I actually wanted to get.” And just like that our talk was over. My lips found Megan’s, and I mentally cursed the consequences of what I was about to do. I wanted her. Now.

“Aiden, don’t….”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“What?”

In one fast motion the slit at her skirt went up to her hips, and I tore it off of her. I didn’t stop even for a second before I got rid of her jacket and blouse, leaving her in a dark-red bra and thong.

“Mmm … I always liked your choice of lingerie.”

“Aiden, we can’t … someone may come in,” she said breathlessly in between my kisses.

I took off my jacket, swept her in my arms and carried her to the couch.

“It’s my company, remember? I can do whatever I want. And right now I want to be with you.” I looked down at her young face with the perfect features I loved so much. “Why did you do that to me?” Then I eased forward and embraced her lips with mine, trying to put as much love as I could into that kiss.

Something inside me was screaming for me to stop, but I ignored the inner voice. Everything that had happened during the last two weeks came back into my head, torturing my mind with a new force that I didn’t know how to deal with. Megan looked so beautiful and so innocent, as if the words of love she said days ago still meant something to her.

I carefully reached back and unhooked her bra, removing the straps from her shoulders and trailing small kisses across her shoulder and collarbone, and all the way to her breasts waiting for my lips to touch them. She moaned softly when my tongue caressed the delicate surface. I couldn’t believe that my feelings for her didn’t go anywhere; rather I was falling even more in love with every part of her.

I took my time removing the rest of her clothes, kissing and savoring every inch of her soft skin. My own clothes were taken off in no more than five seconds; I couldn’t wait to be close to Megan. I bowed to her flat stomach and kissed it, as my palms fondled her sides and hips, moving slowly to get the prize that I was dying to get. Then I wrapped my arms around her, making her sit on top of me.

Her long hair teased my face and shoulders in a seductive touch, and she smiled down at me, a cute blush covered her cheeks. “This is insane, Aiden.”

“I don’t want to be sane now. Come here.” I pulled her closer to my chest, enjoying the way her breasts rubbed my skin. “Let’s not think about anything, but us,” I said, caressing her lower lip with my tongue. Her lips parted, and she kissed me slowly, making every inch of my body come to life. I put my palm at the back of her neck, deepening the kiss and sliding my other palm down to her hip. We both knew that we couldn’t wait any longer, so I moved a little and placed her legs around my hips, guiding myself inside her.

A pleased groan escaped out throats as our bodies became one. My thrusts were slow and teasing, and even though I wanted to do everything in a bit different way, I enjoyed watching Megan’s reaction to my moves.

“Do you want me to speed up?”

Instead of answering, she wrapped her legs tighter around me, as if it was our last time together, and she didn’t want to let me go. Our moves became wild, as if we both were dying to give each other as much pleasure as we could. But it still wasn’t enough.

My thrusts became more urgent. I could feel the muscles of her lower body tensing, and I knew we were close to the delightful heights. When the pleasure overtook our bodies and minds, it felt like the best moment ever. And if it wasn’t for the damn kiss I witnessed a week ago, I would have thought that what we shared seconds ago was nothing, but pure love….

When it was over and my brain could finally think straight, I realized that what we did was nothing, but a huge mistake. Megan didn’t love me, she was still in love with Jeff, and maybe our physical attraction was hard to resist, we had to stay away from each other.

We got dressed in silence, as if we were afraid of sharing our thoughts with each other. We shouldn’t have done what we did….

“I’ll take you home.”

“No, Aiden. I’ll take a taxi.”

Anger filled my mind. Megan looked calm, as if nothing had ever happened. She combed her hair and rouged her lips, as if we were just lovers, sharing nothing but a mind-blowing sex in the office. I cursed mentally.

“As you wish,” I said, leaving and slamming the door shut behind me. We messed it up, again. And here I thought we would be able to talk, like grown up, intelligent people. Apparently our talking ability died the moment our gazes and lips locked.

Fuck….

My eyes didn’t see the road under my feet. It was raining cats and dogs, but I hardly cared. I pulled in the belt of my coat but that didn’t stop me from shivering. My apartment wasn’t far from the office, so I rarely took a taxi to get to work. But today I could hardly comprehend what was going on around me. I couldn’t even think about a taxi, or even noticing the water drops dripping down my hair and face. I didn’t even care about the people passing by in a hurry. Everyone wanted to get home as soon as possible, except for me.

I wanted to die right then, and there. I was so depressed and lost that I didn’t even hear the phone, ringing in my bag. When I finally got home, I saw twelve missed calls. All of them were from Angeline. She and Jessie were still in London, and only now I realized that I missed the meeting that we agreed to have two days ago. My graduation ball was great, and my friends and I had a lot of fun. They didn’t want to stay in my apartment, so as not to bother me with their presence, and right now I was glad they stayed in a hotel. I didn’t want to see anyone. I sent Angeline a message, saying I had a lot of work to do and couldn’t make it to the promised meeting. Then I took off my wet clothes, and went to the bathroom. I desperately needed a hot shower.

When the first drops of water touched my shoulders, I sank to the floor and let the tears flow. I couldn’t believe Aiden and I had sex in my office. After everything he had done to me a week ago! How on earth was I supposed to go back to my work tomorrow when everything about my working place would remind me of what we did tonight?

I felt like nothing on earth. I cursed my body for taking control over my mind. Right now I hated myself to death. I was weak, stupid and … still crazy in love with Aiden.

Uh, why did I agree to stay with him? How could I forget about my insult just because of a few kisses of his? But the kisses were so sweet, my mind added. Damn, damn, damn!

I shouldn’t have let anything of the above happen. I kept blaming myself for being such an idiot, and when I was finally done with the shower, I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of wine, emptied it in seconds and passed out on a small couch in the living room.

***

Someone was knocking at the door. Loudly.

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock on the opposite wall — almost noon….

Noon? Oh, my God! I overslept.

I jumped to my feet and went to open the door.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Morning to you too,” Aiden said, coming in.

“What the hell are you doing here?” My eyes followed him into the kitchen.

“I brought you some aspirin and food.”

I stared blankly at the bags in his hands.

“What for?”

“You missed the morning meeting, and your phone was off, you didn’t answer the other phone that you have at home, and I started worrying.”

“No shit? When did you start caring about me?”

“I have always cared about you, Megan.” Finally, he looked at me. His eyes traveled from my head and down to my bare feet, and he frowned.

“How do you feel?”

“I would feel much better if you were not here!” I snapped. “I’m sorry for missing work today. It’s the first and the last time I’ll do that.”

I went to my bedroom to find the charger for my cell phone. Aiden followed me.

“Would you be so kind as to get out of my place?”

“Not going to happen.”

I sighed, irritated. With my hands on my hips, I turned to face him. “What’s your problem, Aiden?”

“You.”

“If you came here to have a good-morning sex, I’m going to disappoint you. Bad timing.”

“No, I actually came to tell you the good news.”

“News about what?”

“I have decided to move to London.”

“You what?”

“My father has some health problems, and he will be out of the country for a few months. He wants me to head the branch of our company here, and your brother will head the one in Bristol.”

“You can’t be serious.”
Shock
was not the word to describe what I felt at the moment.

“I’m dead serious, Megan. And since we are going to work together, I think we need to discuss a few things.”

“Like what? Having sex instead of lunch?”

“Let’s leave our past behind and concentrate on our work. I know that you are a great financial expert, and I want to keep on working with you. So don’t even think about quitting the job. Besides, your contract won’t allow you to leave the company any time soon.”

“I can’t believe this is happening to me.” I sat tiredly at the edge of my bed. I didn’t even know how to react to Aiden’s words. I knew that working with him, side by side wouldn’t be easy, but it looked like I didn’t have a word in this situation.

“Okay, so … what do you suggest?”

“I thought you could become my assistant. What do you say?”

“Your
assistant? Like the assistant of the O’Brian’s Enterprises head?” I thought I had a hearing problem.

“Exactly.” Aiden’s face didn’t give out a thing. It felt like we were standing on different sides of the wall that was getting thicker with every passing second.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you still want me to work with you?”

“I have already answered this question, Megan.”

“No, you haven’t.” I came up to him, close enough to make him flinch. “What’s the real reason?”

“Like I said, you are a very good specialist. And I don’t want to lose you.” He looked down into my eyes, and for a moment I thought his words didn’t have anything to do with my job.

“You really think we can do this?”

“I’m sure we can. But first, I want you to have a day off. You don’t look good.” I didn’t know if it was an unintentional gesture, but the next second Aiden’s palm was on my cheek, and he caressed it softly, making every part of me hurt.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said, swallowing hard. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry, Aiden, but I can’t….”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, taking a step back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Megan.”

And just like that he left.

What did he mean saying that it didn’t matter? Was it just about the contract that wouldn’t allow me to quit any time soon? Or was it about his own desire to torture me for six more months? None of the variants was good.

I had only one day to get a grip on myself, and I was going to spend it nursing my misery. Yep, nothing else came to my head. So I went to the kitchen to see what was inside the bags Aiden brought. My head was spinning a little, so I was glad to find the medicines and fruits. I washed the grapes, put one of my favorite romantic comedies into the DVD player, and curled up under the blanket that was going to be my only company for the rest of the day.

Later that day my friends called and asked me to spend their last night in London with them. I wasn’t thrilled about going out, but I didn’t want to upset them either. So I called Zack to ask if he would like to spend a few hours in the company of a few stunning girls.

“The four of us are going to rock this night!” was his excited response.

“Ugh, not that pitiful face again!” my friends exclaimed in unison, meeting me downstairs an hour later.

I looked down at myself, trying to realize what could be wrong with my outfit, but Zack spoke first, “Your ponytail sucks. And what happened to your wardrobe, Dear? Don’t you have anything more appropriate to wear?”

“Appropriate for what?” I asked, watching them cautiously. Angeline and Jessie shared joyful glances. “Okay, what’s going on here?”

“We are going to karaoke!”

Oh, no … I groaned mentally. “Can we just go to some café, instead of straining out our voices for some Britney’s song?”

“You don’t want to ruin our fun, do you?” Angeline said, taking me by the hand.

“I don’t feel good today. Sorry, guys, but I’d better go back home and have a good sleep.”

“No way!” Zack cried. “You are going with us. Period.”

Sometimes I wished I didn’t have any friends, because if they had something on their minds, it was simply impossible to talk them out of it.

“Fine,” finally I said, already knowing that tomorrow morning would start with an energy drink and two big cups of coffee.

And I was right. Waking up felt like the worst thing ever. The words of
‘Oops, I did it again’
were still bumping in my ears, and considering that they were repeated no less than ten times in one night, I felt like a robot programmed to play Britney’s songs only. I cursed mentally and dragged myself to the bathroom. I couldn’t go to work looking like something the cat brought in. And right now I looked even worse. I flinched at my reflection in the mirror and got into the shower.

Two hours later I was ready to start a new working day. I entered my office, trying really hard not to look at the damn couch where Aiden and I spent one unforgettable hour a day ago, then I asked a girl from the café to bring me what turned out to be my fourth cup of coffee, took a deep breath and opened my laptop.

The first thing I saw there was a message from Josh. He said he had gotten a cold and would stay at home for a few days. Then I read the rest of the messages I missed yesterday and was just about to look through my
schedule for the day, when Mrs. Delancour entered my office.

“Good morning, Megan,” she said, taking a seat. “I heard about your brilliant presentation, and I wanted to thank you for backing me up.”

“There’s nothing to say thanks for. It’s my job to help you, isn’t it?”

“Not anymore.” She smiled. “I also heard about your promotion. Congratulations.”

“Oh, um … thanks. It was kind of unexpected, and I didn’t have time to wrap my mind around it.” I chuckled nervously. I didn’t have time to wrap my mind around anything that included Aiden, but it looked like I didn’t have much choice.

“Your new office will be ready by noon.”

“My what?”

“Well, Mr. Murphy says he wants to have you closer to his office, as being his assistant you are going to spend a lot of time together.”

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, barely controlling myself.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I was talking to myself,” I said, smiling pleasantly. I really hoped she didn’t hear my words. Gossip was the last thing I wanted to deal with now. “So where’s my new office?”

“You and Mr. Murphy have adjoining rooms.”

Great … the bastard has thought about everything!

“Thanks, I will have a look at it later.”

When Mrs. Delancour left, I found Aiden’s number and dialed it, mentally telling myself to calm down. Not that it was possible of course.

“We need to talk. Now!” I snapped into the phone, and without waiting for his response, I headed for his office.

He’d better give me a good explanation of everything he was doing.