Unbind (25 page)

“I’ve fallen so hard I can’t see any before.” I think the tear in my eye also confirmed it, though he didn’t see it.

“Chloe, I’m right here. I’m so grateful for you.”

He kissed me hard, all over my face, and we rolled around the bed lazily until I demanded he feed me.

I WORE A pair of black, skinny cropped jeans and a polka dot blouse while Cai wore some baggy jeans and a blue checked shirt. He looked gorgeous and even better, he couldn’t take his hands off me. We left the car at his place and caught a cab to Manhattan, brunching at the Boathouse. We hired a boat and paddled around the lake for a bit, but it was too hot by noon to stay out, so we headed for some shade in the trees and laid out together. I rested on his chest so I didn’t ruin my blouse on the grass.

“Do you love New York?” I asked with my chin propped up so I could look down on him.

“Yes and no,” he lifted his Ray Bans from his nose to look at me and squinted against the sunshine.

“What do you mean, yes and no?”

“Hmm.” He searched my eyes while he thought about it. “I love the city but for some reason I still can’t call it home, even though I went to school here… even though when I was in Connecticut before my parents died, this was still the place to come.”

How exactly did they die? I’d wait to ask that. Or hope he would tell me himself.

“What about Jennifer? Is she staying out of your affairs now?”

“Pretty much,” he nodded. “You might meet her, one day. She will love the way you dress, especially your more outrageous outfits.”

I laughed and rolled so I was flat on top. “I’m happy, Cai.”

He reached up and brushed my mouth with his, smiling through the kiss. His hips cuddled me between his legs and I felt it was soon going to get wild if we didn’t get away from that position we laid in. I cleared my throat and pushed myself up, using both hands on his chest to lever myself.

“Umfff, woman,” he complained—I’d nearly done a press-up on him.

“Quit complaining young man,” I scoffed, and he shrugged as he got himself standing too.

“Do you like it that I am younger?”

We started walking along one of the pedestrian zones through the park, his hand laced loosely through mine.

“I don’t mind it that you’re younger in number. In maturity, that would’ve been a problem. But as soon as we started talking, I realised there was a certain old vibe about you.”

He looked pleased with himself and I dug my elbow in his side as a warning not to get too cocky.

“Well, if I may be bold… and mature… and smug… I like being the arm candy of an older woman. It’s very cool… and numbers aside, my old gal is one hot chick.”

“You’re one word away from a bollocking!” I slapped his bum.

He playfully ran off and I chased after, shouting, “Boy, naughty boy! Come back here so I can put you over my knee!”

People around us looked worried, like we’d just escaped for the day or something. When I finally caught Cai and our chests crashed together in a hug, we hissed and tittered with laughter. He kissed me right there in the middle of all those other people, his warm, firm hands holding my cheeks while he softly plumped my lips with his, barely licking me.

I sighed with contentment and told him, “I usually go down the pub for a Sunday roast right about now.”

“You’re in New York, lady,” he reminded me. “There will be some kinda joint here somewhere.”

He pulled on my hand to lead me out of the park and toward a taxi rank on Fifth Avenue. We climbed in and Cai asked loudly, “Hey pal, where can we get a roast dinner? My girl’s from England and she wants her some meat and veg.”

The cab driver burst out laughing while I shrank in my chair.

“Thanks a bunch,” I muttered.

“I know this real good Irish pub… a pal o’mine has him an English wife and they always go there. It’s called
McKinley’s
.”

“Yeah I’ve heard of it… think we’ll head there if the lady agrees!”

Cai turned his mischievous eyes on mine and I agreed, swotting his hands off me.
Cheeky bastard.

The cab driver clunked over the roads as Cai got busy whispering in my ear, telling me what he was going to do with me when we got back to his place. We were lucky to get to the Irish, let me tell you.

McKinley’s
looked pretty darn rough from the outside—like something from
Shameless
—and I almost called the cab back as we dusted ourselves down on the sidewalk.

“Where are we?” I asked, no idea.

“The Village,” he said, pulling my hand, “c’mon.”

Inside was a whole different ballgame—wood panels, hand pumps, stools, brass rails, pictures of old Irish pubs and—all within Manhattan. I was impressed.

I chugged down a whole beef roast, followed by apple pie, accompanied by two pints of lager. Cai chugged his food, deliriously happy to see I also enjoyed mine. Pints and meat made me just that bit more in love with him.

He took me to
Knave
in
Le Parker Meridien
after that and despite feeling very underdressed, he assured me I looked great. Though in truth, I felt bloated from a full dinner.

The lighting low, the Asian-inspired furniture and décor comfy, the cocktails flowed and were needed to take the edge off my trepidation—yet we stayed there until midnight, picking and choosing the weirdest stuff off the menu. He told me the spa was amazing and he’d like to treat me to it sometime, so I absently told him yeah. I didn’t know if there would be time or cause for that, but I grinned nonetheless.

It was all lightness between us and we laughed throughout, him telling me all the secrets of the models he shot over the years. Which of them hated each other, which had quirky demands, which were the nicest and which often turned up drunk or on crack. Half the time I had my mouth open and my cheeks hurt repeating the word, “Noooo!!”

“Yeah,” he repeated until I believed him.

We caught a cab back to his place and set an alarm so I could get to work on time the next day. I wasn’t half as prepared as I’d like to have been, but what the hell.

As we got ready for bed, stood side by side in his red bathroom (yes, it was really red!), we stripped in front of one another before diving through to the bedroom and straight beneath the sheets.

He made wild love to me that night, throwing me all over the bed, doing me from behind, on top, back-to-front, eating me out in between. I sucked his cock, his balls, licked his perineum and warned I’d get to his ass one day. We writhed and I screamed, braced against his arms while we ground our bodies tight together. He bounced me on his cock until the bed creaked and then he ran with me to a wall, fucking me up against it. I came again and again, soaking with sweat and cum by the end.

Wrapped in his arms afterwards, I knew a growing, unrelenting happiness I never had before. We fell asleep instantly and despite his big bed, we laid together right in the middle, my face hid tight in his shoulder and neck, my body all over his. I hoped his kisses and whispers were honest because they had me believing he felt exactly the same way.

I GOT TO the office in plenty of time on Monday morning—some rented premises in the art-deco Verizon building. When Cai dropped me off, I asked him why the area seemed so eerie and he told me that it was because Ground Zero was right around the corner. I asked him where he was that day and he said he was at school and saw the towers go down. He didn’t expand on his feelings but I wondered if it was just a New York thing to clam up like he regularly did. Somehow, I didn’t think so. Anyway, Cai needed to run a few errands around town so he went on his way after giving me a lush, lingering kiss that I knew would leave my toes curling all day long.

Security was high in the foyer of the building but I spotted my gang hovering around a lounge area and greeted Trevor, “Morning.”

“Slept in?”

“No. I’m here before time, am I not?” It wasn’t even nine a.m. yet.

“You weren’t at the hotel? We shared cabs here.”

“I got my own lift,” I told him, with a snide, raised brow.

“I see,” he smirked, and got back to the crossword on his lap.

The conference room was centrally located within the office block we were occupying for the week. We went there first to grab coffee but when I saw a selection of breakfast items also on hand, I took a bag of fruit and a muffin. I was assigned a temporary office and gawped at the size—that was something I could get excited about—having a large workspace, coupled with the view outside!

We were joined by a number of people from an American company called Isle Media. A relatively new outfit, they were doing well and the potential deal was that some of our departments might merge with theirs—namely because Media Solutions
had some great digital platforms to work with that Isle Media could utilise. I thought the whole thing was more a fact-finding mission (from both sides) and had this confirmed when Aaron Weiner from Isle
took his position at the front of our first meeting and announced, “So, let’s see what we can hustle outta one another then guys.”

Most of the morning involved the bigger players like Trevor chatting to Aaron and his stern female colleagues. I zoned out a great deal because they were talking a load of tech speak and it gave me chance to catch up on dozens of emails and the news. I couldn’t see a day when I wouldn’t be constantly hooked to either my phone or tablet, always required to keep my eye on the ball.

One thing of note was a gossip column confirming that I seemed to be most definitely dating Cai Matthews (according to sources). Glad to know I was dating him! I didn’t know it needed a columnist to tell me that. We had been snapped at various locations that weekend—so it was official. Of course—Trevor had most probably seen this too.

Trevor pre-warned me we would be in meetings for most of that day, all week probably, figuring out whether our niche could find a market in New York. Or, rather, a way to ensure our work practices weren’t compromised by a fledgling company that could still potentially go under.

As I looked around the room I noticed our lot were their usual casual selves whereas Aaron wore a full suit and his perfect, doe-eyed female colleagues matched. I wore a monochrome Office dress which was smart but not too stuffy. I didn’t want to seem too casual on my first day there! Maybe New York
was
for me, after all. I just wanted to seem serious and I was also aware that landing a job in New York could help solve the problem I faced. Somehow, I knew Cai wasn’t all that fond of returning to London, for one reason or another. He hadn’t offered to come back with me, after all. He could have said, “Hey, babe. If it doesn’t work out we’ll just make it work in old London town, yeah?”

I knew his work took him all over the world but I guessed if I were in New York, that was surely the best base for us both. I just knew I wanted to be close to him and I was eager to make the best of whatever lay ahead.

All through that first meeting of the day, my mind felt fogged by recollections of the weekend. Cai seemed too good to be true. I felt I knew him so well already. It also felt like I’d been in the city for weeks, not days.

Across the conference table Trevor caught my eye now and again—I knew I would face his interrogation soon enough.

“Chloe? What do
you
think?”

I was snapped from my thoughts by Aaron. “Pardon, think about what?”

He shot me an exasperated expression. “The delivery times of showbiz copy to newswire—as part of your daily timekeeping? Is it as efficient as you would like it to be?”

Holy shit
. I had definitely lost my marbles somewhere along the way,
or
, it could have just been that this guy was trying to slip me up with all his long sentences. How did the conversation get so deep?

Screw your head on
. I smiled confidently, determined not to be flustered. “We provide the most up-to-date copy in the UK, if not the most up-to-date in the world. Not only is our data used by numerous subsidiary parties in the UK, but around the globe too. How we do this is that—” Trevor gave me a look,
Don’t tell them too much
, so I continued, “we have a strict process whereby the information goes the same route each time. Every time. It works. Efficiency has never been the quest, but quality has. Our processes have been streamlined over many, many years. That was one of the first things I learned. Unlike
The Enquirer
, we have never had to print an apology yet… we get the job done, we get it done quickly enough as it is. It is quality that matters most to our company, I would say. Trevor?”

He nodded, giving me the invisible thumbs up. “Quite right, Chloe.”

I smirked and
Aaron smiled back, clearly enamoured with my unflinching display of pride.

“There is always room for more efficiency,” he argued, “always.”