Page 2 of Never Too Late

Cillian grimaced. “That’s right. We had to reshoot the advert for one of our biggest clients. It was an emergency.”

“An advertising emergency,” I muttered. “Someone should have called an ambulance instead of you.”

Cillian frowned. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

I sure was making him frown a lot today. I shook my head before bending over to tie my shoe. “Nothing.”

“We’ll have dinner tonight!” Cillian announced. “I’ll take you to your favorite restaurant.”

With both shoes now tied, I straightened, a small kernel of hope growing in my chest. Perhaps over dinner we’d talk. I could ask Cillian to turn his phone off. The world wouldn’t end if clients and business associates couldn’t reach him for an hour or two. “My favorite restaurant?”

“The one in Covent Garden we went to a couple of weeks ago.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I knew the restaurant he meant, and it was far from my favorite. If I had to come up with one word to describe it, I’d go for pretentious, most of the food so tiny a morsel that I’d left the restaurant almost as hungry as when I’d arrived. I racked my brain for what had made Cillian think I liked it so much and came up blank. Still, it was spending time with Cillian that mattered. Whether that was in Burger King, or somewhere that cost considerably more. I opened my mouth to tell him dinner would be nice, but didn’t get so much as the first syllable out before Cillian swore under his breath.

He gave me an apologetic look and I already knew what was coming before he spoke. I knew because it had happened many times before. “I’ve just remembered I can’t tonight. I promised to sit in on the new campaign and give them my input. Sorry. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

And then tomorrow night, it would be something else. I couldn’t do it anymore. There was a time to admit defeat, andthis was it. Cillian wasn’t going to change, and the talk would never happen.

I turned away as Cillian resumed talking on the phone, the foibles of his Irish accent becoming more pronounced in a way that usually made me smile. I had no smiles in me today as I stared at the sheets and replayed the way we’d fucked like bunnies only a few minutes ago.

Despite my earlier vow that I’d do no such thing, I moved to smooth and straighten the sheets. It wasn’t making the bed in my mind; it was erasing the memory that I’d come here to talk and, in my weakness, ended up in bed with Cillian instead.

“Do that,” Cillian said as he hung up the phone.

I seized my chance. “I’m thinking of changing jobs.”

“Yeah?” Cillian didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “I thought you liked what you do.”

“I did. I do.”

“Talk to Amrita.”

“Amrita?” Amrita was Cillian’s right-hand woman. Part personal assistant, part confidante. If it wasn’t for her being female and Cillian being gay, I might have wondered about the two of them given how close they were. “Why would I speak to Amrita?”

“Tell her what you’re looking for and she’ll sort something out for you. She has contacts in numerous fields. She’ll talk to them. Get you an interview. Grease the wheels, so to speak.”

“I don’t need her to—”

The phone rang again, Cillian snatching it up and offering a greeting before I got a chance to protest. Not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference. I studied him as he embarked on a conversation, his handsome features animated. Had he always been such a bad listener? I suspected he had and I just hadn’t wanted to see it.

Apart from the sex, this ‘relationship’ had been a car crash from the start. I’d thought I was a boyfriend on my way to being more. More fool me. Cillian didn’t have time for a boyfriend. He didn’t have time for anything except a fuck buddy, so that’s the category he’d neatly filed me under. And the frustrating thing was that I’d let him. What did I really know about him beyond what he did for a job, what his flat looked like, and what he liked to eat when he went to a restaurant?

Six months, and it was all surface level. What did that say about me? That all I needed was a hard body, good looks, and expensive gifts to fall in love? Because, despite his many faults, I’d fallen hard for Cillian King. It was just that sometimes that wasn’t enough. I’d learned that the hard way.

With nausea bubbling in my gut at my own naivety, I retrieved my jacket from where Cillian had thrown it in his rush to strip me out of my clothes. How long ago had that been? Ten minutes? Less? Now I came to think about it with this new spirit of enlightened honesty, sex always happened in a rush. Where was the extended foreplay? Where was the basking in the afterglow? If Cillian felt an ounce of what I felt for him, he’d be clearing his schedule for the rest of the day.

He was still talking on the phone, the sound nothing but background noise over the whirring of my brain as I beat myself up for being a doormat. My steps were automatic as I headed for the door, the path to outside clear in my head. I just had to get there. Fresh air would help. And not looking at Cillian. Looking at him would feed the tiny seed of doubt, the one that kept telling me to give it more time, that questioned what harm a couple more weeks would do when it had already been six months?

“Finn?”

My name was said with an air of confusion. I fought against the urge to keep walking as I turned with a bright smile on my face. “Yeah?”

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

I gestured at the phone still in Cillian’s hand. “You were busy. I didn’t want to interrupt.” My voice sounded flat, like every iota of emotion had been squeezed out of me.

Cillian must have heard it too, his face contorting into the third frown caused by me in the space of only a few minutes. Not having me in his life would be far better for his complexion. Too much time spent in my company and he’d end up with premature wrinkles. I almost laughed at the rather bizarre thought. I was the human equivalent of whatever the opposite to Botox was. Perhaps Cillian could come up with an advertising campaign for me.Used too much Botox? Face too expressionless? Spend some time with Finlay Prescott and he’ll reverse the effects in no time.How would it work? Would I have to move in with them? Given there was only one of me, I’d have to charge a hell of a lot for the service.

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