Page 68 of Always

She found a padded bench with a good view of the doors, settling down to wait. She knew she would see James at once if he arrived, because he was about a foot taller than the average person coming in and out the double doors.

She hadn’t gotten much sleep on the plane. During her mad dash through the city, she’d been fueled by excitement, anxiety, and the thrill of the chase. Now that she had finally found the place, exhaustion hit her full force.

The stream of visitors entering and exiting the doors was almost hypnotic. She was waiting, watching, still holding that irrational, improbable hope that any moment James would appear.

And then, without realizing it, she fell asleep.

* * *

24

Anika felt warm, strong hands touching her face, stroking her hair back from her cheek. She opened her eyes to look into a pair of dark blue eyes in a lean, tanned face—eyes in which she could read almost any emotion, eyes she would have recognized anywhere, even halfway across the world.

The amount that she had longed to see this face, to have it as close to her as it was now, made her feel that she was in a dream. She couldn’t believe it was real, but she absolutely didn’t want the moment to end. So she held perfectly still, willing herself with every particle of her being not to wake up.

“Anika,” James said. “What happened? Is everything alright?”

“James!” she said, coming fully awake at last. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here,” he said, smiling at her. “The question is, what are you doing here?”

He turned serious again, sinking down beside her on the bench. “Has something happened?”

“No,” she assured him. “Nothing’s happened. Well, things have happened, but nothing’s wrong.”

She saw he was wearing a suit and tie, that he had set a leather briefcase down beside him.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said in wonder, “I came into the lobby, I was headed up to my room, and I saw this angel sleeping on the couch. I thought I’d gone completely crazy.”

“Didn’t you get my messages?” she asked.

“No!” he cried, pulling out his phone to check.

She could see that he had a dozen missed calls and twenty unread messages, not just from her, but from multiple people, Liam included.

“I had a meeting,” he said. “It was extremely important. I went straight from the airport to their office, and I’ve been there since. I turned my phone off because it’s considered very rude here if it even buzzes in your pocket. You’re supposed to give people your full attention, which isn’t a bad thing, I guess. But when the meeting runs on for ten hours...” He rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

Anika could see that for all the perfection of his handsome face, here in person before her, James was as exhausted as she was—probably even more so. But his tiredness didn’t make him any less attractive. She had always noticed that any type of emotion only animated his face and made it more impossible not to look at him.

Something else about James: nothing in the world smelled as good as he did. The scent of his skin was utterly intoxicating to her. Sitting so close like this, closer than they’d been in such a long time, it suffused her lungs and made her giddy and lightheaded and a little bit wild.

“I came here because I had to talk to you,” she said. “And I couldn’t wait for you to call me back.”

He laughed. “I didn’t know you were so impatient,” he said.

“I’ve wasted so much time,” she said. “I can’t waste another minute. I have things to tell you.”

“Tell me everything,” he said.

“I know what you did to get back my earring,” she said. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“They were your mom’s,” James said simply. “I had to find it.”

“The second thing,” Anika said, “I’m not marrying Marco. He did give me a ring, but I never wore it. I broke things off with him—we’re totally finished.”

“I saw you weren’t wearing the ring,” James said. “When I bumped into you on the stairs. Plus, I kinda figured he was lying, once I thought about it. He’s a bit of an asshole, isn’t he?”

“He’s a complete asshole, actually,” Anika said. “He sold Bennet Knight and the Red Line. But I broke up with him before I knew that.”

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