Page 41 of Just Like You
Fuck.
I was getting horny, and this was not the place. Definitely not the time.
I grabbed a drink for Gina, then swiftly made my excuses and went outside, dialling his number as my hands shook.
He’d become a drug. Something in my system that I couldn’t soothe. I needed him. Just to hear his voice. Please.
No response. I’d bet he was still asleep. Instead, I sent him a text, just a row of hearts.
Soppy as anything, but that was me. He made me like this. Weird. Soft. Needy. Ridiculous.
I kept trying his number throughout the evening, hoping he’d wake up from his sleep at some point and call me back. Give me something, anything, to hold on to. The slow panic building in my chest was uncomfortable. I was missing him, and it hurt the very core of my soul because this wasn’t me. I didn’t miss Gina every second of the day. I knew where she lived, and she always answered her phone. If she didn’t? She called me straight back.
Julian? I suddenly didn’t know where I stood. I tried to analyse every conversation we’d shared, every moment on that beach. I knew him, yet I knew very little about him. I knew he was an only child. His mother had passed. He had friends in the industry and tended to prefer a one-night stand over building something that could last. I understood because I had always been exactly the same. But this? This was different, and I thought he’d agreed to that. Understood how I felt, because somewhere? I thought he’d felt the same.
The days passed, and I knew I was fighting a futile battle here. There was no other way for me to contact him, and when I had asked Maura, for the umpteenth time, if she had any connections in the airline industry? She’d shot me an evil look and threatened to hit me over the head with the bottle of whiskey still sat next to her desk.
I was reeling, and she knew it. I was also bereft and irrationally short-tempered, shouting at some intern scurrying past my door.
I hated it. Hated everyone. Absolutely detested Faye, the woman who worked with Bash Dewaert. Hated him too. And here was Faye outside my door wrapping up a phone call, her fist ready to rap a knock on my door.
Bash was a colleague. One that was happy and thriving and not wallowing in a deep, dark hole like I was. And this Faye? Too sharp. Too perfect. Always smiling, apart from when she saw me. The feeling between us was a hundred per cent mutual. I hated her. She hated me. Easy.
“Kieron,” she said, rapping her knuckles against my door just as I’d anticipated. “Juliet wants to see you.”
Did she now?
“You’re morphing into Juliet, Faye,” I grumbled. “Stop copying the way she knocks on doors. Makes you look like a twat.”
That? That was me in a nutshell. Still a playground bully at heart.
“Kieron,” Faye said sternly, walking through the door and closing it behind her. Then she sat down in my visitor’s chair, like she had been invited. For the record? She had not. Despite her perfectfigure and sleek dark hair? She’d never been on my radar in any capacity. Too strong, too polished and too much hard work. The girl had guts, and here she was, demonstrating just that. “You’re being a dick, and you need to go apologise to Taneesha. Seriously. Don’t treat people like that.”
I made some kind of squeaky noise at the back of my throat.
“And you saying nothing in return proves exactly that. You either own it or you don’t. Which brings me back to what I said. Go apologise. And also, Juliet really wants to see you.”
“And when did you become someone who does Juliet’s dirty work?”
“What happened to you for you to become so skewed? I’m relaying a simple message. You called Taneesha an incompetent disaster right in front of me. I think that gives me some rights here. Fix it.”
I rolled my eyes. Very me.
“Maura is a saint having to deal with you. She needs a medal and a raise.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Another point proved right there.”
“You’re always in everyone’s business, Faye. It’s annoying.”
“Not in everyone’s business. I just keep my eyes wide open around here. It’s a survival skill. You should try it sometime; maybe you’d see those daggers being shot at you in time to duck.”
I had to laugh. Because. Yeah.
“Get the fuck out of my office, Faye.”
“Oh, I will. I’m getting a headache just having to share oxygen with you. But I also need the contract for AssetAssist before the end of the day. We’ve got the approval for the components we want added, and I need to double-check some of the terms. Good job on that, by the way. Bash is thrilled.”
