I laugh. “Yeah.”
“You know you can still talk to me about anything.”
“Turn the camera.”
She purses her lips, but her eyes flicker with something that makes me feel drunk. “Alex, we’re …”
“No strings, taking it slow, whatever you say,” I drawl, like it’s all boring semantics I don’t care for.
She does as I ask and turns the camera toward the mirror, exposing every dizzying inch of her reflection. My fingers postpone my next meeting without my brain even having to ask them to. Copper hair tumbles over the pale skin of her breasts, messy waves lickingher stomach like flames. I press the knuckles of my free hand to my lips to try to keep my errant mouth shut before I scare her off again. “Good girl. Put your foot up on the sink.”
She does as I ask, I’m convinced the world starts spinning westward. “Next?” she breathes, and my heart stutters.
“Fuck, Ophelia. Let me see you touch yourself.” Her eyes drift shut, mouth dropping open as her hand moves off camera. My fingers curl around the edge of the desk, like I might start levitating any moment now. “You drive me insane.”
She tilts her head back in a slow, languorous movement, and I think she’s trying to finish me off, because her tongue darts out to wet her lips before she says, “You too.Please.”
I have my office door locked and my belt unbuckled in half a second, and the sound she makes when I groan her name feels so much more significant than anything else I could achieve in this office.
And it’s just so easy to pretend. When she breathes out my name, it sounds no different than it did when she was sure she wanted me.
A little orange thread ties itself in a stitch somewhere inside my rib cage.
What’s one more string in a sea of ten thousand?
I BLOCK OUTfifteen minutes in my schedule every afternoon for the rest of the week, just in case Ophelia wants to repeat what happened earlier today.
Then I reluctantly text Mike and Luis and tell them I’m free for our meeting, swiveling to face the city. The rain is a fine mist that turns the sidewalks dark and the roads shiny.
Where are you, Cain?
Mike knocks and enters, juggling his laptop, phone, notebook, and a steaming cup of coffee. “How was your call with the French?”
“Good, actually. Reminded them that five airports have cut their contracts with Vortex this year alone. We’re a no brainer, even with the drama around my father.”
“We’ve got to land Nice. There’ssomuch business from Monaco at the moment.”
“Yeah,” I agree, genuinelytryingto care.
I don’t hate running a business. I’d do it again, but maybe when I’m older and wiser. I like negotiating, like analyzing the numbers, but private jets and airports don’t interest me in the slightest.
In some twisted way, every bit of profit I make here feels like a favor to my father.Look at me, Cain, doing exactly what you always said I’d do.
I took on Synx, the cybersecurity firm, purely to have leverage over Rocco, a way to force him to agree with my plan not to let him use Green helicopters as a tool anymore. No more hits, no more bugging helicopters with listening and tracking devices. But now I’m considering keeping it, even after I leave Green.
Luis comes in, nodding at us both. “Fucking LAX.”
“What about them?”
“Three jets in the hangar for maintenance.Alldelayed. Staff shortage.”
“I’ll talk to them straight after this,” I say, tapping my pen on my thigh. So much of this job is just being angry over the phone.
Maybe Ophelia should do it.
My phone buzzes.
Vincenzo
