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His kiss tells me I’m forgiven, and then I can’t speak another word because he stops holding himself back, his hips powering into mine as he sinks as deep as he can go and we’re finally lost together.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cam
AS I PULL up outside Orla’s Raffles Place office in Singapore’s financial district a few days later, my phone rings. I slide the car into park and answer on the Bluetooth. It’s Orla.
‘Hi. I’m just outside,’ I say, already grinning with anticipation.
‘I figured you wouldn’t be far away. I’m on my way down. I just wanted to say I’m ready and I’ve cleared everything on my desk—no interruptions tonight. I promise.’ She’s mildly breathless, as if she’s talking on the move. ‘Perhaps I should even wear one of those glasses and moustache disguises so I don’t get cornered by someone who recognises me.’
I throw my head back and laugh. ‘There’s no need to go that far. But I appreciate the gesture.’ Since the evening at the races, where we had our first fight—although I’m not sure you can have a fight if you’re not a couple—Orla and I haven’t spoken about my inheritance. In fact, we haven’t spoken about anything that could be considered real, only travel arrangements or her work schedule, or where we’d like to eat that evening. But every time I pay for a meal, tip a waiter or add drinks to my M Club tab, I feel her eyes on me, as if she wants to say more but is holding back.
I understand the impulse. For days now I’ve been fighting the urge to ask where this is going. Where we’re going, because time is running out. Our trip will soon be over and we’ll be back in Sydney before we know it.
What then?
Do we shake hands and walk away without a backward glance? Will we hook up every time she’s home long enough to give me a call? Cam’s dial-an-orgasm? Will we date other people in between? Fuck, of course we will, because we won’t be dating each other—she made that clear from day one. I check my feelings, the roll of my stomach confirming without a doubt that I want more from Orla than a goodbye the minute we touch down in Sydney or an occasional booty call.
I want everything.
But what does she want? Probably nothing more than she’s wanted from the start. A good time. But surely we’ve moved past just physical pleasure? Surely she feels the same stirrings to explore this further, back in the real world?
But whose real world?
I wince, remembering the woman tying my insides into knots is still on the line. ‘Okay...well, hurry down. I’ve got a surprise.’ Two if you count the box in my pocket.
I’m taking her to the Singapore Grand Prix, which just happens to be in town this week. She’s spent a gruelling four days working, leaving the hotel suite before I’m awake and returning late in the evening, pale and about to drop. The humidity here is draining and she’s been visiting a technology satellite manufacturing company on one of the islands. It’s all I can do to encourage a few mouthfuls of the delicious room-service menu into her before turning on the shower and tucking her into bed.
At first I thought her drive, work ethic, and independence made us incompatible, but it’s true what they say—opposites do attract and we slot together well.
But could we take this chemistry, this astounding connection, and translate it into something real once the travelling and the hedonism stop? On my turf, my real turf, would her enthusiasm dwindle? Would she decide that we just don’t have enough in common after all?
As to her feelings...
I swallow bile—I have no clue. I’m only just waking up to my own...
I grip the steering wheel, hoping to dislodge the lump in my throat threatening to cut off my oxygen. Time is running out. The real test will come back in Sydney, on home ground. I already have plans to throw myself into finishing the cottage renovations, but I still have no definitive solution for my financial woes. Do I return to work at my old construction firm and ignore the money in my account? Will they even have me back? When I said I needed some unpaid leave to get my head around things, they didn’t put up much of a fight. I knew the company was struggling; as with most Sydney-based construction companies, the building slump had taken its toll. But could I simply slot back into my old life as if none of this—the money, meeting Orla—had happened?
More importantly, could a woman like Orla—so driven, so intent on making her business the best—be happy to come back down to earth with me? Live that simple life in a cottage by the sea?
I try to picture her there, both in its current state of disrepair and once finished. I’m so used to seeing her in glamorous, decadent surroundings that the image doesn’t quite gel.
There’s a tap at the window. I look up to find her beautiful, lit-up face smiling down at me and I’m struck with the force of a baseball bat to the skull that I want that reality. Me, Orla, simple moments in a cottage by the sea.
Fuck, I’m falling for her. Actually falling.
I clamber from the car, my heart pounding.
I scoop one arm around her waist and pull her in for a kiss. Our first of the day and all the sweeter because I’ve had to wait and because each kiss we share is better and better.
‘Hi,’ I say after she releases me.
She laughs. ‘Hi, yourself. So where are we going? I’m excited.’
My chest grows tight with nervous energy, the box in my pocket burning a hole through the denim of my jeans. I wanted to wait, to give her the gift at a suitably romantic moment, but I can’t help myself. In view of my lightning-bolt revelation, I’m impatient to start.
‘I have something for you first—a gift.’ I tug at the box, which is snagged on my pocket.
