a sign of weakness if you don’t at least slash his tires. You know, show him you care.”
“I don’t care,” Aerin said honestly.
“Oh, that’s different then. How’s Seattle?”
“Gray and rainy.”
“Well, it’s spring. It’s supposed to be nice in the summer.” The click clack of long fake nails on a keyboard punctuated a pregnant silence. “So… you need me to prepare any documents, call meetings, book hotels, a car, buy bribery gifts, put together PowerPoint presentations, you know, the usual?” The vibration of Sandra’s anxiety reached through the continent between them. “You left without telling me what you’re doing. I’m flying blind, boss, I can’t even link the calendar. I haven’t made an Excel chart in weeks. My life has no meaning.”
Aerin laughed at her assistant’s dramatics. “This is more of an informal visit. No worries, just keep your eye on things there. Make sure that Windmark Tech doesn’t fold while I’m away.” Spotting her luggage, Aerin shouldered through the crowd and pounced, dragging the ginormous bag back through the press of pushy assholes while trying to find a spot big enough to turn around in, regain her bearings, and figure out just where the hell she was going.
“Oh that reminds me,” Sandra perked up. “The numbers came in from last year and we’re up two billion instead of the one point five we projected, so we’re close enough in the rankings to that company that shall remain nameless to give Bill his next prostate exam. Top five, baby!”
“That’s great,” Aerin said, distracted, as she wrestled with her luggage. You’d think you’d pay two thousand dollars for luggage and the goddamned wheels would work even after six months of heavy usage.
There. A break in the crowd. She’d reach it and then she could breathe. Now where could she smoke? That was the question. Using her sharp elbows, she made her way to the edge of the crowd.
“The internal audit turned up some surprising reports,” Sandra droned on. “You were right about those second quarter losses. They were regained in the fourth with no…”
To say that at the sight of the moody prince in front of her Sandra’s voice faded into the background would have been one hell of an understatement. It was more like everything just… vanished. The crowds. The walls of windows with their spectacular display of thunderclouds. The drone of planes taking off and landing. The announcements of the loudspeakers. It all disappeared.
When Aerin stepped into the circle of empty floor around the tall, impeccably dressed man, it was as though within that precise circumference a Bermuda triangle effect took hold.
Heh. What would they call this one, the SeaTac circle? What was next? The Montpelier Square? The El Paso dodecahedron? Nah, those were three dimensional, so probably not.
Blinking rapidly, Aerin shut her ridiculous thought digression down. Her brain tended to haywire a bit when the vibrations overwhelmed her. And his were off the charts.
Power.
It was what kept the people at bay. They didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t even stare or particularly seem disrupted. They merely packed themselves tighter into their own space to avoid his.
Who could blame them, really? The sheer force of his presence rolled off him in ultrasonic waves equally in all directions. Hence, the circle. And he stood in the middle of it like the tall, straight leg of a geometric compass.
The perfect center to a perfect circle.
His liquid-blue eyes pinned her with a look of mild intrigue that quickly heated into astonishment. Words that had never been part of her MIT educated vocabulary filtered through as her brain tried to process him.
Regal. Elegant. Dark. Lethal. Mysterious. Ancient.
Ancient? Really? Couldn’t be. He only looked like thirty-five…ish.
But his eyes. His pale, lovely blue eyes held secrets darker than the underworld. Stories that began with “Once upon a time,” could pour from sensuous lips like his and she would believe every fairytale to be the God’s honest truth. Because he’d been there. He’d seen it all.
Though, judging by his appearance, the only role he could play was that of the villain.
God. She could slice her finger on those cheekbones.
“Those will kill you, you know.” His British accent melted from that mouth like dark wine and darker transgressions.
“What?” Aerin looked down, shocked to see the pack of her cigarettes clenched in her hand. When had she reached for them? When had she hung up her phone?
His tone had been a bit ironic, as though maybe she wouldn’t have the time to wait for smoking to finish