‘What is happiness? Being content, having no regrets…?’ The low burr to his voice worked its way through her, warming and hypnotic and tugging at her heartstrings. ‘I’m content with the way my life is now, but I regret not being enough for her. I regret hurting her and I regret my daughter having to grow up in a split household and the fights she bore witness to before we went our separate ways.’
She nodded, getting the sense he’d admitted more than he would ever normally do. ‘And so you’ve been single all this time?’
‘For the most part.’
‘Lonely?’
‘Never.’
She stirred the olive in her drink, her mind tripping over itself with all she wanted to say but knew wasn’t her place to.
‘Out with it.’
Her eyes collided with his over the rim of her glass. ‘Huh?’
‘You’re burning to say something. I can see it in your face.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘You are. Your eyes are doing all the talking for you.’
Her laugh was choked out by the look in his eyes as they seared into hers, the molten chocolate a thin rim around the black. She swallowed the smallest sip, licked the remnants clear of her lips and he tracked the move. Not once releasing her from his intensity.
He liked that she was pushing him. That much was clear. Whether he wanted to hear her opinion or not, he was pushing her to give it, to own it…
‘You’ve filled your life with work,’ she said, empowered by his reaction, ‘but what comes next?’
‘Next?’
‘Well, you can’t live for your work forever—you’ve already told me that your daughter is primed to take over so at some point you will need to walk away and retire.’
Beneath his tan, he paled, the lines deepening around his eyes that he now averted, the grooves beside his full mouth too. He really couldn’t stomach it. Retirement.
And then it hit her, the reason he was here, his forced time off… ‘This is why you’re here, isn’t it? Your forced time off. It isn’t so much a holiday as it is a nudge toward that goal.’
‘I hardly see retirement as a goal.’
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. ‘Most people see it as their goal.’
‘I’m not most people.’
‘No, on that you are very much like my Jack, and it’s sad.’
His eyes snapped to hers. ‘Sad?’
‘Sad that you don’t see a life outside of work.’
‘I see a life…’
She nodded, though her lips were pursed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
‘I do. I’m here now, entertaining a very beautiful woman, and for the first time in days I haven’t thought of work once. I call that progress.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘I would. You’re the first woman to achieve that in…well, forever.’
And it shouldn’t have warmed her to her toes, thrilled her to her core, but it did. And that was enough to have her nudging the evening on…
‘While we’re on the subject of avoidance, you from work and me from my social awkwardness, shall we eat? Or do you want me to drill you on your retirement plans some more?’
He grimaced. ‘If you want me to eat anything, I suggest parking the R word altogether.’
‘Fair enough, but if you want my opinion, you need to open your eyes to the opportunity of that R. Stop thinking of what you’ll be giving up and think about what you’ll be gaining.’
‘Gaining?’
‘We spend our lives time-poor, Mr Nolan, just think of what you can do with the sudden wealth of it. Time and money. I think your daughter’s wish was for you to see an inkling of that and run with it.’
‘You know, for a woman who only this morning would barely hold my eye, you’ve come a long way.’
‘What can I say, you’re a project I can’t resist.’
‘I’m a project.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And if I’m the project, what does that make you?’
She crossed her legs, placed one hand on her knee, the other holding her drink high, and smiled. ‘A rather excellent teacher…’
***
Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been more turned on, especially when it wasn’t intentional…or was it?
A question he couldn’t resist putting to the test.
‘It was never the done thing at school to have a crush on your teacher, but I’m thinking forty-odd years later I may have earned the right?’
She cocked a brow at him, her sudden playfulness as thrilling as her confidence. ‘Only forty, Master Nolan?’
‘Okay, okay, make that fifty…ish.’
And then she cracked a grin, her laugh as pure as new fallen snow, his chest warming with it. ‘Thank you.’
‘Gratitude, now what have I done to deserve that?’
‘You made me laugh.’
‘And I guess laughter is a rarity these days.’
‘You guess right.’
‘Well, in that case, I’m glad I can be of service. And if I’m not mistaken, such easy laughter suggests to me that you are now relaxed enough to dine with me.’
She unfolded her legs and he fought to keep his eyes trained on hers and not the stockinged, lean lengths exposed from two inches above the knee down… She really was as eye-catching as she’d been all those years ago. Even more so with the elegance and sophistication of age, and seeing those eyes sparkle again, those lips lift into the most genuine of grins, it was like several Christmases all come at once.
And what was he even doing thinking of Christmas in spring?
Thinking of Christmas at all?
He hadn’t experienced a normal, joyful family Christmas in too many years to count. So, why did this woman have him thinking of it now? Craving it even?
‘Are you coming, Arthur?’
She was already standing by his side, eyeing him with open curiosity. And was it his imagination or had she grown an inch in height too? The shy wallflower long gone in her mission to have him view his impending retirement as…what did she call it…an opportunity?
A word he knew a lot about in business…in his personal life, not so much.
Until now.
Until her.
‘I’m right behind you, Ms Austin.’
Right behind you and willing to see this evening, this particular opportunity, through to fruition…whatever that may mean.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see a message from his number two—Andreas. It was the afternoon in New York, too early for his daily update, which meant it was something else. Something potentially urgent.
‘Is there a problem?’
He looked up to find Natasha’s expectant blues on him.
‘No, no problem.’ He hoped. He pocketed the phone. There would be time to check later.
Much later.
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