Singapore Fling

by Alexia Adams

  Lalita tried not to think about her sister’s big day. She wanted to forget that in a few short months she would be tripping up the aisle on Jeremy’s arm. The arm that had held her against his taut, fabulous body until she’d screamed his name as she climaxed. It was enough to bring on a cold sweat, or a hot flash.

  The likelihood of her being over him by then was about the same as her winning the lottery. And she never bought tickets.

  ***

  Enough. Jeremy had had enough. If the relationship was over with Lalita, he was damn well going to know why. They’d made no verbal promises of commitment, no avowals of love. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He still felt as connected to Lalita as he had after the first time they’d made love. He wasn’t going down without a fight.

  He stabbed the lift button. For a week now, he’d been running through various scenarios in his mind. He’d finally decided that a confrontation in the office offered him the best chance of success. His pulse accelerated with each floor passed until finally the doors opened on the twenty-ninth floor.

  He strode through reception. Ignoring Grace’s gasp, he grabbed the handle to Lalita’s office door. The full, robust laugh of a man, followed by Lalita’s infectious chuckle halted his progress for one second. A black haze blurred his vision as he thrust the door open. His eyes automatically searched behind her desk. Shock vied with incredulity as a brown-haired man rose to his feet. His suit jacket was off and hung on the hook where Lalita usually kept hers. If Jeremy had found the man’s slippers next to Lalita’s bed, he couldn’t have been more enraged.

  Another movement at the corner of his vision caught Jeremy’s attention. He turned toward the motion, not quite taking his eyes off the man behind the desk. Lalita, who had been sitting in the chair at the front of the desk, was frozen mid-stand, her almond-coloured eyes huge. His heart went into double-time.

  Lalita looked thinner, her face gaunt. Dark bags she’d tried to hide with makeup were under her eyes. She shook her head, as if trying to decide whether he was real or a figment of her imagination.

  He turned back to the man behind the desk.

  “Leave us,” Jeremy commanded.

  The man turned to Lalita, silently seeking her direction.

  “It’s okay, Corey. Could you give us a few minutes, if you don’t mind?” Lalita answered without taking her eyes off Jeremy.

  The Corey guy grabbed his jacket, then skirted the desk and walked warily past Jeremy. His eyes darted between the two as if deciding the threat level.

  “I’ll be outside if you need me, Lalita,” he said as he reached the door.

  “Thank you.” She smiled in the man’s direction. Jeremy clenched his teeth.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Lakewood.” She moved to stand behind her desk, putting the large piece of furniture between them.

  Jeremy forced his fist to unclench. He ached to grab Lalita, pull her into a kiss she’d never forget and lose what little was left of his mind. Instead, she stood there coolly addressing him like a tax officer she’d met once in passing.

  “I think I’ll decide if the afternoon is good or not, based on whether I wind up in your bed—or back on an airplane.”

  Lalita sat on her chair as if her legs would no longer hold her.

  “Well then, I can spare you the wait and wish you a nice flight.” She picked up a piece of paper from the desk. Her hand shook so much the paper quivered as though an electric shock ran through it. She put it on the desk and folded her arms across her chest.

  “I am not leaving until I find out exactly what my sister told you. And why you didn’t have the courage to confront me personally with the accusations.”

  All colour drained from her face. She once again gazed up at him, her eyes tormented.

  “I don’t think the office is an appropriate place to discuss this.”

  “Neither of us is leaving here until we talk, Lalita. Unless, of course, you want me to kiss you first? Then we can discuss things as we try to find our clothes.” Jeremy purposely eyed the sofa that sat across the room.

  “You are very sure of yourself.” She straightened at the challenge. However, six weeks ago, her eyes would have flashed fire; now they simply simmered.

  “Yes.”

  Jeremy took one step toward the desk.

  Lalita put up her hand in surrender.

  “All right. Sit down and I’ll try my best to recall the conversation.”

  He moved toward the chair, but he didn’t sit.

  “After I discovered that the woman wearing nothing but your shirt was actually your sister, Susan, and not your lover as she would have me believe—” Jeremy swore under his breath. “—the discussion then turned to the financial viability of my family. She said I must be rich, as all your girlfriends are rich.”

  “All? I have no girlfriends. I haven’t introduced a woman to my family in five years. Any relationships I’ve had have been transitory, momentary. Nothing has lasted beyond three dates. No woman could compare once I’d kissed you.”

  “How could Susan know I was your … girlfriend, then? And that my family is rich?”

  “You came to my house with a suitcase. I think it would have been fairly obvious to anyone that you intended to spend the weekend. As you’ve seen, my house is tiny. I’m told the bed in the spare room is uncomfortable. If you weren’t my woman, there would be a million better places to spend the night. Did you tell her your last name?”

  “I might have,” Lalita conceded.

  “Susan was at Robert and Jane’s wedding. She’s met your family.”

  Lalita seemed to digest that information. Jeremy took a step closer.

  “What did you mean when you told your mother that you would get a nice bonus out of your Asia trip?”

  “Your father promised me a year-end bonus equal to a percentage in profit increase for the region. As you said, Asia is the most profitable region for the company. Even a one percent increase would be substantial. Plus, earning a bonus in Europe was easy. You run Asia so well that any increase in profits would be hard-earned. I like a challenge, to test my skills. It makes me a better professional.”

  “You don’t consider me to be the bonus from your Asia trip, then?”

  Jeremy rounded the desk. He put both hands on the arms of her chair and stared into her eyes.

  “A bonus is something additional to what is expected. You, Lalita, are not an addition and never expected. You are the foundation, the basis for my being. Over the past six weeks, I’ve come to appreciate that without you in it, my life is empty and meaningless … a series of mindless challenges that mean nothing.”

  Lalita closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them he pulled her up, into his arms.

  “She also made up the part about you blackmailing the Johnson family for a scholarship, I assume.”

  He was going to kill Susan when he next saw her. He gazed deeply into Lalita’s eyes, and almost forgot what they were discussing. He wanted to see her eyes dark with passion, not clouded with grief.

  “Lalita, you know Robert. Would he have asked me to be the best man at his wedding if I was a deviant blackmailer? Don’t you think he would also have had a quiet word in your father’s ear when John hired me again?”

  His lips were inches from hers. He sure hoped she had finished talking.

  “I’ve been such a fool. Kiss me, Jeremy.”

  She didn’t need to ask twice.

  Six weeks of pent up frustration and anguish made it difficult for him to keep the kiss gentle. When she moaned in his arms and pulled him closer, he gave in to his desires and kissed her until they were both breathing heavily. He pulled back. She tucked her head under his chin, not releasing the death grip she had on him. She didn’t need to worry that he’d leave. As far as he was concerned, he would never let her go again.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said. “Are you still in the apartment upstairs?”

  “No, Corey’s there.” Her voice was heavy as
if she was trying to hold some inner turmoil inside.

  Jeremy leaned back and lifted her chin. Her eyes were still clouded, anxious.

  “I can’t do this again, Jeremy.”

  This time his heart completely stopped. Blood began to pool in his feet.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “I can’t break up with you again. It nearly destroyed me.”

  His heart restarted, thumping so loud he wondered that Grace didn’t barge in wondering what was going on.

  “I am never going to let you go again, Lalita. You have to promise me that in future you will talk to me about whatever doubts or worries you have. I almost went mad wondering what had happened.”

  “I will,” she whispered against his lips before kissing him.

  “Your taxi is waiting downstairs, Lalita.” Grace opened the door but didn’t come in.

  Jeremy lifted his head.

  “You have a meeting to go to?”

  “No, I think she booked that for us. Grace is an amazingly intuitive woman.”

  “Not as amazing as you. Let’s get out of here.”

  Enough. He’d never have enough of Lalita Evans.

  ***

  “Who was that man in your office?”

  Lalita raised her head from where it rested on Jeremy’s chest. The last two hours he’d shown her again and again how much he’d missed her.

  “There was a man in my office?” She smiled up at him. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so … delicious. Releasing five years of pent-up frustration had been wonderful. Easing six weeks of heartbreak was even better. She trailed a hand from his chest down to his hip.

  “Corey something?” Jeremy’s own hands went on an exploration.

  “Oh, Corey. He’s my replacement.”

  His hands halted.

  “Your replacement?”

  “Yes, you are currently feeling up the new Director, Central and South American Operations. I am due to relocate to Santiago, Chile on January fifth.”

  “What?” He stopped his caresses and sat up.

  “Hold on.” She threw back the covers and padded out of bed. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught his eye and bit her lip provocatively. As she passed through the living room, she picked up his shirt that had only made it that far and put it on. Extracting her mobile phone from her handbag, she returned to the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Jeremy raked a hand through his already dishevelled hair. The sheet sat low on his hips. Lalita swallowed, trying her best to hold onto the thread of their conversation and not get distracted by his amazing body.

  “I’m emailing my father and asking him not to announce my new position just yet.”

  She tossed the phone on the bedside table and straddled Jeremy’s thighs. She’d managed to do up three of the buttons on the shirt on her return to the bedroom. He was busy undoing them.

  “I think it’s time we talked,” she managed to get out as he began to caress her breasts. His head stopped mid-descent.

  “Talk?” he asked as if it was a foreign concept to him.

  “We seem to get distracted.”

  “Are you complaining?” His lips replaced his hand on her breast.

  Lalita arched her back. Talking could wait.

  An hour later, she opened her eyes to find Jeremy watching her. His brows were furrowed.

  “Santiago?”

  “So now you want to talk?” she teased.

  “If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past two months, it’s that I do not function well when you are on a different continent to me. I suppose I could try to get a job there too.”

  “You’d move to South America for me? What about your family?”

  “I love my family, except, at the moment, my sister Susan. But I love you more.”

  “You love me?”

  “I love you, Lalita Evans. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  Her heart tripped merrily along. She put a finger to his lips.

  “I love you, too, Jeremy Lakewood. I think more than even I realized until the past few weeks when I believed we were over.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. Not a kiss of passion, but one of shared pain.

  “So, Chile?”

  “That was when I needed to get as far away from you as possible. And every time I thought of the offices here in Asia, I would remember some place we went, or something we did. South America seemed a perfect place without memories to haunt me.”

  She reached up a hand and caressed his face. She wouldn’t get tired of waking up next to him every day of her life.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “For once in my life, I am going to trade on the fact that I am the CEO’s daughter and request a posting in London. John’s been trying to get me to move back to the UK for years and has offered me some interesting positions. I’ve never been tempted before now.” She ran a hand down Jeremy’s back.

  “What about us both working out of the same office? It won’t go down well if the company tries to enforce a no-internal-relationship policy if two of its directors are breaking it.”

  “That policy is mostly to prevent what happened in Manila—with one person not doing their job while the other hides the incompetence due to the personal affair. We’ll have to disclose our relationship to the Board, see what they say. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I don’t think, given the way we respond to each other, we’d be any good at hiding our affair.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Ms. Evans?”

  Jeremy kissed her until she forgot what they were discussing. He seemed to be having far too much fun though having the upper hand. She flipped him on his back and straddled his waist.

  “I mean that whenever we’re in the same room together we just about set the furniture on fire.”

  “Then I guess you’re going to have to learn to be professional and resist my obvious charms.” A smug smile accompanied his words.

  “Professional? I wasn’t the one who ordered the next DAO to leave the room so he could kiss the current one.”

  “That wasn’t unprofessional, that was authoritative. You like that about me.”

  Yes, she did. She would soon grow bored of a man who didn’t take the lead, or at least try. But Jeremy didn’t need to know that, not yet anyway.

  “What I like about you is the way you kiss. You are amazing. If you ever give up the marketing gig, you can always start a kissing school. There are a lot of men who could use your knowledge.”

  Jeremy pulled Lalita’s head down until their lips were a mere millimetre apart. “Have you been kissed by lots of men, then?”

  “Enough to know when I’m in the hands of an expert.” She sighed and closed the gap between their mouths. For once, though, he didn’t kiss her.

  “Rich men?” His lips moved against hers as he spoke. Still he didn’t kiss her.

  Lalita sat up so she could see his eyes. He did want to talk.

  “Rich men, poor men, I don’t discriminate.”

  “You may not discriminate. However, your money does come between us. It’s the real reason you ran out of my house. If you didn’t secretly think I was after your money, you would have laughed in Susan’s face and thrown her out.”

  She climbed off Jeremy and pulled on his shirt which had ended up on the floor beside the bed. “I can’t have this conversation with you while we’re both naked.” She stalled for time.

  He grabbed her hand as she moved away from the bed.

  “Discussions about money require clothes?”

  “Yes, it’s an unwritten rule.” She tried for levity. Facing her fear, that she was wanted only for her money, was still a tough prospect for her.

  She pulled her hand out of Jeremy’s and headed toward the kitchen. From the corner of her eye, she saw him throw back the sheet that had been covering his lower half and stride after her. Lalita whirled around as he reached for her hand again.

  “You’re still naked,” she reminded him.


  “You have my shirt.” He released her and hunted around for his underpants, finally finding them behind the sofa, and put them on. “My suitcase and the bag you left at my place in London are still at the airport. I was worried the customs officer was going to open your bag and ask why I had a suitcase of women’s clothes—especially that lacy black number that I spent endless nights imagining you in.”

  Lalita smiled at that. “We can go get them later.”

  She wandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Even though she was in her home, she still opened three cupboards before she found the cups. “Tea?”

  Jeremy nodded. “Money. Let’s finish this discussion. I don’t want this to come between us again.”

  She leaned against the counter top, gripping it with both hands. He held her against him while his eyes searched hers.

  “Look me in the eye, Lalita.” His voice was stern. “I don’t want your money, I want you. I’ll sign any piece of paper put before me renouncing any claim on your fortune. I can’t keep you in the style and manner to which you are accustomed … yet. But we won’t have to eat beans on toast unless we want to. Let’s take this one step at a time; if you ever feel uncomfortable you talk to me. Promise?”

  She examined his face. She could find no hint of duplicity, no indication that he might be lying. “I promise,” she said at last.

  He kissed her then and the tea was forgotten.

  Chapter 13

  “I spoke to my father while you were in the shower.” Lalita stared at Jeremy over the rim of her coffee cup. He sat at her breakfast bar, eating the eggs and ham she’d cooked for him. The scene of domestic tranquillity was soon to be marred, however, by the fact that he had to leave in an hour to catch his return flight to the UK. The next three weeks apart stretched before them like an eternity.

  “I wondered why you didn’t join me.” The pure male satisfaction on his face caused her heart to flip-flop. A quick trip to the airport to pick up the suitcases, and a stop at the grocery store, were the only forays out of the house they’d made over the weekend.