by Corri Lee
“Emmeline Tudor.” The assistant bristled and quickly sat down. Was the T name as effective as ‘open sesame’?
“As in The Tudor Initiative?”
“Heard of it have you?”
“Take a seat, Miss Tudor.” Smugly, I sat myself down on one of the backless seats and watched from the corner of my eye as she shared a tense conversation with her boss. I’d derived some kind of sick joy from seeing her quiver at my name and thought part of me might be starting to understand why Henry loved his power.
“There’s an Emmeline Tudor here to see you, sir. ... No, she doesn’t have an appointment but she’s insistent that you know her. ... London? She has your money clip, sir—the engraved one. ... No, she—” The clattering of keys filled the room again. “Oh. Yes, that’s definitely her, sir. ... Very well.”
A palpable tension filled the room while I waited for her to speak, so weighted I was almost afraid to break it by breathing too loud. Neither of us moved a muscle, listening for any sound to shred through the silence.
The office door opened in slow motion. My head spun in it’s direction and my eyes swept over the figure who stepped out. Rivetting ice blue eyes peeked from beneath over-long hair of the darkest brown—almost black. His cheeks plumped with a smile and showed off a deep burrowing dimple on either side of his lips. His expression was soft and yet still scorching hot and maddeningly passionate.
There you are, Calloway Ryan. My shiny new distraction.
“Miss Tudor.” I shot up to my feet like the seat had bitten me when he purred my name. He was exactly the same as I remembered—maybe better for the fact his grey shirt was untucked and black tie a little looser than it might have normally been. His hair had been shorter when we’d ‘bumped’ into each other before, but I liked how the length made him look... accessible.
He stepped to the side and waved a hand towards his office, and I followed it’s sweeping motion like a child of Hamelin following the Pied Piper. The assistant muttered under her breath and resumed typing with a little too much force. Whatever she said had an edge of warning, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was eighty-five dollars better off and in delectable company, smiling my first genuine smile in over a month.
His office was a world away from anything I could have imagined. Oxblood camelback couches like the one I owned back in London were arranged around a black marble remote controlled fireplace that glowed with muted orange flames. The crackling filled the expanse of the room that was otherwise silent except for the low hum of three wide screen televisions in a row across the midsection of wall facing out onto the street, with floor to ceiling windows on either side. The blinds were drawn, making the only other source of light the glass desk lamp that sat on an oak desk large enough to look like it might have been a dining table at some point.
It looked more like his home than his workplace, even so far as being blessed with a private bathroom with a quaint ‘WC’ sign on its door. I was sure that if I looked inside, it would have a ridiculously expensive self-contained shower and an impressive vanity with a large gold filigree framed mirror. It was amazing—spectacular. It was the epitome of luxury. From the walnut panelled drop-down doored cabinet that would almost definitely be a mini bar containing a plethora of spirits, to the fantastically colourful canvas that covered the wall behind his desk, I knew one thing.
Calloway Ryan was completely out of my fucking league.
He put his hands on my shoulders to step around me when I bottlenecked in the doorway, stroking a bare inch of neck with his thumb as he released me. That was me caught—hook, line and tragic sinker for the first man to touch me intimately since Blaze. I was about to rebound hard and, in more ways than one, it was Calloway I’d be bouncing off.
“Take a seat, Miss Tudor.” I shook my head and made straight for the windows, peering between the blind slats. His view across the city was amazing and so crystal clear. “Or stand, whichever you prefer.”
Blushing, I looked back over in his direction. He pulled the walnut door down to reveal exactly what I was expecting; a mini-bar crammed full with clear crystal decanters engraved with the names of their contents. Another man who loved to be organised. “So, Astoria?”
“Less crowded. Less competition against the other towers in Upper Manhattan.” He smiled to himself and paced over to me with a tumbler of amber liquid poured over ice. I got it. He wanted to be centre of attention. “You strike me as a woman who appreciates a good bourbon.”
“I am.” Though I’d tried to keep away from harder spirits while I’d been in New York. What the hell, it was just one. “You’re a hard man to get to, Mr. Ryan.”
“I’d have made concessions for a fallen angel if she’d call ahead.” Sweet Jesus, that accent. An unfamiliar magnetism tugged at my insides—different to how I’d felt with Blaze. Calloway Ryan was somehow majestic, and every move seemed deliberate and calculated like they were all going to amount to the same magical conclusion.
“It was a spur of the moment decision.” I needed to grow a pair and build up the courage to involve myself with another man. “I haven’t had much spare time to come by.” Because I’ve been working my backside off trying to blot out the memories of your predecessor. “But I had a couple of hours between meetings today.” Ask me out.
“Ah, of course. I never would have guessed that I was giving my business card to the daughter of Henry Tudor. Though I didn’t expect to wait three months before you used it.”
“Yeah, I...” I’d had every intention of calling him the day we met. What if I had? What if I hadn’t let the events of that afternoon affect me like I’d sworn they wouldn’t? “My afternoon became very complicated that day. I did plan to call but... I’m sorry, Mr. Ryan.”
“I’ve seen you bleed, Miss Tudor, I think we’re past formality. Call me Cal.” Bleed? My fingers reached up to brush over the very faint scar left by my collision with the Oxford Street pavement. I could almost still feel the warm blood there—it’s slight trickle over my skin and Blaze dabbing it away... “I trust you spent my money wisely?”
“Um...” On a lunch that led to a shopping trip that led to me getting fucked in a changing room that led to me getting my heart ripped out. It was probably better to omit that part. “Again, I apologise. My ‘friend’ had a rogue notion and I was forced to play my part in it,” —How ambiguous was that?—”But I have your money clip, and I wanted to return it to you.” Embarrassed, I blushed again. “It occurs to me now that I probably should have put some money back in it.”
Our fingers brushed when I handed him back the clip and neither of us moved away. Instead he cocked his head, concentrating his focus on my mouth. His lips twitched just slightly before he glanced up to my eyes with a strange softness.
“Let me treat you to dinner tonight.” What the hell for? You’ve already bought me lunch...
“Um... shouldn’t I be making that offer?”
“But you came all this way just to return a money clip I vowed to collect myself.” A smile slowly spread across his face when I rolled my eyes. Of course there was no way I’d turn him down; I needed a new distraction, and even if that need got me in trouble again, it was one that had been fulfilled. Again. I should have been counting my blessings for the steady stream of hot men who seemed to trickle into my life.
“All right,” I conceded none too reluctantly. “Dinner when you’re available.”
“I’m available tonight,” he said instantly, hand delving into his pocket for his smartphone. “Just let my assistant know where to pick you up from and she’ll inform my driver.” Driver. Jesus Christ. Rich men and their fucking incapability to drive themselves.
“If it’s all the same, I’d prefer to meet you at the restaurant.” I looked deadpan at his arched brow. “I’m a Londoner. You learn to sense danger everywhere and pick your battles.” And I hoped he sensed that this was one he wouldn’t win.
He stroked back and forth across his lips with a fingertip, examining me for a
while before he jutted his bottom lip out and nodded. “Leave your number, then. I’ll send you the reservation details.”
Our gazes fixed on each other for a moment before the snotty assistants voice rasped in through a speaker on his desk. “Your two-thirty is here, Mr. Ryan.”
“I’m sorry, I have to—” He looked almost irritated.
I waved a hand to dismiss his apology. “I understand, I’m due in Brooklyn at four.”
Nodding again, he started towards the door and held it open for me, splaying his hand out across the top of my back between my shoulder blades when I stepped past him. I paused for a beat, having been lead to believe that small innocuous touches like that marked the start of intimate meaningful relationships. But that wasn’t what stayed me—I’d had my fair share of meaningful bodily contact. What startled me was the placement of his hand and the sensation it caused.
This was intimate in a different way. It was almost a reassurance, like he was telling me that he knew I was alone and he’d look after me. Like a sucker, I dove at it head first and let him walk me back to the reception desk that way, relishing the sense of immediate comfort and ease I felt from it. Like I’d told Blaze before, I thought I was the type of person who needed something to be reckless about and rich attractive men appeared to be my vice of choice.
I wanted to be owned—needed to be owned. I needed that feeling of being possessed by someone, even if they didn’t exert that ownership. Someone needed to relinquish the grip Blaze still had on me and forcibly remove the invisible tether that kept me feeling like I was his. He wanted me to be but I couldn’t. Not now, not ever. I’d thought about it and if I ever reunited with him, it would feel like I’d been waiting for his wife to die for my benefit. Dead or alive, she would always be an obstacle between us.
And yet, you’re still thinking about him.
I stilled again. The voice I used to hear—the voice of my old fat teenage self—had been MIA for the longest time in nine years. She’d all but vanished when Blaze rolled into my life like a forest fire, returning only when I felt like he was gone forever. Now she was back, did that mean I’d let him go? Was this the compromise I had to make for pushing him out of my life? It hardly seemed like a fair deal.
“Miss Tudor?” I looked up and realised that I’d stopped in the middle of writing my phone number, and had both Calloway Ryan and his assistant staring at me like I was a loon.
“Sorry,” I muttered, scribbling down the rest of the digits. “I’ll be in a meeting until five, but I can meet you any time after that.”
“Will you be driving, Miss Tudor?” Oh, we’re being polite now? The assistant definitely appeared to have scraped together some manners in her boss’ presence.
“No...” I looked up from her to Calloway and feigned a look of horror, mouthing ‘subway’ with a gasp like it was a dirty word.
He laughed and waved a hand towards the lifts, making his intent to walk the whole twenty feet with me clear. “You should really consider hiring a driver. And an assistant of your own.”
I shook my head. “I enjoy being self-reliant. The subway is fine until I find the balls to drive in the insanity you call traffic, and I’m very good at managing my own calendar. Or at least my BlackBerry is.”
Or you could listen to the man and give up the last of your pride.
Shut the fuck up...
“Are you all right? You keep zoning out.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked up at Calloway through my fingers. My annoying neuroses could not have picked a worse time to reappear. “I feel like I should be upfront. I carry a fair load of... baggage.” I grimaced, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. To my surprise, he smiled down at me and shrugged himself.
“This is New York. I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have baggage. But the great thing about carrying your baggage overseas is that there’s a weight limit. You can’t possibly carry it all with you.” I smiled because I liked the metaphor, and it sort of fit my life well. My fear of falling foul to temptation didn’t apply when I was well out of its reaches. That particular shed article of my baggage would be waiting for me in Heathrow with a cardboard sign reading my name if I ever went back to London.
“Even better,” he continued, “is that you only need to unpack as much as you need. So how long are you staying in New York?”
“For the foreseeable future.”
Another smile. “Did you bring much with you?”
“Nothing I couldn’t pack into carry on luggage.” And I didn’t just mean because I’d left most of my clothes back in the old flat.
With our cryptic baggage themed repartee exchanged, the lift doors slid open next to me with a loud ‘ping’. Calloway followed me to the doors and stood with his legs and arms astride between them so they couldn’t close. It was an intensely powerful stance that took me aback slightly.
“I look forward to dinner, Mr. Ryan.”
“Again, I think we’re past formality. I’ve already seen you unconscious.” I bit my lip to stifle a giggle. “It’s Cal.”
“Not Calloway?”
“Oh no.” He shook his head with mock severity. “Only my mother calls me Calloway.”
“Okay. Call me...” Call me what? Did I want him to join the ranks of only three men who ever called me Emmeline; Henry, Hunter and Blaze? Hadn’t I wanted to distance myself from self-destructive Emmy? Where the hell did that leave me? “You can call me Miss Tudor.”
With satire, obviously.
“Ryan? Calloway Ryan? I didn’t think we had business with Mr. Ryan.”
My teeth ground. After declaring that Blaze and I were a perfect match, I knew that Ivy wouldn’t take news of me dating again well. In her world, that was it for me. I had my man and I’d damn well stick by him or die miserable and alone without him. I thought the words ‘business dinner’ would win me a little peace.
“He’s in telecommunications, isn’t he? That makes him a rival, love. I honestly don’t know what business he might have—”
“Mother! I lied. It’s not a business dinner.”
“Oh! Oh. Oh, Emmy...” Oh god. The ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ tone. “You really don’t need to jump in with another man.”
Another man’s bed. She means you don’t need to jump into another man’s bed.
Shut up. Not listening.
“It’s not like that, and even if it were...”
What? Say it. Just say that you and Blaze will never be together again. Close chapter, end book.
“Can’t you keep an open mind, love? I understand that you have to be away from here for now, but you’ll come back. Things will be different.”
God, I loved my mother. Everything was so black and white and clean cut in her world when it came to love. The before and after never mattered to her as long as there was the start, and that start should never finished. I should learn to overlook his ‘complication’ and live with it by her way of thinking, even though she’d been there when my venomous sister had revealed the finer point of my fiancé’s life that he hadn’t had the guts to tell me himself.
“Would you be able to handle it if Henry had a first wife and you had to wait around for her to die before you could be with him?”
She sighed. “No, love. Just... never say never.”
“Okay, not ever.” And I meant that in more ways than one. I would ‘not ever’ be able to foster some kind of reconciliation with a man who’d failed to tell me that legally, he couldn’t actually marry me. I would ‘not ever’ be able to get over the fact that he expected me to sit on the sidelines wishing a fast death on a disabled woman. If I had my way, I would ‘not ever’ be in the same time zone as him again.
You will ‘not ever’ get over him. But you’ve done this before haven’t you? Nothing new.
I seem to remember you being on Hunter’s side not so long ago.
Hunter who? He didn’t care enough to give you what you needed, either.
“But is jumping b
ack on the horse really good for you right now?”
Haven’t you heard? Jumping on ‘horses’ is how she validates her pathetic existence.
Holy cow, Fat Emmy had gotten mean in her absence.
“Couldn’t you find someone a little less—”
“Married?” I knew Ivy had planned to say something like ‘high maintenance’ or ‘prominent’, maybe even ‘attractive’. “I found someone a little less married, Mother. And it’s only the first date.”
“Are you trying to replace Blaze, love?”
Of course she is. She may as well ask him for a collar because that’s all she really wants. A master to tells her she’s such a good pet.
“No! I’m just trying to move past this part of my life with as much of my self respect intact as possible.” Which wasn’t likely when I was hearing voices again. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to stand strong before I was stuck back in a cycle of standing in front of the mirror every morning having extensive and critical conversations with my hallucination. Truth was, since I’d stopped caring about being wafer thin, I was closer to being her again than ever.
I was building myself up for another catastrophic fall and had no support network this time.
“Emmy? Are you all right? You’re doing that thing again.”
You know, that ‘thing’ where you turn everyone who inexplicably loves you away to protect your bullshit ‘pride’.
“What thing?”