YOU MATTER TO ME, NOW

by Jan Vivian

  YOU MATTER TO ME, NOW

  Text Copyright © Jan Vivian 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Nor can it be circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN : 978-0-9575760-4-9

  Jan Vivian Books

  Oxhill

  WARWICK

  CV35 OQN

  This story contains some explicit scenes that may be characterised as an ‘adult read’. The names of the characters are entirely of the author’s devising and are not based on any person, living or dead. Blue Infinity Marketing is a company not known to exist and the name is, again, of the author’s own choosing and any associations are purely accidental. All have been used to set the scene and tell a modern romance story.

  Cover Images (Front and back Covers) – Dreamstime.com ©

  CHAPTERS

  1 - I’ve Found You

  2 - Rules – What Rules?

  3 – The way it’s going to be

  4 – Learning about each other

  5 – The start of a loving farewell

  6 – Reality check

  7 – The long goodbye

  8 - Changes

  9 – Goodbye to old ways

  10 – Moving On

  11- Learning of distracting ways

  12 – This is the way it goes

  13 – Shared moments

  14 – Knowing me – Knowing you

  Other Books by the Author

  Back Cover – About this Book

  1

  I’ve Found You

  Anna took but a few moments to think through her predicament about the guy she had met that day. Acting on impulse, and driven on by her emotions, were not a part of her usual routine but everything felt utterly different this time.

  A young man had been met, but an intern, at a client’s conference that day. It had been hastily convened earlier in the week and she had been instructed to attend along with two other management colleagues of the marketing agency they all worked for. It was a bind, but she had agreed to let others in her team back in London deal with her projects while she jetted off to Barcelona in somewhat of a dither.

  At the time she had wondered what to pack; what to take with you to get through the days of unspeakable heat and for the hours she would be closeted in some offices in a ramshackle building that someone took pride in for its ‘historia’. The notion overlooked the fact that there might be an absence of the usual air-conditioning that helped you to get through the day and out the other side not looking like a-wrung-out sweat rag and your hair limp and resembling a skull cap.

  She had no reliable practice in looking the part of s successful exec in spite of the conditions.

  It came as a surprise that it all mattered to her now; she wanted to be in control of everything and especially her recollections of the man who had caught her eye. Being there with him provoked, at times too frequent to admit, wayward thoughts. She would have to behave in spite of the heat that got to her, even if it was an entirely different condition, and one not to be readily confessed to except to a confiding friend.

  Her thoughts and feelings had been turned over by the quietly spoken but bravely opinionated Monty Barnard. Some would have said that with a name like that you would be forthright. One guy in particular, Manolo Aragonés, the office chief at Blue Infinity Marketing, even thought it amusing to introduce him as Barnardo.

  Anna had recoiled on hearing the name said so casually. As one who had ‘cut her teeth’ and found her own ‘reserved’ ways, in an often male-dominated’ world, she could readily understand the thinly veiled put down that the misuse of Monty’s name implied.

  In straightened times it meant ‘know your place and you’ll find your way first here, with us.’

  It wouldn’t do for her, Anna Nicholls, or Julianne as mother once would have had it said, to show that her sense of injustice in the workplace had been touched by the misuse, abuse even, of the attractive young man’s name. She would have to stop thinking of him as a young man…he was younger than she was but took no further account of the fact.

  Who Monty was, what he did or could yet do for her counted above everything else.

  She had accepted the fact soon enough for she had felt that Monty had been unjustly treated. Some of his ideas or suggestions on project detail had made more sense to her, and those accompanying her from the London office, than those of the Spanish subsidiary’s principals.

  It felt unreal. Through a tedious day she had wondered how to get in touch with Monty without alerting others to her interest in what he had to say.

  ‘There’s more to it, of course,’ Anna murmured to herself as she again thought of him. ‘Is this allowed? I’ve taken an interest in you, Montague…’

  She gave a laughing sigh on having his name properly spoken out. It was endearingly old-fashioned and she took to wondering what he made of it and the likely ribbing its use would soon provoke in others.

  Monty’s assurance, in spite of carefully phrased contrary ideas that served to silence him, had also angered her. But, his resilience had only served to make her pay him closer attention. Monty’s Spanish was faultless, his ideas innovative and fresh; he had prepared for the meeting, that much she had seen and soon heard once she had taken in his appearance and his evident determination not to be cowed into silence for long.

  Before London got to hear of his ideas and the team’s report she would learn all she could about Monty, a very English young man abroad.

  As the message was typed out on the lap-top she noted that new incoming messages awaited her. Then her i-phone trilled; a second glance at its screen would have told her something important but she blitzed off the mail.

  Monty, hello,

  I wanted to follow up on the meeting earlier and on what you had to say especially. I do not want you to feel that all your ideas fell on stony ground, far from it. You may have noted them all down and I can be sent them – I noticed how prepared for the meeting you were – or we can find a moment to speak about them before I return to London? It’s your call. My contact details are set out here. Have a good evening.

  Anna Nicholls – Manager: Product Launch Marketing

  ‘Hello…evening, Anna,’ a smooth voice said as soon as she answered it. ‘I see I’m not interrupting…’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ she couldn’t help but laugh at the impudence of the guy. ‘You’ve got my mail…’

  ‘Have I?’ he replied doubtfully. ‘I thought you were following up mine…’

  ‘I….I didn’t know,’ she now said somewhat flustered. ‘I didn’t know you sent one…’

  ‘Ten minutes ago…much along the line of yours, I can now see and read.’

  ‘Give me a minute and I’ll read it…’

  Dear Anna,

  I just wanted to thank you for a few moments of your obvious support when I put my oar in at the meeting earlier. Miguel Santos has his ways and I have to follow lines of communication even in a meeting such as todays. I hope we can meet up or talk again before you go with the others back to London? What I said today may click on other projects you and the business may be involved with and that I, down here, don’t get to hear about.

  Bests, M. Barnard.

  (Mobile’s the best way – out and about most evenings)

  My God! She had kept her own message brief and said very little about how she really felt after meeting him. No one could object if she followed up this exchange
. The way Monty had phrased it seemed to leave her with little alternative.

  Who was in control here?

  I’m breaking with my carefully guarded habits; some might say I am forsaking my traditional and far more reserved ways of doing things. They are life-long habits and writing that email was stirred up by memories of today’s meeting. Writing a follow up email is not a big deal, is it? No, not not too much of a novelty, even if I am sitting at desk in an empty hotel room as I think of the guy.

  So, it’s a first time and I hope not the only time that I’m provoked into behaving out of character with him. Am I so needy, so interested in living a little differently even if it is for only a few hours?

  She wasn’t about to go and take the lead on this now that he had shown an interest in following up their first meeting in far too ordered circumstances. Reading it again disrupted a moment’s thought on what to wear if she went out for what remained of the evening. A meal out might be an excuse and ordered way to talk with him and pass the time.

  ‘Okay, I’ve read it…’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And what do you suggest, Monty?’ she said in a low voice, ‘about a meeting?’

  ‘Is…is tonight too soon?’ he said on a slow breath as if he doubted her acceptance of the idea.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘It’s just an idea…’

  ‘And it’s a good one. I’ll go for it,’ she assured him. ‘Pick the place to go. You know your way about…’

  ‘In some things…or situations, say.’

  ‘Meaning…meaning what, exactly?’

  Anna wasn’t going to ease up on her quizzing now that she had discovered a mutual interest in pursuing matters some more.

  ‘I’ll tell you when we meet up…’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘Dress down,’ he ordered in a very matter of fact tone. ‘We’re off duty, so in my case I do what feels best.’ Monty paused. ‘I’ll still take account of you being with me.’

  Anna remembers an all too engaging grin creasing his high cheeked slender face as he says it. She’d have to take that in some more and everything else about the look of him when they’re in more relaxed circumstances and over a drink or two. Would she concede to his ways of it?

  ‘And, I’ll wear what feels right in the circumstances…’

  ‘Our meeting’s away from work and all its rules,’ he says rebelliously.

  ‘Are there any?’

  ‘Sure, here there are rules…as you may have noticed.’

  ‘I did Monty,’ she assures him, feeling a moment’s consideration well up in her. She senses the mood swings even after only a few minutes talk.

  ‘And then,’ Monty murmurs, ‘there’s the look but don’t touch rules…’

  ‘It’s no different from anywhere else, then?’ She waits. ‘We could say all of this when we meet?’

  ‘Yes, we could. The sun’s gone down…so, we deal and live with each other differently.’

  ‘Direct, aren’t you?’

  ‘Guess so, for an intern out here with his own ideas.’

  ‘Tell me about them some more, Monty. You’ve persuaded me to meet up with you…’

  She rang off after agreeing a meet time of eight thirty. He speaks of the sun going down and a different way of life beckoning in the night hours. In the back of her mind she took to wondering what a sunrise might reveal with him.

  2

  Rules – What Rules?

  Anna met his admiring glance and knew that she had chosen right. The selection of clothes that had been crammed into her suitcase a couple of days ago were put there on a whim rather than with too much consideration; there had been nothing pre-meditated about the choice of discreet calf-length floral print slacks to go with a billowy white sleeved blouse that had a discreet colourful drawstring at the scoop neck; the cream –toed black low-heeled shoes gave her look a distinct and pleasing finish. She had simply grabbed at a choice that worked for her and in case the opportunity to have casual and distracting moments from work arose.

  She needed them now on seeing Monty standing at their agreed rendezvous spot at the top of the Ramblas a few steps away from her hotel’s entrance.

  ‘Great!’ he said without any need to elaborate. His look upon her said it all.

  ‘I took the hint!’ she laughed and coyly met his gaze for a moment. ‘Thanks for the warning…’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that…’

  ‘But it mattered to you.’ He shrugged on hearing her say it.

  She had judged things to perfection for what still felt to be a sultry evening. At least the oppressive heat of the day had lessened and Monty had dressed accordingly in clothes that were unremarkable here; a collarless cotton shirt to accompany sky-blue slacks, unbuttoned sleeve ends, and glaringly white but fashionable canvas deck shoes. The sight of him dressed down, just as he’d warned her of, made Anna wonder if they would gain admittance to any eaterie that he might choose for them.

  They strolled casually through the evening’s throng of people enjoying the simple and costless society of others. The days of splashing out on a few drinks were becoming a memory or an occasion to make more of as and when money allowed many to do so.

  ‘You seem to be at home here,’ she ventured as something to break the silence between them.

  ‘In some things,’ he replied and pointed to the way they were to go. Anna saw a pavement restaurant that she had seen pictures of in a guide that she had thumbed through on the flight coming in. ‘You can be busy in all sorts of ways but there’s a gap in your life all the same.’

  Anna paid no heed to the jostle of the crowd that had steadily grown as they walked towards the harbour front. She made sure that her small clutch bag was held firmly as they stopped and stood still, once more.

  ‘There’s no one outside of work?’ she ventured for she knew in an instant after what he had just told her that another piece in the small jigsaw that was becoming their dealings with each other had fallen into place. ‘Was that the reason for the call…the emails?’

  She felt touched and thrilled that such unlikely beginnings to an interest in each other had found expression quite so soon.

  ‘I’m not going to deny it…’

  ‘That’s something…’

  ‘It’s also the truth. Whom have you got back at home…in London?’

  ‘I need a drink if we’re going to talk of this and that…the who’s and the why not’s in our lives…’

  ‘Sure…’

  ‘I’m with you not the crowd here…just know that.’

  ‘That’s what I hoped to hear…that you’d come out and not feel obliged to be with Tom and Martin.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked…Anna.’

  ‘I know…’

  ‘But, as you mentioned Tom and Martin…?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten them and about work already! Well…almost!’ she laughed genuinely, confident in that belief already, and flicked at her hair for an instant. She had caught his unwavering look upon her once more as she moved.

  Monty really could look at her in ways that made her feel special, that some line in her life had been crossed and that it had happened in the unlikeliest and most unexpected of circumstances. Jamie Gosden and Malcolm Rushton, guys from the office she had travelled out with, had made their own plans; as the number crunchers their pre-occupations were quite different from her own.

  Her ways of it were the best now.

  She could live for the moment and not worry about the gossip of being seen with Monty, the opinionated intern who knew his way about the city and seemed able to look so good and live in a way that made her wonder how he managed it…paid for that lifestyle more like.

  ‘Then, please, join me Anna’ he said confidently on taking her arm. She found that touch irresistible and stepped closer just to let him know how it was for her now that he had taken a tentative step to them learning so much more of each other. He began to walk with an almost languid easy strid
e that she soon matched.

  ‘Is that the place?’

  ‘Yes…happy and bright. You’ll like it…and there we’ll forget everything else.’

  ♥

  Anna sat on the bed of her hotel room facing him. It allowed Monty to look at her now with the dispassionate eyes of a man who has loved the new woman in his life, a fleshy beauty who had made claims upon him and cried out in exhortation that he devote all of his attention to her during a frenzied frolic that had finally brought the soaring fulfilment they each craved.

  ‘Is everything still okay?’ she asks.

  Anna stares at him as she leans her chin on drawn up knees and presses them with clamped arms to her breasts.

  ‘Wonderfully so,’ Monty says and she meets his beaming smile that has won her heart already. He has such simple ways of telling her soft things that she chooses to gaze at him in silence for a moment longer.

  He holds the wondering stare of lively brown eyes where he first saw that questioning look as they exchanged glances during the day’s meetings; ‘can there be something between us?’

  ‘That’s what I think too.’

  ‘It’s happened and it can happen again…and again,’ he says pouting a kiss and moves his wonderfully tanned and lean body to kneel before her. ‘Hold then touch me…touch me again…kiss me again…everywhere,’ he urges and bends closer to offer the slip of wet lips to her mouth and throat.

  ‘And tomorrow…what do we do about our other life?’ She is dismayed how easy it’s been to slip away from the reality of life beyond the room’s windows.

  ‘That’s for later.’ He sounds supremely confident in that assertion now.

  Anna hears it of him before she grips his strong arms. She is encouraged by every touch he offers to lie down once more and to meet deepening kisses, the brush of moist lips to every part of her.