Now Or Never by Stella Rhys

18

IAIN

Four hoursafter parting ways with Holland and I was in Boston, in an entirely different hotel room.

By now, an hour flight, a drive and half a meeting’s worth of prep with my team had passed.

And yet I was still thinking about her lips.

In a sun-drenched suite overlooking the waterfront, I sat among a handful of my staff, reviewing the thick black binders packed with all the information we needed to negotiate a record contract extension this afternoon. It had taken a thirty-man research team two weeks to prepare this data, and at this very moment, I was supposed to be locked into it, my head focused strictly on numbers. Numbers like Boston’s team payroll and budget, their franchise value and revenue, their statistical chances at a World Series and how all that was directly affected by my client’s star performance on the team. That was what I was supposed to be thinking about.

But instead, my mind was on Holland’s lips. The fucking adorable look in her eyes as she ran to me with that pillow hugged to her chest.

Sex with her was unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life, but it was the kiss that had me effectively fucked.

I’d already accepted the instantaneous response my body had to hers. The fact that she could get me hard as a rock in about two seconds flat. My cock was addicted to Holland Maxwell, and I could live with that, but I wasn’t so sure how I felt about the fact that she could find her way into my head with just a kiss.

She’d mind-fucked me with that kiss. Made me feel like I’d just come home from a long day of work when in fact I was about to leave.

It made me ache for once to hang back. To be somewhere besides work. And as disturbing a feeling as that was, it somehow made me feel good too—in a way I knew I wasn’t supposed to have, because I didn’t allow myself to have this feeling anymore. The feeling of being satisfied. Fulfilled. I’d cut myself off years ago, for good reason.

But the clarity of that reason was blurring today.

And try as I might, I couldn’t seem to recapture it.

“Hey, folks. Car leaves for Fenway in fifteen.” Erica poked her head in to give us the time check. “How is everyone feeling?”

“Great,” everyone replied, myself included.

And despite the state of my mind, I actually meant it.

Because with or without the distractions, I knew I had this negotiation in the bag. I’d been fully familiarized with all the data and financials for months, and I knew well that I was going to leave Boston with a beyond lucrative extension for my client.

I also knew that after a full weekend’s worth of busting my ass and running on fumes, I’d have a reward waiting for me back in New York in the form of Holland Maxwell. I was already thinking about filling my hands with those tits I felt pressed bare against my chest this morning, and about every surface in the city I wanted to fuck her perfect body on. And at this point, I knew it was wrong for reasons beyond her age, who her brother was, or the fact that I’d watched her grow up.

It was wrong because it was rousing the animal inside me. Tempting my self-restraint and the discipline I’d been practicing like a religion since I came to this city. I was playing with fire right now—I knew that. But I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

So I told myself I’d at least earn it.

* * *

“So, word on the street is you negotiated a very player-friendly extension this morning.” Drew wiggled his eyebrows at me while pushing his beer swiftly away from the grabbing hands of his toddler, Kai.

Kai strained another few seconds for the pint before smacking his little hands on the table, cutting a look to his dad and declaring something in very spirited gibberish.

“Dude, what? That’s not yours,” Drew said.

I snorted. It was clear that Kai shared not only Drew’s coloring with the dark blond hair and hazel eyes, but the same exhausting levels of energy. It made me feel for Evie since I couldn’t imagine dealing with both Drew and a mini-Drew on a daily basis, but she was all smiles and laughter, radiating joy even as she excused herself a minute ago to take an urgent call from work.

She’d apparently made the trip out to Boston to surprise Drew this morning. That topped with the day’s win and Drew was grinning from ear to ear, even as he went through his customary bitching at me for things that didn’t actually bother him.

“So, you gonna tell me all the juicy details of this contract, or do I have to hear about it on ESPN tomorrow like a fucking plebe?” he asked, catching a fork that Kai swatted off the table without so much as taking his eyes off of me.

The morning’s meeting at Fenway had wrapped just in time for my client to walk off the mound following his loss against Drew and the Empires and take comfort in hearing about the staggering hundred-and-two million dollar contract extension I’d negotiated well into the afternoon. The signing was tomorrow morning, and the news would be announced shortly after, but my work in Boston wasn’t quite done. I still had a late-evening meeting with my team followed by several rounds of client video calls for the night.

But before the latter half of my day kicked off, I had an hour-and-a-half-long window, which I was using to have dinner with Drew and his family at a downtown brewery.

“Well, it’s not your contract, so there’s no reason for you to know the details,” I said, taking a swig of my beer.

“Yeah, but I can use this as a comparison for the new deal you negotiate for me with the Empires, because my contract’s up after next season, and Lord knows I ain’t goin’ nowhere. This team’s about to dominate the American League for the next five years at least. Plus, we just busted our asses to get Kai into Saint Clare’s,” he said, referring to the prestigious pre-school in Brooklyn that I’d been hearing about for a year now. “They made us pay just for the application. I had to write an essay on Kai’s hobbies and interests. He’s one.”

“You wrote that essay? Or Evie did?”

“For your information, we FaceTimed and worked on it together. It was mostly about Mega Bloks.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah, figured I should keep quiet about the fact that the kid can already pitch a clementine across the room,” Drew said, peeling Kai’s fingers off his own baby shoe that he seemed so determined to remove. “By the way, your eyes are glazing over right now. You’re usually better at pretending to be interested.”

I laughed. “Trust me, there’s nothing that interests me more than your full transformation into a Brooklyn PTA dad. I just have a lot to think about today.”

“Like what? Getting back together with your ex?”

I squinted at him with genuine confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m not getting back together with Keira.”

“Okay, just making sure. Because none of us liked her.”

“Yes, I know. You tell me this almost every time we talk.”

“Well, yeah, because she sucked. Evie hated her,” Drew said just as Evie got back to the table, already cocking her head at us both as she sat down.

“Hated who?”

“Iain’s ex,” Drew said.

She smacked him hard. “Drew!” she yelled before turning to me, already exasperated. “Omigod, I didn’t hate Keira. I just thought she was… a little in your face. And she talked a lot, which made her seem kind of like an unlikely choice for you.”

I nodded and smirked, saying, “Fair enough,” just as a waitress came by to coo over Kai, and effectively divert the attention from the topic of my ex.

Who was in fact an unlikely choice for me.

I was aware of that.

But I’d met her shortly after moving to this city and we’d struck an arrangement. She had agreed to my lifestyle, because like me, she was focused on her career. She knew I wasn’t interested in having a traditional relationship, and on top of that she knew she was never going to understand why. My past was off the table, as was knowing me beyond a certain level.

She had agreed to all that, and in return, she had gotten my loyalty and partnership. For what a farce our relationship was, I had fucked no one but Keira in the five years that we were together.

She’d kept me satisfied enough, and that was all that mattered to me.

Being just satisfied enough.

The arrangement served us seamlessly until a few months ago, when Keira confessed she hadn’t been okay with it for awhile. She wanted more. A real relationship.

And since history had proven that I wasn’t meant for that kind of thing, it ended.

“Okay, but back to what we were talking about,” Drew started as soon as the waitress left. And when he flashed that big, shit-eating grin at me, I barely tried to mask my annoyance, because it was clear that he’d been holding onto this topic, waiting to interrogate me about it. “If it isn’t Keira, who are seeing right now? Because you’re clearly seeing someone.”

“‘Clearly’?” I repeated dubiously. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know? The fact that you met her at a hotel the other day? And you have no reason to stay at a hotel in the city because you’re a creature of habit who prefers his apartment?” Drew said. “Plus, you’re in a genuinely good mood today.” He paused and laughed. “Well, at least you were till now.”

“I don’t know, Drew. It could be the fact that I just finalized a major contract extension an hour ago.”

“Yeah, that’s not it,” Drew hit back fast, shooting me a dull look, as if I’d just insulted his intelligence. “Dude, I’ve been your client for how long? I know the difference between a just-signed-the-contract mood and whatever the hell this is now. Whatever this is, I’ve never seen it before. You just seem… baby, what was the word you used before?” Drew squinted at Evie, who went quickly from wiping Kai’s mouth to shooting him a death glare. She let it sink in with him for half a second before turning to me with a look of apology.

“Okay, first of all, he’s making it seem like I was talking behind your back, but I wasn’t, I just… casually observed that you seemed a little different today,” she said, her voice getting suddenly so high-pitched I had to suppress a smile. “Like, more relaxed than usual, but also more… lively than usual? Than we’ve ever seen you really, and I just mentioned it to Drew when you went to the bathroom—in passing—and that’s it. I wasn’t gossiping.”

“She was gossiping.”

Evie smacked Drew for the comment but I laughed.

“It’s fine,” I said, and judging from the way they both instantly quieted and looked eagerly at me, they were waiting for me to reveal or confirm something on the topic of my dating life. But I said nothing further and Drew groaned to the skies.

“Oh, come on, just tell us who she is. I’m obviously going to have to meet her at some point so I can give my approval.”

“I assure you, if I were dating someone, Drew, I wouldn’t seek your approval on it.”

“The fuck? Well, that’s a double standard.”

Evie and I snorted. “Yeah, a necessary one,” she said, smirking at Drew and trying to shoot him a look. But instead of a look, she wound up giving him eyes so flirty I looked away to give them privacy. “We all know what Drew Maddox’s dating history looked like before Iain made you move me in.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Drew conceded, failing to feign exasperation through the sound of his audible content.

Across the room, the waitress motioned to ask if I wanted another beer, and I nodded. But from my peripherals, I could see Drew bouncing Kai in his lap as he leaned over to give Evie a kiss, and quietly, I berated myself for taking the moment as an excuse to think again about Holland’s lips.

It had been just this morning that she’d kissed me, but it already felt like ages ago.

I grimaced, pulled so immediately deep into the memory that I was almost grateful when Drew started talking again.

“Okay, so at least tell me this,” he persisted, holding his hands up like this was going to be his last question. “This girl you may or may not be seeing… is she the girl Watt was talking about in the training room awhile back?”

I paused, somehow forgetting entirely about Shane Watt and the fact that he’d spotted Holland before me that night.

“Oh, shit,” Drew said when I took more than a second to respond. “It totally was. Wait, so who is she? Is she the reason you broke it off with Keira?” he asked as I kept a stoic face, fully prepared to shut down this whole discussion.

But just then my phone started ringing and both Drew and my eyes dropped down to the screen. Upon spotting the name lighting it, I grabbed hold of my phone, swiftly ignoring the call and turning it face down on the table.

But judging from the look of sheer delight on Drew’s face, the damage was already done. His eyebrows were doing that stupid wiggle, and he looked beyond smug as he said her name in a drawn out singsong.

“Camila, huh?” he grinned. “So that’s the mystery woman.”

I said nothing in reply, only drawing my hand across my jaw and feeling it tighten under my palm.

Because despite the shit Drew had been giving me for the entire past hour, I’d been having a good time. I was used to his antics, and considering the successful afternoon that followed my incredibly satisfying morning, it felt like nothing could bring down my mood.

Until this call.

When it rang again, I silenced my phone, letting it go to voicemail. And to my relief, by the next round of drinks, the topic had changed for good to business—specifically Drew and Evie’s hopes for his next contract with the Empires.

For the rest of our time together, everything was fine and well. It wasn’t till we parted ways outside the brewery that I bit the bullet, stopping on the sidewalk to finally check my texts.

Scrolling past all the ones from my clients and colleagues, I went straight to the ones from her.

CAMILA:Hey love. Missing you here. Call me please I need to talk to you

CAMILA:ASAP