She felt such a familiarity with him, such warmth.
She leaned in towards him, sensing his lips so close to hers. And then, suddenly, as if in a dream, their lips locked together. She felt her body stir with pleasure as he wrapped his arms around her, as their kiss turned toward neediness, and lust.
But after a moment, Charlotte broke it, and looked away from him. She swept her fingers to her temples, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This is probably a terrible idea. I’m your lawyer. I have to respect the relationship we’ve set up between us, legally.”
Sean didn’t say anything. He brought his hand to her blond hair and swept his fingers through it, eyeing the way it caught in the light. The tension between them was at breaking point, even though they were hardly touching. Charlotte felt her chest rise high as she breathed jaggedly. She felt she would nearly explode with passion for him.
“I think we should give in to this,” he said then. The words weren’t obtrusive or pushy; they seemed natural, truthful. “This could be the one night we spend together. The one time we can truly fulfill this destiny.”
“The cufflink destiny,” she breathed.
“Exactly.”
They sealed his words with another kiss, and Charlotte wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against his firm chest, feeling his muscles wrap around her. They melted into one another, then, lost in each other’s embrace.
Charlotte felt her fingers begin to unbutton his shirt; she felt herself stretch her arms forward, pushing his jacket from his shoulders to the floor. She played lightly with the black hair on his chest and felt the smoothness of his nipples. He ripped her blouse from her shoulders, bringing it up, over her head, and gazing at her lace bra, at the way her skin glowed beneath the soft lights.
“You are the woman from my dreams,” he said then.
They pressed their naked bodies together, teasing each other, before retiring to the bed upstairs. They made love deep into the night, entrapped in the other’s body, relishing in the feel of their skin touching, their unity. Then, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, completely content and utterly spent.
***
The following morning, Charlotte awoke in Sean’s arms, her cheek against his shoulder. She gazed at his nakedness before her, noting that they fit perfectly together, that their bodies seemed made for each other—they were two pieces of a stunning puzzle. And she longed for him not to wake up, so that this moment, this image, could last forever. She breathed easily, daydreaming, remembering herself as a eighteen-year-old girl once more. She wished she could go back and inform that girl of the beauty of the future.
“You’ll have a wonderful law career,” she would tell the girl, her voice warm. “And you’ll meet a man who will change everything, even though you can’t keep him. He cannot be yours. But the brevity of your time together doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Treasure your feelings. Listen to your heart. And fight for what you believe in, always.”
As Charlotte daydreamed, Sean stretched awake, turning his dark eyes toward her. He gave her that mischievous grin before reaching toward the floor and grasping the comforter. He swung it over them, so that they could no longer see their nakedness, so that they could drift apart on the mattress.
Charlotte felt oddly sad as they became two separate entities, but she didn’t allow it to show on her face. She gave him a friendly grin and felt a question bubble to her lips. “Do you want to eat breakfast? I’m starving.”
Sean laughed. He reached for his watch on the nightstand and checked it, noting the time. “I actually can’t, even though it’s Saturday; I have a meeting at noon. And it’s already 10:30? Oh, man.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I wish I could, though.” He kissed her lips lightly, without the tension of the evening before.
Charlotte lifted herself to a seated position, calculating how far away her home was. She needed to find her way back to the office, grab her bicycle, and ride hard and fast back to her place so that she could start to forget her feelings. “Well. This was fun, thank you,” she said. Her voice had the formality of a seasoned lawyer once again. She’d practiced this voice. And now, she kind of hated using it.
“Yes. Don’t think I’m not glad we did this, because I am. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time,” Sean said. He turned away, grabbing a towel and moving towards the bathroom. He would no longer smell like her, soon.
“For the sake of your career and mine, we should definitely make this a one-time thing,” Charlotte said, hating how cold the words sounded after everything they’d shared the previous night.
She couldn’t read Sean’s reaction as he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
In that moment, Charlotte leaped from the bed and down the steps, toward the couch, where she found her pencil skirt and her lace shirt. She donned them quickly, pulling her fingers through her hair to try to look presentable again, not pausing to say goodbye before stabbing the elevator button.
She tipped her weight on first one heel, then the other, hoping Sean wouldn’t leave the bathroom before her escape. He was still in there when the elevator doors closed.
Outside, Charlotte marched toward her office building, still smelling of the billionaire. She could still taste his tongue in her mouth. Finding her trusty bike, she stabbed her feet over her pedals and bound herself toward home. In many ways, she wished she had just gone home the previous evening. Now, she’d have to live with this memory, just as she’d carried the memory of Sean throughout the previous ten years. Now, she had to know that, in another world, in another life, they might have been meant for each other. They could have been together.
But because she’d been able to meet him, because she’d been hired as his attorney, she was forced to remain alone.
Her apartment welcomed her without judgement. She fell into the arms of her couch and flicked around on the television, not bothering with the news or any of her normal channels of interest. She felt like a kid who’d been stood up at the dance, but she didn’t know why.
She was a grown adult, and she needed to refute her feelings for Sean. She would throw herself voraciously back into her work. Maybe, she thought, she’d make an online dating profile, to figure out if anyone in this world could ever compare to Sean.
She highly doubted it.
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ONE
Nicole yawned.
Not including the three-hour delay on her flight from Seattle, she’d been traveling to the Dubai office for more than a day, and the time change was something she could never seem to get used to. Now, her black heels clicking across the airport floor, she stifled another yawn as she made her way down the escalators and toward the long line of drivers. Her name was printed on a large white sign held by a dark-skinned gentleman in a very sharp suit.
“Miss Calvert?” the man said as she approached, and Nicole nodded.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice weary.
The man nodded back at her and lowered his sign, gesturing for her to follow him out of one of the sliding glass doors.
The city was baking in the hot desert sun, and Nicole tilted her head up ever so slightly to catch a few rays on her pale skin. To bare one’s face in the Middle East was sometimes considered a bad move culturally, but Dubai was different. It was the perfect blend of East and West, and while Nicole didn’t exactly appreciate the time it took to get there, she couldn’t fault the city for it.
Her driver approached a sleek black car and opened the rear passenger door for her.
“Miss,” he said, standing back and taking her bag to place in the trunk as she slid inside and shivered under the air conditioner’s blast.
Nicole enjoyed the cold. She was a Seattle native, and had had no other choice growing up—either you lik
ed clouds, or you moved. Still, she traveled to Dubai twice a month, and her body never ceased to complain as it fought time and time again to adjust to the unforgiving desert heat.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a hair tie, running her slender fingers through her long blond hair as she pulled it away from her face. Taking a deep breath, she leaned into her seat, and tried not to think about sleep. Pure, beautiful, peaceful sleep. In a big bed with duvet comforters and fluffy pillows…
Stop it, she thought, chiding herself.
She dug a manicured nail into her arm to keep herself awake, trying to think about anything other than the sheer bliss it would be to close her eyes and dream of an easier life.
Nicole hadn’t always been a personal assistant. She had passed the Bar the previous year, before landing a coveted spot on the legal team of Futurescapes International. It had been an exciting few weeks working for one of the fastest-growing tech companies around, and Nicole had loved every minute of settling into her new job.
One day she’d been walking down the hall of the company’s Seattle offices when she’d run into the CEO himself.
“Oof!” she’d uttered as she collided with Bahir Al-Jabbar.
The man wasn’t even thirty years old yet, and his olive skin and honey-colored eyes made him disconcertingly handsome for a company boss and one of the world’s youngest billionaires. That was the man gently holding onto her arms, keeping her coffee from spilling all over the floor.
“I’m so sorry, sir. I’m such a klutz…”
Bahir’s eyes were intense as he looked at her, and Nicole winced as she waited to be fired. Bahir had a reputation for being a fair and generous business owner, but she knew that so early into her contract, one mistake could be it.
The CEO released her arms and crossed his, staring at her with a thoughtful expression. “Nonsense, I wasn’t looking where I was going. But now that you’re here in front of me, would you mind coming into my office for a moment?”
His voice was like warm milk.
Nicole blinked. “Yes, sir,” she said hesitantly.
Bahir laughed. “Let’s tone it down with the ‘sir’ stuff, OK? Call me Bahir.”
“Yes…Bahir,” she said, the foreign name sounding awkward on her tongue.
Bahir strolled ahead of her down the clean, sparse hallway. His office took up a whole corner of the thirty-second floor, surrounded entirely by floor-to-ceiling windows, and Nicole could see the Space Needle the moment she stepped inside. She had been working at Futurescapes for several weeks already, but had never set foot inside that office before. She held in her gasp of amazement; the view was incredible.
Bahir slid behind his desk, sinking into a large leather chair. The desk was enormous, but felt appropriate considering the size of the room. He continued to stare at her, and Nicole shifted from one foot to another in her heels. Finally, he spoke.
“How long have you been with us, Ms.…?”
“Calvert. Nicole Calvert, sir. I’ve been on your legal team for three weeks now, sir,” she said, hoping she wasn’t sweating. She clung to her paper coffee cup for dear life, though the liquid had already gone cold.
Bahir grinned, a small dimple gracing his left cheek. “Nicole, I’d like to be frank with you, and I can’t do that if we’re sticking to formalities,” he said.
Nicole cleared her throat, not sure what to say.
“Is there anything I can do to make you feel a little more comfortable?” Bahir asked, and Nicole let out a laugh.
“Maybe just be a little less rich and powerful,” she said—what she didn’t add was “and a lot less handsome.”
Bahir’s grin deepened as he twirled his chair around to look out at the Seattle cityscape. “Well that I can’t do, but I think you’ll see that I’m just a regular person, in time.”
“Regular for who? Prince William or the President?” Nicole replied with a nervous laugh.
He could call himself normal all he wanted, but there was nothing “regular” about Bahir Al-Jabbar. He had been raised the son of a powerful Middle-Eastern sheikh, and given all the best the world had to offer. He’d converted his first-class education into a successful career as a tech entrepreneur. He enjoyed a world of yachts and islands, beautiful resorts and corner offices with panoramic views. To the average person,