Hunger (Seductors #2) (10 page)

“Problems in the office?” I asked, genuinely concerned.    

“You could say that,” he stressed, pulling at his hair before gripping the steering wheel. “I need to cut our lunch date short. I’m sorry, Jade.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you’re canceling our dinner date tomorrow.” I grabbed my trash and put everything in the bag. “Let me throw this away first. I don’t want your car to smell like fast food for days.” I could feel his eyes on me as I stepped out of his car and walked over to put the empty wrappers and leftover soda in the trashcan.

“What time did you want me to pick you up tomorrow?” he asked once I was sitting beside him again.

“Any time after seven works for me.” We made small talk on the way back, finalizing our plans for the following evening. By the time we pulled up outside his building, we had decided on him picking me up at eight outside my hotel.

“Thanks for meeting me for lunch, Jade,” he muttered with his hands in his pockets. Could he feel the electricity charging between us, too? Was that why his hands were in his pockets? Was he trying to restrain himself?    

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I hope the rest of your day goes okay.”

“You helped, Jade.” He spoke softly, studying my lips again. It was pure torture having to hold back. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Okay,” I replied, watching him as he started to walk off. Just before he reached the automatic doors, I called out to him. “Thanks for lunch.”

“It was my pleasure,” he responded with the dreamy smirk. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” Then he was gone. That was Oliver Kirkham, the charmer.

I spent the night looking through the contacts that Alicia had thrown at me a few days ago. It wouldn’t do any harm to get ahead on this mission and figure out which associates I could rule out. As I went through everything I realized that Alicia had been pretty thorough; I had to give her some credit. She was good at one thing—research.

By the time I’d gone through the list, I counted at least thirty names I’d have to investigate. This mission was almost impossible, but if anyone could do it, I could.

I was checking through my emails when a knock came at my door. It was pretty late, so I wasn’t sure who would be coming to see me at this time of the night. Deep down, I knew the one face I wanted to see behind the door.

As I opened my door to find Alicia standing on the other side, I sighed deeply. What was her problem?

“What the hell do you want at this time?” I glared as she pushed past me, entering my bedroom.

“Sonia wants a progress report from both of us. Have you checked your emails?”

“Not in the last hour. I’ve been doing some research on the associates on that list you gave me.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No. I think you’ve covered all the possible candidates.”

“Hopefully the trip to Russia will give me a few new leads. Oliver is meeting with several scientists. If only I knew what some of his code names were.”

“Don’t think for a second that you have this mission, Alicia. Oliver and I have a bond that can’t be broken. He’s weakening each time we see each other.”

“Two weeks is a long time,” she gloated, flicking her hair behind her shoulders.

“You came here tonight just to gloat about being alone with him for two weeks, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” she sneered. “And to do this progress report. Although, I have more to tell Sonia than you.” I could have risen to her comment, but I was too tired. I just wanted to get the damn report done so she would leave.

“I’ll see you when I’m back from Russia,” Alicia called over her shoulder as she was leaving a while later. “Don’t worry, I’ll take
good
care of Oliver.” I closed my door without a response. She was such a bitch. She seemed to forget one thing, though. I still had my dinner date with Oliver before Russia.

Chapter Six

“You look beautiful, Jade,” Oliver grinned, opening his car door for me. I’d opted for a beautiful red dress with a lace trim tonight. It was elegant and sexy at the same time. I also knew he loved me in red.

“No limo again?” I teased.

“What can I say, I like driving you around.”

“Where have you decided to take me for dinner, then?”

“I thought we could do Italian again, if that’s okay. I know a small little restaurant that has the best pasta in town.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“How was your day?” he asked, pulling out into traffic. “Has Brian made anymore advances?”

“I told you I can handle him,” I chuckled. “I didn’t see him much today, though. He’s heading out of town for a few days.”

“Good,” Oliver muttered under his breath. “I meant what I said about him. Please be careful.” I nodded, turning to gaze out the window.  “I may sound like a broken record, but I care about you, Jade. That’s
never
changed.”

“You don’t know how happy that makes me to hear that,” I sighed, turning so our eyes could meet.

“Do you still care about me?”

“What do you think?” I whispered, studying his face. “I know it’s hard for you to understand why I left without any warning, but I didn’t run for the reason you’re thinking.”

“I put too much pressure on you. I get it now, but you could have talked to me about it, Jade. Running like that…”

I was conflicted. Did I just lay my heart on the line and tell him how I really felt? If I wanted him to be thinking of me the entire time he was in Russia it was the only option, but was I ready to be that open with him? Luckily, we pulled up outside the restaurant before I had to answer.

“Wow, this place is great,” I gasped, taking in the small candlelit table for two. It was so secluded, too.

“Yeah, I figured this would be a good place for us to talk. It doesn’t get too noisy here, and you don’t feel as if other tables can overhear your conversation.” Oliver pulled a chair out for me before taking his own seat.

“Do you come here a lot?” I questioned.

“Are you asking if I bring other women here? Didn’t you ask me the same thing in London the weekend we met?”

“I was going to ask your opinion on the menu, actually,” I sniggered.

Oliver laughed with me before suddenly becoming serious, taking my hands in his over the table. “What do you want from me, Jade? I’ve tried to be strong, but when it comes to you, I can’t. I need to know what you want and that you’ll talk to me. No more running.”

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” It was only a partial lie. If Oliver and I were ever going to get our happily ever after, we would have to have some time apart. There was no reason to think about that right now, though.

“I want to believe you, Jade. I really do.”

“We don’t have to have all the answers right now. Why can’t we just see how it goes?”

“I thought that was what we were doing?” he smirked.

“Okay, smart ass,” I giggled. “Can we stop with the heavy, then? Why don’t you tell me about your day? You seemed really stressed yesterday at lunch.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“I know you pretty well.” I looked at our hands that were still linked together.

“My uncle and I are disagreeing over an important development in the company. He thinks his age should give him the upper hand, but he isn’t thinking rationally.”

“But it’s your company. You don’t have to listen to him, do you?” I was trying to act dumb. I knew Richard owned a percentage of Kirkham Industries but that Oliver held the majority.

“It may be my company, but my uncle does have a small claim on it. Not enough to allow him to overrule me, though. I value his opinion most of the time. This time, however, I feel like he’s being driven by money.”

“Is that what it’s about? Money?”

“No,” Oliver sighed. “Money is the least of my problems. I have a lot of power in my hands, Jade. There are times I feel as if I’m playing God. One choice could affect the entire world.”

“That sounds tough.”

“It is,” he sighed, glancing behind me. Our food had arrived.

“You weren’t kidding about this place having the best pasta. It’s really good,” I mumbled, digging into my meal.

“Yeah, I’m rarely wrong,” he winked with a smile.

“So, these important decisions you have to make…are they always top secret?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“I’m starting to understand why you’ve met so many world leaders.”

“I’m not going to tire you with the boring details of my job, Jade.”

“I don’t mind, really.”

“You’re really okay with me talking about fusion and power cores?” My heart began to race. Power cores? Would it really be that easy? I was about to find out.

“Power cores?” I frowned, sipping my drink.

“You really want me to go into detail?” he chuckled.

“Not too much. I need to be able to understand what you’re saying,” I giggled.

“Okay, well, with nuclear weapons they have to have a core. This consists of heat and energy. There are two types of nuclear weapons—those that use most of their energy from fission alone, and those that simply use fission to begin the reaction.”

“You really are a nerd, aren’t you?” I smirked.

“You knew that about me the day we met,” he chuckled. “We don’t have to talk work.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“You,” he grinned with a gleam in his eye. “Why don’t you tell me where you’ve been these last six months?”

“You tracked my account. You probably know better than me where I’ve been.”

He chuckled. “I guess I deserved that.”

“I travelled around a lot. Mostly I stayed with friends. I had some money put away, so I just kept running.”

“What made you finally stop?” His eyes were intense as he waited for me to answer.

“I woke up to my true feelings.” I reached my hand over toward his. “I wasn’t running from you. I was running from my feelings
for
you,” I admitted. “It was all happening so fast and it scared me. I’ve never been dependent on someone before. I’ve only ever had to look out for myself. Relationships aren’t easy for me, Oliver. They never have been.”

“You should have told me.” He traced the top of my hand with his fingertips. “All these months that have been wasted. I’ve been going out of my mind trying to find you, Jade.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I’m starting to see that now.”

After our dinner, we shared a dessert again. He said he wasn’t that hungry, but I figured it had more to do with being able to feed me the delicious ice cream from his own spoon than anything else.

“You’ve been watching my mouth the entire night,” I giggled as he fed me the last spoonful of ice cream.

“I have?” he teased, licking his lips. “You do have mesmerizing lips.”

“They can’t be that good. You haven’t even tried to kiss me properly since I’ve been back,” I challenged, raising my eyebrows.

“All in good time,” he breathed, looking down at his watch. “Did you want anything else? Coffee? More ice cream?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“I have some bad news before we go any further tonight.” I knew what was coming and braced myself. I’d been wondering when he would bring up his trip to Russia. “I’m leaving for Russia this weekend. I’ll be gone for two weeks.”

“What?” I gasped. “You’re going away for
two weeks
and you only decided to tell me this now?”

“It was never the right time. I can’t get out of it, Jade. It’s a really important trip.”

“Two weeks is such a long time,” I moped, fiddling with the tablecloth.

“If I could take you with me, I would, but my uncle will be there. It would just get too complicated and I need to focus.”

“Oh, let me guess, your PA is going,” I glared, crossing my arms.

“You really don’t like Alicia, do you?”

“No,” I glared. “You don’t trust Brian, and I don’t trust her!”