Unbound (9 page)

I nod, although I had only skimmed through the reports. I got the basic gist of them, and that would have to do.

“OK, come on then,” he says and swishes past me to the door.

I take my bag, wedge the papers under my arm, and follow him.

It’s tiring and seems never-ending. I would never have thought that Jonathan Huntington’s days were so filled with work. I really am allowed to accompany him everywhere, first to a meeting with a young businessman who’s just registered a patent for a new kind of computer conductor unit—that was in the report, which I only had a chance to skim. Huntington Ventures is now looking for a suitable investor to implement his idea and make it profitable. This is followed by further appointments, two in-house meetings, at which the individual departments update him on current developments, and a brief lunch at a chic sandwich bar right by St. Paul’s Cathedral, where Steven the chauffeur takes us in the limousine, and where I have to read more reports while Mr. Huntington makes more calls on his cell. Then two further meetings—with investors this time—and then a visit to a gallery in King’s Cross for the opening exhibition of a young artist who is being sponsored by the art foundation that forms part of the Huntington Ventures empire.

The longer the activities go on, the more fascinated I am. Jonathan Huntington can drive a hard bargain when necessary—I expected that, his reputation precedes him in that department. But he also seems to be personally invested in everything he does and he actively promotes all the projects he takes on. And it’s his decisive manner that often clinches the contract for Huntington Ventures.

Besides that, his involvement goes much deeper than I thought. He’s not just a businessman; he’s an art patron, someone who supports talented young artists, especially in visual arts and music. He does it on behalf of the company but you can tell that his heart really is in this. Wherever we go, he introduces me as his assistant and no one questions it, as I feared they might. On the contrary, people treat me with respect and courtesy—with caution almost, and at some point I realize that they extend their respect for him to include me as well.

After the opening, we go to Hackney to hear a talk on a building project, which Huntington Ventures and several other financial backers are involved in. The conference runs late. It’s already past seven when we finally get back to his office and I notice that I am really tired. I’m still struggling with jetlag. But the day isn’t over yet, Jonathan wants to meet someone for dinner and I’m supposed to accompany him there too. I suddenly remember Annie, who wanted to wait for me.

“May I make a phone call?”

Jonathan indicates the phone on his desk and I hurriedly dial Annie’s extension. She’s not very happy when I tell her that she should go home without me. “What are you doing up there?” she wants to know. But since Jonathan is sitting at his desk and I’m standing right in front of him, I can’t really answer her.

“There’s just one last appointment,” I reassure her. “But you don’t need to keep dinner waiting for me. Can you remind me which subway I need to take?”

“You don’t need to take the tube, Steven will take you home in the limousine,” Jonathan interjects. I can hear the undertone of a command in this announcement but this time it doesn’t bother me because I’m really relieved. I won’t have to find my way back to Islington on my own and my tired body is very grateful for that. “No, Annie, don’t explain, you don’t need to, I …”

“It’s OK, I heard him,” she says, and I can actually see the deep furrow forming on her brow when she doesn’t like something. “Think about what we discussed, OK?”

“Yes, I will. See you later, then.” I hang up hurriedly, so she can’t say any more, then I fetch the papers I still have to read before we set off for dinner, and sink into the guest chair. The couch is just too far to walk.

We work in silence for a while but I notice that I can’t really concentrate. The letters keep swimming in front of my eyes.

At some point, I put down the report in my hand because there’s simply no point anymore. Jonathan looks up from his documents when I do that and when our eyes meet I ask him the first thing that comes into my mind, in order to fill the silence between us and calm the jittery feeling inside me.

“Do you always have so many appointments?”

I regret the question right away because it makes it sound as though it were all too much for me. Which it is, at least in my current state. But I definitely don’t want him to know that.

His blue eyes look at me hard.

“No, not always. Alex—my partner, Alexander Norton—is on a business trip at the moment and I’ve had to take over some of his appointments,” Jonathan says. “But in general I do enjoy working hard,” he adds after a short pause.

“I see.” I quickly ask him another question, before he can inquire if it’s all too much for me, if it wouldn’t be better for me to move on from this intern project.

“Who are we about to meet with, by the way?”

It takes him a moment to answer.

“Yuuto Nagako. You know him. From the airport.”

The Japanese man. I remember our meeting yesterday morning with a shudder and can barely manage to keep a neutral facial expression. “Does it make sense for me to come with you?” I ask. “I mean, you speak to each other in Japanese.”

“He also speaks excellent English.”

The thought of the way the Japanese man looked at me sends a shiver down my spine.

“But I’ll just be in your way,” I make another attempt.

“You haven’t got in our way up to now.” He examines me searchingly again. “Is there a problem, Grace?”

I shake my head. After all, I can’t exactly tell him that I would rather not meet his business partner again. Especially when I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. I’m suffering from jetlag and the long day has really exhausted me.

“No, it’s fine,” I say and put my hand up to my neck to ease the aching muscles there a little.

It doesn’t escape his notice.

“Would you rather call it a day and go home?”

I shake my head decisively again. Throw in the towel early on the very first day—definitely not! “No, no, everything’s fine, really. I’m just a little tired. I think I’m still stiff from the flight.”

Instead of answering, he stands up and comes over to me. Before I realize what he has in mind, he’s standing behind my chair and I can feel his hands on my shoulders.

“I’m sorry. I should have thought of that,” he says. His thumbs gently stroke the skin below my hairline, tracing circles, while his fingers knead my shoulder muscles in a very pleasant way.

My lips open, as if of their own accord, while I try to understand exactly what it is that he’s doing. Suddenly, my breathing grows shallow and my scalp starts prickling. A pleasurable shiver runs down my spine and my head falls back a little. I can’t do anything about it. It just feels lovely to be touched by him—his hands are big and his grasp is firm, without being painful.

Suddenly he stops, though he lets his hands rest on my shoulders. “I sometimes do that for my sister, when she’s tense,” he says, and he sounds almost embarrassed, as if he’s only just realized that what he was doing was very intimate.

“It’s nice,” I reassure him, because I want him to continue. Hesitatingly, he starts again, gentler this time. His fingertips traverse my skin almost tenderly and his thumbs make bigger circles. I can feel them sliding into my hair and stroking my scalp and the prickly feeling gets stronger, spreads right down to my lower body.

I want to ask him about his sister. I didn’t know he had one. But I can’t get a single word out.

I can’t remember when a man last touched me like this. I think never, actually. My grandfather would put an arm round me now and again, and I made out a couple times with the few boys I dated. But this—this is something quite different, a caress that renders me completely helpless. Heat wells up inside me, spreading across my cheeks, and my heart quivers with panic and arousal. And suddenly I want more. I want him to touch me in other places, I want his hand to explore more of my skin and …

Suddenly his hands aren’t there anymore and I am startled out of my fantasizing. Jonathan isn’t standing behind me anymore. He’s going back behind his desk, sitting back down in his chair. When he looks at me, I can’t read the expression in his eyes but it looks different from usual. More reserved. But there’s certainly no trace of the mockery it so often contains.

“Feeling better?”

I exhale raggedly and nod.

“Thank you,” I say hoarsely.

I feel oddly empty. I want to feel his touch again. Want him back. A shiver runs down my spine as I realize just how much I was at his mercy just now. Would I have stopped him, if he had gone further? I doubt it. But he didn’t go further, I think, and I don’t know whether to find that reassuring or disappointing. It was just an innocent massage, the kind of thing he’d do for his sister. I probably remind him of her. The thought is like a cold shower.

Jonathan brushes his hair away from his forehead, grabs his cell, and dials a number. I hear him saying something quickly in Japanese. He’s obviously talking to Yuuto. It’s only a short conversation and he looks relaxed when he hangs up.

Then he calls his chauffeur and explains that he needs the car right away. “You’re taking Miss Lawson home, Steven.”

My brain is still working more slowly than usual, so it takes me a few moments to understand what that means. He no longer wants me to accompany him.

“That won’t be necessary, really. I can come with you …”

“I cancelled the appointment,” he interrupts.

“Because of me?” Now I am really confused. Even if he’s sending me home, he could have gone to the appointment on his own. It’s not dependent on me, after all. Or is it?

“It wasn’t important,” he explains. “We’ll continue tomorrow. You should get a good night’s sleep, Grace.”

I don’t want to sleep, though, I think. And I don’t want to leave him. It’s as if his touch has awoken something in me that only he can calm again. That’s why the thought of leaving him is almost painful. Pull yourself together, I warn myself. You’re being idiotic. It’s only a silly crush. I remember Annie’s warning again. Don’t even start to read anything into it. She’s right, I think, sighing, as I collect my things.

When Jonathan accompanies me to the elevator, my heart is beating wildly. A moment later we’re standing in silence in the mirrored cabin. I’m very conscious of his closeness, and although the elevator is rather big, I’m drawn to him like a magnet. With other men, I haven’t been able to keep enough distance. I would probably have fled to the furthest corner of the elevator. But with Jonathan I want to get even closer to him, to be able to smell his cologne better. I want to look at him but I don’t trust myself, so I look in the mirror on the wall behind him—and see that his perfectly-cut jacket shows off his broad shoulders and narrow hips, and how his dark pants accentuate his long legs. The top of my head comes up to his shoulder. If he were to take me in his arms, you wouldn’t be able to see me in the mirror at all.

Shocked by the direction my thoughts are taking once more, I look up at him and see that he is observing me. He’s been doing it all day, almost as if he were watching me, rather than the other way around. He studies me. He seems to notice all my reactions. I just don’t know what conclusions he is drawing from them. Or what’s so interesting about me.

Hot blood shoots into my cheeks and I look at the neutral, non-mirrored floor. The trip seems endless but we finally reach the lobby. Steven is waiting for us in the limousine, right in front of the door.

Jonathan holds the door open for me but he doesn’t say goodbye to me, as I was expecting. Instead, he gets in and sits down next to me. Then he presses the intercom button, which connects him with the driver. “The club, Steven.”

I look at him in confusion. “I thought the appointment had been cancelled.”

Jonathan stretches out his legs. They almost reach the seat opposite. Once more, I’m conscious of how tall he is.

“That’s right,” he confirms.

“But …”

“Why am I coming with you in my own car?” He looks at me with an amused twinkle in his eye. “Because Steven is going to drop me off before taking you home. If that’s OK with you.”

I bite my lower lip and grimace unhappily because I’ve managed to put my foot in it again. Why does he go to all this trouble for me? “I’m sorry. I thought …”

He waves it away. “It’s OK. You’re tired. Get some rest.”

We’re silent for a while, as Steven steers the long car through the London evening traffic. I look out of the window at the city lights flashing by and try to focus on something other than the man sitting next to me. Which isn’t possible. Of course not. It’s a valid question, after all. Why is he going to all this trouble for me? What does he get out of letting me share his life? I didn’t have the time to question it once today, because we spent all day hurrying from one appointment to another—but now I lean back against the upholstery and begin to really mull it over. He must have a reason. I got a good sense of him today. At work, Jonathan Huntington is single-minded—he wants to see results. If he does something, it’s because he expects to get something out of it.

I swallow. I’d love to ask him what he hopes to get out of me. But I’m too afraid of his answer. It might be something very mundane.

But, after all, I ought to be happy if he’s not interested in me. The situation is already hard on my feelings. If what happened in the office just now is the kind of thing he does often then I don’t know whether I’ll be able to keep my promise to Annie. Don’t fall in love with him. How high a price would I have to pay if I can’t manage that?

Thoughts are racing through my head. I’ve stopped paying attention to anything outside the car window. It’s not until the car stops that I finally look out, surprised.

We’ve stopped on a street that borders a park on the left but I have no idea what neighborhood we’re in. It’s definitely one of the better neighborhoods, though. The street is lined with large, well-kept villas set back from the road. The house next to us is a two-story white building surrounded by a high, wrought iron latticework fence.