He studied me as though that response confused him as much as my referring to his eyes as the color of a plant. “Where are you going?”
“MIT.” I pointed down Mass Ave. “You know, in Cambridge.”
“I do know. I’m going there myself.”
“Really?”
“I’d hardly lie about it.”
I looked at the time on my phone again. It was speeding by, and I was going to be late if I didn’t accept his offer of a ride, and that would be even if I called for my own car service.
“If you’re sure it wouldn’t be an imposition.”
“It wouldn’t.”
His voice, the one that had played over and over again in my head in the months that followed our sexcapades, didn’t sound anything like what I remembered. Instead of being suave and sexy, he was clipped and curt. I remembered him being cocky, not rude.
He opened the door and picked up all three of my bags, motioning for me to get in. Before I could scoot to the far side of the back-passenger seat, he closed the door and walked around to the other side.
“Sir,” the man behind the wheel said when my Mister One-Nighter got in. Before my backseat companion could tell him where we were going, the driver sped off.
On the best of days, like Sundays at four in the morning, it took me seven minutes to get from my apartment to my office. Today I’d be there in under five at the rate the man otherwise employed as a Nascar driver was going. The last time I’d felt this carsick was on Mister Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland.
“You can drop me at this corner,” I said when the driver pulled up at the intersection of Memorial and Wadsworth. “Thank you for the ride.” I realized then that he hadn’t introduced himself, and neither had I. However, I had been preoccupied with me remembering him and him not remembering me—along with not hurling my breakfast on the floor of the car.
I turned to shake his hand and thank him properly, but he’d already climbed out the other side of the car and was holding my three bags.
“I’m Emme,” I said when he opened my door and I got out of the car.
“Lennox,” he answered.
Hmm. Lennox? Not Lynx as he’d introduced himself that night? Interesting.
“Shall we?” he asked so abruptly that it pushed my annoyance over the edge.
“It was nice to meet you, although you look very familiar to me. Like maybe we’ve met before.” I gave him time to acknowledge having the same recollection I had. When he didn’t, I prompted him further. “Do I look at all familiar to you?”
Still no response. Wait. What was he doing? When I turned around, I caught him looking at himself in the window of my building. How could he possibly remember me when he was so busy admiring his own reflection?
God, what did I expect? Hadn’t I just reminded myself that I was probably only one on a miles-and-miles-long list of one-night conquests for the man I’d met in a hotel bar? I should be happy he didn’t recognize me.
When I walked away, he followed, reminding me he still had my bags. “This is my building.” I held out my hands, which he ignored.
“Mine as well.”
“Oh…um…which department?”
“International Policy. I have a meeting with Dr. Charles.”
I stopped walking and groaned inwardly. “You’re kidding.”
His perplexed expression reappeared. “I’m not,” he said with a furrowed brow.
“I’m Dr. Charles.”
2
Lynx
The lovely creature standing in front of me, the one with big ocean-blue eyes and hair the color of my favorite tawny port, the one I’d recognized the moment I saw her, the one I couldn’t walk away from this morning even though I should have…was the woman Saint referred to as Charlie?
Based on his description of her, I’d expected Charlie to be someone older, not closer to his age and mine.
I hadn’t recognized her in the photographs in her dossier; they certainly hadn’t done her remote justice. I had, though, the minute she passed me by when I entered Saint’s building. I had no reason to, but I’d hovered at the mailboxes earlier just so my gaze on her could linger.
As she studied something on her mobile, I studied her. It had been three years since I last saw Emerson. At the time, she hadn’t referred to herself as Emme, and I hadn’t known her last name.
I didn’t remember her being as thin as she was. She looked like a runner based on the leanness of her arms and legs. I also didn’t recall her tits being smaller than average, but that didn’t stop them from registering with my cock.
She raised her head, scrunching her eyes. “My meeting is with Adam Benjamin. You are not Dr. Benjamin.”
“He had a last-minute emergency. I’m here on his behalf.”
“Oh. That’s odd. How do you know Tommy?”
I smiled at the way she jumped between topics in a single sentence. “That’s the second time you referred to ‘Tommy.’ Are you speaking of Niven St. Thomas?”
“Right. Sorry. I call him Tommy; he calls me Charlie.”
I shook my head. Saint hadn’t mentioned her nickname for him; only his for her. The other thing Saint had told me, which now made my blood pressure skyrocket, was that he and Dr. Charles had been seeing one another. The wanker was the epitome of a womanizing rake. I’d never known Saint to spend more than a single night with any one woman. Not that I’d spent more than that single night with this one either.
She slid her mobile into her handbag and rested one hand on her hip. “Are you aware that Dr. Benjamin and I were meeting about…” she leaned in closer and looked left and right. “China?”
I repeated her motions. “Yes. I am.”
“How did you say you know Tom—Mr. St. Thomas?”
Still leaning close to her, I breathed in her scent. The memory of the one night we spent together roared through my mind. I wasn’t typically a fan of perfume of any kind, but I remembered hers being enticing.
“I didn’t,” I murmured, closing my eyes to sort the different fragrances in my head. She smelled of bergamot orange, morning jasmine, and evening rose petals, with a hint of vanilla and patchouli mixed in. Its potency made my eyes roll back in my head and my mouth water as I recalled running my tongue over her body, tasting her skin.
When I reopened my eyes, Dr. Charles appeared transfixed. She still stood as close, but her head was angled away from me.
“Are you smelling me?” she asked.
Caught, I smiled. “Your perfume is beguiling,” I said without apology.
“I don’t wear perfume,” she responded, grabbing my arm with the hand previously on her hip and leading me to the building’s entrance. She swiped a card in the slot by the door and then rested her palm on the dark-gray square beneath it. “Sorry, protocol,” she said, slipping inside the door and closing it behind her.
I was well aware of the security measures in place at MIT. Given the nature of the work done within this building’s walls, security was as tight here as it was at Vauxhall Cross. After repeating the same security process she had completed, I joined her inside.