C3 Chapter 03

Ellie

Monday morning I was awakened by the sound of my annoying alarm at 6:00 a.m. I lay in bed for some time thinking about Saturday night. The hot, strong, dominant stranger had disappeared from my apartment first thing that morning. The night that we spent together was explosive and I was struggling to erase him from my memory. I hadn’t gone out on Sunday at all; I spent all day doing the research for a column that I had been working on, on the side.

This morning I still felt pretty relaxed about what went on between us. The sex had blown my mind and his commanding voice had left me drenched with need. Even now I was having hot flashes, smelling him on my sheets and pillows. I had never had a lover who was so gentle and demanding at the same time. That man without a name, who was passionate, powerful and made me orgasm at least five times. I couldn’t stop thinking about his piercing grey eyes. I felt truly and utterly screwed after he was done with me.

Finally I pulled the covers away and got up. I went to the bathroom and looked at my own reflection in the mirror, thinking about the day ahead of me. No one in the office knew who I was and I wanted to stay anonymous for as long as possible. Dad hadn’t contacted me since the whole scandal hit the media and I wasn’t expecting him to. He made it clear that I was dead to him, but if I could make it as a reporter, then there was a slim chance that I could turn my luck around.

I knew Dad regretted spending a fortune on my education. I went to the best media school in Scotland, graduated with a first class degree, then managed to secure work experience in a good paper without his help. My father didn’t believe that my degree was worth anything. He’d wanted me to become a respectable barrister like him, but I was more excited about writing articles and exposing the truth than his whole legal crap.

When the scandal was leaked to the papers and my life was pulled from beneath my feet, I was forced to spend my last available funds on this property in another city and take a job in a small magazine in Edinburgh.

It’d been weeks since my name was splattered across the papers, but I was still careful, using my fake name whenever I could. I had tried to keep in touch with some friends. Rebecca and Tasha had visited me a few times, but the rest of my friends kept their distance. They were sympathetic but couldn’t believe that my father reacted the way he did. I had made a terrible mistake, but I was a human being, believing it was my own judgment that failed me. Now I felt isolated and haunted by the guilt.

After Andrew, I had lost all my confidence in finding real love. It was better to sleep around, not to be tied down. My father made sure that I lost all the privileges and all my memberships to exclusive clubs and societies in Scotland. We were never really close, but he had believed that asshole over me and made the decision to shut me out of his life forever, not letting me explain what actually happened between us.

The scandal crumbled his good reputation and he lost many important clients because of me. He didn’t care who had started what; all that mattered to him was that I was involved. Yeah, I was an idiot back then, thinking that Andrew had loved me. I was ready to do anything for him, but he only played with me to get closer to my powerful father.

Now I was managing to scrape by, earning a shitty wage with the magazine. I missed having an unlimited amount of funds. I was never a materialist, although it was nice to be able to buy anything that I needed, but now I was on my own and the bills were slowly piling up, so I had to deal with it.

I brushed my long brown hair, changed into gym clothes, and picked my outfit for today in the bedroom.

Everything was slowly coming together, but I absolutely detested my workplace. All the senior reporters were chauvinist pigs. They had their own established sources around the city and I was stuck with the rest of the crappy stories that no one wanted to touch, just some boring crap that wouldn’t help me further my own career at all. I’d never realised how much my father’s name could help. I never used it to my advantage, but now I wished I had.

I went down to use the gym, and for the entire workout, I kept wondering who the mystery man was that I’d had sex with Saturday night. I didn’t know his name, but I already missed his touch. I imagined being in bed with him again, lost in his touch.

After my workout I returned to my apartment, changed, picked up my briefcase, and then I was ready to conquer another day. I stood outside in the hall for a little while, fiddling with my keys, when I heard someone coming out of the third apartment on my floor. I hadn’t had a chance to meet any of my neighbours yet, and for a while I suspected that the two other apartments were empty. Obviously I was wrong.

“I’m telling you, this is the best way,” I heard a female voice saying.

Finally finding the right key, I locked the door in a hurry. I glanced up and for a split second I wondered if my vision was fooling me somehow. My heart skipped a beat and then shuddered in my chest. The mystery guy from two nights ago, the one that made me forget about my sorrow and worries, was walking towards me with another woman. There was no doubt that he recognised me. Tingles ravaged my body as his eyes hovered over my face slowly, like he was calculating whether to say anything about the other night. I was just about to ask him what the hell he was doing here, but the woman that was with him erased my question.

“Oh, hello. You must be our new neighbour? I’m Claire McCune and this is my husband, Mack,” she said to me. Then two things happened all at once. The door of the apartment next to me opened up, and I dropped all my folders on the floor. I could swear my heart stopped beating for a good several seconds.

No, no, no, no…. This is not happening to me again.

“Let me help you with this,” my one-night stand guy offered, going down on his knee and picking up my papers for me. I shot him one of my worst “ready to murder you with my bare hands” glares, trying to breathe at the same time, but my lungs had stopped working. A wife? The perfect hot and gorgeous guy had a wife? And he lived two doors away from me?

“What’s going on here, a neighbourhood watch meeting of some sort?” asked the guy who had just come out of the other apartment, flashing us the most brilliant smile.

I thought that I had a brain freeze. People were talking to me, but I was in a daze. Anger boiled inside me like a hot furnace and I thought I was going through a seizure. Mystery guy handed me one of my folders and our fingers brushed accidentally. Electricity shot down to my core, sending waves of piping hot lust down between my legs. I remembered lying on the bed in my apartment with him between my legs, commanding me to keep still. Shit, that was so hot, but then the voice of reason pulled me back to the real world, to the screwed-up reality of the fact that love, honesty and fidelity existed only in fairy tales.

Mack and I looked up. Our new neighbour was tall, slim and quite handsome. Soft or pretty boy-looking, as I would normally describe him to all my girlfriends. He wasn’t Scottish either; I detected some sort of foreign accent. He had tanned dark skin and I assumed that one of his parents might have been from the Middle East. Good-looking without a ring on his finger and dressed smart in a pricey blue shirt.

My breathing hadn’t come back to normal yet, but somehow I managed to lift myself up. Beads of sweat were running down my back. I was prepared to roar with frustration and fury. How could he not tell me that he had a freaking wife!

“We were just leaving for work when the lady here dropped her folders all over the floor,” said the wife, chuckling like this was funny. Her smile was fake and stiff. Besides that, she wasn’t very pretty, and that should have made me feel a little better, but the truth was that I was devastated. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a cheap black suit. “I guess we’re all new here. Have you just moved in?”

I had to get the hell out of here, fast. My heart pounded in my chest while gorgeous, commanding Mack was eyeing our new neighbour with his sharp grey eyes. I imagined stabbing a knife straight into his heart and then twisting until those eyes popped out of his sockets.

“Yes, I’m in the process of moving in. Do you guys live on this floor?” the new neighbour asked and darted his eyes at me. I was fuming, but I still managed to notice as he checked me out, hovering his dark gaze over my legs.

“My name is Mack McCune and this is my wife, Claire. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet had the pleasure to be acquainted with the lady here.”

Mack

I said this pointing at the beautiful angel standing in front of me, who looked like she was already plotting how to kill me. I should have told Claire to wait until at least seven to leave, but no, she insisted on leaving early, hoping to find out if Pollock had moved in yet. Panic and shock were colliding with my outburst of sudden desire. When I stared at the woman who had woken me up from my deepest fog, I was ready to forget about my duties and take her away to the place where she belonged—my bed.

The beautiful angel had decided to leave the apartment at the same time as us, ruining our carefully prepared plan. Since losing Charlotte, I had stopped paying attention to women. It was easier to blame it on work, although my father kept telling me that I needed to start dating again. Now, I was experiencing these hidden emotions while she stood close to me, looking shocked, and I had to keep my mouth shut about who I was. That one fucking night would cost me a lot and only in this moment did I begin to realise that.

“Hi, I’m Ellie Frasier, moved in two weeks ago,” she said, sounding tense.

What a fucking mess! I wanted to smash my own face with a brick. Ellie—that name alone was making my dick twitch again and this was not the time or place for shit like that.

“Adrian Lurkin.”

“Well, it’s superb that we all finally know each other,” Claire said, laughing. I wished that she would just shut up. We had been forced to get back together and she knew how I felt about her. “How about drinks at our place on Friday night? I hope both of you, Ellie and Adrian, can join us?”

Ellie shot me a bold, surprised look while I nearly lost it. I was ready to explode and drag Claire back to our apartment. Drinks? Was she out of her mind? We were supposed to engage with Lurkin, but not like that, not while another neighbour stood next to him. She was messing up this carefully prepared plan.

“I’m sure they are both very busy, Claire,” I said, shooting her an annoyed look. She wasn’t getting it. This whole thing wasn’t about social interactions anymore. That was the main reason that I stopped trusting women. They had no idea how to follow the rules.

“I would love to, but only if our pretty new neighbour agrees,” Adrian said, winking at Ellie, and I instantly wanted to crush his gut with my fists. Fuck. What the hell was wrong with me? I had this woman for one night. We fucked and then I left. That’s all there was to it, so why did I care all of a sudden?

We all looked at Ellie, who opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked amazing wearing a white silky blouse and tight black trousers. I liked women that made an effort and she obviously had a good sense of style, but then my internal voice roared at me to get a grip. I had to stop lusting after someone that I couldn’t have. My relationship with Claire was much more important than Ellie. We had to put our differences aside. Pollock was dangerous and I had to keep myself in line. Only a few experienced, high-level people knew about this operation and I hoped that one day I would see him rotting in prison.

“I’m kind of busy Friday. I’m sorry. Maybe another time,” she replied.

I imagined those lips around my cock, sucking and teasing me.

“Come on, you have to show up. We’re all new here,” Lurkin insisted.

She glanced at me, swallowing hard and gripping her folders under her breasts. “But I—”

“Oh come on, Ellie. Mack and I insist. It’ll be fun to get to know each other. You should have a night off work,” Claire said. Then she winked and added, “I’ve been told I make a mean Sex on the Beach cocktail,” putting me in a state of complete unease. Women could be clueless, and of course she had no idea that I’d had the most memorable and euphoric sex with Ellie just two days ago. That was none of her business as she was married herself, but I was putting all the parties involved at risk and that wasn’t my style.

I saw curiosity and lust in Lurkin’s eyes for Ellie. This wasn’t good. I hated that he was looking at her like she was just another easy lay.

The silence stretched for several moments and I was praying for her to say no.

“Okay, I guess you’re right,” Ellie said and gave us all a fake smile, tossing her brown hair over her shoulder. “Friday night at your place it is, then. I’ll make sure to bring something strong. Nice to meet you all. Sorry, but I have to run!”

Then she jumped straight into the lift, leaving me baffled and fucking furious with a semi-hard cock. Claire laughed and Lurkin kept staring at Ellie until the door to the lift shut.

“Friday night, then. Thanks, Claire. I just can’t wait to get myself acquainted with Ellie. She seems nice,” Lurkin said, then picked up his box and walked inside his apartment, leaving me and Claire alone. It took me a second to realise that I was screwed, completely and utterly, because I had spent the night with a woman that I had expected to never, ever see again.