Sofia
Just because Andrew Blake didn’t have a twin didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend he did. It was the only way I could make sense of him being so different in and out of the office. Last time I’d sat on this bar stool, he’d whispered in my ear about wanting to make me come. This morning he’d barked at me because I didn’t have the lights on in my office.
He’d fulfilled his promise during our night together. More often than I could remember. And then the next day, it was as if we were two different people and the previous night hadn’t happened at all. Part of me thought it was easier. This way, we weren’t about to get caught bent over the photocopier at work. But there was also a part of me that wondered what the fuck was going on. The only way to deal with it was to pretend Andrew had a twin brother called James.
I was only on my second sip of my Vivian Leigh when the bell over Noble Rot’s door rang. Though a familiar presence loomed in the doorway, I resisted the urge to look him over.
Something in the air shifted. I knew heads turned as Andrew strode between the wooden tables to reach the bar. I didn’t blame them. His confidence seemed to envelop him in an almost-visible bubble. The enigmatic smirk he wore was as compelling as the Mona Lisa’s. Everyone’s focus was on wherever he was going or whatever he was doing.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I couldn’t judge anyone else for feeling the same.
He slid gracefully onto the barstool next to mine.
“Sofia,” he said, his voice a low, deep growl.
“James,” I responded, trying to ignore the fizzle of excitement snaking up my spine.
A drink dutifully appeared in front of him. Tony wasn’t on today. It was a new guy who clearly knew the drill. I didn’t waste time getting to know the new guy. There was only one man I wanted to talk to tonight.
“How was your day?” I asked. I’d wanted to ask him all day about how he was feeling about the offer and what had happened during his phone call with the lawyer I’d put through to him just before he left the office. But I knew better. Andrew didn’t do chitchat. Not in the office, anyway. But I knew he wanted to buy Verity. I’d never seen him so agitated at work, waiting for the call.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. He sighed and dragged his fingers through his hair as if tortured. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Here was just a bar. But . . . a bar where I was. And then it dawned on me: I worked for him. Maybe finding me very attractive was against some moral code or something.
“We don’t have to talk shop,” I said. “Sometimes it’s good to keep work in the office.”
“Exactly,” he said with a fervor that seemed a little misplaced.
He didn’t like the idea of me working for him and sleeping with him. That must be why he was keeping up this charade. “You like to keep your home life and work life separate?”
“Completely,” he replied.
Maybe he was worried about abusing his power or position. The MeToo movement hadn’t just happened in America, and the British were uptight at the best of times. I could assure him that he didn’t have anything to worry about on that score—it wasn’t as if this was a long-term gig for me. This time next year, there was no way I would still be working at Blake Enterprises. I thought carefully about how to phrase my next sentence without trampling on our game.
“I suppose when I get my real career going, I might feel the same.”
The corner of his lip lifted in amusement. “Your real career?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be some big-shot’s assistant for the rest of my life. I have an MBA and I’m ambitious. I want to be the big shot. The job I have at the moment is a means to an end. I have things to figure out in London. Being an assistant isn’t the job, if you get what I mean.”
“You’re not looking for a promotion or—”
“I’m looking for a paycheck until I get done what I need to get done. Then I’ll go find myself a career.”
Andrew’s shoulders seemed to lower and his brow smoothed. “Can we get out of here and go back to yours?”
“We can,” I said. “When I’ve finished my cocktail.” I wasn’t on the clock. I didn’t have to ask how high when he told me to jump.
“I’ll make you a cocktail when we get to yours.”
I shook my head. “A, no you won’t. And B, I like this one.”
He spun his stool back to the bar and almost snarled, but he didn’t argue, which I appreciated. There was something so completely attractive about this alpha male knowing when not to assert his dominance. Still, I found myself drinking my cocktail a little faster than I usually would.
As we stepped out onto the street, he flagged down a cab.
“I bet you’re slumming it coming back to Kilburn. Where do you live?” I asked as the taxi pulled out.
“Old Gloucester Street.” He said it like I should know what that meant. “It’s just around the corner.”
Andrew always had the capacity to surprise. “You live around here? I thought all the houses had been converted into offices.”
“They have mainly. But some are still residential.”
“I expected you to be in some fancy Mayfair apartment, overlooking Hyde Park or something. Not that it’s not fancy around here. Just . . . more low key.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, fancy is very much not me. More like my friend Joshua. Pre-fiancée anyway.”
“You have friends?” I asked. “Consider the shit shocked right out of me.”
The corner of his mouth rose in a half smile. “What I have is a very small, close group of friends. What I don’t have is an endless list of people I know. Well, I have that too, but I don’t consider those people my friends.”
For a second, I imagined Andrew with his friends. Was he as serious with them as he was in the work place? Did he swap jokes and talk about . . . soccer? The weather?
“A small group of friends is nice. Natalie and my mom are my two best friends. And then I have a couple of girls who I met in college that I see regularly. But . . .” What did I want to confess? That my father’s abandonment made me distrustful? That would be too deep. Too much. And now that I was talking to my father, I wasn’t sure what the foundations of my approach to life had been built on.
“Natalie,” he said, almost to himself. He’d never mentioned Natalie before. I’d told him we were roommates and nothing else had ever been said. His mention of her name was the closest we’d ever come to him admitting that he was Andrew and not James.
“She’s an amazing friend. Loyal and fun and super clever.”
Andrew stayed silent as we continued our journey.
It wasn’t like he was actively denying that he’d ever known her, but he wasn’t admitting it either. There were lines he wasn’t ready to cross, and I had made my peace with that somewhere around my second orgasm the first time we were together.
It was part thrilling, part downright weird.
“I’ve only had one drink tonight,” I said, half to myself as nerves tugged in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of being with him again or our pretense that set me on edge.
The cab pulled up to the curb outside my flat and Andrew paid the driver. “Good.”
“Why good?” I asked as I pulled my keys from my purse and pushed them into the lock.
“Alcohol deadens the senses.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if that was true, what could I expect out of tonight? Our first night together was all sensory overload. It had felt like I’d given up complete control of my body to him. There was no way I could feel any more when he touched me.
He followed me up the stairs and hung his cashmere coat on the hanger, next to my ancient North Face that I’d found sophomore year in TJ Maxx at a fraction of the full price.
We headed into the kitchen. In a silent exchange, I nodded to the cupboard where I stored my water and he retrieved two bottles for us.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, handing me one. I gave him a half-smile, wondering whether it was a line so he could get laid—spoiler alert, he didn’t need the line—or whether he thought it was true. Andrew was a lot of things, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would say something just for the sake of it. If he really thought I was beautiful, then did he think that when we were in the office? Had he had to hold himself back from touching me? It hadn’t seemed so. In fact, if I hadn’t been at the bar in Noble Rot that first time, I don’t think I’d have ever seen him naked. He continued to stand too close to me while I took a mouthful of water before once again taking it from me and sliding it onto the counter. Cupping my face, he swept his thumb over my cheek. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Lust tilted the floor, my knees weakened and I swayed a little, just enough to press our bodies together. “Me too.”
Without taking his gaze from mine, he pulled his tie free and undid the top two buttons of his shirt before sliding off his jacket. The incidental grazing of my body with his clothes, combined with the intensity of his stare, was like a warning: I needed to brace myself for what was to come.
He began to undress me, starting with the buttons of my blouse, punctuating my gradual disrobing with sweeps of his fingers, a lingering glance or a press of his lips. It was tortuously slow but I knew better than to try to speed things up. Andrew did what he wanted and how. It wasn’t that he was disinterested in my pleasure—far from it. He just thought he knew how to get to it better than I did. And maybe he was right.
My blouse discarded, he smoothed a knuckle down my throat and farther, between my breasts, before it hit the lace of my bra. My nipples were straining for his attention and my breaths were coming short and fast. He glanced from my chest and met my eye. That damn smirk was back—a sign, if ever there was one, that he had me exactly where he wanted me. Part of me wanted to roll my eyes, hand him his clothes, and kick him out. But I didn’t move. I just waited. Because he might have had me exactly where he wanted me, but I was exactly where I wanted to be. I knew what came next. His tongue, his fingers, the pleasure he teased out of me like he was some kind of magician. His cock, his hips, the thrusts that went so deep, I wondered whether I’d break in two.
I wanted it all.