Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 104138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“We’ll stop at the lake on the way to my mum’s tomorrow,” I say, forcing a subject change.
The only thing I really miss about living in Rochdale is my regular two and a half mile run around Hollingworth Lake. I still try to do it once a month before going to my mum’s for Sunday dinner, though. If it were up to me I’d go every week but it’s not worth the earache from Tess. It’s a stunning place. There’s a path which winds right around the water and takes you through a trail of trees and breath taking scenery. I need that right now. I need to focus on a different kind of beauty than the man whose face won’t leave my head. I need to run until all I can focus on is the burn in my lungs rather than the sting in my arse I feel today. It’s uncomfortable, and worse than that, it’s a constant reminder of the night I want to forget.
“Ugh. Please don’t make me,” Tess grumbles. “I still haven’t recovered from last time.”
“That’s even more reason to run tomorrow. You need to keep it up and each time will get easier.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last three years.”
“And for three years you’ve got over your bad mood and done it, just like you will tomorrow.”
Tess scowls at me. “I hope you choke on your aspirin,” she says as I swish the soluble tablets around in a glass of water.
Wincing at the bitter taste, I drink them down in three gulps and slam the empty glass down on the counter. “I’m going back to bed.”
And I don’t plan on crawling back out of it until tomorrow.
Chapter Two
~James~
When three AM rolls around, I close the word doc. I’m working on and decide to check the emails I’ve been ignoring for over a week. Amidst the four hundred, or so, business correspondences I see several from my older brother, Max. They contain nothing important, just general nonsense about his day. It’s his not so subtle way of checking up on me to make sure I’m coping with the death of our father three months ago. I’m doing just fine. I have no choice since taking over his position as the head of Holden House. I don’t have time to grieve when I have a staff of over three hundred people relying on me.
I close his emails and move on to the others. I can’t reply to Max at this time of the night. If he finds out I’ve not been sleeping lately he’ll be on my arse faster than a fly on shit. I work through the others for the next couple of hours and finish by composing an email to Helen, my PA, asking her to make the necessary arrangements to bring Tuesday’s meeting forward to this afternoon.
We’ve recently acquired a new contract with one of the biggest selling magazines in Europe. Predominantly a fiction publishing house, this could be a huge game changer for us and I’m planning a complete restructure of my employees as well as extending the building and employing a team of new recruits. I expect some opposition, but my father trusted me to keep the business that’s been in our family for four generations alive, to help it grow, and the only way to do that is to take risks and diversify.
I’m grateful when I hear my seven AM alarm sound on my mobile. It means I can finally stop pacing my vast living room and get ready for work. I like being alone, life is easier that way, but when it’s coupled with phases of insomnia the nights seem longer and insanely boring.
Stepping in the shower, I take extra time to lather the soap into my heavily tattooed arms, and then shave the scruff off my face that has appeared during the night. I think I’ve passed an hour but as I walk out of the bathroom, naked and running a towel through my dark hair, I see on the clock it’s only been twenty minutes.
Fuck it, I think. I will just go into work early. Heading into my bedroom, I dress quickly, fixing my father’s cufflinks in place on my white shirt before shrugging into one of my tailored black jackets. I grab my suitcase and keys on the way out of my apartment and don’t remember I haven’t eaten breakfast until I’m already in my car. I consider stopping somewhere to pick up food but decide I’m not hungry and turn on the radio instead.
A small smile teases my lips when my ears meet the sound of Maybe Tomorrow by the Stereophonics blasting through the speakers, so loud, my seat vibrates. I think back to the cute guy who sang an almost unintelligible version of it on Friday night before I fucked him over a toilet. I don’t usually give my shags a second thought, but this one has stuck. There was an intensity in his stare that I can’t seem to forget, almost as if he saw deeper than what I was offering. Like, somehow, he saw me.
I shake my head at the ridiculous notion. He was a random fuck in a long line of many and I need to stop reading into it. Ideally, by plunging my dick into another eager arse as soon as possible.
After pulling into the nearest car park, a few streets away from my building, I pull out my phone and listen to my voicemails as I walk the rest of the way.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I say to no one while listening to a message from Helen, telling me her daughter is sick and she can’t come into work. Thanks to the law protecting working parents, there’s sod all I can do about it except scowl at every person I walk past as I near Holden House.
The building is all steel and glass and I walk inside without bothering to give my usual ‘Good morning,’ to the security guy on the door. I’m in a bad mood. The kind that balloons in your stomach and makes you feel nauseous from the amount of hatred you feel for the whole damn world.