Brilliant.
‘Let’s get you back to the Vane,’ Lex said, starting the car.
And, when they got there, it took all his willpower to leave the car without asking her to join him upstairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
COLEWASEXHAUSTED,thanks to lying awake in his hotel room and fantasising about his heavily freckled, red-headed driver. He’d spent the past week reading too many profit and loss statements and balance sheets and his brain was fried. He’d been working twenty-four-seven for months now, and he knew himself well enough to know that he needed a break, to step back and away for a day, maybe two.
A weekend of doing nothing more intellectually stimulating than breathing would be the best way for him to rest and recharge. Yesterday, Lex had asked him if she could have the morning off and he’d agreed, taking the keys to the company vehicle from her hand. He pulled the SUV into its designated parking space in the underground garage and sighed. The car smelled like Lex, and he was once again bombarded by the image of her red hair, recalling the passion in her green eyes as he’d lowered his head to kiss her. He could almost feel her elegant hands in his hair, the feel of her long legs around his hips.
Why couldn’t he get the memory of that kiss-that-never-happened out of his mind?
He definitely needed a break. Or a lobotomy.
Cole grabbed his laptop bag, exited his car and slammed the door shut, mentally running through his schedule. He had virtual meetings all morning but he was free from lunch onwards. He was planning to leave the city for the weekend and had asked his assistant to book two nights at one of the upmarket safari operations in the area. He knew there were a couple just a few hours’ drive from Cape Town.
Could he ask Lex to drive him and take her along? Would that work, was that even an option?
No, of course it wasn’t, for all the reasons he’d previously thought of and, possibly, a hundred he hadn’t considered.
Cole felt an icy wind swirl around his neck and heard the unmistakable sound of a car with a hole in its exhaust. He turned and watched a yellow hatchback roll up the ramp. Through a windscreen sporting a crack in the top right-hand corner, he caught a glimpse of red hair and a pale face behind the wheel. A cool blonde sat next to Lex, and another blonde and two little girls, one with hair as red as Lex’s, sat in the back.
Were these her sisters?Allof them?
Standing next to the lift, partially hidden by a concrete column, Cole winced at the sound of squeaking brakes—her brake pads needed replacing—and he watched the older blonde, dressed in a black power suit, exit the car. Lex switched off the engine and the little girls left the car, taking turns to hug the first blonde. Lex stood between her door and the frame, looking at them over the rusty roof.
‘Bye, Addi,’ they said. Right, so the blonde was Addison Fields, and she worked in his hospitality and leisure division.
‘I might as well drive Storm and the girls straight from here to the airport, Addi,’ Lex said as Addison hugged the second blonde, whom he assumed was Storm. ‘It’s a bit early but there’s no point in going home first and leaving again in fifteen minutes.’
‘We’re going to the beach, we’re going to the beach,’ the little redhead chanted, spinning around in circles. Cole shivered, unable to understand her excitement. It was wet, windy and cold, weather that only Arctic penguins enjoyed.
Storm chivvied the small girls back into the car and the three women stood in a circle, their voices carrying over to him.
Lex, who faced him, smiled and it was like a fist ploughed into his sternum. Her joyous, wide grin could power a small city. ‘Five years, guys. It’s been five years since I’ve had a break. Am I mean to be this excited?’ She bit her lower lip, suddenly looking deflated.
Storm rubbed her arm and Addison shook her head before speaking. ‘No, babe. You know you’re the best sister ever and you’ve been with them constantly since the day they arrived. I go to work and don’t spend a lot of time with them. You do. Take these three weeks and enjoy them, Lex, because, honey, you deserve it.’
Cole recalled his mother telling him that children were expensive, time-consuming and limited your freedom.
His mother, so warm and affectionate.
‘What are you going to do with all your spare time, Lex?’ Storm asked her.
Have an affair with him? Cole wished.
‘I’d love to take a road trip and just drive and drive and drive, but I have to ferry Cole Thorpe around. The money is too good for me to take a holiday right now. Besides, my car is shot, and fuel prices are crazy. So, in between driving him, I’ll just nap, study and binge-watch box sets.’
‘Maybe we could take a day trip up to Lamberts Bay,’ Addison suggested.
Lex smiled. ‘I’d love that,’ she answered, but Cole knew that wasn’t what she wanted or needed. She wanted the open road, the freedom of driving. It wasn’t about the destination but the journey: the sound of tyres on the tarmac, the growl of an engine, the silence and vastness of an uninhabited landscape.
‘I’m sorry about booking my car in for a service today. If I knew that the girls were flying to Durban today, I would’ve scheduled it for another time.’
Lex shrugged. ‘Their holiday was a last-minute arrangement, how were you to know?’
Addison sent a doubtful look at the yellow car. ‘But I hate you doing long trips in your car, Lex, or being on the highway.’