Page 35 of Rebound

Hell yes I’m ready, Mr. Smith.

ChapterSeventeen

ELIJAH

Luisa is talking to me about the Kim deal, but I am once again finding it hard to concentrate due to a severe case of Amber Syndrome. My assistant glares at me and waves her hands in front of my face, snapping her fingers. “Earth to Elijah, come in,” she says in her usual assertive tone.

“I heard you.” I glare back at her.

Luisa has an incredibly bright business mind. She is smart, driven, and ambitious—but she really doesn’t know how to read a room. Or rather, she does; she just chooses to ignore what she reads. “What did I say, then?” she asks.

She stands in front of me with her hands on her hips, her dark hair swept up into a brutally tight bun as usual. She’s been with Jamestech for six years, working her way through the ranks, and has been my right-hand woman for the last eighteen months. She is a pain in my ass, and she gets away with talking to me in a way nobody else would. She gets away with it because her constant challenge makes me better. It’s like having one of my brothers around, only without the banter. She’s unafraid to speak her mind and keeps me on my toes. If she sees bullshit, she calls it. Which she’s doing right now.

“You said… something about Mr. Kim’s granddaughter being a Taylor Swift fan?”

She nods abruptly. “Almost. I said we should look into getting her tickets to her show, and possibly a meet and greet if it can be arranged. She’s twelve.”

“Taylor Swift is only twelve?”

“Dios mio. No, Ji-min is twelve. What the hell is wrong with you today?”

Wincing, I shake my head. She’s right, and one of the things I appreciate most about Luisa is her lack of butt-kissing.

“Everything is wrong with me today. I’m sorry, my head’s not in the game. Talk to Mason about the Taylor Swift thing. He probably plays volleyball with her on the weekends or something. It’s a good idea. Those little touches help swing a deal in the right direction.”

“I know. That’s why I suggested it. I saw on your schedule that Amber is coming in—is that the problem? It’s been a tough few days, and I know I don’t always pick up on that stuff. I’m, uh, sorry?” She looks almost confused as she says the word, like it’s completely alien to her lips.

I laugh at her discomfort but appreciate the sentiment. “Nothing to be sorry for, Luisa. And yeah, she’s due in any minute. I’m distracted, and I shouldn’t be. It’s good that you keep me on track, so don’t apologize for it.”

She nods, her big brown eyes on mine. “Okay. I’ll leave you to it. I have work to get on with anyway.”

Of course she does. The woman does nothing but work. Apart from Drake before he met Amelia and got a life, she’s the only person I know who puts in as many office hours as me. I at least have the benefit of being the CEO of Jamestech and my surname being in the title of the company—she does it because work is her whole world.

I was raised to work hard, but I’ve taken it to the extreme the last few years. The split has allowed me to see things with more clarity, and I recognize the mistakes that were made. As Amber and I pulled away from each other, seemingly separated by a rift too deep for either of us to cross, I sought solace in my work. As she’s implied, Jamestech was my mistress, and I could rarely resist her siren call.

Ironically, since we agreed to part, I’ve thought about Amber more times per minute than ever before. That might be because I’m missing her. It might also be because I’m banging her senseless on the side. Work might be seductive, but it can’t compete with my wife’s delicious pussy or the brain-shattering orgasms we give each other.

I look down and see a massive tent in my suit pants. Fuck. Even thinking about her gives me an erection, and now I’m stuck here. The phone on my desk rings, and I pick it up. “Amber’s in reception,” Mason says. “Shall we meet in the boardroom?”

“Uh… yeah, okay. Give me five minutes.”

“All right, but don’t leave me there alone with her for long. I might start being honest.”

He hangs up, and I try desperately to ignore the party going on in my pants. I adopt a tried-and-tested method and picture Dr. Braithwaite, the dentist we went to as kids. She looked about a hundred years old, had ironic and extreme halitosis, and when she leaned over you, all you could see was nostril hair. Not only did she keep our teeth in great shape, I’ve been using her as the mental equivalent of a cold shower ever since my dick grew up and got a mind of its own.

She works her magic yet again, and I make my way to the boardroom. Jamestech headquarters is in Midtown, a few blocks from Nathan and Drake’s law firm. Mason and I have a suite of offices on the top floor, along with Harper O’Brien and a couple other key personnel. I take the elevator down to the next level and inhale a deep breath before I go into the room.

Amber has been on my mind pretty much constantly since I took her to that private hotel last week, and I’ve seen her another three times since. I can’t stay the fuck away from her, but it’s our first night together that continues playing on my mind. She shared more with me that one night than she has in over a decade. I want her to be satisfied with her life, to be happy. I just don’t want it to involve a community center in Queens. She’s led a sheltered life, and while I’m not exactly from the ’hood either, I do at least know how to look after myself. Our mom insisted we all learn how to dance when we were kids, and my pop insisted we learn how to box—both have come in handy over the years.

All those worries need to go into a box while we meet with Mason. They won’t help. Neither will the whole hard-on thing that seems to happen every time I see her or think about her. I can’t shake the image of her on her knees, hands tied behind her back. The way she took my cock so well. I slam my hand against the wall of the corridor. Shit, I need to get control of my thoughts.

We’re here to discuss media strategy, I remind myself. The reaction to Mason’s press release about our split was predictably rabid. My phone has been blowing up for days with calls from people I actually know expressing genuine concern and journalists looking for comment. Both Amber and I have cultivated a lot of press relationships over our years together. For me, it’s part of my job leading one of the biggest tech companies in the world. For her, it’s on behalf of the various causes she fundraises for, but it was also part of her role as my wife—as Mrs. James, specifically. A role she, from a business standpoint, truly excelled at, regardless of our personal issues.

Neither of us is a stranger to the limelight, but this is different. This is deeply personal in a way that a business story or a photo of Amber cutting the ribbon at a new hospital wing is not.

We expected the announcement to attract attention, but not quite as much as it has. As head of corporate communications, Mason has been fielding calls too, and he thought it would be a good idea for us all to sit down together and discuss it. This is straightforward and necessary, and I need to deal with it. Standing outside thinking about my wife’s incredible pussy is not going to help matters.

As I drag myself together and prepare to go in, the frosty pitch to Amber’s voice from inside the boardroom reaches me and pulls me up short—like a swift kick to the balls. I haven’t heard that particular ice-cold tone since the day of Elodie’s wedding. That day, she used it to great effect, but since then? Not even once. Since then, she has cried and been angry and screamed my name as she’s come—but not once has she frozen me out. I don’t miss it at all. It’s like the ghost of everything that was wrong with our marriage has come back to haunt me.

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