Nothing.
It was a strange thing to realise because in my world, in the world of corporate law, in the world of the rich and the richer and the richest, everyone wanted something from someone. If you weren't wanted for something, that only meant that you were no one. People were commodities to be traded, used, sold off, and forgotten.
This girl, poor and wandering, couldn't get me anything, couldn't get me anywhere.
Maybe that was why I was drawn to her: she was a fire. You didn't take anything from a fire, you couldn't take anything from a fire. You could watch her dance, watch her twist and twirl in the night. But you were a fool if you thought you were going to steal something from her.
All I wanted was to be near her, to feel her warmth. If just for a little while.
Just then I heard a voice calling from around the bend in the hallway. "Michael? Michael?"
Goddammit, it was Caroline.
The girl noticed me tense at the call of my name. She raised an eyebrow. "Your girlfriend?"
I shook my head. "I don't fuck automatons."
"Michael?" Caroline was drawing nearer.
I imagined I could hear the ominous click-clack of her deadly Louis Vuitton even on the plush carpeted floor. "Excuse me,” I heard her ask someone round the corner. “Have you seen a tall man in a dark grey suit? Green eyes? Sulky? Brooding? Prone to hiding away alone in dark corners?"
The girl's eyes flashed up at me as I listened. "Ex-girlfriend?"
"Worse," I whispered.
"Michael?!"
Caroline would be turning the corner in just a few moments. She would find me, she would grab me by the collar like a naughty school boy and drag me back to the ballroom and up on stage. She'd forcibly make my lips move if she had to. I'd give my speech, the room would applaud, stand, smack me on the back, shake my hand and slip their business cards into my pocket like cash for favours. I'd smile, nod and play my part. I'd go home. Or more likely I'd go to the office. I'd turn on the new lamp at my new desk in my new office, not even bothering to glance up at the panoramic view of Dublin and all its twinkling, dazzling lights. I'd do the same thing the next day. And the day after. And the day after that. I'd climb the corporate ladder, rung by rung, I'd reach the top. I'd have everything I wanted, everything I told myself I always wanted…
"Michael?!"
Caroline was near. And angry, very angry.
"How about a deal?" I whispered hastily to the girl.
She raised an eyebrow. "A deal?"
"You unlock that linen closet and I won't turn you in." I glanced over my shoulder at the connecting hallway Caroline would emerge from any minute now, her tablet nearly snapping in half from her white-knuckled grip.
I looked back down into the wild hazel eyes of the girl. There was no reason for her to take a deal. There was nothing stopping her from turning and running away down the hall, escaping into the night. She could leave me. She could run.
I searched her eyes as Caroline again called for me, her voice sharp and loud as if she was calling a disobedient dog.
The girl's eyes lit up, like the first spark in the kindling. She grinned as she placed a bobby pin between her teeth.
"Deal."
Abbi
The lock twisted with a click, and I shoved the door open.
"Get in," I whispered, shoving the man I now knew as Michael inside as the woman called his name from just around the corner.
I slid in the tray of dates and the bottle of wine just as a tall woman in a black leather mini dress emerged into the hallway, head turned, thankfully, in the opposite direction. I hurried inside the linen closet and yanked the door closed behind me.
In the pitch black, I stumbled and fell against the man's chest. One of his arms caught me at the small of my back and the other rose up to place a warm hand against my mouth to conceal my startled cry. Outside the door we heard the woman approaching with brisk, angry steps.
"Michael, where the hell are you?"
She seemed to stop right outside the door of our tight, crowded little linen closet.
The fact that I couldn't see a thing made the sensation of Michael’s body pressed firmly against mine all the more vivid. His hand at the small of my back clutched a handful of my shirt, and I could feel the tug of the material against my skin, like sheets pulling down naked skin. My shirt, unruly and untucked as always, had ridden up, and one of his fingers dug into my back, like I was clay for his moulding. My breasts were pressed firmly against him. I wondered if the sensation of my body in the dark was doing the same for him as it was for me.
I wondered if he could feel the swell of my breasts so vividly that it felt like nothing between us. I wondered if he could feel my heart racing against him as clearly as if he had a stethoscope to my bare skin. I wondered if he could feel the press of my nipples as perfectly as if I was brushing them along his naked chest on their way to his mouth.
Neither of us dared to move as the woman called his name outside the door, but I wasn't entirely sure it was because of her. I thought maybe we didn't move because we'd fallen into place like two pieces of a puzzle. I thought
