abducted her — if they’re willing to go to these extremes, will it ever be over? I slam the laptop closed in frustration — it’s not as if it’s giving me any of the answers I so urgently need. What I need is a strong drink. I’m driving myself crazy. I pass by Sam’s room and tap on the door before opening it. He’s absorbed in his laptop, maybe hoping for answers just as futilely as I was.
‘I’m heading to the bar, can I get you anything?’
‘I’ll join you in half an hour or so. I want to reorganise the priorities for my team in Sydney so they are on standby to research the information Moira will be sending through and I’ll offer any assistance to Martin in setting up a more sophisticated tracker on Alexandra’s bracelet. You never know, they might find something. I know it’s a long shot but…’ He sounds despondent as he looks up from his work and his eyes register both our misery.
‘Thanks Sam, it will all help and they’re a bright bunch by the sounds of it. I’ll let McKinnon know we’ll need to defer the forum indefinitely and he can inform the other members.’
‘Of course, I should have thought of that, he is the Chair, after all. I’ll see you downstairs. I suppose there’s not too much else we can do until we hear back from Moira.’
I close his door and trudge towards the lift. I’m not used to being this useless. I need action, to hunt down her abductors, not just make phone calls, damn it. Being forced to wait is killing me.
In the lobby bar I stare aimlessly into the flames of the candelabra, jiggling the ice around in my double shot of Glenmorangie. Some slick chick asks me if I want company tonight and I motion her away with a wave of my hand. As if I could think of anyone but Alex at the moment, as if I ever will again — even my dick concurs. My mind flits back through the many times we have played together. She never disappointed me, has always been willing to try anything with me, explore and push the boundaries. Of all the women I have been with, and there have been many over the years, she is the one I keep coming back to. The one I couldn’t get out of my head even when I was being pleasured by two buxom blondes in California, or getting a blow job from a lusty redhead with a mouth to die for. It was Alex — her body, her mind, her heart — that kept floating erratically through my mind during those moments of random pleasure, preventing me from committing further to any other woman in my life. I never spoke about her of course, they didn’t need to know.
Marie was close and wanted our relationship to go further, but I couldn’t bring myself to commit, not when I knew Alex was still out there, even if she was unavailable on the other side of the world. We are still friends but she’s as wrapped up in her career as I am in mine and marrying Marie would have been like a business deal, Kardashian-style, all for show but without any grounded substance. Marriage should mean more than that.
Besides, I needed to know once and for all, where I stood with AB. I knew she was married with kids; I’m Jordan’s godfather after all, even if I haven’t exactly been a major presence in his life. The weekend away I organised with her meant everything to me. I knew from the second she agreed to stay that, finally, this was our time, our destiny and that my philandering ways were over. This was the real deal. There was no way I was ever going to let her go again. And it couldn’t have worked more perfectly. My meticulous planning paid off in every way possible. I had to ensure our lives would be entangled together somehow from that point forward —
whether it was professionally, sexually or psychologically. I didn’t mind which one, actually, if I’m perfectly honest I was obviously hoping to achieve all three and hit the jackpot. Breaking through her boundaries, removing all the layers of defensive constructs she’d built up over the years and finally witnessing