Broken Promises

by I. A. Dice

  From then on, I kept it to one occasion only, which didn’t last longer than fifteen minutes since I didn’t care about a warm-up nor their enjoyment of the moment.

  I’m a dick. Nice to… See what I mean?

  I took out the pile of CVs stacked in the bottom drawer of my desk, opened the first one, and called the girl. Marie Hill was ecstatic to come over for an interview on Monday morning. Little did she know the job was hers, provided she didn’t gain weight or had dyed her hair dark.

  Twenty minutes later, Nicholas walked into my office with two paper cups of steaming coffee. The bitter yet warm aroma reached my nose before he closed the door behind him.

  The contorted expression had me bracing myself for another one of his monologues titled Drawbacks of fucking and firing your assistants. He took a seat across from my desk and pushed a take-away latte my way while drumming. We will rock you on the armrest.

  I raised my hand to stop him before he could start complaining.

  “I know. You don’t approve. We went over this a dozen times this year.”

  He shot me an annoyed look. “And you still take no notice of what I say, Thomas. You want to keep changing your assistants every fortnight? Fine, but quit fucking them at work. James is uncomfortable when they’re screaming their heads off in here.”

  Nick didn’t care about his assistant or his feelings. He just enjoyed giving me shit for no reason; like with his fiancée Amelia. Every now and then, he warned me to stay away from her even though he knew that, for precisely three different reasons, I’d never touch her.

  Boundaries – dicks and assholes have them too.

  Reason slash boundary number one – Amelia was Nick’s fiancée. Girlfriends, fiancées, and wives were off-limits, just as sisters and mothers.

  Number two – Mel had red hair, so even if she weren’t engaged to my best friend aka business partner, aka the huge pain in my ass, she wouldn’t appeal to me.

  And three – even if she weren’t his, and dyed her hair platinum, I still wouldn’t touch her because I liked her. We had a nice platonic relationship going on, and once a girl slipped into my friend zone, there was no coming out.

  Amelia was fun, down to earth, and easy-going. Although not always, sometimes she was a bigger pain than Nick, but I guess it made me appreciate her more. Not many girls dared to stand up to me.

  Not many guys, either. Come to think of it… none, actually.

  Nick didn’t count. He was kind of a pussy. Pussy whipped to be precise.

  “Next time, I’ll wait until James is gone.” I brought the cup to my lips to hide the grin. “What time do you want to set off?”

  Nick’s face lit up at the reminder of our afternoon plan – a trip to the airport to pick up Nadia, his sister. He was babbling about her non-stop since she rang two weeks ago to let him know she was coming back home for good.

  Nick went bat-shit crazy with happiness. Literally.

  Fine, not literally, but close enough.

  I understood that brothers loved their sisters, but what Nick had going on was a borderline obsession. He worshiped the ground Nadia walked on. He’d lie down on a puddle and let her use him as a bridge.

  “Any time now. She lands in an hour, but you know how bad the traffic gets on Friday.”

  “Fine by me.” I pushed the paperwork aside and rose from my chair. Nick walked out the door before I put my jacket on. “I’m done for the day,” I told Caroline when we passed the reception desk in the foyer. “Marie Hill will be here at nine a.m. on Monday for her interview.”

  Caroline too was a blond super-model kind, but I never touched her. Not that I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.

  She was married and in love with her husband, who happened to be one of our brightest accountants. Good, honest accountants were much harder to come by than slutty blondes, so Caroline remained the only blonde girl to ever work at C&G Records, whom I didn’t bag.

  Before taking the wheel, I lit up a cigarette and hung my jacket at the back of the car. The temperature reached thirty degrees three days ago, and according to the weather forecast, it wasn’t going to cool down for a few weeks.

  Britain hadn’t seen temperatures like that for seventy years! Or at least that was what the newspapers claimed… every year, really.

  In the passenger seat, Nicholas played with the radio, looking for his favorite station. “Is your boot empty? I’m sure she’ll have a lot of luggage.”

  Of course. As he mentioned fifty-eight times since Monday, Nadia lived in New York for two years, so coming back home meant she had to pack all of her belongings.

  “Yes. I cleared it out. We can always put bags on the back seat if they don’t fit in the boot.”

  He grinned when I drove out of the parking lot and took a shortcut to get to the airport faster. As much as I enjoyed Nick’s company, I wasn’t up for another hour of listening to how excited he was to get his little sister back. The emphasis he put on little had me convinced Nadia was three inches tall.

  Nick put his shades on and drank the last of his coffee. He still hadn’t done one thing, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether he understood I had some decency or whether he forgot to warn me in all the excitement.

  Either way, despite talking about Nadia twenty-four-seven for the past month, he didn’t once ask me to keep my hands off her. She wasn’t blonde, but neither was Mel. I expected to hear some kind of a warning since Nadia was one of the most important women in his life.

  Correction – irrevocably and undeniably the most important woman in his life.

  I lasted twenty minutes before my curiosity got the better of me. “No stay away from my sister speech? You’re slacking.”

  Nicholas chuckled, glancing at me from above his round, red shades. “No way she’d trade Adrian for you.”

  That’s right – Nadia had a boyfriend. Nick mentioned it, but I chose to forget. As a matter of fact, I paid little attention for the past weeks when he talked about his sister. I recalled vague information, like the fact she studied art, but not much more than that.

  His monologues were the perfect time to busy my mind with more pressing matters like what would be the worst thing to put into a recycling bin? Or why people use cutlery to eat a burger.

  I mean, how can you trust someone who doesn’t trust themselves with a fucking sandwich?

  We sped through the city and reached the airport ten minutes early. Nick got out of the car, beaming, and left me to wait. I put Die Hard into the DVD slot ready to watch it for the seventh time this month – it didn’t occur to me to keep a few different movies in the glove compartment just in case.

  The boot to my BMW opened forty minutes later. I glanced in the side mirror. A dark-haired girl stood with her back to me, next to a trolley with at least five bags stacked one on top of another. I got out of the car to help Nick, who lacked muscles to load her luggage.

  Nadia was short. Really short. I hadn’t seen a girl shorter than her. Or maybe I did, but five foot eight was a minimum to grab my attention. Nadia wouldn’t hit it even if she jumped.

  “My Range Rover is undergoing a deep clean after Mel left a can of Pepsi on the dashboard in full sun,” Nick said. “You’ve no idea how much mess a tiny can makes when it explodes.”

  “Then whose car is this?” she asked.

  Her voice was pleasant. Melodic, but not too high.

  “Mine,” I said, and watched her spin around. “Thomas Calix.”

  She knew who I was, but it seemed appropriate to introduce myself since it was our first encounter. I took her hand and kissed it softly, discovering a gentleman in me to please Nicholas.

  He had the old-fashioned manners in his blood – I didn’t, but I figured it wouldn’t kill me to give it go.

  Despite being a brunette, and as far from my type as possible, I’d have to be blind to miss how attractive she was. I liked blondes, but it didn’t mean I considered other girls ugly.

  I could easily class Nadia as gorgeous, and not
many girls hit that rank. In fact, there was only one who deserved the gorgeous tag, and she wasn’t turning three for another few weeks.

  Nadia and I were checking each other out in the middle of the parking lot, and for the first few seconds, our eyes didn’t lock. I watched her face, small nose, full lips the color of peaches, and a cascade of dark brown hair, which complimented her olive skin.

  She took her time, and her eyes lingered on my chest longer than appropriate. Intimidation washed over me instead of the expected pride.

  Finally, she tilted her head to look at my face – that’s how short she was. She couldn’t meet my eyes without tilting her head back. She’d need a fucking ladder to get eye-level with me.

  Another two seconds passed before our eyes locked, but once they did, I could swear my heart just stopped. For twenty-eight years, it was beating fine. Sometimes faster than it should, sometimes slower, but it was always beating.

  Until I saw Nadia’s eyes.

  They were like a window right through to her tormented, bruised soul. She looked happy and at ease, but hurt, and pain hid underneath the mask. I waited for her to say something, but she looked me up and down again.

  Her eyes darkened when she moved her gaze back to my face, studying it as if I was a sample under a microscope. She pursed her lips but remained silent.

  “You must be Nick’s sister,” I offered.

  Our stare-down lasted half a minute, but with my heart skipping a dozen of beats, it felt more like an eternity.

  “Nadia,” she said.

  Her proximity was both soothing and disturbing. I wanted to avert my gaze and keep staring into her eyes at the same time.

  And suddenly there were more things I wanted to do, and I wanted to do them all to her, or with her.

  I wanted to taste her lips, touch her skin, rip her clothes off, and take her right there in the middle of the parking lot. I wanted to bend her over the hood of my car, grab a fistful of her hair, and make her scream my name. I wanted her, and I had no idea why.

  We met two minutes ago, she wasn’t blonde, tall or slutty, but desire erupted under my skin, and I was on the fucking brink of begging.

  And then I realized she was Nick’s sister. His off–fucking–limits little sister. I couldn’t have her, and considering I always got what I wanted, not being able to bag her was frustrating, to say the least.

  Within seconds, Nadia turned from a girl I had no reason to be interested in, into a forbidden fruit. And that meant trouble. Big trouble.

  Fine, not that big – something like five feet two.

  Nicholas struggled with the first bag, so I stepped in to help him. Frustration found a way out of my system when I loaded the luggage into the boot. It’d help more if I threw one across the car park.

  “So what’s the plan? Or should I just ask who is coming?” Nadia’s voice penetrated my walls, but I didn’t dare to look at her.

  “We’ll have fun tonight. I can promise you that,” Nick said.

  He planned the evening in detail. First – a house party, then a night at the club because Nadia loved dancing. Half an hour ago, I looked forward to spending quality time with friends. Now not so much.

  Considering what I wanted to do to Nadia – but couldn’t – being in the same room as her seemed like a bad idea. A very bad idea. Bad, awful, and torturous.

  And then some.

  My hands trembled, and I squeezed the wheel harder, backing out of the parking space. She brought me down to my knees after thirty seconds, and it took one look. What the hell would she do if she had an hour or two?

  I didn’t want to think how difficult the night ahead got. How could I keep my hands off her if I only thought about touching her?

  I peeked into the rear-view mirror to find Nadia resting against the window. She watched the streets with moderate interest. Those full lips of hers were to haunt me in my sleep.

  “Nothing changed here,” she moved her attention to Nicholas.

  He chuckled, turning around. “You were only gone for two years, not two centuries.”

  Two years too long. If she hadn’t left for New York, I would’ve met her two years ago. Not that I had any ideas on how I could’ve used that time since I wasn’t allowed to touch her. Even thinking about her, the way I had for the last fifteen minutes was forbidden.

  Nadia ignored Nick’s remark. “How’s my apartment?”

  “About that… You’ll have to stay at mine for a few days. The painters weren’t available last week, so they’re starting tomorrow. They should be done by the weekend. You’ll move in then.”

  I tried to focus on something else. Anything other than the brunette sat behind me, but her voice reminded me of her existence and tortured me even more.

  This had to be what dogs feel when they look at a bar of chocolate on the coffee table. They can look at it and smell it but can’t eat it. I was in the same position as Nadia. I had no right to have her.

  No wonder dogs give in when no one’s looking. The agitation and frustration were driving me nuts, and it’s only been twenty minutes.

  Nick turned back to face the road. “You’ve got three hours for a nap before everyone starts showing up.”

  “Actually, I wanted to see dad first.” Nadia looked into the rear-view mirror, meeting my eyes. “Would it be much of a hassle for you to drop me off there, Thomas? I’ll get a taxi back.”

  Instead of forming a coherent reply, I focused on the way my name sounded on her lips. The s at the end was a touch longer than when anyone else said it...

  “Nadia, can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Nick cut in. “I’ll take you to him first thing.”

  “I haven’t seen him for two years. I want to go today,” she sighed, defeated. “It’s ok, I’ll just get a taxi once we’re at your house.”

  I searched for her eyes in the rear-view mirror. Since we left the airport, I spent more time watching her than the road.

  “I never said I wouldn’t take you. Do you want to go straight there or Nick’s house first?”

  “Straight there, if you don’t mind.”

  I put the indicator on, turned left at the traffic lights, and parked in front of the gate ten minutes later, turning around to look at her.

  Fucking perfect lips. Fucking beautiful big, sad eyes.

  “Thirteen Lakeside View?” Nadia asked, double-checking her brother’s address.

  Nick confirmed and took his wallet out to give her money for a taxi – a taxi she wasn’t going to take since I decided to come back for her.

  As inappropriate and idiotic as it was, I wanted to spend a few minutes alone with her even if it meant blue balls for life. I wasn’t planning on confessing it to Nick in case he got the wrong idea.

  Not that he shouldn’t. The things I wanted to do to his sister were exactly the things he failed to warn me about.