Miller

So far, this has been the best vacation I’ve had in my entire life. I’m still having a hard time focusing on the ocean and relaxing. How can I when the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met is by my side, tempting me?

And I want to be tempted. But only by her.

What started as a favor on Thursday, is now so much more. Everything. I never want this to end. While Claire sleeps, I make the necessary arrangements for tomorrow. I want her to have the best birthday.

April thirtieth will never be the same after tomorrow. As I’m heading back to the room, my phone rings. It’s Devon. I send him to voicemail but a text pops up.

D. Evans: 9-1-1

“What’s going on?” I ask when he answers his phone.

“Are you alive?”

“Obviously,” I respond. “What’s the emergency?”

“It’s almost ten—at night,” he says dramatically. “On a Monday and your ass is still not in your office.”

“It’s almost fuck-off o’clock my time,” I respond casually.

I stay in the lobby of the hotel to finish the conversation. I don’t want to bother Claire with Devon’s whining.

“Look, I don’t give a fuck if you found some magic pussy and decided to stay for another day or two.”

“Glad we agree, let’s talk on Thursday when I arrive home.”

“Archer, get your ass on a plane right now,” he orders. “We’re about to lose the Stewart account.”

My stomach drops and my voice echoes when I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Stewart wants our presentation, now,” he pauses, “we have an appointment tomorrow at noon.”

“We agreed you’d send him the drafts Claire uploaded to the cloud last week.”

“She didn’t do it,” he shouts. “I tried to contact her, but she wasn’t at the hotel where she told her mother she’d be.”

Of course she wasn’t, Claire was with me, and if he had called me on Thursday, we would have fixed this issue.

“We can just ask her to email you that tomorrow,” I suggest.

“As I said, I can’t find her. Gary tried to log into her computer, but he damaged the hard drive. However, he has a few fresh ideas that I think might work, if we polish them.”

“Claire sent you what she had,” I insist, remembering she mentioned something about it last Thursday, didn’t she?

“Nope, she failed me,” he says, angrily. “If I could, I would fire her sweet ass right now.”

“You can’t fire her. She’s on vacation,” I get defensive.