a hunger I couldn’t contain and a compulsion to keep going. Keep devouring. Keep salivating. Perhaps even unzip my fly, take out my cock and masturbate like a randy teenager right here in my damn office.
I resisted that last urge by pushing myself closer to my desk, as if shoving my lower half under my desk would kill the insane urge.
Mentally rolling my eyes at myself, I scrolled faster. An addict seeking his sweet spot.
Since launching her own lingerie brand, every runway show Savannah had staged had been a huge success. Every season had brought her more accolades until she now needed a couple of bodyguards for protection from sometimes overeager fans.
At one picture, I just stopped…stared.
Bloody hell, she was gorgeous.
Skin a dark sunset gold, so smooth and soft and warm, it’d been a challenge to keep from touching her when we were platonic teenage friends, when what we’d had between us had been too unique, too sacred to mess with. Adulthood had brought further challenges but, with more restraint, I’d had a better handle on it.
Or so I’d thought…
I shifted in my chair, forcefully reminding myself why Savvie Knight, the only person who’d made it onto a list of one labelled Friendship, no longer resided there. The memories kept tumbling through my mind as relentlessly as the pictures flowing up the screen.
She’d disparagingly called herself a mongrel. I’d thought her stunning beyond words.
Lucky enough to have the noble blood of African chiefs and the integrity of not one but two accomplished professors flowing through her veins. I’d listened with unbridled jealousy, sprawled at the foot of her teenage bed, as she’d offhandedly rattled off tales of her African heritage alongside vexed recounting of interminable Sunday family dinners where her parents had deigned to be present. Had had the audacity to ask her about her day, her month, her year.
So what if there’d seemed to be an underlying discontentment over her family’s single-mindedness about her life? I’d never drilled her over the details because I’d been too busy wondering why she wasn’t just…thrilled to have a caring family in the first place.
Experiencing that unique bond, even from the fringes, had been unparalleled. A reason to safeguard what we’d had.
It’d taken a full year of friendship to confess that Mortimers didn’t do Sunday family dinner. That we could barely tolerate one another even at Christmas. That birthday presents were often organised by executive assistants and presented by delivery men and one was lucky if one received a card. That to my memory and before she’d died, I’d never received a birthday or Christmas present directly from my mother, nor from my father.
That I’d swap my life for hers in a heartbeat. Hand over the multimillion trust fund with my name on it for a slice of the life she took for granted.
But all of that was before she’d shown her true colours.
Before she’d turned her back on me and married Daniel Fucking Wallis.
The name was enough to dispel my useless reminiscing and restore righteous bitterness to its rightful place. Enough for me to hit the X that closed the page and for my hard-as-rock erection to subside.
I slammed my laptop shut and veered from my desk. Across the bay my gaze flitted past skyscrapers and Singapore’s breathtaking Gardens by the Bay, with its hanging gardens and fifty-metre-tall supertrees, to the one building I’d placed my personal stamp on.
Originally named The Diamond Bay, but later changed to The Sylph, a better fitting name.
An iconic building already racking up international architectural awards.
My baby. My special once-in-a-lifetime project.
The one my ex-best friend wanted a piece of.
Savannah might not be my enemy in the true sense of the word but, after her singeing betrayal and dismissal of me from her life, we weren’t friends any longer. After my parents and family, she’d been the third and final strike.
My days of accommodating foibles and betrayals were behind me. She needed to be set straight on that score once and for all.
By this time tomorrow she would know in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake to resurface, to attempt to touch a place in my life that belonged on a crap pile of history.
I should’ve arranged lunch in my office just as I’d planned.
I knew I’d made a mistake even before the buzzer sounded in my Marina Bay penthouse apartment. I’d talked myself into the argument that geography didn’t matter.
Straight. Sharp. To the point before zàijiàn. Sayonara. Goodbye.
Easily accomplished in any language and as effective here as in my office half a mile away. So I’d arranged for my executive chef to prepare lunch here.
In my private space.
Where she could read into it. Where signs of my existence were everywhere. Where everything now seemed…way too personal.
Clever, clever Bryce.
I grimaced at the very vocal inner voice and pressed the button that activated my private lift. The ding sounded in seconds. My stomach muscles tightened as I pulled the door open and awaited my first glimpse of Savannah in three and a half years.
The lift doors parted.
My first reaction was a filthy curse at the internet for the shoddy portrayal of the woman who would turn heads wherever she went. Because the real-life version was so much better than the pitiful digital imitation.
Vibrant. Vivacious. So fucking beautiful.
Dressed in a blush-pink floaty top and skin-tight, chocolate-coloured leather trousers, she was a magnificent vision, powerful enough to slacken my jaw before I caught myself and pressed my lips into appropriately neutral, downright unfriendly lines. Her curvy hips and endless legs were balanced on sky-high heels matching her trousers and, with that combined with her bouncy curls and flawless make-up, I felt my breathing fracture into useless silent hiccups as I stared.
Mine was the only apartment on this floor, a request I’d worked into the architect’s plans when I’d built the luxury complex. It meant that, with over seventeen thousand square feet to play with, the distance from the lift to my front door was substantial. Long enough to broadcast any nerves from my visitor.
There were none.
She effortlessly projected an ingrained confidence and inner strength I’d secretly envied for a long time before finding my own rightful place in the world. She’d exuded that same vibe on her debut runway show, earned herself positive adoration and cemented herself on the fashion landscape in one fell swoop.
That had been my one and only attendance of her show, and I’d silently watched, smiled proudly and applauded her then.
I wasn’t applauding now as I watched Savannah saunter towards me,
