Oceans Apart Book 1 (Oceans Apart #1)(12)

I was nowhere near as rich as my father was, of course, but as my mother so often reminded me, the money was for the family. If I needed something, I was expected to ask for it and it would be provided.

She had known that.

Vanessa, the woman I’d been expecting to spend the rest of my life with. She’d known all about my family’s money, my job and my parents. After six years together, I wouldn’t have expected her not to. She’d stayed at my apartment and been to my parents’ massive house near Oxford. She’d even gone along on our summer trip to Paris one year, so she knew the way I’d grown up and how my parents lived, and it made sense that she expected to be treated a certain way.

Except if she’d ever paid attention to anything I’d ever said or did, she would’ve known that wasn’t the way I’d planned to live. I liked things plain and simple. Vanessa had expected me to treat her as if she was about to marry a billionaire. She wanted me to wine and dine her, buy her expensive gifts and take her to those stuffy gala dinners at three hundred pounds a plate. After six years, she should have known me better, but she kept on nagging and bitching until finally she just up and left. I heard she was with some rich * celebrity who only wanted her for her looks. Good riddance.


I sighed and went back to looking over the blueprints for the new office tower we were working on. Thinking about Vanessa never did me any good, and it was a much better idea to just lose myself in the hustle and bustle of work.

With a resolute nod, I donned my hard hat and went out into the fray, ready to manage this project like I got paid to do.

“Hard hat on, Jimmy!” I called to one of the contractors, steel in my voice. “I shouldn’t have to tell you. If you get hurt on the job because you’re being a bloody wanker, you don’t get paid while you recover. Understand?”

I ran a tight ship, but from what I could tell, no one had a problem with me or the way I managed things. They were all used to me barking at them, and by the time I was ready for them to get started, they were all ready, too.

It was nearly eight o’clock when I finally made it home, and all I wanted was a hot shower and to fall into bed. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen considering the fact that the message light on my phone was blinking like mad and I had a bunch of emails I needed to send before I could even think about sleep.

My apartment was the penthouse suite in St George’s Tower, right in the heart of Battersea riverside and it had a stunning, panoramic view of London and the Thames from the huge picture window. The plush leather couch sitting in front of it was calling my name but I had to resist, especially right now when I was practically dead on my feet. I knew if I sat down now, I’d fall asleep and not move until the next morning.

It wasn’t until I’d unlocked my phone and started flipping through my messages that I noticed one of them was from Facebook, and remembered I’d sent Ginny a message earlier when I’d finally stopped to eat something.

I’d half expected her to ignore me and decide she didn’t actually want to talk to someone she didn’t even know, but from the warm tone of her message, I could tell she was as excited to talk to me as I was to talk to her. It was a good sign.

Hey there~ I’m glad you made it back safely. I can’t even imagine crossing so many time zones and still going to work the next day. It’s hard enough for me to get out of bed in the morning as it is, without adding jet lag to the equation. Here’s an honorary award for being a good worker. It’s a medal. You’ll get it in 14 to 16 weeks. So look out for that. It’s the middle of the day here, and I’m having lunch with Kari, but then we’ve got to get back to work. You’ll probably be asleep by the time I get off. Anyway, hope you had a good day. :)

Even though I was well and truly exhausted, her message had me smiling. She was genuinely sweet, and I liked that about her. Her message made me laugh, and I considered replying right then, but decided to hold off until I was more coherent. She was probably busy now anyway.

Instead, I looked through my other messages, rolling my eyes when I saw there was one from Mike, calling me an arsehole for not contacting him yet even though I’d been back in the country for almost a full day.

I knew my best friend was just giving me a hard time, but I still typed back a snarky reply about how some of us had to do actual work. He was usually a part of my team, but he’d been sent to scout possible site locations that day, so I wouldn’t see him until tomorrow anyway.

I had my shower, groaning in pleasure as the hot water washed away the dirt and soreness from the day. I took my time, turning on the shower massager to help get the tension out of my muscles, and that, combined with the scented soap, was working wonders for helping me relax. I considered having a little “private time”, as was my usual shower routine, especially after a long day of work and dealing with people, but ultimately decided I was too tired to start that.

“What is the world coming to when a man is too worn out to wank?” I muttered to myself as I toweled off and pulled on a pair of clean boxers from the pile of fresh laundry in the hamper. That would need to get put away eventually.

One day.

Plus I needed to get around to unpacking, too.

Definitely not tonight.

The emails got sent, though it was a struggle to remember how to sound professional when I was just thinking about sleep, and I was just about to head to bed when my phone rang.