Skinny Dipping

Client Relationships

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Chapter 24

Sophie didn't know how to handle a client with whom she'd slept with and almost fallen for. How should she act now that he'd seen her naked after an adventurous skinny dipping session? And in his bedroom where she'd been naked and so had he?

He'd seen everything. So had she. Matthew, of course, was quite well endowed in that department.

What could she say since fleeing his apartment? He was still in love with someone else. She couldn't possibly ever compete with a ghost, a girl he obviously had loved and still loved. She felt sorry for him, she really did, but Sophie also needed to protect herself, her heart, because she was the only one who was going to get hurt.

He'd thought she was Rebecca.

He was never going to fall in love with her, never see her for who she was, for when he was with her he'd imagined someone else.

Now, how did she communicate professionally? Be polite? Take his calls? Pretend nothing had happened? Pretend the barrier between consultant and client had always existed? How could she forget his passionate kissing, his sweating body, and the way his kisses made her tingle?

Then there was the series of text messages she needed to respond to. She could, however, try to stop imagining how he would profess his love to her if she didn't speak to him or hear from him. She knew it wasn't possible for him. She wouldn't push it. She wouldn't set herself up to be hurt. She didn't know if she could stand it.

Sophie's mobile phone kept beeping to signify a new message. With each beep her heart would lurch and practically fly out of her chest. What did he want from her? Panic consumed her. Oh God, Matthew Silver practically had her heart already; she had been ready to give him her whole heart. But she knew now that she'd just been foolish, so terribly foolish. After all, she'd known all along that he'd had a long-term girlfriend who had died tragically. How utterly stupid of her to think he could reciprocate so quickly after her death.

So what was the point? What could he possibly want from her now? He loved someone else and he would never love her. Not yet. And after Derek, Sophie couldn't let herself get hurt so badly again.

Besides, if there had been any hope, he would have chased after her. He would have talked further about Rebecca and how she was the past. But he hadn't, so obviously Sophie's instincts were spot on. She had done the right thing by leaving. Matthew, beautiful, glorious, amazing Matthew, could never love her.

She could only imagine his texts, filled with words in his taunting, joking manner. He would try to smooth things over, but she couldn't read the messages. She'd surely imagine the sound of his voice. Without looking at any of his text messages, Sophie turned her phone off: a temporary solution and certainly not a solution that would last forever.

And what should she do about the emails? He'd sent five. Perhaps she should consider opening them? Although she was trying to let the mortification settle. Were the emails incriminating in content? What if the man from the Information Technology department was able to read them?

Now all Matthew's emails would need her personal screening. She couldn't simply forward his emails, unopened and unchecked, straight to Jessica to deal with. And Jessica was only admin support anyway, so it wasn't like she could answer all his queries. There was no possible way to explain to Jessica that she'd had a minor indiscretion with her major client. Okay, a major body-quivering, leg-shaking, mind-blowing indiscretion.