‘What are you doing here?’ Sawyer had just walked out of her office to see Jameson waiting on her. Presumably.
‘I wanted to see my fiancée. Take her out to dinner.’
Swoon, if this wasn’t worth swooning over, Sawyer does not know what will ever be. She and Jameson have an arrangement, and they have navigated the last three months perfectly, without any layers of complication but him showing up tonight at her office no less as if they are a real thing, was a complication. Especially after she’d been contacted by Marcel; he was in London and wanted to talk. She’d ignored all his messages.
Jameson pulled her towards him and gently slides his arms around her waist, so she melted into him; head on his chest inhaling his very pleasant scent. He liked the sensation of her on him, and what it did for him. He’d been missing her a lot lately, but tried not to give into those feelings, except last night he did something both impetuous and new for him; he booked a flight to London on a whim to see her. Sawyer was just as lovely as he remembered from the last time he saw her, two days ago on facetime. His girl. Her body of a runner drove him wild with curves in all the right places and a behind hand carved by the gods. Her long legs that wrap around him with such ease, toned and strong, emphasises the athlete she’d been all through secondary school and University. And then there’s the matter of her face, pristine and insanely beautiful, high cheekbones that flex with every smile, feline eyes, deep brown and deeply evocative, beautifully lush lips that turned up crooked with her quintessential smile and how her eyes would widen when she was surprised so much so it reminded him of Bambi. The curve of her neck, however, was his favourite part of her body, because it was also her weak spot a particular spot on the curve, which he’d found that first night at the Moulin Rouge.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello.’ Sawyer reached up and kissed him.
‘Why are you working so late?’ It was just past eight.
‘My author has a big debut coming and it’s crunch time.’ She leads them to his office. ‘Where are we headed for dinner?’
‘Into the London night.’
‘Marcel’s in town.’
Jameson stopped and thought for a moment. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to someone, almost immediately he got a reply then said, ‘come on I’ve got a better idea.’
They got into his waiting car and away they went to St. Pancras, aboard the Eurostar to Paris.
They were the only ones in their carriage on the train, and Sawyer could not help but notice that the attendants paid a little more attention to them.
‘A carriage all to ourselves, what are the odds?’
They occupied a table seat and discarded their coats and her bag on the opposite table. A waiter wheeled in a cart laden with champagne, cocktails and spirits. This was different, and romantic… suddenly it occurred to Sawyer.
‘Did you plan this?’
Jameson shrugged in answer to her question, and she smiled.
‘Okay. Our first date, right?’
‘Right.’
She raised her coupe of champagne to his glass of Macallan. They clinked glasses with each other.
‘Ask me anything.’ Jameson said, they’d been getting to know each other pretty well and he wanted her to know most of him if not all. In time, maybe all.
‘Tell me more about what you do.’ That was as good a place for Sawyer to start, as any.
‘I am an entrepreneur, a luxury travel entrepreneur. I work with hotels, airlines and train operators, and I have a travel magazine. We curate unique guides and tours that have gotten some pretty incredible reviews. Always off the beaten path and hardly ever the same, so it’s rare for anyone to do the same thing twice unless they request it. For each place be it a city, village, town, commune wherever, we will likely have about twenty to fifty guides, and we only work with small independent and local suppliers. The magazine highlights local stories particularly.’
‘That’s impressive and very interesting.’
‘Thank you. When I started it was just me and Sez, and we mastered every facet of the business, every facet of travel there was to know. We built the website, an app and a platform just for travel. Vagabond.’
‘I know, I have it on my phone.’
‘I saw your membership come through.’ He laughs a little, ‘you’re my VIP.’
‘How many users do you have?’
‘Five hundred million.’
‘Wow. That is so cool.’
‘Thank you. We average roughly 300 million daily active users. We also have portals for children, teens rather to connect with other teens in their location when travelling, we connect parents to activities for children when travelling. The aim is for people to explore the world outside of the clichés and the media bias in certain regions. Essentially, I want people to know that there is a lot of good in the world.’
‘So, I take it we will not be seeing the cliché images of Positano in your guides.’
‘Nah and there’s nothing wrong with it I just think there’s more to the Amalfi coast that those images of Positano. And there’s much more to Positano than the colourful buildings and that hotel.’
Sawyer knew he was downplaying his company to a great extent because Jameson Summers was one of the leading names in tech and travel. He managed to fuse both passions together to create a fortune 500 company and was often named on those lists curated by the likes of TIME and Fortune. It is little wonder he would have an inside track on getting a whole train carriage to himself with a security detail stationed at either entrance.
‘Tell me more about what you do.’ Jameson’s turn to ask her questions.
‘I’m a publishing agent at Samson and Samuels.’
‘So you love books.’
‘They are my whole life, and I work with an incredible roaster of authors and editors to get books out to as many people as possible. Right now, I have three authors whose books are being adapted for television and another two who have their debuts imminently hence the long hours and late nights.’
‘Is that your roundabout way of telling me that this is not the ideal time?’ Jameson teased.
‘No, it’s the perfect time because release comes with its own bag of stress, sleepless nights, late night phone calls, working with legal on rights in different countries, then book tours which are always very fun, book festivals, private readings, the works. Debut week is like the Oscars for any writer, months and months of work talking it up, advanced copies, the coveted best seller lists. It’s a whole bit so this is very much welcome, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Do you travel often by train?’
‘Not as much as I would love to, but it’s my preferred method of travel. I’m working with Sebastian Rose-Jones to build tracks and improve the infrastructure networks to communities in the US and around the world, that are underserved but will benefit from train travel and the connectivity to larger cities It’s not only better for environment but it gives me an avenue to slow down and regroup if I need to and there is something romantic about the train.’
‘Are you a romantic?’
Jameson offers one of his signature dashing smiles and if she wasn’t so swoon headed, she would swear he just blushed.
‘I don’t know that I am, but I am not averse to romance. Are you a romantic?’
‘I’m in the business of fiction so of course I am.’ Sawyer laughed unabashed, her grandmother instilled in her a love of books that she has never been able to shake, not that she ever wanted to. ‘As a girl I was always the one with my head buried in a book, I read everywhere and I have missed many stops because of that, even flights. Me and books were always meant to be. Do you like to read?’
‘I do. Travel is book adjacent so to speak, an escape. My preferred genre is Sci-Fi and crime thrillers. Walter Mosley is my favourite writer of all time, and I’ve read all his works. All of them. Love James Patterson too, and S. A Cosby. A bit of Dan Brown. I also read some romance-’
‘You do?’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘I am, I don’t often encounter men who read fiction let alone romance, so I am really surprised.’
‘I read most genres but gore. I love the nuances of historical fiction. Joanna Shupe’s Uptown Girls series-’
‘Shut up!’
‘I won’t.’ Jameson laughs, ‘what’s not to love about getting best of knickerbockers and getting the girl whilst also being a leader of a notorious gang and making good beer. I love it, it’s one of my favourites as is anything by Beverley Jenkins. And I should point out that my mother raised me on Jackie Collins.’
‘You’re having me on.’
‘No, I am not.’ Jameson showed her his library of book apps with over one thousand combined, with books from all the authors he mentioned, and several others, dating back years.
‘Kismet.’
‘Indeed.’
That was where it began for him, where he knew this was more than they were letting themselves believe it was, but Jameson dared not say anything lest he freak her out and she run the other way. The world whizzed by them on the last train to Paris as they got to know each other a little more than skin deep. When they pulled into Gare du Nord at midnight, he took her to dinner like he promised, and dancing afterwards at a club in the tenth arrondissement. They walked the city until the first light of day started to peek through and then they returned to the station and caught the first back train to London.