Free Special Relationship by Alessandra Fox

Tavis has got this one wrong," he smiled.
    Alex liked him. She liked his easy going nature, his self- deprecation , his humour and, she had to admit to herself, his looks.
    " Tavis told me that you don't have much of a family back in the States...sorry I mean in numbers not that your family isn't up to much."
    "No, just a sister and a few aunts and uncles scattered around. My father died when I was sixteen and my mother about six years ago."
    "I'm sorry," he said.
    "So you left New York shortly after your mother died?"
    "Yes, made me realise that life is short and I needed to travel. London was my first port of call and I liked it so much I decided to stay, which I managed to do after a struggle with immigration. It's very much like New York, vibrant, anything-goes, a large immigrant population trying to make good, just smaller buildings."
    Alex tried to turn the attention to him. "Can I ask you a question?"
    "Go on."
    "When you started out did you always think you would become as successful as, well, you have become?" she asked, sipping some water.
    "I was confident if that's what you mean. Life has a habit of biting you in the arse and I know lots of people far smarter than me who have made fortunes and lost them, just through sheer bad luck or circumstances. But it's never been about the money. I just treat life like a game, like playing Monopoly, which I used to love as a kid.
    "I'm now playing Monopoly for real – just with money markets not property - and while some people get their fun from their families and kids, I get mine by playing a game.
    He drank some water. "I know that sounds dreadful but, for some reason that I don't understand, I was very ambitious when I left school. And I guess I've been so busy playing my game the family thing has left me behind."
    "Would you swap everything, you know to have like a family life in exchange for your success?" she asked - and wished she hadn't as it sounded too personal. It also revealed to him that Alex knew he didn't have a family.
    "You know, that's a question, I have often asked myself. And my really honest answer is that I don't know."
    As the waiters served the main course, she remembered that Kerry was still downstairs. "Nick, bad timing, I just need to visit the bathroom."
    In the cubicle, she sent a text to Kerry. "All OK, Nick a nice guy..nothing to worry about, so sorry to have asked you to come. I'll make it up to you and explain all later, Love A x." She returned to the table where Nick was pouring wine.
    Her phone, which she had turned back on to text Kerry, bleeped again. "Aargh! I thought I turned it off. Sorry."
    "I'm the big hedge fund manager and you're the one getting all the calls," he quipped.
    She looked at the message. "No worries babe and ask Nick if has he a brother! Luv ya 2, Kels."
    An hour a go Alex was a nervous wreck, crying in a cubicle in the washroom, undecided whether she had the strength to even go up to the restaurant. Now she was engaged in entertaining conversation with a very likeable guy who seemed to have nothing to hide. The unfathomable text messages were forgotten.
    When the conversation started again, he told her that he was going to New York at the end of the week and asked if she wanted anything from her home town.
    "Anything from Tiffany's that costs more than ten grand," she joked.
    "No, we have Tiffany's in London," he said. "And besides something expensive would look like I'm trying to buy your friendship and I think you are too smart for that.
    "I'm thinking something silly – something you can't get here."
    "Well, on the Americans In London website most of them ask where to get French's but I prefer Coleman's."
    "Maple syrup...cookies... cinnamon rolls?"
    "Nick, shut up, you'd only get one of your staff to go shopping for you."
    "That's where you are wrong," he said. "I'd buy it and wrap it myself."
    He was flirting again and Alex, surprising herself, was flirting back.
    "I'm sort of Englished-up now. I eat chips with