Free Young At Heart by Kay Ellis

across the dark void, knowing once and for all he would get no sleep that night.

Chapter Eleven
    THE TIMING sucked. Worse, Devon knew the reason it sucked was that his mother wanted it that way. For several years now he had flown to New York each July for two weeks to check up on the American branch of Alexander Industries. He showed his face around the office, made himself known to the employees from the highest-paid to the lowest, wined and dined the top brass, and attended several gala dinners to schmooze clients, old and new. Three days ago, Erica suddenly announced that, this year, he was to go in March. She was adamant it had been arranged for months, although the first Devon heard of it was when Emily walked into the office and presented him with his plane ticket. At least the girl had the decency to look embarrassed when he questioned how the trip had suddenly appeared in his diary when it hadn’t been there the day before.
    Just as he thought his relationship with Jesse was getting back on track, this damn trip threatened to spoil everything. The whole proposal incident had been forgotten, on the surface at least, and neither of them had mentioned marriage again. Thankfully Jesse had been too busy working to sulk for more than a day or two. He had been snapped up for a high-profile billboard campaign, which turned out to be something of a rush job seeing as it had been days away from its big launch when the previous model was arrested for armed robbery. The advertisers were keen to go ahead with the original release date and were even, depending on public response to the billboards, talking about using Jesse in their next wave of television advertisements.
    But, happy as he was with the way his career was taking off, Jesse was still annoyed with Devon for going away. Devon would be missing not only the billboard launch, but also Jesse’s nineteenth birthday. Devon tried telling Jesse he was disappointed, too, but Jesse was in no mood to listen. Before Devon left, they engaged in silent, angry sex, which had been good, if not entirely satisfying. As soon as it was over, Jesse left, claiming he was too busy to go to the airport and see Devon off.
    So here Devon was in the back of a limousine, on his way to yet another dreary dinner party, thousands of miles away from the man he loved, while Jesse celebrated his birthday alone. At least Devon assumed he was alone. He had tried ringing him several times throughout the day, but Jesse wasn’t picking up. Was it because he was still mad? Or was he out partying? Devon wanted Jesse to have friends his own age, truly he did, but he was undecided how he felt about Jesse having them while he wasn’t around to remind him he was the one Jesse had to come home to. He couldn’t bear the thought Jesse might have his head turned by some beautiful, skinny model-type half Devon’s age.
    Pushing his worries aside, Devon tried to concentrate on the evening ahead. The host of the dinner party lived in a luxurious apartment with magnificent views of Central Park. They had met before and Devon liked the man well enough. He was warm and friendly, with a wicked sense of humour to match Devon’s own. His friends, too, proved to be pleasant company, and Devon soon started to relax.
    There was but one bone of contention and that was the genial host’s blatant attempts to match-make him with the diner to his right. Mark Walker was undeniably attractive, with wavy blond hair and green eyes that sparkled with good humour. He was also incredibly wealthy and much closer to Devon’s own age than Jesse, probably just two or three years younger. Devon found him absolutely charming and, as far as he could tell, Mark seemed to like him, too, but they were both embarrassed by the attention they were receiving.
    Devon was not surprised when, halfway through the evening, Mark quietly disappeared from the table. No doubt he saw him as some dumb, middle-aged bachelor,