26. Airless

26

Airless

KINGSTON MOORE

When Nicole Lamb walked out of Kingston’s suite at the Four Seasons, she took the air with her.

Her backpack with everything stuffed inside after her shower was lying on the chair again, and she snatched it by the top handle as she walked by.

Her slip-on trainers were sitting by the door, and a wiggle of her ankles sucked them onto her feet.

The door slammed after she was gone.

She hadn’t looked back. Kingston knew because he watched her all the way out the door.

And then he was standing alone in an overpriced hotel villa that he’d rented for the rest of the weekend, his plane reservation not until the following evening.

What was he supposed to have done, allowed Sidewinder Golf and Last Chance to go down in flames by not demanding that she give him the designs?

He should’ve just taken them. Her computer with the specs and prototypes had been sitting right there in that damn chair.

They were, by all legal accounts, his.

Throwing the ceramic cup against the wall and splattering coffee over the plaster would not change anything, no matter what violent instincts rose in him. He longed for Neanderthal days when a burst of violence would solve the problem of the tribe being hungry or the cave being invaded by man or beast.

Instead, he sipped his coffee and concentrated on the breath filling his lungs and leaving him. Filling his lungs and leaving him.

Just like Nicole.

Just like everyone in his life.