Chapter 3

THREE

Georgia was happy to find Yasmin in the room. She was always able to set her mind off things. Although she had to try very hard this time. An encounter with a rock star wasn’t exactly what she thought she would find in Chicago when she left her house that morning. His words were echoing in her mind and she tried to put meaning to them. Why was it a problem that he wanted to sleep with her? Sure that wasn’t a first for him, and definitely not the last time it would happen either. So what was the big deal? It was not like she would give in to the temptation. And he made pretty clear that he wasn’t going to either, for one reason or another.

“George?” Too late she realised that all that time Yasmin had been talking to her. She shook her head and tried her best to focus on her friend when she retold a shorter version of her story, impatiently. It so happened that she wondered why Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t around at his own benefit. So far Yasmin wasn’t doing great at the only task she didn’t know she had.

Georgia feigned disinterest. “I have no idea, because he’s got an attitude? Because he’s arrogant? Because he fell asleep in his room, or because, just like some others, he couldn’t give a shit?”

Yasmin rolled her eyes at her friend. “Alright, you made your point, what is it with you and that guy though? You haven’t been anything but negative about him since we got here.”

Georgia knew she was right but she couldn’t tell her the reason behind it.

“Probably because everybody has been talking about him ever since.”

Yasmin sighed:“You and your exciting life may disagree but meeting an international star is a big deal for most of us.”

Georgia shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about him at all. Talking to him had been enough for the rest of this day, or week for that matter. “Let’s go get a drink before we’ll sit down at our table.”

When Jon got back in the room he did not spot her. When he climbed the stage to say his words of thanks and welcome, he did though. She was sat at a table not too far from the stage, together with a dark-haired girl and some people he knew were in the company staff. It surprised him that she stayed. But then again, he hadn’t exactly managed to predict anything she did or said before. While he was up on the podium he kept looking at her, but she kept staring at her fingers, that played around the stem of her wine glass. Not nervously, but definitely bored.  He knew what she thought. But the problem was he was not that guy. Not anymore, he was not. Because if there was anything he had learned over the years, it was that he was blessed to have a wife like Dorothea. Sure they had their share of trouble in the past but it was never because of her. She never asked questions, never wanted to know why. She was his biggest support and the reason why he still had his two feet right on the ground.

Sure he took advantage of his status in the past but for over ten years he hadn’t shared the bed with anyone but his wife. That didn’t include the occasional high class escort when he was gone for months, but that barely meant a thing.  He didn’t even feel the need to be with anyone but his beautiful wife, and that was exactly what bothered him when he looked at this girl. He could not supress the urge to know what it was like. It was the only reason why he said what he said, earlier. He wished he knew though, what made her so determined to agree.

Georgia felt uncomfortable having him around, no matter how hard she tried to ignore the feeling. The fact that he was following her with his eyes everywhere she went didn’t help her feel any better. She stayed with Yasmin all night to make sure he wouldn’t come over, until it got up to a point where even Yas probably started to wonder what was wrong with her. It wasn’t a secret to anyone that Georgia was a good friend, until you expected her to remember your birthday or be great company during a party. Especially of this kind. So by the time Yasmin started to give her questionable looks, she announced that she was going up to her room. That was enough to restore her friends faith in her and it also finally gave her an excuse to leave.

**

The following morning she managed to oversleep. Which was quite an achievement because she was only supposed to meet with the team at twelve. She and a selection of others were going to a local ballet school to do a workshop with their youngest dancers. It was something she was looking forward to because the little girls were the purest and most innocent people in her world. And she wanted to do her very best to keep them that way. It was also one of the main reasons why she decided to teach the youngest girls at the New York City ballet every Friday as well. She knew it was a very unthankful and difficult battle to fight against the NYC but if she could at least safe one girl from going anorexic and eventually crazy later in her career, she did her job well. She realised that sounded a bit excessive, and it was. But she had seen it happen around her too often to ignore it around those innocent little girls, with big dreams.  The fact that the world still hadn’t gotten the best of her wasn’t because someone had been around to warn her though. It was exactly because of her character, that drove so many people crazy all the time, that she survived the way she did.

But that character wasn’t going to get her anywhere now, if she would not hurry the hell up.

Fifteen minutes later she threw her stuff into her bag and ran around the room like crazy to make sure she didn’t forget anything. The door almost closed behind her when she realised she forgot the key, so she went back in, grabbed it, closed the door and ran towards the elevator. Or she would have, if one of the straps on her bag wouldn’t  have pulled her right back to the door because it got stuck behind it’s knob. As she tried to pull it loose, all her stuff fell out of it and she cursed out loud. If this first hour of the new day told her anything about the rest of it, she should go back to bed instead. She kneeled to throw everything back in quickly and turned around for a second attempt of getting on the elevator.

“You might want to have this back as well…” a sleepy  voice said slowly and warm. She turned around and wasn’t even surprised to look straight into a  now familiar pair of bright blue eyes. His hair was a mess and he was wearing grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt. He held her Chanel Le Rouge lipstick between his fingers and grinned. She couldn’t help but notice the gold wedding ring around one of them but managed to get herself back together to thank him.

“O God, thanks. That cost me a fortune,” she said and smiled at him. When he laughed softly she realised that probably wasn’t the most impressive thing to say to a man who could probably afford to buy the whole brand, literally. But she at least tried to be nice to him this time.

“And you don’t even need it,” he said and she blinked.

“Nice try, but it won’t get you anywhere,” she said because she couldn’t allow him to flirt with her. They looked at each other for a second and the feeling she had in the conference room the other day was back. She shook her head to get rid of it and threw the lipstick into her bag. “Alright, I better get going before they will leave without me,” she said and walked towards the elevator. To her annoyance he came standing beside her in front of the closed doors.

“I’ll join you, I was just on my way to the gym.”

Of course you are, she thought to herself, because even though he was fully dressed she could tell that he had a very good, muscular body underneath. A body she didn’t want to be in an elevator with. Not now, not now it belonged to hím.

“This is taking too long,” she said making up an excuse while she did. “I’ll take the stairs, enjoy your work-out, Jon.”

“Enjoy your day, Miss…” he paused before he said her name. “Georgia.” She left him shaking his head with a grin on his face. He left her annoyed.