True to his word, Killian had messaged Emma when his flight landed in Beijing. The ten-hour journey had seen him arriving at four thirty am UK time. Emma had wanted to pretend that she was sleeping, and that she hadn't spent the best part of her evening wide awake, with her brain helpfully supplying images of every disaster movie she had ever seen, that involved downed flights. Until the moment her phone finally lit up with his name. She fired back a relieved message telling Killian to have a great day, before finally settling down to grab as much sleep as she possibly could before work.

Even the weather seemed to be missing his bright persona when she woke later that morning. Gone were the early signs of summer, and in their place was heavy rain and harsh winds, which left Emma feeling soaked to the bone by the time she made it onto the platform.

Her usual journey into work was far more subdued than it had ever been before. Without the promise of that beautiful accent and those colorful tattoos to look forward to, Emma found herself simply staring out of the windows as the small towns flew past them, on her way into the city.

Thankfully, when she arrived at the office it was to the buzz surrounding a potential scandal that had been leaked involving the city mayor. Emma soon found herself swept up in the excitement of the news, as she helped to prepare the research needed for her colleagues to run with the story.

But as the week progressed, her mood began to sour further.

Due to the time difference between Britain and China, she was struggling to find time to actually speak with Killian. The country he was visiting was eight hours ahead of their own, which meant that by the time Emma woke up to start her day, Killian was already busy with his own, doing whatever it was that he needed to do out there. During those rare moments where he had some downtime, Emma was normally busy at work, and unable to take his calls. Sending him to voicemail so often was one of the most painful things she'd ever done. But she really loved her job, so she wasn't willing to risk doing anything that would see her losing it.

Fortunately, what they lacked in verbal communication they most definitely made up for in written forms. Killian had taken to sending Emma messages about his days, most of which included pictures of himself, taken at various different locations in Beijing. He looked like he was having a truly wonderful time, so Emma couldn't find it in herself to be too upset that he was gone for so long.

It was half-way through their first week apart when Emma found herself sat at work with very little to do. She'd brought lunch with her for the day, wanting to get ahead with the story she had been working on. But her desire to finish it before the weekend had seen her overachieving, and she had submitted the piece to her editor twenty minutes before her lunch hour.

Which left Emma twiddling her thumbs throughout her break.

She wasn't really sure where the urge came from, but with nothing better to do, she suddenly found herself loading Google, hoping it could help her solve the enigma of the man she was so hung up on.

Until that point in time, she'd promised herself that she wouldn't try and research her new boyfriend. Killian had made it clear that he intended to share all of his secrets with her in due time, and Emma had been happy to wait until he was ready to do so. But with the distance between the two of them, and the mystery constantly at the front of her mind, her journalistic instincts were roaring to life, urging her to find out what she could about him.

The pasta salad went untouched for the rest of her break as Emma tried Googling various combinations of Killian, China and the date. She scrolled through result after result that listed different events happening in the country during the time Killian was visiting, and certain news articles that had been published with a few of her key terms.

But absolutely nothing in her results stood out as being a possibility for Killian's career. The closest she came to anything promising was a result for the Chinese Grand Prix. But Emma could find absolutely no record of there ever being a Formula 1 driver by the name of Killian.

By the time she left work that evening, with only a handful of messages exchanged between herself and her boyfriend, Emma was feeling grumpy and frustrated. She had never expected to connect to someone as quickly as she had to the mysterious Irish man.

So she certainly hadn't expected to miss him as much as she was.

As the week drew to a close, Emma found her spirits lifting once more. Whatever Killian was doing seemed to be going well, if the tone behind his messages was anything to judge by. But much like herself, he'd taken to counting down the days until he would see her again.

When she woke on Monday morning, it was with the knowledge that Killian wouldn't be waiting for her on the platform when she got there. But there was already a cute message from her boyfriend waiting on her phone.

He had clearly taken the image when he'd first woken up, as he was completely shirtless and stretched across the usual cream bedding of the hotel. It was the first time Emma had seen his bare chest, and she was surprised by the lack of tattoos that decorated it. Given the art that covered his arms, she had been expecting more of the same on the rest of his body.

But instead of colourful tattoos, Killian's chest was peppered with dark hair, and three words that he had somehow managed to write on himself.

Two More Days!

Emma chuckled to herself as she saved the image to her device, before firing back a quick message of her own. While she wasn't ready to start sending him topless photos, she thought that the hastily scribbled, I can't wait, written in bold red lipstick on her full-length mirror, worked pretty well with the picture she'd taken of herself, wrapped up in her pink, silk dressing gown after she'd climbed out of the shower.

Killian definitely seemed to agree with that, as he replied much faster than he had all week, with a simple message that had Emma's heart bursting at the seams.

My God you're stunning.

I miss you, Swan.

As a quick note, I've Googled the name of the person Killian is based on in this story, China and the date this is set to see if it brings up an actual result for what Killian's job is, and Emma's results are exactly what I got.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.