by Susie Tate
Yaz’s face reddened as she scowled at Heath and I pulled him away before there could be any further bloodshed. Heath seemed to turn on the charm for everyone but my sister. They’d been at each other’s throats for years. Yaz was definitely the exception to his rule. Then again, my sister seemed to be the exception to every rule.
The walk to my office was slowed by Heath waving at and charming the rest of my staff – the great, personable show-off. Everyone loved Heath. He had the same outrageously posh but charming vibe as his sister, and the same immaculate, cutting-edge dress sense, that gave them both the air of having just stepped out of GQ magazine. Even I could admit that the bugger was good looking. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did alright with the lasses (or at least I had done, before everything went to shite), but Heath’s perfectly styled (the vain article) hair, clean-shaven face and open expression was more appealing than my scruffy clothes, messy hair, stubble and perpetual scowl. Heath was pleasantly muscular where I was just plain huge, always had been – one of the consequences of all the childhood physical labour I’d endured growing up.
We were unlikely friends, but for some reason the git had taken a shine to me from the start. After Mam left Da when I was ten, and remarried a doctor, my life had changed dramatically. I’d gone from living on a bleak, northern farm with a cold, abusive father to a life of relative luxury down south with a kind gentle stepfather and then a new sister a year later. When it had then emerged that I was academically gifted, instead of dismissing me as a smartarse (something Da would definitely have done), my stepfather had arranged for all sorts of testing and put me forward for entrance exams to a whole range of posh schools. I’d managed to get a scholarship to one of the top boarding schools in the country, however, it turned out that being a chospy northern chancer didn’t go down too well in one of those posh establishments. If it hadn’t been for Heath and Verity – who were twins in the same year as me and had buddied up with me for some reason from the first week – I would have had a pretty miserable time of it. See, Verity and Heath were from up north like me, but they weren’t proper Yorkshire – they were the type of northerners that lived in an actual castle (yes, castle) and spoke the Queen’s English. Heath and Verity’s parents had been appalled by me. I think that was the main reason Heath liked me so much – he always did relish winding those buggers up.
So, I had been adopted into their fold as an ‘honorary triplet’, and, seeing as within a term they practically ruled that school, everyone else had to follow suit. For some reason they both thought my scowls and grumpiness were delightful. Heath used to joke that being my friend was like culturing bacteria – all you needed to do was provide the right medium for me to flourish. Meaning that I had to be around buggers I liked in order to have a laugh. My tolerance for dickheads was, and still is, very low.
“I’m doing this as a favour to you, so you might want to tone down the pain in the arse routine,” I grumbled as I led Heath through to my office. Most of the floor was open plan, maximising the light coming in from the skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows. My office only had glass for walls. Verity had one very similar to mine, but she tended to keep her door open, encouraging anyone to walk in at any time.
My door was invariably shut.
“Oh, I’m frightfully sorry,” Heath said through a chuckle. “I thought I was paying you, quite a lot actually, to build me a house.”
“A carbon neutral, state-of-the-art, architect-designed, single house, knobhead. Something we don’t do anymore, ’cept for the likes of you.”
Heath’s grin only grew wider. “Oh of course. You’re too much of a big deal now to build itty bitty houses for little people like me.”
“Exactly.” Since the business had expanded we’d only taken on big projects: designing eco-hotels, wings of museums, eco-office buildings, carbon neutral villages. “And yes I am a big deal. My time is precious. So if you could … Heath?”
We had both moved to sit in my office with me at my desk and Heath on the other side. But something had caught Heath’s eye beyond the glass wall. His grin fell and he pushed up onto his feet abruptly.
“Who is that?” he asked. I followed the direction of Heath’s gaze and saw Mia sitting at a monitor to our left, typing at the computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard at a furious pace and a small frown of concentration marring her forehead.
“Oh, that’s the emo lass I was complaining about the other day. The one V hired.”
Heath took a step towards the glass as he shoved his hands into his pockets. His mouth was set in a grim line and a muscle was ticking in his jaw. I moved from behind my desk to come and stand beside him.
“How long has she been working here?” he asked and I blinked in confusion. Heath sounded so serious. What was his problem? Since when did he care who we employed?
“This is Mia’s third week I think. I –”
“Mia?” Heath looked away from her for moment and frowned at me. “Her name is Mia?”
“Er … yes, why do you–?” I trailed off as Mia’s brown eyes lifted to look up at us. She only spared me a second of eye contact, which was more than she’d given me over the last week, but when she glanced at Heath her eyes widened and her lips parted. She recognised him.
“What the fuck is going on, Hea–?” My words cut off as Mia and Heath both moved at the same time. She pushed back from the workstation and sprang to her feet. He turned on his heel and strode to the door of my office. Mia glanced at me again and I saw fear in her expression. It was like looking at a cornered animal again. As Heath approached her she looked so horrified and vulnerable that I decided I’d had enough, and stalked out of the office right on Heath’s heels.
Mia was moving away from Heath now – half walking, half jogging. I suspected the only reason she wasn’t flat out running was so that she didn’t draw too much attention to herself. That much I’d definitely noticed over the last two weeks – Mia did not like attention. At every turn she would try to fade into the background. When she wasn’t sorting out other people’s IT issues at their desks, like just now, or being forced onto reception (which Verity had put a stop to after realising Mia was about as welcoming as me) she stuck to a monitor she’d chosen at the very back of the office space, furtherest away from the windows and me. Since the ‘emo freak’ incident last week, she’d successfully avoided me to an almost unnatural degree. Despite that, every morning there was a cup of tea waiting for me with a couple of chocolate digestives next to it, which I knew were from her. It made me feel like even more of an arse than I had before.
Even though she was jogging, Heath’s legs were longer. He caught up with her easily. Yaz chose that moment to perform an expansive yoga position across the corridor, blocking my way, so I had to negotiate around the adjacent desk.
Heath touched Mia’s elbow as she was moving past the creative team, but then pulled his hand back when she yanked away from him. He instead moved around her to block her path to the exit. Both his hands were held up in front of him and he was pushing them down in a placating gesture. He asked her something, which I couldn’t make out, and she shook her head.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked as I approached, drawing the attention of a fair few of the junior architects around us. Heath flashed me an annoyed look.
“I just need to have a brief conversation with … Mia for a second,” he said, the annoyance in his expression fading as he looked back at her, replaced by concern. “Just for a moment. Do you mind if we use your office, Max?”
“Do you two know each other?” I asked. Mia shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture. Heath sighed.
“Max, now is not the time to go all talkative on me, old chap. I need to speak to your employee privately in your office for a moment. It’s nothing to do with her work here so it doesn’t concern you.” Mia’s lips trembled and I felt the strangest surge of protectiveness towards her.
I stepped around to face Heath, positioni
ng myself so I was between him and Mia, and I put my hands on my hips.
“It doesn’t look to me like she wants to talk to you, mate,” I said, my gaze flitting between them in confusion.
“Five minutes, Mia,” he said, peering around me so he could make eye contact with her. His voice was softer than I think I’d ever heard it before. “I’d much rather we discussed this privately.” I glanced back at Mia and saw her swallow and close her eyes briefly. Her shoulders drooped and then she gave a short nod.
“You mind, Max?” Heath asked, his determined gaze locking with mine. I looked between Heath and Mia and frowned.
“Five minutes,” I muttered, starting to move aside so that Mia could pass, but then pausing before she had rounded me.
“Are … ?” I trailed off and cleared my throat. “Are you okay with this? Because I can – ”
“It’s fine,” she said, cutting me off with her rapid, barely audible words. She was staring at my shirt collar and I had the irrational urge to put my fingers under her chin and force her to make eye contact. Which was the last bastard thing she needed. This woman was turning me into a right nutter. “Really,” she said when I didn’t move to the side. “I don’t mind.”
Heath swept out his arm and Mia scuttled off in front of him to the office. When they were both inside, Heath glanced out at me standing in the middle of the space with my hands on my hips, and shut the door behind him.
“Haven’t you lot got owt better to do?” I growled at my employees who were still watching me. They averted their gazes and restarted their conversations. With a grunt I moved over to the kitchen area to put the kettle on, all the while keeping an eye on Heath and Mia through the glass.
*****
Mia
“How much function have you got back in that arm now?” Dr Markham asked me, and I sighed.
“Look, Dr Markham, I’m surprised you even remember me. You must treat thousands of – ”
“Please, call me Heath, Mia … or Helen, or whatever your name is.”
“Helen is my middle name.” I shifted on my feet and looked out of the glass. My gaze caught on his. Of course it did. Max was staring at us and scowling whilst he took a sip of what I knew would be oversweet tea.
“I will never forget the state you were in that night,” Heath’s earnest tone was roughened with emotion and caused me to blink, thankfully breaking eye contact with Max before I focused on the man across from me. “The whole department was frantic when we found out you’d left. You needed an inpatient stay, Mia. Your head injury and loss of consciousness alone would have warranted it, but combined with the rib fractures putting you at high risk of pneumonia, and your shoulder, which needed to be seen by an orthopaedic surgeon, it was a terrible idea to leave.”
“You put the joint back into place,” I said, my eyes flicking to the door of the office to make sure nobody was about to enter. “It felt fine. I–”
“Mia, the x-ray was reported as a fracture dislocation. If you’d have stayed in, or even given us your real contact details you would have known that, and you could have–”
“Fracture?” I whispered. Suddenly the ongoing pain in my left shoulder was making sense. I had thought it was just because all the ligaments and muscles and stuff had taken a battering when they shoved it back in its socket.
Heath closed his eyes and let out a puff of air. “Yes, fracture. It’s too late for you to wear a sling now, but you need proper physiotherapy – otherwise you won’t get full function back. How far can you lift up your arm forward and out to the side?”
I shrugged. The answer was not far at all. I could reach stuff that was waist-height, but anything higher and I was scuppered.
Heath stepped closer. “There are people you can talk to. I’ve got a number …” He started digging in his wallet then produced a small card, giving it to me. “I understand you might not want to go to the police.” I flinched at the mention of police and my eyes flew from the card to Heath’s.
“No police,” I said, forcing my voice to be stronger than I felt.
“Okay, okay.” Heath held his hands up, palms forward again. “But these people aren’t police. They’re confidential and they can help you.”
I tucked the card into my jeans pocket and nodded. If I agreed with this man maybe he would leave me alone. One of my eyes had been swollen shut that night, but I remembered his face. His eyes had been so kind, his voice so gentle as he’d asked me what happened. After the brutality of that day I’d found Dr Markham’s kindness overwhelming. I’d broken down in tears and I hadn’t known how to stop, even though the salt stung the cut under my eye and the heaving sobs had been agony for my ribs and shoulder. I never cried, not normally, but I think that day I’d reached the end of my endurance. He’d wrapped an arm around me so, so tenderly, being so careful of my injuries. I never normally tolerated that level of physical contact from someone I didn’t know, but that day it had been like I needed it. It had made me cry even harder. Nobody had touched me with any kind of tenderness in months before that, maybe even years.
“Thank you,” I whispered, forcing myself to reach out and touch his arm to show him how much I meant the words. “You … you were kind. It made a difference.”
Heath closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
“You’re not going to ring them are you?”
I looked away.
“Would you at least have physiotherapy for your shoulder? It might not be too late to get some of the function back.”
I bit my lip. My shoulder was restricting me. I couldn’t afford to not be able to use my right arm properly. That wasn’t logical and, when possible, I tried to always use logic. I nodded slowly and Heath smiled. Once upon a time, a smile like that from such an attractive man would have affected me – now I just felt … numb.
Chapter 4
You went for a walk?
Max
“I just want t’know vaguely what it were about,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time. “She’s my employee – if there’s owt to know you should tell me.”
“Being your employee doesn’t mean you own her,” Heath told me as he rounded the car and waved to a couple of the guys already on the beach. “Employee is not indentured servant.”
This was our weekly beach touch rugby session organised by Heath, the sociable bastard. We even had kit and a name for the team now – although both were quite frankly ridiculous: Sandbaggers was more than a little weird as a rugby team title, and frankly this kit was an embarrassment. Not to mention the fact it was too cold at this time of year for its lack of material. I jogged round to keep up with him and then ‘accidentally’ stuck my foot out, tripping him up and causing him to stubble to the side.
He flung his arms out angrily. “What are you? Ten?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m not telling you shit. Leave it alone.”
“How do you even know her?”
Heath drew to a sudden halt and stared at me.
“What?” I asked in frustration, my arms coming out to the side and slapping back down. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How do you think I know her, you colossal dickhead,” Heath said slowly. “If I’m telling you I can’t break her confidentiality then how do you think I’ve met her before?”
I blinked before my eyebrows shot up. “A patient?”
“All I’m going to say is stop pushing this, okay? And I know it’s frightfully hard for you without a full personality transplant, but could you try to be marginally less of a prick to her at work.”
“I’m not being that much of a prick.” I frowned down at my trainers and scuffed the sand. “It’s just–”
“She doesn’t need it, Max.” Heath lowered his voice and rubbed the back of his neck. “Believe me she does not need to be bullied by you on top of … Look, I know things are difficult right now. I know you’ve got your own problems. But just reel in the dickhead tendencies when it comes to her, alright?’
“I’m not bullying her!”
Heath’s eyebrows shot up and I tried to shove my hands in my pockets only to realise that these stupid shorts didn’t have any bloody pockets. “Ugh! This new kit is total crap. We look like complete numpties. Did Mike have to go for neon pink?”
Heath let out a bark of laughter. “He says it’s orange.”
“Orange my arse,” I muttered darkly. “And I’m not a bully. She just … she scares easy.”
A strange look passed across Heath’s face before he cleared his expression.
“Can’t you tell me something, Heath? She’s working for me. Surely I should know if owt is going on.”
Heath shook his head slowly. “Believe me, old chap Even if I could tell you, you would not want to know. I promise you that.”
“You ladies going to stop gossiping and play to rugby or what?” Yaz shouted as she came bounding up to us, her mass of blonde hair piled high on the top of her head. She bounced twice on the balls of her feet before she punched me then Heath in the arm, hard. Her fists might be small but they packed a huge impact. When we were growing up, Mam would never believe my tiny sister could manage to bruise her much larger, much older brother. My arms would have been black and blue if I hadn’t been able to keep her at arms length easily with a hand to her head – something I still had to employ on occasion, and something she still found intensely annoying.
“Bloody hell, Yaz,” I grumbled, rubbing my arm. “I should have chucked you out the window when I had the chance twenty-four years ago.” Yaz was eleven years younger than me having been born after Mam had remarried and we’d moved down south (mostly to get away from my father). So my sister didn’t even have a Yorkshire accent like me. She was a proper soft southerner – all about yoga and New Age medicine, and in love with windsurfing and the sea.
“Hey, weirdo,” Heath said, grabbing hold of her ridiculous bun and using it to move her head from side to side. “Still being a pain in the arse at our siblings’ place of work?”
