by Orla Bailey
“That’s just as bad. It means he did.”
I’ve no idea how she works that one out. I shrug. “He’s a man. You’re a pretty girl. Last night, a naked one. What do you expect?” I frown at her with suspicion. “Do you like him?” I’ve been so wrapped up in my own sorry love life, the thought never occurred to me before.
“He’s pretty hot,” she admits, fudging a response.
I nod. “I think there are muscles under that black suit he wears too.”
“No kidding. He lifted me in his arms, remember?”
“I thought you were too drunk to remember.”
“Some things a girl doesn’t forget, drunk or sober.”
I know exactly what she means. I’m not sure it’s good in my case.
The courier turns off the engine and kicks the parking stand into position. He’s standing with his back to us as he undoes his black full-face helmet releasing a cascade of mid-brown collar-length hair. We both lean closer to the window and peer. He sticks the helmet on the back of his bike and unzips his bulky jacket in the hot sunshine.
When he turns around we both laugh. He’s definitely a she.
“Yours,” Libby announces turning back to work, a little disappointed. “I’m off to wrap a parcel.”
“Not my type either but okay. Mine,” I agree.
This changes any plan of action. Flirting’s out. Bribery might still work but I may just have something more robust than either: woman-to-woman.
When the courier gets inside I invite her into my office. “Would you like a coffee? Tea? Cold drink? The package will be a couple more minutes. Please take a seat.”
“I’ll have a coke if you’ve got one. It’s hot out there today.”
I pull a couple of cans from my small office cooler. “Those leathers look brilliant but wearing them in this weather must kill you.”
“Wearing no leathers’ll kill you quicker,” she says.
I glance up at her quick wit. “Good point. What’s your name?”
“Gail.”
“Hi Gail, I’m Tabitha.” We shake hands. “Been a courier long?”
“Only about four months but I like it.” She takes a long pull on her drink. “I like the independence and I get paid to ride my bike all day.”
“You must get about a bit. See things.”
“Plenty.” She stares at me knowingly and I decide she’s a girl I can work with.
“How’d you like to do a bit of private contracting?”
Intelligent eyes meet mine. “What did you have in mind?”
We suck our drinks down while I explain how I was shafted by Amanda trying to get her claws deeper into my man. I avoid the goriest details and Jack’s name but explain the role she might play in helping me to arrive at the truth.
“I can tell you straight away it wasn’t me that couriered the cash to Claridge’s and off the top of my head, I don’t know who did.”
“No reason you should. Your company must do thousands of deliveries every week.”
“That’s not to say I can’t find the information out though.”
“They’ll keep records, right?”
“I hate having to log the damn things.”
We both laugh.
“Paperwork,” I scoff, rolling my eyes to the ceiling. “Tell me about it.”
“We’re a bit more advanced than that, even if we do wear animal skins.” Gail is one smart cookie. I grin at her.
“Computerised systems,” I acknowledge, nodding.
“Yeah, and I’m a mechanical girl at heart.” Gail flips her empty can into the waste bin.
“Sounds like you fix your own bike.”
“Sure.” She indicates the window where her bike is parked outside. “I’ve stripped that one down many a time.”
“Do you know how cool that makes you sound?”
“A girl has to do what a girl has to do, right?”
“Too right.” I like Gail more and more each minute.
We chat about motorbikes and I learn a bit about her British made Triumph Tiger Explorer. And I definitely take it as a good omen when she says her dream bike is a Ducati Panigale because after British bikes she admires the quality of Italian design and engineering. I can’t help thinking of Jack’s Pagani auto and his Cranchi Atlantique motorboat. She’d appreciate Jack’s aesthetic sensibilities, I figure. For a second I wonder if his own sisters are anything like Gail and if I’m ever destined to meet his family or is this the end of the road for us.
I won’t let it be.
“So can you get into the system at work and find out who did deliver the cash to the hotel and more importantly, who placed the order?”
“I can easily do that much. I’ll talk to whoever delivered too and find out what I can for you. Women should stick by each other, not do the dirty. I’m all for competition but not that kind. It makes us all losers.”
“Amen to that.” I hand her a tidy sum of cash for her time. “For your trouble. If you can come back in a couple of days and let me have anything you’ve got there’s another payment due.”
“Glad to do business.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks, Gail.”
“Am I to take it there’s no real package today?”
“None. I’ll pay for delivery of it anyway.”
Libby comes through the door holding out a small, flat packet.
“Won’t be necessary, Libby,” I tell her, subterfuge over. “Our business is concluded.”
“Good. I might need one of these staples to use on you-know-who.” She rattles a box that sounds like it contains the entire office supply.
I walk Gail to the door. I’m feeling increasingly positive about getting the evidence I need to expose Amanda’s deception. Feeling more in control of my life than ever, I head out to my waiting taxi as the first intern interviewee arrives.
* * *
At the Zee-Com building I don’t barge past Jack’s PA this time but stop and speak. “Hi, Dorothy.”
“Miss Caid.” This time she says my name like she’s happy to see me and smiles warmly. “What a pleasant surprise.”
I can’t help thinking she might be the only person here who’ll feel that way, although, security haven’t yet tried to prevent me gaining access. Perhaps Jack couldn’t imagine in a million years I would have enough nerve to turn up after the stunt I pulled. Except I didn’t pull anything. So I can… My nerves are kicking in so strongly I take a moment to control them.
“Lovely to see you again, dear.”
“Likewise, Dorothy. Please call me Tabitha.” I need all the friends I can get. “Is Mr Keogh in this morning?” I could hardly phone in advance to check.
“He’s going over some items with Ms Devereaux in the boardroom.” Without meaning to, the subtle shift in Dorothy’s tone and expression when she says Amanda’s name reveals everything I need to know.
Men may like her just fine but Amanda doesn’t seem too popular with any woman who’s ever met her as far as I can tell. I smother a smirk.
“Would it be alright if I went in? Unannounced?” I don’t want to put myself in the embarrassing position I was last time, of having security called to throw me off the premises. Certainly not in front of Amanda anyway. And I’ve no intention of giving Jack the opportunity of refusing to see me outright. If he wants me gone he can jolly well show me the door himself.
“That should be fine. I’ve been ordered to the kitchen to make Ms Devereaux’s morning coffee anyway, so you never saw me.” Her mouth purses like she’s sucked a sour plum. We smile conspiratorially at each other.
“Thank you, Dorothy,” I whisper.
“You never saw me, remember.” She leaves her office without looking back.
So far this seems easy but it’s not. The image of a rabbit stalking a tiger comes to mind. I’m even more terrified than the last time I burst into his boardroom. I have so much more to lose. This could be make-or-break. All sorts of scenarios flood my mind, the best of them ending in Jack’s
abject refusal to have anything more to do with me.
My lungs burn. I drag down enough super-cooled atmosphere in my state of nervous tension, for my throat to feel as gritty as a cinder path. Only a grim determination to see Jack and settle matters between us keeps my feet moving forward.
Making a door handle decision, I decide it’s best to present the confident appearance of a woman with nothing to hide. Which I am. I swing the door open as two pairs of eyes lift instantly to mine.
The set of Arctic blues floors me.
We lock onto one another and they punch all the hard-won breath from my lungs. His gaze bores straight through me, decimating my resolve but I can’t tear my eyes from his either.
No-one speaks.
I search desperately for some clue as to what he’s feeling but he betrays nothing. He’s locked in the silence of his own thoughts as I feel my cheeks start to burn.
The she-wolf comes into focus. She glares over as she places her polished claws deliberately on Jack’s beautiful bare forearm where his shirt sleeves have been rolled back. She’s touching the warm tanned skin that I used to touch; feeling the power of all that muscle beneath; the smattering of delicious dark-golden hair. Leaning towards him, inhaling his incredible scent – excessively, it seems to me – she stakes her claim to what is not her territory. Her frozen features dissolve to those of conquest, like she’s elated to have pulled off her latest coup and wants me to know how good she feels.
God, I detest her. I want to tear their bodies apart and stomp on her. To hell with Gail’s no-go, woman-on-woman rivalry. I’m fighting for my man. Mine.
Outwardly they’ve been studying a file of papers in front of them on the boardroom table but Amanda shuffles closer to him on her seat, like she knows what I want to do to her and is pretending to be afraid. Her cheek practically polishes his stern jawline. But it’s all an act to rile me. She grips a little harder as she watches me but there’s no mistaking the feral gleam of triumph in her eyes.
My right hand is fisted; no doubt white-knuckled as I tingle with an overwhelming desire to fly across that shiny table top and crack her on the jaw. My left hand remains gripped to the door handle like if I don’t hold on extra tight the room will sway even more. But I won’t let her see my weakness. I release myself from its false refuge and scrunch my fingers instead into the little grey skirt of my suit instead, turning myself into one hot mess. I console myself Amanda is having to remind Jack she’s still alive by rubbing herself against him because all he can see is me.
No-one speaks. I’ve either lost my voice or my mind.
Unsurprisingly Jack recovers first. “What are you doing here?” His detached voice isn’t a welcome mat and I have to work hard to stop myself falling apart. My head spins. Or is it still the room? Have I made one momentous mistake in coming here?
Even Amanda comes to her senses before I do. “Uninvited.” Her tone is poison, laced with honey. Nothing fazes the devious witch and she grasps every opportunity to destabilise me further.
I ignore her barbed comment and keep my focus on what is important. Jack. He’s my mission. He’s the pole star in my dark, stormy night guiding me past fang-jagged rocks to the safety of harbour and home.
Jack stands, inadvertently throwing Amanda’s hand off his arm. If anything he looks taller, more darkly imposing than I remember and my heart vaults in my chest as I wait pitifully, able only to stare.
Yet slowly I glimpse beneath his daunting Boss’s facade. His jacket is slung carelessly over the back of a nearby chair; the knot of his tie loosened like it’s been grabbed and yanked in angry frustration one too many times, and his top shirt button is missing completely, not simply undone. He’s no longer sharply dressed for the office as he once was. He appears leaner too, as if he hasn’t eaten properly in days and dark shadows mar his Arctic blue eyes. The faint shading of stubble round his tense jaw suggests he shaved long before dawn this morning so that hours later it’s grown back in. Can’t he find sleep either?
He’s an advertisement in human devastation.
I’ve never seen him looking so dishevelled and yet he’s never looked more virile or more attractive to me than he does right now. I crave him. To run to him. Crash myself into his arms and beg him to hold me. Kiss me. Forgive me every single mistake I ever made and make things right between us again.
Caution warns me against it.
Despite this turmoil of longing, I witness the unyielding character before me. A man who once decided on a path, cannot be persuaded from it.
My traitor of a goading mind taunts me that his exhaustion perhaps has more to do with exciting nights spent making up for lost time with Amanda, than because he’s missing me a fraction of the way I’m missing him. I shame myself, searching for those tell-tale marks where she greedily ripped down his tie as soon as he was dressed this morning and popped his shirt button to sink her teeth into his neck again.
My brain throbs from fighting back the tears I refuse to shed. I hurt so much.
“Tabitha?” Jack’s deeply understated note of authority sends a shiver up my spine but I steel myself against it, trying to hold onto an image of the warm, caring man I love. I know he exists beneath this uncompromisingly cold veneer. Yet, what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing? echoes when he speaks my name.
My heart rate elevates like a rock band drummer on speed, yet Jack remains coolly, confidently aloof. His attention isn’t warm and it isn’t open-hearted. I can no longer tell what he’s thinking. Perhaps I really was just some mess he had to handle and everything else, just some dark fantastical Del Toro dream of my own making.
If I’d walked in on him and Amanda stark naked, entwined in each other’s arms, going at it, I don’t think he’d flinch. Yet he somehow manages to make me feel as guilty as a smuggler entering the Nothing to Declare channel at arrivals with a suitcase stuffed with explosives, dirty DVDs and about a thousand dodgy pills.
“Jack?” Despite my best intentions, the only voice I can muster is a whispered plea. I rely on my desperate appearance to say the rest. Please talk to me.
My stomach lurches as it occurs to me I may already be too late. He and Amanda might be together again and much closer than professionally. There’s a strange mood of mutual understanding between them.
The room spins faster as I falter. It’s so hard standing here with Jack looking right through me in a way that tells me he will never forgive such crass betrayal of his trust. His features are granite. Cold and unforgiving. There is nothing left for me to temper back to love. The steel core of raw, uncompromising masculinity that had so recently begun to mellow and thaw has returned.
Yet his forceful, virile demeanour only serves to heighten my feelings of femininity; my vulnerability to him. I could throw myself at his feet, beg him to forgive me even though I’ve done nothing wrong; implore him to try to love me again. Even the cold truth of my innocence doesn’t seem to matter as much as returning to the sunlight of his love.
It’s a question of survival.
Amanda callously places her treacherous hand against his chest, knowing – as only a rival can - how much it makes my flesh creep. “Shall I call for security, Jack?” she murmurs and moves slowly as if they should both fear what extreme act I might commit next, in my insanity.
For one brief second his attention is distracted from me to her. I want to scream, hurl myself at her and rip the perfect platinum hair from her perfect marble head but Jack is not the sort of man to be moved by violent acts of emotion.
And yet I can recall the voice on the phone that threatened to beat that jerk who touched me to a bloody pulp. My belly twists. I must do what I came here for. I have to be strong or what we had together will remain a devastating memory until it blows itself to dust.
“Talk to me,” I beg. “Please.”
“Jack? Security?” Amanda’s fingers edge towards the phone.
Amanda and I commit ourselves to move and countermove.
Jack’s hand fir
mly covers hers to stop her. That simple act alone drives me insane with jealousy and I wage a silent battle to stop the rage erupting out of me like a pressure valve exploding. It would only prove her question of my instability.
And she has the right of it.
I want to rip them asunder with bare hands. My knees shake. I tremble. I am past the point of being able to inhale as my lungs tighten and the room around me darkens by degrees. I feel rather than see Jack gust around the table to catch me before I hit the carpet. His arms surround me and I’m lifted into a chair. Jack hunkers down before me.
“Water.” Jack holds onto my hands. “Breathe in. Slowly. Hold. Out. Slow. Slower. Like that. Keep going. Focus on me. Breathe with me.”
I fix my blurry eyes to his steady gaze; my vacillation to his resolute will, and follow his instructions until the greyness surrounding me eases. He cares I don’t die on his premises at least and I’ll hold onto any comfort I can get. The tang of Clive Christian and Jack pushes out the pervasive odour of Amanda’s potent perfume. His soothingly familiar fragrance surrounds me and being this close to Jack again, having his warm hands resting lightly on my thighs causes all sorts of repressed physical reactions to emerge.
For him too.
His jaw tightens. A pulsating nerve in his throat ticks impatiently. Is he also fighting to short-circuit that same current of electricity flowing unbroken between us? The sparks practically zap from my body to his. They build to bolts of stark lightening which threaten to sear us permanently together, never to be severed.
Amanda strides forward and touches his shoulder, earthing our dangerous connection. “What’s happening, Jack?”
He shakes himself out of his daze.
“Amanda. Water please.” Jack orders her to act.
I witness the scowl as she pours from a table top carafe into a glass and hands it to him. She hates doing anything for me. Instinct tells me she’s recognised Jack still cares which makes her hate me even more, especially after her efforts to sabotage the link between us. He holds water to my lips and tips, encouraging me to take minute reviving sips.
“We should call an ambulance,” Amanda states in an uncaring tone. “It’s clear the girl is in need of medical attention.”
