by Avery James
“What happened with the governor?” Amy said. Her words were sharp and she sounded tired and annoyed. As Abby tried to figure out what to say, Amy turned around and crossed her arms impatiently, giving her a look that said, start talking.
Abby wondered how much of the story she should tell. “I’m sorry. I crossed the line.”
Amy seemed to notice that Abby was only looking at the hammer. “I’m redecorating,” she said with a sigh.
“You had me worried for a minute,” Abby admitted. She let herself take a deep breath and exhale. “I kept looking at that hammer.”
“I was hanging a picture my daughter drew. It seemed crazy to have someone come in to do that for me,” she said. “What happened with the governor? I need to know the exact details.”
“He got stuck in an elevator,” Abby said. She’d decided to leave the trainees out of this. She never should have left them in a position to deal with Andrew Heck on their own, not after what had happened. “He was handcuffed to the handrail.”
“And you left him there?” Amy asked.
“My job is to make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble. Well, he didn’t cause any trouble,” she said. She couldn’t help but smile about it.
“Is that a joke?” Amy asked. She laughed in disbelief. “I’ve known you for six years now, Abby. I’ve given you latitude before, but you’ve never done anything like this. What if something had happened?”
“His mistress is the one who did it. We’re lucky she chose a service elevator and not a regular one.”
“Why would you do something like this? Your instructions were simple: keep his personal life out of the press. In what world does this align with that assignment?”
Abby looked Amy in the eye and mustered the courage to tell her the rest of the story. “He showed up at my place, let himself inside, and threatened me,” Abby said. She bit her lower lip while she waited for Amy’s response.
“He threatened you?” Amy asked. “In your home? He let himself in?”
“I thought he was someone else,” Abby said. “So I unlocked the door, and he let himself in.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Besides calling me a bitch?” Abby asked. “He made a thinly veiled threat to seriously injure me and in the process end his wife’s political career.” She wondered if she should mention the veiled threat against Maggie, too. She was probably in deep enough trouble as it was.
“This was after the elevator incident?” Amy asked.
“Before.”
“Before? You’re saying he came to your place and threatened you, and in retaliation, you locked him in an elevator?”
“Like I said, I just found him there.”
“Did you know he has a heart condition?” Amy asked.
“No.” For someone with a heart condition, he sure did enjoy a whole bunch of heart unhealthy activities. If he was healthy enough to carry on multiple affairs, he was healthy enough to sit in an elevator for a few hours.
“So you felt justified leaving him there?” Amy asked. Abby could see the anger building up as Amy thought things over.
At this point, Abby made another observation. She’d never seen her boss angry before, or at least she’d never seen her this angry. Amy pressed her lips together, flared her nostrils, and tensed her entire body. For the first time, Abby started to wonder if her job was on the line. “And you didn’t think to mention any of this to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Abby said.
“Conference room, now. I think I have another use for this hammer,” Amy said as she walked past Abby and opened the door to the hallway. There was an unsettling edge to Amy’s voice, that when coupled with the hammer in her hand, made Abby more than a little uneasy.
She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway, wondering if it would be the last time she saw the inside of the office. She wondered if Amy was going to fire her in front of everyone to make an example of her. She couldn’t imagine it, but Amy was angrier than she’d ever seen her, so who knew?
She didn’t know what she was expecting, but the sight of Andrew Heck sitting at the head of the conference table caught Abby completely off guard. He was leaning back in his chair with a pleased look on his face. Then he looked at Abby. His eyes narrowed with cruel glee. Abby wondered if he’d been there the whole time. Had she walked right past him without noticing?
Amy’s demeanor changed as she approached him. “Governor, I’m glad you could make it this morning. I heard you had quite a weekend.”
He kept his eyes on Abby. “You could say that.” His eyes darted from Abby over to the hammer in Amy’s hand and back.
“When I took your wife on as a client, I advised her against this course of action. I told her to level with you, to tell you to keep things under wraps for the few months until the election.” She held the hammer near the head and pointed the handle at him. “But she swore that course of action would only make things worse.
“You see, she thinks you’re trying to undermine her. You’re jealous that her success has eclipsed your own, and you want to embarrass her. I told her that was an absurd idea. You have as much to gain from her reelection as anyone, but as she was the client, I accepted her request. I asked Abby here to keep tabs on you and to keep you from doing anything that could endanger your public image or your wife’s candidacy.” Amy placed her hands on her hips and sighed. “I told her that you would at least be reasonable enough to keep your indiscretions out of the public eye.”
Amy shook her head and let out a little laugh. “Everyone thinks of hammers as being blunt objects, but the truth is they’re really cleverly designed. I was just telling Abby about how I’m hanging a picture in my office, but you know I just couldn’t decide on where I wanted it. With a hammer, you just tap a nail in, and pull it out just as easily.
“The next time you think of threatening one of my employees, I want you to think about this hammer,” she said. She tightened her grip on the handle until her knuckles turned white. She held the hammer out until it was inches from his face. “Go ahead and look at it. I want you to remember exactly what it looks like.”
The governor leaned back further in his chair. “Let me guess, Ms. Haven, if I don’t do what you want, you’ll come down on me like a hammer. It would help your little point if you even knew how to hold the thing. You’ve got it backwards.”
Amy tightened her mouth in a strained smile. Then she swung the hammer down hard, crashing the claw end into the table with enough force that it lodged itself into the wood and made a cracking noise that made Abby shiver. Andrew Heck flopped backward in his chair, only catching his balance at the last moment. The silence that followed the sound of the hammer was deafening. Amy, who could never be described as more than petite, seemed to tower over the man.
Her voice rose with anger as she addressed him. “If you ever threaten one of my employees again, I will personally use this end of this hammer to separate your manhood from your body. Do you understand?”
He stared at her in stunned silence. His face looked ashen, and there were beads of sweat running down his forehead.
“Do you understand?” Amy asked again.
He gave a half nod and jumped up out of his seat. He took an unsteady first step and marched past Abby out of the room, flinging the door open as he fled. Abby barely believed her eyes. Amy was still standing, hammer in hand, staring at the ex-governor’s back as he retreated out of sight. A moment later, she placed the hammer down and took a deep breath.
“That was incredible,” Abby said. “I thought for a second…”
Amy just shook her head, no. “I’m not done with you,” Amy said. “The elevator is one thing. The bastard probably even deserved it, but when someone threatens you because of your job, or even outside of your job, your first call is to me. Do you understand? You have coworkers who depend on you. You have coworkers who care about you. And you put yourself at risk rather than tell me. I never would’ve let what he did stand. I�
��m so angry right now. What if something had happened to you?”
“I’m sorry,” Abby said. “If he tries it again, I’ll call immediately.”
Amy did a double take. “You think you’re still on this case?”
“I know I messed up,” Abby said.
“I don’t think you appreciate the risk to which you exposed yourself and everyone in this office,” Amy said. She sighed, and her shoulders slumped as she shook her head. “I’m disappointed in you, Abby. I thought after all this time you’d know you could trust me.”
“I understand,” Abby said. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to alarm you.”
“Your safety comes before my need for peace of mind.”
“Ok.” Abby didn’t know what to say. Amy was right. She’d been wrong not to tell anyone. She’d been wrong to try to handle things on her own. “That’s why I’m placing you on leave,” Amy said.
“What?” Abby exclaimed. “That isn’t necessary.”
“Go clear your head,” Amy said. “Somewhere that isn’t here. I don’t want you running into Andrew Heck. I don’t want you thinking about Andrew Heck. Do you understand? The last thing I need is for this situation to get even more out of control.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Abby asked without thinking. For years, the job had been her entire life, and she would be genuinely lost without it.
“Go on a trip, take up a hobby, whatever, just stay off the radar until the time is right. What do you do in your free time?”
Abby laughed. “I don’t have free time.”
“That’s my fault,” Amy said. Her tone softened. “Your job will be here when you get back, but you have to decide if you’re going to play by the rules. Do you seriously have no idea what you’d do with a week or two off?”
“Nolan, do you remember him from the Cheese Ball? He asked me to meet his parents in Scotland. I told him I couldn’t.”
“Well, looks like your schedule has cleared itself up,” Amy said. “Funny how things work out.”
Abby didn’t think it was funny at all.
Chapter 18
And that was how, at 7 am on Wednesday morning, Abby found herself walking up the stairs to Nolan’s private jet for the second time in a week. “It seems bigger than last time,” she said as she sat down across from him.”
“Longer flight,” he said.
“Please tell me you don’t own two planes.”
“I don’t own any planes. I use a charter company.”
“How much does that even cost?” Abby asked.
“Less than owning multiple planes,” he said with a shrug. He gave her a smile that made her forget all about the ridiculousness of their situation.
That look in his eyes, and the surety that he would have something clever to say no matter what she said next—when had they become the biggest constants in her life? For years, she’d found meaning in her work, in being a professional, and now her career was in jeopardy, her life was turned upside down, and she barely cared. All she could think about was Nolan.
Abby sighed and thought, you’re getting soft, which was true. She also thought that she could get used to this whole private flight thing—no screenings, no lines, no wailing babies three rows back. As soon as they were at cruising altitude over the Atlantic, she slipped out of her seat and nestled in next to Nolan. “So what do you have planned for me?” she asked.
“There’s something we need to talk about, but the time isn’t right yet,” he said.
“Have to wait until we’re in international airspace? Have you been breaking the law again?” she teased.
“Nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just, you’ll know when the time is right. There are things I’ve been meaning to tell you, things that I think would explain what I’ve been doing and what I’m trying to accomplish.”
“Well, that’s cryptic.”
“I know you like surprises,” he said.
“That worked out well enough last time, but I need some more information before I meet your parents. For example, what are their names?”
“Neil and Eileen,” he said.
“And what do we tell them about us?”
“Just tell them what you told Maggie,” he said. “I’m sure it’ll go over well. Or just say we met by chance while working, and I was a gentleman.”
“Do you think they’ll believe that?”
“Not a chance,” he said. “But they’ll prefer that version of the story, and they’ll leave it at that. That’s the one thing you need to know about my parents. They’d rather it all go unsaid rather than risk embarrassment. That’s the ultimate sin, dragging the family name through the mud.”
“And here I thought the worst thing was being uninteresting,” she said.
“My parents would kill for me to be uninteresting.”
“Then they’ll love me,” Abby said.
“You’re the most interesting person I know,” Nolan said in a surprisingly earnest tone.
“You’re just saying that so I’ll sleep with you,” Abby teased.
“Nah,” he said. “I think I could get you to sleep with me anyway.”
“Doesn’t mean it hurts your chances.”
Abby did not join the mile-high club on that flight, but there were far worse ways to cross the Atlantic than cuddling with Nolan. When the plane touched down in Glasgow, Abby felt like her troubles really were thousands of miles away. Once they were off the plane, they got in an SUV that was almost identical to the ones Nolan had driven in the US, a black Land Rover, except the steering wheel was on the other side.
The sun was starting to set as they started their drive. Everything looked so different than in the states. It was the small details that stuck out, but Glasgow was an industrial city, and even though it wasn’t exactly pretty, Abby found it fascinating.
“We have a few hours before we get there,” he said.
“Your house?”
“You’ll see,” he said. “I think you’ll like it.”
She leaned back in her seat and watched the landscape roll by. In no time, the suburban surroundings of Glasgow gave way to countryside, and broad fields soon gave way to hills. The moon was rising at the edge of Abby’s view. She tried to take it all in as Nolan pulled off the highway onto a smaller road, and then another smaller one that wound turn by turn up into the hills, until they were on a broad plateau. “We’re almost there,” Nolan said. He gave a little nod towards a brightly lit building in the distance. A castle. Awash in landscape lighting, it looked like something out of a fairytale.
“Please tell me that isn’t your house,” she said.
Nolan grinned. “It’s an eight hundred year old castle that is now a twenty year old distillery and five year old hotel. I wanted to give you a night to… acclimate before meeting my parents.”
“You want me all to yourself in a hotel room, admit it.” Abby looked up at the castle, which grew larger and larger as they approached. By the time they were on the drive, it towered overhead. The highest turrets must have been a hundred feet up in the air.
“I’ll have you know that you are in the ancient and esteemed town of Dunculloch, where there is exactly one thing of any interest of all.”
“The castle?” she asked.
“I was thinking you. The castle is nice too, I guess.”
“Smooth, so does that make me a thing?”
“Well, the set up doesn’t work if I say person, now, does it?”
“It’s lovely.” Abby leaned across to kiss him on the cheek as Nolan parked. Two porters greeted them to take their luggage, and were gone without so much as a word.
“They know me here,” Nolan said as he read the confusion on Abby’s face.
“Because it’s where you bring your women?”
“Because I’m famous over here,” he said. “I also called ahead and made sure they brought everything up.”
The manager personally greeted them at the door and gave Nolan the room keys. “If you need
anything at all, sir,” he said. His brogue was thick, and there was a certain dignity to the way he stood at attention.
“What time is our reservation?” Nolan asked.
“In half an hour, sir,” he said.
“Perfect,” Nolan said.
“Would you like someone to show you to the room?”
“Thank you, but I know the way.” Nolan took Abby’s hand and led her through the lobby to a small elevator. When they reached the top floor, they got out and started walking down a long corridor. Doors lined one side of the hallway. Windows that looked out towards the hillsides lined the other. When they reached the end of the hallway, Nolan swiped a card and opened the door.
Instead of a room, the door opened to a flight of stairs. He pulled Abby along as he started to climb. When they reached the top, Abby found herself in the middle of a large open space with stone walls and soaring ceilings. Large timber framing supported the roof above. There was a fire gently crackling in a hearth, and there was a bed that occupied its own alcove. Abby crossed the room and walked over to a window.
"This was the keep," he said. "For hundreds of years, this was the tallest building for a hundred miles. It's my second favorite view."
She stepped up to the window and looked out over the fields. Bathed in moonlight, they were stark and beautiful. She was so high up that she felt almost dizzy as she braced herself against the stone windowsill.
"And your favorite?" Abby asked as she turned back towards the room.
Nolan's eyes ran over her body, and his grin was all the answer she needed. He walked up and wrapped his arms around her as he looked out the window. “Doesn’t compare to you in the least.” He leaned in and kissed her neck slowly and softly. Abby felt the flame of her desire growing stronger. She was in a castle, with her boyfriend, who was technically royalty.
