Battle Lines.

by Anderson, Abigail

  Amanda barely touched the microwave dinner she prepared herself. In the end she admitted defeat and chucked it in the bin and then she made her way upstairs to bed.

  But sleep did not come, her thoughts were taken up with images of Jake. Images of that hurt angry look in his eyes just before he had walked out and slammed her front door behind him.

  It had certainly been a whirlwind weekend. She had finally found Jake, lost him again and lost a chance to be having his baby. She cried then and she didn’t stop until she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 21.

  Her meeting with Guy Constantine had gone well. He was on the lookout for an antique piece of jewellery and she got the impression that it was for someone special. He had given her a description of what he was looking for and had then told her that money was no object.

  Amanda left feeling happy and she began to put a plan of action together. She would get in contact with her contacts. She was confident she would be able to find something that would meet the standards that he had set.

  She pushed her sunglasses up her nose as she strolled along the pavement on the way back to her office. A little bonce in her step. All thoughts of the weekend pushed firmly to the back of her mind for now. The weather was too nice and her business just got a much needed boost, at least potentially.

  If she did a good job, then hopefully Guy would recommend her to his contacts. The man was a multi, multi billionaire. Everything about him had spoken of how much he was worth. But he wasn’t arrogant.

  He had been very Self-assured, confident. It had been a pleasant meeting and he had been attentive and very Greek.

  Amanda was whistling to herself when she arrived in the office moments later. She stepped out of the heat of outside into the cooler interior of her office building.

  “Someone’s in a good mood.” Marsha observed as she looked up from her computer.

  “Who wouldn’t be on a beautiful day like this? The sun is shining. The breeze is cool. All is right with the world, well… almost.”

  “A-ha.” Marsha said and Amanda looked up at her as she retrieved her post from the edge of Marsha’s desk. She frowned.

  “What’s that supposed to mean.” Amanda asked.

  “Oh nothing. Don’t mind me. It’s my age.” She held up her hands in a display of surrender.

  “Your age… my eye.”

  “I meant nothing. I promise.”

  “No, no. Go on.” She said.

  “Don’t pay me no attention.” Marsha told her.

  “Come on, I distinctly heard a tone.” She said to Marsha.

  “A tone, me?” Marsha tried to look innocent but she did not quite pull it off. “I told you, it’s my age.”

  “Your age… my eye. Where’s Harry?” She asked

  “You just missed him. He’ll be back sometime after lunch.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He… had an… appointment.” Marsha cleared her throat with a little cough.

  “Appointment?” Amanda frowned.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s nothing in the diary.” She said.

  “Yes well. I… I forgot to pencil it in.” Marsha fidgeted on her chair.

  “That’s not like you.” Amanda watched her secretary. She was hiding something, she could tell.

  “It’s my age.” Marsha said.

  “Your age… my…” She stopped and shook her head.

  “You might want to see a doctor about that eye of yours.” Marsha told her.

  “You might want to see a doctor about your age.” She snipped back.

  “There’s nothing that can be done about my age.” Marsha complained. “I know. I have tried.” Amanda couldn’t help herself, she laughed at her secretary.

  “Who is the appointment with?” Amanda said when she had got herself back under control.

  “Um, well.” Marsha was becoming agitated. “Harry didn’t say exactly.”

  “He would not say or, you do not want to tell me?” Amanda quizzed.

  “I can’t.” Marsha drew in a breath. “I have been sworn to secrecy.” Really? Amanda was intrigued now.

  “So then you know.” She said.

  “But I am not going to tell you.”

  “What is it about?”

  “I… I…”

  “You don’t know.” Amanda guessed.

  “That’s right. I don’t know… honest.”

  “Please tell me he hasn’t gone to an auction?” She asked her.

  “Oh no.” Marsha quickly reassured her. Which meant that Marsha knew way more than she was telling.

  “So then who is he meeting?”

  “Please don’t keep asking me questions. They have sworn me to secrecy and I hate being piggy in the middle.” Marsha pulled a face at her.

  “Fine.” Amanda huffed, she admitted defeat and crossed the room to her office but then stopped, ‘they’ she opened her mouth fully intending to ask her assistant but then closed it again. Marsha was right it wasn’t fair.

  “Thank you.” Marsha called to her back. “You will love it I promise.”

  “Mm.” She said making a mental note to herself that she would ask Harry about it as soon as she could.

  But for now, she contented herself with getting some work done. She opened her office door and went to step over the threshold but she stopped and gasped as she took in the scene. She turned back to Marsha who was sat with a big beaming smile on her face.

  “Have you seen?” Amanda waved a hand and, Marsha nodded her head enthusiastically as she grinned from ear to ear.

  Amanda turned back to look in her office, hardly being able to believe her eyes and a smile unwittingly found its way to her lips.

  Her eyes took in the five vases on her side table filled with pink shrimps. And then on the window sill behind her chair ten champagne flutes with jelly worms hanging over the sides and what looked like coloured sugar inside the glass, placed just so to create a layered effect.

  Her eyes moved to the other window sill by the large book shelf. A neat row of sherbet fountains lined it and then onto the bookshelf and she chuckled as she saw the rows of white mice all staring at her.

  And then on to her desk where she could see strawberry laces writing out ‘good morning’ across her desk. And on the corner of her desk by her phone a small glass fruit bowl full of love heart candy.

  She reached out and picked up a handful to look at them and laughed when she read silly little things on them like ‘be mine’ and ‘kiss me’ and ‘luv u’

  Jake! It could only have been Jake.

  Amanda turned back to her door, her eyes caught the small coffee table up against the wall. She giggled as she saw the championship cup, that she had won. It was filled to over-flowing with jelly red hearts.

  She looked back at Marsha sitting at her desk. She was in the process of holding the phone receiver in her hand and punching out buttons.

  “Marsha,” Marsha jumped out of her skin and looked up at her. Amanda noted the guilty flush that warmed the woman’s cheeks. “When you are finished. Is there any chance you can try and find a large container?” She asked the other woman.

  “I’ll see what I can find.” She told her and then turned her attention back to the phone. Obviously someone had answered it. “Ah yes. Sorry.” Marsha fell silent for a minute and then said. “Yes, that’s right just this minute. It was a picture that’s for sure. No problem. You are very welcome.”

  Amanda went back into her office and pulled back her chair so that she could sit down as she looked around the room as though she were shell shocked.

  The whole room smelled like she had stepped into an old fashioned sweet shop.

  How had Jake managed this? Amanda sat up straight in her chair and her heart did a funny lurch. Had he been in her office? He must have, how else had he done it.

  Amanda reached down to the bottom draw of her desk the one that held the photograph and she gasped.

  She picked up the bar of Caramac
that was sitting on top of the picture frame and then reached in to pick up the photograph. The one taken on her sixteenth birthday. Mum and dad had taken them out for a dinner.

  She had her face turned to Jake. He was looking at her, his arm casually draped around her shoulders. She was smiling up at him. He looked as though he were talking to her.

  Only one of a couple of moments that they hadn’t been at each other’s throats. They looked intimate, as though they had forgotten that other people existed. She noticed for the first time how lovingly she was looking up at him. How had she not seen that before?

  Jake had seen it, she held her breath, worse than that Jake had seen that she had this picture and that she kept it here in her office to look at. Great.

  Amanda stuffed the picture back in the drawer and closed it before looking through the rest of her drawers but there was nothing in them. Just that one Caramac bar on top of the picture.

  Amanda got up and went to the door again.

  “Marsha, did you set the burglar alarm?” She asked her.

  “Of course I did. Do you think I would have forgotten?” Marsha asked her.

  “Oh no, no. sorry. It’s just that… how did all this stuff get here?”

  “Beats me but it is terribly romantic.” Marsha sighed. “Wish my husband would do something like that. The best I get is a KitKat from the petrol station once in a blue moon.” She grimaced and Amanda laughed.

  “So the alarm was set?” She tried again.

  “Yes, I set the alarm. I came in for a couple of hours on Saturday and they were not in there then.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh I think I would have noticed them, don’t you?” Marsha raised her eyebrows at her.

  “No I mean about the alarm.”

  “I am positive.” Amanda slowly walked back into her office but then turned and went back to the door.

  “Did you see anyone on Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “No one came in.”

  “Not a living soul.”

  “You didn’t see my brother at all.”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure. He’s tall, dark hair, looks angry all the time.”

  “No one at all came in. and certainly no one fitting that description.”

  “And you are sure.”

  “Amanda. You have shown me a picture of your stepbrother. Trust me if he had been here or I had walked passed him in the street I would have noticed him. He looks like, well, he looks like he does and I may be old but I am just a mere mortal.” She shrugged.

  Yes, Amanda thought, Jake had always been very easy on the eye to look at. When she had been a teenager many women had paid Jake attention wherever he went. “No one came here that is the God’s honest truth.”

  Just then Amanda’s phone rang and it made her jump.

  “Thanks Marsha.” She said as she went back into her office and plonked herself down in her chair as she picked up the phone. “Amanda Garvie.” She said in greeting.

  “And hello to you to.” Came Jake’s voice and Amanda’s hand shook.

  “Jake.”

  “Mandy.” He mimicked her tone.

  “How did you get into my office?” She jumped right in. There really was no point in beating around the bush. It was why he was phoning her, to see whether she had seen his handiwork.

  “Thank you Jake. I love it.” Jake said and she sighed.

  “Thank you.” She said.

  “Jake. I love it.” Amanda bit back on a grin that threatened to escape.

  “Thank you Jake. I like it.” She told him and was rewarded by a rich laugh.

  “You really are defiant.” He told her and it sounded as though it pleased him.

  “So, how did you get in?” She ignored his ribbing.

  “That would dispel the mystery of the whole thing.” He told her.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture but, I really need to know how you got in. If you had been a burglar.”

  “Don’t worry.” He assured her. “If I fall behind enemy lines I won’t talk no matter how much they torture me.”

  “If you don’t tell me I will torture you.” She told him.

  “I would have no problem with you torturing me.” His voice dropped suggestively. Amanda’s mouth went dry.

  “Jake don’t be an arse.” She chastised him.

  “How would you torture me?” he asked her. The air around her grew thick.

  “I…” she stopped and held her breath for a moment and Jake began to laugh.

  “You could tie me up.” He suggested helpfully.

  “I have a feeling you would like that.” She said. “Or maybe not. You always prefer to be the one in control.”

  “I would have no problem giving you control in the right circumstances.” He told her.

  “And what would be the right circumstances?” She asked and then realised her mistake.

  “It would definitely be in an intimate setting.” Jake told her and she squirmed in her chair. “And maybe a bit of lace would be involved.” He said. That throbbing sensation started deep down. How did he manage to do that to her, and so quickly?

  “Jake how did you get in?”

  “I am not telling you. So, were you surprised?”

  “Surprised,” that was an understatement. “Yes, very.” She admitted. “It’s not every day that my office gets turned into a candy store. What on earth were you thinking?”

  “What do you think I was thinking?” he asked her.

  “I… I have no idea.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have no idea. Perhaps you had an insanity moment.”

  “Pink shrimps.” He prompted.

  “I don’t know Jake. The time I broke my ankle, the left one.” She said.

  “Correct, see you know. Red hearts?”

  “Umm.” She stopped to think and then a memory came to her. She sat back in her chair.

  “When I won the championship cup when I was fourteen. You filled the trophy with them.” She looked at the trophy cup sitting on the coffee table, the red hearts heaped up and overflowing onto the table around it.

  “Took you a month to get through them all.” He agreed.

  “I am surprised that I didn’t end up fat and with no teeth.”

  “I only did it because I thought it would sweeten you up. You were so sour through your teenage years.” Jake complained.

  “You are not funny.” She protested.

  “But I speak the truth. Strawberry laces?”

  “Erm... I have no… oh no wait, I remember. I threw them at you when you beat me at chess.” She said.

  “Very good.” He applauded. “Sherbet fountains?”

  “Halloween when I was fifteen.” Then she gasped. “And enough said about that one.” She grimaced.

  “Yes, that was particularly… what is the word I am looking for?”

  “Painful.” She said.

  “It was definitely that.” He laughed. “Jelly worms?”

  “Umm.” She stopped to think and then giggled. “Camping trip. You put them in my sleeping bag and I nearly had a fit when I got in it in the dark.”

  “You screamed like a girl.” Jake agreed.

  “I was a girl.”

  “That you were.” He agreed. “You was in a foul mood for the rest of the holiday.”

  “That was your own fault, you shouldn’t have done it.”

  “You shouldn’t have spent all four days moaning, there was no tv. It was cold. Sleeping on the floor was uncomfortable. And it went on and on.” He moaned.

  “All valid points, I still stand by them.” Amanda told him.

  “White mice?”

  “Christmas just before my sixteenth birthday.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing happened that I am aware of.”

  “Our first kiss.”

  “We didn’t kiss.” She told him.

  “We did, under the mistletoe.”

  “We
never kissed under the mistletoe.” She told him.

  “Yes we did.”

  “That was a peck on the cheek and you only did it because you knew I would hate it.” She informed him tartly.

  “I did it because I wanted to. You hating it was just a bonus.” He joked.

  “You are being an arse again.” She told him.

  “Love heart candy?”

  “I have no idea about that one.”

  “Sixteenth birthday.” He prompted.

  “Umm.” She stopped to think. “I don’t know. No wait. That was the year I got that anonymous present. A heart box filled with them. They all had the same thing written on them.”

  She had never found out who had sent them. She had figured someone at school had sent them. She had not been short of admirers.

  “I love you.” Jake said and Amanda’s heart stopped dead in her chest.

  “Excuse me.” She said breathlessly and she heard Jake cough before saying.

  “That was what was on the love heart candy, all of them. I love you.” He was right.

  “It was you.” She said now. She had never shown anyone them, not even her parents. She had been embarrassed that someone might have had a crush on her and so she had kept them up in her room. There was only one way that Jake would have known that and that was if he had sent them to her. “Why?”

  “You really don’t need to ask that. Do you?” Probably not. She guessed she had always known, perhaps not when she had been a teenager but later. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t come back. The reason she had always been vulner-able where Jake was concerned.

  “Okay, why did you do this? In my office.” She said instead.

  “Caramac.” Jake said.

  “What?” She frowned in confusion.

  “Caramac.” He said again. The Caramac bar in her bottom drawer, on top of that picture.

  “Uh… I…”

  “Thank you by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “I have looked in every photo album looking for that photo. I thought somehow it had got lost. I am glad that you’ve had it all these years.”

  “Well…” She stopped, there really wasn’t anything she could say. She had been found out.

  “I was surprised when I opened the drawer and saw it.” He continued. She gripped the receiver in her hand tighter.