Naughty and Nice

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Seriously?” my editor asked. “What on earth are you doing there?”

  I explained, but I left out the part about Brad going to South Africa.

  “How is the situation going with your passport? I’m dying a little without our Monday staff meetings.”

  I smiled at her being on the same wavelength as I was; that was part of what made us such a great team.

  “It’s going to be resolved as soon as we get back to London,” I said. “Brad has promised to take care of it the second we get back; I’m not having any luck with the Embassy, but I’m pretty sure he has more pull.”

  “Are you sure you can trust him?” my editor asked, laughing at her joke. I paused, and then I laughed too.

  “Of course!” I said. “He’s my boyfriend, after all.”

  “Maybe he’s keeping it from you so that you have to stay with him in London,” she said. “Wants to keep you all to himself.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I’m sure that’s totally it. You may need to come and get me.”

  We laughed for a while longer; it was so great to talk to a familiar face. When I rang off of Facetime, I sat back in my seat and stared at my blank phone. My editor had asked me point blank if I trusted Brad. Of course, she had been joking, but the question was a valid one. Did I trust him? It was a question that kept coming up again and again, with a seemingly different answer every time.

  I sighed and flagged down a server to pay my bill and order a sandwich to bring back to Brad. I thought about texting him, but he hadn’t responded to my earlier apology text and I didn’t want to push it. The server thanked me and, about twenty minutes after wrapping up my conversation with my editor, I was back out on the street heading back to the hotel.

  I don’t know what made me turn around to look behind me. Maybe I heard a weird sound—a horn honking, or someone laughing—or maybe I just felt something strange. When I reached the end of the block near the restaurant, I turned around and looked directly behind me, into the eyes of a man looking directly into mine.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered. He ducked his head and shouldered his way around me, bumping me as he went. The sandwich I was carrying for Brad fell to the ground and spilled out of the container onto the sidewalk.

  “Hey, no problem!” I yelled after him. “Asshole!” I groaned as I looked at the sandwich on the ground. It wasn’t salvageable. I picked up the remnants and put them into the cardboard container, then tossed the whole thing into the trash bin at the curb. I turned and walked back toward the hotel.

  As I walked a breeze picked up and I felt goosebumps rise on my arms. I hugged my arms around me and looked ahead for the hotel. A familiar shape caught my eye about halfway up the next block, and I stopped. It was the man who had run into me. It may have been my imagination, but I thought he was watching me.

  Don’t be stupid, I thought. No one even knows you’re here. Except Brad. And Patrick… I walked past the man, keeping my attention on him out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t move, and I relaxed. I was getting paranoid for no good reason. All of the worry I’d had for Patrick, the danger he said I was in, the questions about trusting Brad… it was all starting to play tricks in my head and make me see things that weren’t there.

  Patrick came into my mind and I hugged my arms around myself even tighter. He had called back the other day while I was with Brad, but he hadn’t left a message with any details, and he hadn’t texted since. I knew that he was still in the hospital; I’d checked to see if he’d been discharged, and the nurse said he was still there. I knew I’d get a call from the hospital if anything happened, so he must have been making progress. Why, then, had he not called me back?

  When I got back to the hotel and keyed into the room, I called Brad’s name. He didn’t answer. I walked into our bedroom and his suitcase was gone.

  I had missed him.

  Brad

  The flight to South Africa was roughly ten hours, which was ten hours I had planned to think about how I was going to work with my contacts there to get the goods shipped back up to Morocco as quickly as possible. It turned out to be ten hours I thought about Cassie. She was absolutely right; I was leaving her at a time when I shouldn’t be. She had no idea how right she was, unfortunately. I didn’t blame her one bit for being angry. I hoped that I’d be able to wrap up business in a day or two and get back to her. Simon would, I knew, keep a close eye on her, but I wouldn’t feel completely at ease until she was back in my sight again.

  When the plane landed, my pilot said that he needed to do a little bit of maintenance while we were there. I gave him the green light for whatever he needed, and then I contacted the Johannesburg Legacy property to have a driver come to get me. I crashed as soon as I got to my suite, and I woke up the next morning to a flurry of texts and calls from Simon, assuring me that he was keeping his eyes on Cassie and that she was fine, and from a contact I’d lined up to watch the progress on the Morocco site clean up. According to the contact, the bonus I’d paid the men was paying off; the work was moving even faster than it had been before. The full building would take close to six months to reconstruct, but there was an underground storage area ready. As soon as we had the inventory ready to deliver, the message said, there would be a place for it.

  I spent my first full day at a small café in Johannesburg with my South Africa contact. I tried to explain the urgency of the situation, but it was like banging my head against a deaf wall. Nothing was getting through. After a few hours, I sighed and stood up, excusing myself to go stretch my legs.

  While I was out getting air, I texted Cassie.

  How are u? I’m going to be wrapped up here soon, can’t wait to come home to u. Miss u.

  I clicked send, and waited a few moments, hoping she would text me back right away. She did, but it wasn’t the message I’d hoped for.

  Are u having me followed??

  I paused. Simon had promised to stay under the radar, and he hadn’t texted me to say that she had spotted him. A sharp stab of fear pushed through me.

  Are u being followed? How do you know? No, I am not having u followed.

  I sent the text back quickly, the lie about not having her followed flowing easily through my fingertips.

  Never mind, she texted back. Just being paranoid. When are u coming back?

  I’ll be back soon, I texted. Sooner than planned, maybe. I needed to check in with Simon and find out how likely it was that Cassie had spotted him. Of course, I reasoned, Cassie didn’t know Simon was out of London, and, if she saw him in Morocco, I would almost certainly have heard about it.

  I quickly texted Simon. Has Cassie seen u following her?

  No. The reply was instant.

  Are u sure? She just texted, thinks someone is following her.

  I’ll be on the lookout.

  I had to go back in and work with my contact. Frustrated, I turned off my phone and walked back inside.

  A few hours later, business concluded, my driver brought me back to my suite and I settled in with a cocktail.

  My phone rang; I answered. “Simon,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been keeping close tabs on her. She hasn’t seen me, but there is someone following her. I don’t think he’s been following her for long; he’s not subtle about it and I would have noticed. You need to get back here.”

  Ice ran through my veins as I swallowed the bit of scotch in my glass. It tasted like sand.

  “Who’s tailing her?”

  “I have a description but no other information yet. I’m running what I have through the system.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Is it one of Manuel’s men?” I was trying to keep my voice controlled, but the sound of the ice rattling against my glass betrayed the shaking of my hands.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. I heard Simon inhale.

  “I don’t think so, Brad. He’s dressed extremely casually, a hooded sweatshirt, torn jeans. He’s designed to blend in, not st
and out.”

  I closed my eyes. Manuel’s henchmen all wore suits. They were impeccably dressed all the time.

  “Then who?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” Simon began slowly, “that he’s from the same group responsible for the destruction of the Moroccan site.”

  “I’m leaving right now,” I said. “I’ll be there before tomorrow morning.” Without waiting for a reply, I disconnected Simon. Immediately, I called my pilot and told him to prep the plane for take off. “We have to leave tonight,” I said.

  “Yes, Sir,” the pilot said. “I’ll get it fueled up and we’ll be ready to go by the time you get here.”

  The next call I made was to my driver. He promised he’d be there in under ten minutes. I quickly polished off my drink, the scotch a searing, soothing burning in my throat, and I threw the few clothes I’d unpacked back into my suitcase. My phone pinged; the driver was waiting downstairs. I flew to the lobby and got into the car, quickly telling the driver to contact the hotel and explain my early departure. As he drove to the airport, I called Cassie.

  She didn’t answer; my call went straight to her voicemail. I tried to make my voice sound normal. “Hey Honey, miss you. Call me when you get this, doesn’t matter what time.” I opened up my text app to send her a message, but thought the better of it. I didn’t want to scare her, and texting her to see if she was okay immediately after calling her to see if she was okay, well, she might begin to suspect that I thought she might not be okay, and I couldn’t have that.

  Instead, I sat back in the car and closed my eyes. The scotch was roiling in my belly and I knew that as soon as I got onto the plane I needed to get some food into my stomach quickly.

  The driver, a former professional race car driver, got me to the airport and onto the tarmac faster than I thought possible. I got onto the plane, stowed my bag, and got myself settled in for take off. The engines were on and the pilot told me that the ground crew was doing the final safety check and then we would be on our way.

  Relieved, I closed my eyes and tried to let the hum of the engines relax me. When we began to move, I sighed; I was on my way back to Cassie.

  Suddenly, there was a shudder and a huge jolt; the plane listed to the right and my seatbelt was the only thing holding me in my chair. The lights flickered, and the plane came to a stop.

  “What the fuck is happening?” I yelled to the front of the plane. There was one flight attendant, a woman I’d hired years earlier to be the first mate attendant on all my flights. “Marie, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Let me check with the pilot, Sir,” she said nervously, standing up and looking out one of the windows. “But it looks as though we may have blown a tire.”

  “Blown a tire? What does that mean? How does a plane blow a tire?” I undid my seatbelt and stood up, preparing to follow Marie into the cockpit.

  “Sir, please sit. Do you want something to drink? I’ll take care of everything with the pilot; I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m probably wrong about the tire.”

  But, she was not wrong.

  “Debris on the runway, Sir,” the pilot said grimly. “Blew two tires on the right side. We’re grounded for awhile.”

  “Not acceptable!” I roared. “Get another plane. Get another plane right now.”

  “Yes, Sir, of course.” The pilot nodded and looked at the co-pilot, who scrambled out of his seat and got onto the phone in the cockpit.

  The tightness in my chest was back, my heart pounding loudly. All I needed to do was get back to Cassie. I needed to get there before it was too late.

  Cassie

  I woke up the first morning Brad was gone with a feeling of emptiness weighing on me before I even opened my eyes. I laid in bed thinking about what Brad and I would be doing if we were on a normal couple’s vacation. My thoughts read like an article I would have written for Destination, and I realized I should be on my laptop writing them down. No reason my fiction shouldn’t turn into someone else’s reality, I reasoned.

  I dragged myself out of bed and stopped at the coffee maker before grabbing my laptop and heading out onto the balcony. I began to type, foregoing checking my email in the interest of getting the ideas out of my head and onto the paper before I forgot them.

  After I drained my brain for a few minutes, I went back into the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee for the day. I stood in the kitchen in my robe, wondering what Brad was doing in Johannesburg. Wondering more how long it would take him to get back home.

  There was a knock at the door and I jumped, the sound scaring me out of my coffee trance.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Open the door, Cass,” a familiar voice said on the other side of the door. I frowned. It sounded like… but it couldn’t be…

  “Patrick!” I exclaimed as I opened the door to a bruised Patrick wrapped up in various casts and bandages. “What the fuck! What are you doing here? Get in here!” I set my coffee down on the counter and guided him in, being careful to avoid jostling his injuries too much. We walked to the couch and sat down.

  I stared at him, feeling both relief and irritation at him for being there.

  “Hey,” he said, winking at me with the eye that was the lesser black of the two.

  “Don’t ‘hey’ me,” I said. “You look like death. How did you convince them to let you out of the hospital?”

  “I’m out AMA,” he said. “Against Medical Advice.” His expression grew serious. “I needed to get here.”

  “How did you even know where I was?” I asked. “And how did you know Brad wasn’t here? How does everyone around here seem to know everything except for me?”

  Patrick ignored my whining and fixed his gaze on me. “Don’t worry about the details. You have people watching out for you, that’s all I’ll say. I’m here because you asked me to look up Mavin Toller. How did you hear that name again?”

  I looked at Patrick, sized up his injuries, and I decided to tell the truth.

  “He was in your hospital room,” I said. “The first time I got there, when you were unconscious, when the nurse said you were probably going to die. I walked into your room, and he was sitting in the corner in the dark.”

  “He was in my room?” Patrick’s expression closed off, but not before I saw a sliver of both surprise and fear cross over his face.

  “That’s not when I found out his name, though,” I continued. “He’s the one who called me, from your phone, I might add, to tell me that you had been hurt. I would never have known if he hadn’t called, and, if something had happened to you…” I trailed off as I felt a lump rising in my throat and I realized, to my horror, that I was about to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Patrick said, reaching his hand out and covering mine with his warm palm. I felt a wave of calming energy move through me. “I didn’t die. I’m tougher than I look.” He smiled, then winced as he shifted.

  “You look like shit,” I said, smiling, trying to keep things as informal, as easy, as they’d always been between us.

  “Mavin Toller is an extremely dangerous man,” Patrick said. “I’ve got some of my team on him, keeping tabs on his whereabouts. He’s still in London, so you’re safe as long as you’re here.”

  “I’m safe?” I asked. “What does this guy have to do with me?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Patrick said, and I could tell from how he answered that it was a question that had frustrated him. “I don’t know which of us he’s after.”

  I paled. “He’s after me?”

  “Honey,” he began, then stopped as his shocked look mirrored my own. “I mean, Cass, I’m here to protect you. Whoever he’s after, if anyone, we’ve got it. No one is going to touch you.”

  I felt a flush rising in my cheeks. He had called me ‘honey,’ and the word had rolled off his tongue so naturally it seemed like it was my name.

  “Are we safe to go to breakfast?” I said suddenly, standing up. “I’m suddenly feeling a little claustrophobic.”


  Patrick smiled and stood up, more slowly and with more effort than I had. “I love a woman who doesn’t scare easy,” he said.

  I let the comment slide and we walked downstairs and out of the hotel into the street. “There’s a place close to here,” I said. “I haven’t been there, but Brad…” I paused; mentioning his name in front of Patrick seemed wrong somehow. “Brad says that they’ve got really amazing breakfast.”

  “Let’s give it a shot,” he said. “Lead the way.”

  We found the restaurant and were seated right away. Brad was right, the food was delicious, and it was fast. We had ordered and were served within just a few minutes, and the breakfast plates the server set down in front of us were heaped with eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast.

  “What a solidly American breakfast,” Patrick said wryly, staring at his plate.

  “This looks like the most amazing food I’ve seen in ages,” I said, digging into the hash browns. I ate in silence for a few seconds before I realized Patrick wasn’t eating. I looked up at him, my mouth full of bacon. “What?” I mumbled through my food.

  He grinned. “Nothing. Just… watching you appreciate fine dining.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “I’m starving. And, according to you, each meal I eat could be my last, so I’ll be enjoying every bite, thank you.”

  His expression darkened. “Don’t joke about that,” he said in a low voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said, swallowing a bite. “I really am. I know, it’s not funny and it’s nothing to joke about. Remember, I was the one who saw you when you weren’t even able to say your own name. How shitty you feel now is nothing compared to how you must have been feeling when I had to look at you. I was terrified.”

  “I’m sure you were,” he said. He reached his hand across the table. I looked at it, and looked back at him. Time seemed to stop for a moment; at least my heart skipped a beat. I put my hand in his. “I’m grateful you were there, and I’m sorry you were scared. I’m going to make sure you never have to be that scared again.”

  “Because you’re NCA,” I said firmly, “and because it’s your job.”