Heller’s Decision (35 page)

I
needed
this job.

Just as I almost made the relative safety
of the office, around the corner
with all the fury of a thunderstorm rolling in
from the west, came Brady.

Chapter 23

Brady skidded
to a halt the second he saw me. He hooked his
thumbs through the loops on his jeans and sauntered towards me. I
couldn’t decide whether to stay and face up to the inevitable or to
leg it to the fire stairs and cross my fingers I outran
him.

“
Hi, Brady,” I said with optimistic
brightness, hoping that a bit of sunshine might dispel his storm
clouds.
No
chance of that ever happening.

He stopped in front of me and propped
himself up against the wall with his arm, one ankle crossed over
the other. He didn’t speak, but let his eyes roam over my
face,
his expression
changing from storm cloud to something I’d never seen on it before
– friendliness?

“
You smell good, Tilly. What’s that perfume
you’re wearing?”

“Pardon?”

He leaned forward and sniffed. I leaned
back. “Nice. Very feminine.”

“
I’m not wearing any perfume,” I
squeaked.

“
You must
just smell good naturally.” He gave me a
half-smile, which was half a smile more than he’d ever spared me
before.

I giggled nervously, not really sure how to
respond.

“
Have I ever told you that you have a cute
laugh? Are you interested in drinks after work one night? I’d love
to get to know you better.”

Dear God! Was he
flirting
with me? Did he just ask me out on a
date
? This was
even worse than being fired.

I crab-walked sideways, hoping to skirt
him and reach the office. He restrained me with a gentle hand on my
arm.

“
Hey, what’s the rush?
It’s only work, after all. Let’s go get a
coffee. We could just talk about . . . stuff. Whatever you want.
Did I tell you that you smell great?”

“
Um, y
eah, you did, and maybe later? I should report in with
Trent.”

“
Y
ou’re so dedicated to your job,” he said admiringly. “We
really should give you a promotion.”

My crab manoeuvre proved successful and I
broke free from him, rushing into the office.

Scottie looked up from his computer when I
burst in. His eyebrows rose.

“
Wow, Tilly. You look
sensational today. Have you done something
different? Maybe with your hair?” I had my hair tied back in a
ponytail like I did most days.

“
No, I haven’t done anything different. I’m
exactly the same as I was yesterday. What’s going on
here?”

“
I don’t know what you mean, but whew –!
You’re smoking hot today. If I didn’t bat for the other team, I’d
so be letching on to you right now.”

“
Is Trent in?” I asked,
deliberately ignoring his comments. But
there was no need for him to answer as Trent barged out of his
office in a rare rage.

“
Tilly!
About bloody time you showed your face. I was just about to
report you as a missing person. I have two words to say to you.” He
stopped in a dead halt. “And they are, ‘hello, gorgeous’. Is that a
new outfit?”

I looked down at my usual jeans, tailored
shirt and jacket.
“No,
it’s not. You’ve seen it a million times.”

“I don’t know how I’ve been so remiss to not
notice it before. You look amazing. Come here.”

“What?”

He held his arms out. “Come here. Come on.
I want to give you a hug. It’s
so
good
to see you again. I’ve really missed you.”

He pulled me to him and hugged me tightly
– one of those awkward hugs where one person is more enthusiastic
than the other. I endured it, thinking,
what the hell is going on in this
place today?
I felt as
though I’d stepped through the looking glass into an alternate
universe.

Eventually, thankfully, he disengaged.

“
Oh God, it’s like a nightmare,” I
despaired. “I came in expecting
to be fired.”

“
Fired! Are you crazy? It’s an honour to
have you working with us. Nobody’s going to fire
you
, silly.” He
pushed me towards my desk. “Sit down. I’ll get you a
coffee.”

He bustled around
using the office coffee machine, making me
one of the worst brews a human being had ever been forced to drink.
You could tell he was a takeaway coffee kind of man. I barely held
down the first sip, but he stood at my desk watching me as I drank.
So I held up the Trent Dawson Fan Club mug he’d served it in and
willed myself to have an iron stomach, which was a little difficult
considering Daniel and I had polished off two bottles of wine
together the night before.

“Mmm, so good,” I lied. “Thanks, Trent.
You’re the best.”

He actually blushed. A shameless
self-promoter like him actually blushed. Now I wondered if I was
still tucked in bed, dreaming. Scottie pouted with neglect at his
desk.

But when Trent –
finally!
– returned to his office, I tipped the rest of his
coffee into the pot plant on my desk. I turned on my computer and
tried to work, but was interrupted by a constant stream of
visitors. Trent brought me another self-made coffee and a fresh
danish for morning tea, so my pot plant had a second watering when
he wasn’t watching. It would probably be dead tomorrow. I ate the
danish though.

Brady brought me in lunch and proceeded to
sit at my desk with me and eat his as well – an uncomfortable
experience for everyone in the office, except him. And at different
times, the two security officers each then also brought me some
lunch, which I had to eat while they stood and watched avidly. I
staggered to the ladies room afterwards, my jeans so tight I could
barely breathe. I was afraid the button would pop off unexpectedly
and injure someone, it was straining so much.

Hiding in one of the stalls, I rang Liya. She
seemed surprised to hear from me.

“
Is it possible to get some of that love
potion on me just from touching the vial?” I asked.

“Did you ingest any of the liquid?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“
Then that’s not possible. That particular
potion must be consumed to be effective.”

“
Oh. It’s just that some odd things are
happening to me today.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Tilly. If you
didn’t ingest any of the potion, then that can’t be the
reason.”

“Okay, thanks. I thought I’d better
check.”

When I left the bathroom, a crowd of my male
workmates huddled at the doorway, as if waiting for me to reappear,
forcing a small scream of fear from me. I flattened myself against
the corridor wall and sidled my slow way from them back to my
desk.

This day could not end fast enough.

In the afternoon, Scottie fought off Trent
to make me coffee and bring me an enormous cinnamon scroll that
made my stomach roil and complain loudly. And although his coffee
was rather nice, my pot plant received its third watering. I buried
the scroll under some rubbish in my bin, too full to even
contemplate ever eating again until I reached the age of
ninety.

I didn’
t get any work done. Trent, Brady, Scottie, the two
security guys and some random dudes I didn’t even recognise,
visited me, leaned on my desk wanting to chat, all of them asking
me out using various methods. I watched the office clock like it
was a detonator timer for a nuclear weapon.

Would this day never end?

As soon as those minute and hour hands
reached the earliest time I could decently leave without looking
like too much of a slacker, I fled. I didn’t give anyone a chance
to stop me as I yelled a hasty and indiscriminate, “goodbye” over
my shoulder. I raced from the building, pursued for a short while
by a now-puffing pair of security officers.

“
Bye, Tilly,” they called plaintively,
waving at me as I screeched out of the carpark and burned rubber
making myself scarce in those parts of town.

I didn’t know what was going on in my
life, but I didn’t want any
part of it.

Back
at the Warehouse, I parked my car in its usual spot
snuggled next to Heller’s Mercedes in his own private fleet on a
floor above the business fleet. One of the men once told me that
Heller kept an armoured vehicle in his private fleet, but no matter
how much I scrutinised the other vehicles parked on that floor, I
couldn’t tell if that was true or not.

Relieved to be home and away from all the
weirdness of the day, I trudged up the stairs.
When was Heller going to fix
that damn lift?
I
grumbled to myself, wheezing a little already. I really needed to
visit the gym again.

On my way up the stairs I met Clive on his
way down.

“
Tilly,” he said, something in his eyes I’d
never seen there before. Affection?

“
Clive,” I replied warily, backing up
against the wall.

“
Come into my office. Let’s discuss your
return to
Heller’s
. We
never spend enough time together.”

“
I’m not returning
for another six months. Can we do it
another time? I’m kind of tired.”

He looked down at the floor and back at me
again. “Please?”

Clive said please? Clive said please
to
me
? I knew then,
there was no hope anywhere. It was as if love-zombies had taken
over my world.

I looked up the stairs, but he blocked
that escape route with his bulk. I looked down, but a couple of men
had just returned from a job and were eyeing me with uncomfortably
intense attention.

“Okay,” I agreed with deplorable
weakness.

I followed him into the security section.
The
minute we entered, a
hush descended over the men. And then it started – an endless
stream of men complimenting me on my appearance, my personality, my
everything, my anything. I retreated and retreated until I was
backed into a corner, feeling overwhelmed by the mass of
muscularity and testosterone milling around me, all talking to me
at the same time.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Back off, guys! You’re
freaking me out.”

They stopped, then turned on each
other.

“Stop freaking her out, dude,” one said to
another, shoving him in the chest.

“
You’re the one freaking her out with your
ugly face.” A shove in return.

Small skirmishes threatened to turn into
major fights when the door to the section splintered open under the
force of someone’s boot.

Heller strode in and forced his way
through his squabbling men. He stood in front of me, his nostrils
flaring and teeth bared. I shrank back a little further, not sure
if he was angry with me, or whether it was something even
worse.

He picked me up, threw me over his
shoulder and marched up all the flights of stairs to his apartment
where he threw me on his bed.

“
Matilda,” he said
hoarsely
, climbing on to
the bed with me. “I told you there was something different about
you.”

My clothes didn’t stand a chance, the
remnants flung to the four corners of the room.

Let’s just say i
t was a night never to be forgotten.

The next morning, I almost had to crawl to
his shower, exhausted, yet strangely at peace. I scrubbed myself
from head to toe, hoping to remove whatever it had been that had
caused that reaction. Afterwards I examined myself in the mirror. I
accepted I was attractive because I was young, maybe pretty and had
a nice set of boobs. But that didn’t explain the day before. I’d
received more than my fair share of attention from men over the
years, but never like that. Something strange was going
on.

After I dressed,
and while I ate breakfast (from Heller’s pantry),
I drank three glasses of water to flush ‘whatever’ from my body,
just to be on the safe side. I kept puzzling over it in my mind as
I chewed on my food. I knew I hadn’t drunk any of that potion and
Liya assured me its effects were only received through ingestion. I
just couldn’t understand it.

I heard the swipe of an access card and Niq
came through the door.

“Hi sweetie. Do you want some breakfast?”

“
Yes, please. You know what Daniel’s like
with food. Cereal every day gets boring after a while.”

I kissed his forehead as he plonked down
on a dining chair. Searching through Heller’s fridge, I found some
eggs and fresh herbs from the rooftop garden.
Probably supplied by
‘Victor’
, I thought,
laughing to myself.

I made Niq an omelette with some toast and
orange juice and sat back, like any proud mother, to watch him
eat.

“
Yum,” he declared
when he finished, taking his plate to the
sink and washing it up. The kid had been well trained. When he
turned back, remorse was stamped all over his features.