Broken Pasts(11)

“I promise I won't,” he assured me and I believed him.

Isn't it interesting how much you can tell about someone from their laugh?





CHAPTER 8

“I work as a web developer and I don't even like computers. Is that weird?” I asked Nathaniel as he held open the door to my office for me. And he always opened and closed the car doors, too. Perfect gentleman, I thought and then I tried to inject myself with a dose of reality. He's a professional bodyguard, not your boyfriend. Boyfriend. Ech. I was too old for boyfriends. I wanted a partner, a friend, a lover, a confidante. Was I asking too much?

“Not at all,” he told me, green eyes glittering with amusement. “I used to work as a Linux system administrator.” I turned around and walked backwards for a moment, so I could get a good look at his face.

“You?” I asked, surprised. “Seriously?” Nathaniel was too good looking for such an invisible job. All of that body buried behind a desk. Shame. I swallowed hard and turned back around, laying my hands across the front of my secretary's desk.

“Very briefly,” he admitted. “Just long enough to prove that college hadn't been a complete waste of my time.”

“And then you found your passion in security?” I said with a smile. His face shut down then, turned off completely. The light in Nathaniel's eyes faded, leaving him with a haunted look that I hadn't seen before.

“I guess you could say that,” he told me, but his voice was neutral, not at all playful or conversational. Another piece to the puzzle, I thought as I gave him the privacy I was pretty sure he wanted and turned my attention back to the door behind the desk. Maybe he's going to be an easier nut to crack than I'd first thought.

“Good morning, Brenda,” I said as my secretary popped out the door with a doughnut in her mouth and a completely inappropriate top draped over her massive breasts. Let's just say, it was white, her bra was black, enough said. But she was a sweet girl and she was smart and eager to learn. I had taken her on more as an apprentice than as a secretary, but since she seemed to function perfectly well at both, that's the way we ran it. As soon as she saw Nathaniel, the doughnut fell from her mouth in a blaze of glaze and landed right on the brand new, leather office chair I had just ordered. She cringed and snatched it back up in a hurry, tossing it into the garbage can under her desk.

“S-sorry,” she said as she grabbed her tablet and moved the stylus around like she was running a marathon with her fingers. As she did this, she bit her lower lip and ran her tongue across her teeth. “Is this a new client?” she asked, voice overtly incurious, nonchalant. I looked over my shoulder at Nathaniel and saw that he'd replaced his sunglasses and was standing with his hands crossed over his belly, arms stiff, shoulders back, very much the professional. Defense mechanism maybe?

“Brenda, this is my bodyguard, Nathaniel. He'll be spending the week with me.” I paused and wondered exactly how much I should tell her. Satisfied that it was now 'okay' to look at him, Brenda let her blue eyes rake Nathaniel's suited form which still looked as pressed and as polished as it had yesterday morning.

“Lovely to meet you,” she said as she batted her blonde eyelashes and passed the tablet over the top of the counter to me. I stared at Nathaniel's frozen face and decided that maybe it would be better if he wasn't 'allowed' to talk while he was here.

“He can't talk,” I said apologetically as I checked the maelstrom of shit that had occurred over my long holiday weekend. “Just pretend that he's not even there, okay?” I handed the tablet back with a smile and led Nathaniel down the hallway to my personal office.

I had a very, very long day ahead of me.

***

With the amount of work I had for the week, I was going to have to pull all-nighters to get it all done, but then, I couldn't let anyone else pick up Rhea. The risk to reward ratio was not a good one, so at three o'clock, Nathaniel and I left for Rhea's school.

While I was internally debating the benefits of going back to the office or doing some work from home, I checked my phone and found several missed calls from a restricted number. My first thought was, of course, Gary, but I checked the messages just to be certain. Sure enough, as soon as they started to play, there was his voice, light and normal, like nothing strange had happened between us.

“Hey Theresa, it's me, Gary. I just wanted to see if you and Rhea were up for bowling night on Friday. Could you call me back and let me know which alley? Okay, I love you. Bye.”

“Hey Theresa, it's me, Gary. I was calling to ask if you wanted to get together for dinner tonight. I know you're busy, but it would mean the world to me. How about that place we went for New Year's Eve? Call me back. I love you. Bye.”

“Hey Theresa, you stupid f*cking bitch. You can't f*cking ignore me. You cannot f*cking ignore me, do you hear me? Are you just mentally f*cked or do you like playing games with people's hearts? This is my heart, Theresa. Mine. And I won't let you screw it up.”

“Hey Theresa, your new boyfriend can't be there every minute, baby. When you're done sucking his dick, he'll leave and I'll be there. Or maybe I should rephrase that. I am here. That's a cute little skirt you're wearing and I like the red top, very sexy. Maybe when we're alone I'll – ”

I ended the call. Four messages from that man were four too many. If I had to hear him say in words what he'd said in the note, I might just have a nervous breakdown.

“He called me,” I told Nathaniel, trying to hold myself in check. “I got a new number yesterday and he already knows it. He – ”

“It's alright,” Nathaniel said as he finally removed the sunglasses he'd been wearing all day. The sight of his eyes, clear and confident in the rearview gave me the burst of energy I needed to take a massive breath, slow my heart rate and relax. “It happens. We'll change the number again, as many times as we need to. When you give it out, give it to as few people as you can and let them know that under no circumstances are they to share it with anyone. Try to think of it as a good thing that he called. This establishes a pattern of inappropriate behavior, gives us the evidence that we need to get him arrested. The more he does it while I'm here, the better.” I saw him purse his lips in the mirror. “What happens if he's still stalking you when the week's out?”

“I don't know,” I replied honestly. I hadn't thought that far ahead. Somewhere in my mind, I was still convinced that if I just waited Gary out, that he would go away. “I guess I'll deal with it when the time comes.” Nathaniel nodded, but he didn't look happy. I dropped my gaze from the mirror and waited in silence until we got to the school.

Rhea was a welcome burst of energy when she got in the car, like a fireworks display in pink and zebra. She handed me some paintings from art class and even had one for Nathaniel. In keeping with her current theme, it was … well, it was a penis. With a note attached for a parent-teacher conference. I decided to laugh it off rather than stress it off as I ruffled her hair and tried to keep her from taking off her seat belt.

“But I made it for him,” she whined as she tried to toss the paper into the front seat.

“Mr. Sutherland is driving,” I said as I tried to distract her with the other pieces. “What's this one? Is this a cat?” She ignored me and crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to even look at me. In a surprise move, Nathaniel pulled the car over to the curb, turned around and smiled at Rhea.

“Let me see,” he said and in his voice was genuine interest. She whipped around in less time than it took me to blink and thrust the painting of the massive green and purple phallus at him.

“This is you,” she said as she pointed at the crinkled watercolor. Nathaniel raised his dark eyebrows and then against his better judgment, he let out another nervous snort of laughter.

“True to size, too,” he said as he glanced up at me and I flushed, bright as scarlet. He blinked, too, like he'd just realized what he'd said and cleared his throat. “I apologize,” he grumbled. “That was completely inappropriate. I – ”

“Are you guys getting married?” Rhea asked as she slumped back in her seat with a sigh, completely oblivious to the fact that there was something going on between Nathaniel and I. I could barely hear her over the rush of blood that was pounding in my ears like drums. Lower parts of me clenched and tightened, begging for something. No, not something, Nathaniel. And it was different than the lust I'd felt even a few nights before with Stuart. I didn't just want to sleep with him because I was lonely or because I was turned on. I wanted to sleep with him because I was starting to like him. That was a dangerous word to me, especially with everything that had happened. The men that I'd liked had let me down in the worst ways. I turned my face away and tried to laugh off Rhea's words.

“Mommy's never walking down the aisle again,” I said and I was surprised when she kicked the back of the passenger seat in anger. “What's wrong?” I asked as Nathaniel took the paper and folded it gently in half, tucking it into the dash.