Heller's Girlfriend (37 page)

We didn’t speak again until we
lay tangled together afterwards, catching our breath. I snuggled
against him, naked, loving the feel of his muscular arms around me.
We slept. When I woke, the sun peeked through the windows, casting
a weak light over us. I leaned over to Farrell and kissed him
awake, letting my fingers tiptoe down his chest and stomach, not
stopping. He found the energy to turn our twice into thrice and it
was a wonderful way to start the day. I realised with a jolt of
happiness that I hadn’t thought about Will all night.

“I better go,” he said
reluctantly after we dozed sleepily again for ten minutes. “I have
an assignment today. Can I borrow your shower?”

“Of course you can,” I said, and
while he was busy lathering up, I made him a quick breakfast. When
he was ready to leave, having to momentarily don his sweaty gym
clothes again, he grasped my upper arms and pulled me towards him
roughly, pressing his lips onto mine.

“I hope we can do this again one
day, Chalmers.”

“Me too, Hugh. It was
fantastic.” And I meant it.

He left, after I’d first checked
that the coast was clear. I didn’t know what Heller would do if he
caught Farrell sneaking out of my flat in the early morning. And I
wasn’t sure I wanted to find out either.

I hummed as I cleaned up the
breakfast dishes. I felt wonderful – relaxed and really calm for
the first time in months. A rebound pound had never been so good.
The sex was good for me.
He
was good for me.

It must have been noticeable
because when I went to the office later, humming cheerfully again,
both Daniel and Niq commented that I seemed much happier than I had
for a while. I even smiled and joked with them again.

When he arrived in the office,
Heller stopped by my desk and leaned down, his eyes raking over my
face. He’d seen my after-sex face enough times after picking me up
from Will’s place to know when I’d been getting some. I looked back
at him, eyes angelic, hoping that just for once what I’d done
didn’t show on my face.

“Everything all right, my
sweet?”

I nodded, speechless.

He cupped my chin with his hand.
“You seem . . . more content.”

“I suppose I’m finally becoming
used to the idea that Will and I have broken up.” It sounded
convincing to me.

He considered me gravely. “Can I
speak to you for a moment in my office?”

I nodded again, my heart
thumping. I didn’t even know why. I’m an adult. I can sleep with
any man I want to. I don’t need to ask Heller for his permission
first. I stood up and followed him into his office.

“Can I show you something?” he
asked. That took me by surprise. It wasn’t what I’d been
expecting.

“Sure.”

“Could you close the door,
please?”

I closed the door and he
gestured for me to come around to his computer. He tapped on the
keys and an extremely lewd picture appeared on the screen. I shut
my eyes instinctively, blushing immediately.

“Heller!” I protested. “I don’t
want to look at that. Take it down.”

“Matilda, please look,” he
requested. I opened my eyes cautiously and took a closer look at
the screen.

“Oh God, it’s the bunny boiler,
isn’t it?” I remarked wearily.

She was naked except for red,
killer fuck-me high heels, her black hair falling around her pale
shoulders and breasts, her red lipstick stark, her thin slash of
black pubic hair a shock of colour on her white skin. She sat on a
wooden chair, her legs spread wide open, genitals on display. Her
hands rested on her thighs, pushing her boobs together into a
cleavage. He tapped the arrow key and another picture filled the
screen.

This time she was on all fours,
head down, arse to the camera, her hair swept over one shoulder.
Her private parts were very visible, her breasts hanging down. She
looked over her shoulder towards the camera, licking her lips. He
tapped the arrow again and the next photo arrived.

She lay back on a bed, arms
lifted over her head, stretching her breasts out, her knees up and
spread widely. The photo after that was extremely pornographic and
she appeared to be inserting a huge dildo into herself. I turned
away too quickly to take it in properly, protesting loudly for
Heller to remove it from his screen. My cheeks prickled with that
unmistakable heat of a blush.

The next photo had me scratching
my head. It was an unidentifiable, moist, pink blob. I turned my
head one way and then the other, but had no idea of the
subject.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a
close-up.”

“Of what?” His look was
withering. I finally caught on. “
Oh!
Oh. Oh yuck! Take it
off! That’s gross! How did she even take that photo? I don’t think
cameras are meant to go
there
.”

He shut down the photo
program.

“Why did you show me those,
Heller?” I asked angrily. “I don’t want to look at your girlfriend
naked. And I certainly don’t want to look at close-ups of her
bits.”

He rubbed his face and sighed
hugely. “She keeps sending me these photos. Bombarding me with
them. Every day there are new ones.” He hesitated, and looked
unsure if he wanted to continue. “I wanted to ask you if this is
something ordinary women would do.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I
certainly wouldn’t. Not graphic photos like that anyway. But I
could imagine that a woman might get a thrill out of taking erotic
photos of herself for her partner. I mean, we hear about sexting
all the time. But we’re not talking about an ordinary woman, are
we? We’re talking about someone who’s displaying some very
disturbing behaviour.” I didn’t know how to force him to take me
seriously. “I really think you should be careful about seeing her
any more. It appears to me that she’s very obsessive about you. I
know you don’t want to hear it and you dismiss everything I say
about her as jealousy, but I don’t want anything to happen to you,
Heller.”

He didn’t respond, preoccupied
and strumming the desk with his fingers.

“She keeps texting me too. All
day long. Hundreds of texts. And when we’re together she wants me
to do things that are demeaning. Not to me, but to
her
. She
wants me to degrade her.” He rubbed his face again. “God knows I’ve
done just about everything you can do sexually in my life, but even
I
find these things degrading to do to her.”

“Maybe because you started your
fling with wild sex, she thinks that’s what you prefer. And if she
feels that you’re drifting away from her – for example, by sleeping
with other women . . .” I shot him a look. “. . . then she might
feel she has to up the ante on your activities.”

“I wish I’d never met her. This
whole experience is turning less enjoyable every day.”

Leaving him to brood, I returned
to my desk, worried about his involvement with that woman and his
safety.

Chapter 27

I didn’t see Heller much during
the following week. He was busy with Sid overseeing a new
surveillance installation at a soon-to-open office building
downtown.
Heller’s
had won the tender for installing the
security system for the entire building as well as the ongoing
monitoring, a very lucrative deal. So Heller and Sid were giving
the job the personal touch, making sure everything was running
according to plan.

As far as I knew he was still
dating Vanessa, and I decided to try one last thing to persuade him
that she was bad news. When no one was around, I sneaked into his
office and sat at his desk. He’d just left for a meeting and his
computer was still active. Glancing over my shoulder nervously,
terrified of being caught, I downloaded some of the photos of her
onto my memory stick. By the time I reached the safety of my desk
again, I was shaking and had to take a moment to relax before I
could continue working.

On Monday morning I spent the
day in the office clearing up the last of my paperwork. I took a
phone call from Patricia’s lawyer to tell me that her trial would
be coming up in a few weeks and I’d soon receive a summons to
attend as a witness. When I asked how Patricia was faring in jail,
Corella gave me an equivocal answer. Patricia seemed to be coping
well, but who really knew what was going on inside her head.

I didn’t see Heller again until
Tuesday morning when he strolled into the office without stopping
to greet any of us. Daniel and I exchanged a significant glance and
I immediately followed Heller into his office. I stood next to him,
examining his face closely. He’d obviously been in a fight. His
right eye and cheek were bruised, his bottom lip had a cut on it,
and his forehead and chin were grazed. His hands rested on his desk
and I could see fresh bruising and cuts around his knuckles.

I smiled. “What happened to you?
Did you finally break up with Vanessa?”

He shot me an unamused look.
“No, Matilda. I had to sort some men out.” He winced as he moved in
his chair, indicating he had other, less visible, injuries as
well.

“Have you given yourself any
first aid?” I asked, feeling bad that I’d teased him when he was in
pain.

He shook his head pitifully, and
it was amazing how pathetic a hardarse of a man could make himself
look when he wanted something. I fetched the first aid kit,
shrugging my shoulders at Daniel as I did, and administered some
disinfectant on his grazes and cuts and a belated icepack on his
eye.

“Any other injuries you need
Nurse Tilly to help you with?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Nurse
Matilda, hmm? Well, there’s another fantasy about you to add to my
long list.”

“Why were you fighting? Violence
is not the answer, you know.”

“That all depends on what the
question is. Anyway, I like fighting. It’s a very personal way of
dealing with problems,” he said. Without any warning, he pulled me
down onto his lap and kissed me several times, not caring about his
own split lip.

“What’s that for?” I asked with
a smile, slipping an arm around his neck. I realised with a rush of
emotion how much I’d missed spending time with him.

“Because you’re not going to
want to kiss me for a long time when you find out who I was sorting
out,” he said.

I scrambled off his lap and
stared at him, dread coiling around my body. He looked back at me
steadily with his cold blue eyes.

“Oh God, Heller. Not Will? You
haven’t beaten up Will, have you?”

He was unapologetic. “No one
treats you like that and gets away with it without some
punishment.”

“Is he okay?”

My emotions were mixed. Ninety
percent of me was horrified about the violence, but I admit that
ten percent was glad that he’d taught Will a lesson. His physical
pain could never match the emotional pain he’d caused me.

“No, but he’ll live. I didn’t
break anything. I never liked him, you know that better than
anybody, but I trusted him to look after you and care for you
properly. Otherwise I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near him. He
deserved everything I gave him. I wanted to kill him,” he said,
chillingly bland.

“It looks as though he gave you
back as good as he got, judging by your injuries,” I commented in
surprise. I wouldn’t have thought Will had it in him.

Heller laughed in derision.
“
Him
? No! He didn’t cause this. He was as tough as a fluffy
toy. Even
you
would have given me a harder fight than he
did.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he spoke over me. “I told
you I had
men
to sort out. Plural. It was the other one who
made me work for it.”

“Who was that?”

“That one was my business, not
yours.”

In other words, keep my nose out
of his business. Immediately Chris Kirnin from Select Security
sprang to mind and I wondered if he was still sending enforcers to
teach Heller a lesson. Or whether Heller had decided to pay him a
visit. He’d taken some revenge for Niq’s and my car accident, but I
often feared it wasn’t enough for him. He’d been
really
angry about it.

I took the hint and left him
alone. There was a message on my desk when I returned. Farrell was
busy that night and couldn’t make our training session.
He must
be on assignment
, I thought. I had to expect our exercise
routine to be disrupted by work now and then. I was disappointed on
the one hand because I wanted to see him again, but the lazy part
of me was glad I escaped a training session.

It wasn’t long before it was
Thursday and I would see Farrell again, due back in the torture
chamber for another brutal workout with him. I speculated on
whether what we’d done together would make him any softer towards
me during training. Somehow, I doubted it. He’d probably be even
harder on me now. But I wouldn’t mind, knowing that there was a
funny, likeable, caring man hiding underneath that tough exterior.
I liked that.

I arrived at the gym early,
ready to work and not in a foul mood for once, which would make a
nice change for him. He appeared as I was limbering up. Turning to
greet him cheerfully, I stopped in shock as he shuffled his way
over to me, wincing with pain as he moved.

“Oh God, Hugh,” I managed to
whisper, my hand to my mouth as I surveyed the wreck of his face.
He was badly bruised, barely able to see out of one eye and his
bottom lip had been severely cut and since stitched. His nose had
purple bruising across the crown. I could see bruising on his neck
and his knuckles were a mass of healing wounds.

Tears sprang to my eyes without
warning and he grimaced in what I think was meant to be a smile of
reassurance. Gingerly, he rested his hand on my shoulder, but
didn’t come any closer.

“Don’t cry, Chalmers. Please,”
he mumbled through his bruised, swollen lips. “I’m okay, really.
The worst of it has passed and everything’s starting to heal
now.”