Heller's Revenge (28 page)

Watching him slumber, I realised
how much trust he had in me to let me see him like that. And I
recognised my feelings for him were only growing stronger the more
I knew him, no matter what happened between us or how objectionable
his actions were on occasion. But as usual, I cravenly crushed that
line of thought and forced myself to stop watching him before I
crossed the line into creepy stalker territory. I climbed out of
bed quietly, not disturbing him. I showered, dressed, ate and went
down to the office and turned on my PC. I hadn’t checked my email
since the accident, and my inbox was positively bursting at the
seams. Once I had deleted all the spam, there were only a handful
of genuine emails. One of them was from Kitty.

Dearest Tilly

Clarrie and I were shocked to
hear about your terrible accident and hope that you are making a
good recovery. And our best wishes for your passenger as well.

I’m currently in LA visiting
Clarrie. He invited me over not long after he returned. Said he
couldn’t live without me, which is so sweet. Just like him, don’t
you think?

Would love to catch up with you
when I return soon.

Much love, Kitty and Clarrie
xxxx

Well, blow me! A happy ending
for the little creep. No one deserved it less, in my opinion. I
shot off a quick and insincere answering email, although I was
genuine when I said I’d love to see her again.

Dixie had responded to my
disbelief about her photo of the engineering students:
I’m
afraid it’s true. I did have a nerd orgy. It wasn’t too bad to be
honest. I’ve had another two since I sent you that photo. They
don’t mind the threesome. In fact they seem to prefer it. I suspect
they’ve secretly got a boner for each other. I’m just the meat in
their gay sandwich. I’ll leave you with that appealing mental
image. D xxxxxx

I groaned out loud with
revulsion at the thought.
Dixie, how could you?
I thought,
nauseated.

“Something the matter?” asked
Daniel as he walked in and observed the grimace on my face.

“I need a truckload of brain
bleach delivered immediately!” I joked. Perplexed, he shook his
head and sat at his desk.

There was also an email from
Gayle:
I hate you, Tilly! I know why you gave those photos to
Brian. You’re jealous that I’ve fucked Heller and you haven’t. He
told me that you haven’t. You can suck it up, bitch! He was the
best fuck I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I’m going to make
sure I do it again. Soon.

Good luck with that,
dumbarse
, I thought with scorn. She clearly didn’t realise that
Heller didn’t piss in the same paddock twice, and was obviously
either too stupid to work out that it was Heller who had taken the
photos to give to Brian, not me, or didn’t care that he had
betrayed her. Some women were like that. I’d never warmed to her
catty personality, and briefly played with the idea of forwarding
her email onto Brian. I chose not to though, not wanting to become
further involved in their domestic troubles. I wisely decided that
I’d already done enough damage. But I also decided not to delete
that email – it might come in handy one day. I was learning from
Heller.

When he finally made his
appearance, I followed Heller into his office and sat down facing
him, waiting for him to speak. He leaned back in his chair and made
a steeple with his fingers, a very thoughtful look on his face.

“I just don’t know about this
one, Matilda,” he admitted, swinging on his chair. “I don’t know
whether to take the job and I don’t know whether to send you to do
it even if I do. It’s unbelievably profitable and high profile, but
. . . it’s unusual.” Well, he certainly knew how to capture a
person’s attention, my boss did. I was sitting on the edge of my
chair with anticipation. “Why don’t you come to the preliminary
interview with me tomorrow? Then you can tell me what you think
after we hear what the client says.”

That instinctively should have
made me deeply suspicious from the beginning, because Heller had
never
consulted with me about a client before. But I was
innocently eager and happy to be back at work again, so I agreed
without thinking twice.

True to my word, I moved back
into my flat that afternoon. The first night lying in my bed alone,
I missed Heller intensely. But it didn’t take long before I
rediscovered the joys of living alone, although in reality I was
rarely alone, and it was only during the lonely hours of the night
that I wished I was back in Heller’s bed, his arms tightly around
me.

Our interview with the
prospective client wasn’t until late morning, so I spent the early
morning in the gym and catching up on paperwork. I had a lot of
reading material to wade through after my long absence. When it
came time to leave for our appointment, Heller walked past my desk
and stopped briefly, tapping his fingers twice on my desk to get my
attention. I looked up from my reading, only to abandon it hastily
to follow him down the stairs. We were both dressed in our
Heller’s
uniforms.

On the drive to our meeting, I
tried to pump him for information about the client but he wasn’t
sharing.

He threw me an enigmatic look.
“Tell me what you think after the meeting, Matilda. And be honest,
please.” And at that point, probably a bit too late, doubts about
his motives sprang into my mind. Why did he keep saying that? What
was so unusual about this job? I remained in thoughtful silence for
the rest of our drive.

He pulled into a visitor parking
spot at one of the city’s many hotels. It wasn’t one of the
luxurious top-end hotels like Clarrie had stayed at, but one of the
numerous bland hotels primarily catering to visiting business
people, who were after functional comfort at a reasonable
price.

Our potential client opened the
door to his room himself, greeting us with a friendly smile. Now
you’d think I’d be oblivious to the appearance of other men when I
was in close proximity to my delectable Norse god of a boss, but
this man was very attractive. He was about thirty-years-old and
tall, with a lean, fit body. He had shoulder-length, dark-blond
hair that was loose and slightly unkempt, as if we had just woken
him from a sleep. His eyes were light gray, the colour of a cloudy
sky that promised, but didn’t intend, to deliver any rain. His
mouth was insanely kissable. I had to tear my eyes away from it,
fighting an almost uncontrollable desire to latch onto his lips
like a suckerfish. His skin was very brown in all the bits that I
could see (and I was having a very good look), as if he permanently
lived outdoors. He was barefoot, dressed casually in dark blue
jeans and a white Amnesty International t-shirt, the organisation’s
barbed wire and candle symbol in black. It was love at first sight
for me – well, okay, that’s a little strong – maybe lust at first
sight would be more honest.

As soon as he opened his mouth,
I realised he had an accent similar to Heller’s – Northern European
of some kind, charming and sexy. “Mr Heller. Lovely lady. Welcome,
my friends,” he said in a genial tone, waving us inside.

The room was boringly ordinary
with twin queen-sized beds, one of which was dishevelled, an
ensuite, a single chair pulled up to a table next to the TV, a
single armchair and a small round table pushed against the wall. It
was an anonymous hotel room like millions of others in the world,
and a dull and commonplace setting for the loveliness of
him
. I recognised his face, but was struggling to match a
name to it. I wished Heller had filled me in before we arrived. I
didn’t care to appear ignorant in front of this wonderful man.

The men shook hands and Heller
took control. “Dr Eriksen, this is my employee, Matilda Chalmers.
And Matilda, I’d like to introduce you to Dr Meili Eriksen.”

He pronounced the man’s first
name as May-lee. I shook his hand, which was warm and firm, smiling
up into his lovely eyes as I finally remembered who he was. When
I’d worked for Clarrie, I’d devoured the paper in great detail
every day and had read a lot about Meili Eriksen. He was also
regularly on television, usually in the news.

“Dr Eriksen, what a pleasure,” I
said, trying to inject an equal amount of charm and sincerity into
my voice.

“Call me Meili please, Matilda,”
he said, smiling at me in a way that made me melt like a clock in a
Salvador Dali painting.

“Call me Tilly please, Meili,” I
parroted, coming back with a smile so dazzling it could have
powered Las Vegas for an hour or two.

“Okay, Tilly.”

He smiled again and squeezed my
hand, which he was still holding. I was about to volunteer to have
his children.
Except you can’t,
reminded that nasty negative
part of my brain that constantly likes to point out unpalatable
truths. My smile wavered for only a second when I thought that, I’m
sure, but Meili frowned slightly as if he’d noticed.
An
observant man attuned to a woman’s moods?
I wondered. Hmm, I
was yet to find anything about him so far that wasn’t perfect.

Meili ushered me to the more
comfortable armchair, like the incredibly hot gentleman that he
was. Heller took the other chair, while Meili sat on the unrumpled
bed, smiling amiably at us both.

“Thanks for meeting with me. Can
you believe that no other firm was willing to do so?” He shook his
head, his eyebrows drawing together with bewilderment.

I wanted to jump onto his lap
and soothe his puckered brow. And then while I was there, I would
kiss those luscious lips and run my hands over his chest and then
I’d push him back onto the bed and . . .
Jesus!
I snapped
back into the moment. What the hell was the matter with me? I was
hardly acting professionally and I had a
boyfriend
, for
heaven’s sake! I took a deep breath and composed myself. Heller
shot me a cool glance loaded with some kind of unpleasant emotion
that I couldn’t interpret. I hastily applied myself to the
conversation.

“I realise the reason for that,
Dr Eriksen,” Heller replied coldly, “but what can
we
do for
you?” They exchanged measured looks.

“I don’t want security. You know
that, don’t you, Mr Heller? I don’t want to protect myself. Not
anymore. I’m in danger and I know that. Every day of my life, I’m
in danger. It seems pointless to try to fight it anymore.” His
laugh was joyless. “I simply want someone to bear witness to
whatever happens during my visit to your fair city.”

They looked at each other again.
I had no idea what they were talking about, but they were having a
silent conversation between them that I wasn’t invited to join.
Heller shot out what sounded like a question. The reason I didn’t
know whether it was a question or not was because he was no longer
speaking in English.

Meili considered what Heller had
said, his head on one side. Then he crossed his arms, gave a slight
shrug and replied in the same language. They went back and forth in
that language, Heller belligerent, Meili calm and soothing.

I was pissed off. I happen to
think that it’s pretty rude to talk in another language in front of
a third person. Especially when I started to get the impression
that their conversation was mostly about me. And judging from the
glances they both threw me, I knew I wasn’t far off the mark. Why
were they talking, even arguing, about me?

I didn’t find out quickly.
Heller stood and said in English, “I’ll let you know in an hour or
so.”

Meili nodded graciously and
stood also. Heller was taller, but not by much. The two men eyed
each other off for a brief moment and shook hands again.

“Time to go, Matilda,” Heller
ordered.

I stood obediently, but was
terribly confused. What the hell had just happened in this hotel
room? I’d been there, but I had no idea what they had discussed or
even what the assignment was, which apparently no other firm, not
even Select Security, wanted to touch.
By God, Heller was going
to have to answer some questions on the way home
, I thought
angrily.

“Bye Meili,” I said, shaking his
hand and looking up at him, not sure if I’d ever see him again. He
shot me a sharp glance before turning to Heller, saying something
in that other language. Heller said something very prickly in
response. They could have been talking to each other in Old Viking
for all I knew, the two of them were so incomprehensible.

Heller and I made our departure
and returned to his Mercedes, securing our seatbelts.

“So,” I said, and I drew that
little word out into a whole conversation of its own. He glanced at
me. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or should I refuse to
do anything for you ever again?” There was a healthy dose of heat
in my tone and eyes that showed him that I meant business.

He sighed heavily, pulled over
at the next convenient spot and turned off the engine, twisting in
his seat to face me. “He’s Meili Eriksen, famous eco-warrior or
eco-terrorist, depending on what side of the argument you’re on.
You’ve heard of him, I’m sure.”

I nodded heartily. I was firmly
on the eco-warrior side of the argument. Knowing Heller, he
wouldn’t be on either side, not caring one way or the other.

“He’s in the city for two
reasons. Firstly, he’s here to defend himself in court against a
charge of trespassing and vandalism. Do you remember that he and
his friend defaced the city’s cultural centre a few months ago when
he last visited during the whale migration season? It was a big
story on the news.” I nodded. Of course I remembered. They’d scaled
the cultural centre where Meili had abseiled down one side, writing
‘STOP WHALE SLAUGHTER’ on the building. He’d written the words in
two-metre high text with red paint that had bled down the centre’s
stark whiteness in a pointed message. It had caused a public
commotion, people equally divided in reaction between admiration
and outrage. They’d both been arrested when they climbed down but
were later released on bail, receiving a lot of publicity in the
process. Which was the whole objective of the stunt, I presumed.
“And secondly, he’s giving some lectures while he’s here, sponsored
by one of the city’s universities.”