Miss Spelled (18 page)

After lunch, Hunter enters my office. He has the complexion of a waxed piece of fruit and seems to be sweating profusely. He grunts and groans with each footstep as though he is a sole survivor of a Mount Everest expedition that has ended in tragedy.

‘Hunter? Are you okay?’ I ask.

Oh my God! What have I done to him?

‘I…urgh…’ he mumbles.

He staggers over to my desk, grabs onto the side of it and manoeuvres himself into a chair.

‘I don’t…urgh,’ he starts, but is cut off by what appears to be agony. Within seconds, the wall of stench hits me. It’s possible I may pass out.

‘Hunter?’

‘H-h-hosp…I need a hospital,’ he manages to say as he slumps his head forward onto the desk.

Oh my God! How many capsules has he ingested? Is this an overdose? Is he going to die? Have I just killed him? I’m such a horrible person. How could anyone do this?

I launch out of my chair and run around the desk to check his pulse. His skin is cool and clammy, his pulse light and rapid. By the feel of it, my heart is just as fast, but is pounding on my rib cage as panic spreads through me.
What the hell have I done to him?

Thankfully, Ella comes into the office.

‘Hey chickadee, I’ve got these for you…’ She stops in her tracks when she lays eyes on Hunter, slumped in the chair.

‘Eeewww! Jesus! What’s that smell?’ she asks.

‘I think Hunter is sick. Can you call an ambulance, please?’

She reaches for the phone. ‘Hello, yes, I need an ambulance, please,’ she starts before she gags. Quickly, she finishes the call. ‘They’re on their way. I’ll just let security know,’ she says.

In the meanwhile, I find a cloth, run it under cool water and wipe Hunter’s face with it. He is semi-conscious in the chair, groaning and moaning, and clutching his abdomen.

Within 10 minutes the ambulance officers, Mack and Dana, have arrived and I have given them an account of what happened. An account, not necessarily the account. I did mention he is lactose intolerant and may have accidentally ingested some recently, so it may be a cause of his illness.

Hunter is scraped out of the chair, poured onto the stretcher and wheeled out into the lobby as they await the elevator. I scurry alongside, overloaded with guilt, worry and remorse at my actions. Do the ends justify my means in this case? Is trying to win Aiden back worth hurting someone else, even if it is Hunter?

A small audience has gathered, probably enjoying seeing Hunter leave the building under these circumstances. Some may even wish he was in a body bag.

He points to me and wiggles finger to draw me in.

‘Not a word of this to anyone…urgh…got it?’

He looks as though he’s about to give birth, and yet is still attempting to bark orders at me.

‘Are you crazy? Look at you.’ I say.

‘I’m…arrrrrgh…fine. I’ll be back tomorrow…’

‘But Amelia’s in Sydney. She can come down and help out,’ I say.

He reaches out and with a strength that can’t possibly be his given the situation, grasps my wrist in his bear paw hand.

‘No!’ he says.

‘But, look at you, Hunter! You just need to get better. Amelia can pick up where you left off,’ I say.

‘No! This is my show, not…urgh…hers. Don’t touch…arrrrgh…a thing until I get….urghhhh…back. Do you hear me?’

His stare is intense to say the least.

Pain relief is administered and soon the elevator doors ding open. Mack and Dana get ready to move him inside, but are stopped by a booby blonde putting the finishing touches to her lipstick. Geneva.

She tears her gaze away from herself and sees Hunter, lying in contorted pain on the gurney.

‘Hunter!’ she gasps. ‘Oh my God! What’s happened?’

No one answers.

She throws herself at his side, nearly bowling me out of the way in the process. Her taloned fingernails are running through his hair. It’s
The English Patient
meets
Days of our Lives
.

‘What the hell happened? What’s wrong with him? Answer me!’ she yells.

‘Geneva,’ Hunter warbles as the pain relief kicks in. ‘Baby.’

‘Oh, Hunter! Who did this to you?’ she asks, eyeing everyone off, especially me. Hunter shakes his head.

‘Was it the little short fat one? I’ve told you before, don’t shag the underlings,’ she says and then looks me up and down. ‘What were you thinking?’

Short fat one? Underling? Really? I maybe vertically challenged but since when does having hips and a bum constitute fat?

‘Uh, hello? I can hear you,’ I say.

‘I don’t…urrrrrgh.’ He winces again.

‘I’m sorry, Miss, but we have to take him now,’ Mack says. ‘We need to get him to the hospital.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asks again.

‘Abdominal pain, could be a number of things,’ Dana answers, as she pushes the gurney into the elevator. ‘But we need to go now.’

Geneva looks at Hunter, her eyes a little glassy. Either she’s upset at seeing him in pain, or she’s just snorted lunch.

‘I’m coming too,’ she says. ‘Oh baby…’

Hunter still has a grasp on my wrist, so I move into the elevator with them, unwillingly. He drags me down to his face and hisses, ‘You do anything to jeopardise this assignment and I’ll make sure you never work again. I am not missing out giving it to that little twat Aiden because of this.’

‘But you’re sick, Hunter,’ I say.

‘I’ve waited for years and travelled halfway around the world to ruin him, and no one is going to take that away from me. Especially not a half-witted, plebeian slut like you.’

He throws my wrist back at me as though it’s covered in weeping sores. The expression on his face is one of pure disgust. A picture paints a thousand words, a facial expression even more. Never in my life have I ever been made to feel so worthless. The humiliation is crushing.

Geneva gives me a dirty eye as she returns her attention to Hunter.

‘Are you coming too, Lou?’ Mack asks.

Feeling my resolve harden again I answer, ‘No, I’m not,’ and then whisper to myself, ‘I’ve got phone calls to make, things to do and a heart to win back.’

* * *

I work up the courage to again knock on Aiden’s door, which is odd, considering our relationship, but this Aiden is not my Aiden. This is the Aiden he would have been if we’d never met; the one who would have married a socialite instead of a schoolteacher.

His door is closed and this time there are no voices from inside, which gives me renewed confidence. Before it’s possible for me to chicken out, I raise my hand and knock.

‘Come in,’ he says.

Upon entering the room and seeing him at his desk, my heart beats like crazy. His honey-coloured eyes turn to me and it takes all my strength not blurt out everything that’s happened.

‘Yes?’ he asks.

‘Oh, hi, umm…I’m Lou.’

His expression tells me he is trying to place me. Is there some vague memory of me he is recalling? I hold my breath in hope, but his expression doesn’t change.

‘From yoga last night. Mr Wincott’s assistant,’ I say to help him along.

He shakes his head. ‘You were at yoga? Hmmm. How can I help you?’ Nope, nothing. He doesn’t remember me. Majique’s spell certainly is strong.

‘I thought you should know that Mr Wincott has just been taken away by ambulance.’

Aiden perks up and now gives me his full attention.

‘Is he okay?’ he asks.

‘He’ll be fine, it’s nothing serious. Looks like abdominal pain, appendix, gall stones, lactose poisoning, hard to say really.’

‘Lactose poisoning? That’s odd.’

My mind has gone blank. In fact, it’s completely empty.

‘And you are telling me this because?’ he says.

‘Oh! Because if you were to call Amelia, she will come here to take his place. I hear that she has finished her current merger assignment and is returning to London tonight.’

A smile creeps across his face.

‘So, if you were to call her now, on this number, no doubt she’d fly here instead and take over from Hunter,’ I say, handing him her number on a Post-it note.

‘How long will Hunter be out of action?’ Aiden asks.

‘I don’t know. Maybe not too long, so you’d better ring Amelia now.’

He picks up the phone and then puts it back down again.

‘Why are you telling me this? You work for him.’

Because I love you. He wants to ruin you, he’s been waiting for years. He’s shagging your fiancée and wants to destroy the company you work for because he hates you so much
.

But I can’t say any of that. So, what is my answer?

I put a USB on his desk.

‘These are Hunter’s plans for the merger; the names of every person he plans to get rid of, including you and your entire team.’

Aiden’s eyebrows shoot upwards.

‘All of my team?’

His eyes wander around the room as this new information sinks in.

‘I think you would be able to put forward a better merger plan if Amelia was the one heading up the assignment instead of Hunter. No one wants to see so many good people out of a job because of Hunter’s personal vendetta against you.’

He opens his mouth, as if to speak, but holds me in a quizzical gaze instead.

‘You should make that call now,’ I say, and turn to walk out of the office.

‘Wait!’ he says.

I spin around to face him again, hoping he will remember me, but he doesn’t. He smiles at me, a warm, generous smile and says, ‘Thank you, Lou.’

At least one part of my plan has worked. Aiden will now get his chance to put forward a better merger plan, so there has been one victory today.

Tonight is Aiden’s wedding rehearsal dinner. My white shirt and black skirt should have me blending amongst the wait staff without any troubles, so that I can get up close and personal. As if it’s not bad enough having to watch him with the Botoxed one, it will be murder to watch them rehearse the ceremony and then sit down to a fancy dinner together.

The rehearsal is being held in a private room at the Crown Towers, while the actual ceremony and reception is being held on the grounds of Geneva’s obscenely rich grandparent’s estate in Toorak. The chances of being admitted to that are miniscule, so this may be one of my last chances to get in front of Aiden before Sunday’s wedding.

Mel drives the car while the nurse looking after Hunter fills me in on his condition over the phone.

‘He is in a stable condition. The doctors are still running tests to determine the cause of his abdominal pain. Would you like to speak to him? I’ll put you through to his room,’ she says.

Before I can back out of it and hang up, like any good scaredy-cat with a guilt complex, the phone is answered by a female voice.

‘Hello,’ she says.

It sounds like Geneva. She left the office to chase his ambulance, so it makes sense that she’s still there. But her rehearsal dinner is meant to start in just under an hour, so she’s cutting it fine in regards to making it.

‘Oh, hello. This is Lou, Hunter’s assistant. I was just wondering how he’s feeling?’

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she drones. ‘Hang on.’

There are muffled voices and eventually Hunter answers.

‘Lou? You haven’t rung Amelia have you? No one knows about this, do they?’

Well, hello, Lou. Thanks so much for ringing to check on me, it’s really thoughtful of you, especially considering how much of an arsehole I’ve been
.

‘No, I haven’t told anyone,’ I lie.

He is a total arse, but he’s also lying in a hospital bed in pain, because of me, so my guilt is warranted, and it would be an appropriate time to forgive him for his less than attractive traits.

‘Good. No one knows about this, got it?’

‘But what if you’re out of action for weeks?’

He snorts and I can feel him looking down on me with that condescending expression that suits him so well.

‘Alright, well, if you need anything — ’ I offer.

‘Bring me my laptop, phone and charger. Now. I’ll work here.’

‘Now? But I’m…’

‘What? Going to the corner pub to drown your miserable sorrows and then go home with some stranger to try and make yourself feel better about being you?’

Arse
.

‘Bring in my belongings first. Then you can go and get yourself drunk on cheap wine,’ he says and hangs up.

My guilt has now evaporated and in its place is indifference to the discomfort currently plaguing him.

‘Detour,’ I say to Mel. ‘The rat bastard wants his stuff. He’s too important to get sick and take it easy like the rest of us.’

Luckily we haven’t gone past the bank yet, so it’s on our way. Quickly, I run inside using my ID card and extract Hunter’s belongings. A trip to the hospital four blocks away only takes an extra 15 minutes, so we should be arriving on time for this rehearsal dinner.

‘What took you so long?’ Hunter asks as soon as I enter the room.

He’s got more wires attached to him than a lab rat and could be sending secret signals to the enemy by Morse code with all the beeping the machines are making.

‘I went as fast as possible,’ I say, still huffing from the light jog from the car. There’s no Mudder in me tonight. Hunter doesn’t deserve it. He takes the stuff out of my hands, powers up his laptop, checks his phone and tuts loudly.
No, really. It was a pleasure. I had nothing better to do tonight anyway
.

There’s no way he’s going to pick up on the look on my face. If there was any anticipation of a thank you, it left the building before my entrance.

‘Hunter, why are you so hell-bent on finishing this yourself? Look how sick you are,’ I say, pointing to all the monitors he’s hooked up to.

‘Because this is an opportunity I’ve been waiting for, for a very long time.’

‘You hate Aiden that much, do you? I don’t get it. He seems like a really nice guy.’

Hunter snorts. ‘Nice guy? He’s a do-gooder. He made me look bad at boarding school, just by being his sweet little self.’

He picks up his phone, presses a few buttons and talks, ‘Amelia, it’s Hunter…Yes, thanks, I’m fine…No, no need to come down here…You go back to London and I’ll be there in a week, after I’ve wrapped this merger up… As a matter of interest, how did you know I was ill? Oh…’ He nods, his face becoming red as his blood pressure monitor beeps vigorously. ‘Aiden St. James called you… How thoughtful of him,’ he spits.