Priceless (9 page)

I waved goodbye to him, grateful for his sympathetic help and wishing there was some way for me to repay the kindness he’d shown
me—a hot mess of a stranger with major emotional problems who’d upset his boss and dragged him from his warm bed at midnight.  He probably wouldn’t forget me for a long time.  I knew I’d remember him and his Cosmo Topper smoking jacket.

I pondered the disparities in people as I turned onto the
highway, relief in the knowledge the airport was less than an hour away, and in a few more hours after that, I’d be back home in
my
warm bed with fuzzy socks on my feet.

I felt as if I could sleep for a year ri
ght now.  Just so exhausted.

Visions of
chicken noodle soup with buttered toast danced in my head.  Food would be the first thing I tackled when I got home.  I shivered from the chill invading my body and focused my attentions back on the road.  I could do this.  Every mile was bringing me closer to my goal.

I realized s
ome people, like Mr. Finnegan, were just inherently good.

And others
, like Lord Condemnation? 
Certifiable asshole
fit him like a leather glove.

Yin and yang.

“WHAT
do you mean she’s gone?”

“Some three hours now
, I’d say.”  Finnegan turned his back on me and returned to his task of preparing what looked like a roast of some sort.

“
How in the hell was she
able
to leave?”

“
I obliged her request that I return her to her rented car.  Don’t worry, I made sure she arrived safely to the main road and sent her off with directions for Belfast City Airport.”  He checked his watch absently.  “She’s probably back to London by now, or close to it.”

“
Why did you do that, Finnegan?  I expected to speak with her this morning about the job.”  This was certainly an epic cock-up.  None of it made any sense.  If she came here to find me at home, then why would she leave again so quickly?  I didn’t think my suggestion last night was that far out of bounds, considering her line of work.  The art student part surprised me, true, but maybe scholarly didn’t pay enough to suit her tastes.  She was a woman who wore silk and lace with ease.  Just as she did casual covered in muck.

Once I
’d gotten over my initial shock, and cooled down a bit, I’d realized I wanted to keep Maria, or Miss Hargreave, or whatever her name was, around for a while.  I wanted to have those green eyes sparking up at me and see her breathing heavily as I crowded her body with mine.  I wanted to feel the moment when she decided to submit.

We’d been to that point before, you see, and I was determined to get us there again. 
I’d realized I’d offended her with my comment about making her come, as soon as I’d said it.  She’d smacked me a good one and let me know her limits.  I respected that and fully intended to repair my error.  Some submissives didn’t like things so bluntly put, and I was willing to work out an arrangement that would be completely agreeable to both of us.  Or so I had thought.  I couldn’t deny the more I entertained the idea of her and me having a little something on the side, the more I liked the prospect of getting my artwork catalogued.  It might just become my new favorite pastime. 

But now she’d
just up and left?

This was very displeasing
.  And Finnegan had helped her to leave.

“I can’t b
elieve you helped her to go before I could even have a conversation with her, Finnegan,” I said disgustedly.  “How in the hell will I get her back here to do the work now?”

He turned slowly and regarded me, his light blue eyes narrowing.
“I believe her words to me were, ‘I just have to get away from here and Mr. Everley won’t ever have to see me again.’”

“What?”

“Yes indeed, she was quite desperate to leave the place, and I feared she would have set off on the road by foot if I’d not helped her.  I couldn’t have allowed that in her condition,” he said firmly, his chin lifting at me in challenge.

“Her condition, Finnegan?”  I felt the flicker of unease at my neck.  What
the bloody fuck did he mean by her
condition
?

“She was distraught, in tears, very upset
, and I fear, feverish as well, possibly from being trapped in the wet for so long last night.”

Tears?  Distraught?  Feverish?

“You can’t be serious, man,” I told him, half hoping I’d heard wrong.

He leveled me the same hairy eyeball that had scared me when I was a boy, and let me have it.  “I am deadly serious.  When a woman comes to me for help as Miss Hargreave did
, then I am at her service,
my Lord
.”

Fuckin’ hell.

Finnegan has just used the “my Lord” label on me.  I was on his shit list for certain if he was throwing out the dreaded baronial address.  The man barely tolerated me as it was and now he’d basically told me to fuck off.

A
nd I feared I’d made a grievous error in how I’d handled the mysterious Miss Hargreave.

I texted her
mobile number.

WHY
did you just go off
?
 
I’d still like for you to do my archival work.  Let’s discuss.  –I Everley 

Nothing.

I tried again.
 
Can we talk about it, please?  –I Everley

And then:
 
I’ll fly you back to Belfast and collect you myself.  No surprises this time.  –I Everley

No response.

Then I got Langley on the line.

“I can’t help you, Ivan.  I don’t know what in the h
ell happened up there in Ireland between you two, but she won’t help you now for any amount of payment.  I believe her words were something along the lines of ‘I don’t care if he has a basement of lost Vermeers and Van Goghs in crates next to a pile of hidden Nazi gold.’”

“Did she now? 
I suppose hidden Nazi gold isn’t a total impossibility since my grandmother was Russian.  Maybe she managed to nick some and stash it.  In fact, I’m fairly sure there’s a Vermeer in there somewhere, but how in the fuck would she know? She didn’t even stay long enough to take a look at anything!”  I shook my head in disbelief.  “She spoke to you already?”

“She did.
She called me from the airport and was not her usual confident self, either.  In fact, I’ve never heard Gabrielle so…upset in the four years I’ve known her.  She told me you didn’t want her at your place, that you were very angry when she arrived.”

“Yes, well…”

“Were you angry?  And if so, why on earth—you practically begged me to send somebody out there.”

Yeah, I’d read Gabrielle Hargreave all sorts of wrong.  I don’t think I could have read her any
more
wrong. 
I was so certain though…

“Ivan?” Langley wasn’t going to let go of this.

“Um, yeah.  We’d met before you see, and it was…awkward.  I suppose I could have handled the situation better.  There was a storm and she got lost—all a big misunderstanding.”

Langley snorted at me.  “Understatement of the year.”

“Right, I’ll go and see her and apologize then.  I want her back here to do the work.  Give me Miss Hargreave’s address in London and I’ll fix this.”

“I can’t do that
.  Privacy protection prohibits me from giving out her address.  Surely you realize that would be wholly inappropriate.”

“But, I
definitely want her to do the cataloguing of my art, Langley.”

“I’m sorry, Ivan,
but I can’t help you with her.”

“You mean you won’t.”  Langley would find my contribution to his foundation quite lacking in the coming year, b
ut I’d let him worry about it when he missed my cheque.

“Correct,” he said firmly.

“Why not?”

He sighed in the line.  “Gabrielle told me something quite disturbing, and I find I need to keep some distance
between you and the university, in this situation.  It’s best for all parties involved.” He coughed as if preparing himself to say more, and then he continued. “And, Ivan, your recent troubles with…female friends…is no secret.  You need to sort your sordid shit out—away and separate from my students.”

There it was again.  My private life on display for the world to ogle in disgust.  Hadn’t Miss Hargreave told me I was disgusting right before she cracked me across the face?
  The idea she thought of me that way really bothered me considering what she does.

“What did she tell you
?”

He paused uncomfortably and I could imagine him squirming at his antique desk, probably a lot l
ike mine, as he struggled to lay the uncomfortable truth on me.

“She said you
were firmly under the impression she worked for an escort service.”

But she does.

“Why on earth would you suggest something so—so coarse, to a student you hoped to make a professional working relationship with?”

Her showing up
here took me by surprise and I said the first thoughts that came into my head? And because she
is
an escort moonlighting at a top-of-the-line private service?  Because I want her in
both
of her professional capacities?

“Ivan?”

“Yeah.  I get it, Langley.”

“Good, becaus
e you can’t be terrorizing female students and dragging the university’s reputation down into a scandalous goddamn mess—”

I cut the line and
simply stared out the window at the sweeping green that went on for miles.  So pristinely beautiful.  At times I wished there was someone else to share it all with.  Besides Finnegan and Marjorie, my groundskeeper.

I mentally kicked myself.  What was I thinking?  That fantasy idea was dead.

I’d learned long ago that trying to explain myself was utterly pointless most of the time.  People usually made up their minds in advance.  Didn’t really matter what Langley thought of me, anyway.  I knew the truth about Gabrielle Hargreave and I’d find her again.  There were ways to make that happen, and I had the resources.

The storm had passed through during the night
leaving scattered clouds and mild temperatures behind.  It appeared the day might stay dry, and I was grateful her drive down to Belfast was made safer with no dangerous weather messing up the roads.  At least there was that.

I texted my dad just before the flight attendant called for all ce
llular devices to be switched to airplane mode.
 
The job in Ireland didn’t work out.  Arriving Heathrow @ 11:30 on BA 1423.  Can you pick me up?  Don’t worry.  xo - Gaby

The drive to Belfast
, turning in the rental car, waiting in line to buy a ticket, and then the ordeal of getting my equipment through as checked baggage had pretty much wiped me out.  I touched my forehead with the back of my hand in an attempt to feel if I was hot.  I couldn’t really tell for sure, but maybe I had a fever.  I knew I felt like shit, and that was plenty, fever or not.  If I was indeed getting sick it sure explained a lot about my emotional state of the past sixteen hours.  The crying and weeping was so out of character for me.