Heller's Girlfriend (12 page)

“Chalmers?” he asked brusquely
in a voice that sounded as though it didn’t get used much.

“Yes, I’m Tilly Chalmers.” As if
he didn’t know who I was – I was the only woman working in the
business.
Everybody
knew me. “Who are you?”

“Farrell. The Boss asked me to
give you some hand-to-hand training. Said you wanted to start
tonight.”

“The ex-SAS guy?”

He nodded. So this was Heller’s
idea of a treat for me. As if some tough training – and I could
tell that this guy was going to push me to the limit – would make
up for a lost night of sex with my boyfriend. Heller was going to
receive a huge piece of my mind tomorrow.

“Give me five to put my gear on.
I’ll meet you at the gym on the floor below. Door’s to the left,” I
said in a hard voice.

He turned and walked away
without another word.
Great!
I thought to myself as I
scrambled to put on a sports bra and my shoes
. An evening of
pain with Mr Personality. Just what I needed!

He waited for me in the third
floor gym. It wasn’t a huge space and I asked him if it was big
enough for his needs.

He nodded.

I told him that my jaw was sore
and asked if we would be doing anything that might injure it
further.

He shook his head.

I gave up talking to him and
concentrated on his instructions, which he barked out at me
constantly throughout the next hour. He was tough on me. He was
obviously bigger than Daniel and smaller than Clive, but was
immensely strong and quick and blocked every move I attempted to
make on him. I was soon sweating up a storm and growing more and
more determined to make some progress.

He yelled at me ferociously when
I kept making the same stupid mistakes, but also gave me some rare
gruff praise when I finally managed to do something right. He was a
good but hard teacher, patiently explaining each new move to me and
taking me through it a dozen, two dozen times, until he thought I
had mastered it at the required level. By the end of the session I
was chuffed to see that he was sweating heavily too and I felt
proud that I had given him a workout as well.

“You’re not as soft as you look,
Chalmers,” he commented curtly.

“Good,” I replied, equally curt.
“I’m happy for people to underestimate me.”

He nodded approval. “I’m
available Tuesday and Thursday nights, six o’clock. Okay with
you?”

I nodded and held out my hand.
He stared at it for a moment before taking it and giving it a
perfunctory shake, one of those men not comfortable with shaking
women’s hands. “Thanks . . . um . . . what’s your first name?”

“Just call me Farrell.”

I rolled my eyes. Not another
one-namer, like Heller. “You must have a first name.” He shook his
head. I smiled at him. “I’ll find out, so you might as well just
tell me.”

He shook his head again. “Next
time wear some baggy clothes, Chalmers. We’ll do some moves for
when people grab you by your clothes.”

“Please call me Tilly. I don’t
like you calling me by my last name. You make me feel like I’m in
the army.” He shook his head again and I sighed in exasperation.
“Okay,
Farrell
. See you next time.”

He took off without another word
and I cleaned up the gym, turned the light out and went to have
another shower and a late dinner. I slept like a log and skipped
the gym in the morning, giving myself a sleep-in, figuring I’d
worked hard enough last night to make up for it. I had a leisurely
breakfast and was just about to walk down to security to cadge a
lift downtown from someone, when there was a knock on my door. This
time I recognised the person knocking and flung the door open,
blocking his entry, my hands on my hips, my eyes sparking.

“That was
not
a treat,
Heller! You lied to me,” I started straight away. “And if you think
that a horrible, sweaty hour with Mr No-First-Name Farrell equals a
night with Will then you are clearly insane and have no idea about
sex and I feel sorry for the poor woman you were with last night!”
I took a much-needed breath.

He leaned on my doorway,
incredibly gorgeous, fulfilled and surprisingly well-rested. “I
don’t believe that Vanessa would agree with that statement,
Matilda,” he drawled, giving me that very sexy half-smile.

“Look, I don’t want to hear the
dirty details of your sordid love life, so just keep what a stud
you are to yourself, all right?”

“Matilda,” he said pityingly,
“there’s no need to be so jealous. You’ve had plenty of chances to
partake of my studliness, so don’t begrudge someone else the
pleasure.”

“God!” I screamed quietly in
frustration. “For the last time, I’m
not
jealous.”

I could see that he didn’t
believe me, but I gave up trying to argue with him about it. He
informed me that he’d actually come with a purpose other than
gloating about his satiated state, and offered me a lift
downtown.

He talked about the sublime
Vanessa the entire way, and by the end of the trip I was sick to
death of hearing about the perfect bitch. He was obviously
completely smitten with her, and when I looked at his animated and
exultant face, I felt a major twinge of pain in my heart. I had
lied to him. Of course I was jealous, bright green to be precise,
and I really needed that sex with Will to take my mind off the
possibility of Heller in love with another woman. I could handle
the idea of him shagging other women as long as he kept moving on,
but the thought of him being serious about someone made my mind
shut down.

Did that mean I was in love with
him? I didn’t know and I didn’t care to examine my feelings too
closely. It was much easier to pretend that it meant nothing to me.
I was such an emotional coward sometimes. So I listened patiently
to some very intimate details of their evening together. I heard
all about what a prodigy she was in bed, how witty, clever and
beautiful she was, how perfect her skin was, how sultry her eyes,
how intense her emotions, and bit my inner cheek in silent pain. He
told me that he was planning to see her again, soon.

I thanked him for the ride and
couldn’t scrabble out of his Mercedes fast enough. I went to
Patricia’s room and found her much happier than she’d been the
whole time I’d worked for her.

Glad someone’s happy
, I
thought sourly and escorted her to Corella’s car.

Once again she drove like a
maniac, sending the car airborne for a few seconds when she
recklessly failed to slow down for a large speed bump. I clung to
Patricia’s seat in terror when we crunched back onto the road. We
arrived at the negotiation room first, yet again.

I was sitting glumly in the
waiting room, staring at the wall when Bick walked in. It was as if
clouds blew away from a rain-soaked sky and the sun came out. I sat
up immediately and favoured him with my most dazzling smile. He
smiled back warmly. I virtually pushed Patricia into the mediation
room, impatient, just so I could talk to Bick. When everyone had
entered the room and we were alone, I warned myself to play it
cool, so I just smiled at him again and remained silent.

“Hey,” he said finally, sick of
waiting for me to speak.

“Hey,” I replied.

“Did you miss me?” he asked with
an impish grin.

“Yes,” I answered honestly. “I
wasn’t very keen on your replacement. We didn’t hit it off.”

“Describe him. I might know
him.”

“Ugly, big, mean, foul-mouthed,
complete misogynist.”

He shrugged in amusement. “Could
be one of hundreds, I’m afraid.”

I laughed. “Where were you?”

“Boss wanted me to fill in on
another job. He hollers, I obey. It’s the way of the world.”

“Tell me about it,” I
agreed.

“Anything exciting happen
yesterday?”

“No, they were disgustingly
civilised.”

“Your bruising is coming along
nicely.” He moved over to sit next to me and boldly ran his fingers
gently over my jaw. I let him. It felt good. “You’ve covered it up
well.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” We
smiled at each other. “I spoke to Heller. He said to send your CV
to him.” I gave him the general email address for the business and
he wrote it down on the back of an ATM receipt.

“Thanks Tilly. That’s really
nice of you. I won’t forget what you’ve done.”

“No problems, Bick.”

“Do you still have a
boyfriend?”

I laughed. “Yes. It’s only been
one day since I saw you.”

“Shame.” He moved back to his
seat, across from me. “Do you have a waiting list?”

“Bick! You are so cheeky!” I
laughed again.

“I just want you to remember
me.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” I thought
about my dream the other night and hoped my face didn’t redden. No
chance of me forgetting him in a hurry.

“We might be workmates one day.
Does Heller allow fraternising?”

“I don’t know. The men probably
hang out together after work. I wouldn’t know. I don’t hang out
with them.”

“No, I mean fraternising between
you and me?”

“Heller would probably kill you
if you tried to, um . . . fraternise with me.”

“Oh, like that between you two,
is it?” he commented, disappointed.

“No! He’s my boss. He’s just
very protective.”

He cheered up again. “Noted for
future reference. Do
not
bring up fraternising with Tilly at
any interview.”

“That’s probably a good plan,” I
laughed.

“Any other tips?”

I shook my head. “Not really.
He’s not an easy person to impress.”

“You must have some tips. You
successfully went through an interview with him.”

“Yeah, but he only hired me out
of pity. I had a truly awful interview. I was kicked in the face
and nearly killed by a cannon ball. I didn’t even want to go
through with it, but Heller forced me to, tortured me through it
and ended up hiring me. I’ve never really been quite sure why
though.”

“For some reason that doesn’t
surprise me. You’re a very unusual person.”

I didn’t know what to say to
that, so I did the best thing and said nothing. We didn’t get to
chat any further because the door to the mediation room was flung
open violently again, but it wasn’t Warburton storming out this
time, it was Corella.

“That is just absolute
bullshit!” she screamed back into the room. “Patricia, you are
going to regret this, believe me! He is
bullshitting
you. He
is taking you for a ride! Grow a brain!” I was horrified to see
that she wasn’t angry, she was very upset, almost on the verge of
tears.

I jumped up. “What’s
happening?”

Warburton came out of the room,
victory etched across his face, his arm firmly clamped around
Patricia’s shoulders. Gerry followed, looking ill. The mediator was
obviously confused and rubbed his head as if he had a major
migraine on the way. Patricia looked dreamy, not connected to this
world at all, an eerie smile on her face.

“My wife and I have decided to
reconcile,” he announced triumphantly. “We’re going to give our
marriage another go. We love each other too much to stay
separated.” And he leaned down to kiss Patricia passionately on the
lips. I was so stunned I was speechless, but felt my stomach
churning unpleasantly.

“Patricia, are you sure about
this?” I asked anxiously, once I’d recovered my voice.

Her face was ethereal. “Yes,
I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.”

“Patricia.” I felt as though I
had to try to connect with her again.

“You heard her, bitch. Back off!
She doesn’t want you hanging around her any more. So piss off now
back to the troll cave you came from,” Warburton said, pushing me
on my chest with his palm.

“Patricia!” I said urgently,
grabbing her arm and ignoring him. “Do you still want me here? Do
you still need me?”

She turned to me and smiled
radiantly. “No, Tilly. I don’t need you any more. Everything is
fine now. I’m no longer afraid of my husband.” She looked up at him
and squeezed his hand, but her smile quavered and didn’t reach her
eyes. She
was
afraid. “I’ve paid Mr Heller for the full week
of course.”

“You’ll get your money, so you
can fuck off now, bitch,” Warburton taunted.

“Shut up, will you? I’m not
talking to you. I’m talking to Patricia,” I snarled at him. He took
a step towards me. I ignored him again. I took Patricia’s hand.

“Patricia, are you really sure
about this? Remember the abuse. Think about how badly he’s behaved
this week. Do you really want to go back to that? He’s an
arsehole,” I pleaded with her, so fearful of her life that I felt
sick. “He’s going to hurt you again. Maybe permanently this
time.”

Corella joined in, reminding her
of his violence and insults during the last few days. She was
oblivious to it all, just kept smiling that creepy radiant
smile.

“We belong together,” she said
faintly, with what I thought was more than a hint of fatalism.
“It’s destiny. I’m too tired to fight it any more. Gary’s promised
to look after me. He rang me last night to remind me about my vows
for better or for worse. We’ve been through the worse. Now it can
only get better.” She wasn’t even convincing herself.

None of what she said made me
feel any less concerned about her immediate future, but in the end
we had no choice but to let her do what she wanted. She was an
adult of apparently sound mind, able to make her own decisions. She
dismissed me and Corella, while Warburton dismissed his lawyer and
Bick, not so quick to promise full payment to either. We watched
them leave the mediation room together, holding hands, but there
was no cheering or happiness from anyone at the reconciliation.

“I have such a bad feeling about
this,” I confessed, and we all agreed that it was not going to end
well.