Heller's Punishment (4 page)

But right then
I didn’t care about gender politics in the workplace – I just
needed a shower.

Mabel took us
down the corridor, past the dino display, to a ‘staff only’ room
where she ushered me towards a bathroom. I stripped off my undies
almost before Elton had closed the door on his big eyes, and jumped
under a streaming jet of hot water to flush all those arachnids
from my body. I rinsed everything three times, including my hair,
sure there were still some stubborn survivors ready to invade my
brain when I was asleep tonight.

Mabel found a
spare towel for me and had kindly shaken my undies free of any
stray spiders. But even then, I inspected them closely before I
donned them and gladly put on my
Heller’s
uniform again,
feeling more professional already.

When I emerged,
Elton was there, Alice peering around him, annoyed by the lack of
attention for her.

“Are you okay,
now?” That was kind of him to care. “Because I don’t want Heller
becoming angry with me for not looking after you.” Yeah, sure he
was kind. Kind of annoying.

“I’m fine,” I
assured. “The baby spiders are washed away.”

Alice giggled.
“Like Incy Wincy Spider.” Nobody laughed with her, especially me.
She retreated behind Elton.

Elton looked
down at me. “Actually Tilly, they’re called spiderlings, not baby
spiders. And I don’t know for sure of course, but I’m deducing that
a spider egg sac hatched inside the costume while you were in it.
They can release hundreds of spiderlings at a time. Possibly
brought on by your body heat and movement. But who will ever really
know?”

I spoke up.
“Not me! And you know what? I really don’t give a flying f–”

One of the
attendants poked his head into the open door. “We need help
managing the crowd. Now!” Elton and I sprang into action. Well, he
did. I was a lot slower and more reluctant, still recovering from
my arachno-trauma.

Under Elton’s
authoritative guidance, people traffic moved with admirable
efficiency and the remainder of the day passed peacefully. And I
didn’t even have to torture myself listening to his monologues,
because I spent the whole time on the bottom floor, directing
traffic up the down escalator. As I did, technicians from the
costume studio gently tried to extract the dino costume from the
other escalator, cursing and threatening the idiot who’d trapped it
there.

I wasn’t about
to admit it had been me.

And finally,
when the costume had been freed and a thankful Mabel was advised
that there was no major damage to it, the museum closed for the
day. Elton and I piled into the black
Heller’s
4WD fleet
vehicle he’d booked out for us that morning. As he drove from the
museum’s carpark, he spared me a worried glance.

“What’s Heller
going to say about this?”

It didn’t take
long to find out.

Chapter 3

We had no
sooner parked the car in the basement of the building that Heller
owned and used as both his business base and his residence (which
I’d dubbed the Warehouse) than my phone rang. I didn’t even need to
check to see who it was.

“Matilda.” His
voice was cool and his accent quite pronounced, which was never a
good sign. It meant that he was angry.

“There were
spiders, Heller!”

“I want you
both in my office now.” And he hung up.

Damn.
I
turned to Elton and brightly gave him the good news. He wasn’t
happy, and I couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t done anything wrong
besides having the misfortune to be teamed on a job with me. We
trudged silently to the second floor.

The outer
office was empty, Daniel and Niq having knocked off for the day. I
wished I was with them. In fact, I wished I was
anywhere
except here, about to be reamed. I stole a peek at Elton’s face. He
looked as if he wished he’d never met me. This was probably his
first reaming ever.
You get used to it after a while
, I lied
to myself.

Elton tapped
deferentially on Heller’s office door. He glanced up briefly and
gestured us in, pointing at the two chairs on the other side of his
desk. We sat.

He kept us
waiting while he finished writing something. I didn’t waste the
time, using it to drink him in. The long fingers on his left hand
moved gracefully as he wrote, the scars on his hands and knuckles
tightly white against his tanned skin. He wore a chunky silver ring
with the
H
logo of
Heller’s
on his wedding ring
finger – I guess because he was married to his business. I knew
what it was like to have those fingers caressing me, arousing me.
Not today though, I suspected.

He finished
writing and gently laid down his gold pen, resting his glacial blue
eyes on us. He didn’t speak.

He was a
beautiful man, breathtaking, a real head-turner. Incredibly tall
and stacked, with spiked blond hair and the kind of cheekbones that
made supermodels weep with envy. His accent, Scandinavian in
origin, was as sexy as hell and his shapely lips were made for
kissing (and other more intimate things).

I was kind of
in love with him, not that I wanted to admit it to anyone, but had
no expectations of a happy ever after. Yeah, I know, someone like
him and a dolt like me? It was laughable. He was well out of my
league.

Besides, he
wasn’t the settling down sort of man. He liked to screw around a
lot and had repeatedly tried to make me one of his many, many
conquests. And while I loved sex as much as the next red-blooded
young woman, so far I’d resisted, although we fooled around a bit.
I didn’t know what would happen if we did sleep together – maybe
nothing, maybe everything. Both outcomes scared me. I’ll admit it –
I’m an emotional coward.

“I’ve just been
on the phone with the director of the museum,” Heller said, his
eyes cold.

Oh dear
.
I took a deep breath and met his eyes. “Everything is my fault,
Heller. Elton was nothing but professional. Please don’t be angry
with him. You ought to be proud of him. He helped me so much and he
represented the business well today.” Elton shot me a grateful
glance. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t, but –”

“You knocked
over small children, Matilda. You scared people. You were
responsible for blocking the escalator for hours so that foot
traffic was disrupted. You caused chaos. A news crew filmed
everything. It will be on TV tonight.” He paused, his eyes drilling
into me. “It was the museum’s opening day of their biggest ever
display. It was important to the director that everything went
smoothly. I assured him that it would. I assured him that my
employees were professional and adept at crowd control. And if I’m
not mistaken, you were sent there to crowd control, not to cavort
about in a costume.”

I lowered my
eyes to my lap, miserable. But at least he wasn’t yelling. Yet.
“I’m sorry. I was trying to be helpful.”

Unexpectedly,
Elton spoke up. “Heller, please excuse me for interrupting without
being invited, but I must stand in comradeship beside Tilly today.
She
was
trying to be helpful to the museum staff and it
certainly wasn’t her fault that the costume was infested with
hatching spiderlings. You didn’t see her – she was covered with
them. I would respectfully suggest that
anyone
would react
badly in those circumstances. You’re being harsh.”

It was my turn
for a grateful glance. Geez, what a great guy he was! It was very
daring for one of the men to talk back to the boss. Elton’s big
blue eyes and my big light brown eyes stared at Heller, not sure
what would happen next. We could both be fired. We could both
suffer his shouting. We could both be ‘taken care of’ by Clive.

Always
unpredictable, Heller laced his fingers together on his desk and
regarded us coolly, his eyes moving from me to Elton and back
again, a suspicious expression on his face. He studied my face
carefully. He’d forbidden me from having anything but platonic
relationships with his men. But surely he didn’t think that Elton
and I had . . .?
Eww!
I liked the guy, but not like
that
.

He turned to
Elton. “You may leave us. Return to the museum tomorrow as
scheduled.”

“But –”

“You may
leave.” And it would be a foolish man who didn’t take that advice
promptly.

So Elton left,
throwing me a remorseful glance over his shoulder.

I assumed that
meant that I was in for a private reaming and braced myself. It
wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t be pretty. I’d probably
cry.

But when Elton
had gone, Heller relaxed against the back of his chair. “Are you
all right, my sweet?”

That took me by
surprise, and I crumpled with relief and emotion. My voice wobbled
when I spoke. “There were spiders everywhere and they were in my
mouth and it was horrible and . . .”

Before I knew
it he moved to me, pulling me up from the chair and enveloping me
in his strong, muscled arms. And, oh boy, it was a nice place to
be. I rested my head against his neck and breathed in his expensive
cologne.

“The director
of the museum was happy about the publicity,” he murmured in my
ear.

I drew back and
looked up at him. “Really?”

He nodded.
“Yes. The display was only due to receive a very brief story on the
local news, but now it’s national news. He’s convinced that
tomorrow will draw in even more crowds. Everyone enjoys watching a
rampaging dinosaur in action. Or so he said.”

I leaned
against him again, my brain working overtime. “Are you taking me
off the assignment?”

“No. You will
finish out the week.”
Hmm, the rest of the week with Elton?
I
was
being punished. “In costume.”

I pulled back
again. “They want me back being Tilly the T Rex?”

“It’s actually
an Allosaurus, my sweet. It has three claws, not two. Everyone
knows that. And yes, nobody but you will do. Apparently you
spacewalk better than any dinosaur in history.”

I laughed.
“Moonwalk, Heller. It’s moonwalk, not spacewalk.”

He shrugged. “I
don’t know these things.”

“I know. You’re
too busy running a business, right?”

“A business
with the most incredibly frustrating staff member ever employed.
Even when she’s being a complete disaster for me, she somehow ends
up doing a great job and pleasing the client. I can’t understand
how that’s even possible.”

I laughed
again. “It’s a gift.”

He shook his
head, looking down at me sadly. “No Matilda, it’s a –”

“Curse?”

He smiled. “Or
a blessing in disguise.”

I smiled
back.

He turned me
around and smacked me gently on the butt. “Off you go. Daniel and
Niq are waiting for you to cook them dinner.” I started protesting,
but he just smiled his sexy half-smile. “And I’m always waiting for
you afterwards, if you’re interested in dessert.”

I scrammed. Of
course I was interested, but . . . oh boy! I wasn’t sure I was
ready
for dessert. I wasn’t sure I’d
ever
be ready
for dessert. Apparently, dessert was beyond amazing. Or so I’d
heard.

Back at my
flat, I found Daniel and Niq sprawling on my lounge.

Daniel was the
same age as me, a nice-looking, vulnerable, sensitive man with soft
chocolate eyes and a soothing voice. He’d been subjected to
horrendous childhood abuse that had left him physically and
emotionally scarred. The most visible, a terrible facial scar, ran
from his left eye down in a semi-circle to his mouth. Awful ragged
scars ran across each of his wrists. There were many more secret
scars as well. He was very self-conscious about his appearance, but
was taking small steps with lots of encouragement from the rest of
us to gain confidence.

Niq was now
fifteen, small and delicate-boned. He was a dedicated Goth, with
jet-black hair, pale blue eyes, multiple piercings in his ears and
nose and rarely seen without his eyeliner, black clothes and
spectacular hair creations. Heller had rescued (kidnapped) him when
he was young from a very neglectful childhood that had culminated
in the violent death of his junkie mother. He was also a
devastatingly honest and trusting boy.

I tried to
spend as much time with the two as possible, and couldn’t now even
begin to imagine my life without either of them in it. I hadn’t
been expecting such an emotional impact when I’d accepted a job
with Heller, but it had ultimately turned out to be a very
rewarding decision for me.

“Guys,” I
complained. “I don’t feel like cooking tonight. I had a horrible
day and . . .” A beautiful smell wafted from my kitchen. I raised
my eyebrows at them in enquiry and followed my nose to the oven
where a chicken casserole was merrily bubbling. “Oh, you wonderful
boys!”

I threw myself
onto the lounge, on top of them, smothering them both with kisses.
They pushed against me, laughing, twisting their heads away from me
and protesting loudly about my pulverising weight. That snipe
earned them both a hair mussing and a tickling, though I was
careful with them. Daniel had been shot in the back not long ago
and was still fragile, though much healed, thank goodness. And it
wouldn’t take much to crush Niq, he was so slight.

When we’d
exhausted our laughter, I plonked down between them, forcing them
to make room for me.

“Don’t sit on
me, Tilly,” groaned Niq, too slow to move.

“Hey, men would
pay good money for me to sit on them,” I said.

“And even more
money for you to get off them,” laughed Daniel. I thumped his arm.
Hard. “Ow!”

“You deserved
that.”

“You deserve
this.” And he kissed me on the cheek.

“Why?”

“For giving us
another great laugh.”