Heller’s Decision (18 page)

“Any better ideas?” He sounded a little
testy.

I thought for a moment. “No, not really.”

He set out on all fours, slipping and
sliding as he went, but at least making some progress. I followed,
not able to stop giggling at the spectacle. But I was much less
successful at staying on all fours, my hands and knees scattering
in all directions like a newborn foal, leaving me flat on my face,
time and time again.

“
Why did I use so much oil?” I moaned to
myself trying again to get to my knees for the fifth time.
“Heller,” I called after him with pathetically weak desperation.
“Help me.”

He stopped, twisted his head and let out a
huge sigh. “Can’t you wiggle over to me?”

“
I’m not some kind of maggot!”

Another sigh. “I didn’t say you were. But
it may be the only mode of transport for you at this
point.”

Grumbling, I wriggled on my stomach across
the floor, using my hands and feet to help propel me. Once I
finally reached him, I grasped his ankles and he continued
crawling, dragging me along behind me – one of the least
distinguished moments of my life, and God knew there had been a few
of them along the way.

“You’re making it very difficult for me,
Matilda,” he grunted with the effort of dragging me along with him,
as well as trying to stay upright. And just as he fell flat on his
face, he reached the shower, one hand gripping the edge, dragging
us both towards it.

With a finger pointing at me to warn me to
stay where I was, he scrabbled inside the cubicle. He turned the
hot water to blasting mode, quickly washing the oil off his feet
before he leaned down to clumsily help me to my mine. Though taking
a shower together, further lovemaking was far from our minds. We
washed ourselves free of the slippery oil and towelled off, left
standing in the cubicle, wondering how we were going to get out of
the bathroom. The gleam of the oil slick glinted over the floor
tiles in the overhead lights.

He leaned down to kiss my forehead. “Never
a dull moment with you around, Matilda,” he scolded gently,
whipping off his towel and throwing it on the floor. He stepped on
it, took mine from my body and also threw it on the floor to
stretch out towards the bathroom door. Using our impromptu towel
‘path’, we made it safely to his walk-in robe.

I flopped down on his bed, dejected. “It
was supposed to be a sensuous experience, not something dangerous,”
I said glumly. “Nothing ever works out properly for me. I’m
hopeless.”

He sat down next to me, put a hand either
side of my head and leaned down until our noses almost met. “You’re
not hopeless. You’re a beautiful, loving person. And it was a very
sensuous massage.”

I stared at him with miserable eyes, not
believing what he said. He was merely humouring me.

“I mean it,” he insisted, holding my eyes
with his.

I felt a little better. “Really?”

“
Yes. And the sex was
definitely sensational.”

A small smile tugged at my lips. “You’re
not just saying that to make me feel better?”

He smiled. “
Absolutely not. I’ll be looking forward to your
next surprise.”

“
Now you’re just teasing me.”

“
But make sure you give me some warning
first, so I can check that my life insurance is
up-to-date.”

“Heller!”

Giggling, I
sat up and tried to wrestle him down to the bed,
but with no effort at all he turned the tables on me and flipped me
on my back. He straddled my legs and tickled my waist mercilessly
until I begged him to stop, agreeing to let him do whatever he
wanted to me if only he would stop. So he stopped, and well . . .
then he did exactly what he wanted to me.

It was a very long night.

The next morning a strange man knocking on
Heller’s bedroom door
woke me. He hesitantly poked his head in the room, his eyes
goggling. I sat up in fright, clutching the sheets to my nakedness,
blinking in the sunlight streaming through one of Heller’s high
windows.
God,
what time was it?

“
Sorry, Miss. We’re here to clean the
ensuite. We’ve been told there was a spillage of oil there
recently.”

“That’s right,” I said faintly. “Can you give
me a minute, please?”

He withdrew his head and closed the
door.
That’s when I
noticed the note from Heller sitting on his pillow:
M, Change of plans.
Barnes will drive you over to the expo this morning. Meet him at
the normal time downstairs. H
.

Rubbing my eyes, I checked the
time.
Shit!
I had
precisely five minutes until Bick left. Throwing on some clothes, I
raced out of Heller’s flat, almost knocking over the two cleaning
men in my haste. I clattered down the stairs to my flat, not
stopping to grab anything to eat, even though I was starving after
the previous night’s exertions. A one-minute shower and haphazard
selection of fresh clothes ate up all five minutes and I took the
stairs two at a time down to the security section.

Expecting to find Bick waiting,
impatiently tapping his toe and checking his watch, and a satisfied
Clive about to order him to leave without me, I found neither.
Clive wasn’t even there and Bick preened in front of the
full-length mirror,
in
no apparent hurry. He twisted to-and-fro to ensure his uniform
looked good from all angles and rearranged his wavy, black
hair.

“
Heard you encountered an oily character
recently, Tilly,” smirked one of the men on my entrance.

Oh brother!
I thought, rolling my eyes upwards towards
heaven.
Here
we go.

“You have to be careful sometimes,” advised
another with a leer. “Some of those characters can be very slick
indeed.”

“Sometimes they’re even known for massaging
the truth,” chipped in another.

“
Yeah, but
they’re usually just expelling a lot of hot air,”
laughed a fourth.

“
Oh, all right, you’ve had your fun.
Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not true,” I lied, a little grumpy with
tiredness and not able to hide my slight limp from the sore muscles
in my butt from falling over so much. I went over to Bick to poke
him in the shoulder. “Come on, princess. You’re beautiful enough
already. Stop loving yourself so much.”

“
What’s not to love?” he smiled, but didn’t
move from in front of the mirror.

“
Come on! We’re going to be late!” And I’ll
concede that maybe I sounded a touch crabby.

“Geez, Tilly. What’s the matter with you this
morning? You must be having your period,” he said, still staring at
himself.

The men all laughed as if that was the
funniest thing they’d heard all year. Their laughter only
encouraged Bick.

“
Anyone else want to go with her today
instead of me?” he grinned along with them. They all backed away,
their hands up in the air in a firm gesture of
no thanks!

“Maybe the matter with me this morning is
that I have to associate with a bunch of knuckle-draggers like you
people!” And with that sweeping statement, I stomped off through
the door and down the stairs to the carpark. I climbed into our
allocated 4WD and slammed the door.

When Bick didn’t appear after a minute, I
leaned on the horn, startling the crap out every man in the
vicinity.

“
Hurry up, Barnes!” I yelled out of the
window as he meandered down the stairs, not caring that I sounded
shrewish.

Some of the men around patted him on the
shoulder in commiseration at being saddled with
such a bitch for the rest of the day,
which only made me angrier. We drove in silence for a while and I
struggled the whole time to cool down. When I felt I’d mastered my
anger, I spoke to him again in a quiet voice.

“
Bick, while I would never want to suppress
your excellent sense of humour, I just thought you should know that
I’m a little grumpy today because I had a late night and I’m tired.
It’s not because I’m having a period. The car accident I had
crushed my ovaries
or
something, which means I no longer have periods. And that’s why I
can’t have any children.”

Instant
mortification rolled from him in almost physical
waves, his face reddening. I momentarily felt sorry for him,
because I knew he wasn’t an unkind man. But if he thought my
periods were a prime topic to joke about, then he was big enough to
hear the truth about them too.

“God, Tilly. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know
that, I swear. If I’d known, I’d never have –”

“
I know, Bick. That’s why I wanted to tell
you, to save the both of us from any future embarrassment about
it.”

“I’m just so sorry. I really am such a
thoughtless clod. I hope you believe me when I say I’d never
intentionally say something so hurtful. Never.”

“
It’s okay, really. Forget about
it.”

He h
esitated to ask, “Are you going to tell Heller?”

“
No!
” I insisted heatedly. “I don’t know why everyone
thinks I tell him everything.”

“I guess it’s natural to think that because
you’re a couple.”

“
I’m not sure we are a couple,” I said
flatly, looking out the window. “When I asked him that, he didn’t
answer me. I’m not really sure I’m anything more to him than a
longer-term fling.”

“
Nobody would ever call you
his fling.”

“
All right, his fuck-buddy then. Whatever
you guys call me
behind
my back.”

He reddened slightly again. “Some of the
guys might call you that, but not most of us.
We just think of you as his woman. The one
person in the whole business who probably knows him the
best.”

I laughed
without joy. “You’re kidding, right? I know
nothing about him. He doesn’t tell me anything about what he’s done
or what he’s doing.”

“
He told you about what happened last night
though, didn’t he?”

“
What do you mean? About what happened
between him and me? Why would he need to tell me that? I was
there
.”

“
No, about wh
at Clive and he did last night.”

“What did they do?”

An uncomfortable expression crossed his face.
“Forget I said anything. I didn’t realise –”

“
Bick! What did they do? Tell
me.”

“Oh geez, I just naturally assumed you
knew.”

I could have screamed in frustration.
“Knew
what
?”

“
I heard – and I don’t
know
anything for sure, it’s just a rumour, you
understand?”

“Yes!”

“I heard they tracked down those two PRON
guys who abducted you yesterday.”

“And?”

“And they taught them a lesson.”

My heart stopped beating for a
second,
double-pumping
the next. “What kind of lesson? The fatal kind?”

“I honestly don’t know, Tilly. That’s what I
heard.”

I had to be satisfied with that. “How could
they track them down? We didn’t even know their names.”

“
I don’t know, but remember Heller employs
a couple of IT specialists in the surveillance section. I guess
they could hack into the
Seductively Sextravagant
database to get the names and then match them to
drivers’ licences to crosscheck the photos. That would give them
names and addresses. Fairly easy when you think about it.” He
hastened to add, “That’s only a guess. I don’t really know. It’s
not something I could do.”

I was about to argue that surely it wasn’t
that easy to obtain access to people’s drivers licences, but then
reminded myself that it was Heller we were talking about. I hadn’t
forgotten the dossier he’d handed me at my interview that contained
all sorts of personal information
about me, including educational records, job
history and . . . details of my driver’s licence.

I slumped back in my
seat
, a lot of horrible
things to think about. Whatever Heller and Clive had done to those
two men, he had come home and had sex with me without sharing one
iota of information about his evening’s activities. He hadn’t even
given me one tiny hint that he’d spent his time doing something
which I’d no doubt had been extremely violent in nature. It didn’t
seem possible to me for a man to be able to do that.

And the worst thing to me was that I’d
massaged out every ache in his muscles from doing whatever he’d
done. O
nce again, my
blood chilled in my veins at the cold-natured detachment of this
mysterious man I loved so much.

And my part in it
.

Chapter 12

Barb had
really pulled out the stops for the last day
of
Seductively Sextravagant
. It was quite an effort for Bick to not openly ogle her
perky, over-endowed body. In fact, he failed miserably at it, his
eyes almost magnetically drawn to her amazing cleavage. Judging
from the ever-lasting grin on his face, he apparently thought this
was the best assignment he’d ever been given.