Colour Series Box Set (108 page)

“I ordered coffee.” He points to a cup on the small table. As if I would drink anything left unattended with him.

“No thanks.” Frowning, he turns away to answer his phone and I slip on my shoes and leave him, alone in my hotel room.

There is an eerie silence at this hour of the morning, not everything is sleeping but nothing is waking up yet. I stroll through the hotel gardens, missing Jameson who’s staying with Amya and Robin this weekend. Owen claimed that the dog hates him. There is a quiet bench in the corner of the formal gardens where I sit, staring at my phones lock screen where Mathew and Jameson look back at me and I feel lost. I dial his number, it is always the same digital voicemail message that greets me when all I long for is his voice.

“I love you, Not Mathew. When all this chaos is over, I’m going to find you. My reason and season are not over, I fucking love you and that’s a reason.”

I leave the teary angry message and hang up, I’m going to fill his mail box soon if I don’t stop doing this. I’m a fool leaving messages for a man that said he didn’t love me. I spill my tears and hope for a future that I’m certain I cannot have. I scroll through my messages and emails sitting in the predawn light, it all seems so unnecessary now that I know there are other things to life. I wonder if that’s what my mom felt like when she had her little café and a husband she loved. I often ask myself if I was the reason things changed, if my birth was just the preface to her end, maybe it was my fault. She protected us by dying, I know my Dad told me over and over, but the letters she left me made me feel as if it was more. Their love story is so tragic that I think it over shadowed my whole life.

The sun is almost up by the time I get back to my room. I had to stop at reception and get a key because I locked mine inside and I was hoping he was gone and knocking wouldn’t help. I miss my home, coming inland and away from the vineyard and ocean makes me feel trapped. I open the door to the hotel room determined to pack my things and get to the airfield early I will take the company plane home, we flew here on separate planes so I have no issue leaving alone. I can’t do this all at once, I already have the urge to slice him open and watch him bleed out.

Picking up last night’s clothing off the floor, I feel the urge to puke again, the memories of Harmon’s hands touching my body make every cell in me revolt. The creepy feeling he caused as his fingers traced the line down my chest and the disconnected emptiness of his kisses. There’s absolutely nothing behind his actions, not a single feeling, I wonder if I felt like that to them all before Mathew. Was I missing from my body?

There are too many things invading my thoughts and I want to run again.

I’M SITTING IN THE
small private jet looking out of the window at the pretty pilot as she flirts with the co-pilot jealousy ripples down my spine. I accept that I will never be normal, that my life will not be hearts and daisies. That doesn’t stop the desire for those things from gripping onto me and choking my heart.
Not long and I can walk away, I may not find normal but I will find peace. This inner turmoil and pain that has clung to my life has got to end.

A surge of anger comes over me as I see Harmon walking towards the steps of my aircraft. Fucker. He has this look of ‘I win’ all over his morning after unshaved face and I want to slap it right off, because he didn’t win me. I’m sacrificing myself to that fucking devil. Thank the good Lord the flight is less than two hours, I will pretend to sleep or read a book, anything but Harmon sounds appealing this morning.

He sits in the seat directly infront of me facing me with his shit eating grin and smooth business man look, but before he does he leans down and pecks me on the cheek like we are lovers. I snarl at him, because I don’t have actual words, he’s delusional. I will play nice in public and fuck him into believing I’m trying to have a baby but I don’t play house. I close my eyes and feign sleep until I feel the wheels hit the ground in Cape Town.

Love: the delusion that one woman or man differs from another.

~ Henry Louis Mencken

NEVER ONCE DID IT
occur to me to just tell the truth. I was so caught up in deceiving her that I didn’t consider that she might just see the reason behind this plan. Her willingness not only to embrace the idea of us having a child but to create an
us
for all to see is genius. The image of a power couple running this ship could be what we need to pull out of the free fall we are in. I watched her pretending to sleep on the way back, she was all covered up. No sign of the artwork that was displayed the night before, just the same her I’ve seen for the past few months. I have the urge to touch her, brush my knuckles across her cheek, rest my hand on her thigh, or maybe kiss those lips again. There is an indescribable feeling the first time you kiss someone, not an emotion, a physical response. It is never the same after the first time, but with her I want to try and make it the same. A deep need for her to be mine is starting to rear its head, I want her to be my
possession, my asset, just mine.
Then I want her to give it all to me everything that always should have been, everything my brother took from me and gave to her. I want to leave her with nothing just so she needs me.

When we landed, she was cold and distant again. This is the Avery I know. Not like she had been in front of all those important people or when we were in bed, the seductress was now just the bitch again. I don’t like it, she needs to learn that this is a serious business relationship. I let her be until work the following morning when she comes in like a whirlwind barreling through the place, barking orders, yelling at people and threatening staff with death, I have never seen her with such fire in her.

“Harmon, boardroom on the third floor in fifteen minutes,” she yells at me as she passes the door of our office it is only then that I notice almost all of her stuff is missing the desk is devoid of her clutter. Not sure how I’m supposed to respond to her yelling and bossing I just sit at my desk and stare at the empty one, what is she doing?

“Harmon.” She’s standing in the doorway, her cheeks are a little flushed and her eyes are alive with something new. “Harmon.”

“Yes.” Shit. My head is a mess looking at her.

“I have moved to Eiran’s old office and we have a meeting in ten with two of our Middle Eastern suppliers.” She spits the information at me in a hurry and starts to walk away, scrambling for my jacket I rush to follow her.

“Why are you moving office? What’s the meeting about?” I ask chasing her down the corridor to the lift at the back of the building.

“Because I don’t want our new personal relationship to affect how this business needs to be run, and it’s about weapons, the trafficking of humans and some very sought after Burmese rubies. Any other stupid questions before we go in? Do you read your email or play games on that computer all day?” She glares at me with one eyebrow raised and I feel like that kid in boarding school again.

“I liked sharing an office and I didn’t get an email. Also I spend all day balancing finances, fending off numerous legal issues and licking the asses of the entire countries ruling party.” I do work, I may not have my hand in all the dealings like she does but I have other crap on my plate. Namely her up until now.

“Shut up, just sit in here act like we love each other and let me get this done.” She stands so close I can smell her, her eyes bore into mine as she makes clear where the power lies right now.

“Fine, why am I even here then?” She kisses my cheek as a man in a suit and too much aftershave passes us and whispers in my ear.

“Because we are a team remember, the mob family to rule them all. Wake up, Harmon.” She straightens my already straight tie and follows the man into the boardroom, she is wearing pants and long sleeves today. Very corporate and very modest. Her hair is pulled up in a long ponytail that swings to the same rhythm that her heels click along the floor. My eyes stay firmly planted on the way her ass moves as she walks and I stroll behind her and I smile as she flips her middle finger at me behind her back. This is her kingdom and she rules it very well.

THE MEETING DRONES
on for what seems like a lifetime, and even more so since they don’t speak English I had no idea that she speaks other languages. I sit there watching and I wonder how many she speaks? They seem to be arguing now and Avery just sits back and lets them, she doesn’t engage in their hostility, but watches it very carefully. In the end, they all shake hands mine included and the meeting is adjourned, I have no idea what any of it was or why I was in there but I am no better or worse off for it. After the last of our guests is in the lift and the doors close separating them from us she turns to me,

“You did okay. You don’t speak Arabic do you?” I shake my head, no most people from Ireland don’t. “I have other work to do, then we need to have a little discussion you and me.” No fake kisses or close contact she just opens the fire escape door and takes the stairs back up to our floor. I wait for the lift to return and take it downstairs instead. I need a decent cup of coffee and I need to go to the pharmacy. The small coffee shop across the street makes a reasonably good latte and I walk the block down to a small retail centre that has a pharmacy. Sipping the warm coffee, I wander past the shelves full of drugs, shampoos, body lotions, bandages and nutritional supplements until I find what I’m looking for. Pregnancy tests, folic acid and a pre-natal vitamins and an ovulation kit—everything listed on the tips for getting pregnant fast website. The man behind the counter gives me the eyeball as he rings it all up and shoves it in a brown paper bag. With the bag in my hand, I walk back to O’Reilly International head office and get some work done. Mostly I work with legal papers like contracts and such, todays little negotiation while foreign was rather refreshing for me.

My new assistant is in and out with papers and messages, she doesn’t look at me or make a move in my direction. The other female staff members have all flirted a little, she’s just business and nothing else. I grab her hand as she takes my empty coffee cup, she whips it away gives me a death glare and grinds out. “I like girls, Mr O’Reilly.” I’m a little turned on by her statement, maybe she can be a little challenge since Avery isn’t one any longer.

Avery comes into the office a little before four in the afternoon, she has rolled up her shirt sleeves and her hair is now twisted up in a knot.

She doesn’t sit down behind her old desk instead she sits on it, her legs dangling off the edge one crossed over the other at her ankles. I see her smile, I imagine it to be genuine and that she might actually like me beneath the bitch face and control freak. I want her to like me, but no one ever really likes me.

“Here is how this works, Harm.” Her voice is so smooth that the hostility is lost on me. “We appear together when needs be, I’m not your girlfriend. I won’t be shacking up with you, I’m not going to hold your hand and kiss your ass.” She jumps off the desk and stalks towards mine, leaning over and putting her pretty manicured hands in front of me. I swallow the giant lump she caused, thankfully she can’t see the state of my cock right now. “We will fuck during my fertile days to try and make this wonder child your brother so desperately wanted, I’m not going to cuddle you or sleep next to you all night. This is
not
that.” She gestures between us.