Persona (The 'Professional' series) (5 page)

Eric walked
in from the kitchen carrying two nightcaps in crystal glasses.  Ella
smiled at him when she took it, feeling very relaxed.  After she finished,
she told him that she was going to call it a night.  She had a feeling she
might not have a good night sleep with Daniel and his ‘friend’ in the next
bedroom.

She got into
bed.  It was really comfortable, better than the hard mattress that Jeff
preferred. Her train of thoughts reminded her that she had promised to ring
Jeff.  She felt a little guilty, she hadn’t really thought about him until
then. 

She used the
phone that was next to her bed.  Still no answer from the house phone and
Jeff’s mobile was going straight to answer phone.  She left Jeff the
number to ring Daniel’s house.  There was a phone by the bed and she could
not be bothered to get up to find the charger for her mobile.  Contented
Ella picked up her Kindle and was fast asleep in ten minutes.

~~~~

Daniel
slowly opened the front door.  Good, quiet, everyone was in bed.  He
smiled when he noticed that Eric had left a light on for him.  His friend
was so thoughtful.  He wondered how thoughtful Eric had been with Ella
tonight.  What was it with the twist in his gut when he thought of Ella
with someone else?  He had known her, what, a couple of hours?  She
wasn’t even his type for goodness sake!  She was short, dark brown hair,
grey eyes and a curvy figure.  His usual type was tall, blonde, blue eyes
and a slender figure – wasn’t it?   He shook the thoughts out of his
head.  It did not seem to matter, his body definitely had a reaction when
she was around him.  He would have to use his brain to override his
physical reactions instead.  She was with already taken and one thing
Daniel never did, was poach someone else’s property.

A loud
ringing of the phone broke the silence.  Daniel cursed as he caught his
shin on the chair, trying to reach for the phone.  He did not want the
ringing to wake anyone up.  “Hello,” he whispered down the phone.

“Oh,
hello.  This is Jeff Davies.  I am ringing to speak to Ella Hender.”
 

Daniels hand
tightened on the phone, his knuckles becoming white.

“Sorry, I am
afraid it looks like she has already gone to bed.  I will tell her you
called in the morning.  Unless…. you would like me to go into her bedroom
to wake her up?”  The idea made Daniel smile to himself, wicked thoughts
immerging in his brain.

“No, no,
that’s fine.  Leave her sleep.  Tell her I will ring tomorrow. 
Thanks.  Goodnight.”  The phone line went dead. 

Daniel sat
back on the chair as he put the phone down.  He closed his eyes to get his
thoughts straight.  Would he like it if he phoned his partner and didn’t
speak to her?  No, he knew he wouldn’t.  Perhaps she was still
awake?  If she was, she could ring her boyfriend back.  He huffed to
himself, he knew it was the right thing to do.  He had never meddled in a
relationship before.  He wasn’t going to start now.

He silently
pushed the door open a crack to see if there was any light on.  He
mentally made a note to get the carpenter back to shave a little off the bottom
of the door; it was rubbing on the thick pile of the new carpet he had put in
the room.  He had recently had it decorated for when his mum and sisters
came to stay.

All was
quiet, just the light from the open curtains casting shadows in the room. 
As he turned to leave, he noticed that Ella’s Kindle was on her bed. 
Should he leave it and hope she didn’t roll on it, or should he move it for
her?  He pushed his fingers through his thick, black hair and
sighed.  For goodness sake, he was only going to remove the Kindle, not
get into bed with her!  Although, that thought sounded quite appealing!

He quietly
made his way across the room, hoping that she was tidy as he didn’t want to
trip over anything she might had left on the floor.  He didn’t fancy
explaining that he was sneaking into her room to remove her Kindle. 
Although, the devil in him would love to see how she would react to him being
there. 

Daniel
picked up the Kindle and turned to put it onto the side table.  The
movement must have disturbed her as Ella turned onto her side, the covers
falling away from her back.  Daniel groaned.  She wasn’t wearing
anything in bed.  All his blood moved south, he had to get out of there
fast.

Ella woke to
the smell of coffee.  She stretched her arms out above her head.  She
felt so relaxed and comfortable.  She couldn’t believe she had dropped off
to sleep so easily.  It usually took her ages after she finished
reading.  She was usually left listening to Jeff’s quiet snoring. 
Oh, Jeff!  She didn’t speak to him yesterday, she would have to remember
to ring him today.

Both Eric
and Daniel turned to look and say
Good Morning
to Ella when she entered
the kitchen.  However, the accompanying slow look from her head to toes
that Daniel gave her made her shiver.  She self-consciously looked down to
check that her dressing gown was tied tightly shut.

“Sleep
well?  You weren’t too cold I hope?”  Daniel asked politely with a
smug smile, remembering her naked form in her bed last night.  He thought
she looked beautiful this morning, slightly dishevelled, with no makeup and as
Daniel had correctly thought, no clothes on under that dressing gown.  
How many of the women he had been with in the last few years had felt confident
enough in their own beauty to be quite comfortable with no makeup?  Some
even slapped it on before he was awake!  He must stop comparing them, it
wouldn’t do him any good.

Something
warned her, in his tone, that he meant more than the outwardly polite
enquiry.  She suddenly felt self-conscious, she hadn’t even brushed her
hair, and she must look a mess.  She decided to act as though Daniel
wasn’t affecting her.  “Yes, thank you.  Hope you enjoyed your
evening out with your … friend?  You missed a lovely Italian, didn’t he
Eric?”   She looked towards Eric for support and comfort.  She
really did not need Daniel to affect her so much, she had a job to get done.

Daniel
watched Eric through narrowed eyes.  He wanted to see if his friend
enjoyed his meal with Ella
too
much.  Eric’s smile was there, but
his body language was impassive.  Daniel relaxed.  He knew his friend
well enough to know when he was interested in someone.  There wasn’t a
flicker of that type of interest.  Daniel reflected, there wouldn’t be,
not from Eric, as she was already taken. 

What was
wrong with him?  She was affecting him too much for someone he had just
met?  A wicked smile lifted his lips, but he was already going to be
sharing breakfast with her! 

Perhaps he
was getting bored with Cassandra.  He hadn’t even gone out with Cassandra
last night when he was at a loose end.  He had gone across town to a bar
for a meal and a couple of beers.  He had been royally annoyed to find out
Ella had a partner and needed some space to sort his head out.  Logically,
he didn’t fancy her, just not his type.  He always went for the more
‘high-maintance’ women, they interested him for a short time and then he found another
one.   He looked over at Ella, who was reaching to get a mug for her
coffee, her robe pulling tightly across her bottom.  She might not be his
type but the reactions of his body, were telling him something different. 

He had to
let her do her job.  The last thing he needed were complications.  He
could imagine her write up if there was, it would have the bitter twist that
Eric had warned him about. 

The previous
evening, after mulling things over, while having his food and beer, he had
convinced himself that he was settled, she was there to do a job. It was just a
healthy dose of initial lust on his part, nothing to get worked up over. 
He had left the bar late enough that she would be in bed by the time he
returned.   

Daniel
leaned against the counter and thought about the phone call from Jeff.  He
knew in his head that going into her bed room had been the wrong move. 
But something had pulled him in, and that
something
had left him a night
with no sleep!  His previous conviction to leave her alone had disappeared
instantly, when he had seen her naked body, so soft and warm, in one of his
beds. 

“Jeff called
you last night.  He said he would ring sometime today.”  Daniel mentioned,
while turning the heat on under the frying pan, as he didn’t care to gauge her
reaction to the news.

“Ah,
yes.  I phoned him a couple of times yesterday.  We just kept missing
each other.”

Eric looked
up from his newspaper.   “Is Jeff your partner?” 

Daniel
continued to feigned disinterest in the conversation as he placed the bacon in
the pan, but he was actually very interested in her replies.

“Yes, Jeff
Williams.  He is an accountant.”   Daniel smirked to himself,
boring kind then.

“How long have
you been together?  That’s if you don’t mind me asking personal
questions?”  Eric was hoping some of the answers to his careful questions
would put cold water on some of the looks he had seen his friend give their
guest.

“About three
years.” 

Damn, thought
Daniel nearly dropping the spatula, serious then.

 As
though reading his mind Eric enquired, “Serious then?”

Ella became
a little flustered, something that both Eric and Daniel sensed.  Was it
serious?  She didn’t know!  It was serious in the fact that they
shared a living space and bills, but they still maintained their separate bank
accounts.  It was serious that they were exclusive, but did the thought of
only being with him for the rest of her life, excite or fill her with
dread? 

She realised
that Eric was looking at her waiting for an answer.  She looked at the
back of Daniel, he was cracking eggs into the pan now.  She would have to
answer before she looked foolish.   “Who knows what the future
holds?”  She was sure she saw a smirk on the profile of Daniel’s face.

“Ah, who
knows indeed?” replied Eric.  So his friend might be in with a shot after
all.

The first
two weeks trailing Daniel had gone so fast.  Photo shoots, auditions,
autographs and meetings meant Ella had started to get a loose picture of who
Daniel Spittle was. 

She spent
her working hours following Daniel on his many assignments. Sometimes her feet
would be sore from walking and standing for long periods.  The evenings
were usually spent either writing her assignment, or with Eric.  Usually
only Eric as Daniel never seemed to be around at evening times. 

Over the
weeks, Ella thought they had grown more comfortable with each other and had
even enjoyed the teasing of each other when the situation had arisen.  At
first, the slight flirting had made her blush incessantly, but she felt as
though she was controlling situations better. She was thankful that she had
started to also win over her initial gut reaction to Daniel’s beauty.  It
was difficult trying to be professional at times, when every time she looked at
him, her heart skipped a beat.  But she felt as though her professional
mask was firmly in place. 

Ella still
found him one of the most handsome men she had ever met, but on the back of
that, came the knowledge that someone like him would
never
be interested
in someone so ordinary.  She still always got a flip, or butterflies in
her stomach when he entered a room, or when he gave her one of those cheeky
smiles, but it was getting easier for her to absorb the nice feeling she
experienced.  Because she knew he wouldn’t be interested in her, no one,
other than herself, would ever know how she felt.  He could be her little
secret fantasy when she was in bed at night, on her own, missing Jeff’s
company. 

What she
found slightly unforeseen, was how
quickly
Daniel’s mask fell when he
was relaxed.  She had imagined that the stereotypical traits would be more
ingrained into his nature.  If he thought she was observing him, he quite
often hammed up something, such as his arrogance.  It was as though he was
putting up his shield again, his persona firmly back in place. 

But when he
let his guard down and relaxed, Ella had got to know him enough to know that
the majority of it was an act.  He reinforced this, many times, without
thinking - he would carry in the shopping, open a door, make lunch, go out of
his way to give his autograph to someone, give money to the homeless guy when
he thought she wasn’t watching.  Most of his unguarded attributes were of
a genuine caring guy. 

She thought
briefly about how many people were so different in the work place to at home.
She knew she was.  Perhaps she could get her Editor let her do a study in
the future? She mused, how many used a shield to get ahead in their profession
or even, use it as a way of protecting themselves from getting hurt?

The only
‘stereotypical’ aspect that that still held, was that Daniel was a
lady-killer.  Daniel always evaded her questions when it came to his love
life, so Ella had resorted to regularly checking popular magazines, for
now.  It looked like Cassandra was no longer with him.  She had seen
him photographed with at least half a dozen different women, coming out of
restaurants and clubs.   It was times like these that she felt she was
lucky to be with someone as stable as Jeff.