Unobtainable (29 page)

“Sorry about that,” I apologized. “Got it on the couch too, I’ll have to rent a steam cleaner.”

“Hell, I’ll buy one as long as you keep getting off like that,” Harley chuckled, getting to his feet, offering me his hand.

Harley hugged me to his chest and kissed me sweetly. “Will I keep the ropes?”

“Definitely keep the ropes,” I approved.

His fingers trailed the indented pattern on my chest. “Beautiful.”

“Isn’t that the pattern in our rings?” I looked to see, yes it was. “What does it mean again?”

“Love never ending,” he said. “It’s just a stupid pattern, I like the way it looks that’s all.”

Harley shrugged it off, grabbing his toy box and running up the stairs.

~Harley~

“Dyson,” I hollered up the stairs. “I’m leaving, I’ll see you later.”

I stood waiting, listening to empty silence echoing back at me.

“Dyson!”

It wasn’t like him to ignore me unless he was pissed off and as far as I was aware he would be a happy camper this morning. We both fell into bed completely spent last night and I slept like a baby until nearly four, when my dreams disturbed the best sleep I’d had in months.

It wasn’t the usual nightmare that woke me in a cold sweat. It was
her
laughter as she encouraged Bruno to torture me. Pure evil, a cackle so disturbing it made the bile in my belly rise to my throat, I choked as I leapt from the bed, emptying my gut into the toilet until I was dry heaving and my stomach ached.

Shaking my head, I set my briefcase on the floor and ran up the stairs. I opened Dyson’s door and looked over at him sound asleep.

“Rise and shine princess,” I laughed. “You’re going to be late. Like usual.”

I touched his shoulder, he was hot. He rolled onto his back and moaned, his cheeks were flushed and he refused to open his eyes.

“Go away,” he groaned and coughed.

“Dyson, you sick?” I asked, bending down and placing my hand on his forehead. “You’re sick.”

“Leave me alone,” he rolled onto his side. “Go the fuck away, I want to be late.”

“You can’t come to the office like that,” I said, sitting on the bed, rifling in the bedside drawer. “Here’s some aspirin, take these and stay in bed. I’ll tell EJ not to expect you today.”

“I’ll be in when I’m good and ready,” he growled and coughed again.

“I’ll call later to check on you,” I said, dismissing his insistence.

After making sure he took the aspirin and washed it down with a decent amount of water, I refilled his glass, gave him a peck on his forehead and left for work.

EJ and Clayton were in a meeting with clients and Toby was on a conference call when I got to work. There was no sense interrupting them to tell them Dyson wouldn’t be in, it could keep. I did tell Clair so she could defer his calls, she didn’t seem too concerned either, not with the flu taking most of our staff as victims.

“You received a call from a Mr. Stone, he left his number.” She handed me a yellow sticky note.

“Thanks, I forgot about him.”

I left the door to my office open, I wasn’t in the mood to be locked behind a closed door today. I needed workplace din and visible traffic. The first order of the day was to send Mr. Stone the PI that I had hired, a text to conclude our business and then call the bank.

“Mr. Prescott, please?” I asked politely.

Prescott was my personal broker, he was well aware of the funds adding up over the years and where they came from. Though the money had been sitting in a vault somewhere and I wanted nothing to do with it, Mr. Prescott had advised me to invest the funds, divide the gains from the original investment and use that to reinvest, ultimately building a tidy nest egg for my future without spending any of
her
money. My tidy little nest egg could by now support a small nation. Only Prescott and I knew of its existence.

“Prescott here, how may I help you?”

“Good Morning Mr. P, this is Harley Cooper.”

“How are you Harley, it’s been a while, worried about your investments?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” I wanted to word it properly. “I need to make a substantial withdrawal, actually I need all the original funds from my mother’s money. And I need to do it as soon as possible.”

“That’s an awful lot of money, Harley,” I could sense the apprehension in his voice. “You’re not being blackmailed are you, or in need of ransom money?”

He was laughing. I had to join him in fear that my silence would give me away, exposing my dilemma. I felt dirty and disgusting as I tittered along with him.

“Nothing like that, I assured you.”

“Well, I can have a cheque for you in a few days,” he offered.

“I was hoping to get it in cash,” I told him.

“Cash?” he asked me, flabbergasted. “That’s going to take some doing, are you sure you’re not being blackmailed Harley?”

“The truth is, Mr. Prescott,” I sighed. “I want to give the money back to my mother. I need to break all ties with her, for personal reasons. She’s only in town for a short period of time, that's why the urgency.”

Truth be told, cash was untraceable. Had I given her a cheque my account number and the banks name and address would appear on it in big bold letters. I could only imagine what she could find out about me with that kind of information.

“I understand,” he affirmed. “Let me see what I can do for you and call you back.”

“Thank you Mr. Prescott, I appreciate this.”

The visual that traipsed past my door while I stretched my arms over my head, caused me to dart to my feet.

“What the fuck?” I asked, looking out into the hallway catching the tail end of Dyson as he walked into his office and I followed. “I thought I told you to stay at home, you’re sick.”

“Better now,” he said, as he pulled out his chair and sat without taking off his jacket. “I have a meeting.”

“You could have rescheduled it,” I said. “Someone could have taken it for you if it was that important. You could have asked me, I would have done something.”

“Important? You have no idea how important, I
can’t
miss this meeting,” Dyson looked over at me while he took off his jacket, draping it over the back of his chair. “You want to do something? Get me a coffee.”

“Only because you asked me so fucking nicely,” I chuckled, walking out of the room.

The coffee pot of course was empty, leaving me to make a new pot. While waiting for it to brew I noticed three sharp dressed strangers head down the hall and Dyson greeting them. Dyson embraced the last of them a bit longer than I liked, his eyes resting on mine just as they broke apart, disappearing into his office. The door closed a moment later.

I went to my office with Dyson’s mug in hand and sat behind my desk. I tried to distract myself with paperwork, to no avail. I even played around on Facebook pulling up random names from high school days in my head to search out, and played a half an hour of Candyland before realizing it was the stupidest game on the planet and that the ass that created it was probably making a small fortune off bored suckers like me.

Several hours had advanced when Dyson and his trio finally emerged into the hallway. He gave them each a shoulder hug and manly slap on the back.

“I’ll text you the exact time and place,” I heard him tell the stranger that he had hugged far too long.

“It’s a date,” the stranger called back.

Was the acrimonious feeling in the pit of my stomach jealousy? All I knew was that whatever it was, I didn’t like feeling this way. I had to deal with my feelings for Dyson and sooner rather than later. Last night had been an eye opener for me.

~Dyson~

“Knock, knock,” I joked, my knuckles tapping on the frame of Harley’s office door. “Busy?”

“Not as busy as you,” Harley snipped.

“Huh? Are you ugly because I came into work?” I asked. “I’d be happy to leave again.”

“Sit,” he ordered, and I thought for a moment about walking my ass out of his office all my way to my car parked outside.

Harley was in some sort of a mood, I felt nauseous and my head was splitting as usual, by now I would take any excuse to leave. I took two Tylenol from the bottle in my pocket and washed them back with a sip of Harley’s cold coffee, I sat just as his phone started ringing.

“I need to get this,” he said.

“Will I leave?”

“No, wait,” he told me. “Mr. Prescott, what’s the word?”

I was unfamiliar with that name. Names crossed my desk every day and for some reason I remembered ninety-eight percent of them. Harley was concentrating on what the caller was saying, his eyes met mine as a triumphant smile crossed his face.

“Perfect,” he said. “I can be there Thursday morning…ten is perfect, thank you for going out of your way I really appreciate this…I will now. You have a great day too.”

Harley hung up. “I got the money, I can pick it up Thursday morning, and then we can meet them in the afternoon. That is…if you’re still game?”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Let’s make this official, call her with a time, give me your phone and I’ll block it.”

I handed him his phone after I set it to block the number. Harley looked at me with a questioning gaze as he took the phone and dialed.

“How do you know how to do that?” he asked. “You do as if it’s natural.”

“Later,” I told him, now wasn’t the time.

“Yeah,” Harley’s tone did a complete one-eighty. “Thursday two o’clock, Chances Bar on Main Street…You don’t want the money, fine…I thought so, don’t be late my time is valuable.”

His hand shook as he ended the call and set it on the desk. I picked it up and removed the block, setting it back down.

“Once this is all done I want to disappear for a few days,” Harley told me.

“Where are you going?” I asked, my heart tugged at the thought of Harley disappearing without me.

“
We
are going to a cabin, it’s very private and far enough away that no one can disturb us. We’re going to spend every moment naked, fucking each other until we can’t see straight.” Harley said, deadpan, reaching across the desk and stroking the back of his knuckles across my cheek. “Are you sure you feel okay, you look a little pale to me.”

“I didn’t sleep well, I had a bit of a headache,” I shrugged it off.

This damned flu bug was really starting to piss me off. While everyone else around the office seemed to be back to normal within a week or so, it just wouldn’t let go of me. I needed to stay in bed for a few days, if nothing else.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” Harley put his hand on my forehead, making me laugh.

“Would it make you feel better if I went home?” I asked. “I’ll go straight to bed…and wait for you.” I winked playfully, licking my lips trying to alleviate the situation so Harley would stop playing mother hen.

“I want you to feel better. I don’t want anything stopping us from going away,” Harley was acting strange. “I want it to be a very special weekend.”

“Harley Cooper, you’re up to something,” I narrowed my eyes, giving him a sideways glare.

“Yes I am,” he admitted. “But you will have to wait and see what it is. I promise you it’s going to make you incredibly happy.”

“Do I get a hint?” I asked.

“Fuck no,” he scowled. “My lips are sealed. And if you don’t get home to bed, the deal is off and you can be miserable the rest of your life.”

“Eww…it’s something that will make me happy for that long?” I snickered, as I stood and put on my jacket. “I’ll see you later…and Harley?”

“Yeah?”

“I appreciate you worrying about me but I’m okay, I’m sure it’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

Truth was I felt like a bag of shit. My head was thumping so loud it was interfering with my other senses. I had to strain to hear properly, my fingertips were tingling and the back of my throat felt like it was on fire. My vision was blurred by sparkling orbs and my heart was hammering so hard in my chest that it shook my body with each beat.

Using Harley’s insistence as my excuse, I was happy to accommodate him by going straight home without an argument. If it weren’t for my meeting I would have stayed in bed and not moved the entire day.

Sitting in my car, I started the engine and rested my forehead against the steering wheel, closing my eyes. Maybe I would just stay like this for the day, I was comfortable enough. My phone chirped. I had a text, it was probably Harley making sure I was on my way home. Little did he know I was still in the parking lot outside. I looked at the screen, it was Tag.

Tag: You up for lunch?

Me: Going home.

Tag: Sup?

Me: Not feeling good.

Tag: Still?

Me: Still.

Tag: I’ll come take care of you.

Me: I’m ok.

Tag: Bullshit, numb nuts. I will see you soon.

Like Harley, Tag wasn’t going to take no for an answer, therefore I caved with no interest in arguing, quite frankly I didn’t have the energy. Once I got home I made a few calls to my friends as promised, leaving short to the point massages except for the last one.

“Two at
Chances
Bar, you know where it is?” I asked. “And we’re all clear. You make sure everything goes off as planned. There can’t be any mistakes. One fuck up, we all go down. We all need to be clear on the code word.”