Unperfect

by Susie Tate

  “We’ve been through so much with Mimi,” Ann said in her quiet voice. When I made eye contact with her I almost flinched at her haunted expression. “And it’s not the first time we’ve been followed. To learn that another man was pulling the same trick was … upsetting.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I told her, wishing I’d known what I was getting myself into when I set up the account with Sam. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I just really needed to …” I sighed and looked up to the ceiling for a moment, searching for the right words. I didn’t want to come across as just another controlling arsehole. “I care about your daughter. When she came to work for me she was …” I broke off again and glanced at their drawn, worried faces. The last thing I wanted to do was upset them more, but they needed to hear the truth. “Listen, I’m sorry to tell you this, but she was in a right state. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was still recovering from some pretty severe injuries.”

  Ann’s hand closed over her husband’s, and Marnie’s eyes filled with tears.

  “She was underweight, had dyed her hair nearly black. To be honest she looked like a teenager and …” I swallowed and one of my hands went up to the back of my neck, “I made some stupid assumptions because she … well let’s just say I was wrong. I don’t want to upset you more than you already have been, but she was sleeping rough for a while. We didn’t realise until she came down with pneumonia and had to go into hospital.” Marnie was openly crying now. Ann was gripping Sid’s hand so tightly that he knuckles were white. “After that, Mia and I, we … we became closer and I–”

  “Dad looked after her,” Teddy cut in, obviously still smarting from the perceived insult to me. “She was really sick and he looked after her. Even when I was behaving like a spoilt brat and didn’t want anyone else staying with us because I’m selfish.”

  “Okay, Teddy,” I said gently. “You can stand down, big man.” I patted him on the shoulder to soften my words. He gave a huff but sat back into his chair. “She stayed with me for a short while but then moved in with Yaz.”

  Yaz cut in. “Over the last few months she’s been getting better. She’s put on weight. She smiles now.”

  I heard a small noise from Ann and noticed a tear was now rolling down her cheek. “She used to smile all the time as a child. I haven’t seen a real smile on her face in over eight years.”

  Yaz reached across the table at put her hand over Ann’s free one. “She’s having counselling as well. Honestly, she’s not all the way there yet, but things are getting better.”

  “Why didn’t she come to us?” asked Sid in a choked voice. “We would have looked after her. She didn’t have to sleep on the streets.” His voice broke at the end as if even the idea of Mia homeless caused him physical pain.

  “Look, I don’t know everything, but I do know that she felt she couldn’t go to you,” I told him in a low voice. “Banks would have found her. And for some reason she doesn’t think she can go to the police either. But I know she cares about you, misses you.”

  “But why couldn’t she go to the police?” asked Sid. “If he hurt her badly then … I know they haven’t helped in the past and I know he’s a powerful man, but why didn’t she go this time?’

  “There’s something she won’t tell me,” I said. “Some reason she didn’t think she could go to the police. It stopped her going after she was attacked. She left the emergency department without being formally discharge. Gave a false name. She won’t tell me why.” I let out a frustrated breath. “She wouldn’t tell me specifics of her background and identity either and I just …” I rubbed both my hands down my face, wanting to explain myself without coming across as too full on. “I wanted to make sure she was safe. That’s all. That’s why I sent the investigator. I promise I wasn’t trying to control her. Not like that. But I’m not sorry I did it. Not now, after I haven’t seen or heard from her for two days. I’d be completely at square one if I hadn’t acted earlier and gone behind her back.”

  “Y-you mean she’s not here?” Marnie said, looking confused. “I thought she was living down here in this area now?’

  “She’s still living with me,” Yaz said. “But she left the day before yesterday. She said … she said she was going to reconnect with her family.”

  “It’s not like her to just go off and not give us any notice at work,” I put in. “She’s never taken any time off. Even when she had pneumonia we only managed to keep her away for a couple of weeks. You should know she’s transformed the IT system at my company. We’d be sunk without her.”

  “And I’d be failing my computer studies A level without her,” Teddy muttered.

  “She always was a computer whizz,” Ann said through a watery smile. “Part of the reason he wanted to control her. She made him millions, that ungrateful bastard.”

  “How did he she make him millions?” Yaz asked.

  “She developed new programmes for that online estate agency of his. Coded everything. Made it efficient. Made it the most innovative one on the market. Of course he claimed all the credit. She was always just in the background.”

  “He won’t have wanted to give that up, will he?” Yaz said into the silence that followed. “I mean, he doesn’t sound like the kind of man to just let her go.”

  “And if she’s not with you, then where is she?” I asked.

  “He’s got to her,” Marnie whispered. “It happened before. She came to stay with me two years ago. I was angry with her because she’d been ghosting me whilst going off to all these fancy parties in London, but I’d known as soon as she arrived on my doorstep that something was wrong. She told me she couldn’t stay with Nate anymore. That she’d made a mistake. I heard her crying in my spare room for hours every night. Then, a week into her stay she was gone. Just packed up and left one day without even leaving a note. When I went to their huge house in Putney – I fucking hate that place – I had to argue my way through their security system. Massive gates, state-of-the-art alarm system, security guards on the street. Eventually I managed to see her. She barely look at me. Told me to go away and that everything was fine. Snapped at me, told me I was interfering. That she didn’t need my help. Told me to go back to my ‘small, sad life’ and leave her alone. I’d just had a new baby at the time and we’d been struggling financially with me being off on maternity leave. What she said hurt me. So I left. I just left her there. I didn’t even …” Marnie broke off as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks and she choked out a sob. Yaz moved from her seat to go to her and put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Shit,” I muttered at the table. “So, she’s probably with him.”

  “Well, we just need to go and get her back again,” Teddy said with misplaced teenage bravado.

  Marnie shook her head. “You won’t be able to just waltz into Nate’s house or his company. They’re both like Fort Knox. He’s kept us from her for the last three years and we’re her family.”

  “We’re her family now too,” Teddy said, puffing his chest up with more of that teenage overconfidence.

  “What do you–?” Sid started to say, but I cut him off.

  “You should know – Nathanial Banks is an investor in three of the largest projects my firm has taken on in the last six months. I had no idea who he was to Mia when I made those deals, but I suspect he’s been deliberately targeting our company for a while. He’s not someone I should make an enemy out of. But sir, I’m in love with your daughter.” All eyes swung to me. Mia’s family wore shocked expressions. Yaz and Teddy looked unsurprised by this information. “No billionaire psychopath is going to keep her from me, and nobody is going to hurt her. Not any more.” I pushed back from the table, pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialled the last number in recent calls.

  “Clifton,” Sam’s voice sounded in my ear.

  Chapter 34

  I keep what’s mine

  Max

  “No, I don’t have an appointment,” I said through gritted teeth to the lady at receptio
n. If I was honest, I could understand her hesitation – I hadn’t shaved in a day or so and I was in jeans and a ribbed thermal (quite the opposite of the slick business attire of everyone else in Nate’s building). But I wasn’t giving up. Not until I saw him. “But I’m the main architect on a number of projects this company is funding. I’ve been here before. It’s urgent I see him today.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I … sir! You can’t just go through there. He’s in a meeting. Sir!”

  I strode past the reception desk. I’d been waiting for two fucking days and I couldn’t just stand around in some swanky office with only a couple of doors separating me from that dickhead. After making my way through a glass door then down a corridor I pushed open a set of double doors into the large room. A bunch of suits were sitting around the long table. The bald chap who’d been midsentence as I pushed open the door broke off when I slammed into the room and rounded the table in a few long strides.

  “Mr Hardcastle,” Nathanial Banks’ smooth, unaffected voice said into the silence. “Always a pleasure, but we are in the middle of a fairly–” I slammed my hand down on the table in front of him and even his next-level urban sophistication slipped enough for him to flinch.

  “Where is she?” I growled.

  He pushed away from the table and stood up with the chair between us. Not so brave with someone more his size it seemed.

  “I don’t know what you’re –”

  ‘Your wife,” I said, pushing the chair out of the way with a flick of my wrist. There was another crack in Banks’ smooth exterior when he flinched again as it shot back on its wheels and slammed against the wall. “Where is Mia?”

  Banks took a step back and let out a small laugh.

  “Now, see here, young man,” one of the old duffers Nate had been talking to stood up and scowled across at me. “We’re in an important meeting. I don’t think this behaviour has any place among civilised–”

  “It’s okay, Jeff,” Banks said, giving the man a smooth, unruffled smile then turning back to me. “Amelia, my wife, is at home and she’s perfectly fine. Now if I could ask you to –”

  “Was she perfectly fine when you beat her so badly that she broke several of her ribs?” I asked, eliciting a few sharp intakes of air from around table. Jeff’s annoyed expression morphed to shock and he sat back down heavily into his chair. “Or when you yanked her around so hard that you dislocated her shoulder?” Banks’ face flushed red with anger and his hands curled into fists at his side.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” he said, his unruffled manner sounding forced now. “This is, of course, all a misunderstanding, but for the moment I think it best we end the meeting there. Molly at reception will be happy reschedule.” There was some shuffling of papers and stowing of laptops before everyone filed out through the double doors. Low murmurs were exchanged and some frowning looks directed at Banks, but they left without confronting either of us – a mark of Banks’ power and a reminder of how impossible Mia’s situation had been.

  “Tell me where she is and I won’t smash your annoying face in – at least not today.”

  Banks’ colour had receded and his expression was back to the carefully blank one from earlier. A subtle twitch in his left eyelid was the only evidence that he was at all affected. He cleared his throat.

  “Why don’t you take a seat?” he said. Moving to the opposite side of the table from me to sit down, and then gesturing for me to do the same. I squeezed the back of the chair in front of me until my knuckles turned white as I stared at him.

  “I don’t want to take a fucking seat,” I said, my voice still coming out with an undercurrent of growl. “I want to see Mia.”

  Banks leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on the conference table and linking his hands together as if we were engaged in some sort of goddamn business negotiation.

  “You can bark orders as much as you like, Mr Hardcastle,” he told me smoothly. “But it if anyone has the advantage here, it’s me. I hold the fate of your company in the palm of my hand. For you to come storming into my place of business like a bull in china shop is the height of stupidity. I can’t think that you would–”

  “You didn’t think I would challenge it, did you?” I asked, my eyebrows going up in shock. “You didn’t think that I’d come after her, not when I found out who she was married to. You thought I’d just let her go.”

  Banks stared at me, his expression stayed the same but there was a subtle flare behind his eyes that told me I’d hit the nail on the head. There was no way he thought I confront him like this.

  “I’ll admit you have … surprised me. Not many people surprise me, Mr Hardcastle.”

  I snorted. “You mean most of the people you know are amoral wankers like you.”

  He shrugged. “In my experience it is unusual for a man to risk his business, for any reason.”

  “All I want is Mia. My business will survive losing your poxy contracts. With the amount of corners you want to cut, I doubt I’d want my name put to them anyway.”

  He shrugged, but a small smile played across his mouth. “You can bluff all you like, Max, but if you could afford to walk away, you would have done it by now. I know exactly how close to the edge most architecture firms are financially. Even you, with your Dream Homes reruns bolstering business every few months, your awards and your Royal endorsements. Even you feel the pinch. Losing my business would be catastrophic for you.”

  “I don’t care about–”

  “And, let me ask you this: do you really know the woman you’re risking it all for? Do you know what poor, defenceless Mia is capable of?”

  “Whatever you–”

  “Would you like me to show you?” A horrible smile spread across his face as he unbuttoned his suit jacket and lifted his shirt, revealing long scar, which traversed from his chest down to his stomach. With another short wound next to it.

  Suddenly all of Mia’s worries made sense. You don’t know what I’ve done, she’d whispered.

  “She left me for dead,” he said through a smile. “Did you know she was capable of that? Of leaving a man to bleed to death?”

  I looked up from his scars and narrowed my eyes at him. “I know the results of what you did that day. She still can’t use her right arm properly. You beat her to a bloody pulp. You’re twice her size. If I had been her, I wouldn’t have stopped stabbing you until I could see the life leave your eyes for myself. If you think this will stop her pressing charges you’re wrong. Once the police see all the evidence you’ll be completely fucked. Do you think a jury is going to convict a woman for giving you a little scrape on your side –”

  “It’s hardly ‘a little scrape’,” he spluttered, his composure slipping. “That bitch stabbed me. Twice!”

  “You nearly killed her!” I said, my voice rising. Banks flicked a wary glance towards the door.

  “Can you please keep your voice –”

  “Anybody looking between you and Mia, with the knowledge that you beat her badly enough to break three ribs and fracture-dislocate her shoulder, is not going hesitate to convict you. No matter what she did in self defence.”

  The corner of his left eye twitched again, before he pushed back from the table and stood up.

  “Whether or not a jury would convict me is a non-issue,” he said, his hand pushing up his shirtsleeve so he could check his expensive watch. “I won’t be going to court as Amelia won’t be going to the police. And if you’ve got any sense you’ll lose interest in the situation.” He placed both hands on the table and leaned forward towards me, his eyes locked with mine and lit with a fierce determination. “Forget about her, Max. Don’t throw away everything you’ve built for a woman that doesn’t even want you anymore – for someone who would walk away from you at the slightest provocation. Don’t go down that rabbit hole – believe me, I know how badly it can end.”

  I stood up and opened my mouth to speak, but the door to the conference room opened. Two large security guards
made their way inside, flanked me and looked towards Banks for further instructions.

  “Gentlemen,” Banks said, smooth as silk. “Mr Hardcastle and I have concluded our business for today. If you could show him the way out of the building I would appreciate it.”

  One of the men reached for my arm but I threw him and murderous look and he dropped his hand.

  “This isn’t over,” I snapped across the table at Banks. “You can’t keep her from me forever.”

  “On the contrary, Mr Hardcastle, I’ve found in my life that I can largely do what I want … and I keep what’s mine.”

  Chapter 35

  Did he just throw her?

  Mia

  “My mother’s been ill,” I said by rote, for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’ve been spending some time with her, but she’s getting better now. It’s so nice to be out with Nate again. I’ve felt like a bit of a hermit over the last few months.” The death grip Nate had on my elbow eased somewhat as I repeated the excuse I’d been coached to say again. There would be bruises on my arm by the time the night was over.

  “Oh really?” Adrian asked, his assessing eyes flicking from Nate to me and I stiffened. “That’s odd. I could have sworn I saw you out and about in London a few weeks ago. You had a sort of emo look going on if I remember correctly.”

  Nate let out a forced laugh. “Emo look? Adie, you crazy bastard. With Amelia’s penchant for designer labels I doubt she’d ever go emo on me.”

  The other people in the circle we were standing in were looking between the three of us with curious expressions. Nate’s grip tightened again and I had to work hard not to flinch. I lowered my hands as much as possible so I could start tapping on my wrist to ease my anxiety.