Endless Blue Seas

by Annie Dyer

  “Sorry,” I heard her say and I turned back, my neck twisting like an owl’s and my brain trying to conjure up images of Granny Callaghan without her teeth in. “I was oblivious to anyone else being in here. Sorry if you heard me swear like an Irish navvy.” She massaged her hands and I wasn’t sure whether it was a nervous reaction or they were hurting from the grip she had to use to do the pull ups.

  I shrugged, the images of Granny doing their job. “Not like I never use those words. I’m Jackson Callaghan. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  She stepped forward, beads of sweat glistening on her skin. I was conjuring up several different ways to get her equally as sweaty. “Vanessa Moore. I’m from Cole Henderson. Claire said it was okay to use the gym down here…” She looked a little nervous, although I was pretty sure she knew who I was, even though I looked a lot different half naked than the photos on the website. Shirts and suits went a long way to covering up most of my tattoos and I generally looked more presentable when my hair was not tied up in a shitty man bun and my scruff was tamed instead of looking as if garden birds were nesting there. She was the marketing consultant. I congratulated myself on remembering.

  “It’s absolutely fine while you’re working with us. How’ve you found the first few days?” Vanessa seemed to have managed my grump of a mood even better than the weights. She was close enough now for me to see that she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up, her cheeks red from the exercise and blue eyes bright.

  God forbid she was a morning person.

  “Good. There’s a lot to do to rebrand and get everything ready for your father’s retirement ball but the firm’s got a clear direction and ethos so it’s volume of tasks rather than having to come up with the creative.” She tightened the pony tail and I sensed again that she was nervous of me. I didn’t mind that – at thirty-four I was young to have this sort of role, managing and directing an extremely profitable and noteworthy law firm, so I didn’t need anyone to think I was a soft-touch.

  “How about staff? I hope Kirsty’s been accommodating.”

  Vanessa’s eyes dropped to my chest and I couldn’t resist the urge to very slightly flex my muscles. Her cheeks grew redder and I smirked. Also at thirty-four I was too much of a child to always be professional, especially when a pretty lady was standing in front of me. “It’s different for her. She’s not used to someone else directing. But she’s got a decent skill set and it’s a case of trying to develop her a little more so once we’ve finished you’ve got a good employee.”

  This confirmed some of my concerns. “Look, Vanessa.” I didn’t even bother with the formality of calling her Ms Moore, partly because she could be married, partly because I had enough stuffy clients to be uber-polite to. “Here probably isn’t the best place for this conversation and I probably smell of planes as well as sweat. How about we get showers and I’ll spot us breakfast? We can discuss your ideas and how they align with the brief so far. And probably introduce ourselves.”

  “I can do that,” she gave me a slight nod. “I’ll leave a note for Kirsty to let her know I might be running a few minutes late to meet her.” There was a smile that turned into a grin, with, God forbid, a dimple. “I have a huge appetite, by the way, and I don’t do prissy food.”

  “Noted.” I shot back a smile back. “I don’t do prissy anything. See you in reception in – 30 minutes?” I wondered how much time she needed to shower and dress. I’d had two longish relationships in the past, both ran their natural course and we grew apart - no fault of either party - and both women took forever to get ready.

  “Sure,” she nodded, her eyes drifting down to my chest again and I struggled not to preen. She headed to the female changing rooms and I tried to casually walk away, my mind totally conjuring up images of her naked in the shower with water pouring over those tits and all the ways I could help get her clean.

  And then dirty again.

  I showered quickly, turning the temperature onto Baltic cold to get rid of any lingering hardness in my cock. I needed to focus on work and getting involved with a contractor was not good business practice. Yes, she was beautiful and probably intelligent given she ran her own business but I’d need to find my relief elsewhere. Vanessa Moore was off-limits. So why the fuck was I taking her to breakfast?

  I fucking hated mornings. It wasn’t that I struggled to wake up: I just didn’t like other people first thing, unless they were female and in my bed. Other people irritated me, like little insects creeping over skin; never biting or stinging, just there, itching. Mornings for me were like gaping wounds that really should’ve been covered. Before I’d drank my body weight in coffee or had the early morning company of a good woman, I was a nasty fuckwit of a human. I didn’t believe in having to try to be polite to other people before nine in the morning, unless I was dealing with an especially important client. It was an area my siblings were trying to get me to improve on, along with about fifty other things.

  That was the benefit of working with family: you always knew your areas for improvement.

  It was three weeks since I’d seen any of my family and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever gone longer without one of them pestering me in person. It didn’t mean I hadn’t heard from them: I could’ve been in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean in a dinghy with no Wi-Fi and one of them would’ve found a carrier pigeon with the stamina of a camel to get in touch somehow. I had no chance in New York, not that it was a vacation. I’d landed two hours ago and rather than go home to my apartment like a normal person would, I had headed to the offices instead, hoping that the building, and possibly the law firm that we shared, would be still standing.

  I finished in the showers and headed up to the first floor. “Morning favourite brother,” I heard my sister, Claire, call from her office. I paused, firstly because my intent was to log in to my emails, given that this could take what felt like hours, so it may as well boot up while I was waiting for Vanessa. Secondly, and most importantly, because Claire being here at this time on a Thursday morning meant that something, somewhere, had been well and truly fucked up, or her personal life was on one of its habitual downward spirals.

  “You want to tell me now or after I’ve had coffee?” I hollered, inhaling deeply and wondering which of my wonderful siblings – Max excluded because he’d been perfect since the day he came out of the womb – might need digging out of a deep, shit-filled hole.

  “After coffee is fine,” she said back, her voice tuneful and far too fresh for this time of day. That worried me.

  “What time did you get here? Or haven’t you been home?”

  Claire was like me in that way, she had no formal body clock, working completely to her own time, but the fact she was coherent, polite and present before six am was odd.

  “Bad date,” she said and I heard the sounds of keys being hit with gusto. “And a new case I need to speak with you about, but after you’re caffeinated.”

  “Anyone you need me to hit?”

  “No. Not quite. Although he could do with a referral to your tattoo artist. He has a shit tattoo that badly needs correcting.”

  “My tattoo artist is too busy for someone you’re not going to see again.” I opened the door into her office. Her head was down, she was focused, reading and she reminded me of what I could remember of our mother: studious, involved. “You okay, sis? Everything ticked along alright while I was gone?”

  She looked up, smiled, although the ends of her mouth didn’t reach the side of her glasses. “Jacks, you worry too much. Everything is under control. Have more faith. Max has been great.” Maxwell was our big brother, mine by ten months and hers by another twelve. He was a huge beast of a man-bear who was obsessed with law, more so than I had ever been. He was our resident encyclopaedic law-geek who looked more like a heavy weight boxer. With a ridiculous beard.

  “So why are you here at this time in the morning?” I could see she looked tired but there weren’t any lines around her eyes so I was less concerned. Claire h
ad always marched to the beat of a very unique drum that no one else could hear, except whichever minion she knocked the beats into.

  “I had a date, which was let’s say – uninspiring – and coming here and working was less hassle than tubing it home.” Claire looked up from her keyboard and gave me a tired but genuine grin. “It’s fine, Jackson. Tell me about New York. Any wild, romantic encounters?”

  “You need to stay out of my love life,” I said, avoiding eye contact. My sister was the devil when it came to me and Maxwell and our bachelor statuses. She was obsessed by the idea of family and tradition, to the extent where she had become the role of family archivist and exploring, extracting our DNA and sending it off to various companies to find out where we originate from. Agreeing to have our mouths swabbed was by far the less painful option than listening to Claire discussing family trees and heritage and other shit I’d deposited to my mind’s dustbin. “Everything’s fine. How’s the marketing consultant been? I’ve just met her downstairs.” Given that my father was officially leaving the company in a working capacity in a few weeks we wanted a fresh, modern look across the board, one that would appeal to more modern clients as well as the older established ones.

  Claire stretched then poked her glasses further up her nose. “She will be. Vanessa is nothing but a perfectionist. You know she’s already got Dad’s ball pretty much organised.” Dad’s retirement ball was planned for in six weeks’ time.

  I flinched, not wanting a reminder of something I’d been trying to avoid for several months already. “She’d better be a fucking genius, Claire, with the amount her company’s charging.” Vanessa was a contact of Claire’s and, along with her portfolio, Claire’s word had got her the job.

  “She came in on Monday. Kirsty’s face looked like a slapped baboon’s backside by the end of the day.”

  “Hopefully Kirsty will learn a few things so we don’t need to hire a fucking outside company again.” The words sounded harsh even to me, mainly because Vanessa had already frustrated me in one way. “This Vanessa had better know how to be fucking professional.”

  My sister stood up and eyeballed me. “Have you been home yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “Have you had a decent coffee?”

  “No. I came straight here from the airport.”

  “So you’re jetlagged, decaffeinated and highly irritable. There’s no way you’re going anywhere near my marketing lady again any time soon. Can I suggest, Mr Managing Partner Lawyer-Businessman extraordinaire, that you go home now you’ve exercised? Sleep. Jack-off to some porn or motorbike pictures and then meet Vanessa later. When you’re human. And not before.”

  “I don’t jack-off to motorbike pictures,” I mumbled after her, listening to the clip of her heels followed by the click of the door. “And I’m taking her for breakfast.” Which was not the best idea, given that it would involve pretending to be nice to people who were also pretending to be nice, because it was shitting early and no one could possibly be in a genuinely good mood unless they’ve been woken up with better means than an alarm clock.

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  Tarnished Crowns

  January 2020 brings the first of a trilogy that’s set to blow your minds and melt your heart.

  Chandelier is the first of the Tarnished Crowns trilogy. Here’s a wee sneak peak…

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  Prologue

  September

  I am still on my knees when the gun shot ruptures the noise outside.

  It doesn’t occur to me to stand, to move away from Ben, to conceal what sin we’ve just prayed at the altar of. Mainly because Isaac’s hand is still holding my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp as if he’s praising me for what I’ve just done.

  If we were at war, I would’ve taken cover. Proper war, like what we were taught in history lessons, not this continual threat that’s an axe over our heads. But I’m in my hotel room, protected, two men my bomb shelter.

  But this isn’t a bomb.

  There are screams outside. Shouting. The sharp screech of tyres against the asphalt. Nothing unusual for a big city, but this isn’t a usual day and something in the air has changed, switched. Particles have stilled, the city has become a paused movie, waiting for the thunder. Then there’s a knock at my door from the adjoining room next door and my name is being said.

  It isn’t a prayer. It’s agitated, just like it was said when I was a small child and then a teenager, sneaking in from parties where I should never had been. The voice of the man who has been my guardian since I was a tiny child.

  Isaac’s hand leaves my head and Ben yanks up his trousers. He’s in a suit today, trying to blend into this world that I know he hates because he is the desert or the arctic or the seas, not a rally in a northern English city with the royalty he’s never understood.

  “Blair, we need to get you safe.” Franklyn sounds just the same as he did when I was fifteen and we had an intruder. He doesn’t even blink at what was going on in the room.

  Isaac’s hands pull me up off my knees and he guides me out of our bedroom through rooms and suits and corridors, Ben next to me, the three of us and Franklyn who’s still not judging. There are hotel rooms, all empty, all booked out for the few people staying in this large building swept for bombs and bugs, every member of staff screened along with their grandmothers and relations they never knew existed. I’ve been here before as a child with my parents, then for a tour of the university – where I was never going to go – and again as a woman without my parents knowing. Just Franklyn. It’s an old building, historic. It’s seen much more than what I’ve just done, lived more than I ever will. He opens a door to a room I never knew existed, one that is windowless but with the door open, the noise from outside can still be heard, even if it’s just a cacophony of whispers.

  I can feel the roar from outside and it feels red, a commotion that I don’t know the reason for, and then a door closes and the silence becomes overwhelming.

  “What’s happened?”

  Franklyn shakes his head, his glasses balancing on the end of his long nose. He is ageless, never changing. If I believed in such things, I’d imagine he was an eternal creature.

  Isaac is at the door, looking at Ben. He might be trying to communicate something, but even though we’ve just shared an act that is more intimate than most, I know they haven’t developed the art of telepathy yet. I’m not sure if they ever will.

  “I won’t let anything happen to her.” Ben is quiet, his words a muted cold blue. Any closeness that there was minutes ago has evaporated, water in the sun.

  Butterflies on the breeze.

  “I can send…”

  “I’m not a thing.” My voice is calm, steel that will never move. A tone I taught myself when I needed something other than my chime.

  Ben turns me to him, his hands on my hips now. “That was a gun shot.”

  “Could’ve been friendly fire.”

  We all know it wasn’t.

  There’s nothing friendly about today. Or this place. We shouldn’t have come. Should’ve let Lennox come here alone with his entourage and speak his pretty words to people who thinks he’s either a god or a devil.

  I turn to Isaac, seeing his hands in his pockets. I’ve known him three months. Known Ben fifteen years. Known myself even less.

  I don’t know this girl who gets on her knees for one man, while another holds her hair and whispers sweet dirty words to her.

  “Where’s my brother? What was his schedule?”

  There’s no real reason for Isaac to know, except that he knows everything.

  “He gave his speech in the square at one.” It’s Ben who answers. He will have memorized the itinerary.

  But I’m not thinking about how he recalls everything he’s read, can recall details that the average human wouldn’t even
have noticed. I’m thinking about my brother with his enthusiasm and vigour and passion; his desire to somehow unify our country with this one through trade agreements and free movement of people. Desires that others don’t share. Desires that others will kill to extinguish.

  Before I can say my brother’s name there’s a piercing ring and Franklyn moves to the corner of the lightless room with his phone in his hand. We all watch him, the bare bulb making us all appear as strangers.

  Franklyn says nothing, but when he looks up at me I know.

  The bullet fired found a new home.

  My brother is dead.

  My brother is dead and I am now the heir to a tarnished crown.

  Everything has changed.

  About the Author

  Annie lives in the north of England, not too far from the amazing city of Manchester. She is owned by several cats and many hens, narrowly avoiding being a mad cat woman by enslaving a very understanding husband. She’s an avid reader of many genres and if she’s not writing a book, she’s usually reading one!

  Keep up with the Callaghan Greens and be the first to find out about my Severton series by stalking me here:

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  Also by Annie Dyer

  The Callaghan Green Series

  Engagement Rate

  White Knight

  Compromising Agreements

  Between Cases

  Changing Spaces

  Mythical Creatures (November 2019)

  Callaghan Green Novels (Spin offs)

  Heat