by JD Nixon
He smiled happily. “Loads of people. I’m making friends, Tilly.”
“That’s wonderful, Danny darling.” If he was happy, I was happy. Although I wondered if a party might be a little ambitious for him.
“I feel . . .” He hesitated.
“Feel what, sweetie?”
“Kind of normal for once.”
I hugged him fiercely, not able to speak. I desperately wanted to assure him that he was normal, regardless. But we both knew that was a lie and I didn’t want to patronise him. Nothing had been ‘normal’ about Daniel’s life so far.
After Daniel left I had another visitor, but one who didn’t bother to wait until I opened the door to his knock before he came in. He stood at the door, his eyes boring into me.
“You’ve been avoiding me for days.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“Is what I did so bad?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You never understand anything.”
He sat next to me on the lounge, his hand gently clasping the back of my neck. “Is it so wrong for people to know that we had sex, my sweet?”
“But we haven’t had sex. We’ve almost had sex. And yes, it’s wrong.”
“Why? I want everyone to know. I’m happy that you finally gave in to me.”
“Of course you want everyone to know. It enhances your reputation as a stud. It doesn’t enhance mine for my work colleagues to know that I slept with the boss. It makes them suspicious of me. Nobody will want to work with me because they think I’ll be running to you telling you everything all the time. Nobody will trust me. Nobody will want to be friends with me.”
“I don’t want the men to be friends with you.”
I sighed in exasperation. “I need to be friends with my workmates. It makes the job more enjoyable.”
“I don’t pay you to enjoy yourself. I pay you to work for me.”
It was hopeless. It was like talking to someone from another planet.
“Anyway,” he said, brushing off the whole topic as if it wasn’t important. “I did come here for a reason, not just to have an argument with you. I’ve had a new assignment come in today, and the client has asked for your services personally.”
I sat up with interest. “Really? Who is it?”
“It’s another live-in job. For a week or so.”
“Who is it?”
“They’re willing to pay through the nose for you. And they live on the harbour so you’ll have a lovely view the whole time.”
“Heller! Who is it?”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Promise me you won’t become angry?”
“Who is it?” I almost shouted at him in frustration.
“Trent Dawson.”
“Oh no! No way! Not him.”
“Starting tomorrow.”
“What? No! He’s a moral hazard.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I saw his wedding tackle!”
“Well, you’re practically engaged then. You might want to start packing.”
“Heller, I don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry, Matilda, but a job’s a job. And it’s a lot of money for me. He’s in court for the week over a story he ran on his show. Media attention in the trial has ramped up over the weekend, which is quite ironic when you think about it. He’s so concerned about it that he’s decided at the last minute that he’ll need some security. Apparently you sprang into his mind immediately. You must have made a big impression on him.” He regarded me with neutral steadiness. “Please be ready by seven in the morning and I’ll take you to his apartment. There’ll be a couple of men with you on the job as well, but you’ll be the only one living in.”
I fumed as I packed. I’d met Trent Dawson during a job I’d had quite a few months ago. He was an old friend of my client, a Hollywood movie star. He’d spent a night bonking her, but then made a blatant pass at me the next day. Charming. He hosted a current affairs show that screened each weeknight on TV. There were no current affairs on the show at all, just a revolving cycle of stories on diets, boobs, celebrities, shonky tradespeople, bad neighbours and out-of-control kids. It was sensational rubbish and he had a reputation as a hardarsed sleaze – antagonistic in interviews and bed-hopping in his private life. So I was definitely not interested in him, despite him having a certain rakish appeal.
That night I rang Dixie. I hadn’t spoken to her for weeks. I told her about meeting Simon again and we talked for ages, reminiscing about him.
“A vow of fucking celibacy!” she howled with laughter.
“I’m not even sure that’s possible, Dix,” I joked.
“You must have scared him into it with your ravenous carnal appetite, you nympho,” she teased.
“Geez, look who’s talking!”
“Still though, what a waste. Simon was gorgeous.”
“He still is, but he’s very devout.”
“I’m very devout too. I worship regularly at the Temple of Todgers.”
I laughed. “Been getting any lately?”
“Of course I have,” she dismissed scornfully. “More to the point, have you?”
I hesitated, for some reason not wanting to tell her about Heller and me. Instead I diverted the conversation. “I received an invitation to Will’s wedding and I can’t find anyone to take me.”
“You have to go. You have to show him that you don’t care any more.”
“Exactly! That’s what I’ve been telling everyone! But nobody here agrees with me.”
“Men! They don’t understand. But you can’t go by yourself. That has loser written all over it. What about Heller?”
“He won’t go with me because he hates Will, but he won’t let me take anyone else either. I’m going to force someone at gunpoint if I have to. I mean it. I’m not going to that wedding alone.”
“Well, good luck with it, Tils. Let me know how it goes.”
We talked a bit longer and then I made my goodbyes, knowing I had to get up early the next morning. But I lay awake for a while, mulling over my encounter with Heller, and whether or not it signified any change in our relationship.
Chapter 20
By six-thirty, I was awake, showered, breakfasted, dressed in my uniform, wearing no makeup with my hair tied back in a stern ponytail. I was not giving Trent Dawson reason to believe that I was in any way happy to be stuck with his company for the next week.
“Not even a bit of makeup?” Heller queried when he picked me up on the exact dot of seven.
“No.”
“Matilda.”
“Heller.”
He gave up and led me at a quick jog down to the ground floor where we picked up the rest of the detail, a couple of big, clean-cut young men I hadn’t worked with before. The dark-haired one introduced himself as Dubov and the fair-haired one as Ozanne. Of course they already knew who I was, being the only female security officer. We piled into Heller’s Mercedes and he drove us out into the early commuter traffic.
The men were obviously Heller fanatics, respectfully taking the opportunity to ask Heller questions about security practices and hanging on his every word in response. I looked out of the window, bored with their Heller reverence. They’d probably rushed out to get their Heller’s logo tattoo as soon as they were eligible (after one year’s service for the security men), probably unaware that I’d started the whole craze with a spontaneous decision to have the small H discreetly tattooed on my ankle as my personal sign of commitment to Heller. I’d regretted it a few times since.
He parked in front of an exclusive harbour-front apartment building and I unloaded my bag from the back. Lugging it onto my shoulder, I followed the three giants towards the foyer. Inside, the concierge cleared us and gave us directions to the correct apartment. None of us spoke in the lift as it ascended. We stepped out into a smaller foy
er with only one door, indicating there was only one apartment per floor.
I was impressed by the grandeur of the building and its fittings, luxurious and tasteful. It would have cost millions to purchase a property in this building. Obviously trash TV paid better than I’d expected.
Trent Dawson answered the door himself in his bathrobe, startled to see Heller in front of him.
“Wow! You’re bloody huge!” he spurted out, his eyes travelling over the other two giants. “Excellent! I won’t have anything to worry about with you guys around. Although you make me feel like a girl standing next to you.”
I hid behind Heller, vainly hoping that the TV star wouldn’t notice me. He poked his head around Heller and grinned at me in delight.
“Speaking of girls, there she is! Hello, Tilly. Feeling a little shy today?”
“Mr Dawson,” I acknowledged politely.
“Call me Trent. No need for formality between us. We’re virtually old friends.”
He ushered us into his stylish apartment, full of modern designer furniture and art, complete with a stunning view of the harbour. My eyes were drawn immediately to the sailing boats that glided gracefully through the glistening water. It was such a peaceful panorama that I could have stared at it all day.
Reluctantly I pulled my eyes away and focussed them on the man standing in front of us. He was about my height with dark brown, fashionably cut hair, a well-shaped mouth and cheeky smile. He was undeniably cute, but his brown eyes were shrewdly assessing in a slightly predatory way. He was well-groomed and always seemed well-dressed as befitting a national television host. He made a regular appearance in the annual top fifty bachelors list of a popular women’s magazine.
Heller introduced himself and then the security team. The men stood by, arms crossed, filling the room with their massive bulks. Heller and I sat on the soft white leather lounge, Trent opposite, shooting me a wry smile as he carefully ensured that his bathrobe was securely fastened.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind filling in my staff on your specific security concerns, Mr Dawson,” Heller asked.
Trent sighed. “A few months ago, I did a story on dodgy hairdressers. You know the type, the ones who do such a bad bleach job that a customer is left with a blistered scalp and her hair breaking apart and falling out. I have absolutely no sympathy for that kind of poor professionalism and neither do my viewers. So I have no regrets about running that story. None at all.”
Heller nodded to show that he was listening.
“One of the hairdressers featured in the story couldn’t handle the critical public attention that it brought on her. She ended up topping herself. She had depression for quite a while and had tried to kill herself on a couple of other occasions unrelated to me. But now her partner is suing me personally for compensation, after previously trying and failing to sue the station. So I’m due in court all week to fight the claim and to be honest, I’m pretty scared of him. He’s gigantic and angry, probably a steroid abuser. He’s not really after justice. What he wants is money and shitloads of it. But he can go screw himself! He’s not getting a cent from me. I wasn’t the one ripping off trusting women and ruining their lives with painful and ugly hair treatments. Some of those women were left with permanent bald spots from scarring on their scalps. Tilly, how would you feel about that if it happened to you?”
“Very upset and angry,” I said quietly.
“Of course you would. And so do those poor women.” His eyes burned with fervour and he seemed so sincere about his passionate anger for those mistreated women that I began to warm to him. Maybe he did have a genuine streak of avenging hero for the little guy. That ardour was probably what kept his show as such a consistent high-rater for his network, despite the critics regularly panning it.
He really was quite cute, I thought to myself, before realising that I was staring at him. Noticing my attention, he flashed me a grin and continued. “The plaintiff has been talking to the media non-stop, and of course my rival channels have been lapping it up. They’re feral about this story and have started hounding me. It’s becoming so unbearable that I decided I needed some professional assistance on my side during the court case. Of course I thought of Tilly straight away. She did such a good job with Yoni Lemere that I didn’t want anyone else. And I did promise her that I’d catch up with her one day.”
That little quip turned Heller’s tone from neutral to frosty. “I’m sure you understand that I need to assess the risk of this assignment, Mr Dawson. I can’t have my staff endangered in any way. I’m particularly concerned about Matilda’s safety. Do you have any reason to believe that this man will be dangerous?”
Trent assessed Heller shrewdly and I could almost hear his mind ticking over. He raised an eyebrow. “Particularly concerned about Matilda, huh? What if I promise to look after Matilda, to give especial attention to her safety, even while I’m paying a large sum of money to you to make sure she’s watching out for my safety? What if I promise to look after her as if she was my very own Matilda? Would that help in letting her go for a week, Mr Heller?”
Judging by the way his mouth tightened, Trent’s gentle mocking irked Heller – it wasn’t something he encountered very often. Personally, I couldn’t believe that they were discussing me as if I wasn’t even there.
“Why do you need her to stay over?” Heller demanded.
Trent shrugged casually. “Better than anyone, I know how insidious and determined the media can be to get a scoop. It’s a more realistic cover story for me to have a woman here in my apartment. People are more likely to believe that I have a new . . . friend. I don’t want anyone to know I’ve hired security twenty-four hours a day. It’s embarrassing. The media would make a meal of it. And yes, I know I’m a hypocrite, but I don’t want my life used as cheap media fodder.”
Heller turned to me. “Any further questions of Mr Dawson, Matilda?”
I shook my head. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for court, Trent?” I asked him in a friendly tone.
He shot Heller a smile. “See, she’s looking after me already. I made the right choice.” And he strutted off down a hallway, Heller frowning after him.
“I don’t like that man,” he said to me when Trent was safely out of hearing range. “He’s cocky.”
“He’s confident and serious about his profession,” I smiled. “Sounds like someone I know.”
He stood up. “I have to go. Make sure you keep in touch, please. I’m concerned that I haven’t provided enough men for this job, but Mr Dawson didn’t want a big team.”
I stood too and waited patiently while he spoke a few last words to the men. I walked him to the door.
“Take care, my sweet,” he said and leaned down to kiss me. I pushed him away.
“Don’t do that in front of the men!”
“Why not?” He was genuinely puzzled, even despite our earlier conversation.
“Because then they think that I’m your woman,” I hissed in an undertone.
“What’s wrong with that?”
I sighed. “You’re my boss. When I’m working, I want you to treat me like you’d treat your men.”
“But you’re not like my men to me. You’re my Matilda. You’re special.”
“Heller, that’s all right when we’re alone. But at this moment, I’m your employee and you should treat me like one.”
He let out a low growl of frustration and ran his hands through his spiky blond hair. “Okay, have it your way. Goodbye, Matilda.”
He slammed the door behind him, leaving me unsettled and angry with someone, but I wasn’t sure if it was him or me. I scrunched my eyes shut and clenched my fists, experiencing a burning desire to punch something. I glared at the men, who diplomatically looked away, and stalked to one of the large picture windows to peer down at the tranquil view. The beautiful blues of the water, light sparkling off the waves, mesmerised me. Why was water so calming?
“It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” Trent murmured in my ear. I
jumped in fright.
“Geez, don’t do that! You scared me.”
“Sorry Tilly.” His smile was blazing bright. He was handsome in a skilfully cut suit and sober tan shirt. He smelled good, wearing an exotic and expensive cologne. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and sniff like a bloodhound. “Do I look presentable enough for court?”
“And the media?”
He laughed self-deprecatingly. “Yes. How did you guess?”
“The effort you put into your appearance. Judges aren’t usually all that fussy.”
“It’s difficult for me to be in the public spotlight. I wasn’t sure what to wear.”
I regarded him with scepticism. He was in the news all the time, mostly because of his relationships. Just off the top of my head, I recalled stories about women hurling their stilettos through his apartment windows from the street, women spoiling his restaurant meals with glasses of good red wine tipped over his head, and women slashing his car tyres at the TV studio. He either attracted a certain type of unhinged woman or he was the sleaziest philanderer on the planet, the kind of man who drove normal women into mad acts of revenge.
“Well, apart from the usual lovers’ spats. The media salivates over them. It’s just blatant sensationalism,” he conceded. It was as if he’d read my mind and I realised then that he was very good at deciphering people’s emotions and reactions. And heaven knows, I’d been told often enough that I was an easy person to read. I would have to be on my guard with him at all times.
“You do seem to have some very feisty girlfriends, judging by the stories about you on the news.”
“I will admit that I have a real weakness for spirited, though maybe somewhat unstable, women. You’re quite feisty too, I seem to remember.”
“Why don’t you annoy me and find out for yourself?” I suggested smiling.
He laughed in delight. “It’s going to be fun having you around, Tilly.” His eyes searched the room. “Has Blondie left?”
“Yep.”
“God, he’s incredible, isn’t he? Absolutely stunning. I’ve never met anyone like him and I’ve met a lot of people. He’s like something from mythology. Some Norse god. I could imagine him ruling a kingdom, wearing some dead animal draped over him, smiting his enemies and ravishing every female human he encountered.”