Heart Note

by Cassandra O'Leary

  I didn’t even mind his weight on my body. We pressed together in all the best places, and his head rested beside mine on one plush pillow. I snuggled against him.

  Christos kissed the delicate spot below my ear and whispered, “You killed me. Lily, you bloody killed me. Mmmm.”

  I shivered, because the way he was kissing my ear lobe was divine. But he was generally yummy. Possibly addictive.

  “I hope I didn’t kill you, because I’ll be needing more. More kissing.” I pressed my lips to his cheek. “More touching.” I let my hands drift south, below the belt, so to speak.

  Christos grumbled, “I have to get up. Give me ten minutes and I’m all yours again.”

  “Ten minutes? Impressive.” My cheek muscles tugged into a wide grin, and I rolled to my side as he climbed off me.

  Watching his muscles shift as he walked away was something to write sonnets about.

  Christos entered the bathroom adjoining his bedroom and shut the door. I stretched out my limbs like a contented cat, then pulled the quilt up to my chin.

  This was what I needed. Christos. A whole lot of loving and a long, dreamy sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  “What?” I asked groggily. I rolled onto my back as the hunka hunka burning love beside me shifted. It was dark. Still the middle of the night.

  Christos shushed me, leaning towards the table on his side of the bed.

  I blinked my eyes half open and rubbed them with the backs of my hands. The room was pitch black. A yellowish glow, a lamp turned on.

  Did he want me again? Mmmm. I hoped so. He’d already proven himself multitalented in the last few hours.

  I glanced across at him. He was out of bed, holding his phone, staring at the screen. In the glow from the phone’s screen his face was illuminated, the lines of consternation emphasised. He wore boxer shorts, but reached for his trousers slung over a nearby chair.

  Getting dressed? What? Why?

  I sat up as far as I could, leaning on my elbows. I wasn’t awake enough for being upright.

  Christos had his trousers half on, phone pressed to his ear, held in place with his shoulder. He zipped up his pants as he mumbled. “What time?” There was a pause, then he spoke again. “No, it’s okay. I’m on my way.”

  I rubbed my eyes again and spoke through a croaky throat. “Christos?”

  “It’s just work. Go back to sleep.”

  I scrunched up my face, then yawned. “But the store’s not even open. It’s the middle of the night.”

  He sighed, shrugging into a fresh shirt he’d grabbed from the wardrobe behind him. “My other job. I haven’t had a chance to tell you. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

  I brushed my loose hair behind my ear. “Do you want me to go home? I could call a taxi?”

  He shook his head, then leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. “No way. Sleep. I’ll be back.”

  I’LL BE BACK. Famous last words.

  He wasn’t back. It was 5.53 am according to the clock on the lonely side of Christos’s vast bed. It had been over an hour already.

  This was weird. Why would he leave me alone in his house? In his bed? I wasn’t complaining about being in his bed, but I was pretty sure he was supposed to be in it too.

  And what was this other job? He hadn’t mentioned it before. I didn’t like it. It smacked of lies and deception.

  I did not want to get involved with a liar. Or get more involved. Because I was involved with Christos up to my eyeballs. I could still feel the imprint of his kisses on my swollen lips, the press of him against my body, especially in certain areas. I rubbed my hands up and down my own arms, trying to chase away the scatter of goosebumps creeping over my skin.

  Should I stay in bed and wait for Christos? He’d asked me to stay put, but now I was awake I didn’t want to lie still. An urgent trip to the bathroom was in order anyway. I dragged myself out of the bed, kicking the bedding away.

  Once I’d been to the bathroom and took care of business, I treated myself to a quick but gloriously hot shower with the fresh green/citrus soap, the scent of Christos’s pillow. Then I ran a comb through my mess of damp, wavy hair. I returned to the bedroom and looked around blankly. I didn’t want to wear my crumpled red dress from last night. Apart from looking the worse for wear, it was an alarming shade of red for so early in the day.

  Instead, I crossed the room to Christos’s wardrobe and flicked through hangers of shirts, folded trousers, jackets, and a uniform I’d never seen before.

  I lifted the hanger from the rail. It was a police officer’s navy blue uniform. He’d be incredibly sexy in it. Maybe I’d ask him to model it for me some time, and let him order me around.

  But I thought Christos would have given his uniform back once he’d quit the force. Strange. I put it back on the rail, then found a plain sky blue t-shirt to wear. I popped it over my head and smoothed it down my body. It was huge, long enough to hit mid-thigh. Roomy enough to be comfortable.

  Unsure of what to do, I wandered into the lounge room in search of my handbag and phone, last seen on the coffee table. I sat on the squishy sofa, and the rush of memories of Christos and I last night hit me. This is where he’d undressed me. Kissed me.

  I grabbed my bag and searched through it, until I found my phone. I sank into the sofa cushions and checked my messages.

  Notifications flashed at me. There was a text from KC She was coming to Melbourne to see me...today. Since when? But she’d sent a flight number and was obviously already on her way. I pressed a hand to my temple. My head had started throbbing.

  She could have told me she was coming. She called me a mother hen, said I worried too much. It was true. I’d stepped into the role of surrogate parent early on. Since our mother passed away when KC was only a baby, I was the one she looked up to. Then Dad died two years ago and it was all on me. Now KC was grown up, she had to find her feet. I’d helped get her through high school at least.

  I tapped out a quick text asking her to please call me as soon as she landed in Melbourne. I’d probably be at work, away from my phone, but I’d call her back as soon as I could.

  The other message was from Christos, sent ten minutes ago:

  On my way home. I’m bringing coffee and croissants. Please be there... Miss you already.

  Oh, he was sweet. Sweet but mysterious.

  A resounding click had me sitting up straighter, crossing my legs. A jangle of keys followed, then Christos opened the front door. A shaft of blue-ish early morning light filtered in behind him like a spotlight, streaming into the hallway.

  I pressed my lips together to keep from shouting at him, or more likely, telling him never to leave me again. Which wouldn’t be good.

  He pushed in through the door, balancing a bag of sweet-smelling somethings and two paper coffee cups all in one hand.

  “Hi there.” He stopped short. “Oh, forget it. I don’t want to act all cool and casual. I’m just going to kiss the hell out of you, all right?”

  I nodded mutely as he crossed the room in three strides and dumped the food on the coffee table.

  He sat beside me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close. He tilted his head and nudged my nose with his, then pressed his lips to mine. This kiss was sweeter, softer than the ones last night. I sucked in a gasp when he ran the tip of his tongue across my lower lip. Random tingles went flying all over the joint. I think my knees melted.

  He mumbled against my mouth. “I love you in my shirt.”

  My heart thudded wildly at his choice of the word love, though I knew it was only sexy-talk. I opened to him, teasing my tongue against his, shifting my body towards his at the same time. My body heated, growing hungry for more.

  One of Christos’s hands was on my thigh now, inching its way up beneath the hem of the t-shirt I wore. I grabbed his hand and stopped it in its tracks. I leaned back and stared at him. Before we went any further, I needed answers.

  “Where did you go? Why did you slink
out like a criminal? Not cool. Or polite. Especially considering I was still stupid with post-orgasm glow.”

  “Were you really?” he chuckled, so I narrowed my eyes and glared until he stopped. “Okay. Let me explain.”

  “Yes, please.”

  He sighed and sat back against the arm of the sofa. “I wanted to tell you, but not at work. I was going to tell you last night, but then you distracted me. It’s confidential. This needs to stay between us.”

  “Okay.”

  Christos ran his hand across his jaw, the raspy sound of friction against unshaven whiskers evoking memories of last night. But this was no time for me to be distracted.

  “I didn’t resign from the police force. I’m working undercover as a security guard, investigating a ring of thieves suspected to be connected to the store. Organised crime, to be blunt.”

  I blinked a few times. Christos was still a cop? So he was a liar. A practised and professional one. “You mean you’ve been lying to me. We slept together and I don’t even know who you are.”

  I crossed my arms tight around my waist, hugging myself. This wasn’t the way things were meant to go. He was supposed to take me back to bed for sexytimes and take me out to dinner sometime.

  Christos frowned, the wrinkles formed on his forehead aging him several years before my eyes. He was stressed-out, and I hadn’t noticed. I should have, but then he’d been busy lying. “I couldn’t explain before. Stock has gone missing from the cosmetics department. Thousands of dollars’ worth. There was an attempted break-in to the main storeroom. But our major concern has been cash siphoned from the registers. I’m sorry to ask you this now, and I hope I haven’t stuffed up things between us. Have you noticed anything unusual, Lily?”

  This was what he’d asked me to help him with earlier on. I wracked my brain, and an image popped into my head. “Now I think about it, yes. I did see something strange. A staff member dressed all in black, someone I didn’t recognise, at the back of the storeroom. They had a whole pallet loaded with perfume, but it didn’t make it out to the floor. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  I sat up straighter, watching Christos’s expression change. The frown was replaced by a raised eyebrow. “What day was it? Think carefully.”

  Looking up at the ceiling to concentrate, something pinged. “Tuesday. I remember now, because I was planning to go to the movies after work with Petula. Cheapskate Tuesday, you know.”

  He nodded. “What did the person in the storeroom look like? Can you describe them?”

  I bit my lip. Christos glanced down at my mouth for a moment, before meeting my eyes again. “It was dark—darker than usual. I went inside to get a couple of boxes of perfume. Our most popular spring fragrance. I headed to the Fine Fragrances section and noticed one of the flouro lights was out. The person was at the end of the aisle, a few metres away. I think it was a young man but I can’t be sure. Skinny, wearing a black shirt and jeans. And a black cap.”

  I blinked and opened my eyes a little wider. The whole thing was odd, once I said it out loud. We don’t wear caps at work, unless it’s for a special product promotion. I couldn’t remember seeing anyone wearing one recently, apart from this person.

  “Good. Very helpful. I’ll get you to speak to my colleague, Jason. Tell him what you told me. I knew you weren’t involved.”

  I blinked again, but this time in shock. “You thought I was involved? One of the criminals?”

  He put his hand out towards me, as if he wanted to take my hand, but I inched away from him.

  He sighed. “No. I didn’t think you were involved, but I couldn’t prove it. My superiors asked me investigate you. You’re a new staff member. The incidents ramped up over the last few weeks. The security cameras were deactivated in the storeroom last Tuesday, about the same time you went in. Jason thought it was you but I told him he was wrong.”

  I took a deep breath. I could have told him to go to hell, since the lying and the suspecting me of stealing wasn’t a ringing endorsement of Christos as boyfriend material. But as I breathed through a red haze behind my eyes, my flare of anger faded to mild mauve. I understood. He was supposed to investigate, and he was. I just didn’t want him lying or spying on me.

  I sat up straight, then smoothed my hair behind my shoulders. I was as together as I was going to get, pre-coffee. I glanced at the coffees sitting on the nearby table and grabbed one. I took a sip, savouring the bitter-sweet flavour filling my mouth, a hint of vanilla. I rested the cup on my knee.

  When I spoke, I was dead serious. Even I was surprised by the gravel in my tone. “I want you to be completely honest with me from now on. If we can’t talk at work, we’ll talk afterwards. Otherwise we’re history, okay?”

  “Okay, that’s fair. Thanks, Lily.”

  He reached for the other coffee and opened the bag of pastries. We devoured our breakfast in silence, because mind-bending revelations aside, a person had to eat. I’m glad Christos understood the importance of good food.

  Christos loaned me some of his sweat pants to wear on the drive back to my place. We only said a few words in the car about the song on the radio, Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House. We both loved it. When he kissed me goodbye outside my house it was a chaste peck on the cheek. Hardly the ending I’d been expecting after the night we’d shared.

  But life is never what you’d been expecting. It’s an unexpected collision with a truck, a dead father, getting kicked out of your family home with a stack of debts and a sixteen-year-old sister to finish raising. It’s being twenty-five years old but feeling one hundred and five.

  I walked into my house, finding the debris of Bill’s party still decorating the living room. And a couple of random people asleep on the sofa.

  I marched straight into my bedroom and shut the door on all the mess. I had to get ready for work.

  Chapter Eleven

  Work, work, work.

  I stood behind the perfume counter, wrapping presents with shaking fingers. And aching feet. I kicked off each shoe and rolled my ankles, one at a time. I’d wrapped twenty presents so far. About fifty to go. I’d get the other staff to help later.

  Giselle was serving our only customer. She chatted as she applied scented body lotion to the older woman’s hands. “Oui, I am French, but I do love Australie. My mother and father came here when I was in high school. They worked for a French cosmetics company. So it is in my blood!”

  Giselle demonstrated the finer points of fragrance layering—showing the customer how to use multiple products to extend the life of a fragrance on the skin.

  I stood in my stocking-clad feet for a few seconds before sliding my shoes back on and submitting to the slow torture again. I’d only been at work for a couple of hours, but the wrong shoes were turning me into a grumpy cow. Well, grumpier.

  What could you expect of a day beginning with lies and suspicion? I was now watching every single one of my colleagues with new eyes, clouded by mistrust. I stopped wrapping, scissors still in hand, turning left and right, checking out the activity on the floor. Everything was quiet.

  Petula was across the aisle, leaning against the manicure bar. She was sorting new nail polishes into an attractive rainbow colour wheel display. She’d started work here around the same time as me. Could she be a criminal?

  What about Giselle? I doubted it, since she’d been working here a couple of years. But what if she’d been corrupted by someone?

  Then there were casual spritzer chicks who I hardly knew. A bunch of casual staff had just started in the fashion department, as well as upstairs in what I called The Land of Christmas. The decorations and toys took over most of the fourth floor at this time of year and a team of sales staff were brought in for the season. Plus the Home Entertainment guys. I hated to think it, but some of them looked dodgy.

  Is this what it would be like to be married to a cop? Worried, suspicious of everyone?

  The thought could get out of my head. It didn’t belong in my mixed-up brain at all.
I put down the scissors and took several slow breaths.

  I’d barely started seeing Christos. He’d met my peculiar uncle, which probably counted as meeting my family, it was true. I’d slept with him, oh yes. But marriage? I was getting way ahead of myself. I was in danger of becoming an obsessive basket case. And it wasn’t even lunchtime.

  Christos appeared, as if he’d materialised out of thin air. He marched straight down the centre aisle of the cosmetics department. His posture was stiff and waves of invisible furiousness rolled off him. Maybe not everyone could tell, but it was obvious to me.

  His jaw was hard, his expression carefully neutral, but his eyes were flinty. He scanned the floor, looking around the area near the escalators. He stopped, hands linked behind his back.

  I guessed he was looking for something, or someone. A customer approached the counter and I smiled, as Christos turned his full focus on me. He was metres away, but a slow, knowing smile spread over his face, his eyes sparkling with fallen stars under the overhead Christmas lights. That look was all mine and I soaked it up like a sponge.

  I swallowed on a dry throat as flashes of sense-memory from last night overtook my mind and body. His lips against the soft skin of my stomach, the flutter of his breath, travelling downwards...

  Giselle approached my side and promptly nudged me, hard. Right in the ribs.

  “Oooof!” I gasped.

  “Wake up, Ms Lily. We have real-life customers waiting.” Giselle’s voice floated down to me, from some faraway place back on planet earth.

  When I glanced at her, Giselle was wearing her trademark bemused French woman expression. It was rather like resting bitch face, but more sophisticated.

  I shook my head, hormones rattling randomly. I shot a last glance at Christos as he marched off towards the staff area at the other end of the floor. I served my customer with the standard level of service, an extra huge grin tugging at my cheeks. I couldn’t seem to turn it off now.