The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  "You would have been miserable and you know it," Dowling said but not in a mean way. "You took the right road, Abigail," he said kindly. "You're a fighter and with me you would have always resented your choice. You would have always longed for the fight, out there."

  "I'm done fighting," she said with full honesty. "We could give it a try, if you were willing. Just say the word."

  Thinking it over for a few seconds, Dowling looked like he was taken by surprise. "I wasn't expecting that," he said, shaking his head with befuddlement.

  "We can let go of the past, start anew," Abigail said suggestively as she closed in on his personal space. "We still have a good few years left in us, why not start over and enjoy what we can of each other? Set up house somewhere, any place you'd like."

  Sensing that Abigail might have a hidden agenda, he looked searchingly into her eyes. "I don't know if I could ever trust you again, Abigail," he said sadly. "I really don't."

  "Of course you can. Over time," she said hopefully.

  "Are you wishing to hitch your wagon to mine because you know that you're finished with these people? They're going to cut you lose after this, aren't they?"

  "Most likely," she said and then, "yes, most definitely," she said, coming clean in response to his facial expression that suggested he was no longer going to fall for her brand of false honesty. "But that's not why I'm keen on us being together. I have feelings for you, Augustus," she said like it was hard for her to say so. "And I think you have feelings for me."

  "I do have feelings for you, Abigail," he admitted with a soft nod of his head. "Always have. Never stopped having feelings for you, as a matter of fact," he said as he thought more about it. "Even when I didn't know where on the earth you had vanished."

  For the first time Abigail smiled with true delight. "My apologies about that but I did explain."

  "But I don't think it would work," he then said sadly. "I don't have that kind of hope anymore. I don't have the mental energy for you. The kind of mental sparring that you require may be fine for a while and I must admit, I've always been impressed and attracted to your mental vibrancy, you know?

  "Oh, yes, me too. I mean, me attracted to yours."

  "But to be honest? That's not enough for me anymore. I don't feel your heart."

  "My heart?"

  "I'm done with the mind. For the rest of my days, I realize that what I'm looking for, the only thing that interests me, in my life, in a person, is heart. And I've never felt that with you. Not back then and not now. I'm sorry, Abigail. I'm going to have to pass."

  Looking a bit shocked, Abigail hesitated while Dowling made his way to the side exit. "Think it over," she said after him. "I don't need to have your answer right away," she said as his sad-looking body walked out of sight.

  Rejoining the other six as they were changing back into their street clothes, Dowling smiled when they greeted him with a warm reception. "She's a drowning woman looking for someone or something to latch on to," Simon told Dowling when he put his arm around him in obvious sympathy.

  "She is that, yes," Dowling agreed.

  "She's a troubled soul that needs to sort things out by herself. What happened out there may be the best thing that's happened to her in a long while," Simon continued.

  "You're probably right," Dowling said as he sounded like he himself needed some time to figure it all out.

  "Well done, everybody," Simon then shouted to the others. "The party is back at my place!"

  "No," Andrew disagreed as he returned from releasing the angry group of Enlightened humans, "the party is back at my place!"

  "No it isn't," Fiona disagreed. "The party is back at my place!"

  "All are welcome and no excuses are accepted," Simon said with a smile as he grabbed both Fiona and Andrew in a group hug. "Can't we all get along?" he joked.

  Once back at the Palisades house, Simon hosted a grand, catered dinner party for them all. "I want to thank each of you, one and all for participating," he stood and toasted them, his glass of Chardonnay raised. "Unless you wish it to be known, they will never acquire any knowledge of your identity or involvement. Not that they will have much time to chase down phantoms, for, after tonight, Abigail will most likely be replaced, fired or demoted and more than probably her sorry arse will be sent back to the United Kingdom to spend the rest of her days in early retirement and hopefully, lots of time to ponder on the state of the world and the role she had to play in its decline and degradation."

  "I'll drink to that!" Henry said loudly as he raised his glass of beer. "Good riddance to bad rubbish," he said in his best English accent, which elicited laughs and cheers from some of the others.

  Eating the best of food and drinking the finest wine, the group enjoyed the evening and the company of each other. With enough bedrooms to facilitate them all, they accepted Simon's gracious hospitality and in the early hours, one by one they retired to a guest bedroom where, for all, bar Andrew and Fiona, sleep came quickly.

  "I'm so totally wired," Fiona admitted as she lay her head down on the pillow next to Andrew and watched him with a wide-eyed besotted look.

  "I know, me too," Andrew agreed as he lay beside her and matched her gaze. "That was wild."

  "I don't mean just about tonight," Fiona said softly. "I've been wired ever since we got back together. This feels so right, you and me. I thought I was going to die without you."

  "I know, right? I could barely function, I missed you so much," Andrew said with a pained face as he remembered what it was like. "Let's not do that again, huh?"

  "Is that a proposal?" Fiona asked with a smirk the size of her cute face.

  "It could be," Andrew teased, "if you play your cards right. How old are you?"

  "Old enough to kick your ass."

  "Would I have to ask permission from your father?" Andrew asked with a contained grin. "Don't know if I could do that."

  "Why the heck not?" Fiona asked with exaggerated shock. "He asked you for permission to date your mom, didn't he?"

  "I know," Andrew squirmed. "How weird was that?"

  "Weird that he asked or weird that he's dating your mom?"

  "I don't want to talk about your dad, if that's okay with you," Andrew said sheepishly. "We need to set down some ground rules, you and me."

  "What kind of ground rules?" Fiona asked with increasing interest.

  "Like you behaving and not storming off every time something happens to spook you like, like, I don't know, a scaredy cat."

  "A scaredy cat?" Fiona asked with a chuckle. "Is that the best you could come up with?"

  "I mean it. No more running away like your ass is on fire."

  "Then don't be putting my ass on fire, buster. You behave!" she said, flicking his chin with her finger.

  "No, you behave!" he said as he flicked her chin with his finger.

  "You're not the boss of me," she said as she squeezed his nose with her bony fingers.

  "Oh, that hurts!" he said as he grabbed her arms in a firm hold. "And as long as you live under my roof, I am the boss of you!" he teased.

  Wrestling her arms from his tight grip, she play-smacked his shoulders and tried to slap his face as he dodged. "This is my roof," she said with clenched jaws. "You're the interloper."

  "Interloper?" he asked jokingly. "That's a big word coming from a little girl."

  "A little girl, huh?" she asked as she jumped on top of him and plowed his shoulders and chest with slaps from both her hands. "I could take you down anytime. All the way down to Chinatown."

  Attempting to grab her hands as they avoided his capture, Andrew laughed with the thrill of their togetherness. "You better play nice or I'll have to teach you a lesson you'll never forget."

  "Promises, promises," Fiona teased as she slapped him some more, his laughter making his arms weak.

  "Okay, okay," Andrew said, as if he had had enough. "One more slap from you and this gets personal."

  "This is personal, weakling."

  "Fine,"
Andrew said, raising his body off the bed. "Time for the tickling to begin."

  "Oh no, not the tickling!" Fiona said, pretending to be totally frightened.

  "No more mister nice guy," he said as he tickled her ribcage.

  "Oh, no, no tickles," she then said, squirming from his touch. "You win, I'll give you anything," she playfully begged. "You're the boss," she said between tickle-induced laughter.

  "That's right, I'm the boss," he said, tickling her like crazy.

  Tickling each other and wrestling when they grabbed each other's arms to prevent any recurrence of the dominance, the two love-birds laughed and teased each other until tiredness finally set in and they surrendered into each other's embrace while the veil of sleep descended and further subdued them.

  Waking up in the spooned position in which they had slept, they trained their ears to the voices outside that urged them from their love nest. "Who's shouting?" Andrew asked, his eyelids heavy, his fatigued lips barely forming the words.

  "I think it's my dad," Fiona answered, her eyes now opening. "Something about hurrying down to the screening room."

  "He wants to watch a movie?" Andrew asked as he tried to focus his eyes on the digital clock. "What time is it?"

  "It's just after ten," Fiona said, waking up some more. "Let's go see what he wants."

  With a heavy groan, Andrew managed to rise himself from the bed and put enough clothes on to make himself look decent. "This better be good," he said as he reached for Fiona's proffered hand that wished to urge him along.

  "The bed will still be here after breakfast," she said suggestively.

  "The bed will be here and you are my breakfast," Andrew said as she pulled him along.

  When they got to the screening room they were met by the rest of the gang who casually sat and stood, each drinking coffee and eating some pastries that were laid out on a side table. "What's going on?" Andrew asked as he saw that the TV was on mute and a local news station covered the morning’s events.

  "It's a segment coming up," Henry answered, his mouth half-full with a croissant. "Have some breakfast."

  "Segment about what?" Fiona asked as she poured two cups of coffee.

  "The truth shall set you free," Arjuna said as he greeted Fiona with a hand wave.

  "They said something about a whistle-blower and white collar crime in Los Angeles," Lily added. "It's got to be connected."

  "It most certainly is," Simon said as he was put on hold while taking a call on his cell phone. "The downtown offices just got raided. SEC and police."

  "There it is," Professor Dowling said as he saw the segment about to start on TV. "Turn up the volume."

  As lily pressed the volume up on the remote, the newscaster's voice filled the room. "We normally associate whistle-blowers as low to mid-level disgruntled employees," the anchor began as the image switched to a Downtown hotel where a mass of reporters descended upon Abigail as she left the building. "But this whistle-blower also just happens to be the CEO."

  Cheers and laughter filled the room as the gang watched with surprise and delight.

  "I'm not a whistle-blower, go away," Abigail protested as she was surrounded by the press as they shoved their microphones close to her face.

  "What about the leaked file sent from your computer?" a reporter asked.

  "I know nothing about that, go away," Abigail said shrilly as she scurried to a waiting town car. The image then shifted to the downtown headquarters where police were handcuffing and arresting high-level business people and taking them from the building.

  "Dogged by controversy since the takeover of the ill-fated Quanta Systems, this is one large Southern California business that can't seem to get a break," the news anchor continued.

  "See ya," Henry said aloud while saluting. "Wouldn't want to be ya!"

  As more and more people were being arrested, the culprits for their downfall couldn't help shouting their snarky comments and generally celebrating loudly amongst themselves.

  "I guess I'm out of a job," Lily said like he was sad until her mood suddenly shifted as she fist-pumped the air. "Boo-yeah!" she said triumphantly.

  "You live by the sword, you die by the sword," Arjuna said philosophically.

  "At least there's enough of them they can form their own gang in prison," Simon said cheekily.

  "Yeah, the white-collar cook-the-books gang," Andrew suggested.

  Watching the news report quietly, Professor Dowling was the only one that looked sad. "I don't suppose you get as much satisfaction out of this as we do," Andrew said as he sat down beside his friend.

  "She told me that she often wondered what her life would have been like had she stayed here with me, all those years ago," he said softly. "I wonder how much her life would have been different, if she remained and didn't return back to the UK. Would she have ended up where she is now?" he asked as the news report replayed the shots of Abigail exiting the hotel.

  "Can a leopard change its spots?" Andrew asked as they both looked at the helpless and frightened expression on her face as she dodged the descending media.

  "Perhaps not," Dowling considered.

  "Maybe it could have ended even worse than this," Andrew suggested. "Who knows what she could have gotten up to over here?"

  "Too true," Dowling answered, his sadness not allayed. "Too true, indeed."

  Still getting used to where everything was kept in the tiny house that Andrew grew up in, Fiona looked totally preoccupied as she juggled hot dishes and cold salads while preparing dinner in the small and cramped kitchen.

  “Andy, sweetie, dinner’s ready!” she shouted out the kitchen window.

  "It's not the size of kitchen that you're used to, is it?" Andrew asked as he came in the kitchen door from fixing the sprinklers in the front lawn, his hands covered in dirt.

  "Small is beautiful," Fiona said gaily. "I told you that last night," she then added with a huge grin and pecked him on the cheek. "Dinner is ready, master."

  "Excellent," Andrew said as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. "I love burnt chicken."

  "That was last night," Fiona corrected jovially. "Tonight is burnt fish and what looks like undercooked rice," she said as she stirred the rice in the pot, her expression one of total uncertainty. "I boiled this rice for like forever," she said as she read the cooking instructions on the back of the box, once again.

  "It's going to taste fantastic," Andrew said as he hugged his woman from behind and kissed her on the cheek. "Everything tastes fantastic when cooked with love."

  "I can't believe we fired all the help," she joked. "Or did they quit, I forget?"

  "I think they all quit when they found out there was no money left to pay them," Andrew joked back. "And there were those complaints about you being a tyrant, which didn't help matters."

  "Yeah, shouldn't have used the whip, huh? Will you set the table, man about the house?"

  "I will, woman of the house," Andrew answered as he gathered some plates. "Are we eating in the pick room tonight?" he asked, referring to their front room.

  "Yes, and I told you already, if you wish to refer to its color you need to address it properly. It's a very sensitive house, gets its feeling hurt very easily."

  "Yes, of course," Andrew said apologetically. "Are we eating in the Flamingo Sunset room tonight, darling?"

  "If you wish, my lord," Fiona replied, her mind preoccupied with the uncooked rice. "I'm done babysitting this friggin' rice. You have a good dentist, right?"

  "Are we watching a movie while we eat?" Andrew asked as he returned from the front room.

  "After we consult the I Ching," she said, scooping up the rise into a serving dish. "Need to find out what the future holds for us in our beautiful little love nest. I wonder how your mom is getting on in the monstrous big kitchen over there?"

  "I don't think she spends much time in it," Andrew answered with a wry smirk. "Every time I talk to her she's sitting out by the pool sipping a cold cocktail of some kind. Does my h
ead in every time, the thought of her with her feet up and wearing a skimpy bathing suit, ugh," he said as his body shook with the thought.

  "Your mom deserves every moment of happiness, after all the crap you put her through all your life. Irrespective of what you think is right for her, she seems happy with my father," Fiona insisted as she served up the fish.

  "Yeah, I guess," Andrew said as he opened a bottle of wine. "Still going to paint that front room, you know. Don't think I didn't notice you trying to change the subject."

  "We’ll see," Fiona said brightly. "Are you ready to sit down?"

  "Yup," he answered as the cork came loose.

  "The Power of the Great," Fiona read from the I Ching book as they munched on their food having casted three coins to form a hexagram.

  "That sounds pretty awesome," Andrew said as he smiled broadly. "Better than the first one we ever done, right? What was it? Trouble ahead or something?"

  "With perseverance, make the most of what is given to you and your power is great," Fiona read from the book. "That's pretty cool, huh?" she said as she read some more silently to herself. "Making the most out of any type of situation, whether it is seen as good or bad, can help strengthen a person to overcome all types of obstacles."

  "What a ride, huh?" Andrew asked as he pondered the past while. "Since we cast the first I Ching reading, remember?"

  "Yeah," Fiona said with a broad smile. "So glad we got all those obstacles out of the way, huh? Not for the squeamish or the faint of heart, that's for sure."

  "Would you have done it anyway?" Andrew asked tentatively. "If you had known, back then, all the shit we had to get through... would you have still gone through with it, with us?"

  Pausing to think and smiling while she did so, Fiona placed a finger to her chin, as if in great thought. She was enjoying keeping Andrew in suspense.

  "Well?" he asked impatiently.

  "I'd do it a million times over," she said with a big smile. "Because you are so worth it," she said as she leaned forward to give him a rapturous kiss.

  Pulling her fully into her arms, he squeezed her tightly. "Me too," he said with feeling. "Totally would have done it a million, zillion times."