Vengeful love, p.11
Vengeful Love, page 11
CEO Eclectic Technologies
“That’s it? That’s all he can say?” I say aloud. Clearing my throat, I face the room. “Gregory’s running late, he said we should go on without him and he’ll be here to sign as soon as he can.”
There’s a knock on the meeting room door. The three of us shift our attention to the sound.
“I have Mr. Pearson and his lawyers for you,” the receptionist announces.
My breaths come shallow and fast and the receptionist makes way for two lawyers. Then my jaw drops as I stare at the six-feet-tall monster stepping into the room. His body shape and the way he holds himself are not dissimilar to Gregory. He has dark features, too, but it’s clear Gregory gets his looks from Lara. Pearson flashes me the sort of seedy smile that I’d love to wipe straight off his face.
My fists clench at my sides and I don’t return the hands offered to me by Pearson’s lawyers because all I can do is glare at Pearson and try not to hurl myself across the room and scratch out his eyes. My body is rocked by profound anger and my eyes burn. I don’t want Gregory to come here. I don’t want him to be anywhere near this man.
Pearson speaks with a strong South African accent, holding out a hand. “Stephen Lawrence, it’s been a long time.”
Lawrence doesn’t move to accept the hand but he does nod in response. He seems to have composed himself a little now. More than I can say for myself. Williams rolls his jaw and introduces himself with a clipped manner.
Bile rises in my throat as I watch the monster’s two suit-clad lawyers explain the documents to him. My mind flashes to the image of the little boy from my father’s hospital and I close my eyes to make him disappear.
I take a seat, my focus held intently on the tabletop, and my hands tremble as I move the documents from one side of the table to the other for Williams to sign. He eyes me briefly. I know I can’t give the game away.
As Williams signs the final document there’s another soft rap on the door.
“I have Mr. Ryans for you.”
I swallow sick as it reaches my throat. My fingertips rise to meet my mouth. I want to run toward him and stop him from coming into this room. Chills pulse through my body. My head throbs as my heart pounds. I close my eyes and when I open them again he’s there, in the doorway, a man, a grown-up, taller than Pearson, broader and stronger.
There’s noise in the room but my ears hear nothing as I watch Gregory step inside, glaring at his father.
“Gregory, you need to sign here,” I manage through my dry throat as I shuffle the documents toward him.
He begins to sign. The Sale and Purchase Agreement is first. I can feel sweat beads forming at my temples. He pauses after signing the final document and looks up to the devil on the opposite side of the table.
Time stops.
Pearson’s face contorts as he realises he’s staring into the eyes of his son.
Gregory grins, a sick, sadistic grin, baring his teeth to his father. “Time to tear it apart.”
Pearson is out of his seat, sending the chair crashing to the ground. Water glasses shatter and documents fly as he launches himself across the table.
“Fucker! You fucker!”
He grabs Gregory’s tie, pulling his neck toward him. I can see and feel the rage build in Gregory. His entire body tenses as he clenches his fist and pulls his right arm backwards. Acting on instinct, I wrap both my hands around Gregory’s fist as his father is pulled back by his lawyers.
“You’re better than him,” I say, staring into Gregory’s eyes. “Don’t let yourself be like him. Don’t let him win.”
The fire in Gregory dissipates.
“Ja, controlled by a woman, huh?” Pearson yells. “A bitch’s boy again, Ja? Don’t worry, bru, I know exactly how to treat a woman.” He throws his head back on a sardonic laugh.
Gregory pulls from my grasp and dives toward his father; this time it takes Williams and Lawrence to restrain him.
Pearson’s lawyers drag him from the room. “You’ll regret this, boy! And so will your bitch!” he spits as he fights against them, his face red, his words menacing.
“Ja, ja!” Gregory yells, tearing himself away from Williams and Lawrence.
I realise I’ve been holding my breath. My shaking hands are now rocking my entire body. I fumble around the table and floor, trying to collect the scattered documents into a pile but dropping them. Gregory bends down with me to pick them up from the floor. I close my eyes to stop tears from running out, reaching up a hand to steady myself on a chair as I rest on my hunkers.
Gregory places his warm palm to my face. “Are you okay?”
My lip trembles as I nod unconvincingly. He strokes my cheek and I lean into his flesh. The warmth of his soft skin making everything feel better.
“I’m fine. Really.”
“We’ll be outside,” Williams says sheepishly. “Thank you for your help, Scarlett. I know what it took for you to do this.”
I nod, my mind drawing a blank on the most appropriate thing to say.
“Thank you, Scarlett,” Lawrence says, stroking my arm as he passes me.
“You should go too, Gregory.” He looks at me, hurt I think, as if I’m pushing him away. “I need to tidy all of this up now.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
I want so much to say yes. But I can’t. This is the deal. I wanted to help him. I needed to protect him. But it’s done. He lives in a different world to me. One that I’m not sure I can be part of.
“Gregory, I told you I was done after this.”
He takes my face in both hands. I gasp and close my eyes, anticipating the touch of his lips to mine but it doesn’t come.
“It’s a completion dinner, Scarlett. A thank you for closing the transaction, just the same as every other deal and every other client, that’s all. Jackson will pick you up from home at eight.”
I eventually open my eyes as the door clicks shut behind him, my body cold from the loss of contact.
Chapter Fourteen
It’s done. I’ve taken the steps necessary to finalise the deal. Gregory Ryans is about to become the proud owner of a company he hates and his own father’s demise.
Now I’m standing in the window of my office, watching people going about their business on the streets below. It’s approaching rush hour. If I’m going to dinner, I have to leave soon.
Am I going to dinner?
I fold my arms across my chest. I think it would be best if I didn’t. If I walked away.
It wouldn’t help to see him again. This is cleaner.
“But...” I practically exhale the word.
I should really go, see Lawrence, Williams and, yes, Gregory, because they are clients. Even if they don’t come back to me, the legal world is small, we should part ways on good terms.
Then there’s Jack. Gregory wiped out my boss and had some part to play in his resignation from the partnership. I want to know what that is.
I move to my desk and slump into my chair as Margaret calls goodnight.
And why does he feel the need to protect me?
And what was that, in the room, before he left? Was he going to kiss me?
I flop forward, dropping my head in my arms on my desk. I can’t remember ever being so confused.
He’s had more than one chance to kiss me and he hasn’t. I’m not delusional. He’s chosen not to kiss me.
Do I even want him to kiss me?
In the few times I’ve met him he’s lost his temper with me—and just as quickly turned on the charm. He’s punched my boss. He’s tried to fight Pearson—for good reason. He’s taken something, immorally, underhandedly—although I understand why.
“Damn it, even now I’m defending him.”
Closure is what I need.
Glancing at my watch, I quickly shut down my computer and start packing up my tote.
I’m going to put an end to this.
As I head out to the street I decide to treat myself to a cab instead of the tube. After the last few days, I deserve a cab. My iPhone starts to ring as I slip into the back of the car and relay my address to the driver.
“Sandy, hang on a second.” I clip in my seatbelt as the driver pulls out into traffic. “Sorry, I’m back.”
“Scarlett,” she sobs. “It’s your father.”
A feeling of terror slithers around my torso and constricts my chest. “Sandy, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
* * *
In less than half an hour, I’m running from the cab, throwing notes at the driver, hurtling into Accident and Emergency.
“I’m looking for my father, Doctor Phillip Heath,” I say frantically to the girl at reception. I watch, my feet bouncing, my temperature rising, as she types details into her keyboard. “Please hurry,” I beg.
“Scarlett!”
I turn to Sandy and grab her tightly, pulling her in to me. “How is he?”
“They won’t let me see him because I’m not family,” she says, clearly distressed, her eyes red, wet and swollen.
“What! Excuse me,” I snarl at the receptionist, “this lady is more family than anyone else I know.”
“Sorry but the policy is immediate family only.”
I have to think quickly. “She’s my stepmother. She’s lived with my father for more than twenty years. They’re common-law husband and wife.”
The receptionist pouts as her eyes run from Sandy’s head to her toes. “She didn’t tell me that. He’s in room seven. Go down the corridor, all the way to the end, turn right, go through the double doors and it’s about halfway down on the left-hand side. You can both go.”
Thanking her, I take Sandy’s hand and we march towards room seven at such a pace Sandy is forced to remove her burnt-orange wool coat.
Sandy bursts into tears as soon as she sees the frail man lying before her, bruises already showing on his body. I’m numb, unable to move from the spot where I’m standing. He’s propped up on one pillow, his head wrapped in a thick bandage, blood seeping at his temple. He’s dressed only in tubes beneath the sheets and his clothes, which have been torn from his body, are piled on the plastic chair at his bedside. Intravenous drips are strapped into the back of each hand. Tubes pumping oxygen into his tiny, helpless body are wrapped around his head and nestled into his nose, artificially inflating his lungs. His eyes are red and black, swollen shut.
A machine beeps, frightening me out of my trance and I step toward him saying his name. There’s no response. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goose pimples form on my arms. The shell lying in the bed, the shell wired up to these machines, is not my father.
A doctor dressed entirely in green enters the tiny prison of a room with a clipboard. His grey hair is in stark contrast to his black skin. “You must be...?”
“Scarlett, his daughter.” His large hand is ice cold as it shakes mine. “This is Sandy, my stepmother.”
“I’m Doctor Jefferson,” he says, turning to shake Sandy’s hand.
“How bad is it?” My words are shaky.
“Your father has sustained some superficial wounds and broken his right arm. We can clean the wounds and x-ray the arm but we needed to stabilise him first. When he fell down the stairs he suffered serious injuries to his head.”
“I think he must have hit it on the stair lift.” Sandy sniffs. “There was blood.” She shakes her head and retrieves a tissue from inside her jumper sleeve.
The doctor nods as if Sandy has offered the next piece of a jigsaw puzzle and it fits. “The impact fractured his skull. It caused severe swelling and hemorrhaging.”
An intangible weight forces the air out of my lungs and my hand moves to my open mouth.
“Will he be okay?” Sandy asks through a tissue.
Doctor Jefferson flashes a look of sympathy to Sandy then speaks to me like a professional, stoically. “Scarlett, it’s possible that your father may never regain consciousness. We have machines breathing for him. We’re keeping him alive to give him a chance to recover.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s a but?”
“Your father’s health was already poor. The chances of him recovering are reduced because of that.”
Sandy steps between Doctor Jefferson and me. “I don’t understand. He will recover?”
The doctor sighs, in the way doctors sigh in movies for dramatic effect right before they tell the relatives that their loved one is dead. “If he does wake up, he will have irreparable brain damage. How bad that will be is a guess at this stage.”
Sandy sobs hysterically into her tissue. I don’t know whether I thank the doctor but he leaves the room. I slip my fingers into my father’s cold, lifeless palm.
He would hate to live like this. Even if he wakes up and goes back to his old life, the life he had just hours ago, I know he hates living that way. But he still has good days. They might be few and far between but they exist. For so long as he has coherent days, days when he looks at me like my father and I can see and feel how much he loves me, I’m not ready to let him go.
There’s an unbearable mounting pressure in my brow and behind my eyes but I don’t cry.
He’ll recover. He’s my dad.
* * *
My father is moved to a side room on a ward and registered as an inpatient. I wonder if he’ll ever become an outpatient. Sandy and I watch him in his vegetative state whilst auxiliary nurses bring us endless cups of tea—the good old English cure for anything—and give us each a plate with four cheddar triangle sandwiches and half a bag of ready salted crisps.
“The only other spare meals we have are dysphagic but you’re welcome to try if you like?” Valarie, the evening nurse, asks.
“Thanks all the same but cheese sandwiches are great,” I say.
Valarie chuckles. “I thought you might say that.”
The food reminds me where I’m supposed to be. The completion dinner. I slip out of the room and I’m grateful for the fresh, crisp air in the hospital carpark.
I find Gregory’s number on my Blackberry and dial, staring up to the dark sky, trying to keep it together.
“Scarlett.”
It’s crazy but something in his voice, the sound of my name, brings everything that’s happened crashing down on me.
“Scarlett? Are you there? Is everything okay?”
I sniff back the first sign of tears and pinch the bridge of my nose between my finger and thumb. “Gregory, I’m sorry but I can’t make it to dinner.”
“Scarlett, what’s wrong?” His tone shifts to rigid concern.
“I, ah, it’s my dad. He...” I breathe out slowly and wipe a tear from my cheek. “My dad has Alzeimer’s. He, ah, he feel down the stairs and...” A sob unwittingly breaks from my throat. “I don’t think, God, he’s, he’s brain damaged. I don’t know if he’s going to wake up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be crying to you. I’ve got to go. I’m sorry about dinner.”
I send Sandy to the café on the ground floor of the hospital for a break. It’s getting late and we’re both exhausted but as long as the nurses keep turning a blind-eye to us being here, we won’t leave him.
I sit with my father, having a one-way conversation for almost an hour. There’s no change. Once or twice, I imagine him responding to my voice, answering my questions, but if it weren’t for his chest subtly rising and falling, he’d be still. The machines that keep him alive beep and whisper in rhythm. A score of death. That’s the brutal reality. My father, the man he was, has been slowly dying. But this can’t be the end.
My body goes stiff with both realisation and disgust. Part of me, tiny though it is, is relieved that his suffering might be drawing to an end. I swallow the impending sickness rising in my throat.
My father’s skin is increasingly pale, almost translucent under the fluorescent lights when we eventually leave. Sandy and I walk out of the main entrance linked together. She carries a plastic bag containing my father’s torn clothes in one hand and holds the lapels of her coat closed at her chest with the other.
“Scarlett, I’m sorry.”
She stares at her shoes as tears drip to the ground at her feet. She looks young and vulnerable. Her coat hangs loose at her waist; the toll of the last few months has led to her weight gradually decreasing. I wish there was an upper limit of tears that one person could shed in a day.
“I left him,” she cries. “He couldn’t feed himself so I tried to help him. He got angry and—”
Throwing my arms around her, pulling her head onto my shoulder, I rest my chin on her soft black curls. “It’s okay.”
“He spat his soup at me then started screaming that he was hungry. I just, I just needed a break. I went out for a walk around the block. I shouldn’t have left him for so long.”
“Shhh.”
Her sobs become uncontrollable, taking over her entire body. “When I got back...it was too late. He was at the bottom of the stairs. I thought, I thought—”
“Hey, enough!” I say sternly, pulling back and holding her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “This is not your fault, Sandy. You’re not his nurse. I should’ve never let you take on so much responsibility. It’s me who should be apologising.”
“Scarlett.” The voice is one I recognise. Deep, male, wary. “Can I take you home?”
“Jackson. How did you know we were here?” I say, brushing tears from my cheeks.
“We worked it out. Mr. Ryans insisted that you have a lift home whenever you need it.”
I don’t have the energy to refuse and let Jackson lead Sandy into the back of the Mercedes. He gently wraps one arm around her shoulder and takes the burden off her legs by tucking her other arm in his. She’s still sniffling when she sits onto the back seat. Jackson pulls her seat belt across her and fastens it into the holster, then he turns to offer me a hand.
“I’m okay, thank you,” I say, genuinely touched by his compassion for Sandy.
When I climb into the car, I fold Sandy’s cold hand in mine.
Jackson’s phone rings and he draws up the black glass divider between the front and back of the Mercedes as he punches the button for the speakerphone.
“Greg, I’ve got them.”
