“Stop that,” he intoned.“I’m driving.”
“Sorry,” I said.“Was I distracting you?”
“I don’t want to crash with you in the passenger seat,” he said, checking his mirrors carefully before pulling out at an intersection.“You are the only person with IT access to my contact book and calendar.There would be no one to cancel my meetings.”
“Is that the only reason you don’t want to crash the car with me in it?”I asked him incredulously.
It happened again.
The corner of his mouth – it quirked upwards.Then it disappeared again, leaving me staring at him and wondering if I had seen it at all.
But I had seen it.Three times, now.And god, that was making me want to try so hard to make it happen again.And again.
Could I make him beam?Chuckle?Laugh?
I tried to picture him crying with laughter, tears rolling down smiling cheeks, and I couldn’t even formulate one part of the picture – let alone the whole thing.
I looked back at the road.It had seemed endless – but we were outside of the city now, and Mr.Harvey was slowing down to take a turn.Before I knew it, we were on what looked like an access road for maybe a single property – a thought that was proven to be true when a gate materialized at the end of it.
We idled outside for maybe five seconds and the gates swung inwards.I couldn’t see or hear anyone involved in the process – maybe they scanned the license plate or a camera with a motion sensor was connected up somewhere in the house – but they opened and let us through.I turned to look through the rear window as the gates swung neatly shut behind us.
When I turned back around, a house was emerging out of the shelter of a grove of trees, swelling up from the gravel roadway: a house that looked fancier than my wildest dreams.It was big – maybe the size of the bottom two floors of the office – but more than anything, it wasgrand.
We parked beside a range of luxury cars and Mr.Harvey almost leaped out of the driver’s seat.Within seconds he was calling something out and rushing across the gravel to the front door.I scrambled to undo my seatbelt and follow him – and only when I was standing outside of the car could I see the woman framed in the doorway of the house.
Behind her, Caleb Coleman was grinning with his arms folded across his chest.He didn’t look awkward or scary or imposing – he looked like he was happy to see Mr.Harvey.
“Olly!”the woman at the door exclaimed, holding out her arms for a hug.She was tall and beautiful, with short black hair twisted and styled on top of her head.To my utter shock, he obliged her, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her in return.“It’s been amonth.Far too long.”
“Aubrey,” he said, stepping back with a genuine smile.It opened up his face in ways I couldn’t even have imagined.“You know I couldn’t survive too long without your cooking.”
Aubrey?
The name and the face triggered something, a memory that resurfaced from the research I had done into the job.
AubreyColeman?
How could I have been so stupid as to forget that I’d seen a few photos of her online – Caleb Coleman’s wife?
This complicated my theory immensely.If Coleman was married – to a woman, no less – then he couldn’t have been dating Mr.Harvey.Or could he?But if he was, then would Aubrey be so calm about greeting him?
Did she… know?Approve?
Was this some kind of a throuple situation?
Mr.Harvey stepped back and allowed the Colemans a clear view of me standing behind him, stretching out an arm to gesture toward me.“I hope you don’t mind.I’ve brought a guest.”
Caleb looked at me warily, but in front of him, his wife gave me a much more appraising look.Her gaze traveled from my shoes up to my hair and back down to my face.“Who’s this?”she asked.There was almost a purr in her voice like she was expecting a particular answer.
“My secretary,” Mr.Harvey said, prompting her expression to slide into a confused frown.“Let’s go inside.”
“Right,” she muttered.“Wouldn’t want you to get cold out here.”
She stepped back and led the way inside, Caleb and then Mr.Harvey walking behind her.I brought up the rear, trailing along behind a group I did not know how to fit into.
This was getting stranger and stranger, and I didn’t know what to make of any of it.
“So, when did you tell him?”Caleb asked, shooting a glance over his shoulder at me – but the question was clearly for Mr.Harvey.
