Authors: Glenys O'Connell
Standing back to
check herself in the long mirror, she gave a low whistle and grinned at
herself. Since she was 12 she'd had the kind of curves that had caught male
eyes. Fortunately, she'd also had to kind of upbringing with Granny Somers that
had taught her early how to slap down those same wandering palms.
But it wasn't
lust but disgust that registered on Winters' face when the sex kitten
Cíara
sashayed out of the bathroom.
“Forget it,” he
told her arrogantly, “Get that lot off, scrub the gunk off your face, and let's
get down to business.”
“This is how I
dress for business,” she replied, cheeks blushing pink with fury under her
peach sunset foundation.
“Well, you're
not doing that work from now on,” Winters ground out.
Why the hell
was he worried if she wanted to dress like a whore and do a whore's work?
he
asked himself, not at all liking the way his anatomy had responded to the way
she'd wiggled her butt as she bent down to pick up her briefcase. “I've every
intention of turning this business into a legitimate investigating company, and
I won’t have your cheap tricks making a mockery of it,” he snarled.
“I am going out
to do surveillance,”
Cíara
said, her
jaws clenched to prevent herself from leaping across the room and ripping his
throat out with her teeth. They stood, checkmated, glaring at each other from
across the room for several very long moments. The atmosphere was charged with
electricity so strong, she thought her short red hair would be standing on end
under the wig, so she gave a sigh of relief when Winters shrugged his
shoulders.
“Okay, I don’t
suppose I can change you overnight. Go and do your 'surveillance', but first we
need to go over your files.”
Winters spent twenty minutes in the office,
looking over her client files, his lips twitching when he read about the old
lady and the cat. Then he discussed her current caseload with her – which was
zilch. She explained through clenched teeth about the private investigations
scene in Dublin, and was dizzily relieved when the man decided he had another
appointment. She hoped she’d bored him enough that he’d decide, over a
luxurious lunch somewhere with his niece, that he couldn’t be bothered toying
with her any more.
“I’ve
got some ideas that we can discuss but I’m pushed for time right now. So I’ll
see you bright and early in the morning. Anything I can do in the meantime?” he
asked pleasantly as he shrugged his arms into his jacket.
“Yeah,
you could fall under a bus,” Cíara snapped back.
But
he grinned and planted a fast kiss on the top of her bewigged head as he headed
for the door.
And suddenly she was extremely glad that she had
not taken the Serena McLaughlin file with its completed report out of her
briefcase, or any of her other 'seduction to go' case files.
Because she now knew just how Jonathon Victor
Winters got that nasty bruise on the side of his face!
* * *
“Nah!
You just have to be kidding me?” Cíara’s flat mate, Mary Margaret McCutcheon,
gasped in delight when she heard the story over a late lunch. Or at least, an
edited version, in which Cíara explained that the American visitor had spotted
what a good future her business had after she had met him briefly on a job, and
had made a partnership request.
No way was she planning to let Mary Margaret, a
confirmed ManEater and prize gossip to boot, know who she was dealing with, so
she just called her new partner Jon and made it sound as though she was
delighted with the proposal. Mary Margaret swallowed the story whole, to such
an extent that Cíara decided she should maybe pop along to the Gaiety Theatre
and see if they had any roles for a consummate actress and storyteller like
herself.
“So,
anyway, just as the poor man was leaving, I noticed he had this bruise on the
side of his face.” Actually, the bruise was the first thing anyone would
notice, looking at the man, because it was large and now bright purple with
green streaks, but again, she was editing the tale. “It was only later that I
put two and two together and guess what?”
“Spill!”
Mary Margaret commanded, slurping deeply of her fresh fruit drink after
devouring the last shred of lettuce in her Dieter’s Healthy Special and casting
a longing look at the cream éclairs under glass at the counter.
“He's
the one who rescued me down in Waterford!”
Mary
Margaret’s eyes bulged. She was quiet for a whole heartbeat and then squealed:
“No! You mean the man who rescued you from being raped and then was bashed on
the side of the head by that old Granny landlady! Cíara, sweetie, that’s
too
unreal!”
Now they had the interested attention of every
single soul in the crowded city center restaurant. Cíara wondered if it wasn’t
too late for her to slide under the table and pretend she wasn’t there. But she
knew everyone was waiting for her answer and Dublin is a city where you don’t
keep your audience waiting.
“Sure,
that’s the truth, Mary Margaret. Talk about your coincidences, eh?” she
replied, loudly enough for everyone to hear. There was a collective sigh of
relief from the other patrons that the news had been confirmed, and everyone
settled back into their own conversations again.
“Anyway,
Mary Margaret, it’s so generous of you to buy me lunch – so unlike you, in
fact,” she said peevishly. Public ridicule after the close encounters of the
Winters kind had done nothing to improve her humor.
“Don’t
be snotty, Cíara, it doesn’t suit you,” Mary Margaret sniffed loudly. Then she
leaned forward, excitement suffusing a happy glow to her face under the
foundation and powder. “I’ve some wonderful news! Joe has asked me to move in
with him! We’re going to live together!”
“You’re
going to…but only last week you were calling him a pimple faced alcoholic with
a mother-complex!” Cíara gasped.
It was then Mary Margaret’s turn to flush as all
heads turned again in their direction. But Mary Margaret had been brought up in
a family of 12 in Finglas and it took a lot to make her quail.
“I
said no such thing. I maybe said he wasn’t behaving well, but that’s all over
now! I’m moving in with him!”
“Good
for you, love,” a gray-haired woman in a severely cut business suit at the next
table called out as she folded over a copy of the Times’ business section.
“That’s
disgusting – living in sin and not making a marriage commitment!” came a
quavering voice from the back, and then the restaurant was in uproar as patrons
began a vigorous debate over morality issues.
Mary
Margaret sat placidly through it all.
“You
really did say that, Mary Margaret!”
“Yeah,
well, ‘suppose that was before I found out I was pregnant,” she replied, a
Madonna-like smile quivering her lips. Conversations all around them stopped,
heads turned in their direction, and then the hubbub began again.
“You’re…you’re….not
serious.” Cíara was having difficulty getting the words out around the shock
that had lodged in her throat. “Have I told you recently that you’re crazy?”
Mary
Margaret sat up straight in her chair. “I should have known there’d be nothing
but abuse from you – of course I’m crazy! I shared a flat with you for two
years, didn’t I?” Flinging a ten-Euro note down on the table, she stalked out
of the restaurant, leaving Cíara to foot the rest of the bill –
could
lettuce salad really cost that much?
– and bear the brunt of crowd
attention all the way to the cash desk.
Back
in her office she slumped at the desk.
What a God-awful day!
It had
started off fine – delivering the good news to Frank O’Keefe had given her a
warm fuzzy feeling. A feeling that was short-lived as Jonathon Victor Winters –
damn him!
– had walked into her life. And now she’d have to hunt for a
new flat mate!
With the scarcity of housing in Dublin, every
Tim, Dick, and Patricia would beat a path to her door – hundreds of unsuitable,
incompatible people would want to move in with her and be her new best friend,
and she’d have to interview them all…
Sighing,
she pulled a piece of paper towards her and started to compose a ‘flat to
share, own bedroom,’ advertisement…
CHAPTER EIGHT
The screech of the
telephone by her bed brought Cíara back to consciousness the next morning.
Groaning, head pounding, she played doggo for a few moments, hoping that Mary
Margaret had come home last night and would answer the phone. But by the tenth
ring, she gave up and answered.
“Cíara,
darling! Did I wake you up? It’s eight o’clock, you know.” Margaret Henley –
no
way would she ever call that woman Grandmother
- said, her voice purring
down the line with the effect of chalk on a blackboard as far as Cíara’s
pounding head was concerned.
“Yeah,
well, I was out late last night. What do you want?”
The
sigh sounded mournful, even across the miles from Meath to Dublin. “Still not
well-versed in the social graces, are you, darling?”
“Just
get on with it, then leave me alone,” she snapped. Her headache – no, be
honest, hangover – was pounding like a Loyalist drum on the 12
th
of
July. She groaned audibly as her grandmother explained that they were holding a
dinner party that very evening and there were several wonderful people she
wanted Cíara to meet. Including that lovely young man, William Dexter, who
worked for Mr. Henley’s stockbroker and had such a good future ahead of him.
“No.”
A
short silence ensued, a stalemate that Mrs. Henley broke. “Well, that’s a
shame, dear, because I suppose the next time we’ll see you will be at the big
Henley garden party next month?”
Bull's-eye! Cíara conceded defeat. She knew that
if she turned down the dinner party she’d have to be dead and buried by June 20
th
if she wanted to get out of going to the god-awful garden party the Henleys
held each year.
Slamming the phone
down viciously was a mistake – the racket resounded in her head like the trump
of doom. Heading home from the office in a foul mood last night, she’d met some
old buddies and gone along to the pub with them. But the quick one had turned
into an all-nighter, especially when several of the gang had discovered that
she was going to be in need of a flat mate soon. Having a place to rent made
her a very desirable friend and the object of numerous free drinks, all of
which now raced between her head and stomach as she staggered to the bathroom.
Once
she was sure she was going to live for another few hours at least, she headed
off to Harry's Garage to pick up her car. All the way there, on a crowded
Dublin bus, she repeated the mantra:
Please let Winters have fallen down a
deep, dark hole and not be in my office when I get there!
Over and over to
herself, a trick she’d learned in a yoga relaxation class. Except that, with
Winters’ name in it all the mantra did was raise her blood pressure, which
rocketed still further when she saw the bill Harry handed her for the MG’s new
exhaust system.
“God,
Harry, I hate to bitch, but are you planning to retire on this?”
But
Harry was in no mood to be grouched at. He usually treated her with fond
indulgence, but this morning he snapped at her to watch her lip. “Damn car’s
more trouble than it’s worth, anyway. You must have more money than sense to
want to keep it running.”
Cíara’s
eyes widened in shock. “Harry! You love this car as much as I do! What on
earth’s gotten into you!”
The
big mechanic scowled even more deeply, then looked sheepish. “Sorry, I
shouldn’t take it out on you, what these damned Corporation officials are
doing.”
That’s
when she saw the notice pinned to Harry’s door. The land on which his garage
stood on was now slated for redevelopment. “But you’ll get compensation,
surely?” she asked, rapidly figuring that land right here in the city center
was probably worth a pretty penny and her friend should maybe be ready to
celebrate rather than mourn the loss of his business.
“I
only rent, it’s the owner who’ll do well.”
“So,
will you look for another place?”
Harry
shot her a bitterly amused glance. “Sure, if I can find someone with €100,000
or so going spare for the lease and the moving,” he replied. “Happen to have
any rich relatives, girl?”
She
bit her lip. Harry was her friend but he knew nothing of her background. She
commiserated with him, wrote a check for the bill, and caught a bus the rest of
the way to her office, leaving her car for final tune-up work.
She
was frowning and pre-occupied with Harry’s problem when she walked into her
office. Otherwise, she’d have picked up warning signals long before she came
upon the cozy little scene of Jonathon Victor Winters ensconced in the chair
behind
her
desk, in deep conversation with a sweet old lady who smiled
at him adoringly.