Chapter 46
46
DEAN WALKER’S APARTMENT, DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN
Hayley watched Angel flying around the newly erected Christmas tree like she was competing in a contemporary dance competition. Her arms stretched high, garlands of gold, silver, blue and red tinsel dripping from her fingers, then moving low, slipping bauble after bauble onto the outstretched boughs of the tree.
Mac Sullivan from the apartment next door had had to saw the bottom of the trunk off for them to even get it into the building. Angel’s face had been a picture. Her words full of concern. Don’t hurt Bruce. That’s more than thirty centimetres. Don’t bend his arms. Hayley smiled, watching Angel pat Randy on the head as she collected another sparkling decoration from Dean.
While her daughter was distracted, Michel wasn’t in her thoughts, but the closer Christmas got, Hayley knew the questions would be coming thick and fast. Why haven’t you found him? You promised. Hayley put a line through another museum address on her print-out and picked up her phone.
The intercom bleeped and Dean got up off the floor to respond to it. ‘Can we try and get it a little colour-coordinated? ’
‘Dean, it’s a Christmas tree,’ Vernon responded. ‘Not an ornament.’
Pressing the button, Dean answered. ‘Dean Walker.’
Hayley watched her brother raise his eyes as Vernon passed Angel a tacky, garish-looking fairy.
‘Hey, Dean, it’s Oliver,’ the voice came back.
Hayley’s stomach plummeted to somewhere close to down-the-escalators-at-Waterloo-Underground-Station level as she heard the voice that had been sending her erogenous zones into overdrive almost since she’d met him. She swallowed, quickly remembering it was also the same voice that had sent her packing this morning.
‘Has something else happened?’ Dean asked in a panicked voice.
‘No, we’re all good. I’m on my way to deliver the news actually.’
Something was going on with the business that she didn’t know about. She wasn’t privy to any of that now she was no better than a one-night stand. Again.
‘Is Hayley there?’
Now her stomach was rushing, diving through the tunnels of the subway without stopping at any station along the way. What did he want? Hadn’t he said all he needed to say earlier?
Dean looked over to her then, as if waiting for some sort of response. Hayley knew what he was thinking. She hadn’t told him any of what happened the night before, but the very fact she hadn’t waxed lyrical, or come out with any hilarious anecdotes told its own story. She should be shaking her head right now. She should be waving her hands and signalling that she wasn’t there.
‘Er…’ Dean made the non-committal noise, his eyes widening as every millisecond ticked by.
‘It won’t take a minute, I promise,’ Oliver said.
Huh, a promise meant little at the moment. And her physical reaction to his voice was betraying the level-headed side of her. The side of her that wasn’t going to let her guard down for anyone ever again.
‘She’s here. She’s coming down,’ Dean finally spoke.
Hayley sent her eyes out on stalks. Why had he done that? Hadn’t he got the message that she didn’t want to see him? Now Dean had taken the decision out of her hands. Now there was nothing she could do about it. She had to go and see what Oliver wanted. The most annoying thing about all of that was the flutter of something in her stomach that was utterly unwelcome. Desire . She now officially hated herself.
She slipped down from the bar stool. She could do this. She would go down there, let him say whatever he had come to say and be done with it as quickly as she could. Like a doorstep conversation with an election candidate.
‘What’s going on with you two?’ Dean asked her.
She sighed. ‘Let me pass on answering and I won’t ask a thing about whatever is going down at Drummond Global.’
Dean closed his mouth like a drawbridge at a castle under threat of invasion and Hayley headed for the door.
Oliver was going to deliver this message and nothing else. When she walked out this morning, he was adamant he wasn’t going to see her again. Just being here was screwing him up, but he didn’t have a choice. He sighed as he waited. He wasn’t going to look into her eyes or drop his gaze to her lips or admire her defiant jaw which, under these circumstances, would definitely be defiant. He’d hurt her. At a time when she least needed it. She was vulnerable, in an unfamiliar country, looking for her daughter’s father and he had treated her so badly. He pulled in a breath as the cold started to seep through his woollen coat and sink its way into his bones. He had to carry on treating her badly. It was the only way forward.
The door creaked open and light from the hallway framed her image. It was like someone had put his insides into a blender. He was turning into pulp right there on the step.
‘Hi,’ he greeted when the power of speech had come back to him. He cleared his throat, trying to get back on task.
‘What are you doing here?’
It was the very to-the-point question he’d been expecting after everything that had happened at the hospital. He held out a gift bag.
Hayley shook her head. ‘What’s this? Something from Tiffany’s to buy back my affections?’
He cleared his throat again. ‘It’s the bow tie and waistcoat we bought for Randy.’
He watched her expression change and she took hold of the bag, accepting it.
‘Oh… thank you.’
She looked directly at him then, those eyes meeting his. He hurried on. There wasn’t time to be distracted.
‘So, I just wanted to give you that and also to… to give you this.’ He passed forward the brown envelope he’d had tucked under his arm all the way here. It had felt like a bomb on a timer because, despite his honourable intentions, he was in deep and dire conflict about it. Half of him wanted to tear the papers to shreds and let them never see the light of day. The less selfish side of him, the pieces of the Oliver he aspired to be if he ever got his head straight, was urging him on.
Hayley took the envelope but, instead of looking at it, or tearing at it, she left her eyes on him. It was as if she were trying to see inside him and translate the contents without actually having to look .
Was she going to make him say the words? He blinked, breaking their connection for just a second. They shouldn’t matter so much. He needed to think of it as a business deal. Fulfilling wishes was what he did after all.
‘I found Michel,’ he stated.
Hayley grabbed the railings at the top of the stone steps, immediately snapping her hand back as the frozen metal burnt her fingers.
‘When I say found, I mean… someone I work with,’ Oliver took a breath. ‘Someone I use for difficult situations… I asked him to find Michel and in the envelope are his latest contact details.’ He swallowed. ‘There’s an address, here in New York, and… a number.’
She looked at the envelope in her hands, disbelieving. Was the answer to Angel’s dearest wish really held inside? After months of searching every place she could think of – every directory, every website, every different web provider – it seemed too good to be true. And all this was being delivered to her by the guy who stamped all over her heart only a few hours earlier. She smoothed her hands over the paper. Was this a trick? She jerked her head up then, facing Oliver.
‘Is this for real?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Because I have a little girl up there I made a promise to and if this is just false hope?—’
‘It’s not,’ Oliver said. ‘My source confirmed the location.’
‘Can you please stop speaking “spy”?’
‘He’s spoken to his neighbours and he’s seen him.’ Oliver let out a sigh. ‘It’s an address in Brooklyn.’
Hayley shook her head. How could that be possible? How could he have been so close yet so impossible to track down? She couldn’t stop the tears from spilling from her eyes, feeling so many sensations all at once. Hope. Joy. Fear .
As the salty tracks of her tears started to crystallise on her face, she looked up at Oliver. She watched him put his hands in the pockets of his coat and tighten his jaw.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed.
He nodded. ‘Well, I have a reputation for making women’s wishes come true.’ He swallowed. ‘I couldn’t let this one beat me.’
She watched him bite his bottom lip, as if he was thinking about what to say next. Why had he done this? Had he thought better about shutting her down at the hospital? She felt weak for even considering it.
‘Listen,’ he started. ‘I just wanted to say… about the McArthur Foundation fundraiser.’ He wet his lips. ‘It’s a great cause and… no matter how I feel about it… even though it’s not my bag…’ He stopped, like he didn’t know what he had started to say. ‘You’re going to make it an incredible event.’
She needed to say something. He had come over here with Angel’s wish in his hands. His hazel eyes were full of emotion and those pert lips she’d kissed so hungrily looked more delicious and tempting than an open tin of Quality Street. If she took a step towards him, what would he do? She slid one foot through the dusting of snow.
He stepped back and her heart fell. This was goodbye.
‘Well, I’d better head off… lots to do.’ Oliver smiled at her. ‘Goodbye, Lois.’
She swallowed the knot of emotion clogging up her throat. Her heart and libido were telling her to stop him as she watched him take the steps down to the pavement. He turned back and she held her breath. He waved a hand then pulled the handle of the waiting town car and slipped into the back seat. She sighed, watching her breath spiral in the freezing air and whispered into the night. ‘Goodbye, Superman.’