There had to be an easier way to leave a job behind.
Set to silent, Finn’s phone vibrated on the bar beside his elbow.
Ignoring it, he tugged at the loosened knot of his tie, undid the thing, and shoved it into the pocket of his pants.
The phone buzzed again.
“Your phone,” the bartender said, eyeing the vibrating phone as it juddered in an untidy circle over the bar.
“That it is.”
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
“Whoever wants you, wants you bad.”
In Finn’s experience he’d always been the one who’d wanted things bad. Those who wanted him didn’t want for much at all.
The phone quieted. Finn sensed the bartender holding his breath.
It rang again. Locking his jaw Finn grabbed the phone, swiped right, lifted the phone to his ear. “Ward.”
Frank’s voice barked into his ear. “Where are you?”
“Out and about.”
“Clearly. The Jamesons were expecting you with the contracts a half hour ago.”
Finn pressed a thumb into his temple. “They got them twenty-five minutes ago.” Finn had the text with photo of delivery signature to prove it.
He didn’t expand on the fact that he’d sent a runner to do the job because he’d been double-booked. The job was done. Problem fixed. In his experience, the hows rarely mattered.
“Also, my wife was trying to get you –”
“She got me.” Finn growled. Hence the double booking.
Frank laughed. “Before I did? The woman has skills.”
And an eagle eye. She’d cornered him at Frank’s New Years party as he’d been about to make his great escape, hounding him with questions about his work, his personal life. Asking whether he was happy.
The last thing Finn needed was for Frank to be worrying if Finn was “happy”. He needed Frank to believe everything was as it always had been. For the time being, at least. Frank didn’t deserve to be kept in the dark either, but it was best for now. Safest.
Finn ran a hand over his face. “If you don’t need anything else, I’ll call it a day. See you in the morning.”
Frank’s silence was telling. Finn had never called anything a day in the decade and a bit he’d been working for Frank. Had never finished a minute before his boss, and often hours after. It was how he’d risen from nothing to become Frank’s right hand.
“Good with me,” Frank said as if nothing was amiss. “See you then.”
Finn rang off. Then slipped a note onto the bar to cover the two scotches he’d drunk and the two he hadn’t – one of which sat half full on the bar, the tinge of barely there lipstick kissed to its rim.
He stared at the kiss mark for a beat. Then dragged his eyes away.
Gathering his jacket, he yanked it over one arm then the other, flicking it into place across his shoulders.
And caught Hazel’s eye.
To anyone watching there’d have been nothing between them. No recognition. But the woman could communicate a novel with little more than a twinkle in her eye.
He hadn’t needed a novel, just an indication that she was content with his work. He’d need her on his side when the time came to make a decision. He’d need her for Frank.
Hazel lifted her glass of bubbly, took a sip, left a tip and a note, grabbed her bag and sashayed from the bar.
Passing her table, Finn picked up the note to find it written on expensive paper covered in tiny embossed hearts.
It read—
No wonder my husband adores you. You are a gentleman of the first order. Thank you for the help. It is much appreciated. Hazel, xXx
He breathed out his relief. Glad he’d never have to go through that again.
When she’d called asking for a favour, Hazel had played like it was some kind of time-critical emergency. She’d filled him in on the fact that she’d landed a client for her new business. Officially her first. He might be needed to act the part of “stranger in a bar”. He might not. But if he could show up at a certain place and time just in case. He’d waited. Half expecting to be left alone. Half expecting a panic-stricken spinster on death’s door. Never having a problem knowing which end of a woman was up—even before the swank job and the tailored suits—he’d planned to shout her a chardonnay while smiling kindly at stories of her hairless cats and her intolerance to bad language.
Then he’d seen the girl.
With her wild auburn hair, wide pink mouth, and achingly sweet face, she was less nervous spinster than bewitching wood nymph.
When her direct, smoky-grey eyes had settled on him like a charm, he’d known – the way a good soldier knows when he’s besieged – he’d have to find another way to handle Hazel. For the only solution was retreat.
Only the wood nymph hadn’t backed down. Blunt as a used pencil and as refreshing as a hit of lemon. She’d marched on, determined despite all deterrents. Forcing him to play.
Frank would have thought her delightful.
Finn’s father would have preferred the term “perfect mark”.
While Finn couldn’t remember ever having met a woman who’d seemed so alive. The way she fidgeted, constantly, on the wonky stool, her eyes drinking him in, her words refusing to let him get away with anything, she was a livewire in danger of setting the place, and him, on fire.
Shaking off the sense that he could still feel the woman’s warmth as if it lingered on his skin, he slipped the note into the inner pocket of his jacket. Not the one that held the letter he couldn’t seem to leave home without. The other pocket.
Then he stalked out of the bar, through the lobby with its ostentatious fountain, and out the door into a balmy Sydney late afternoon.
Making his way under the eponymous bridge spanning Sydney Harbour, he ducked between long patches of shade cast by its massive, dank pylons.
Twenty minutes later he was inside his apartment. The place was crisp and modern. All sharp edges and cool greys. An example of Spartan chic, it boasted a couch, a TV – for company rather than entertainment – a bed. He used the kitchen bench for his laptop, and owned linen for one. Compared to living out of a duffel bag it was practically ostentatious.
The lights in his kitchen turned on by themselves as he hit the raised platform. He opened the fridge, divested it of a bottle of chilled water and took himself to the couch.
Beyond the smoky windows and in between the silhouette of a building or two, a curved corner of the Sydney Opera House gleamed back at him, the setting sun glinting off her peaks and troughs.
As a kid he’d never have conceived of living in such a place. Or that he’d one day be contemplating the most bloodless way to leave it all behind.
But he could do it. If that was what it came to, he could walk away.
Last time it hadn’t been pretty. Sleeping wherever he landed – inside or out. Working for literal scraps. He’d inched so close to falling back on the deeply ingrained grifting skills he’d vowed to leave behind for good. Then, on the knife’s edge of discovering whether his instinct for survival trumped his need for self-respect, Frank had walked through the door of the diner in which Finn was bussing tables, and had seen the banked energy behind the busboy’s careful facade and taken a risk.
This time it would be easier. Too easy, really. He had the skills and the means. Enough squirreled away to keep him fed and sheltered for ten lifetimes.
It would take very little effort for Finn Ward to no longer exist.
The fact that he wanted to be Finn Ward was beside the point.
Knowing he was only delaying the inevitable, Finn pulled the letter from his suit pocket, his tired eyes running over the interstate address of his father’s lawyer.
The letterhead was simple; black on white, no logo. The paper cheap; a little slippery to the touch. The language dry. The request impossible.
He read it. Slowly. One word at a time as if hoping the words would change. But the sentiment was clear cut—would he please write a letter to the parole board in support of his father’s early release.
Why the ever living fuck would anyone in their right mind believe he would be amenable to such a petition?
He’d not seen his father in fifteen years. Finn had done everything in his power to put the man’s very existence out of his head. Despite Finn’s atrocious past, he’d made something of himself. Hell, this evening he’d thrown down a fifty dollar bill on the bar like it was nothing.
Yet in the slicing open of an envelope none of that mattered. He was back in that place; a scared kid, with a broken shoulder, a decimated heart, and blood on his hands.
When the vowels and consonants started to swim before Finn’s eyes he folded the creased paper back into a rectangle and slid it into its envelope.
Yet, as he fell asleep later that night, it was not to a cacophony of dark shadows or phantom memories, it was to dreaming of a kiss mark on a glass.
The next day, April nudged her Fiat into a spot in the staff car park at the Halcyon Whole Foods Wholesale home base, a massive double-storey warehouse in Woolloomooloo.
The rear of the warehouse was a bustle of activity with palettes, trucks, and containers filled with magical, organic wonders from the vast reaches of the planet, loading and unloading day and night.
April waited for a small forklift to bump along the roadway then jogged carefully to the curb, her sandals slapping happily against the bitumen, her long maxi-dress swishing about her legs as she moved through the staff gate towards the public face of the operation – the show room.
The company’s mission statement had been burned over and over again into the pelmet running the breadth of the building—Balance In All Things. And inside was a glorious advertisement for the Halcyon brand.
Pocked-concrete floors, covered in deliberately scattered sawdust, glowed gently beneath high ceilings crisscrossed in gorgeous old beams. The decor boasted a feast of texture in an infinite range of beige. Music piped through the expanse as if from the heavens above – African drums, Asian strings, South American jungle noises. Wide aisles invited wanderers to dip into wooden crates filled with shiny piles of single-sourced coffee beans, whole grains, seeds, and super foods of every kind.
One corner of the monolithic space housed a cafe run by tall, gorgeous, mung-bean-thin waifs and – three times a week – Erica, for all the thanks that had gotten April for getting her sister the job. They sold health-centric recipe books as well as decaf, dairy-free, soy, sugarless muck. Not that she’d ever say so out loud!
Edging around a group of bearded, sandalled, dreadlocked gents who were enjoying a collective orgasm over the aroma of sun-dried legumes—which April quietly thought smelled like dirt—she disappeared behind a wall of Hessian mats and poked her security key into the discreet slot in a rustic, wood-panelled wall. Industrial lift doors opened and she slipped inside, and was soon whisked to the office space above.
If the ground floor was a warm, cathartic, healthful, fresh-from-the-organic-farm haven, upstairs looked like something transposed from the dreams of a Scandinavian furniture designer.
Acres of frosted glass, white walls, and asymmetrical lighting grids were interspersed with tonal colour-coded, modular pods, delineating the infrastructure teams—cream for accounts, beige for marketing, ecru for branding, etcetera.
Phones rang. Keyboards tapped. Sales were tallied. At the touch of a button, the ownership of millions of dollars worth of products blipped from one company to another. It was a slick hive of capitalist industry.
April glanced around for Stan – the man who had given her her first job as a keen sixteen-year-old, desperate to break free of the confines of her mother’s suffocating control. The man she now had to convince to ignore his employees and give her the job of her dreams. Well, not her always dreams. When she was four, she’d wanted to be a unicorn. But her “happy right now” dreams. Her grown-up dreams.
Well over six-feet tall, with a shock of bright red hair and beard to match, Stan McTavish wasn’t hard to find. April spotted him inside the conference room where the heads of all the departments listened in rapture as the big boss sprouted gems of wholesaling wisdom.
Oh well. She’d catch him later—
Hang on one rice-syrup-sweetened second! Was that Jase was in the conference room? And was he was playing a game on his phone hidden between his legs?
All of April’s good vibes disappeared in a puff of smoke leaving little flames flickering at the corners of her mind. The kind that made her want to climb up onto a table in the middle of the room and demand the entire company tell her to her face what else she could possibly have done differently to win their vote of confidence.
She kept it together. Just. Helped by years of practice curbing her less golden instincts. She was the good sister after all.
As if he could feel her rising ire Jase looked up and caught her staring, though not in the schmaltzy way she’d no doubt been staring at him the past few weeks. If only looks could kill...
Her intent must have been pretty clear as Jase swallowed. Hard.
Then he regrouped and gave her the whammy – his most charming, crooked grin. And, damn him, it hit the mark. Because he was Just Her Type.
For the first time in her adult life, she wondered why that was. What made her always go for dopey boys who needed their hands held when there were men like Finn Whateverhisnamewas out there in the world with all their—What did Hazel call it? All she could remember was “raging sex appeal”.
With the buzz of the evening before still lurking in her muscle memory, April slowly pressed her shoulders back—and okay, the girls might have gotten in on the action for real that time—and smiled at Jase as if she had no cares in the world.
When Jase’s smile faltered and a worry line flickered into existence above his nose, the Cinderella Project paid for itself then and there.
Turning her back on the distressing scene, April threaded her way through the modules till she reached her desk in the Well-Being Department – a small, specialised section decked out in the richest colour in the place – a kind of peanut brown. Though one of the guys in accounts said it looked like the colour of his new baby’s nappies and baby poo brown had stuck. It also fell just beside the promised land – big, beautiful, latte-coloured Human Resources.
Still buzzing, April shoved her bag into the baby poo brown cube to the left of her desk – one of four that met in the centre to form a square island dedicated to the emotional welfare of the Halcyon staff of hundreds.
Smith—dapper dresser, Jared Leto obsessee, the team’s social north—and Clara—pale, quiet, paleo junkie, the team’s graphics whiz and moral compass—were away from their desks, but by the blinking phone lines they’d checked in and had likely snuck off to get a coffee (substitute).
Compared to April’s piles of magazine clippings, colourful notebooks packed with ideas, the fourth cubicle –Jase’s – was ominously tidy and empty. As the clouds cleared she realised – the guy wasn’t simply hapless, he was downright useless. The urge to unravel a screw from his chair was a strong one.
“April Sunshine!”
April flinched, then turned and saw Clara and Smith heading her way.
“Everything alright, sweetness?” That was Smith. “You look like you’d bite the head off a live chicken, if only Stan imported such things.”
“Yes. No.” She took a deep breath, let it out slow. Pasted on a smile. “Live chickens are safe from me.”
“Take my drink,” Clara insisted. “It will clear out those cobwebs quick smart.”
Perhaps. But it was also green, with floaty bits, and smelled ever so slightly like swamp.
Smith’s “coffee” was milky or, to be more specific, almond-milky, frothy, and covered in carob flakes. Closer but she couldn’t go there either.
For all that she loved the company with all her heart and believed that Stan’s mission was a noble one, no matter how many times she’d tried to absorb that lifestyle Halcyon’s wares simply weren’t her cup of tea. Or coffee (substitute) for that matter. She didn’t rightly understand how anyone could cut such joys as processed flour, raw sugar, and food colouring from their lives on purpose. Life wasn’t worth living without comfort food!
Needless to say she kept such thoughts on the down low. She loved the company to bits – her pre-work, double espressos and otherwise famous cupcakes were irrelevant to that.
She plonked into her chair and spun it about. “I’m all good. Honestly. A little touchy after a crazy evening, is all.”
“How crazy?” Smith asked, leaning over her half-wall. Radar well and truly tuned, he whispered reverently, “You met someone.”
Not in the way Smith meant. Not really. Didn’t stop her heart from smacking against her ribs in an adrenaline-fuelled wallop. “Kind of. Not really. I don’t know.”
“Sounds fascinating.” Smith grabbed Clara’s hand and dragged her into the nook between April’s desk and shelves before pretending to shut an imaginary door. “We need details.”
Details? Oh, ho, no. There was no way she was going to tell any of them about the Cinderella Project. She might be a classic over-sharer, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep her mouth shut when her life depended it.
Sensing April’s hesitation, Smith grabbed the back of her chair and gave it a shake. “The only romance I’ve had in weeks has been with my My So Called Life DVDs. Spill.”
April laughed, slivers of tension falling away. “Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
“Where?”
“At a bar.”
“Which bar?”
“The Chaser.”
“Oh, nice. I’d guess great hair. Bespoke suit. Scotch drinker.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Was he nice?” Clara asked. Sweet Clara.
“He was”—magnetic, delicious, intense, practice—“charismatic.”
Smith straightened. Tugged on his sweater vest.
The hairs on the back of April’s necks stood on end a moment before she heard—
“Hey, gang. What’s going on?”
Jase.
The red rage was back, slamming into her cheeks in a hot mess.
To think she’d had a Florence Nightingale reaction to this guy. To think, when he’d moved into the Well-Being Department she’d been so sure he’d needed her help. And she’d given it, editing his presentations, even letting him present some of her ideas, gleefully taking up his slack. He’d played her like a violin.
By the adoration in Smith’s eyes, Jase had been playing all of them.
The urge to pick up her stapler, aim and click was a strong one.
“April met a guy,” Smith covered, ever so helpfully.
“Really?” It wouldn’t have been an overstatement to say Jase’s tone was incredulous. As if the very thought was literally shocking.
April’s red rage grew horns. She spun slowly in her chair and looked Jase right in the baby blues. Eyes she’d once thought lovely, until she’d seen what blue eyes could really look like on a real man who actually had stuff going on behind them.
“Yes, Jase. Really. Is that so hard to believe?”
Jase took a slight step backwards. Then he laughed his adorable laugh – which actually sounded pretty smug now she thought about it – and nudged her chair with a shoe. “Go on then. Who is the lucky guy?”
The lucky guy probably thought himself lucky the conversation had ended when it had. But she found herself saying, “His name’s Finn.” Something. “He’s a business man.” Probably. “And tall. Really tall.”
Jase was five foot eleven and a half, which he made a point of telling people, a lot.
“In fact, he reminded of a little of that guy from True Blood. The tall one.”
“The Viking?” Smith asked, his hand shaking as it lifted to his heart.
“That’s the one. Only darker. And bigger. His eyes were the bluest blue I’ve ever seen. This amazing, dark hypnotic blue. And he had a voice that ran down my spine like hot molasses.”
“I did ask for details,” Smith murmured happily.
While Jase cocked his head and looked at her like he’d never seen her before.
Huh. When Hazel had said she’d get a different reaction from men if she already had one on the hook, April had thought it was a part of her matchmaking tunnel vision. But maybe Hazel was onto something.
Either way, she’d only told the truth.
“Great,” Jase said, collecting himself with an all-over shake. “That’s great. Good for you, April. Now, in case you didn’t see the time how about we save the gossip for the water-cooler and get back to work?”
Clara blinked at him. April didn’t move an inch.
Smith let go a breathy, “Meow.”
Seemed Jase was at least smart enough to know that was all the reaction he was going to get, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled his way to his cubicle. Then at the last he turned, clicking his fingers as if something had just occurred to him. “After the managers meeting just now, some of the guys suggested meeting up after work for a drink. I suggested The Burrow. You should come.”
His gaze zeroed in on April, his smile edging towards adorably crooked. Eyes turning to full on twinkle-mode. All while he made it clear he’d been invited to a manager’s get-together, and she hadn’t. And he’d made sure it was taking place at her favourite bar. A bar she’d invited him to more than once in her less than subtle way of making it clear she’d liked him.
Any last doubts she might have had about the guy went up in smoke.
April crossed her legs, slowly, and leant a lazy arm over the back of her chair.
Her voice came out a deep throaty purr as she said, “Jase, are you asking me to on a date?”
She felt a kind odd quiet descend over the cubicles around hers as payroll—off white—and logistics—egg shell—went quiet.
“Because since we work in the same division, it’s not something Stan would be terribly keen on.”
Gauntlet thrown. May the best woman win.
Jase’s smile stuck, even as obfuscation flashed across his eyes.
Then he said, “I could fill you in on the stuff Stan was talking about in there. I know you’re keen on that kind of thing. Though it might as well have been Martian for all I understood.”
That she believed. Because as adorable—and canny, she was fast discovering—as the guy was, he had no idea how to run a human resources division!
When someone in payroll coughed, the sound echoing into the captivated silence, April eased down.
Curling her anger and disappointment back inside, she turned back to her desk, knowing she’d lost this battle. Her desire to see those notes was too strong to deny. “Find me at lunch and I’ll explain everything.”
“Excellent.”
Yeah. Ruddy excellent.