17 Flashing memories
Unknown POV
Walking up behind her, I gently held her shoulders in comfort, and felt them rise and fall on a sigh.
"What are we going to do now?" She asked in a tired voice.
"For now, we wait," I knew what she was asking, but that didn't mean that my answer was entirely for her question.
She was the naive one. An innocent, uninvolved bystander that had nothing to do with anything. And I intended to keep her that way. For as long as I can.
**
Caleb's POV
The lights from a lamp cast a halo over Ruth's hairs as I laid her on the bed. Right now, she looked like a tired angel, resting her eyes peacefully.
A practical example of how deceptive the looks could be. Because if she was any kind of angel, it was a warrior angel probably.
I let a small smile sneak up on my lips at the thought, only to have it turn into a scowl when I spied Leo watching me with a motherly smile.
Oh, for God's sake.
"Scowl all you want, Cousin o' mine," he whispered with a huge grin.
"But you can't deny that you are in loooooove." His ridiculous sing-song whisper echoed around, and I flipped him off before leaving the room.
No matter how annoying the guy was, I had to give the credit where it was due.
The room I had asked Leo to book was a suite in The Plaza. But, Leo being, well, Leo, went and rented a fucking cottage with a garden and white picket fence. How fucking typical of him to go all Disney on me.
It was all jewel coloured walls with ivory furniture and the decor matching the vibrant walls popping-up elegantly.
A huge bedroom, a den with a modular study table in the corner, an ensuite in each of those large rooms and small kitchenette stocked up with bare essentials all got my nod of approval.
I was pretty sure though, that Leo's deciding factor wasn't any of these features.
What had pronounced this room a winner in his eyes was the personal pool space right through the French doors of den.
If there was anything the guy liked more than interfering in other people's business, it was doing it while being submerged in water.
Walking into the kitchen, I poured a huge mug of coffee and then threw myself on the couch, deep in thought.
Leo settled in a chair adjacent to me with a sigh and I eyed his bruise.
"That still hurts?" I asked, gesturing to his eye.
"Nope, just a small wound in the grand scheme of things."
We sat in silence for a minute, both lost in thoughts, and the events of the day came to me like a mad rush.
It was like gazing intently into a badly flickering television, trying to decipher so much that has happened since this morning. It went through my mind one after the other, not necessarily in the series of its occurance.
Rubbing my face with both of my palms, I exhaled harshly and reached for the coffee on the glass table.
Before I could pick it up though, I froze mid-action as another image flashed in my brain. The same image that had popped up unbidden as I had held an unconscious Ruth into my arms at the intersection of the highway.
Flickering images of dark to light, rain to sun.... Day to night and back again. Ruth's face blurring.. Another face trying to shape up and then going out of focus. The hairs... brown hairs turning blonde. Long, cascading blond locks all soaked in blood.
A trickle of sweat slid down my temple, and my outstretched hand shook, catching Leo's attention.
"Caleb? What's wrong?" he asked with a hint of concern in his voice.
My body felt like it was on fire then went cold all at once, and I shuddered.
"Caleb?" Leo prompted again but I couldn't respond to him. Strangely, a lump had settled into my throat and a vague sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Swallowing hard, I cleared my throat. But still when I spoke, it came out hoarse.
"Cramp. Nothing to worry about." Leo eyed me, unconvinced.
But before his nagging could begin, I distracted him by asking, "are you hungry?"
Exhaling loudly, he grumbling, "glad you asked."
**
The couch in the den was huge. Large enough to accommodate 4 grown men comfortably.
It wasn't large enough though, to adjust a working me and a snoring Leo.
After valiantly trying to sit through the stentorus noise for few more minutes, I gave up trying to work anywhere in the den and carried my laptop into the bedroom.
The bedroom was well equipped with a huge bed, enough lamps to light up a small village, French windows that, just like the den, opened up to the pool and a small sitting area.
Situating myself on the ivory couch with loads of emrald coloured throw pillows at the far end of the room, I focused on fixing the work that had apparently gone to shit in the last 24 hours.
I had heaps of emails from the Board of Directors, their tones ranging from angry to threatening to downright desperation.
In a nutshell, they weren't happy about me postponing the meeting we were to have with the company that was trying to takeover InfoWeb Softwares.
Neither were they particularly happy about us having to stay here longer than they had intended us to.
This, I had anticipated already and that was why I had asked Leo to book a suite for us at my personal expense instead of staying in company booked rooms, just so InfoWeb Softwares cannot hold it onto our heads.
Rubbing my eyes in exhaustion, I decided to call one of the directors, to keep someone in the loop of things.
As if expecting it, Jay Patel picked up my call on third ring, his always husky voice sounding through.
"Cross, I was hoping you'd call."
"Why am I not surprised," I replied, smirking.
"Oh, don't you act fresh with me, young man. You have a lot of explaining to do." Jay responded lightly.
That was why I had chosen to call him instead of others.
Pushing 50, Jay Patel, head of installation and distributions, was the peacemaker among rest of the Board members.
Laid back and bluntly honest, Jay was the only one who knew my whole job history before I had stepped foot in InfoWeb Softwares, and my reasons to leave The CrossRoads Softwares.
Sighing, he asked, "how's Ms. Brooke doing?"
"Sleeping. Had a huge headache and bruises, but fine otherwise." I replied, eying her sleeping form.
"Hm.. and how are you?" He asked, surprising me.
"I wasn't the one who faced an attempted kidnap." I reminded him.
"Well, you never struck me as the type to sit back with popcorn during all that excitement."
I let his comment slide, not wanting to go into it.
"I got the emails."
"I expect they are not happy?"
"Nope. None of them is. But the police has asked us to not leave the state atleast until they can get an official statement from Ruth and get the investigation going."
"Well, that's not exactly a bad thing considering you needed the time to study this company's profile."
"Profile?" I scoffed. "They haven't even told me the name of the company that is taking over InfoWeb Softwares. What's with secrecy, Jay? How am I supposed to negotiate with them if I have no base to stand on?"
This was the part that annoyed me the most. Instead of giving me as much details as possible on the parent company, they were giving me a history lesson on InfoWeb Softwares.
I could almost hear the frown in his voice when he asked, "are you kidding? Ah, curse those incompetent assholes. It's as if they set you up to fail!"
"Now why would they want that?" I asked, amused.
"You don't understand," Jay muttered darkly. "These are vultures that you're dealing with. They can't bear to see someone else flying higher than them and make it their life's mission to bring them down. Key is that you remember yours and keep going." Jay's frustrated speech oddly struck a chord with me.
Keeping it aside, I focused on his next words.
He continued, "Don't worry, give me half an hour, I'll personally email you all the information I can get."
After talking with him for few more minutes, I disconnected the call and dropped my head at the back of the couch.
Office politics wasn't new to me. It was a part and parcel of the corporate world. But what never failed to surprise me was how people never count in the bigger picture in such petty reasons.
Lost in thoughts, I came to it when my email pinged, notifying me of Jay's email 20 minutes later.
Rubbing my hands together, I opened the email and downloaded the pdf file he had attached on my laptop.
I logged out, intending to open the document when a low moan distracted me.
**
Ruth's POV
The quiet hum of air conditioning broke into my peaceful rest, as I stirred and opened my eyes.
For a moment, I was disoriented by the muted lights and cosy ambience of my surroundings. I was on a giant bed, covered in a warm blanket, too comfortable to wonder why I was there in the first place.
It felt like a hazy calm had settled over my brain, making the whole world a happy, happy place.
Leisurely stretching, I felt myself linger onto the dream I had just been having.
Car chases, and cops. How cliche can it get? Maybe I was still dreaming, I thought with a smile, not being able to care in the least.
I froze mid-stretch however, when my eyes landed on Caleb Cross sitting on a couch in the far end of the room, engrossed in his laptop.
Was it a wet dream?
If not, then why was he in it? I thought dreamily, only to jolt up straight as something snapped into place in my memory, suddenly lifting the haze.
Everything that had happened since I woke up this morning - or was it yesterday morning? I had no idea! - came rushing back to me....
God, I couldn't even tell my head to toe right now if my life depended on it.
I dropped my head into my hands and let out a low groan, trying to come to terms with my too eventful work trip so far.
And to think, we haven't even managed to get on the work part of it yet.
I felt the mattress dip beside me and looked up to see that Caleb had abandoned his laptop and was now hovering over me protectively.
"What's wrong, Ruth? What hurts? Is it your head again?" He asked, sounding concerned.
At his reminder, I felt a dull throb on my forehead. I could clearly remember when I had gotten that.
It was when that SUV driver had unexpectedly hit the brakes, making me bang my head on dashboard. I had instantly blacked out for a second, the stars exploding into my vision.
Swallowing felt like hard work and I looked around, searching for water. As if reading my mind, Caleb grabbed a glass of water from bedside table, bringing it to my lips.
"Easy now.. we don't want a repeat of the last time you ingested something." The image of me puking over the cop came to my mind and I groaned louder.
"Why? Why did you let me do that?" I groaned again, accusing no one in particular, but Caleb answered anyways.
Making me sip the water, he replied, "well, after your 'drugged' comment, gagging your mouth shut might not have looked too good for me."
That made me glare at him.
"You drugged me!"
"Are we gonna get stuck on that loop again? Because it really lost its charm after eightieth time."
He got off the bed and headed towards the door, carelessly asking, "hungry?"
"Hey!" I shouted, then cringed as my body protested in way too many places for making that level of noise.
But it nonetheless made the Drug Lord pause in the doorway.
"You might wanna keep it down, unless you plan to wake up the beast." He sighed like he was tired, but I was too worked up to calm down.
"Why did you drug me?"
"Ah, so we're doing a bit of a variation here. And for the record, it was a muscle relaxant. A half dose of mild muscle relaxant that you took to all too well."
"Why did you give it to me?" I demanded, maintaining my pitch even though my throat felt scratchy.
Sighing impatiently, he strode in, and planted his fists on the bed. He opened his mouth, then eyed my face and bandaged head, before what looked like a physical effort to lower his voice.
"Listen here, Ruth. You were close to slipping into an anxiety attack, or worse, a panic attack. Those aren't pleasant to have, I know it by experience. So, I helped you."
"You aren't my knight in shining armour to help me without my permission."
Shit, I shouldn't have said that. The thought formed in my head a second too late, but the damage was done.
His eyes glittered dangerously and for a second I felt a trickle of trepidation.
With gritted teeth, he responded, "Fine. Next time someone whisks you away in any dubious vehicles -"
"Cal-"
"- ties you up and holds you hostage, or leave huge and ugly bruises on your body -"
"That's not -"
"-or give you concussions, or well, even if you felt parched, I'd wait for your permission to help you through it. Happy?"
Damnit.
I snapped my mouth shut and opened it again to say... what? I didn't know.
But he had already straightened and was marching towards the door, his back stiff with anger.
He was almost out when another thing flashed through my brain and I shouted it out loud before thinking it through.
"My phone! Where's my phone?!"
He spun back around, just as the sound of a crash rang from somewhere outside followed by a string of loud curses.
The realisation dawned on me that we weren't alone... Wherever it was we were. And I clamped my mouth shut too late. Yet again.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Caleb exhaled harshly, then glared at me in accusation before saying, "now you've done it."
