The Perfection of Love (9 page)

“Dana, you home?”  Shit, I can’t tell what mood he’s in.

“Yes, Mitchell, I’m just in the living room tidying up.”  I hear his footsteps coming towards the living room and then he strolls through the door casually.  Good mood, thank God.

“Hey, babe, I missed you.”  He pulled me close to him and kissed me on my forehead.  Mitchell’s mood could switch within seconds so when his lips touched my skin I flinched.

“What’s wrong, Dana?”

“Nothing. I think I might be coming down with a cold though.  I’ve had chills all day.  I’ll go see the doctor tomorrow about it.”

“
If that’s all babe.”  He kissed me again and let me go.  Maybe today will be the day that he finally sees what he’s been doing to me as wrong and do a U-turn and he can be nice Mitchell.  This one, who cares about me all the time.

“Did anyone stop over today?”  Shit.  Mara was here while Mitchell was at work.  Mitchell had banned Mara from ever coming to the house and seeing Jacob after they had a bust up last year.  Mitchell had accused me of cheating on him while I was eight months pregnant.  Yeah, I know.  By seven months of pregnancy I didn’t want Mitchell touching me let alone some stranger, so when I laughed in his face at the suggestion he flipped out and tried to strangle me.  He eventually stopped and stormed out the house leaving me crying on the kitchen floor.  I packed some clothes with the intention of leaving him and went to Ma and Pops’.  They weren’t in but Mara was home.  The bruises that had already begun to show around my neck were like waving a red flag in front of a bull to her.  Mara’s temper was easily the worst in the family.  She had a habit of blowing up first and thinking about the consequences later.  She’d taken my phone and told Mitchell exactly what she thought of him and that we would be going to the police to report him.  Mara had told me if I was scared of Mitchell to maybe look at a woman’s refuge so that he couldn’t find me.  I wasn’t too sure about that part of her plan.  When she had gone out to get some stuff from the shops for me Mitchell called my phone.

“Do you really think you can keep my child away from me, Dana?” 

“No Mitchell.  It’s not about keeping your child away from you, it’s about me being away from you.” 

“Dana I will come to your grandparent’s house and kick down their door to get my child.  Do you want that?”  What the hell is wrong with him?  I don’t want my grandparents dragged into any of my shit that I’ve created.  If I’d left him the first time none of this would be happening.  This was my problem and I needed to take responsibility and deal with it.  “Mitchell, leave my grandparents out of this please.” 

“Well then get back home so we can sort this out.”  He hung up.   I left Mara a note telling her I would deal with my own mess and begged her not to tell Ma and Pops.  I guess she listened because they didn’t call me in a panic.  From that day Mara wasn’t allowed near the house, the baby and by default, me.

“Dana, did anyone stop come over today?”  He asked me again.  I caught the slight note of irritation in his tone.  I needed to defuse him quickly and change the topic.

“No
, Mitchell, me and Jakey have been at home alone today.”  I was starting to get fed up of lying through my back teeth every day but it was starting to become second nature.  Mitchell smiled.  I knew that smile.  That was that ‘you’ve been caught out’ smile.  He went in to the dining room and came back with a brown leather bag.  Fuck, Mara!!!  You never forget shit! How the hell did you forget your bag?  Mitchell had a snarl on his face.  Guess he’d checked whose bag it was.   Double icing on the cake.  Sometimes I hated myself for the way I had my little head conversations but on the plus side it meant most of the time I never saw Mitchell’s hands coming at me so I didn’t have time to panic about the pain I was about to feel.

****

Seriously I need to pull my shit together.  Mitchell is gone and I’ve moved on.  Or at least I’m moving on.  I don’t know what kind of stunt Deacon is trying to pull but I am not going to be bullied by him.  With that pep talk I unlocked the stall and made my way to the mirror to freshen myself up.  I didn’t want Deacon to know he’d ruffled my feathers although the whole running down the corridor like a ghost was behind me might give him a clue.  I had only just stepped onto the ground floor where my office was when Deacon was in my face.  He firmly gripped my hand and led me towards my office.  Once we entered my office Deacon shut the door and locked it slowly.

“What was that?”  He ordered.

Oh, to hell with that.  I swear what he did to induce my panic attack was sexual harassment and now he was ordering me around.  Never again.

“Unlock my office door. NOW.  Don’t you ever take me by the hand again.  Not on school property not EVER.  Do you understand?  You pull a stunt like you just did Dr. Greenwood and I WILL have you done for sexual harassment.  Are we clear?”  I used my best authority figure tone I could muster.  Deacons eyes were flickering all over my face and I had no idea what he was thinking but there was no defiant grin about to appear.

“Dana, you were looking at me like I was breathing fire in your direction and then you ran out of here like your life depended on it and that had nothing to do with what I said.  Not that I retract anything I said.”  His tone was absolute and factual.  There was no humor.  And he didn’t retract anything he said.  Tough break, Deacon.  I am not an option.  When I refused to respond to him he took a step back. “Fine.  I’ll be back shortly.”  He unlocked the office door and left without looking in my direction again.  The funny thing was I’m sure that was disappointment brewing in my chest.  Did I want him to push for the information he wanted?  Issues.  I’ve got some serious issues.

I moved to my desk only to see the computer was switched off.  Either Deacon had turned it off after I ran out on him or he was never actually working on my computer, he’d just made it look that way to pull a reaction. Weird and I’ve had about enough weird to last me a lifetime.  I was not going to waste another second on Deacon, so I sat down and fired up the PC.  I decided to get on with my other work until he put in an appearance so we could actually go over the facilities and get on with this project.  The sooner it’s done, the sooner Deacon is out my face.

About two hours later I heard my office door open.  I didn’t look up from my screen.  I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of me acknowledging his presence.  However a certain smell did get my attention and my tummy rumbled in recognition.  Bastard.

“I didn’t know whether you’d had breakfast so here’s a coffee.  Maybe we should get on with looking at what equipment and gadgets you guys have so we can actually crack on with some work tomorrow.  How ‘bout that?”  Oh, he was smiling now and damn his teeth were perfect.  I suddenly pictured myself running my tongue over each individual tooth and nibbling on that plump lower lip of his because God had clearly designed that lip just for nipping.  I finally made eye contact with him and could tell he had a pretty good idea of what had just ran through my head.  Shit.  I honestly did not want to encourage him.

“Yes, Dana, my mouth is a gift.  A gift I would gladly give to you if you ask.  And that’s what I’ve decided.  I’m still going to charm you but I will not have you try out my body, which I know you want to, until you ask to.  Seeing as you presented a little boundary earlier that you’re not going to explain, I see that as only fair.”

“I thought we had this conversation Dr. Greenwood.  I don’t…”

“Dana, shut it!  Grab your coffee and let’s get the rest of this tour done.  I would actually like to get some work done today.  We’ve got plenty of time to pursue our relationship later.”  He walked back out of the office before I could tell him to shove his coffee.  The horrible thing was he was right in that we really needed to progress with work.  Both of us in some way needed to prove our value to the university.  Accepting that fact I grabbed my bag and followed him out of the office.  He leant on the wall next to the door.  I turned to lock up but caught him with my peripheral vision scanning me from head to toe and back up again.  I have no idea why my thighs clenched together at that point and my heartbeat picked up.  “Do you have to be so lecherous all the time?” I barked at him.

“Do you wear that type of clothing to work all the time?”  Again, his face was now serious.

“What do you mean THAT type of clothing?”  There was nothing wrong with my outfit.  I always dress smart for work.  Smart, but fashionable.  Today I had on high waisted grey trousers with a tight black tee and matching waistcoat.  I looked good.

“Not responding to the question or diverting my question.  That means yes you do.  Therefore where you’re concerned my answer is yes.  I will always be this lecherous around you.”  The way he drawled the ‘always’ made my spine tingle but I growled in frustration.  It was my body that was contradicting my head and it wouldn’t win.

Deacon laughed, “Come on Miss. Daniels, let’s get on with it.”

I stomped off at a hurried pace but Deacons long legs kept up with me easily.  After a couple of minutes I had to slow down because I was tiring myself out.  I wasn’t in bad shape but I didn’t work out much and this pace of walking was killing me.  The rest of the day was spent touring the facilities quite amicably.  Deacon didn’t flirt with me. Much.  And I didn’t yell at him. Much.  He was intelligent beyond belief.  I mean, obviously he was clever as he was a doctor but he knew so much about so many other things.  Every faculty we went through he could tell me something about that I didn’t know.  Nothing quite like a man that’s built and smart with it.  Damn hadn’t he more or less said the same thing to me?  Geeze I was a hypocrite.  Actually no.  There was a difference.  I had the decorum not to vocalize my sexual thoughts.

At the end of the day I think we were both beat.  The tour of the facilities hadn’t taken half as long as we thought it would so we had come back to my office to start putting some ideas down for the research project.  I packed up my things and started to make my way to the car park.  Deacon walked beside me.  He didn’t say anything for a while which was nice.  I didn’t have the strength to argue with him.

“Dana, can I take you on a date this weekend?”  He kept his head straight and continued to walk.  I on the other hand stumbled over a rock and tried to recover from the question that came out of thin air.

“Dr. Greenwood, you don’t even know me.  And if you did, you would know that I don’t date.”  I could see my car.  The end to this awkward conversation was almost over.

“Hmmmmm, I had heard you were the rejection queen.  I guess I was trying to see if you might just say yes to me.  At least you’re consistent.  It’s not a problem, we have time.”  He said this in such a way that it was irrelevant information.  Now, I was sputtering.

I had a perfectly good reason for not going out with anyone.  The last person I went out with was an epic failure and I was still trying to get over it.

“Who said I was the rejection queen?  And again you don’t know me why do you want to go on a date with me?  And finally-leave me the frig alone.  Let’s get our work done and then you can get back in your paddleboat back to your practice or wherever the hell you want to go.”  We’d now reached my car.  I unlocked the door threw my bag in, sat down and slammed my door shut.  I didn’t even bother to see if Deacon was out of the way.  I turned on the engine and tore out of the car park.

As I started to cool down my phone rang and I picked it up with my hands free.

“Dana Daniels.”

“Oh, good Lord.  Do you need a hand with that pole stuck up your ass?”

“Not in the mood for this.  What do you want, Lana?”

“That is no way to speak to your favouritist sister in the whole wide universe.”  She practically sang down the phone.  Hmmmmm.  The last time Lana was like this there was a head between her knees, which was why she was so merry.  I did love my sister but she had a warped sense of humor.

“Lana what are you doing?”  I asked with my voice laced with suspicion.

“Not what you’re thinking of, dirty girl.  Take your perverted mind out of the gutter.  I’m just calling to make sure you’ve remembered to order the cake for Ma’s birthday dinner on Sunday.”

“Um duh.  Why would I forget that?”

Ma was the most supportive person in my life.  She had brought my sisters and I up and she was still there for us whenever we needed her. 

“I know you wouldn’t, but Mara is breathing down my neck to make sure it’s perfect for Ma.  You seem snappy.  What’s the sitch, bitch?”