Puppet Master

Chapter Twenty Six

By six o clock, she still hadn’t put back on her shoes. After jotting down the images, she’d decided to give it to security, just in case of any further suspicious behaviour. Some of the gallery commissions would be worth hundreds, even thousands of pounds in the right circles, and, with the new Ramsay contracts laid out, she was taking no chances.

She was expecting Jayden’s voice when she answered the retro phone on her desk, budgets had been quite low for staff resources in recent years, and the bulky thing reminded her of her Grandma’s old house phone, so she’d declined their offer of a new one, and gradated a spray painted rainbow across it instead. It also didn’t have a caller ID, so when she heard her brother’s booming voice down the line, she actually jumped in her seat.

“Where the FUCK have you been Tori? I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”

Seems she was flavour of the week, everyone was asking the same bloody question!

“Nate,” she breathed in a greeting, slowly reclining back in the chair, looking up to see Jayden in the doorway, eyes narrowed and darkly sensual watching her as she swung her almost bare feet across the carpet. She smiled up at him.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t give me that! My only flesh and blood has been ignoring my phone calls for weeks on end, and all I get is “What’s Up?” as though life is an advert for Budweiser! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

She chuckled at his voice; he’d gone from the Incredible Hulk to that sulky kid in Home Alone in the space of ten seconds! God, she did miss him sometimes! “Nothing’s the matter, Nate, I’m just busy with ... uh just stuff.” She frowned at the alarmed look in Jayden’s eyes, suddenly not wanting to talk about any of the past week, about the new developments in their relationship.

Somehow, she just knew that it would unleash a whole new level of unreasonable Jayden that she didn’t feel ready for.

But obviously Nate knew her far too well.

“What do you mean “stuff”? What stuff exactly are we talking about? A man stuff? Who is it Tori?”

And off went the ticking time bomb that was Nate’s ridiculously over the top “overprotective big brother” rioting act. Rolling her eyes, she began to pack away her desk as Jayden played with his keys in his trouser suit pocket, seemingly deep, deep in thought.

“Nobody, Nate, it’s nobody special anyway,” Jayden’s eyebrows rose at that, while a muscle twitched at his jaw.

“I want to meet him Tori,” Nate sounded a little like he was talking himself off the ledge, drawing breaths so deep she could practically hear them bouncing from his diaphragm, “Before it goes any further, Tori, I want to meet this guy, you’re too young to be running around with some random city guy. Christ, I knew it was a bad idea to let you move to the city! You’re going to give me grey hairs! Honey, you need to be careful. You can’t rush into this stuff ..."

Oh God in Heaven, please, he did not just say that ...

“..Aaaaaand that’s where I’m going to say goodbye big brother of mine, I have plans this evening, I don’t have time for you to give me the sex talk and start bringing out condoms and cucumbers. I learnt all about the birds and the bees, and all the jiggy jiggy’s so really ... no need!” Please, please, she silently begged, please no need!