Die for You

Chapter 23

"Becky tells me you were very brave that day during the car chase, Freen, you should be proud of yourself."

I sat across her in the patio while sipping our after dinner coffee. Richie had excused himself to make a call and Becky had went to the loo.

"It's what I get paid for, Jenna, nothing more than that."

"We both know that wasn't the case though, don't we, dear?"

I shrugged in response, holding eye contact and sipping at my coffee.

"She also tells me she wasn't very nice to you when you first met; that you didn't like her at all, and yet, you still saved her life."

"Well, it isn't as if I could have allowed them to shoot her and leave me alive really. I did what I had to do, because I had to do it."

She looked at me appraisingly and leaned forward and poured herself another cup of coffee from the large silver pot on the table.

"Freen, whether you choose to acknowledge this or not, what you did is not normal behavior. It isn't the sort of thing that people just do because they have to. Normal people panic. They panic and they get themselves killed. You, on the other hand, showed courage and fortitude, and they're qualities that both I, and Becky, like."

She sat back into her chair and looked at me, lifting her cup to her lips and taking a sip.

"With that in mind, Freen, I'd like to ask you a question."

"Certainly, Jenna," I said sitting back myself, "fire away."

"What's going on between you and Becky?"

I'm so shocked I nearly dropped my coffee; that's so unexpected, so out of the blue.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Jenna. I'm Miss Armstrong's CPO, that's all there is to it."

"Freen, please don't treat me like a fool. I have eyes and I'm not stupid; now what is going on between you and my daughter?"

"There's nothing going on Jenna, nothing at all. Like you said, Miss Armstrong and I didn't get along when we first met and now I think we're both making an effort to be friendly to make working together easier."

"That's not what it looks like."

She sounded like she was being quite annoyed. I could have sworn I'd seen a hint of a smile earlier when Becky had been inadvertently stroking my arm. I wish now she hadn't seen it and I could have avoided this inquisition.

"I'm not sure what you think you've seen, Mrs Armstrong," I said formally in response to her accusation. "But I can assure you that I have no intention of behaving in any way, other than professionally around your daughter."

'How her daughter is going to behave, though, I have no control over; but I'm going to try to keep her in check.'

As if reading my thoughts, Jenna looked at me appraisingly.

"There's no need to be quite that defensive, Freen. I was only asking out of concern for my Becky, she seems quite fond of you already, that's all. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression; especially given your, rather special, situation."

My special situation, is she fucking kidding me? So now it all comes out, she saw the result of her daughter's little publicity stunt, saw Amanda appear out of the shadows of my past and now she's concerned I'm going to 'gay up' her fucking daughter; and there was me thinking she was actually a nice woman.

Time for the best form of defense, a good offense; I decided to take the attack to her.

"There's no need to be concerned, Jenna. Despite what you may think about lesbians, I'm not some filthy pervert that's trying to turn your daughter for my own amusement. Anything you've seen has been initiated by her, not me. I think she's simply trying to wind me up because she knows I won't say anything in front of you all."