A Chance Encounter by Rae Shaw (best ereader for academics .TXT) 📕

and occasionally the chauffeur’s seat of an executive car where she doubled as a protection officer. She enjoyed driving the high-powered car with its reinforced bodywork. The black paintwork reflected the rows of skyscrapers. The leather seat gently creaked under her legs. Together, she and the car crawled through the city traffic. Driving was tolerable, sitting around waiting for something to happen wasn’t. She passed the time listening to the radio and finished a book of ten-minute crosswords. Each one took six minutes – she felt cheated.

However, her feelings toward Haynes were ambivalent. The man was impenetrable, a bastion protected by rigorous deportment. She rarely drove him, mostly she ferried the wife, and the kids. When she had driven him, he had stretched out on the back seat, engaged in telephone conversations or absorbed in thought. If she caught his eye in the rear-view mirror, he admonished her with a glare. She was supposed to be invisible, something that hit her hard. Invisible during a covert investigation was one thing but being ignored by the people she was supposed to protect was tough.

Neither was she convinced by Jackson’s highbrow ethics. Why was a financier patronising a charity for those lost to the dark world of trafficking? Was he the romantic hero rescuing fallen women, as he might appear to some of his loyal employees, or using the foundation for his own machinations? After she had cruised through the probationary period, she started to wonder more about his wife and why Hettie stuck with Jackson.

Mrs Haynes had a regular driver, Tess, but Julianna was the back-up. Chauffeuring meant keeping a diplomatic distance while Mrs Haynes went about her daily life, but Julianna had a woeful tendency to put on superhero capes and leap into action when nobody asked or expected it of her. She rather liked the criticism. She wore it as a badge of honour.

The call from headquarters instructed her to pick up Mrs Haynes from the emergency department of the local hospital. The eldest child, a boy named Noah, was at home with the nanny, Lara – another loyal servant who practised martial arts in her spare time. However, the new baby, Evey, went everywhere with Mrs Haynes because of the need to feed her. Julianna drove as quickly as the congestion allowed and parked in a taxi bay outside the minor injuries unit.

Stripped of a layer of foundation, Mrs Haynes’s heavy-lidded eyes shadowed her alabaster cheeks; a small part of her renowned beauty lost to exhaustion. A row of strips sealed the wound on her forehead. She fingered it, tutting to herself. While Mrs Haynes slipped into the backseat, fussing, Julianna strapped the baby carrier in next to her. Evey smelt of baby wipes.

Julianna was about to leave the busy hospital car park when her mobile beeped. She read the text message. ‘We’re to swing by and pick up your husband from the office,’ she told Mrs Haynes.

‘Why's he bothering...’ Hettie muttered in dismay, her voice drowned out by the wail of a siren.

Why wasn’t she pleased? Wasn’t it what she wanted – her husband by her side? In fact, why hadn’t he rushed off to the hospital already? Julianna was still trying to piece together the Haynes marriage. She rarely saw them together, since they were apart during the day, which was when Julianna was assigned to be a chauffeur. Most of the time her superiors, Gary Maybank and Chris Moran, drove the couple in the evenings. Mr Haynes was extremely protective of his wife and kids and the level of security around the Haynes family was high. Julianna had seen the confidential reports and understood why. She doubted Mrs Haynes had a clue about the constant threats.

She parked outside the monolithic building. Mr Haynes strode across the pavement and handed Julianna his laptop case, which she placed in the boot space next to the baby’s buggy. There was dried blood on the handles of the buggy.

‘Home, sir?’

Mr Haynes nodded and sat in the front. The car pulled away and he twisted in his seat to look at his wife. Julianna caught his expression out of the corner of her eye. Why the scowl?

‘Is she asleep?’ He cocked his head at the baby carrier hidden behind where he sat.

‘Yes,’ Mrs Haynes said.

‘What happened?’

‘We went for a walk. I tripped, okay? Stupid heel broke off and I fell against a tree. My phone got smashed on the way down. The roots had torn up the paving stone and my heel was caught in the gap.’

The phone would be replaced by the end of the day. It was a minor inconvenience. Operating a well-oiled machine was the key to Haynes’s business practices, and his home life.

‘Lara said you were bleeding everywhere. So, what happened, Hettie?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t … remember.’

Julianna tightened her grip on the steering wheel and stayed focused on the car bumper she was following. Seriously, the man had no bedside manner. He wasn’t worried about his wife, he was annoyed at the intrusion into his working day. Perhaps a few of his photographs on the punch bag…

‘She called an ambulance because you froze. You freaked her out. An ambulance for a little cut on the head.’

Not one word of comfort or concern had passed his lips. Unbelievable.

‘Don’t, Jackson. I didn’t ask for the ambulance. Lara, she’s never seen me lose it. I haven’t done it for months and months.’ There was a low sob, quite distant; Mrs Haynes was far away. Julianna bit on her lip and stayed silent. None of my business.

‘She probably thought you were concussed. The symptoms are similar. Are you all right?’

Julianna rolled her eyes at the belated show of compassion.

‘Yes. I came out of it in one of those cubicles. They gave me oxygen and I suppose it helped me. There’s blood on Evey’s buggy.’