Flirting with Danger by Bev Hardy (best free ebook reader for android txt) 📕

But pull herself through she had. Okay, so she was never going to be quite the same again, but she had accepted that and found peace… that was until he'd turned up out of the blue earlier that day, reminding her of happier times and making her want those back again!

"Charlie?" he questioned once more.

She finally turned back to him, both hands in her hair, her head feeling as if it were about to explode.

"Yes, okay, we had some good times Luke, but you're not seeing my point!" she shouted, beginning to pace the room, holding her head.

"Well, what is your point then?" he shouted back, watching her pace to and fro, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands at her temples. There was something she wasn't telling him; he could sense it.

"I can't do this now; I'm not doing this now," she said to herself.

He caught her then in mid pace, grabbing hold of her elbow to halt her. "Doing what?" he asked with growing concern. Her face was a mask of pain.

"This," she replied, snatching her arm out of his grasp and backing away, "any of this." She turned, scanning the room through watery eyes for somewhere to go to get away from him. There was nowhere. She was trapped.

In desperation, she strode over to the window, fumbling blindly with the handle in an attempt to open it.

In seconds Luke was beside her, trying to catch hold of her hands. "Woa, wait a minute," he said, "what you trying to do?"

She pushed his hands away and resumed her effort to free the catch. "I just want some fresh air, alright?" she replied, trying her hardest to sound reasonable.

"Hold on a second will ya?" he said, grabbing both her hands and turning her to him.

"Get off me Adams," she demanded.

"Hey look, I'm just checking you aint gonna throw yourself outta there the way you're reacting."

"I'm not going to throw myself out of there," she said through gritted teeth. He failed to release her hands however and simply searched her face, taking in the dampness of her eyes with confusion and concern. "Oh good Lord!" she exclaimed, tugging at her hands. "When are you going to get the message Adams? I want you to go away and leave me!"

Did she mean forever, or just in that room? To hell with it, fine! He'd leave her to jump out the damn window if she wanted to!

Abruptly releasing her hands, he turned and strode away from her.

She finally found sanctuary in the icy cold night air after having dealt with the catch, thrown open the window and leant out as far as she could. Hanging her head, she gave into her emotions and sobbed.

With the sounds of her distress ringing in his ears, Luke charged over to the drinks cabinet to find something as strong as possible. He settled on a whiskey, grabbed a glass, along with the entire bottle, and strode over to the chess table to take a seat. Sweeping a hand angrily across the few remaining pieces on the board, they clattered to the ground whilst he planted his whiskey glass and bottle in the middle and began to drink. Stalemate.

He uncurled her fingers with his and they held onto that small contact, their fingers clinging to each other's as the moments passed, both hesitant and unsure, until a single tear spilt out over her lashes and dripped down her cheek. It was all the prompting he needed.

After the second glass of whiskey, Luke had expected to feel at least a little better. He didn't. Neither apparently did Charlie, as her tears hadn't subsided at all. She'd been sobbing now constantly for the past ten minutes at least. It was torturous for Luke, particularly considering that he was forced to just sit there and listen to her without being able to do anything. He sighed and went to turn to take a look at her, but changed his mind and poured himself another drink. Maybe the third one would work?

Nope, but at least Charlie's sobs had faded by then. He'd seen her cry before, but never like that. Something was badly wrong. But what should he do now? She'd told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't want him anywhere near her, so how could he find out what was wrong? He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. He groaned, and turned to glance back at her. Her head was leaning against the frame of the window and she was staring outside. She stood there so still, just staring.

Contemplating the whiskey bottle again momentarily, he finally gave up on that idea and stood. He'd go and try to talk to her. He took a few steps in her direction but stopped, not having a clue what to say, and still not entirely sure how she would react to him either. He returned to his seat. Toying with his empty whiskey glass, he sat in the silence, cringing at his own inability to do anything.

Time ticked by and the silence stretched on. Still she was standing by that window, staring into space. Damn it, this was unbearable. Enough was enough!

"Charlie, you gonna tell me what's wrong now?" he asked.

No reply.

"Charlie, c'mon," he said, rising again from his seat, but this time not stopping until he was standing beside her. "Charlie?" he placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder, trying to get her attention. She closed her eyes. His voice softened. "Charlie," he insisted, "you gotta tell me what's wrong… c'mon…you gotta," he stressed.

Finally, she took in a deep breath, turned her head slightly and opened her eyes. The light from the room lit the profile of her face, revealing her pain in the red rawness of her eyes and tear soaked cheeks… but she still refused to look at him.

"Charlie, speak to me damn it!" he shouted out, suddenly losing his patience.

The harshness of his voice seemed to shake her out of her trance then. Wiping the excess of tears from her cheeks with two hands, she turned to him at last, looking almost surprised to see him there. He searched her face with a frown.

"I'm sorry," she sighed. It was a shaky sound. "I don't know why…" she trailed off, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. He could see tears forming again as she blinked a few times at an attempt to disperse them. "I don't know where all that came from," she finished, her voice overly cheery as she lowered her gaze to him again.

"Are you kiddin me?" he replied incredulously. "You don't cry like that and not know why!"

She groaned and covered her face with her hands. "Look, I just wanted to be alone, but we're locked in this bloody office!" she said, dropping her hands. "If we weren't, then you wouldn't have had to witness that. Can we just drop the subject please and try to get some sleep?"

He shook his head. "No! No we aint dropin' the subject. I wanna know what's wrong!"

She stared at him in dismay. She'd have to tell him something. He'd not leave it alone otherwise.

"I urm…" She fiddled with one earlobe. "I suppose seeing you again brought back memories… of before…" Suddenly her throat began to ache and the words got stuck there.

"Before what?" he asked, still at a loss.

Her heart started to beat with anxiety, and with the adrenalin came the threat of more tears. God, she couldn't start crying again! Her mouth became dry though, making it difficult for her to swallow back her emotion. She glanced down at the desk to her right, if only to focus on something.

"Bef…before…" she struggled.

"Before what!" he shouted.

She turned to him then, her watery eyes pleading with him, until she eventually spoke again. "Before my father… before he..." she faded off, unable to finish the sentence.

It only took a few seconds until his eyes widened as realisation hit him. He had a sudden vivid picture in his head of Charlie and her father embracing each other affectionately. He knew, from just seeing them together in the past, what a close relationship she'd had with her father. The pain of losing his own mother was also not a distant memory for him either.

He glanced away from her. "I'm sorry," he said, a little awkwardly. "There any tissues in here?" he asked, suddenly realizing that there was at least something practical he could do for her. It didn't take long for him to find some in one of the desk drawers. He picked up the box and plucked out a few tissues, handing them to her and placing the rest on the desktop beside her.

She wiped her eyes and cheeks, and pushed her hair back off her face, inhaling deeply. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Like I said, I think it was remembering the MI5 years, when he was still here." She bit down on her quivering lip.

"When did he pass away?" Luke asked gently.

She ran a hand through her hair. "Four years ago. Like I said, I don't know why I'm like this now."

He watched her for a moment before speaking. "You know, sometimes people can't grieve proper at the time. Then their bodies kinda take over later. It's all gotta come out eventually," he shrugged.

She gave a weak laugh. "Well, I'd rather it hadn't all come out now…" She paused then and thought for a moment. "…how do you know all of that anyway?"

He leant back against the desk with his hands in his pockets. "When I was workin' for the NYPD, you know, before they sent me here, some jerk upstairs said I hadda go see a shrink after my father died." He rolled his eyes.

For a moment, a slight frown flickered across her brow, that was until she envisaged him with the shrink and suddenly burst out laughing.

Amusement lit up his face. "What?" he smiled.

"I'm sorry," she said, half laughing, half crying, "I just had a vision of your face as the shrink tried to psychoanalyse you."

He laughed. "Yeah, think I gave him a hard time. I only went twice. Then he recommended I see another shrink. They never pushed it after that."

"I bet."

Okay, so she still had tears streaming down her face but she was smiling now at least. That was a relief. Eventually the laughter in the room faded however, and there ensued an awkward silence, where Charlie averted her face from him, staring at the desktop, and Luke watched silent tears still falling down her face. She'd been through all this and he hadn't even known.

It suddenly hit him then that she was right, seven years was a long time, and a lot had changed. Then doubts flooded his head. They only knew each other because of MI5. Not in a million years would their paths have crossed otherwise. They came from completely different backgrounds. What she'd said had been true;