The Eleventh Hour

Chapter 25

I jumped off the bed and headed out, making my way to the great room.

I was relieved to find Nuala in the kitchen as I didn’t want to awkwardly poke around for something to eat. But at the same time, I still felt slightly uncomfortable. I still wasn’t used to someone cooking for me.

By the looks of it, spaghetti carbonara was on the menu tonight. I watched Nuala stirring the sauce in the pan while she boiled another pan of water, ready to put the spaghetti in. If dinner was nearly ready, that meant Nathaniel would be back very soon. The thought sent an excited thrill through my body and I smiled widely, not being able to help it.

As if on cue, I heard the front door shut as several footsteps bounded down the staircase. I turned to find Nathaniel, followed by several people, literally stomping towards us.

The look on Nathaniel’s face was murderous as he stalked right past me without even a glance in my direction, all his men following closely behind, all with guarded expressions on their faces.

The blood drained from my face as I watched him. He’d obviously had some sort of bad day. He looked furious.

I remained frozen as he and his men disappeared out of sight into the west wing, with the sound of a door slamming loudly a few seconds later. I felt slightly stunned. What the hell? This past week, he’d been completely carefree, I hadn’t seen his look of on-your-high-horse anger for a while now.

I turned to look at Nuala, to find her concentrating on the cooking as if nothing had happened. Nothing in her face betrayed even a hint of shock or curiosity like mine did. It made me wonder whether she was used to this sort of bad mood behaviour from him, and for some reason it made me want to laugh. Not that him being in a bad mood was funny – actually, okay... yeah it was.

I grabbed myself a glass out of the cupboard and went over to the fridge, filling it with the filtered water. I saw Nuala shoot me a quick glance out of the corner of my eye as I did.

I knew I’d never understand the world of business, but it made sense that a CEO of a top company may sometimes have things go wrong. I found myself hoping this was something business related, otherwise I wouldn’t be finding this situation funny at all.

I went over and took a seat at the breakfast counter, sipping my water periodically in silence. I watched as she tipped the spaghetti into a colander over the sink and plate everything up.

There was no missing she’d only plated up one meal – mine. That sparked far too much suspicion. She knew full well Nathaniel was off on one, and apparently she knew he’d not be joining me for dinner. I felt I had to say something.

“Is Nathaniel not eating this evening?”

She put the overloaded plate in front of me and then looked up to face me, her face impassive and professional. “Mr Hart will be eating later, when he’s finished working.” She smiled warmly at me, a look that was even sort of... motherly. That was a great answer, she told me enough without giving anything away.

I sighed in defeat and dug in as she busied herself around the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, I was completely finished and fit to bursting. I was on my own in the great room, and Nathaniel still hadn’t come out. I sighed and decided to make a few phone calls to my parents, Joey and Liv.

A good hour later, when I was just finishing up speaking to Liv, finally there was movement. Jackson and the other men emerged from the west wing, as Jackson led them out through the entry way. Their expressions were smooth but all of them apart from Jackson looked slightly flushed. It didn’t take a lot for me to piece together – they looked as though they’d received a hell of a scolding from Nathaniel. I absent-mindedly hoped Nathaniel would follow them, but he never did. A good ten minutes later, I ended the call with Liv – Nathaniel still being a no-show.