Finding Thyme Read online

  I close my eyes as he kisses my forehead. “I wasn’t lying after the first night we were together. I really do get the best night’s sleep when you’re lying next to me.”

  “That’s probably because you drugged me into a coma,” I murmur.

  “Totally necessary. Trust me, if you knew what was going through my mind every time I was near you, you’d understand why I had to,” he says. “As hard as it is for you to understand, I have loved you from the moment you walked out of the elevator at The Bondi. I’m useless around you. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my cover for much longer.”

  “Well you did a pretty good job of convincing me. I thought you were sweet and innocent.”

  “And I’m not now?” Nick grins.

  Our eyes meet and I mirror the same beaming smile as his. I kiss him and his taste is so arousing, even first thing in the morning. There is nothing about Nick that I am not completely in love with.

  “How long were you watching me before I met you?” I ask but immediately regret the question.

  “Fourteen torturous weeks.” Nick exaggerates the three-worded sentence.

  I laugh along with him. He must know so much about me, yet still loves me.

  “I love you too, Nick Davis,” I reply before plunging back into his embrace.

  The sharp smell of bacon and eggs cooking is in the steaming air when I step out of the shower. I can’t help but smile as I slip on my tight black leggings and pull on my Under Armour tight black tee, ready for my unarmed combat training today. I walk into the kitchen to find Nick stirring sugar into a hot cup of coffee. He whistles through his front teeth as he eyes my tight clothes. He leans over and places the coffee cup on a coaster next to a plate of freshly poached eggs with avocado and bacon.

  “You’ll need plenty of energy today. You are going to get your ass kicked. So be prepared to be very sore tonight and tomorrow.”

  My eyes scan Nick from head to toe. I notice that he’s dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and light blue tie. I frown, a little confused.

  “What do you mean, I’m going to get my ass kicked? And what’s with the suit?” I ask as I take a seat on the aluminium stool in front of my breakfast.

  I’m not even sure where he got his clean clothes from? He didn’t have any bags with him when he came here with me yesterday.

  “You will have to put a suit over what you have on, or put a suit on now and change at the agency. Don’t get me wrong, I’m disappointed as hell that I won’t see your sexy little body in all this black tightness for longer, but you’ll see why when we arrive at the agency. As far as what I mean when I say you’re going to get your ass kicked today is exactly that. You. Are. Going. To. Get. Your. Ass. Kicked! Picture this: you … a padded room … and a big guy who is going to show you what it feels like to get the shit beaten out of you.”

  I almost choke on a piece of bacon. He can’t be serious? I watch Nick’s face to see if I can gauge whether he is joking or not. By the lack of emotion in his expression, I could almost say he’s telling the truth … But there will always be an element of doubt with him, because he lied to me for so long.

  I wave my knife and fork up and down. “And where did these clothes come from?” I ask.

  “The apartment next door,” Nick nonchalantly replies.

  I stop chewing and look up at him, mouth bulging with food.

  He smiles. “What? I remembered this morning that I have a bunch of clothes over there still.” He shrugs.

  I try desperately to swallow what food I have in my mouth so that I can ask more questions but Nick begins to speak again before I finish. “Yes, I was in the next apartment a lot over the past week … and no, there’s no one there anymore. The agency owns the entire floor and no one has access to it, so it’s completely secure.”

  “If you’re here with me, it definitely is.” I smile and he smiles back at me.

  My life is so strange and yet I am beginning to become more accepting of it as time goes on. I don’t know what normal is anymore.

  Our walk down Pitt Street is a bustle with the suited workers who saturate the streets. We fit in perfectly, clad in our own sharp suits. I managed to find a well-tailored black pantsuit by Morrissey circa 2006. Mr Morrissey is a well-known local designer who is revered for knowing exactly how to make a woman look good in a suit, and right now I am feeling every bit of that accolade. I feel like I’m floating while walking next to Nick. We don’t hold hands but we don’t need to. You can just tell we’re together. We walk straight to the Pitt Street Mall entrance of the agency’s building and Nick takes the internal escalator route all the way to the seventh floor. Along the way the sparkling fashion stores of Chanel and Miu Miu mesmerise me. As we pass the food level on the fifth floor, I gaze at the beautifully presented gourmet outlets within the spectacular atrium. The final elevator ascent feeds us to the enormous level seven Sky Lobby. Towering tree trunk-like brass columns grow out of the white polished granite floor and hold the entire weight of the office building, suspended ten metres above.

  “The architect won awards for the design of this building. The wood panelling of the interior here is locally sourced man-aged sustainable timber and each panel is custom cut to batten in perfectly with one another, celebrating each piece,” Nick proudly informs me as he points to the beautiful honey coloured wooden feature walls.

  “Interesting!” I say with a hint of sarcasm.

  I’m not sure as to why he’s brought me up this way when we could’ve bypassed all of the midmorning’s busy traffic by going through the side entrance. “So why have we gone this way and why are you telling me any of this?”

  “Every time you come into the agency, I want you to take a different route in. There shouldn’t be anything routine about any of your movements from here on in … and well, the rest is just interesting,” Nick says as he allows me to walk through the censored gateway before him.

  I glance over at the security guards sitting at a large oval reception desk in the middle of the grand foyer. All three men in dark suits with a matching logo across their breast pocket look up from the screens in front of them and watch Nick and me as we walk through the security checkpoint.

  “Do they all know what we do here?” I ask.

  “Nope. They have no idea. That’s why you’re wearing corporate.”

  “Oh. But don’t they see where we get off in the elevator?”

  He shakes his head. “That’s what the sensor is for before we get out of the elevator. It scans us, sends that image to our guys at the side entrance and replays our exit to these guys, but shows us leaving on a different floor.”

  I watch Nick as he speaks. Once again I’m amazed by the secrecy of the agency that I now work for.

  “Then why do we have the agency HQ in such a public office building?” I frown.

  “It’s actually one of the most secure buildings in the city,” Nick says, as he enters a code into the silver freestanding keypad at the front of the timber box-like structure that houses the twelve different elevators. “Each company has a signature code for these elevators. When you punch the code into this keypad, it tells you which elevator to alight and once you’re inside, it takes you straight to your floor and your floor only. There is never more than one stop per elevator.”

  I smile as we walk around to the far right and enter elevator number eleven, as directed on the keypad. I can’t help but watch Nick and his every move. Now that I’ve admitted to myself how much I love the beautiful man in front of me, I just can’t seem to get enough of him. It’s borderline obsessive. Nick grabs my hand and pulls me to him once we’re in the elevator. I’m sure there are a bunch of people watching us, but I don’t care. I just love the feeling of him up against me. He wraps his arms around me and kisses my forehead as he holds me. I feel the bulge in his pants press against my stomach. I lean my head against him and reach around to his ass, cupping each tight bun in my hands. I press myself into him and smile. What I wouldn’t give to b
e back home again.

  “Now remember, do whatever you can to stay conscious today, or else it will be worse for you. Not to mention how much it will delay your training. Just remember, it’s only three minutes. Your fight or flight survival will kick in. Do what you can and just stay strong. I know you can do it.”

  My heart quickens. “Is it really going to be that bad?”

  Nick wasn’t lying when he said this was going to be brutal. The lights come on in the blue padded training room. I briefly see a huge man right in front of me before I feel the heat of a blow to the side of my face, causing me to black out momentarily. I feel myself against the floor and shake my head to try and focus on something again. My vision is blurry and all I can see is the blue of the room’s padding. I feel another blow, this time in my ribs. I hear the sound before I feel it though, it sounded like a crack and a slap all at the same time. I want to breathe but I can’t, it stabs in my side every time I do.

  “Get up, whore,” the man says gruffly.

  I look up at him and see his harsh, weathered face for the first time. Fury starts to build in my veins. How does he know me? Why would Nick or the boss tell anyone in the agency what I was before? Or maybe it was that Liz?

  “What did you call me?” I say as I try and pull myself from the ground.

  “You heard me, you slut, now get off the ground and fight back before I put you to sleep permanently!” he yells back at me.

  I shakily stand upright again and start to tremble with fear. How can the agency allow this to happen? I don’t know what this is supposed to teach me. I remember Nick’s words earlier: ‘Do what you can to stay conscious or else it will be worse.’ What could possibly be worse than this? The man approaches me again with fists clenched. He takes a swing at me but I duck this time and launch at him. I push him backwards in a tackle style until he slams against the padded wall behind him. He grabs me with strong hands and throws me to the ground. Raising his black boot up, he slams it down inches from my head just as I move away.

  I reach out and pull his leg out from under him and he thuds to the ground. I scramble to get back to my feet to try and create some distance between us. I search around the room for anything, for something, I don’t know what, but I just want to get away. This must be the flight rather than fight in me.

  Before I can find any kind of way out, the man gets up and runs at me and throws me against the padded wall behind me. I hear a crack again and the stabbing in my ribs intensifies. I lose my breath for a moment as he spins and kicks me in the side of the head again.

  Everything is black and I try and open my eyes but everything is spinning. I try desperately to move but can’t. I hear the man laugh before I hear another crack and feel my leg break. I scream just before there’s sudden silence and I can no longer stay conscious. The pain that has taken over my body is too much.

  TWELVE

  My eyelids feel heavy as I try and lift them. There’s a glaring light around me and I find it hard to see.

  “Hey. How you feeling?” I hear Nick’s voice before I see him.

  I move my head towards his voice, every inch of my body throbbing with pain as I do. The side of my face feels like there’s a bowling ball attached to it. I raise my hand to touch it. The slightest touch against my cheek hurts so much that my whole body tenses. In turn, the pain from my body tensing almost makes me pass out again. I look towards Nick and see him sitting in a chair beside the bed I’m in.

  “Am I in hospital?” I ask as my eyes scan around the white room.

  Nick shakes his head. “No, you’re still at the agency, in the medical ward. You’ve been in surgery for a few hours. They had to set your broken tibia. Your eye socket was fractured, so you have a plate in your cheek and leg. You have a broken rib and another was fractured and the rest of your body is pretty bruised.”

  “Why?” I say as a tear trickles down my swollen cheek. “Why did you let this happen to me?”

  “I told you it would be tough. You need to fight, Mia,” Nick says as he takes my hand in his.

  “I don’t know how to fight.” My voice cracks. “I never have.”

  “Now you will learn. And now you know what will happen if you don’t fight back. I need you to be strong. I can’t let you go back to Tench if I don’t think you can look after yourself against him. I could never live with myself if he hurt you.”

  I look at Nick through my tears. I wish I could tell him that Tench already has hurt me and it felt worse than this pain. My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach and another stream of tears spills over my cheeks. I turn away from Nick and close my eyes.

  “I’m scared of seeing Tench again.”

  I wake up feeling a little less groggy than last time. Nick’s still sitting in the chair beside me. He looks up from the file he’s flicking through and smiles, instantly dissolving any anger I felt towards him before. I try and smile back but my swollen cheek makes smiling unbearable.

  “This was totally excessive and unnecessary. I could’ve learnt how to fight without being beaten within an inch of my life. And who the hell was that huge guy who beat me anyway?”

  “That’s Harry. He really is a softy, and he feels bad every time he has to do that to someone. He’s probably with the agency’s therapist as we speak.” Nick laughs.

  “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts too much. This is going to take me ages to get better. How am I supposed to train now?”

  “That’s kind of what I meant when I said it would set back your training if you didn’t fight back,” Nick says as he shrugs.

  I don’t understand how he could just let someone hurt me like this but hates the thought of Tench hurting me? I look down at the foot of the bed and see the beautiful view out over the harbour and North Sydney.

  “Don’t worry though, the titanium in your leg and face both have rejuvenation chips in them to make your healing quicker and stronger, It’s part of the reason why the agency does this. They like filling your body with their equipment. It makes you stronger,” Nick says. “I think my entire left arm is filled with the stuff now. My left jab is a killer!” He laughs. “While you heal, we’ll be doing covert surveillance. The doctor says two weeks max. You’ll be kicking ass and taking names in no time.”

  A dark-haired man in his late thirties wearing a black surgical scrub uniform comes into the room and walks to the foot of my bed. Grabbing the clipboard hanging from the end, he looks up at me. “Good to see you’re awake, Agent Thyme. I’m Medical Officer Chalmers. How are you feeling?”

  It’s strange to hear someone calling me Agent Thyme. I never really considered myself an agent until now.

  “I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus,” I say slowly to minimise the pain in my face.

  “Harry has been called worse,” the medic replies. “You’ll have another round of morphine now and you should be able to go home by tonight. Agent Davis has signed on to be your carer so the doctor has agreed to release you.”

  I look over at Nick. I’m going home already? I can barely move, let alone walk anywhere. How am I going to get to my apartment? After the medic writes on the clipboard, he places it back down and comes around beside me to the IV drip and pushes morphine into the line with a syringe. I feel a cool sensation run up my arm where the cannula is inserted into my hand. The pain that dominated my body is instantly washed away and replaced by a complete feeling of numbness. I feel sleepy again.

  “You’re going to be my nurse?” I ask Nick with a slur.

  “That’s Murse Davis at your service, beautiful,” he says as he leans over me and strokes my hair. “I’ll take you back to my place for a few days if you like, so you can relax and not feel locked up again. Or would you prefer your apartment?”

  “What about Flossy?” I query.

  “She can come and be my guest too,” he says with a smile.

  I manage a small smile. My eyelids are heavy—each time they blink they get harder to open than the last.

  “Get some rest,
sweetheart. I’ll be right here, okay? I love you.”

  I wish I could smile the way I feel inside when I hear him say he loves me, but the pain relief in my veins just sends me into a pleasant sleep. Nick’s handsome face is the last thing I see as I drift away.

  It’s dark out across the harbour when I wake again. My eyes slowly scan over to a small lamp beside my bed where I see Nick still reading in the chair beside me.

  “You’re still here,” I whisper.

  Nick looks up. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

  I smile, instantly feeling the stabbing pain in my face that I momentarily forgot was there. I flinch and hold my swollen cheek.

  “Do you need more morphine? I can call the medic if you need?” Nick looks concerned.

  I shake my head slowly. “It’s just going to put me back to sleep again.”

  “Do you feel well enough for me to take you home?”

  My heart sings with joy when I hear Nick refer to his home as my home. It gives me the strength I need to try and get up. As I move, my body hurts in places that I never thought possible. Nick jumps from his seat and grabs my arm to assist me.

  “Just take it slowly,” he orders.

  My left leg feels heavy. I look down and see the massive cast covering the bottom half of it. Damn it! I’m a bloody cripple! Nick helps me slowly manoeuvre around so that my legs are hanging over the edge of the bed.

  “How you feeling?” he asks when I’m sitting upright.

  I look at him and frown. “How many more times are you going to ask me that tonight? Considering you put me in this position and you know what’s wrong with me, how do you think I’m feeling?” I snap back at him.

  Nick gives me a surprised look that eventually softens to a smile. I think he likes the bitch in me. I take a deep breath and do my best to ignore the pain.

  He takes a cautious step away from me. “If you’re alright to stay here like this for a moment, I’ll go and get you the wheelchair to take you down to the car.”