Chapter 26
Charlie
A long, loud, blood-curling moan tears through the air. My movements grind to a halt.
In all my years as a sexually-active man, I've seen a lot and I've heard a lot but I've never heard a woman make that sound. Quite frankly, I'm afraid.
Taking a strengthening breath, I push the door open and step into the hospital room. My eyes go round and wide when I see my secretary mounted on a bed with her feet planted in stirrups and her fingers clenching the steel side-railings.
Sharon's head snaps in my direction like something from out of a horror movie. Her chest heaves roughly as her scream peters off. She wears a crazed, demented expression that makes me wish I was armed with holy water and a crucifix. Instead all I've got is this bouquet of pink and white marigolds I picked up at the grocery store on the way over here.
I set the flowers on a table and stroll over to the side of the bed with a grin on my face. "Hey there, beautiful lady." Her husband is hunched over the side of the bed, head bowed down over a plastic bucket. Is he puking? I give him a hard slap on the back in greeting.
He looks up at me and the guy is green. Relief slides over his features. "Oh, thank god." He takes off in the direction of the bathroom so quickly he nearly falls on his face in the process.
A grunting laugh hurtles out of Sharon. "Ha! That's what you get for peeking at my cervix, you freak!" My attention moves back to her and I suddenly realize that her red, sweat-covered face only has one eyebrow for some inexplicable reason. She picks up the makeup bag and mirror by her side and proceeds to apply her second eyebrow. As if she’s already forgotten that ten seconds ago, she was screaming out for her life.
"Why the hell would he do that?" I ask, staring over my shoulder in the direction of the horrific wretching sound coming from behind the bathroom door.
Sharon answers by reaching out and snatching my wrist as she pelts another long groan. It's all nails-on-chalkboard. I look away and cringe as she cuts off all blood circulation to my wrist. She’s stronger than she looks, that little woman.
"Anyway," she says casually after the longest minute of my life. "Our nurse is an idiot who can’t tell my clit from my butthole so the hubs thought he'd go in and take a look.”
“Dude…” I shake my head back and forth in disbelief. “That man is brave.” I rub my wrist when she releases me. Jesus, those fingernail marks are deep. I’m sure she clipped a nerve.
Sharon scoffs. “After crossing that line, he may never fuck me again. But with the pain I'm in right now, I don't ever wanna fuck him again, either." Now she's using her fingers to apply some sort of pinkish paint to her cheeks. She giggles at my perplexed expression. "Labor lasts a few hours but post-delivery pics last forever. Gotta look posh while I push, y'know?"
"Sure..."
She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. "You're a guy. I don't expect you to get it." She stretches the little mirror out to me. "Hold," she commands. I do as she says because she's sort of scary right now. She pulls a tweezer from her makeup bag and starts plucking off the hairs at the corners of her lips. "Anyway, thanks for the flowers, Charlie, and thanks for stopping by." She pauses the grooming to look up at me. "You're the best boss I've ever had."
"You're sweet," I tell her with my best smile. "And you're the best secretary I've ever had."
Rolling her eyes, she reminds me. "I'm the only secretary you've ever had."
She's applying bright red lipstick now. With all the screaming she'll be doing, I'm not sure that's such a good choice right now but you don't argue with a woman in labor if you can help it.
"You know what I mean," I say waving off her comment. I know it's a bad time, but I have something really urgent I need to ask her. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know if there's been any progress on my demolition permit request, would you?"
Her hands freeze and she looks at me. "Your demolition permit, Charlie? Really? Right now, you’re asking me about your demolition permit? You are unbelievable."
"I'm sorry." I really do feel awful about coming in here for this right now but I'm desperate. "Just answer one question—did you call Helena's superior at the mayor's office? What did he say? Does he know that she's holding back the permit without justification?"
"I went down there, yesterday afternoon. Met with some stupid paper-pusher who one hundred percent has the hots for Helena. He would barely let me get a word in edgewise. He said she has complete, indisputable discretion to issue permits whenever she sees fit.” She flicks a wrist dismissively then angles a makeup sponge at her jaw. “At some point, I zoned out and I couldn't even hear what he was saying anymore. I got distracted by the butt hairs in his teeth. Never seen a bigger ass-kisser in my life."
I chortle. "Are you sure you did everything you could do?"
“I did everything I could do.” She stresses her words and then hitches a brow at me. “Now, the question is—did you do everything you could do? I’m surprised you haven’t just caved and fucked the woman.”
The notion of touching Helena at this point almost gives me a contraction of my own. The thought of touching anyone but Nova makes me sick. Too bad the girl wants nothing to do with me.
Sharon’s eyes zero in on my expression. “Wait—you’re getting serious about Nova, aren’t you? That’s why you haven’t fucked Helena.” The idea seems to bring my secretary immense pleasure, even in this moment of excruciating pain. “Mmm, playah-playah got caught up in the game. Didn’t think you had it in you. Well anyway, monogamy looks good on ya, Boss! Look how clear your skin is. You should be in a fucking Neutrogena ad. I’ll tell you—nothing clears up a man’s skin like daily pussy facials.” She throws a glance at the bathroom door then lowers her voice conspiratorially. “When Hubby and I met, he had the worst case of chin acne I’d ever seen. One solid week of cunnilingus and now his jaw is radiant.”
Right then, she’s hit by another strong contraction. That’ll shut her up for a minute. I jump out of her reach just as she’s grasping for my wrist.
Gimme a break. I perform manual labor in my line of work. My hands are my money.
Her roars seem to shake the entire room. She's panting when the contraction passes.
"Look—I’d love to help you but as if you can’t tell, I am currently in the process of bringing life into the world.”
“You sure you can’t make a few phone calls between contractions,” I tease. Well actually, I’m only half-teasing. I’ll take all the help I can get right now.
She’s not amused. “Charlie—figure it out yourself. I've been in labor for eight hours and I'm only three centimetres dilated. I need a demolition permit for my uterus! So really, I can't help you. Now, go get my cowardly lion of a husband and get the hell out of here."
"You're right. I'm sorry." I walk over to the bathroom door and give it a good pound. "Time to man up, dude. Get on out of the bathroom." There's shuffling on the other side of the door and within a few seconds, he emerges with pale skin and glazed over eyes. "I'm handing back the reins to you. Hold down the fort. Take care of her and that baby. You hear me?"
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and nods weakly.
Always knew the guy was a chump.
I go over and kiss Sharon on her freshly-painted cheek. She swats me away and I laugh. "Call me if you need anything, okay?"
She nods. "Okay."
"I'm serious," I tell her.
She starts to smile but it quickly fades as yet another contraction rises in her belly. I give her squeamish husband a little push. "Get in there, man!"
When he approaches the bed, Sharon takes siege of his hand. He throws a 'help me!' look my way. I just chuckle and head out into the hallway.
I've got problems of my own. I can't play this game with Helena any longer. There’s only one thing left to do.
I punch at the screen of my phone and let it ring. Her nasally cadence travels over the line. "Helena Yorkville's office?"
I turn on my smoothest seductive tone. "Helena, it's Charlie Hartley."
"You know my terms, Charlie and until you're ready to give me what I want—"
"That's just it, sweetness. I'm ready." I hear the hitch of her breath. "I want to see you. In something sexy…Let’s make it a date."
Without even waiting for her response, I end the call, my stomach roiling. I hate myself for this but I see no other choice.