Players

5. You Will Know When You Know

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I closed my eyes, breathing in and out evenly.

I did not need this right now.

I DID NOT need this right now.

Sometimes I wish I could end all of this and go live in the mountains or something. I am tired.

I am so tired, but I pretend I am not and live through each day – scrape through each day, and when I finally think that I could get some rest, that everything is going well, something like this happens.

“Ms. Meyers?” The woman behind the receptionist’s desk stood up.

“I suppose he has been waiting for me?” I did not need her confirmation to know that I was right.

That crazy son of a b*tch – no offense to Mrs. Grant – really was playing this game. Well, two people can play this game, now couldn’t they?

I pushed the double door open without even knocking, before the receptionist could try to stop me.

Dominic looked up from the file he was reading, a slight smirk appearing on his donkey like – no offense to donkeys – face, while the woman who was standing beside him turn one-eighty degrees to face me.

“I am sorry miss, but you can’t walk in like this!” She said immediately, casting a worried glance at Dominic, as if hoping that she wouldn’t get fired for this. The receptionist also had the same expression.

“You came sooner than I thought.” He smiled as he stood up and waved at the surprised ladies to leave the room.

“You know how efficient and quick paced I am when it comes to dealing with problems in my work and life.” I shrugged as I took a seat.

“Do I now?” Dominic asked, his eyes twinkling.

“You should, considering you pulled out a whole case file on me and learnt everything you could ever know about me as a person who has no prior connection with me.” I leaned forward and took his paper weight – it was a pyramidal crystal with a silver ship in it.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far-”

“Yet you did.” He smiled at me as I cut him off. He was giving off the vibe of someone who even enjoyed being cut off by me. He was enjoying this, while I got riled up. I was the mouse and he was the cat and he was having the best time toying with me.

I took a deep breath and started to play with the paper weight and his eyes instantly darted to it.

Ooh, this was important. But then again, I was no five year old who would break such a pretty item to just get even with him.

Oh ho ho, I WAS going to get even with him, but before I had to make sure that Liam’s dad Pete, had a house to come back to when he was done at the mental asylum for his borderline personality disorder.

I kept the paper weight back on the desk and looked up at him again. "You wanna play cat and mouse with me – fine, but do not involve anyone else in this.” I stated, my voice even and cold.

“How can I not?” Dominic gave me a fake pout which made me want to cover the distance between his jaw and my fist. “It is not every day that you find a woman so daring and with no other weak spots than her daughter and sense of justice. You are someone who wouldn’t be able to sleep with the notion that you did someone bad, so it was only obvious that I would buy the house just so that I can make you think that whatever bad is happening to that poor old couple, it was happening because of you.”

I wanted to laugh. I really wanted to laugh.

He thought I had a sense of justice? He thought I was a goodie two shoes? Oh honey, you could not be more wrong.

“Do I look like I will fall for that?” I asked.

“Yet here you are.”

Ugh, this guy really has the skill of riling me up and I had to give it to him, because it was no easy feat.

I stared into his black orbs – I had to also admit to the fact that this man fascinated me to some point. Or at least those eyes did, but so did his actions. If it wasn’t for the fact that my brain had already stamped him as an i***t, I would actually think that I was attracted to him.

“I love my job and I am not leaving it, Mr. Grant.” I said evenly, confidently. I had to make sure that each of those words drilled through his thick skull and registered in whatever tiny functional portion of his brain. “I do a lot of things, but one thing I don’t do is compromise with what I want. I will just get them a new place to stay if you force them out, or they could stay with me – it’s not like you can force them out of my own apartment.”

“What if I buy the entire building?” He threw at me. And I was ready for it.

“I am pretty sure your research on me might have told you that I have rich parents. I can always ask them to get me a new place.” I smiled at him. “Though they were estranged from their daughter, they still loved her and after her death, I am their only child and they would buy me the world if I wanted it.”

“But they didn’t help you out with your daughter’s custody.” He threw again.

See, this dude knew everything about me.

“That’s because they thought she would be better off and happier somewhere else. Liam was in a bad state. I had cancer. They wanted her to have a stable family and someone to call mom and dad.”

“And what about-” I was so done that I cut him off.

“Alright, that’s it.” I stood up from the chair. “I will go hire a private investigator and get all info on you and then we can sit and compare, because clearly, I am at a disadvantage.”

"Or I can just tell you whatever you want to know." He winked.

"No thanks." I wasn't flattered.

Dominic smiled when he heard that and he too stood up. “So you are asking me out on a date?” He winked at me, again urging my hand to try breaking his chiseled jaw – shut up Cassidy. “When shall it be?”

“You will know when you know.” I said and spun on my heels; my brain was going to bake itself if I stayed in his proximity any longer.

“By the way..” He called out, “I love how you don’t care what other people might think about the things you say.”

I stopped and turned around, “I usually do. It’s just you whose opinion I don’t give a damn about!”

“Which makes me special, I guess!”

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“Oh my god, oh my god, this is turning into such a hot mess!” Sally was so invested in what was going on with my life after I met Dominic ‘Donkey’ Grant that she had come over to my place on Sunday to get filled in on the drama that I was hiding from Nora.

I did not want her to know that her house had been sold and I definitely did not want her to know that the buyer is a psycho who is after me and is using them as some sort of bait to get his hands on me.

The poor lady had too much on her plate with a mentally ill husband, a failed kidney and a wasted son.

“No, this is turning into a bloody mess and I am one or two more sentences from him away from breaking his nose and jaw.” I ran my hand through my hair. For some weird reason, the texture was so soft today, it felt like I was running my hand through feathers.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that-”

“MOM!!!” Madison bellowed from her room.

“Madison Montgomery, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t shout for people to come to you!” I yelled back and then added. “Unless it’s an emergency.”

“Fine!” She yelled again and then swiftly ran to my side, making herself comfortable in my lab and throwing her arms around my neck, placing his head on my chest.

Sally looked at me knowingly. It was obvious that when Madison did this, she meant business. She wanted something and she was going to give it her all to make sure that she gets it.

And as for me, I know very well that yes, this girl will make me do or get whatever she wants, but that did not stop me from putting up a fight. And it was added bonus that her performance was super entertaining to watch first hand.

“Mommy…” She started.

“Yes?” I played along.

“Remember you promised you that you will get me anything I want if I had a perfect score in English recitation?”

I raised a brow. “Didn’t I get you those dolls on Friday?”

“But you got me those. I never asked you to. It was all you.”

Sally smiled widely, her eyes wide as well as she looked at me and then at my kid. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” She commented.

I rolled my eyes at her. “That’s not exactly how it works, Sally.”

And then I looked down at my kid, holding her by the chin and making her look up at me. “Ms. Montgomery, don’t you think you are testing your luck here?”

“But Mommy, you are never one to break promises.” She pouted.

“The kid got a point.” Sally chimed in.

“Sally, this is a mother daughter discussion, no space for biased advocates.” I countered.

I looked down at my kid again, knowing very well that if this girl ever chose to practice law, she was going to be as good as me, if not better.

“But Mommy-”

“Mommy is not going to get you anything for at least two weeks young lady.” I shushed her immediately. It is true that I fall for her antics usually and get her whatever she wants, but not today, not about this topic. Mothers had to be strict at times as well.

She pouted at me.

“I am so used to seeing your Uncle Jim make this face to be affected by it.” It was a lie. Jeremy had the most idiotic pout so it was easy to resist it, but my kid happened to be an extremely cute little girl so resisting her pouts drained me of all of my will power.

“Oh come on!” I rolled my eyes as soon as I heard it. Sally had fallen for the puppy eyes, of course. “I will get you whatever you want.”

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