Fatal Attraction

Chapter 3

HENRY THORN

What do you do with a persistent headache? I wondered as I walked to and fro the length of my sitting room.

Dump more Aspirin into your stomach? If it was that, I was going to remain in the perpetual pain that kept on radiating from my head.

Besides, I suspect that the headache wound go away if I can be able to catch the thief that had been stealing from Thorn Corporations.

Terrible things that I would do to that thief that had stolen up to five hundred dollars in the last six months filled my head, compounding my headache and making me swear out loud.

I looked up at the large drawing portrait that was the biggest out of the framed pictures on the wall of the sitting room. It was a picture of my father who had died on the hospital bed after battling with Leukemia for the last six years of his life.

I studied his features. Besides his green eyes that flamed with passion or chilled people with their coldness that he had passed on to me, I didn't really look like him.

I had taken after his wife and my mother who had given me my caramel toned skin, and thick curly black hair which had given me the overall appearance of a stunning young man who was a magnet of the ladies. It was always a source of humour for me watching them realized in dismay that they would not be able to get me interested in them.

But my dad, Thomas Thorn was not stunning. He had never been. But with his seven foot height and one hundred and fifty pounds, coupled with the way he walked and rolled out orders, the first thought that usually came to anyone who sighted him was that he looked 'powerful '

Yes, Powerful was the apt way to describe him. If he had not been, he would not have in the space of twenty years had build and managed ten successful restaurants all over New Jersey.

For several years, he had been consecutively been winning the award for the top innovative business person in New Jersey. Nobody would have dared toyed with him due to his no-nonsense personality. He attended few social events and had very few friends. In fact, he had only person beside his family that he trusted— his best friend, Michael Michaelson, another industrialist to the core.

Michael Michaelson was the only person beside my mother and I to see my Dad at his bedside where he had been receiving exclusive medical treatment. My Dad didn't want anybody else to see how weak he was. Till his death, he had maintained that ruthless reputation.

As I looked at his picture, feeling his loss resonate in me, I wondered what he would have done if he had found out that some one in his company had been bleeding dry the company he had built with his sweat and blood.

Of course, he would have in anger used his bare hands to snap the culprit's neck.

Damn it, Will, I thought as I looked at the wall clock.

9: 30PM

How long would it take Will to talk to the private investigator and get back to me?

Will was my personal assistant at work. It was he that I had given the assignment to relate with the private Investigator because I trustee him to be discreet.

Before leaving the office today, he had told me to be up late at home because the private investigator had told him that he was ready to share his findings.

Thrilled that I was now closer to finding the bastard who was stealing from the company I had inherited and owned now. Well, not fully owned considering the fact that my father, as ruthless as he can be had added some conditions to his wills that made me only a part owner of Thorn Corporations unless I fulfill the conditions.

The conditions, when my father lawyer had read them to us after his he had died, had sounded ridiculous in my ears.

Two years later, they still sounded ridiculous.

It was terms I had no plan of fulfilling so I had settled for the Part ownership of Thorn Corporation which was fine with me by the way.

My father best friend, Michael Michaelson, had become the other part owner pending when I will fulfill the conditions my father had stated in his will so full ownership could be released to me.

I remember shouting "Forget it. That would not happen. I had okay with being a part owner by the way!" before storming out of the room, where my mother, Mr Michael and Dad's lawyer had sat in to discuss the will, in anger.

I looked up at the wall clock.

9:50PM.

Okay, what was wrong with Will? This was unlike him to be this way.

Had something come up? Was the Private Investigator not ready for to share his findings because he had not find the thief?

I didn't like the fact that I was not in direct contact with the Private Investigator but the work at the office was overwhelming.

Everyday at work filled me with more respect for my late father. That he had done this administrative work all by himself without him breaking was so astonishing. It was worth applaudable.

Shit. Speaking of work, I had some work that I had carried over from the office that I was to do at home.

I went into the kitchen first of all to take coffee to clear his head of sleep. As I went back to the sitting room, I realized everywhere was unerrily quiet.

I wondered where the house staff were. I was supposed to have seen some of them in the kitchen but I hadn't

Besides the gatekeeper who had opened the gate for me, I had not seen any other person in my house.

That was the main reason I was yet to eat dinner; there had been nobody to come tell me my dinner was ready. Already feeling alarmed, I was about to go into the balcony and call out the name of my chief housekeeper when I remembered I had given them two days off as a bonus since i had not given any of them leave since the beginning of the year. They were to leave the house this morning and come back on Sunday morning.

Damn. So it was my staff that was keeping my house lively.

Not even a girlfriend? Or kids?

I didn't care about it anyway. Right from as long as I could remember, I have never given a damn about girls and their troubles.

In high school and university, I was the one always consoling those whose hearts had been broken by their girlfriends. But I never knew what it felt to give his heart to a girl. So how would they break a heart I had never given out?

It was a cause of worry among my male friends especially as I was gorgeous, with my caramel toned skin and striking eyes and had the eyes of many ladies follow him. They wondered how the hell would a red blooded man not seek the warmth of a female.

I remember in my sophomore year when Cherrie, the blond stunner who had won the beauty pageant prize for that year walked to me in a party and in front if others had kissed me full on the lips and then whispered with a sensual smile on her lips "I have been dying to be your girlfriend."

As the guests in the party rowled with excitement and began shouting"Yes. Yes. Yes " with their hands raised up, I had smiled at her, toyed with a blond lock of her hair with one finger then said with the same low volume she had used for me. "Then live."

At first, she had been confused as to what I was meaning with those two words but as she saw the way my eyes were cold as I looked at her, she got it. Her blue eyes had filled with rage because I had done the unimginable— I had told the girl no boy would say no to to go and get and lost.

The boys had been confused when Cherrie shouted "You bastard! You don't know what you are missing! Are you sure you are not gay?" Instead of the kiss and smooching they had expected to witness.

Back at the private apartment I was staying on campus, two of my friends who had followed me questioned how on earth I was able to decline what gives most boys wet dream.

"I am not most boys, I guess" I had said with the attitude of 'I don't give a damn."

Few days later, I began to notice how boys began to act weird around me: some of them would noticeably refused to sit near me in class or any other public place while others would lick their lips at me if they thought I was not watching.

It was crazy because it was later I had traced the recent modification of boys behaviour around me to the statement Cherrie had angrily said in that party.

Now, as I mulled over that memory from my school days, my phone rang. I pulled my phone out of my jean back pocket. I checked Caller ID.

It was Will. Finally.

I picked the call. "What took you so damn long?"

He didn't answer to that.

I instinctively knew something was very wrong. And I became very worried. That made my headache intensify to a point that I had to walk to the freezer in the dining room to take some ice and put on my head.

"What is wrong, Will? Talk to me."

His voice was pensive as he answered, "You might want to sit down as you hear this."