The Stolen Heart

Chapter 10: The big, bad bully!

“Whose brilliant idea was this again?”, I groaned out loud, clicking my tongue annoyed.

Jen snickered and muttered mischievously, “Daniel’s, obviously. No one else is jobless enough to do this.”

I let out another groan and slumped onto my revolving chair while Jen sat on my table with her usual lollipop on her mouth.

Daniel had come up with an idea to conduct games so that employees warm up to each other and to boost the morale and team spirit. And it was well received by the Board immediately.

Just then Justin and Nick opened the door to my cabin and let themselves in. Jen immediately jumped from the table and stood up straight. I snickered a laugh at her sheer panic, then looked anxiously at Justin. After Justin’s outburst at the meeting I have never really seen him. He looks calm now, so I relaxed.

“Hey, sis. Let’s decide on the team. The marketing and the sales department have already formed their teams and submitted the participants list. Only our department and the planning department is lagging behind.”, Nick started off excitedly.

“I have already put you down for basketball and badminton and the relay race. Jen, I have put you down for volleyball, football and high jumps. And I will be participating in the marathon, relay race and Justin obviously can’t participate since he is the MD,  so he will be the referee.”, he finished without taking a single breath in between.

 It was very obvious that he was looking forward to the competitions. I understood why Nick had put me on those games. I was rather good at them, especially basketball since I was a national player in my college days but performing all three of them on one day would be very difficult for me, now that I was six months into my pregnancy. Though the bump was hidden well enough by my baggy clothes, I was starting to gain weight and it was only a matter of time when people start taking notice.

Justin shook his head and replied, “She is not participating in any activity. The completion is two months later. By then, she will be heavily pregnant.”

Wait a second, the competition is going to be two months later? Then there was no way that I could waddle through playing basketball. I let out a sigh, disappointed. Part of me was looking forward to playing basketball again.

“Merina, when do you intend to start telling people? Because you are kind of getting bigger.”, Jen exclaimed shrilly.

I immediately rubbed my belly and frowned. People had just stopped gossiping about me. They seemed to be connecting my weight gain with depression of losing Richard, then the promotion. I wonder what they will say when they learn that I am pregnant with my late fiancé’s baby? I didn’t want more drama in my life. Frankly, I had enough to last a lifetime.

“I don’t know”, I answered truthfully.

Nick opened his mouth to say something, but Justin slyly put a hand on his shoulder, nudging him slightly. Nick seemed to get whatever it was that Justin wanted to say and immediately took a step back, firmly shutting his mouth.

I frowned at them. I knew they were close, but I didn’t think they were this close that they could read each other with just a tiny little nudge. A pang of jealousy immediately erupted in my chest when I recalled how Nick had always been cold to Richard.

“Hey, you ready to head out? Mr Paulson would be waiting”, Justin said breaking the awkward silence. I nodded at him and grabbed my purse and left the office leaving Jen and Nick to continue making their list.

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After the meeting with Mr Paulson was over, Justin insisted on getting lunch, claiming that he was absolutely famished.

When the waiter came over, I was ready to give my order. Today for a change I felt like eating Chinese chopseuy.

But before I could order, Justin confidently goes, “One Alfredo pasta, one Chinese chopseuy and two chocolate brownie shakes.”

The waiter immediately nodded and left while I stared at Justin open mouthed. How the hell had he known what I wanted to order? Though brownie shake was easy to guess since it was my favorite, I wanted to order Chinese chopseuy simply because I was in the mood for Chinese food. I don’t normally order Chinese. It slightly unhinged me how observant he was and how he could read me like an open book.

My nose started getting irritated and I was busy looking for the source which caused my allergic reactions, when my eyes landed on the flower pots by the window. I let out a sigh and slumped onto the chair, trying hard not to sneeze.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Justin get up and nonchalantly move the flower pots to another window, farther away from us. I smiled at him gratefully, while another part of me wondered how he had known.

“How did you know that I was allergic to flowers?”, I asked him curiously all prepared to hear his lecture about the power of observation and deduction.

He simply gave me a knowing smile at me as he replied,” I have known you since childhood, Merina. You tend to pick things up when you have known the person for more than twenty years.”

I was taken aback by his honest answer. Even though we had known each other for a long time, we weren’t exactly close. I knew literally nothing about his preferences and yet he knew everything about mine.

“You are allergic to almost all flowers with pollen in them. The only flower you are not allergic to also happens to be your favorite flower which is the white, may flower.” He continued and held my eye contact for a tad longer than necessary.

White may flowers? No one knew about that. Richard never gifted me flowers because he knew that I was allergic to them. Only I knew about my fondness to white, may flowers. It was the last memory I had of my father before he disappeared. However since I was very young when he left me and mom was just pregnant with Nick, now his face was just a blur to me. I don't even remember his name now and whenever I used to ask mom, she used to clam up. I was emotionally attached to may flowers because it reminded of my father because he was fond of it. How the hell did he know about that?

I wanted to mouth my question; however, I was side-tracked by the arrival of delicious food.

We immediately dug into it and I was amazed by how much we had in common and how much we got along. I had expected the lunch to be excruciatingly uncomfortable, but I surprisingly had a good time.

After we exited the restaurant, I saw an ice cream cart on the opposite side of the road. Without thinking much, I immediately grabbed Justin’s arm and crossed the street and ran towards the cart. Only when I reached the cart and turned around to see Justin’s sheepish expression did I realize that I was still grabbing onto his arm. He seemed to be in a daze, intently staring at me.

 I cleared my throat and immediately let go of his hands and pounced on the ice-cream man. I can’t believe I was walking down the road eating ice-cream with Justin Malcerk. He looked ordinary up close and I gradually relaxed and let my guard down as Justin laughed easily at my pathetic attempt at telling jokes.

I let out an involuntary shudder as a wind passed us by. It was getting chilly out here. I started walking faster towards the car. Justin immediately took off his coat and wrapped it around me tightly, while I just stood there frozen like a deer caught in headlights.

I blushed involuntarily when his hands grazed my shoulder. He looked pleased at my reaction to his closeness. It was a long trip back and I was uncomfortable and fidgety the whole way back.

A few hours had passed since Justin had dropped me off at home, and I was still in awe of the new side of Justin I had seen today. I had never seen him a laugh like that before. My thoughts immediately reached out to Richard. How happy he would have been if he knew that I could finally get along with Justin and could complete a meal with him without having to control the urge to murder him.

My cell phone bell interrupted me from my thoughts. I frowned as I saw Mr Malcerk’s name. Regina was the one who always contacted me, he had never contacted me before. I pursued my lips, wondering what it was about.

I attended the call nervously and muttered, “Hello, Mr Malcerk.”

“Merina, are you free for dinner tonight, dear?”

Again, the thought that something was definitely up, entered my mind. It was always Regina who made the invitations.

I barely managed an inaudible ‘yes’ when he replied, “Great, see you at 7, dear” and cut off the call.

I stared at my phone in bewilderment.

Few hours later, I was standing in front of the Malcerk mansion nervously. I took in several deep breaths to calm myself then went in. I was shocked at the loud voices and bellowing’s erupting from the study room. My steps faltered when I saw a teary-eyed Regina come out from the study room. Her face paled when she saw me there. By the look of surprise in her eyes, it was very obvious that she had no clue about Mr Malcerk’s invitation for dinner.

She, however recovered fast from her moment of shock and immediately invited me in and seated me in the hall, far away from the study room, but even though she had seated herself right beside me, she still kept stealing worried glances at the study room.

She screamed in surprise when I gently touched her hand wanting to know what was happening.

Justin immediately rushed out from the study room and went still when he found me there.

“Let me guess, my father invited you”, he shouted at me.

I nodded, a little afraid and taken aback at the murderous look on his eyes.

“Get out.....NOW”, he shouted at me. I immediately stood up, confused at his sudden anger. 

We had been together till a few hours earlier and everything was fine and we were starting to get along, now he has done a full 360 degree turn and we were right back where we started. I shook my head, disappointed at his behavior. Well, who was I kidding? A man like Justin Malcerk don’t change into a new leaf overnight. Once a bully, always a bully. 

Unheeding Regina’s desperate protests, I walked out. It was only after I had drove a few miles away that I parked my car to the side and burst into tears. God, I hated that man. He had tortured me since childhood and I was finally done with his hot and cold approach. I don’t care if he was Richard’s elder brother or my boss, I was done with his tantrums. How can he just kick me out like that, without even an ounce of respect? Well, I guess, he never really respected me. Maybe, for him, I will always be their maid’s daughter.