Page 30 of Unraveling an Enigma
Isaac remains quiet. His riveting eyes stare into mine, but they don’t reveal what is trickling through that astute brain of his. A thick stench of awkwardness plagues the air surrounding us. Although it is dense, it isn’t abundant enough to mask the sexual surge of electricity bolting between us when we are in the same room. The wave of desire is so strong I can hear it crackling and hissing in the air.
“Is that all?” he says, his voice raspy and smooth at the same time.
Unable to speak for fear my voice will crack with emotions, I nod.
“Okay. Goodbye, Isabelle,” he says, dismissing me from his office.
I smile to hide the sting of his blunt dismissal. “Goodbye, Isaac.” Spinning on my heels, I stride to the door. I need to escape his office before my threatening tears spill over.
Just before I exit the wooden door, paper being ripped booms into my ears. Sharply, I turn my head back to Isaac to see him tearing up the check I just had drawn. A stern mask of anger has slipped over his face. He shreds the paper into small scraps that float through the air before scattering over his spotless, polished wooden floor.
“What are you doing?” I sneer.
Storming back to him, I snatch a portion of the now ruined check out of his hand. “That’s a bank check, they have already taken the money out of my account, so whether you cash it or not, the money is already gone, I can’t draw you another one.”
“I don’t want your fucking money, Isabelle,” he mutters in disgust, his furious and desolate eyes glaring into mine.
Inhaling a quick, sharp breath, I cross my arms in front of my chest and toughen my stance. “Yeah, well I didn’t ask to be placed on your payroll either, but I wasn’t given a choice. The reality of life is sometimes you have to accept things you don’t want to,” I retaliate, my loud voice bouncing around his quiet office.
He arches his brow. “My payroll?”
“Yeah, your payroll. What did the agent from the Internal Affairs Department call me. . . oh, that’s right, a paid mistress. AKA your prostitute.”
My teeth clench when an arrogant smirk etches across Isaac’s face. “That is what you are, isn’t it, Isabelle? Whether the money was coming from me or the FBI, you were paid to sleep with me.”
Without warning, my hand darts out to slap Isaac powerfully across his face. The harshness of my slap is so severe, his head turns to face the other side of the room, and my hand sets on fire. Slowly, almost robotically, Isaac swivels his head back to face me. His jaw is twitching profusely, and a dark cloud of anger has formed in his already furious eyes.
I stand still, frozen in shock with my pulse ringing in my ears. I’ve never struck a person before. I nearly stumble out an apology, before realizing I have nothing to be sorry for. He insulted me, not the other way around.
Tears well in my eyes at a rapid pace when I spot the red mark my slap has imprinted onto Isaac’s flawless complexion. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry for not telling you about my job at the very beginning, but don’t you dare degrade what we had by saying I was paid to do it. You know as well as I do that I never slept with you for my job,” I inform him, my tone firm. My tear-filled eyes stare into his, begging for him to believe my statement.
“I love you, Isaac. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you,” I say, quoting part of what he said to me in the warehouse five weeks ago. I surprise myself by managing to maintain a shred of composure when my heart is erratically beating and thrashing against my chest, and my eyes are stinging from the sudden rush of moisture in them.
“When you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I’ll be waiting for you. Once you realize you're fighting a battle bigger than us both, I’ll be waiting for you.”
No longer having the ability to hold in my tears, I dart out of his office as quickly as my trembling legs will take me.
Isabelle
Leaning against Isaac’s office door, I gulp quick gasps of air while struggling not to let my threatening tears spill over. Unlike Friday, today the sun is shining brightly, so I’ll have no way to conceal my tears from the commuters around me. The dull ache that has been burning in my chest since Friday is intensifying as every day passes. On Friday night, it felt like a flesh wound. Now, it feels like a knife has been brutally stabbed in my heart.
“I tried to warn you,” narks a whiny voice to my side.
Turning my head, I discover Tina leaning her back against the bar with a victorious smirk etched on her petite face. She has her arms crossed in front of a white spaghetti-strap cami, and her barely covered legs are crossed in front of her body. The indecent length of her shorts means they could never be classified as an article of clothing. The panties I wear during the red week of my cycle have more material than her shorts.
Gritting my teeth to fight the urge to snap back at her taunting remark, I hurry toward the back entrance of the club. Tina’s amused gaze treks me as I dash across the mahogany dance floor.
“Make sure the door doesn’t hit you on the ass on your way out,” Tina yells through a mocking snicker.
I push open the heavy door with a grunt of frustration. My eyes squint to adjust from the darkness of Isaac’s club to the blinding mid-morning sunrays. The sun is so bright, I have to use my arm to shelter my eyes so I can see where I am walking. My strides are urgent and fast since I am eager to return to my apartment to wallow in self-pity in privacy.
My quick pace only slackens when I reach the corner of Welsh and Trover Street. My gaze locks in on a female form standing under a bus shelter just a few feet from where I’ve halted. A tremor of fear spreads through me as the hairs on my arms bristle. Megan Shroud is mere feet from me. With everything going on with Isaac, I’d completely forgotten about her and her freakish obsession with Isaac’s brother, Nick.
At first glance, Megan appears like any other woman going about her day to day routine. The only reason she has attracted my attention, and that of those surrounding her, is the yellow sundress she is wearing with a pair of gold toeless pumps. Although the mid-morning sun has a nice amount of warmth to it, the breeze blowing the hem of her dress up high on her white thighs is as cold as ice. I’m chilly wearing a pair of jeans and a thin cashmere sweater.She would have to be freezing.
Ignoring the nerves fluttering in my stomach, I pace toward Megan. My eyes drift over the people surrounding the bus stop, seeking the agents Alex assigned to Megan’s case Friday morning. My first guess would be the lady sitting at the café across the street with a newspaper in her hand.
Although she appears to be reading the paper, her eyes are not shifting in a left to right pattern which would indicate reading. My Uncle Tobias said that ploy is normally the first thing to make your target aware of your undercover surveillance. “Even if your gaze never leaves your target, you must shift your eyes accordingly,” he used to preach.God, I miss him.
