After dropping Zoe and Gina back at their homes, Claire received another threatening text message from an unknown number.
She sat with her head against the steering wheel for a while. She wasn't sure what to do. She wondered if she shouldn't try to find somewhere else to stay or if she should return to the villa.
Last night, she tried to keep safe by locking the bedroom door and putting a chair underneath the handle to make it difficult for anyone to enter.
Moreover, Gabriel didn't seem to show any murderous intentions towards her, especially since she entered the villa.
After a few steadying breaths, she decided to go to the villa. As she drove, she realised that she didn't even have any keys to enter it and it was quite late. She decided that if she was locked out, she'll drive back to her flat.
Claire was surprised as the gate opened on its own as she arrived. She thought that Gabriel had some form of remote that opens it automatically if you come near it, hence she didn't question it last night.
She parked as far out of the way as possible, still unsure about the entire thing. The place felt so alien to her, and she felt as if she was breaking in.
Claire walked up to the door and rang the bell. She was sure that no one was to answer but Gabriel appeared almost immediately. He was wearing his casual clothes which probably put her off more than the fact that it took him maybe five seconds to get to the door.
He wore black denim trousers and a light grey sweater.
"How was your day?" Gabriel asked letting her in. Claire froze for a good moment but he waited patiently.
"It was good, thanks." She replied shortly, walking in. She immediately took off her shoes, and as she did Gabriel handed her a pair of slippers. "Thank you." She looked up in confusion.
"Pattison sorted out some shopping for you. He placed the bags in your current bedroom for you to review. Feel free to bin or return anything you don't like."
"Thank you." Claire's confusion didn't wear off.
"Did you eat?" Gabriel walked into the dining room, Claire stood by the entrance to the dining room. She realised that the table had multiple dishes ready.
"I ate earlier."
"Come on." Gabriel encouraged her, sitting down himself. A thought that Gabriel might've waited for her to have dinner crossed her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. In her mind, Gabriel wasn't the kind of person that waited for anyone, especially anyone as worthless as her. But her initial thought was right. Gabriel drove off just as Claire was about to leave Holly's Kitchen so he had a good idea of when she might be coming home. He then asked Jonathan to wait for dinner a little longer. Only as her car reached the gate, the dinner was laid on the table. And the reason the gate opened for her, was that he already ensured her registration plate was in the system.
"I'm guessing you had a busy day," Claire said as she sat down at the table. "How many people did you terrorise today?"
"I don't think I terrorised you yet, so only Pattison."
"I'm still terrorised from earlier in the week. I think you can count it."
"If we look at it that way, you will count for every day for the rest of my life."
"There you go. All the trauma is resurfacing." Claire said half-jokingly. Her eyes did lose their glimmer at the prospect of her future, and it reminded her how worried her dad was over her ever being even close to Gabriel.
"You've terrorised all of my staff this morning, though. I kind of feel that it is my responsibility to get back at you on their behalf."
"Did I?"
"I've heard Jonathan swear that your raspberry sauce was better than any he ever made," Gabriel said. It was actually true. He walked into the kitchen after Claire left to hear Jonathan swear as he was eating the breakfast made by Claire. Every time he was positively surprised to learn of yet another thing Claire was good at. He loved it when people praised her.
"That's definitely a new way of making me feel bad. Poor Jonathan." Claire looked worried.
"He's gonna be fine. Don't worry about it."
Claire ate her dinner, checking her phone a few times as Zoe and Gina were bombarding a group chat.
She smiled at her phone regularly, which hurt Gabriel a lot, as she didn't smile at him in the same way. "Do you have any plans for the rest of the weekend?"
"I'm going to go into the office to work in peace."
"Work? It's a bank holiday weekend." He said it in such a disgruntled tone as if he wasn't at fault for doing exactly the same.
"Joneses came back to us with a second contract, almost instantly, so I need to get on top of it before I can delegate some work on Monday. Besides the design, I spoke to you about at the restaurant the other day still needs working on."
"How is it going?"
"Horribly. I was given a very vague brief and almost complete freedom over it."
"How is that bad? I thought that's like a dream brief."
"Not exactly. I want them to still like it and fit in their taste but also, I want something novel and intriguing. I'm very conflicted over which direction to take."
"Do you care for my advice?"
"Not really, but go ahead."
"Design it as if it were for you. Don't worry about scoring some imaginary points. Just imagine how it would be to live there."
"That's not the worst advice," Claire said with surprise taking a few sips of water.
"After years of running the company, I might know a thing or two."
"Where did you get that advice from?"
"Gary." Gabriel laughed, and Claire joined him.
"Well, the advice I received from him just before his retirement might not be working out in my favour." Claire smiled remembering the last week of work with Gary. "He was a piece of work though."
"He was wacky as heck. His sense of humour was rather perplexing." Gabriel admitted.
"I don't think I was subjected to much of his humour."
"He send an email out at one point saying that the building collapsed just to p*ss me off."
"How come you didn't fire him?"
"He did his work." Gabriel shrugged. "I don't fire people left and right, and not without a reason. Even though Gary did cut it close with that prank. I've made him sit through two weeks of HR seminars on professionalism at the workplace."
"He more than deserved it. I don't think he pulled off any pranks on us. But it was an endless cycle of dad jokes and puns." Claire let out a frustrated sigh. "Never mind. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to bed." Claire stood up.
"Of course. Goodnight, Claire."
"Goodnight, Gabriel," Claire responded still feeling uncomfortable referring to him by his first name.
Claire walked into the room that had a good fifty bags of clothes on the side. She looked at it in surprise and decided to deal with it in the morning.
Gabriel heard a commotion when he woke up. He pulled a sweater over his pyjamas and walked out of the room.
"Miss, please." Martha stood outside Claire's door looking anxious.
"Martha, what's wrong?"
"Miss Thompson is not letting me clean her room."
"Then come back later."
"It's not that, sir," Martha said, her face pale. Gabriel heard the vacuum cleaner start. He pushed the door to Claire's bedroom to find her cleaning.
"Don't worry about it, Martha," Gabriel said.
"She already upset Jonathan this morning by making him breakfast again and emptying the dishwasher from last night." Martha was flustered, trying to not have a meltdown.
"Claire can do as she pleases so don't concern yourself over it," Gabriel stated. "Go on with your day."
"I need a vacuum cleaner."
"Occupy yourself with something else for now."
Gabriel walked into Claire's room. "Claire!"
Claire jumped as only now she noticed him.
"Don't creep on me like this." She held her chest and turned the vacuum cleaner off.
"Why are you cleaning?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?"
"Why are you upsetting Martha and Jonathan?"
"I thought I'm allowed to do as I want."
"True, but why don't you use the resources available to you."
"I use cleaning as a way to let the steam off. Maybe if you did it too there wouldn't have been so many holes in the walls."
"Did you have breakfast?"
"Yes."
"Are any of the clothes okay?" Gabriel's eyes landed on the bags.
"Pattison can take them back."
"All of them?"
"I don't want them."
"Are they not to your taste?"
"I just don't want them," Claire repeated.
"Okay, I'll send Pattison to go shopping with you at some point."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"I have enough."
Gabriel opened the door to an almost bare closet.
"Let's see. If you have several banquets and opening events within a week how will you manage to dry clean your dresses in time to attend them all?"
"I'll-."
"If you say that you'll borrow clothes from Miss Green I'll punch another hole in the wall." Gabriel cut her off.
"Go ahead then," Claire said in a challenging tone. "I don't need more than I have. Reusing the dresses or borrowing them, especially for rare occasions, is more economical and environmentally friendly. The entire society fell into that over-consumption trap where they're made to think that you need twenty million bits of clothing to be presentable."
"I am not telling you to fill out the landfill with the clothes, Claire." Gabriel was still calm.
"Why does it bother you so much?"
"I don't think I like the idea of my wife borrowing clothes."
"As if it were any of your business."
"It is. Imagine the scandal if that were come out to the light."
"You being married will be scandal enough." Claire shrugged.
"Fair point. Can we compromise on you filling out at least one section of the closet?"
"No. I don't do compromises with tyrants."
"Okay. Pattison will not return any of these. Your choice if they go in your closet or landfill."
"Did anyone tell you that you're an a*shole?"
"Yes, you. On several occasions, actually."
"I might say it again for good measure. You're an a*shole."
"Sure." Gabriel shrugged. "Deal with it."
"Deal with it," Claire repeated in a mocking tone.
"Don't be childish," Gabriel said coldly.
"I can be whatever I want." Claire stuck out her tongue at him.
"For a while, I thought that you were all mature and professional. Thank you for showing me how wrong I was."
"At least I was right about you from the start."
"Were you? Are you sure?"
"I always expected you to be a d*ckhead, so at least you didn't disappoint."
"I see." Gabriel stopped himself from saying anything further as he worried about escalating the argument. He already felt like he was on the edge of rage. "If you need anything, you know what to do."
"I dare say that all I need is you out of my life," Claire said through her gritted teeth.
"Yeah, too late for that, isn't it? You can't legally get rid of me."
"I was tricked into signing it."
"I'm curious how that's gonna hold up in court," Gabriel mumbled as he left.
Claire put the vacuum cleaner away and left the house. She made her way to the company where she stayed the entirety of the day. She didn't want to go back as she was still angry at Gabriel. She worked so late that she fell asleep with her face on her desk.
Gabriel became anxious once the night fell and Claire was still out. Around 10 pm he was pacing around his study, by 11 pm he was pacing around the hall, and at midnight he got in his car.
He drove into the city, trying to think where Claire might be. He ended up checking her flat but he had no response. He managed to get the building manager to open the door but Claire wasn't there. He did stumble on another letter on the floor though, which only made him more anxious. Someone wanted Claire dead and she wasn't near him so he couldn't save her.
Around 1:30 am he walked across the thirty-sixth floor. When he saw the light in Claire's office, his body relaxed. He walked into her office only to find her sleeping with her head on the keyboard. He smiled at the sight as she was so peaceful. He hasn't seen her this calm in his presence ever before.
He hesitated as he didn't want to disturb her. He looked around her office and spotted her cardigan. He picked it up and covered her with it. After some contemplation he took his sweater off, leaving him in a white t-shirt, and he rolled it up. He lifted Claire's head as gently as he could, moving the keyboard out of the way and placing his rolled-up sweater under her cheek.
She whimpered in her sleep. Gabriel leaned over and moved her hair behind her ears.
"You're as stubborn as they get, aren't you." He whispered with a smile. "Goodnight, Claire."
"Gabriel?" She asked in a dazed state.
"Hush… you're okay. You're safe." Gabriel said softly. His steady voice didn't wake Claire any further as she fell back into her deep sleep.
He left her office feeling reassured. Instead of going home, he flopped on a sofa in the waiting room further down the corridor.