Chimera | H.S Mature

29.

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*Samantha's POV*

I hadn't moved, not for hours. My bag lay where I had thrown it upon arrival this morning, its contents spilling out over the unzipped rim, several stray pieces of paper littering the floor. My desk was bare, other than the odd abandoned pencil I had made no attempt to even pretend like I was working. The warm sun streaming through the open window warmed my back as I sat forward, resting my arms on the tarnished wood and twisting the small business card around in my fingers.

My mind was ablaze with thoughts and theories. My body felt weak and numb as I thought back on the events of the previous evening while running my thumb over the rich paper between my fingers. Harry had been oblivious to my shock as he dropped me off at my building and captured my lips in a sweet kiss across the centre console of his car. I was sure he had been waiting for an invitation inside, perhaps to finish what I feared may have been starting back on the banks of the Thames. But I had been too consumed by my own scattered thoughts to accommodate his silent request, and in all honesty, I was scared. Scared of what I had found, scared of what it might lead to, and scared of how he was making me feel.

There was no use denying that Harry had an effect on my body that I thought was destroyed years ago. His electric touch sent shock waves across my skin, igniting a reaction from my body that I swore I would never succumb to again. But perhaps I am as weak as the men surrounding me love to point out, perhaps I am a stupid little girl, giving in to feelings and needs that put everything I have worked for in jeopardy. But my walls were crumbling more and more with each day that I spent with him, and perhaps that's why this unexpected discovery hurt me so much.

I sighed and dropped the card on the desk, bowing my head and letting my hands reach and intertwine on the back of my neck. Strands of blonde hair fell around my face like a curtain and my body curled into itself, hiding from nothing in particular. Hiding from reality perhaps, hiding from that small voice in the back of my mind that was screaming that maybe Harry had a bigger part to play in this than I had initially thought.

But a larger part of me was desperate to believe that this small twist of fate was merely a coincidence. Morris himself had made it clear that he ran no small operation, and Harry had made it plain that he wasn't short of a pound or two, so for him to in some way be linked with Morris Motors was not too difficult to imagine. Perhaps Harry's car was in for repair at one of Mr Morris' garages and he had been given a card for the Lillington Gardens shop should he need a rental, which by no means suggests that Harry did in fact take Morris up on his offer.

But what do we say about coincidence, I thought to myself, the universe is rarely so lazy. It was my favourite line from the world's greatest consulting detective, one that had a marked effect on me when I first read the Sherlock Holmes books and one that I was firm to apply to my everyday life. But it was also one I was determined to disregard in this case, for my own sanity if nothing else.

There was not enough evidence for me to suspect anything other than coincidence, no one could be that good at acting innocent after all. Harry was a kind, gentle, loving brother, a generous, sweet... well whatever-he-was to me and I felt disgusted at myself for even thinking just for a moment that he had anything to do with this.

Removing my hands from the back of my neck and snapping my head back quickly to remove the hair from my face, I grasped the card with a blank face and cast it aside in the top drawer of my desk where it slipped to the back corner and settled beside the small black button in the clear evidence which I relocated days earlier. But before I could slam the drawer shut on the offending object I suffered a moment of hesitation and quickly slipped the business card into its own evidence bag which I labelled with the date and location of discovery before shutting it away. Old habits die hard.