Violet was asked to stay home from work for a few days and though she protested, she was glad to take a few days off the scene of the double shock she had just suffered.
Her father took care of her and would also have taken a few days off from work but Violet insisted that he didn't.
'I am not an invalid', she said, 'I may have suffered a great shock which reminded me of the past that I'd rather forget, I am still okay and will soon resume work. It will help my mind to be creatively occupied and not leave me to think and recall all that I'd rather forget. So please go to work. I will be all right here ony own'.
She hugged him and helped him prepare for work and he had no option but to go ahead to work.
'I shall call you', he promised and called her almost a thousand times to know how she was faring and at lunch hour, came home to find that she had been preparing to bring him food at the police station.
After a couple of days Violet resumed work and her colleagues, most of who had come to visit her at home, were glad to have her back. All except one. Sandra Davis. It was almost as though she had hoped she would not come back to work.
Violet could not understand it. Her duty was different from Sandra's. They were not fighting over anything yet Sandra acted as though she suspected Violet but because it was the boss himself who employed her, had no choice but to keep her mouth shut and tolerate her.
At Violet's insistence, the case against Clark was withdrawn and though she pleaded, Damien would not hear of asking Clark back to work for him but he paid him off by giving him a three - month severance pay just to make Violet happy though he would not admit it even to himself.
Damien found that he had started feeling more receptive towards Violet. He could not forget the night he had happened into her office and found her asleep and all that had transpired between them.
He found that he wanted to feel her again against him arms. She had felt so good in his arms no matter how brief the contact had been and it had felt so right.
He couldn't be falling in love, now could he?
No, it was just that he empathized with her for the ordeal she had had to suffer that same night, he told himself.
But he found out that he wanted to know more about her. He was sure that his instincts that the incidence with Clark had not been the first of such in her life but he had to be certain. What was it that had scared her so much that she had gone into a trance and as she had lashed at him, she had called out a name and that name hadn't been Clark's nor his. It had been someone else's. Who the hell was Robert?
Damien had taken to driving Violet home and they had become closer and Violet had started seeing slight changes in him that were pleasing but she was careful not to go too close to him because of what had happened previously.
She had been in the office once when a friend of Damien had visited and invited him to his wedding and asked him when he was going to get married.
'I do not believe in marriage', he said.
'You say that because you have not fallen in love', his friend had insisted, 'If you do, believe me, you will not waste time to make her completely yours'.
'Love and marriage are completely overrated', he said smiling. 'I am quite comfortable with the arrangement I have with my female companions'.
Violet had been irritated. She pitied those women who just gave themselves to him without asking for commitment, those who are happy to be with a man just for the fun of it. But what did she expect, they were women of easy virtues.That had been another bad mark against him in her black book.
Now that he was getting closer to her because of the incident, she was determined not to like him more than normal so that she would not start nursing a heartbreak be ause she knew that he could never love her. He did not believe in love and marriage after all.
'A penny for them?' he drawled, looking at her, taking his eyes off the road for a moment.
Violet was shocked as she looked up to see him looking at her with a lopsided smile that made him look dangerously handsome.
She had to stop thinking about the subtle changes in him and his dangerous good looks. He was trouble that she would do best to stay far from him.
'For...for what?'
'For your thoughts', he said, 'You were obviously deep in thought and given how you frowned in concentration, it must be something important'.
'No, it was not important and they definitely were not worth your Penny', she said and thought yes, thinking about you that was could only lead me to trouble and not worth anyone's penny. But because she felt she had to say something, she blurted, 'I was just wondering what my mother and sister must be doing and if they are okay'.
'Yes, I had heard talk of your mother and sister leaving you and your dad to live in the city but did not quite believe it and had not thought to ask your father's, he frowned in thought. 'It's true then, you do have a mother and sister?'
'A twin sister. We are identical but the stubborn nature of my parents would not allow them come to a compromise and they had to share us between them and went their separate ways', she said sadly.
'Have you made any attempt to get in touch with them?' he asked.
'My father won't give me their address and when I managed to find out where they stayed, they had moved from there. They are always moving as though they were in a circus' she said.
'But you miss them, don't you?' he asked his voice gentle and understanding.
She looked up at him and saw the tender look he gave her and the understanding in his eyes and it was almost her undoing but she refused to breakdown in front of him he might be tender now, but he was very arrogant and she would preserve her self respect.
'You get used to it after a while', she shrugged, 'If they miss us well enough, like my father usually said, they will come here, after all, they know where we are living. We have not moved an inch since they left about fourteen years ago'.