‘You’re a nice guy, Philip, but . . .’
‘What’s wrong with the nice guy?’ he said, stretching over, his fingers touching hers.
God, why does he have to be so bloody handsome? she thought, feeling her guard slip. He brought his hand to her face, cupping it gently, then slowly, very slowly, lowered his soft lips for the most tender of kisses.
She shivered; both anticipation and fear. She’d had sex only once since her episode with the D&D advertising executive three years earlier. It had been on a work trip to Italy and he’d been a macho Milanese fashion executive; the experience had been stiff, painful and awkward to the point where she faked an orgasm after just a few minutes to get the whole thing over with. But this wasn’t like that, not at all. As Philip slowly unbuttoned her shirt and unclipped her bra, she groaned, pushing her firm breasts towards him. She wanted him, wanted his touch, wanted it hard and fast. But Philip was in no hurry. For someone who had so obviously wanted her for so long, he was maddeningly slow, taking each moment leisurely to kiss, taste and savour every inch of her body, his tongue discovering secret pleasure spots she had never even known existed. The tip of his finger circled her nipple, delicately at first as it hardened to his touch, then when it was ripe he lowered his mouth, sucking and gently biting. He repeated it on the other side, then kissed down her belly, swirling his tongue around the insides of her thighs. Waves of white-hot desire rippled from her belly before he had even entered her. But then he was inside and she was crying out in pleasure, her hands gripping the rug, her feet kicking the takeaway cartons across the floor. The orgasm that was building from her throbbing, molten core was so deep, so electrifying, so blissfully, blindingly exquisite, she pleaded with him to stop. When it was over, she relaxed into the curve of his body, enjoying his musky, manly scent of sex and sweat, and the feeling of sweet, satisfying release.
‘That was every bit as good as I hoped it was going to be,’ he said, his face silhouetted in the low light.
She nodded, realising that the deep knot of tension and anger inside her was no longer there.
Her eyes stared at the ceiling.
‘I know who I can get the money off,’ she said slowly. She hadn’t wanted to ask him, although from the start he was the obvious person. But having sex with Philip, creating a new bond with someone who made her feel safe, galvanised her to do it.
‘Well that’s fantastic,’ Philip breathed into her ear, reaching around and cupping her breast, his finger and thumb getting to work on her hardening nipple. ‘But it’ll wait until morning, won’t it?’
Sasha gave another gasp of pleasure and turned back to him.
Yes, she guessed it would.
32
‘Where’s Gabriel?’ snapped Isabella, sweeping imperiously into the hall. Grace had already searched the whole of the ground floor of El Esperanza. His cousin’s wedding was due to start in forty-five minutes and the church was at least half an hour’s drive away. It was one thing waiting for the groom to be kept waiting by the bride, but not by random members of the family.
‘I’ll look upstairs,’ said Grace, hitching up her long silk dress to climb the steps.
‘When you find him,’ called Isabella after her, ‘please tell him that I am leaving for the church in exactly five minutes, whether he’s coming or not.’
Grace ran into his study, her heels clattering on the stone floor. Gabriel was sitting in front of his computer, wearing jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt, furiously making notes on a yellow legal notebook.
‘You’re not even changed?’ she gasped.
Gabriel glanced up, then went back to his notes. ‘I don’t know if I can come,’ he said distractedly.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘CBS want to interview me tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’m just waiting for the producer to call and confirm.’
‘Gabriel, it’s your cousin’s wedding in less than an hour! The interview can wait.’
‘The interview can’t wait, Grace,’ he snapped. ‘It’s the election in three weeks’ time.’
‘Yes, and CBS is an American cable channel.’
‘A very influential American cable channel.’
Grace squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to explode.
‘Go without me,’ he said finally.
‘Fine,’ she sighed, walking to the door. ‘Do you want to give me the present, then? I can take it to the wedding along with your apologies. ’
Several months ago, Grace had found out that Gabriel’s cousin Amelia had first met her fiancé at an exhibition of Luis Marquis, one of Parador’s most prominent sculptors. She and Gabe had commissioned him to make a small piece as a wedding gift for the happy couple.
‘What do you mean, do I want to give you the present?’ He frowned.
‘You said you’d pick it up from the Marquis studio yesterday after your meeting at the CARP office.’
‘Oh shit,’ he whispered. ‘I completely forgot.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said tersely, turning away.
‘Grace, it doesn’t matter.’
In the scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter – they could have it sent over after the wedding – but it was just one more thing which reminded her that life outside politics just didn’t exist for Gabriel any longer.
She ran back downstairs, willing herself not to cry. Caro was waiting for her at the bottom.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked her friend, kneeling down to tie pink ribbons around Olivia’s pigtails.
‘Oh, Gabe forgot to pick up the wedding present when he was in Palumbo yesterday.’
‘Don’t worry, I can go. I wasn’t really invited to the church service anyway. I’m only in it for the party.’ Caro grinned.
‘Do you mind? Take Gabe’s car. We were going to take it, but there’s been a rethink. I’m going with Isabella. We’ll see you at the reception.’
Caro ushered the twins towards their mother and gave them a stern look. ‘Now you be good for cousin Amelia, OK? No shouting out in church.’
‘Yes, Caro,’ they chorused solemnly.
Grace suppressed a smile. Who’d have thought her wild Kiwi roommate would have become such a great mother hen?
Caro ran outside while Isabella pulled on her cream taffeta coat.
‘Let’s go,’ hissed the older woman. ‘If Gabe’s not coming—’
She never finished her sentence. There was a split second when all the air in the room seemed to expand, then a white flash followed by a deep sickening boom that Grace felt in her chest. She was thrown into the steps, her arms still around the twins. She was dimly aware that she was covered in tiny pieces of wood and glass and that Olivia was lying on top of her screaming, but the noise seemed to retreat around her as if she was underwater. She pulled Joseph to her; he was bleeding from his forehead and shaking violently. Then, in a rush, the noise came back and everywhere was shouting and running footsteps and the crackle of flames.
‘Grace! Are you all right?’ For a moment, Grace didn’t recognise Gabriel and drew the children closer to her. ‘It’s OK, baby, it’s me, it’s me,’ he said soothingly, pulling her up and sitting her on the marble steps.
Unable to reply, she looked down and was horrified to see that her arms and legs had been lacerated by glass from the shattered windows. The huge double front doors had been blown clean off their hinges; beyond that, all she could see was thick billowing smoke that had engulfed El Esperanza’s courtyard.
‘Oh my God, Caro . . .’ She staggered to her feet and ran to the door.
‘Grace, don’t go out there!’ shouted Gabriel, his arms tight around the children. She ignored him and ran out into the bright courtyard. A hundred feet in front of her, Gabriel’s car was now a ball of twisted metal and flame. She shielded her face from the intense heat.
‘Caro!’ she screamed. ‘CARO!’ Then she sank to her knees, sobbing, knowing that there was nothing she could do to save her friend.
Gabriel grabbed her and pulled her
back from the burning car. ‘Don’t look, don’t look,’ he whispered.
Grace couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take it in. She should have been in that car. They all should: her, Gabriel, the twins. They should be dead, not her friend, not Caro.
‘Oh God,’ she said, turning her bloody, tear-marked face towards Gabriel. ‘What have we done? What have we done?’
33
According to the police, it had only been a matter of time before a car bomb took out a senior member of CARP. It was a popular method of murder in Parador. During the troubles in the seventies, not a week had gone by without a judge or politician being eliminated in this way, and twenty years later it was the chosen assassination method of the drug cartels. The fact that it had happened within the grounds of El Esperanza, where they spent hundreds of thousands of US dollars on security, had shaken the entire family to the core – not just for the questions it raised about their own safety but for the future of democracy in Parador. If their enemies could reach right into the heart of their organisation, they could get to anyone, anyone at all.
In the days that followed Caro’s murder, Grace had walked around like a ghost. With security breached and El Esperanza badly damaged, she had taken the children to their house high in the hills, where they had been under twenty-four-hour armed guard. She played with the twins, she dressed her wounds and she tried her best not to fall apart. Despite Gabe’s appeal that she carry on and help him provide a united front in the run-up to the elections, she could barely bring herself to get out of bed in the morning. Racked with guilt, she played endless games of ‘if only’: if only Caro hadn’t come to Parador, if only Grace hadn’t asked her to work at El Esperanza, if only she hadn’t asked her to pick up that sculpture. If only. You could drive yourself mad with that game.
There was no body to take back to New Zealand, but Caro’s family were holding a memorial service in their home town. Grace had been surprised when Gabe had insisted they all go and take the family jet, although no opportunity was wasted: a CNN film crew was at the airport to see them off.
Caro’s family lived in a small town forty miles from Christchurch airport, where the rich green rolling countryside reminded Grace of rural Oxfordshire on a particularly lush hot summer’s day. It was a beautiful part of the world and Grace wondered why Caro had spent half her life running away from it; then again, Grace knew about the desire to run away from a life that, on the face of it, seemed perfect.
They drove straight to the church, a white clapboard jewel on the outskirts of the village, a for the small and discreet service, followed by a wake at Caro’s parents’ farmhouse. Isabella’s PA had checked them into a luxury lodge a short drive away from the church, where they were to stay the night before returning to Parador. Gabriel immediately went out on to the balcony with the telephone and began talking intensely, so Grace unpacked their few belongings and put the twins to sleep in the two travel cots. There were still a couple of daylight hours left, and in the distance she could see a river glistening silver, so she knocked on the adjoining suite and asked if Isabella could sit with the twins while she got some fresh air.
Although it was February, it was New Zealand’s summer. The air smelt crisp and full of promise and new life. Grace grimaced at the irony of it. She walked away from the lodge across an emerald meadow and sat on a bench on the river’s edge. She had eaten very little all day, but still she felt nauseous. In the church, she had not been able to shake off a terrible sense of shame; it was like some physical weight pressing down on her. If only.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned. Gabriel had changed out of his sombre funeral suit into jeans and a blue shirt that made his skin look more olive and golden.
‘We have dinner reservations at seven thirty,’ he said. ‘Apparently the restaurant at the lodge is excellent. We need to be refreshed for the flight home, anyway.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Grace, looking away.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ she snapped. ‘We’ve just been to my best friend’s funeral, that’s why not. The funeral of a friend who was murdered at our house – with a car bomb meant for us. Is that enough?’
‘She was unlucky,’ said Gabriel quietly.
‘Unlucky?’ Grace hissed. ‘Gabriel, she’s dead. Dead. She died and we lived, don’t you feel bad about that?’
He looked at the ground but didn’t speak.
‘I have to ask you something, Gabe,’ she said suddenly. ‘Have you been dealing with the cartels?’
He shrugged, his eyes still on the floor. ‘You know I’ve met them.’
‘Yes, but what I’m asking is did you accept money from them?’
His cheeks flushed. ‘What? Of course not!’
‘Don’t lie to me, Gabe,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘They didn’t plant a bomb in our car for no reason.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ cried Gabriel. ‘They put it there to destabilise our campaign. The bomb was meant for me.’
Should she believe him? His cheeks were pink and his eyes wide, but all powerful men lied, they had to. She had heard enough of the glib half-truths coming from her father’s tongue to know that much.
‘A journalist at the Palumbo press conference told me you’d been accepting contributions to your campaign from the Andres brothers.’
‘That’s a complete lie,’ he spat. ‘Did you believe him? Did you really think I would stoop so low?’
‘I didn’t believe her, Gabe. Not once did I doubt you, which is why I never brought it up. But now . . . now Caro is dead.’
Tears were rolling down her cheeks now. The shame and guilt of Caro’s death when the car bomb had been meant for them was almost too much to bear. Could she have acted when the journalist had told her about Gabe’s corruption? Could she have saved Caro?
‘You asked me once if I’d ever done anything bad,’ she said, struggling to get her words out. ‘I found a body on my father’s island, the body of one of his staff. And I did nothing, I turned a blind eye and there was never any justice for the person who had killed him. I’m not going to let that happen again.’
‘So what do you intend to do?’ said Gabriel angrily. ‘Expose your husband as a corrupt politician, tell the world I took bribes from the drug lords? Do you really think that will bring Caro back?’
‘Did you take money, Gabe?’ she insisted. ‘Answer me!’
‘No,’ he said, looking away from her, across the river.
‘Oh my God,’ she gasped, her eyes wide. ‘You did, you took a kickback.’
‘Yes!’ he yelled. ‘If you really must know, I did take money, but not from those animals the Andres brothers, or from any of the cartels.’
‘So who did you take it from?’
Gabriel glanced at her. ‘The Americans,’ he said simply. ‘When I went to Washington at New Year, it was to discuss a military counter-narcotics programme.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I was ashamed!’
‘But you did it for the right reasons,’ said Grace.
‘Yes, Grace, but there’s always a price to pay, isn’t there?’
‘Caro, you mean?’
‘Not Caro,’ he said dismissively. ‘The debt we will owe the Americans. Don’t you understand, Grace? I have sold my country to a superpower. Yes, they want to stop the spread of drugs, but they’re far more interested in having countries like us in their debt, jumping to their tune.’
It was only at that moment that Grace could see how far her husband had got away from her, how little there was left of the man she had married. He had started with ideals, a passion and a duty, but now he couldn’t even see that someone dying in his place was tragic. He couldn’t see that his plan to free Parador had almost got him and his children killed.
‘Do you really want to win this election so much?’
‘Of course I do,’ he replied incredulously.
‘I’m not sure I do, Gabe. I want to help people, and I�
�ve come to love the people of your country. But do I want to change the world? In Parador at least, that price feels too high. I’m twenty-four years old, Gabe. We have a family. I just want us to be happy. Safe.’
He shook his head. ‘We’ve come too far to turn back now,’ he said.
‘No, Gabe,’ she said, clutching his arm. ‘We haven’t, we can always change. If you don’t win this election, you can return to your books. You can still lobby the West to help your country, but sometimes you can be more effective outside politics than inside.’
Kiss Heaven Goodbye Page 30