by Laura Carter
He’s listening to “Kings and Queens”?
Thank God for reflexes. As my feet stumble and lose rhythm, I throw my hands on the side rails and take my body’s weight until I’m composed enough to drop my feet back down and into my run. I can’t resist a glance at him.
He smirks. Arrogant arse.
It’s the last straw. My body has had enough and so has my mind. I slam my hand on the big red emergency stop button in the middle of the treadmill dash and roll backwards with the belt until the machine draws to a stop. Then I plonk myself down on the end of the belt, catching my breath.
He does the same.
Panting, I look up to him. A moment of weakness. Those chocolate diamonds are staring right back at me as he leans forward on his knees.
“Have dinner with me tonight. Please.”
“Gregory—”
“I’ve thought about it. Damn it, Scarlett, I’ve been thinking about it, you, us, all night. And you’re right.”
I open and close my mouth without words.
“Have dinner with me tonight and I’ll tell you everything. If you want to walk away from me after that, I’ll understand and, though it might kill me, I’ll never ask you for anything more. I’ll leave you to move on, with someone you should be with, someone who can treat you the way you deserve.” I watch him with an overbearing urge to wrap him up in my arms and slap his face all at once. “I know I hurt you. Maybe I should have told you about Barnes and the CPS but you would never have let me go through with it and I’ll be damned if we were going to prison on a gun charge after everything we’d been through. And I know now that I shouldn’t have sent you here. I went behind your back but believe that I did what I thought was right by you, Scarlett. I’m no good at this, any of it. You, us, it’s... I’ve never had it before and I just keep fucking up at every turn.”
“You do.” Yet, on some level, I think I believe that he was trying to do right by me. The wrong thing for all the right reasons.
“Come tonight. Please. I have to try. You have to let me try, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering about what could have been, what I threw away. Give me a chance to beat my past, Scarlett. Please. I can’t promise you’ll stay and if you do, I can’t promise things will always be perfect, but I can promise you that I’ll try my best to be a man worthy of you. I’ll spend every second for the rest of my life trying to be what you need.”
Like he always has the ability to do, he takes my breath away.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
I nod. “Okay.”
That half smile I’ve missed so much draws on his lips and just like that, although I didn’t think it possible, I fall deeper.
Chapter Five
“Scarlett, is this really a good idea?” Amanda asks through a mouthful of popcorn—her pregnancy craving, so she says. Williams is so giddy about being a daddy that he just caves, driving around London at all hours to find the particular brand of sweet and salty she likes.
“Probably not,” I admit.
“I mean, do you want to know everything?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” I confess, moving from the bed to the floor-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe doors. “It feels like a first date.”
She sighs. “Just be careful, okay? Don’t forget he’s the reason you’re over there, alone.”
My best friend makes no attempt to conceal her dislike of Gregory. “You’re getting in some practice at playing Mummy,” I tell her.
“Stop trying to age me,” she laughs. “Seriously, don’t fall for his shit, keep your wits about you.”
“I’m nodding but you can’t see me.”
“Alright. Well, off you go, have fun. Nothing too short and definitely do not put out.”
“This conversation just ended.”
She laughs, a belly chuckle, as I hang up the iPhone then cast it onto the bed.
I scrutinise my reflection one last time. The cream dress I rushed out to purchase from one of Dubai’s extravagant malls is demure at the front. A high square neck, nipped in at the waist, resting an inch or so above my knee. I bite my lip as I turn to look over the open back, held together by two gold chains, one between the shoulders, the other midway down, the drooping fabric finishing just above my coccyx. I’ve curled and pinned up my hair and now, looking at myself, I feel silly. I’ve dressed up to find out the worst there is to know about the man I love. I’ve let myself get goose bumps and flutterflies in my stomach.
He broke your heart, I remind myself.
* * *
He’s talking to Paddy at the poolside bar on the fourth floor. The night is warm but a light breeze chills my back as I watch him. His sleeves are rolled up like they were last night and his baby blue shirt is tucked into dark grey trousers. He looks lean, tall, strong and sexy as hell. His dark hair is slicked black. His square jaw tenses when Paddy inclines his head in my direction. Gregory turns and watches me walk across the bar towards him. I won’t lie, I check him out, eat him up with my eyes. He’s standing in that pose. His hips pushed slightly further forward than his thighs and stomach, stretching the grey trousers across what I know is a more than adequate package. His shirt is unbuttoned just a little, teasing me with the olive skin of his chest.
“Good evening, Miss Heath.” He holds out a cocktail glass for me to take.
I cast my eyes to Paddy, then back to the glass that Gregory is offering. “There’s an olive in my glass.”
“It’s a dirty martini,” Gregory says, stating the obvious.
I turn again to Paddy. “It’s not a dirty martini night.”
“That’s what I said,” he says, throwing his bar towel across his shoulder. “I said it’s a dry martini night but your man there said you’d like it dirty.”
Gregory smirks, smug and supercilious.
I take the cocktail stick with two olives from the glass Gregory’s still holding. “Did he now?” I put the stick in my mouth, locking my lips around it then draw back slowly, pulling off the olives.
His lips part slightly. Mission accomplished.
I drop the used stick back in the cocktail glass. “I’d like a dry martini, please, Paddy. There’ll be nothing dirty about tonight.”
Paddy throws his head back on a laugh and Gregory rolls his jaw, the ghost of a smile on his face.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he whispers. His words knot a rope in my stomach.
“Don’t, Gregory. I came here to talk, that’s all.”
He nods. “Let’s have your drink brought up to my room.”
“Whoa, you can think again if you think—”
“Scarlett, I’ve promised to tell you everything but I’m not sharing with the world. I’ve arranged for dinner in my room. I’m not suggesting you stay, I just don’t want to do this here.”
He leans over the bar and relays the message to Paddy, then he’s back by my side, smelling truly divine. He leans into me so I can feel his breath, an intoxicating blast of hormones on my neck. “You look stunning in this dress.”
I clear my dry throat. “Thank you.”
He gestures to the exit of the bar. “Shall we?”
I start to walk and falter when the flesh of his palm grazes my bare back. “Please, Gregory, don’t fuck with my head.”
I’m grateful for the group of four men and women who ride the lift with us. “Flutterflies,” I almost inhale to myself.
“Flutterflies?” Gregory asks on a whisper.
I let out a short nervous laugh. “Fluttering butterflies. I’m so witty.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
We ride the final three floors alone, the lift’s arrival ping breaking the palpable tension between us.
Gregory raises a hand
to tell me to exit first. Two large double doors, not dissimilar to the entrance to Gregory’s apartment in the Shard, stand in front of us. He swipes his key card and holds open a door.
“Naturally, you have a penthouse suite,” I say, stepping into the big, open lounge.
“High and fast, baby.”
I turn my head quickly back and see his startled face. It’s scary how right it feels to hear him call me baby. Dangerous.
“This is nice.” I wander further across the mock marble tiles onto a soft cream carpet, the stem of my heels dipping into the floor.
An L-shape leather sofa sits in the middle of the lounge in front of an electric fire. Heatless flames are alight in the deep red feature wall. The room is warm and luxurious in every way, the fabrics, the colours, the outstanding view across the city and out to sea.
“The dining room is this way.” Gregory moves through an archway into a separate area backing onto the lounge.
In the middle of the room there’s a table large enough for six mocha suede chairs. Abstract art decorates the walls and makes the whole room feel contemporary. The table is laid with gold placemats and red linen napkins, set for two, one setting at the head of the table, the other to the side of the table. Too close.
A butler appears, wearing a red jacket that’s a near match for the napkins. His dark features are almost as black as his trousers, his skin smooth despite his age.
“Miss Heath,” he says with a dip of the head, before pulling out the chair at the top of the table. “My name is Roshan and I will look after you tonight.”
“Thank you.” I offer a soft smile as Roshan pushes me in and places a napkin across my legs with his white gloved hands.
As Roshan performs a similar fuss for Gregory, I enjoy the view through the wall of windows at the opposite end of the room.
We sit in silence as Roshan makes quick work of pouring water, filling our white wine glasses with the Sancerre Gregory has picked for our first course, and placing fresh bread rolls on our side plates.
“Are you ready for your appetiser, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
With another dip of his head, Roshan leaves us in our awkward bubble, his movement causing the intricate table lanterns to flicker. The soft light dances across Gregory’s face and knots the rope in my stomach a little bit tighter.
“How do you see this playing out?” I ask.
There’s a shift in his face and demeanour that reminds me of the little boy from my dreams. Young Gregory is sitting at the table with me, reminding me what tonight is about. He’s going to reveal everything to me and the thought must scare him because it’s terrifying me.
He turns the base of his wine glass with his fingers, then slowly raises the frosted glass to his lips. “Like I said, I’m going to tell you everything. The good, the ugly, for as long as you want to listen. I’ve never told anyone, not everything. I don’t talk about it. I’m not sure how to say it out loud. All I know is that I have to try because the last five weeks have been hell. I don’t want my life without you in it, Scarlett, and I know you need to hear this if you’re ever going to understand why I pushed you away.” He takes another sip of Sancerre. “I’m praying that once you’ve heard it, you won’t run. But I’ll understand if you want to. You should know that. I wouldn’t blame you. God, I’d probably think you made the right decision. I’ve brought so much shit on you and I... I couldn’t hurt you anymore.”
“You did hurt me more, when you left me with no choice but to move halfway across the world, Gregory.”
“I know. I do. But I did it because I thought I was protecting you, Scarlett. I did it to keep you away from what I’m going to tell you.”
“Your appetisers,” Roshan announces as he re-enters the room, placing a trio of seafood in front of us both. “You have spiced crab cake here. In the glass, salmon mousse with cucumber garnish. In the bowl, cold fish soup with tomato base.” He beams at me and tops up Gregory’s wine before leaving us alone.
Gregory leans back in his seat with a long inhale and twirls the base of his glass with his fingers again, staring down at the table.
“I’ve only ever loved two other people.” His eyes close and slowly reopen. “My mother. And my sister.”
“You have a sister?”
“I had a sister.”
He sips his wine and his shoulders drop a little. That’s the first admission and I don’t know if he started with the easiest or the hardest.
“I’m sorry.”
He nods and stares back to the table. “Her name was Elsa. She was older than me. Four years older.” He smiles sadly. “She was beautiful. Sweet. I adored her.”
I swallow as his glazed eyes make the first chip in my heart. Pull yourself together, Scarlett, this is about him.
“She...she ah...” He drags a hand through his thick brown hair. “She killed herself. She was fourteen.”
I dig my teeth into my gums, the pain a distraction from the lump building in my throat.
“That’s why you were worried I might’ve harmed myself the night I didn’t come home from the office.”
He lifts his head to face me. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Gregory, I really am.”
He moves back to turning his glass. “She killed herself because of me, Scarlett, because I couldn’t protect her.”
He rubs a hand roughly across his mouth and chin.
“Your father,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
Roshan comes back into the room and removes our all but untouched plates after we assure him the food is good but we’re leaving room for the main course. He pours Pinot Noir into our red wine glasses as I watch Gregory. He’s left the room, gone to a place only he knows. I have to fight with myself not to go to him and fold my arms around his neck.
“I don’t remember it starting,” he says. “It seems like he just always beat us, for as long as I can remember. I see new things sometimes, in my sleep. Mostly, I remember the physical stuff but I saw a lot.”
I want to tell him to stop, that I don’t need to know, but the words don’t come because deep down, I know if we have any chance, he has to keep going. For us. For him.
“He would beat my mother raw. At first, when we knew he was coming home or when we heard his car, my mother would get Elsa and me in bed. She told us to pretend we were asleep and we did. But we heard. We heard every punch, every scream. I didn’t do anything about it.”
He takes a gulp from his Pinot Noir.
“Gregory, you were a baby.”
He shakes his head. “Sometimes, Elsa would come into my room, or I’d go to her, and we’d hide under the duvet, listening, crying, terrified, until it stopped. We’d get up the next day and it would be like nothing happened. He would go out to work and my mother would smile, make breakfast. Christ, and you know, that was easier. It was easier to be normal and pretend like life was fine. So I did.”
Almost reflexively, I reach out across the table and rest my hand on his.
When Roshan returns, we break our brief contact. He places two plates of thinly sliced rare beef with grilled asparagus and tomatoes in front of us then leaves.
“Please eat,” Gregory says.
I find myself cutting a mouthful of beef because I don’t want to defy him. Not now. He also takes a forkful of food, then washes it down with wine.
“When I got older, six, seven, I couldn’t lie in bed. I used to go to him. Goad him. Trying to keep him away from my mother. It would work. He’d turn on me instead. He’d beat me, he’d say...fuck, all kinds of shit about my mother. Things I wouldn’t repeat. One night, he ah...he was standing over my mother when I came downstairs. He’d been screaming at her because he was out of drink or she’d gotten rid of it. He was holding a broken bottle and it was...it happened in slow
motion. She was on the floor, curled up like a foetus. When he lifted his hand, I ran, screaming, and got in his way.” He shakes his head. “There was so much blood. I think he shocked himself sober.”
My eyes are stinging. “The scar on your back.”
He nods and gulps down more wine. “It worked that night. So the next time, I did it again. Then again and again. He didn’t leave my mother alone but we shared the beating. She used to come to my room after he’d passed out and she’d cry, sob, saying thank you, over and over.”
“God, Gregory, I—”
He looks up to me. “Do you want me to stop? Do you want to go?”
“God, no. I want to be here. With you.” I take his hand and stare down at it until I’ve forced the building water from my eyes. I roll my fingertips across the burns on his wrist.
He interlaces his fingers in mine, watching our hands entwine. “He made me do it to myself. He lit a cigarette and handed it to me and watched me stub it out on my skin.”
I wince and grip him tightly.
“It was me or my mother. She was on the floor. She could barely move. I thought he was going to kill her.”
I lift his hand and press my lips to his burns, trying to cover the memory. He pulls away from me and goes back to fiddling with the base of his wine glass. “That night was the beginning and the end. Something changed in me. I begged my mother to take us away. Her, Elsa, me.”
“She wouldn’t go,” I croak with closed eyes, fighting against the pressure behind my lids.
“No. I spent years trying to make sense of it. I’m still not sure I understand it but I’ve made peace with it. There was a time I thought I’d never forgive her for keeping us there. I guess now I see I was blaming the wrong person.”
Roshan is back, clearing our half eaten plates again. Gregory asks me before cancelling dessert and dismissing Roshan for the evening. When we’re alone, Gregory pushes out his chair and moves to stand in the window. There are so many thoughts rolling through my head, I just can’t get a handle on anything. I stay in my seat and watch his reflection in the glass panes.