Outrageous Fortune

by Lulu Taylor

  And off it went again, the merry-go-round of questions, and no way of finding out the answers.

  She’d barely had time to think when those men had walked into the house the day before yesterday. When she’d protested and said that she wanted to wait for Sergei, the first man had become aggressive, shouting at her that she’d better hurry up, or she’d be sorry. She’d obeyed, not knowing what else to do. She hadn’t had time to scoop up her phone and slip it into her pocket, but then it was still resolutely without a signal. They’d brought her here, to this place like the building on the mine site, and pushed her into the back. It was a storage room kept warm by the stove on the other side of the wall, with a tiny lavatory cubicle and sink off it, and apart from that only boxes and old furniture. They’d opened the door to pass in food and hot drinks, so they didn’t want to starve her, she supposed, but apart from that, there was nothing.

  When either of the men came in, the one who looked like Sergei or the Chinese one, Daisy shouted questions, demanding to know why she was there and what they were doing, and to let her damn’ well go, but they never answered. She had the feeling that the Chinese man didn’t speak any English, and when she tried a few words of Mandarin he remained blank, so she was wasting her time.

  Even though the room was quite warm, she didn’t dare take her coat off. She wanted to be ready at all times in case she had to run. Besides, she felt cold no matter what.

  She felt sure that the Russian man was Sergei’s brother – the one who worked for Korsilkoff, who’d wanted to buy into the mine. He must be holding her in return for Sergei’s compliance. But then … what would Sergei do? Why should he care enough about her to give up a piece of his beloved mine to save her?

  The thing that sent chills up her spine and fear crawling all over her was that he might not. And then what would happen?

  Daisy heard laughing and carousing on the other side of the thin partition wall. They were getting drunk, from the way their slurred voices were increasing in volume. No wonder – what else was there to do in this forsaken place? It sounded as though her captors had been joined by at least one other man, there was too much noise for only two of them. She curled up on her mattress in the darkness, trying to ignore the racket next door, wrapped her arms around herself tightly and closed her eyes.

  She must have dozed off despite the noise but suddenly she was wide awake. The door had opened, casting a large triangle of golden light over the floor, and a dark shape stood there, swaying slightly. She stared at it, blinking and bewildered, then sat up and tried to focus. She realised she didn’t know the face looking down at her, but saw the usual two behind him, gazing in as well, laughing drunkenly.

  The man in the doorway smiled nastily and said something in Russian, then looked back over his shoulder, saying something else in a tone that made the others laugh but caused a feeling of dread to twist through Daisy. Adrenaline prickled all over her, and she was instantly on her guard.

  The stranger swaggered in towards her, his eyes glittering dangerously as he gazed at her appraisingly. He was still talking loudly in Russian and the other two sniggered; something in their apprehensiveness made Daisy fear the worst.

  They’re drunk. She began to look furtively about for something to protect herself with. They’ve told this man about me – God only knows what they’ve said. Awful images flashed rapidly through her head: perhaps Sergei had washed his hands of her and this man was some kind of trafficker, prepared to take her into a life of slavery. And perhaps he intended to test out the goods first …

  No, she thought, fury making her fierce and damping down her fear. I won’t let that happen.

  Quickly and smoothly she rose to her feet, keeping her knees bent, ready to run. The man was closer now; she could smell the sour smell of alcohol coming off him, and the musty scent of his fur-lined jacket. He was still talking as he approached, murmuring slurred Russian in a voice clearly intended to keep her calm. His slow drink-deadened reactions might be her only chance, she thought. She was sure now that he meant to harm her in some way: even the two men behind seemed nervous despite their obvious interest in the situation.

  They might not help me. I’ve got to be prepared to do this alone …

  The man was close to her now and the two of them stared at one another like animals preparing for combat. His face was sunburned, his small slanted eyes showing some kind of Asiatic descent, though he wasn’t Chinese. He looked tough and his leering smile told her he liked what he saw and wanted more of it. Just as Daisy was about to slide away from him, he pounced, his hands gripping her arms like steel pincers and his bitter-smelling mouth pressed on hers.

  She gasped and tried to resist but he had her in an iron grasp. She turned her head away but he followed it with his own, searching for her mouth with his, scratching her skin with his rough stubbled face.

  So this is it, she thought, panicked. This is what they intend to do to me. How the hell can I stop them? She gathered all her strength and shouted, ‘Niet! Niet!’

  The man who held her didn’t stop his efforts to kiss her but she sensed the other two moving uncomfortably behind him. Perhaps they weren’t as tough as they looked; perhaps they had begun to bond with her over the last couple of days and didn’t relish seeing their captive assaulted in front of them. She pressed home her advantage, trying to catch their eyes as she struggled to avoid the stinking kisses, and shouted again, ‘Niet!’

  They weren’t going to do anything, she could tell. Perhaps their blood was up and they wanted to see what would happen. Daisy knew she would have to think of another way. Behind her on the rickety table she could see the remains of her supper: a dirty tin plate and an empty water bottle. A glass bottle. She managed to move back a few steps. Her assailant was losing patience, she could sense that. His hands were now scrabbling at her coat, trying to gain access, and that left her free to move her arm. With one swift movement, she reached back, picked up the bottle and swung with all her strength at the man’s head, closing her eyes tightly as she did in case of flying glass.

  She felt the crunch against his skull as it hit him. The bottle split into three separate pieces, leaving the neck still in Daisy’s fist. Her attacker instantly crumpled, groaned, rolled his eyes and slumped to the floor unconscious. For a moment the other three stood without moving, staring at each other. Daisy faced them, panting, holding up the broken bottle neck like a knife, prepared to take them on if they went for her. But they didn’t move; the awful noise of the bottle on bone seemed to have brought them to their senses. After a moment they moved forward, almost sheepishly, muttering to one another, and began to pull their friend out of the room. A few seconds later she was alone again in the dark, the door closed firmly on her. She sat listening, the bottle neck still tightly held in one hand, but there was no more carousing. She heard groans and muted conversation and then doors slamming and a truck driving away.

  She was alone again.

  66

  WILL FOUND COCO upstairs, flinging her things into a suitcase.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he cried, coming over to her.

  ‘What does it look like?’ She picked up some silk shirts and stuffed them into the case. ‘I’m packing of course.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why?’ She spun round to find him staring at her, anguish deep in his eyes. ‘Because of what Xander said! You know the truth about me now. I’m just a cheap dancing girl. Not like you and your friends at all.’

  He reached out and touched her. ‘Do you think I care about that?’

  She stopped packing and gazed back at him, hardly daring to hope that she might be wrong about his reaction. She’d assumed that he’d loathe the very idea of how she used to earn her living and that the thought of her would sicken him from now on. After all, he’d had no experience of a life like hers. Of course he would find it repugnant. Wouldn’t he?

  ‘Coco, it seems like you haven’t been entirely straight with me, but do you think I can
’t understand that? If you really were a dancer in a strip club, like Xander said, do you think I’d judge you for it?’

  Her shoulders slumped. Pain and confusion were making a tight knot in her chest, the kind that only tears could release. ‘Yes.’ She sank down on the bed. ‘Yes, I thought you would hate me for it. I thought you’d think I was a piece of shit. Everyone else always has.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’ He kneeled down beside her and took her hands in his large ones. ‘Coco, I know we haven’t known each other long. Hardly more than a couple of weeks. But you’ve affected me like no one else I’ve ever known. This feels like something big … special … once-in-a-lifetime stuff. I don’t want to let you go.’

  She lifted her gaze to him, filled with wonder. ‘Really?’

  He smiled, his coppery-green eyes tender. ‘Yes. Now don’t leave me hanging here … are you going to tell me that you feel the same?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, a smile breaking over her face. ‘Of course I do.’ She wanted to say ‘I love you’ but the idea seemed ridiculous when they’d known each other such a short time. The thing was, she didn’t want to imagine a life without Will in it. That was love, wasn’t it? Then she suddenly realised that soon he would ask her more questions, and she’d have to decide what to tell him. It would mean more lies, she realised that. I don’t want to lie to him. I don’t want to betray him. But what else could she do?

  ‘Coco, are you all right?’ Will asked, watching the expressions changing on her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I … I … nothing.’ She smiled again. ‘I’m just so relieved, that’s all. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth from the start.’

  ‘Why should you? You had no idea we were going to become involved. Your past is your own affair.’ He stroked his thumbs across the back of her hands. ‘And tomorrow I’m going to ask Xander if he’ll go. I don’t think we want him here now.’

  His tenderness and understanding was breaking her heart. It made her want to cry almost more than the fear of losing him.

  He doesn’t know the truth. I don’t know if I dare to tell him.

  Then he leaned in to kiss her and the softness of his lips and the deliciousness of his mouth made her push all other thoughts aside, and lose herself in the pleasure of the moment.

  Coco didn’t see Xander the next day but she knew that Will had gone to see him first thing and tell him that it was best he went. They talked into the night about Xander’s problems.

  ‘If anything, he’s worse than he used to be,’ Will told her, his face worried. ‘He seriously doesn’t seem to have an off switch. And he’ll drink and take drugs every single blessed day if he gets the chance. I think he’s frying his brain to the extent that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing any more.’

  Coco, happy to be wrapped in Will’s embrace, traced a finger down his forearm, weaving it between the red-gold hairs. ‘It’s a shame. He’s got so much to offer, and when he’s sober he’s adorable. Funny, charming …’

  ‘But he’s hardly ever sober,’ finished Will.

  Coco knew that he had offered to pay for his friend to go into rehab but Xander had turned it down.

  ‘He says he’s fine,’ Will said as he and Coco ate their supper in the kitchen that evening. ‘He looked like hell and was very repentant. He couldn’t stop apologising and he asked me to give you his love too.’

  Coco nodded, relieved that it appeared Xander had said no more. She’d feared that he had somehow decided to throw her to the wolves entirely and that he was prepared to reveal everything to Will. It seemed not. ‘I hope he sorts himself out.’

  Will nodded. ‘I’d stopped him having a good time the night before – I think he was resentful, and the drink the next night made it all come out.’ He leaned over and kissed her tenderly. ‘But I have you all to myself now.’

  It was blissful, with just the two of them. Coco felt now that Xander had done her some kind of favour. Will was sweet and loving, and didn’t ask any questions about her past as a dancer, but she found that she wanted to tell him. For the first time, she wanted to open up to someone else and share what had happened to her.

  ‘My life hasn’t always been easy,’ she confessed to him one night, as they lay together in the darkness after making love. ‘In fact, it’s been bloody hard.’

  ‘Really?’ Will propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her in the gloom. ‘From what you’ve said, it sounded OK. Your mum and dad, your brother …’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Actually, that wasn’t true. I made it up.’ She felt him go still. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you, I didn’t want to frighten you off. You see, I’ve got no idea who my father is. My mum was a drug addict and she brought me up alone on a council estate in Peckham. There wasn’t a brother, or a cosy house, or violin lessons, or any of that. Just dirt and booze and drugs and misery. I ended up hanging round with a gang, and when my boyfriend was knifed to death, I ran away and got a job in a lap-dancing joint.’ She tried to smile but her mouth wobbled and twisted. ‘It’s not a great life story, is it? I’m sorry, Will, I’m not the nice girl you thought I was.’

  There was a long pause. She sniffed, blinked back her tears and held her breath. Would he reject her, just like everyone else always had? Or was she right to confide in him at last?

  Will took her hand very gently. ‘You’re not exactly who I thought you were, but you know what? You’re much more interesting and I admire you a hundred times more than I did before. You got away from all that, Coco. You’ve made something of yourself. I think that’s amazing.’

  ‘But you don’t know how I did it,’ she said unhappily.

  ‘I don’t need to know, it’s not my business,’ he insisted, his voice tender. ‘Not unless you want to tell me.’ He pulled her towards him, so that she was nestled against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. ‘You’ve suffered in a way I never have. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through. How the hell can I judge you?’ His lips were on hers, soft as velvet, then he murmured: ‘You only have to tell me what you want, when you want. Nothing else. And we’ve got plenty of time …’

  His lips nuzzled her mouth, her cheeks, and then trailed along her neck, setting each place he touched burning with desire. Her longing for him sparked back to life, despite their recent bout, but now with even more emotion. He knew the truth about her past and he still wanted her. One hand stroked her shoulders, her back and waist as his mouth moved down to her breasts. He pulled one of her nipples in between his lips, sucking on it gently at first and then with more strength, as he took the other breast in his hand, stroking and rubbing it until she couldn’t help sighing, her head thrown back.

  She reached out for him as his hand moved down her belly and lightly touched her mound, sending delicious sensations all over her. She took his hot shaft in her hand as his strong fingers played over her, softly rubbing and probing. A rush of desire swept through her, and she slid downwards, kissing his firm body as she went lower until she was next to his groin. She put one hand beneath him, cupping his balls and stroking them gently until he groaned, and kissed the crease between his thigh and the place where his cock stood proud. She brought her face close to it, breathing out softly so her breath touched him and then inhaling his delicious scent, teasing him with the proximity of her mouth to his rearing penis.

  ‘Coco,’ he murmured, ‘you’re driving me insane.’ Then he gasped as she put her lips on his cock and, with one finger circling its root, ran her tongue up it and then engulfed it in her mouth, taking in as much as she could, sucking it while the tip of her tongue played over the velvet-soft head. Will groaned again, one hand in her hair, stroking her head as it rose and fell over his cock. She tickled the place behind his balls as she sucked him, feeling herself growing hot and wet with desire. She longed to feel him inside her and, when she had brought him almost to the peak with her mouth, she lay back and pulled him on top of her. He didn’t need any urging but pressed his stiff p
rick into her entrance, filling her up in a way that made her sigh with delight, and then they moved together with increasing intensity and power, until she felt him stiffen and his cock swell and then he came, in a fierce climax. She was so close but had lost herself in the pleasure of his orgasm, not quite attaining her own peak, but now she was hungry for it. At once, he moved his hand back down to where her bud was stiff and waiting, almost unbearably sensitive, and, with his cock still hard inside her, he brought her to a shuddering crescendo of orgasm that made her cry out and clutch at him as she rocked with its force.

  They lay spent in one another’s arms, and slept.

  Will didn’t change at all towards her, even after her confession, and at last Coco began to allow herself to trust him and his feelings for her. He must really value me, she thought, amazed by the idea. Perhaps even … love me …

  She felt ten times taller, stronger and more radiant with the thought.

  She began to feel safe and settled, revelling in the wonderful new life she was having with a man she was starting to adore. Every day she told him a little more of the pain in her past, and the despair she’d known, and every day he seemed to take a little more of that hurt away from her. She tried not to think about the dark secret that lay between them. She shut out thoughts of Margaret and Daddy, back in London, waiting for the return on their investment, confident that their stool pigeon was doing her work as promised.

  I’ll find a way to get out of it, she told herself. I’ll think of something. Just not today.

  In the meantime, Will was telling her quite freely about the developments in the battle with his father. He had a team of investigators working on it, and they had been looking into the affairs of the Dangerfield Foundation.