IN THE SHADOW OF STRANGERS: A wealthy man is about to change her destiny …but it’s a secret.

by Wendy Reakes

  “Leave her alone, Heinrich,” Jean-Claude offered in her defence.

  Heinrich forced his great frame between them. “Ah! So! Sticking up for your little girlfriend, are you?” Heinrich jibed as his face got redder. Jean-Claude laughed as he tried to carry on with his work. Heinrich stood behind him, his mighty frame towering threateningly over Jean-Claude’s shoulder. Suddenly, unable to help herself, amused by the look on the two chef’s faces, a chuckle burst from her mouth.

  Heinrich’s great handlebar moustache shook with rage. “Well, all right. That’s enough now.” he said. He picked up a piece of raw carrot and tossed it into his mouth and then he turned about. “TAFFY!” Heinrich roared, striding away in search of his next victim.

  Chapter 20

  After hershift, as she showered, she decided to put Ben Corner right out of her mind. No, he wasn’t the man for her. She could do a lot better than the ‘arrogant one’. Pulling on faded blue jeans, tight across the bottom and nipped in at the waist, from her locker she pulled out a plain white vest-top she’d worn under a white shirt that morning. She tugged it over her head and down across her body, pushing up her bosom so that her breasts were just visible. She threw the shirt into the bottom of her locker. She threaded a black leather belt through the waistband of her jeans and pulled on black knee-high boots, tugging the legs of her jeans out over them. Next she towel-dried her hair and after combing it through, she messed it up again, leaving it to dry naturally wavy. Finally, she threw over her head a gold pendant and a pearl encrusted crucifix on twine, letting the two necklaces dangle below and between her cleavage.

  She dabbed on make-up with two layers of black mascara and lined her eyes with fine charcoal kohl. She smoothed subdued red lipstick on her full lips, threaded gold hoops through her ears and pulled a leather braid bracelet onto each wrist. After checking out her appearance in the mirror above the sink, she tossed her head back, slammed her locker door shut, grabbed her leather jacket and sauntered out the door, clocking off as she left.

  It was Saturday night and the Coal Hole was crushingly busy. Katherine nudged Taffy when she found him among the crowd, and as he turned about, he did an exaggerated double-take. “Bloody ‘ell mun, what have you done? You look like Madonna.”

  “I just fancied a change that’s all. Get me a drink, Taff,” she said.

  “Get it yourself. I’m going to put some music on.”

  She approached the bar and squeezed behind Fe who was there with her boyfriend. “Hi guys,” Katherine said.

  “Wow. Look at you.” Fe looked stunned by her drastic new image. “Are you going to the Corner dressed like that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thank goodness for that, I thought you’d lost your mind for a minute.”

  “I mean I’m not going to The Corner at all,” she answered as she ordered a white wine and soda, no ice.

  Heinrich approached her from behind, putting his hands around her waist, rubbing himself up against her. “Hello gorgeous,” he said.

  She pushed him off. “Heinrich!” She stabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

  “What’s wrong with you, Killa?” He picked up her drink from the bar and handed it to her.

  “Nothing.” She gazed around the room.

  “She’s got a hot date,” said Fe.

  “No I haven’t.”

  “I’ll take you out, darlink,” Heinrich said.

  “Well, that’s a lovely offer, but no thanks.”

  As the music blared and the temperature soared, and as she turned her back on her friends to survey the room, she heard Heinrich say, “She fancies me really.”

  Chapter 21

  Benjamin Corner sat with the head waiter at one of the tables in the Corner. It was eleven o’clock and the restaurant was now closed, but they still had some patrons sipping brandy and taking cigars, telling jokes and generally being boisterous all round. Empty tables with the white slip covers removed and clean ones laid out, awaited a new day and amid them a waiter with his bow-tie dangling around his neck, polished crystal glasses and silverware, holding them up to the light.

  As Ben surveyed the room his thoughts drifted to Katherine Killa, wondering if she got his flowers and why she hadn’t shown up. He had everything planned; a nice dinner, expensive wine, a kiss, and full unadulterated sex in his chic apartment above the restaurant. Only that morning he’d instructed his cleaner to give it a special going over. He wanted everything to be perfect.

  He chuckled to himself with a spontaneous shrug of the shoulders. It wasn’t that he was calculating and he certainly didn’t consider Katherine to be a sure thing, God forbid! But Ben was a perfectionist and practicality was his middle name. If she did come (as he’d expected her to), he wanted to be prepared, with everything just so.

  “You can go,” Ben said to his head waiter, as he collected up the cheques and credit card slips and put them into a pile.

  There were only four customers left. They’d arrived late when the theatres had turned out, but Ben predicted they would soon leave to continue their night on the town. He nodded to the head waiter who left by the front door. Ben liked his staff to be discreet, even away from the restaurant, but it was getting onto midnight, so his staff’s exit through the front entrance hinted to the patrons that it was time to leave.

  “More brandy, waiter!” The guest clicked his fingers and guffawed loudly as the women laughed at his playful brashness. They gazed at Ben across the restaurant with smiles on their faces, perhaps hoping he was as amused as they. He wasn’t! He smiled and walked across the room and just as he neared them, a breeze wafted in as the front door opened.

  Katherine Killa stood in the doorway looking breathtakingly radiant. One of her hands was tucked in the front pocket of her jeans and her leather jacket was threaded through the loop of her arm. She used her free hand to reach up and brush away a lock of hair which had blown onto her face. As a final strand caught on the side of her mouth, her lips parted as she smoothed it away.

  Chapter 22

  It waseleven o’clock when she opened the door to the Corner. She spotted him immediately, serving brandy to a table of four. She saw him turn toward the door when the noise from Covent Garden wafted in behind her. As the door swung closed she heard the gentle whirring of a fan as it blew her hair onto her face. A woman sitting next to it turned to gaze at her standing in the doorway, as others also stared. She didn’t know what she was doing here. She must be crazy. She’d had no intention of going anywhere near the place…nor Ben Corner, but somehow, when all her friends had left the Coalhole to go home, she’d drifted up to Covent Garden as if she was being pulled by Ben Corner’s insufferable strings.

  Ben walked towards her, with a surprised expression on his face “I’m glad you came.” He took her hand and steered her towards a table in the corner, leaving her there as he went back to the diners he’d been previously attending.

  She watched him work the room. It was his restaurant and his conceit showed in his body language as he impressed the patrons and staff with his swift manoeuvres and clever banter. The table of four laughed raucously when he served them more brandy and cigars and suddenly Katherine regretted her decision to go there. She wondered if she could leave without any explanation.

  She couldn’t understand what she saw in him. She disliked his type; untrustworthy, charming only to serve his own purpose and inconsiderate of other people’s needs. She didn’t belong there. Rose wouldn’t have recognised her if she saw her now.

  He came back and sat down on the chair opposite her. He uncorked a bottle of wine already on the table. It was a red and she hated red! He poured an inch of the dark liquid into a clean glass and tasted it. He nodded and then went to pour some into the other glass meant for Katherine. She placed her hand over the top without taking her gaze from him.

  “Don’t you like wine?” he asked.

  “I don’t like people to assume I like or dislike anything.” His subsequent frown was so condescending.
How she detested him.

  “I’m afraid you’re a little late for supper, but I can rustle you up some cheese.”

  “No thanks, I’m not stopping long.”

  He grabbed a carafe of water from the bar and without asking he filled her glass. He gazed at her as if he was intrigued but as far as she was concerned, there was nothing to be intrigued about. She was just playing a game, using the rules he’d invented.

  “It’s cool in here considering the heat outside,” she said.

  “I use the French method.” He smiled when he saw her mouth turn down at the side. She couldn’t tell if he was being vulgar or not. “I keep the canopy up outside all day and I use shutters to keep out the afternoon sun. The door stays closed to keep the heat out and I have a fan just inside the entrance to deter the heat from coming in when the door is opened. It also gives the customers a blast of cool air when they enter, so that they are instantly seduced and satisfied.”

  He was being vulgar after all.

  It was after midnight when the sound of laughter from the last four diners filled the room. “Time to go, ladies and gentlemen,” Ben announced. “If you’re going to Stringfellows, sir,” he said to the one who looked like he was paying the bill, “you may wish to leave now, to make sure you get in.”

  “Good idea. Right then, shall we make a move?”

  The restaurant was dimly lit now with just a burning candle on the final table and the backlights of the small bar at the rear of the restaurant. Ben fetched the ladies’ coats from a stand near the door and within minutes they were gone.

  He put the bolt across on the door, pulled the blind down over the glass and walked back through the restaurant to switch the lights off from a box behind the bar. Now the whole place was in darkness. There was enough light for Katherine to watch him pour two Remies into two crystal brandy glasses, set side-by-side.

  “I’m glad you came, tonight,” he said, putting the glasses down on the table and sitting next to her.

  “I wasn’t going to,” she whispered.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She stayed silent and leaned forward to kiss him square on the lips. He kept his eyes open, watching her, attempting to anticipate her next move. He couldn’t do that. Even she didn’t know what her next move was going to be. He leaned forward, blew out the candle on the table and then pulled her towards him. As he kissed her, he ran his hands over her back and bare arms. “Come upstairs with me.” His voice was deep and husky.

  She turned and looked at the large pane window at the front of the restaurant. Occasionally someone walked past or stopped to read the menu in the glass box near the entrance.

  Inside, they were in darkness, so she knew they couldn’t be seen from the street. An occasional light from somewhere outside, highlighted their features so that they could each see the contours of each other’s faces. She didn’t want to wait. If they went upstairs, the moment would be lost, and she knew she’d turn and run. “Here!” she whispered.

  They stayed near to the floor, avoiding the lights outside as they began to remove their own clothes. Katherine pulled the chains around her neck up over her head and tossed them aside. Bare legged, she kneeled before him with her breasts protruding through the fabric of her vest. She tugged it over her head in one swift motion and flung it to one side with the rest of her discarded clothes. Ben bent his head to her breast, cupping one and covering the other with his mouth. She turned and lied down on the floor, pulling him on top of her naked body. She brushed her hands over his back and their mouths devoured each other. Then, as the carpet under her back stung her shoulders, she pushed him off and forced him to the floor, sitting astride him as she brushed her hair from her face.

  A car passed by outside. Its headlights illuminated her body sitting above him, just for a moment, revealing her naked curves. Straddling him, her hair tumbled down her back, as her breasts jutted out, firm and full. As he ran his hands over her torso, tapering to a slim waist, Ben told her she was beautiful. And she needed that.

  Later, as they laid together on the floor with their bodies entwined, Ben reached up to the table and brought the brandy down to the floor. He offered one to her.

  “I don’t drink brandy. I never have. I loathe the taste of it.”

  He poured hers into his glass and sipped it. “Stay with me tonight.”

  “I can’t. I have to be back at work by ten in the morning and I don’t have any clean clothes.”

  “Where do you live?”

  She laughed at the irony. “You ask me that now, after what just happened? I suppose we should have dispensed with the formalities before now.”

  “Does it matter?” he asked. “Where you live, I mean, and all the other things we don’t know about each other.”

  “It should matter, shouldn’t it?” She thought about it for a second. “But no, at this moment in time, it doesn’t matter, not to me.”

  “So where do you live?” he asked again, smiling.

  “South of the river. The South Lambeth Road. It’s a one room studio in a dismal old house and I hope you never go there.” She started to get up. She was ready to leave.

  “I don’t mind where you live. But if you don’t like it, why don’t you move to someplace nicer?”

  “How much do you think a commis chef at the Savoy earns?” Katherine couldn’t believe anyone could be that naïve.

  “God, I know. Taffy told me what he makes. I don’t know how you all manage.”

  “I’d better go.” She avoided the lights from outside that dare to expose her nakedness. It was one thing to get caught in the midst of passion, but quite another to be seen in the throes of dressing.

  “I’ll call you a taxi,” he said.

  He looked different without his clothes. Without his bow tie! “No, I’ll get the tube.”

  “It’s okay. I have an account with them.” He took her hand.

  She pulled it away. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Are you always this difficult? Let me do this. I hate the thought of you getting the tube now, at this time of night.”

  She conceded reluctantly. “All right!”

  Ten minutes later when the black cab stopped outside with its meter running, Ben pulled her to him and kissed her one more time. “When will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t go too fast.”

  “Why not, what are you afraid of?”

  “It’s my job. It’s the only thing that’s important. I don’t want to be distracted from that. I’ve got a long way to go.”

  “I understand. But as far as I can see, you play hard, too.”

  “Yes, but on my terms. I don’t have to answer to anybody. I go for a drink after work if I want to and sometimes I go home with a take-away and watch TV. It’s my choice and I don’t like to plan it.” She wanted to say ‘take it or leave it’ but she was already feeling guilty about using him so shamelessly.

  “Well, you can find time for me sometimes, can’t you, Kathy?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. She pulled away from him and moved towards the door where she stopped and glanced back at him with a serious expression. “Just as long as you never call me Kathy again.”

  Chapter 23

  “Max!” Jack pulled the dog away from the door, which was no mean feat. Max was everything a Great Dane should be; big, strong and all black. Standing on his hind legs, he could put his paws on Jack’s shoulders and stare into his eyes. He was a magnificent animal.

  As Max barked and clawed at the door, Jack used all his strength to steer him away, pulling on his collar and forcing him into the garage at the side of the kitchen. Devoted and relentless, Max kept on barking long after the doorbell stopped ringing.

  “Can’t you do something about that beast?” Gordon Bentley said when Jack finally opened the door.

  “Ignore him, Jack,” said Alice. “He’s in a bad mood because he’s just been caught on a speed camera.”

  Gordon swung a
round to look at his wife. “I didn’t get caught. I said I could have got caught.”

  Jack took the two bottles of wine from his friend’s outstretched arms. “How’s that?”

  Gordon helped Alice’s remove her coat. “I only just saw the camera because Alice here was talking and distracting me.” His words were deliberate. “If I wasn’t such a diligent driver I could have been caught. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “If you’re such a diligent driver, what were you doing speeding in the first place?” Jack was genuinely interested in how Gordon was going to explain that one.

  “That’s what I said,” says Alice.

  Gordon sighed. “I wasn’t speeding, I just said I could have been speeding and I could have got caught.” Jack grinned as Alice left them standing at the door. “Oh, forget it,” he finished.

  Jack opened the inner door for Alice to walk through. “I thought you were coming by cab?”

  “No we drove up, but we’ll leave it here and pick it up in the morning on our way back to Swansea. We’re staying at the Swallow, so we’ll call a cab later.”

  Jack put the wine in the kitchen. When he came back out, he put his arm around Alice’s petite frame and guided her through the lounge to the terrace outside. Gordon walked behind them after casting a scowl towards the door leading to the garage where Max still barked.

  Jack’s single story apartment looked out over the Clifton Suspension Bridge, in Bristol, high above the River Avon and its magnificent gorge. The eighties building was just one of three homes, positioned side by side and each partitioned by plants and trees, equally as tall and great as the gorge they sprung from. A single terrace, enclosed with a wooden balustrade, jutted out amongst the wildness, giving the beholder a view so perfect, so dangerous and so terrifyingly high, it was impossible not to be moved by it. Jack always said it was the reason he’d bought it - not for its appeal as a home, but for the view, natural, and wild and powerfully beautiful. “And it’s private,” he always adds, when asked.