by Lizzie Lamb
‘When the rain stopped and we could move on, they bundled us into three separate boats and headed up the Amazon. I heard them talking in patois and was able to make out - just - that their intention was to take us to their main camp and issue ransom demands for our release. Luckily, they didn’t seem to realise how wealthy our respective families were. To them we were simply hidalgos: patricians, not campesino: peasants.’
Charlee thought that would have been obvious to anyone. With his height, fine features and bearing it was clear that Ffinch possessed the confident self-belief that education and wealth bestow. For a few moments he paused in his storytelling and laid his hand on top of hers, stilling her rhythmic stroking. Charlee felt the rise and fall of his chest, his heart beating fast and strong under her palm as he was transported back to a time and place he’d rather forget. But, she suspected, part of him was glad of this opportunity to exorcise the ghosts which haunted his dreams and waking hours.
‘What happened next?’
‘We - the three of us that is - fell ill. Feverish, sick - couldn’t face food - started vomiting and couldn’t get warm, no matter how many covers they threw over us.’ As if reliving the moment, he was wracked by shivers. Charlee felt a shudder convulse his limbs, goose bumps pimpled the skin on his arms and legs and she drew the duvet over them, protectively. ‘Long story short?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’d contracted dengue. In the end our captors decided that Elena wasn’t worth the diesel needed to transport her to their headquarters. They threw her overboard before Allesandro and I realised what had happened. She was unconscious and sank like a stone. I jumped in after her, tried to swim to her - but my hands were tied. I called to them, to Allesandro -to save her. I held on as long I could and then slipped into unconsciousness, too. The boats carried on with Allesandro and -’
‘And?’
‘Well, you know the rest. It’s well documented. The strong current pushed me up against a half-submerged tree, my clothes snagged on it and I was found by the Cat People who were out fishing. They took me to their village - hid me in spite of the danger to themselves and nursed me back to health. Well, an approximation of it.’ Charlee felt his self-deprecating shrug.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said and began to stroke his chest, his arms, his throat in order to rub life and heat back into his limbs. ‘So sorry for what happened to you - and for all the stupid things I said about the Cat People on the night of the book awards.’
‘You weren’t to know. I goaded you that night, pushed you to see how far you were prepared to go; how capable you were of blagging it. I was auditioning you for this assignment, if you like, but you didn’t know it.’ She heard the smile in his voice. ‘You passed with flying colours, Carlotta …’ He rolled her name round his tongue giving it a Spanish intonation. He turned on his side until they were practically lying nose to nose. ‘But now, I think you’d better leave, keep your side of the bargain. Otherwise …’
‘Otherwise?’
‘We’ll end up making love and that’s something I think we’d both regret.’
‘Why?’
‘Because after we’ve got our photos, and Sam’s got his spoiler, I’m returning to Darien - I told you that out on the marshes. I have unfinished business there. I don’t know how this will end.’
‘But -’ Just in time, Charlee stopped herself from saying, ‘I don’t want you to go’. She knew the last thing that would endear her to a man like Ffinch was to act like a clinging vine. ‘Okay, one last kiss and then I’ll leave you in peace,’ she said resignedly, ‘promise.’
They were still lying face to face and Charlee raised her left leg and hooked it round Ffinch’s hip, pulling him towards her pelvis with her heel. Then she pressed her body against his, found his lips and started the kiss. Ffinch held out for as long as he could but then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer into his groin. Under the duvet the combined temperatures of their body heat soared and Charlee felt like she was the one burning with a fever. With a groan of capitulation, Ffinch lowered his head, pushed up her camisole and his mouth latched unerringly onto her nipple. For a few seconds they both stopped breathing as Ffinch began to tease and suck.
Charlee felt as if she was drowning.
‘Rafa,’ she said, cradling his head and urging him to suck faster, harder, her head thrown back against the pillows.
Her use of his first name was enough to call him back from the dream world into which they had descended. With a groan of regret, he covered her breasts with her camisole and pushed her away. Then he got out of bed, scooped her up as if she weighed no more than a feather and headed for the double doors. Before Charlee was aware of his intention, he kicked one of them open and dropped her unceremoniously onto her bed. Then without another word he turned on his heel, returned to his room and locked the doors behind him, leaving Charlee burning with unrequited lust and more than a little shame and mortification.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
Next morning, Charlee was waiting by the reception desk at nine o’clock sharp with her bags packed. Unsurprisingly, she’d slept badly and knew she couldn’t face Ffinch after making such an exhibition of herself the previous night. Although she hadn’t felt so at the time, she was glad that Ffinch’d had the sense and necessary willpower to call a halt to their lovemaking. If they’d become lovers she’d probably be feeling a hundred times worse.
‘Your receipt and your taxi, Miss Montague,’ the receptionist said smoothly. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘No - no. My,’ she gulped down some air, ‘my fiancé is staying on for a few more days. And -’ she stopped herself. It really wasn’t necessary to explain herself to the receptionist, who’d probably seen it all before in the line of duty. Charlee handed over her key and put her credit card receipt in her handbag. She’d need that to claim her expenses back from What’cha! at the end of the month. Then she slipped on her sunglasses and walked out into the cold, bright morning where a taxi was waiting with its engine running.
The driver put her bags into the boot. ‘The camp, is it Miss? I take a lot of young ladies up there.’
‘Yes, please,’ Charlee responded dully, making it plain that she didn’t want to talk.
He closed her door and she settled back for the short taxi ride, trying hard not to imagine Ffinch’s reaction when he found the text she’d left on his phone. It explained that she was keen to get down to business, had left for the boot camp and would ring him at the first opportunity.
She needed time to reassess the situation and get her head round what had nearly happened last night. Maybe running round the marshes in a tracksuit would help her process her feelings for Ffinch and bolster her against him when they met again. She sighed as the taxi swung under the ornate gateway of Thornham Boot Camp for Brides, its cheesy motto picked out in cream and pink: Love is Never Enough.
Charlee groaned. She had an awful suspicion that apologising to Ffinch for going AWOL, no matter how she presented the case for the defence, would never be enough.
Thornham Creek Manor was set in extensive grounds overlooking the marshes. In scenes more reminiscent of boarding school than a weekend at a luxury spa, limos disgorged stick thin women onto the gravel drive and staff ferried their luggage into the house. Charlee’s taxi driver deposited her and her battered M&S holdall on the drive and then left, wishing her well. Her suitcase came a very poor second to the other guests’ Louis Vuitton, Mulberry or Smythson luggage and the staff studiously ignored her. Dragging her wheeled holdall over the gravel, Charlee noticed that the prospective brides carried their own vanity cases, hanging onto them for dear life/grim death. What did they contain, she wondered? Wraps of cocaine, syringes full of do-it-yourself Botox, amphetamines, appetite suppressants, monkey glands?
Tote bag slung over her shoulder, she walked into the house. The manor’s former entrance hall was now a smart reception area and fitted out with a curved m
ahogany desk, low sofas and vases crammed with Casablanca lilies. An efficient-looking member of staff in a beauty therapist’s uniform approached Charlee. ‘Your name, madam?’ she asked, her pen poised over a clipboard.
‘Char - Charlotte Montague,’ Charlee said, dropping her heavy tote bag onto the floor.
‘Montague … Montague. Ah yes, a member of staff will take your bags to your room.’ She clicked her fingers and a young girl came scuttling forward. Charlee was surprised to hear her address the girl in Russian but had little time to reflect on it because two little dogs came rushing round from behind the reception desk and dived head first into her tote bag.
With all the thoroughness of canines trained in drug enforcement, the hairless pooches withdrew their heads from the bag, tussling over a king-sized Mars bar she had stashed there. There was a collective gasp from the therapists at the sight of the chocolate and shouts of ‘Nyet - Yad. Yad.’ Poison, poison - as they leapt towards the ecstatic dogs.
‘Sputnik, Laika.’ A woman in a smart business suit came from an office behind the reception desk and scooped them up. She glared at Charlee. ‘No food is allowed other than what chef prepares. Do you have further supplies?’ For a few crazy seconds, Charlee thought the manager was going to hold out her hand and demand any chocolate bars she had stowed away. However, a great commotion in the entrance porch drew attention away from Charlee and towards the new arrival - Anastasia Markova, complete with entourage.
‘Anastasia - dobro pojalovat,’ the proprietress beamed a welcome, thrusting her dogs and the half-chewed Mars bar into the arms of one of the therapists. She dismissed Charlee with a curt nod and a member of staff handed her a large ziplock bag with her name written on it.
‘What’s this?’ Charlee asked.
‘For your mobile phone, camera and iPad, madam.’
‘What? Now, wait a minute,’ she protested, seeing her chances of getting the scoop on Markova disappearing along with the tools of her trade.
‘Did you not read terms and conditions before you signed up for boot camp?’ The assistant tutted, as though Charlee’s was not the first act of rebellion she’d encountered that morning. ‘They will be locked away in vault and returned to you at end of stay,’ she said in thickly accented English. ‘Our guests demand one hundred percent privacy.’
Damn! It was just as Ffinch had predicted. Now she’d be forced to get in touch with him, and -
‘But, I wanted photos for the wedding blog I’m keeping,’ Charlee said, thinking fast. ‘I promised my girlfriends I’d keep them up to date with my weekend.’ She gave the woman a girly pout and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Photographs will be taken by us and passed onto you for purchase,’ the therapist said, not giving an inch.
‘Nice little earner for the boot camp, huh?’ Charlee muttered and received a glacial stare. She glowered back - what was their problem? Didn’t they understand the concept of customer satisfaction? God knows they charged enough for the privilege of staying at the boot camp.
‘Photos will be taken by professional photographer on night of Gala Dinner when you and fiancé can pose in specially constructed romantic arbour.’
… specially constructed romantic arbour? Charlee gulped, that would go down really well with Ffinch - if he bothered to turn up. She rather suspected that by going AWOL she’d altered the terms of their partnership. Now she wouldn’t be able to get any photographs of Anastasia and would have to face Sam Walker’s wrath when she returned to London. Her expression must have been pretty glum because the assistant’s face softened as she held out her hand for the bag.
‘Ah, you are missing your fiancé, which is only natural. But think how romantic it will be when you see him in two days’ time. Absence makes heart grow fonder, yes?’ She gave Charlee a look which suggested that their reunion would be one long sex fest. Left with no choice, Charlee put her mobile, digital camera and iPad in the bag, zipped it up and handed it over. Just as well they didn’t know about the bottle of vodka she’d squirreled away in her holdall. Sighing, she followed the girl with her luggage up the wide oak stairs and towards her bedroom.
Although her designated bedroom was well appointed with antique French beds, a pretty armoire, fresh flowers and fruit, and an en suite stacked with expensive toiletries, Charlee was less than pleased to discover she had to share. It was all too Mallory Towers for words. Next, she and her roomie would be having midnight feasts, investigating secret passageways by candlelight and thwarting smugglers.
All she wanted was to be left in peace to lick her wounds, get her head around her lack of photographic equipment and figure out how she could rescue the mission. And get Ffinch out of her head and stop thinking about him every sixty seconds. Standing hands on hips and giving the room one last despairing look, she noticed that her luggage had been placed at the foot of the least favourably positioned bed. In one last defiant act she marched over to her holdall, threw it on to the other bed and furiously unpacked - hanging her clothes in the armoire on scented coat hangers.
‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law,’ she said, moving her chair into the bay window and staring over the reed beds towards Thornham Beach. She could just make out The Ship Inn through the bare trees and her thoughts returned, predictably, to Ffinch. Pulling her knees up to her chin she sipped at a bottle of mineral water, which - according to the label - had been collected from 2,000 feet below the surface of the ocean off the Big Island of Hawaii.
Big Island? Big Deal.
Nothing made sense to her this morning, not $450 bottles of water, this luxurious room, nor the assignment. All she could think of was how badly she’d played it last night. Instead of standing her ground, she’d scuttled off like some frightened little virgin. Which she most certainly was not! Putting down the bottle of water, she buried her face in her hands and a moan of despair escaped as her traitorous body recalled the touch of Ffinch’s hands on her skin, his lips on her breast. She had a dull, unrequited feeling between her legs and put her hand there, clamping her thighs together tightly and hoping it’d go away. She’d never felt like this over any man - and common sense told her that Ffinch was the last man on earth she should harbour these kinds of feelings for. Hadn’t he made it perfectly clear that she was totally resistible? Dumping her on her bed like a sack of potatoes and locking the door behind him in case she should try to force herself on him twice in one night.
She was beset by a desire to leave the boot camp and return to The Ship Inn where she could make her feelings perfectly clear. She’d acted impetuously - nothing new there - but Ffinch shouldn’t read anything more into her behaviour last night. It wasn’t as if she was falling in love with him, for goodness sake. She straightened her shoulders; she’d come here to do a job and she couldn’t let anything deflect her from that path All she needed was solitude and some deep breathing exercises to get her back on track. She sat on the bed cross-legged in the lotus position and starting chanting under her breath.
At that moment the bedroom door crashed open and a woman, well over six feet tall and looking exactly like a brick outhouse wearing a tracksuit, entered the room. She didn’t introduce herself, simply looked Charlee up and down as if she was of no consequence. Then she jerked her thumbs backwards over her muscular shoulders and snarled.
‘You. Leave now, Missy. Yes?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Charlee said icily. She’d been pushed around enough in the last twelve hours without some former Soviet shot-putter getting in on the act, too.
‘I say - you go, Missy. Come.’ The Tracksuited-One reached up for Charlee’s holdall on top of the armoire, threw it on the spare bed and began cramming Charlee’s belongings into it.
‘Stop. What are you doing? I’m calling the management.’ Incensed, Charlee untangled herself from the lotus position and an unseemly tussle ensued as she dragged her clothes out of the holdall. Just as determinedly, the Tracksuited-One stuffed them back in.
‘Ti angliiskaya blyad. Ybira
isys ot suda ili pojeleesh!’ the woman-mountain growled low in her throat. She grabbed Charlee by the arm and eyeballed her menacingly, their faces inches apart. Charlee reeled back from the fetid, sausage breath and collapsed on the bed in shock. Had she really just been called an English whore and told to leave the room or face the consequences?
Unable to let on that she’d understood every grunted syllable, she reached for the door handle. God knows what the thwarted shot-put champion of the Russian federation (circa 1966) would do if she disobeyed her a second time.
‘That’s it. I’m calling security.’
In the next moment she was picked up, thrown over the woman’s shoulder in a fireman’s lift and deposited unceremoniously on her bottom in the corridor. Pain shot up from her coccyx, along the length of her spine, jarred her head and her chin was thrust downwards. Forgetting that she was supposed to be blending into the background, Charlee scrambled to her feet and steamed back into the bedroom.
‘Now, just a minute, Tamara,’ she said, pummelling the woman-mountain’s back with her fists.
‘Menya zovyt Valentina. Ne Tamara!’
Charlee didn’t care what her name was! All the sexual frustration left over from last night’s interrupted lovemaking, being ignored by the boot camp staff and now this attack by a mad woman made Charlee lose it.
‘Argh …’ With a grunt of effort, she pushed Valentina out of the way and then threw herself face down on the disputed bed and over her half-packed holdall. She was forced to cling onto the mattress as she was grabbed by the heels and forcibly dragged off the bed.
‘Ya slomau tebe sheu, angliiskaya blyad.’
Charlee didn’t doubt for a moment that Valentina wouldn’t think twice about breaking the neck of an English Mother Fucker. But she wasn’t giving in.