by Susan Lewis
‘There’s a lot’, he said, kissing her, ‘you don’t know about me and too damned much I don’t know about you. What’s your schedule over the next couple of days?’
‘Changeable,’ she answered. ‘At least some of it is. There are a couple of things I will have to go out for, though. I suppose going out together is out of the question?’
‘Probably,’ he said, starting to chop the tomatoes.
‘So what do you intend to do for the next three days?’
‘I’ve got plenty to do,’ he said, ‘but with the phone and computer right here, I don’t need to leave the apartment much.’
‘What about if Galina calls?’
‘She’ll call the mobile. It doesn’t tell her where I am.’
Rhiannon looked troubled by that.
‘She doesn’t call as often as she used to,’ he said, ‘and if I could organize it any other way, I would, but I can’t.’
Seeing that she still looked concerned, he put down the knife and pulled her into his arms. ‘Believe me, I hate the deceit as much as you do,’ he said. ‘More than you do, because you’re worth more than this, a whole lot more which is why I’m not going to ask you to come live in LA.’
‘Does that mean you were planning to?’ she asked, lifting her arms around his neck.
‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it.’
Her eyes narrowed with laughter. ‘The answer’s no,’ she said, ‘but ask me anyway.’
‘Will you come live in LA?’ he said.
‘You mean will I give up everything for you?’
‘That’s why I wouldn’t ask,’ he replied. ‘I can’t ask you to do something I’m not prepared to do myself.’
She sighed, pulled a face and said, ‘Shall we leave this where it is and move on to something else?’
Kissing her, he said, ‘I think we should. Tell me what you’ve been doing these past few months. Are you working now?’
As they cooked and set the table and opened a bottle of chianti she told him about In Focus and Sharon and the frustration of not being able to raise enough finance as well as dealing with people she knew to be either inebriated or inept. Sensing he was about to offer her the money, she side-stepped it before he had the chance and moved on to Merv the Machete, Check It Out’s falling ratings and the offer of a consultancy she had received that day. He wanted to know everything from how she had managed to upset Merv the Machete to how she was presenting her In Focus package. He threw out several suggestions and ideas, both for presentation and content, and she couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the way he was taking such genuine interest in her life.
They were sitting at the table and half-way through their meal by the time he got round to the subject of Oliver, but though he was pleased to hear that she’d sold the diamond to help her over the bad spell, the fact that her account remained overdrawn wasn’t something he was going to tolerate, no matter how loudly she protested.
‘If you’ll just listen,’ he said, raising his voice above hers, ‘I’m not offering you the money. What I’m saying is that Theo Straussen should make good on those debts.’
‘No, Oliver Maguire should,’ she responded, ‘but since his father-in-law controls him I don’t see that ever happening.’
‘My point exactly. So let Straussen take care of it. I’ll speak to him tomorrow. Now, no more arguments, subject closed.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said, ‘I can manage.’
‘Do you enjoy bailing this guy out?’ he challenged.
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘Then get him off your back. Hey!’ he barked, when she made to protest again. ‘Let me do this for you.’
Smiling as she realized how ungracious she was being, though still not ready to give in entirely, she said, ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘God save me from independent women,’ he muttered.
‘Deliverance in three days, not before,’ she responded and putting down her fork, she poured more wine into their glasses.
‘Are you going to finish that?’ he said, when she proceeded to hold her glass in her hands and stare at him across the table.
She looked down at her plate. ‘Why?’
‘Because if you’re not, I will,’ he said.
Rhiannon nodded thoughtfully. Then putting down her glass she leaned back in her chair and said, ‘Would you have come if you hadn’t seen me in the store today?’
She could see the candlelight reflected in his eyes as he looked back at her. ‘No,’ he answered.
‘You wouldn’t have?’ she said, more upset by that than she wanted to show.
‘I had no intention of complicating your life,’ he replied.
‘But when you saw me you changed your mind?’
He picked up his wine and stared down at the dark ruby liquid. ‘I still don’t want to complicate your life,’ he said, looking at her again. ‘I don’t know what happens after this. I can’t make any promises and I can’t ask you to make any either. But I think we both know that it won’t be the last time we see each other.’
Rhiannon’s eyes dropped to the plate in front of her, then picking it up she carried it around the table. ‘Maybe now isn’t the time to talk about the future,’ she said, putting the plate down and waiting as he moved his chair back to make room for her to sit on his lap. ‘Shall I feed you?’ she whispered, sitting astride him.
‘Yes,’ he answered, his eyes falling to her breasts as she pulled open her robe.
She turned, picked up his fork and filled it with food. Then twisting back she put the fork in his mouth and tried not to respond to the way his fingers were brushing over her nipples.
‘More wine?’ she offered.
He nodded and as she turned to pick up his glass he lowered his head and drew a nipple deep into his mouth. When he had finished she gave him the wine and let him drink as she deftly unbelted his robe. He looked down as she took his penis in her hand and began to move it up and down. Then his eyes came back to hers as she manoeuvred herself to take him inside her. As she sank on to him he slid his hands under her robe and peeled it away from her body.
‘More food?’ she murmured tremulously as, using both hands, he caressed her breasts.
He nodded and she turned to pick up the fork.
She fed him until the last mouthful had gone, then pushing everything to one side, he picked her up and laid her across the table. He was still inside her, his hands were holding her hips, his eyes were drinking in the loveliness of her hair and skin in the candlelight.
He moved gently in and out of her, then taking her hands, he held them to where their bodies were joined and said, ‘I’ve never wanted to do so much with one woman in my life.’ He tried to smile, but there was no humour in his eyes or his voice as he said, ‘I feel as though you’re my life.’
Chapter 25
THE FOLLOWING MORNING they woke late and lay in each other’s arms laughing and teasing each other and ignoring the time on the bedside clock, as outside the sounds of people going to work disturbed the still, frosty morning. In the end Rhiannon was the first to get up and slipping into a track suit and pair of sneakers jogged to the end of the road to pick up the papers and some milk.
By the time she got back Max was in the kitchen slotting bread into the toaster and attempting to work out the coffee machine. The curtains were open and unexpected sunlight was spilling on to the carpets in the sitting-room and thawing the frost around the windowpanes.
‘So what’s on the agenda today?’ he asked, after kissing her hello and letting her get on with the coffee. ‘Do you have to go out?’
‘Not until this afternoon,’ she answered, glancing over her shoulder as he filled a bowl with steaming water to begin the washing up from the night before. ‘I’m seeing my partner, Lucy, for an hour before she goes off skiing. Why don’t you leave that, we’ll do it after breakfast.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Just go and s
it down with the papers,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll bring your breakfast in when it’s ready. How do you take your coffee?’
He laughed, amused by the idea that their intimacy had reached unprecedented limits on one level, but hadn’t yet attained the cream-or-sugar-in-coffee stage on another.
Treating him to a dangerous look, she reached up to take a couple of mugs from a cupboard, then relaxed back against him as he slipped his arms around her. ‘Did you get the Wall Street Journal?’ he murmured, kissing her neck.
‘The European edition,’ she murmured back. ‘It’s on the table. Did anyone ring while I was out?’ she called after him as he disappeared into the sitting-room.
‘No,’ he lied, not seeing the point in telling her that Galina had called him. It hadn’t been a particularly long conversation, but he was thankful, nevertheless, that Galina had chosen the few minutes that Rhiannon was out to let him know how much she was missing him. The ease with which he had assured her he felt the same wasn’t something he was proud of and he certainly wouldn’t want to do it with Rhiannon there.
Sifting through the papers, he decided to postpone the Journal and take a look through the London Times. His concentration wasn’t all he would have liked it to be – with Rhiannon so close at hand and the simple domesticity they were sharing giving him so much pleasure it was hard to think of much else. He smiled to himself and turned the page. He’d never dreamt he would find it so easy to blot out the rest of his life when his responsibilities, both personal and professional, were usually so paramount and consuming. Yet here he was, not caring too much about anything beyond this woman and this apartment and perfectly happy to pretend that it could go on for ever. What did concern him, though, was what it was going to do to Rhiannon when he left, for though he didn’t doubt her strength or ability to cope, he simply couldn’t bear the idea of hurting her.
Looking up as she came into the room, he felt the great power of his feelings lock around his heart. They barely knew each other, but they were so easy with each other, so certain in their belief in the other’s love, that it was hard to accept that it was a relationship with nowhere to go.
‘There’s an article here about some city in the north of England,’ he told her as she handed him a coffee and put a plate of toast on the table in front of him. ‘It’s put itself up for sale.’
‘Up for sale?’ she repeated, licking her fingers.
‘So it says here,’ he replied, taking a sip of coffee, then putting down his cup. ‘So far they’ve had interest from Japan, the United States and France.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried. ‘That would make a fantastic programme.’
Riffling back through the pages, he found the story, folded the paper in half, then picked up his coffee as she sat on the arm of the sofa beside him to read over his shoulder. He read it again too, then leaning forward to pick up some toast he passed her a slice and turned over the page so they could finish the article.
‘It’s perfect for Check It Out,’ she said, sipping her coffee. ‘I’ll get one of the researchers on to it right away. Anything else?’
‘Nothing that leapt out at me,’ he answered, ripping the city purchase story out of the paper and putting it on the table. ‘And get the terms of your consultancy sorted before you start giving them the benefit.’ He looked up at her, then started to laugh. ‘OK, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You do it your way.’
‘I will,’ she smiled, kissing the top of his head, ‘but I like it when you get tough. It makes me feel cared for.’
‘Don’t doubt it,’ he remarked, turning back to the paper.
They read together quietly for a while, munching their toast and drinking their coffee until Rhiannon went to get the pot to freshen their cups. As she retook her position on the edge of the sofa, Max absently put an arm over her legs and continued his study of the financial pages, while she picked up the Guardian. The radio was playing softly in the background and the warmth from the radiators was causing the windows to steam. Rhiannon glanced up as the mail dropped through the front door, but engrossed in the story she was reading she ignored it.
‘Do you know something?’ Max said, putting the paper aside and resting his head back on the sofa.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, still reading.
He waited until, realizing he hadn’t continued, she turned to look at him. He smiled. ‘This is a first for me,’ he said, gazing up at her.
She looked puzzled and his smile widened.
‘Hell, this is the first time I’ve been in love,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve cared for people, I’ve cared a hell of a lot for them, even loved them, I guess, but feeling the way I do about you I know now that I’ve never actually been in love. Isn’t that something?’
Rhiannon’s eyes were steeped in laughter and surprise as her heart embraced his words. Uncrossing her legs, she started to lean over to kiss him when, to her utter amazement, she fell off the edge of the sofa and hit the floor with a thud.
‘Did you push me?’ she demanded as he exploded into laughter. ‘You did, didn’t you?’ she said, sitting up and trying, not very successfully, to glare at him.
‘The hell I did,’ he laughed.
‘Then how did I end up down here?’
‘It beats me,’ he said, laughing even harder as he realized she’d taken her coffee with her and dumped it all over herself.
She continued to glare at him. Then only just managing to keep a straight face, she said, ‘You know, that’s what they call going off the deep end for a man.’
He burst out laughing again and reaching for her, pulled her up to her knees. ‘It is?’ he said. ‘I thought it was you making a regular English charlie of yourself.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Very funny,’ she remarked. ‘Look at me, I’m drenched. It’s even in my hair.’
He shook his head and tried not to laugh any more.
‘You were saying,’ she said, ‘before you pushed me over the edge.’
‘Not guilty,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘But I was saying, don’t you think it’s something that . . .’ Unable to stop himself he burst out laughing again. ‘Hell, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I don’t reckon I can go anywhere with what I was saying now without seeing you disappear over the side of the couch.’
Laughing too, she said, ‘If I’m never going to live this down I guess the only thing I can do now is go and take a shower. Are you coming?’
‘You bet,’ he replied, and putting down his paper, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her noisily through to the bedroom.
At about the same time, which made it close to midnight in LA, Susan Posner was leaving yet another message on Terry Marlowe’s answerphone in London. Marlowe was a paparazzo she’d hired many times in the past to pick up the European end of a story, and if she could trust anyone with this assignment it was him. Since Jolene Jackson had called to tip her off that Max Romanov was with Rhiannon Edwardes, Susan had left half a dozen or more messages on Marlowe’s machine, knowing, because she’d checked, that he was in London; but having no other number for him than the one she was calling, she was calling it every hour on the hour.
This time she was just about through reinforcing her urgency when there was a click on the line and Marlowe came on in person. ‘Pozzer,’ he said in his broad south London accent. ‘What’s all the commotion?’
‘I’ve got something for you,’ she answered crisply. ‘Drop whatever else is on your schedule and get yourself round to the address I’m about to give you.’
‘How much we talking, Poz?’ he drawled.
‘The usual, plus half,’ she declared with no hesitation.
‘Double plus half,’ he responded.
‘It’s a deal. Got a pen?’
‘OK, so who am I looking for here?’ he said, when he’d taken down the address.
‘Max Romanov,’ she answered.
Marlowe took a moment to crank up his memory. ‘The publisher guy?’ he said.
‘That
’s him.’
‘The guy who married the babe with the Russian name a couple of months back?’
‘Galina Casimir,’ Susan provided. ‘That’s him. I want as many shots as you can get of him going in or out of the address I gave you and if you can get any of him and the woman he’s staying with there, you’ll earn yourself a bonus.’
‘I take it the woman’s not Mrs Romanov,’ he yawned.
‘Correct. Her name’s Rhiannon Edwardes.’
‘Never heard of her. Who is she?’
‘A TV producer who doubled for Mrs Romanov the night of Mrs Romanov’s wedding.’
‘Kinky. Is there a time frame on this?’
‘Just get back to me the minute you’ve got something,’ she said and after giving him a handful of numbers he could reach her at she started calling the London tabloid editors to begin negotiations for exclusivity.
As she talked, she nestled the telephone on her shoulder and not for the first time since she’d received them began going through the photographs Maurice Remmick had appropriated from Romanov’s personal files. The ones of Rhiannon were of her with another man and had, so Remmick claimed, been taken in South Africa some time last year. Apparently Romanov had paid someone to get the shots and had kept them in his private collection ever since. As they stood they were unusable for their explicitness precluded their going to print in anything other than a soft-porn publication, but doctored up a little they’d do fine for a tabloid. The problem Susan was really having was with the shots Remmick had given her of Galina, for this kind of abuse was so sick that Susan wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea of any woman having to suffer the distress of their exposure. But fortunately, in this instance, exposure wasn’t what she intended – at least certainly not in their entirety. No, what she intended was to let the world know what a perverted son-of-a-bitch Galina was married to, while doing what she could to protect Galina from the ignominy of having her torment made public. The fact that Romanov was also a killer was something, for the moment, that Susan was going to rest easy on, for she now knew how, on that dark December night, Max Romanov had premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly killed the mother of his children and then proceeded to get away with it. That anyone could twist the facts to save himself the way Romanov had was so way off the scale of human decency that even Susan had a problem believing it. It made sense, though, it all added up, right down to how long it had taken Romanov to change the scenario from murder to mishap. The only problem she was having was proving it.