‘Does this happen often?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘I feel cold.’
He looks around and, seeing nothing with which to cover me, takes off his jacket and lays it on my upper body. The warmth of his body lingers and I just want to close my eyes and savor it. Oh, why, oh why did she come and steal him away from me? Everything was going fine until she came into the picture. He loves me really. We are not strangers. We have grown up together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly.
I know he is. It is that filthy bitch who has him all tied up with sex. I should have slept with him, I would have him now. My heart is full of bitter regret that I never slept with him.
‘It’s not your fault,’ I whisper. Tears begin to flow from my eyes.
He kneels beside me.
‘Do you know what I regret the most?’
‘No.’
‘I regret that we never made love, even once. Can we? Just once. For old times sake?’
My tears dry as suddenly as they began. I look up at him through damp lashes. He is staring at me without revealing any emotion, but my heart and my eyes are full of hot, hungry craving for him. My whole being is on fire for him. Right then all I want is to feel his burning lips on my lips, face, throat, breasts, between my legs…until I am driven out of my mind. I snake my tongue out, run it along my lower lip.
‘Just this once.’ My voice is husky and thick, my eyes half-hooded.
He is still staring at me sans expression, so I bend my head so my hair parts and exposes the defenseless white curve that is the nape of my neck. For a moment Blake makes neither move nor response, until unexpectedly, in the downcast line of my vision, I see his leather shoes quietly turn away from me. And start to head towards the door. He is leaving. He is actually going.
The bastard!
For a precious few seconds I lie shocked, silent and paralyzed, the blood running cold in my veins. Even my brain refuses to think. It never, never occurred to me that he could simply walk away from me. What now?
Then I stand and call him.
He doesn’t stop.
My stomach lurches. ‘You can’t leave me.’
He stops and turns around to face me. His laughter rings hollow, rasping and devoid of humor. ‘You see something you want, you just reach out and take it, don’t you?’
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ I retort. Shit I shouldn’t have said that. I stare at him in a panic. It has all gone so wrong.
‘You’re so fucking spoilt.’ His words do not match his eyes, though. They are weary, the eyes of a man who has had enough. He shakes his head and starts walking away from me. He is already at the door. His hand is reaching for the handle. And suddenly I know. I know exactly how to stop him in his tracks. And I know how to make it convincing, too. I take a rush of air into my lungs.
‘I know what it tastes like. I’ve taken part,’ I cry out. My voice is like a bell in the silent room.
His hand freezes. He turns slowly. ‘What?’
Fifteen
His expression is one of great shock. My father is not a lowly member to offer his daughter in such a way. There is a seed of distrust in his eyes, and yet there is compassion and softness. She has changed him. I have never seen this look in his eyes.
‘I was just a child. I never made a sound. I never saw their faces. They took turns. I can never forget,’ I whisper. I am a convincing actress.
He strides over to me and puts his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, Victoria. So sorry. I didn’t know. He should have protected you.’
‘It doesn’t matter now. I just wanted you to know that I’ve suffered too.’
‘I didn’t plan it this way,’ he says softly. ‘It just happened. I fell in love with her.’
I look up at him with great, big eyes. ‘I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not even angry with you or her. But I am hurting. Real bad. It’s simple for you. “Let’s be friends,” you say, but it’s not so easy for me. I love you. I always have and I always will. It’s inside me, day and night eating at me relentlessly. My heart is bleeding, Blake. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I know you didn’t ask for my heart, but I gave it, anyway.’ I smile bitterly. ‘You’d be shocked if you knew how much I hurt. I feel as if I am going mad.’
He looks into my eyes, saddened, incredibly so. ‘Oh, Victoria.’
‘The heart was meant to be broken,’ I say, quoting Oscar Wilde. I know he will recognize and smile.
He half smiles. ‘I didn’t know it was like that for you. I don’t know what I thought. These arrangements,’ he opens his palms out helplessly, ‘they are not meant to be like this.’ He stops for a moment. ‘I didn’t think because I didn’t care for you, for me, or anyone else for that matter. I was a brute.’
‘Welcome to my world,’ I say.
I can see that he pities me.
‘I have to go,’ he mutters.
‘Look after my heart. You hold it in your hand.’
He kisses the top of my head and then he is gone, shutting the door quietly behind him.
‘I prayed for you,’ I whisper at the closed door.
How long I stood staring at the door, utterly devastated and uncomprehending, my dreams and hopes scattered around me, I don’t know. Perhaps I thought he might still return. Ring the bell and come in, tell me it has all been a dreadful mistake. I even waited past the obligatory one hundred and eighty seconds while my mind replayed the humiliation of my total rejection. I only really come to when I feel silky fur rubbing against my bare legs. I look down. Tia purrs gently.
I bend down and pick up her warm, soft body. I press her pliant silkiness against my chest and look into her beautiful face. She stares at me with her one blue and one copper eye, blinks and tries to snuggle up between my breasts. Even the cat has found contentment in its life.
Without warning that intense hot bubble of poison that is always lying in wait in the very depths of my bowels shoots sickeningly into my head. It explodes in a shower of red-hot sparks right between my eyes. As if hit by lightning I react. I lose it. Go ape-shit crazy. With a wild cry of fury and with all the viciousness of a female cobra on a nest of unhatched eggs, I hurl the unsuspecting cat against the wall. She crashes into the wall in a screaming confusion of distended nails and flying fur. The animal rights itself, curses, spits and hisses at me before fleeing in a chocolate streak of confused terror and pain.
My curled nails bite deeply into my own flesh, but I feel no pain, only the need to destroy. I turn and look at myself in the mirrored wall. My face is flushed and blazing with color, my eyes are savage, my mouth is open and breathing hard as if I have been running, and my breasts are heaving.
Something sick swirls in my stomach. My heart begins to race. I hear a rattling in my head and my mouth fills with the taste of metal. I feel the tremble begin in my fingers. It’s happening. At first slight, so slight it is like the shaking of an alcoholic in the morning before his first drink. But it becomes stronger, more insistent. I let it. It is a fine feeling. The way it sweeps into my body, takes over and becomes a roaring ball of pure energy.
The room in front of me swirls slightly. Objects come into focus, lose their edges and come back into being. My trembling body begins to shake violently. Suddenly, I am sucked into a vortex of energy and I feel myself flying across the room. I grab a bespoke dining chair as if it weighed nothing more than a matchstick, raise it high over my head, and running to the mirrored wall slam it against the surface. The sound of exploding glass is loud, satisfying. Again. And again. The chair breaks. I see myself in the broken mirror. Galvanized, I am indeed a terrible vision, flying hair, bared teeth.
I destroy everything!
Eventually when I fall down in an exhausted heap on the floor, the room is in total shambles. The expensive brocade curtains lie in shreds, every breakable thing accuses me in shattered silence
and my beautiful nails are torn and bleeding. My eyes travel over the destruction I have wreaked, but I find no remorse in my heart. I am filled only with defiance.
As a matter of fact, I feel much better now. It’s been refreshing and deeply cleansing to damage so indiscriminately. Tomorrow, I will go shopping. And shopping always gives me a fantastic boost. I will get something nice for Tia (I shouldn’t have flung her against the wall) and something stunningly expensive and beautiful for me, for when Blake comes back to me. This is just a minor setback. Obviously, he will tire of her.
I stand. A sharp pain tears through my knee. I look down.
A huge bruise is coming up. The hem of my dress is torn too. I limp over to the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror. I gaze at myself. Moisture-filled luminous eyes in a pale face. I realize anew that I really am extraordinarily beautiful. I pout at my own reflection. Transfixed by my own beauty I form words, just to watch my berry lips in movement. Quite of their own volition they say, ‘I’ll get him back. Of course I will.’
Sixteen
Lana Bloom
I have spent most of the day on the phone with lawyers and advisors discussing the best way for me to set up and run my charity. Now I am in the kitchen making a simple dinner while Sorab is napping inside his playpen. When Blake comes home I don’t rush out to the front door because the asparagus will be ready in less than a minute and I don’t want to overcook it.
‘We’re in the kitchen,’ I call out, keeping my voice fairly soft in order not to wake Sorab.
I hear Blake close the front door. He appears in the doorway, leans against it and simply looks at me.
‘What is it?’
He just shakes his head and continues gazing at me.
‘Blake?’
To my horror his eyes fill with tears.
I put down the colander of asparagus and run to him.
I put my fingers on his damp lashes. ‘Oh, my darling, what’s wrong?’
He catches my fingers in his hand and presses them against his lips. ‘Nothing. I am just drinking in the sight of you.’
His lips turn into a soft kiss on my fingertips. He sweeps his hand along my jaw line.
‘That’s a good thing, right?’ I joke.
‘I love you, Lana. I never stop thinking of you. Never. The only thing I am afraid of in this life is losing you. You know I’d risk everything for you, don’t you?’
Warmth starts spreading throughout my body. ‘I am right here, Blake. Where I belong, where I’ll always be.’
‘I went to see Victoria today.’
‘Oh.’
‘I told her I’m in love with you.’
‘How did she react?’
‘She fell apart. I did not expect it. She was pitiful.’
I move slightly away from him. ‘It was not your father who paid me to leave. It was her.’
‘I know. When I found out that Sorab was mine, I traced the money through its complicated trusts back to her. I was furious—she had caused me a year of excruciating pain—but confronting her was not a priority. All information is power, and everything I knew, and my opponent thought I did not was my advantage. So I never revealed my hand or acted on the knowledge.
‘When I went to see her today I was prepared to coldly dismiss her from our lives, but then she said something which made me pity her. The truth is, I did lead her on. I did renege on my promise to marry her. She has some grounds for her anger and suffering. I never wanted revenge and now I actually pity her. I have everything. She has nothing. I wish her well. One day I hope we will be friends.’
‘She didn’t seem pitiful to me.’
‘She is the spoilt daughter of a very wealthy man and she is used to getting what she wants, but even she has been broken by love. She will no longer trouble us.’
I say nothing.
That evening Sorab falls asleep on top of his father’s body in the living room. I follow to watch as Blake tucks Sorab in for the night. First Blake, and then I bend to kiss his smooth cheek as he lies asleep on his side. When I raise my eyes to Blake’s he is watching me. In the shadows and soft light of the bedroom he looks proudly proprietorial. We are his family.
He comes around the cot, takes me by the hand, leads me into our bedroom…and makes love to me, as he has never done before. With infinite gentleness as if I am a delicate butterfly whose wings can come off as dust pigments on his fingers, if he does not take the greatest care in the way he handles me. All of it is long, or slow, or deep, and when he climaxes he calls my name as if he is falling off a cliff and I am the last thing he sees. The longing in his voice is a balm to my heart.
I stretch luxuriously and lie on my stomach.
He lets his fingers run up and down my spine. ‘I love the feel of your spine, the delicate little bones that make your body. They are like skin-covered teeth, only they are not. As you move they flow under my fingers.’
I chuckle. ‘Oh my God! We have unearthed the poet in you.’
‘It’s love. The loved destroys the thing that loves it.’
I turn around to face him, a frown etched on my brow. ‘Are you saying your love for me is destroying you?’
He cups my naked breast possessively. ‘The more I love you the more of a stranger I have become to myself. Now I do and say things that I would never have dreamed of doing or saying. I can hardly believe that I lived all these years without you.’
I run my finger down his cheek. ‘Sometimes I get so scared. Everything I have ever loved has been taken away from me.’ I look down to the duvet cover. My voice trembles like the strings of a harp. I bite back the tears that have so suddenly arrived to spoil what should have been a beautiful moment.
He leans in and kisses the top of my left shoulder. ‘My love, my love, if you are still living and I am not, then I will haunt you until your dying day.’
I look up at him with hurt eyes. ‘That’s not funny, Barrington.’
‘I know, my darling heart. It’s only funny in the fucked up world I exist in. The real truth is, I want us to be like those ancient couples who have never been apart a day in their lives and when one partner dies the other follows in hours.’
‘Me too. I even hate saying goodnight to you. It means I’ll lose you again for a few more hours.’
He puts a finger against my temple. ‘Sometimes I wake up and watch you sleeping.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you know you sometimes smile in your sleep?’
‘I do?’
‘You always look so defenseless and angelic, like one of those fairy princesses from my childhood days.’
‘A fairy princess?’ I love the idea.
‘Yes, often I wish I could lock you away in an enchanted tower. Nobody could get to you except me.’
‘You don’t have to look me away in a tower. I’m always here for you.’
‘The princess is not locked up because she is bad. The princess is locked up because she is precious beyond words, and everyone wants a piece of her.’ His voice changes, becomes serious. ‘I have to put you somewhere you can’t be hurt.’
‘I am at that somewhere. Right here, beside you.’
He frowns. ‘But when I am not around—’
‘Brian and his pack take over.’
‘I’d still prefer to lock you up in an enchanted tower.’
‘That doesn’t sound quite fair. I get locked up while you go into the world and do all the things that you love to do.’
‘I don’t love what I do, Lana. I do it because I have to.’
‘Why can’t you walk away? You have more than we can ever spend.’
‘Sometimes we are given the illusion of choice. Give a man dying of thirst in a desert a glass of water and tell him it’s his choice. Drink or leave it. Is that really a choice, Lana?’
I say nothing. I remember when my mother was so ill that choice became an illusion.
‘I am like that man,’ he continues. ‘If I drink it will mean danger to you and Sorab. I know
too much for them to allow me to walk away. I have responsibilities that I must see through.’
‘Responsibilities to carry on destroying the world?’
He smiles sadly and puts his finger on my lips. ‘No more. That will happen with or without me.’
‘Then why do you have to do it?’
‘What happens to the whistleblower, Lana?’
‘They get put in prison or they or their loved ones meet with “accidents” or they commit “suicide” and the agenda goes on uninterrupted.’
I frown and move my mouth away from his finger. ‘Why—?’
His fingers stop my lips, stop any further conversation. His eyes look so sad I wish I had never started this conversation. I move towards him and hug him hard. He is in pain. Terrible pain, but he cannot tell me. He is the man in the desert with a glass full of cool, life-giving water. I am asking him to drink, but he is resisting because of me and Sorab. I realize then that he has reason for the secrecy he maintains. He believes it is for the greater good. He believes harm will befall me and Sorab. I have to accept it. I decide then to stop pestering him. I will do my own research.
‘I’m going to church tomorrow.’
‘OK, what time would you like us to go?’
I stare at him, astonished. ‘You mean you’ll come to church with me?’
He shrugs. ‘Sure why not?’
‘But what about the brotherhood?’
‘The cloak of respectability the brotherhood wears is organized religion.’
And I remember that his father’s funeral had been held in a church. ‘But if you come with me, wouldn’t that be a sham?’
He looks me in the eye. ‘No, it wouldn’t.’
‘I’m going to love you like I’ll never be hurt.’
He lays his head on the pillow beside me and looks deep into my eyes. ‘Often I look at you and I can’t believe my luck,’ he whispers.
Two days later I am pushing Sorab on High Street Kensington when time suddenly suspends. The blood stills in my veins. For a moment it is as if I am in a movie frame that suddenly freezes.
Victoria is standing only a few yards away. We stare at each other. Her eyes are translucent with a strange mixture of bewilderment and hatred. She reminds me of a wild animal that is caught in a mangle. It is dangerous because it is so desperate. I know I am safe—Brian is only a shout away—but I still feel the icy claw of fear squeeze at my heart.
Besotted (The Billionaire Banker Series) Page 8