Cade watched as the familiar figure climbed the alloy steps. She wore an orange bikini that barely covered her. It was reminiscent of the first time he saw her in swimwear, on board the Black Marlin as they had sailed to an island in the ocean off the east coast of New Zealand.
She took him by surprise.
“Aren’t you going to join us, Jack?” She turned and looked up and into the trees, straight into his eyes. Then at Helston’s.
“Both of you. Come. We have drinks ready.”
Cade’s senses were on overdrive, so much so that he heard the ice cubes first before the footsteps. A male was carrying a tray of drinks towards the decked area, in the shaded area of the pool, away from the ferocity of the Pacific sun.
“Well?”
They left the protection of the trees and emerged, like a pair of naughty school children, their pockets full of apples.
Cade’s mind was a vortex. Shoot her – he didn’t have a gun. Drown her. Didn’t have the heart after what happened to her mother.
Hug her. Kiss her. Run away?
He stepped forward and walked towards her. She was wrapping a sarong around her waist and slipped a pair of gold-rimmed Ray-Bans onto her head. Jesus she looked good. But for the scars. No, she looked good full stop.
But he looked at them anyway and knew he should never have left her to die. They were still red, one was vivid, the other, smaller but evident, above her eye. Her legs looked amazing, but again a few reminders of that high-speed crash remained. How she had recovered in the time that had elapsed was one thing. How she had recovered at all was another story.
He was transfixed. Her hair looked darker – it was damp – but darker nonetheless. Was she taller? Had she lost weight? He could still see her hip bones.
‘Just kiss her for God’s sake.’
Their eyes were still adjusting to the light. The sunlight in the region was so intense that it took a while.
Helston was desperate to say something. But it was Cade who took a pace forward and held out his hand. He had spent days conjuring up a power-sentence, a way of saying ‘you owe me an explanation’ – all the while knowing he was equally expected to provide some answers.
“Hello Elena. How are you?” Was that it? Pathetic.
She smiled. Failed to shake his hand but lifted her sunglasses and allowed him to see those damned green eyes once more. They offered everything in one glance: an apology, a look of disappointment and a sense of complete covetousness.
“I’m OK. Thank you. You should really introduce me to your girlfriend.” She looked at Helston and offered a warm smile but it was obvious why she was so guarded.
Kim laughed and broke the ice. “Christ no, I’m not his girlfriend love. I’m his ex-partner – from his past. You know, work partner? I came to back him up in case you tried to kill him, but I guess that would have happened by now? I’m Kim Helston.” She held out her hand and Petrova shook it, her own hands still damp from the earlier swim.
“I’m Elena. Would you like a drink? It is warm, and you have come a long way.”
It took a woman’s sensibility to move the meeting along.
Cade had been so focused on the girl he knew as Elena Petrova that he had failed to look at the male – taking him for a butler, stood there in the shadows with a tray of glasses and a bottle of chilled, fashionable mineral water, the brim of his hat shielding his eyes.
“Drink, Jack?” The voice was instantly recognisable. The face appeared from the relative darkness and into the half-light that the veranda provided.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The equally British accent was clear and concise. “Yes Jack, it’s me and before you say another word or try to throw me in the pool, or worse, there’s something or things you need to know.”
“Oh, trust me I am all ears.”
Helston was half-standing, half-sitting and now contemplating the pair of strutting peacocks in front of her.
“Jack, this can wait. You haven’t seen this dear girl for a while. From what I know she’s had a rough time of it and you disappeared off the face of the earth…without an explanation…” It was evident that Helston was reverting to police negotiator mode and she was doing well.
“And, it’s only fair that Elena finds someone new in her life.”
“Oh my God, no! Stop. Please.” Petrova was almost laughing. “No, you could not be more wrong. This man is not my lover.”
“Then what is he?” Cade was filling with adrenaline. He could feel it, taste it – he knew the signs. He looked for somewhere to throw him that would hurt more than the pool.
“Jack. Please sit down. I have something to tell you. But first, I would really like that hug that you are so desperate to give me. It’s OK. We are good you and I. Promise. Trust me?” She held her arms out in front of her as he hesitated, then stepped into her embrace.
He exhaled and felt the coolness of her hair on his face, then pulled her towards him. She stepped up onto her toes to reach his kiss.
“Forgiven.” They said it at the same time.
“Come on, Miss Helston, I’ll show you the garden and we can have a chat whilst these two put the world to rights. The Hibiscus is glorious at this time of the year.”
As they wended their way up the flag-stone pathway to the upper garden area Helston turned and looked out across the harbour.
“It’s a beautiful place. Must cost a fair bit to rent?”
“I have no idea Miss Helston.”
“Call me Kim. Please. Australians are less formal than you Brits.”
“Then I have no idea how much it would cost to rent Kim. You see, as far as Catseye Lodge is concerned, I own it. All you see is mine.”
“‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Alice, as she stared down the rabbit hole.”
“Ah, the classics. Never fail do they, Kim?”
She was impressed. It was a truly beautiful home. “So it’s all yours? Then you are a very lucky man indeed Mr?”
“Of course. Sorry. How thoroughly un-British of me. That Mexican stand-off back there robbed me of my manners. As for my name, ‘I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then…’”
“I’m not with you.”
“You were quoting from Alice in Wonderland, I thought I would join you.” He held his fair-skinned hand out to meet hers.
“Michael Blake. British Foreign Office and nowhere near the bastard that your friend Jack will tell you I am. Fancy a drink down at the yacht club? I suspect those two have some serious making up to do.” He winked and offered her his arm. The old charmer was soon walking her towards his own rather grander buggy and pressing a remote to open the gates.
“So you are genuinely not an item, you and that red-hot supermodel back there?”
“Good God no. Some might say sadly not but not me. No, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Are you gay?”
“Good old forthright Aussie questioning techniques. One has to love them.” He doffed his hat. “No. Categorically not.”
“Fair enough.”
He picked up the pace. “Come on girl, the sun will be over the yardarm soon. Mojito?”
“Rude not to. But you are buying.”
“I have an account dear. You Australians are so uncouth at times.”
He sent the red-hot supermodel a text. ‘Back in a while. Sort it out.’
She strutted alongside the pool. Turned, looked at him, then looked away. “You have some explaining to do, Jack Cade.”
“And so do you, Elena Petrova.” He was looking straight at her. Wishing she would dress so he could at least stand a chance of having an undistracted argument.
Ever the British gentleman. “OK. You go first. I’m keen to hear this. You take the first punch.”
She did.
“What the…?” It was painful, but more so, unexpected.
“Christ, El. I didn’t mean literally.”
“You deserved that for leaving me there. I could hear you, Jack. Every word. And don’t call me El.”
“But you told me to go. Have you any idea how hard it was…to just walk away. Elena I had fallen for you. You must have known that?”
“And yet you still just walked away.” She slapped him hard across the face.
“Do that again lady and I’ll drown you in that bloody pool.” The blood vessels had reddened the skin around his left cheek, enhancing the ocean-blue eye that poured uncontrollably.
“I mean it Elena.”
Slap. Harder than the punch.
He grabbed her by both arms but she was quick. Training did that to you, made you react without thinking about the act itself.
Her balled fists pushed up and through his arms and then the sides of both collided with his temples in a shock wave.
“Shit. Christ almighty. What is wrong with you?” He staggered around the deck area, looking for an escape route or a weapon. All he saw was a small earthenware pot. ‘Great. I travel all this way to kill the girl of my dreams with that. Classy Jack, really classy.’
She was up on her toes now, in a fighting stance.
“Pretty Bulgarian girl shocked you did she Jack? Well, there is more where that came from.”
“Can you not just behave like a bloody woman for once?”
She dropped her centre of gravity and lunged out with her bare foot, towards his groin. This was going to really hurt. He had plans for that region. Clearly she didn’t. She was enjoying this.
But this time it was Cade that was quicker. He surprised himself with his reactions. He slapped her, quickly, to the side of the head, gripped hold of her shin and pulled her towards him. Her face rushed at his as he jammed his elbow across her throat.
“There. Hurts doesn’t it? Now, are we going to play nicely?”
She stared at him. Green eyes versus blue. A younger, fitter girl against an older, stronger man.
She kissed him. Fully on the lips.
“Whoa! Where did that come from?” She tasted great. Some things hadn’t changed. Her response to his counter-attack was pure and sexy. He relaxed his grip.
She punched him again, a distraction strike with her right hand against his shoulder, then dropped to one knee and as she did so she drove her left palm into his liver. Cade dropped instantly. The blow was fast enough to cause him rapid harm but not powerful enough to kill him. She knew what she was doing and aimed her blow and the amount of force perfectly.
Cade’s autonomic nervous system and the pressure wave that hit the liver capsule were his undoing. The blow compressed the liver, like a balloon, signals raced through his body, causing the longest nerve in the ANS, the Vagus nerve, to decrease his heart rate and blood pressure. His brain was now in survival mode.
This in turn create an involuntarily reaction and forced him into a horizontal position, lying on the ground. She could have hit any of his major organs, but she knew, from months of training, that the liver, being the largest organ was likely to provide the most effective reaction.
Cade was down and in agony.
“Now, will you apologise?” Elena Petrova, daughter of Nikolina stood over him; pretty, educated and downright bloody lethal.
It was finished.
He couldn’t talk. For a while he was concentrating on breathing through the pain and praying that she hadn’t ruptured something. As he began to recover he watched her pacing around the wooden decking, her lithe legs carrying her back and forth.
He decided that next time he fought with someone it would be like this, against a far prettier foe in a woefully small and startlingly orange bikini. It was sensual. It was surreal. And it was God-bloody-awful painful.
Look at her: perfectly cut hair, those eyes, those hip bones, that asymmetrically perfect arse. Breasts that were best described, by men and those that were on the fringes of bi-curiosity as flawless.
She bent to pick up her sarong which had come away during the melee. She had her back to him. He was up now and rushing at her, wrapping his arms around hers, and across her chest. He pulled her back, and then further, heading towards the pool. Praying he got it right he lunged backwards taking her with him, not releasing his hold. They hit the water and sank, as a pair to the bottom.
She was writhing like a demented catfish, twisting, screaming under water. Her words were indistinct, but the message was clear.
‘I will kill you, Jack Cade. I will seriously, honestly kill you.’
He held her, as tight as he could. His own oxygen levels were plummeting as the pain started to emanate from his liver once more. But this was a fight he had to win. At that moment, on the bottom of the blue-glazed pool he needed her to know that she had brought hell to his doorstep, years after he had closed the door on it; closed, bolted and never to be opened.
He knew that she had travelled to New Zealand to deliver a message, and importantly, a package. Her mother had told her to trust only one man – the British man called Cade. There were others, close to him, but she had said that whilst one might provide her sanctuary, the other would save her life. No questions.
Things had gone to plan. She met him, chose to trust him, was about to hand over the remaining package of three documents – the missing link. She had been told that instinctively he would know what to do with them; where to secrete them from harm, prevent them from initiating the wealth of one man and the potential destabilisation of a nation.
Things had gone to plan: Meet. Hand over the documents. Leave.
That is until she fell in love with him. In a few days. On a beach, an island and latterly in his bedroom. Infatuation? Lust? Professional intelligence gathering? Or love?
Yes, things had gone to plan. He was just the bonus.
Until they had followed her, thousands of miles across continents, their mission to shut down the chain of evidence – kill those that were associated to Nikolina Petrov and her family, and whenever the chance arose, to harm the reputation of the Bulgarian Secret Service and above all, execute, torment and terrorise anyone who stopped their quest for financial supremacy and notoriety in Europe.
He had his legs wrapped around her waist and his arms across her chest. He was the breadth of a cigarette paper from ending her life. She fought no more.
Her skin was tanned, the colour of autumn leaves, her hair flowed in the tepid blue water in a luxury home on an island in an ocean far larger. And she spoke no more.
“I love you.” Cade’s words were distorted by the water, clear, at least clear enough for her to understand.
And then the dream returned to haunt him. The groping hands, the call of the Sirens, luring him towards the rocks once more. Bodies, drifting downwards into the river bed, through the dark green forest of weeds and dark black silt.
‘Let her go….Jack. Let. Her. Go.’ A voice from the past, from the depths. He knew who it was. The Old Man was visiting him once more. He released his hold on her.
She nodded and yelled something back, again the water disturbed the words but their rawness meant something to him. It was either an apology or a promise to end his life at the first opportunity.
He burst through the surface of the water, up and into the air. The heat of the day hit him first, followed by another autonomous reaction to breathe, then find her.
She was surfacing too; he hooked his arm under hers and propelled her up and away from death’s grasp. She took in a massive amount of air, trying to shout at him at the same time and choking.
“I hate you. I hate you. I…”
“Love me?”
“You bastard.”
She collapsed into his embrace and held him, breathing slower now but realising that he could have killed her. Just another few seconds. Like her mother. Her poor defenceless mother.
But she knew he had loved her too and could never blame him for her actual death – perhaps allowing it to happen, but not death itself.
He winced as she held him tighter, recalling the wildcat blow
she had delivered to his right side. What was she thinking?
She tried to slap him again. Then stopped.
Cade just stared at her until she looked away.
“Jack. I’m sorry. I understand why you were angry. My mother was right to trust you. I just never knew I would end up sleeping with her boyfriend. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
He was controlling his own breathing.
“You think your mother and I…slept together?”
“Of course.”
“No. That is not true. Not true at all. Elena, if you believe nothing else you need to know that. They killed her before…”
She didn’t raise a red flag – just slapped him again.
“Do you want to go back down there?” He pointed to the bottom of the pool.
She shook her head. “Only with you.” She exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” She drew more air into her lungs. “Tell me one more thing?”
“You must promise not to try to kill me.”
“Did you sleep with Carrie O’Shea?”
What was the point of lying, this girl was better-trained than him.
“Yes. I did. But it was long before we met.”
She wiped the remaining water from her face and did that thing with her hair once more. “I forgive you. Is that why you had her photographs in your house? To remind you of her?”
“No. I liked what she saw through the lens. She saw things differently to me.”
“But now? You are still together?”
He shook his head. “No, we are not and we never will be. It’s just one of those things that life throws at you. They say things happen for a reason, or a season, or forever.”
“So what am I?”
‘Think carefully here Jack. You only have one liver.’
“All three.”
An hour later, she lay with her head on his chest, listening to his still-rapid heartbeat and smiling. She had forgiven him in the best way she knew how, and he her. He was initially angry at himself for giving in so quickly. His plan was to make her wait at least a few hours.
It wasn’t Olympic sex, gymnastic in its positions or even daring like it was the first time at his home in New Zealand. Just physical, visceral, entwined and close enough that their vision blurred when they tried to look at one another.
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 18