“You’ll never get used to the idea of other people cooking your meals and cleaning up after you, will you?”
“That’s not true. I go to restaurants. I have my clothes dry cleaned.” I tried not to sound too sarcastic. “As much fun as it would be to argue with you over cultural class differences and our disparate incomes, I wanted to see the rest of yet another Neil Elwood owned property. Show me around.”
The main floor had a half-bath, a formal reception room, the kitchen and dining room. There was also an elevator, and though Neil hated them, he used it today.
“The holiday took a toll on me, I think,” he said quietly as we rode down to the basement level. “I would hate to postpone Paris—”
“If we have to postpone Paris, we postpone Paris.” We’d been running around so much that missing another whirlwind trip wouldn’t hurt my feelings any. “All I’m really looking forward to there is fucking you, and I can do that just as well here. Oh my god, we could do it in this elevator!”
“I would rather not. I don’t need to combine one of my biggest phobias with my favorite activity.”
We stepped out of the elevator into a short hall. At one end was a utility door, at the other a gold chrome and glass door.
“Laundry,” Neil said, pointing to the plain one. Swinging his finger toward the other, he added, “And pool.”
“You have a pool?” I squeaked. “Inside your house?”
“We have indoor plumbing as well, will that excite you?”
I punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Sorry, some of us grew up with rinky-dink inflatable pools in our back yards.”
“This one isn’t Olympic-sized,” he said in his own defense. “But it is rather nice.”
He was right. Besides the marble-lined pool with its elegant terraced steps, there was a sauna, spa, fully equipped gym, and a lovely area with lounges and towels, surrounded by tall Grecian columns. There was a skylight with frosted glass, and I realized it was ground level.
“I didn’t bring my suit,” I said, disappointment crashing over me.
He looked down at me then nodded back to the water. “You don’t need one. Although, I would so desperately love to see you in a bikini.”
I giggled.
That only egged him on more. “So I could strip it off your body with my teeth.”
“Is there a single room in this house that you haven’t had sex in?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
His smirk gave me the answer before his voice did. “The elevator. But we’ve already discussed that.”
“We’ll just have to make our own memories then, I guess,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him playfully.
The second floor of the house held a large living room in more blues and pale gold, and Neil’s den— a room with a ridiculously large plasma television, dark wood and brown leather furniture, a needlessly complicated surround sound and lighting system, and the faint smell of cigar smoke. There was a snooker table, as well, and he sheepishly explained that sometimes he liked to have a “gents night” and he hoped I wouldn’t be offended.
“I’m not going to demand you give up your whole life to entertain me. I’m going to need my own space to do things, too. Maybe while you’re having a ‘gents night’ I’ll spend all kinds of quality naked time in that hot tub downstairs.” The very thought of relaxing in blissfully hot, churning water curled my toes. I might even do that tonight, though my two-week restriction wasn’t quite up yet.
He backed me into the wall, his hands capturing mine and pinning them beside my head. I laughed and hoped none of the five housekeepers happened along while Neil had me up against a wall with his knee between my thighs. I ground against him with a little whimper, and he bent his head to nibble my neck.
“How would I be able to enjoy myself with my friends if all I can think about is you, naked and wet downstairs?” he murmured against my skin.
I pushed him away and got my breath. “Okay. I’ll wear my froggy pjs and read a book then.”
His office was on the second floor, too, adjoining the library. Though there was nothing remarkable about the library— not after I’d seen the one at Langhurst Court— I was pretty surprised by his office. I’d expected it to be neat, controlled and organized. Instead, it looked like an accountant’s office on April 12. Papers spilled from the desk and onto the floor, and the stacks of folders nearly as tall as the iMac on the desktop seemed far too structurally unsound to support themselves.
“Holy shit, don’t you have a secretary?” I gasped, staring around the too-bright room with its butter-yellow walls.
“I have a personal assistant, but he works out of the company office at Canary Warf, I don’t make him come here.” Neil quickly closed the door, cutting off my view. “I hate the color in there. Elizabeth said it would be calming, but all I can think of is cake. I do as little work as possible in there, throw everything on the floor, and run.”
A kernel of a plan began to form in my mind. If he was okay with me redecorating the house, maybe he would let me redecorate his office. Or at least clean it. I had the time on my hands, and I had been his assistant before. Maybe he could pay me hourly until Fax Mountain had been successfully leveled.
There were bedrooms on the third floor, as well as a wide terrace with another pool— this one a small, square infinity pool that was covered over for the winter—, and a dining area with a wet bar. Though we didn’t take the stairs, I did have to check out the stairwells as we walked the hallways; the long flights crisscrossed past each other dizzyingly, and the entire ceiling over the stairwell was a giant, peaked skylight. Natural light was a big deal in this house. That was going to be awesome for my seasonal affective disorder.
The master bedroom and bathroom took up most of the fourth floor, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Neil’s bedroom in London looked a lot like the one in New York, but with light blue walls and gray carpet. It was comfy and cozy, and there was a flat-screen TV above the fireplace that I could easily imagine enjoying from the huge bed.
“Oh my gosh, I’ll feel so at home in here!” I clapped my hands and spun in a circle. “Look, you’ve even got the neat dressing room between the bathroom and bedroom thing going on!”
Smiling, he took me into his arms. “I like that. You’re going to feel at home here because it reminds you of my apartment in New York, where you apparently felt at home already.”
“I feel at home pretty much everywhere you are.” My heart did a little flip-flop as I realized the truth of my statement. I really did feel at home with him, no matter where we were. And I was at home. I blinked up at him. “Oh my god. I... live here. This is where I live.”
“And I’m so glad.” He dipped his head to kiss me, and I held onto the front of his shirt and melted against him.
He pulled away reluctantly. “Hang on. I have no qualms about ripping off your clothes and ravishing you within the limits of your medical restrictions, but there’s one more thing I want to show you.”
He led me into the hallway again, to the back of the house, which was slightly truncated to make room for another terrace. This one didn’t overhang or impede the one below it, but it did have two peaks of roof on either side of it, so the neighbors couldn’t see over.
“Let me guess. We’re going to have outdoor sex here this summer?” I laughed as I stuck my head out the door and into the brisk London December.
When I stepped back, Neil hadn’t said anything. No flirty quip. No lascivious implication. He was standing there quietly, with an odd look on his face.
And I realized what he was thinking.
“I... very much hope so,” he said, and cleared his throat.
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I went to his side and put my arms around him, and he returned my embrace stiffly.
“It’s all right. I just blindsided myself there a moment.” He forced the most fake smile anyone has ever smiled in the history of smiles and said, “So... hot tub? Suit optional, of course?”
* * * *
The next morning, we reported to Royal Marsden hospital, only about ten minutes from Neil’s house. Neil would be receiving treatment from the hospital’s wing for privately funded patients, and his oncologist’s offices were located there.
Dr. Grant was a kind, but serious man in his fifties, with a long face and brown hair. He reminded me of a cross between Sam the Eagle and Guy Smiley. I held about a thousand Jurassic Park jokes inside while we made our introductions. Though he was very personable, I could tell right off the bat that any American cinema jokes would go over his head.
We sat in the two tall-backed black chairs in front of his desk while he pulled up Neil’s chart on the computer. The doctor read for a moment, his face giving nothing away as his eyes flicked across the screen. “Hmm. I’m not sure I’m pleased at the delay in treatment.”
That was a great way to start off the meeting.
Neil nodded. “I discussed this with the oncologist on staff at Presbyterian. He was of the same opinion as you.”
“Then perhaps you should have listened to him.” Dr. Grant’s bushy eyebrows rose.
I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone actually scold Neil before. Well, besides his daughter, and me.
“Well, there’s nothing to be done for it. You can have at me on January third, and not an hour before,” Neil responded in easy humor.
Dr. Grant raised an eyebrow. “Your condition is nothing to be glib about, Mr. Elwood. The cancer cells have become resistant to the Imatinib, you didn’t respond well to the Nilotinib before, and I don’t believe we have time to try you out on it again. The last blood test you had in New York on the twenty-first suggests that your condition is rapidly accelerating. I’ll have another draw done before you leave the office today, but at this junction I feel your best hope will be chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant.”
“Stem cells?” the word pricked my ears. That phrase was very controversial and political back at home in the states.
“Cells from bone marrow— either from a matching relative or from Mr. Elwood himself, if we can get close to remission— can be transplanted after high dose chemotherapy to kill off the remaining cells. A bit like demolishing the building and creating new cells from the ground up.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” I looked from Neil’s grim expression to the doctor’s.
“There are different risks for both procedures. With donor cells there can be a potentially fatal reaction known as Graft-Versus-Host Disease. If we aim for the autologous transplant and your condition worsens during chemotherapy, the chances of a desirable outcome become more slim.” He paused. “I understand that you don’t wish to start treatment until after the first of the year. That will give you some time to consider your options, and time for me to review your case with my colleagues to see what course they recommend.”
The rest of the appointment kind of rushed past me in a blur of medical terms and growing dread. Dr. Grant warned us that patients who didn’t respond well to chemotherapy, who experienced “blast crisis,” had a very low survival rate. I didn’t know what blast crisis was. I didn’t know what level of cancer Neil had. All the numbers and figures confused me, and they all sounded like worst-case scenarios. Neil grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and I didn’t know if he was bolstering my courage or his.
Shit. This was real. All of it. Neil could die. Obviously, I’d thought of it before, but it had seemed such an outlandish possibility. “Neil could die” had been framed in an abstract way in my mind; anyone could die, theoretically. But the way Dr. Grant spoke, stern and without humor, made Neil’s mortality more immediate. I didn’t like it, and yet I appreciated it so much more than I would ever express to him. The cold, impersonal way he talked of Neil’s chances made them easier to confront.
Neil didn’t ask many questions. I had a feeling that, control freak that he was, he’d already pored over every website and medical journal available. But that wouldn’t make him feel any better. Neil wouldn’t be happy unless there was some magical switch to turn off his cancer, and then only if he got to flip it himself.
Near the end of the appointment, he said, his mouth audibly dry, “You’ve certainly given me much to consider.”
Dr. Grant looked briefly over at me. “I need to be clear about this type of treatment. The high dose chemotherapy is very likely to destroy your fertility. If the two of you were thinking of starting a family, you’ll want to explore some alternative options.”
Neil’s eyebrows rose. “Alternative options?”
“Some patients choose to bank their sperm, for example,” Dr. Grant said. “If that’s of interest to the two of you—”
“I’m not sure we can answer that today,” Neil said, glancing uncomfortably at me.
Yes, we can, I thought, looking him straight in the eye, so he would know what I was thinking.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you, doctor. My daughter Emma will remain in touch regarding arrangements at the house, if you’re still comfortable with me receiving the bulk of my treatment there?”
“Whatever we can do in the home, I’d like to. Patients seem to respond better than in a hospital environment, but hospitalization can’t be avoided entirely.”
“I understand.” Neil looked a great deal more anxious than he had when we’d first arrived for the appointment. Dr. Grant stood to show us to an exam room, where a nurse drew Neil’s blood. Dr. Grant would call us with the results.
We didn’t talk on the way out. Neil was super tense, and he kept swallowing and alternately clearing his throat.
And it wasn’t until we were in the car that I realized what was going on.
“Neil... are you crying?” I asked as we pulled away from the curb.
He was resting his elbow on the car door, and resting his mouth against his fist. His knuckles were white. “No.”
Okay, he was totally crying. “It’s okay if you are. You just got some pretty fucked up news.”
“It isn’t news. I always knew that eventually, this would happen. I would stop responding to the drugs, or...” he shook his head. There was a tear track on his cheek, but his voice didn’t betray any sign of emotion. He could have been ordering dinner. “I’m just not looking forward to this.”
“No one looks forward to chemotherapy.” I reached over and put my hand on his knee. He didn’t take it.
For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. When he did, his voice wavered. “Right now, all I’m seeing is a very long, very painful tunnel, and there’s no light at the other side.”
“No,” I said firmly. “No, you can’t think like that—”
“I bloody well can!” He shouted, and I jumped back in surprise. He looked at me, his eyes rimmed with tears. I knew he was ashamed of himself; he didn’t like being out of control.
He took a breath and calmed some. “I’ve been dealing with this for a lot longer than just today. I’m out of patience, and I feel like I’m out of time.”
“You’re not. Look, this is really dangerous. But you said yourself that your wealth gives you advantages other people don’t have.” He didn’t want to be comforted, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying. “You’re allowed to be afraid. And you’re allowed to cry about this. But you have to remember that when you’re talking about cancer studies and numbers and percentages, they’re talking about people in the real world.”
“And I’m not living in the real world?” he asked testily.
“I may have worded that wrong.”
He nodded. “I am certain that you did. My wealth does not exempt me from death, Sophie. I’ve only got this one world, and it is incredibly fucking real to me. If this is a problem for you, then I suggest we work out a different arrangement than the one we have.”
Okay. I deserved that.
When we got back to the house, he went straight to his den and shut the door.
Since he hadn’t spoken to me since the car, I was pretty sure that meant he wanted time alone.
I went to the living room on the second floor and turned on the television, flipping through channels without finding anything familiar to watch. I ended up laying on the couch, dozing off, and flipping through channels. If we had been in New York, I could have walked somewhere. Maybe gotten a coffee and cooled down. But here, I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t even have the right currency yet.
I felt trapped and lonely, and shitty over what I had said. After two hours of that, I decided I had to at least try to talk to Neil.
I started hearing the music about halfway up the stairs. The Smiths. Well, at least it wasn’t depressing.
I knocked on the door, and raised my voice to be heard above the music. “It’s me.”
“Come in,” he called, but he didn’t sound too thrilled.
Squaring my shoulders, I pushed the door open. “So... I think this is the part where I apologize for being such an asshole.”
Neil was slumped down on the leather sofa, a glass in his hand and a half-empty bottle of something amber on the floor beside his foot. “Asshole wouldn’t have been the word I used, but if that’s what you’re comfortable with, I won’t argue.”
“Gee, thanks.” I didn’t know if he was supposed to be drinking or not, but I let it go for now. I hovered inside the door. “And I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole about your money. I need to be more mindful about the fact that our experiences are different. And that you’re going through something I don’t understand. I couldn’t possibly understand it. I know that every time I say something about your cancer, I’m dismissive. It’s not because I don’t care about you. I just don’t want to face the truth.”
“That I might die?” he asked, pointedly fixing me with his gaze.
“Yes.” It was blunt, but there it was. “I am doing my patented Sophie Scaife avoidance technique, wherein I ignore anything unpleasant in the hopes it will just go away.”
“I seem to recall this technique blowing up in your face just a few weeks ago.” There was an undercurrent of scolding in his tone that I very much deserved.
The Girlfriend (The Boss) Page 13