by Kitty French
Abel sat for a long time after she’d left, mad as hell with himself. This deal was important, he needed that theatre. He could pick a building in some other part of the city, of course, but these shit end back streets represented part of his history and he wanted to claim it back.
Chapter Six
Genie couldn’t face breakfast. Her uncle had left an ominously short note under her door last night asking her to come to his office at ten o’clock. It wasn’t Davey’s style to call official meetings; laid back conversations with coffee on the sofa usually sufficed for formalities between them.
Truth told, it wasn’t just the impending meeting with her uncle that had her wound up. Abel Kingdom could claim the main prize for that. He was lucky she hadn’t kneed him in the balls last night, let alone scattered his money. He had no right to pass judgement on her, nor to insult her. Gorgeous or not, he was a small-minded, arrogant suit, nothing more.
He’d seemed so much more for a little while though. Her mind drifted for the hundredth time that morning to their encounter in the lift, to the way he’d made her see stars, to the clever, filthy things he’d done with his mouth and his fingers.
At least she’d had the benefit of that incredible orgasm. She hoped he’d got the worst case of blue balls ever this morning.
A couple of minutes before ten she slipped downstairs, dressed once again in her daytime uniform of jeans and a skinny tee, Havaianas on her feet and her hair hastily plaited. Her hand stilled on the handle of the office door; should she knock? She’d never needed to before, but having found her intrusion yesterday unwelcome, she paused for thought this time and then tapped her knuckle lightly on the door before pushing it open. Her uncle looked up and smiled.
‘Hi G.’
Genie closed the door and slid into the chair opposite his at the desk, noticing the unusual dark circles beneath his eyes. ‘You okay? You look tired,’ she said, her brows drawn together in worry.
‘Not sleeping so well these days, sweetheart,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’
Fear gripped her as she asked the question that troubled her most.
‘Is it your health?’
‘What? No, no. I’m fine, Genie. It’s not me.’
Relief bathed Genie’s fears. The idea of anything being wrong with Davey near stopped her heart.
‘So if it’s not you, then what is it?’
Davey sighed heavily, and Genie hated the look in his eyes. She wasn’t accustomed to him wearing a troubled expression around her, he’d always protected her from fear and worry.
‘It’s this place, my love. The theatre.’
She swallowed, watching him closely for more information.
‘It’s too much, G. I can’t make it work any more. Believe me, I’ve tried to see another way, but there just isn’t one. I’m selling up.’
‘Selling up? What do you mean, selling up? Uncle Davey, you can’t! Theatre Divine is ours. It has our name above the door. It’s our home.’ She knew she sounded like a petulant child, and in that moment she felt like one. The theatre had been the only real home she’d ever known.
Her uncle still held her hand. ‘I know, Gigi. I know. I don’t want to let the old girl go either, but she’s crippling me. The roof estimate came in a couple of weeks back and there’s no way I can cover it, and the insurance won’t renew unless the work’s carried out. There just isn’t a way around it.’
‘What about the bank?’
He laughed almost wistfully. ‘I love your optimism G, but I’ve already been there cap in hand. It’s over two hundred grand, sweetheart. And a lot more besides if you account for all of the other work that really needs doing too. There’s not a chance in hell.’
The enormity of the situation left Genie reeling.
‘How long until the insurance runs out?’ Her mind raced. Maybe they had six months or more to figure out a solution.
‘Eight weeks.’ Her uncle’s downcast eyes fairly broke her heart. Two months was an impossibly short time in terms of raising the funds they needed.
They both jumped as someone knocked on the door.
‘Come in, Mr Kingdom,’ Davey said, quiet and resigned.
Genie whirled around in her chair as Abel walked in, brazen and clearly not as surprised to see her as she was him.
‘What’s he doing here?’ She whipped her head back around to her uncle, who’d made his way around the desk and pulled up an extra chair beside Genie’s.
‘Have a seat,’ he nodded to Abel as he settled himself back down.
‘Uncle Davey?’ Genie laid both hands on the table.
‘Genie. Mr Kingdom wants to buy the theatre.’
‘Like hell he does!’ she half yelled, turning her eyes on him at last. ‘No way. No fucking way.’
‘Genie!’ Shocked by her language in front of their visitor, her uncle admonished her in a tone he hadn’t had to use since she’d been a child. She turned to him with an apology, but no less passion in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry, but you can’t be serious. You’d sell this place to him? For what?’ As she said it, realisation dawned and she swung back round to face Abel. ‘You want to turn this into one of your gym palaces?’
He nodded. ‘It’s ideal.’
‘No! No. Uncle Davey, please.’ Tears stung her eyes at the idea of her beloved home being ripped apart. ‘Surely there’s another way here? Someone else we can talk to, an investor who would at least keep the theatre going?’
‘Genie, do you think I haven’t tried?’ he said gently, his eyes full of love and compassion.
‘Then let me try,’ she said, clutching at straws for a stay of execution.
‘Sweetheart, there’s nothing you can do.’
Even as he spoke, the idea formed in her mind. ‘Eight weeks. You said we had eight weeks. Let me try, Uncle Davey. Please… give me eight weeks to raise the money.’
Abel cleared his throat. ‘Never gonna happen.’
‘I wasn’t asking you,’ Genie shot back at him, hating him enough to wish the crumbling roof would fall in on his head.
Abel shrugged. ‘There’s no way in hell that you’re gonna raise that kind of money.’ He turned to her uncle. ‘I’m not an unreasonable man, Mr Divine, I can see you’ve got some… family issues to handle here.’ He eyed Genie, emphasising the phrase family issues as if she were a troublesome teenager. ‘It’ll take my legal team six weeks or so to organise the necessary surveys and raise the sales paperwork anyway. Eight weeks, and then you sign on the dotted line and this place is mine.’
He reached out his hand over the desk, and Genie watched her uncle nod gravely and accept the terms of Abel Kingdom’s offer.
‘Eight weeks’ grace, and unless Genie can work a miracle, then I’ll sign your papers.’
Abel nodded. ‘And the apartment?’
Genie’s eyes flickered between the two men. She really didn’t like the look on her uncle’s face.
‘From Friday, as promised,’ he said, pushing a set of keys across the desk.
His business apparently concluded to his satisfaction, Abel pushed his chair back as he stood up, pocketing the keys as he went.
‘Pleasure doing business with you, Mr Divine,’ he said, shaking Davey’s hand for a second time as he left. At the doorway, he turned back.
‘You’d better start rubbing that lamp and asking for your three wishes,’ he said, his eyes on Genie. ‘Because the way I see it, that’s the only thing that’s gonna save you now.’ He touched his fingers to his forehead in mock salute, the light of challenge bright in his dark eyes as he turned and left.
Genie turned slowly back to her uncle, the room suddenly huge and empty without Abel Kingdom’s overwhelming presence in it.
‘What did he mean, the apartment?’
Even before Davey spoke, Genie knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.
‘He’s taking over my apartment from Friday.’
‘Your apartment her
e, upstairs?’
Davey ran a worried hand over his thinning hair. ‘Genie, you have to understand that none of this is what I want either. I love this place just as much as you do, but it’s too late. I told him he could move in here from Friday, he has business in London and needs a base for a few months. I was planning to move in with Robin after the sale anyway. I’ve just brought things forward by a few weeks.’
‘So what am I supposed to do? Live here under the same roof as him for the next two months?’
‘I know it’s not ideal, G. What could I say?’
‘Err, no?’ Genie tried unsuccessfully to keep bitter sarcasm out of her voice. ‘You could have said no!’
‘I couldn’t really, could I? Because believe it or not Genie, Abel Kingdom is actually our only hope.’
Genie galvanised herself into action back in her upstairs apartment half an hour later. Her uncle might have given up the fight, but she was only just getting started. Abel Kingdom was so not their only hope. Eight weeks might not be the most workable of timescales, but everything she loved in the world was at stake and she wasn’t going down without the mother of all fights.
Coffee in one hand, she opened her door to let Deanna in. She’d called her friend the moment she’d left Davey’s office, rallying the troops for battle. This wasn’t just her fight, it was all of the theatre staff whose jobs were in peril, which included Deanna.
She listened in horrified silence as Genie outlined the meeting she’d just endured.
‘Shit, G. Eight weeks? What the hell can we do in that time?’ Deanna pushed her dark hair behind her ears, tapping a pencil on the pad in front of her on the coffee table. The sheet of paper was frighteningly blank.
‘We need something special. Something that’ll really pull in the crowds,’ Genie said.
‘Well, you’ve been the biggest draw by far since you started performing here,’ Deanna said.
It was true; since Genie’s return from her year on stage at the Moulin Rouge in Paris twelve months previously, her twice-weekly shows had been consistent sell outs. Other cabarets and shows had proved hit and miss with the fickle public, but Genie’s burlesque show was a winner every time.
She nodded slowly, acknowledging the truth behind Deanna’s words.
‘Sex sells, that’s for sure,’ she said, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, deep in thought.
‘Fine. So we’ll sell sex.’
She rolled her eyes at Deanna’s raised eyebrows. ‘Not actual sex. Call it what you like. Titillation. Excitement.’ Standing up, she paced the floor with her coffee cup cradled in her hands. ‘Either way, I mean more burlesque. A troupe. And not just twice a week, like now. Every night if we need to. And matinees.’ She was talking faster now, gripped by the hope in the idea. ‘I think the demand’s there. We know it is. You just said so yourself.’
She turned to Deanna, whose pencil was flying over the paper. That was a good sign. Deanna in planning mode was a force to be reckoned with.
‘The Divine Girls,’ she suggested trying the name out, then writing it down. ‘I like that. How about trying to get an investor on board?’
Genie nodded. ‘I’ve no idea who or how, but yes.’
Deanna scribbled a few words and then looked up. ‘I don’t suppose stud-muffin could be persuaded to switch sides?’
Genie almost laughed at how far off the mark Deanna was. ‘He thinks I’m a prostitute.’
Deanna gave a contemptuous snort. ‘That wasn’t what his face told me when he watched the show the other night.’
‘Yeah, well, things changed. I met him for dinner.’
‘You did?’ Her friend placed the pencil down, wide-eyed. ‘Spill.’
Genie dropped down into the chair opposite and shrugged. ‘We had dinner.’
‘Yeah, we established that much already. And?’
‘We… we talked.’
‘And?’
Genie knew what her friend was angling for. ‘He hadn’t realised I was the same girl he’d watched perform.’
‘Ah.’ Deanna picked up her coffee. ‘At what point did he realise?’
‘Mm. About midway?’
‘Midway through what?’ Deanna asked. ‘Dinner, or sex?’
‘Jeez, Dee! Fine. Midway between shoving his hand down my knickers and unbuttoning his trousers. Is that clear enough for you?’
Deanna whistled and puffed her fringe out of her eyes.
‘Was he as good as he looked?’
‘Dee. The man tried to pay me for sex. He’s a chauvinist Australian pig.’
‘He’s Australian?’
‘Yes, but the more important point of that sentence was that he’s a vile pig, okay?’
‘Totally.’ Deanna nodded. ‘Totally. It’s just… it sounds like things got pretty far, considering he’s a vile pig. A bloody good looking one though.’
‘He was fine until he realised who I was, and then he freaked. Jekyll and Hyde. Thrust money at me.’
Deanna smiled dreamily. ‘I wish someone would do that to me.’
‘Seriously Dee, I’m not kidding. He practically threw me out of his room.’
‘And he’s moving in across the hall from you on Wednesday?’
Genie nodded.
Deanna grinned and touched her mug against Genie’s.
‘Then on behalf of women everywhere, let’s give him hell.’
Chapter Seven
Abel looked around his new home, already wondering if he’d made the right decision moving into Davey Divine’s apartment. It was eclectic, its furnishings far bolder than suited Abel’s tastes. He’d made the arrangements whilst under the impression that the sale would proceed immediately, and on reflection he could have given Divine the option to stay in residence until the end of the eight weeks’ grace period.
He could have, but he hadn’t done, because for all the wrong reasons, he now wanted to take up residence in the flat opposite Genie.
He wanted to be opposite her to piss her off.
He wanted to be opposite her to keep an eye on her.
He wanted to be opposite her to stamp his authority all over the place.
He wanted to be opposite her because he was intrinsically drawn to her as he’d never been to a woman before.
She’d looked so fragile and young the other day in her flip flops and plaits, different from the woman he’d almost screwed the other night, and a world away from the stage siren he’d watched twist the audience around her little finger. She was an enigma, so many women in one. Fascinating, and he already hated that she occupied so much of his headspace. He couldn’t even be sure which of her many faces turned him on. He wanted it to be the barefaced girl in jeans, and warred against the way his cock hardened at the memory of how she’d looked up on stage. He didn’t want to want that woman, that dangerously powerful, knowing siren. He didn’t want to want Genie Divine at all.
Maybe it was always meant to be this way back here. A woman like her, in a place like this. Was that why he’d come here? To prove a point, to slay his demons so he could finally sleep easy at night?
It was just that he hadn’t expected one of his demons to be temptation in the form of a red haired harlot who lived across the hallway.
He frowned as the low, thumping bass beat of rock music started to reverberate through the building. What was going on? It was barely midday. Surely the theatre wasn’t open yet? Taking the two flights of stairs down to the ground floor at some pace, he opened the door into the auditorium and found himself confronted by a dark haired girl with a camera slung around her neck and a clipboard in her hand.
‘I take it you’re not here to audition?’ she said, eying him coolly.
‘Audition for what?’ Abel asked, his eyes moving over her shoulder into the busy foyer behind, the throng of people – almost exclusively women in various states of undress. This was turning into an interesting morning.
‘The Divine Girls.’
‘The what?’ Abel heard what th
e girl had said, but his brain didn’t process the words because Genie had just appeared through the same door as he had a few seconds before. She caught sight of him at the same moment, her bright eyes on fire with challenge.
‘Come to watch the show again?’ she said defiantly, as she approached.
‘I wasn’t impressed enough to see it twice,’ Abel said. Deanna laughed softly and turned her face away, knowing better.
He gestured towards the other room. ‘What’s going on in there?’
‘And that’s your business because…?’
‘Anything that happens from here on in is my business, Genie.’
‘Not for the next eight weeks it isn’t. Not ever, if I get my way.’
‘Which you won’t.’
Deanna cleared her throat beside them.
‘Auditions start in three minutes G. Twenty-three applicants so far, some really promising ones.’
Genie rubbed her friend’s arm. ‘That’s even better than I’d hoped. I’ll be through in a sec, okay?’
Abel’s eyes flickered over Genie as she spoke to her friend. Denim hot pants over black footless tights, a cropped, black long sleeved tee that clung to the lines of her body. She had a dancer’s grace and a stripper’s curves. It was a shit hot combination to which, despite his best intentions, his body reacted every single time she was in the same room. She’d tied that unmissable red hair up on top of her head and had her arms folded over her chest, her chin jutting out antagonistically as she turned back to him once they were alone.
‘These are closed auditions. You might live upstairs, but that doesn’t give you open access down here too.’
‘You don’t get to tell me what I can do here. Access all areas. If I want to come and watch your little exercise class, I’ll sit right down and watch.’
‘It’s not a goddamn exercise class,’ she spat back, biting as he’d hoped she would. ‘This theatre’s going burlesque, full time as of right now. With its own troupe. Nightly shows. Matinees even, if there’s a call for it.’