Lord and Master

by Kait Jagger

  She debated, then rang his number. The call took a long time to go through and when it did the ringtone sounded strange, like he was abroad. Had he been called back to Berlin, was that it? The phone rang four times, and she briefly considered just hanging up. It went to voicemail, and still she considered just hanging up. The tone beeped for her to leave a message. And still, still Luna hesitated.

  Finally, she said, ‘Hi,’ and cleared her throat because her voice sounded froggy. ‘Hi,’ she repeated. ‘I’m just ringing to see if you’re okay. You sounded…I don’t know, strange in your message. Maybe I’m just hearing things, but, um, I hope you’re alright. And I’ll, well, ah – anyway, ring me when you get a chance.’

  She lay back down in bed. Well, that went well. Very articulate, Luna, she chided herself. And went back to sleep again.

  The next morning she got dressed in leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt, going down to the staff kitchen to get some porridge, which she very slowly carried back up the four flights of stairs to the attic. She ate it in bed, and was rather bleakly unsurprised to find nothing from Stefan on her mobile.

  She texted him: Hey, you okay? Then regretted it. Then felt annoyed at herself for regretting it. She picked up her laptop and logged in to her personal account, exchanging a few emails with Jem and Nancy, who by now had started a one-woman PR campaign to rescue Kayla’s reputation. She logged in to her work email. There were a few inconsequential messages from the Marchioness, all of which could wait, and a few press alerts: a piece on the Christmas market in the local press, and one about Remainers in a gaming magazine. The final, most recent link was about Stefan, who she’d added to her alert list only last week.

  It was an article in the Times online edition about a restaurant opening in Stockholm, one of the ‘new wave of Scandinavian cuisine’, according to the writer. There was a photo from the opening night featuring a striking blond woman, the head chef, and…Stefan. Luna had to look at it twice to be sure of what she was seeing, but it was him, smiling at the camera, dressed in a black jumper and jeans, standing with the other two in front of a mural in the restaurant. She looked at the date on the article, saw it was today’s date. She read the first paragraph:

  ‘At last night’s opening of Ande restaurant in the heart of Stockholm’s trendy Södermalm district, you couldn’t tell that proprietor Astrid Hagström was suffering from opening night jitters. Her face the picture of serenity, Hagström insisted, ‘I am full of nerves. I have wanted this for so long, and there is so much at stake here, not just for me, but for my business partner Stefan…’

  Luna sat and stared at the laptop, not quite believing what she was seeing. He had been in Stockholm last night. Not Berlin. He’d gone home to Stockholm, and he hadn’t told her. She continued to scan the article. There was one quote from Stefan, something about the building the restaurant was in and how difficult and costly it had been to refit.

  Luna switched off her laptop and went to the bathroom, stripping off her clothes and climbing into the bath, turning on the ancient shower taps and pulling the curtain around.

  Why wouldn’t he have told her about this? Was this the commitment he said he’d gotten out of, and if so, had he somehow been drawn back into it?

  Her phone was flashing when she returned to the bedroom. A text from Stefan: Luna, I will be back at Arborage on Wednesday and will speak with you then.

  It was like a slap in the face, the brevity of it and the complete lack of warmth. Something was wrong, she knew it now, but after receiving a blunt dismissal like that she couldn’t, nay wouldn’t, ring him. He’d be back on Wednesday, he’d said, and from the tone of his text, she guessed he thought she could just lump it until then.

  There was no more sleeping after that. She brushed, then braided her hair, decided she needed something fizzy to drink and made the four-flight journey back down to the vending machines outside the staff kitchen, buying a Sprite and downing it in six quick gulps. She bought another one to take back with her, then went and filched a copy of the Sunday Telegraph from the office.

  When she got back up to the safety of her room, she briefly opened a couple of windows to let some fresh air in, shutting them again when it got too cold. She went to the sitting room and lit a fire in the fireplace; another of the incredible perks of her position, fires laid for her all winter long.

  As the afternoon shadows lengthened and the room grew dark, she paged through the Telegraph, purposefully keeping her brain numb, empty. But somehow, as the sun set on the horizon and day transitioned into night, she found her eyes drawn to the laptop still sitting on her bed. She walked into the bedroom and picked it up, carrying it back to the sitting room. Throwing another log on the fire from the basket next to the grate, she sat back down on the settee. She switched the laptop back on.

  And then Luna Gregory did what she’d sworn she would never do, a promise she’d made to herself in this very room the morning after she and Stefan first had sex in her bed: she googled Stefan Lundgren.

  Most of what came up was professional stuff: the S.L. Associates website, of course, plus the websites of some companies he’d consulted with and, of course, The Triad website. She clicked over to images and there were a number of posed shots with his teams in Stockholm and London. None of which interested her.

  Then she searched him on News and there, at the bottom of page two of her search, was what she was looking for: the tell-all ‘Swedish love rat’ piece from his Triad days. It included a jaw-dropping image of the Titian-haired owner of a party supply business based in Luton, Stefan’s second ‘assignment’ on the programme. Luna studied her full, pouting lips and impressive breasts and saw absolutely no common physical denominator between herself and the buxom redhead. The breasts, she noticed, looked real – a D cup at least, putting her own humble B cup assets to shame.

  And the story Miss Party Supply told wasn’t much of a surprise: about how the young Swedish stud had swept into her office, filming crew in tow, and saved her from the brink of bankruptcy, telling her how to sort out her suppliers, how to stand up to her staff, and most importantly, how to keep her focus on what she really wanted from the business. ‘That’s the only thing that will keep you going,’ she quoted Stefan as saying. ‘Absolute dedication to what you’re trying to achieve.’

  Inevitably, she went on to detail the ‘sparks’ that began to fly between her and Stefan shortly after filming wrapped up, culminating in what sounded like an epic night of sex at the Ritz in London. ‘He was incredible,’ Miss Party Supply reported, ‘far and away the most passionate, gifted lover I have ever slept with.’ Luna read on, experiencing something like pain to discover that she and Stefan had also had several liaisons at his Bankside apartment. Not that Luna had expected he’d lived like a monk there, but…to see it on her laptop screen, intimate details of what they’d gotten up to. Yes, it hurt.

  And then the inevitable denouement:

  ‘I found myself thinking about him literally ALL THE TIME. But it soon became clear that he was just too busy for me. He’d fly into town, we’d have crazy, animal sex’ – Luna rolled her eyes at this description – ‘and then he was gone again, off to another business meeting or to rescue another company. He just wasn’t emotionally THERE for me. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing: great in bed, but useless at personal relationships…’

  The whole affair came to its final, bitter conclusion after Miss Party Supply left a series of increasingly desperate messages for Stefan, including one with a colleague of his in the London office – James? Luna wondered. After that, Stefan visited her in her Luton headquarters ‘and said the four words no girl wants to hear: ‘We need to talk.’ And just like that, it was over.’

  To be fair to her predecessor, Luna could see that the ‘love rat’ headline for the piece wasn’t really reflected in her account of the affair. To Luna, she sounded like a woman who had fallen in love and was bitterly disappointed to discover that her feelings weren’t reciprocated. She was at pains to say
that Stefan was always a gentleman, and that this made it even harder for her. That the respectful way he’d treated her, combined with the ardency of his lovemaking, had made her believe there was more to the relationship than there really was.

  Luna shut her laptop and reached for her second can of Sprite, popping the tab on it. She stared into the fire. Her chest felt achy and she coughed experimentally, feeling herself rattle and wheeze. She wondered if she had any Night Nurse in her medicine cabinet.

  She did not look at her phone again that night, for she knew what she wouldn’t see.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next few days were busy enough that she found she could just about keep Stefan at the margins of her mind. The Marchioness had plans to visit one of her friends in Northumbria at the end of the week, a viscountess who ran a much smaller operation than Arborage, and this meant compressed work for them at the beginning of the week.

  They were also making preparations for the Marquess’s impending return to Arborage. The Marchioness had been in communication with Dr Andrews, Luna knew, though the substance of their conversations remained a mystery. Lady and Lord Wellstone also appeared to be in regular phone contact, which marked a definite change for them, but Luna was no closer to understanding what this meant.

  As promised, James rang her on Monday afternoon, and they went through the diary together, giving her his and Stefan’s availability to meet with the rest of the board. There was a limited window of opportunity for this before the full board meeting in December when, Luna assumed, the Marchioness would be seeking a green light to proceed with one of the options Stefan had presented.

  To Luna’s surprise, James appeared to have as little idea as she did of what Stefan was doing in Stockholm. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve talked to him since Friday, have you?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘No,’ Luna said simply, ending the call as quickly as she could.

  Her illness, manageable now, had settled into her chest, producing a wracking cough that kept her up that night, leaving her feeling drawn out and stretched thin. Even the Marchioness, who usually didn’t notice these things, commented, ‘You look absolutely dreadful,’ when Luna came into her office the following morning bearing the day’s newspapers.

  Luna laughed, then hacked slightly. ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way, but…’ Lady Wellstone searched through the stack of papers on her desk. ‘I had a note from HR the other day saying you’ve only taken…’ She peered at a piece of paper through her reading glasses. ‘Eight and a half days’ holiday in the two years you’ve worked here. That’s taking dedication to your role a little too far, my dear.’ She smiled kindly and for a moment Luna thought her boss could see more than just an ailing PA in front of her. Unbidden, she thought of Stefan’s stark, indifferent text on Sunday afternoon and a wave of utter wretchedness rose above her, ready to crash down on her head. She quashed it as best she could, keeping her eyes on the newspapers she was laying out on the table.

  ‘Why don’t you take some time for yourself in the run-up to Christmas?’ her Ladyship added gently. ‘I can muddle through without you for a few days here and there.’

  Suddenly, Luna’s mind was unexpectedly made up for her. ‘What if I took a few days off this week, while you’re in Northumbria?’

  ‘Of course, good thinking. But you’ll be here on Monday when his Lordship arrives, yes?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Luna replied, feeling stronger now, partly in response to this slight show of need on the Marchioness’s part.

  She walked straight out to her desk and sent a brief email to her former boss in Miami Beach. After quickly checking again with Lady Wellstone, she booked a flight from Heathrow to Miami departing the following afternoon. There were worse times of year to go to Florida than November, when the wilting heat of the summer months had passed, but the ‘snowbirds’ from the northern US states had yet to start making their winter pilgrimages to the sun. And it was sun she needed right now, she thought, looking out onto yet another grey, damp autumn morning. Something to burn the chill out of her.

  If Stefan thought she was going to be here waiting for him tomorrow like a good little girl, well, he could fuck off.

  She woke just before seven the next morning in a restless mood. She thought about her nine-hour flight to Miami and decided that with that much time in store sat on her bum, she should at least try to do a run. So she donned her fleecy leggings and two layers of t-shirts topped by her purple University of Manchester sweatshirt, plus gloves and a hat, and headed out around her usual route. She made it all the way around the lake before she was forced to stop, coughing uncontrollably, and walked back to the house after that, sucking on a Strepsil.

  She still needed to print out her boarding passes, so she dropped by the darkened, empty office and turned on her laptop. 7.50, she noted – still plenty of time for a shower and porridge in the staff kitchen. She pulled up her boarding passes and set them to print before turning on her out of office message and briefly checking her work emails.

  There were two emails sent that morning marked URGENT, one from someone named Bibi Myers and another from Stefan. She opened the one from Bibi Myers first.

  From: bibi.myers@slassociates.com

  To: l.gregory@arborage.com

  Subject: URGENT

  Miss Gregory, Stefan Lundgren has had a last-minute appointment scheduled with a member of the Arborage board of trustees this morning at 09.00 your time. He would like to present his slide deck to her, but is travelling on the earliest flight from Stockholm without his laptop. Could you please arrange for the presentation to be set up in your meeting room, with a hard copy printed off, and tea and coffee to be made available in the room?

  Looking at Bibi’s electronic signature, it appeared she was an ‘executive assistant’ in Stefan’s Stockholm office. Lovely.

  Luna opened the email from Stefan and saw that it had also been written by Bibi Myers, on behalf of Stefan Lundgren. It basically said the same thing as the first email. She frowned; this was bad PA work. She would never, ever have sent a duplicate email like that using the Marchioness’s name. No, if she was looking for a fairly substantial favour like this, she wouldn’t have emailed at all. She’d have picked up the bloody phone and asked for help personally.

  And then there was Stefan, who’d clearly breezed out of Stockholm that morning, pausing briefly over coffee to ring his office and ask them to sort out all these pesky details for him. Because she was just an admin, right? No need for him to trouble himself with this sort of thing.

  Luna considered her options. She could just ignore the emails. After all, she was officially on leave. It would serve Bibi and, more importantly, Stefan right. But. But, but, but. She wasn’t on leave yet. She still had time to do this, and it went against every fibre of her PA body to leave someone dangling, even if they deserved it. And at the end of the day, it was the Marchioness and Arborage it would reflect badly on if a trustee member arrived to find that no preparations had been made for her.

  So Luna got to work. Choosing to reply to Bibi’s email, rather than the Bibi as Stefan email, she replied succinctly: Yes, will do. She rang the kitchen to arrange for drinks to be brought up, and then Lady Wellstone to ask if she’d heard about the surprise visit; she hadn’t, but said she would make time to come down to the conference room at nine. Then Luna carried her laptop down to the conference room. She hadn’t planned on bringing it to Miami anyway, so she affixed a sticky note to it with her login details plus a little note saying, ‘Please leave this on my desk when you’re finished with it.’

  A porter arrived from the kitchen with flasks of tea and coffee, as well as a pitcher of juice and some biscuits, and Luna asked him to come back at around noon to collect the remainders. Then she adjusted a couple of the curtains in the room so the early morning sun wouldn’t fall on the projector screen. She checked her watch – 8.15 – and silently congratulated herself.

  As a final chec
k, she brought up the presentation on her laptop, turned on the projector and started clicking through the slides. She was standing in the middle of the conference room, wearing her hat and running clothes, one hand on her hip and the other pointing the clicker towards the screen, when the conference room door opened and Stefan entered.

  A lot of things happened in a very short span of time. Stefan looked at Luna, and she could tell that he was surprised to see her there. She looked at him and saw that he was slightly winded, like maybe his inefficient Swedish ‘executive assistant’ had phoned and left a panicked message saying she hadn’t managed to get hold of Miss Gregory. His mobile rang, and he answered it curtly – ah, there was Bibi now, if Luna wasn’t mistaken. Stefan had a brief, brusque conversation with her and, from what Luna heard, appeared to cut her off in mid-apology, switching off his phone.

  He looked at Luna again, and she realised that not only was he surprised to see her, he wasn’t ready for it either. Obviously, he’d mentally pencilled in their little chat for later that day. And there was something else about his expression, like he was…dismayed or something. With a rush of disgust, Luna realised that he was looking at her red nose and bloodshot eyes – and that he thought she had been crying. It was too much. Her disgust quickly transformed into unbridled wrath. She placed the remote on the table and slid it towards him so hard that it almost fell off the edge of the table before he could catch it. Picking up her gloves from the table, she moved past him towards the door.

  And then he said it. He opened his mouth, and he said, ‘Luna, we need to talk.’

  Instantly, it was like the floor of the conference room was covered with water and she was a live wire, snaking and snapping along it.

  ‘Oh my God, you cannot be serious,’ she replied, her voice hoarse, a half octave lower than usual and crackling with rage. Shaking her head, she said, ‘The time for talking was Friday night when you stood me up to go play with your friends in Stockholm—’