Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1)

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

“It’s too long a story to tell,” I revealed.

  “Hmm. So, I’m not gonna have to defend my profession? It wasn’t that kinda situation?”

  “It wasn’t I assure you. It was something completely out of anyone’s control.” I finished my starter and the plates were whipped away before I could even blink.

  I briefly took in our surroundings while I considered whether to tell him what had happened to me. I got lost gazing at the ornate crystal chandeliers, ceiling carvings and the dark, wood-panelled walls.

  Then his lobster and my Beef Wellington arrived, so we got right on down to it.

  Except my inquisition was rife.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  He peered at me. “Connecticut, then New York. I’ve travelled a lot, though.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “Australia, South Africa, Brazil, all over Europe and America. Dubai. I go to Miami a lot for the fashion work.”

  “Just… work?” Not banging models…

  “Yup, work. I work hard, I don’t get much time for tourist stuff.”

  He ate his lobster with ease while I sliced through the most perfect Beef Wellington I’d ever tasted. His world was so different to mine.

  “I’ve never been abroad, how sad is that?”

  His eyes bugged. “You’re kidding me?”

  “Nope.”

  He set down his silverware and concentrated on his wine for a moment. “If you don’t mind me making an observation… I can see something happened, something you don’t ever talk about. You let it define—”

  I drowned him out pretty quickly, indignation rising in my cheeks. “I could say the same about you. Like you said, naked.”

  I stared down at my food and took a breath. He was going to incite the nastier side of me if he wasn’t careful—the defensive edge that didn’t want to talk about what was going on here. Or more importantly, what he might find out about me.

  The background clinking of glasses and plates, along with soft voices, suddenly seemed ugly to me. The world closed in. I remembered.

  I folded my arms and avoided looking at him, though I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was about three seconds away from taking my hand.

  “I’ll make a deal with you, Kincaid. You don’t ask me uncomfortable questions, and I won’t either. If you do, I don’t know how I’ll react. I can’t promise I’ll stick around. I can’t even promise you’ll see me again. You don’t know…” I took a deep, deep breath, “…my upbringing wasn’t like yours.”

  “You mean, your parents aren’t both dead?”

  My head shot up, seeking his eyes.

  I retorted, “This isn’t a contest.”

  “No. I’m just saying, you assume you know what my upbringing was like, but you’ve no idea.” He fumed, frowning hard. His face appeared even more sculpted in anguish.

  I gulped and looked down at my lap, the scrumptious dinner in front of me no longer appetising. How did we even get here? I felt ill for a multitude of reasons.

  Your parents are dead… I forgot that. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

  “For your information my parents both killed themselves. Is that on a par with your tragedy? Your drama, huh?” He tapped the table aggressively.

  Rules of decorum suggested I should have slammed my napkin down and left him there to it, called a cab while he chased madly after me, apologising profusely at my tail.

  We had this amazing physical attraction but there was now a stonewall, something I hadn’t anticipated. Fuck it. I got right on with eating my dinner, even though the meat in my welly now tasted like shit because of the anger simmering under the surface of my cool.

  I hadn’t anticipated that he of all people would bring out my inner bitch, but he had. Though I almost choked on my food, chewing prevented me saying so many things that were on the tip of my tongue. I was so upset with the whole way this was turning out, I just… stayed silent.

  Then he said right out of left field. “I’d rather you stayed at mine tonight and not Klaus’s place. I don’t trust him.”

  I slammed my knife and fork down and I didn’t give a shit what anyone around us thought. “Firstly, that you imagine you’re gonna get to stay with me, in a bed… is total nonsense. Second, nobody tells me what to do. Nobody.”

  He grunted and gritted his teeth. “Fuck, you’re hot when you’re mad.”

  I stood up sharply and threw my napkin down. “I’m going to the ladies. Yes, that’s right… I am a lady and you’re a jealous git.”

  His eyes flashed but I was already on my way. I went into the last stall in the bathroom and shut the door, taking some deep breaths on the closed seat. My belly was hotter than the sun, for him. That man… he wanted my truths. Wanted them like he wanted air. I wanted his too but feared they were dangerous.

  I put my head between my legs and took some deep breaths before exiting without having peed. At the mirror I took time reapplying lipstick and faffing with my hair, intending to make him stew a while.

  When I approached his back as I returned to the table, I saw his dejected stance. I couldn’t bear it so when I got closer, I slid an arm across his shoulder and kissed his cheek, whispering, “Sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” he said blowing out a breath, watching while I re-seated myself.

  He’d finished his lobster and my food looked a little sorry for itself now. A waiter approached and gestured at my plate. “Everything alright, madam?”

  “Hmm. I took a bit of a turn in the bathroom… must have eaten a dodgy sandwich at lunch.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll just take coffee,” Cai intervened.

  “No problem,” the waiter said, taking the offending plates away.

  I took some long, greedy gulps of wine and asked Cai, “How did you eat all that?”

  “I’ll probably go home now and eat a noodle cup too.”

  I smiled, unable to help myself. “I’m staying at Klaus’s but I meant what I said, I didn’t sleep with him. It’s not that I don’t want you. I do. It’s… I only just got here… it’s a lot to process.”

  He drummed his fingers on the table. “I know. I’m just being a gorilla. I just… don’t like the guy much. Don’t ask me why, he just fucks me off.”

  “I don’t like him much either to tell you the truth, but he’s a friend. He spotted me lurking in the wrong world and plucked me out into this one,” I said while gesturing around the room.

  “Then, lucky me,” Cai admitted.

  We drank our espresso calmly as the restaurant began to empty around us. People headed off to the theatre or to bars or their hotel rooms.

  When our coffees were nearly drank, I got plucky for some reason. I didn’t want Cai to leave with the wrong impression of me so I asked him with my hands shaking, “I don’t know why but I feel like I can trust you. Can I trust you?”

  I stared across the table to scrutinise his reaction and he beamed, “Of course you can, Chloe. I want you to trust me.”

  With not a flinch in his facial expression, I pressed on with my brave effort. “Have you ever been on the receiving end of abuse?”

  He shook his head, an honest, “No,” peeling from his lips.

  I didn’t think so.

  “The whole thing with my friend really upset me today. Mainly because it goes back so far. She was raped repeatedly by her stepfather when we were growing up. Kayla is darker skinned than both her parents so it was clear after decades of trying to conceive, her mum had gone off, had an affair and finally gotten pregnant. Kayla told me that gradually, over the years, he got more touchy feely. Until eventually he started with the mind games, making her feel as though what they were doing was right.”

  “That’s awful.” Cai looked devastated.

  “Yep. I didn’t know… for a long time, I didn’t know anything was going on. Until she spotted I was being abused, too. In a different way. I never realised it was abuse… I didn’t want to admit it, either. She and I
are like this,” I wrapped my middle and index finger tight together. “The thing that stopped me modelling was also the thing that finally convinced her to go to the police about him.”

  Cai frowned hard, not saying a word.

  “Abuse makes you feel worthless. Most of the time, you don’t even know it’s happening to you. Until… someone says it. Until… you admit what’s going on is wrong. Until you suddenly see that it’s stopping you from being who you want to be.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” He reached across but I didn’t give him my hand.

  “It’s okay. The thing is Cai, you were right… to a degree. There is something that defines me. It isn’t the abuse, though. It’s something in here,” I pointed to my temple, “it’s that, one event took my choice to be strong away. You know, we all have a chance to make a choice at some point, somewhere along the way, but when that’s ripped from you, it’s shitty. It’s devastating. You feel like the only way to go on is to play numb. To free yourself of hope, so you don’t have it dashed again.”

  We spent several minutes in silence, Cai just looking anywhere but at me. I don’t know if he thought I was crazy, or if he was touched.

  We were just about to leave the restaurant when a man, presumably the manager, came over and addressed Cai. “I’m terribly sorry, but Ms. Matthews has been impossible to get hold of to verify any kind of transaction. I know I said over the phone it should be fine, but…”

  “Pardon me?” Cai frowned hard.

  “Her company account… temporarily frozen.”

  Cai looked around knowingly but I wished I was better versed in what the heck was going on.

  “Apologies, again. Sir.”

  The man stepped back in a reverse bow and left our table, the bill just sitting on the side accusingly.

  Chapter 10

  “I KNEW SHE’D do this.” Cai held his forehead, breathing low. “She said I could use her table anytime. She’s just screwed me completely.”

  I reached for the bill, opening the leather wallet to have my eyes assaulted by the price. “Oh, oh… crap.”

  “I’m sorry, I did say… I’m so broke right now because of the gallery.”

  “What,” I looked at him gone out, “you really mean, you can’t pay this?”

  He muttered obscenities and rifled through his wallet. “I left my credit card at home and there’s only £50 in here.”

  He grumbled and seethed. Worst. Date. Ever.

  I checked my own purse. “A tenner and some shrapnel. Wow. I started the day much better off. Guess that’s what London cabs cost.”

  “Aww, she’s… man! She’s screwing with me!” He rubbed his hands over his face, still at war with himself over something.

  I quickly sent Klaus a text underneath the table: Take care of my bill at the Savoy please? Explain later.

  Just a few minutes passed before the man who’d been a prior bearer of bad news quietly picked up the leather wallet and walked away without a word, just a wink at me.

  Cai looked at me with a face I recognised: jealousy. “You didn’t?”

  “I don’t want to know what goes on between you and Jennifer, okay? I want to go home. I want to go to bed. I would have been happy with a foot wrap and a microwave meal tonight. Don’t give me your bloody male macho bullshit, okay?”

  I stood to leave and strode out with my head held high, my coat from the cloakroom quickly on my back. Outside, I veered straight past the taxi rank and carried on walking.

  “Where the hell are you going?” He trailed after me.

  “I’m done with taxis for now. I’m done with your shit, too. I am walking home. I don’t want to take pennies from your wallet anymore than I want to take them from my own.”

  I looked at my phone and plotted a route back to Belgravia, his footsteps shuffling awkwardly by my side as I creaked across the pavements. My footwear made me feel murderous and the fact he wouldn’t leave my side… furious beyond comprehension.

  “I’m quite safe getting home alone.”

  “I’m not letting you walk alone, you damn woman. You don’t get to tell me where I fucking walk, right?”

  Touché.

  “Git,” I tried to say so he wouldn’t hear. I think he did.

  Along Victoria Embankment, we were assaulted by the tangy air of the Thames below, the parallel line of lights demonstrating the separation of land by water and the cold of a fresh, March night. I shuddered under my coat and allowed him to put his arm around my shoulder. He buttoned his blazer and lifted the collar.

  He complained, “Damn it’s cold.”

  The air revived me and I began to enjoy the walk, even if my feet weren’t. A few steps later however, heated pain shot up my calf. I winced and stumbled in my steps.

  “Let me call a damn cab,” he said, noticing my discomfort.

  “No.”

  He buried his nose in the side of my hair and growled, annoyed by me. “Please. Let me call a cab!”

  “I’m a stubborn woman… no amount of growling is going to tempt me.”

  He dashed ahead and lowered his body to the ground a few inches, his back curved so I could get on. “Don’t argue with a man who’s offering, then.”

  I lifted my skirt an inch or two and thanked myself for wearing the long, poncho coat that met my knees. I ran and jumped, and he almost toppled forward, his body having to stride onwards quickly to stop the domino effect.

  “Christ woman, some warning next time.” I laughed and he couldn’t help but laugh too.

  “You ape… why do we hate each other all of a sudden?” I whispered in his ear, enjoying every moment I got to smell his skin and hair.

  “I’m an ape and you’re a stubborn woman. Go figure.”

  I clucked my tongue and sniggered against his shoulder. “You are an ape, carrying your Jane to the jungle.”

  “If you call me fucking Tarzan, I’ll throw you over that wall,” he gestured to our side.

  “I’ll shut up.” I smiled at his back, enjoying being carried. I could feel the blisters on the backs of my heels ready to burst and bleed. Thank god I wouldn’t have that long walk in the morning anymore, Belgravia just a hop, skip and a jump in comparison.

  “Don’t you think this is a beautiful city?” I asked him while he soldiered on seemingly unfazed.

  “I do,” he nodded, “I think there are millions of potential pictures here. Like anywhere, they just lie in wait.”

  “Hmm. So, you see things in pictures, too? You don’t just take them?”

  “I do have a photographic memory. Comes in handy. When you’re sitting with a pile of proofs, anyway.”

  “I see things in boxes,” I explained, “shut ones, or open ones.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Do you have siblings, Cai?”

  “Nope. Well, none that I know of. My father was a bit of dawg but the less either of us know about that, the better. What about you?”

  “Two sisters.”

  “Really? They look like you, hmm?” He turned to glance at me, a cheeky little smirk on his face. “Might be onto a winner if they don’t have your attitude.”

  “Huh, my attitude?” I mimicked his accent. “You’re the one who just said his own father was a dawg. They say the apple—” I snapped my mouth shut. He tensed under my hands and I backtracked, “Sorry. My mouth is blabber, blabber, blabber. Even on good days.”

  “Like I said, least you’re honest.”

  When we got to Westminster, he dropped me on my feet and asked again, panting his exertions off. “Really… no cab, no?”

  “Not on your nelly.”

  “I’m not carrying you the whole, damn way. Here,” he offered, taking his socks off and replacing his brogues on bare feet. “Take these. Hand me your ridiculous footwear.”

  I grumbled until he burst out laughing as I sat on a bench by Big Ben, faffing with my shoes until I was groaning with relief at getting them off. “Hurry up lady, you don’t want people to think you’re s
treet entertainment here.”

  I hurried and jabbed him in the side as we continued onwards. I didn’t feel shameful as I wore his socks over my tights, my hand in his as he carried my shoes by his other side.

  “That feels so good. I don’t even care I look like a hobo.”

  “You look like a model. Dressed as a hobo. Pretending to not care she’s wearing socks, and no shoes.” We laughed loud between us. He shouted in my ear, “Really, in essence, you’re just a stubborn woman refusing a fucking cab!”

  I pushed him hard and he almost went toppling off the side of the pavement. He straightened up and re-arranged himself, all a fuddle.

  “You really should just get a cab and let me alone. I got this. You know? I can walk the streets like you said… like a fucking pseudo-hobo with my Ralph Lauren socks picking up the shit of the city.”

  He tossed off my attempts at humour and wrapped his arm around my shoulder again. He kissed my hair and breathed deep. “Let’s stop and watch a minute.”

  He gestured at Westminster Abbey as we neared. People drifted around the lit-up building, even though it was getting late. If you stood and listened, it was easy enough to hear some choral concert streaming through the abbey, leaking to surrounding streets, a sense of community enveloping us.

  I turned into his chest and asked, “Hold me.”

  Amidst swirling pedestrians, lights, traffic and noise, we shrank to just two people, holding one another. I calmed with the sound of his heart beneath my ear, his chin on the crown of my head, his hands cupped around one shoulder each, pulling me protectively into his warmth.

  It had been such a long day.

  “This was the worst date. Until right now,” he said honestly.

  “I agree. I hate that I do, but I do.”

  He chuckled in my ear and kissed my cheek. “You’re very cute when you back down.”

  I pulled away sharply and slapped his hands off me. Without rhyme or reason, he pulled me back into his arms, so tight I couldn’t escape. His true strength exhibited itself as I was forced to look right into his eyes, his breath a ragged heat caressing my lips. We held our staring match until my legs felt numb, blood pumping frantically between my thighs.