Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1)

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

  Cai watched intently while Dirk washed up in the dirty sink over by the workbench. The old man used handfuls of soap, washing and re-washing for quite some time.

  “Almost time for dinner, son. Go inside, will you? See if Claire needs a hand… tell her I’m just cleaning up a mess.”

  Chapter 28

  I TOOK A cab and it pulled up right in front of the Savoy. There was no way I was walking, getting the bus, or the tube—when I could get a shiny black cab to drop me right outside, looking as smooth and clean as when I left my own front door.

  I walked through the vaguely familiar rotating doors and across the chequerboard floor of reception, into the breakfast room. The Savoy was like a dream and I hardly remembered it, though the last time I was there I was half-cut already and drunk on lust.

  The maître ’d showed me to a table and I spotted Cai—but he wasn’t alone. I only saw the back of her but I think I knew who it was and started shitting myself. She was dressed and preened so pristinely, even from the back.

  Cai sat opposite her so he saw me arrive, standing by the table to receive me. He wore a blue, striped boating jacket coordinated with a pair of light chinos, obligatory white shirt and tan deck shoes. There was clearly no excuse for plain dressing where his aunt was concerned.

  He plastered on a bright, beaming grin for me and wrapped a large hand around the back of my neck. He kissed me longingly, bringing me tight to his mouth. He breathed hard, whispering, “I love you,” and pecked me again. I beamed with smiles, so happy to have gotten him back. I threaded my hand through his so he could lead me to our table.

  I took a deep breath and wondered whether this was all real. I mean…! I looked around the restaurant and saw it was pretty empty. It was only nine a.m., I supposed.

  “Chloe, this is my aunt, Jennifer.”

  Jennifer Matthews was a woman pictured in numerous magazines, newspapers and online articles. To meet her, was frightening. She was so classy, it didn’t seem like she had made anything of an effort. So well put together, so clean, so simple. Her dark, bob hair was tucked neatly behind her ears and she wore a cream trouser suit (which I guessed was Chanel) over a simple white, silk camisole of some kind (I couldn’t see exactly, she had her jacket pulled closed). She looked up under her Gucci glasses and held out her hand jauntily.

  “Chloe, pleased to meet you.” Her voice wasn’t that posh. To an American, she might seem posh but to another Brit, she sounded like a real Londoner. She didn’t stand, just vaguely glanced at me. I shook her gloved fingers and let go as soon as it was safe to, just so she didn’t feel my whole body trembling.

  “I wasn’t expecting to meet you today,” I gushed, as Cai helped me into my chair, so the pair of us sat together opposite Jennifer. I briefly glanced at him as if to say, You could have warned me. He just shrugged. Perhaps he hadn’t known either.

  “Cai is the master of secrecy, Chloe. You’ll have to get used to that!” She said it with an air of joviality but it made me wonder for a moment. Was she joking or mocking me?

  “It’s a surprise, I can’t deny it. In fact, only a few months ago I was languishing in local news. This,” I gestured around the room, “is all so bizarre.”

  “You worked for some terrible rags too, didn’t you?” He looked at his aunt. “Tell Chloe about The Enquirer.”

  Jennifer leaned forward and removed her glasses to reveal fiery blue eyes so much like his. “Shush, you little tattletale. I might have lasted a week, or so.”

  I decided they were definitely playful, so I was good.

  “Eggs Benedict all around?” Jennifer asked, casting her eyes briefly over us. We nodded. What else was there to do but agree with the woman?

  A waiter danced in our direction after receiving a nod from her and she ordered, “Three of the usual. What’s the best coffee you have at the moment?”

  “Oh, I’ll check,” he whispered nervously.

  “No matter. Just ask Pila to serve us whatever is the best at the moment. Tell him I know he keeps a hidden stash for Kensey… and I’m not happy to know I am not thought of as well.”

  Kensey was a sworn enemy of Jennifer’s, so I’d heard. ‘Kensey’ referred to Kendra Lindsey, Kayla’s boss.

  “Right away, Ms. Matthews.” The waiter, flushed and sweating, rushed off. I think he feared for his life.

  “So,” she chirped, unperturbed, “I am thinking Alexander McQueen circa 1999.”

  I wondered what the hell she was talking about until she vaguely nodded at my dress. It was a black velvet number circa 2000, in actual fact. I’d discovered it in one of the unmentionable bins where designer throwaways got sent. It was structured and with lace sleeves, a puffy skirt, a Victorian collar. I loved it—plus it looked fab with tons of fake pearls. I picked up the accessories from a store in Notting Hill during one of my weekends at Kay’s place.

  “It’s 2000 actually.” I wondered whether she was testing me.

  “And the jewels?”

  “A vintage store in Notting Hill.”

  She smiled wryly. “All kinds of pictures of you and your outfits were thrown across my desk during your little vacay in New York. Cai told me about the way you dress… yet I had to see it to believe it.”

  Vacay? I was starting to feel like I knew where this was going. Cai reached for my hand under the table to reassure me.

  I tried to smile and find my confidence. “I really just bash a few bits together. It’s an interest of mine that’s stuck over the years.”

  “The curvaceous woman with a talent for dressing individually,” she said, her hand motioning a headline in front of her eyes. “I see it now.”

  “Are you mocking me?” Hers was a glib remark.

  “You’ve a talent that can’t be bought or learned. It’s inherent. So, how about it? A new column for you? A new job? Get yourself away from the doldrums of that esoteric concrete block and instead be with those who will nurture and inspire you.”

  I almost choked on my own spit and slowly turned to Cai to read his face, to see if I was fucking dreaming it all. He smiled. He was happy about the whole thing. Was I getting forced into something? It certainly felt like it.

  Something bothered me.

  “My best friend works for Elle, you know? This has nothing to do with it?”

  “Dear, dear, dear,” she scoffed. “Your concern is rather sweet. Yet, why would I care what they do?”

  “You should employ my friend, Kay… she has the fashion experience.”

  Jennifer took out her phone and muttered, “Hmm, let me see.”

  I watched while she navigated her device with one of those small touch-screen pens and I turned to Cai, trying to figure out what part he played in this.

  “Aah, Kayla Tate. Very pretty lady. But she,” Jennifer pointed at the screen, which displayed Kay’s work profile on the Elle website, “is not you.”

  “What do you mean?” My face actually twitched and I hated myself. I wanted my post-its and I wanted them now.

  “You are Frame, darling. Look at you. Class, sophistication… just the right amount of attitude.”

  “I am not Frame,” I mimicked her, “nor am I any of those things you just mentioned. I don’t follow fashion—”

  “No, that is the beauty of you! Frame needs those who start trends, not mimic the herd.” Her voice was high-pitch, not screechy, but very melodic all the same. Strangely enticing. Enthralling. She had me under her spell. She grinned, her tiny features beaming. “You are rare… I wish more girls would roam free, stretch their creative legs further… like only a true fashionista does.”

  “I do not belong in fashion,” I argued, emphasising my case. For a start, I wasn’t fashionably thin. “You must have made some mistake.”

  Jennifer sat back in her chair and scoffed, taking some angry deep breaths. “I… are you saying… I am wrong? Is that it?” Her eyes flicked to Cai. “I know you said she had spunk but my god, I offer her a job most girls would slice parts of themselves off for
and she declines.”

  Her face remained aghast, her tiny frame on edge, waiting for my response. I honestly didn’t have one. Jennifer said out of the corner of her mouth, looking at Cai when she said, “I love her already.”

  I cleared my throat. “Cai said your sister had money… your father and uncle were physicians.” She didn’t say anything to that. So I ventured again, “I detect a tiny hint of South London, right?”

  “Correct.” She narrowed her eyes and smiled a tight grin, though it pained her. The memory of her deceased sibling was a tough one, perhaps.

  “Listen, Jennifer… Ms. Matthews… I don’t need your empathy. I don’t want a job just because you see something of yourself in me.”

  Her smile fell, but nor was she angry or affected either. “You’re exceptionally tough to crack, aren’t you? No matter, Cai warned me of this. You will take the job, Chloe. Don’t you realise that even one, measly column within my magazine is worth ten columns elsewhere? My staff are excellent at what they do, you could learn a lot from them. Cai tells me you want to be together so this will make it much easier for you, yes? After all, even if you hate Frame, you can get work elsewhere. Anywhere will have you after I have done with you.”

  I stared at the place settings, already perfect. Nothing for me to rearrange. I felt like I was being backed into a corner, like a small animal facing a trap. When Jennifer Matthews offered you a job, you didn’t say no. Unless you were me, it seemed.

  I listened to my gut instinct though, and I knew I had to believe in myself… more importantly, believe in doing what was true to myself. Fashion was an interest to me like Cai’s private photography was for him.

  She tapped her index finger on the table and laid out her empathy. Her voice really was soothing as she spoke so quietly, so succinctly. No energy expelled in her execution. “Our father left us when we were very young and cut my mother off. She had nothing, no fallback. I don’t wear gloves as fashion accessories Chloe, I suffer terribly with this debilitating condition that my mother also suffered…” Jennifer removed one glove to show her gnarled hand beneath, some aggressive arthritis the cause, I thought. “Claudia and I learned early on to look after ourselves. Nobody would ever have thought of us as upper crust, not to look at us. Nobody would have considered we once lived above my father’s surgery in Harley Street.”

  “Why are you telling me all these things?” I wondered out loud. Cai was quiet and tense beside me, while Jennifer emitted an unedited brand of verbal diarrhoea that was usually my forté.

  “Cai tells me you don’t believe in yourself. You should. You have me here, so that’s something. If I can make it, anyone can. Trust me.”

  “I don’t want pity, or a free ride.” I snapped my hand out of Cai’s. So, he doesn’t think I believe in myself either? What should I have told them? That, well, I actually did fucking believe in myself? It just took me a long time to make decisions.

  If only someone hadn’t arranged the silverware with a damn ruler already! The impulse to mess it up just so I could make it right again drove me nuts.

  She stared and it provoked me.

  “It might not be in me to want to make it, right? There has to be that need. I don’t think I have it or else I would have done something about it by now. I know I’m capable but I can’t get past that fear of failure. Of, what if?”

  “Why?” She persisted bluntly.

  “Why?” I looked up at her and saw an open countenance.

  She nodded, wouldn’t budge. Bloody hell the woman was tiny, dainty, yet her presence massive. I repeatedly this mechanically inside my head as I thought about it, “You want to know?”

  She didn’t say another word. Her silence, and Cai’s, was deafening. If this was a job interview, it was the strangest of my entire life. Of any interview to have ever taken place, anywhere, in the world’s history.

  Blasé, totally.

  I took a deep breath, knowing it would feel good to get it out there. Jennifer had told me so much about herself, I felt it was right.

  “When I was 19, I was out with some friends one night, on the way to the cinema, when I walked past a gang on the street, my sister amongst them. Long story short, I told her to get herself home and got clobbered by her boyfriend for my effort. Consequently I got her into trouble with the police because I couldn’t see any other way of shocking her out of the downward spiral she was on. My father didn’t care for his daughters. He repeated he only ever wanted a son.”

  I pursed my lips and shuddered, shaking with the effort it took to stay still. I realised both Cai’s hands were around mine and he was looking right at me, waiting for more.

  Jennifer took her cue. “The family abandoned you after that?”

  “Yes.”

  Unfazed she continued, “That is the past. Now, your future… well, I can tell you I am only here because of a mentor. So many others like me and you, we survive on being mentored. I want to mentor you.”

  Jennifer had me feeling terrified and exultant and disbelieving all at once. I was trapped… how could I say no? She’d had it all planned out. She was a master at work, a mistress of redemption.

  “Say yes.” Her voice like silk, I was so tempted to shout my agreement without another second’s thought.

  I looked at Cai and sought his opinion. He wore a serious expression, a desperate one. Entreating me.

  “Yes,” I said, though I was looking right at him.

  She sighed and took her napkin, placing it gently across her lap, now ready to eat. I did the same and so did Cai, the waiter not quick enough—yet flustered he didn’t get to do his duty.

  “Good. My work here is done. You’ll start with online content at first. This will be a gradual progression, a developmental career. It will be difficult but you’re in the door, that’s what counts. Welcome aboard.”

  Jennifer snapped her fingers and a waiter nodded at another waiter. Champagne and strawberries were brought out.

  We clinked glasses and I ached for the chance to have a good cry. It all seemed so strange as Jennifer went on to recall endearing stories of Cai the teenager, Cai the photographer, Cai the artist. For all her cool, icy public persona, Jennifer was an exceptionally nice person once you got to know her.

  Although all the way throughout, my lover was quiet and observant. He was cool and calm. I couldn’t wait to have him back in my arms.

  Chapter 29

  AFTER BREAKFAST, JENNIFER went to the airport. Her stop in London was a flying visit after Paris, on the way back to her holiday home in the Hamptons. Cai took me back to his flat on Cadogan Place and we entered in a rush, crashing against the hallway walls as he kicked the door shut behind us. I slid his jacket from his shoulders and threw my bag to the floor. He swept me off my feet and charged for the kitchen.

  “In here. I’m having you in here.”

  “Put your tongue on me, Cai.”

  He was in a rush and splayed my body over the enormous marble breakfast bar. My heeled feet were placed on his shoulders and he pressed my thighs apart. He roughly yanked my lace gusset to the side and plunged his tongue inside me.

  “Oh my god, Cai.”

  My head hung off the edge and I let my arms fall behind me too, closing my eyes while he fucked me with his tongue.

  “Best thing I’ve tasted all day… right here.”

  I laughed from my gut and reached a hand over to hold his. He squeezed my fingers and used his other hand to hike up my multi-layered dress as much as he could, so my hips and waist were bared to him.

  “I love you,” I moaned.

  His groans vibrated through my pussy and I let him take me, in any way he pleased. I was lost to him. He sucked on my clit until I saw stars, my body paralysed by his tongue.

  He pulled me up and I had no time to recover.

  “Suck my cock,” he ordered while rubbing his erection.

  So vulgar, I shuddered.

  His carnal words made my core pulse yet again, squeezing and clenching. I was
desperate to fellate him. I felt my eyes droop and with heavy lust pulsing through my system, it was all too much. He watched me while I dropped to my knees and caressed the thick bulge in his trousers. I slowly worked open his fly and pulled him free through the opening of his boxer briefs. He held onto the table edge nearby and shut his eyes, his other hand in my hair.

  “Like that,” he enthused, as I slowly stroked my fist up and down his length in unison with my tongue at the tip.

  I looked up to see his eyes watching me.

  “Take me back,” he beckoned.

  I nodded as well as I could with his weighty cock head in my mouth, administering to his needs. Placing my hands on his hips, I guided him slowly back until his tip nudged my throat. While he thrust carefully, I guided his movements with my hands and continued to suck and lick, swirling carelessly around his dick.

  When I felt his body tense and become rigid, I backed off and held his cock tight around the shaft, aiming him at my throat and cleavage.

  “Cai, look.”

  I wanted him to watch while he covered me.

  “God, Chloe.”

  His body hung loose as he caught his breath and I watched him with wonder. I spread his semen on my skin, being sure to keep his cream from staining my clothes.

  He smiled down at me. “Let’s make love now.”

  I stood up and he led me by the hand to the bedroom, where we undressed carefully until we were naked and hot, rolling across the bed until we were lost utterly and completely.

  FEELING sated and carefree, I watched while he held his head up on one elbow, looking down on my naked body. On my back, I rested my hands above my head while he caressed his fingertips up and down my body. We smiled greedily.

  “Are we doing this, Chloe?”

  “What?” I widened my eyes for him. He grunted and pressed his index finger deep into my navel. “Oww! You git!”

  He laughed but I slapped him. “Are you really coming to New York to be with me?”