by Jenna Ellis
The lights are low in the kitchen, making it feel warm and cosy, and there’s lilting jazz music from invisible speakers, which I guess must be either in the ceiling or walls. It’s hard to tell.
Edward has taken off his jacket and looks relaxed as he crouches nimbly by a drinks fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine.
Whilst I nervously jabber about my journey here and how much I loved the limo, I watch as he looks at the label appreciatively and then opens the bottle of wine with a corkscrew. The cork makes a satisfying pop.
He takes two large wine glasses, which are perfectly lined up, in a perfectly clean glass cupboard, and places one before me, his tanned fingers with their immaculately manicured nails delicate on its stem. He’s treating me like I’m his guest, not like he’s employing me. Like he’s serving me, and I’m somehow the special one.
He pours a little bit of wine in his own glass, then lifts it to his nose and smells it. He’s obviously a wine connoisseur and, once it has met with his approval, he pours some into my glass.
‘Taste it,’ he commands, standing back and looking at me. ‘Tell me what you think.’
I’m lost. Like just now with the painting, I’m so aware that he knows so much and I know nothing. I’m entirely out of my depth, but he really has made it sound like he wants to hear my opinion.
To be honest, I’m not a big wine fan. Dad drinks lager, so we’ve never drunk wine at home. Tiff’s mum gets in the occasional wine box, which we tuck into when we’re round there for a Chinese takeaway, but it always tastes tinny and sour.
I take a sip and roll it around my tongue. It’s light. Like nectar.
‘It’s delicious,’ I tell him, meaning it.
‘Good,’ he says, smiling. His face lights up when he smiles. ‘So, cheers – or what is it you say in England? Bottoms up,’ he says, holding his glass up to mine. We kiss the rims of our glasses and they chime pleasingly.
There’s a beat as our eyes connect. I feel like he’s looking right inside me. I’ve never met someone with such an intense stare. It’s like he has special powers or something, like he might be able to hypnotize me, just like that.
‘About the dancing thing,’ I say, brushing my hair behind my ear. ‘Just now. I’m so embarrassed.’
His eyes stay on mine.
‘I don’t usually – I mean, it’s very out of character for me to do that. It’s just that it’s such an amazing space, and I thought I was alone and I haven’t danced since Mum died . . .’ I try to explain. I don’t know where this confession comes from, or what it is about him that has made me want to be so open and honest. He’s my employer, for God’s sake, but suddenly I’m opening up to him about something I never talk about.
‘ . . . and you took a chance,’ he concludes. ‘Always do what you feel in your heart, even if it scares you. Isn’t that right?’
I stare at him, realizing that he’s just repeated back what I said in the interview, word-for-word.
So he watched the interview Mrs Gundred recorded then. Of course he would have, but I feel so exposed. He knows so much more about me than I know about him. Perhaps he senses my discomfort, because he smiles at me and his eyes are kind.
‘You never have to apologize to me for expressing yourself, Miss Henshaw,’ he says. He stares right into me again. ‘Never.’
I want to tell him to call me Sophie. But I can’t. I’m still trapped in his gaze. And I know at that moment that this man is going to change my life. That something in me has shifted and the world suddenly has a different focus.
15
When it happens, it happens fast, taking me totally by surprise.
In two steps, he strides towards me across the kitchen and cups my face, brushing the hair away from it and, without saying anything at all, dips his head towards me and kisses me, like I’ve asked him to. Like this has been agreed between us.
And I think: Yes. Of course. It’s shocking, yes. Exciting . . . absolutely, but above all it feels, well, obvious. Because this was going to happen, from the first second I saw him.
It’s as if he’s entranced me. Taken all my power.
I’m shaking, but his hand is on the back of my neck, his lips firm and confident against mine. I open my mouth and his tongue flits against mine, sending a shimmer of butterflies dancing through me. A deep, sexual moan escapes from somewhere deep inside me. Somewhere I never knew existed.
He lifts me off the kitchen stool, like I’m a feather, and I hitch my legs around his waist and our kiss is deeper now. Like I can’t kiss him hard enough. My mouth is open, biting, gasping, my hair falling around us.
We’re moving fast, but I’m floating, borne by his strong embrace. I can’t even think about what it means, but can only feel that I’m connected to him, that a force stronger than I can resist is pinning me against him.
He slides me back onto the breakfast counter. In a moment, he’s hitched down my jeans and knickers, and he throws them with careless abandon on the floor. He stares at my nakedness, pulling my legs apart, his eyes glittering.
And I want it. I want to be bared to him like this. His thumbs start caressing my inner thighs. It’s excruciating in its intensity.
I grab his hair, gasping, crying out, in exquisite pleasure, as he kisses me again, and then he bends down and buries his face between my legs. His tongue finds me – like he’s always known which place to press, which way to flick. Like he knows me intimately already. Has always known me. I don’t want it to stop. I can’t help myself stop the soaring feeling that builds now . . .
The banging gets louder.
I wrench away from my dream and wake up. My heart is thumping. The intense sexual fantasy I’ve been having in my sleep dissipates and dissolves slowly. I try and grab onto it, but it’s a cloud on a hot day.
I sit up and wobble from side to side in the bed. Bright daylight spills through the curtain.
My pulse is slowing, but beneath my pyjama bottoms I’m throbbing. And now a sense of horror and shame burns within me, as I hear the knocking at my bedroom door again.
My thighs are heavy with the beat of blood as I clamber out of bed and lurch towards the door, the heel of my hand over one eye, which refuses to open – mainly because it’s glued together with mascara. I didn’t take off my make-up last night, I remember.
Oh God. How drunk was I? We had . . . oh God, two bottles of wine. Was it two?
I open the door, expecting to see Gundred, but it’s him.
Edward Parker. My boss.
Him.
He looks immaculate in an artfully crumpled black suit and light-blue T-shirt. He has designer shades pushed up in his hair. He smiles at me when he sees me, his eyebrow arching up in question. His teeth are perfect.
‘Hey,’ he says, softly, with a gentle laugh. ‘You’re difficult to wake up.’
I’ve just been dreaming about him, and seeing him up close brings it all back so vividly, I can feel my cheeks pulsing. Can he tell? Does he know what my subconscious has been doing with him all night?
Jesus!
‘I trust you slept well?’ He’s staring at me again and I can barely breathe. He looks amused. Like he’s indulging himself in seeing me like this. I get a waft of his glorious aftershave.
I nod, hurriedly banning any thought of the dream from my mind, and instead forcing myself to piece together the events of last night. How he made me taste all the wines so that he could show me the difference between them, how he cooked me fresh gnocchi and truffle oil, which was so delicious I wanted to bury my head in the plate. How I told him everything – all about my family and Tiff – and how he listened like it was the most fascinating life he’d ever heard about. Only it wasn’t. Isn’t. Couldn’t possibly be . . .
I didn’t mention Scott once. I didn’t think about Scott once.
He cocks his head to one side, staring at me through narrowed eyes.
I really dreamt about him giving me head. Oh my God. I can barely bring myself to look at him. I’m awash w
ith pheromones and shame. This is altogether different from when I had an Edward-named fantasy in the shower. This was real – involving the real Edward. The real him standing here now.
‘So, you remember that you agreed to come into town later?’ he says.
I nod again, remembering now with a sickening jolt that he told me about his friend’s art gallery opening this evening. In Manhattan. Proper central New York. Like I’ve only ever seen in the movies. How he invited me to join him, and I said I would, like it was no big deal. But, in the cold light of day, there’s a million reasons why I don’t want to – can’t possibly actually go.
His wife, for a start.
He looks me up and down now. I don’t want to speak. I know my breath must stink, but he’s waiting for an answer.
‘I said, didn’t I . . . but I’m not sure . . . I mean—’ I begin, flustered. ‘I don’t think I can. I’m not . . .’
‘Do you have anything to wear?’
I pull a face, thinking of the black dress I wore to the interview, which I only flung in my case at the last minute just in case. And how Tiff told me that I was being ridiculous, and that I was staff and wouldn’t be going anywhere posh.
He stares at me. He’s obviously thinking what I’m thinking: that any cheap black dress that I’ve brought from England isn’t going to cut it in Manhattan.
‘I’m not sure if it’ll be OK, though,’ I say, lamely. Why are we having this conversation about my wardrobe? ‘And I didn’t bring the right shoes. I think maybe it’s better if I don’t—’
‘That’s no problem. How big are your feet?’ He smiles and stares down at my bare feet. If feels like a funny question for him to have asked. I screw up my nose and follow his gaze, wiggling my toes.
‘A thirty-eight,’ I tell him.
He looks back up into my eyes, a smile in his. ‘I really have no idea how your English sizes work. What dress size are you?’ he asks. He’s businesslike as he taps his lips, thinking. His soft lips. The lips I’ve already kissed like I wanted to devour him whole.
‘A . . .’ I croak. I clear my voice and shake my head, ineffectually preening my hair. ‘A ten, I guess,’ I try again.
‘Turn around,’ he says, pushing my shoulder gently. ‘I know what to get, if I can actually get a sense of your proportions. But you wear such hideous baggy clothes, I have no idea of your actual shape.’
He’s teasing me, I know, but it’s still a shock that he’s so rude. Are my clothes hideous? I thought they were cool.
‘Can I see your back?’ he asks.
‘My back?’ My mouth has gone dry.
‘Uh-huh.’ He says it so matter-of-factly, and then lifts the hem of my pyjama top, and I pull it up a little more, crossing my hands over my chest. I try and look over my shoulder. ‘I know about proportions from life drawing. Always start with the back.’
He’s staring at my waist, like he really is sizing me up to do a drawing or painting. But I guess that’s what he does. Did. Before he made squillions out of other artists.
‘I see,’ he says, as if he’s just had some sort of big revelation. ‘Don’t you have lovely skin.’
He says it as a statement, then runs his finger along the curve of my back, as if he’s painting it. Immediately my skin erupts into goosebumps. Fully awake now, my blood pounding, I look ahead in alarm and catch him staring at me in the mirror on the opposite wardrobe door. As my eyes meet his in the mirror, I feel a spark. Like there’s palpable electricity fizzing between us. As if, in that one look, he’s been able to tell every second of my dream and can see through me completely.
My pyjama top has ridden up and he must be able to see the bottom of my right breast. I hastily cover it up, and the moment is gone in a fraction of a second, but I’m still shaken.
He breaks my gaze quickly.
‘Great,’ he says, his voice breezy, as if nothing has just happened. He steps away, out of the room. ‘I’ll catch you later,’ he says, as he walks away.
And then he’s gone.
16
I’m rattled all morning, and I’m still trying to make sense of our encounter as I go downstairs into the kitchen and fix myself a giant bowl of cereal. Mrs Janey and Laura are in the kitchen too, but they’re busy issuing instructions to three Hispanic-looking gardeners. Mrs Janey tells me to help myself to cereal, flapping her hand in the direction of the cupboards, as if I’m a big inconvenience. She obviously disapproves that I’m up so late, because she looked up twice at the big clock above the door and then back at me.
I feel like shit, and I know I look just as bad. I have a hangover and I’m jangled after my dream, and worried that I’ve made an idiot of myself. I should have protested more. I don’t want to go to a party with Edward Parker. Not where I’ll be on show. He said to have fun getting ready, but I have no idea what’s expected of me, or what that means. Am I supposed to get dolled up in my black dress?
I hear a voice bellowing in the hall and turn to see a large black woman arrive in the kitchen doorway.
‘Hello? Roberta Greerson.’ Her tone and expression convey that she finds it impossible that she, Roberta Greerson, hasn’t been given more special treatment.
She scowls at me eating, until I stop. She looks like she’s used to bossing lots of people around. She has shiny skin, and she’s wearing lots of orange lipstick. Her eyes are green, accentuated by sparkly green eyeshadow. She takes her hair, which is a mass of tiny brown plaits, and puts it up in a band that she pulls from her wrist. Then she puts her hands on her considerable hips, like she means business.
‘Which one o’ you is Miss Henshaw?’ she demands.
Mrs Janey, who moves away from the back door, shakes her head, nodding in my direction, and leaves us alone. She doesn’t seem fazed by Roberta’s presence at all, or ask her any questions. Was she expecting her? She must have been. How does this household work? I don’t get it.
I slide off the stool and greet Roberta, who looks me up and down disapprovingly.
‘Lord, what happened to you, girl?’ she asks, scowling at my hair.
I pat it nervously. It’s not that bad, is it? I go to work at FunPlex with my hair looking much worse than this.
She grabs my chin and thrusts my face into the light. ‘You wearing some nasty make-up,’ she exclaims. It’s not a question.
These Americans really don’t mince their words, do they?
‘He said I’d have a job on my hands and, boy, he sure weren’t wrong this time,’ she continues, exaggerating this sentence, her eyes widening at me, and I think that this must be her attempt at humour.
I smile weakly, unable to finish my mouthful of cereal, as her strong thumb and fingers are pinning my jaw shut. Does she mean Edward, when she says ‘he’? Has ‘he’ described me as an impossible case?
‘We got work to do to get you in shape. Come on, girl. Hurry up. We ain’t got much time to get you party-ready.’
I’m still hungover and desperately trying to figure out a way to wriggle out of the art-gallery party tonight as Roberta takes over my room, hauling in three enormous wheelie-cases, as well as a huge reclining leather chair, which she humps into the centre of the carpet with Laura’s help. I’m told to sit in it, which I do with a thud, thanks to a fairly hefty push from Roberta’s hand.
She spends a lot of time on her mobile phone taking calls and barking orders to other people. I get the feeling she’s been dragged away from an important job to be here. She looks at her watch a lot. And swears even more.
I sit in the chair, but as I do so, an image of my dream flashes into my head, as vivid as if it had actually happened in real life. And then I remember Edward’s look. His hand on my waist . . .
Stop, I almost say out loud.
I won’t think about it, I resolve, banning my imagination. It’s got me into enough trouble for one day already.
Roberta puts special hair-serum on my hair and then sets about massaging my face roughly. She tells me this is the latest beauty craze
, which is all about cell-renewal, especially after drinking alcohol. She fixes me with a look. Like she knows all about last night.
The face massage is plain weird. It’s rough and invasive, especially when she does my eyes, which makes me feel like she’s going to pop my eyes out of their sockets any second. It really hurts, but my yelps don’t stop her. She even gets inside my mouth, massaging my cheeks from the inside. It’s bloody painful.
Afterwards she scrubs my face roughly, before applying a special mask, which dries like another skin, forcing me to keep still. Then she threads my eyebrows, which stings like crazy. She tuts at my hands, before painting my toenails and fingernails with the kind of precision and speed I have never encountered. If only the girls in the nail bars back home were like her, they’d triple their wages in a day.
Then she hauls me into the bathroom and washes my hair, puts on another face mask, daring me not to speak, and I can’t help wondering if I’ll have any skin left by the time she’s finished with me. I’m tingling all over. And not in a good way.
She hands me a drink of something fizzy and forces me to drink her ‘special tonic’. Then, once I’ve downed it, she puts pads of cool lotion over my eyes and tells me to relax, but it’s hard to. I want to curl my toes up, but I can’t because my nails are still drying.
‘Who gave you this awful cut?’ she demands, and I imagine her studying the ends of my hair between her fingers.
‘My friend Stacey,’ I counter, feeling defensive, but it’s hard to speak with the mask on. I had my hair cut especially before flying here. I go to Stacey as she’s an ace at waxing, and throws in a bikini, leg and armpit wax for the price of a haircut.