by Jenna Ellis
I’m all too aware that the Parkers specifically wanted someone with no emotional commitments, and here I am, tearfully admitting to Scott. What if Edward sends me home? What if I’ve failed already? Before I’ve even met the kids?
‘Sorry,’ I say, rolling my eyes at myself. I blow out a slow breath.
‘It’s OK. I’d rather you were honest,’ Edward says. His hand stays on my knee. I glance down at it.
‘I just . . .’ I take a deep breath. If he wants the truth, then here it comes bubbling up in me. ‘. . . I just wanted more. More from life. Does that make sense? I just wanted to grab an opportunity to do something new. See the world, you know?’
‘Of course,’ he says. His eyes twinkle. They’re swallowing me up again. I’ve admitted something so personal, but he makes me feel so safe. ‘I know exactly. I felt the same at your age.’
‘And I felt . . . I don’t know – I know this sounds mean, but I felt like Scott was suffocating me. Through no fault of his own,’ I add. ‘It’s just that I felt defined by our relationship, not for anything I’d done on my own.’
Why am I talking about Scott in the past tense? Just the realization of this makes me even sadder. But I’ve known it deep down, since the minute I stepped on the plane. But right here, right now, it’s a relief to set these words free.
‘Were you close?’ Edward asks, sitting back, breaking contact. I long for him to touch me again.
I nod. ‘We were once. He thinks we still are.’
Edward pulls a sympathetic smile, like he understands what a shit I’ve been, but forgives me anyway.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘That’s tough.’
Why is he being so nice to me? How can he possibly understand? And yet he does. He does, more than anyone ever has. I’m suddenly so grateful that I’ve told him this. That he knows this about me.
‘I couldn’t explain to him,’ I confess. ‘I tried. He thinks everything is perfect between us, you see. We have sex all the time and—’
I suddenly gasp and stop. I laugh, shocked that I’ve said something so outrageously intimate to my employer, but Edward only smiles at me and nods for me to carry on.
‘I mean, sorry. You don’t need to know about that.’
‘You’ll find out that your definition of a great sex life, Miss Henshaw, may need some adjusting over time.’
His eyes twinkle over the champagne glass. What does that mean, I wonder?
‘But you’re right. A girl as stunning as you should have a man’s devoted attention. You’re obviously a sensual person. You mustn’t ever settle for anything but the best.’
He thinks I’m stunning? I’m reeling from this casual admission. I need to finish the Scott conversation, though.
‘So now you know. That’s why I left,’ I say, relieved that he understands. Because that’s it. He’s hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to settle. ‘Sex isn’t everything, right?’ I tell him.
‘No. It’s not. Well, not until you’ve properly experienced sex, that is.’
And at that moment his eyes meet mine and I feel a kind of shuddering thrill that it takes me a moment to recover from.
21
The house is shrouded in darkness as the limo crunches onto the gravel drive, but the grounds are lit up in silvery moonlight.
We walk together up the steps, although I’m holding my shoes in one hand and the skirt of my dress in the other. I’m glad of the fur stole. I’ve been parading around all night with my navel out, but suddenly it feels inappropriate to have so much flesh on show.
Edward opens the door with his keys and then chucks them on a marble table in the hallway. He puts on the lights.
‘Marnie?’ he calls. ‘Marnie, are you home?’
I hold my breath. I’ve been waiting all this time to meet her, but after our chat in the limo, I feel a closeness with Edward that I don’t want to break.
Silence greets us.
‘Damn it, I thought she’d be back by now,’ he says, but he doesn’t sound particularly cross. Guiltily I feel my stomach flip at the clandestine knowledge that we are all alone.
‘She’s not here?’ I check. I watch as he punches in some keys on the security panel by the front door. The tiny lights, which look very complicated, change. This must be the automatic door-locking system for the internal doors, I realize.
‘She’ll turn up when she wants to,’ he says. He doesn’t look at me.
I can’t fathom out his elusive answer, as I head inside with him and follow him down the corridor. What kind of weird marriage do they have, if they don’t keep track of where each other is? Maybe they’re not close at all. Maybe they have some kind of hostile ‘arrangement’ marriage, where they both do their own thing. I get the impression that Edward is a man who has been starved of female attention. Perhaps Marnie Parker is some kind of powerhouse bitch who emasculates him and doesn’t listen to him.
He heads towards the kitchen, but on the way opens the door into a room I’ve never been into before. This is one of the ‘red’ rooms opposite the kitchen. He reaches inside and quickly flicks a switch on the wall and some low lamps come on, making the room seem inviting and warm.
Maybe the red rooms are red because they are out of bounds to the kids. That’s what old Gundred means, I realize, as I walk inside. There’s nothing sinister going on at all, because it’s so beautiful, I can understand why the Parkers might not want it to get messed up.
There are two fancy-looking silk-and-brocade sofas hugging a glass table with an elaborate and fragile-looking glass sculpture on it. No, this is definitely not a room for little boys.
‘I won’t be a moment,’ Edward says, nodding for me to wait in the room.
Through the French doors in the large bay window I can see a terrace lit up with subtle lighting in stone flags. There are fancy-looking wrought-iron chairs and a table with lots of pots of blooming hydrangeas. Edging the terrace is a stone balustrade with a lawn stretching out beyond, the trees casting long shadows on the silvery grass.
I walk towards the set of white shelves along one wall. They are less shelves, though, than individual art spaces, each displaying ornaments or books. I run my fingers over the heavy, glossy art books at the end.
One falls down with a thud and I jump, worried about upsetting the perfection. I look behind me towards the door. Then I lift the book to replace it, but, intrigued by the black-and-white photo on the cover, I pick it up and open it. I notice it’s signed on the inside front page in large, scrawly writing.
‘To Edward, with my love from Robert.’
I sit on one of the low ottoman stools and pull the book onto my knees. I flip through the photos.
All the pictures are of flowers. Petals, black on white, but they look so astonishingly like a woman’s vagina that I feel myself blushing. I’ve never seen such pornographic art. I turn the pages, the images becoming increasingly outrageous. Is this nature, or is this sex? it’s hard to tell. That’s probably the point, I guess.
I hear Edward coming and snap the book shut, putting it back on the shelf quickly. I’m still high from all the champagne, and maybe a little more turned on than I’d like from the images I’ve just seen. My legs shake slightly as I make my way quickly to the corner of the room, where there’s a record player on a stand.
I busy myself, riffling through the record collection next to it. Dad used to have a record player – a family heirloom from his own father – but when Mum died, he gave it and all his records away. I didn’t know he’d done it until it was too late. We had a row about it, but he said we needed the space, although the truth was that he just couldn’t stand the memories.
I select Al Green as a safe option and flip it out of its cover and put it on the turntable. I love the way the needle crackles at the start of the record. Something about putting on a record in this room makes me feel sophisticated and powerful. Like I actually live here and I’m in charge. I hope it’ll be OK with Edward. I hope he won’t mind.
‘Would you like a nightcap, Miss Henshaw?’ Edward asks, coming into the room and going over to a glass cabinet on the other side of the sofas, which contains lots of expensive-looking bottles. I’m used to him calling me ‘Miss Henshaw’ now. It feels like a tease and I like it.
He’s taken his jacket off and he’s wearing navy-and-leather braces over his white shirt. It’s an old-fashioned item of clothing, to my mind, but on him it looks sophisticated and cool. I wonder what it would be like to put my fingers on the wide elastic straps and push them off his shoulders. I picture them hanging by his hips. How he’d look down at me, knowing that this is the first crucial step. That it would be the button of his trousers next. Then his fly . . .
He glances at me, waiting for an answer. Can he tell what I’m thinking?
The only nightcaps I’m used to are Jägerbombs, but I don’t think he’d have the ingredients, and it would be far too uncouth to suggest something like that in a room like this.
‘What do you have?’ I ask him.
‘Anything you desire,’ he says, his eyes staring at me intensely. I feel the way he says ‘desire’ resonate through me. Like I’m a violin string, or something, and he’s just plucked me.
My hips start to sway as I glide across the room towards him. I love the way the fabric of my dress moves against my skin. I know I’m showing off, but suddenly I don’t care. There’s music and moonlight and it would be rude not to dance.
‘I’ll have what you’re having,’ I tell Edward, smiling as I kneel on the sofa. I’m so relieved we’re here. Like a child allowed to stay up, I’m so relieved he hasn’t sent me to bed and that the night is still ours. Once again, I feel the silence of the large house cocooning us, like it did last night. Was it only last night that we were in the kitchen? It feels like weeks ago. It feels like we’ve known each other forever.
‘Then it’ll be a fine whiskey,’ he says, turning decisively back to the bottles. I stare at his back-view, liking the way his trousers are cut and how great his bum looks. He must work out a lot. It’s all I can do not to reach out my hand and touch him.
‘Do you have yours with water?’ he asks, his back still turned to me. ‘I think it’s sacrilegious myself, but you may prefer it.’
‘I’ve never had it,’ I tell him, getting off the sofa and moving to stand next to him.
‘You’ve never had whiskey?’ he repeats, as I start to inspect the fancy bottles in the cabinet. There’s a silver ice bucket. I see my warped reflection in it and turn to look at Edward.
He seems surprised by me, but I like the feeling he’s giving me, that I’m a blank canvas. If someone is going to draw on me and create an impression, I can think of no one I’d like to do it more than him.
‘Taste,’ he says, staring into my eyes. He hands me a cut glass and his fingers brush mine as I take it from him. The electricity from his touch seems to run up my arm.
I sip the whiskey and it burns my throat. But I like the sensation. I like even more the sensation that he’s staring at me. My eyes don’t leave his.
‘Try another. See which one you prefer,’ he says, preparing another glass with a cube of ice, which chimes in the glass. I watch his steady hand as he pours the golden liquid over the ice. Al Green croons in the background. I think of the black-and-white orchid I saw in the book.
Edward hands me the second glass. As our eyes meet again and I don’t look way, the atmosphere between us feels so charged that I can barely breathe.
I take a sip of the second whiskey. It’s smoother than the first.
‘You like this one more, right?’ he says.
How does he know? How can he read me, like I’m a book?
He tops up the first glass and clinks it against mine. Again, we’re staring at each other as we both take a sip.
I know this shouldn’t be happening, but now my dream last night and tonight start merging. It wasn’t a mistake. He wants me. I can see it in his eyes.
‘Come,’ I urge him, the whiskey-burn giving me a surge of confidence. ‘Come and dance with me.’
I grab his hand and, laughing, pull him towards the rug by the doors and the criss-crossed oblong of moonlight.
He puts down his drink on the cabinet, and then mine. He smiles and takes my hand in his and pulls me into his embrace. It feels so grown-up. So romantic. His hips sway against mine as I lean against him. I put the side of my head on his shoulder, thinking how much I’d love to dive into his smell.
I want to stop time. I feel so exquisitely alive as I move against him. I feel him touching my hair. And I know then that he wants to touch me. All of me. And I want him to. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
I pull back and stare up at him. Our faces are just inches apart.
I lean in, closing the gap. I already know how his lips will taste. I stop breathing and close my eyes. I feel my heart beat . . . one two . . . one two . . . as I wait for our kiss to start.
And then he’s gone.
He steps quickly back from me. He coughs, putting his fist over his mouth. He grabs his whiskey from the bureau where he put it down, and grips it tightly. He puts his hand in his pocket.
He doesn’t look at me.
And I understand, of course, that this wasn’t supposed to happen. He’s employed me as his nanny. But the fact is it has happened: this insane connection, this unbelievable chemistry. He can’t deny it now.
I want to tell him this, but the words stall on my lips as his eyes meet mine. His gaze is hooded and unreadable, like he’s retreated. Gone. I can see it straight away.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall. I’m blushing. All my former cool, my borrowed allure, I now see – the allure the stylist gave me – has gone.
‘I think it’s time to call it a night. Before one of us does something we’d regret,’ he says.
He means me. Not ‘us’. I’m the one in the wrong here. I feel a new flush of humiliation wash over me. My breath catches in my throat. I want the rug to swallow me up.
‘I suggest you go to your room now,’ he says, sternly. And I do. I do as he says, and I leave feeling like I’ve just made a complete fool of myself.
And Edward Parker does not call me back.
22
I feel like crying, but no tears come. I don’t lie on my bed, but sit on the chair by the dressing table, staring at the carpet. I guess the whiskey has hit, and I feel exhausted, drunk, humiliated and ashamed all rolled into one.
I feel deflated. Punctured like a balloon. I can barely move my limbs.
After a while, I get up and battle my way out of the dress, which clings to me like a rubber band. Furiously I fight my way free, scrunching it up and throwing it into the corner with a yelp.
I pull off the necklace roughly, annoyed that it gets caught in my hair. I yank off the big sparkly ring, and dump them both on the dressing table.
I can’t go in the bathroom. There are too many mirrors and I can’t face my shame. Instead I grab the fluffy robe on the door and pull it tight around me; then I sit on the floor by the bed, my knees pulled up, my forehead resting on them, and try and work out what the hell I’ve done wrong, but it’s hard because my head is spinning – all of the incalculable units of alcohol that I’ve consumed this evening finally taking their toll.
How could I have misread the signs so badly? Why have I screwed up this chance? Why do I screw everything up?
I lurch drunkenly to the cupboard and pull out my case with a dry sob. I guess I’ll have to start packing. There’s no way I’ll be employed after that little scene just now.
Oh God.
I picture Edward’s dark gaze. The way he sent me to bed. I thought . . .
What the hell does it matter what I thought? What I thought was wrong.
I yank out the horribly neon-pink case and fling it open. The photo of Scott falls out of the pocket in the top. I pick up the picture of my naked boyfriend, his stiff cock just out of the shot, but we both know it’s there and he
has his hand around it, waiting for me to jump on.
But I never will again. I know that now. I stare at Scott, my eyes burning as I feel the depth of my betrayal for the first time. Not just because tonight I tried to kiss another man – really wanted to kiss another man – but because of all the things I said about Scott. How I admitted that he wasn’t good enough for me.
I let out a tortured laugh at the irony of it all. All this time I thought I was so much better than Scott, but he’s not the one running around half-naked making a fool of himself. You can bet on that. He’s only ever been loyal and loving.
And I’m just a stupid girl looking for trouble.
I turn the photo over, then I pick up the teddy bear that Ryan gave me and hug it close.
23
I don’t know what wakes me, but I’m suddenly alert, although the house around me is silent. It must be a few hours since Edward sent me to bed, but it feels much longer. I’d fallen into a deep, low-down miserable sleep.
I groan, lurching up, trying not to vomit. I have a stinking, hideous hangover, the size of Texas. I lurch into the bathroom and run my hand under the tap, then shovel water into my mouth. I look up at myself and see my face in the mirror, my eye make-up streaked down my cheeks like a horror clown. I try and rub it off, but only make it worse.
Then I hear it. The sound of a woman’s laugh. It’s very short and then stops, immediately muffled. I can’t tell if it came from outside, or inside the house.
I go over to the window and stare out, but the garden is dark. Don’t they say that the hour before dawn is the darkest? I’d never believed it, but now it really is pitch-black out there, the moon having gone. It can’t be long until the sun comes up.
Is Marnie Parker back? Or is there someone else in the house? I thought I was here alone with Edward, but maybe Gundred and Laura are here. Or maybe I just imagined it. I think I must still be pissed.
I go back to the sink and spit some more water out and, feeling lousy, retreat to bed. I lie in the dark, wondering what Edward is doing. Whether he’s still downstairs drinking Scotch. Or whether he’s gone to bed. And, if he has, is he with Marnie? Has she returned from LA? Could that be Marnie’s laugh I heard?