by Julia James
She was sitting there. Just sitting there. Everything around her seemed to have gone into immense slow motion. As if it was not there. Was not there at all.
Her heart rate had slowed. She could feel it, slowing down like a motor running out of motion. Everything stilled inside her, around her, in the whole universe.
Her face did not move. That had stopped as well. Nor did her eyes. They were still looking at him. Just looking at him.
His eyes had a veiled look to them, and she could see his lips press together, as if in irritation. And as she went on just looking at him, because everything in the entire universe had just stopped, the line of irritation strengthened.
Then, abruptly, it was gone. He was moving, sliding his hand into his jacket pocket and gliding out a long, slim case. He placed it in front of her with a precise movement.
‘As I said—’ his voice still had that strange clipped quality to it ‘—I’ve appreciated you very much, and this is a token of that appreciation.’
Slowly, very slowly, as if there were lead weights on them, she pulled her eyes down to the slim jeweller’s case in front of her, beside her coffee cup. Slowly she lifted her hands and opened the case. A long line of white fire glinted at her.
Diamonds, she thought. These are diamonds. A diamond necklace. For me.
He was talking again. His words came and went. She could hear snatches, as if through a thick, impenetrable fog.
‘Naturally I don’t want you to have any immediate concerns about accommodation. So I’ve taken an apartment for you, which is yours for the next month. That should give you ample time to make alternative arrangements—’
The words were coming and going, coming and going…
In strange, dissociated slow motion, she felt herself stand up.
‘Clare?’ His words had broken off. Her name came sharply.
‘Will you excuse me a moment?’ she said. Her eyes drifted to his. He seemed very far away. As far away as a distant star.
She felt for her handbag and walked away from the table. It was the strangest feeling—feeling nothing. That was what was so strange about it. Walking through a fog of nothingness.
She found the Ladies’ and went inside. There was no one else there. For a moment she just looked at herself in the mirror above the row of gleaming basins.
She was still there. That was odd. She’d thought she had gone. That everything had gone.
But she was still there.
She blinked a moment. Her fingers closed around her clutch bag. For one moment longer she just looked at herself in the mirror. There was the faintest scent of lilies in the air, from the massive bouquet that adorned one of the vanity units to the side.
A sudden, hideous spurt of nausea leapt in her throat.
She turned on her heel.
The door swung open in her hand, and she was in the carpeted corridor outside. To her left was the way back to the restaurant. To her right the corridor led to a side entrance to the hotel that opened into a quiet street off the main West End thoroughfare the St John was situated on.
Her feet walked to the street door. It swung open at her touch.
Outside, on the pavement, the night air should have felt chill. But she did not feel it. She did not feel anything.
She started to walk.
CHAPTER TWO
CLARE had not seen him again from that moment to this—standing now, staring at him, as he sat in the deep leather chair, one hand raised imperiously to summon her.
It was Xander.
Xander after four years, there again, now visible and in the flesh.
It was as if everything inside her had drained out, leaving her completely, absolutely hollow.
She saw the expression change as in slow-motion across his face. Saw him recognise her.
‘Clare?’
She heard him say her name, heard the disbelief in it, even though he was some way from her. Saw him start to his feet, jerk upright.
He started to stride towards her.
She turned and ran.
Blindly she pushed her way across the room, getting to the service door by the bar and thrusting through it. The staff cloakroom was just near, and she dived inside, and then deeper, into the female staff toilet, slamming the door shut and sliding the bolt with fumbling fingers. She yanked down the lid of the toilet and collapsed.
She was shaking. Shaking all over. Shock juddered through her like blows, one after another. How, how could Xander have walked in here? Hotels like this, impersonal and anonymous, did not appeal to him. She knew that—that was why she’d taken the risk of getting a job here. If she’d had the slightest idea he’d ever come here she would never have chanced it!
But he had. He had walked in and seen her, and crashed the past right into the present in a single catastrophic moment.
I’ve got to get out of here!
The need to run overwhelmed her. She had to get out, get home, get away…
Forcibly, she stopped herself shuddering and made herself stand up, walk out into the cloakroom. Her bag and coat were hanging on a peg. The bag held her ordinary clothes, but she didn’t waste time changing, only yanking off her high-heeled shoes and slipping her feet into her worn loafers. She could walk faster in them.
Memory sliced through her.
That night, walking out of the St John, walking along the pavements, walking without thought, without direction, without anything in her mind except that terrifying absolute blankness. She did not know how long she had walked. People had bumped her from time to time, or woven past her, and still she had gone on, stopping only at crossings, like a robot, then plunging across when the coast was clear. She had walked and walked.
Eventually, God knew how long later, she’d realised she could not go on, that she was slowing down—as if the last of the battery energy inside her was finally running out. She had looked with blank eyes. She’d been on the far side of Oxford Street, heading towards Marylebone Road, on a street parallel to Baker Street, but much quieter. There had been small hotels there, converted out of the Victorian terraces. There had been one opposite her. It had looked decent enough, anonymous. She’d crossed over the road and gone in.
She had spent the night there, lying in her clothes on the bed, staring blindly up at the ceiling. Very slowly, her mind had started to work. It had been like anaesthesia wearing off.
The agony had been unbearable. Tearing like claws through her flesh. The agony of disbelief, of shock.
Of shame. Shame that she could have been such an incredible fool.
To have been so stupid…
I thought he had started to feel something for me! I thought I meant something to him—had come to be more to him than a mistress…someone who mattered to him. Someone who…
Her hand had slid across her abdomen, and the agony had come again, even more piercing.
What am I going to do?
The words had fallen like stones into her head.
They had gone on falling, heavier and heavier, crushing her, hard and unbearable.
It had taken so long to accept the answer that she had known, with so heavy and broken a heart, was the only one possible.
I did the right thing. I did the only thing.
The words came to her now, as she yanked on her coat.
Nothing else was possible. Nothing.
A hard, steely look came into her eyes. And what did it matter that Xander Anaketos was out there? What did it matter? Nothing at all! He was nothing to her and she—oh, dear God—she was nothing to him.
Had always been nothing to him…
She came back to the present with a jolt. Steeling herself to forget.
Don’t remember. Don’t think. Just pick up your bag and go. This job is over before it started. I don’t care, I’ll get another one. Only one thing is important—only one. That I never, ever have to set eyes on Xander Anaketos again.
With grim resolution she walked out of the cloakroom.
He was w
aiting for her outside.
It was like a blow across her throat, punching the breath from her. Then, with an inhalation that seared in her lungs, she said, ‘Let me pass.’
He didn’t budge. His frame, large and powerful, blocked the narrow way.
He said something in Greek. She had no idea what it was. It sounded hard, and angry. Then he switched to English.
‘What the hell did you think you were playing at? Pulling that disappearing act at the St John when you walked out on me?’ There was naked belligerence in his voice.
Her mouth fell open. Then closed again. A wave of unreality washed over her, even deeper than the shock waves that had been washing over her since she’d impacted her eyes on Xander Anaketos.
‘Do you know what hell you put me through?’ His tone was unabated, his dark eyes flashing with dangerous fury.
Sickness warred with shock. She stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. His dark eyes narrowed.
‘I thought you’d been run over, killed, injured. I thought you’d gone off to someone else. I thought—’
‘You thought what?’ There was incomprehension as she spoke. What was he saying? She did not understand.
His eyes flashed again. ‘What the hell did you think I’d think? Don’t even bother to answer that! It took me a while, but I finally realised you’d done it entirely on purpose. To get me to come after you!’
Her mouth fell open. Then closed again. A grim, hard look came into her face.
‘You really thought me that stupid? Stupid enough to think you’d come chasing after something you’d just replaced with a new model and paid off with a diamond necklace?’
His expression hardened even more. ‘I was concerned about you,’ he bit out.
She laughed. It was a harsh, brief sound. Then it cut out.
‘Let me pass,’ she said again.
There was a movement behind her, and she turned. Tony, the barman, had come through the service door, and was regarding them with a concerned expression.
‘Clare—is everything all right? Why have you got your coat on?’
She turned to him.
‘Tony—I’m sorry. I’m going home. I can’t work here. I apologise for the nuisance. I’ll phone Personnel tomorrow and sort out the formalities.’ The words came out staccato and uneven.
He frowned, his eyes going from her to the tall, imposing figure of someone who very obviously was a guest of the hotel.
‘Is there a problem? Do you want me to fetch the manager?’ His question embraced both her and Xander Anaketos.
Behind her, Clare heard Xander’s voice. The one she was so familiar with. Giving orders to underlings.
‘There’s no problem,’ he said, his accented voice clipped and dismissing. ‘I’m seeing Ms Williams home.’ He stepped back, giving her room to walk by him. For a moment Clare hesitated, then walked past him. She was not going to make a scene here, in front of Tony. She would get out of the hotel by the service exit, and then head for home. She’d take a taxi. It was an extravagance, but she didn’t trust her legs.
It seemed like a million miles to get to the staff entrance, and she could feel Xander’s breath almost on her shoulders. She was in shock, she knew. It could not be otherwise. The past had reared up to bite her, like a monstrous creature, and she could not cope with it—could not cope at all…
As she pushed the door open and stepped out on to the pavement by the staff car park, she took in deep, shivering lungfuls of air.
Her elbow was seized in an iron grip.
‘This way.’
Her head snapped round, and she pulled away from him violently.
‘Let me go!’
‘I said, this way,’ Xander repeated with grim heaviness.
She tried to shake herself free. It was impossible. His grip was unshakable.
‘Do you want me to scream?’ she bit out.
‘I want you to come this way. You,’ he ground out, ‘have a lot of explaining to do! I don’t appreciate the game you played—’
The word was like a trigger in her skull.
‘Game?’ She stared at him. Four years had changed him little. It was like looking into the past. The past that had almost destroyed her. The past that was ravening at her again, trying to devour her. Trying to swallow her up with memory of how once her heart had leapt every moment she had seen this man. Each time he had touched her, kissed her, she had come alive…
Pain lashed at her as she stared at him—but what was the use of pain?
It got you nowhere. She’d had four years of knowing that. Four years of getting over it. Moving on. She’d changed.
‘Game?’ she said again. Her voice was flat now, the emotion gone from her eyes. ‘How can you stand there and say that to me? How on earth could you think that I was playing some infantile game? How can you possibly have been anything other than relieved by how I reacted? Do you think I didn’t know you by then? Didn’t know that you would never tolerate scenes? Let alone by women you had finished with. I saw you when Aimee Decord came up to you, half-cut—remember? That time in Cannes? I saw how ruthless you were to her. So when it was my turn I knew what the score was. You know,’ she said, and there was an edge of bitterness in her voice she could not conceal even now, four long years later, ‘you should be grateful to me. I must have been the easiest ex-mistress you’ve ever had.’
Abruptly, he dropped her arm, and stepped back.
‘I spent days looking for you! You just vanished.’
His voice was accusatory. His Greek accent thick.
‘What are you complaining for?’ she flashed back. ‘You’d just pressed the delete button on me. I was supposed to vanish.’
Xander’s expression darkened.
‘Do not be absurd! I had made arrangements for you. Of course you were not simply supposed to vanish! Besides, there were all your things still in my apartment—’
Clare’s head shook sharply.
‘There was nothing of mine there. Nothing personal.’
‘There were your clothes, all your belongings!’
‘They weren’t mine. You’d bought them. Look—what is this? Why this totally pointless post-mortem four years later? You finished with me, and I left. It was very simple. I don’t know why you’ve followed me out here, I don’t know why you’re talking to me, and I don’t know why you think you’ve got some sort of right to lay into me!’
Her tirade ended, and she could feel her heart pumping like a steam train. Her brain seemed to be whirring like a clock that had suddenly gone from dormant to overwound in ten seconds. She couldn’t cope with this—with Xander Anaketos suddenly coming into reality again. It was like some churning hallucinatory dream that she could not believe in.
She turned away, half stumbling. She wanted out. Out, out, out. Just at the range of her vision she saw a taxi turn into the concourse of the hotel, towards the main entrance. She ran towards it. If it was depositing someone at the hotel, she could grab it!
A minute later, heart still pounding, she collapsed in the back of the taxi she’d claimed as it pulled out into the busy road again.
She felt sick. Like a concrete mixer on full spin.
It had been Xander—Xander. There, real, alive. Suddenly, out of nowhere, after four years—four years—in which her life had changed beyond all recognition.
Her stomach was churning still, shock waves turning her into jelly, her mind a hurricane. The taxi ploughed along the busy arterial road, and headlights flashed into the car. She sat clutching her bag as if it were a lifebelt.
When the cab pulled up outside the house, she fumbled inside the bag for her purse, forcing herself to count out the right money. It was more than she wanted to pay, but she didn’t care. She was safe back here again. As she walked up the short path to the front door, getting her key out, she forced herself to be calm. She must not upset Vi.
Oh, God, I’ve just chucked in my job—I can’t tell her that! Not yet.
She opened the do
or quietly. Vi’s bedroom was the front room downstairs, as she found stairs hard to manage these days. The door was half open, and Clare peeped inside. There was Joey, as she’d expected, cosy in a ‘nest’ on the floor—cushions from the sofa and some extra pillows—snuggled into his child duvet. He was fast asleep and did not stir.
For one long, long moment, Clare stood gazing down at his shadowed form. Her heart turned over, almost stopping.
No! She must not let her thoughts go the way they were about to. She knew what she had been on the point of thinking, and she must not let herself do so. Again, a seismic wave of shock went through her as she fought the acknowledgement of what she had so nearly let come into her mind.
Instead, she backed out. She took off her coat, hung it up on one of the row of pegs beside the stairs, and headed towards the back of the house. There was a small sitting room just in front of the kitchen, and then the bathroom behind the kitchen. Vi was in the kitchen, putting the kettle on for her late-night cup of tea.
‘Hello, love,’ she said, her voice surprised, as Clare came in. ‘You’re earlier than you said you would be.’
Clare forced a smile to her face.
‘Yes, I thought I’d be later, too,’ she said. She left it at that. She could say nothing else. Not right now. Instead, she said, ‘How was Joey? He’s out like a light now, I see.’
Vi’s wrinkled face softened into a familiar smile.
‘Oh, he hasn’t stirred. Don’t you worry about him. Have a nice cup of tea and sit down before you take him upstairs.’
Clare went through into the sitting room and sank down onto the end of the sofa that still had its cushions on. Vi’s armchair was closer to the TV in the corner, with a little table beside it, handy for the standard lamp. The room was old-fashioned, like the whole house, but Vi had lived here for thirty years and more.
For Clare it had been a haven. Those first few months, when the life she had been hoping against hope for had simply dissolved in her hands, it had been hideous. But although homeless, at least she had not been destitute. After her father had died she had received an offer for their flat which she’d felt she should not refuse, and she’d put the proceeds into the bank. But she had known she was in no state of mind to sort out her life properly, other than drifting through casual jobs from the temping agency and living in anonymous bedsits, and the money in the bank was still her nest egg. But once she’d known she was going to have to face life as a single mother, she had had to face up to the grim fact that if she bought another flat, even if just a small one, for her to live in, then what would be left for her to live off—and her baby?