—Whodini
TWENTY-TWO
LILY
That morning Jake gets up early. There is something he must do at the office.
‘Unimportant, but necessary,’ he says when I ask him what.
It is too early for me to eat, but I sit and watch him wolf down three slices of toast thickly spread with butter and homemade marmalade that his mother bottles for him. I walk him to the front door, snake my arms around his neck and stand on tiptoe to kiss him and he lifts me up.
‘I’ll crumple your suit,’ I whisper in his ear.
‘Wrap your legs around me, woman,’ he growls.
I laugh and wrap my legs around his hips.
‘Have I told you today how beautiful you are?’
I tilt my head and pretend to think. ‘Let me see. Yes. Yes, you have.’
He looks into my eyes seriously. ‘You’re beautiful, Lily. Truly beautiful.’
‘Is everything OK?’ I ask him.
He smiles softly. ‘Yes, everything is just the way it should be.’
We kiss gently and then he leaves me.
I stand for a moment looking at the door. A small cold leaf of worry clings to my back. Is he doing something dangerous today? I go back to bed and lie down for a while, thinking. Why has he not told me where he is going?
By nine thirty a.m. I have showered, dressed and am closing the front door behind me. I walk to the bus stand down the road, and I sit on one of the red plastic seats and wait for the bus. It comes at nine fifty-two a.m.
I climb aboard, pay the bus driver, and take a seat upstairs. The bus takes me all the way to Leicester Square. I get off and walk up to Piccadilly Circus. It is full of tourists and I sit on the stone steps under the statue and look at them, with their maps and their cameras and their great enthusiasm.
Afterwards, I walk down Regent Street ambling in and out of shops. I try on a hat. When I look in the mirror I find my eyes huge and frightened. I turn away quickly. I flick through the hangers without real interest and my behavior earns me the attention of a security guard, who starts following me around. I leave that shop quickly.
I enter a shoe shop and after trying on about ten pairs I buy a pair. I am outside the shop when I realize I don’t even know what color the shoes are. By now it is one forty-five p.m. I go into a small café and order a salmon and cucumber sandwich, but I am unable to finish it. I pay my bill and set off toward the Embankment Bridge.
As I walk across the bridge I start to feel the first frisson of nervousness. It settles like lead in the pit of my stomach. I have blocked it out all this time, but the moment is here. It is time. I train my eyes not on the Tate Modern, but on St Paul’s Cathedral in the background. Eventually I come upon the giant black insect creature made of metal. Creepy and perfectly War of the Worlds.
I go through the front door of the Tate Modern and up the stairs. Down the corridor there is an exhibition by Marlene Dumas that I would like to see but I don’t go in there. Instead I pass into one of the smaller rooms where a man is sitting on a bench contemplating a collage called ‘Pandora’ by a new artist, Miranda Johnson.
The colors are bright and bold, but there is no difference between this painting and Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’. Both are violent and raw with suffering. To enter the painting is to enter pain. I let my eyes wander over it. There is an eye in the collage, a full pair of bright pink lips, and a flower. There are also words like bitch, suck, liar, arsehole, abuse, and on the very top, cursive writing that says, You are invited…
I walk toward the painting, my soul aching.
The man on the bench speaks. ‘She shouldn’t have opened the box.’
I don’t look at him. I simply sit next to him, but not close enough to touch. There are six inches between us. I feel frozen inside. I think of my brother lying on the floor with the needle sticking out of his arm. And I am suddenly caught by his pain, the pain of the painting, my pain. I can do this. Of course I can do this.
I look at the painting and all I can see is the word ‘Bitch’.
‘You called for a meeting,’ the man says without looking at me.
‘Yes.’
He turns his head briefly to look at me. I turn my head quickly to meet his gaze. I want to look into his eyes. I want to stand again on firm ground. His eyes are dark and expressionless. Exactly the way I remember them. I stare at him. He is first to look away.
‘Well?’
‘There is something big happening on the sixteenth,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know yet. But something is coming in through Dover.’
‘Good work, but we won’t act on this one. It will compromise you. We’ll let this one go. You have something far more important to do.’
I swallow hard.
He turns to stare at me. ‘Are you falling for him?’ His voice is hard and cold.
I think of Jake’s skin pressed against mine, his tongue tracing an erotic path to my ear, his lips whispering, ‘I love you, Lily. I never believed anybody could be as beautiful as you.’
‘No. Of course not. This is just a job,’ I say, my insides twisted in a hard knot.
He looks at me with narrowed eyes. ‘Good. Because you are a servant of the Crown and our best hope to bring Crystal Jake and his criminal enterprise down.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I stand to leave.
‘Keep your wits about you, Hart,’ he cautions.
I don’t turn back and I don’t allow myself to think of Jake. I walk away with the sound of my feet echoing on the hard floors and Luke’s beautiful, helpless face in my mind.
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Extract
BLACKMAILED BY THE BEAST
“Madison.”
I freeze. The street below my window ceases to exist.
Thorne Drakos?
No. No. No. It can’t be him. And yet, I would recognize that voice anywhere. I hear the click of my office door closing and his footsteps coming closer. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. The deep rumble of his voice is bittersweet.
‘Hello, Madison,” he whispers close to my ear. His energy surrounds me. I greedily drag in the scent of his aftershave, leather, pine forests, and the ocean. Oh, god. How I have missed him. These last two years without seeing him have been hell.
I take a step forward then turn around to face him. For a second my whole body goes cold. His eyes. The gray orbs are as frozen as the most inhospitable winter lake. He looks at me expressionlessly. The breath I was holding escapes in a rush. I force a bright smile. “Hiya.” My voice sounds breathy and shaky.
He smiles slowly. A cold smile. Full of danger.
I decide to take the bull by the horns. “I’m sorry I stole from you.”
His smile widens. It looks almost friendly except for the hostile wasteland in his eyes. “Are you now?”
“Yes, yes, I am very sorry. I’ll make arrangements to pay you back.”
His eyebrows rise. “What kind of arrangements would they be?”
“I’ll take a loan and I’ll pay you back every month. All of it. Every last cent.”
“With interest?’
“Of course,” I agree instantly.
His eyes glitter. “And the cost of finding you. It is very, very difficult to find a girl who stops using her credit cards, social media, and completely drops off the face of the earth.”
“Well, living in the UK is not exactly dropping off the face of the earth.”
“Let’s just say it is hard to find someone when you’re looking for Madison Redmond and they’re living under the name of Alison Mountbatten.”
I swallow hard. “Yes, I figured a new life was the best way forward.”
“Hmmm ...”
“If you tell me how much I owe you I’ll make arrangements. I … er … have work to finish.” I indicate to my desk.
“Um …We could cal
l it two million even.”
My eyes pop. “What? I stol … took $300,000. You can’t be serious! You want two million back?”
He shrugs carelessly. “Interest and costs.”
“Interest and costs?” I echo incredulously.
He looks at me expressionlessly.
“You don’t even need it. It’s just numbers in your bank account.”
He takes his phone out of his expensive camel coat. “If you’d rather I alert the proper authorities instead—”
I raise my hand up. “Wait. Just wait a second here. We can work something out. I’ll pay it all back. I swear. I will. I just need a bit of time.”
“So you can run away.”
“I won’t run. I promise.”
He takes a step closer and I stop breathing. His hand rises up and he runs his finger down my exposed throat. “So soft and so pale,” he murmurs as his thumb caresses the skin where a pulse is kicking. “How can I trust a thief and a liar?”
“I give you my word.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, Madison. Your word is not good enough.”
To my horror my eyes fill with tears. When I blink they spill down my cheeks. He laughs. “The oldest trick in the book. I should have known you’d stoop to that. Well, Alison Mountbatten, I’m afraid female tears have the opposite effect on me.” He bends his head and licks my cheek, his tongue warm and velvety. Then he looks into my widened eyes. “They excite me. You, my little thief, are going to cry for me. A lot.”
I did not realize that my hands had flown up. I must have wanted to shove him away, but they are resting on his chest, my fingers spread on the hard muscles. “What do you want from me?” I whisper hoarsely.
“I want you to pay your debt with your body.”
I blink with shock. “What do you mean?”
“For one year, you will be my toy. You sleep when I tell you to sleep, you will eat when I tell you to eat, you will spread your legs when I tell you to, you will fuck yourself when I tell you to, you will come when I tell you to. You will sleep in my bed and I will use you when and how I decide to.”
“You can’t do that to me,” I say, stunned.
“Or you can go to prison. You will be very sweet meat in a woman’s prison. All this soft, unmarked flesh.”
I shudder and he smiles. “See. My cock would be infinitely better, no?”
“Why are you doing this? You could have any woman.”
“Because I can. Now strip.”
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