The Object of His Desire (erotic romance suspense)

by PJ Adams

I’d learned–

  My phone went, and for a second I was completely thrown, startled by the sudden noise, my eyes slowly coming back into focus on the words on my screen: ...higher than average bookshop returns mean that...

  The phone.

  I looked at it, then lifted the receiver.

  “Trudy Parsons, Editorial.”

  “Hello, Trudy Parsons-Editorial,” said a familiar voice, and for an instant I smiled, relaxed–

  –but then I caught myself, angry that my first response to that voice had been to melt. Such a god-damned schoolgirl response.

  “Yes?” I kept my tone business-like. I wasn’t going to give him anything.

  A slight pause, then he said, “It’s me. Erm, Will. Will Bentinck-Stanley? Your sister-in-law’s brother, whatever that makes me. Your brother-in-law in-law?”

  This was flustered Will, the Will he used to face situations where he wasn’t sure what response he’d get. Another layer, hiding what she’d thought of as the real Will. But was even that just another façade?

  “Yes?”

  “I... erm. That is...”

  You wowed me and played me and then you just reeled me in.

  I let him stumble on to fill the silence.

  “I was wondering if, you know, perhaps you might like lunch? I know a place.”

  He always knew a place. If I said I wanted lunch at Le Gavroche he’d be able to get us the best table at the drop of a hat, I was sure.

  “I have sandwiches,” I said. And then I went on, hating those silences. “It’s not a good time, okay? It’s Tuesday and I’m busy and you don’t help me think straight.” What did it being Tuesday have to do with anything, for God’s sake?

  “Well, I do apologize.” A jokey tone: he’d taken that as a compliment. Damn it.

  “Not like that,” I said. “Just... Just. Okay? Look, I’ve got to go. A million and one things.”

  “Okay,” he said, abruptly dropping that flustered thing. “I’ll see you later.” And with that, he hung up before I could.

  §

  I’ll see you later.

  What had he meant by that?

  It could simply have been one of those things you say, like asking how someone is when you don’t really want to know, you’re just saying Hello.

  But in recent days I’d become paranoid, and I’d become far too analytical for my own good. Was there intent in that telephone sign-off? He will see me later, regardless of my wishes. He will get what he wants: the Bentinck-Stanleys always get what they want.

  I buried my head in manuscripts for the rest of the day, working through lunch and on until nearly seven. My office was safe, separate from the outside world. My little hideaway.

  When I emerged it was starting to get dark, that dusky half-light when drivers don’t know whether to use their lights or not. I rode home on the Tube and when I emerged for the ten-minute walk from the station to my apartment it was dark.

  For much of that walk I kept my head down, my fists deep in my coat pockets, my mind as blank as possible. The latter didn’t turn out to be that difficult, as it happened; a day staring at manuscripts can do that to a girl.

  And then...

  Surely it can’t be normal to have rich, eligible men just waiting on street corners for you? Once would be worthy of comment, but, well, first Charlie and now... Now: Will Bentinck-Stanley stood leaning on the lamp-post right outside the front door of my apartment building, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding his phone, his thumb tap-tap-tapping a message.

  It was that moment all over again. The ringing of the phone, the double-take, hearing his voice and suddenly, briefly, melting.

  I saw him, I did a double-take – the lean body, the dark, tousled hair, the dark evening stubble, those eyes as they found me and he straightened, pushing away from the lamp-post – and then, just for a moment, my heart raced and I felt something lift in me, and I had to stop myself rushing into his arms.

  Had I been unfair? Had I leapt to conclusions? No matter what had happened, there was no denying that incredible connection between us, that magic.

  “Hey there.” His voice was soft, gentle, an edge of uncertainty but none of that English bluster he so often put on.

  I would have gone to him then. I really would. That temporary weakness would have turned to forgiveness, I know it would. But then what he said next sparked something in me, reawakening the anger I’d been bottling up.

  “So that was the brush-off, was it? The big heave-ho. You woo me, seduce me and then just discard me like yesterday’s news.”

  He was trying to turn it all into a joke. Me? Seduce and use him?

  He was smiling, waiting for me to smile back, to share the joke.

  “‘Yesterday’s news’?” I said, folding my arms across my chest, and jutting my chin, just as I’d done as a girl whenever I’d been faced with conflict. “Really? You want to talk about yesterday’s god-damned news?”

  His smile cracked a little, but he kept it there, plastered across his face.

  “So,” I continued, “let’s talk about yesterday’s news. Let’s talk about three college buddies who tied up, locked up, beat up for all I know... three buddies who locked up a girl, not just for a bit of fun, but for two whole weeks. Three buddies who do all that and whose idea was it? Whose place did they use? Who kept it going for all that time, even when there was a god-damned police hunt going on?”

  The smile was gone and I’m not sure what the expression was that replaced it. His jaw was set, his mouth a straight, dark line and those eyes... those hard, predator eyes were locked on me, sending a sudden chill down my back.

  “And... and now. That girl ends up dead. Killed, you said. And now people are saying... They–”

  “They’re saying what?”

  “That you used me as an alibi. That whole thing... the snow, the Alps, that night. Just an alibi.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  I didn’t know what to think. Face to face with him... Suddenly there were elements of all the different facades he adopted: he was vulnerable, uncertain, he was brash and arrogant, there was a hard chill in his manner, a hint of menace, of danger. He was all of those things and more, and suddenly I didn’t know him at all.

  “What am I supposed to think?”

  “That’s down to you,” he told me. “Tell me what you need from me so that you can believe in me.”

  “Something to believe in?”

  Those eyes. They fixed on me, he opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he looked down, then, with his head still tilted downwards he looked up at me, and there was a flash of something in his look, a spark.

  “I was falling,” he said.

  I waited for him to continue, but that was it. At some imperceptible signal, a low black car pulled up beside us and a door opened.

  Will’s bodyguard, Maninder, was at the wheel, peering out. Will climbed into the passenger seat, pulled the door behind him and the car pulled away.

  A split second is all it took.

  I was falling.

  Falling for me? Falling in love? Falling into some dark abyss?

  I peered after the car, but it was gone.

  Was.

  What was I doing? I wanted to believe in him. I wanted the last five minutes never to have happened.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, that mad American standing in the street with a glistening track down each cheek, but eventually I made myself move, go inside, all the time trying to remember how to breathe.

  28.

  “When I’m not with him it’s all clear in my head. He’s a bad lot, as Charlie put it. He’s arrogant and manipulative and I can never quite know which Will it’s going to be, or how much of what he says is truth and how much façade.”

  “But when you’re with him?” prompted Julie. I was curled up at one end of my big sofa, wrapped in a fluffy bath robe, a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc in one hand, my cell phone in the other.

/>   “When I’m with him I keep seeing chinks, fragments of the real him. Or at least I think I do. He’s spent his whole life filling roles that have been set out for him, but somewhere underneath all those layers is the man who... well, the man I spent that night with in Austria. The man who makes me feel like I’ve never felt before about a man. I’ve never been so attracted, so turned on. I’ve never blushed as much as I have with him, for God’s sake!”

  “And this is the man who travels the world on shady government business, and who you worry might be implicated in the death of a girl he once kidnapped. Have I got that down right, hun?”

  I took a big mouthful of wine, then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s about it.”

  “And you’re asking me for advice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me, does this come under ‘keeping good relations with your publisher’ or can I just tell you to fuck right off?”

  “The former. Definitely the former.”

  There was a pause while Julie took a drink at her end of the line. A big one.

  “Listen, hun,” she finally said. “No one can give you that kind of advice, okay? Lots of people would, of course, but no one sees what you see. No one blushes like you do, or goes weak in the knees and wet in the panties like you do when you see him. You know what I mean? You tell me some of the stuff you tell me and I want to protect you because you’re a friend I love and hold dear, but Trudy, honey, I can’t tell you that shit, really I can’t.”

  I nodded. Stupidly, as she was on the other end of the phone and couldn’t see.

  I knew she was right and I hated that because it left everything on my shoulders.

  “So,” I said, “how about world peace then? You got any ideas on that one?”

  §

  Three-quarters of the way down the bottle, something old and black and white on the TV, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed as women and Marilyn Monroe being so, well, so Marilyn she’d turn even me. The room was lit only by the TV and by flashing blue lights of a police car pulled up in the street. Some kind of disturbance at the pub on the corner.

  Just as Marilyn started to sing “I Wanna Be Loved By You” my cell phone rang, making me jump.

  I picked it up from where I’d dropped it on the sofa, expecting to see Julie’s picture on the screen, but instead it was a number I didn’t know.

  For a moment I didn’t want to answer, but after the fourth ring I relented, picked it up and thumbed ‘answer’.

  I didn’t say anything, though. I just couldn’t.

  There was hesitation at the other end, and then: “Hey, Trudy. Is that Trudy Parsons?” I didn’t recognize the voice, and I started to breathe again. “Listen, it’s me, Hammy. Ahmed Kadir? Ethan’s friend from All Hallows. We met again at the wedding. Is that you, Trudy?”

  “Yes. Yes... sorry, you just caught me at an awkward moment.” I reached for the remote and nudged the volume down on the TV. “Hammy. Hello. How are you?”

  “I saw your message on Facebook,” he said. “You were asking about Will and the Cabal. I thought it might be easier if I called.”

  Suddenly it made sense. That drunken session with Julie, when she’d taken my cell phone and answered Hammy’s friend request, then messaged him from my Facebook account. I took a drink, not sure that I wanted this just then. It had been a long evening.

  “Ah yes,” I said, then couldn’t think what else to say.

  “So what did you want to know? It’s all a long time ago.”

  “I...” My mind raced. “I guess... it’s just there, looming off-stage, you know what I mean? I know some of what happened with Sally Fielding. I just don’t know enough and it’s getting in the way of things.”

  “Ah, Sally...” There was a long silence then, before he continued. “That was a strange business back at All Hallows. It’s like she was brainwashed. All hushed up, of course, but it was as if she wanted it anyway. She was hardly complaining, despite all the fuss.”

  “He has that effect,” I said, more to myself.

  “Who? Charlie? Well, I guess so...”

  “No, not Charlie. Will.” I remembered what Charlie had told me. “Women fall for him, apparently. They become obsessed.”

  “Well yes,” said Hammy. “But we’re talking about the Cabal, right? Yes, Will was a part of that thing with Sally, the Lord rest her soul, but it wasn’t really his doing. No, that was all Charlie. Charlie and your brother, I’m afraid to say. Will was there, sure, but he was doing what he always does: working away behind the scenes, trying to fix things, trying to limit the fall-out. It’s a family thing: the Bentinck-Stanleys. They close in. Will was just doing that protective thing of his, protecting his own. The three of them were like brothers, and Will was just trying to protect them and Sally.”

  But Charlie had blamed Will; he’d said Will was the ringleader.

  God damn it, Charlie!

  “You’re sure?” My voice sounded incredibly small, echoing around in my head.

  “Like I say,” said Hammy, “it was a long time ago, but they were good friends of mine. They still are. It broke my heart to see them pulling apart after it all blew over. But yes, Will’s like that. He did all he could to protect them, but then afterwards Ethan and Charlie didn’t want to know him. I think whenever they saw him it stirred up bad memories, guilt, all that kind of thing. I think they even resented him a bit because he was able to help.”

  “And Sally?”

  “Yes, he tried to help her, too. He was the only one who did. Listen, Trudy, I’m not sure I should be telling you all this. I don’t know what good it does to rake over old wounds like this. Particularly at such a sensitive time, so close to her funeral.”

  “It’s okay, Hammy. It really is. I needed some answers, is all. I really appreciate you calling, okay? I really do.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t seem convinced.

  “Thank you, Hammy. You hear? Thank you so much.”

  “Okay,” he repeated, then added, “Catch you on Facebook, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Catch you on Facebook.”

  §

  “Can we talk?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Not on the phone. Face to face. Can we talk?”

  Silence.

  I was falling.

  “Please?”

  “Ten minutes,” he finally said. “Be ready.”

  29.

  I threw on some fresh underwear, jeans, a strappy top and a cashmere shrug, with the heels I’d worn all day. My face was a mess from crying earlier, so I grabbed a wipe and swept it under my eyes, then powdered my face. A rush job, but at least it felt better. I was just glossing my lips when my cell phone buzzed with a new message telling me that the car was outside.

  I grabbed my bag, and went out, down the steps, my heart pounding and my chest so damned tight I could barely breathe.

  It was the same black limo. A rear door popped open for me and when I looked inside it was just Maninder in the front, not looking back, not saying anything, just waiting for me to climb in.

  “Where to?” I asked, as I sat and pulled the door closed.

  He said nothing for a time, then he half-turned to glance at me. There was a kindness in his eyes, I think. “He has a place by the river,” he said. “It’s where he usually stays when he’s in London. He doesn’t often let people get close to him. He’s learned not to. Remember that.”

  I thought of what Hammy had told me. Will had been close to Ethan and Charlie, but that had all gone wrong. How many others had got close and hurt him before he’d learned to close down the shutters?

  §

  It was one of those apartment buildings by Canary Wharf. All glass and chrome and paved public areas with carefully tended trees and shrubs.

  Maninder drove right up to one of the buildings, then down a ramp and through doors that glided open as we approached. The parking area must have been below the level of the river, and it was full of gleaming BMWs, Porsches, big SUVs and
limos.

  We pulled up by an elevator and Maninder leaned out of his window to key a security number into the pad by the heavy metal doors.

  “Floor twelve,” he said, nodding towards the now open elevator.

  Twelve was the top floor. Of course Will would have the penthouse apartment.

  I keyed the button and almost immediately there was a surge and then the elevator had stopped and the doors were sliding open, straight into his apartment.

  I stepped out, and right in front of me was a big oil painting in a heavy, ornate frame. I recognized the scene: Yeadham Hall and that fringe of pine trees that shielded the Bentinck-Stanleys’ family home from the North Sea. I didn’t look to see who had painted it. Nothing would have surprised me.

  There was music playing, modern jazz, a clarinet leaping all over the place, a form of music I’d never understood.

  Several doors led off the lobby, but only one was open. I passed through into a living room far larger than my entire apartment. There was a small table pulled up to a big leather armchair, a plate and cutlery on it, a glass of red wine. He’d been eating. Somehow it was hard to think of someone like Will up here eating all alone. It was a side of his life I’d not seen into before.

  I dropped my small bag on a nearby chair and looked around. More art on the walls. What looked very like a Jackson Pollock right next to a small portrait of what looked like Will’s father as a young man; a beautiful landscape of a lake and forest, the light all blues and silvers, next to a blocky abstract.

  Across the room, there was a piano, a mini-grand. How could the room be so big that a grand piano wouldn’t be the first thing you notice when you walk in?

  The windows were floor-to-ceiling along the far end of the room, and one was slid open onto the balcony.

  He stood there, his back to me, looking out over the Thames and the lights of London.

  I went and stood in the opening, and still he didn’t turn.

  “There’s a line you once spun me,” I said, “a line so beautiful that it’s been lodged in my mind ever since. You said, ‘You’re here because you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever had the luck to encounter. You’re here because I can’t get you out of my mind. You’re here because I keep making an absolute ass of myself to you and I hope I can redeem myself, at least a little. You’re here because I’m having a shit time and I’m selfish and you’re the most glorious, indulgent, beautiful distraction for me.’”