by Karen Swan
He grinned, picking up his cutlery. ‘I wasn’t sure what you like to eat so I made a guess for the lamb. Please don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.’
‘No. I’m not a vegetarian,’ she smiled, pouring herself a glass of wine and sipping it.
‘Thank God for that.’
She swallowed nervously. Thank God for that forty-foot drop more like, she thought, taking another sip of wine. Across the narrow breach that divided them, the candlelight threw shadows up the planes of his face which, already half covered by beard, only served to emphasize his deep-set, rich brown eyes; they were expressive, still playful.
Picking up her weapons too, she began to carve the cutlet and went to bring it to her mouth – before getting a fit of the giggles.
‘This is ridiculous!’ she laughed, dropping it on the plate again.
‘Why?’
‘We ought to have just eaten together downstairs.’
‘But you wanted to eat in your room,’ he said simply.
‘Well yes, but—’
‘But?’ His look was a challenge, daring her to say it – that she wanted to be alone; that she didn’t trust him, or herself to be together now.
‘Nothing. This is lovely. Very . . . inspired.’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Could you pass the salt?’
‘Huh?’
‘The salt?’ He flicked his eyes towards the condiment set on her table.
‘Oh, yes . . .’ She picked it up and half rose from her chair, leaning over the chunky stone wall and handing it to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said, his gaze catching hold of her as though she really might fall, his fingertips brushing hers.
Was it just her or was it hot out here? She felt the sweat prickle her skin. Ten o’clock at night and still 28 degrees; she would never get used to it. It was definitely the heat.
‘So did you manage to make those calls?’ he asked, not so far away.
‘Pretty much,’ she nodded; it had been the perfect excuse for getting away from him when they’d got back here. Alexander had called again and left a message – his wife was going to be staying on the yacht for a few nights to catch some sea breeze; apparently it was oppressively humid on the mainland. Could she arrange for two hundred white peonies to be delivered and arranged on board before she arrived tomorrow night? He wanted to make it ‘homely’ for her. And Mike Greenleve had needed another private medic who would sign a non-disclosure agreement and fly out to Hawaii; the other doctor she’d sourced was refusing to treat his lead artist now and without a methadone prescription, no music was going to be made. Plus Rosaria had called again, this time detailing in exacting fury just why she needed Chloe to ring her back – someone had made the mistake of putting lilies in her dressing room. Someone had to be fired.
‘You must need the patience of a saint, doing what you do.’
‘Not at all. You are all complete pussycats.’
He caught her ironic edge and shot her a bemused look. ‘It can’t be all bad, surely. Today was fun. You could hardly classify it as work.’
‘You just had me heavy-lifting!’
‘You were easily up to it.’ His eyes flashed and flipped her stomach easily. ‘Besides, the rest was good. Wasn’t it?’
The question was loaded and she kept her eyes down. ‘Mm hmm, great fun,’ she said non-committally, pretending to have trouble spearing a carrot. ‘The image of you face-planting in your jetpack will sustain me for many weeks to come.’
‘You’re supposed to think of me, perfectly pitched, hovering at the deck in a great display of masculine power.’ He watched her as she chuckled, a faint smile playing on his own lips. Her amusement seemed to amuse him. There was a little silence. ‘So I take it you’re still intending to leave tomorrow?’
The question caught her off-guard. Still? Was he suggesting there was a reason her plans should have changed? ‘. . . Yes. I’m booked on the first flight.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said in a tone she couldn’t quite place.
‘Well there’s a lot going on in New York,’ she said, keeping her tone light. ‘I’ve been gone long enough as it is. They need me.’
‘And I don’t?’
‘No, you don’t, my work here is done!’ she scoffed playfully, still not looking up. She did not dare. ‘How long are you staying for, anyway?’ she asked, determined to move the conversation along. ‘You’ve got the rest of the summer ahead of you after all – exactly as you wanted.’
‘Actually, I’m going to France tomorrow night.’
‘France?’
He shrugged, eating his meal with the same studied concentration as he had at their first lunch together.
‘But then you’ll come back?’ That had been the point after all, the reason for his urgency: he wanted to spend the summer here.
She watched him as he stopped eating – as though giving up on it – and sat back in his chair, taking a slug of wine and resting his eyes upon her once more. ‘Yes, probably.’
A gust of night breeze rustled round them both, blowing his hair lightly around his face, pressing his shirt against his torso. The candles flickered in their storm lamps, swaying dangerously but never blowing out. His face danced in the half-light, all angles and shadows, secrets and promises.
‘How lucky,’ she sighed, looking out to sea. ‘So all this will become routine for you.’
‘I don’t think this could ever be routine for me.’ She had meant the view, the hot night air, the food, this ticklish breeze – but he hadn’t. His eyes were on her as certainly as any touch.
She met his eyes this time and saw he was beginning to push. She knew she had to tell him – about her terrible taste in men and how it had nothing at all to do with bow ties, but with fiancées and being gullible. ‘Joe, look—’
‘Could you pass me the wine?’
She paused. What? ‘The wine?’
‘Yes, I want to try the sauvignon. I’m not rating the Asti.’
‘Oh. Right.’ She reached back for the bottle in the ice bucket and half rose in her chair again; he had already come to stand at the wall of his balcony. ‘There you go.’
‘Thanks,’ he said as she held it out for him. But it wasn’t the bottle he reached for, his hand closing instead around her wrist. Her gaze fell to her own arm as she felt him pull her up towards him so that they were both standing now – her holding the bottle, him holding her.
It wasn’t accidental. He wasn’t being gallant. He was bringing into the open the electricity that was surging between them. No more pretending, no more stalling. The clock was already ticking. This time tomorrow she would be on one continent, him another; the story of her life it seemed.
His eyes burned for a long moment in which neither one of them spoke and yet everything was said, before in one swift movement he leaned forward, his other arm reaching out and, clasping her behind her head, pulling her to him, kissing her – mouths together, bodies agonizingly far apart.
She didn’t know how long they stayed like that; at one point, he grabbed the bottle off her and tossed it into the ice bucket beside his, freeing their hands, and she felt his fingers entwine in her hair, the soft prickle of his beard against her palm.
When they finally pulled apart, she was breathless – not least from the strain of leaning over. His eyes were still burning; she suspected hers were too. It wasn’t enough.
‘Where’s a ground-floor room when you want one?’ he muttered, glancing down at the drop, his breath coming heavily as he kept her in his sights – so near, yet so far.
‘Well, there is a door,’ she said quietly, taking a few steps back towards the bedroom.
He watched her, like a cat with a mouse, not one movement missed. ‘No.’
No?
‘No.’ He stepped up suddenly onto his chair and put his foot on the balcony wall as though testing it, finding the sweet spot. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’ he grinned. And leapt.
She blinked in the gloom, the new day barely making an impressi
on on the floor as it nudged feebly against the slatted shutters, the vintage bed sheet moulded to her naked form. She turned over with a sigh, then again, trying to get comfortable. The crack of light told her it was still too early to be awake, the jet lag still refusing to release her, cradling her tightly and rocking her awake with thoughts of Tom. Tom and Lucy. Tom and Serena. Tom’s lies. Joe.
Joe.
She turned over with a start, remembering – but the bed was empty, the sheet a tangled rope on his side. He’d gone? She sat up in bed, looking harder, as though it was the dim light hiding him from her, but she was alone. She could feel it.
Oh God. She bent her knees and dropped her head onto them. What had she done? Flashes of last night played on loop through her mind – as unbelievable as they were unstoppable; so much better than it had ever been with Tom, they had laughed, ordering up another bottle of wine. He had an earthy masculinity, the skin on his hands rough, his beard pinking her skin, his body relaxed but also somehow primed; he felt completely ‘other’ to her and she had felt liberated with him, exhilarated. Joe was the first man she’d slept with since Tom, and she’d been faithful to him for all of their four years together.
And now Joe hadn’t even stayed the night. And he was a client.
She moaned, feeling wretched, humiliation washing over her in waves. She was an idiot. An idiot. A bloody fool. He had used her; she was just another thing to own or claim; or perhaps he really did think sleeping with the staff was part of the service. What had she been thinking? Why should she have supposed he’d have thought otherwise?
Angrily, she yanked the sheet off her and stalked across the room, the cool floor tiles welcome relief on her feet; her skin felt clammy and she didn’t think the temperature could have dropped below 25 degrees overnight. She poured herself a glass of water from the carafe and stepped back out onto the small balcony, looking down at the little town with its cascade of stepped red roofs. The port was not yet awake although the fishing boats – like him – had already left; here and there, washing hung limply from lines that had been strung across tiny roof terraces, cats were curled up and sleeping on stone walls, but even the sky was bare of birds.
It was a view that still shocked her with its foreignness – what was she doing here? She thought of her tiny apartment and the fact that the dress she had worn to the opera – and which was supposed to have been returned to Barneys on Monday – was still thrown across the bedroom chair, her underwear balled up in the corner ready for her to hit the laundromat this weekend; the milk would be still fresh in the fridge, her Saturday market flowers probably still sucking up the last drops of water in the vase. She had just walked out of her own life as though it and the people in it meant nothing. Again. And now she would be stepping back into it, like her life was a pair of jeans she could put on and discard at will.
God, had she really only been gone a few days? It was Friday morning and she had still been in New York on Monday night. It felt so much longer than that. She was a wreck. Her life was a mess.
She took a deep glug of water from the glass still on the table – her mouth felt like it had been carpeted – and sank despondently against the wall on her elbows, looking out to sea, only vaguely aware of the deep plough lines of the fishing boats’ wakes still shimmering on the water’s surface. It would be almost ten in New York. What was happening there now? Was Poppy’s jaw still wired? Could she do any more than blink? Had Jack calmed down? And Tom – had he guessed she’d seen him with Serena? Or had he given up and gone home, back to Lucy?
So many questions. Ever since that cab ride on Bond Street when the truth had come into crystal clear focus, she had determined to act with conviction from that point on, never to be the victim again, to stay one step ahead of the heartbreak that snapped at her heels. And yet somehow, she was always the one left wondering what was going on.
A small sound made her jump and she turned back to see the latch on the shutters in Joe’s room being turned. With a desperate leap, she landed in the shade of her own doorway just as he stepped onto his balcony in his boxers.
Their tables were still where they’d been set up last night, the dinner plates attracting flies. She watched as he threw his arms above his head and stretched like a big cat, the muscles on his stomach and torso like flat, polished pebbles. He walked up to the balcony wall and looked out to sea and across the port, just as she had done. How long had he been back in his own room? Had he waited for her to fall asleep and then just left?
He had his phone, she saw. She watched as he dialled a number and put it to his ear, rolling his shoulders, the muscles in his back clearly defined as he looked out to sea.
‘Hey, yeah, it’s me.’ His voice was low and barely distinct. ‘. . . I know, sorry about that but reception is patchy here and I can’t always get away . . .’ Chloe frowned, struggling to hear. ‘. . . not often alone.’
There was a silence as he listened to the other person, stretching his neck by pressing his head down one side, then the other.
‘. . . already sorted. Remote spot. Olive groves. You’ll like it. All the furniture’s in now.’
Chloe felt her heart beat harder. He was talking about the house – but to whom? He’d told her he was unmarried and single so who was this person he thought would like it – a friend? A business partner? Investor? His parents? But no, she knew from his tone it couldn’t be them. His voice was too . . . confiding, somehow. It reminded her of the early days with Tom, when they’d tried so hard to stay away from each other, working side by side all day and putting on their best professional voices, only to succumb in the lifts or at the photocopier, and he would call Lucy, telling her he was working late. Chloe had hated herself in those moments as she heard him use that voice – the same one Joe was using now.
She closed her eyes, feeling sick, as she realized with utmost clarity that he was on the phone to a woman, that there was someone else and it was happening all over again. Tom mark two.
He began to pace and she pressed herself flatter against the wall as he walked over towards her balcony, his voice becoming louder – ‘. . . it’s all going to plan . . .’ – before he turned away again at the wall and his words drifted away like ribbons on the breeze. ‘. . . Have to be careful not to arouse suspicion.’
What? Her antennae shot up and she shifted position slightly, straining to hear more. What plan was he talking about? And whose suspicion didn’t he want to arouse – hers?
She risked a peek round the doorway; he had his back to her, one hand on his hip as he continued to talk. Who was this man who had barged into her life just two short weeks ago? Who had all but insisted she leave the city on a whim. Who was wry and sarcastic and silent one moment, and sweep-her-off-her-feet charming the next. Who leapt balconies to be with her but crept from her bed to ring another woman.
She leant forward further, straining to hear more and placing one hand on the hinge of the shutter; it creaked loudly and she saw him start to turn. She ducked back in again but not before she caught sight of the water glass she’d just left sitting on the wall. She had forgotten about it when she’d heard him coming out but now it sat there conspicuously – showing she had been out there too. Not to mention one gust of wind would send it flying forty feet to the ground below. If someone should happen to be walking past . . .
She heard his bare feet pad over the tiles, glimpsed his hand as he reached over to her balcony and picked it up. Was he looking back towards her room? She pulled as far back out of sight again as she could, pressing herself flat – flatter – against the wall, but even if she was out of sight, he would clearly be able to see that her shutters were open, that she must be up too. She held her breath, not daring to make even that sound; if he leaned across his balcony – or, God help her, jumped again – he would see her here, naked as a baby and spying on him, a man she had just heard had a plan that was grounds for suspicion.
A short silence followed. What was he doing? She scrunched her eyes shu
t.
‘. . . Yeah, yeah, sorry, I’m still here . . .’ She heard the soft suckering sound of his bare feet on the tiles again, his voice retreating and the rasp of the latch on the shutters.
She peered around the doorway. His balcony was clear. She felt her muscles release.
But not a moment later, she heard the click of a door out on the corridor; she darted back into bed, pulling the sheet over herself and forcibly slowing down her breath to a steady, sonorous beat. A moment later, her own door opened again and she heard him come back into the room, his feet on the tiles and then the mattress sagging, rolling her towards him slightly as he lay down on it beside her. For several seconds, all was quiet as she felt the weight of his stare on her face as she pretended to sleep; and then she heard the soft clink of her water glass back on the bedside table – he must have taken it with him as some sort of safety-first gesture.
But safe wasn’t how she felt around him now.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Where are you going?’ His voice was heavy with sleep, a low groan escaping him as he glanced at the time on his phone, falling back into the pillows again.
‘I’ve got a plane to catch,’ she half whispered, doing up her bra and bitterly wishing she could at least have got her clothes on without him waking up. She didn’t want to ever see him again; she didn’t want him to see her again, especially not half-clothed.
‘Get another one then. Come back to bed.’
The intimacy in those words . . . She closed her eyes, feeling the bitterness curl. He had another woman and he could just trot out commands like that to her? But it wasn’t his infidelity that was making her get out of there so fast; it wasn’t the fact that he was a cheat that made her feel so frightened. And she was frightened. In the three hours since he had come back to bed, falling asleep almost immediately, she hadn’t slept for a minute; she didn’t know this man, not what he really wanted or what he was up to. But he was up to something – she could smell it now, like off milk – and she knew that she had to get out of there and away from him as quickly as she could. She hadn’t been able to leave any earlier, as she needed a ferry to get off the island and they didn’t start running till breakfast. She also didn’t want to arouse his suspicions that she had hers – a perverse double bluff that everything was absolutely normal.