by James, E L
“A Soho Mule.”
“Good choice.”
I signal the waiter and order.
“You’ve been a recluse this weekend,” Caroline says.
“I’ve been busy.”
“On your own.”
“Yes,” I say, and it feels good not to lie.
“What is it, Maxim?”
“What do you mean?” I give her a level I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about stare.
“Have you met someone?” she asks.
What the hell!
I blink as an image of Alessia stretching over my piano and wearing nothing but pink panties comes to mind.
“You have!” Caroline says, startled.
I shift in my seat and shake my head. “No.” My denial is emphatic.
Caroline raises a brow. “You’re lying.”
Fuck. Not emphatic enough.
“How can you tell?” I ask, as ever daunted by her ability to cut through my bullshit.
“I couldn’t, but you always cave so easily. Tell me.”
Damn!
“There’s nothing to tell. I spent the weekend alone.”
“That speaks volumes in itself.”
“Caro, we’re each dealing with Kit’s absence in our own way.”
“And…what are you not telling me?”
I sigh. “Do you really want me to talk about this?”
“Yes,” she says, and I notice the wicked gleam in her eye, reminding me that the real Caroline is not far away.
“There is someone. But she doesn’t know I exist.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. It’s nothing. Just a flight of fancy.”
Caroline frowns. “This is not like you. You’re never distracted by one of your, um…conquests.”
I can’t help my hollow laugh. “She’s not a conquest—not by any stretch of my imagination.”
She can barely look at me!
The waiter arrives with our drinks.
“When did you last eat?” I ask.
Caroline shrugs, and I shake my head. “You must be driving Mrs. Blake crazy. Let’s eat. May we have the menu?” I ask the waiter, who nods and scuttles away.
I raise my glass to hers. “To absent loved ones.” I hope we can change the subject.
“To Kit,” she whispers, and we smile sadly at each other, bonded by our love for the same man.
* * *
It is two o’clock in the morning when we return, inebriated, to my flat. Caroline is reluctant to go home. I don’t want to go. It’s not home without Kit.
I cannot argue with her.
We both stagger into the hallway, and I enter the code into the alarm, silencing the incessant beeping.
“Do you have any blow?” Caroline slurs.
“No. Not today.”
“What have you got to drink?”
“I think you’ve had enough.”
She gives me a crooked, drunken smile. “Are you taking care of me?”
“I’ll always take care of you, Caro. You know that.”
“Then take me to bed, Maxim.” She throws her arms around my neck, her face raised with blurry expectation and her unfocused eyes intent on my mouth.
Fuck. I grab her shoulders to hold her back. “No. I’ll put you to bed.”
“What do you mean?” Caroline scowls.
“You’re intoxicated.”
“And?”
“Caroline. This has to stop.” I kiss her forehead.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Her face crumples, and tears well in her eyes as she staggers out of my hold.
I groan. “Don’t. Please don’t cry.” I pull her back into my embrace. “We can’t do this anymore.”
Since when have scruples stopped me fucking?
I was supposed to go out tonight and find a willing hot woman.
“Is this because you’ve met someone?”
“No.”
Yes.
Maybe.
I don’t know.
“Come on, I’ll put you to bed.” I curl my arm around her shoulders and lead her into my seldom-used spare bedroom.
* * *
At some point in the night, the mattress dips as Caroline climbs in beside me. Relieved that I remembered to put on pajama bottoms, I pull her into my arms.
“Maxim,” she whispers, and I hear the invitation in her voice.
“Go to sleep,” I grumble, and close my eyes.
It doesn’t matter to me that she was my brother’s wife. She’s my best friend and the woman who knows me best. She’s also a warm body and a comfort, and I’m grieving, too—but I’m not going to fuck her again.
No. That’s done.
She rests her head on my chest, and I kiss her hair and promptly fall asleep.
Chapter Six
Alessia cannot contain her excitement. She clutches the umbrella and enters his apartment. Today she’s pleased to note that the alarm doesn’t sound.
He’s here!
Last night in her narrow bed, she’d dreamed of him again—malachite-green eyes, shining smile, and that expressive face—engrossed in his music as he played the piano. She’d woken breathless and full of desire. And the last time she’d seen him, he’d been kind enough to lend her his umbrella, and it had kept her dry on the way home and all day yesterday. She’d not received much kindness since she came to London, except from Magda, of course, so his gesture meant that much more. Pulling off her boots and leaving the umbrella in the hall, she hurries through to the kitchen. She is excited to see him.
She stops on the threshold.
Oh, no!
A blond woman wearing nothing but a man’s shirt, his shirt, is standing in the kitchen making coffee. She looks up and gives Alessia a polite but warm smile. Alessia recovers her capacity to move and walks through the kitchen toward the laundry room with her head bowed, in shock.
“Good morning,” the woman says. She looks as though she’s just climbed out of bed.
His bed?
“Good morning, missus,” Alessia mumbles as she walks past her. Once in the laundry room, she stands for a moment to process this crushing turn of events.
Who is this woman with big blue eyes?
Why is she wearing his shirt? A shirt Alessia had ironed for him only last week.
This woman is with him. She must be. Why else is she wandering around wearing his shirt? She must know him intimately.
Intimately.
Of course he has someone. Someone beautiful.
Like him.
Alessia’s dreams lie in shards at her feet. Her face clouds as disappointment constricts her heart. Sighing, she removes her hat, gloves, and anorak and slips on her housecoat.
What did she expect? He will never be interested in her—she is just his cleaner. Why would he want her?
The small bubble of joy she’d felt this morning—the first in a long time—has burst. She puts on her sneakers and sets up the ironing board. Her earlier excitement is a distant memory as she’s forced to face reality. From the dryer she fishes out his clean laundry, transferring it into the ironing basket. This is her place. This is what she was raised to do: keep house and look after a man.
She can still admire him from afar as she’s done since she saw him naked on his bed. There is nothing to stop her from doing that.
Feeling discouraged, she exhales as she fills the iron with more water.
Alessia stands in the doorway. A vision in blue.
Slowly she removes her scarf and lets her plait swing free.
Shake your hair out for me.
She smiles.
Come in. Lie with me. I want you.
But she turns, and sh
e’s in my drawing room. Polishing the piano. Studying my score.
She’s wearing nothing but pink panties.
I reach over to touch her, but she disappears.
She’s standing in the hall. Eyes wide. Clutching a broom.
Naked.
She has long legs. I want them wrapped around my waist.
“I made you some coffee,” Caroline whispers.
I groan, reluctant to wake. A large part of my anatomy is also enjoying my dream. Fortunately, I’m on my front, so my erection is pressing against the mattress, hidden from my sister-in-law.
“You have no food. Shall we go out for breakfast, or shall I have Blake bring us something?”
I groan again, which is my way of saying fuck off and leave me alone. But Caroline is persistent.
“I met your new daily. She’s very young. What happened to Krystyna?”
Shit! Alessia is here?
I roll over to find Caroline sitting on the side of the bed. “Do you want me to get back in?” she asks with a coy smile, her head nodding toward the pillow.
“No,” I answer, gazing at her lovely but disheveled state. “You made coffee dressed like that?”
“Yes.” She frowns. “Why? Does my body offend you? Or are you pissed off I’m wearing one of your shirts?”
I have the grace to laugh, and I reach out and squeeze her hand. “Your body would never offend anyone, Caro. You know that.”
But Alessia will get the wrong idea….
Fuck. Why do I care?
Caroline twists her mouth in an ironic smile.
“But you don’t want it,” she says, her voice suddenly quiet. “Is this because you’ve met someone?”
“Caro. Please. Let’s not go over that again. We can’t. Besides, you said you were on.”
“Surfing the crimson tide has never been an issue for you,” she scoffs.
“Good God, when did I tell you that?” I put my hands on my head and stare in horror up at the ceiling.
“Years ago.”
“Well, I apologize for oversharing.”
Women! They fucking remember everything.
“And why the hell did you have to remind me?” Her face loses all semblance of humor as her sorrow resurfaces. She stares unseeing out the windows, and her voice is soft and raw and anguished. “We tried for two years for a child. Two whole years. It’s what we both wanted.” Her tears begin to slip down her cheeks. “And now he’s gone, and I’ve lost everything. I have nothing.” She puts her head in her hands and begins to weep.
Fuck. I’m an idiot. Sitting up, I pull her into my arms and let her cry. I grab a tissue from the box on the bedside table.
“Here.” I hand it to her. She clutches it as if it holds the meaning of life, and I continue, my voice low, tender, and sad, “We can’t keep doing this while we’re both grieving. It’s not fair on either of us, or to Kit. And you haven’t lost everything. You have your own money. And you still have the house. We’ll sort out a stipend for you from the estate if you need it. In fact, Rowena thinks you should do the interior design for the Mayfair apartments.” I kiss her hair. “You’ll always have me, but not as a diversion, Caro—as a friend and brother-in-law.”
Caroline sniffs and wipes her nose. She leans back and gazes at me with heartbreaking, watery blue eyes.
“It’s because I chose him, isn’t it?”
My heart sinks. “Let’s not go through that again.”
“Is it because you’ve found someone else? Who is she?”
I do not want to have this conversation. “Let’s go out for breakfast.”
* * *
I shower and dress in record time, and I’m relieved to find that Caroline is still in the spare room en suite when I take my empty coffee cup into the kitchen. My heartbeat rockets at the thought of seeing Alessia.
Why am I nervous? Or am I excited?
Much to my disappointment, she isn’t in the kitchen, so I venture to the scullery, where she’s ironing one of my shirts. Unobserved, I watch her. She irons with the same sensuous grace I noticed the other day, in long, easy strokes, her brow furrowed in concentration. She finishes the shirt and suddenly looks up. Her eyes widen when she sees me, her cheeks flushing with a rosy glow.
Man, she is lovely.
“Good morning,” I say. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She places the iron on the rest and stares at it, rather than at me, her brow more furrowed than before.
What? Why won’t she look at me?
“I’m just taking my sister-in-law out for breakfast.” Why am I telling her this?
But her eyelashes flutter as she blinks, and I know she’s processing this information. In a rush I continue, “If you could change the sheets in the spare room, that would be great.”
She stills, then nods, avoiding my gaze, while her teeth worry her upper lip.
Oh…I want to feel those teeth on me.
“I’ll leave the money as usual—”
Her face tilts up, and she gives me a dark glance with her expressive beautiful eyes, and my words dry in my throat.
“Thank you, Mister,” she whispers.
“My name’s Maxim.” I want to hear her say my name in her seductive accent, but she stands mute in her awful housecoat and gives me a tight smile.
“Maxim!” Caroline calls, then walks into the now-cramped scullery. “Hello again,” she says to Alessia.
“Alessia, this is my friend and sister-in-law…um…Caroline. Caroline, Alessia.”
This is awkward. I’m surprised how self-conscious I feel making the introductions.
Caroline gives me a puzzled look, which I ignore, but she directs a kind smile at Alessia.
“Alessia, lovely name. Is it Polish?” Caroline asks.
“No, missus. It is from Italy.”
“Oh, you’re Italian.”
“No, I am from Albania.” She takes a step back and begins to fiddle with a stray thread on her housecoat.
Albania?
She doesn’t want to talk about this, but I’m so curious that I press on. “You’re a long way from home. Are you studying here?”
She shakes her head and starts to pull at the thread, more evasive than ever. It’s clear she isn’t going to elaborate.
“Maxim. Let’s go,” Caroline says, tugging at my arm while maintaining her quizzical look. “Lovely to meet you, Alessia,” she adds.
I hesitate. “Bye,” I say, reluctant to leave her.
* * *
“Bye,” Alessia whispers, and she watches him follow Caroline out of the kitchen.
Sister-in-law?
She hears the front door close.
Sister-in-law.
Kunata.
As she returns to the ironing, she says the words out loud in English and Albanian, and the sound and meaning make her smile. But it’s odd that his sister-in-law should be here, wearing his clothes. Alessia shrugs. She’s seen enough American TV shows to know that relationships between men and women are different in the West.
Later she strips the bed in the spare room. It’s modern and chic and white like the rest of the apartment, but the most pleasing aspect of it is that it’s been used. With a relieved grin, she collects more white bedding from the linen closet and remakes the bed.
Since meeting Caroline, one thought has plagued Alessia. In the Mister’s bedroom, she has the chance to satisfy her curiosity. She wraps her arms around herself and approaches the wastebasket with caution. Taking a deep breath, she peeks in.
She grins.
No condoms.
Alessia goes about cleaning and tidying his bedroom with a little of the joy she’d felt earlier that morning.
* * *
“Is it her?” Caroline asks.
“What?” I
scoff as we sit in a cab on the way to the King’s Road.
“Your daily.”
Shit.
“What about my daily?”
“Is it her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Caroline crosses her arms. “That’s not a no.”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” I stare out at the drab Chelsea streets through the cab’s steamed-up window as I feel a flush creep up my neck, betraying me.
How did I give myself away?
“I’ve never seen you so solicitous with your staff.”
I scowl at her. “Speaking of staff,” I say, “was it Mrs. Blake who organized Krystyna for me?”
“I think it was. Why?”
“Well, I was a little surprised that she upped and left without so much as a good-bye and Miss Albania took her place. No one told me.”
“Maxim, if you don’t like the girl, get rid of her.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well, you’re acting pretty bloody weird about her.”
“No I’m not.”
“Whatever, Maxim.” Caroline’s mouth presses into a hard line as she folds her arms and stares out the misting cab window, leaving me to my own thoughts.
What I really want is information about Alessia Demachi. I process what I know. Fact one, she’s Albanian, not Polish. I know very little about Albania. What brings her to the UK? How old is she? Where does she live? Does she travel far each morning? Does she live alone?
I could follow her home.
Stalker!
I could ask her.
Fact two, Alessia is reluctant to talk. Or is she reluctant to talk to me? The thought is depressing, and I stare at the rain-lashed streets, sulking like a needy adolescent.
Why does this woman confound me?
Is it that she’s so mysterious?
That she’s from a completely different background to me?
The fact that she works for me?
That makes her off-limits.
Fuck.
The truth is, I want to bed her. There. I admit it to myself. That’s what I want, and I have a severe case of blue balls to prove it. What’s more, I don’t know how to make that happen, especially as she won’t talk to me. She won’t even look at me.