Lying in Shadows

by Sofia Grey

  Jordan looked at Alex. “Something I said?”

  “She’s... ah... nervous about meeting the band today.”

  “Oh, okay.” Jordan took a sip of the coffee. “I wanted to escape the chaos at home for a little while. Man, it’s crazy there. Kate’s in her element, and Louisa is having a ball. She can’t wait for Marcus to come up for the weekend. It’s good to see her happy again.”

  Alex winced and moved to the window, hoping Jordan didn’t notice.

  “Are you okay? I get the impression I interrupted something. Just say if it’s not a good time. I won’t be offended.”

  Fuck. Alex didn’t envisage this conversation happening and was unprepared. He hated the thought of deceiving Jordan. With a sense of impending doom, he turned back to his friend. “It’s a difficult situation. Something happened that I can’t really talk about. It’s a bit like Pandora’s box. We’ve opened the lid on it and can’t make it un-happen.”

  Jordan stared back, his face not giving anything away. When he spoke, his voice was calm. “Okay. Maybe this is none of my business and I need to butt out now, but Sylvie is my responsibility. If there’s a problem, I’d sure appreciate knowing about it.”

  He waited. Alex was trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, with nothing to say.

  “Fuck. I don’t like the conclusions I’m drawing here. You and Sylvie, both red faced and guilty looking... Tell me it’s not what I think it is?”

  Alex was shocked. “God, no. Not in the slightest.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling very much put on the spot. “Rico has nothing to worry about on that score. I don’t mess around on other people’s doorsteps, so to speak.”

  “I believe you, and I’m relieved. I didn’t want to think that.”

  “Trust me, Jordan. You don’t want to know this. It won’t enrich your life.” His voice came out bitter, and Jordan frowned.

  “One question. Will this come back to bite me later?”

  He had a point. Alex sank into the seat opposite him. “Hypothetical question—if Kate was having an affair and I knew, would you want me to tell you, or would you rather not know?”

  Jordan’s face was serious, and he seemed to consider the question. “Lemme turn it back on you. If you were being cheated on, what would you think?”

  Would he rather know about the betrayal, or be kept in the dark?

  He preferred to have all the facts.

  “Rico said that Marcus is cheating on Louisa.” His voice sounded like gravel to his own ears. He really didn’t like what he was saying.

  Jordan recoiled as though he’d been slapped in the face. “Fuck, no. There’s no mistake?”

  “Rico seems certain. I’d like to think he might be wrong, but you know him better. What do you think?”

  Jordan spoke slowly. “If it were anyone else, I might doubt it. But Rico wouldn’t make a mistake of that magnitude or suggest it without real grounds.” He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Louisa is like a sister to me; we grew up together after my mother died. And Marcus... he’s my closest friend. I’ve known him since I was five years old. Before Kate, Marcus and Louisa were the people I turned to if I was in trouble or needed guidance. Maybe this is why he’s been avoiding me for the past few weeks.”

  “Rico is due here this evening. You can ask him yourself.”

  “I will. I want to understand what he knows.” He tapped his fingertips on the table. “Louisa had her doubts about Marcus before, but she’s been happier recently than I’ve seen her in years, so they must be doing something right. I’m not gonna make excuses for him, but if it was a drunken one-night stand, it may be easier to forgive.”

  “I don’t know, and Sylvie was sketchy on the details.”

  Jordan pulled a face. “I slipped over here looking for some light relief. Best laid plans, huh?” He seemed to gather his thoughts. “We don’t need to tell Louisa anything yet. I’ll take it up with Marcus. Once he knows it’s no longer a secret, he should take action, one way or another. If he is messing around, it won’t be something he’s undertaken lightly. His family means everything to him.”

  ****

  Sylvie heard Jordan leaving, and went downstairs to see Alex.

  “I told him. He’s an astute guy, and he figured something was wrong. I didn’t want him jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

  She stared at him. “What did he say?”

  Alex related the conversation with Jordan, and then shrugged. “Hopefully it’ll mean an end to the affair. If Louisa is none the wiser, it might be for the best.”

  Sylvie wasn’t sure she agreed, but at the same time, she didn’t want to get involved if she could help it. The knowledge cast a shadow on her otherwise exciting day.

  They spent the rest of the morning running through the songs, with Alex breaking off to take a phone call around midday. “That was the guys—Charlie and Mick. They’ll be here in ten minutes. They wanted directions.”

  Now the time was close, Sylvie felt even more nervous. How could she possibly think of playing bass for them? This was Event Horizon, for God’s sake. She couldn’t step into Sam Hamilton’s shoes. She was a raw pretender. She wanted to throw up.

  Before she knew it, a huge white van pulled up outside the house, and Alex went to meet them. Sylvie hung back, watching from a distance as he backslapped with them and greeted them noisily. There were two hefty blokes in the van, too. Roadies perhaps? They took care of the equipment and started unloading crates of gear and hauling it into the basement.

  Alex looked over his shoulder, saw her in the doorway, and beckoned her over. Charlie Jones and Mick Dewhurst were recognisable faces from videos, album covers, and posters. She kicked herself again for not recognizing Alex when they first met.

  “Guys,” said Alex, “this is our temporary new bass player. Sizzle, meet Charlie and Mick.” She tried to smile in welcome. How long would it take before they realised she was an amateur?

  Charlie, the rhythm guitarist, flashed her a wicked grin and kissed her hand. His bleached-blond spikes made him look like an albino hedgehog. “Hi there, Sizzle. It’s good to meet you.”

  Mick, the drummer, was tall, his bald head shiny. He solemnly shook her hand and voiced the question she expected. “AJ, I have to ask. You’re not doing a Paul McCartney on us and installing your girlfriend in the band? It was almost the end for Wings. The media would rip us to shreds.”

  Sylvie bristled with irritation, while Alex grinned “Leave it out, Mick. And if you might take my advice for once, don’t repeat that in front of her boyfriend. He’ll tear your head off. Wait until you hear her play.” Alex winked at her, and she felt a shred of confidence return.

  Barely an hour later, they were ready in the studio. Alex talked through the set order, explained his choices, and suggested the arrangements they’d been working on. This was it. The moment of truth.

  They started with the Event Horizon material, opening up with “Another Day”, her favourite. Sylvie’s hands were damp. Her heart raced as loud as Mick’s drums, and she felt paralysed. She wouldn’t be able to perform.

  Alex counted them in. Sylvie closed her eyes and felt for the tempo. This was just another practice. She could play this note perfect.

  Alex began singing, Mick’s drums broke in, and Sylvie picked up the riff, moving up and down the neck with the ease of playing a song long familiar to her. Charlie came in late—very late—and Alex stopped singing. She didn’t realise at first. She was sliding up and down the neck, when she realised she played alone.

  Charlie and Mick stared at her. She glanced at Alex and saw his broad grin. He winked, and relief swept through her.

  “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” She tried to sound cocky, to match their arrogance.

  Charlie bowed his head in an exaggerated acknowledgement. “Not at all. My apologies.”

  Had it been some kind of test? She raised her head, stuck out her chin, and spoke crisply. “Shall we continue? We’ve a lot to g
et through.”

  Mick stifled a laugh, and they were off again.

  Maybe it would be okay after all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marianne waited impatiently for the Friday afternoon briefing to finish. There wasn’t much in the way of progress. Aiden pronounced the servers clean from viruses, as far as he could tell, and he produced a list of recommendations for firewall-configuration changes to be implemented. Rico left shortly after. He was driving up for Jordan’s party this evening, while the rest of them would fly up in the morning. Aiden was going too.

  She struggled to keep her focus on the meeting. This would be her last night with Marcus. He’d be with Louisa for the weekend, and she hoped to see AJ next week, so it was time to call a halt to things. Make a clean break. Did Marcus realize?

  She’d rather they finish on a high, than with a painful separation, but it hurt. They had to work together until the audit was done. She had to look him in the eye and not think about sex. The best sex of her life.

  What if things didn’t work out with AJ? What if he only wanted to be friends?

  It didn’t matter. She had to leave Marcus. Keeping up the pretence would kill her. She deserved better than being a man’s bit-on-the-side. Even if the man was Marcus.

  They went back to his apartment after dinner, and he told her to stand still in the doorway. When he gently fastened a silk scarf over her eyes, she felt a frisson of fear. He smoothed the fabric into place and secured it.

  She was blind.

  He whispered close to her ear. “Now you’ll have to depend on your other senses.”

  Her heart raced like a galloping horse. “What are you going to do?” Her voice came out as a croak, and he chuckled.

  “I’m going to undress you.”

  Marcus unfastened her blouse, pushed it back off her shoulders and arms, and then unclipped her bra and slid that down. There was a rustle of soft fabric as it hit the carpet. She shivered with anticipation.

  “Hold out your hands.

  Something soft trailed across her arms, and then she felt Marcus binding her wrists together. It was tight enough to restrain her, but not enough to hurt. Dear God. She was going to burst with excitement soon.

  He continued removing her clothes, lifting her feet to slide off her shoes, and unfastening the skirt. She wore no panties again, and she heard the hitch in his breath when he found out.

  “I can do what I like with you,” he whispered, his mouth brushing her ear. Slowly, with infinite precision, he kissed her all over, stroked his fingers across her burning flesh, and made her wait.

  She ached for his touch. She relied on his fingers, to guess where he stood, and he kept moving her around the room until she was disoriented. Her world shrank. There was her and Marcus in the darkness. His lips and his breath on her skin. His fingers playing her like a musical instrument.

  She wanted a night to remember, and he delivered in spades.

  * * * *

  Alex was damned proud of Sylvie. She fit in perfectly and had the guys following her instructions during rehearsal. The years of bossing her brothers around had paid off. She played with a confidence he would never have guessed at a week ago. She was a natural.

  Sylvie broke off to take a phone call, and came back into the room, her face glowing. “That was Rico,” she announced. “He’s ten minutes away.”

  This was a good time to take a break.

  When Rico’s car pulled up, Sylvie ran outside, a blur of dark hair tumbling around her face as she hurled herself into his arms. He swept her off her feet, held her tight, and kissed her like a starving man finding food.

  Alex tried not to watch. Their joy made his heart ache. Would he ever find someone so thrilled to see him? This was what he wanted with Maz. He pulled himself together and greeted Rico as he walked in.

  “Thank you, Alex, for taking care of her.” He squeezed her to him, a beaming smile on his face. “She can be a little troublemaker.”

  “Cheeky.” She laughed up at him, and then flashed a beautiful smile at Alex.

  Rico was a lucky bastard.

  The three of them sat around the kitchen table while they waited for Jordan to come over. Charlie and Mick were busy in the studio, so they were unlikely to be interrupted.

  “I’m sorry, babe,” said Sylvie. “I told Alex about Marcus. I had to tell someone.”

  “And I told Jordan,” said Alex. “He figured something was wrong.”

  Rico looked at them both. “I feel better that he knows. It doesn’t sit well with me, either.”

  When Jordan arrived, Rico told them what he knew. He admitted there was no evidence of more than the kisses in the photos, but Rico had bumped into Marcus leaving Marianne’s apartment ridiculously early in the morning. He’d also seen them arriving together one morning, hand in hand like a pair of giggling teenagers. There was the email with the damning photographs, and a series of furtive encounters between them. He also talked about Marianne initially demanding that Sylvie go back to work, and about Marcus being completely unreasonable.

  They changed their minds on that score, at least.

  “She’s coming here this weekend, so you’ll get to see them together.”

  Jordan sat back, sadness etched on his face. “Louisa got a call from him. He said he was busy but will be here tomorrow. You can’t help wondering what he’s busy with.” He sighed. “I’ll talk to him. Shit. I’m still struggling to believe it.”

  They sat in subdued silence, and then Rico yawned.

  Sylvie hugged him. “You can’t go to sleep yet, babe. Come and listen to us practice first.”

  “Yeah. Come on down and meet the rest of the band.” Alex glanced at Jordan. “Want to join us?”

  “I have to get back. I promised Kate I wouldn’t stay long.” He stood and smiled at Rico. “It’s good to see you again. As you can tell, Sylvie has been fine. We’ll talk more over the weekend about where she goes from here.”

  For a moment, Alex didn’t understand, but then the penny dropped. Rico wanted to move her to another location after the party.

  Alex wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like the idea.

  * * * *

  It was the middle of the night, but something had disturbed Marcus and dragged him from sleep. His phone. Marianne slept on, draped over him like a sensuous blanket, and he groped for the phone while trying not to wake her.

  It was five in the morning. This had better be good. He grunted into it, trying to formulate actual speech, and heard Aiden’s crisp voice. “Marcus, I’m sorry for disturbing you, but we have a major problem in the datacentre.”

  Marcus’s first thought was a wash of relief. It wasn’t Ted or Louisa, or any of his family. It was work. He yawned. “Go on.”

  “There’s been a flood. It’s currently under six inches of water.”

  “What? How the fuck did that happen?” Marcus rubbed his face and tried to wake up. Marianne stirred beside him. “And what’s the impact?” he asked.

  “Burst pipe in the washroom above. It’s been pouring in all night, by the look of it. I need you to come over.”

  This ranked pretty high on the list of the things he least wanted to do at the moment. Given the choice of a warm bed with Marianne, or a wet office, it was no contest. However, this was his responsibility as V.P. Europe. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Marianne slipped her arms around him and kissed his bare shoulder. “Trouble?”

  “You bet. How about a flooded datacentre?”

  “Shit.” She climbed out of bed and dug into her overnight bag, to pull out fresh clothes. “I’m coming with you.” She glanced up and tossed a pair of boxers to him. “Get dressed, lover. We’ve got work to do.”

  Marcus stepped to her side of the bed and took her hands. He’d switched on the light, and now he examined her wrists and made sure there were no marks or bruises from earlier.

  She smiled when she saw what he was doing. “Marcus, babe, it was the most amazing experi
ence of my life. Thank you. A few friction burns would be a tiny price to pay.”

  There was so much he wanted to say, if he could only figure out the right words. He sensed he was running out of time. She hadn’t mentioned her ex again. Did she change her mind? Did Marcus persuade her to stay with him? He was afraid to ask.

  By the time Marcus and Marianne arrived at the office, Aiden had rounded up as many of the techs as he could. Pete Tandy was there with several others whom Marcus didn’t know. Like Marianne and himself, they were here straight from their beds, yawning and dishevelled.

  It was bad. About as dire as it could be. The Europe datacentre, located in the basement of the Canary Wharf building, was designed to offer protection from earthquakes, power cuts, and fire. It had blast doors that could withstand a small nuke. But a burst pipe? They never factored that into the plans.

  At first, the effort was focused on manually retrieving as much hardware as they could. Marianne set up one of the conference rooms as a triage area for the mountains of paperwork and manuals, and then set about organising cleaners, fans, dehumidifiers, and clean-up experts.

  Pete worked rapidly with his team, to shut down the remaining operating servers, then tried to move them out into a dry area. Aiden retrieved the disaster-recovery processes and ran through the options with Marcus for setting up a new datacentre.

  They had the option of moving the disks—in essence the data—to a rented operation. This would only work for a short while, with minimal connectivity and security. They could set up on another floor in this building, rent an empty office, or try to offset the major operations to the smaller backup centres dotted around Britain and Europe. That was the first action—to ensure the critical services stayed online, albeit in a limited capacity. Then it was all down to risk levels and costs, and they ran through the options in detail.

  Marianne called some of her team, and they came in to help, and provide endless pots of coffee and doughnuts.

  The mess was terrible. Moving back and forth from wet to dry areas was causing a second swathe of damage to the carpets and floors. By ten o’clock, they’d shifted the small amount of undamaged kit and a larger set that was only slightly wet. The unrecoverable equipment was stacked in a separate area, while the management team waited for the insurance assessors to come and pore over it.