by Emma Baird
Silly, Katya, she told herself. It’s not betrayal and even if it was, does the location matter?
Upstairs, darkness hid the view from the full-length window—the one she could have enjoyed earlier. She took off her shoes and got in beside him when he threw up the duvet. The bed was enormous and his duvet maximum tog like hers. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her side-on to him, his fingers stroking the side of her head.
Her stomach growled loudly, making her squawk, “That was my stomach!” Heaven forbid he mistook it for anything else.
“You can’t be hungry!”
“I’m not... I’m... just a bit full.”
She moved so she was flat on her back in the bed and Zac shifted too, propping his head on his elbow. His hand shifted, fingers gently stroking her throat and making their way onto her breasts. When his mouth landed on hers, she tasted red wine on his tongue. He dropped butterfly kisses along the line of her throat and took both her hands above her head, pinning them there. Goodness, working in kitchens made you strong. But the powerless thing had its bonuses. If she didn’t take such an active role, did this make her guilt-free when that irrational sense of betrayal kept surfacing?
When he let go of her hands, she slipped them under his shirt, tugging it loose and pulling at his waistband. Guilt, it seemed, sat alongside plain ol’ lust. On the plus side too, her stomach had settled down. All the nerves and cells in her body focussed on pleasure and what was going on all over her body.
Zac rolled over her, thrusting back the duvet. “Katya,” voice hoarse, “please, please take off your clothes and let me watch.”
Impossible to resist such an impassioned plea. She stood up and hummed David Rose’s The Stripper. Dress zip down, turn around and wriggle bottom, and ease it off. Roll down tights, throw them in Zac’s direction—he caught them in one hand eyes still glued on her—bra the same. Guy now with his tongue hanging out. Katya put her hand behind her head and thrust her chest forward. A groan from the bed. Finally, the knickers—the Spanx she’d replaced with a G-string. She slipped her finger around the strap on her right hip and waggled the finger teasingly as she swung her hips from side to side. Dita Von Teese, eat your heart out...
Furious banging sounded at the front door. The house was a new build and its insulation amazing but the shout outside came through loud and clear.
“Zac, open the door, you lying, murderous git!”
Gaby.
The strip came to an abrupt halt, the words an ice-cold wind that blew into the room. Across from her, Zac’s face registered many things. Irritation and disappointment, yes, but guilt and dismay there too. Those last two the most prominent.
Another bout of fierce rattling on the door.
“I know you’re in there, you utter jerk, open up or I’ll call the police!”
CHAPTER 32
“You know what I’m going to say.”
Dressed in a white coat that didn’t close properly at the back and naked underneath, Dexter shifted in his seat and hoped this would be quick. He had three million and one things piling up in the office and he needed to get back there asap.
The doctor, one of those super-expensive ones whose sole business was corporates and employee health insurance, steepled her fingers together and sat back. The office radiated luxury befitting its Harley Street location—from the gleaming wooden furniture to the tasteful prints on the wall and the super-soft seats.
“You’re working too hard. No vacations in, what,” she checked the folder in front of her, “two years and an average 70 to 80-hour week?”
The doctor’s appointment hadn’t been Dexter’s choice but after he’d collapsed when he and Caitlin had flown to London following a whirlwind pre-Christmas PR tour of South Korea ahead of the launch, she’d insisted. The collapse couldn’t have been more dramatic either; Dexter hit the tarmac as they exited the Cartiers’ private jet at Gatwick. A flurry of excitement ensued. Waiting photographers saw the private ambulance and decided it must be Caitlin herself. Doubtless they were disappointed when they saw her head for her gigantic car minutes later. The world’s first Cartier death would have been headline news.
Stress, the doctor said. He’d suffered a sudden drop in blood pressure thanks to a vasovagal response brought on by a strong emotional reaction. Had he been worrying about work and everything he needed to do? It didn’t help that he was underweight too. Not a common problem in first-world countries these days, the doctor said, tapping her own rotund girth, but he didn’t have the same resources to draw on people with more pounds on them had.
“Corporates generally employ me to weed out employees trying to pull a fast one,” the doctor continued. “But I tell them I take the Hippocratic oath seriously—first, do no harm. You need serious time off. That’s the recommendation in my report.”
She tapped the edge of the folder against the desk.
“Serious time off?” Dexter asked, his heart sinking. Time off now was impossible. They were at the most crucial part of the launch—the three-month beforehand period when PR activity ratcheted up to frenetic.
“Uh-huh,” the doctor said, “no less than eight weeks. But you are under no obligation to follow my recommendations.”
At this she stopped and eyed him beadily. “Young man—is telling people to buy more lipstick that important?”
Ah... yes? As a twenty-one-year-old graduate, he’d written his ten-year plan as per his university’s career-coaching recommendations. On it had been the goal, the dream. Be the marketing manager of a huge global corporate by the time he hit thirty. The Forbes list was around then too, but he hadn’t put that on the list until later. Whisper it, but he pictured the front cover with him on it, sharp-suited, moody-faced and tag lines that screamed his achievements. Managed multi-billion-pound marketing South Korean launch. Profits that surged by millions of dollars in less than a year. A LinkedIn profile with hundreds of thousands of followers. Other marketing managers who frothed at the mouth awaiting his cleverly crafted posts...
... which he wouldn’t have time to write. He’d need to outsource them to a talented freelancer.
Katya, say.
Back in the UK HQ—these days based in London rather than Glasgow—he let himself into his office, the doctor’s letter clutched to his chest.
Courtney had wailed when he phoned her and said he wouldn’t be back for Christmas or New Year. He used the work excuse, not wanting to worry her with the collapse thing. Flower grabbed the phone off her mother and said, what did this mean? Was she still supposed to go into the LA office and work?
“No, Flower,” he said, “you’ve got school and exams. Pass them and come back to me afterwards. I’ll find you something that makes the most of your super-talented skills.”
“Ooohhhh,” she said, and argued vociferously for a while against it before giving in.
“But you’ve no idea how much I did for you, Uncle Dexie!” she finished. “I took this call the other day from this snooty Brit cow trying to get hold of you.”
The words knocked him for six. Did this mean...? Could it, dare he think it...?
Caitlin broke through the introspection, bounding into his office to say goodbye before she flew back to LA for the Cartier family Christmas, another much-televised event where the family proved it was possible to out-bling Christmas.
She plucked the envelope from his hand.
“It says here you need eight weeks off to recuperate.”
He opened his mouth to object and closed it again.
“I’m your boss, right?”
Caitlin’s eyes bored into him. An impressive feat for someone that much shorter. He thought about how much he loved her—the teeny-tiny fizz-bomb of energy who’d exploded into his life and then taken it over. Completely, absolutely and utterly.
“You are. The best boss in the world. And I’ve been considering something. Flexible working, Caitlin. What do you think?”
CHAPTER 33
Katya grabbed h
er clothing, hurriedly pulling on her knickers and tights. Zac sat up, making no move to get out of the bed.
“Aren’t you going to answer the door?” she asked. “What does Gaby mean, anyway?”
No answer. He sighed and heaved himself up, tucking his shirt back into his trousers.
“It’s a mix-up. It must be. You don’t need to get dressed.” He took her in, fully dressed once more, and let out another heavy sigh. “And I don’t need to answer the door.”
Katya paused, struggling with the zip at the back of her dress that required rather more upper body flexibility than she had, years of Pilates classes notwithstanding. Zac made no move to help her, his motives persuaded more by preferring to keep her naked, she told herself. And didn’t imagine an American who glided across the floor, took the zip in hand, pulled it up and dropped a kiss on the back of her neck.
Dexter. A pesky man for popping up left, right and centre when a girl had done her best to embark on a different course.
“Sooner we get this misunderstanding cleared up, the sooner we get back to this,” she said, pulling her fingers through her hair so it wasn’t as mussed up. Gaby would know as soon as she saw her friend what she and Zac had been up to, but Katya preferred it to be not quite so obvious. Besides, Zac always presented her with too many conflicting emotions. If she analysed it fully she’d say the lingering one was a sense of something not quite right. Perhaps Gaby’s interruption came as a relief.
“Let me in, you ass-wipe!”
“Wow,” Katya said as she followed him downstairs, almost crashing into his back. A guy in no hurry to open that door? “Did you steal her silverware when you left the house?”
He didn’t laugh.
Gaby wasn’t the only one at the door. Jack stood there, the pair of them grim-faced. Katya had known Gaby many years. Quick to anger wasn’t a description she’d ever used for her friend. Gaby’s face was tear-streaked and the eyes panda-like thanks to mascara and eyeliner that had not lived up to its waterproof claims. (Blissful Beauty. Guilty again.) The tip of her nose was bright red and two spots of high colour dotted her cheeks. Behind her, Jack’s flint-eyed stare took in Zac and her. Whatever Zac’s so-called crime was, they must think Katya in collusion with him.
“My cat!” Gaby shrieked, poking her finger onto his chest. “You murdered poor, defenceless little Mena!”
“I don't know what you are taking about.”
Vehement denial but Katya heard its hollow ring. She stepped back, conscious of a small audience of people who had come out of the Lochside Welcome. Did this count as the Lochalshie EastEnders special? The long-running British soap opera was notorious for a Christmas episode that always ended in tears or a fight. This doorstep confrontation might include both.
“Um... Gaby, do you want to come in? Perhaps Zac can explain better when we are inside?”
Gaby pushed past them both. “I don’t think he can, but we might as well lose Mhari.”
Behind her, Mhari put on her best ‘who, me?’ face, the one meant to hide how blatantly she was listening in. Jack stomped past them both too, pausing as he brushed past Zac so they could do that ‘stags eyeing each other up’ thing. Inappropriate as it was, the sight almost set Katya off laughing. Oh, the ridiculousness of it all! Five minutes earlier, she’d been strip-teasing, her and Zac’s attempts to get down and dirty interrupted once more and now two men jostled for alpha male status while Gaby paced the floor, arms folded. All she needed to do now was come out with a terrible cockney accent, à la EastEnders.
“You ran over my cat after the pub quiz. You never told me!”
Inner hysteria banished, Katya watched Zac. He blinked and said he hadn’t. He’d been nowhere near her cat. Didn’t even know what the stupid thing looked like.
At that, Jack stepped forward, flint-faced still and fist curled. “Not a stupid thing. Like Gaby said, a poor defenceless animal that stood no chance against a flash car going too fast down the High Street. Jamal got it all on CCTV. He needed to check something.”
Out it came. Jamal was sick and tired of finding dog shit outside his shop. In the last few months on four separate occasions he had begun the day faced with a steaming pile of poo close to his doorway. He’d tried the local Facebook group—a post headlined Shop-keeper Shames Shit-leaving Dog Owner, hoping that might deter the offender or encourage someone to come forward. No luck.
As Christmas Day had been quiet, he decided to go back to check the CCTV. The only time the camera had been working—shoddy systems were much cheaper—had been the night of the charity pub quiz. A distinctive red motor caught on screen at 8 p.m. driving down the street at a speed far north of 30 miles an hour and a cat scuttling across the road.
Dot, dot, dot for what happened next.
Jamal hurried to the Lochside Welcome and told everyone what he’d seen.
All those signs of lying... What to look out for when someone is lying, according to those brochures Katya had once written for Norfolk CID trainee detectives. A person who tries to hold your eye for too long to convince you of their sincerity.
As Zac did with her now. “Katya,” he pleaded. “If I hit her, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to. And I don’t remember it. I would have known if I’d hit something.”
Hadn’t he been on top form that night? Flirting with her, coming up with a dirty name for their team and promising an exciting end to their evening? Knowing he had run over her friend’s cat and not saying a word?
Who was this man?
Three people awaited her judgement. Best friend and boyfriend, expecting her to take their side. Prospective boyfriend. Trying to persuade her on slim evidence he was a good guy. Oh, Zac... blue eyes met hers. Could you reek of sincerity? He did. At the time of the accident, she’d said you know when you’ve run over something. Perhaps you didn’t.
“I’m foibles personified, aren’t I?” she cast the question to the universe, rather than the room. “Ergo, I forgive those who also make mistakes.”
The pros and cons list did its amazing reappearance act. Zac pros—here, into her (not yet literally), amusing, attractive. Cons—bit of a liar (or at least needs a lot of prodding to volunteer anything) and has probably run over my best friend’s cat. Plus, my best friend and her boyfriend hate him.
The scales jiggled.
Katya grabbed her coat from the hook in the hallway.
“Goodnight, Zac.”
Outside, Gaby shifted from foot to foot. “Sorry about that. But when Jamal told us what he saw, I hit the roof.”
Katya pulled her coat closer around her. The snow hadn’t started but the gleam on the pavement suggested they would wake up to a hard frost. Thank goodness Mhari had lost interest and gone back to her parents’ house. (Hopefully.)
“I don’t blame you,” Katya said.
Jack wrapped an arm around Gaby. No such thing as escaping Mhari, who materialised beside them, phone in hand, smug grin in place.
“Guess what, Katya? I thought it would be better if I stayed the night in the flat, rather than in the bosom o’ ma family tonight.”
Gaby did her best to look apologetic. Jack decided it was too much effort. He grinned.
“Have fun, flatmates!” Gaby called out. She and Jack made their way back to the pub where the rest of their party waited, the low murmur of affectionate bickering undecipherable.
“Aye, so tonight,” Mhari said, watching them as they went. “Did you and the Viking God stroke cat killer finally do the deed?”
Katya grinned at her. “Mhari. Like I was ever going to tell you that.”
“So it’s a ‘yes’ then.”
“No, we did no—oh, well done.”
Mhari did a little victory dance. “First base, aye? Hands on your boobs? Fingers up your—”
Katya stomped off, determined to spend her evening headphone firmly planted on her head, bedroom door locked.
CHAPTER 34
Boxing Day dawned and Katya decided to start on Caitlin’s book. He
r phone, which she’d switched off last night, showed eight missed calls from Zac, and a message he’d sent beforehand.
“I didn’t run over Mena. Promise. It’s complicated.”
Intrigued, Katya called him back. If he was not the person responsible for the accident—and she could convince Gaby of it too—didn’t that give their relationship the green light? Or an amber one anyway. Reservations remained.
But his phone went straight to voicemail. Whatever. Perhaps the two witches had whisked him off to the Royal George to plan the hotel’s launch. Give it a few hours and he’d be back in touch. She replayed the Oban trip and last night and shivered. Anticipation only intensified lust.
The fridge in the flat was empty—not even any almond milk for a coffee. Mhari wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboards. She leant against the table.
“If you get us bread, I promise I willnae ask any more questions about Zac.”
“Deal.”
“Today, anyway.”
Katya poked her tongue out. One day of relentless questions missed was the best she could hope for. She found one of the bags for life and jogged down the stairs, setting off for the general store.
The streets were quiet; most people were spending the day after Christmas in front of the TV, although she could see a group of walkers struggling their way up one of Maggie Broon’s Boobs at the far side of the loch. Across the road, Laney Haggerty walked two of her giant German Shepherds, the dogs practically pulling her arms out of their socket. Katya raised her arm to wave, taken aback when Laney glared at her and pointedly looked away. Even her dogs joined in, one of them growling and straining at the leash.
How rude. Someone must have got out of bed the wrong side that morning.
Inside the shop, Stewart leaned on the counter, engrossed in conversation with Jamal.