Authors: Lauren Boutain
Now it was his unintentional movements that she was hyper-aware of, burning and rubbing through her cargo jeans. He poured out two cups of tea from the pot, ignoring the cold bottle of beer alongside.
“Thanks.” Christie accepted her cup, and he settled back with his own. “You can drink the beer if you normally have one… I don’t mind.”
“
You should mind,” he said. “Beer is for bachelors. Or barbecues. I don’t think this is a barbecue occasion.”
Christie sipped her tea, wondering what else to say.
“So he was quite happy to drink in front of you, when you weren’t drinking,” Adrik guessed, accurately. “What else did he do in front of you? Flirt with other women? Take their phone numbers, maybe?”
“
You don’t know him, or his business,” Christie retorted. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“
Lucky me,” Adrik agreed, with just the smallest hint of hostility at the idea. “Let me see… I’m wondering what other bad habits he taught you… maybe he told you it was not a good thing to be seen together in public.”
Christie avoided his eyes, keeping her own on the TV screen. She had never suspected Derek’s motives – not once. His rules were immutable, like inscriptions on sacred tablets, and his clients who followed them to the letter were the most respected and dignified public figures imaginable. Derek’s lifestyle was aspirational and inspirational to all who met him. He knew how people thought and what made them tick, and showed them how to behave in order to attract success, and to deflect unwelcome intrusions. From the press, from the public, and from the past.
Her phone buzzed in the side pocket of her jeans, and she put her cup of tea aside, wondering if
this
was the ironic instance that Derek tuned in to her feelings for him, and he was already racing across the Atlantic, on his way to her rescue right at this very moment…
Text message –
ADRIK: You look sad. Xx
“
Sorry,” he said out loud. She looked across mutely, phone in hand, as he dropped his own onto the table next to his tea. “Prying. I guess you learned to blank that too.”
Christie put her phone away again. She could feel her eyes smarting, but not because of what Adrik said.
Because Derek
should
have called her by now. To see if she was all right. For an explanation. To salvage the last two years of their lives…
“
Here.” Adrik tapped his sternum, and held his arm out. “Put your feet up, or lie down. You’ll feel better.”
Christie heaved a sigh and checked her eyes quickly with both hands for any stray tears that might be escaping, before she moved tentatively towards him. Adrik didn’t wait, shifting one of his feet to bring her closer, catching her gently against his chest and cradling her against his shoulder.
“Are you cold?” he asked curiously, brushing his hand up and down her bare arm slowly, feeling the slight tremble.
Christie wasn’t cold, but her body seemed to be running with shock. Meanwhile, her brain had gone numb. The comfortable continuity of careful courtship she was accustomed to had been snatched away abruptly – and less than twenty-four hours later she was three and half thousand miles away, being given a cuddle by her Russian blackmailer.
Derek never cuddled. He called himself an ascetic.
‘
Look, but don’t touch,’ was one of his catchphrases. ‘Looking won’t get you into trouble.’
As her body attempted to report an overload of new experience, she had the notion that ‘trouble’ was an understatement.
“Are you all right?” Adrik kissed the top of her head. “You haven’t said anything for ages.”
“
I…” Christie raised her chin, to find her glance dropped from his too-close, too-inquiring gaze immediately to his mouth, only centimetres from hers. “I’m…”
“
Just in time,” the other Nigerian voice interrupted. “Elsie did say you would both be eating the furniture if I didn’t feed you at once.”
“
Hey, Lucas.” Adrik steadied Christie, and eased them both up into a sitting position. Lucas, tall, bearded and lanky, was sliding the dinner tray onto the table alongside their drinks. “What’s cookin’?”
“
Never gets old,” Lucas grunted. “And you get lasagne.”
“
And you get the cold one.” Adrik picked up the beer from the other tray and handed it to him. “Not for me tonight.”
“
Cheers.” Lucas grinned, and bit the cap off the bottle, strolling out again and calling over his shoulder. “Nice to meet you, future Mrs Adrik.”
“
Wow, that smells good,” Christie murmured.
“
It is good,” Adrik nodded, picking up the napkin-wrapped cutlery and handing it to her. “He makes the bread too – have some.”
She was glad the food had arrived before… well, preventing anything else happening. Not that she thought it was going to…
* * * *
“
I know loft apartments in New York smaller than your bedroom,” Christie remarked, looking around, her sports bag clutched tightly in both hands.
“
They live the high life on a small scale?” Adrik suggested. “How do people co-operate in such tiny spaces?”
“
Quite often, they don’t.” Christie’s eye was on the one bed, against the far wall. He watched as she dragged her gaze away from it, searching the rest of the room for something – hopefully not an escape route. “Er – bathroom?”
“
There.” Slightly relieved, he pointed to the second door, the other containing the dressing-room.
She nodded, and vanished inside.
Adrik heaved a deep breath, and immediately went to check the balcony overlooking the rear gardens, ensuring that the French windows were securely locked. He wasn’t about to have
that
happen again.
He spent a few further moments checking some other spots around the room, places he had found eavesdropping devices in the past. Not always unscrupulous journalists – sometimes the SVR had paid a visit, foreign intelligence hoping for a little interesting pillow-talk. He was too high-profile for their alleged external recruitment programme, but they would most certainly be interested in anyone who might be passing through, given the opportunity.
Not so much recently. His usually hermit-like behaviour, matched with the ebullient guardianship of his property by Elsie and Lucas, tended to discourage that sort of interest. The agency were not bothered with social dead-ends.
Christie eventually emerged timidly in long-sleeved jersey pyjamas, blue eyes wide since cleaning off the last of yesterday’s make-up. Her mid-length blonde hair was loose for the first time since he’d seen her in
Harding’s
last night, and still damp from the shower. From that earlier sophisticated businesswoman image, via the impromptu
Escape from New York
wardrobe, she appeared to have made a complete transition to innocent girl-next-door.
It was the last disguise he had expected her to adopt. Sultry temptress, maybe. Slinky hellcat, perhaps. Something befitting an accomplished jewel thief and confidence artist. Not shy, reticent and conservative, he noted, as she fidgeted, straightening the cuffs over her small wrists.
“There’s a hairdryer in there.” Adrik indicated the dressing-room. “I won’t be offended if you’re asleep when I come out.”
He headed into the bathroom, praying that she would still be there at all.
* * * *
It didn’t take long to dry her hair, sitting at the counter. The mirror reflection of herself in the minimalist masculine dressing-room looked so out-of-place here. It was all clean puritanical lines and neatness and order. To fit in, she felt she would have to be channelling Grace Kelly.
But she knew that the main reason for feeling as though she stood out was the fact she was sitting there in full view, by invitation – not merely hiding in an East Hampton closet from Derek’s domestic staff, by instruction.
Technically, she knew that one version was ‘normal’ and the other was not. But normality for her? Again, she still had to concede cluelessness.
She peeped around the door before returning to the main bedroom. Freedom to wander around unattended was another new experience. And getting into Adrik’s bed was something she wanted to put off – this time.
After trying to make out anything of the darkened gardens from the balcony windows, she turned her attention to the paintings hanging in this room. One particularly large one, almost used as a feature wall itself on the far side opposite the foot of the bed, made her catch her breath sharply.
“Oh, you recognise it?” said Adrik’s voice, in the en suite doorway behind her.
“
It was in my gallery last spring,” Christie replied, disbelieving. “It was sold to…”
“
Zory Tamarkin,” Adrik confirmed. “He gave it to me as a birthday present.”
He padded across the floor to stand beside her in front of the painting, before she dared look around to see if he was clothed after showering. Her breath caught in her throat. He was wearing silk Paisley pyjamas – just the bottoms, and nothing else.
“It’s a nice piece,” he commented, folding his arms across his bare chest. Christie gulped. A
lot
more muscular than she remembered. Droplets of water left on his hair reflected the light from the bedside lamps behind them. “I like the colours. It looks like a giant bowl of candy…”
“
But it’s an aerial view of the Kremlin,” Christie remarked, tearing her eyes away from him awkwardly. “I thought it looked like people with sun parasols when I first saw it.”
“
You can keep looking at it, and see different things every time,” Adrik agreed. “Just like I seem to be seeing different things every time I look at you.”
“
What?”
He turned to face her.
“Four different outfits in one day already,” he said, mildly, and his hand barely brushed her sleeve. It felt like a hot brand, through the thin cotton jersey. “You must be tired out. Go to bed. I’m going to finish drying my hair too. Don’t want to wake up with bed-head. Huh…” He smirked, as he turned away. “Or tied to bed-head, like last time.”
Christie made the long walk over to the bed, feeling the blood rushing in her skull. Partly she knew it was exhaustion, and in this state, bed was the only sensible place to go. But that earlier memory of Adrik and a bed, eleven years ago in Switzerland, seemed to close in on her.
There had been a balcony then, too…
She felt the sheets and quilt under her hand, tiredness switching her actions over to auto-pilot.
And that other issue was also still nagging her.
Derek had never asked her to stay overnight. It was against his rules.
She pulled the covers around her as she settled back on the pillows, her own pulse the loudest noise in the room. Weighed down by lack of sleep and relentless thoughts, her eyes closed, and the room seemed to tilt, as if she was still on board a plane.
An opposing tilt a few moments later caused them to fly open again with a jump, as Adrik got into the other side of the vast bed.
Christie lay wide awake, acutely conscious of every tiny movement as he made himself comfortable. A strange vortex of energy seemed to have woken up in her solar plexus as well. It was unravelling throughout her body, trying to evaluate the situation by means other than her usual senses.
“
Not hiding anything under there to tie me up with this time, I hope?” he asked.
“
No.”
“
Good.” He switched off the lamps.
Had she been attracted to him this much the first time they met? In spite of the job she had to do? Shame at her own response to him uncoiled along with the other feelings, of undeniable guilt mixed with a sudden pang of need. How had he managed to just walk into her gallery yesterday after eleven years, and hijack everything that she had planned so carefully for, ever since?
Adrik heaved a sigh in the darkness, and seemed to be having similar trouble settling himself down.
“
You’ve still got my stockings,” she reminded him.
“
Because I still don’t trust you enough,” he reminded her, in turn.
She swallowed her nerves.
“Search me if you want.” The words came out, and there was no unsaying them.
The lamp clicked back on. Adrik rolled onto his elbow to look down at her. She could see the concern behind his eyes, and that this was no easy scenario for him to revisit either. An endless moment stretched out between them.
“No tricks,” he warned.
“
No tricks,” she murmured. She raised her hands above the covers onto the pillow in surrender, to show they were empty. “See?”
He appeared to be considering.
“You’re giving me permission to search you?”
“
Yes.” A knot began to form in her stomach.
“
Okay.” He took hold of the edge of the quilt at her shoulder. “Keep your hands there. Where I can see them.”