Unbind (33 page)

He muffled a gasp against my throat. “The rent won’t be free. I expect you to wander the apartment in only panties all day long, when you’re not working anyway.”

“When I am working?”

“Panties then, too.” He teased a nipple with his lips and aroused me.

“So, when will I take the panties off? Or will you stitch them to me?”

“Oh baby, I’ll be the only panty-dropper you’ll ever need.”

He landed heavy, desperate kisses against my lips. Within moments, we were making passionate love once more.

When he finished, I was physically and sexually sated. Yet I needed to talk. There was only one person who might help.

I left Cai asleep after our afternoon delight and went to the bathroom, shutting the door gently behind me.

I called and she answered almost instantly. “Yello!”

“Kay, you won’t believe it. You won’t!” I gasped down the phone, tittering. “O.M.G., Kay.”

“What the frick are you talking about?”

“This morning… Cai… I gets into the room… she’s there. Jennifer Matthews. I kid you not.”

“You’re joshing me, seriously! Fucking hell, man.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s not all.”

“What the shit? Are you going to New York, or what?”

“Yeah… to work at
Frame!
” We simultaneously screamed down the phone.

“No way! No way! No way!” She kept repeating. I kept giggling nervously in the background. “Fuuuuucccckkkk!!”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” I said as many times as I could.

“Well, crap. I’m gonna have to teach you everything I know.”

“Teach me? What? That’ll be a laugh.”

“No, Chlo. Listen. These people are raw, you know? They will eat you alive if you’re not prepared. We need to get you subservient and perky. Oh, yeah. You’ll have to serve and pretend, until you do something really cool and they laud you for it like a goddess, propelling you higher than Ms. Matthews.”

We laughed like hyenas, even though I was afraid I might wake Cai with my side of the hilarity.

“You’ll visit?” I asked quickly.

“Try stop me.”

“Aww, that’ll be amazing.” My voice gave me away, though. I was shaking, it was true.
Pull yourself together, Harmon.

“You’ll be moving. You’ll be—”

“A long way away, yeah,” I said it, so it was out there, it was real.

“You’ll have him, though. He’s great, isn’t he?”

“He really is, in fact this afternoon…”

Our chat descended into girl talk and after a while of dishing the dirt, I asked if she would have dinner with Cai and me that night—of course the answer was yes.

We hung up and I went back into his bedroom, finding him awake.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, I kinda heard your neighing.”

I rushed the bed and plopped myself on him. “Neighing?”

“Yeah, you laugh like a horse. Haven’t you heard yourself?”

“You, pig.”

We wrestled around the bed until I ordered him to take me and my friend out for an extraordinary meal that night. He gave in eventually.

“I have the feeling I won’t get a say in much… ever again.”

“True,” I winked.

WE had dinner at the Italian in Notting Hill. Nobody would bother us there, we hoped, and we were rewarded. We didn’t bump into anyone we knew. Kay flirted with Cai outrageously and if I didn’t know her better, I might have been pissed off. Truth was, I wasn’t the jealous type. Plus his eyes were always focussed on me, even while they were talking. She tried to drill him for details about Jennifer (maybe insider goss she could pass on at
Elle
) but he grinned mostly, not falling for her tricks.

“Shit, what am I going to tell work?” I suddenly thought out loud while we were eating our tiramisu and suffering the latest round of flaming Sambucas. Cai already knew I was a lightweight because he wasn’t drinking much; the odd shot or a Bud Light were all he asked for. Kay and I had already had a couple of bottles of wine between us and several shots.

“Do you have any holidays saved up?” Cai grinned because he knew I was blotto.

In my fuzzy brain, there was an answer but I couldn’t find it. “Well… I haven’t taken a holiday since I started there so I guess I have!”

He rubbed his index finger under his nose. “They should give you that plus a little leeway… you might be able to shift out in a couple weeks.”

Cai watched me carefully for my reaction. A couple of weeks and I could be out in New York, starting a new job and living with a man I loved but didn’t know half as well as I should have done before moving in with him…?

I got flustered and ordered another Sambuca, which was a bad idea but seemed like the only good one at the time!

The pair sat with me exchanged knowing looks. I demanded from them both, “What are you looking at?”

Kay took my hand and talked softly, “Chlo, you deserve this. It’ll all work out. Cai adores you… look at him.”

My neuroses were always catching me up, just when I least expected them to. Yet, I still knew something was off.

“Your aunt seems to want to vet your love interests, if you ask me.” I took a slow sip of the spicy spirit, watching him carefully over the rim of my shot glass.

He opened his hands and sat up straight. “You know what? Who gives a fuck if she does? She’s not getting in the way of this,” he finished, gesturing with his index finger between us.

“Too right,” Kay added.

I took a long, laboured deep breath. There was something niggling me and it wasn’t just my reluctance to believe that anything good might happen for me. Good things had already happened for me at Media Solutions. I was set there, if I wanted to be. I had respect and a station, plus the possibility of more progression if I wanted it.

“It’s just… I’m on good money at Media. It’d just be a shame if I were to leave and find that
Frame
isn’t all it cracked up to be. If I found that Jennifer was just trying to ruin me.”

I exchanged a knowing look with Kay.
The marriage that went wrong
. Jennifer had most certainly had a hand in that.

“She wouldn’t.” Cai shook his head from side to side. “It’s not her style. Jennifer wouldn’t employ you just to fire you. Maybe she does think she’s keeping an eye on you… but you’re clever, right?”

“Umm, yeah,” I mumbled.

Kay’s hand gestures were extravagant as she decided, “You’re forgetting you’ll not be working for her as such anyway, Chlo. You’ll be working under other editors and with other writers, too. She wouldn’t want to invite you and then sack you straight away, only for your colleagues to suss out what happened. It’d look real bad and unprofessional, if she did that to someone who’s close and personal with her nephew.”

“True,” Cai nodded at Kay’s reasoning, his lips pursed. “She’s all about appearances… about keeping knees under tables and them not walking straight to the first gossip magazine that’ll pay out.”

His wording set alarm bells ringing inside my mind. What I was really bothered about was joining the family firm so to speak. I’d no escape then, not if things went wrong between Cai and me. I’d have to air my thoughts later, when we were alone. For then, I dropped the subject and proposed a toast to New York.

Back at Cai’s flat later on, I was really, really drunk. All my worries had left me. He fed me a glass of water and put me in bed, pulling me in close when we laid down to go to sleep.

“I’ll move heaven and earth to hang onto you. Please believe that.”

But why had he let me go in the beginning? Why? He’d left for New York and left me wondering… now he was saying that he couldn’t be without me.

When he turned my face to kiss me, all my worries evaporated, until my stomach convulsed and I needed to rush to the loo. He laughed hard behind me and offered me a washcloth when I was done.

“You cannot hold your drink, lady.”

“I know,” I groaned over the bowl, wiping my mouth.

“I meant it. I want you, Chlo. No bullshit. You and me come first. Fuck the rest. I don’t know about you but I’ve spent long enough wondering when something good might happen. For me, that’s definitely you.”

I stood up and looked in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were bloodshot, my make-up smeared, my naked body hunched over. I swilled my mouth out and asked, “Take me to bed.”

He carried me there and slid us in together.

“What a waste of good calzone,” he whined.

“Please don’t remind me. I’ll puke again.”

“Sorry,” he whispered, and kissed my temple.

“It’s wonderful just holding one another for a change. I love you.”

“God, I love you, Chloe.”

His arms tightened and I rubbed my cheek against his as we snuggled close.

I was nearly dozing when I asked, “It’ll all be alright?”

“I’ll take care of you, sweet tigress.”

He will take care of me,
I inwardly sighed. I kissed underneath his chin and we fell asleep, just like that.

CAI WAS RIGHT. I had a lot of holiday time saved up so when I handed in my notice, I was told I only had to work a week and a half. All at Media were pretty good about it. I think they were proud to see one of their own go onto bigger things. Trevor and Ash said, “I told you so,” as soon as they heard, and I remembered back to that first day when neither of them seemed to understand why I was working for them, and not some more glitzy venture.

Cai went back to New York after checking in with Media for a couple of days’ catch-up. He really did love his profession and liked to know if any of his more recent images had been added to the archive. It was important to him to be recognised as a professional and knowing his pictures were being stored seemed to be of great significance to him. I felt photographing models wasn’t at all his forté—he’d be a war-zone photographer if he had half a chance, so he might explore the cutting edge of his skills and what he was gifted to do. I got the feeling that Jennifer’s control extended further than I could imagine.

On my last day, a Thursday, we all piled into the Duke of York and got roaring drunk. My colleagues had a whip round and handed me the latest, most technologically advanced Kindle with a £50 voucher so I could buy “lots of British magazine and newspaper subscriptions… to keep up with the real news,” so they said, all smiles. I was so touched, I nearly cried. Trevor got another round in and it was all alright again. Jasinder handed me a parcel she’d bought me herself and I swear she had tears in her eyes, good old Jas. Inside was the softest scarf I’d ever held. Burnt oranges, violet purples and ruby reds. I nearly handed it back until I opened it out to discover it was actually a tie-dye Union Jack! I couldn’t possibly give it back.

“I got it from Camden Market… I know how you love it there.”

I told her I was so touched, and that I would treasure it always.

After I cried buckets and hugged them all goodbye, there was only Trevor and I left. “Remember what I said, Chlo?”

I nodded. “I have my wits about me, don’t worry.”

He even gave me a hug and reminded me, “Anytime… you can come back anytime. We’d always have you back.”

“That really is a relief to know, because I just don’t know—”

He cut me off, “You’ll be great, but always good to have a backup plan.”

He walked his way, I walked mine. I had suitcases to pack and do you know what, I wasn’t even going to bother putting my clothes in neatly. It didn’t matter anymore. I had already thrown my shrine to Cai in the bin and my only concern was getting back to him, to our apartment, to starting our life together.

Yet there was one, last matter of business to attend to.

I called Anabel the night before I was due to fly…

“Hey, Chlo, how’s you?”

“Hey little sister, I’ve got some news. Are you sitting down?”

“Ooh, yeah. What is it?” she asked cautiously, but her mind raced ahead of itself: “You’re not coming home, are you?”