A woman got out. I couldn’t see her face. She had a woolen hat on against the cold, and a scarf was wound around her neck, hiding her chin. She was bundled into a puffer coat, so I had no clue of her body shape. And the light was dim. She kissed him, and he placed his hand at the small of her back. The memory of Martin touching me in that way slammed through me. I tried to swallow. The woman walked around to the passenger side, got in. The door shut. Martin put his briefcase on the back seat, climbed into the driver’s seat, and shut the driver’s side door. The engine started.
My brain reeled. He’d said he was leaving Vancouver on Monday last week. The hotel manager said he’d never registered at the Hartley Plaza. But I’d seen him sign that bar tab to his room. Was I going mad?
The car reversed out of the parking space. It came up the ramp, making for the exit into the street. I panicked and glanced around in desperation for a place to hide. A door to my right led to a stairwell. I opened the door and ducked inside. As the door swung slowly shut, the Subaru drove past. Martin looked out the window. I tried to press back against the wall, but he saw me through the open gap. The car continued, and the stairwell door swung shut.
I sucked in a shaky breath. Had I imagined this? No. It had to have been someone else, not Martin. Not the warm Australian developer seeking a backer for his project in New South Wales. Not the man who wanted kids and had been so attentive . . . the man I’d had sex with in an elevator.
I rubbed my face hard.
Mistake—that’s all. I’d made an error. He was someone who looked like Martin Cresswell-Smith. A doppelgänger. It was not unheard of. And I’d been sucked into some weird concept of reality after seeing a child that could be Chloe. That was all this was.
Then, as I stood in that cold, concrete, pee-scented stairwell, my phone rang. I fumbled in my purse, checked the caller ID.
Not a familiar number.
I connected the call with a shaky gloved finger and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
There was a moment of staticky noise. “Ellie . . . hello? Hello—can you hear me?”
I blinked. My legs sort of sagged. I glanced through the tiny window that was set into the stairwell door as if the car might still be there. But there was nothing. I felt confused.
“Are you there, Ellie? This is Martin. Have I got the right number?”
“I, uh . . . yeah. Yeah, this is Ellie. Um. Could you hang on a sec? I . . . I’m just . . . in a store, paying for a purchase.” I pressed my phone against my coat, muffling the sound. I waited, gathering my wits, trying to organize my thoughts, hoping I could make my voice sound normal. I put the phone back to my ear. “Sorry about that.”
“Before you say anything, Ellie, I want to say I am so sorry not to have managed to return your calls until now. I had my phone nicked at Heathrow, somewhere between a fish-and-chips shop, an airport bar, and the plane. It had your contact details. I had to wait until I got home and could get my history and contact information reloaded.”
“Where . . .” My voice caught. I pushed open the door and peered down into the lower level of the parking garage again. The spot where the orange Subaru had been parked was still vacant. My mind wheeled. I cleared my throat. “Where are you now?”
“Sea-Tac Airport. About to board a flight up to YVR. It’s been a whirlwind of back-to-back meetings since I last saw you. I miss you.”
I blinked. “I . . . This is so weird.”
“What is?”
“I thought I just saw you.”
“Where?”
“Vancouver. Downtown.”
He laughed. Warm. Because everything Martin did felt warm. That familiar feeling of attraction, affection, curled through me.
“I must have a double. Look, I’m going to be landing in Vancouver in a few hours. I’ll be there for two days. Can I see you tomorrow night, El? Dinner, maybe? I know a special little place in Deep Cove. I’d love to spend longer with you this time.”
“I . . . I’d like that.”
We made a plan to meet at the restaurant, and the call ended. Dazed, I stood in the stinking, cold stairwell for a moment, trying to regroup. My old therapist’s words played through my mind.
“We go through life mishearing and mis-seeing and misunderstanding so that the stories we tell ourselves will add up. We fill in gaps that make no sense because we want to believe something.”
That was it. I’d so badly wanted to see Martin that I’d believed I had.
THEN
ELLIE
Just over two years ago, January 22. Vancouver, BC.
“God, you look good, El. More beautiful than I remembered.”
“And you—you’ve been in the sun. Where’d you get the tan?” I’d known the moment I saw him sitting at the table by the window that it was not Martin I’d seen yesterday. The doppelgänger had not had a tan. And the doppelgänger’s hair had been longer. Martin was sunbrowned and his hair had been trimmed short. He looked good. All my subterranean qualms had evaporated as he stood up and kissed me on the mouth.
“Spain,” he said as he poured wine for me. “Five days on a yacht off Marbella.” A broad smile cut across his face, his teeth white against his bronzed complexion. “Even in winter the Med weather can be stunning.” He set the bottle back into the ice bucket. “I hope you like it. Pinot gris. Sloquannish Hills. It’s a small vineyard in—”
“In the Okanagan. I know. Coincidentally, it’s one of my favorites.” The last time I’d had this wine was at my father’s expense at the Mallard Lounge. Two bottles of it.
“Well, then, I approve of your taste.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers. To seeing you again. I’m glad you could make it, Ellie. I’m glad you didn’t give up on me.”
“I’m glad, too.” We chinked glasses. “Was the Marbella trip for pleasure or business?” I took a sip and felt the lovely spread of warmth through my chest.
“Business. However, I did manage to conduct it on a friend’s yacht. The Spanish financier is backing my marina development in New South Wales. It’s all systems go.”
“Congratulations.”
“I know, right? All the more reason to celebrate.”
I opened the menu, but Martin placed his hand on mine. “I’ve ordered.”
“What?”
He smiled. “We can change it if you like, but I’ve ordered the bouillabaisse. For both of us. It’s the specialty here. I want you to try it, Ellie.” He paused. “I have a reason.”
I felt a vague unease. “What reason?”
He gave a sly grin. “Later,” he said. “First we eat. You might not like the dish, then I shall have to restrategize.”
I set my glass down. “Actually, I have a reason of my own for wanting to see you again.” I took a small box out of my purse. I placed it squarely on the table between us.
A flicker of concern darted through his eyes.
“Open it,” I said.
He opened the box. His gold cuff link winked in the candlelight. He glanced up, met my gaze.
“You dropped it in the elevator. It’s why I phoned you. I wanted to let you know I’d found it. In case it meant something to you.”
He picked the cuff link up out of the box. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d called because you—”
“I went to the hotel to look for you on Monday morning,” I said quickly before I chickened out. “To return it.”
His gaze locked with mine. I watched his face carefully.
“You weren’t there, Martin. You weren’t ever registered as a guest at the hotel.”
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “No? Are you sure?”
“I’m certain.”
His mouth flattened at the shift in my tone. “Perhaps Gertrude registered us under the company name.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “Gertrude?”
“My personal assistant.” He looked at me oddly. “Is everything okay, Ellie?”
I glanced down, fiddled with the stem of my glass. I felt lik
e an idiot. “Was she—does Gertrude travel with you?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the trip. She did accompany me on the Vancouver trip—I needed her to handle a bunch of stuff, and to entertain the wife of an investor from Spain. Turned out well—it was his yacht I was on in Marbella.”
“Oh, oh, that’s . . . good.” I cleared my throat. I didn’t dare tell him I’d badgered the barman at the Mallard, too. But it would explain why The Rock might have seen Martin with a woman in the Mallard Lounge. I was spared any further embarrassment by the arrival of the entrées.
The server placed two steaming bowls of bouillabaisse on the table along with small bowls of rouille plus slices of grilled bread. When the server left, Martin took the cuff link box and slipped it into his pocket. “Maybe I dropped it on purpose.”
“Excuse me?”
He crooked up a blond brow. “Maybe I dropped the cuff link like a glass slipper at the ball in the hope you’d come and find me.”
I laughed, maybe a little too loud, but it was a relief to move on from my embarrassment.
The bouillabaisse was fabulous. We ordered more wine and spoke about art, the galleries he’d visited in Europe, paintings he liked, a work he’d recently acquired for his office in Toronto—he showed me a photo of where it had been hung to the best light advantage, and I recognized the interior of his office from the screenshot still in my phone. I loved that Martin even had a vocabulary around my passion for art. Doug had never expressed interest.
When dessert and coffees arrived, he said, “So, I’ve told you all about my family and I still know so little about yours, El. When I mentioned that I’d disappointed my dad, you said you understood, and you sounded like you meant it.”
I hesitated. Things always shot off on a weird trajectory when people learned I was Sterling Hartley’s daughter who stood to inherit billions. I’d perhaps already waited too long to tell Martin, and I feared it was going to look odd. Even so, I hesitated, then started with my mother instead.
“She died when I was nine.” I took a sip of espresso. “She was an alcoholic and abusing prescription meds. She killed herself.”
His dessert spoon stilled midair. I read something in his eyes . . . unease. I was scaring him off. Perhaps he was wondering if I’d inherited psycho genes. Maybe I had. I sure as hell wasn’t going to mention right now that I’d suffered from clinical depression myself and had slipped into a haze of medication and drink for months after Chloe drowned. And then I’d been institutionalized for mental health issues. I also knew the instant I mentioned my father’s name that he might actually recall having read some of these things about Sterling Hartley’s daughter anyway.
“I’m sorry, El. I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Those things experienced as a kid—they live with you. I know.”
I nodded and felt a bond. He covered my hand with his.
“What about your father? Did he remarry?”
“I doubt my dad will ever marry again. He’s the eternal Peter Pan—Sterling Hartley.”
He stared. Said nothing. Then he cursed softly. “The AGORA convention—you didn’t mention it. When I said I was at the Hartley Plaza for the event. Christ, your family namesake hotel and you didn’t mention it?” He was angry. There was a rough edginess about him. “Why not?”
“Because, Martin, I’d just met you, and liked you, and I wanted you to get to know me not as my father’s daughter. If there was to be any chance of us meeting again, I wanted it to be because you liked me. When people find out I’m his daughter . . . it changes things. Like now.”
“Christ.” He sat back and grabbed his wine. He regarded me like I was some kind of laboratory specimen in a petri dish. I could almost see his brain whirring, slotting pieces together.
“I’m sorry, but . . . please, Martin, don’t let this ruin everything, okay?”
His features remained unreadable, then a grin suddenly cut his face and he laughed loud and long. “I had sex with Sterling Hartley’s kid in an elevator at his hotel,” he said between chuckles. “I don’t believe it.”
“His kid?” I set my napkin on the table. “I really should go.”
“No . . . no, El. Stop. Don’t go.” He wiped his eyes. “C’mon. I love it. Pardon my French but your dad is a first-class a-hole, a business sociopath with narcissism issues. Show me a magazine or news article or Twitter feed that doesn’t say all those things about the arrogant billionaire Sterling James Hartley. All those wannabes at the AGORA convention know this about him, yet would never say it to his face, because he’s also a rich motherfucker who has the magic and money to make others rich, too.”
I pushed back my chair.
“Ellie—”
I came to my feet. “Look, maybe I dislike my own father, Martin. Maybe I also love him, too. Did you think about that? He’s all those things, but he’s still the only real family I’ve got, and someone laughing because they think they’ve screwed him over by screwing me in his elevator—”
“Ellie—” His face sobered, and he caught hold of my wrist. “I’m sorry. Please. Please forgive me. Sit down, please.”
I stared at him, a sick feeling dawning. Could this man have already known who I was when he bumped into me?
Slowly, quietly, I said, “Why did you really ask me to dinner, Martin? Is this some game to you?”
He cursed softly under his breath. “No, El. Absolutely not. Please sit. Hear me out.”
I seated myself on the edge of my chair.
“Listen, the reason I brought you here tonight—the bouillabaisse—I’m going to be leaving for an eight-week business trip to Europe. One of the stops is Nice, and there’s this most gorgeous little restaurant that serves absolutely the best bouillabaisse in the world. I wanted to get you in the mood, get a sample, a taste . . . Would you come?”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“Come with me, Ellie. To Europe.”
“What?”
He leaned forward and took both my hands in his. As he spoke he traced the insides of my wrists gently with his thumbs. “I leave on Friday and I hate that I won’t see you for eight weeks. Come with.”
“I . . . I can’t. I work. I . . . have a new contract.”
“Of course.” He let go of my hands and sat back.
My brain raced as I hurriedly cataloged all my commitments—freelance projects, deadlines. I replayed in my mind how I’d felt when he’d simply vanished out of my life after the night we’d met, and suddenly I didn’t want to let him go.
“How about joining me for just part of the trip, then?” he said. “Maybe a few days in Rome? Venice? Or—” His eyes brightened with an idea. “What about we take a few days in the Cook Islands at the end of the trip?”
“That’s on the other end of the world from Europe.”
“So? Who cares? Aitutaki—I know a stunning resort on the lagoon there. We can have whole beaches to ourselves, Ellie, a little luxury hut with high-end room service right over the water. Sunshine. Warmth. Who doesn’t want some sun at this time of year?”
Thoughts swirled crazily through my brain. Due dates. Line drawings. Concept sketches. Excitement built.
He leaned forward again, a barely restrained energy simmering like electricity around him, and I realized it was utterly contagious. It was crackling over my skin.
“Could you perhaps bring your projects? Maybe you could work on some of your art while I go to my meetings? Then we could meet up for dinners?”
“Martin, I—”
“I know. It’s crazy.” He raked his hand through his thick hair, and the candlelight glimmered on his exorbitantly priced Rolex Daytona—I’d googled that design. I knew how much it cost. The cuff links, too. I’d searched for the little stamp in the gold on the inside. I wasn’t sure why I’d done that. Perhaps it was because I wanted—needed—to know that he had wealth of his own. It made me feel he wasn’t after mine.
“The trip would be on me, El
. Everything taken care of. Gertrude will make all the reservations and compile our itineraries. Some of the nicest hotels and pensions, because honestly, I like to travel comfortably.”
I swallowed. I thought of sunshine and crystal clear lagoons. And being with this man. And sex. Lots of sex.
Your choice. Your story. Pick your narrative.
How wrong could it go?
THE WATCHER
Outside, across the road from the Deep Cove restaurant beneath a leafless tree with gnarled fingers, the Watcher sat in a dark car, watching the lighted windows of the quaint restaurant. The interior of the car was cold, but an engine idling too long in order to keep the car warm would draw too much attention. Martin Cresswell-Smith could be seen inside one of the lighted windows. A candle flickered between him and Ellie Tyler. It was a romantic and golden vignette framed by winter darkness. Martin reached across the table and cupped Ellie Tyler’s face. The waiter returned to their table with the check.
The Watcher reached for the camera on the passenger seat, removed gloves, focused the lens, aimed, clicked.
A few moments later a yellow cab drew up outside the restaurant entrance.
The couple exited, bundled in their coats against the cold. Martin placed his hand at Ellie’s back and leaned close to whisper something in her ear. Ellie laughed, throwing her head back and exposing a pale column of throat, her long hair shimmering like a dark waterfall under the outside lights. The Watcher clicked the camera. And again.
The couple got into the waiting cab.
The taxi pulled off.
The Watcher started the car and pulled into the street behind the cab, tires crackling on dead leaves and frosted paving. Crystals and ice glistened in the headlights.
The taxi crossed the Lions Gate Bridge, entered the city, and turned into an expensive residential part of town. It stopped outside a new apartment block owned by the Hartley Group.
The Watcher parked in the shadows across the street and watched as the couple exited the taxi, Martin Cresswell-Smith’s hand once more at the small of his date’s back. Proprietary. The Watcher reached for the camera.
In the Deep Page 8
