by Jane Holland
The fragile scent of mimosa floods the air.
The room looks different in its pale, blueish-white light. Unfamiliar. Almost magical, a place where anything could happen.
His phone buzzes and he stops to read the text, then shrugs and turns it off.
‘Who was that?’ you ask.
‘Nobody important.’
‘Emily?’
‘Like I said, nobody important.’
He drops the phone on the bedside table, then follows you to the window. He stands behind you and leans into your body, cupping your breasts. ‘Christ, you smell so good,’ he murmurs. ‘Natural, you know? No expensive perfume, none of that scented shit. I like that about you.’
You say nothing, letting his hands wander where they will. But you shiver and your breathing quickens when he fumbles beneath your top, touching you more intimately.
He gives a soft laugh. It’s obvious that you don’t plan to stop him.
‘Turn round,’ he orders you.
You do not consider disobeying him, but turn at once. You’re shy though, head down to avoid his gaze, long hair hanging about your face.
He peers in at your downcast eyes. There’s mockery in his voice. ‘Your hair’s still wet.’
You hesitate, then lift a daring hand, run your fingers through his sleek dark hair. ‘So’s yours.’
‘This is wet too.’ He’s touching your flimsy white top, so damp it’s almost translucent, your nipples clearly visible. He flicks one and you flinch. At once he cups your breast and rubs his thumb across it instead, gently back and forth, as though in apology.
‘Take it off.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. You want this. We both want this.’ He pauses, and his voice hardens. ‘And I’ve waited long enough.’
‘Emily’s going to be furious.’
‘I don’t give a fuck.’
You look shocked. Less by the obscenity, more because of his attitude. Emily is the queen of your little kingdom. How can he dare to disrespect her so casually, so without fear?
Your eyes widen, watching him. You seem impressed by this show of male bravado. Impressed, and subtly aroused.
‘Don’t you?’
‘Not after the way she behaved tonight,’ he tells you, his voice curt, and your eyes widen. You believe him implicitly. ‘This is how much I care what that bitch thinks.’
He kisses you hungrily.
You stagger backwards under the onslaught, and he catches you before you can fall. Your arms come round him, clinging tight. As though you’re afraid he may suddenly change his mind and leave.
Now that you’re acquiescent, he does not slow down but undresses you, both of you still on your feet. His fingers are clumsy and you have to help him.
Then you’re naked, a statue in the moonlight, and he’s staring at you. You try to hide yourself but he draws your hands away.
‘Beautiful,’ he says, and cups one of your small breasts.
‘Don’t.’
From your defensive tone, you’re comparing yourself to Emily, her bold, generous curves.
‘What’s this?’ He bends closer, as though nuzzling against your breast. His voice is muffled. ‘It’s heart-shaped.’
‘A birthmark.’
‘I love it.’ He kisses you there. ‘Your second heart.’
You hesitate, then help him off with his own damp T-shirt. Up over the head, tossed into the corner. Then his denim shorts, the difficult of a button fly.
Your hands are trembling.
He kicks off his shorts, makes some kind of noise under his breath.
‘Don’t laugh at me,’ you tell him fiercely.
‘Sorry.’
When you’re both naked, he lifts you, carrying you to the bed. You whisper something in his ear, your tone urgent. Admitting you’re still a virgin, perhaps. But he ignores it.
The mattress protests noisily under your combined weight.
You wriggle sideways at the noise, staring over his shoulder at the closed door. Your face is feverish, alight with desire and something else, less easily defined. Triumph? Fear?
‘Please, not so loud.’ You sound worried now, your voice high with nerves. ‘Someone might hear us.’
He laughs and pulls you back against the bed, his mouth nuzzling your throat. His naked body is pinning yours down, hiding it from the world.
‘Nobody’s here. You saw the empty drive. Your aunt’s guests are all at that big party across the Cap. We can make all the noise we want.’
‘But the staff …’
‘Fuck them.’
Several hours later, a light step comes up the narrow flight of stairs, and the door to your attic room opens a crack.
She peers in.
‘Caitlin?’
By now you are alone.
The shutters are wide open, the room moonlit. Luckily for you, the windows are still open, otherwise the room would reek of sex.
You have been sleeping heavily ever since he left, your breasts bathed in moonlight. Now you struggle up alone in bed, dragging up the sheet, trying to cover your nakedness. ‘Emily?’
You sound scared. Perhaps she knows.
Perhaps he’s told her.
Emily stares at you, standing motionless in the doorway. She almost never comes into your room if she can avoid it. As though some taint from the poor side of her family might end up clinging to her, dragging her down into the gutter where you already lie, admiring the dizzying stars.
‘Where the hell did you go tonight?’ she demands.
‘I was tired after our swim. I came back to sleep.’ You pause, staring at her through the darkness. ‘Why, what’s wrong?’
‘I’ve been trying to ring Robin, only he’s not answering his fucking mobile. I texted him too, about fifty times. No reply.’ The plummy British accent sharpens. She’s suspicious. ‘Did he bring you home from the beach?’
‘No.’
That was a mistake. You were far too quick with your denial. Should have taken your time. Sounded casual about it. That’s what she does.
‘Are you lying to me?’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘Because if you’re lying to me –’
‘I’m not lying, I swear it.’
Emily breathes thickly. ‘That bastard.’
Now there’s an edge of panic in your voice. ‘What is it, Ems? What’s the matter?’
‘He was supposed to be taking me to the party at Madeleine’s house. Instead I had to accept a lift from the Bitch Sisters.’
‘God, I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, not your fault. It’s totally his. Though it would have been nice if you’d told me you were leaving early.’
‘Sorry,’ you say again, eager to appease her.
‘He’s beginning to get on my tits. You know what I mean?’
You nod, wordlessly.
It’s always best not to disagree with Emily.
‘Maybe I’ll dump him tomorrow. Robin bloody deserves it, disappearing like that, without a word to anyone. Thinks he’s God’s gift, that one. Must be a Hollywood thing.’ She studies you again. A long, unnerving pause. ‘Why the fuck are you naked?’
‘I was totally out of it tonight, Ems. All that tequila we knocked back on the beach, my head was pounding.’ You shrug, the lie coming to you easily. Like you were born to it. ‘I stripped off when I got back, fell into bed. Went out like a light.’
‘Well, don’t let my mum see you like that, without your jim-jams. She’d freak, you know what she’s like. Obsessed with what the fucking servants might tell the paparazzi about us. As if the paps give a monkey’s what any of us do.’
She comes further into the room, swaying slightly on high heels. At last you see what she’s carrying. An open bottle of champagne. As if you hadn’t already drunk enough tonight.
‘Want to finish this with me? Smoke a joint?’ She hiccups. ‘I really need to talk.’
‘What about?’
‘Robin.’
Unsteadily, she kicks the door shut behind her without waiting for your reply, and starts to look around the room, hunting in the dark for an ashtray.
You freeze for a few seconds. Your diary is still lying on the bed where you threw it aside after drunkenly writing up today’s entry in your spidery, pencil scrawl. Hurriedly, you push the diary under the pillows to conceal it. Then sit up and wrap the flimsy sheet round yourself, anchoring it under your armpits, nervous now. Even a little afraid.
All the same, you don’t tell her to get out. You’re not that kind of girl. You shift up, automatically making room for your cousin on the bed.
‘Okay, sure. Let’s talk about Robin.’
‘Don’t call me Ems though, yeah? It’s so common.’ There’s a sudden chill in her voice as Emily hands you the bottle of champagne. ‘You know I hate it.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning when we finally leave the night club at St Tropez, wandering hand-in-hand past the noisy drunks and the prostitutes hanging about the place. One slender, dark-skinned woman in towering heels and a tiny silver dress that hugs her hips stops to look assessingly at Robin, and then at me. She flicks back a mass of fake blonde hair and calls out something in French, so fast and colloquial as to be unintelligible.
Robin half-turns but does not slow his pace, looking back at the woman coolly without replying.
I drag him away. ‘What did she say?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He smiles down at me, putting an arm about my waist. ‘Couldn’t understand a word of it.’
I don’t believe him, and cast a filthy look back over my shoulder at the woman, who laughs and turns away.
My possessiveness surprises me. It’s like he’s mine now, because we’ve kissed again. Like everything has been reset to default by that simple act. The past has rolled back and we can carry on now from that last strange night in the chateau, as though everything that went between was a dream.
As predicted, the night is much cooler now. I’m glad of the padded jacket we bought in a late-closing boutique off the quayside.
‘Back to Chateau Tamsin?’ he asks, passing me the spare helmet that was locked to his motorbike.
Our eyes meet. We both know what we’re thinking. That my aunt’s silent, claustrophobic house is the last place we want to be right now.
There’s something wonderfully familiar about the winding coastal road at night. The hills of the hinterland are dark looming masses to our left, the sleeping towns and villages illuminated by strings of street lights at intervals. All the window shutters are closed on the houses that we pass, barely anyone else on the road.
I ride pillion on the back of his motorbike, arms locked about him, the chill air rushing past us at speed. He shouts something occasionally, but I miss it above the roar of the engine. My body leans into his at every bend, our thighs touching.
I keep going back to our kiss on the dance floor, the hunger in his face. My whole body is still tingling, eager for more.
Is this just about the shock of Emily’s death? Or has Robin really always been waiting for me to return, as he claims?
I don’t know what to believe. But I know that I want him.
I want this.
The Mediterranean seems to stretch forever to our right, the moon reflected flat and silver as a coin on the still waters. The roads are curiously empty at this hour of the morning, though the coastal strip on the way to Cannes is as vibrant as ever, the rides at Luna Park lit-up, music pouring out of the beachside night club across the railway lines.
Robin slows as we pass Luna Park, but many of the rides are already closed and the gates are being shut against newcomers.
‘Pity,’ he shouts, his voice booming through the crash helmet, ‘I would have liked a hot dog. Maybe some candy floss.’
‘Like old times.’
He laughs. ‘Absolument.’
Robin accelerates away, and I grip him round the waist, holding on tight. We barely slow down until we reach the outskirts of Juan-Les-Pins. Then he turns off the main road without explanation and weaves through a series of narrow side-streets and alleys. Juan-Les-Pins is right next door to Antibes, practically sister towns, so that the point where one town ends and the other begins has blurred into one lively cluster of restaurants, bars and clubs that serve long into the night.
Even now, at roughly three in the morning, the town centre is still well-lit, people staggering home through the streets. But the time of the clubbers has peaked.
Slowing to a crawl, Robin pulls up and parks the bike behind a row of shops. I get off, and wait while he removes his helmet and gloves.
‘Not taking me home?’
He smooths down his hair. ‘Home?’
I make a face, understanding him implicitly. Chateau Tamsin is not my home. It never was, not even that summer I lived there with Emily. Like Robin, my real home is in another country, a very long way from here. And right now I’d rather not be reminded of Cornwall. I’ll have to go home and shoulder my responsibilities again at some point soon, that’s unavoidable.
But not this minute. Not tonight.
‘So what then?’
‘I thought you might want a coffee before heading back.’
I look around, perplexed.
This is a less fashionable part of town than the one I know. The cafes here all seem to be closed for the night, everything in darkness, blinds and shutters drawn down.
He smiles at my confusion. His eyes are long-lashed, seductive as ever. ‘At my place,’ he says easily, and indicates a somewhat shabby apartment block at his back.
‘You live here?’
‘It’s only while my dad’s villa is being renovated. The builders say it’s a big job, could take another six months. So I made other arrangements.’ Robin digs into his jeans pocket and produces a set of house keys on a chain. Twirling them round his finger, he raises his brows. ‘Well, Caitlin, what’s it to be? Coffee or home?’
It’s not merely coffee he’s offering. And I want to spend the night with him, it would be ridiculous to deny that.
But how wise would it be, under the circumstances?
Emily’s funeral is done. Tamsin needs me less than my father. I’ll be heading home to Cornwall soon, back into the dreary routine of my working life there. Bad enough that I’ve thought and dreamt about this man since I was a lovesick teenager. I’m nearly thirty, I want to move on. I don’t fancy spending the next thirty-odd years obsessing about the night we made love again.
‘It must be after three by now. I should probably get back.’
‘Not yet. Look, it’s not pretty, but it’s on the fifth floor. Got a great view of the sea, if you lean out the window and ignore the other buildings in the way.’
‘That your best sales pitch?’
He laughs, undeterred. ‘It’s no chateau,’ he says, and takes my hand. His voice deepens. ‘But we can be alone there, at least. Come on.’
The apartment may be small, but it’s less shabby inside than it looks from the exterior. Still nothing like his dad’s villa though. I’m surprised he’s happy to live somewhere like here, even on a temporary basis, given his pampered, luxurious upbringing. But I suppose going to live and work in Paris for so long has mellowed Robin, made him less of a spoilt brat than Emily, whose mother encouraged her to live the celebrity lifestyle.
The kitchen-diner has polished wooden floors, a long, low white leather couch and matching armchair, several potted plants, and a tropical fish tank in an alcove near the narrow balcony. The fish are in darkness now, but can be seen darting to and fro in a semi-luminous, blue-and-red shoal.
‘Neon tetras,’ he says, when I stop to admire the tiny fish.
Robin turns off the main overhead light and flicks on a glass table lamp instead. Instantly the apartment feels more intimate and cosy. Mood lighting. He’s setting the scene for a seduction, I think, watching his reflection in the greenish fish tank wall.
Noneth
eless, I do and say nothing to deter him, despite a few niggling reservations. I’m here now, I keep telling myself. Might as well see where all this is leading.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I say.
‘There’s a large angel fish somewhere near the back too.’
‘Angel fish?’
‘Because its fins look like wings.’ He kicks off his trainers and comes up behind me, soft-footed on the wooden floor. ‘Not a very apt name though. I keep finding partly eaten tetras floating on the top. If you ask me, it’s secretly picking off the smaller fish one by one.’
‘Nasty.’
His arm slips round my waist. ‘Nature’s way, I guess.’
‘How so?’
‘More space. Extra food. Competition out the way. Or maybe the little fish just pissed him off once too often, and this is what happens.’ He is watching the fish with apparent satisfaction. The American accent seems to intensify with his drawl. ‘All the usual excuses for murder.’
‘But the tank’s huge. Plenty of room for all of them.’
‘Maybe it’s fun, then. Something to do in the long evenings. That’s fish for you. Or thousands of years of evolution. Survival of the fittest.’ He shrugs. ‘Hard to shake the predatory instinct, I should imagine.’
‘So you’re okay with it picking off the tetras?’
Robin looks down at me.
There’s an indefinable expression in those eyes. My heart starts to thud. There’s so much about this man that I don’t know yet. So much invisible history. Things he hasn’t shared yet. Things I haven’t dared ask. I wonder if he thinks the same about me. He must be aware of it, at least. This constant, nagging feeling of unfinished business between us.
‘Sure. That’s the way life is. Sometimes you like what you see, and just have to …’ He hesitates, and his gaze narrows on my face.
‘Have to what?’
‘Pounce,’ he says, and bends his head to kiss me.
It’s good.
Better than good. It’s fantastic.
And I want more.
When he raises his head again, I untuck his T-shirt and slide my hands up his chest beneath, stroking the bare flesh. He sucks in his his breath, watching me.
‘Yes,’ I say, my meaning unambiguous.
