Shades of Submission: Fifty by Fifty #1: Billionaire Romance Boxed Set

by Hunter, Adriana

  “He just walked past her, as if she wasn’t there. He was done with her. I think that was the first time he’d really understood what kind of power his family had, and that it was all his. He didn’t need groupies like Sally Fielding, who were more trouble than they were worth. He suddenly had a much larger horizon.”

  “So what happened to her?”

  “Ethan and I tried to help, but it was Will she fixated on. That Stockholm thing, that puppy-dog attachment to her captor. Like one of those charismatic religious leaders: he couldn’t do anything wrong in her eyes. She was hungry for him, driven. Obsessed.”

  I felt that heat in my cheeks then, and it was my turn to look away, down, anywhere but meet Charlie’s look.

  “He does that,” he said. “He has that kind of effect on girls. You’re not the first, you know.”

  I met his look then, and the angry flash in my eyes stopped him in his tracks. “It’s not like that,” I said. I’m strong. I’m not weak like Sally Fielding was. I know my own mind.

  “She couldn’t handle it,” he went on. “She’d always been a bit, well, erratic. She found ways of coping. A bit of coke, a bit of speed, the occasional joint. Nothing much at first, but when Will kept blanking her she spiraled. Alcohol and heroin, and then she ended up sectioned under the Mental Health Act, locked up in a loony bin. She’d already been disowned by her family by then – too much scandal and depravity for them to come to terms with.”

  “And you blame Will?”

  “If I try to put a positive spin on it, I’d point out that he could have intervened before she went out of control.”

  “And a less positive spin?”

  “Someone turned her family against her. You don’t just drop your own daughter like that. And somebody followed her, watched her, feeding her paranoia, ensuring that she broke.”

  “You’re saying Will did that?”

  “Oh no,” said Charlie, raising his hands defensively. “Of course Will didn’t do that. But the people around him, protecting him...? What do you think? Who benefited from Sally being locked away and treated as mad and delusional?”

  I shook my head. It was all too much. I didn’t know what to think.

  “And I’ll just say one more thing before I shut my whiney posh little voice up and leave you to think things over,” he said. “Who do you think benefited from Sally Fielding’s death, once she’d re-emerged? Had you wondered about that?”

  §

  I’d wondered about little else. Sometimes at the front of my mind, turning things over and over. But more often, I’m ashamed to admit, it was something I’d been burying away at the back of my mind, suppressing the speculation, the doubts, the fears.

  But it had still been there.

  A knot of uncertainty, of tight, tight tension.

  That time... our first real date, when we’d been talking about Sally Fielding’s death. When, quite casually, Will had mentioned his friend in Interpol and that I might be needed to make a statement about Will’s whereabouts that evening.

  We’d been at the hotel in the Alps, having dinner in his private dining room, having hot sex up against the window, that startling contrast between cold and heat. We’d spent the night together.

  I’d been his perfect alibi.

  27.

  He should have known not to call me then. He should have had some kind of extra sense, some way of detecting my state of mind. He should never have called me when I’d just spoken to Charlie and I’d had just long enough to go over things in my head and get more and more angry that I’d been his god-damned alibi and that he was using me, manipulating me, that, as everyone kept on telling me, Will Bentinck-Stanley always got what he wanted and what he’d wanted, for a time at least, had been me.

  He should have known.

  He really should have known.

  Mid-morning, Tuesday, and I was staring at my screen, an email open but the words just a blur. It was something from the head of marketing, but that was as far as I’d reached.

  I couldn’t concentrate. I was still angry, but now I’d reached that stage where I was trying to calm myself down and do something positive.

  What have you learned, Trudy? What have you learned from all this?

  That inner voice, guiding and prompting me. If only I had an answer!

  I’d learned that I didn’t like being pushed around, manipulated. I didn’t like being part of something bigger, where things happen and I don’t quite know why.

  I’d learned that I wanted to be able to trust people close to me, and I didn’t like suddenly having to question their motives. Even my brother...

  I’d learned – and this was an uncomfortable one for me to acknowledge – I’d learned that, counter to all the other things I’d learned, I liked the thrill, the adrenalin rush. That time in the church yard after Ethan and Eleanor’s wedding: me and Charlie and urgent, hot sex. And Will: international man of mystery. The hints he dropped, the adventures he had... it excited me, there’s no getting away from that.

  But Sally had died, been killed, and Charlie had as much as said that Will, or the people around him, were responsible, which meant that the whole trip to the Alps, that magical, stunningly romantic experience, had all been a ruse to give Will an alibi.

  I’d learned–

  My phone went, and for a second I was completely thrown, startled by the sudden noise, my eyes slowly coming back into focus on the words on my screen: ...higher than average bookshop returns mean that...

  The phone.

  I looked at it, then lifted the receiver.

  “Trudy Parsons, Editorial.”

  “Hello, Trudy Parsons-Editorial,” said a familiar voice, and for an instant I smiled, relaxed–

  –but then I caught myself, angry that my first response to that voice had been to melt. Such a god-damned schoolgirl response.

  “Yes?” I kept my tone business-like. I wasn’t going to give him anything.

  A slight pause, then he said, “It’s me. Erm, Will. Will Bentinck-Stanley? Your sister-in-law’s brother, whatever that makes me. Your brother-in-law in-law?”

  This was flustered Will, the Will he used to face situations where he wasn’t sure what response he’d get. Another layer, hiding what she’d thought of as the real Will. But was even that just another façade?

  “Yes?”

  “I... erm. That is...”

  You wowed me and played me and then you just reeled me in.

  I let him stumble on to fill the silence.

  “I was wondering if, you know, perhaps you might like lunch? I know a place.”

  He always knew a place. If I said I wanted lunch at Le Gavroche he’d be able to get us the best table at the drop of a hat, I was sure.

  “I have sandwiches,” I said. And then I went on, hating those silences. “It’s not a good time, okay? It’s Tuesday and I’m busy and you don’t help me think straight.” What did it being Tuesday have to do with anything, for God’s sake?

  “Well, I do apologize.” A jokey tone: he’d taken that as a compliment. Damn it.

  “Not like that,” I said. “Just... Just. Okay? Look, I’ve got to go. A million and one things.”

  “Okay,” he said, abruptly dropping that flustered thing. “I’ll see you later.” And with that, he hung up before I could.

  §

  I’ll see you later.

  What had he meant by that?

  It could simply have been one of those things you say, like asking how someone is when you don’t really want to know, you’re just saying Hello.

  But in recent days I’d become paranoid, and I’d become far too analytical for my own good. Was there intent in that telephone sign-off? He will see me later, regardless of my wishes. He will get what he wants: the Bentinck-Stanleys always get what they want.

  I buried my head in manuscripts for the rest of the day, working through lunch and on until nearly seven. My office was safe, separate from the outside world. My little hideaway.

&nb
sp; When I emerged it was starting to get dark, that dusky half-light when drivers don’t know whether to use their lights or not. I rode home on the Tube and when I emerged for the ten-minute walk from the station to my apartment it was dark.

  For much of that walk I kept my head down, my fists deep in my coat pockets, my mind as blank as possible. The latter didn’t turn out to be that difficult, as it happened; a day staring at manuscripts can do that to a girl.

  And then...

  Surely it can’t be normal to have rich, eligible men just waiting on street corners for you? Once would be worthy of comment, but, well, first Charlie and now... Now: Will Bentinck-Stanley stood leaning on the lamp-post right outside the front door of my apartment building, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding his phone, his thumb tap-tap-tapping a message.

  It was that moment all over again. The ringing of the phone, the double-take, hearing his voice and suddenly, briefly, melting.

  I saw him, I did a double-take – the lean body, the dark, tousled hair, the dark evening stubble, those eyes as they found me and he straightened, pushing away from the lamp-post – and then, just for a moment, my heart raced and I felt something lift in me, and I had to stop myself rushing into his arms.

  Had I been unfair? Had I leapt to conclusions? No matter what had happened, there was no denying that incredible connection between us, that magic.

  “Hey there.” His voice was soft, gentle, an edge of uncertainty but none of that English bluster he so often put on.

  I would have gone to him then. I really would. That temporary weakness would have turned to forgiveness, I know it would. But then what he said next sparked something in me, reawakening the anger I’d been bottling up.

  “So that was the brush-off, was it? The big heave-ho. You woo me, seduce me and then just discard me like yesterday’s news.”

  He was trying to turn it all into a joke. Me? Seduce and use him?

  He was smiling, waiting for me to smile back, to share the joke.

  “‘Yesterday’s news’?” I said, folding my arms across my chest, and jutting my chin, just as I’d done as a girl whenever I’d been faced with conflict. “Really? You want to talk about yesterday’s god-damned news?”

  His smile cracked a little, but he kept it there, plastered across his face.

  “So,” I continued, “let’s talk about yesterday’s news. Let’s talk about three college buddies who tied up, locked up, beat up for all I know... three buddies who locked up a girl, not just for a bit of fun, but for two whole weeks. Three buddies who do all that and whose idea was it? Whose place did they use? Who kept it going for all that time, even when there was a god-damned police hunt going on?”

  The smile was gone and I’m not sure what the expression was that replaced it. His jaw was set, his mouth a straight, dark line and those eyes... those hard, predator eyes were locked on me, sending a sudden chill down my back.

  “And... and now. That girl ends up dead. Killed, you said. And now people are saying... They–”

  “They’re saying what?”

  “That you used me as an alibi. That whole thing... the snow, the Alps, that night. Just an alibi.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  I didn’t know what to think. Face to face with him... Suddenly there were elements of all the different facades he adopted: he was vulnerable, uncertain, he was brash and arrogant, there was a hard chill in his manner, a hint of menace, of danger. He was all of those things and more, and suddenly I didn’t know him at all.

  “What am I supposed to think?”

  “That’s down to you,” he told me. “Tell me what you need from me so that you can believe in me.”

  “Something to believe in?”

  Those eyes. They fixed on me, he opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he looked down, then, with his head still tilted downwards he looked up at me, and there was a flash of something in his look, a spark.

  “I was falling,” he said.

  I waited for him to continue, but that was it. At some imperceptible signal, a low black car pulled up beside us and a door opened.

  Will’s bodyguard, Maninder, was at the wheel, peering out. Will climbed into the passenger seat, pulled the door behind him and the car pulled away.

  A split second is all it took.

  I was falling.

  Falling for me? Falling in love? Falling into some dark abyss?

  I peered after the car, but it was gone.

  Was.

  What was I doing? I wanted to believe in him. I wanted the last five minutes never to have happened.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, that mad American standing in the street with a glistening track down each cheek, but eventually I made myself move, go inside, all the time trying to remember how to breathe.

  28.

  “When I’m not with him it’s all clear in my head. He’s a bad lot, as Charlie put it. He’s arrogant and manipulative and I can never quite know which Will it’s going to be, or how much of what he says is truth and how much façade.”

  “But when you’re with him?” prompted Julie. I was curled up at one end of my big sofa, wrapped in a fluffy bath robe, a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc in one hand, my cell phone in the other.

  “When I’m with him I keep seeing chinks, fragments of the real him. Or at least I think I do. He’s spent his whole life filling roles that have been set out for him, but somewhere underneath all those layers is the man who... well, the man I spent that night with in Austria. The man who makes me feel like I’ve never felt before about a man. I’ve never been so attracted, so turned on. I’ve never blushed as much as I have with him, for God’s sake!”

  “And this is the man who travels the world on shady government business, and who you worry might be implicated in the death of a girl he once kidnapped. Have I got that down right, hun?”

  I took a big mouthful of wine, then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s about it.”

  “And you’re asking me for advice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me, does this come under ‘keeping good relations with your publisher’ or can I just tell you to fuck right off?”

  “The former. Definitely the former.”

  There was a pause while Julie took a drink at her end of the line. A big one.

  “Listen, hun,” she finally said. “No one can give you that kind of advice, okay? Lots of people would, of course, but no one sees what you see. No one blushes like you do, or goes weak in the knees and wet in the panties like you do when you see him. You know what I mean? You tell me some of the stuff you tell me and I want to protect you because you’re a friend I love and hold dear, but Trudy, honey, I can’t tell you that shit, really I can’t.”

  I nodded. Stupidly, as she was on the other end of the phone and couldn’t see.

  I knew she was right and I hated that because it left everything on my shoulders.

  “So,” I said, “how about world peace then? You got any ideas on that one?”

  §

  Three-quarters of the way down the bottle, something old and black and white on the TV, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed as women and Marilyn Monroe being so, well, so Marilyn she’d turn even me. The room was lit only by the TV and by flashing blue lights of a police car pulled up in the street. Some kind of disturbance at the pub on the corner.

  Just as Marilyn started to sing “I Wanna Be Loved By You” my cell phone rang, making me jump.

  I picked it up from where I’d dropped it on the sofa, expecting to see Julie’s picture on the screen, but instead it was a number I didn’t know.

  For a moment I didn’t want to answer, but after the fourth ring I relented, picked it up and thumbed ‘answer’.

  I didn’t say anything, though. I just couldn’t.

  There was hesitation at the other end, and then: “Hey, Trudy. Is that Trudy Parsons?” I didn’t recognize the voice, and I started to breathe again. “Listen, it’s me, Hammy.
Ahmed Kadir? Ethan’s friend from All Hallows. We met again at the wedding. Is that you, Trudy?”

  “Yes. Yes... sorry, you just caught me at an awkward moment.” I reached for the remote and nudged the volume down on the TV. “Hammy. Hello. How are you?”

  “I saw your message on Facebook,” he said. “You were asking about Will and the Cabal. I thought it might be easier if I called.”

  Suddenly it made sense. That drunken session with Julie, when she’d taken my cell phone and answered Hammy’s friend request, then messaged him from my Facebook account. I took a drink, not sure that I wanted this just then. It had been a long evening.

  “Ah yes,” I said, then couldn’t think what else to say.

  “So what did you want to know? It’s all a long time ago.”

  “I...” My mind raced. “I guess... it’s just there, looming off-stage, you know what I mean? I know some of what happened with Sally Fielding. I just don’t know enough and it’s getting in the way of things.”

  “Ah, Sally...” There was a long silence then, before he continued. “That was a strange business back at All Hallows. It’s like she was brainwashed. All hushed up, of course, but it was as if she wanted it anyway. She was hardly complaining, despite all the fuss.”

  “He has that effect,” I said, more to myself.

  “Who? Charlie? Well, I guess so...”

  “No, not Charlie. Will.” I remembered what Charlie had told me. “Women fall for him, apparently. They become obsessed.”

  “Well yes,” said Hammy. “But we’re talking about the Cabal, right? Yes, Will was a part of that thing with Sally, the Lord rest her soul, but it wasn’t really his doing. No, that was all Charlie. Charlie and your brother, I’m afraid to say. Will was there, sure, but he was doing what he always does: working away behind the scenes, trying to fix things, trying to limit the fall-out. It’s a family thing: the Bentinck-Stanleys. They close in. Will was just doing that protective thing of his, protecting his own. The three of them were like brothers, and Will was just trying to protect them and Sally.”