I thought Dr. Kane was an empty box. But I was wrong. He was the full box my mother had told me about.
I heard the doorbell ring.
If only the little bitch had died in the accident. I closed my eyes and took a long calming breath. I was not beaten. All was not lost. I was resourceful. I could handle Dr. Kane. I could always handle a man. All men are susceptible to me.
She is not as beautiful as you. But the reflection of my face in the glass pane was marred with a frown. The truth was I was not sure how to mold him to my wishes.
He stood apart from other men. I saw it for myself at the dinner when I purposely invited the proudest and most caustic members of our set. And they did what I knew they would—deliberately set out to make him feel small and insignificant. But their veiled insults and disparaging comments were useless. He cared nothing for their good opinion.
Not only did he not recognize them as his betters, he refused to obey the social etiquette set by them. Instead he made his own rules without fear of what society thought of him. Men who will not be bullied by the artificial rules of society are more dangerous than men with knives. For they cannot be controlled.
And such a man was now my enemy. I did not want him as my enemy, but he was my foe, as surely as I was Olivia’s.
Chapter 36
Marlow
She stood when a servant showed me into her drawing room. She was dressed in a way that accentuated her fine figure and her hair was loose around her shoulders. Her face was perfectly made.
‘Hello Dr. Kane,’ she said with just the right amount of warmth.
‘Lady Swanson,’ I greeted with the slightest emphasis on the word Lady.
She looked at me sharply, but her voice was honey. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
She was relying heavily on the assumption that I was a drunk. Well… first mistake. ‘No thank you,’ I refused. ‘This is not a social call.’
‘You won’t mind if I have one,’ she said and ordered a glass of brandy from her footman.
The door closed quietly behind him.
‘Will you have a seat?’
‘I won’t be staying long enough to bother.’
She straightened. ‘Well, we might as well get it over with.’
‘I’m marrying Olivia and I’ve come to tell you to arrange the biggest most fantastic wedding for her.’
A slow smile hit her face. ‘Your slip is showing. You’re not supposed to be so eager for the money. A less obvious approach would surely stand you in better stead.’
With my eyes fixed on her I took a step forward. I saw instantly that she was flustered. But oh how hard she forced herself to stand her ground. I took another step and I saw her swallow. So I closed the distance some more.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ she blurted out.
I smiled. Slow. She knew me not at all. ‘Why Lady Swanson, your slip is showing. You’re not supposed to look so guilty.’
She flushed. ‘It’s not true. Whatever my stepdaughter thinks she has remembered is simply not true.’
I raised an eyebrow.
She knew better than to carry on that line of defense. ‘Nobody would believe such utter rot,’ she said icily.
I smiled. ‘It would appear you are better than the crowd you run with. Everybody would believe it. It has the ring of truth to it, wouldn’t you say? Besides when has the truth ever stopped a nice piece of gossip?’
‘You think I’m powerless. I could destroy that little prostitute in a minute. I’ve got pictures.’
I was not surprised. I had expected no less, but she had more to lose than me. ‘Yes, I was coming to that. You use your pictures and I’ll use mine.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What have you got?’ she challenged. Her accent was no longer the stiff upper-lip drawl, but hard and nasal. It betrayed her real roots. She was from the East End of London.
‘What’s most precious to you?’ I asked softly.
Her face contorted into an ugly mask. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she spat.
‘You met me in my hypnotist guise so you think I am civilized like you. I’m not. When you think of me, Lady Swanson, think of a bear. A grizzly bear. Better still think of me as a mama bear.’ I paused and looked hard at her. ‘If I catch you trying to undermine or hurt Olivia in any way at all, even if it is just a glance, I promise you I’ll hurt him. Don’t forget how easy it is to get him in one of those anonymous clubs he goes to all dolled-up as a woman.’
She went still. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘It’s a prediction, but if it takes a threat to help you understand how serious I am then take it as such.’
There was a soft knock on the door. The footman came in with a tray and walked up to her. She snatched it off the tray and took a large gulp. The door closed again.
‘What do you want?’ she asked briskly.
‘I want Olivia to have the wedding of her dreams. The whole works. The dress, the veil, the church, the bridesmaids, the flowers. Only you know her well enough to do that for me.’
‘What else?’ she asked tightly.
‘I want to know where Tom your former gardener is?’
‘Tom Hardy? He died sometime ago. Cancer, I believe.’
‘Lucky him,’ I said quietly
Something passed through her eyes. It was gone in a flash but I caught it.
I looked at her in shock. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘Knew what?’ she asked defiantly.
I felt rage curling in my stomach. ‘What kind of woman are you? You let him abuse a defenseless child.’
She swallowed. ‘I don’t know what lies she told you, but I had nothing to do with anything that happened between her and Tom.’
‘But you protected your own daughter
‘I’m not responsible for her,’ she shouted.
People like her made me sick. ‘The good news is I’ll be taking Olivia back to America with me. So you’ll hardly have to see her again, but I will bring her back as often as she wants and I want her to have a nice house here in London. I expect you and your husband to take care of that for her.’
She nodded. A gust of envy blew across her face. ‘You’re taking her away?’
‘Yes. I’m going back to the States. I’m returning to the practice of neurology.’
‘I see.’
‘There’s one more thing I want Olivia to have. And it’s got to be a surprise.’
‘What is it?’ she asked warily
So I told her.
Quote
Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.
—Oscar Wilde
Epilogue
Olivia
My wedding was a grand society affair, organized and perfectly executed by Ivana. No, it was not awkward. It was a great triumph. Everybody said so. Anybody looking in could only have envied our family, our beauty, our good fortune, our wealth, our happiness. They would have seen a proud father, a beautiful, polished, charming, utterly devoted stepmother and a bride who looked adoringly up at her bridegroom as if he was God on earth. Only the bride’s adoring gaze for her new bridegroom as if he was God on earth was not an act.
The thing I remember most was walking into the church and seeing Marlow in his perfectly matched morning suit. He was watching me, every inch of me. There was no smile, no silently mouthed words of encouragement, no self-conscious gesture of love, just an intense look that said, I’m here, I’ve got your back. You’ll never again be anything but precious.
My step faltered and my hand tightened on my father’s arm. I felt him look down on me. I glanced up at him. His face was the perfect parody of the proud father. He had not taken care of me, but today he was giving me away to someone who would.
I took my gaze back to Marlow. He had not moved. He stood as still as a statue, his hands by his sides and I was reminded of my first impression of him, a slow-talking, gun-slinger on a dusty street at high noon, ready on the draw. Tense, alert and bristling with concentration. I stared
at him and suddenly there was no one else in the church except him and me. As I drew in an exhilarating breath, I knew: I was safe forever.
And then I remember the kiss. Oh, the kiss. It was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me. After that it became a bit of a happy blur. His hand on the small of my back, rose petals confetti, well-wishers, music, delicious food, cutting an eight-tiered cake, champagne…
There were speeches too. I don’t remember any of them, of course. Only Marlow’s. When he looked into my eyes in front of all the people who had tried to hurt me the most and said, ‘I was not a man. I was a shell until you walked into my office.’
I had to blink back the stinging tears not only because that was exactly how I felt. I, too, had been a shell until I walked into his office. But because of a sense of triumph and vindication: none of you succeeded in destroying me.
Daffy came to kiss my cheek after the reception. ‘You won the lottery. Don’t spend it all at the races,’ she said and laughed.
I stared at her. Et tu, Brute? But the knowledge didn’t hurt. I had won the lottery and I had absolutely no intention of squandering any of it at the races.
My father and Ivana had a surprise present for me—a house in Belgravia. Marlow was in on it, of course. We were driven up to it in a carriage. It was white stucco fronted with a columned entrance and a glossy black door. We went up the stairs. He took out a silk scarf.
‘What?’ I asked with a laugh.
‘Turn around,’ he said.
Still laughing I turned around and he tied the scarf over my eyes.
I stayed turned away from him while I heard him put the key in the door, turn the lock, then felt his strong hands come around me and I was airborne and giggling. He carried me laughing over the threshold and did not put me down straightaway. He did not even take me up the stairs to the bedroom, which I had expected him to do. Instead he walked in what appeared to my blindfolded senses to be a straight line, heading to the back of the house. I held onto his neck and nestled in the curve of his throat.
At that moment I was the happiest woman on earth.
He set me down, and I felt him move to the back of me. Even before he untied the scarf tears were already rolling down my face. I smelt them, you see. I smelt them the way a mother recognizes the scent of her newborn baby. The scarf fell away from my eyes and I gasped. My eyes moved from one child to another, to yet another. Every single one of them had made the journey back to me. All my babies had come to live with me. I turned around with shining eyes.
‘Thank you, my love.’ My voice was a shaky whisper.
He looked down at me with such love that heat flared in my chest.
‘I can’t take any of the credit. I wanted to ask your father’s gardener to recreate your happy place here, but Ivana insisted that we move the entire contents of the conservatory. She’s even sorted out a gardener to take care of it when we are not around.’
‘Yes, dear Ivana,’ I said sarcastically.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said softly, refusing to take the bait. He once told me, as hateful as Ivana was, he could never be anything but grateful to her. She had unwittingly led him into his most fabulous dream.
‘Oh yeah?’ I said, imitating his accent.
‘Yeah,’ he said, all macho and gorgeous.
He slanted his eyes down to me. ‘Well, aren’t you craving to water the plants? Or something?’
I grinned. ‘I’m craving something. See if you can guess.’
He laughed. ‘That’s too fucking easy,’ he said as he went behind me and started unzipping my dress.
‘Be careful with that. I’m saving this dress for my daughter,’ I warned, my pulse humming under my skin.
‘Our daughter,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Our daughter. Our son. Our family.’ I felt his mouth settle on my nape as light as a butterfly.
I closed my eyes, happy, so unbelievably happy. This is my revenge, Ivana. To see me ecstatically happy. I tilted my head slightly. His eyes were directed down at the zip, his lashes casting a shadow on his cheek, and my breath caught at the beauty of the man. I took a mental photograph. I wanted to remember him like this forever.
‘Now I think about it, don’t worry about the dress. I hear they have a really good dry-cleaners in Belgravia.’
His laughter was muffled against my flesh. It mingled with the sound of my dress falling on the gray slate tiles. If they couldn’t save it, she could jolly well buy her own.
THE END
Nanny & The Beast
Chapter 1
April
The address was only a short walk from the Knightsbridge tube station. The sun was shining as I took the little path that led to the private square called Little Sion. In no time I was standing in front of a large set of wrought iron electric gates adorned on either side by stone lions. Before I could press the intercom button, a voice with a foreign accent brusquely instructed me to go through the small side gate.
Okay.
As I got to the gate it clicked open. I pushed it, and walked through. Standing on the asphalt driveway for a second, I looked up at the mansion. Wow! Painted brilliant white, it practically glinted in the sun. As if it was some ice palace from a fairy tale. Who’d have thought such a massive palace existed right in the heart of Knightsbridge.
A huge bald man wearing an earpiece and a black suit that was a size too small for him was making his way towards me. The guy was so big the top of my head came up to his tree-trunk biceps. Of course, as basic human interaction demanded, I smiled politely at him. He did not smile back as he let his eyes dart over me suspiciously.
Okay. Be like that then.
“I’ve come about the job. I have an appointment with Mr. Volkov,” I said.
He grunted. “I know. Come with me.”
He turned on his heel and I fell into step beside him. Actually, it was more like a jog, or to be even more accurate, a fast-paced sprint. Damn him.
“My name is April Winters, what’s yours?” I gasped, in an effort to be civil and pretend the speed we were travelling at was my normal pace.
He grunted again, before his eyes slid down to me. The expression on his face did not change. “Brain,” he said.
I mean, I could have said, ‘what’, or laughed outright, or if I wanted to carry on being polite and civil, ‘pardon me’, but I kinda knew I’d heard right. Somehow the name suited him to a T. Of course, he would be called Brain.
I gave up any pretense civility at that point, and silently followed him up to the house.
Two more ‘brains’ in black suits watched us from the entrance of the house. They wore the same expressions of extreme distrust. For the first time, I wondered what the hell I had got myself into.
Who was my employer?
Obviously, the first thing I did when I was told I had been selected to apply for this job was Google Yuri Volkov. All I found were images of an extraordinarily handsome businessman escorting beautiful women to high society parties. No mention of a palace in Knightsbridge, or goons that behaved as if they belonged in a bad Mafia movie.
Come to think of it now, in every photo I found he was unsmiling, giving me the impression of a cold, aloof man. Not that that bothered me any.
I would be in charge of his niece and report her progress to him. And that was all I would be doing. Since I was extremely good at my job, I didn’t foresee needing to take shit from Mr. Volkov.
There was one picture of him though, playing polo in Windsor, which caught my attention. Something about the expression in his eyes as he leaned down to swing his mallet. Here was a man who got what he wanted. An implacable man. A man you did not antagonize.
A man you allowed into your body.
Did I just go there?
I crushed the thought.
I was a professional, and I had no intention of ever being anything else. Under no circumstances was I exchanging my good reputation for any man. No matter how hot he was. Besides, as if a man like that was
going to give a woman like me even a second look. All those beautiful women swarming around him like flies to shit. Not a chance.
Which obviously was a good thing.
The last thing I needed was temptation.
Not that I was saying I was tempted.
The man opened the grand doors and my jaw dropped. Jesus! Mr. Volkov must be a very, very, very, very successful businessman. The interior of his abode made me feel like I had just stepped into an episode of The Secret Lives of Billionaires. It had one of those foyers with a spiral staircase. From the glass ceiling four floors up, hung the biggest chandelier I had ever seen in my life. It seemed to have millions of crystal pieces that caught the sunlight streaming in from the top and practically blazed like it was on fire.
Our shoes rang on the marble floors. Some poor minion had polished them so hard I was afraid Brain would be able to see up my skirt. Fortunately, he kept his eyes ahead. We turned into a room, which I suppose could be called a music room, since there was a gleaming grand piano in it.
“Wait here until you are called,” Brain said.
There were two women sitting on the fine chairs in the room. I recognized one of them. Mary Sedgewick from Caring Nannies. She was generally accepted as their best asset. She looked at me with a smug expression. The other woman, I didn’t know, but I guessed she must be from Sarah Bright’s agency, because she was holding a file with their logo on it. She nodded at me formally.
I smiled at them both and took a seat on one of the armchairs. It was upholstered in sunshine yellow and was incredibly comfortable. Funny thing. I was suddenly nervous. I took a mint out of my handbag and popped it into my mouth.
A middle-aged woman in a severe navy-blue suit came into the room. “Ms. Sedgewick, please come with me.”
Mary stood and with a confident smile walked up to her. The door closed behind them, and I turned my attention to the French windows. Outside stone steps led to a formal garden that seemed to stretch endlessly. There was a fountain. I stared at it blankly. Ten minutes later the woman in the navy-blue suit was back, which surprised me. Maybe Mary didn’t get the job, after all.
His Frozen Heart Page 50
