“What could we have done? You were always so pissing stubborn. You’d have done what you wanted, regardless. Imagine having that conversation with us, eh?”
“No. You’re right.” I kneaded my pillow. “What are you and Mum going to do now?”
“Well…we’ve been looking at houses in the village. We did well out of the sale–you don’t need to worry about that. It’ll be smaller, of course, but there’ll be plenty of room for you if you need it.” He paused. “What about you? Will you still go to Salisbury?”
Hmph. Was I? It was a lot of money, but not enough to last forever and I still needed to qualify.
“I think so, yeah,” I said eventually. “Actually…while we’re on the subject, there’s probably something you should know about Matt.”
“Oh?” Dad’s voice was amused, teasing; he and Mum didn’t buy my platonic relationship with Matt any more than Greg did.
“Not like that!” I sat up to prepare for the onslaught. “Charlie is Matt’s stepdad.”
Dad choked on the other end of the phone. “Bloody hell. You do pick them, don’t you?”
“I didn’t mean to.” I winced. “It wasn’t deliberate. It turns out we both got into the company because Charlie referenced us. Neither of us knew.” Still telling my Dad a dirty secret? Check. Still mortified? You betcha. “I wasn’t with Charlie at the same time as Matt.”
“I should hope not.” He started to laugh awkwardly. “It does make you moving in with Matt sound a bit incestuous, mind.”
I was thankful that he couldn’t see my face because my eyes had rolled so far skyward that sheepish did not cover it.
“So,” he said, “what are you going to do, now that you’re rich?”
“Buy some shoes?” I said drily. “I…I don’t know, Dad.”
I really didn’t. Money can’t buy me love, and all that crap. It couldn’t even buy me the career I clung to so fallibly.
Further than that, I had no idea what it meant.
* * * *
I was booked in at five, which seemed a strange time on a Sunday. Still, I’d meant it when I said I wouldn’t shortchange Will, and there was something surreal and satisfying about an appointment I truly didn’t need.
The client was new. His name was Thomas. He did something in advertising and he liked suspenders beneath a little black dress. This, I was happy to oblige him.
I got to the hotel half an hour early and ordered a gin and tonic at the bar. A huge, ornate mirror sat on the opposite wall beside the bottles of Champagne and Absolut. I stared at my painted self and decided Charlotte would finally buy me that Mulberry handbag. She should probably buy me a flat, too, since my childhood bedroom was about to be packed away and tucked into a house full of somebody else’s memories.
God, that was a grim thought. I’d already lost the man I loved, had probably lost my best friend, narrowly missed losing my lawyer self and I wasn’t ready to let go of my garden full of lilacs.
The new start that beckoned in Salisbury was appreciated but so desperately bittersweet–it was Matt’s home, not mine. It all felt so self-indulgent, this moping. I had no money worries at all now and I would still qualify, still had a job. I shouldn’t be so depressed over…flowers.
Familiar anticipation swelled as I stepped into the lift. Adrenaline had such conveniently distracting properties: blood whispered in my ears and a flush swept across the little cleavage on show. My stockings itched in the heat and it was a relief to move as my floor came into view.
Thomas had left his door open, as instructed. I checked the room number twice before letting myself in.
“You know,” he said, “the more I fuck with this system, the more I want you out of it.”
Joseph leaned on his elbows as he perched on the edge of the bed. I clutched the door handle as nerves jolted down my arm.
“It’s nice to see you too.” A wry smile creased his face.
“You lied. Again.”
“They make it very easy if you know how.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Will.” I straightened, watching his index finger curve as he beckoned me. Not that I could bring myself to move.
“Will you come and sit down, Leila?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
He nodded slowly; he understood. “I’m not angry with you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
It wasn’t. He wouldn’t have brought me here if he was. I was only afraid of myself; how it would be too easy to touch him, the closer he was. How sharp little truths and risky invitations sat poised on the edge of my tongue.
“Ken told you,” I whispered.
“He did. What he knew, anyway.” He cocked his head. “To be honest, it wasn’t hard to work out the rest of it. I knew something dodgy had happened after it became evident that Mr Flemming hadn’t hired you.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t trust me.”
“Leila. Can you blame me? You have a habit of surrounding yourself with people who have…conflicting interests.” He pressed his lips together. “For what it’s worth, I did trust you. For a while.”
He was breaking me from the inside, and I clutched at my elbows so that I might stay together.
“So why am I here?” I said. “Do you want to hear the whole sordid story?”
“No.”
I looked down, embarrassed.
“Poppy, yes?”
“And Isobel,” I added.
He sat up, his fingers flying into a tight knot. “Fuck. Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Fuck.” He frowned to himself, the charge of thought alight in his eyes. “I should have guessed that. I’m sorry.”
“I’d have told you if I could. They said we couldn’t be together if I wanted to keep my secret.”
“Nobody knows you’re here, Leila.” He patted the space on the bed, and it felt strange to need permission to get close, let alone touch him. “At least take your sodding coat off.”
I shrugged the black pea coat off and draped it over a chair. He watched me as I stalked over, taking in the seams on my stockings and the way the skirt clung to my hips. Then he fell back a little on his hands, instinctively making space for me in his lap.
It wasn’t my fault that I filled it without thinking.
I sank down, my knickers mashing over his crotch and warmth blossoming from the lock it morphed to. My knees stuck to his hips. I wound my arms around his neck, and now I could press my face into the hollows and come home to the lemony scent there. He kneaded at my buttocks, nudging my chin with his nose until his mouth found mine.
I remembered how he devoured as much as he kissed. I was served on a plate to him and cut to pieces; he still wanted me, fragmented. It made me easier to chew.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his fist working into my hair.
“I’ve…I’ve missed you too.” It wasn’t the word I needed to say–or hear–but I couldn’t be the one to let go first. Not now.
His wolf had never been such a cannibal. He tossed me onto my back, his knee jerking between my thighs so I was outspread and vulnerable. I let him pin my wrists above my head.
“Why am I here?” I repeated, my teeth gritting as he bit the smooth flesh beneath my upper arm.
“Do you need to be told?”
“It’s all so fucked, Joe.” The last word edged into a cry as he bit harder, deeper.
“I’ll take care of it.” He dragged his tongue along my collarbone. “All of it. They’ll be shitting barbed wire when I’m done with them. Shh.”
I wanted to obey him, I did. But it was impossible to relax when all my plans suddenly hovered in the air, cocking their eyebrows at me.
“Joe.” I arched away from him. “Can we stop a minute?”
He cupped my cheek. “Who are you, and what have you done with my Leila?”
“I don’t understand.” I lowered my eyes. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”
He rolled onto his side and peered down
at me. “I told you, we’ll work something out.”
“But I’m moving,” I said, “I’m moving on Saturday. I’ll be a hundred miles away–”
“No, you won’t. We’ll sort something here. I’ve got plenty of contacts.” He smiled, confused. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
“Me either.” I had longed for this, had lost hope for it, but now his offer seemed incomplete. “I’m not sure why you’re asking me to stay.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Of course I do. But why did you call me here like this? Why didn’t you just phone, or visit me at home?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me,” he said stiffly.
“You doubt your own arts of persuasion, do you? Why is everything with you just a big business transaction?” I regretted the words as soon as I said them, but there they were, clawing their way toward him.
“You didn’t come to me. I would have helped. I thought…I thought we were in a place where you would do that.”
“You’re asking me to change all my plans and the most you can say is that you missed me,” I said. “I don’t know if that’s a gamble I can take.”
“I see.”
“The way you pursued me…I just don’t get it. This is the best you can do?”
When I knew that I loved him, an apple smacked me about the face. I didn’t care where it was headed, whether I was the target intended in the first place; I just knew. And I liked the bruise it left.
Now, watching him shift about in the hotel room lamp light, I realized that I’d always thought the apple would catch him too. I hadn’t been waiting to fall in love; I’d been waiting for him to love me. I did need it. I used to treat men like mirrors and whatever I felt bounced off, seemed pretty–but he wasn’t that polished. He was rock paper scissors, living for the battle, and I felt so small in that moment that I wasn’t sure I could ever be victory enough.
“You were the one who shut me out. What is it that you want, exactly?” He crossed his arms about his chest, moved sideways; we were apart in more ways than one.
“If you have to ask, it’s pointless anyway.” I slid forward and stood up, brushing the creases from my dress. “I think I’m done negotiating. I’m sorry you can’t make your acquisition.”
Then he was behind me, my wrist squashed in his palm.
“Neither of us signed up for this.” These words hurt him. “I’m doing the best I can.”
I tugged my flesh from his, trembling in the knowledge I was that brave. That stupid. I felt like the silly little girl expecting candlelight and roses…and yet he had given me those, once.
Was it so ungrateful to need three words?
“It’s not enough,” I said, shaking my head so that he wouldn’t notice my reddening eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged helplessly. “Leila. You know what I am.”
I paused as I went to open the door. “I know. It was you who said we could make new rules, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t have an answer; just a sad, defeated stare.
Even in the safety of my own bedroom, I couldn’t cry.
Chapter 19
“So that’s it, then.” Aidan’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Death to the Marquis.”
“Off with his head.” The irony was bitter on my tongue.
“That surprises me. I don’t know why.” Aidan paused over the box of clothes he was helping to pack. “He didn’t seem the type to just roll over.”
“He’s not, Aid. He just…he doesn’t love me.”
“Tosser.” He snorted.
“It’s for the best, right?” I wasn’t convincing myself, let alone him. “Everyone said he was bad for me.”
“It’s for the best if he wanted something different,” Aidan said slowly. “Lei-Lei, are you all right?”
The roar of tape split the air as I fastened another box. “I’m okay. Yeah. I mean, I can’t lose something if I never had it to begin with.”
Aidan grimaced. “If you’re still in the phase where you apply that kind of drivel, you’re in need of a stiff drink.” He paused, looking wistful. “Stiff something, anyway. I’m sure Matt would oblige if you won’t let me.”
I succumbed to an exasperated laugh. “I’m aware of what he would oblige, cheers.”
“You’ve got to hand it to him, though.” Aidan clicked his fingers comically. “He took care of business.”
“Yeah.” I hauled my shoeboxes out of the wardrobe and began checking their contents. “And coincidentally, he took care of it so that we’d be together twenty-four hours a day.”
“Ahh, so he did. Deus Ex Mattina. I like it.” He eyed me over the heap of shoes. “He could have just said, ‘Screw the bitch. She deserves everything she gets.’”
“I know, I know. I’m being horribly ungrateful.”
“I’m going with melodramatic succubus, but that works too,” he chirped.
“It’s just…ugh. He can be so patronizing, going on about how I need to get away from London and the agency. He doesn’t say that about you.”
“I wish he would, though.” Aidan grasped his hands together in an act of prayer. “It might mean he’d finally fuck me.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Are you sure moving in with him is a good idea, then? If you’re this annoyed by him?” He folded a shirt with crisp efficiency. “Now you’ve got that money, and all…”
“I’ve been thinking about this, but I have to start on Monday and I’ll never find a place before then. I’ll get on it as soon as I can, though.”
In truth, I’d barely thought on what I’d change my specialism to, let alone whether or not I should take Matt’s room. I had been trying to exorcise a certain ghost but he just hung around like a wickedly good smell.
“Are you taking all your, erm, implements to Matt’s?” Aidan emerged from a drawer holding a suede flogger aloft. “Because this is pretty. I would happily look after it for you.”
I snatched, using it to swat his buttocks. He grinned at me and offered himself up again.
“It’s going into storage. I can’t give away my toys.” I dumped a pile of coat hangers on the bed. “Aid. Do you think I should give him another chance?”
“Matt?” He looked at me as if I’d suggested murder. “Fuck, no. You’d destroy him. Even he knows that. You two are like a twelve-inch dildo–it’s a tempting idea but logistically, it’s just not going to happen.”
Inwardly, I sighed with relief that somebody agreed with me.
“No, you’re right. We’re different people. We don’t want the same things.”
“D’you know what the weird thing is? In about ten, fifteen years, he will want them. He fucked you with the Marquis and he liked it. He paid and he liked it. He bruised you and he liked it. He is so headed that way.”
“What?”
Aidan paused to swig from a bottle of Lucozade, and orange light splayed across the wall as the sun hit the colored plastic. “Let me tell you how Mattman’s life is going to pan out, Lei-Lei.” He made a theatrical swoop of the hands. “In a couple of years, he’s going to marry a moderately attractive girl who’s all right at oral, but only when she’s drunk. They’ll have two-point-four kids–I don’t know how the point four works, maybe one’s retarded–”
“Aidan!” I tried not to laugh.
“Anyway. He’s going to have his nice domestic life and it’ll be enough, because he thinks it should be. He’ll be writing sad little songs about monotony and depression, but he’ll hide them from vanilla wife because she’ll think singing in a band is a waste of time when he could be mowing the lawn or painting the fucking utility. Then he’ll turn forty and realize that his hard-on isn’t going to go away until he fucks a proper deviant, and perhaps the only way to get rid of all this ridiculous self-torture is to take it out on the arse of a lovely young filly with a suede flogger.” He brought my nine tails down on a suitcase with a crisp swish.
“Tha
t’s…depressingly possible.”
Is that what I’d seen in him that first night, the person he wasn’t ready to become? He had the silhouette of a wolf then; the cub cast a larger shadow in the glow of the lamp.
“Yep. He’s going to have the mother of all midlife crises and that’s when he’ll come looking for his long-lost Leila. Then you’ll have a short-lived, sordid affair where he gets to do all the things he couldn’t quite get past his Madonna-whore complex for this time around.” He gave a knowing tut. “I fuck these men all the time.”
“You think me and Matt will get back together when we’re forty? You do realize that if he thought he’d end up anything like his mum, he’d be slitting his wrists?”
“Can you imagine? Dear Mattman, your future is full of bitter misery. There’s only one way out–start sucking cock.”
“Have a bit more faith in him than that. It’s not like he’s unaware of how he deals with things.”
I did want Matt to be happy. I just wasn’t arrogant enough to think I was the source of all his displeasure–I was a twisted symptom and I wouldn’t be the only one, in the end.
Unfortunately.
I reached the brown Louboutin box at the bottom of my wardrobe and paused to stroke the lid. Teasing it off, I checked that the scarlet-soled heels were still inside. It was then that I noticed I’d tucked all the cards Joseph had given me into the tissue paper.
Soon, read the last one. It felt oddly prophetic.
“Lei-Lei. Are you listening to me?”
I shoved the cards back in hurriedly. “Hmm?”
“I said, are you keeping this torn-up old dress?” He shook out a handful of blue satin and I shivered–I could practically feel it on my skin. Charlie’s dress; Joseph’s massacre.
“Yes.” I took it from him and rolled it between my fingers. “Yes.”
“What the fuck happened to it?” He broke into a sly grin. “Did you play rape games without me?”
“Not exactly,” I mumbled.
“Good, because then I’d have to sulk.”
* * * *
By Tuesday evening, the flat was packed. I suppose that’s what happens when you have little else to do. I’d had one brief outcall, a trip to put myself on the Mulberry waiting list and an appointment at the bank to put my money some place high interest and fabulous. I know–boo fucking hoo, eh?
Breaking Joseph Page 25
