by Susan Lewis
In a way Susan was sorry for what this exposure was going to do to Rhiannon, but she wasn’t going to lose too much sleep over that when Rhiannon was far tougher than most, could easily withstand the public disgrace and live to fight another day. Besides which, she was sleeping with her best friend’s husband, for God’s sake, a sin in Susan’s eyes, that didn’t afford her too many privileges anyway. Susan just hoped that Marlowe would come up with something in the next twenty-four hours, though, because she wanted the story of Romanov’s adulterous affair across every British paper she could name before he and his wife vanished into the remote mountains of Switzerland.
Much later that evening, after Max had spoken to his children in LA and Ed Sherwin, Romanov’s president, in New York, he made one last call to Ula, then tossing the phone aside, stretched his legs out on to the coffee table and put his head on Rhiannon’s shoulder. She was watching a bad situation comedy and nursing a half-finished glass of white wine.
‘All done?’ she said, resting her head on his.
‘All done,’ he confirmed.
‘Any more to eat?’
He shook his head. ‘No, that was plenty,’ he said, referring to the Chinese she had picked up on the way back from her meeting with Lucy. ‘Mmm, that feels good,’ he murmured as she shifted herself round and began to massage his shoulders. He lifted an arm and looked at his watch. ‘Do you realize we’ve gone a full seven hours without making love?’ he said.
‘Are you going into withdrawal?’ she asked anxiously.
Laughing, he tweaked her nose, then closing his eyes he relinquished himself to the pleasing motions of her hands. ‘Tell me some more about your father,’ he said after a while. ‘I think I kind of like the guy from what you’ve told me so far.’
‘Don’t mock,’ she scolded, cuffing him round the ear.
‘Who’s mocking?’ he protested. ‘He sounds a pretty regular sort of guy to me.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about your grandfather instead?’ she countered.
Though his eyes were closed his eyebrows went up. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’ he said.
‘Anything. Tell me how he came over from Russia. Where was he from in Russia?’
‘Moscow. The Arbat.’
‘So he was a peasant?’
‘Correct.’ He tilted his head back to look up at her. ‘Why don’t we take a walk while I tell you this?’ he suggested. ‘I could do with the air – and the exercise.’
‘Great idea,’ she said, pulling her legs out from under him.
A few minutes later, wrapped up warmly in scarves and big coats, he followed her up the steps into the street, before hugging her arm against him as she slipped a hand into his pocket. As they walked, she listened with total absorption to his grandfather’s story, barely noticing where they were going as she learned about the fiery passion of a fearless young idealist whose politics and poetry had rung from every café in the Arbat and whose eventual disillusionment and fear for his life had led him to the world’s greatest bastion of capitalism.
They discussed at length the current situation in Russia and the former USSR and though Max was obviously impressed by the extent of her knowledge, there were still several issues he felt compelled to put her right on. She was intrigued to discover that he was deeply involved in the immigration and resettling of many émigrés from his grandfather’s homeland, finding them homes and employment and helping them trace their relatives. Ramon and several others were similarly involved in Europe, he told her, which was how he had first come to meet Ramon.
By the time they returned home the subject had changed to their teenage years and she was laughing at his wild exaggeration of a young boy’s – his – first experience with a woman.
‘I don’t believe she was sixty,’ she declared, pushing open the front door and peeling her scarf from her face.
‘I didn’t say sixty!’ he cried. ‘I said sixteen.’
Laughing again, she said, ‘And how old were you?’
‘Twenty-eight,’ he answered.
Hitting him with her scarf, she hung up her coat and went through to the sitting-room. ‘No calls,’ she said, checking the answerphone, then gave a quirky sort of smile as, at that very instant, his mobile started to ring.
It was where he had left it, tucked between the cushions on the sofa. She turned to look up at him and seeing the expression on her face he drew her into his arms. ‘I’ll take it in the bedroom,’ he said softly.
She nodded and smiling as he kissed her, she turned to the kitchen. If it was Galina, as she strongly suspected it would be, she really didn’t want to eavesdrop so she was going to put as great a distance between them as the apartment allowed.
Closing the bedroom door behind him, Max keyed in the call and put the phone to his ear. ‘Max Romanov,’ he said.
‘Max, it’s Ramon. I don’t want to know where you are or what you’re doing, I just want you to know that I’ve had Remmick on the line trying to find out the address you’re going to be at in Switzerland.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Max asked.
‘I asked him why he wanted to know.’
‘And?’
‘He says he’s got some important documents he needs to fly out to you some time in the next couple of weeks.’
‘So why was he asking you where I’d be?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he just had a hunch I might know.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That I’d get back to him.’
Max inhaled deeply. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘leave it with me,’ and pushing a button to end the call he quickly dialled Maurice’s home number in Malibu.
‘Is he there, Deon?’ he asked when Remmick’s wife answered.
‘He just popped out, Max. Can I give him a message, or shall I have him call you?’
‘Have him call Ula to let her know what documents he’s got that need flying over to Switzerland,’ he said.
‘OK, I’ll do that,’ Deon said, sounding as though she was writing the message down. ‘Anything else?’
Her tone was so ingratiating that it was evident to Max that not only was she aware of her husband’s fall from favour, she was frightened by it. Well let her stay that way; a little spousal pressure wouldn’t do Remmick any harm right now and Max had more pressing matters to concern him than the fears of Deon Remmick.
‘Galina, hi honey,’ he said into the phone a few minutes later. ‘Did Maurice try to get ahold of you today?’
‘No,’ she answered from her hotel suite in Edinburgh. ‘Not that I know of, anyway. Why?’
‘Apparently he’s trying to find out where we’re staying in Switzerland.’
‘Oh God,’ Galina muttered. ‘Why does he want to know?’
‘It’s not worth going into that,’ Max told her. ‘Just make sure, if he does manage to get hold of you, that you don’t tell him where we’ll be.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t. I tried to call you earlier to tell you to fly up here, but your line was busy.’
‘I was probably talking to the kids,’ he said, mentally side-stepping the relief he felt at not having to give an excuse for not going. ‘Did you call them yet today?’
‘I was just about to,’ she answered. ‘How is it going for you down there in London? Have you pulled off the deal with the Venhausen guys yet?’
‘Still working on it,’ he answered. ‘When do you get back?’
‘The day after tomorrow. We arrive at Heathrow around midday. Will you be there to meet me?’
‘No,’ he answered, thinking of Rhiannon and how hard it was going to be to leave her. ‘But I’ll try to meet you at the apartment for lunch.’
‘OK. Are you all right? You sound kind of funny.’
‘Just tired, I guess.’
‘And missing me?’
‘Of course missing you.’
‘Do you love me?’
‘You know I do.’
‘Then say it.’
‘I
love you,’ he said, a hand pressed to his forehead as he forced the words from his lips. Why hadn’t he thought about this, why hadn’t he realized that being here with Rhiannon and loving her so much would build a resentment towards Galina that was very likely only going to get worse?
‘Are you going to ask how things are going?’ she said.
‘Sure,’ he responded.
She kept him on the line for almost half an hour, filling him in on every detail of her day as he listened patiently, making all the right comments in all the right places and thought constantly of Rhiannon and how he wanted nothing more than to get back to her. But he didn’t even attempt to hurry Galina, partly because he didn’t want to hurt her by seeming uninterested, but mainly because he didn’t want her calling him back during the night to seek reassurance when it dawned on her that he had brought their call to an early end.
‘Hi,’ Rhiannon said, looking up from the book she was reading when eventually he joined her in the sitting-room. ‘Everything OK?’
He nodded, then coming to a stop in front of her he said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would go on that long . . .’
‘Don’t,’ she cut in gently. ‘We know what we’re into here, so don’t let’s complicate things even further by feeling we have to apologize to each other.’
Taking her hands in his, he pulled her to her feet and circled her in his arms. ‘I wish I could tell you that we’ll work something out,’ he said gruffly, ‘but right now I don’t know what the hell to tell you, because I just don’t know where the hell we’re heading.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, seeing the torment in his eyes. ‘I don’t need any promises. All I need is to know that you care.’
Smiling at the understatement, he hugged her tightly and said, ‘I do a hell of a lot more than care, Rhiannon Edwardes. And one of these days you’re going to get to find out just how much more.’
The following day was both busy and domestic, as Rhiannon took herself off to the garden centre early in the morning and Max went to meet Ed Sherwin who’d flown in on the red-eye from New York. After dropping bags of soil and seedlings at the flat, Rhiannon quickly showered and changed, then took a taxi to Mayfair where she was lunching with some executives from Kodak who were interested in sponsoring the programme.
When she returned, mid-way through the afternoon, it was to find Max in the cluttered walled garden, rooting out weeds from the rockery and clearing some of the winter debris. He’d already unblocked the fountain, she noticed, and seeing her come in was keen to know where she wanted the seedlings.
Laughing, she threw her arms around him, kissed him long and hard, then went off to retrieve her gardening clothes from the laundry. They worked for an hour or so, passing the trowel and fork between them while they talked about Max’s meeting with Venhausen and Venhausen’s offer to administer Romanov’s UK and German holdings.
‘I’ve got a couple of things in my briefcase I’d like you to take a look at,’ he told her, wrapping his freezing hands around the steaming mug of cocoa she was handing him.
‘Oh?’ she said in surprise.
He smiled and for the first time she saw an awkwardness come into his expression that was so at odds with the confidence she was used to that she could only blink in amazement. ‘I’m not saying you have to act on anything,’ he said. ‘You don’t even have to take a look if you don’t want to. I just thought it might help, that was all.’
‘I’m becoming more intrigued by the minute,’ she said, her eyes dancing with humour as they attempted to arrest his. ‘What is it?’ she laughed. ‘What do you have in the briefcase?’
He took a deep breath, looked at her, then laughed at his own unease. ‘I’ve just put together a couple of ways you could go about raising money for the programme,’ he said. ‘No, don’t interrupt! Like I said, you don’t have to act on it, you can do everything your way and forget I ever mentioned anything if that’s what you want. I just think you should know that interest in what you’re doing doesn’t necessarily need to stop at the shores of the UK. If you’re a sound investment, and I think you are, there are plenty of sources to be tapped on mainland Europe and in the States. There’s also Australia, South Africa, Canada and Asia. I’ve put together a list of banks and corporations you can try and a kind of guide how to deal with these people – like the facts and figures and forecast planning they will expect to see up front before you go see them, then what you will need to take when you do go. I’ll give you a letter of reference if you want one, but it could be that you feel I’m already intruding too far and are getting ready to tell me to back off and mind my own business. I won’t be . . .’
‘Max,’ she said, taking a step towards him and lifting her face to his. ‘Just kiss me, will you?’
Looking down into her eyes as he kissed her, he felt a great knot of emotion binding itself round his heart. ‘Do you want to see it?’ he asked, when they broke apart. ‘Well, you can take a look later. It doesn’t have to be now.’
‘I want to see it,’ she said, laughing. ‘Of course I want to see it, I don’t understand why you think I wouldn’t.’
He shrugged and flattening his lips, he looked off towards the edge of the garden. ‘I guess’, he said, ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to take over your life. I swear I’m not offering you any money myself, all I’m doing is putting you in touch with people who might.’
‘Do you think I’d turn your money down?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I think you would.’
She frowned and chewed her lips as she thought about that. ‘You could be right,’ she said, ‘I might.’
Though he was hurt by her answer he couldn’t help admiring the honesty and integrity behind it. Then laughing self-consciously he said, ‘This is another first for me, having to consider a woman’s independence before I go crashing in with help that just might not be welcome. I mean, I deal with women in positions of power all the time, on a professional level, but never on a personal level, at least not this personal, and it feels kind of . . . Well, I don’t know how it feels, I guess I just need to get used to it.’
‘Oh, Max,’ she said, her eyes brimming with laughter.
‘Oh, Rhiannon,’ he mimicked, tilting her chin and running his thumb along her lower lip.
‘I had no idea I made you so nervous,’ she teased.
‘Terrified,’ he told her, his breath mingling with hers in the cold air. ‘Terrified of feeling this way and terrified of losing you.’
‘Don’t,’ she murmured, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as her heart turned over. They had less than a day left now and despite how certain they’d both felt at the outset that they would see each other again, now the time for him to leave was drawing close the certainty was starting to wane.
‘I’ll go run a bath,’ he whispered, kissing the cold red tip of her nose.
When he’d gone Rhiannon sat on the edge of the rockery and nursed her cocoa on one knee. They had poured so much into these past couple of days, but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy a need that only grew with each fulfilment. Sucking in her breath, she looked at the fountain he had repaired and smiled weakly. Somehow she would have to find a way of continuing without him, but it was going to be like taking the warmth from a smile, or the belief from a hope. The smile and the hope could exist, but without the warmth and the belief they meant nothing. It was going to be hard, so very hard, but she wasn’t going to think about it now. Why spoil what little time they had left? They loved each other, they were both secure in that love and who could say, maybe something would work itself out so that they could be together. She grimaced as the truth of what she was hoping for eddied guiltily around her heart, for the only way they could be together was if something were to happen to Galina.
Getting to her feet, she carried their cups into the kitchen, then went to find him in the bathroom. He was standing beside the bath, a ghostly figure in the billowing clouds of steam. His hands were buri
ed in his pockets, his face was deep in thought. Seeing her come in he reached out an arm and drew her to him.
They stood quietly together, waiting for the bath to fill, then taking off his clothes he stepped into the water and lay down. When Rhiannon was undressed she got in after him, sitting between his legs and leaning back against him. He washed her and caressed her and held her and whispered things in her ear that made her laugh and love him even more.
‘Let’s do something special this evening,’ he said when, much later, they were lying together on the bed.
Rhiannon’s eyes widened. ‘Like what?’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said, looking up to the ceiling as though searching for inspiration, ‘we could . . . fly over to Paris and find ourselves a discreet little restaurant on the Left Bank and a hotel that knows how not to recognize its clientele.’
Rhiannon was laughing in amazement. ‘Are you serious?’ she said, propping herself up on one elbow and looking down at him.
‘Very,’ he said. ‘The Romanov jet is here. We can go and come back again without anyone ever knowing we’ve gone.’
The idea of being in a place where no one else in the world knew them to be, of being so private and exclusive to each other and so removed from reality made her heart throb with the pure want of it. She looked down at him, her eyes shining with emotion as she tried to think of the words to tell him how much she loved him. In the end she gave up and simply said, ‘I’ll go and find my passport.’
They flew back into London late the following morning to a temperature that hadn’t risen above freezing, and a sky that was laden with snow. As Max drove the rented BMW back towards Kensington, Rhiannon turned on the radio to listen to the news. Blizzards in certain parts of the country had already caused four road deaths that morning and British Rail was in its usual poor-weather chaos.
