by Susan Lewis
He settled his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. ‘When you rang from the lobby just now, I take it you were testing me?’
A quick temper flared in her eyes. ‘Is that it? Is that all you can say?’
He nodded, then turned to look at her. ‘Now I’ve passed the test, maybe you’d like to tell me why it took you so long to come up in the lift.’
Catching the gleam in his eye, Madeleine’s temper abated and she chuckled. Then, slowly, she sauntered over to the dressing table and perched on the edge. Paul watched her, knowing she was taking time to think. During the past five weeks he’d observed her closely, analysing everything she did in an effort to find out just what it was that made her tick. The answers had remained elusive, until suddenly it had hit him in one blinding flash – there were no answers where Madeleine was concerned, because Madeleine was nothing. She put him in mind of a beautiful Russian doll – as each shell was removed, underneath there were only more of the same, except smaller and smaller until there was nothing. Without that face and body Madeleine would cease to exist. And now the Russian doll was his to do with as he pleased, because he knew the effect he had on her and the power he wielded over her whether she was with him or not. Only he could bring that look to her eyes, the look that had almost blown his mind when he’d first seen it – and still did, no matter how many times they made love.
Now she was slowly opening the front of her shirt, while moistening her lips with her tongue. ‘Do you see these buttons here?’ she murmured. ‘I undid them all, like this.’ She shrugged her shirt and jacket down over her shoulders and just as he’d expected, she wore nothing underneath.
‘And who was in the lift with you?’ he asked, vaguely fascinated by the effect her magnificent breasts never failed to have on him.
‘Just the operator.’
‘Was he looking at you?’
She nodded. ‘Oh yes.’
‘What did you do then?’
She walked over to the bed and picked up his hand. ‘I did this,’ she said, putting it over her breast.
‘Did he like it?’
‘He seemed to.’
‘And was he as excited as this?’ He opened his bathrobe to reveal his semi-erect penis.
‘More,’ she breathed, then moaned as his long fingers toyed lazily with her nipples.
‘Go on.’
She moved away, and turning to the mirror she watched herself remove what remained of her clothes. ‘I stood in front of him, like this,’ she said.
As she turned to face him, Paul sat up and shrugged off his robe.
‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘Do it here, in front of the mirror.’
He walked across the room, and putting his hand on her shoulder to turn her away from him, he pushed her down to her hands and knees. Then kneeling over her, he said: ‘Did this happen next?’
‘Oh yes,’ she whimpered, as he eased himself into her and began to move his hips slowly back and forth. Then, watching their reflections, she elaborated even further until he gripped her round the waist and slammed himself against her, so that she was gasping for breath and he was no longer listening.
Afterwards, as they lay on the floor, Paul thought about the lift operator, knowing not a word of it was true. But it excited him to hear her talk out her fantasies. Not that she wouldn’t exhibit herself in that way – it was just that, as they both knew, the lift in Blake’s Hotel was fully automatic.
‘What about you?’ she asked later, as she was taking a bath. ‘You haven’t told me what you did today. Any luck on the agent front?’
He moved the razor away from his face and shook his head. ‘But I’m working on it. So what’s your first assignment?’
‘No idea yet,’ Madeleine answered, lifting a leg out of the water and watching the soft white bubbles trickle over her bronze skin. ‘She’s going to call me in a few days.’
‘So you haven’t parted with the ten grand?’
‘I trust her, Paul. She’ll deliver. She says I’ve got special qualities and that I’ll go right to the very top.’
‘Sure she did. For ten grand she’d say anything. What kind of modelling is it?’
‘All kinds, I think. And a one month deadline on the newspaper.’
For a fleeting moment his face was grim. Then he said: ‘Just remember, when you’re out there being looked at by all those men, that you belong to me.’
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. He caught her hands as she lifted them out of the water. ‘Do you hear me?’ he growled.
‘I hear you,’ she purred. ‘But say it again.’
He smothered her hands with his lips. ‘You’ve got to me, Madeleine Deacon. I’ve never known what it was like to feel this way about a woman. I adore you.’
She lay still, feeling his words thrill her body like caresses. ‘And together,’ she breathed, ‘we’re going to be the great love, the great beauty and the great writer. We’ll be on every television, in every newspaper, every bookshop the world over.’ And that silly bitch, Marian, can eat her heart out, she thought. Abruptly he let her hands go and she opened her eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, suddenly afraid that she might have spoken aloud.
He smiled down at her. ‘Your beauty is undeniable, Maddy, but what if I can’t make it? What if I don’t get a publishing deal . . .’
She pulled herself out of the water and put her arms round him. ‘You will, I know it. These things just take time.’
‘And sometimes they never happen. No, don’t say anything, I want you to think about it. I can’t tell you what it does to me to know that you want so much for us. It’s what I want too, to be with you every step of the way, but there’s always the chance that it might not happen. And you’ve got to ask yourself, will a failed writer be enough for you?’ He kissed the tip of her nose and unwound himself from her embrace. He would have walked away, but seeing the way she was looking at him, he found himself kissing her tenderly on the mouth.
But no matter what she did to his heart, he was determined to see this game through to the end. The first moves had been made and now the stage was set for . . . His imagination suddenly soared, like a bird broken free of a cage – the stage was set for anything. She was the instrument, he was the player, and he would use her, strum her, beat and cherish her. She would be a slave to his tune until the music ran out.
– 9 –
When Deidre Crabb got off the train at Stazione Centrale in Florence there was no one waiting to meet her. The May sun was still hot but not uncomfortable, so she decided to walk to her destination, stopping on the way to reacquaint herself with the city she loved above all others.
At Giacosa’s on the Via Tornabuoni she drank negroni and flirted with Gennaro. The old man was pleased to see her and listened as she spoke, understanding the pleasure she gained from rolling her tongue round his language. From Giacosa’s she took a circuitous route, wandering down cobbled alleys that snaked between cracked and crumbling buildings whose façades were a patchwork of russet and sand-coloured stone, until she reached the Duomo and then the Piazza della Republica. There she paused again, listening to the happy sound of waiters in pavement cafés calling to one another while they balanced trays of cappuccino and birra for the tourists. One of them beckoned her to a seat, but she had lingered long enough – he might be waiting for her.
When she arrived at his apartment building on the left bank of the Arno, the shutters were closed – like eyes, she thought, looking up at the wrought-iron balconies where geraniums bloomed in their pots. Using her key, she let herself in and walked up the dusty stone stairway to the third floor. The apartment was airless and dark, so she opened the window that overlooked the Palazzo Torrigiani and the river beyond. Immediately the noise of Florence crescendoed and the sun streamed in, throwing light into a room that was strewn with the paraphernalia of an artist. As she looked around, the smile that curved her mouth was one of indulgence – and pride. The paintings were mostly new to
her, though every one she recognised. They were startling and accomplished details taken from the works of Bellini, Giorgione, Carpaccio and countless other Italian Renaissance painters. There were drawings too, done in charcoal or lead pencil, and from the smell she guessed he had recently mixed his own tempera.
The bedroom was empty, the bed unmade. She sighed. Perhaps, after all, she might be in for a long wait.
It wasn’t until noon the following day that he returned. Deidre was in the bathroom, washing his clothes and hanging them out of the window to dry.
He sighed when he saw her. ‘Ah, cara. You do all this for me and I forget you come.’
‘Where were you?’ she asked, after he had kissed her. He was unshaven and his black Armani suit was crumpled and stained with marble dust.
‘At the bottega. There was much to do.’ His finger was under her chin and he looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘You understand?’
Yes, she understood. ‘You must be hungry,’ she said. ‘I’ll makea di pasta, si?’
He laughed, but as she moved away he pulled her back into his arms. ‘I have missed you, mia donna, maybe first we makea di love, no?’
Later, as Sergio slept, Deidre gazed down at him, feasting her eyes on every muscle of his body. At forty his beauty was darker and more heart-breaking than ever. Loving him had always been painful for her, but she knew that it was nothing to what she would suffer if she were to lose him. It was seven years since Roy and Dario had first brought her to Florence to meet him, but it was hard now for her to remember a time when her life hadn’t been filled with loving him. If he’d allowed it she would have given up everything to come and live with him here, but he had refused, and it was Roy who had explained that Sergio was unlike other men and that if she wanted him, she must accept him on his own terms. His terms were that they should never marry, never stay together for more than three weeks at a time, and never have children. He would remain faithful to her, but she must never demand his love, else she would destroy it.
‘But he does love me?’ she had begged Roy.
Roy looked past her and she had turned to see Sergio standing in the doorway. He held his arms out to her and she went to him, melting into his embrace. ‘Yes, I love you, cara,’ he had whispered. ‘But you must understand that I cannot permit you to come between me and my work.’
She had always known that love exacted its own price; for her it was a high one. But she loved him so much that she was prepared to pay, no matter what the cost.
She left him sleeping and went to prepare his pasta. When it was ready she woke him and served it to him on a tray, then she sat beside him on the pillows while he ate, dabbing his lips with a napkin and laughing as he frowned at her.
‘You seem happy, cara,’ he said.
‘I am.’
‘Because of Madeleine?’
‘You know about Madeleine?’
‘Dario told me.’
She stretched out on the bed, and cupping her chin in her hands, she gazed up at him. ‘I’m happy because of you, Sergio. Because I love you, because I’m with you.’
‘How long will you stay?’
‘Forever, if you’d let me.’
A dark look eclipsed the humour in his eyes, and she immediately regretted the mistake. ‘But I have to return in a few days,’ she said quickly.
Putting his plate to one side, he leaned forward and combed his fingers through her rambling mass of hair. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Madeleine?’ he said, smiling, and his black, turbulent eyes reached for hers in a way that seemed to draw her into his very soul.
Her breath shuddered and she rolled onto her back, unable to bear the intensity of him. But, like him, she could pretend, so she kept her eyes from his sinewy shoulders and buttocks as he walked from the room, and waited until he returned. Then while he sketched, she told him about Madeleine.
‘She is a delight,’ she sighed, warming to the sound of his laughter as she told him how Madeleine had removed all her clothes. ‘If you met her in the street you would think her just another pretty girl.’ She corrected herself. ‘No, you would look twice, because there is something about her that demands it. She has a lazy, almost pompous air that smiles in the face of admiration . . . You know, it’s as though she is astonished that you have only just woken up to the fact that she’s beautiful. In fact, I’ve seldom seen a girl so satisfied with the way she looks.’ Knowing that he was only half listening, she stopped for a moment and ran a finger down the length of his leg. There was no response, he was engrossed in what he was doing.
‘But she’s as special as she thinks she is, probably more so. It’s hard to say why – except that there are moments when sexuality seems to ooze from her every pore. There’s a look . . . It starts in her eyes. And I don’t mind admitting that when I first saw it, it even turned me on.’ She cupped the hard flesh at the back of his calf and started to massage it gently. ‘If it weren’t for that look, she’d be brassy; she is brassy, actually, but we’re working on that. I can’t make up my mind whether to try and train the voice; I suppose I’ll have to a little, she sounds like a country bumpkin. Of course that wouldn’t matter if she had even a modicum of intelligence, but sadly for her, and luckily for me, she hasn’t.’
‘Why lucky for you, cara?’
‘She’s paying us to get her to the top. She could get there anyway, but the money will speed things up. It’ll be quite a challenge, getting the girlies to change their centrefolds at the last minute, and the glossies to change their front covers – but Madeleine’s money will make it worth their while. Roy reckons that if we plan it carefully she could be an international name by the summer, or by the end of the year at least.’
Sergio’s hand stopped and he held his head back to survey his work. ‘That would be a great accomplishment, no?’
‘Yes, it would.’
His pencil started to move over the page again, and Deidre yawned contentedly. ‘You know, someone I can’t quite get to the bottom of is her boyfriend. We investigated him, mainly because we wanted to know where Madeleine’s money was coming from, and it turns out that I know him. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration – my family knew his once, about fifteen or twenty years ago. If I remember rightly there was a bit of a scandal when his parents died, but it all got hushed up and I can’t even remember what it was now. Anyway, he inherited a fortune when he was still quite young, and when his aunt died, she left him everything too. He’s worth millions. And that’s the funny thing. He doesn’t use his money – except for the running of his estate, of course – but he has almost nothing to do with it, and neither does he draw a penny of income from it. So he’s not the one who’s financing Madeleine; if anything, she’s financing him. He’s a writer.’
‘This would be good for her image, no?’
‘Absolutely, if he were a published writer. However, Roy’s working on that. We’ve managed to get them both in a couple of the gossip columns, and I have to say I think he’s going to cause almost as much of a stir as she is. If I were ten years younger and not so madly in love with you, Paul O’Connell wouldn’t have too much trouble making my pulses race.’
Sergio’s fingers tensed, leaving a dull smudge across the face of the Madonna. ‘What did you say is his name?’
Deidre rolled onto her front and kicked her legs in the air, laughing. ‘Paul O’Connell. Why? Don’t tell me you’re jealous because I won’t believe it!’
He was looking down at his drawing, his eyes shielded by their lids, but she noticed that his hand was shaking.
‘Sergio?’ she whispered. When at last he looked up it was as though a mask had dropped over his exquisite face, leaving it remote and expressionless. Then, as she looked again his eyes began to dull, as if something inside him was trying to extinguish his life. ‘Sergio,’ she breathed, and when he didn’t answer she felt an icy shiver run down her spine.
As he moved from the bed she could sense the tension in his body; it was as if he were in the grip of
a deathly trance. ‘I will take a shower,’ he said, ‘then we shall walk in the sunshine.’
Her eyes followed him across the room. ‘Sergio,’ she said again.
He turned, and seeing her bewilderment, his face softened and the strange, ungodly aura left him. ‘You are unhappy, cara, that I am jealous? I am, you know, but I have no right to be.’ He smiled and walked back to the bed. ‘You look so desirable with your hair spread about you – like the Rosetti Pandora. I think of you like this when you are not here.’
She lifted her arms towards him, and it was as though the movement had freed the breath from her lungs. He was as much of a mystery to her now as he had been seven years ago, but never before had she seen him like this. A sixth sense told her not to question him, and as he embraced her she relaxed into his arms.
She stayed three more days, and in that time they made no mention of Madeleine or Paul again until he took her to the station. ‘Sergio,’ she said, as they walked away from the ticket desk, ‘do you know Paul O’Connell?’
‘Do I know who?’ he asked.
‘Paul, Madeleine’s boyfriend.’
‘But how can I, cara?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s just that your reaction, when I mentioned his name the other day, was . . . Well, it was odd.’
‘It was? I do not remember. But you know how we artists are, we are all odd, no?’
‘Yes,’ she said, laughing as he kissed her. It wasn’t until she boarded the train for Pisa airport that she realised he had neither confirmed nor denied knowing Paul.
‘But why should it matter?’ Roy asked when she told him.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered, flicking through the photographs of Madeleine that Dario had left on her desk. ‘It just bothered me that he reacted in that way.’
‘In what way?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘But I have to tell you that for an instant, just a split second, it frightened me.’
