Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire

by M. J. Lawless

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked.

  “A few minutes. I didn’t want to disturb you.” He lifted himself up on one elbow, the muscles of his chest lean and taut as he extended the other hand. “Show me.”

  She did so immediately, coming and sitting next to him on the bed as he sat fully upright. For a while she was nervous: she knew there was always the possibility of polite commendation, in itself worse than any assault on her art because it was false. As such, she watched his face as his eyes tracked back and forth across the paper. At last he nodded, and a sad smile formed on his lips.

  “I look so peaceful,” he said.

  She reached across and cupped his chin, drawing his face towards hers and kissing him tenderly on the mouth. He reciprocated gladly, one hand instinctively coming towards her belly, gently pulling her closer. The pad dropped beside him, forgotten for a while, and he rolled beside her, loving her, making her wet once more, bringing the passions of the night into the morning once more.

  When they had finished, he picked up the drawing again. “I wonder if I’ll be that peaceful ever again.”

  She wanted to cry out at this, to howl at him and hold him so tightly that he wouldn’t be able to breathe, but instead she lay with her head against his shoulder and nodded without speaking. For a few minutes they lay there, both of them silent until, at last, he said:

  “I suppose we have to go. Time to face our future.”

  When they arrived back in Glasgow, Uncle Irvine did not make a pretence of hiding his leer as he watched Kris and Daniel emerge from the Land Rover. “Well, I hope you made the best of it. Nothing like all that fresh air to make young couples randy.” He was wiping his hands on an oily rag which appeared to be making no difference at all to the state of his large, chubby fingers.

  Kris blushed and shook her head while Daniel laughed. “We made the best of it. You’ll have to come and visit us sometimes.”

  “What? Go out into the back of beyond? You might be crazy lad, but I couldn’t bare to leave the city behind. Ah, be off with you.”

  They had a brief exchange while one of Irvine’s men called for a taxi. Daniel’s relative was trying to find out as much as possible about Kris, displaying more tact than his rough, uncouth appearance would have led her to believe. While she gave hesitant replies, Daniel watched her with amusement, occasionally intervening when it looked as though she might reveal a little too much about his own past. It was with a slight shock that she suddenly realised that for Irvine, Daniel was only Daniel Logan, and that the surname Stone would have been as alien to him as the Scottish name was to anyone else in other parts of the world.

  It was only when they were flying back to London that she broached the subject. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

  “Know what?”

  “About your life, Stone Enterprises? He doesn’t even know you’re Daniel Stone?”

  Daniel fixed his gaze ahead of him. “No,” he replied at last. “I’m surprised he asked as many questions as he did today. I sometimes suspect that Irvine knows a little more than he lets on, but we’ve always operated on the assumption that the fewer questions are asked, the less trouble there is. Of course, it’s to protect me: if someone comes snooping around after the former founder of Stone Enterprises, Irvine can tell them very little.” He paused. “However, it’s also to protect him.”

  “So what does he think you do?”

  Daniel laughed. “Uncle Irvine believes that I am the successful regional manager of a mobile phone franchise, one who makes enough to spend enough money on him and Aunt Eileen without causing any affront to their very strong personal pride. I have a suspicion that his renewed interest in you is due to the fact that for the first time in more than twenty years he has some proof that I’m not actually gay.”

  Kris pondered this information for a moment. “Do you mean he never met Karen?”

  Daniel shook his head and looked at her ambiguously. “For a long time I had nothing to do with any of my family. I... I was leaving my past. I guess I was making myself into an island, and that only got worse after Karen died. Irvine was as surprised as anyone when I got back in touch four or five years ago, but he also has that kind of decency that doesn’t pry into my affairs, just as he doesn’t like anyone to meddle in his.”

  That evening, the two of them spent the first night in Daniel’s apartment in Chelsea for what had been a very long time. The penthouse suite was as clean, pristine and soulless as it had always been, and Kris suddenly had the sense that, in contrast to Comrie, if she never saw this place again it would be no loss to her whatsoever. It was too much to say that this was what she hated about Daniel’s life, but its elegant, glossy, characterless chic exposed just how superficial had been the cloak which Daniel had pulled over his real self.

  Almost immediately he had pulled out a notebook computer and began to work. At first, as he sat at the breakfast bar, typing away while Kris prepared coffee and a snack for them, his face was stoic and reserved, but in a little time clear signs of anger began to flicker across his eyes and mouth, the scars on his cheek twitching as he read various messages. Still he said nothing, however.

  “What is it?” she finally asked.

  Without replying, he shut the lid of the computer and stood up, moving towards the window. Gazing out across the city, he watched the lights of cars as they drove along the Thames, his own face caught in the reflection on the glass. Watching this reflection, Kris thought how pale he looked, his eyes dark pools of anger floating in the air.

  “Those bastards are trying to nail me. It’s going to get much worse.”

  Kris brought him a cup of coffee and touched his arm gently. He jumped at the contact, as though he had forgotten that she was there, but when he focussed on her some of the bitterness went out of his eyes. He took the coffee and sighed.

  “Felix wants to meet up, along with Francis. It’s not surprising, really: I gave Felix one hell of a surprise turning up unannounced like that, and he’s been trying to get me ever since: it was one of the reasons I had to get away. I didn’t know what I’d do to him.” He nodded as Kris froze slightly for a second. “I know,” he remarked. “Neither of those bastards is the person I want to see, but the truth is... I ran away from it.”

  He placed the cup down on a table and returned to take Kris in his arms. He was so much taller than her that her head nestled in his chest, an expanse of fabric and the soothing smell of his body and clean skin beneath. His body was at once so strong and so big, but she could feel his heart beating faster than usual, the pulse an echo throughout her own body.

  “I... I don’t know how this is going to end,” he said, very quietly. “That’s why I just needed some time, alone with you. The lawyers are dancing around each other at the moment, but before long they’ll want me in the flesh. They won’t be happy until they can drink my blood.”

  She drew back from him slightly, looked up at him with concern.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They intend to crucify me, if they can. I don’t think it’s Max—I don’t know why. Revenge is just... too hot blooded for him.” He gave a wry laugh at this. “But that son of his... he won’t rest until I end up back in jail.”

  “I thought it was finished,” she said, letting him pull her closer, refusing to look up at him and so admit this small lie of hope that she had just uttered. She knew it wasn’t finished. She had known all the time at Comrie that this was no more than a pause before the final assault.

  “It won’t come to that. The stupid idiots are trying to get the authorities involved though. I may not control a majority share, but I can still drag Stone Enterprises down if I want to. There’s enough skeletons lying around the place to take us all to hell.”

  Now she pushed herself back from him, looking up at him in concern. He was still staring towards the window, his face grim and set like granite. In his eyes smouldered a terrible fire, burning dully with a lust for vengeance.

 
; “You don’t mean that,” she said. His eyes snapped down at her.

  “I certainly do,” he replied. “If I’m going down, then they’ll come with me. If they get away with what they’re trying to do, I’ll end up with nothing anyway. Absolutely nothing.”

  “And what does that matter? Don’t you remember—in sickness and in health, in prosperity and adversity?”

  “But if I lose everything, I’ll be nothing. I won’t be the man you married.”

  Kris felt a flame of anger surge up in her, but she bit her tongue, snapping off any hasty reply. This was far too important.

  “Don’t you remember the man I met? Daniel Logan? Have you forgotten him already, even though this morning he was sleeping in our bed? I thought you had nothing when I first met you, just some tumbledown cottage that eventually came to seem like heaven itself.” Now something like grief burst through her and she pulled away from him, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. “All this... all of it means nothing. I can’t let you go back to prison again. I just can’t, Daniel. Just... just fucking leave it. All of it. Come away with me. You, just you and me. Leave all of this behind. Please, do it for me, Daniel!”

  Despite herself, the barely repressed anger she felt towards him and, through him, the bitterness to those who sought to drag him down was mixed with grief and her tears fell freely now. She realised just how much she had missed him—not simply when he was in jail, but before that, the many lonely nights when he had been abroad, flying from place to place, working relentlessly, patching up his tottering empire to provide her with a future that extended further away from them both the harder he chased it.

  His face was stunned as he looked at her. At last he nodded, his face breaking in pain as he saw her suffering in front of him.

  “I can’t leave,” he said finally. “They’ll just come after me, until they break me—until they break us. But I shall make an end to this. I promise you that.”

  Chapter twenty-three

  “And your partner isn’t with you?”

  The doctor, who had introduced herself as Alison Hemans, was a pleasant-looking woman, probably a decade older than Kris and with kind eyes that watched her sympathetically.

  “My husband? No, he... he had to be at work today.” Kris felt the need to explain. “We’ve been away recently and he had a lot to catch up with.” Daniel had dropped her at the hospital—had even been intending to accompany her, but a message from Felix had soured his day and Kris had sent him packing: it would be easier to face the doctors and nurses on her own.

  Doctor Hemans smiled at this, her brown eyes creasing behind her glasses. “Well, I suppose the second trimester is as good a time to travel as any—just so long as you don’t put yourself under too much stress.” She gestured towards the bed for Kris as she spoke while a nurse moved the ultrasound machine closer to both of them. Not too much stress, thought Kris ruefully. If only you knew.

  “Is this your first scan?” the doctor asked. Kris shook her head.

  “No, I had the first several weeks ago, when I first realised I was pregnant.”

  Doctor Hemans raised an eyebrow at this, but merely remarked: “Well, it’s probably best to be cautious. That’s it, stretch out and relax. Yes, lift up your top.”

  Kris’s abdomen was no longer as flat as it had once been, but the blossoming plumpness of her body was still not excessive. Were it not for the threats and difficulties that faced her and Daniel, she would even have been able to enjoy her pregnancy. As she lay back, she felt a movement deep inside her belly and gave a shocked little laugh.

  “Gave you a kick, did he?”

  Kris nodded and moved herself into a more comfortable posture, her legs raised slightly and her mind concentrating on the need not to pee. As the nurse began to rub gel onto her exposed flesh, Kris couldn’t help but giggle somewhat nervously at the cold sensation, but Doctor Hemans’s voice was calm and soothing.

  “Do you know the baby’s sex?” she asked.

  Kris shook her head.

  “Do you want to? I know that some women prefer it to be a surprise.”

  “It’s okay. I’d like that.” Kris thought for a moment, about the life she was carrying inside her. “I’d like that very much.”

  The doctor smiled once more and turned her attention to the ultrasound equipment. She manipulated and handled the probe deftly, moving it across Kris’s belly and occasionally pressing it slightly deeper into the skin.

  On the screen across from them, Kris could see the eerie black and white funnel of her womb appearing in radiating lines. When she had last seen hers and Daniel’s baby, it had been little more than a conglomeration of cells clearly alive but barely recognisable as human, its heart a fierce muscle beating on the screen like a dark pattern. Now the foetus was distinct, small, delicate limbs curled around its tiny body, the head larger with eyes and nose forming upon its face.

  “Well,” said Doctor Hemans after a while, “she looks perfectly healthy.”

  “She?”

  The doctor turned her spectacles back in the direction of Kris, her eyes creasing warmly again as she smiled. “Yes, Ms Avelar. It’s not a hundred percent definite at this stage, but it looks as though you’ll have a bonny baby girl. If you want, we could take some of the amniotic fluid for tests, that will let us know for sure.”

  Feeling more nervous than she had anticipated, Kris shook her head. “That won’t be necessary,” she replied.

  The doctor nodded, but then frowned slightly, reaching across to take Kris’s temperature with her hand. “Mind you,” she said, her voice still soft but with a new edge to it, “I think we should run a couple of other tests. Nothing serious, just routine. I’m worried that you might be running a slightly high temperature, and we need to make sure your health is all it should be. While you need to get as much rest as possible, don’t forget to exercise regularly.”

  Kris was patient and compliant as each of the tests were run through. She was hardly surprised that her blood pressure was running a little too high, nor that her general condition was somewhat worn down. Thus far she had avoided all the usual baby and pregnancy manuals, but she had a keen suspicion that international travel and retrieving a husband from prison did not feature highly in prenatal advice.

  When she left the hospital, she called a taxi but, instead of letting the driver take her back to the apartment in Chelsea she asked him to drive to the headquarters of Stone Enterprises. While the scan had calmed her nerves with regard to the health of the baby, she could not help but fret a little at the thought of Daniel’s meetings and the anger with which he had left her that morning. She did not know what to do, but she did want to see him as quickly as possible.

  She sat in the same cafeteria where she had spoken to Miranda Karstans, and as she sipped at a cappucino she thought back over what the financier had said. The older woman had told her that she had information that would be of help to Daniel, though she had not been explicit as to the form that information would take. Kris shuddered at the recollection of what had happened the last time a former lover of Daniel’s had entered their life, but her instincts told her that Miranda was very different.

  By the time she had finished her coffee, her mind was made up. Taking out her phone, she looked up the number that Miranda had given her.

  “I’m very sorry to disturb you,” she began apologetically when the other woman answered the phone.

  “No, that’s okay. It’s Kris, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I have a few English clients I speak with from time to time, but most of those tend to be men. I recognised your voice Ms St—Ms Avelar,” she corrected herself. “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you sure it’s okay to talk?”

  “It’s just after seven here, and I’m not at work yet.”

  “Oh, God—I can call back later.”

  “No, not at all. This is fine, really.” Kris heard the warmth in the other woman’s voice and relaxe
d slightly. She was still slightly wary, but something told her that she would have to trust Miranda.

  “I’m in Chicago at the moment, just for a couple more days, then I can go home.” Now a slight edge, one more of determination than any sense of threat, entered her voice. “What can I do for you, Kris? You don’t mind if I call you Kris, do you?”

  “Not at all.” Kris’s own voice dropped almost to a whisper as she glanced around herself in the cafeteria. A barista was behind the counter and a couple of visitors were seated across the room, but otherwise it was empty.

  “It’s... it’s Daniel. I think he’s in more trouble than I imagined—than we imagined. Felix Coltraine... Felix is out to get him. I think, I think he wants to leave Daniel with nothing, and that...” Kris swallowed her curses and started to speak after she had composed herself. “Francis Roth is here as well, apparently. Both of them are determined to do everything they can to get at Daniel. I can’t explain why, but I think the two of them won’t be happy until they see him back in jail.”

  At the other end of the phone Miranda paused for a while, saying nothing. “I see. Well, as I indicated to you before I have... something that might be useful to Daniel.”

  She told Kris what she had been considering briefly, then continued: “I can give it to you. Actually, I can send it to you, but I think... I think this is better delivered in person.”

  “Really?” Kris was a little shocked at this.

  “Really. You could do with some explanation of how to make best use of it. I can also put you in touch with the right people. But you’ll have to do this. I don’t... I don’t want to see Daniel again.”

  Kris began to speak but, once more, held her tongue. The flood of emotions she suddenly felt would not be helpful and now, more than ever, she needed to maintain her composure, to think clearly.

  “When can we meet then?”

  “I have to remain here till tomorrow night, but I can divert the following day to London. It will take me a little longer but it will be worth it, I think.”