The unexpected greeting makes me falter just a little, then I regain my poise. ‘Thank you. What a wonderful apartment.’
Dubrovski glances about and shrugs. ‘They did what I asked. I like it.’
‘This seems like a very special place to live.’
‘Albany? Yes. It is very English, very soaked in history. Prime ministers and poets have lived here, the very cream of your high society. That amuses me. And it’s very quiet and private. I like that too. There are all types of people here – academics, actors, businessmen, aristocrats – but we all keep to ourselves, as I prefer it.’
‘I had no idea it existed,’ I say politely. Then, after a brief pause: ‘So. Do you have a contract you’d like me to sign?’
‘A contract?’ He looks surprised.
‘Well, the terms of employment. What you expect from me, how long I’m employed by you. What you intend to pay me. That sort of thing.’
‘I imagined a handshake would suffice in this instance. That is how Mark and I decide many things.’
‘I would prefer a contract,’ I say firmly. ‘Just a letter of agreement, if you don’t mind.’
He purses his lips thoughtfully. ‘You’re quite right, of course. You must feel that things are done properly. I will get one sorted out immediately.’
‘Thank you.’ I feel a little burst of triumph, as though I’ve scored a victory over this powerful man. ‘In the meantime, would you like me to get started?’
He stares at me and then laughs. ‘Yes, I would. Come.’ He turns and I follow him across the hall into another room. ‘The office. You are free to use this.’ He opens the door, stands back, and reveals a room, panelled in wood like the rest, but with a pair of facing desks in it, each one well equipped with computers and telephones. At one sits a middle-aged lady with a friendly face, her dark hair streaked with grey and pulled into a haphazard style with some clips. She looks up at me and smiles, and I notice that everything about her looks a little off centre, from her coral lipstick to her green suit. Dubrovski waves in her direction. ‘This is my assistant, Marcia. She looks after the London side of my life, don’t you, Marcia?’
‘I certainly do, sir,’ she says playfully, ‘and what a lot of nonsense there is to sort out!’ She laughs merrily.
She’s certainly at her ease with him. I don’t know if I’d ever feel like giggling if I worked for this guy full-time.
‘Marcia, this is Beth. She’s working on my art collection and she’ll be here for a few weeks. Get her whatever she needs, won’t you? And I’d like you to type up a letter of agreement containing the terms of Beth’s employment. I’ll run you through them later.’
Marcia turns her light brown eyes to me, all the wrinkles in her face creasing as she smiles even more broadly. ‘Certainly I will, sir! Welcome, Beth. We’re a very happy family here.’
Dubrovski shoots her a bemused look.
What an odd match they are, I think. She doesn’t seem his type at all.
‘Beth, let me show you over the apartment,’ Dubrovski says, as Marcia carries on grinning away, her hands folded in her lap. ‘Come with me.’
He leads me from room to room, pointing everything out in his terse way. In a small study there is a great mass of pictures on the floor, arranged in neat piles. ‘Here is what you should be looking through.’
This is going to take a while. I’ve already seen the drawing room, the dining room, a guest bedroom, this study and the office, as well as the hallways. There is certainly plenty to keep me busy.
In the kitchen, which I can see is exquisitely handmade in the same glowing wood as the rest of the house, a Filipina lady is loading a dishwasher with breakfast things. She is tiny, like a little delicate sparrow, with glossy dark hair.
‘This is Sri,’ Dubrovksi says. ‘She’ll get you anything you’d like. Do you want some tea or coffee?’
Sri waits impassively for me to decide, but I feel too embarrassed to have a maid make me anything, let alone one that looks so fragile, so I say, ‘Oh, no thanks. I’ve had breakfast.’
‘Fine. There’s just one room left. My bedroom.’ We leave the kitchen and he walks ahead of me down another hallway.
Okay – this feels a bit weird now. I’m not sure I want to see his bedroom. A bedroom is such an intimate space. I feel as though he is inviting me a step closer into his personal life than I want to go. But, I suppose, it’s all part of the remit. I can’t tell him that I’ll do every room but not his bedroom. Ridiculous. It’s just another room, I tell myself as he opens the door and goes in.
I needn’t have worried. The room is strangely impersonal, beautiful but without much sign of what makes the person who sleeps there tick. No photographs, almost no books and of course... No pictures. Because that’s my job. I gaze around. Perhaps because he lives all over the world, he doesn’t bother expressing himself so much in places that aren’t really his home. It’s different to the rest of the apartment in that here, the wood panelling stops. I realise I’m quite glad to see the back of it. It’s impressive but so much of it everywhere is overpowering. It’s a relief to be in a room where the walls are painted a calm dark green. A large four-poster bed without hangings dominates the room, with barrel-shaped tables to either side. There is a small desk and a nearly empty bookcase, and over the fireplace a huge flat-screen television hangs like a big black painting.
‘You’ll know what to do in here. And I want something particular for the bathroom,’ he says, pointing to a grey marble en suite that leads off his bedroom. ‘Something that will make me happy when I see it every morning when I step out of the shower. Just one, perfect picture.’
Like Francis I and the Mona Lisa, I think, remembering what Mark said. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I say, trying to sound capable and upbeat.
He fixes me with one of his impassive looks. ‘I’m sure you will succeed,’ he says in tones of finality, as though it will certainly happen now that he has decreed it.
He opens another door that leads into a large walk-in closet, with suits, shirts and shoes lined in perfect order, and rows of drawers and shelves for everything else. ‘No need to worry about in here,’ he says, and then smiles very slightly. ‘Now, let’s get back. I need to get on and I’m sure you want to make a start.’
It’s only an hour or so later and I’m in the study, absorbed in my work sorting through pictures, when the phone buzzes. I look at it, startled, wondering what to do, then it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps I’m supposed to answer it so I pick it up.
‘Beth?’ It’s Marcia. ‘Can you come along to the office, please?’
‘Of course.’
I replace the phone and stride back along the corridor to the office. Marcia has my letter of agreement waiting for me and gives it to me to read. I sit down and go through it. It’s fairly straightforward and I’m glad to see that Dubrovski has limited the employment to a maximum of four weeks, to be renegotiated after that point if the job is not complete.
But it will be. I’m determined.
There are no holidays of course and the hours are left flexible. Then I see the clause dealing with remuneration. I gasp.
‘Everything all right, dear?’ Marcia says, her eyes wide with concern. ‘A problem?’
‘It’s... well...’ I hardly know what to say. I can hardly protest that I think I’m being paid too much, can I? But the amount in the letter practically matches what Mark pays me in a year. For four weeks’ work, or even less if I finish before that time.
‘It’s the money, isn’t it?’ Marcia says kindly. ‘That’s the way Mr Dubrovski is. He makes sure all his employees are very well looked after. That way we’ll never want to work for anyone else.’
It sounds simple enough but still...
‘Just sign it, dear,’ Marcia says in a half whisper. ‘You won’t regret it. And sign this copy too. Then I’ll get Mr Dubrovski to counter-sign, and one copy will be yours. Oh, and you’ll need to give me your bank details and national insurance number
as well.’
I don’t see Dubrovski for the rest of the day, or the next, and I don’t much think about him as I’m quickly absorbed in my task. Marcia is very friendly and keen to chat, talking away without stopping as she sets me up on the computer system and makes sure I’ve got all the back-up I need. But I’m glad that I can escape her when I go to the study and start working my way through the piles of art. First, I’m cataloguing everything and making sure it tallies with the records Mark has given me, noting any discrepancies to be investigated. When that’s done, I’ll start organising the works and making a plan for how they should best be grouped and displayed. I wonder idly if there is an app I can use to allow me to try out my ideas before putting the pictures up. If not, I’ll have to work it out another way.
At lunchtime, Marcia and I eat together at a small table in the kitchen: soup, salad and sandwiches prepared by Sri. There’s no sign of the bodyguard but I assume that he goes wherever Dubrovski goes. Marcia is friendly enough company but she chatters on and on, hardly waiting for a reply and often contradicting herself, and I can’t get quite over how her lipstick is always over the edges of her mouth and her hair is swept about in all directions and pinned into place without any symmetry. Does she get ready without looking in a mirror? She doesn’t seem to be like the kind of person Andrei Dubrovski would like to have around him, with his obvious penchant for tidiness and order, but I soon learn that although Marcia might look a bit all over the place, her mind is a steel trap. She knows exactly what’s going on, and organises Andrei’s London diary with ease, coordinating with his assistants in other parts of the world and clearly boss of all of them.
What she doesn’t do is say anything about Dominic, or, in fact, much about Andrei’s work at all. She’s happy to talk about her cat all day but she barely mentions her job. At first I’m on the edge of my seat whenever she answers the phone, hoping I might hear Dominic’s name or get some clue about when he’s coming back, but Marcia gives nothing away, and she often talks in Russian or French, which of course I can’t follow. There’s still been no news from Dominic himself.
Be patient, I tell myself. He’s busy. Just wait.
‘What on earth is going on with you, I’ve hardly seen you!’ Laura says when I get home that Friday night, exhausted from my first two days. ‘Tell me everything.’
I tell her about how easily I can lose myself as I work through Andrei Dubrovski’s beautiful art collection. I’ve already stumbled across a few treasures, including a lovely collection of framed Hogarth prints that I think will look wonderful as a group, perhaps in the hall.
‘And what’s he like?’ Laura asks, clutching her knees to her chest as she sits on the sofa, her eyes wide. ‘Imagine working for someone like him! I Googled him during my lunch hour and pulled up some very sexy shots. Quite the tough guy, isn’t he? And I’ve always liked blonds. Is he very hot close up?’
‘Hot?’ I echo, surprised. Of course I’ve noticed how he looks but I haven’t thought of him that way. Ever since I met Dominic, I haven’t found anyone else worth a candle compared to him. But as I picture Andrei, I remember the molten energy that exudes from him and the charisma that draws every eye in the room. Even though he isn’t exactly handsome, the power and experience in his face endow him with some peculiar quality that makes you want to look at him. And while the angular nose and square jutting chin ought to look too much, those large features somehow enhance him, making him look more wilful and determined.
Laura rolls her eyes. ‘Come on! I saw those pictures and thought... imagine him in bed, I bet he’s a complete powerhouse!’
‘I didn’t know you liked them like that,’ I tease. ‘Big, muscly, scary types. You’ve always gone for the nerdy ones, haven’t you?’
Laura makes a face at me. ‘So I prefer brains over brawn,’ she retorts, then says dreamily, ‘but even so, I wouldn’t mind a man like that taking me to bed.’
I’m quiet for a moment, remembering Andrei’s piercing looks, the way his laser-beam glare moved up and down my body so that I could almost feel it on my skin. It was curiously unsettling, as though we were being intimate without even doing anything.
‘Hey, you’re not feeling a little unfaithful to Dominic, I hope!’ Laura laughs, her eyes bright as she watches my expression.
‘Of course not!’ I say quickly. I envisage Dominic’s dark eyes, liquid with desire, and at once my stomach twists in a delightful knot of lust. That’s good. Just for a second, I was worried that Laura might have awakened me to something about Andrei that I hadn’t been aware of – but I know for sure that Dominic is everything I want in a man. It isn’t just that he’s beautiful and intensely desirable, it’s everything else too: his intelligence, charm and wit. The way he drinks his coffee or casually flings one arm along the sofa when he reads the paper, or the way he laughs. I love the way he grew up all over the world and knows about people and places I’ve never visited. And I love that he loves me too, that he’s fired by the same intense longing for me as I am for him. It’s a miracle that someone so amazing would feel as enraptured by me as I do by him, but I’ve seen the emotion in his eyes, felt it in the way he holds me and makes love to me.
But there is his darker side, of course. Do I love that too?
The truth is, I can’t imagine Dominic without that darker side, even though I know that it’s something in him that he’s been trying to resist, especially after what happened between us. Would he be the same if he were tamed? Would sex be as deeply, dangerously exciting if I knew that he would never try to push me to my limits? It was amazing that night in the monastery fuelled by nothing more than intense desire, but I know that if we were together again, we would soon have to confront the realities of Dominic’s sexual needs.
And mine? What do I want?
I can’t imagine a life with Dominic that doesn’t include the powerful force of his instincts. As I think about it, I’m gripped with desperate longing for him.
I just want him back. Soon.
Chapter Eight
Laura and I have a relaxing weekend together, mostly watching television on the sofa and making endless cups of tea as we both recover from our working weeks. I try not to spend time obsessing over my stubbornly silent phone. The only time it rings, it’s my mother wanting to hear my news. I tell her about my new job and she is impressed but glad it’s temporary. I think she prefers the sound of Mark to this new Russian stranger that’s come into my life.
I decide on Sunday night that if I haven’t heard from Dominic by the end of the week, I’m going to have to do something drastic, though I don’t quite know what. Then I try to put him out of my mind and concentrate on my new job.
I’m in the study that Monday morning, lost in my work, when Andrei comes in. Instantly I stop what I’m doing and get up.
‘No, please, carry on,’ Andrei says. ‘I want to watch you.’
Feeling a little awkward, I pick up the print I was appraising and take another look at it.
‘What do you think about that one?’ he asks.
‘It’s a very fine example,’ I reply enthusiastically. I’ve been thinking about prints all morning. ‘And made by a very famous nineteenth-century printmaker, around about 1870. The frame dates from the same time, I think, and it’s part of a set of four, all showing views of Derbyshire.’
‘Mark got me those,’ he says, scrutinising it.
‘I’m not surprised, they’re splendid.’
He nods as though satisfied. ‘And have you found anything for my bathroom yet?’
‘Not yet. I’m not quite at that stage. But I will.’
Andrei smiles. ‘I’m looking forward to whatever you discover. But in the meantime, I’d like you to do a little job for me. Something that is rather beyond Marcia’s capabilities.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’d like you to get a gift for a friend of mine. A close friend. I’d like her to have a piece of jewellery, something beautiful, and I’d like you to choose it for
me.’ He shrugs lightly. ‘I do not have time for such things. Sometimes they choose for me, sometimes I have things sent to me. But as you’re here, I’d like to make use of your expertise.’
I blink at him, astonished. I’ve never seen evidence of a wife or girlfriend, and this place is very much a bachelor pad, so I’ve just assumed that Andrei is one of those men obsessed by his work and with no time for a relationship. But of course a billionaire businessman is going to have a lover. Why wouldn’t he? But how am I supposed to go about choosing whoever it is a present?
‘Will you do this?’ he asks, looking closely at me. ‘I would be very grateful.’
‘Well, yes, if you’d like me to.’ Something in me is telling me I ought to have an objection, but I can’t think what it is. After all, he’s asked me to work for him on the basis of my artistic taste. This seems to be an extension of that, in a way.
He smiles at me. ‘Good. I wish you to select two things; don’t worry about the price. Whatever appeals to you.’
‘You ought to tell me a little about who it’s for, so I have an idea of what she might like.’
He looks surprised, and then says, ‘I suppose you’re right. Very well. She is beautiful, naturally. And with an aristocratic heritage, from a cultured background. Her family managed to survive the Revolution but, of course, without their grand estate or the money from their glory days. She is rather sentimental about what they once had, though it was long before she was born.’ He laughs lightly. ‘I like that. A century ago, she would have been a countess or a duchess, and I would probably have been her footman or a groom. Now her family lives in a shabby Moscow apartment, while I fuck her in my French villa or my dacha or wherever I feel like it. She opens her legs for me, the poor boy from the slums who started with nothing. Besides the fact that she is a very fine lover, knowing that I’m enjoying a daughter of privilege adds a certain sense of victory to the proceedings.’
I stare at him, shocked. I’ve always been careful to keep a professional distance with Andrei but here he is, using this language, putting pictures in my mind. I see them now, on a bed, naked, his broad back and strong legs moving as he thrusts into his high-bred Russian beauty. She is open to him, surrendering, unable to resist his power. His expression is impassive but his blue eyes burn with intensity as he takes possession of her, satisfying his furious desires, overwhelming her as he takes his pleasure and drives her to her peak.
Secrets After Dark Page 8
