Turning the leaf, she paused. Large, swirling figures had been drawn on the page in a hand that was not her own, numbers printed clearly across the page in pencil. Eleven digits.
She stared at the curls and lines, a mixture of disbelief and anger. So this was it? She was simply meant to call this number and it would all be okay? “God damn you, Daniel Logan!” she cursed under her breath and tossed the pad to one side, picking up her glass of wine and nursing it sullenly.
She tried to distract herself with everyday things after that. She even considered tearing up the pad, burning it even in a symbolic act. Just knowing it was there—remembering its contents—was a temptation, she was aware of that. She’d show him, she’d show that bastard that she could walk away from him as easily as he had from her.
Lying in bed that night, she fumed and smouldered. It had been a hot day in London, humid and clammy, and she was trying to sleep with the window open, but the noise of traffic was keeping her awake—that, at least, was her excuse. Pulling down the sheets so that they only covered her thighs, she tossed and turned but even then the fabric was starting to make her perspire, and she kicked away all coverings so that she lay on the bed.
Instinctively, her hands at one point moved across the mattress, searching out a fellow body. That made her almost howl at herself with rage. Instead, irritable, she turned onto her back and lay there, trying to count sheep, her breasts rising and falling, beads of sweat forming beneath the curves of her flesh, one hand resting on her belly below the navel.
She closed her eyes.
And immediately in her imagination she was looking up, seeing him standing above her, naked, his huge cock rising up as when she had knelt down to fellate him. She could feel the silky smooth surface of his member sliding into her mouth, the membranes of her inner cheeks sensitive to the touch, her tongue feeling ever vein in the underside of his shaft.
She opened her eyes again immediately.
Turning from one side to the other, she tried to think about anything else. Even Mark entered her head at one point. It was almost pathetic how he was trying to ingratiate himself with her again, trying to get into her good books. At least it meant that she didn’t need to sacrifice herself over work, but he was most definitely not the man who would keep her up at night, even in her dreams. She couldn’t help but snicker over this thought.
Once more, she closed her eyes.
Daniel behind her, his hands reaching under her breasts, gently at first but squeezing them more firmly in those strong hands of his, his right thumb pressing against her nipple. Any harder and he would leave small bruises on her, and she could see in intimate detail the whitening of her flesh beneath his digits as the soft organ swelled up between. Harder, harder, she had begged him. Make them hurt a little—make them red.
She opened her eyes again, but not so quickly this time. She was becoming wetter between her legs.
When she finally closed out the world again, this time she could feel the familiar longing in her loins, her pussy and her anus twitching at remembrance of being stretched, how he had made her gasp when he pushed against her womb, or when her bowels had opened up to receive him, the odd sensation—so strange, almost unpleasant, sometimes painful when it gave her the most pleasure of all. As she lay there, remembering every detail, her mind even filling up the scent of him, her hand strayed between her thighs and she rolled onto her back, stroking, stroking, then pressing harder. With one hand she pulled on her nipples, hard as he had done, and her fingers dipped inside her then back to her clitoris.
She didn’t open her eyes this time. When she came twice more, then at last she was able to fall asleep.
The next morning, she knew she had to phone him. All the same, the mocking sense of self-humiliation was almost too much to bear. She had more respect for herself to simply come running when a man called. In any case, there was a deeper, darker fear she also had, but which she did not dare admit into full consciousness.
What if he didn’t want her?
So she sat there for an hour, and another hour. Sometimes she would make a coffee and stare at the pad on the table, its cover closed. At other times she paced back and forth, looking out for the window for some sign of what to do.
Finally, at midday, she picked up her phone and dialled the number.
The phone rang out three times. On the third, she was about to stop the call in a fit of mild panic. What if he did answer? Let him call back. Then she would know whether he cared or not.
“Miss Avelar.” It was another woman’s voice on the phone. Someone mature, from her first impression. Kris’s initial shock at hearing a female reply was quickly followed by astonishment that this person knew her name. Perhaps—somehow—it wasn’t Daniel’s number at all. Perhaps she had—entirely unconsciously—written down someone else’s number in her own drawing pad.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“My name is Misses Christiansen. Elaine Christiansen. I’ve been expecting your call for a while now. I didn’t quite expect it to take you this long.” The voice was prim, self-assured, utterly self-confident. Christiansen? Who the hell was Elaine Christiansen?
“I think I must have the wrong number,” she began to explain.
“I doubt it,” the other woman replied. “This would be the one that Daniel gave you.”
“Daniel?” Kris was cursing herself even as she spoke. She was sounding more and more like a buffoon with each breath. Better put down the phone immediately, part of her brain was telling her, but the other—larger—part was curious. “Daniel Logan?”
There was a pause. “Well, it’s probably better we don’t use that name. But yes, Mister Stone told me that you would be calling.”
Daniel Stone? Kris’s brain performed another mental somersault and almost came tumbling down. “But... but how did you know it was me? I mean, before I spoke?”
“Mister Stone passed your phone number onto me, and I entered your details into my phone. Quite simple really.”
Kris’s breathing was starting to become faster, while the room was spinning around her to some degree. “I’m sorry, I... I really don’t know what... I think I better go.”
“Yes, I understand. Before you do, however, I have to tell you that there is a reception arranged here tomorrow. Mister Stone would very much like you to attend.”
“I... I’m not... what?” Now she was completely incoherent. “What reception? Where?”
“At Lincoln Hall Academy. We’re in Islington. The reception will begin at 7.30.”
“I’m...” Kris made an effort to control her breathing. “I’m not sure that I’ll be free then.”
“Oh, Mister Stone will be extremely disappointed if you’re not able to attend. I would really cancel any other engagements you may have.” Elaine Christiansen’s voice indicated that she was not really used to dealing with refusals. “A car will arrive to collect you at 6.45. I believe that should provide ample time to get you here. Oh, wait, you’re the other side of Highgate. We better say 6.30.”
“But, I never told Daniel where...” Kris’s statement faded away.
“Don’t worry, Miss Avelar. The driver will be with you by half past six tomorrow evening.”
Chapter Fifteen
After Elaine Christiansen had hung up, Kris stared at her phone in shock for quite a while. The entire conversation had freaked her out and she wondered what on earth to make of it.
After she had calmed a little, her next reaction was to fire up a search window where she typed in Daniel Stone. A huge array of names came up and, skipping through to images more or less immediately, she was frustrated to see that none of the faces that appeared matched those of the man she had thought was called Daniel Logan. Could there be some kind of mistake? Perhaps she had misdialled. Perhaps this was not the number in her drawing pad at all—or it was actually a number that she had written down a long time ago and not even noticed when she was sketching in the croft. Not that for the life of her she could rem
ember any person called Daniel Stone.
What was the name of the place she was meant to be going to—not that she had any intention necessarily of visiting any bizarre location. Lincoln Hall Academy? That rang a bell in her memory, and a quick search immediately turned up the place: it was a school in the borough, and at first she thought it was a typical boarding school that she would associate with a rich, eccentric man that she suspected Daniel Logan—or was it Stone?—to be. But then she noticed that it had only recently become an academy, and was listed in older entries as an establishment for disadvantaged children, one that had in a former life been an orphanage.
Kris’s head began to whirl at this, and for a few minutes she read all kinds of trivia on the history of the place until it occurred to her to type in both Lincoln Hall and Daniel Stone. While there was no mention of Daniel himself, a handful of entries appeared immediately for the academy and Stone Enterprises, which had apparently made a series of large and very generous donations to the school, enabling it to engage in a number of events in sport and culture, as well as contributing to the overall education and wellbeing of the students there. Indeed, while Kris had initially been suspicious of there being an event on when she had happened to call, it transpired that there were lots of activities taking place at Lincoln Hall.
A search for Stone Enterprises turned up a slick but surprisingly meaningless web site for a company that engaged in corporate restructuring and business finance. Her years at HBS meant that she was not clueless, but a quick scan of the pages told her that this was something that would be full of more or less meaningless company jargon and verbiage. There was nothing immediately obvious about Daniel Stone, who she presumed was the founder or CEO of the company, though she was impressed to see that this was an organisation that operated across Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Asia, with—apparently—new opportunities arising in Africa.
That afternoon she began to hunt for data rather compulsively. Certainly looking at links for Stone Enterprises turned up a wealth of information—or rather, it would have been a wealth if she had had the will to read it all. What she was really doing was scanning anything she could find for references to Daniel Stone. An hour or so later, she had managed to discover that he was indeed the founder of the company, although he preferred to leave much of the day-to-day operation to other figures at Stone Enterprises, and had a reputation as a reclusive figure, given over to some philanthropy that was reflected in the corporate ethos of the company he had set up. There were a couple of minor scandals about tax avoidance three or four years previously, none of which had amounted to very much, and some questions about how the global credit crisis would affect his personal fortune (the answer: badly at first, but it had soon recovered. He had even featured in the Sunday Times rich list the previous year).
And that was it.
She was sure there was more, although searching on her phone was laborious and time consuming. She had not even realised it was the late afternoon and she had not eaten for most of the day.
As she lay in bed that night, Kris attempted to stop any sense of mounting excitement. If anything, part of her mind was now even more disgusted with herself. So what if Daniel Stone was rich? That still didn’t mean he was any less of an asshole—if anything, it might mean that he was a bigger one than she had previously credited him. In any case, there was no proof yet that he and Daniel Logan were one and the same person.
At HBS the next day, actual work was the last thing that Kris had on her mind. Instead, she furtively searched for any piece of information she could find on Daniel Stone and Stone Enterprises. With a careful culling and experimenting with search terms, she was able to uncover additional snippets, but she had to admit that she was surprised. In her mind, rich people must automatically be celebrities, so it was something of a shock for her to discover just how little information there was on this man. Using the databases for her company, she was able to find out more about his company: indeed, a couple of times in the past HBS had done work for Stone Enterprises, mainly through some of its subsidiaries, one of whom she had discovered was currently engaged in active business with them.
She felt a shadow pass over her and, looking up, saw Mark standing above her. Glancing left and right, she saw that most of the other staff had gone to lunch: she, meanwhile, had been so engrossed in tracking down information on Daniel that she had not even noticed the time.
He was smiling at her, a fact that she found disturbing and amusing in equal measure.
“How’s it going?” he asked. His smile was as authentic as his tan which, she noted, he must have been topping up while she was away. London had been warm—but not that warm.
“Good,” she nodded. “I’ve just been checking up some old accounts that could cross tally with new claims.”
“Excellent,” he remarked, barely listening to a word that she had said. “I was, ah, I was wondering if you wanted to go for that drink tonight. You know—catch up.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, returning a sweet smile that was as inauthentic as his, though for entirely different reasons. “I can’t tonight. I have another engagement.”
“An... engagement?” Mark’s eyes flickered from side to side. “You mean, a date?”
“Well, I think so, maybe.” Kris was enjoying this. “I’m not sure yet. It’s been set up through a third party.”
“Anyone I know?” Now his eyes had narrowed. Wait for it, Kris told herself. In a minute will come the spite. At least now she was prepared for it.
“No, no-one you know.”
Mark’s face was becoming visibly redder, his temper rising. She half expected him to blaze up in one of his pitiful fits of temper, but instead he lifted one of the sheets of paper from her desk. “Stone Enterprises. I think some work they’ve done with that Portuguese shipping company needs our attention. Pretty urgent. Why don’t you get the details for me first thing tomorrow morning?”
Her response was almost perfect: why, it was almost as though she had been doing the relevant work that morning, and her words gave her a sensation of real triumph. “Jenny’s pretty much up to date on this, and actually the deadline is for Friday which will give me plenty of time to fill in the details, most of which can be filled out via the ISO forms. That said, I’d actually be really keen to get cracking on this tomorrow if you want me to: if I rush through stuff before then, Jenny might get really pissed at me treading on her toes, and you know how awkward she can be.” Kris made an enjoyable show of rolling her eyes.
Mark was floored. If he had been building up to a scene with her, her reaction had completely destroyed his chances and for a few seconds he opened and closed his mouth in silence. Making an equally pantomime show of looking all around her and staring at her watch, Kris then stood up. “Oh, wow!” she exclaimed. “Is that the time? I really better go and get some lunch.” Grabbing her jacket, she casually pushed past Mark but, before leaving the office, turned to face him.
“Seriously, though,” she told him. “I’d be extremely happy to work on this one. That is if you weren’t just trying to dick me around again, Mark. You might actually be happy with my professional performance one day.”
Before he could respond, she had walked away. When she returned from lunch (not too long, as she actually wanted to leave early that day), he was nowhere to be seen and she was glad not to be disturbed by him again.
By the time she got home, however, she was slightly flustered for another reason. She only had an hour to get herself ready and as the deadline for her assignation had been drawing closer throughout the day her nerves had been becoming ever more tense. Taking a shower rather than a bath, at least she had had the good sense to prepare the dress she wanted to wear the evening before, a simple, black number that was revealing enough at the front and back without being too voyeuristic, the hem of which fell to just above the knee (this was a school, after all). With her makeup applied carefully, and her hair brushed and arranged just so (though, with more w
arning, she would have preferred to have had it cut), she rolled on a pair of black tights and slid into the dress before putting on her shoes, for her relatively high heels that increased her height from five two to five six.
She realised that in the near two weeks that she had known Daniel Logan, she had been dressed somewhat down at heel, not having been prepared for any elegance in the Scottish Highlands. The same had applied to Daniel, of course, even more so until that final day when he had donned his suit like armour, demarcating a clear distinction between the hermit-like Daniel Logan and the more urbane Daniel Stone. She hoped that her own preparations would make her look suitably classy, even if the end result of this evening was only to tell him to go to hell.
Part of her knew that this was probably folly—she was simply too intrigued by Daniel, whether Stone or Logan. Nonetheless, there was a very good chance that instead of turning out to be some fascinatingly deep figure, he was nothing more than a shallow, narcissistic asshole. Either way, she had to find out: Kris knew that she would have no rest until that question was answered either way.
At 6.30 almost precisely, her front doorbell rang and, descending the single flight of steps to the front door, Kris answered it to find a burly driver dressed in a dark suit and wearing matching dark glasses. Aside from the fact that this was a rather unusual sight to see on the road where she lived, in other circumstances she would have not looked at him—or the black sedan, tasteful rather than ostentatious—twice. There were always cars like this roving around London, most of them with drivers just like him at the wheel. It was just that they never carried girls like her in them.
Elaine Christiansen had been slightly pessimistic about the traffic between her home and Lincoln Hall, and they arrived there fifteen minutes early. Lincoln Hall Academy itself was set on a side street in the north of Islington, not exceptionally large but with its own grounds behind a wrought iron and dark brick wall fence that surrounded the entire Victorian building, not too intimidating in itself although, Kris suspected, it had gone through more darkly Dickensian periods throughout its history.
Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission Page 13
