An entire life spent on the offensive.
Years of struggle in hostile places surrounded by people who wanted something from him he was unwilling to give.
But he’d never thought to be fighting God.
That was new.
Well, God wanted to battle him for Ben Rider-Mikkelsen? Fucking bring it on.
But he saw with exceptional clarity that this wouldn’t be a conflict like any he’d engaged in before—those played out in blood. God was a powerful enemy—like hope, He was the last thing to be abandoned in any struggle.
Nikolas sensed he needed…something else. Another strategy for a different kind of threat. Blatant subtlety, honest lies, and deceitful truths.
All these things flittered through Nikolas’s thoughts as he studied the intense green of Ben’s eyes, the oddly smart hair, and the absence of designer stubble. He knew Ben better than Ben knew himself. He always had.
“I think perhaps you’re right, Ben. I’ve had a lot of time to think in the hospital as well. And I’m sorry, too. I have always felt that. Uneasy about this relationship. That there was something wrong with the way we live our lives…I don’t know what to say. What are we going to do?”
He saw with gleeful interest the slight dilation of Ben’s pupils, the tiny blink of total shock. God hadn’t expected that. Nikolas smirked with pleasure inwardly, which he allowed to show as a frown of uncertainty. “Shall we sleep on it and decide what is to be done in the morning? There is a lot we must discuss, and I am very tired now. I’ll sleep in one of the spare rooms, of course.”
Oh, that was even better. A face scrunch of complete confusion from Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen.
But it didn’t do to underestimate your enemy too early in any war. God was devious and unjust, and Nikolas needed to play this first round exceedingly carefully.
He rose from the table and eyed the various bedroom doors as if trying to select one, and Ben said immediately, “No, you take our…the bedroom. I’ll…”
“All right.”
“Can you manage? Undressing? Your hand…?”
“Of course. Good night. And, Ben? You saved my life on the ice. So, I just wanted to say thank you, and if this is…well, it’s recompense, I suppose. I owe something, don’t I—for that and many other things…” He turned and walked away, sensing Ben’s gaze upon his retreating back. He’d overplayed it a bit there. He needed to be more characteristic. Ben wasn’t stupid. Well, he was, as this latest episode showed, but dumb in a different way. And Ben had a cunning ally now.
But Nikolas was subtle and clever, too. And he reckoned he knew Ben better than even God did. He knew him in ways God didn’t.
At least, he hoped He didn’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ben brought Nikolas his tea and newspaper in the morning, and it was so familiar and so perfect that for one moment Nikolas considered another strategy—actually telling Ben what he thought and felt about this latest fuck up in their lives. But he’d had a bad night and didn’t want Ben to see his eyes, so he pretended to be asleep, despite the inordinately long time Ben sat on the bed, apparently observing him and waiting to be acknowledged.
He’d done a lot of plotting during the long night. Made some calls. He had a plan of action mapped out, but it needed to be extremely flexible. Reactive rather than proactive, which didn’t come easily to him.
He wondered if Ben had forgotten that he was a general—a man raised on the study of the art of war. He had pondered Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Guevara, and what these experts might have said on his situation—on his war. The first thing, he concluded, was that it was imperative he didn’t actually let Ben know that he had gone to war. He had to play it down somehow. Not give it the significance it deserved, whilst secretly making it his only focus. This strategy was very useful in any conflict. Call it an emergency or assertive disarmament—that was a good one—but never give the enemy the boost to his ego of knowing you take him seriously—that it was war.
Having thus diminished your enemy, you then isolated him, denying him the things he needed to wage his resistance against you: food, land, access to the media…Whatever you did, it was essential that the enemy didn’t get to hold ground, metaphorical or not, and become entrenched. Nikolas wasn’t too sure how to isolate and deny God, not yet, but he knew how to do it to God’s newest acolyte.
Phase three was building up your own forces by whatever means possible, drafting in reliable allies—bribery had worked in most conflicts he’d studied. But then God was good at offering enticements too. After all, He, apparently, could promise eternal life.
Diminish. Deny. Draft.
The next stage might appear to be offensive action—destroy—but Nikolas had been brought up in military intelligence, not field ops. He was firmly of the opinion that it was better to make the enemy surrender willingly than risk collateral damage in actual engagement. Encourage the enemy to cease resistance—as it had been called to allow the bastards to save face.
And then you probably gave them knighthoods and introduced them to the Queen.
Ack. What could any of these so-called experts tell him about his war?
No, he would have to tread very, very carefully. Let Ben appear to take the initiative or he would retrench and dig in.
Nikolas didn’t actually have the capacity to be too proactive at the moment anyway. He could barely get out of bed and take a piss without painkillers.
When he was done, he went slowly to the kitchen.
Ben was cooking breakfast. “Did you drink your tea?”
Nikolas nodded and eased himself into a chair. “So?”
Ben glanced up unhappily and brought a couple of plates over. “The doctor said you need to eat more.”
“Thank you.” He picked up his fork and toyed with the food for a moment. “What’s to be done, Ben? How do you want this to work? How do you see this playing out?”
Diminish.
“It’s not a game! I’m not playing.”
“No, I’m sorry. That was merely an expression. It didn’t translate well, perhaps. What do you want me to do, Ben? Is that clear enough?”
Ben appeared contrite. “I wish I’d had more time to learn—there’s so much I don’t…but it’s us, Nik. Well, not us, because God loves sinners, but it’s the sin he wants us to…the sex. Sex between us. I mean…our form of sex. Gay sex. We can’t live together as lovers anymore. We can’t have sex anymore. That’s obvious, I guess.”
Nikolas had expected God to be a little sneakier, not come out all guns blazing, but it was fine. He was more than ready to tackle this one. “Absolutely not. I will return to London and you stay here. That seems the best thing to do.”
Ben looked suddenly aghast. “No, I mean, we can still live together, but—”
“Ben…”
Ben shook his head. “No, I’ve thought it all through. We’ll have to be careful and disciplined, but we can do that! We have Squeezy and Tim here, and we don’t think about sex with them, do we? We’ll—”
“Ben…”
“No!” He sank his head into his hands.
“Yes, I’m sorry, but that would be very awkward. You must see that. I will go to London while we work everything out. I will take you through everything before I leave.”
Ben raised his eyes. “Through everything?”
Deny.
“Well, yes.” Nikolas frowned and contemplated the ceiling for a moment, as if he was only that minute thinking about things. When the pause was just right, he continued, “A rough estimate would be about a hundred thousand a year, I suppose, but we can go through that in detail, as I said. Finish your breakfast before it gets cold.”
“What hundred…? I mean, a hundred thousand what?”
“Pounds. To run this house. A year. Approximately, of course. But that doesn’t include the new builds. Once they’re finished, there’ll be maintenance on them as well of course. So, possibly two hundred thousand? Perhaps not quite that muc
h.”
“It costs a hundred thousand pounds to run this house? A year?”
“Almost. What did you think?” Nikolas knew very well that Ben hadn’t thought. At all. About any of it, which is why he’d brought it up.
“Oh. Well. Maybe—”
“I’m just glad you don’t feel that it’s wrong for you to live here.”
“Wrong? Here? In my house?”
Nikolas wished he could blush on cue, but it was a trick he’d never been able to manage. “Well, I bought it for you. Because we are…were…in a relationship. A sexual relationship. Lovers. Gay sex…” He chuckled. “Jackson once called you being given this house the wages of sin.” Jackson Keane had probably never used the word sin in his life, but it was a nice touch.
“What! That’s…”
“Don’t listen to him, Ben. No reason why you shouldn’t continue to profit from…well, from…” Was profit too blatant? He should have said enjoy. It wasn’t easy to battle God in someone else’s language. He saw something flicker over Ben’s face, and so to distract him, he began to play with the bacon and eggs going cold on his plate.
§§§
When breakfast was cleared away, Nikolas produced the house accounts on his laptop.
Ben had never seen these before.
They began with the cleaners. “I couldn’t work with a traditional cleaner, because I needed someone who could fit in with our flexible schedule—arrive whenever we go out and then disappear when we were here.”
Ben was nodding as if this was obvious.
Nikolas smiled. “We have a contract with a very select cleaning company in Plymouth. That’s fifty thousand a year alone.”
“What! For cleaning?”
“And replacing items. Mattresses…all our laundry, dry-cleaning.”
“Oh.”
He put that file to one side and selected his second favourite. “The groom is on thirty thousand…”
“What! That’s more than I made in—”
“Well, I suppose you won’t need him when I’m gone—I will take my horses, of course. But what about Emilia’s?” He glanced up through lowered lashes. He was very glad he’d not overused that look during their twelve years together; he had a feeling he’d be getting some genuine mileage out of it over the next few days. “Perhaps we should leave that discussion until after Emilia’s own fate is decided, yes?”
It was like watching a child who’d set fire to a set of curtains because he could and because he’d wanted to see what the flames would look like, recoil in horror as the conflagration spread to the wallpaper, the carpet, the furniture, consuming his whole house and destroying everything, when all he’d wanted was a tiny, contained flicker.
Nikolas moved on swiftly. “The gardener is on fifty too. I think I badly underestimated with a hundred thousand after all. We haven’t even started with the pool men, the glass cleaners, heating…”
Ben leant back in his seat. “You pay the old codger…?”
“Ben, he runs his own company. He has four men working for him. You didn’t think he kept the grounds like this on his own with a pair of clippers, did you?” That’s exactly what Ben had always thought. Nikolas was almost enjoying himself. “So…I’m paying for the new houses in stages as the work is completed. Another four hundred thousand is owed on each, but then, as I said, they’ll be finished. But this is only a significant additional cost this year. What else…?”
“I can’t afford all this. I only have…”
This was going to be interesting. Nikolas kept his gaze fixed on Ben’s troubled green eyes whilst ostensibly studying another file. He’d be very surprised if Ben had the slightest idea how much was in his own bank account—or not now, anyway.
Ben didn’t finish his thought about money but said more resolutely, “You’re right. About the sin thing. I promised Purity. It wouldn’t be right for me to stay on here anyway given…we’re not…it was…”
“So, where are you going to go?” Before Ben could form an answer, Nikolas offered, as if this thought had suddenly occurred to him, “Philipa’s family has a place that might be available at the moment. Some Duchy cottage that’s a bit too remote to make it viable as a commercial rental. They let old retainers and the like use it if they need somewhere to go. It’s not far from here, actually. Further up on Dartmoor. Would you like me to ask her if it’s free?”
Ben opened his mouth but nothing came out.
It had taken Nikolas approximately—he checked his watch, which still looked good for a million dollars—just over an hour to evict Ben from his home.
Denial complete.
He was fairly sure Round One had gone to him.
§§§
Later that morning, Ben appeared, from wherever he’d gone to do whatever it was he did with God, with a piece of paper. “I’ve just printed this off.” He sounded dismayed.
Nikolas was on the computer in his study. He took his time finding his reading glasses and then plucked the offending item from Ben’s outstretched fingers.
“I apparently have one thousand and six pounds in my account. I think there’s been some kind of bank error.”
Nikolas raised his eyebrows. “Yes, that does seem a bit too much, shall I phone…?”
“No! I mean it should be hundreds of thousands! Millions! I don’t know!”
Nikolas folded his arms and indicated for Ben to perch on the desk, but Ben pulled up a chair and sat further away. “When was the last time you checked your statements?”
Ben faltered in his certainty. “I don’t use that account. You know that. I have…”
“Oh, yes, I meant to ask you for that back.” Nikolas held out his injured hand for the card Ben held on his account. “If you think that’s the best thing…given we’re not…You must tell me how you want this to play out—sorry, work out. I’ll just follow your lead in everything.”
“Yes. Of course. Sorry.” Ben dug the card out of his wallet and passed it over. Nikolas stowed it safely in his.
“So, you were saying?”
“I made all those films for ANGEL, then Finding Peace…”
“ANGEL? You thought the charity should pay you?”
“But…You…”
“I don’t take anything from ANGEL, Ben. It all goes to the projects we sponsor and, of course, it’s…well…it’s my money in the first place, so there’s really no need to pay it to myself, is there?”
“No. I didn’t…of course. But Finding Peace…that must have…”
“Yes, that’s more puzzling. Of course, there’s Molly Rose…”
“M—what do you mean?”
Nikolas wondered whether a frown was too much. He tapped his pen on the edge of the desk lightly to indicate extreme puzzlement. “You wanted to pay for everything for her yourself, yes? I just assumed. Sorry, I should have asked.”
“No, of course I do. She’s my…” Ben trailed off miserably as it appeared to have occurred to him that Molly Rose’s parentage was now a very distressing subject. One they’d have to discuss later.
The flames had begun to destroy the whole world now.
That’s what you got for using matches unsupervised.
“So, how much did you…did I spend on her?”
Nikolas studied the piece of paper again and shook his head. “Pretty much everything you had, it seems. If I’d known, I’d have topped you up again. As I’ve done since we’ve been together.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “She’ll have to get used to Primark in future for her clothes. And no more Steiff bears. It’ll be plastic for Christmas this year.”
“But I need money now to rent somewhere…I don’t think it’s appropriate to take Philipa’s place. Wait, I could sell something!”
Damn. This response had occurred to Nikolas in the small hours of the night, but he’d hoped Ben would overlook this very obvious solution to his new financial woes. Still, he nodded, eagerly. “Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Your bike must still be worth…”
“
No! I’m not selling my bike! You gave—”
Nikolas raised his eyes and pursed his lips. It was the best expression to stop a smirk from appearing. “Of course. I’m glad you feel you can still enjoy…The next most obvious thing would be your watch, I suppose.”
Ben flung himself out of the chair and paced to the window. “I’m not selling my watch. That was the first thing you…I need a watch. The car. I’ll have to sell the Maserati.”
“Okay. That seems like a plan then. Settle up with the garage and then sell it.”
Ben’s face fell. “The clutch work. I forgot.”
Nikolas hadn’t.
“Yes, the bill is here somewhere.” He rummaged slightly theatrically and wholly unnecessarily in his in-tray. “Ah. Five thousand, three hundred and seventy-six pounds—and forty pence. Excluding VAT. So, shall I phone Philipa?”
Ben nodded miserably.
§§§
The cottage was available, and Philipa was more than happy for Ben to look at it that afternoon. Nikolas was visiting with his horses, not well enough to ride yet, and Ben had trailed into the stable after him, resembling something drowned and reanimated. Nikolas would have thought purity would perk someone up a bit more than that.
After he’d told him about the Duchy cottage, Nikolas murmured, “What will you do with this house? It would be a shame to just leave it empty and see it all go to ruin. But when you sell it, do give Babushka and Enid plenty of warning before you evict them. I suppose Enid will stay in Scotland. But Babushka has left everything to be with us. It will be hard for her to return to Siberia now.”
“What? I don’t want them to have to leave their homes! What about Emmy? And Miles?”
What indeed?
“You can’t rent this house out if there are sitting tenants in the grounds. That would be awkward. And besides, you’d still have to pay for all the upkeep, so it would be financially unviable.”
“Oh, G—damn it! I don’t know! Look, can you stay on here? Just for a while? Please? Keep everything running…I know it’s not fair to ask you, but everything will be ruined if you don’t.”
Nikolas wanted to point out the obvious, but restrained himself.
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