Watching Her

by Harlem Dae

  How strange to be so close to her yet so far.

  All too soon we’d passed the school and Kolya parked up.

  “Stay close,” he said.

  “Am I trying to avoid being kidnapped or shot?” I pulled on my hat and yanked my zip to my chin.

  “Avoid both?” He frowned.

  “Good plan.”

  “But mainly they will want to take you. How much use are you to them dead? No gambling power.”

  “Do you mean bargaining power?”

  “Yes, that.” He opened the door and stepped out, letting in a bluster of cold air.

  I climbed out, too, climbed being about right given how big the Range Rover was.

  “This way.” He indicated over his shoulder, in the direction opposite the school. I wasn’t sure if I was sad or glad about that so obeyed mutely.

  He stayed close to me, and although he ambled along, there was a tension about him that I hadn’t noticed before.

  The pavements were clear of snow, though every ten or so paces a pile sat at the kerbside, collecting dirt from the road. St Wolfgang wasn’t deserted—there were people going about their daily business, weaving in and out of small stores and carrying bags of shopping.

  A craft shop selling gifts—small rocking horses, model houses, and lace—caught my eye. I paused. Kolya stopped next to me, and I looked at a little fat doll, one of those that would have another inside it, then another, and were shaped like eggs. Did Guilia have one of those already? Perhaps from this very shop?

  “I’m going in.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  There were even more dolls inside. A whole display unit of them. Their smiling faces appealed to me, and their fat little bodies.

  I reached for one that was black and red then pulled it in half. Sure enough, inside was another identical doll, her long painted eyelashes whisking off to the side. I shook it, hearing the rattle of yet another.

  Suddenly I wanted it. Had to have it. I needed a souvenir when all this crap was over. I needed something to remember this moment of being so near to my daughter.

  “Do you have any euros?” I asked Kolya.

  Without hesitation he tugged his wallet out and flipped it open. “Yes. How much do you want?”

  “Er…” I turned the doll over. “Forty, please.”

  He handed me the money without saying a word. I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to explain my need for the toy. The emotions behind it.

  A round woman with overly rouged cheeks and a beaming smile, not unlike the doll, took the money. She then wrapped my purchase in pale green tissue paper, just one sheet, and applied a sticker to it that had the name of the shop on it.

  “Danke,” I said, pocketing the purchase then stepping back out onto the street.

  Kolya followed then stopped next to me, his arm brushing my shoulder. He pulled his phone out, studied the screen for a second then started typing out a message.

  A tingle went up my spine, a sense of being watched. I held my breath, scrutinised the shop window. But not the gifts—I concentrated on the reflection. I scanned the area behind me, a hotel it seemed, with a deep, dark entrance that was decorated with fir branch swags.

  A man stood there, in the shadows, and he was staring straight at me.

  I blew out a breath and held his eye contact.

  Sutton had found me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sutton looked a little different to when I’d last seen him. Black, square-lensed glasses sat on his nose, and his beard was thicker. A dark woollen beanie hat covered his hair, rendering him unrecognisable to most, I’d imagine, but not to me. He was bundled up in winter clothing, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. His breaths puffed out, coiling upwards.

  I gave him a nod, trying to let him know that I wanted to speak with him. I could only hope he’d understand the gesture.

  “I’m thirsty,” I said, reluctantly turning away from Sutton’s reflection and facing Kolya. “There’s a hotel over the road, look. A sign outside says they have a public coffee shop.” I leaned closer to him. “My throat’s dry. Must be the fear of being out in the open, in danger,” I whispered. What a lie. It wasn’t fear I was feeling but excitement. “Can we go there?”

  Kolya slid his phone into his pocket and frowned. “It is maybe too soon for us to be inside having coffee. We are supposed to be outside for a while, staring through shop windows and being seen, walking around a little more.”

  I huffed air out, tapping my foot in impatience. “What does it matter where we are? If we’re being watched, we can be monitored just as well inside the hotel. Whoever is following us—if they even are—will follow us in there or at least keep an eye on us from out here.”

  “You have a good point.” He nodded. “Let us go there, then.”

  He took hold of my elbow to guide me across the street. My stomach rolled as I scanned the hotel’s façade. Thank God, Sutton was gone and Kolya wouldn’t ever have to know he’d been there. Yet if Sutton had gone-gone, my mission was going to be pointless, the coffee stale on my tongue, my hopes diminished.

  We stepped inside the building. Scents of coffee and various pastries smacked into me, bringing to mind better times in London’s winter, where meeting friends for brunch was the norm. Oh, the life I had lived then, oblivious…

  To the left of the warm, modern reception area was the café, sectioned off by a mahogany glass-panelled door with a grey wooden shabby-chic sign above it, proclaiming it to be Coffee Heaven.

  “In here,” I said, tugging him along, desperate to see if Sutton was inside.

  He wasn’t.

  Kolya allowed a waitress to show us to a small table in the far right corner of the packed room. From there, if we sat with our backs to the wall, we could see outside onto the street, plus the entrance. As predicted, Kolya made sure we sat exactly that way, and he scanned the vicinity several times before picking up a menu. I did the same, butterflies flapping wildly in my belly. I wanted to believe that the excitement was due to me sensing Sutton was around, that we were joined somehow by a secret, invisible thread that twanged when we were close to each other.

  I swallowed and studied what specialty coffees were on offer.

  “Would you like a pastry, too?” Kolya asked.

  “I don’t mind.” I smiled. Would the food get past the lump in my throat? I wanted to see Sutton again. Needed to. “You order. I’m off to the loo.” I stood, ready to waltz away.

  “Loo?” His fingers loosened, and the menu slid onto the table. He shot out a hand and gripped my wrist. “Where are you going?”

  “The ladies’ room.” I rolled my eyes and jabbed a hand onto my hip. “Or isn’t that allowed? I suppose you have to go with me?”

  “But the ladies’ room is not in here. It is in the foyer.” He grimaced. His mouth looked hard, his stare unforgiving.

  He didn’t trust me?

  I tilted my head as though confused. “And?”

  “I would have to stand outside and wait. We have only just got this table.” His eyes darted around. “And there are no others. It is busy in here.”

  He didn’t want me out of his sight, I got that, but I had to speak to Sutton. Okay, he might not even be in the hotel—he may have walked away up the street after I’d spotted him outside—but I had to try.

  Maybe you should have waited. You’re too eager to leave the room. Calm down.

  “Okay, maybe I can hold it for a moment.” I sat again. “But not for much longer than that. I have,” I winced, “a dodgy tummy.”

  “I do not understand this dodgy,” he muttered. “You say strange things.”

  “I have a sore tummy. Do you know what I’m trying to say now? I might need the toilet very quickly.”

  “Ah. I see. No matter. You must stay here.”

  “Even if I shit myself?” I whispered.

  The frustration of not being able to do what I wanted, when I wanted, gathered inside me, a swirling mass of annoyance that w
ould likely curdle at some point and make me say even more sour things. I couldn’t let that happen. Kolya was on my side and was only doing what was best for me.

  He gave me a look, one that parents offered their naughty children. “I will order,” he said.

  He waved for the waitress and dealt with her, so I gazed around the room. Sutton was most definitely not in here. I glanced at the door, trying to see into the far reaches of the foyer. The main entrance of the hotel flounced open, and a flurry of snowflakes skittered inside, dancing midair then falling to settle on the coarse brown mat. Following them was a pair of men’s boots, the soles caked in snow. I raised my eye line to jeans, then a black puffy jacket. Thicker beard. Black-rimmed glasses.

  I could have squealed.

  Sutton glanced through the café door glass then jerked his head to his right. So I’d been correct in sensing I needed to go to the ladies’. But he didn’t go in there—he went into the men’s.

  “Really can’t hold it, sorry!” I moved away from the table, clutching my tummy while the waitress was still attending to Kolya.

  I dashed across the foyer and entered the men’s room in a whirlwind of breathlessness, darting my gaze to the urinals. The space was empty, so I walked over to the cubicles, clicking my shoes loudly on the tile. One stall was closed, the handicapped, the other two smaller ones open.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  The door swung wide, and Sutton in all his disguised glory flung out a hand and tugged me inside. I stopped short of pressing myself flush against him, and he slid the lock into place behind me.

  “What the hell were you doing, going off with him?” he snapped in an antsy tone.

  My mouth dropped open. “I didn’t have much bloody choice, did I?” My whisper was so raw it hurt my throat. “Seeing as you buggered off outside, down to the jetty, or next door, I don’t know, running some errand and left me to him. Some protector you are.”

  That was snide, but I couldn’t help myself. He was putting all this on me, and it wasn’t my fault.

  “I was protecting you by going outside. I was dealing with some unsavoury gang members who hadn’t got the message to stay away.” He gripped my wrists and brought my hands up between us, holding them beneath his chin. “I thought… Fuck, I thought…”

  The look in his eyes was difficult to work out. Was he pained? Angry?

  “You thought what?” I asked.

  The heat from his skin on mine was delicious. Something I’d wanted throughout our whole time together. Our breathing was heavy, my chest rising and falling, him blinking behind those spectacles, seeming vulnerable yet adorable all at once. I wanted him—God, how I wanted him, inside a toilet or not. It sounded crazy but, here in the stall, it was like I was meant to be near him, with him.

  “I thought you’d gone forever,” he said. “That he’d taken you and I wouldn’t be able to find you again.”

  “And that bothered you because?”

  Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me I’m not just a job.

  He swallowed. Swooped his head down and pressed his lips to mine. Their softness, their warmth, the tickle of his beard…it sent me light-headed. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth to him, shivering, his tongue dipping inside. I kissed him back, splaying my hands on his cheeks. The beard rasped, and I moaned, pushing my body into his, my heartbeat so violent that it might shatter me, send me to my knees.

  I remained upright, taking control of myself and allowing him to kiss and kiss and kiss me. This was what I’d been waiting for all those times with other men. That spark, that sense of true belonging, and it took my breath away. I wanted to cry—I’ve found him—and lost myself in the moment.

  He pulled away all too soon. We stared at each other, breaths harder and faster, my legs weak and my mind working ten to the dozen. What would happen now? Should I go with him, leave Kolya? What about Guilia? Did it matter which man I was with, so long as she was safe?

  I opened my mouth to ask him what his game plan was, but he opened his, too, so I kept quiet.

  “I’ve wanted to do that from the moment I first saw you,” he whispered. “Resisting you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  What?

  “But the job… My orders…” He sighed. “You have to stay with him.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. Intel came in. He’s a good man. Not who I thought. He’ll keep you safe.”

  “But what about you? What, are you just going to walk away now? After…after that kiss?” I rubbed my thumbs across his cheekbones.

  “Not walk away, no. Never walk away, not now.” He shook his head then brushed his mouth over mine again.

  Fuck, he was going to send me insane with longing.

  “I’ll watch over Guilia,” he said. “An extra pair of eyes.”

  If hearts could melt, mine would have. He’d given the perfect answer. He would watch my child, the most important thing to me. This man Sutton understood my needs.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You have to go back to him now. He’ll no doubt be outside the ladies’. If you don’t appear soon, he’ll go in there—and he won’t find you. Then he’ll try here.”

  I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to stay in the stall forever. I’d waited so long for this. And it felt so right. There’d been moments where I’d feared it wouldn’t, but it really did. “But—”

  “I know. If we’d met in another place, another time. If my instructions in St Lucia hadn’t been so…binding.”

  So my father had dished out strict instructions that he wasn’t to fuck me. “I understand.”

  He held my wrists tighter.

  I knew then that I’d always feel that hold. I’d bring it back into my mind time and again, remembering how wanted I was, by Sutton.

  “Take this.” He let me go.

  I left my hands where they were on his face, unable to break free. He reached down then brought a slightly old-fashioned phone up between my arms.

  “A burner,” he said. “My number is inside. Communicate with me when you can. Keep it on vibrate only, or silent. It has a tracker, so I’ll always know where you are.”

  “But you already have me tracked.”

  He smiled. “So you found it, then?”

  “I did. Hardly an ingenious place to put it. A pocket.” I smiled, too. “Well, I’m all but floored by your spy skills.”

  “It was the best I could do in the circumstances. And it brought me to you, didn’t it?”

  “It did.” Thank God, it did.

  “Go now.” He removed my hands from his face.

  I didn’t like that. Didn’t like that at all.

  He gave me a gentle push backwards. I stared at him as he stared at me, and invisible words floated between us. If I could get mine out of my mouth I would have, but I couldn’t manage a single one of them. My eyes misted—how had things happened so quickly, me crying like this?—and I backed off, reaching behind me for the lock.

  “Seriously,” he said. “Go now. He’ll cause a fuss any minute, and while your father’s enemies know you and he are here, I still have the advantage of being invisible. We don’t want that to change.”

  “But… Oh, fucking hell!”

  I turned, slid the door open, and stepped out. I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. He was standing there, possibly watching me go, and I didn’t want to see his face, his expression. It was bad enough imagining it.

  “I’ll be around. Close,” he said.

  I dashed out of the men’s as quickly as I’d dashed into it. Slap bang into Kolya.

  “What were you doing in there?” he demanded, pale face unusually flushed.

  “Using the toilet, what do you think?” I shot back.

  “Why in there? That is for the men.” He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

  “When the ladies’ cubicles are full, you expect me to stand in there and jiggle about when there’s a perfectly good loo next door? I don’t bloody think so, not with the
emergency I had. Now, back to the café, yes?”

  I swanned off towards Coffee Heaven, praying my legs didn’t falter.

  Praying that Kolya followed and didn’t investigate that toilet.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We ate a sugary, sticky pastry each, and I had two espressos. Not usually my thing, but Kolya had ordered them and I didn’t want to rock the boat any more at this stage. The caffeine hit quickly, though, my heart hammering and tingles going through my legs and spine. Or was that Sutton’s effect on me?

  I couldn’t be sure.

  I resisted looking at the doorway to the main reception despite every brain cell screaming at me to do so. Had Sutton left the hotel? Was he still here watching me or had he gone to keep guard over Guilia?

  Kolya sat hunched over his coffee, clearly not happy with me, his big shoulders seemingly even bigger in his thick winter jacket. I wondered if he was sulking because I’d given him the slip for a few minutes to go the restroom.

  No, surely not.

  “Why don’t you take your coat off?” I asked. “Your cheeks are red. You’re too hot.”

  “I told you, I like the heat.”

  “You’ll overheat.” I leant forward and tugged the zipper, pulling it down a fraction.

  “No.” He gripped my wrist. “Leave it.”

  That grip reminded me of Sutton’s, but it didn’t have the same result.

  “Why?” I didn’t appreciate the way he was frowning at me or how his fingers were vice-like around my arm.

  “I want my gun accessible,” he whispered, shifting his gaze from left to right as though surveying customers at neighbouring tables.

  “Oh, okay.” I glanced at his pockets, not that I could really see them, and decided to leave the jacket subject alone. Guns and their accessibility were not my area of expertise.

  Sitting back, I, too, looked around and breathed in the sickly scent of the bakery and the heavy tang of coffee that laced the air. The crowded room had wooden panelled walls that were pale and polished. The floor was tiled and a little damp in places from the snow falling from boots as people entered. Nearly every table was occupied, as it had been when we’d arrived, mostly by two or three people, and a few had children in highchairs, too young to be at school.