Rebound

by PJ Adams

  She didn’t know where to start, and as she hesitated, he jumped in again.

  “We could have your immunological toolkit available in every hospital in the country inside six months from the moment it’s ready to be deployed. Can your current masters promise that?”

  It was all about control – of her, and of her work. Her product. Dress it up in whatever ideology he chose, but when it came down to it, Bowler saw profit. But what Sunita had to do was somehow judge the best way to get her work out there where it might do some good.

  “You’re just another man in a suit,” she said, throwing his oft-repeated phrase back at him.

  He laughed, and said, “Yes, but look at the suit!”

  They paused as a waiter took their plates away. Another placed the main courses before them, pink lamb with salsa verde, tiny roasted grelot onions, and pomme boulangère.

  “I could never come here.”

  “You don’t say that as if you believe it.”

  “The logistics alone...” It was a bad move, shifting the argument to technicalities rather than the fundamental reasons why she couldn’t trust her work to a man who wanted to profit from it.

  “We will release you,” said Bowler. “Whatever contracts you’ve signed, we have lawyers who will unravel them. We will liberate you from your shackles and secrecy. The only barriers are the ones in your head.”

  The lamb was so tender! She’d never tasted anything like it. She concentrated on the food again, trying to push everything else from her mind.

  Too much. It was all just too much to hold in her head.

  “Tell me,” she said, after a while, “what do you do to shut it all out?”

  She saw from the look in his eye that he understood immediately. They’d researched her, knew that she liked to walk, losing herself in solitude and nature. A man like Bowler must need release from the pressures and attention, too.

  “The marshes, the sea,” he said. “When I told you earlier that you could walk for fifteen miles without meeting another soul I lied, because that’s where you might find me, too, when I can ever get away from it all. The birds, the wildness of it all. These marshes – they’re the closest thing to natural wilderness we have in this part of the country.”

  Fifty-fifty, she thought. Bullshit or not. Had his researchers told him this was exactly the thing to say to draw her in and make her warm to him as a human being, or was it genuine?

  If it was a lie then it was a bold one. She could catch him out in a few seconds if she quizzed him on the species of birds you might expect to find here at this time of year, or the wildflowers you might find on the marshes in the spring.

  She let it go.

  This whole visit to BoTech was an escape, an illusion. Why spoil the fantasy?

  §

  “Come with me.” He stood before her, hand held out for her to take.

  They’d emerged from the glass-screened area onto the open part of the deck, and all of a sudden the wind was like a cold knife cutting through to her bones.

  She didn’t know what he was doing now, but something inside her really wanted to find out.

  She knew her senses were affected by the wine, and also by the mood of the evening – the sense of having stepped away from the real world for a time, and the sense of being wanted.

  She knew it was foolish to give in to that feeling.

  She took his hand to balance herself as she took off the juttis, knowing they’d be ruined by the sand.

  He led her down a short flight of wooden steps to the top of the beach, and instantly the sand was abrasive against her toes. Her cold toes. “It’s freezing!” she gasped. The salwar kameez and dupatta were no protection against this chill wind.

  She had to trot to keep up.

  They came to the firm sand where the sea had been, the tide retreating.

  She expected him to stop here, but he kept going, right to where the waves crept up and then drew back.

  “Your shoes...” Crumpled brown leather, long toes, no doubt ridiculously expensive and now getting washed over by a wave. The salt would ruin them.

  She took a step back from the advancing water, but his grip on her hand was tight and the sea won, icy coldness folding around her feet so that she cried out, and then Bowler was laughing, she was laughing, and his grip on her hand now drew her toward him, into his embrace, her body suddenly hard up against his, his face against her cheek, her ear.

  “It’s cold,” she gasped, her feet numb, her mind racing.

  His arms around her were as warm as this whole thing had been unexpected.

  “Stay.”

  His lips on her ear, lingering after he had uttered that word. For a moment she thought he was still trying to persuade her to work for his company, that this might be just another bizarre strategy his profilers had come up with that might recruit her. Then she realized how ridiculous that was, that it was just the product of her fevered and confused mind and that this...

  “Stay with me.”

  This was something else. His lips still pressed against her ear. His body, the firmness off his muscles, the hardness of his ribcage, the tightness of his embrace, his hands in the small of her back dragging her against him. That unmistakable hardness against her belly.

  How had she not anticipated this? Had she blocked it out? Had she perhaps even hoped for it?

  For a woman who spent her life trying to understand the world around her, the workings of her own mind were still perhaps the greatest mystery.

  She...

  His lips dragged down her jaw. One hand moved to her hip, gripping her tight, almost painfully.

  She was intensely aware of the lack of feeling in her feet from the cold, because of course her feet should be what she was thinking about right now.

  She put her hands to his chest, pushed, levering the top half of her body back from him.

  When she looked into his eyes, she saw... She didn’t know what she really saw there. It would be easy to think of it as lust, hunger, possession, but she knew that was just her mind trying to label it, make sense of what was happening by naming and categorizing something that was primal and ultimately unknowable to her.

  She pushed harder, staggered back. Thought for a precarious second or two that she was going to fall flat on her ass in the waves and then what would she do?

  She turned, and stumbled up the beach, dry sand sticking to her wet feet as her senses started to return.

  When she reached the top of the beach, she dared to look, saw that he was still standing there, just staring at her, apparently oblivious to the icy cold water lapping around his ankles.

  She found the wooden steps up onto the decking.

  A waiter was still clearing their table, had probably seen it all but now studiously avoided her look.

  Inside the Galleria, a couple of people sat at a table, and farther away a barman cleaned glasses and studiously avoided eye contact with anyone.

  Sunita staggered up the stairs, still clutching her juttis to her chest. She found her way along the corridor, fumbled with the card to let her into her room, and finally came to lean back against the closed door behind her.

  She didn’t understand what had just happened.

  Didn’t understand this world. The mindset of a man who took so much for granted, who clearly felt he owned everything around him, including her.

  And the scariest thing of all was that he did.

  All of this was his.

  It was dark, late, and they were miles from anywhere. She was off the grid. And even the locked door at her back was an illusion, because she knew he would be able to let himself in at any time, if he chose to do so.

  She really was at Bernard Bowler’s mercy.

  §

  She sat at one of the window seats, watching the lights of boats out at sea and the occasional plane overhead.

  By the time she’d moved away from the door and come over to the windows, she’d been unable to see Bernard Bowler standing in
the waves. At first there had been enough light spilling over from the Galleria below for her to see him if he was still there, so he must have moved.

  At any moment she expected to hear the door to her suite opening, or perhaps a knock if he wanted to play it discreetly again, after the brute clumsiness of their encounter on the beach.

  Had it been brutish, though? A thuggish millionaire who thought he could always get his way?

  Or had she been sending out the wrong signals all evening?

  Did men ever worry like this about an encounter gone wrong, or was it just a woman thing? Always unsure of yourself, always assuming you were the one at fault.

  The clock on the desk told her it was nearly midnight, and reminded her of her isolation, for she would normally check the time on her phone. The one Bowler’s muscleman had confiscated.

  She struggled to understand now how she had let that happen, the sequence of events that had built up to make something like that seem like a perfectly normal precaution that she should go along with.

  The ground floor lights were off now, and outside was the kind of darkness you never get in towns and cities.

  She didn’t know if she’d left it long enough to be confident that Bowler wouldn’t pursue her up here to her room.

  That sense of being able to breathe easily seemed a very long time ago, the foolish belief that coming here was a break from reality, a chance to dream.

  She couldn’t work out Bowler’s game, but she knew he wasn’t being straight with her.

  She wanted to leave now, spend the night in her own bed.

  Call Alex and apologize for her crass behavior. She should have insisted on warning him she would miss their – date? appointment?

  She couldn’t believe she’d traded a chilled chat with Alex followed by a quiet evening at home for... for a stupid daydream that had rapidly become a nightmare.

  Those coffees with Alex had become something of a fixture in her life, over the past month. When she’d asked Bowler what he did to shut out the world, her own default answer would have been walking and spending time with nature, but then if she’d paused to think she would have realized that actually, more recently, the time spent with Alex had been that rock in her life. The breathing space. The opportunity to ground herself and step back.

  She could use some of that now.

  She hoped he didn’t hate her for not showing.

  §

  She was surprised that she slept. She’d been so on edge.

  She was sure Bowler wasn’t going to do anything, sure he must have got the message that she wasn’t interested, despite whatever signals she may have been sending out before, but still...

  It was the uncertainty that got to her.

  And the vulnerability, knowing she was out here, so isolated – literally at Bernard Bowler’s mercy.

  She couldn’t work out if what had happened had all been part of the game, or if he had simply got carried away.

  She’d thought she had his measure. Thought she was learning to be his match.

  But clearly not.

  By the time the suite’s phone rang at 8.30 she’d already been up for an hour. She’d showered and wrapped herself in a robe and then sat at the window for a time. She’d just decided to get dressed and take the initiative and go downstairs to explore rather than wait here as if she could do nothing without Bowler’s permission.

  “Dr Chakravarti, this is Adam on Reception. Mr Bowler sends his best wishes, and asks if you would like to join him for breakfast in the Galleria?”

  She chose clothes with a consideration that surprised her, realizing that whatever she chose would, effectively, be a gift to her from Bowler as that would be what she wore when she left. She considered choosing the most expensive outfit – and shoes! – and then recoiled, thinking that actually she should do the opposite, and go for fresh underwear and her own jeans, top and leather jacket from yesterday. Then she decided not to compromise: if she was at home she would have opted for a salwar kameez, as she was visiting family later, so why should she do any different now simply because Bowler had interrupted her plans?

  Dressed in a powder blue and indigo kameez patterned with intricate, interweaving flowers, and plain white salwar, she headed down to the Galleria.

  Bowler wore a blue suit, the white shirt open at the neck. He smiled when he saw her – that genuine, open smile he used a lot with her – and stood as she approached.

  “Dr Chakravarti. I hope you slept well.”

  Hands on her elbows, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek like old friends. Like nothing untoward had happened between them and she hadn’t cowered in her room fearing he might pursue her and... what? Rape her?

  She smiled, wished him a good morning and sat. This last 24 hours had been full of surprises and revelations about the workings of her own mind, but perhaps this was the greatest one of all: that she was so uncertain of herself that in a situation like this she would still smile and sit and act as if nothing had happened, because that was how he was acting and all of a sudden she doubted everything that was in her head.

  She was a dynamic young woman. She’d earned a doctorate from Cambridge at the age of 23. Still only in her late twenties, now, she led a government-sponsored research program that could, in its own small way, change the world. She had to remind herself of these things.

  And she could do nothing but admire Bernard Bowler and his sheer gall, his ability to pull off one of his tricks again and make her feel this way, skillfully shifting the ground beneath her feet.

  Breakfast came. He had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. She had toast, mango jelly, strong coffee.

  “It really is beautiful here, isn’t it?” His gaze roamed, taking in the sea and beach, returning to Sunita.

  “I’ve made my decision,” she said. She didn’t have the stomach for this today. The recruitment dance. The games that appeared to so delight this man. She didn’t give him time to leap in, and try to take control of the conversation, either, rushing to add, “I can’t work here.”

  “I can’t pretend not to be disappointed,” said Bowler. “I hope it’s not because of last night.” Finally, mentioning it. An indication that he was at least aware that she might feel uncomfortable about how the evening had ended.

  She shook her head. “I’ve already made commitments and chosen the path to follow,” she told him. “I have no reason to change any of that.”

  “When you made those choices you did not have the opportunities you now have.”

  “I would make the same choices. I have made the same choices.”

  She thought that would be it: answer delivered, subject closed, time to move on. But then...

  “You realize you’ve already crossed to my side in their eyes,” he said. “They know where you are, and the longer you're here... In their eyes you’re tainted now. No longer trusted. And if they feel they can neither trust nor control you then they will always have a fallback position.”

  He let the words hang. The warning – a warning about the people she had considered to be her protectors: that they might rather she was removed from the picture altogether than be tempted to stray and work for others.

  “I’ll talk to them,” she said. “Explain.” Halliday and his people had always been good to her.

  “Always the believer that people are ultimately good,” Bowler said. “That’s an endearing but, in your current circumstances, dangerous philosophy to adhere to. You need to develop a more finessed understanding of the people you deal with.”

  Was that a threat?

  For all the smiles and kissing of cheeks this morning, the atmosphere was different today. More business- like. She couldn’t work out if yesterday’s Bowler had been an act, or if it had been him allowing his mask to briefly fall. Whichever it had been, things were... more direct, now.

  “I can protect you. Free you.”

  “It’s not freedom you’re offering, though, is it?” she said. “You’re asking me to step from on
e cage into another.”

  Another smile.

  “You should be grateful,” he said. “Think of your people, where they came from. Think what opportunities now lie before you.”

  She stared. He seemed to genuinely believe he was being generous to her, and that was exactly why he was comfortable with the kind of followers he had: he couldn’t understand the difference. Couldn’t see that talking about her family’s origins, ‘her people’, wasn’t a reasonable way of highlighting the opportunities she now had.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  He still didn’t get it. Still thought she should be grateful.

  She stood to leave, paused by the table and said, “I need to go. I have a family thing. My people.”

  “I’d like you to reconsider.”

  He was still trying? He was either oblivious to the racist undertones of his bullying, or he knew exactly what he was doing, and she didn’t know which was worse.

  “I have to go.”

  “They’ll have found the money by now.”

  She hesitated. Didn’t understand the change of tack. Couldn’t make sense of the words. “Money? What money? What are you talking about?”

  “Ten thousand pounds a month, paid into your secret bank account from one of my thinly- veiled operations for the last six months.”

  “What? What secret account? I don’t understand.”

  But she did. Even as she spoke those words, her brain was racing to catch up.

  “You’ve framed me,” she said. Get her here. Let Halliday and his team know where she was. Point them to a trail that would reveal these mystery payments into an account she knew nothing about. Lay a fake digital trail that would tie her to the money.

  “Framed? No, nothing so melodramatic, Dr Chakravarti. I merely anticipated your acceptance of my very generous offer and rewarded you in advance. The money is yours, whether you accept or not. But I rather think you’re going to accept. Your options are narrowing by the minute.”

  And to think she’d been thinking through the ramifications of accepting a gift of clothes only an hour or so earlier...