by Jagger, Kait
And who could blame him, trapped in what had to be one of the loudest, most boisterous brunches in history? The conversation veered from politics, to films, to the relative merits of London vs. New York, with even innocuous topics erupting into heated debates, mostly between Kay, Nancy and Robert, but sometimes drawing in Rod and Jem.
And now they appeared to have moved on to sex, Kayla’s specialist subject. Having gotten Luna’s attention, she enquired loudly, ‘What was the name of that professor of yours at uni? The one who never made you come?’
Jesus wept, Luna thought. She knew that last round of bucks fizz was a mistake.
Rolling her eyes apologetically at Stefan, Luna declined to respond to Kayla’s query, and thankfully Kayla let it drop and was soon cackling at some remark of Rod’s. Judging from the thick as thieves looks she and Nancy kept exchanging, Luna could only assume that the conversation continued to revolve around sex.
‘So I said to Kayla, maybe next year, when the show finishes, we can go away on holiday,’ Kayla’s date was saying. ‘I was thinking the Swiss Alps, or Lake Como?’ Hmm, Luna thought, if that’s your idea of where Kay wants to go on holiday, the countdown till she dumps you is definitely on.
Suddenly a commotion broke out at the other end of the table, Kayla screeching, ‘You’re kidding, right?!’ and Robert laughing in response, ‘What can I say, I’m Italian.’ Nancy, meanwhile, had turned a rather amazing shade of puce and was glaring at Robert like she wanted to kill him. Jem, who was sitting beside her, turned and widened her eyes at Luna as if to say, you are missing some serious gold here.
‘She’s just so busy these days, I hardly get to spend any time with her,’ homme du moment was droning on. Get ready to spend even less, Luna thought impatiently, wishing she could tune in properly to the conversation intensifying a few seats away from her. Jem and Kayla both sounded to be laying into Robert, Jem practically hopping up and down in her seat. To her alarm, Luna caught peripheral sight of Kayla leaning toward Stefan to ask him something.
And then the sound of Stefan’s calm reply: ‘I consider it both a duty and a privilege.’
Followed by a full ten seconds’ silence, whereupon Kayla stood up and leaned across the table, lifting her palm to Jem.
‘That’s what we’re talking about, right, sister?’ she cried, smacking her hand against Jem’s. Luna looked questioningly toward Stefan, but he only smiled at her, a smile so, whew, so full of honey that her heart skipped a beat. Kayla and Jem saw it too, and sat back down, looking first at him, then at their respective partners.
The table broke up after that, Nancy coming to sit next to Luna while the men gathered around Rod to look at something Remainers-related on his tablet. Jem and Kayla, in the meantime, ordered two more drinks and did a very bad job of pretending they were discussing anything but the conversation that had just occurred. Which Luna knew better than to ask Nancy about.
She and Stefan left soon after, Luna giving every single member of their party a parting kiss on the lips and Stefan stopping at the restaurant’s front desk to pay the bill. ‘You don’t need to do that,’ she said, secretly loving him for it.
‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘That brunch was worth the price of admission.’
They had to run to catch the next ferry, so Luna didn’t get a chance to question him till they were sat on the upper observation deck.
‘Right, what was that all about?’ she asked.
Stefan brushed an imaginary piece of dust off his shoulder. ‘If you must know, we were discussing cunnilingus.’
‘Jesus wept!’ Luna exclaimed. ‘They really are too bad. I can’t think of a less appropriate brunch conversation.’ She hesitated. ‘Hold on, was Robert saying…?’
Stefan met her eyes and nodded solemnly.
‘Oh, come on.’
‘Apparently his ethnic heritage precludes providing this service to Nancy,’ Stefan said, starting to laugh.
‘What did you—? How did you get this out of him?’ Luna said in amazement. ‘Nancy hasn’t said anything to me about it.’
‘I’d imagine not.’
They sat in silence for a few moments.
Then, ‘She should break up with him.’
‘Absolute she should.’
At that moment, Luna’s phone vibrated and Stefan’s rang simultaneously. ‘Hello, Jem,’ he answered as Luna looked down to see a three word text from Kayla: Oh. My. DAYS.
‘You are most welcome, Jem,’ Stefan was saying sweetly. ‘Would you like to speak to Luna?’ He handed the phone to her, but by the time she held it up to her ear Rod had clearly grabbed Jem’s away from her. ‘I’m not kidding, mate,’ he was saying. ‘We didn’t even make it out of the hotel. Straight to the front desk, straight up to a room and—’
‘That’s good to hear, Rod,’ Luna said, resting her free hand on Stefan’s knee.
‘Oh, hullo, Luna. That was some brunch, eh?’ He passed the phone back to Jem, and the two women spent another five minutes trading statements of incredulity, each suggesting that the other should really have a word with Nancy, tell her she could do better. ‘Or maybe you should get Stefan to talk to her,’ Jem ventured.
Or maybe not, Luna thought.
‘So, I take it this is not the first outing with your friends where the subject of sex has come up,’ Stefan said a few minutes later, as their boat passed under Tower Bridge.
‘Ha. I’m afraid not. You’d better get used to it,’ Luna replied, continuing, ‘but the girls all think you’re God in that regard, so…’
If she’d expected him to preen and say something humorous, she was in for a surprise, for all he did was cock his head at her, like he didn’t quite understand.
‘I mean, not that I talk about our… what we do, with them. Not in any detail,’ Luna stumbled on. ‘But, well, your reputation goes before you… and you’re so much more experienced than I am…’ She stuttered to a halt as his quizzical look turned into a frown.
‘I see,’ he said, a clear and pointed edge to his voice. ‘You’re saying they think, you think, I’m some kind of lothario, working my magic on you?’
‘I meant it as a compliment,’ Luna replied earnestly, squeezing his knee. She cleared her throat, mightily mortified by the turn this conversation had taken. ‘You’re the most skilled partner I’ve ever had,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that.’
He smiled a little at that, and she thought that was the end of it. But he was quiet for the rest of the boat trip back to Bankside and as they walked hand-in-hand back to his apartment. They were just approaching the Millennium Bridge when he stopped abruptly, pulling her around to face him.
‘Do you know what I think?’ he said, looking up at the sky and shaking his head. ‘And I see already the look you will give me when I say this, like, “Oh, Stefan, you must not talk of these things.”’ He paused, daring her to interrupt, and Luna inwardly winced that he had her so bang to rights.
Running a hand through his hair, he went on, ‘I remember the first few times you and I made love, what it was like for me, being with you. Unlike anything else, anyone else, I had ever experienced.’ He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I was literally doing times tables, humming the Match of the Day song in my head, visualising road kill to keep from coming too soon. Like some kind of teenage boy. Still, sometimes, it’s like this for me with you. Like I have lost control of my body – lost myself in you.’
He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Here is what I believe: I believe that I am that lucky one in ten thousand men who has found his physical match. Found the body that is perfect for him; that is meant to be with his. And I believe, I hope, that you feel the same.’
‘I do,’ Luna said swiftly, leaving no room for doubt or misinterpretation. For emphasis, she leaned into him, placing her hand on his stomach. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been flippant about it.’
Chapter Eighteen
She left the apartment at 2pm, slipping an envelope containing some ver
y brief instructions, plus an address and time, into his hand and saying, ‘I’ll see you later.’
Their weekend in the Highlands had provided the inspiration for this, her final birthday gift to Stefan. Luna meant it when she told him he was the most skilled lover she’d ever had, and she wanted to thrill him the way he’d thrilled her at the lodge. The only problem was… she wasn’t Stefan. She didn’t have his sexual confidence or, indeed, his winning way with ropes and knots. She was, however, very good at making lists and checking them off, so she approached this challenge like the world-class personal assistant she was.
Step 1
Book luxurious, discreet hotel.
She arrived at their hotel at just gone 2.30, entering via the blink-and-you’d-miss-it, ultra-unobtrusive entrance on a side street in Soho. The hotel’s small reception area was flanked by a wood panelled seating area upholstered in a combination of leather, velvet and floral linen, and it smelled divine, like jasmine and cedar and roses combined. There were candles everywhere – on the tables, in alcoves, in the chandeliers – none of them lit now, but Luna silently revelled in anticipation of what it would look like that night, when she brought him back here.
Check.
Step 2
Conduct necessary preparatory work. Leave nothing to chance.
She went up to their room to drop off her backpack, opening the door to find a massive, antique wooden spindle bed bedecked in an immaculate white Egyptian cotton quilt and no less than eight pillows of assorted size and density. At the foot of the bed were two comfortable armchairs and a table with a jasmine plant on it. The floor of the room was covered in a gorgeous, oversized boucle coir carpet, with a small tiled section in the corner on which sat a sumptuous freestanding bath.
It was all Luna could do not to immediately jump into the bath and start using each and every complimentary toiletry at her disposal. Instead, she unpacked her bag, hanging up her dress for the evening and carefully taking inventory of the other items she’d brought.
As an afterthought, she stopped by reception on the way out and rather cheekily requested that they loan her ‘some of those delicious smelling candles of yours. Maybe five. Or ten?’ And was gratified when the man behind the desk, who also smelled very nice, offered to have them brought up to her room.
Check.
Step 3
Undergo rigorous self-improvement process.
‘I don’t want to look like a geisha,’ Luna warned the girl in Selfridges’ beauty hall as she wielded a brush next to Luna’s cheek. ‘It needs to be subtle.’
The girl, who was wearing a face full of expensive war paint herself, nodded seriously and kept brushing, and Luna knew a moment’s trepidation, wondering if she’d have time to remove it all if, as she feared, this didn’t go to plan.
Her hair, which she’d had done at one of the numerous blow-dry bars that had sprung up on and around Oxford Street, was currently covered in a scarf, with only a few glossy waves visible, trailing down her back. Knowing there was no chance she’d manage to avoid smudging her toes and fingernails, she had also paid over the odds for a gel manicure and pedicure. Clear polish on the hands, blood red on the toes.
And on the lips, she’d been insistent on that. Fortunately, the make-up girl was familiar with Kayla’s guiding make-up maxim: dark lipstick + heavy eye makeup = prostitute. ‘I’m just going to work on your lashes,’ the girl said, frowning with concentration as she finished threading Luna’s eyebrows. ‘Anything else would be overkill with your eyes.’
When she finished, spinning Luna’s chair back toward the lighted mirror for the big reveal, Luna regretted ever doubting her. The girl had made her look… beautiful. Blending foundation to perfectly match Luna’s skin tone, covering it with a light coat of mineral powder that made it appear luminous – flawless. Shaping and subtly darkening her brows, somehow managing to make her lashes look both incredibly long and natural at the same time. And her blood red lips, they were a triumph.
So much so that Luna promptly bought the lipstick and another £80 worth of products, tipping generously and pausing briefly so the girl, whose card she took away to share with Jem and Kay, could take photos of her to post on Instagram.
Check.
Step 4
Choose venue with care.
Where to go when you wanted to surprise your boyfriend? The one who lived in London, who was independently wealthy and a reformed womaniser? Who’d probably been everywhere that was worth going, beautiful women spread out like a shimmering, perfumed carpet before him?
In the end, Luna plumped for a bar she’d been to a few times with Kayla and some of her thespian friends, Manna and Quail. Styled in the fashion of an American speakeasy, it was all dark wood and modal jazz. Kayla liked it because of its house rules, which banned men pestering women; Kay always preferred to be the chaser rather than the chased, so the vibe here was perfect for her.
It also made killer cocktails, with a particularly fine line in the old standards. The bartender didn’t bat an eyelash when Luna walked in at 9pm and ordered a gimlet.
‘Vodka or gin?’ he asked.
‘Gin, please,’ Luna replied, sitting on a bar stool and crossing her legs. Her outfit had been the final step in her preparations for the evening, requiring a visit to the storage facility where she’d sent most of her possessions after leaving Arborage in January. She needed her Miami things; clothes from her two-year assignment working for a hotel magnate with somewhat idiosyncratic views on uniforms for his staff. All black, all the time, with LBDs the preferred option for his female employees.
The best and most expensive of Luna’s LBDs, reserved for special occasions, was what her boss referred to as ‘that bandage dress of yours’ – an extremely body-con, halter-neck Hervé Leger dress. One she normally might be reluctant to wear here in the UK, but, having yet to regain all the weight she’d lost in Shetland, decided to risk. She would also normally have worn it with a pair of plain sling-back heels. Yet here she sat, sporting her gladiator sandals with the five-inch heels and crisscrossing leather straps that ran up to her knees. The ‘fuck me’ sandals Stefan had so admired when the two of them were together on Miami Beach.
The bartender delivered her gimlet in a martini glass garnished with a slice of lime and Luna tried to focus on emptying her mind. Inspired by the bar’s house rules, her instructions to Stefan had been to behave as if they’d never met; with the aim to thrill, she thought he might enjoy being on the receiving end of a little chasing from her.
‘I say, you look very familiar,’ an uber-posh male voice pronounced behind her. ‘Have we met?’ So much for the house rules, Luna thought with a frown. She twisted around in her bar chair to find a tall, thin young man with flushed cheeks studying her with interest.
‘I know,’ he said, snapping the fingers of one hand, sloshing his drink in the other. ‘You’re that delicious selkie I stumbled upon during Isabelle’s house party last year.’ Luna’s heart sank. Yes, she remembered it: a pair of toffs appearing in the doorway of her attic bathroom at Arborage, catching her in the tub.
‘Fully attired now, I see,’ Posh Boy said, making sad, regretful eyes at her. Luna smiled a tepid smile as he grabbed the arm of a chubby companion next to him. ‘I say, Ned, do you recognise this Amazonian beauty?’ Ned professed mystification, so Posh Boy added helpfully, ‘Try to imagine her without clothes.’
That did the trick. Ned yelped in recognition, ‘The water nymph!’
‘The very same!’ Posh Boy jubilated, noting as an aside to Luna, ‘D’you know, if old Ned here hadn’t been with me that night, I’d have chalked the whole thing up to the absinthe. Some kind of heavenly apparition…’ His eyes wandered briefly, focusing on something behind her. Heart thumping ominously, Luna turned to see Isabelle Wellstone swishing her way from across the bar, looking immaculate and fragrant and perfect, as ever.
Jesus wept. This night was not turning out at all as Luna intended.
Isabelle was accompa
nied by a lanky woman with blushing cheeks; a foil, Luna thought to herself, somewhat uncharitably. Luna hopped off her barstool like it was on fire, ready to make her excuses and run. Unfortunately, there was no escaping Posh Boy, who insisted on making introductions. Himself, Tarquin; his sister, Lilith. Plus the aforementioned Ned.
‘And this is—’ he cut himself short and wagged a finger at Isabelle. ‘But of course, you two must know each other well.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say well,’ Isabelle disagreed, running a jewellery-laden hand through her blond tresses. ‘Luna is an ex-employee of my mother’s.’ She let that linger, allowing the words she didn’t say to lend colour and weight to the ones she did. Lilith quickly picked up on the non-verbal cues Isabelle was sending her way, scrutinising Luna’s outfit with a flat, openly critical stare. In a painful flash, Luna foresaw how this encounter was going to go, the two men making oblivious small talk while their dates cut daggers into her with their eyes. Suddenly her outfit, her make-up, the venue… everything about tonight felt like a horrible mistake. Praying like she’d never prayed before for a way out of this, Luna glanced haplessly toward the door.
Where her saviour had just entered, the crowd parting before him just like it always did.
Wearing his navy suit teamed with a light pink dress shirt she hadn’t seen before and, sweet Lord, loved him in, Stefan strolled toward the bar, trying his best not to look at her, following her instructions to the letter. With some difficulty, Luna managed to catch his eye and give what she hoped was a desperate ‘abort abort abort’ face. Bless him, he quickly made his way over, to be greeted by squeals of delight from Lilith and Isabelle.
‘Darling!’ Isabelle cried as he approached. ‘What are you doing here?’
She was poised to throw herself upon him, but Stefan chose to ignore her advance, slipping an arm around Luna’s waist and saying, ‘Sorry I’m late, älskling.’ And nuzzling her cheek.
