Текст книги "The Billionaire Banker"
Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
She sits back on her heels and the hot tears come. She covers her mouth to muffle her sobs. She has made a fool of herself. What will she do? What will she do? Numbly she hears the girls in the next cubicle giggling about what all girls giggle and chat about—men. Then her ears pick up the sounds of them snorting lines of cocaine. When they leave she flushes the toilet and opens the door. She notices what she had not before. How grand the furnishings are.
There is a very large ornate, gilded mirror stretched across the wall. The other toilet seems to be in use and a thin woman with immaculate hair is perched on one of the gold and cream chairs waiting her turn. There is an air of superior calm about her. Her eyes meet Lana’s briefly but curiously, before she enters the cubicle that Lana has vacated.
Lana goes to stand in front of the mirror. She stares at herself. Her face is deathly pale and the cheap mascara she purchased from the market is smudged and running; her lips look as if she has been stung by bees, and her eyes are red from crying. This is what Blake Barrington saw. She looks like she feels. Soiled.
The woman in the other cubicle comes out. She looks identical to the woman who had perched herself on the chair. With a quick, surprised glance at Lana, she goes to stand at the other end of the mirror. She pats her immaculate hair, brushes away imaginary specks of dust from her soft pink dress suit and leaves. Lana turns on the tap and rinses her mouth with plenty of water. Scooping water in her palms she washes her face with hand soap and scrubs it dry with a paper towel. Without her make-up she feels defenseless.
There is a sick pervert out there who wants to rape her and leave her torn and bleeding in alleyways. You could walk away. Say fuck you. She couldn’t. It was so much money. And he knew it. She needed that money. She considers taking the money and not delivering. What could he do? It’s not like he could go to the police or she would be running a refund desk. Then she remembers his eyes. How cold and dangerous. No. Anyway, she has always said, she’d rather be the one who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it.
Again her thoughts turn to the Barrington man. Why is he still in her mind? Probably the way he had looked at her. No one. Absolutely no one has looked at her like that.
She indulges in a moment of fantasy. Perhaps he really wants her. He is filthy rich so he will simply give her the money she needs. Gallantly, he will then fall in love with her and they will marry. As she is standing inside her dreams another woman opens the door and enters. It is the blonde in the red dress. She is tall and severely beautiful with an aristocratic nose and bottle-green eyes. She has the same superior air of all the people at this party. The same air that Blake Barrington has claimed for himself.
Lana cannot help but watch her through the mirror. Their eyes meet for a second, then the blonde’s slide away, but in that second there is pure speculation. Everybody knows she does not belong.
Lana looks at her reflection. Who is she kidding? Blake Barrington is the biggest cheese on the board. Simply the way Rupert behaved in his presence told her that. He was probably looking at her because she is dressed like a hooker and he thinks she is one. The only real thing she has is her mother. And there is nothing she will not do for her. She thinks of her father. How easily he had walked away when they had needed him most. How weak his love for them had been. Hers is different. She will not walk away even if she has to walk upon a path of thorns. Bleed she will. And that will be the test of her love.
She will not let herself be distracted by anything. She will survive any amount of sexual humiliation. Five encounters? Her champagne-addled brain says, that’s fucking nothing. The beautiful blonde has turned away from the mirror and entered one of the cubicles. Blake Barrington is welcome to her.
Lana straightens her spine. I can do this, she says to her reflection. I love you, Mum, better than Dad did, much, much better.
She practices the smile she will bestow on Rupert in the mirror, and despite the fear in her belly tells herself that when she is old and wrinkled she will be glad she made this sacrifice. The price will always be worth it. Then there is nothing left to do in that opulent loo, but to walk out of it, and face her decision, and the lengths she will go to for her mother.
She opens the door and Blake Barrington is lounging casually against the wall of the corridor. He straightens when he sees her.
Four
Perhaps he is annoyed that he invited her and Rupert to this fine party, and they have showed him up and behaved in a disgusting manner. She does not want another confrontation. She has enough on her plate. Not him, as well. She didn’t ask to be invited. She would have ignored him and walked right past had he not raised a detaining finger. She looks defiantly up at him.
His eyes scan her face, now devoid of all make-up. ‘Are you all right?’
Up this close his skin is sunshine and his voice pure velvet. She folds her arms around her body and resists the instinct to take a step back, such is the immensity of animal power he exudes. It is magnetic and irresistible. He reminds her of a panther. Prowling and ready to pounce, full of suppressed restless energy. Muscular, strong.
Thank god, for the shoes. They lift her eyes to the level of his straight, stern mouth. She raises her chin, meets him square in the eye, and in her best secretarial voice, says. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Oh God, he is going to lecture her. ‘So talk.’
‘Privately—through here, please.’ He gestures with his hand. He is careful not to touch her. The corridor leads to a door. He goes ahead of her and holds it open. She hesitates for a moment, then thinks, fuck it, and walks through. The room appears to be some sort of library with walls full of shelves of leather-bound books. The room smells of new leather. She hears him close the door and turns around.
He is leaning against the door and simply watching her.
‘Well?’ she prompted.
‘Are you over eighteen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am,’ she snaps. ‘Not that it is any of your business.’
‘What will Lothian get for his money?’
So he did hear. Oh the shame. If the ground could have opened up and swallowed her… Fortunately, a fine anger comes to her rescue. How dare he? The audacity. Overbearing, arrogant bastard. With all the hauteur she can manage under the circumstances, she grates, ‘That is private if you don’t mind, and if that was all…’
‘It’s not idle curiosity. I’m quite happy to double the sum if it’s what I think it is.’
She stares at him. She understands why someone like Rupert would have to pay, but Blake Law Barrington? He could have anyone he wants. Then it occurs to her that, perhaps, he is just toying with her. Perhaps it is a thing all rich men do.
Her pride comes to the fore. She will not be humiliated twice in one night. ‘Whatever I have offered is for Rupert and only Rupert. Now please get away from that door and the hell away from me.’ Her voice has risen in anger.
His eyes spark. ‘Do you know your eyes are like the blue of struck matches when you are angry.’ Then more softly, ‘Why would anyone, let alone a stunner like you, get involved with someone who, if the most impeccable sources are to be trusted, is an absolute brute? He beat one woman so badly he broke her jaw, and blinded her in one eye.’
Lana closes her eyes. She has drunk too much champagne. The whole situation has become impossible for her to deal with in her present condition. She has ventured where she should never have gone. She feels the sting of defeat in her bones. ‘What do you want from me?’
He leaves the door and walks towards her. Again that sensation that he is a predatory animal. ‘Well for a start…’ He reaches her and suddenly jerks her towards him. She falls forward and is pitched against his hard body. Her palms come into contact with the smooth material of his jacket. Shocked, she is filled with the scent that Rupert called old money and establishment. Difficult to define, but it reminds her of rosemary, not because of its smell, but because it is so clear and distinct. Nothing wishy-washy about it.
Everything takes on an unreal appearance. The fabulously wealthy interior. The man outside that door that wants to rape her for money. The frighteningly remote man in front of her that brings into her body sensations she has never experienced before. A pulse at the base of his throat is throbbing. She watches it curiously. She has never seen it in a man before. And then an arm comes around her, a fistful of hair close to her nape is grasped and tugged so her face is tilted up towards him. ‘This,’ he says and his mouth swoops down to possess hers. His breath smells like brandy or whiskey. Wicked, anyway.
Twice today she has had to endure a stranger’s uninvited and unwelcome lips, but her reaction to this overbearing man is shocking and immediate.
His mouth drives her wild in a way that she could never have imagined. Heat ripples through her and the reasoning, reliable part of her brain, that part that has never failed her before, stops responding. Stops functioning. Her arms snake up to twine around his neck and tangle in the thick hair. She thrills in his possessive hold.
He circles her tongue, sucks it deep into his mouth and kisses her with such ferocity that some slumbering beast inside answers his animal call. A dangerous excitement kicks hard in the pit of her belly. No man has ever done this to her in this way before. She clings to him. Like a blind animal that moves only with instinct she pushes her body into his. There is only the need to find more of that addictive heat. What she finds is the thick hardness of his desire for her. It presses aggressively against the softness of her stomach and excites her beyond all reason.
A pleasure that is at once sweet and piercing courses through her body. This rock-hard erection is hers. She caused it. Heat pools between her legs. And suddenly she is wet with wanting and filled with an irresistible desire to have that hard meat inside her, as deep as he will go…
She totally forgets where she is.
It is Rupert’s cold, hard voice that drags her back into that room. They had both not heard him enter. ‘I’m afraid she’s rather spoken for,’ he drawls, but there is so much suppressed anger that his voice is like a blast of icy air.
She snatches her mouth away from Blake’s. He is positioned between her and Rupert so his wide chest hides her from Rupert’s condemnation. Her eyes, cloudy with confusion and desire, are still caught in Blake’s gaze. For a few seconds more he does not release her, but simply stares into the blue depths with something approaching surprise. Then his eyes turn into hard granite chips and his body stiffens as his hands tighten and curve protectively around her waist. Slowly he turns to face Rupert.
‘But still unpaid for, I believe?’ he says, and looks down with a smile at Lana’s flushed, troubled face. She has two very quick impressions. He is a brilliant actor and he is a cold man. A shockingly cold and unemotional being.
Rupert directs his astonished, vicious eyes at Lana’s. ‘You offered yourself to him too?’
Lana stares mutely at Rupert. His eyes move derisively, hatefully over her. She feels herself cringe.
‘Does he know how much you charge?’
‘Do you doubt I will be able to afford her?’
Rupert shrivels the way a leech that has had salt thrown on it does. ‘This is why you invited me here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What a joke!’ he taunts, but his jibe lacks any real bite. ‘The great Barrington can’t find his own whore. He has to steal mine.’
‘I didn’t steal her,’ Blake notes reasonably. ‘I just offered to pay more.’
Rupert’s eyes bulge, bug-like. ‘She’s just a cheap bloody tart. I’ve just finger-fucked her out there,’ he lies maliciously, jerking his dandruff-laden head in the direction of the door.
Lana feels Blake’s hand tighten around her waist. ‘Consider it an unearned freebie, then,’ he says quietly, but there is warning in the calm words. A warning that is not lost on Rupert. The air becomes tight with tension. Lana looks from one man to the other. It is like watching two lions fighting for supremacy. But her body knows which lion she wants to win this fight.
Rupert shrugs. He knows he’d be a fool to go against a Barrington. He has much to lose. ‘If you think I’m going to fight over her you’re mistaken. Have her.’
He turns on his heel and leaves.
Blake lets go of Lana. She realizes she is trembling. She leans against the desk, hating herself, but unable to stop—nothing is more important than the money—she asks, ‘Did you…did you mean it about the money?’
‘Yes.’
A sob of relief escapes her throat. She covers her mouth with both her hands. ‘Thank you.’
He looks at her with narrowed eyes, surprised by the intensity of her reaction, but he does not offer any comment. ‘Did you have a coat?’
She nods, unable to speak.
‘Give me the ticket. I’ll get it.’
She looks into the purse hanging by her hips, her hands unsteady, and shakes her head miserably. She cannot remember what she has done with it. ‘I’ve lost it. I think it might have fallen out in the…’ She is about to say loo when she decides she is not like them and she won’t pretend to be something she is not… ‘ladies room.’
‘Let’s go. I’ll get you another.’
‘I can’t leave without it. It’s not mine,’ she whispers.
He sighs. ‘It’s all right. I’ll get it. Is the coat…er…orange?’
She looks at him carefully. There is an insult there, somewhere. But his face is blank. ‘Yes.’
‘Wait here. Don’t go anywhere.’
She stands in the middle of the room feeling light-headed. She’s got the money and she doesn’t have to get raped for it. Her hands find their way to her mouth. That kiss. The way it made her feel. Just thinking about it makes her long for the feel of his solid body melded into hers. The door opens, and Rupert walks in.
‘You look frightened. Why? I don’t wish you harm. In fact, I realize now that I am actually very interested in your offer. If I seemed unappreciative before please forgive me.’
‘There is,’ she says, shaking her head and taking a step backwards, ‘nothing to forgive.’
‘Is he really paying double?’
‘I don’t need more than what I asked you for.’
‘Then why go to him? He is no different from me. He will drop you like a bad mortgage when he is finished with you too.’
She nods. ‘Of course he will, but like you said, I came with a price. You wanted to bargain and he was willing to pay it.’ If only she can keep him talking until Blake returns.
‘So am I, now.’
‘Besides, you want fifty shades of grey and he just wants a woman.’
‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind. Perhaps I just want a woman too.’
He comes closer.
‘Blake has gone to get my coat. He’ll be back any time.’
‘Not without this he won’t.’ He holds out her ticket.
He puts out a hand suddenly. She tries to move back, but he grabs her by the arm. His grip is vice-like, his fingers dig painfully into her flesh. He hauls her closer.
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘You’ll be surprised how much pain the human body can take.’
‘What do you want, Rupert?’
‘I feel aggrieved. Something I wanted and was promised to me has been stolen by another. I was given a taste of something which I very much liked. You resist beautifully, Lana. Perhaps, you will do both of us. I will pay you too.’
Lana blinks. She can’t believe what she is hearing. If it wasn’t so humiliating, it would be surreal. The surroundings she is in, the obviously powerful men who are suddenly apparently willing to pay huge sums to have sex with her.
‘I wouldn’t do that to Blake.’
‘He’ll never know and even if he does, he won’t care. It’s not like he wants to marry you. You’re just a fuck, Lana,’ he pronounces dismissively.
The door opens and Blake stands at the threshold with her orange coat folded over his arm. His face is like a closed steel door. He comes into the room and Rupert lets go of her arm. She moves away from him and rubs it. Already there are red marks on it. Blake eyes them silently, then helps her into her coat.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
She nods.
He turns towards Rupert and socks him hard on the chin. So hard the ex-rugby player falls to the floor with a grunt.
‘She may be a cheap slut, but I’m paying what you baulked at, so she is my cheap slut now. You’d do well to remember that,’ Blake throws casually over his shoulder.
Rupert clutches his busted, bleeding lip and shows his fury to the only person he dares to. ‘You’re fired, Bloom,’ he shouts impotently.
Blake takes her arm and leads her out of that place. There is not a single person at that party that does not turn to watch them leave.
Five
Blake’s monster of a car, a gleaming sable-gray Aston Martin is parked beside a lamppost. It is one of those old-fashioned wrought-iron ones with a fluted surface. She stands on the curb and loops her hand around its rough, cold metal.
‘Get in,’ he says.
‘What if I’m sick in your car?’
‘My secretary will have it valeted.’
She nods and unhooks herself from the metal post. Is life really this easy? With those shoes and the drink in her it is impossible to get into the low-swung seat elegantly. Blake’s eyes are on her legs. She swings the last one in and shuts the door.
The interior of his car is plush and luxurious. It even smells expensive. She has never been in such a car. He has been listening to classical music. The sound system is excellent and superb music fills the car.
‘What is this music called?’
‘Handel’s Messiah,’ he says, and switches it off. He turns to her. In the light of the streetlamp he looked harsh and distant. In the softly lit darkness of his car there is still no softening to his face. Again the thought, a cold, cold man.
‘I have to be in New York tomorrow, but my secretary will call you and make all the necessary arrangements.’
She nods gratefully and looks away. It is as if she is in a dream.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Kilburn.’
‘Got a postcode?’ He sounds very American then.
She gives it to him and he sets his GPS system.
They drive in silence, until she can bear it no more. ‘Don’t you want to know how much?’
‘Yeah, tell me.’
She tells him and his eyes leave the road briefly to look at her. ‘What made you think Rupert was the man for the part?’
She shrugs in the dark. ‘I don’t know. I heard a rumor that his secretary was sometimes tasked with stuffing envelopes with ten thousand pounds in cash and booking expensive hotel rooms for him.’
‘I see,’ he says quietly.
‘Why me?’
They have come to a red light. His fingers tap at the steering wheel. Long, strong fingers. She stares at them. And thinks of the way they moved on her body. He turns to her. His eyes are edgy and dangerous, full of promise. ‘Do you want it flowery or straight.’
She bites her lip. ‘Straight.’
‘I wanted to fuck you senseless from the moment our eyes met.’
‘And the flowery version?’
‘Now I think about it, there is no flowery version. It is what it is.’
She turns to look at his profile. It is very stern and still. Has she jumped from the frying pan into the fire? Are all rich people secretly deviant in their sexual desires? ‘Does fucking me senseless involve any weird or kinky stuff?’
He glances at her. Again that expression that is beyond her comprehension. ‘No, but I want to be able to use you as often as I please in whatever manner I please for as long as I please.’
‘Oh!’ How strange, but his insulting words unleashes a lightning thrill of sexual excitement in her body. ‘I… How long were you thinking?’
‘I’ll decide tomorrow. But I imagine one month should do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Get me bored.’
‘And you are willing to pay a hundred thousand pounds for that?’
His lips twist into a wry smile. ‘When I made my offer I didn’t realize you had valued yourself that highly, but I’m not displeased that you did. Despite all protestations to the contrary, nobody really wants a bargain. They settle for it because they can’t afford better.’ He glances at her. ‘Cheap usually means get your guard up, you are being offered something undesirable.’
Lana thinks of her mother trawling the supermarket aisles looking for stuff that has been discounted because it is reaching the end of its sell by date. ‘I will require the money up front. So, how will we do this?’
‘My lawyer will draw up the appropriate contract for you to sign. Once you have done so the money will be in your account within minutes.’
‘What sort of a contract?’
‘A non-disclosure agreement.’
She nods. ‘I suppose rich people have to protect themselves.’
‘Yes,’ he replies shortly. An awkward silence follows. He seems preoccupied with his own thoughts. Lana turns her head—it has begun to throb—and looks out of the window. He is a fast driver and they are already on Edgware Road.
‘I’ll send someone around tomorrow at noon to take you to your workplace so you can collect your personal belongings.
‘It’s OK, I can go on my own.’
‘I’d feel happier if you were accompanied. Indulge me.’
She thinks for a moment. She doesn’t exactly relish the prospect of accidentally bumping into Rupert either. ‘Well, I only have an old pair of trainers there. I won’t bother to pick them up.’
‘As you wish.’
They arrive at the block of council flats where she lives. He looks around him in surprise. It is a horrible housing estate, what he considers the underbelly of the city. He has never been to such a poor area before.
‘You live here?’ He cannot hide his distaste.
‘Yes,’ she says simply.
He stops the car outside a two-story block of flats. ‘Which one is yours?’
She points to the last flat on the first floor, and says, ‘That’s me.’
He doesn’t switch off the engine but turns to her. ‘Give me your phone.’
She hands it to him.
He punches in some numbers and waits. When his phone rings, he ends the call. ‘I’ve got your number and you’ve got mine,’ he says and hands her phone back to her.
‘Thank you.’
‘Take a couple of aspirins and go to bed. Keep yourself free tomorrow. The entire day.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow evening.’
He watches her totter and wobble in her ridiculous shoes over to the cemented verge, gain the cracked concrete concourse, and go up an outer staircase while holding onto the metal railings. At the entrance to her home she turns back and flicks her wrist to indicate that she is safely home and that he need wait no more. He doesn’t respond. Simply sits there. Watching her. She shrugs and, sitting on the front step, takes off her shoes. With them in her hand she puts her key in the door.
It is only when Lana closes her front door and hears the powerful engine take off that she realizes neither man has wanted to know why she needs the money. The flat is lit only by the lights from the streetlamps. She walks barefoot into the kitchen and fumbles around in the darkness. She finds a tab of paracetamols, punches two out and sits at the kitchen table with a glass of water in a stunned daze. What a night it has been. She set out with an absurd idea and…
‘I’ve done it,’ she whispers amongst the familiar shadows, and grins. She thinks of the stone-like biceps and the hard slab of his stomach that her hands and body encountered. Then she touches her mouth. She can still feel his lips, his hands. She remembers how she lost control and totally forgot herself. And the unfamiliar too damn good sensation he caused in her body, between her legs. Is it a dream? It cannot be just her life.
Don’t be too happy yet. He could still change his mind.
She swallows the paracetamols and avoiding all the creaky areas tiptoes upstairs. The light is off in her mother’s room, so she quietly opens the door to look in on her sleeping form. But her mother is sitting on a chair by the window. She must have seen Lana come in.
‘What are you doing?’ Lana asks.
‘I heard you come in,’ her mother says softly.
‘Could you not sleep?’
‘No. I start my chemo on Monday. Just enjoying the feeling of well-being I guess.’
Lana crosses the room and kneels beside her mother. She is not wearing a scarf, and her bald head glints in the moonlight. It makes Lana sad. ‘I’ve got good news for you, Mum. Remember that clinic in America that I was telling you about.’
Her mother frowns. She is only fifty but the worry and pain make her appear haggard. ‘The one we can’t afford.’
‘Well, it’s not a hundred percent yet, but I think I’ve managed to raise the money.’
‘How? How did you do that?’ Her mother’s voice is suspicious and frightened.
‘I met a guy. A rich guy who just wants to help.’
‘A rich man who wants to help?’ Her mother’s tone is frankly disbelieving.
‘Mum, please don’t be like that. It’s not anything like you are thinking.’
‘Oh no? What is it like then?’
‘He’s just a nice guy who likes me.’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday, girl.’ Her mother’s skeletal fingers grip her hands. ‘You haven’t done anything you’ll regret, have you?’
‘I promise I haven’t. I just drank too much champagne,’ she puts her fingertip to her temples, ‘and my head’s pounding. I promise, I’ll tell you everything tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep.’ The last time she remembers lying to her mother was when she was nine and she had pretended she had brushed her teeth. Guilty and terrified of being discovered she had raced up the stairs to wet her toothbrush.
Her mother’s hands move up her arm urgently. She touches the tips of her fingers on the dark bruises on her daughter’s arm, while her worried eyes bore into Lana’s. ‘Where did these come from?’
‘That’s not him,’ Lana explains nervously.
‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions,’ her mother warns darkly.
‘I promise, I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, but it’s not what you think.’ Really it is worse, a little voice says. ‘All will be well, you wait and see,’ she says brightly and smiles. Her mother does not return her smile. Instead she gazes at her sadly.
‘Goodnight, Mum. I really love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Lana stumbles down the short corridor to her room. She makes it to the edge of her bed and drops the shoes clutched in her hands. Then like a tree that has been felled she falls onto the top of her bed and is almost instantly inside a deep, dreamless sleep.
