‘You really are a dirty girl, aren’t you?’ he says, a tender and probably unintended inflection in his voice.
‘Mmmm,’ I moan sweetly, but already I can feel him mentally withdrawing from me.
He moves away and comes back with my dress, then helps me up and even zips me into my dress.
‘That really was fucking something, but I’ve got work to do,’ he says, picking his pants up from the floor and zipping them up. ‘So I’ll say goodnight now.’
‘Good night, Zane,’ I say politely, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so knotted up with hurt.
‘Sleep well.’
We are like two strangers. I walk out of his study and vow there and then that I will never trust him again. No matter how nice he is, or how desperate he seems to have sex with me. It is just that. Sex. Did I make a mistake? I behaved like a slut and he treated me like a slut.
When all is said and done, there is nothing left.
Nineteen
Dahlia Fury
Unless I fall into bed in a drunken stupor I am usually a very light sleeper, and the least noise will wake me. I don’t know what, but a noise filters through my sleep.
My eyes fly open.
The room is lit only by the bluish glow from the nightlight that I plugged into the wall just outside the bathroom. I listen intently and I hear it again. Footsteps. Someone is coming up the stairs. Someone is standing outside my door. For a few seconds whoever it is just stands there. Then the door opens.
It’s him!
I quickly shut my eyes and pretend to be in a deep sleep. From the slits of my eyes I see him advance towards the bed. He stands over me and looks down. It’s extremely difficult to fake sleep and breathe evenly and deeply when every damn cell and nerve in my body is screaming for me to switch on the light and invite him into my bed, but the memory of how coldly he dismissed me earlier is still raw and bleeding.
What seems like forever passes before he bends down and quietly leaves something on the bedside table. He turns and walks back to the door. He is more than halfway across the room when something makes him stop and come back.
For a few heart stopping moments he does nothing, just stands there barely breathing. Then he grasps the duvet and gently pulls it up over my chest and lets it fall softly down on my body. He straightens, walks to the door and closes it soundlessly behind him.
Hell! What was that all about?
I am so shocked I don’t move even after I hear his footsteps go back down to the lower floor. Eventually, I switch on the bedside lamp. There is an envelope on the bedside table. I tear it open and out falls a gold card with my name on it, a letter with my new pin number, and another letter advising me of my credit limit.
My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets.
£10,000.00!!
Well, well. You want me to spend your money so you feel better about your behavior?
Consider it done.
I skip breakfast the next morning because I really can’t face the cold omelet, the pink, raw-looking sausages, or the semolina pudding again. I just go down for a cup of coffee and work steadily until lunch.
By then I am starving. I eat a lot of rye bread with a man-size plate of beef stroganoff, and wash it all down with Russian apple pie. More stodgy than the American version, but good nevertheless.
At two o’clock Noah and I come down the steps and a grey Audi drives up and stops in front of us. Noah opens the back door for me and I get in. He closes the door and sits in the front passenger seat.
‘Can we stop at Harvey Nichols for like an hour? I need to buy something,’ I tell Noah.
He nods and gives the driver his instructions in Russian. Twenty minutes later the driver drops us off outside the department store and Noah and I enter it. We take the lift to the men’s department. When we get there I ask a sales assistant where I can find leather jackets to fit Noah.
Noah frowns. ‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re getting you a brown leather jacket.’
‘Me?’ he asks, jerking his head back in surprise.
‘Yeah, you.’
He narrows his eyes suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘I know you’re part of Zane’s bodyguard/security personnel, but you don’t have to look like one all the time.’
Noah scratches the back of his neck in a touchingly bewildered way, and I take the opportunity to grab his huge forearm and start walking him towards the area the woman pointed out to us. Once there I ask another assistant to show us some brown leather jackets for Noah. While she runs a practiced eye over him he clears his throat uncomfortably.