Exposed (3 page)

‘
Tom will drop you off,’ I insist.

‘
Fuck you,’ she snaps suddenly.  ‘Our contract doesn’t start until tomorrow.  So today I’ll decide my mode of transport.’  She swings away from me.

My hand shoots out and grasps her wrist.  ‘I will pick you up and put you in that car if necessary.  You decide.’

‘
Oh, yeah?  And I’ll call the police.’

I laugh.  ‘After everything I’ve told you about the system—that’s your answer?’

She sags.  All the fight gone out of her.  ‘Of course, who will believe me if I claim that a Barrington tried to force me to take a lift?’  She resorts to begging.  ‘Please, Blake.’

This one is non-negotiable.  There is no way that she is taking the bus.  I know how to stop her in her tracks.  ‘Very well, Tom will go with you on the bus.’

At that point she stops arguing, simply turns around, opens the car door, gets in, slams it shut, and stares straight ahead.

Tom turns around and says something to her and she answers as the vehicle pulls away.

I stand on the sidewalk looking at the car, willing her to turn and look back.  Now, Lana, now.  If she turns before the car disappears out of sight it will all be all right.  Turn, Lana.  Please turn back.  Turn back and look at me.  As the car turns at the traffic light she twists her neck and looks at me.  Her face is white and expressionless.  But inside me wild joy surges.  I want to punch the air.  Never have I experienced such a strong current of emotion in my body.

Then the oddest thing happens.

Perhaps it is the churn of high emotions that I almost never allow myself to indulge in, or perhaps it is the shock of seeing her again, but I am no longer standing on Kilburn High Street with badly dressed strangers shuffling around me.

I am five years old and alone and terrified in a room lit only by a naked light blub.  I look down at my hands and they are covered in blood.  My shirt, my shorts, my legs, even the floor around me has turned red.  The blood is not fresh: my fingers are stuck to the knife.  The knife is not mine.  The blood is not mine.  I rip the knife from my hand and let it clatter on the floor noisily.  I pull my eyes away from the glinting blade, and thought I don’t want to, I let them travel along the cement floor.  Until…

I come upon what I have done.

I did that!

No.  It cannot be.

I open my mouth and scream for my Mommy, but no sound will come out.  I scream and scream, but no one comes.  No one can hear me.

No one.

 
POV

Forty 2 Days  

I paused at the bathroom door, shocked.

She was laughing, I mean really laughing, the way I had never seen her do while with me.  The laughter was like a fountain of fresh, sweet water bubbling up from deep inside her being.  I stared at her as if I was a man who had been wandering in a desert for days without food or water.

I don’t know how long I stood there simply staring.  At the sight of water.  So near and yet so far away.  You’re no better than a heroin addict desperate for his next fix, a voice inside my head taunted.  But at that moment there was nothing, nothing I wanted more than to take her in my arms and never ever let her go again.

What was it about this woman that made her impossible to resist even when it was patently clear I shouldn’t trust her further than I could throw her?  Slowly, as if in a dream, I was drawn to the centre of her attention—to the shrieking, splashing, lustily laughing baby.  It was obvious.

She loved that little creature.

Instantly, I was jealous of it, of the love she had for it.  The jealousy didn’t strike me like a bolt, more like weevils crawling all over me.  The feeling disgusted me.  I didn’t want to be jealous of a fucking baby.  I wanted to hate her guts.  A small sound came from my throat.

I didn’t plan it: it was involuntary.

Her head whirled around, and right before my eyes, quite interesting really, I watched her withdraw, build a wall around herself.  And I had to stop myself from laughing in her face.  She knew me so little.  Did she really think I was going to hit that wall, and just stop?  No wall could keep me out.  I would scale it, brick by fucking brick.  Nothing, no one could keep me out.

Until I said so she was mine.  To do with as I pleased.

‘
Hi,’ she fluttered, nervous, very nervous.  And so she should be.  A secret thrill fizzled in my veins.  I wanted to throttle her.  Little bitch.  How dare she love the kid and not me?

‘
Who do we have here?’ I said softly, going into the room.

I looked into the child’s big, blue eyes; solemn, curious, unafraid, and suddenly, that disassociated, unreal feeling I hadn’t felt since I was child drifted in.  My mind didn’t say, ‘who are you?’  It said, ‘who am I?’  I felt like one of those turtles in Asia that have had their throats slit while still alive and I was bleeding out to make a blood cocktail for some demented human.

Something was wrong with the picture I was looking at.  My mind began to race.  The baby grinned toothlessly, and in that instant, I understood everything.  The slit in my throat healed itself.  The incessant feeling of being empty and lost receded.

That was
my son
in my tub.  And that was
my
woman standing beside him.

In that same moment of illumination I felt the danger.  It was in the room standing beside me, like an invisible shadow.  But by the time I turned to look at her, my eyes were neutral, betraying nothing.  We looked at each other.

I saw the fear, but I also saw the love in her eyes.  How could I have missed it?  I felt rage, murderous rage at what had been done to her, us, but also wild and leaping joy that she loved me.  That she was pure.  She had acted as a mother.  Only as a mother.  I wanted to grab her and kiss her.

‘
Does he cry a lot?’ I asked finally, my voice so even and normal even I was impressed.

‘
No.  Most nights he will sleep right through,’ she assured quickly.

I saw the relief in her face.  I marveled at that.  She must think me a fool.  It would work in my favor.

‘
Good,’ I said with a nod, and as if losing interest, I turned away and went out.

My legs took me to the dining room.  I closed the door, leaned back against it, and closed my eyes.  When I opened my eyes I knew what I must do.  I knew too that this apartment was no longer safe for my family, but moving them would alert him.  The only thing in my favor was stealth.  As long as he thought I didn’t know I could lay my plans.  Otherwise, he would win.  He had nothing to lose, and I everything.  I picked up the phone and called a business associate.  I talked business for twelve minutes.  My voice betrayed nothing.

I opened my briefcase.  Took some papers out.  Looked them over carefully.  Made notes on them.  Left messages for Laura to action on in the morning.  But all the time the best and most efficient part of me was coldly, meticulously planning the future.  Hours later, I went into the bedroom.  I knew he was listening and watching.  Let him listen.  Let him watch.  He would hear and see nothing different.   I closed the door softly.  She was already in bed, and by the sound of her even breathing, asleep.

Quietly, I stepped through the connecting door that had been left ajar.  A sliver of light came in from the door leading into the corridor.  I walked up to the cot and stood over him.   I was surprised at the rush of pride that coursed through my body at the sight of his sleeping body.  I stood in the dark and fought the intense longing to feel the texture of his skin.  I clenched my fists.

Soon, soon I would claim him as mine, but not now.

Tomorrow, when it wouldn’t appear ‘strange’ I would touch him.  I listened to my body, to the whisper of the purest emotion I had ever experienced.  To love without expecting anything in return.  With it came the instinct to protect what was mine.  They will not do to him what they did me and Marcus.   Without another glance at him l left as quietly as I had entered.

I sat next to her and she opened her eyes sleepily.  My beauty.  I loved her more than life itself.  I would kill with my bare hands for her.  I bent my head and kissed her.  The kiss was gentle and soft.  She came awake and opened her mouth.  The kiss deepened.  That raw hunger between us throbbed into life.

So: he wanted to watch me with my woman.  Let him.  Watch while you can, Daddy.  I know what you are capable of, but you don’t know what I am capable of.  I slid my hand down her silky body and tugged at the rim of her knickers.  I laid my fingers flat between her legs.  Dampness seeped out from under the material.

‘
You are so wet,’ I whispered, and inserted a finger into her.

She tensed.

Immediately I stilled.  ‘What’s the matter?’

‘
Nothing,’ she mumbled.  I put my hand out and flicked on the light switch.  She blinked and squinted.

I lifted her gown up and turned her over.  What I saw cut me to shreds.  I wanted to cry.  I did that to her!

POV

The Billionaire Banker

The brute had her pinned against a wall, his big body completely hiding her from my view.  Must have only been minutes, but it was like a lifetime watching that broad back and thick neck.  I had to fight the instinct to go over.  Break them up.  But I am a strategist, a man who knows when to pounce, how to exploit an opportunity.  Not yet.  Soon.  Lose a battle to win the war.  So I clenched my teeth and waited.

 
A woman came and wrapped herself around me. She laid her perfectly manicured red fingernails on the lapels of my jacket and smiled slyly.  I glanced down at her and shuddered.  I hate it when women I don’t fancy throw themselves at me.  At that precise moment Lothian moved his thick body away and I saw Lana. Flattened against the wall, her face white, mascara streaking down her face, and her lips already beginning to swell.

 
Our eyes met.

 
Fuck me, I looked into her shocked, defenceless eyes, and I did not feel lust!  I did not want to take and use and discard as I had done with all the others.  The only thing I registered in my body was the unfamiliar need to protect.  Not myself but her.  That same sensation I had experience once a long time ago as a young boy, when I had come across an injured baby bird that had fallen out of its nest.  I had scooped it in my cupped hands and warmed it inside my jacket.  Taking it home I had made a nest for it and fed it warmed, sweet tea.  After it died that evening, I never again experienced that sensation. Until now.

 
Stunned by my own reaction I watched as she ran out of the room in her ridiculous shoes.  And the dirty looks she got.  You should have seen them.  You’d have thought she stank of
their
bullshit.  I despised my kind then.

 
In the corridor I saw her lurch unsteadily towards the powder room.  

 
Less than a minute later I removed the red fingernails from my person, made my excuses and went to wait for her in the corridor.  What the fuck was I doing?  But the rational, thinking Blake had gone numb.  And another part, a secret part of me that I never let out, that I refused to even acknowledge, had come out and taken over.  I crossed my arms and lounged against the wall.

 
When she came out, I almost did not recognise her.  Underneath the layer of badly applied make-up she had the face of a schoolgirl.  Hell, she better not be under-aged.  That would be all my plans down the toilet.  I straightened and waited for her to come up to me.  She was no longer crying.  Her head was held high and those indescribably turquoise eyes were proud and flashing, and she would have walked right past me too, if I had not raised a detaining finger.

Q
:  What were you thinking or feeling when you approached Rupert Lothian’s table where Lana was seated?

A:  
Probably confidence.  The plan was simple, guaranteed to succeed:  When dealing with a psychopath always appeal to the narcissist in them.  It doesn’t work with sociopaths; they are a different species all together, but it never fails to fell the psychopath. Invite one to a party of his superiors and he will drop whatever plans he has to pander to his need to feel important.  

Obviously, once I got him and the girl at the party I would play it by ear. There has not been a woman yet that I wanted that I have not had, so I was pretty certain I was going to bed that girl.  

However, what I heard as I walked to the table made me smile.  It wasn’t just going to easy.  It was the proverbial candy from a baby scenario.

Q:  Why were you so determined to bid for Lana?

A:
I told myself it was just sex, but
I should have known even then.  Who was I kidding? Just sex?  With her?  That would
never
be enough.  Some part of me must have recognised that this girl
was
the siren, the temptress that my father had warned me about.  The one specially chosen to bring me to my knees.  But at that moment I was the moth flying helplessly towards the flame. I guess, I just wanted her light, more than I wanted anything else...  

Q:  What went through your mind during that first kiss with Lana?

A:  
Did you just ask me what went through my mind during that first kiss?

Q: Yes.  Some readers expressed an interest in your thoughts?

A
: Chuckles…Thoughts?  My mind was blank.  I’d never kissed any girl who made me respond the way her lips and body did. I had to struggle to stay normal.