Innocent in the Ivory Tower (13 page)

She didn’t want to be this woman. She didn’t want to be this way with Alexei. She wanted honest, and real, and for him to love her. The realisation flashed with neon clarity across her mind. She was in love with him.

She wanted him to love her as she loved him. Had loved him from the moment she tore the lining of his jacket and he had looked at her, really looked at her, and she had seen him and recognised in him something she needed very much.

And right now all the danger signs were flashing red.

The first night they were back in Ravello Alexei dreamt of St Petersburg.

He was eight years old and on the streets. He ran in a pack of kids, all of them living hand-to-mouth. He couldn’t remember his father, but he could still see his mother’s stunning face, cosmetically enhanced, bending in and blowing alcohol into his lungs. Promising she would return for him in a few days but never coming back.

He woke bathed in sweat, shaking. Blackness was all around him and he was alone.

Maisy woke to the sound of a shout. She sat up, no longer disorientated when she woke in the night to find herself in a vast bed. Falling asleep every night pinned by Alexei’s arm had made what was once so novel an integral part of her every day life.

Alexei was awake. It was too dark to see his face, but she could feel the startled reaction running through his big warm body. He’d had another one of those dreams. She reached out in the darkness and laid her hand on his chest. It was hot and hair-roughened and rose fast under her hand.

‘Are you okay?’ she whispered.

He rolled away, dislodging her hand and presenting the bulk of his back and shoulders to her.

Maisy was wide-awake now. She didn’t know what to do. The other time he’d woken in the night like this he had pretended to go back to sleep, but they both knew he had lain awake most of the night.

‘Alexei,’ she whispered, ‘talk to me.’

He made that grunting noise she recognized, which told her she could wrap her arms around him but not expect much
communication. So she did, lying down and wrapping her arms around his middle. Alexei sought her hands, knotting them with his and lashing her against him.

He could feel her breath against his back, the soft brush of her wayward hair, the sweet rub of her smooth calf over his. It soothed.

He said, half to himself, ‘Kostya will be all right.’

His voice was hoarse and Maisy was instantly on high alert. Something was very wrong.

‘Of course he will be.’ She spoke feelingly but she felt uncertain. A couple of weeks had passed now since Kostya had been told of his parents’ deaths. Alexei had been amazing with him, giving both her and Kostya the strong bulwark they both needed in those awful fragile days as the tiny child groped for security.

Maisy had broken her rule on those nights, having Kostya in bed with her to soothe his night terrors. Alexei had volunteered to take the other bed but Kostya had wanted his beloved Alessi too, and what Maisy had most feared had come to pass. They were a facsimile of a family, huddled together in this vast bed that had once seemed so alien and threatening but was now where all the happiest times of her life were spent.

‘I’ll protect him,’ Alexei asserted.

‘I know.’ She stroked his back.

He tried to clutch on to the human warmth of her touch, but he was being swamped by his own fears from the past and they were fast dragging him under. It coalesced the longer he lay there, beginning to tense under the feel of her touch. He had allowed her to get too close and he knew the terror he was feeling was a warning. She too would leave. It was inevitable one of them would abandon what they had. He had to reinstate proper distance. He could not allow his own fear or weakness to dislodge the grip he had on his emotions. He had to do it now.

Abruptly he shifted, dislodging Maisy’s hold, and reached up, flicking on the lamp.

‘I can’t protect him from you, can I?’

He watched her blinking blearily in the unexpected light, covering her eyes with her hands. Defenceless. But he needed to be brutal. She needed to hear this.

‘What are you talking about, Alexei?’

‘I’m talking about you leaving, Maisy. Because we both know there’s an end date.’

She stared back at him, appalled. A slow cold trickle of dread made its way down her spine.

‘Why are you attacking me?’ she whispered. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

Then he said the words she had been dreading in the darkest part of her soul. ‘I can’t do this any more, Maisy.’

A tiny, endlessly hopeful, naive part of her had imagined a future with him—one involving a white dress, a picket fence and babies. The things she’d longed for when she was a little girl and the world had been a much more black-and-white place. But she knew now that wasn’t going to happen. Not with this man.

Weeks of living with him, sleeping beside him, welcoming him into her body, and she understood she hadn’t really touched anything beyond his surface. These dreams she sensed were a gateway into whatever darkness was eating away at him, but even lying in bed with him, privy to their ragged effect on him, she was not invited inside.

‘I see.’ It was all she could think to say, although she didn’t see at all. But it was three o’clock in the morning and he was ripping her heart out and she hadn’t even seen it coming.

Although in retrospect the signs had all been there. Despite the travel, they had essentially been alone. She hadn’t minded a bit, because she’d had Alexei and Kostya, but it said volumes for where he saw her in his life. She remembered those photographs in the magazines, those women on his arm. That would never be her. He had never intended that to be her. She was like some sort of secret he kept.

Deep down she’d known this day was going to come. But it
made no sense—not at three o’clock, not just hours after she’d fallen asleep in his arms, her body still bearing the traces of his lovemaking. He couldn’t be tired of her yet. He was just shucking off the effects of his nightmare. If she stayed very still and very small he might just go back to sleep and forget about it. But she wasn’t that girl any more. She had changed. She had grown up.

She watched a deep breath shudder through him, and he said almost hopelessly, ‘Are you happy with me, Maisy?’

‘Yes.’
I’ve never been so happy. I’ve never felt so right in my whole life.

‘You never go anywhere. You never see anyone.’ He propped himself up against the headboard.

‘I see you,’ she said. ‘I see Kostya.’

He was trying to persuade her to leave.

‘We can’t keep this up. It’s starting to get on my nerves.’ He looked down at her. ‘We need to be with other people, out in the world, or this is never going to be normal.’

What on earth was he talking about? Maisy wanted to shake him, but she sensed half of this was about his pain and the strange hour and the stillness. If she kept quiet he might just say something revealing, something that would let her in just a fraction.

But she couldn’t help murmuring, ‘You want to see other people?’

‘Maybe you need a job,’ he said instead. ‘You need a life of your own.’

It hurt. ‘I have a job. I look after Kostya. I have a life.’

‘For how long?’ He turned his head and she was shocked by the tension bracketed around his mouth and eyes. He looked older, tired.

‘I think that rather depends on you.’ There—she’d said it.

‘If I had my way we’d never leave this bed.’

But his expression didn’t soften and he was done talking. She knew there would be no revelations tonight. She knew she should push, but his words were pounding in her head:
we can’t
keep this up; we need to be with other people; you need a life of your own.
And it all contained the same message:
you’re not enough any more
.

‘Can we go to sleep?’ She voiced the last thing she wanted to do.

He stretched across and the light went out. Maisy waited for him to reach for her, but he didn’t. He remained upright, sitting still and silent in the dark.

Rolling over, making herself as small and unobtrusive as possible, she stared into a bleak future without him and she too didn’t sleep.

‘There’s a boatload of people turning up at noon. I thought I’d put them on the yacht instead of dragging them through here, but there’s a small group who will be staying overnight. Do you think you can handle that?’

Alexei delivered this with the unconcern of a man who issued orders on a daily basis. It was just he had never issued an order to
her
, and Maisy didn’t quite know how to react.

He looked amazing this morning, in an olive-green polo shirt and tailored chinos, freshly shaven and no doubt smelling of tangy aftershave and male skin, but Maisy didn’t know because he hadn’t so much as bussed her cheek since their early-morning discussion.

Now he was springing this on her. People were coming? He hadn’t said a word.

‘I’m usually quite good with people,’ she ventured. They were eating breakfast in the dining room. Maisy never felt entirely comfortable, perched at the end of the long table. Alexei’s place was set beside hers, but he had managed to set his chair back and Maisy didn’t feel their usual morning connection, when he sat so close she could hook her foot around his ankle and rub up his calf. She wasn’t rubbing anything this morning.

‘I know. I’ve seen you in action. The staff love you.’ He sipped his espresso as if it held his attention. But Maisy wasn’t fooled. His highwire brain was on the job. ‘However, after
today it’ll be official. People will want to know who you are.’ He turned his head slowly, fixed her with those blue eyes. ‘What do I tell them?’

I’m your girlfriend
, Maisy wanted to scream at him.
I love you. I’ve loved you for every minute of every hour of every day since I laid eyes on those handmade Italian shoes. You’re everything to me. You bring the day and you hang the moon, you stupid idiot.

‘Tell them I’m Maisy Edmonds and I look after Kostya,’ she said, kicking back her chair, feeling furious with him and sick to death of herself. ‘And that when I’m done supervising his meals and making sure he gets enough sleep, I look after you.’

She made to stalk off, and it would have been a great exit, but he reached out and leashed her wrist, dragging her onto his lap. She sat stiff and affronted, refusing to look at him.

‘I’ll send a car for you at one. Carlo will come with you on the launch.’

‘I
hate
Carlo,’ she said with a passion, not sure why she’d chosen now to tell him.

‘What has he done?’ Alexei’s gaze sharpened on her.

‘He’s a pig. He thinks you’ve bought me. Ever since you gave me those stupid cards and that smart phone.’

‘I’ve never seen you use it once.’

‘I put it in a drawer. I don’t need it,’ she dismissed, annoyed they were talking about gadgets instead of what mattered: her and him, and where they stood. ‘I don’t need any of it.’

‘The money is there for you to spend,
dushka
. I want you to enjoy yourself.’

Maisy sighed heavily. He was never going to understand how she felt. ‘I’ve told you, Alexei, I don’t want your stupid money.’

He’d given her a bank account, but he’d never so much as given her a bunch of flowers. Everything was rising to the surface today, and now she had to face a host of strangers, and be introduced as what? Alexei’s latest accessory?

‘Can you be ready at one?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

He stroked the curve of her jaw, encouraging her to look at him.

‘I think I told you once before,
dushka
, you always have choices. You made one when you decided to be with me, and now I need you to abide by your choice a little longer.’ He dislodged her from his lap. ‘Off you go. And I’ve organised a little help for your dress.’

Maisy puzzled over this enigmatic statement until midmorning, when a stylist arrived at the house. She was sorting out Kostya’s washing when Maria let her know over the intercom, and she came down in jeans and a stained T-shirt, her hair pulled back in an elastic band.

The woman had clearly been paid a good deal of money, because she barely raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, but Maisy was whisked upstairs immediately. Apparently two hours was going to be pushing it to get her ready.

It was gruelling. She was plucked, waxed, polished, made up, brushed, stripped, and dipped into a hot pink silk and chiffon dress that fell from spaghetti straps from her shoulders, skimmed her breasts and flounced over her knees. She stepped into silver sandals. Her hair was elaborately plaited and pinned, tendrils artfully brimming around her made-up face. Her eyes looked like mysterious pools with all the kohl, and her mouth was as fresh as a pink rose.

Maisy could categorically say she had never felt beautiful in her life.

And she felt beautiful now.

‘Bellissima,’
murmured the stylist’s assistant.

Maisy blinked rapidly. Tears were going to ruin the effect of her eyes.

‘I’ve never had a client cry before,’ said the stylist, gently dabbing Maisy’s lashes.

Except she wasn’t emotional about the dress, the make-up,
the look; she was thinking that if Alexei saw her looking like this he might keep her a little longer, that she might stand a chance against his lifetime ingrained habit of treating women like expensive toys.

She didn’t want to end up like her smart phone. In a drawer, out of sight, out of mind. Redundant to needs and circumstances.

Maisy stayed below deck to protect her hair from the wind during the high speed trip in the motor launch to the floating palace that was called
Firebird
.

It was her first visit to the yacht, although Alexei had pointed it out to her with binoculars. He had casually commented he used it mainly for entertaining, and as he hadn’t been entertaining anyone but her there had been no need to go there.

Clearly her entertainment value was on the wane.

There was something about seeing the sleek lines of the yacht and experiencing its vast size up close that had Maisy once more thinking about what this opulence must do to someone’s sense of self. Yet for all his wealth Alexei was remarkably down to earth. It was a big part of why she had fallen in love with him.