Our Little Secret (7 page)

‘You must be Miss Henshaw,’ he says. A smile plays on his lips.

Who the hell else would I be?

‘Yes. Hi. I’m Sophie,’ I blurt, as he reaches me in the centre of the room. I shake his hand.

‘You’re making yourself at home already, I see.’

‘I’m so sorry. I . . . I . . . turned on the lights and I saw the picture and I couldn’t help coming in to see it and then—’

I try and explain, but my words stall on my lips as I find myself swallowed into his eyes. He’s not wearing glasses and he’s staring at me so intently, I feel suddenly naked. His eyes are an extraordinary shade of light green, with speckled brown bits in his irises. He seems entirely without shame as he stares at me and won’t let me look away. Heat rises in me. I know my throat has gone dry.

What can I tell him? I’m
jetéing
across his perfect parquet sprung floor because it’s the most space I’ve had to myself in my entire life? That something about this room – maybe this house – made me want to dance? That I’ve never been somewhere so clean, or perfect, or posh?

I can’t say any of that. It sounds too naff.

He breaks his stare suddenly and looks towards the painting.

‘It’s a beauty, isn’t it?’

His voice is deep. Not too accented. The way he says it makes me feel as if I’ve already proffered this opinion and he’s agreeing with me. The room, for him, is clearly about the painting, and not about me at all.

‘I’m interested that you were drawn to it. What do you like about it, Miss Henshaw?’

I’m still slightly out of breath. I stand next to him and face the painting. He smells incredible, I notice. A deep, musky, spicy scent that is overwhelmingly masculine. A proper grown-up man’s smell. Sexy. The kind of smell that speaks of a man with a fast car, expensive taste, oh yes, and a fuck-off great big oil painting of his beautiful wife.

‘I like, er . . . the, um, size?’ I offer. I cringe inwardly. I feel ridiculous for saying something so pathetic. The painting is clearly a masterpiece and must be worth a fortune. And this man – my new boss – is a world-renowned aficionado, for God’s sake. It has many other qualities, other than just its size, obviously. Both good and bad, I realize. Like, for example, that it’s a fairly inappropriate thing to hang in a house where young boys live. But they’ve grown up with an art-curator dad and a designer mother, I remind myself. Meaning that they’re probably totally used to it, right?

‘Ah, yes. You mean the way the proportions are all spot-on?’

‘Yeah. And the light,’ I hazard. He stares at me intently, waiting for more. This is a man who clearly doesn’t entertain small talk. I glance again at the picture, desperately trying to summon up the most intelligent remark I can. ‘And that sense that the artist has captured the essence of a woman. If that makes sense?’

‘It makes total sense,’ he says, and I know I’ve passed some sort of test. ‘It’s both brazen and vulnerable,’ he says. ‘Out there, and yet private. That’s what I like about it, too.’

‘Yeah, well, I like it that she looks comfortable in her own skin,’ I add, wondering whether it comes across as astute and flattering, or whether it’s too much.

‘And, of course she was pregnant at the time, making her curves even more sensual,’ he says wistfully. He says it as if it’s a fact, but it feels conspiratorial. Like we’re bitching about her behind her back, although, ironically, we’re looking at her front. ‘And she was then – and still is – so delightfully, as you say,
comfortable
in her own skin. She’s not a scrap of a girl, but a woman. But of course artists have known for centuries that those are the only real women to paint.’

I’m humbled by his passion both for his wife and for the art itself. I feel stupid, too. Because, standing next to the painting, I don’t feel anything like a real woman. And I suddenly want to be one very much.

‘I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know much about art,’ I tell him. The least I owe him is the truth.

‘Is that so? Then perhaps I will teach you,’ he says, smiling down at me. His eyes make me feel flustered and breathless.

He turns back and stares at the painting as if he’s drinking it in and, in the silence, I can’t help but sneak a peek at his profile. He really does have perfect skin. It’s all I can do not to touch his cheek, to check he’s real.

‘Are you hungry, Miss Henshaw?’ he asks. His eyes don’t leave the painting. He knows I’m staring at him.

14

A few minutes later, and I’m sitting at the kitchen bar. Through a glass section of the floor I can see the swimming pool below lit up in green. The staff who filled the kitchen earlier have all gone and it’s just him and me. I have no idea where his wife is and it somehow feels wrong to ask. If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me, I guess. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He’s making me feel like I need to be on the edge of my seat. I can’t stop staring at him.

Is it because I know he’s rich and successful, I wonder, that makes him have this aura? Tiff saw one of the Man. United footballers in a bar once, and she said that from the other side of the room you could tell he was famous, that he was wealthier than everyone else in the bar put together. But Edward Parker hasn’t just got status, or wealth, like a footballer. That’s obvious. No, he’s got something else that sets him apart. Something I can’t put my finger on. The magnetic thing that famous actors have.

I’m shocked by how good-looking he is. Not in a conventional way, but in a groomed, confident way. We were talking about the picture and how his wife is so comfortable in her skin, but he has the same thing, I now realize. Just the way his designer clothes fall around his body; his chunky designer watch and perfectly tanned hands. He could be a model. Seriously. He looks like the kind of guy they’d choose for a sexy older-man aftershave campaign, although he’s not poncy or effeminate. He looks like what he is . . . a real man.

And as I watch him, I realize that I’ve never actually met a proper real man before. Not up close, like this. I mean, there’s Dad, but he’s scruffy and skint and sad. And Scott is a boy, by comparison. There was Mr Walters, who I thought was a man at first, but then really didn’t turn out to be that manly at all. There have been men I’ve seen, on the peripheries of my life: Mum’s rich uncle John, who lives somewhere in Spain; Lance, the guy who owned the bar I used to waitress in – but that’s it. I’ve never actually chatted to someone who is, by the way he looks and the fact he’s in this house, a multimillionaire. It’s quite overwhelming.

The lights are low in the kitchen, making it feel warm and cosy, and there’s lilting jazz music from invisible speakers, which I guess must be either in the ceiling or walls. It’s hard to tell.

Edward has taken off his jacket and looks relaxed as he crouches nimbly by a drinks fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine.

Whilst I nervously jabber about my journey here and how much I loved the limo, I watch as he looks at the label appreciatively and then opens the bottle of wine with a corkscrew. The cork makes a satisfying pop.

He takes two large wine glasses, which are perfectly lined up, in a perfectly clean glass cupboard, and places one before me, his tanned fingers with their immaculately manicured nails delicate on its stem. He’s treating me like I’m his guest, not like he’s employing me. Like he’s serving me, and I’m somehow the special one.

He pours a little bit of wine in his own glass, then lifts it to his nose and smells it. He’s obviously a wine connoisseur and, once it has met with his approval, he pours some into my glass.

‘Taste it,’ he commands, standing back and looking at me. ‘Tell me what you think.’

I’m lost. Like just now with the painting, I’m so aware that he knows so much and I know nothing. I’m entirely out of my depth, but he really has made it sound like he wants to hear my opinion.

To be honest, I’m not a big wine fan. Dad drinks lager, so we’ve never drunk wine at home. Tiff’s mum gets in the occasional wine box, which we tuck into when we’re round there for a Chinese takeaway, but it always tastes tinny and sour.

I take a sip and roll it around my tongue. It’s light. Like nectar.

‘It’s delicious,’ I tell him, meaning it.

‘Good,’ he says, smiling. His face lights up when he smiles. ‘So, cheers – or what is it you say in England? Bottoms up,’ he says, holding his glass up to mine. We kiss the rims of our glasses and they chime pleasingly.

There’s a beat as our eyes connect. I feel like he’s looking right inside me. I’ve never met someone with such an intense stare. It’s like he has special powers or something, like he might be able to hypnotize me, just like that.

‘About the dancing thing,’ I say, brushing my hair behind my ear. ‘Just now. I’m so embarrassed.’

His eyes stay on mine.

‘I don’t usually – I mean, it’s very out of character for me to do that. It’s just that it’s such an amazing space, and I thought I was alone and I haven’t danced since Mum died . . .’ I try to explain. I don’t know where this confession comes from, or what it is about him that has made me want to be so open and honest. He’s my employer, for God’s sake, but suddenly I’m opening up to him about something I
never
talk about.

‘ . . . and you took a chance,’ he concludes. ‘Always do what you feel in your heart, even if it scares you. Isn’t that right?’

I stare at him, realizing that he’s just repeated back what I said in the interview, word-for-word.

So he watched the interview Mrs Gundred recorded then. Of course he would have, but I feel so exposed. He knows so much more about me than I know about him. Perhaps he senses my discomfort, because he smiles at me and his eyes are kind.

‘You never have to apologize to me for expressing yourself, Miss Henshaw,’ he says. He stares right into me again. ‘Never.’

I want to tell him to call me Sophie. But I can’t. I’m still trapped in his gaze. And I know at that moment that this man is going to change my life. That something in me has shifted and the world suddenly has a different focus.

15

When it happens, it happens fast, taking me totally by surprise.

In two steps, he strides towards me across the kitchen and cups my face, brushing the hair away from it and, without saying anything at all, dips his head towards me and kisses me, like I’ve asked him to. Like this has been agreed between us.

And I think:
Yes. Of course.
It’s shocking, yes. Exciting . . . absolutely, but above all it feels, well,
obvious
. Because this was going to happen, from the first second I saw him.

It’s as if he’s entranced me. Taken all my power.

I’m shaking, but his hand is on the back of my neck, his lips firm and confident against mine. I open my mouth and his tongue flits against mine, sending a shimmer of butterflies dancing through me. A deep, sexual moan escapes from somewhere deep inside me. Somewhere I never knew existed.

He lifts me off the kitchen stool, like I’m a feather, and I hitch my legs around his waist and our kiss is deeper now. Like I can’t kiss him hard enough. My mouth is open, biting, gasping, my hair falling around us.

We’re moving fast, but I’m floating, borne by his strong embrace. I can’t even think about what it means, but can only feel that I’m connected to him, that a force stronger than I can resist is pinning me against him.

He slides me back onto the breakfast counter. In a moment, he’s hitched down my jeans and knickers, and he throws them with careless abandon on the floor. He stares at my nakedness, pulling my legs apart, his eyes glittering.

And I want it. I want to be bared to him like this. His thumbs start caressing my inner thighs. It’s excruciating in its intensity.

I grab his hair, gasping, crying out, in exquisite pleasure, as he kisses me again, and then he bends down and buries his face between my legs. His tongue finds me – like he’s always known which place to press, which way to flick. Like he knows me intimately already. Has always known me. I don’t want it to stop. I can’t help myself stop the soaring feeling that builds now . . .

The banging gets louder.

I wrench away from my dream and wake up. My heart is thumping. The intense sexual fantasy I’ve been having in my sleep dissipates and dissolves slowly. I try and grab onto it, but it’s a cloud on a hot day.

I sit up and wobble from side to side in the bed. Bright daylight spills through the curtain.

My pulse is slowing, but beneath my pyjama bottoms I’m throbbing. And now a sense of horror and shame burns within me, as I hear the knocking at my bedroom door again.

My thighs are heavy with the beat of blood as I clamber out of bed and lurch towards the door, the heel of my hand over one eye, which refuses to open – mainly because it’s glued together with mascara. I didn’t take off my make-up last night, I remember.

Oh God. How drunk was I? We had . . . oh God, two bottles of wine. Was it two?

I open the door, expecting to see Gundred, but it’s him.

Edward Parker. My boss.

Him
.

He looks immaculate in an artfully crumpled black suit and light-blue T-shirt. He has designer shades pushed up in his hair. He smiles at me when he sees me, his eyebrow arching up in question. His teeth are perfect.

‘Hey,’ he says, softly, with a gentle laugh. ‘You’re difficult to wake up.’

I’ve just been dreaming about him, and seeing him up close brings it all back so vividly, I can feel my cheeks pulsing. Can he tell? Does he know what my subconscious has been doing with him all night?

Jesus!

‘I trust you slept well?’ He’s staring at me again and I can barely breathe. He looks amused. Like he’s indulging himself in seeing me like this. I get a waft of his glorious aftershave.

I nod, hurriedly banning any thought of the dream from my mind, and instead forcing myself to piece together the events of last night. How he made me taste all the wines so that he could show me the difference between them, how he cooked me fresh gnocchi and truffle oil, which was so delicious I wanted to bury my head in the plate. How I told him everything – all about my family and Tiff – and how he listened like it was the most fascinating life he’d ever heard about. Only it wasn’t. Isn’t. Couldn’t possibly be . . .