Pandora's Box (12 page)

A growl escaped his mouth, “Barbara!”

She embraced him tightly with her arm, her face pressed against his stomach, as her climax hit her with a final thrust of her fingers inside herself. “I love you, Ethan. I love you.”

Sunday, August 29
^th
, 2010.

7.41 a.m.

Barbara was sound asleep when Ethan left the room quietly.

Downstairs, he grabbed a glass of cold milk and a banana, informing the waiter that he would return later to have a proper breakfast.

The day was sunny and beautiful and the peace of the park seemed in agreement with his mood.

He didn’t know when he had decided to end the farce but he was glad he did it. It had taken a huge weight from his heart. Sophia was gone and it would do him no good to be thinking of her.

He elongated his calves and thighs muscles and was off for a run. The day before, he ate a three course meal plus champagne and red wine, which was unusual for him.

He palmed his flat stomach and shrugged. He was thirty-six years old and in fine shape. He had tried to coax Barbara to accompany him while running, but she said she didn’t like it, that she preferred yoga. As long as she stayed fit he didn’t care what she did.

He had only asked to be polite. He didn’t mind running alone. In fact, he liked it. It was when his thoughts were clearer and his mind at peace. He even had a treadmill at home and one in his office for when he felt the need to ease his mind from weird jumbled thoughts.

He loved coming to Esclimont castle with its stone bridges, turrets and façades enlivened with niches, balconies and sculptures. But what he loved most was the tranquilness the large expanses of woodland provided. He wished his grandfather had bought this castle instead of the one in Scotland, although he liked Altreck too, with its enormous golf course, its loch and its stories and legends.

Ethan was so distracted on his way back, he didn’t notice a couple who were almost blocking the stone bridge that lead to the castle reception.

He only stopped when a feminine hand gripped his arm and a velvet voice purred, “Ethan.”

No. Not here. Not today.
He could not make a scene.
Appearances, appearances. The damned appearances.
He turned, dismayed, and was rewarded with the faces of his stunning mother and his father.

His first thought was that they still made a beautiful couple although his father’s face had started to bear the brunt of his debased ways.

Discreetly, he shrugged his mother’s hand from his shoulder. “Calista. What are you doing here?”

George intervened, putting his arm around his wife. “Don’t talk to your mother like that. Didn’t your grandfather teach you any measure of politeness?”

Ethan pinned him with his azure eyes, so like Calista’s, and answered in an icy tone, “Yes,
he
did.”

But the arrow didn’t hit the mark. George and Calista were emotionless about their son. In fact, for them, Ethan had always been a nuisance. But not anymore.

“Ethan, my dear,” Calista said in a shocked voice, “we gave you much more than just manners. We gave you life. You owe everything to me.”

He snorted, rudely. “Then Calista you should have killed me before or as soon as I was born, because I will not thank you for my life.”
Never, ever.

Calista’s face crumbled and she gripped George’s arm to steady herself.

Do you think you fool me?
Ethan knew it was all pretense. “Why are you doing this, Calista? Were you following me?” He turned to George. “What do you really want?”

“I saw that your girlfriend got married,” Calista softly said.

And George complemented, “Not to you, of course. To Lord Ells, heir to a traditional and old dukedom and a great European fortune.”

“Are you so far in the dirt that you think Sophia would choose her husband based on his fortune or his status? She has much more than you could ever imagine. I’m wealthier than he is and she, she is wealthier than both of us. Your point in telling me this is?”

“No one seems to want you, Ethan. You’re thirty-six, almost thirty-seven and you’re still paying for your women.”

“Both of you are right on the edge of what I will allow from you,” said Ethan in a growl, crossing his arms over his sweaty T-shirt.

“Ethan, dear,
I
still want you.” Calista gripped his arm, her nails marking his skin.

“But
I
don’t,” he said firmly, feeling a different sort of sweat run down his back.
Ethan Ashford, don’t panic. There’s no need for panic. You’re out in the open.

He took a step back.

“Aaah, dear,” she mellowed at him, “that’s a pity because I’ll have a piece of you anyway.”

“I know you don’t want a scene, my son,” said George. “As your grandfather used to say, appearances count.”

“You can’t think of a way around me?” His voice had lost its firmness. He was losing his hard gained composure.

Calista smiled darkly, sensing the change. “Do you think I want to ask you anything? To be fucking refused again? But we need money. The crumbs that my father left me are almost all gone—”

“Because you spent a fortune on orgies and expensive trips for you and your partners, instead of saving a bit for old age.” He turned to George and bit out, “Or working for a change.”

“It should all be fucking mine, not yours.” Calista said between clenched teeth, anger barely showing on her surgically altered face. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

Ethan was more than used to his mother’s radical change of moods.

“So, the point is, Ethan, who is that woman with you?” she asked.

Jesus. What are they planning?
“A friend.”

“The one with contact lenses and raven hair. She is your ex’s twin,” George sneered.

“How did you meet her?” Ethan blanched.

Calista smiled maliciously. “I had a nice talk with her yesterday.”

“A-a talk?” Ethan stammered.
I don’t stammer anymore.

George, seeing the breach in his son’s wall, didn’t lose a moment to pounce and dive his claws to secure his share. “Unless you give us the money, let’s say a million pounds per year, for each, of course, we will divulge the photos we have taken this weekend.”

He felt little again. The fearful child and the abused teenager. “This week-weekend?”
Photos?

Calista smiled as her nails dug deeper in his arm. “Oh, what a lovely couple! When you arrived, you called her Sophia, but yesterday evening you were calling her Barbara.”

Her free hand pushed his sweaty bangs back. But it was not a caress; her nails racked his temples, dug in his scalp and nape as she stepped closer. “I wonder what you have been thinking.”

“Or under what name she is registered,” George finished.

Ethan heaved a breath and put a hand on her shoulder. “M-Mum, I’m not sure what I’ll do if you come closer. So step back and take your hands off me. P-Please.”

Calista leered at him and the tip of her tongue touched her upper lip. “
Mum
. I like that you remember I am your mother.”

She’s a snake.
Ethan was disgusted.

“One million to each one of us. It’s nothing for you. Oh, no? What a pity, then,” George paused dramatically when Ethan shook his head. “You know how the English tabloids are curious about rich people’s lives, don’t you? I don’t think Lady and Lord Ells would find it funny that you’re dating a woman who could be her sister.”

“I don’t trust you.” He frowned. He didn’t recognize the childish voice that had just said those words. He edged around his parents.

“In this case, you better.” Calista took her hands off him. “I’ll call your office when my schedule permits. You see, we are on our honeymoon again. With friends.”

George made his last point, “They are our witnesses, if we so wish.”

Ethan turned, trembling, heading to the hotel’s entrance, but he heard Calista asking, “By the way, my darling, is there anyone left that you didn’t buy or corrupt? Is there anyone you can still trust,
Aethon
?”

Hearing those last words, his pace faltered. He detested when she called him by that name. He knew that in ancient Greek it meant burning, blazing, shining; and that there were many characters in Greek and Roman mythology known as Aethon, mostly horses. It could have pleased him much if she had once used it as a praise, but she didn’t. Calista was uncultured and used it in a perversion of its mythological meaning, as she was fond of horses and their sexual intercourse.

Damned be appearances.
Ethan regretted stopping to talk to them. He tried to control his urge to run the last few paces to his room as he entered the hotel, but his control was lost the moment his mother touched him.

Instead of taking the elevator, he ran up the stairs, two at a time. Opening the door of his room, he went directly to the bathroom and banged its door. He took a deep breath.
Calm down. One, two—

He only had time to reach the toilet and throw up.

A great sob broke from his chest in the middle of the constant retching and he started to cry. He didn’t know exactly what he was crying for. Or for whom. The only thing Ethan wanted in that moment was a kind mother to hold him, a loving woman to kiss him. To make him feel loved.

Things he had never had in his whole life of wealthy coldness.

He closed his eyes at the resulting nausea as he flushed the toilet. A hopeless feeling rose from his gut to damage his heart and soul with its acid, putrid strength.

He spat in the toilet, sickened. He didn’t acknowledge any of the many issues inside him while with the back of his hands he dried his face as a child would do.

A brief knock on the door and his name being called by Barbara made him compose himself.
Grandpa had raised me to be my own man and a simple meeting with my abusive parents left me in this state? So what if I have no one left to trust? So what if I have to buy everyone’s affections?

“Barbara, we are going to Paris now. Please call Scott and pack.”

He heard her asking if everything was all right.

“Yes, I just changed my mind.” Grabbing his toothpaste and brush, he stepped into the shower to clean himself. He just wished he could clean his soul too.

When he was drying his hair and still sifting through all his friends’ and employees’ names and images, one came flashing through his head.

Sophia.

Sophia never sold her soul to me in spite of all the expensive dinners, clothes and jewelry I bought her.

The City, Fleet Street. Leibowitz Oil Building.

Monday, September 6
^th
, 2010.

10.19 a.m.

“Good morning, Sarah,” Sophia greeted her secretary with a wide smile. She looked around her office reception room and sighed happily. She had missed it.

Sarah jumped from her chair behind the table and greeted her back, “Good morning, Lady Ells.”

What?
Sophia lost track of the door code she was entering on her iPhone. She had never thought that someone so close to her would call her by the title. In fact, she liked to think of herself as Mrs. MacCraig.

“Sarah. I’m still the same Mrs. L that left this office a month ago. You can call me Mrs. M from now on.” A slow, mischievous smile spread on her face. “Better yet! Just M like on James Bond.”

A horrified look appeared on Sarah’s face.

Oh, my!
“Sarah, I’m joking. You can call me Mrs. M or Mrs. MacCraig. Whatever you want.”

“With your permission, Lady Ells, I will stick with the protocols. I have already ordered new cards for you, following Lord Ells’s pattern.”

Dear God! So old fashioned.
“Sarah.” Sophia stopped in front of her secretary. “I know the British are very self-conscious and proud about their monarchy and peerage. But I’m Brazilian. We have no such traditions.”

“But you still have your princes and princesses there,” Sarah reasoned. “And Cambridge has already updated your name and title.”

Are the students now going to call me Lady Ells, instead of Sophia?
Sophia swallowed an exasperated breath. “I have always loved the tender way you called me Mrs. L, so please let’s not change that. Besides, I’m only twenty-six. Let’s compromise here, Sarah,
I
prefer to stick with Mrs. M or Mrs. MacCraig at the office and at home. When you need to refer to me, you call me Lady Ells. Is that okay with you?”

“Yes, Mrs. M,” Sarah immediately agreed. “Should I keep the order for your new stationary?”

“Well, since it’s
protocol
, yes, you may. I’d like to revise my schedule with Edward, Zahira, Paul Evergreen and you. Please, let Zahira and Paul know I’m back and I’d like to meet them. Gabriela started at school today and I’ll be needed more at home.”
And Alistair Connor has asked for more attention.

“Yes, of course.” Sarah followed Sophia inside her office, informing her about things that happened during her honeymoon.

Just before she left, Sarah handed Sophia a beautifully crafted envelope with a thick invitation clipped to it. “Oh. I almost forgot. Mr. Ashford sent this for your approval and he asks if you are available for lunch the week after next.”

Oh, damn!
She sighed loudly and put the envelope away to read it later at home.

London, The City, Victoria Embankment.

The City of London Bank Headquarters.

Tuesday, September 7
^th
, 2010.

11.01 a.m.

Alistair stood at his office windows, his stare abstractedly fixed on the London skyline.

Behind him, piles of contracts, spreadsheets and graphics still begged for attention and littered his desk. He had a lot of unfinished businesses to deal with.

However, his mind was fixed on the invitation he had seen on Sophia’s desk at the home office the evening before with an okay written in red all over it. He had been so troubled that he had even started his therapy session that morning with the subject. Dr. Volk had reasoned that many married women kept their maiden names in business transactions. Or in Sophia’s case, her late husband’s surname.