Pandora's Box (3 page)

Even though he was not fully sexually abused, each time his mother or father mistreated him as a child, verbally or physically, a new Ethan Ashford was born. He was each one of them, a mix of them and none at all. He was resilient but no child or adult escaped such a mistreatment unscathed.

Ethan’s emotional state and spiritual being had been so severed, so many times that he didn’t know how to deal with many of the normal feelings, such as jealousy, anger and even love, without receding to his dark, warm room, where he loved and hated himself equally. 

The fact that Ethan in all those years, hadn’t had an acute psychiatric crisis was only because he kept others away, which had not helped much either.

When he let Sophia in, she, unintentionally, had opened up Ethan’s heart, pushing him to walk on the edge of a precipice alone.

For her, Ethan would do everything. Anything.

10.55 a.m.

Paola stepped out of her shower, wondering why a man like Ethan would pay to have her for himself and not take advantage of her body. She removed the towel from her head and her dry long brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and breasts.

She looked critically at her body in the mirror as she dried herself. She knew she had a stunning figure and a ravishing face, a ton-sur-ton colorful figure: huge chocolate-brown eyes and up-turned nose and a heart-shaped red mouth on creamy, flawless skin framed by shiny dark-brown long hair that ended in natural large curls. She was as tall as most men she knew and that didn’t bother her in the least. On the contrary, she liked the advantage of looking at men eye-to-eye.

Paola didn’t understand that complex man. Rich as Croesus, handsome as Apollo, he was weird and lonely. She would dare say that sometimes he was creepy with his detachment.

She didn’t know him that well, but the few times she had been with him he had showed a variability and depth of moods that seemed peculiar to her.

She was almost sure that he was afraid of letting people know him better and she thought that that could be the only reason why he avoided sleeping with her, because as her mother had told her so many times, no man could resist her.

Paola didn’t really care. As long as he paid her expensive fees, continued helping her career and giving her those marvelous jewels, he could sleep wherever he wanted. 

11.13 a.m.

As she chose her clothes for the day, Barbara planned ways she could seduce Ethan. She was tired of being the receptacle of his sperm without having his love. With care, she picked up a black-and-silver Made by Niki lingerie that was his favorite and paired it with an outfit she had seen Sophia using: black flared trousers with a white short-sleeved T-shirt and a red jeans fitted jacket. It didn’t fit her as well as Sophia because of her larger breasts and narrower hips, but she wanted to please Ethan.

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” She walked back in the room, talking out loud with herself. “Perhaps if I stop hiding my—”

She sucked in her words as Paola knocked on the door and called Ethan’s name, demanding entrance.

Barbara froze in the middle of the room, her heart beating loudly in her ears, as she couldn’t remember if Imelda, Ethan’s housekeeper, had locked the door or not after leaving with her breakfast tray.

She saw the door knob go down and up again and breathed relieved as Paola knocked again. Barbara approached the door quietly and put her ear against the wood, trying to hear if Paola was leaving or not.

When she heard the feminine footsteps echoing on the wooden stairs, she crumpled to the floor.

She didn’t want to think of what Ethan would have done to her if she had let Paola discover her.

The thought struck her as a punch in the guts and it made her whimper.

She was even more determined to change her status as the ghost of Ethan’s life.

Chapter 2

11.26 a.m.

When Paola stepped into the enormous and luxuriously furbished library room, Ethan was quietly reading and drinking a glass of Porto.

She frowned. She was sure he was in his bedroom or that at least someone else was there. She had heard sounds of a blow drier when she had returned from her work-out session. As she had knocked and no one answered, she went to her bedroom on the other side of the long corridor. And she heard voices again before she came down.

Ethan glanced up when he heard her heeled steps. He placed his bookmark in the book and closed it.

As he gestured for her to sit beside him on the sofa, he forced a smile and asked, “Good work-out?”

She perched on the edge of the sofa and pouted. “Why didn’t you go to the gym? I was waiting for you, baby.”

I was reading, can’t you see?
He lifted Fernando Pessoa’s book, as if it explained everything. He didn’t feel like talking, much less explaining to her why he had chosen that book. He was feeling lonely, depressed and unusually angry. As Paola raised her brows, he quoted, “‘
I don’t know what I feel or what I want to feel.
’”

“Huh?” She looked at him, dumbfounded.

He shook his head inwardly and explained, “This is a passage from the book. I wanted to revisit this very interesting book from a Portuguese author I read a few years ago.”
I’ll never get enough of it. He makes me feel so understood.

“Hmm,” she hummed nonchalantly, not exactly interested in the book. “I thought you were in your room. I heard sounds there. I knocked but no one answered.”

Jesus!
Ethan controlled his facial expression and replied, “Maybe it was one of Altreck’s ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” she squealed.

Ethan smiled. He had found the perfect excuse. “Altreck Caisteal is said to be haunted by two ghosts, the... Hmm... The eldest one is called Laird Grey. He was a tall, very handsome, dark-haired man, who dressed only in gray vests. He was the first laird of this castle. He was said to be such a cruel lover that he drove his women insane. He was barbarically killed by his last wife when he was sleeping in that very bedroom.”

“Oh, my God!” Paola shuddered. “Ghosts frighten me.”

He laughed out loud. “Really?”

Her eyes sparkled. “What about the second ghost?”

“You are afraid of them but you want to know?” He laughed again as she bobbed her head. “Well, the second one is of a young, beautiful teenage girl. She was the only daughter to the greedy and ambitious last laird, who drowned herself to escape her marriage to the devil.” Paola’s gaze was fixed in him. Amused by her interest, he continued, “The castle wall and the army had been destroyed in a battle. The laird, wanting more land and power, went to the clan’s witch. To ensure he would get what he wanted, they procured the help of Clootie.”

“Clootie?” Paola asked, intrigued.

“Clootie is a Scottish name for the devil. In payment, the laird betrothed his first daughter to the devil. Eimhir, his only child, was born and raised secluded in a tower by the devil’s order. No one could visit the girl, but him, disguised as her twin, so she was kept a virgin and could never escape her fate. Until the eve of her fifteenth birthday.”

“God, Ethan. What a horrible story!”

Ethan rolled his eyes at himself. “When the devil, as himself, visited the girl to announce that they were going to marry at midnight, Eimhir despaired. Now…” His voice boomed and he paused for effect, suppressing a smile as Paola’s eyes rounded.

She raised her palms up. “If there’s rape or human sacrifice, I don’t want to know.”

There’s always human sacrifice, silly. Nowadays, they are less bloody.
“There are two ends to the story. One says that the girl threw herself from one of the towers and died. The other, still whispered amongst the locals, tells that she succeeded in breaking one of the bars in the dungeon and escaped through one of the underground tunnels, swimming in the loch’s water, to hide in one of the caverns, making herself a new home beneath the water’s surface. She is said to be the elusive mermaid of Assynt. When the loch’s waters rise above its normal level, flooding the underground tunnels and isolating the castle, the locals say that Eimhir is mourning her lost life on land. Some even claim to have seen her weeping on the rocks, her legs now a beautiful tail.”

“What did the devil do when he found she was gone?”

What do you think? Sacrifice!
“Infuriated, he ordered Chaos to devastate the laird, his kingdom and his people. His rage was so great that it produced a strong rumbling that reached the surface right from hell’s core.” His eyes bore down on hers. “So, you see, Paola, never, ever, strike a bargain with the devil if you’re not ready to fulfill your part. One way or another, he will demand his payment.”

Paola shuddered at the strange way Ethan’s voice echoed in the library. Ignoring the clear warning, she said, “I find these phenomena amazing.”

“Really? Maybe the devil would take you in Eimhir’s place.” He teased her. “Or haven’t you wondered what Grey did to deserve such a death? Would you like him to take you to his dungeon, and perhaps have sex with you, hmm… chained to the wall? After, of course, a spanking and a whipping for being so curious.”

“Oh, Ethan! You’re mean.” She pouted as if shocked but there was a strange light in her eyes. “I’ve always wanted to see a nice, gentle ghost.”

A nice, gentle ghost? How about a vampire and a werewolf too?
Ethan smiled briefly at the immaturity of the young woman. “The legends are mythical explanations for what we don’t understand. Simple as that.”

“I’d love to see where Laird Grey’s supposedly had his women. Take me to your dungeon?”

“Of course. Let me just warn you. This is not a legend. Laird Grey McKintoch was the first ruler of this land and had many wives. He was said to be the spawn of the devil and his sexual tastes drove all the women he ever had to their deaths, by violence or madness. Until the last one, who bore his only son, his presumptive heir. Knowing his preferences, his sister-in-law took the boy away. The following night, his wife barbarically killed him before killing herself. Again, no phenomenon. He is said to be cursed to haunt the castle so no one repeats his barbaric acts.”
The devil is inside ourselves.

London, Park Lane.

Ethan Ashford’s Penthouse, In Scott’s Office.

Friday, August 20
^th
, 2010.

7 p.m.

“I walk on eggshells around him. I can’t talk to anybody else about this...
relationship
. Sometimes, I even doubt my judgment and sanity,” Barbara admitted in anguish. “He’ll never see me as more than a whore! Because that’s what I am to him. A whore that he pays to satisfy his torments and his sexual needs.”

Scott settled back in his chair and looked at Barbara silently. There was nothing he could say because he knew Ethan saw her exactly like that. Rather, that Ethan didn’t see Barbara at all. She didn’t have a chance to conquer Ethan’s heart.

“I shouldn’t have accepted this job. Maybe if Ethan had met me—” She stopped because she realized it was almost impossible for her to have met him in a normal way. They belonged to different worlds. Her eyes filled with tears. “I wish I didn’t need to pay for my father’s gambling debts. I wish— I’m such a fool. I feel trapped and powerless. I should never have accepted this job.”

Scott dismissed her words with a wave of one thin hand. “No, no, Sophia. You did right. When one’s family is endangered, there is no rule that cannot be broken. In your place, I would have done the same.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “Have you ever whored yourself?”

He cleared his throat. “No, no. Well, perhaps not exactly the same… but I’ve done many things I am not proud of.”

“Oh, Scott! I wish he loved me just a bit. I lost him to that—”

“You never had him.” Scott interrupted. “In a strange way, it’s always been Sophia. Never you.”

Anger poured through her at the truth of his words. A daring idea struck her. “I could get pregnant—”

“Don’t you dare!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Ashford doesn’t like children.” Scott raised a hand, silencing Barbara. “Listen to me. You know that Lady Ells has a daughter, Gabriela. Mr. Ashford never liked the girl. Not because she is a brat, no. I met her once. She’s a dear girl but Mr. Ashford disliked her immensely. I never understood why, and I guess it has something to do with his parents. He feels uncomfortable around children and gets very nervous and agitated when someone talks about his parents. Anyway, he doesn’t like kids, so get that idea out of your head.”

“Mark my words, Scott. I will have him. Even if it’s just a piece,” she avowed. “I’ll do anything to have him. I’d rather die than live without his love. Or I’d prefer to see him dead than with another woman. There is no possibility for us to be apart.”

Scott frowned at the intensity of her feelings. Twirling his Montblanc in his fingers, he said, “Be careful with what you wish for. It may come true.”

Saturday, August 21
^st
, 2010.

9.19 a.m.

“So, please, tell Carter to rent the manor in Scotland for a reasonable price. I don’t plan to go there soon. Also, I received a call yesterday confirming they’re ready to start the refurbishment of the penthouse in a month. Christopher Chanond himself will supervise it all. Please, take notes, Scott.”

Scott looked around the stylish apartment all done in black, white and steel and couldn’t believe his ears. He started jotting down Ethan’s orders.

“Call White Cube and ask them to refer a storage company for the paintings and sculptures for six months. Rent me a comfortable, spacious roof suite at The Dorchester for six months. I’ve already informed Imelda that she’ll move my personal belongings there and accompany me, only part time. Of course, she will receive her full wages. I’ll need a personal butler there.”

After a few more instructions, Ethan finished as though what he was asking was the easiest thing to do.