All In (19 page)

“Turn over,” she ordered.

He turned over. His weight rocked the bed, and a wave of desire coursed through her as he obeyed.

David made himself comfortable on his back. She wound up beside him.

She placed a hand on his thigh. “Spread your legs,” she commanded.

His eyes narrowed, but he did as she said without taking his eyes off her for a second. He was hard, and she kneeled between his legs—one hand by his hip and the other encircling his arousal—and took him into her mouth. He gasped.

She feasted on the sensation of hardly being able to fit him in her mouth, sucking and licking without any shame at how much she was enjoying this. She kept going until David seemed to have had enough of the passive role. He sat up and laid her down on the bed. She watched as he rolled on a new condom and entered her. Her legs flew up around his back, and he tugged her to him.

It was crazy hot.

The lovemaking. His body pumping into her, the sounds, the words. And when she came, now with him behind her, in her, with her, with his enormous hands around her waist and his kisses on the nape of her neck and then, later, with his arms around her, close together, with salt and sweat and scents, she knew it was rare, really rare, that you experienced something completely new, and if she hadn't been so happy she would have cried. She just curled up against him, allowed him to pull her into his embrace, surrounded by his body. Their violent passion now replaced by tenderness, she lay completely still and tried, really tried to just be, to live in the present.

But her mind wouldn't let her be.

What were they actually to each other? Were they a couple? Were they in love?

“David?”

“Yes,” he murmured in his deep voice.

She wanted to ask,
What kind of a relationship is this? Are you my boyfriend? My lover?
But she didn't dare. Didn't want to hear a lie, couldn't brave asking for the truth.
You're a coward, Natalia, such a pitiful coward
.

She rubbed her cheek against the arm he had wrapped around her. “I'm really glad you came over,” was all she said.

His arms hardened around her. “Me too. Can I stay?”

“Yes, stay,” she said.

“I have to work tomorrow. Or I guess it's today already.”

“It's Sunday.”

“I know,” he said, pulling the sheet up over her and kissing the back of her neck.

They slept, cuddled together.

 

She woke up when he emerged from the shower. Still half asleep, she flung her arms around him. He was still wet, and they made love again before he said good-bye with a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Bye, my sex goddess.”

“Bye.”

She stayed in bed.

She was falling. She could feel it in every fiber of her body and soul.

She couldn't go back to sleep, so she padded out to the kitchen. The coffee maker was out, and she smiled when she saw that David had prepped it for her. She pushed the ON button and waited patiently. She heated some milk, poured in some sugar, and took her mug out to the balcony.

She looked down at the empty street and the little park where a neighbor was walking his dog. She sipped her coffee and thought about her night. And then a thought hit her, one she could hardly bear to pursue. Something she wished had never occurred to her, something that David's story had brought to mind.

She drank her coffee and thought about her family: her parents, her brothers.

Peter was her big brother, and she loved him, but despite his appeasing, almost weak style, he wasn't always a nice person. He could be awful, particularly to his siblings and to anyone he had power over. He had spoken of David with scorn. And no matter how reluctant she was to admit it, she knew that Peter was a typical bully, tyrannized by Father, pressured to perform, capable of cruelty. And he had been at Skogbacka at the same time as David.

Had Peter had anything to do with the scars on David's back?

23

 

C
ount Carl-Erik Tessin glanced at the invitation. He received so many that he didn't always open them. Piles of letters and invitations to everything from premieres and art exhibits to parties and balls. Summer was the worst.

He just tossed most of them. But he recognized this coat of arms, and it brought back so many memories, so many emotions.

He fingered the heavy, expensive paper, read the black lettering, the more formal sections embossed with gold, that arrogant signature.

Carl-Erik rarely said yes, especially not to this specific party, but this time he hesitated. It had been so long. The years passed. There was so much he regretted, so many things he should have done differently.

He looked at the two happy faces in the antique frame on the mantelpiece. They had no idea. They were satisfied with their lives. Should he leave the past alone? Could he?

He slowly pulled the desk drawer open, selected a fountain pen.

He responded ceremoniously.

Maybe it was best this way after all.

 

Alexander De la Grip looked around at the little airport, full of people, but no welcome committee, no parents, no cousins, nothing at all.

Thank God for that.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alexander saw a tall, redheaded woman waiting by the baggage claim. She'd been on his flight from New York as well. He smiled to think that here they were now, at the same small Swedish airport.

He'd noticed her because she was almost unbelievably beautiful, tall and stately like an Amazon. She'd turned down the drink he'd wanted to buy her. And she'd dropped a comment about his drinking that wasn't all that flattering, so he assumed she hadn't exactly fallen for him.

She was clutching her purse with short, unpainted nails, and he wondered what she was doing here. They had spoken English on the plane, and it hadn't occurred to him she might be anything other than American. But here she was at a small airport in southern Sweden.

“I didn't realize you were Swedish,” he said, sidling up next to her.

She looked confused. “Excuse me?” she said in English.

He switched over to his own flawless English. “We met on the plane. I'm Alexander,” he said, holding out his hand.

She looked at his outstretched hand for such a long time that he thought she wasn't going to shake it.

“Isobel,” she said finally, grasping his hand quickly before pulling hers back again.

Alexander smiled his most charming smile.

A tattered Samsonite appeared on the luggage belt, and he could tell from her eyes that it was hers. He picked it up and handed it to her.

She took a firm hold of it while he lifted the first of his handstitched calf-leather suitcases off the belt.

“Can I offer you a lift somewhere?” he asked.

She wrinkled her straight nose and looked at his luxurious baggage, which continued to tumble onto the luggage belt. She stretched her back, becoming even taller in her flats. She glared at him and said, “I'd prefer it if you went and fucked yourself.” She picked up her worn suitcase, turned on her heel, and left him.

24

 

I
t was a five-hour drive from Stockholm to Båstad—if you didn't make any unnecessary stops and weren't a stickler about speed limits. It was faster to fly, of course. But in a car Michel and David could talk undisturbed, without having to worry about anyone overhearing. What they lost in terms of time, they gained in privacy. Besides, apparently David had bought himself a new car.

Michel looked at the car, one of Bentley's most expensive sports models, if he wasn't mistaken. “Isn't it a little early for a midlife crisis?” he asked, opening the trunk. He stuffed his bags inside and slammed it shut.

“It was the only one they had that I could get on the spot,” David said casually. “I wanted to own a car.”

“You never mentioned that before.” Actually David had always claimed it didn't make any sense for him to own his own car since he was so rarely home. And unlike Michel, who loved expensive luxury goods, David wasn't ostentatious.

David jingled his keys. “Nah, I decided to do it yesterday. I headed over to the Marble Halls showroom and bought it on my lunch break.”

Michel just stared. He was well acquainted with the fashionable and ultra expensive Marble Halls. Located since the 1920's on Grev Turegatan, one of Stockholm's most expensive addresses, the automobile showroom was a well-known address to him. Actually Michel liked to go there every now and then, to check out the sportscars, to soak in the atmosphere. But as far as he knew, David had never shared this interest.

” They handed me the keys on the spot.” David grinned. “What do you think?”

Michel wondered if his boss and colleague was starting to feel the strain after all. For as long as Michel had known him, David had
never
done anything impulsive or impetuous. David's brain worked with extreme speed. He was a master at processing information, and it sometimes looked like he was being impulsive, but Michel knew better. David never did anything without thinking it through carefully.

Aside from buying a car worth a million and a half kronor, apparently. In baby blue.

“It's very, uh, blue.”

“Hop in, let's go. Did you talk to Malin?”

Michel nodded. Yes, right before he'd left the office. He could hear Malin Theselius yelling all the way to the elevator.

“She's a little miffed that we're leaving her at home,” he said, seriously understating the situation. Their communications director had been as angry as a hornet. “Apparently she'd already bought clothes for the party. I didn't quite catch the last bit of what she said, but I think she might be expecting an extra-large Christmas bonus now.”

David started the car, and its powerful engine rumbled to life. “I know, she e-mailed me a whole list of reasons why she should come to BÃ¥stad, but she's needed here. Everyone else had to stay here too.”

The mood in the office had been anything but merry, but David was right, Michel thought. Still, he was glad that he didn't have to be the one who killed democracy at Hammar Capital. “We'll just hope there's no mutiny back at headquarters while we're off enjoying ourselves in BÃ¥stad,” he said. “There will be journalists there. You know how they hound you; Malin could have helped you screen.”

“Malin has to prepare the press release, and she knows that,” David said. “I can screen journalists myself. But I canceled our hotel room and rented a house instead.”

“Good, it'll be quieter that way,” Michel agreed. No risk of running into curious journalists or drunk young finance guys who wanted to chat about what they really thought of venture capitalists, self-made men, and dark-skinned foreigners.

David drove out of Stockholm, onto Essingeleden highway and then southward. The car trip passed quickly—they had a lot of information to swap and discuss—and David was satisfied with his somewhat impulsive decision to drive instead of fly. And he liked his car.

His mother had never been able to afford a car, and he found himself wondering what Helena Hammar would have thought about this, which was unusually sentimental for him. She had always been fond of fancy, expensive things, he thought with a pang in his heart.

They stopped once along the way to stretch their legs and eat a quick lunch; later that afternoon they reached the outskirts of BÃ¥stad.

 

The blue exit sign finally appeared, and David got off the highway and saw the sea. Natalia was supposed to be here, he thought. Hammar Capital was one of the Bank of London's most important clients, so naturally he and Michel were invited to the party J-O was hosting.

“Is Åsa coming?” he asked.

“Don't know,” Michel said.

“You still haven't called her?”

“Sure I have,” Michel replied saronically. “I called her once the day before yesterday, but then I changed my mind and hung up. And then I called her again yesterday to explain.”

“What did she say?”

Michel's jaws were working as he gazed grimly out the window. “Don't know,” he said tersely. “I hung up after a couple of rings.”

David stifled a laugh. “You know that caller ID will show her who called, right?”

Michel kept staring out the window. “I know,” he said. “I can't think clearly when it comes to her. But I can't see how there could possibly be anything between me and her. My family would go nuts.”

“You don't have to tell your family,” David pointed out.

“And besides, she works for Investum. You know, the company we're about to take over.”

Unlike Natalia, who only
owns
part of the company.

He couldn't ignore the fact that Natalia was here and they would surely see each other tonight. They hadn't been together since Sunday morning, had only had sporadic contact via text message.

But then David had almost sent Natalia a message that was supposed to have gone to Carolina, and that had shaken him. So much was at stake, he couldn't mess it up now.

“Åsa owns a ton of Investum shares,” David said. He knew exactly who all the biggest shareholders were. “Among other things,” he added. “Do you know how rich that woman actually is?”

“She inherited everything when her family died, and she's managed it well, so I assume she's one of the richest women in Sweden.”

“How old was she?”

“When they died? Eighteen. She inherited the lot. And the line will die out with her. That's quite a one-two punch, losing your family and inheriting all that at the same time. She was wild when we were at school together—studying but smoking, drinking, sleeping around. I think she came unhinged.”

“She sure seems to be good at her job now, so I assume she's recovered. And there's definitely something between you two.”

“And speaking of not following your own advice,” Michel said, “how's it going with Natalia?”

“It was nothing,” he said curtly. “It's over now.”

Michel scratched his scalp. One of his many chunky rings flashed, twenty-four-karat gold and a three-carat diamond. Gold chain around the neck. Boy from the hood who'd made it. “So, first it was nothing?” Michel said skeptically. “And now it's over?”

“Exactly.” Because it
was
over. He was completely sure. He was over her.

“You saw her again,” Michel said. He shook his head.

“We saw each other,” David said, sounding defensive. “Once at her place, maybe twice. And once at my place. But that was it, and there won't be any more.”

“At your place? In your apartment?” Now Michel was staring at him.

“Yes.”

“The place that no one, not even I, am allowed to visit?”

“You can come over,” David said, turning into a parking lot and pulling to a stop. “You can come swim in my Jacuzzi.”

“You are not making sense,” Michel said.

“Maybe not, but at least I don't keep calling girls and hanging up.”