Death's Ink Black Shadow (3 page)

Ben felt a hand on his arm and began to relax into it until he realised it was just moving him out of the way.

Nikolas took his place in the doorway and Ben still couldn’t see his face.

He could see the young man’s though.

His eyes were…scanning, seeking. Any conclusion made from this study was unclear to Ben, as there was nothing to read in the expression other than those quick flicks of gaze over the slightly taller, older figure.

“You’d better come in.”

The visitor looked pleased at Nikolas’s neutral comment.

They were all over six feet tall. Too big and too many for the hallway, and it was awkward, for many reasons, until they were in the kitchen and sitting, and Nikolas was leaning on the counter, silent, watchful.

If Ben had sensed furious, secret paddling to stay afloat before, there was none of that now. There was just laser-sharp concentration on Nikolas’s face and not a muscle of movement other than breathing, and even that wasn’t noticeable.

Ben sat at the table, also regarding the new arrival in the better lighting. The similarity to the photograph was no less pronounced now—the resemblance to Nikolas, come to that.

Nikolas suddenly took a sharp intake of air. “I was not aware my brother had a son. This is something of a…surprise.”

Ben felt like laughing. Surprise? That was one way of putting it.

The boy nodded. “I only found out about my real father a few weeks ago. My mother never told me about him. When she died I was given—”

“Your mother is dead?”

“Yes. Two weeks ago. I’m sorry; did you know her? She never mentioned anything about—”

“I met her very briefly actually last summer. Before that I had no idea about my brother’s life. We were not close. How did she die?”

The tension in Nikolas’s voice was evident then to Ben. He doubted this guest would notice, but he did. He knew all of Nikolas’s inflections and this one screamed
Kate again
at him.

“Cancer. She had breast cancer.”

Ben had the sudden and very sad image of a beautiful woman with an obvious wig—obvious even to him, and he didn’t give women’s hair as much consideration as other men his age might. Kristina had been so thin, so…fragile. He felt a little sorry for her now, angry with himself for being jealous of her.

If Nikolas’s thoughts were whirling and assessing, too, there was no manifestation of anything other than mild regret in his tone when he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. She was only forty-two. It’s too young to…When I was sorting her estate, I was given all the papers she’d put together about my father, his family—I didn’t know she’d met you just before she died. She didn’t mention it. Perhaps that prompted her to gather all that together for me though. She was researching my father’s death mainly, and you were mentioned as being there…I mean…a witness.”

“I was mentioned? You thought you would…seek me out?”

“Well, yes. When I discovered you were in London. My father’s identical twin. It’s incredible.”

“Yes, isn’t it.”

“Can you tell me anything about him?”

“No. I hardly knew him. We had very little contact after he went to live in Russia with our father. We were…oh, perhaps ten?”

The boy pursed his lips. “Oh. I thought you both went to Russia. And you were at school together.”

Nikolas waved his hand in dismissal, a gesture Ben had seen better executed, another sign that Nikolas wasn’t taking this unexpected arrival as calmly as he appeared to be. “We were in entirely different classes, and I went home to Denmark for the holidays. Very little contact. I can tell you almost nothing about him. You said your name was—?”

“Steven. Sky. My mother’s family name was Aronofsky and she called me Stefan, but I’ve…you know, school, easier to pronounce.”

“Yes. Easier. Stefan is a nice name though.”

“Well, I actually go by Stevie. Stevie Sky. Maybe you’ve read some—? No? I’m a writer.”

Ben frowned trying to work this out. How old was Stefan? Steven…

So far, he’d gone unobserved between the mutual blond staring, but now his expression and slight lean back caught Steven’s attention. He turned to Ben with raised brows, but when Ben didn’t fall for the very Nikolas-like tactic, Steven had to ask, “Sorry, I didn’t catch your…You are…?”

Ben didn’t think it was any of this interloper’s business who he was, but he needn’t have worried. Nikolas replied for him very swiftly. “Ben Rider. He’s my media spokesman. I run a private charity.” Nikolas pushed off the counter and put his back to them, ostensibly switching on the kettle. “What sort of books do you write, Stefan?”

“I’m—I started a course in film production and scriptwriting, but I kinda found it…I’m a blogger at the moment. I haven’t actually written a book yet…or I have, I just haven’t got it published, but I’m hoping this new one will be my breakthrough.”

Ben wanted to ask, he really did, but he was still sifting through the fact he was Nikolas’s
media spokesman
. Would a
media spokesman
speak? Would a
media spokesman
take any part at all in this bizarre situation? Perhaps a media spokesman would just stand up, tell
his boss
to fuck off, and leave. One called Ben
Rider
might.

Engrossed in imagining this happening—seeing Nikolas’s face—he only caught the tail end of Steven’s reply to something Nikolas had apparently asked him. “…good story. She’s coming back into vogue.”

Nikolas had turned and was considering Steven. Ben flicked his gaze between them, awed still by the similarities. “What? Who?”

Nikolas clarified for Ben, never taking his eyes off his doppelganger. “Stefan is writing a book about my mother, apparently.”

“Nina?” Fatuous, but Ben reckoned he was allowed a sliver of inanity, given the circumstances. It wasn’t every day you got to meet a dead child. Nikolas only nodded in response:
yes, that mother
.

Steven was more vocal. “My mother left all these papers—that’s how I found out about you, Un—”

“Nikolas. Just call me Nikolas.”

Ben resisted the urge to wince as Nikolas said this. Perhaps it was the wine he’d drunk too quickly, but he was beginning to feel light-headed. Even though he’d been dismissed as nothing more than a colleague, Ben suddenly had the overwhelming need to go up to Nikolas and hug him. How the fuck was Nikolas staying on his feet?

He’d just met the son he’d thought was dead.

He’d just discovered he was a
father
.

CHAPTER FOUR

If Steven Sky—Stevie Sky—thought he was going to be welcomed into the fold, embraced, and offered a bed for the night, he was sadly deluded, Ben reflected.

Nikolas made his excuses, claiming pressure of work—early morning meetings—and ushered Steven to the door.

Whether he promised to meet again with Steven some other time, Ben didn’t catch. He did hear the solid click as the door closed then the silence. He could actually sense Nikolas thinking, but unfortunately not the actual result of those thoughts.

He got up and finished making the tea, which Nikolas had feigned doing during his conversation with his…son.

By the time Nikolas came in, Ben had two mugs on the table. The hot liquid sloshed as Nikolas sat too heavily in the chair opposite. He was as pale as he’d been when he’d lost blood once on a mountain in New Zealand. Ben pushed an offering of sweetened tea toward him.

When Nikolas took a sip, he flinched and suddenly seemed to come back to himself. Ben had sugared it—liberally.

Nothing more was forthcoming after this instinctive reaction, however. Ben waited patiently. Nikolas’s eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones as he pondered something on the table, or possibly a great deal further away. Ben sighed inwardly.

“I’m glad I didn’t stay at the dinner night.”

No response.

“Or you’d have been on your own when he got here.”

Nikolas lifted his eyes to the window, as if he could see through the blind to the street beyond.

“Who knows what might have happened.”

Nikolas’s gaze travelled to Ben for a tiny moment before returning to its place on the blind.

“You might have embraced him as your
long-lost son
.”

Nikolas took a long breath and focused more fully on Ben. “I was not prepared for this.” There was some awareness in Nikolas’s eyes, as if he had a desire to tell Ben more.
I wasn’t prepared for this because I’d been planning for
…But if he’d been about to confess something to Ben, he stopped and only added, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell him we were…”

“Go on, you’re almost there.”

Nikolas smiled faintly, acknowledging that Ben wasn’t being all that funny and shrugged. “I’m sorry, anyway. You know I don’t find it easy, and this was a shock, even for me.”

Ben got up to fetch himself a biscuit, keeping his back to Nikolas. Something was definitely…off. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he wanted to mull over the possibilities—other than the fact Nikolas had just met his son and pretended that he was his uncle.
Other
than that there was something definitely wrong about Nikolas’s words.

It was the apology.

Since when did Nikolas do apologies? Since when did Nikolas admit he found anything difficult? It was a diversionary tactic to camouflage something else that wasn’t right. What had he seen in that guarded expression? What might Nikolas have told him if the old joke about their relationship had not conveniently arisen to distract them both? It had taken Ben almost twelve years to get to this stunning level of intuitiveness about Nikolas. He suspected he had many more to go before he could make any use of this newfound ability, but it gave him somewhere to start. Nikolas was hiding something—other than how he felt about this new development in their lives.

Ben suddenly had a thought and began to laugh. He could hear the bitterness so he wasn’t surprised when Nikolas jerked his gaze toward him questioningly. Suddenly, shockingly, he’d recalled the image in the train window. The mirror image Nikolas. Ben shook his head. “I was just wondering if I’m about to find out that maybe you really are
Nikolas
Mikkelsen and you killed Aleksey and now you’re afraid Aleksey’s son is going to discover your deception.” He was only joking of course. Possibly.

Nikolas frowned deeply. “What deception?”

Ben felt a stab of panic. It was true? Nikolas shook his head as well, clearly bewildered. “If I
were
Nikolas, I wouldn’t be pretending, so where would the deception be?”

“Huh?”

“Exactly.”

Ben opened his mouth to counter this stunning argument when Nikolas just put his head in his hands and muttered gloomily, “I need a drink.”

Ben wholeheartedly agreed. He wished he’d stayed at the regimental dinner and got stonkingly drunk and reeled home oblivious to all of Nikolas’s over-complicated life. Then he remembered Molly Rose and saw his behaviour for the last hour held up against Nik’s since she’d come into their lives.

He was being a complete dick.

He went over to Nikolas and wrapped his arms around Nikolas’s blond head, kissing into his hair. “She stole him from you all these years. I’m sorry.”

Nikolas shook his head again, standing and freeing himself from Ben’s embrace. “She
saved
him. Come, I need to sleep on this and then think what is to be done.”

Ben pulled him into a standing hug, hating the way even Nikolas’s speech seemed to be reverting back to the Nikolas of the shadows. “
We
need to sleep on this, I think you meant to say.”

Nikolas didn’t put on his martyred air of nagged partner as he usually did at such pronouncements from Ben— “
Yes, Benjamin, of course I meant to say we.
” He only nodded and went to secure the house.

And that missed opportunity to show Ben up was almost the most worrying thing of all.

§ § §

They didn’t make love that night. It wasn’t so unusual that Ben was going to consult a doctor about it, or start panicking that Nikolas was dying or anything. After all, they’d had a pretty good session on the couch just a few hours previous, but it did make him restless and uneasy, which then allowed him to notice that Nikolas wasn’t sleeping either, only he wasn’t tossing and turning and punching the pillow into different but equally unsatisfactory shapes. Instead, Nikolas was lying on his back, his face a still mask.

Ben didn’t want to think that this was also like the old Nikolas, but it was a concern that nevertheless crept unbidden into his mind at just past three, when Nikolas didn’t even appear to have blinked for the last five minutes.

Ben finally swore and poked him in the ribs.

Nikolas sighed. “What?”

“No! Not what to me! I say what to you! What are you thinking?”

Nikolas folded his arms behind his head. Ben loved it when he did this, the temptation to stroke down the cool insides of his biceps almost irresistible. He ignored the temptation, sensing the intimate gesture wouldn’t be welcome. “I was thinking about the ocean and wondering if you put a small drop of boiling water into the sea here, whether you could measure the increase in temperature in, say, the Pacific—if you had sensitive enough measuring instruments.”

“Oh.”
Huh?

“What do you think?”

“I…yes. I think you could.”
What the fuck?

Nikolas frowned and turned his head. “You do?”

“Sure.”
I don’t fucking know! What the fuck are we talking about?
“If they were sensitive enough.”

“Good. That’s what I think, too.”

Ben flopped back to his side of the bed. He was considering a suitable rejoinder when Nikolas added in the same neutral tone, “I was playing my mother’s music tonight, and then my son, my dead son, came to the door and said he was going to write a book about her. I think the earth has shifted on its axis, but I will be the only one who will see the implications of that movement, because there are no instruments fine enough to measure it except those in my mind.” Nikolas pulled Ben over to lay his head upon his chest. “Go to sleep. I need to think.”

Ben slid his hand down Nikolas’s hard belly to see if he was likely to get any fun, but Nikolas caught and held it. Again, it wasn’t exactly the first time Nikolas had denied him, but it was a rare enough event to keep Ben awake for some time more.