Vengeful Love (12 page)

“He struggled,” Jackson says, matter of factly.

“He was weak,” I tell him, rising to stand by his side, my arms folded across my chest.

Jackson continues to stare at the bed. “How weak?”

I shrug. “Very weak. Struggled to feed himself, clean himself, walk even.” As I say the words my brows scrunch and the subtle shift in the air makes me think Jackson is having the exact same thoughts as me. “In theory, he’d have struggled to throw his bowl or even cast his duvet to the other side of the bed.”

Jackson drags his brown fingers along his jaw but doesn’t speak.

“And if he couldn’t do those things, I’m standing here wondering how he could’ve made it to the stairs alone.”

My head starts to pound and a heavy shiver moves through my bones. Sandy said she was outside. I drop my head into my hands and rub my fingers roughly into my eye sockets. Of course she was. This is insane. He obviously
did
struggle to get out of bed, that’s why everything is such a mess.

Chapter Fifteen

I’m nestled into the corner of the sofa under the lounge lamp, my knees curled up in my leggings to make a table for my sheets of case law, when my father walks through the front door. I hear him place his keys on the side table and drop his bag by the hat stand, then make his way to the lounge.

“Hello, darling. You’re a still up.”

“Reading case law for Torts,” I say, holding up the documents on my lap. “Sandy left your supper in the oven.”

“Is she in bed?”

“Yes. She fell asleep watching a movie.”

“Just us then.”

My father turns a crystal glass from the bar table the right way up and pours himself a glass of his single malt Scotch from a decanter.

“Would you like one?” he asks.

“I’m okay, thanks.”

“It’s nice coming home to see you in the holidays. I miss you in term time.” He takes a seat on the sofa next to me. He leaves his coat and scrubs at work but I can still smell the hospital corridors in his beige cords and caramel jumper. “Torts, eh? Negligence.”

“Mmm hmm, not my favourite. I’m reading a clinical negligence case just now actually.”

“Duty of care, professional skill?”

“Yep.”

He takes a small sip of his Scotch and sighs heavily.

“Are you okay, Dad?”

“Yes, sweetpea, I’m just tired. It’s been a long shift.”

I put my case law on the coffee table and lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. “You’ve got sad eyes, not tired eyes. You’ve come straight in and poured yourself a neat Scotch, and even though the house smells of Sandy’s pastry, you haven’t even gone to look at the pie in the oven.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and kisses my brow. “Do you remember Mr. Harrington, Gareth Harrington?”

Of course I remember. One of the few patients my father has ever referred to by first name. Gareth Harrington has been in my father’s care for almost a year and a half. He was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour that was wrapped around his spinal cord. He was told he had six months to live.

“The man that no one else would agree to operate on,” I say.

Gareth has two young daughters and a wife. When my father looked at the scans, he knew all he could offer would be time but he told the family that he would try, if that was what they wanted. They begged my father to operate.

“Yes, that’s him. He’s back in hospital now.”

“He’s sick again?”

“Well I guess he was never better. Not really. It was never possible to remove the whole tumour, but it’s grown back and there’s nothing more I can do.”

“Is he palliative?”

“I’m afraid so. He might have a week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know you like him and his family.”

My father rests his chin on my head. “He’s stuck in a bed. He can’t hold a conversation and today the nurses couldn’t get him onto a commode so they’re taking his food away in the morning.” With a gulp, he drains the remainder of his Scotch and rests the empty glass on his knee. “Sometimes I wish we were like dogs. The way it all ends for dogs, it’s humane. When it’s the end, when it’s the end and the dog is ill, we don’t pretend. We do what’s fair. We recognise that they’re in pain, that they have no quality of life, that they don’t want to be around anymore and we make a decision to cuddle them whilst we put them to sleep and send them to a better world, a world where they won’t hurt.”

I turn my head and kiss my father’s shoulder. “What you did for Mr. Harrington was humane, Dad. You gave him a gift that no one else was willing to give him. You gave him time, time to play with his daughters, time to say goodbye properly.”

“I wish I could help him now, Scarlett.”

The next day my father came home from work and told me he had been to visit Gareth Harrington and that Gareth had died in his bed, peaceful with his family around him.

Chapter Sixteen

The hospital is even grimmer than last night, if that’s possible. The grey overcast sky shadows the corridors. Sandy and I are amongst the first visitors and if it weren’t for the occasional laughter of the nurses at their station, my father’s ward would be deathly quiet.

“Hi, Dad,” I whisper, kissing his scalp.

The deposits in my father’s catheter bag are dark and there’s a yellow cast to his skin that I haven’t seen before. I’ve called in a working-from-home day but I have no desire to look at work. Sandy and I nestle into two seats on either side of my father’s bed. We sit and we watch him. We take it in turns to make a coffee trip or a toilet trip, never leaving him alone. We exchange pleasantries with the nurses as they pass through to check on my father. One nurse tells us the doctor will be doing his rounds in the early afternoon and he intends to discuss my father’s condition with us.

Amanda turns up on her lunch hour with two big bags of goodies: sandwiches, muffins, chocolate bars, pastries. A nurse brings in a third chair and Amanda tells ridiculous stories that seem to keep the three of us laughing continuously for an hour. She tells Sandy about her new casual relationship with Williams as if Sandy is her best friend. I cringe, hoping my father can’t hear.

“Anyway, you’ve had your head in files all week but don’t think I’ve forgotten that you never told me what happened after the charity gala,” she says through a bite of brownie. “It didn’t go unnoticed that you and Gregory left together right after that steamy dance. They didn’t even say goodbye you know, Sandy.”

Sandy raises a brow above the walnut whip that’s half in and half out of her mouth. She and Amanda share a cheeky giggle.

“Gregory didn’t come back?” I ask.

Amanda shakes her head as she munches down on a double chocolate chip cookie.

I have to fight from closing my eyes and rolling my head back, remembering
that
dance and the press of his lips against my skin.

“Well, I honestly can’t tell you where he went but we didn’t leave together. We had a row and I left. I thought he would’ve carried on with the party.”

“You had a row? But you looked so, so into each other. He couldn’t get enough of you. At one point, Sandy, I thought he was going to take her right there on the table in front of everyone.”

“Bloody hell, Amanda!” I exclaim.

Sandy laughs heartily through the last bite of her walnut whip.

“Oh come on, Scarlett, we’re not three years old,” Amanda says, rolling her eyes and wiping chocolate remnants from the side of her mouth.

“Still, you can’t say things like that. What if my dad can hear you? Pass me some of those goodies.”

Amanda throws a cookie from her side of the bed to mine.

“So, you had a fight, what about?” Amanda probes.

I want to tell her but I can’t. I can’t betray Gregory and I can’t tell her that I willingly closed that deal, knowing what I know.

“Something and nothing.”

I walk Amanda out to her car after lunch, turning on my phone for the first time today. As I’m waving her off, I listen to my voicemails, ignoring all but one.

“Scarlett, I didn’t get a chance to say how sorry I am about your dad. I can only imagine how you’re feeling and I’d like to help, in any way I can. I thought, if you’d let me, I could take you out tonight. Make up for last night and take your mind off things. I’d like to do this, Scarlett. Please.”

What would you make of Gregory Ryans, Dad?

I knew or hoped somewhere inside me that Gregory wasn’t offering the usual completion meeting last night. The norm would be all clients, Lawrence, Williams
and
Gregory, going for dinner. Toasting the latest addition to their empire. I think part of me wanted him to be offering dinner alone, just the two of us, and the other part of me wouldn’t dare to think it. He’s insanely attractive and wealthy, he could have any woman he wants. Sure, that’s part of it. The other part is that, I knew last night and I know now, if I’m alone in a room with that man, client or not, I won’t be able to resist the effect he has on me.

My reasons for saying yes last night still stand. I have questions to ask him.

And, God, I want to go and see that face, drown in that scent, be close to the heat of his body again.

“Just go,” Sandy snaps when I’m back at my father’s bedside, my legs crossed beneath me in the chair.

I stop twisting my bottom lip in my fingers. “No.” I sound much more emphatic than I feel.

“You heard Doctor Jefferson, there’s no chance he’s going to wake up today. There’s no sign of improvement.”

“Which is just another reason why I shouldn’t go. How can I go out for dinner when my dad is half...” I stop myself short of admitting that final word.

“We’ve got to leave here sometime, Scarlett, and what else are you going to do except mope around the house?”

“I...no. I’m not going.”

“If your father thought you weren’t living your life because of him he’d be so cross with you.”

“Sandy, I...it’s not just that.”

“It’ll take your mind off all of this. It’s just dinner, Scarlett.”

The thought that dinner could lead to me feeling his touch, feeling his lips against my flesh again, makes me crave everything about him. I know it would mean more to me than
just
dinner.

Sandy reaches a hand to my shoulder. “Trust your instincts.”

Chapter Seventeen

Jackson pulls up before I’ve even finished my hair. Half the curls are pinned loosely to the back of my head, the other half still hang impatiently around my shoulders. As I pin frantically, I consider the two dresses hanging on my wardrobe, both black, one tight fitting to the knee with a high neck and open back, the other with tiny straps and a loose gather at the chest, also with a drooping open back.

At least five minutes pass as I hurriedly finish my updo. Hearing the doorbell ring adds to the flutterflies in my chest and the anxiety churning low in my abdomen.

Sandy opens the door and boisterously jokes with Jackson downstairs. By the time I’ve added the finishing touch to my make-up—poppy-red Clarins lipstick—and spritzed myself in Coco Mademoiselle, another five minutes have passed. I take a pair of black tights from my drawer and sit on my bed but before they reach my knees, I pull them off and swap them for stockings. I opt for the thin-strap dress and slip my feet into an uncomfortable pair of black calf-leather Jimmy Choos, possibly the most extravagant purchase of my life.

“I’m so sorry, Jackson,” I say, interrupting the surprisingly flirtatious conversation taking place in the hallway.

Both Jackson and Sandy turn sharply, as if they’ve been caught in the act. Sandy hands me my tailored black winter coat and tells me to have fun as I pull the waist belt tight. I give her a cursory
what-was-that
? look before leaving house.

“I doubt Mr. Ryans will be thrilled with my timekeeping,” I say to Jackson as he holds open the door to the empty back seat.

“Somehow, I think you’ll be forgiven,” Jackson says, buckling himself in.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

Jackson shrugs and chuckles. Something, or rather someone, seems to have put him in a peculiar jovial mood.

Just before seven-thirty we roll to a stop alongside a red carpet. My eyes trace gold railings from the pavement up to the theatre entrance. There, on the top step, Gregory is waiting, legs parted, shoulders back, hands tucked into the trouser pockets of his dinner suit, separating the tails of his jacket from the fastened button at the waist.

Jackson winks as he opens the door and gives me a hand out of the Mercedes.

I can’t take my eyes off Gregory. Everything else in the world disappears as I get lost in this perfect man.

He walks down the steps and kisses my cheek. His lips linger against my skin. The sensation exactly as I’ve replayed countless times in my head. I lean into his kiss, wishing I could feel his mouth on mine. When I open my hazel-greens, he’s gazing right back at me. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers.

My insides defy the concept of gravity.

He traces one finger down the side of my face to my chin, never dropping his gaze from mine. I try to swallow my insatiable need to touch what lies beneath his suit, to have his naked body take over mine the way I’ve imagined. He gives me a half, knowing smile. I’m defenseless against my own desire.

“Some completion meeting when we’re the only two people here, Mr. Ryans.”

“I thought you wouldn’t mind if we celebrate closing the deal alone tonight.”

“Presumptuous,” I tease, raising a brow.

“Indeed,” he says, his half smile still arrogantly toying with me. Delicious. “Come on, you kept me waiting, the show’s about the start.”

I shake my head and ask myself as much as him, “Why can’t I seem to say no to you?”

“I’m not the kind of man who takes no for an answer. Especially not from you.” He steps to one side, gesturing for me to move into the theatre, and rests his hand at the bottom of my back. A small move that makes me internally scream at all the sensitive sites in my body to
back the hell down
.

“What are we going to see?”

“The new Dame Judi Dench play.”

There’s a distinct air of cocky self-satisfaction about him but I’m too delighted to care.

An attendant leads us into the box Gregory has reserved. A bottle of Dom Perignon with two glasses and a selection of canapés are waiting for us on a low, dark wood table between two velvet chairs. I manage to catch a glimpse of the flavours written on small white place cards before the lights turn down.

The band strikes up and there’s rapturous applause when Dame Judi Dench, followed by Jude Law, enters the stage for the opening scene. My grin is so big I feel like Julia Roberts. Gregory watches me as I clap loudly from the edge of my seat.

Leaning in to his ear I whisper, “This is amazing, thank you so much.”

He snaps his head round to face me, his lips almost brushing against mine, his minty breath drifting into my mouth. My stomach leaps. I want him to do this. He lifts my chin with his index finger and my lips open wider, my tongue braced, ready for his taste. Something about the dark room full of people increases my need for the forbidden touch. His thumb trails my lips, then he audibly swallows any desire he might have had and hands me a glass of champagne. He clinks my glass with his and turns to the stage, leaving me feeling utterly confused, disoriented and desperate.

Have I imagined everything?

“I can’t believe you remembered,” I say as the applause for the end of the first act dies down.

“I think I remember everything you say to me and the exact manner in which you say it. Some of it I wish I didn’t remember.”

“Why?”

He turns in his seat and leans forward across his parted knees towards me. “Because your body’s reactions to me tell me one thing but your words tell me something else. It’s...new. Perplexing.”

I almost laugh at the thought that he can’t see right through me. He crosses one leg over the other and leans back in his chair, clasping his hands and raising his index fingers to his lips, studying me in an almost mocking fashion.

Those fingers. Those lips.

The walls of my sex clench and I’m both grateful for and pissed off by the attendant who steps between us to top up our champagne and take away our empty plates. I cross my legs, locking my thighs tightly, wishing I could read his mind.

We sit in this standoff, for my part charged and bewildered, until the attendant returns with replenished canapés.

“So that we’re clear, I’m thinking that I’m hungry, so I’m going to take a canapé.” I smirk and reach for a strawberry, dipping it in the ramekin of dark chocolate.

He watches me as I sit back in my seat and re-cross my legs. I don’t know what’s coming down the river but my chips are in. I run my tongue slowly up the side of the strawberry, swirling around the tip, savouring the chocolate sauce, and revel in the subtle drop of his jaw and the darkening of his irises.

I wrap my lips around the head of the berry and slide my teeth through the moist flesh. Before the second half reaches my lips, he leans forward, clasping his hand around mine. He sees my chips. Then he raises me, placing his mouth over the berry and closing his lips around my fingertips. I watch as he slides his lips to the end of my fingers, sucking the tips, turning his tongue as if he were licking my clit.

I fold.

The lights dim for the start of act two. Gregory once again flashes his knowing half smile and sits back in his seat, turning it toward the stage and away from me. My body is left pulsing in places I didn’t think it could pulse in public. My jaw hangs open, my mouth dry.

* * *

Jackson is waiting outside for us at the end of the show. Gregory walks around the car as he usually does and Jackson opens the door to the back seat for me.

“How was the show?” Jackson asks.

“The first act was fantastic,” I say.

“And the second?”

“I’ve no idea.”

I sit into the back seat, startled to find Gregory next to me. We drive to the restaurant in silence. I want to speak but I can only think of pointless small talk. His body is too close to mine. Those lips are next to me and all I can think of is what I’d like them to be doing, where I’d like them to be. The tension in the car is unbearable. Arriving at the restaurant is a relief.

We’re greeted by a short man with an Italian accent who I assume is the restaurant manager from his black suit and sparkling gold badge that reads Amerigo
.
“Good evening, Mr. Ryans, how wonderful it is to see you. I have reserved our finest table for you and your guest this evening.”

Amerigo bobs from one foot to the other as he leads us to our table, like his hips are tired from working until after ten already.

As is seemingly customary, Amerigo is overly familiar with Gregory, full of chatter and smiles. He places us in a booth, closed off from the sight of other guests but with a fantastic view of the city.

“Do you ever go to restaurants on ground level?” I whisper to Gregory.

He grins smugly as he lifts his hands to allow Amerigo to place a napkin across his lap.

“Would you like water, Mr. Ryans?”

“Please.”

“And your wine?”

Gregory considers me as he rubs his index finger and thumb along the line of his chin. “The lady will pick the wine.”

Amerigo initially looks completely stunned but quickly recovers and hands me an open wine list. I accept the menu, playfully scowling at Gregory.

“We’ll take two glasses of Dom Perignon brut while we look over the menu please. I’ll choose wine for dinner once we’ve made our food choices.”

Amerigo nods and leaves us alone in the booth. The tension from the theatre instantly returns. It’s a relief to see Gregory remove his jacket and tie and open the top two buttons of his shirt. My eyes lock onto the few fine hairs exposed on Gregory’s chest. I want more.

The sommelier brings two glasses of Dom Perignon. I’m vaguely aware that he’s making comments about the wine maker and the vintage. I take the opportunity to coax my eyes away from Gregory’s flesh. I inhale deeply, trying to push oxygen to my clouded mind.

“Have you decided?” Amerigo asks holding a white pad of paper and a small pen. When he arrived at the table is anyone’s guess.

“I. Oh. I haven’t.” I clear my throat but it brings no more cohesion to my words.

Amerigo looks blankly at the babbling mess I’ve become.

“Actually, Scarlett,” Gregory interjects, “I know what is really good here. Perhaps I could choose for us?”

I nod and take a sip of the cool, effervescent champagne. I don’t hear the exchange between Gregory and Amerigo.

When Amerigo leaves, we’re alone again. Closing my eyes, I take another sip of Dom Perignon. Desire wells in my throat. I’m out of control. Every logical thought I’ve had about why I shouldn’t want him has escaped me. I have to have him.

My glass is gently tugged from my lips and guided to the table. I open my eyes to find Gregory’s face unbearably close to mine, our thighs touching under the table. He sighs and the scent of his breath, cool and fresh, pervades my senses.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he whispers.

My entire body tenses and my breath abandons my lungs.

His palm holds my cheek. His thumb traces the line of my jaw, resting at my chin, and my body yearns for him. He lifts my head to face him and leans closer to me, like he did in the theatre, like he did at Saunders, like he did at the gala. I don’t think I’ll survive another withdrawal.

“Please.”

His eyes gaze right into mine, impeding the beating of my heart.

Finally, his lips are on mine. His kiss is soft, gentle and teasing. He nips my lower lip in his and I squirm closer to him, my hips tilt toward him as I groan into his mouth. It’s everything I imagined and more, so much more.

His full lips cover mine and my tongue brushes his front teeth, receiving a moan from him that resonates in my cleft. My fingers grab his hair at the nape of his neck and his kiss intensifies. It’s rough, carnal and exactly how I need it. He presses one hand to my lower back and pulls my body toward him, my leg crossing his beneath the table, my back bowing toward him. I finally breathe; a heavy, hot pant as our tongues entwine.

A waiter feigns a cough at the tableside. “Your starters.”

Darting away from him and pressing my back into the booth, I’m hot, blushing and wired like a compressed spring, ready to explode. I smile meekly at the waiter as he places a deconstructed sushi plate in front of me. Sashimi salmon, crisp rice, soy jelly cubes and wasabi globules. It looks fantastic. Another waiter places a similar plate in front of Gregory.

The sommelier immediately replaces the waiters at our table and discusses our bottle of wine.
Did I pick that or did he?
Once again, the sommelier’s efforts are entirely wasted on my fuzzy mind.

I’ve never craved sex, never ached with the need to have a man inside me. Until now.

Staring at the reflection of the restaurant in the floor to ceiling window, I wonder if the other guests could see
that
kiss. I wonder if they think Gregory Ryans is mine.

The restaurant is busy, each table full of finely dressed diners in twos, fours and sixes. Everyone looks happy, conversations flow, animated hand gestures dance and laughing heads are thrown back but no words are decipherable. Candlelight flickers in the window and wait staff float between tables carrying white plates of various sizes, wine buckets, champagne and bread rolls. Soft jazz notes play in the background, well suited to the dimmed purple lighting and cloths, I think.

I look to my already empty starter plate, then at Gregory’s. We’ve both eaten like we were Oliver Twist and there was definitely no opportunity for more. We each look at the empty plates then at one another and laugh. It’s a short laugh, pent up. Once our plates are taken Gregory removes his cufflinks and rolls up his sleeves two turns. They move further up his smooth, tanned skin as he reaches for his glass and I notice three small imperfections on this otherwise perfect man. With a troubled expression, he watches me across the rim of his wine glass.

“They’re cigarette burns,” he says.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. Did he do this to you?” Gregory doesn’t respond but the tightening of his jaw tells me the answer.

“Have you ever really hated anyone, Scarlett? I mean hated someone so much that the thought of what you could do to them scares you because no matter how bad it might be, you just don’t care?”