Vengeful Love (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Can we make a detour to my house for clothes?” I ask as we pull out of the Shard.

“Ahh, she’s back in the land of the living.”

I glare at Gregory as he looks right then left behind the wheel of the black Aston Martin DB9 in his thick, black wool coat and scarf.

“I guess it’s quite funny,” I concede. “Thinking about it, it’s really funny. The look on her face was priceless.”

“The look on your face was better.”

I laugh until my ribs ache and I push against them with my hands to stop my sides from bursting.

“It’s strange,” I say when I’m finely able to speak. “I’ve always thought of Sandy as a kind of mother figure but without realising, she’s become a friend. She always seemed much older than me when I was a child and, well, when she was looking after me and putting pigtails in my hair, but she isn’t old at all.”

“I think the older you get the more age becomes just a number, don’t you?”

“I guess you’re right. Sometimes she looks out for me and others we’re in role reversal. I’m glad she’s having a chance to do things she’s missed out on.”

That thought reminds me of my father and I have to force his ill face from my mind.

My street is grey and forlorn when we pull onto it. Gregory looks at me with concern but I continue looking straight ahead. The red post box seems a deeper shade than I’d left it and the leafless trees look tarnished by death. Gregory rolls the car to a stop outside the townhouse. I stare at the porch and the Saturday edition of the
Times
that my father will never read, wasting on the welcome mat.

“Do you want me to come in?”

I shake my head. “I won’t be long.”

I look around the street nervously, feeling like an intruder as I walk through the wrought iron gate and up the pathway to the house. Cold penetrates from the metal handle and the door creaks as I push it open, a sound I’ve not noticed before. The hallway is empty, lifeless. I take two steps into the house and jump when the floor squeaks under my feet. I dash up the staircase, slamming my bedroom door shut behind me, leaning my back against the door until I catch my breath. Fear consumes me, a fear of something irrational and intangible.

I rub the balls of my hands into my sockets, trying to convince myself that if I can close my eyes I can’t be scared. Taking a deep breath, I open my eyelids and begin to get undressed. I pull on some skinny blue jeans and a shirt and pass a belt through the loops as fast as I can. After throwing my suit into my wash basket, combing my hair and cleaning my teeth, I spritz myself with Dolce and Gabbana One. Pulling on my black knee-high boots, the pair Gregory likes, then grabbing my black wool coat and crimson scarf, I leave the house as quickly as I can.

I’m breathless when I sit back into the passenger seat of the DB9. Resting my head back against the headrest I try to calm my breathing.

“You okay?” Gregory asks placing a hand on my thigh.

“It doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“The house?”

I nod. “It’s cold and miserable.”

He runs a hand down my hair. His mouth parts and closes silently, his eyes betraying his anxiety. He wants to say something but doesn’t know how. His palm moves to my cheek, my body responding by leaning into his hand.

“Why don’t you come and stay with me this week? I don’t want you to stay here alone.”

“Stay? With you? At the Shard?”

He sits back into his seat, moving his gaze to the front window. “Yes.”

“Well, I—”

“It’s only a week, Scarlett, I’m not asking you to marry me,” he almost snarls.

Unsure which of us is wounded more, I twist my lip between my finger and thumb as I consider his offer. A week of Gregory and a week away from this house whilst I figure out what to do with it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

He pulls his key out of the ignition. “Let’s get your stuff then.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

* * *

He’s looking at an old photograph of my father and me hanging on the wall in the hallway when I finally arrive at the top of the staircase.

“That was my eighth birthday. Dad threw me a party in Richmond Park. It was a teddy bears’ picnic,” I say with an enormous smile. “He invited all the kids from my class. Sandy made far too much picnic food, as ever, and the best birthday cake. She made a giant bear-shaped cake in dungarees. I loved dungarees. I was also going through a phase of being obsessed with teddy bears and the idea that all my toys came to life at night when I was sleeping and whenever I closed my bedroom door and left them alone.”

Gregory looks at me, amused I think, and gives me his stunning half smile.

“I read
A Toy’s Palace
a lot during my phase.”

“Let me help you,” he says, climbing the stairs to take my suitcase and shoulder bag. “I’ll be outside.”

I look around the house one more time. “Goodbye, Dad.”

After lugging my last three bags onto the porch, I pull the door shut behind me.

“Flip, Scarlett, these cars aren’t made for their boot space,” Gregory yells, getting back out of the car to help me.

Raising my arms at my sides, I giggle and look down at my luggage. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he picks up all three bags like they’re stuffed with air.

“And I thought you were scared about staying for a week. You’ve got enough stuff for year.”

“Scared for you,” I say with a purposeful mischievous glint in my eye.

I follow him to the car where he’s forced to put the final bag on the
almost
back seat. Buildings disappear, the road opens up and the clouds begin to part as we drive into the evergreen of the country with Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
,
”
playing through the speakers.

“So you’re taking me to a farm?”

“Yes.”

“Like a farm with animals? Or like a country retreat?”

He shakes his head mockingly. “Like my house in the country that used to be a farm.”

“You have a house in the country?”

“Yes.”

“Why? You live and work in the city.”

“That’s exactly why. The press don’t seem to know about it and—”

“The press?”

“Mmm, well it seems that once your name is published in
The Times
’s Rich List your life becomes public property.”

“
The Times
’s Rich List? So if I Google you—”

“Don’t do that,” he snaps. “The press prints all kinds of rubbish and I would rather you just made up your own mind.”

I already have
.

“You see the problem is, Mr. Ryans, when you tell a person not to do something, generally they have a greater desire to do that exact thing.”

He continues to focus on the road ahead but his jaw rolls rigidly.

We turn left at a roundabout then right onto what’s little more than a dirt track. The Aston Martin bounces as it flies across loose stones and uneven road. The daylight dims as we drive through a small forest with pine trees lining either side of the road. Then the light increases again and the trees disappear so that I can see the farm. I turn my head and gawp in Gregory’s direction but he pretends not to notice.

The farm is really more of an estate. The red brick building with white Georgian windows continues to grow as we drive closer. The long, old barn has been extended into an L shape and the old farmhouse stands tall at one end so the whole thing looks like an angular horseshoe. The uneven surface beneath the car has been replaced by soft gravel. We drive up to a circular stone fountain in the middle of the horseshoe. I close my open mouth with the back of my hand as Gregory walks around the back of the DB9 to open the passenger door for me.

Perfectly spherical trees mark the start of the path to the house. I turn at the sound of the DB9 being driven away from the fountain by an elderly grey-haired man and see a younger, slim mousey-blond man in jeans, a checkered shirt and a quilted gilet carrying our bags behind us. We continue up the pathway passing stylised trees; naughts and crosses, a figure of eight, love hearts. At the end of the pathway, an archway made from one unbroken tree decorates the porch entrance.

“Wow, these are amazing!” I say almost inwardly. “I take it you have a gardener?”

“As much as I’d like to say they’re my handy work, yes, I do have a gardener, though an old friend actually did the trees. He’s a sculptor. He dabbles in quite a lot of techniques and materials. These are essentially made from one tree. It’s a process called—”

“Grafting. I’ve heard of it. Two different species grown together to make one purposely designed tree.”

“Exactly. This one,” Gregory says resting onto the tree that looks like a naughts and crosses board, “is based on a piece called
Needle and Thread
by Axel Erlandson. He created an entire place called
The Tree Circus
in California and displayed his work there.”

I nod, running a hand over the marvel. “My father had a book about him. I remember looking through it as a child. Your friend is really fantastic.”

“He has an exhibition right now at The Saatchi Gallery. Maybe we could go.”

“I’d like that.”

He opens the door into the vestibule and two dogs bark wildly until they realise it’s Gregory walking into the house. He bends to stroke them as they spin and wag their tails excitedly.

“They’re gorgeous,” I say, bending to knee height to stroke the liver-and-white-spotted dog. “I didn’t have you down as a dog man.”

“Well they live here and they’re supposed to be guard dogs, aren’t you?” he says ruffling the head of the almost entirely liver coloured dog. “They’re pointers, they come on shoots and hunts.”

“You hunt?”

“In season, yes.”

“Do you ride horses?”

“For the fox hunts, yes. The shoots are on foot.”

Lord Sexy Bazillionaire CEO Ryans.

The young man carrying our bags is Kian. Gregory makes introductions then instructs Kian to take the rest of the day off.

“Yes, sir,” Kian quickly agrees.

“That goes for John and Marian too,” Gregory adds.

“Yes, sir.”

Gregory shakes Kian’s hand. Despite his subtlety, I catch a glimpse of notes sliding from Gregory’s hand into Kian’s.

“Come on, I want to show you the other reason I have this house.” There’s a mischievous glint in his eye that’s a rare but beautiful show of his age.

He presses a remote control and the doors to the triple garage rise from the ground. Gregory grins as we wait. Soon the doors are high enough for me to understand why. The garage opens to expose six Harley Davidsons, immaculate and sparkling from wax.

He strides to a clothes rail of leathers on the sidewall of the garage. He moves one hanger then another and pulls out a third. He holds it up and looks beyond it to me.

“This should get over your clothes.”

“What? Me? No way! I’ve never been on a motorbike in my life.”

“Okay, yeah, sure. You don’t want to do anything dangerous. I guess you’re not that girl.”

He turns his back to me and places the female leathers back on the clothes rail. My pout and scowl form on my face without intent.

“Give those to me,” I say, snatching the leathers.

Licking my lips, I watch from the corner of my eye as Gregory strips down to his tight fitting Armani boxers and white T-shirt then pulls the leather bottoms up over his sculpted thighs. Shaking salacious thoughts from my head and vagina simultaneously, I quickly pull my leather bottoms over my skinny jeans, then tie my hair into a loose low ponytail.

Gregory is an absolutely indulgent sight to behold, seated on a shiny, electric blue-trimmed Harley Davidson, his helmet under his arm. Heat traverses my body thinking about peeling him out of those intoxicating leathers.

“Will I do?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond but his eyes remain fixed on me, feral and hungry.

“Get here,” he says with his sexy South African twang.

He places a helmet on my head and tells me to sit onto the back of the bike. Throwing my right leg across the seat, I shuffle closer to his back until I can feel him snuggly between my legs, pushing back against my sex. My bud pulses when he moves his right hand behind him and pulls my leg tighter around his waist. I roll my breasts against his back. He exhales slowly as he puts on his helmet and kick-starts the bike. The rumbling vibrations and the sex god between my legs reduce my mind to a fevered muddle of hormones.

I squeal as I feel the initial inertia, then we’re on the dirt track and driving back through the small forest. On the open road, Gregory picks up speed. I bend with him as he corners with the road, the combination of speed and the sensation of my legs wrapped around him is exhilarating and doing nothing to clear my mind of filthy thoughts. We drive until there’s nothing but green land and sheep, until we’re the only two people in sight. I wrap my arms tighter around him and he starts to slow the bike so I can hear his voice.

“Do you want to stop?”

“Yes,” I say, breathlessly.

He pulls us over next to a large leafless tree and kills the engine. I dismount and walk onto the grass to see the view but Gregory’s hand grabs mine and pulls me back against the trunk of the tree. Excitement pulses through every vein in my body. I’ve thought about this for the last thirty minutes; I’m desperate for him to strip me down and fuck me. Hard.

He moves my right hand above my head and presses his leathers against mine. When my eyes tell him how much I want him, he kisses me, vigorously, passionately. He opens his leather bottoms then slowly pulls down the zip of mine. I undo the button of my jeans and let him pull both down to my thighs. I can’t believe I’m doing this but my need for him tramples any sensible thoughts I might have.

I push my hands inside his boxers and rub his hard length. I’m not the only one whose mind has been wandering. He bites his lower lip and closes his eyes, then he places his hand on my neck and pulls my head into his. I wrap my tongue around his, licking, tasting, absorbing him.

“These leathers.” I swallow his heavy, gruff words.