Chapter Sixteen
Now
‘A ny change?’
Ethan jumped, then turned to glare at me. ‘Why are you silent?’
‘I’m not silent. I’ve taken my shoes off.’
‘Right.’ He turned back to the wall panel just inside the front door, the screen glowing a cheerful blue while he pressed buttons. It beeped happily, while continuing to offer no possibility of releasing us any time soon.
‘Panic Room Mode activated,’ the Sparks voice said smoothly, in response to something he’d pressed.
‘Yes, I know it’s fucking activated!’ Ethan shouted.
‘Hey.’ I squeezed his arm. ‘Come on.’
‘I mean, what the fuck? What the fuck , Sparks?’
‘I will not tolerate that language,’ Sparks said haughtily.
‘How does she know you were swearing,’ I asked, ‘when you said Sparks at the end? ’
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It picks up the whole sentence. Wherever the word Sparks is, it’ll get the gist.’
‘Which means it’s recording everything we say?’ A shiver ran down my spine.
‘It doesn’t record anything; it’s just more intelligent than anything else on the market right now.’
‘Of course it is.’
Ethan narrowed his eyes at me.
I didn’t want us to be at odds. For however long we were trapped here, we had to get along. Then we could go our separate ways, he could continue to be mad at me for forgiving him but not tracking him down to tell him, and I could go on trying not to stalk his Instagram, and most likely failing.
‘Why don’t you give me a tour?’ I suggested.
‘What?’ He folded his arms, his shirt smoothing over his deltoids and biceps.
‘Don’t pretend that sentence didn’t make perfect sense. We’re stuck here for the time being, so why don’t you give me a tour? Show me all the things you love about Sterenlenn.’
‘I’ve shown you the bedroom,’ he said tightly.
‘You found me in the bedroom,’ I corrected. ‘I was already there. Is that your favourite room?’ I widened my eyes. ‘Of course it is; I should have known.’ I grinned, and some unnameable emotion flickered behind his eyes.
‘George,’ he said wearily.
‘Come on.’ I took his hand. ‘Be mad at me if you like. I was mad at you: really, really mad. I was completely heartbroken.’ I had meant it to be a rousing speech, but now I was remembering how it had felt to lose him; to sit on my bed after he’d gone, and think about all the things we’d talked about and shared, and how much I missed him.
‘I was,’ I went on, ‘but I also got over it, and you did too. We were eighteen, when even the smallest things felt entirely momentous, and now we’re not.
You have created this beautiful place, and if we’re going to be trapped here for the next few hours, then I want to see it all. ’
Ethan tried to pull his hand out of mine, but I held on tightly.
‘You must want to show it off. All those open house weirdos came here to drink champagne, be seen and think about their profit margins, but you love the house. Show it to me.’
He stared at me for a handful of seconds, as if he was trying to work out how my brain fitted together, but I knew it was a losing battle and so did he, because he sighed and said, ‘OK.’
‘Great.’ I did a little jump. ‘Where first? The separate beer and wine fridges?’
He gave me a flicker of a smile. ‘No. Upstairs.’
‘We did the spooky nightlights already.’
‘Come and see the master bathroom.’
‘You mean the en-suite disco lights are a sideshow?’
‘Exactly. Follow me.’
It was alarming how much I loved hearing him say that, his low, beckoning tone more persuasive than any pipe played by a legendary child-stealer.
‘It’s a Jacuzzi bath, with a TV mounted on the wall and another drinks fridge.
’ I shook my head, unable to stop staring, because the bathroom at the back of Sterenlenn was bigger than an entire floor of my house.
It was painted in cool sea greens and that hint of Atlantic blue, smelled overwhelmingly of vanilla and sea salt, and there was something about the ambience – maybe some subliminal messages pumped through the Sparks system – that made it infinitely soothing.
I’d gone to my dentist’s last week for a check-up, and had been delighted that they had a bottle of Original Source hand soap in their minuscule toilet.
These little touches , I’d thought happily, wondering if I needed to have a rethink about my home hygiene products.
Now I wanted to burn my house to the ground.
‘It would be better if we could clear the windows,’ Ethan said. ‘We knocked the original one out here, so we could make this wall glass. When you’re in the bath it’s supposed to feel like you’re in the ocean.’
I nodded. I could see that – when the glass wasn’t dark – the view would be straight over the back garden, to the cliff edge and the wild sea beyond.
Pebbles and shells in greys, creams and dusky pinks were set into the sink surround, and I could feel the lingering warmth of the underfloor heating beneath my bare feet.
‘This is a light catcher, too.’ Ethan gestured above us, to another crystal chandelier.
It was turned on now, but I could imagine that when sunlight came in, it would snag hold of the crystal drops and cast rainbows across the tiles and the plush, upholstered bench nestled in the corner of the room.
‘And in there,’ he pointed to a featureless section of the wall, ‘there’s a massage table. ’
‘Show me,’ I said with a grin.
Ethan pressed a discreet button, and a smooth, near-silent mechanism got to work, a padded table sliding out of the wall until it was roughly waist-height.
He pressed another button and feet slowly lowered to the floor, then he unlatched the table from the wall and pulled it into the middle of the room.
‘This is so the masseuse can walk all the way around it,’ he explained.
‘So, when I said earlier that the house doesn’t give you a massage, it basically does?’
‘There are no robotic arms,’ he said with a smile. ‘You need an actual human to get involved, but … I suppose so.’
‘Ethan,’ I said with a laugh, ‘your house is insane.’
I ran my hand over the padded table. It was soft, less plasticky than the ones in Alperwick Spa, where Spence had taken me to celebrate my birthday.
I always felt self-conscious in spas, being mostly naked and extremely vulnerable in front of a stranger whose job it was to put their hands on me.
Spence, of course, had acted like she owned the place, but for her the massage was more than just a treat, as it helped relieve some of her pain.
‘Maybe this is the way to go.’ I thought of how, when the masseuse had asked me to turn from my stomach onto my back, the towel had slipped and I’d shouted, ‘My boobs!’ as if they were escaping and she needed to chase them down.
‘You think it’s a good addition?’ There was something in the way Ethan said it, an inkling of hope, as if he was happy I approved.
‘Yup,’ I said. ‘I’m going to replace my kitchen worktops with a massage table and one of those puffy atomizer things that changes colour.’
He stared at me. ‘I’m not doing this just so you can mock me.’
I glared back. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’ I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan. It’s just … this is so far beyond what’s normal.’
‘I know. But for this size and style of property – it’s what buyers want. I put in a plan for something more traditional, something without all these bells and whistles, that was more in keeping with the original house and its features, but the investors didn’t … they wanted all this.’
‘Sarah wanted a massage table?’
‘She wanted what the investors wanted. These days she’s just … she’s wholly focused on supporting me, and the business. And sometimes she has a much better idea of what I need than I do.’
‘Right.’ It was still hard for me to reconcile this new Sarah with the one I’d known at eighteen. I examined the huge shower cubicle that was similar to the one in the en-suite. ‘Disco lights here, too?’
‘Of course.’
‘And the special Ethan Sparks temperature setting?’
‘The ambient temperature is twenty-one degrees,’ the house announced, and I rolled my eyes.
‘You could never live in one of your own houses,’ I said. ‘It would get too annoying.’
‘I don’t often say my surname out loud.’ Ethan leaned against the shower glass and crossed his arms. I would have to stop annoying him so he didn’t keep doing that, or else find a shirt that was two sizes too big for him. ‘And what is the special Ethan temperature setting ?’
‘You know what it is.’ I took a step towards him. ‘You love showers that are so hot you’re basically poaching yourself.’
‘Nothing wrong with a hot, steamy shower.’
‘I prefer not to boil my brain while I’m getting clean. I lose enough brain cells coming up with inane headlines for the newspaper.’
‘And have you improved on your original attempt for this calamity?’
‘“Sparko: the story of the house that couldn’t”.’
‘You can do better than that.’ His eyes blazed. ‘If you’re going to be the catalyst of my downfall, then I want something really fucking good, OK? I want to go out with a bang. And you know what …?’
‘Please tell me.’ I folded my arms, mirroring him.
‘This story is so much better for you now everything’s gone wrong. It’s gone from a bland property piece to a juicy disaster, so I’m starting to wonder if—’
‘If I had anything to do with this?’ I couldn’t hide my shock. ‘Are you serious ? How do you think I went about hacking into your precious house?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t know you any more. I have no clue what you’re capable of.’
‘Ethan.’ I sucked in a breath. ‘I failed to charge my phone, so it’s currently on less than 10 per cent. I left my spare camera battery at home. I’m – I’m not some kind of James Bond level technological mastermind.’
‘Q is the tech wizard for James Bond – he doesn’t do any of it himself – and you could just be saying that.’