33. RAFE
RAFE
“Melanie had a great time the other night,” Henry says as the elevator doors open into the penthouse. I’m barely listening to him; after meeting the woman at Delirium and calling out Diana’s name, the time I spent with Melanie at Lizzie’s goodbye party has faded to insignificance.
“Did you enjoy it?” Henry continues. “Julian could be onto something, you know. Melanie’s very attractive. I thought it might—”
“It won’t,” I snap.
Henry frowns, a bemused smile distorting his mouth, but he knows me well enough not to push it. “And how is it now Lizzie’s gone?” he asks. “Your first Christmas without her.”
“Fine,” I say, forcing myself to stay focused on him, but unable to ignore the twinge of discomfort that passes through me as we enter the penthouse. I’m hyper alert, trying to determine who’s in the house through some sixth sense before I turn the corner and have to face… her.
I haven’t seen Diana since my outburst on the sofa, and every time I come home, I cringe at the recollection. I haven’t been down to the pool, and I’ve deliberately been working late and leaving early.
Cowardly, perhaps. I know she’s leaving soon, and the staff have been moving around the apartment, packing up her things and rearranging the place as if she was never here.
Is allowing her to leave without acknowledging my inappropriate outburst a good idea? I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I told her what happened; I was half-cut and confused as shit.
Henry and I turn into the main living area to find the room swarming with staff; the housekeeper and three cleaners are crawling over the floor, asses in the air.
Henry throws me a look, eyebrow arched in amusement. “What’s going on here?” he bellows, and the housekeeper, on her hands and knees beneath the coffee table, bounces up, only to thwack her head on the underside.
“Sir,” she says.
“Are you all right?” I ask. “What’s going on?”
She kneels back on her heels, one hand still rubbing her head. “Miss Diana wanted us to check she hasn’t left anything anywhere in the flat before she leaves. She misplaced a few items.”
“Oh?” I ask, but the sound is vapid.
Is Diana in the building? Am I going to see her?
My heart is beating fast enough to break a four-minute mile.
A cry comes from the other side of the room. “What about this?” One of the cleaners runs in from the other room, brandishing a pink mask with gold piping.
The sight hits me like a smack to the face.
“Is that… yours?” Henry asks me, clearly entertained by the idea.
Ignoring him, I snatch the mask from the cleaner.
“I’ll take that,” I spit. The cleaner pulls back, and if I were more able to control the turmoil whirling through my system, I’d apologise.
But as it is, I feel like I’m about to fucking die.
The room swims, and I almost lurch like the ground is shifting beneath my feet.
Trying to steady my field of vision, I stare at my shoes, scrunching the mask in one hand. When I glance up, Henry’s frowning.
“All okay?” he queries.
“Fuck, no,” I mutter, ushering him to my office and shoving him in before me, closing the door behind us.
He faces me, a smirk curling his lips, his hands spread wide. “If this is how you finally proposition me—”
“Fuck off.”
Henry’s amusement vanishes and he looks around the room, taking in my books, which are in boxes on the floor, the shelves empty of all the ones we bought for Diana.
“You moving out?” he asks.
I lean one hand on my desk, my chest feeling uncomfortably tight as I struggle to take a full breath. “I let Diana use my office. Her books were on the shelves.”
He examines the empty bookshelves. “You really made space for that girl in your life, eh?”
I let out a wheezing cough, and his eyes widen as he spins to face me.
“What’s wrong with you? You’ve gone all wishy-washy.”
“Wishy-washy?”
“White like a sheet. All limp and floppy.” His face takes on a serious expression. “Do I need to call an ambulance? Did you fuck one of the cleaners? Is she pregnant?”
I shake my head and thrust the mask into his hand. “Does that look like it belongs to me?”
Henry peers at the decidedly feminine mask in his hand. “Well… no. But who am I to determine what you might like?” He squints at it. “Whose is it?”
I snatch it from him and sniff it. Diana’s perfume.
Henry’s face warps, his upper lip curling. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I toss the mask on my desk, where it skids on the leather and comes to a stop next to my computer. “Do you remember it?” I point at the mask. “Do you remember it?” I repeat, louder the second time.
Henry raises his hands, shaking his head like he thinks I’m about to attack him. “I don’t follow.”
“On Saturday night, I went to Delirium to meet the same woman from before. She messaged me, and we met up.”
“Ah.” He thumps his hands together in one dull clap. “She finally messaged. How was it?”
I pace the room, one hand in my pocket, the other deep in my hair. “Fine. Shit. I don’t know.” I stop and tug a finger around the inside of my collar. It’s too tight. Too fucking tight. “Terrible. It was terrible.”
“Did you get her name?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Just the mask?” His eyebrows scoot up his forehead.
“Did you take it? Did you steal her mask? What’s wrong with you?
” He almost laughs, but I can hear genuine concern beneath the sound.
“I think I do need to call that ambulance. You’re clearly having some kind of mental breakdown.
This woman has turned you into a bloody kleptomaniac. ”
I hold up a hand. “Can you shut up for a moment? I didn’t take anyone’s mask. She never took it off. Let me… let me talk this through.”
Henry presses his lips together and nods.
“She was wearing the same perfume Diana wears.”
“So?”
I splay my fingers, gesturing with both hands. “And now the mask is here. In my home.”
Henry’s mouth falls open slightly, his gaze finding the mask, still lying on my desk. His lips curve into a smile, and a low, eager chuckle slips out. “You think it’s her. You think the woman with the mask is Diana?”
I can’t confirm it out loud. Not yet. If my suspicions are correct, this is a diabolical disaster.
“She was wearing a mask just like that one. But her hair was different. Different, but the same. And her voice… totally different. Even the way she carried herself. Not the same. It was like two completely different people. And yet…” I grimace as I recall the way she said Mr Bastion before I plunged my dick inside her.
The words snagged in my brain, caught by an awareness just out of reach.
I couldn’t remember if I’d told her or not.
I thought I’d just said Rafe, but in the heat of the moment I couldn’t fucking remember, and I was past caring.
“I swear that woman was American. But how else did that mask”—I jab a finger towards it—“get here?”
“Call her,” Henry says. “What number do you have for Diana?”
I return to pacing back and forth across the room, my palm pressed to my forehead.
“I don’t have her number. I didn’t think it was appropriate to have her number.
I didn’t need it. She was always here. I knew Lizzie had her number.
I didn’t—” I stop and hold up a finger. “Wait” I approach my desk, landing heavily in my chair and opening the top drawer.
I shove my hand in amongst the papers. “Lizzie gave it to me when Diana first moved in. She wrote it down.” I pull out the second drawer, tearing through the contents as Henry perches on the edge of my desk, watching.
I rifle through sheets of paper, notes, and various pens and other accoutrements.
I’m breaking out into a sweat, panic running through me.
Finally, I find it. Diana’s name with her phone number scrawled under it on a little piece of paper. Pulling out my phone, I bring up the short message exchange between me and the woman from Delirium, comparing the numbers.
Digit-for-fucking-digit identical.
I drop the phone and the paper onto my desk, rest my elbows on the surface, and cradle my bowed head in my hands.
Memories and half-considered thoughts batter at the walls I’ve built in my mind; the moments I refused to see, the similarities I refused to acknowledge.
The layers I refused to peel back. I felt a connection to that woman at the club; sexual, yes, but also something more.
Something that had me begging Henry to break the law and share her details with me. But with Diana, I wanted even more.
Keeping my eyes on the desk, I’m aware of Henry reaching across and taking the piece of paper and my phone, where the contact Beautiful Stranger is open.
“Hmm. Beautiful, yes,” Henry muses. “Stranger, not so much.” His hand claps on my shoulder, amusement trickling through his words.
“At least you know who she is now.” I’m still cradling my head in my hands, but when he digs his fingers into my shoulder, I look up, and he asks the question I’ve been dreading, “But really, how the fuck did you not know?”