Chapter 14
I wake with a start. I’ve been dreaming and have a lingering sense of emptiness but I can’t piece together the story.
Reaching out for my comfort blanket, I find sheets and mattress but no Gregory.
The clock on the bedside cabinet tells me it’s four fifty-five in the morning.
I pull on a short, silk nightdress and go in search of Gregory.
His nightmares are less frequent now but they still have a realness that makes him restless in bed, sometimes yelling out. They still make him retreat and put up his walls.
The yacht must have docked at a new port whilst we were sleeping.
We’re tied up at the back of the harbour, the spot closest to the ocean.
The bay is full of smaller boats and flanked on either side by cliffs.
Moonlight bounces off the gently rocking waves.
A new place, in darkness, silence, stillness.
It could be beautiful but it fills me with an eerie sense of apprehension.
I find him on the main deck, resting on the boat’s safety rail. His body is almost silhouetted in the night as he drags one hand back through his untamed bed hair. I think it must have been a bad nightmare but then he speaks, his words short and sharp.
‘Give them more. Everyone has a price, Sydney. We’ve got until twelve your time before they run the story.
It’s already after nine. Put the money to them now.
If they don’t accept it, ask what it’ll take.
One way or another, this is not going to print.
Call me back.’ As if he senses me, he hangs up on his head of PR. ‘Go back to bed, baby.’
‘You said you’d paid them off.’
‘I never said that. You assumed that.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me they wouldn’t accept money?’
Back to me, he looks to me across his shoulder, his face haunted under the moon’s light.
‘Scarlett, I’m fixing it.’ His words are subdued, as if he’s fed up of fighting.
I go to him and wrap my arms around him.
He holds a hand over mine on his chest as I lean into his back and gently press my lips to his shoulder.
I don’t want him to have to fight any more.
When his phone rings again, he answers through speaker phone. A small act that means more to me than he probably realises.
‘Did they take it?’
‘No, I’m sorry, Gregory.’
‘How much do they want?’
‘Gregory, I don’t think they have a price. They’re a small paper. They realise the big guns are tied up in settlement agreements. They think this is too big a story to let go.’
His grip tightens over my hand. ‘Stay close. I’ll call you back.’
Gregory storms to the front of the boat and I follow, sitting down onto the edge of a rattan lounger, pulling one knee under me. He paces, one hand on his hip.
‘Level with me,’ I say, not confrontational but certainly authoritative.
He faces me, legs firmly planted, arms folded across his chest.
‘They aren’t this excited about a self-defence story that’ll blow over in a week, so tell me what they’ve got.’
‘I don’t want to drag you into this, Scarlett.’
‘Too late, Ryans, I’m in it for the long-haul. You’ve got me.’
‘The payoff.’ He barely mumbles the word.
I want to freak out. I want to lash out or cry in hysterics. Instead, I sit up straight and draw air into my lungs. ‘How? What do they know?’
His shoulders visibly drop a half-inch. ‘They’re clutching at straws. There’s nothing to find.’
‘Don’t try to make light of this and patronise me. They’re not clutching at straws; they think they’ve got something solid. No small press turns down the money I know you’ll be offering if they’ve got nothing. They wouldn’t just make up something like a bribe. So tell me everything. Right now.’
His eyes widen and his brows rise in surprise at my tone. Yes, Ryans, this is our future.
‘I’ve told you everything there is to tell. The money was in relation to the gun. That’s all. It had nothing to do with the murder. The deal was, if there was no murder charge, the gun would disappear.’
‘Do you seriously expect me to keep believing this?’
‘Yes. Because it’s the truth. I’ve never lied to you, Scarlett, never. There are things I haven’t told you in the past but you asked me outright and I told you, that arrangement had nothing to do with the murder charge.’
‘So if the charge had gone ahead…’ My body shudders.
‘You know what, I don’t want to think about that.
What concerns me more is how convenient it is that one of the few papers that could print something on this has wound up with the information.
Don’t you think that’s strange? Who knows about the bribe? Who made the deal?’
‘Me, Jackson, Barnes and his contact at the CPS.’
‘That’s it?’
‘John Harrison would be an idiot if he couldn’t work it out.’
Holy shit. ‘And I thought lawyers were supposed to have integrity.’ Then I snort, thinking about the irony of that statement. I killed a man and lied about it. I know about a bribe and I’m hiding it.
‘They can’t talk, Scarlett. Jackson and Barnes aren’t even a concern but the others have too much at stake. They’d implicate themselves.’
‘Well, someone thinks you bribed a government official, Gregory. It’s an imprisonable offence for Christ’s sake, you don’t just—’ It hits me like lightning, burning through my body, turning my stomach. ‘Katrina Martin.’
He nods slowly, resolute. ‘I agree.’
‘I knew she wouldn’t go away. She’s got a vendetta and she won’t back down. She’s not that kind of woman.’ Dropping my head into my hands, I roll my fingertips over my temples, trying to make sense of everything, trying to get my head straight.
He bends to his hunkers and peels my hands away from my face. ‘Baby, please, don’t let this drag us down. No more. I’ll fight the world for you but don’t let this keep coming back.’
In this moment, his exterior might be strong but I know that’s not how he’s feeling inside. He needs me as much as I need him.
‘They won’t find a bribe, baby. Katrina Martin has nothing concrete. There’s no trail. There are no more people involved than those who absolutely had to be. She’s got a hunch, that’s all. The paper will investigate and eventually, they’ll come up empty.’
‘That’s not the point though, is it? That’s not even your biggest concern.’
He closes his eyes and covers my hands in his. ‘No.’
‘You don’t want them to dig into your past.’
‘It makes me look weak, Scarlett, and if that doesn’t ruin my reputation, the fact that people will draw their own conclusions about my motive for killing my father will do it. But it’s more than just me.’
‘You don’t want them to find Elsa.’
He shakes his head, opening his eyes. ‘She doesn’t deserve it. And it would break my mother. I need you to trust me. I’ll fix this. If we panic, we tell the world we’ve got something to hide.’
‘I’m so sorry, Gregory. This is all my fault.’ Tears roll warm down my cheeks as a knife twists in my chest.
‘You saved me, Scarlett. Please don’t be sorry about that. I never will be.’
He drops to his knees and pulls me into his chest, squeezing me against his warm, bare flesh.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Right now, I’m going to lay you down and make love to you.’
There are ten things we should be doing instead. The working day is beginning in England. But he needs this. We both need it. Just us, nothing else.
‘As long as we’re good,’ he mumbles into my neck. ‘I love you.’
His kiss is deep, full and passionate. His tongue flecks against mine, then licks the inside of my lip as he lifts me from the lounger, grabbing the cushion, and carries me to the bow of the yacht. He throws the cushion on the deck then lowers us down, my back pressed to the bed cushion.
He hovers over me, his muscles displayed to their greatest advantage, tense above me. ‘I need us to be okay,’ he whispers against my lips.
‘We are.’
The way we make love is urgent, desperate, yet silent in the darkness of the harbour.
After, his fingers move lazily across my back until my muscles have settled and my breathing returned to normal. Then he crawls over me and rolls us onto his back. I shiver when his lips press against my temple.
‘You’re cold.’
‘I don’t care.’
He pecks my temple again. ‘I do.’
‘I just want to lie with you.’
‘I know, baby. Me too. But I need to deal with the paper. Then we can spend all day in bed if you like.’
Just like that, the reality of the situation sets quickly back in.
‘I need to speak to Barnes and Jackson.’
I nod.
‘Scarlett, I don’t want to involve you in this. I can go to someone else. But—’
‘You need an injunction.’
‘Yes,’ he almost exhales.
‘Okay. I’ll go get my laptop. Get Sydney to send me everything she has. I’ll call Richard; he’s the partner at Saunders who deals with this kind of thing. I’ll brief him and get him on the case. It’ll cost you because it’s a rush job.’
‘Money is no object.’
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we debrief each other.
Richard is filing for an interim injunction to stop the tabloid going to print and is confident it’ll be granted given the lack of foundation to the paper’s argument and the attack it represents to Gregory’s reputation.
It’ll take a few hours so it’s a waiting game for now.
Gregory has told Jackson what he needs to know to keep him in the loop but doesn’t want to pull him away from his honeymoon.
Katrina Martin is in London and Barnes has put the wheels in motion to suspend her on the basis she’s investigating a closed case without consent and she’s suspected to have leaked confidential details.
‘You know this is going to make her more determined, Gregory. She’s looking for blood and if she thinks this will make her name, she won’t stop until she gets it.’
‘Hey. Enough. We’ve done everything we can. Forget her. She’s nobody and she’s going to come up short at every angle.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I’ve told you before, my world is different to yours. Can we leave it at that?’
I nod. ‘I think you should get Sydney on the case of putting out some good PR for you. Corporate social responsibility projects, that kind of thing.’
‘She’s already looking at what CSR projects we have coming up. There’s a charity gala on Thursday in the week we get home. We’ll go and make our presence known.’
‘Actually, that leads me nicely onto my other idea.’
He furrows his brows. I really don’t want to cheapen what we have but as I turn the diamonds around my finger, brilliant sparkling gems entwined with a streak of darkness, I know it’s the right thing to do.
‘I think you should publicise the engagement.’
His eyes betray his anger.
‘It makes you look human, Gregory. Someone can love you. This whole thing could still leak. You’re one of the wealthiest men in the world; I just think showing people that someone can love you looks—’
‘Don’t you dare!’ His words are a bark that howls across the emptiness of the harbour. ‘Don’t you dare turn the way I feel for you into a PR stunt, Scarlett. Don’t ever do that!’
‘I just think—’
‘No!’ He pulls his knee onto the lounger so we’re facing each other. ‘You’re the only good thing in my life. I want the world to know you’re mine and it will, but I’m not bringing what we have into this shit. It’s worth more than this. So much more.’
‘All right. I’m sorry.’ I hold his cheek in my palm.
He turns to kiss my skin.
‘CSR it is.’
‘There’s nothing we can do for a while. Let’s get some sleep.’
‘Can we stay out here?’ I look up to the sky, the stars clearing as the blackness turns to grey. ‘I like it.’
‘I’m happy wherever you are.’
‘Where is that, incidentally?’
‘St Bart’s, baby.’
We take two lounger cushions and lie on the front of the deck. He pulls my body into him – my back to his chest, his knees behind mine – and lays a thick blanket over us.
‘You smell of you,’ he says, nuzzling into my neck and drawing my hair back across my shoulder. I drift into a peaceful sleep, pushing away lingering thoughts of darkness and the stress we’ll have to deal with when we wake again.