Chapter 18
I watch my feet as I step out of the lift.
My black heels click on the marble tiles of the sixty-fourth floor of the Shard.
I fasten the belt of my black mac tighter around my waist for comfort.
My body shivers, wet from standing at my dad’s graveside as he was lowered into the ground and cold from the air and eerie silence of the vestibule.
In my hand, I carry a white rose. I watch as my fingers and the rose reach out to the door of the apartment. Ajar. Blackness creeping out through the small gap.
I don’t want to go inside. I’m afraid.
My legs keep moving without conscious instruction. The door creaks as I step inside. Blue floor lighting dimly glows on the rosewood under my feet. The open lounge is otherwise dark, illuminated only by the moon and the lights of the city beyond the windows.
He’s here.
The top of his head sits two inches above the back of the black leather chair as he faces the silent streets of London.
The white rose falls from my hand and bounces on the ground as if time in the world has been slowed, almost to stillness.
‘You came alone.’ Kevin Pearson’s voice is low and husky. ‘You love him that much. You’d give your life for his.’
‘What do you want?’
He revolves in the chair until he’s facing me, his black suit jacket open, his white shirt unbuttoned by three. As the moon’s light catches his face, I see it’s not Kevin Pearson at all. It’s his body, his eyes. But the face is Stuart Culliton.
‘You can’t save him, Scarlett.’
He raises a hand, pointing a Glock straight ahead. Only it’s not aimed at me. Gregory is beside me, holding me to one side with an outstretched arm, ready to take the bullet.
The safety clicks off.
‘No. No. Nooooo…’
Pushing away his arm, I dive across Gregory’s body as the force of the metal leaving the barrel of the Glock thuds and echoes in the open space.
A searing pain burns through my abdomen before I crash against the cold wood floor.
‘Gregory!’
‘Shh, baby, I’m here. I’m here.’ He sits up in bed and takes control of my shaking shoulders. ‘Jesus, you’re crying. Come here.’
I know the nightmare is over. He’s here. He’s alive. But I still check my body for a wound before I relax into his chest and sob, letting him take me back to the mattress in his embrace.
He holds me, kissing my forehead, stroking my hair and the skin of my back until my breathing calms, then he slips back into sleep. I fight it. Afraid. I can’t give myself over. I won’t let it come back. I can’t see that again.
I don’t want to be here, in this apartment, any more.
As the black sky shifts to charcoal behind the bedroom blind, I slip out of Gregory’s hold and downstairs to the gym.
* * *
Jackson warily pushes open the gym door and I stop pounding the bag with a combination of gloved punches and sidekicks.
‘Everything all right?’
Hugging the bag and rolling my wet forehead across the short sleeve of my aqua Climacool top, I let him answer his own question, my mouth open only to drag air into my lungs.
It must be five-thirty. Jackson tends to come into the gym whilst Gregory goes out to road run. He fits in his own workout before he acts as Gregory’s PT.
‘Want to talk, or want to kick the shit out of that thing together?’
‘The latter,’ I say, pulling back from the bag.
‘All right, give me a right hook, left uppercut, right jab, then do the same starting on the left.’
Grunting through each move, I hit the bag six times.
‘Through it, Scarlett. Don’t hit the bag, punch through it, like I’ve told you.’
Repeating the sequence, I elongate each of my moves and feel a damn sight better for the beating I’m giving the bag as Jackson holds it from behind.
Jackson casts his attention over my shoulder and nods twice towards the door as I hammer through the next sequence, finishing with a kick that rocks him back on his feet.
‘You’re getting stronger, kid. Want a break?’
I nod but don’t move from the spot. Instead, exhausted by my workout and lack of sleep, I slump down to my bum next to the bag and drop my face into my boxing gloves, pressing tears back into my eyes. ‘I just want it all to go away, Jackson.’
Jackson being Jackson, he doesn’t say much but I know he understands exactly what I’m talking about.
I wanted Gregory’s past to stop haunting him.
Now it haunts me. The constant feeling of distrusting people – Trina, Stuart – unable to get past that fatal night.
The worry that Katrina Martin is out there and, suspended or not, she’ll be digging.
I clear out of the gym before Gregory gets back from his run.
I shower, pin up my hair and dress in record time, then head out before Gregory’s even finished his session with Jackson.
I text him that I agreed to meet Amanda for breakfast before work.
A lie I feel guilty about but a lie that will make him feel better than the truth.
I just need to be alone. Away from the apartment where I killed a man.
Where I’m scared of Amy stepping out of the damn door.
Away from the bed that’s home to my nightmares.
And as much as it breaks my heart to admit it to myself, away from the man who brought it all upon me.
I can’t shake this feeling that something just isn’t right but if you asked me what that thing is, I wouldn’t know.
It was my choice. All of this. That’s what I’m reminding myself as I ride a black cab to work.
I could have walked away when I knew the takeover was hostile.
I didn’t. I wanted to save the little boy from my dreams. Retribution for the scars on my perfect man.
And eventually, revenge for the only two men I’ve ever loved.
At Blackfriars, I head for a seriously necessary hit of caffeine.
‘Now there’s a lady who looks like she needs a latte,’ the barista who thinks he’s being nice says, handing me the double-shot latte.
‘You have no idea.’ I thank him and accept a paper bag containing an almond croissant.
‘Holy hell!’ I turn smack into Gregory’s chest, still covered in a light-grey, sweat-drenched hoody.
‘Amanda stand you up?’
I don’t know what to say so I say nothing at all. Instead, I stare into the eyes I saw in my sleep and shudder.
‘Americano,’ he says across my shoulder. Then he looks back at me. ‘Sit.’
After retrieving his Americano, he pulls up a seat opposite me across a small wood table for two in the otherwise empty café. He takes my croissant from the bag and tears off a chunk for himself then pushes it on top of the bag towards me. ‘Eat.’
I tear the croissant into pieces but push them around the paper bag, preferring instead to sip my latte.
‘Scarlett, I need you to talk to me.’
‘That’s rich,’ I snipe.
‘I can see what’s happening to you and I won’t let it. I won’t let you fall into darkness. Not you. Not ever.’
‘I’m not. I just— I had a nightmare and I… I couldn’t be there any more. I needed to get out.’
‘Do you want to leave? Will it help? I can buy us somewhere else. Sell the apartment. We could go to the farm for a few weeks or stay in a hotel in the city. I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right for you.’
‘None of that’s necessary. I’m fine, generally, I just…
can’t stop thinking that the payoff could come back to haunt us.
And this thing with Black Diamonds and Stuart is on my mind.
Then I— It sounds ridiculous, but Amy came out of the apartment last night, and the door was ajar and it just, I don’t know.
I thought I was better than I am. Maybe it’s the stress of yesterday, that’s all, and my dream last night was just… messed up… it got to me. But I’m fine.’
‘I want to ask you something. Don’t be offended.’
I nod uncertainly.
‘Would you like to see someone? A therapist?’
And tell them what, exactly? ‘It was a nightmare. You know better than I do that nightmares happen.’ Yes, I can play you at your own game. ‘You retreat. It took you months to talk to me about anything. I’m just taking a morning. Is that too much to ask?’
His eyes soften with a pity that could break my heart.
After everything he’s been through, I’m the one behaving like the world owes me a favour.
Shaking my head at myself, I move around the table and sit onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and not caring who might see us.
‘I’m sorry I left. I’m okay. I promise.’ I drop my lips to his.
‘You’re my reason, Scarlett. My Aurora. As long as we’re okay, the world is right.’
‘We’re okay. I love you.’
* * *
By the time people start filing into the office, I’ve been over the information foreign counsel have sent me on Black Diamonds in China and the US.
Both adverse registrations have been filed by newly incorporated companies, set up in the respective jurisdictions, and their sole shareholder is a parent company incorporated in France.
I google the companies but they show only websites under construction.
I email local counsel and ask them to take a look at the corporation documents of the Chinese and US companies to see if there’s anything suspect about them but both lawyers confirm the companies look legit.
Why doesn’t it feel legit? A question I’m unable to answer, therefore I have to trust the judgment of Malcolm and Wang Nongfan.
Amanda pops into my office to say hello and show me a bamboo unisex clothing range for Bump Darling. She leaves on a less than subtle hint that she’d quite like a baby shower.
Luke, my university ex and friend, calls me at eleven to catch up on my holiday and profess his concern that Gregory being engaged makes it less likely he’ll be gay, or at least dabble, with Luke.
I arrange a twelve-thirty lunch with Emily, Lawrence’s niece, which Amanda gets in on when she stalks my calendar to remind herself of the time of our handover meeting for Mr Ghurair’s final deal this afternoon.
By 4 p.m., I’ve kept myself too busy to think about nightmares.