The Unraveling

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jordan and Alistair then step away from the crowd. Away from me. Away from my control and my listening ears. Jordan gives me a last, conspiratorial look before he goes, something that acknowledges that, yes, this is very weird.

My heart lifts, unexpectedly, at the little moment of us -ness, and I steady myself by taking a glass of champagne off a passing tray and saying, out loud to myself, “Okay, okay, all good, everything’s fine.”

I busy myself by staring into the abyss of dark ruby crimson in the piece closest to me. I look at it without really seeing it, my mind whirling as I try simultaneously to guess what Alistair could be proposing and also try to take my mind off of it.

I drift around the gallery looking for Jordan’s pieces, my mind a million miles away, but find myself coming back to the present as I realize I don’t recognize some of his work.

It hasn’t been that long since we broke up. Only a few months. Last I was around Jordan, he was in kind of a slump. Painter’s block. Nothing was coming to him. Every time he went to his studio, he came home frustrated because ever since moving to London, he’d been completely dry.

But judging by the unfamiliarity of some of these pieces—and the fact that the information tiles beside them say they were painted this year—he’s been extremely prolific since we broke up.

What is he, Adele? He can only create his art after a breakup?

His pieces are all gloomier than they had been previously. Lots of cadmium red and Prussian blue. Payne’s gray and onyx black. Instead of the soft varnish he usually does, these are all finished in thick, high gloss.

So he’s not with anyone—or at least, the blonde was his sister, not a girlfriend—and he’s been making moody art ever since we broke up. So then how is it possible that he hasn’t tried, not even once, to get in touch with me?

I take a sip of champagne and look across the gallery at Jordan and Alistair, who have been joined by a man in thick-rimmed glasses and a narrowly tailored suit. If I had to guess, I’d say that Alistair is making a purchase and that man is the gallery owner.

Why does Alistair want to buy a piece of Jordan’s? Not that I don’t think they’re good, have value, or have an appeal to a rich man who likes to acquire things, but why has he brought us here?

Is he fucking with me?

My defenses rise, and I remember that he’s given me no reason not to trust him. Except for the whole he’s married thing—but that has nuance.

Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The three men do a round of handshakes. Alistair looks pleased, and so does the gallery owner, but I’m fluent enough in Jordan’s body language to see that he seems uncomfortable. Something is off.

He looks around the room for a moment, searching, and when his eyes land on me, I see a look I can’t translate.

I start to walk toward him, but am stopped by Alistair approaching me. He gives me a wink and then stands by my side, where he whispers, “Nice guy,” before asking a server if they have any scotch hidden somewhere in the back. The server nods and goes off to find it for him.

The gallery owner puts a little scarlet dot on the info panel by Jordan’s painting nearest to us. It’s a mix of grays and blues and something about it gives me chills.

I know that the little dot means it sold.

“Did you just buy that painting?” I ask.

“I did. For quite a bit above its value, in fact.”

“Why—why did you do that?”

“He’s a great artist. He’s up-and-coming. And by buying it at this price, I’m raising the value of his other work, which I’ve started buying up recently.”

“You didn’t tell me that. Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I own a lot of art, Jocelyn; would you like me to tell you every piece I own?”

I start at this, but look up at him to see a wash of amusement in his features. He’s kidding. It just didn’t sound like he was kidding.

The server returns with his scotch, and he accepts it, slyly handing over a twenty-pound note as he does.

“One more thing,” he says. “I put it under your name.”

“Put—the sale of the painting?”

“Yes. Hope that’s all right.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Let’s just call it diversifying my assets. I paid for it, of course. And the sale should register as anonymous, should anyone look into it, but if they look too deeply, they’ll find your name instead of mine. I can hardly escalate the artist’s value if I’m buying them all for myself, can I? Plus, if I gift it to you, it’s a tax write-off, isn’t it?”

I feel a little lost. This is not a side of art or wealth I’ve ever been exposed to, and I’m not sure what to say in response.

“Okay,” I say. I try not to expose how shocked I am.

“I thought you’d be pleased,” he says. “You’re now the proud owner of a painting worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

I cough on my sip of champagne. “Hundreds of—”

“That’s right,” he says.

I look around to find Jordan, and I see him in conversation with another rich-looking man and the gallery owner. Jordan looks a little ruffled.

Last I knew, his pieces were selling for a lot, but not for that much.

Christ, if the gallery owner ratchets up the prices on all the others to match Alistair’s purchase, and everyone knows it just sold tonight—well, Jordan could leave tonight a millionaire.

I start to understand what Alistair’s intentions are.

“But why do you care about making the pieces worth more?” I ask. “Don’t you already have more money than God?”

He laughs. “You haven’t spent enough time in the upper echelon, have you?”

“I’m a ballerina, I’ve spent plenty of time with men like you,” I snap back. “Your obscene wealth doesn’t impress me. And isn’t it your wife’s, anyway?”

It’s a daring thing to say, and for a moment I’m sure I’ve said just the wrong thing.

He arches an eyebrow and gives the hint of a smile.

Just when I’m finding myself annoyed with him, my unrelenting desire for him kicks back in.

It’s those steely blue eyes. They get me every time.

I try to hide my smile and when I don’t, I feel him laugh beside me. “What do you say we get out of here?”

Jordan’s eyes land on mine once more, and I feel a deep, confusing pang of love for him.

Two girls, both gorgeous, tall, and thin, walk up to him.

“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here,” I say.

—

We walk for fifteen minutes, mostly in silence. I try not to fill it like I always do.

My thoughts are in a tangle anyway. My feelings on him purchasing the painting, my feelings about the painting itself, the relief that Jordan isn’t dating some gorgeous blonde, the devastation that this means his lack of contact with me makes even less sense.

“You seem tense,” says Alistair finally.

“Do I?”

“You do.”

I honestly don’t know, for a moment, if he’s right. I don’t have time to examine it, as his pace slows and we stop in front of an unassuming building.

“We’re here,” he says.

“We’re…where?”

A security man with an earpiece walks out the front door of the building. He’s dressed in all black and he looks like he could kill anyone in a matter of seconds.

“Mr.Cavendish, welcome.”

The man’s voice is as deep and resonant as Idris Elba’s.

“Thank you, Michael,” says Alistair, gesturing for me to step through the opened door.

I do, and then Alistair leads me confidently down a dark, industrial hallway. He opens another door.

It’s like when Dorothy walks out of the sepia and into the world of color.

It’s staggering.

It reminds me of old pictures of the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles back in the thirties. Hedonistic chaos, a loud brass band, and people everywhere dressed in gorgeous clothes.

Alistair guides me through the pulsating throngs of people, weaving our way through the maze of tables and chairs. The band is playing a song that sounds like something you’d hear at a Jay Gatsby party.

The dance floor is full of elegantly dressed couples swaying to the music, and I’m kind of in awe of the opulence and extravagance of the club.

The walls are adorned with gold and silver, and crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling, casting a soft glow over the room. The air is thick with the scent of expensive perfume and the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter.

Alistair leads me to a table in the center of the room, and we sit down at a reserved table lit by a tea light. A server immediately approaches us.

“Mr.Cavendish, welcome. What would you like this evening?”

“A bottle of champagne. Your best, whatever you have tonight, thank you, Sal.”

The server goes off.

“Where the fuck are we?” I ask.

“It’s called the Seven. An exclusive club you can only visit with obscene wealth. Even your wife’s.”

I feel a little embarrassed for having said that to him earlier. “Sorry,” I say.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s why I like you. You’re sparky.”

“Sparky?” I ask with a laugh.

The server returns quickly with our champagne. He opens it and pours for us both.

“Cheers,” he says.

“Cheers.”

We clink glasses and the crystal makes a distinctive ding sound.

“So why is it you hate money so much?” he asks. “You don’t like fancy clothes, beautiful flats, and exclusive clubs like this?”

I look around us. Everyone is laughing and having fun. It’s a gorgeous, colorful atmosphere. Exciting. Charged. Relaxed.

I grew up poor and can confirm that even at the nicest of barbecues and block parties, there’s never quite the same sense of relaxation there. Unlike the people I grew up with, these people just simply don’t have to worry. Conversations at block parties are usually about the rising cost of something or the cost of repairing one’s roof. Here, they just find new ways to talk about success while making everything sound like stoicism.

Why does it make me so mad?

“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s not like I don’t like this. I love the champagne. I love the dress.”

We have to raise our voices to be heard by each other over the festive din, and I find myself doing that thing where I gesture in half-made-up sign language to make it clear what I’m saying in case he doesn’t catch every word.

“So what’s the problem?” he asks.

Then he surprises me and moves me closer to him by my waist. “That’s better, now we can hear each other properly.” He’s so close it tickles my neck and sends chills up my arm. I barely suppress an involuntary moan.

He really is gorgeous. The dark hair, the dark lashes, the pale eyes. The lips I know can make me go crazy.

“Like I said, I don’t know.” I think for a second, and then say, “It’s probably to do with my mom. She spent her whole life chasing wealth. It made her miserable. It made me miserable.”

He nods. “Makes sense. Did she ever get it?”

I think of the dilapidated house in wild Louisiana. The medical bills.

I shake my head. “Not really. The last time we talked, she was just breaking up with this rich guy, George. I don’t know. She just spent her whole life trying to marry rich.”

“Why do you think she did that?”

I hold up the champagne and gesture at all this around us . “She wanted this,” I say. “She said it was because she was making it possible for me to do ballet, but”—I shrug—“I don’t know.”

A memory starts to form in my mind of an evening before I moved to New York and I shake my head to make it go away.

No. I can’t think about that right now.

“Well, you made it, baby.” He smiles slightly. “You’ll always be okay now.”

Something in me relaxes a little when I look in his eyes. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

“Maybe your problem isn’t that you’re going to turn into your mom,” he says, interpreting everything I’ve said and synthetizing it into something like a diagnosis, “maybe the problem is you can’t accept peace when it’s on offer. Maybe your life is actually falling into place, not falling apart.”

He holds my gaze for a second and I feel my breath catch.

Oh my god. What if he’s right?

“So what do you think I should do?” I say. He looks at me so intently and I think he hasn’t heard me, so I repeat, “What do you think I should do?”

He leans even closer, whispering right into my ear. “I think you should let go.”

He shrugs.

“Let go?”

“Just for a while. See what happens.”

I smile and then shrug, gesturing that I’m not sure.

“Maybe,” he goes on, “maybe I’m not going to betray you in the end. Maybe you’re actually hanging around with a good guy who’s really just trying to look out for you.”

He moves one hand to my thigh and I lean on the table with my elbow, taking a sip of my champagne, and study his face. The heat of his hand on my leg stirs me intensely.

Is there any chance that this guy is for real? And if he is…what does that mean?

I play with the idea in my mind. What would it be like to be with someone like Alistair for real?

To be in a place like the apartment where he’s letting me live now, but to know that it’s my own. To know that it can’t be stolen away or taken away.

You can make good money as a dancer. Especially as a principal, like I used to be. But with Mimi’s bills, it’s plunged me right back into the past. Right back to the beginning of my career. All the uncertainty. All the worry. All the fear that I’d become like my mom, scraping by.

I remember Arabella, right in the beginning, telling me that I had trouble accepting help. Is that true?

What if Alistair isn’t a threat? What if he’s just someone who likes me, has a complicated relationship, and also happens to have a lot of money?

I smile at him, trying to breathe away the worry. He gently squeezes my leg and moves his hand up a bit further.

“You’re right,” I say. “I should just enjoy it.” I move my hand to his, putting it under the hem of my dress and guiding him higher.

He gives me a crooked smile and then I watch his gaze drop to my lips and then back again. “God, I want to kiss you.” His hand is reaching closer to my black lace thong, his pinky finger starting to tease the fabric.

I gasp, my body responding aggressively. “But we can’t. Because we’re in public?” I then move his hand away, teasing him.

He groans. “You’re intoxicating.” He puts a hand back under the table, and as I move my knees apart, desperate for him, he hikes my dress up, going straight to my thong and slipping his fingers in. “If you let me in, you won’t be able to get me off of you.”

“Fuck,” I say, my breath catching. “Fuck.”

He moves his fingers expertly in and out of me. I’m so fucking wet he can barely stay inside.

I try to keep my breathing even as my pussy tightens around his fingers. I feel like I could faint, but right before I finish, he quickly removes his fingers. I pant and stare at him wide-eyed. It’s like jumping into a cool pool on a hot day and not feeling the splash.

He smiles. “Do you want more?”

“Yes,” I whisper, not correcting his understatement.

“Good girl, I know you do. I like to tease you. I bet no one ever makes you wait.”

“Ha,” I laugh, but I don’t correct him. Instead, I boldly put my hand onto the outside of his pants and feel that his cock is so hard it seems as if it’s going to burst the zipper.

“I want more, too,” he says, confirming what I already know.

He moves my hand away playfully and we sit up like normal people out for a drink.

I’m breathless as we both take a sip of our champagne. We catch eyes and then, smiling, we look away from each other again.

We watch the singer, a gorgeous woman with a dress dripping in emeralds, a massive headpiece on her head. If it weren’t for her 1970s-style curtain bangs, her ensemble would look exactly like a costume straight out of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes .

She sings in Spanish, saying something about love and loss, and I try to soak it all in as if it’s mine. As if I belong here.

And yet I’m aware we’re playing with fire. The two of us, out, like this. Like an exposed nerve. And yet I feel safe. Unafraid. Protected, with him. Insulated from the real world. As if we have time-traveled together, to a time where no one knows us and no one can catch us.

I want to. I want to own it. But something inside me tells me not to trust it.

I think of the text I received when I first spent time with Alistair. The one I never got a response on.

Don’t trust him.

Alistair refills our glasses, then gives my hand a squeeze. “Come with me.”

I follow him, splashing a little bit of drink as I go.

He pulls me through a door and into an old phone booth. The window has been covered with opaque film. He urges me in, and then looks around before getting in with me, shutting the door behind him.

It’s cramped, but bigger than the phone booths usually look in movies. The proximity doesn’t feel smothering; instead it just feels hot.

He puts his hand on my jaw and kisses me. He runs his fingers along my lips, and then when I open my mouth, he puts them inside. “Do you like the way your pussy tastes?” he groans in my ear. “Lick them, Jocelyn. Show me how much you love yourself.”

I do as he says, feeling hungry for him. At the same time, he puts his other hand up my dress, planting his fingers flat against me.

I let out a gasp of pleasure and surprise, releasing his fingers from my mouth. He drops to his knees, putting his tongue against the mesh of my thong.

“Fuck!” I say, planting my hands against the walls, bracing myself as my knees weaken. “Fuck, Alistair.”

He moans against me and it drives me even crazier. Then he moves my thong aside and flicks his tongue against my clit.

I finish almost immediately, the surprise an aid in my deep carnal satisfaction. As soon as I do, he unzips his pants and unbelts, asking me, “May I please fuck you, Jocelyn Banks?”

I nod and say, “Please, please fuck me.” Feeling almost dizzy.

He lifts me up, flips me around, and plunges into me and I yell out. Loud. He covers my mouth with one hand while the other holds tightly to my waist. He laughs against me.

“Sorry,” I say, muffled against his hand, laughing for a moment myself before it feels too good to do anything but revel in the feeling.

He fucks me hard, one hand on my waist, the other pulling my tit hard.

Fuck, he’s so hot. I turn my head back to look at him. He’s so fucking good-looking.

No wonder I can’t pull myself away from him. He’s everything I want. Good-looking. Likes me. Protects me. Is incredible in bed. And with him, I don’t have to worry about things like awful medical bills.

I reel my mind backward, taking it away from the stressful thoughts, and wrap my arms and legs around him as he gets somehow even deeper inside me.

“I’m close,” he whispers. “I’m so fucking close.”

“Yeah?” I push my hips into him hard. Both his hands on my waist driving me hard. I begin to move with him. Every time he slams into me, I lift my hips up again for more.

We both breathe fast and hard, the din of the party outside feeling a million miles away. He finishes inside me and I cum just after.

When I’ve caught my breath, he pulls me up, kissing the back of my neck, then says, “You do something to me, Jocelyn.”

“Yeah, you too,” I say.

We compose ourselves, then he walks out first. I wait a moment, then go out, too.

We hold hands for a second, both of us laughing at how outrageous we are.

That’s when the flashes begin. One after the other after the other.

A swarm of paparazzi.