Chapter 12
I’m ravenous when I wake. It’s dark outside, the flashing, red lights of aeroplane wings passing the window are the only light I see, yet I know I haven’t slept for long.
I’m alone. I pull the white, cotton bed sheet around me and go in search of food.
I can hear the clattering of pans in the kitchen and the low hum of The Script playing through the sound system.
Gregory’s oblivious as I tiptoe down the stairs, watching him flip a block of cheese from the fridge with one hand and catch it in the other before locating the grater. Who knew the sexy CEO could cook?
He looks at ease, laid-back even in his dark, low-rise jeans and fitted, white T-shirt.
As much as his expensive, tailored suits drive me crazy with desire, his casual look is insanely hot, too.
I plonk myself on the bottom stair and watch him move, grinning from ear to ear when he eventually spots me.
‘Hungry?’ he asks, holding up an oven tray with garlic bread.
‘Starving.’
He drops the garlic bread onto a wooden board then sets it on the breakfast bar between two placemats. ‘Good.’ He pats a stool invitingly. ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a cow.’
I giggle as I totter to the stool, perching myself on top of it, arranging the bed sheet around me to spare my graces. ‘Horse. You’re so hungry, you could eat a horse.’
He pauses, holding a pan aloft above the sink. ‘Why would I want to eat a horse?’
‘Erm, well, I don’t know. That’s a good point. I would also rather eat a cow than a horse.’
‘So I’m right then?’
‘Well, no. The saying is horse.’
He shrugs and proceeds to strain penne pasta.
‘What’re we having?’
He pours the drained pasta into another larger pan which is already bubbling on the induction hob, then stirs the contents of both pans together and finishes by spooning the pasta onto two plates and tops each with parmesan.
‘I like to call it Al Italiano Meato Pasto by Gregory.’ He plants the plate in front of me and drops a kiss on my temple.
‘Just rolls off the tongue,’ I say.
He reaches for a slice of the garlic baguette and gives me a lopsided smirk that nearly knocks me from my stool.
Laid-back and damn sexy. I could get used to this Gregory.
I feel black thoughts creeping up on me and I have to fight them back down, focusing on my forkful of pasta, blowing on it then putting the whole thing greedily into my mouth.
I’m hit by tomato, garlic, herbs and the intense flavours of cured meats.
‘Mm, super good. I didn’t realise you could cook. ’
He finishes chewing his mouthful of food. ‘I can’t. Al Italiano Meato Pasto by Gregory is the only dish I know.’
I laugh again at his elaborate Italian accent with a hint of South African twang. ‘Who taught you?’
‘No one really. It just sort of happened. Would you like wine?’ He reaches for an open bottle of Malbec and two wine glasses.
‘Yes, please.’
He pours, then sits back on his stool. ‘I spent some time in Italy. In the early days, when I was trying to get GJR off the ground in Europe. I kept ordering dishes similar to this.’ He looks down at his plate. ‘Kind of. They were better presented in Italy.’
‘You lived in Italy?’
‘Of a sorts. I was in Italy for three months but I moved around the big cities. I spent most of my time in Milan.’
‘I’d love to go to Italy. Wander the cobbled streets in a white, cotton dress. Sip espresso with the locals. Ride a scooter.’
‘Let’s take tomorrow off.’ His face is absolutely serious.
Swallowing, I ponder the idea. ‘I can’t just take the day off.’
‘Yes, you can. Let’s spend the day together, just us.’
‘But… well, I… I have work to do. I can’t just leave my clients in the lurch and… you could be, we might be, you could be charged any time.’
He pulls my stool towards him so my knees are pressed between his. ‘I want us to have a normal day. No shit. Just you and me.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’
‘Okay. I’ll email Neil after dinner.’
Neil. Mr Ghurair. Dubai. I smile at my astounding CEO.
There’s no way in hell I’ll leave this man by choice.
For the first time, I’m hopeful. Hopeful that he’s falling as hard for me as I have for him.
Hopeful that no news of the case by day eight means we might escape charge. Maybe, just maybe, this could work.
‘You need to eat some of that,’ he says, inclining his head towards the plate of garlic bread.
Giddy with the light feeling in my chest I ask, ‘You think you have garlic breath, don’t you?’
‘I don’t think. I know. Eat.’ He picks up a slice of baguette. ‘Open.’
I do as I’m told, laughing as my mouth is stuffed with potent garlic bread. As I’m slowly churning through the mouthful, the intercom to the apartment rings.
With furrowed brows, Gregory eventually goes to answer the intercom. ‘Ryans.’ The colour drains from his face, leaving a grey, concerned man in its wake. ‘Send him up.’
He hangs up the receiver and before I can ask who’s here, he’s pressed his phone and he’s pacing as he waits for the person on the other end to pick up.
‘Jackson. Yes. Did you know? Now.’ He hangs up and I hear Jackson making his way into the apartment from his self-contained wing.
‘Baby, I need you to do something for me.’ He lifts me from the stool and plants me on my feet.
‘I need you to go upstairs and stay up there until I say otherwise.’
‘What? Why? Who was that?’ I sound concerned and I am. ‘What’s going on, Gregory?’
‘Scarlett, please don’t challenge me on this.
I don’t know what’s going on yet.’ He grabs my wine glass and plate, holding them out for me to take.
I’m gripping the bed sheet around me with one hand so even if I wanted to take both things from him, I couldn’t, but refusing is the one thing I can control.
His stern, set jaw is telling me he won’t relent.
With a scowl, I snatch the glass of wine from him and stomp through the lounge and up the stairs.
As much as I don’t want to, I try to do as I’m told.
I exchange the bed sheet for leggings and an oversized jumper and tie my hair into a rough knot.
I make up the bed. But the distractions are short-lived.
I want to know who’s downstairs and why our night together has been hijacked.
Silently tiptoeing to the top of the stairs, I hear male voices.
Gregory. Jackson. And a voice I recognise but can’t place.
Taking another three stairs, I pause and listen.
‘I told you to tell me if there was anything else I should know, Jackson.’ The third man’s words are low and controlled but there’s no mistaking the anger driving them.
‘I told you everything you needed to know,’ Jackson says.
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Gregory’s tone is clipped.
‘The pair of you need to stop trying to pull the fucking wool over my eyes.’ The stranger is growling.
‘NABIS have told me the story doesn’t add up.
Their report is on the record. I’ve done what I can but now I don’t have a choice; I have to investigate it properly.
No matter how this ends, it won’t end with me losing my fucking job so what’s on the record needs to be looked into.
I need to bring people in for questioning and it would be a lot fucking easier for me to fix if I know what I’m dealing with. ’
‘NABIS have got it wrong. It happens,’ Jackson snaps.
‘What the fuck is NABIS?’ Gregory’s pissed but there’s something else in his voice: concern, I think.
‘Ballistics,’ Jackson and the stranger say together.
The stranger starts to speak again, now composed, matter-of-fact. I know who it is. ‘The report is back from Ballistics,’ DI Barnes explains. ‘Ballistics are—’
‘I know what fucking ballistics are; tell me what the report says.’
‘Sit down.’ Jackson’s words are softer now.
‘I’m fine where I am.’
I need to hear this. I slide down two more steps to where I can see them in the lounge. Gregory is standing in the window, his back to the other two. Jackson’s perched on the end of a leather chair, his recovering leg outstretched in his stonewashed jeans. DI Barnes sits back into the sofa.
‘Calm down, Greg.’ Jackson attempts to placate him.
DI Barnes pulls a hand through his greying, black hair then rubs his dark stubble. ‘Ballistics say the gun was fired head on and that it was fired from a distance of at least two meters.’
The room falls silent. Gregory stands deadly still in the window and all I can hear is my own laboured breathing.
Even when I thought the worst, I managed to convince myself on some level that the report would show Pearson was shot, then the CPS would agree with a finding of self-defence.
It didn’t occur to me that NABIS would implicate me.
‘I’ve done my best with what you gave me. I thought we might be able to stop it but consider this your advance warning. When Trina gets this tomorrow, she’ll be over it like a hawk.’
‘You said she was off the case,’ Jackson snaps.
‘She is but she’s hovering. She’s got a point to prove. She doesn’t like me; she hates the system. She’s looking for a big case to make her mark. She transferred to the city from the regions and she’ll stop at nothing if she thinks there’s a scandal.’
‘There is no scandal.’ Gregory is measured as he unfolds his arms from his chest and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘That report proves nothing when three people are telling you what happened. So I shot the bastard on an awkward angle. What does that prove?’