Nell （Present）
NELL
PRESENT
I seriously consider not going to work the next morning. I’m bone-weary after sitting on the stairs all night, the knife in my hand, too jittery to go to bed.
I’d thought of going to a hotel to save myself the misery of a sleepless night.
But I couldn’t stay away indefinitely so I decided to face my fears and stay home.
I hadn’t wanted to risk going to bed in case whoever had been in the house came back.
At five in the morning I feltt safe enough to move to the sitting room and sleep for two hours on the sofa, reasoning that if whoever got into my house had to kill me, they’d have done it by then.
Sometime during the long night, as I sat on the stairs, I’d come to a decision about Alex.
I couldn’t be in a relationship with him, not when we were keeping so much from each other.
I hadn’t told him about my past, nor that I had a stalker, and he hadn’t told me that another of his girlfriends had died.
I didn’t want to lose him but there were too many secrets between us for it to work.
The only way to keep what we had was to be honest with each other and it didn’t seem as if it was something either of us was prepared to do. But I had to try.
I make a plan; I would go to his hotel after work, without telling him, and see him there. He had mentioned its name once, Fifty-four Marlsborough. Or maybe that was the address.
Sadie is surprised to see me in the office.
“I thought you might have worked from home today, if you’re getting the locks changed,” she says.
“I’ll look for a locksmith this morning and if they can come today, I’ll go home this afternoon,” I promise.
But my mind is too full of my surprise visit to Alex to think about looking for a locksmith. The day drags on, fatigue making each hour seem twice as long. I watch the time constantly and when it seems as if seven o’clock will never come, I ask Sadie if she’d mind locking up.
“Alex is here,” I explain. “So it would be great if I could get off early.”
“No problem.” Sadie pauses. “When did he arrive?”
“Earlier.”
“Have you told him? About last night? Is that why he’s come back?”
I quickly weigh my options. Yesterday, I told Sadie that I didn’t know when Alex was coming back despite him already being here.
“Yes,” I say, cringing inwardly at another lie.
“Well, go on, get yourself out of here.”
“I’ll work another half an hour. Six thirty is fine.”
“No way.” Sadie points to the door. “You will leave right now!”
I can’t help laughing. “Thanks, Sadie. I’ll just get my bag from the office, if that’s all right?”
“Yes, but don’t take too long about it. You need to be gone, girl.”
The rain of the last two days has been replaced by a brutal wind that instantly makes my eyes smart.
I walk for five minutes, making sure I’m far enough away from Drop In before hailing a cab.
I climb in thankfully, but guiltily. I can justify taking a taxi at night but not during the day.
I make a mental note to buy another plant for the office to compensate.
The taxi driver doesn’t seem to have heard of Fifty-four Marlsborough. He queries my pronunciation, asking if I mean Marlborough. It takes him a while to find it on his GPS; I was right, he says, it is Marlsborough and it is somewhere in Knightsbridge.
Twenty-five minutes later, when we pull up in front of a few stone steps leading to a nondescript front door, I think we must have gone to the wrong place.
But when I get out of the cab and climb the steps, a discreet gold plaque next to an ornate brass button bell tells me I’m exactly where I should be.
I’m about to ring the bell when it dawns on me that I don’t actually know that Alex will be here. What if he decided, after I rejected him last night, to go back to the US? Or stay with Béatrice and Victor?
There’s only one way to find out. I press on the bell and when the door is opened by a man dressed in a suit and tie, I presume that he’s a guest on his way out and move aside to let him pass. Over his shoulder, I catch a glimpse of a beautiful crystal light suspended from the ornate ceiling.
“May I help you?” the man asks and realizing he must be the concierge, I quickly hide my surprise.
“I’m here to see Mr. Stanton,” I say, as if I know that Alex is in and that he’s expecting me.
“Of course.” He opens the door wider. “You’ll find him on the fifth floor. Please, come this way.”
I had expected it to be more difficult, for the concierge to at least call Alex and check that it was all right for me to go up.
His failure to do so makes me wonder if he’s been primed by Alex to expect me.
I hope not; I’d hate Alex to be so presumptuous as to be waiting—expecting me, even—to go to him.
For a moment I feel wrong-footed and I’m tempted to wrong-foot Alex in turn by leaving.
But the concierge is waiting, so I step inside.
There’s no reception desk, just a marble entrance hall, and to the right, an elevator with a black door on either side.
A further three doors stand on the opposite wall.
I’m about to ask which one hides the staircase when the elevator catches my eye.
Made of burnished wood, with glass windows and an ornate black wrought-iron cage, it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen.
The concierge opens the gate, the inner doors slide open, and I find myself walking inside.
“Thank you,” I say.
The concierge smiles. “You’re welcome. Enjoy the ride.”
He reaches inside the elevator and presses the button for the fifth floor.
The inner doors close and I take a steadying breath.
But this is an elevator unlike any other elevator.
For a start, I can see out and as it glides silently upward, I have time to note that there is only one door on each floor.
The elevator comes to a smooth halt on the fifth. The inner doors move apart; I open the black wrought-iron gate and step onto a small landing with a single black door. There is nothing to tell me I’ll find Alex behind it, no nameplate, no number, just a brass button bell, which I press.
It’s a while before I hear footsteps, which are quickly followed by the hurried opening of the door.
“Sorry, Albert, I was in the—” Alex, still shrugging into a white bathrobe, stops in midsentence.
I had given a lot of thought to how our meeting would go.
It went like this: I would turn up unexpectedly, taking Alex by surprise.
He would invite me in and, my upper hand intact, I would take the lead.
Tell me, I’d say. Tell me about Caitlin.
And when you’ve finished, tell me about your other girlfriends.
I want to know everything there is to know.
When you’re done, I’ll tell you about me.
Then we’ll decide if we have a future together.
I had never gotten further than that because I couldn’t predict what Alex would tell me, but it was a start.
And I have turned up unexpectedly, I have taken him by surprise.
His shock isn’t a pretense, any more than the relief on his face as he moves wordlessly away from the door, inviting me in.
But my upper hand is worthless. In the scenario I had created, Alex had been fully clothed, not wearing a bathrobe, not fresh from the shower.
And I had been cool and emotionless, not consumed by an aching, unbearable desire for him.
Within seconds, I’ve untied his bathrobe.
Another few seconds and my legs are clamped tight around him. A few seconds more and he is inside me.