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“Scratch that,” I say, speaking up finally. “Ignore the hair, the clothes, even the height. Ignore everything. Focus on the face. That’s the only thing she can’t really change.” And then I raise an eyebrow at Nadine. “Stop calling her pretty.”
“Sheispretty, though,” an intern says.
“She’s hot as f—” another intern adds, but a single look from me is all it takes to stop him in his tracks.
Later, when I’m homeand sitting on my couch with a coffee, my dogs lying at my feet, I sit with my laptop open on my lap, idly tapping the smooth silver surface. The screen capture of a blonde Sasha stares back at me. Her body in the silver dress is pure sensuality; her mouth looks as red and lush as when I bruised it with my kisses. Her eyes only give away how dangerous she really is.
“I’ve survived worse predators than you,” she said to me that night.
“Yes,” I murmur at her image on my laptop. “I’m sure you’ve survived a lot.”
Something made her the way she is—but none of that matters to me. She might have survived worse predators than me, but she’s never met a predator like me until now.
As the months pass,external factors force me to focus on other things. CHOKE, my responsibilities towards my family and Novus, my social calendar, the constant pressure from the media and its desperate attempts to penetrate my personal life when I have, in fact, none to speak of. As though those things aren’t enough, a new problem rears its head after the end of the summer.
The British autumn is settling in over the country, turning everything it touches grey and orange, when Woodrow arrives at my house oozing with barely repressed anxiety.
Ever the professional, he stands stiffly in front of me, politely waiting for my attention as I work on my laptop. I let him simmer for a moment before finally looking up at him.
“Is something the matter, Ned?”
“Sir. It’s one of yourclients.”
Woodrow speaks the word “client” through his teeth, giving it a whole new meaning and weight and sharpness. Over the years he’s spent at my side, he has never once made a comment about what I do or how I run my businesses, but his disgust for it is palpable.
Woodrow is a man of honour and principle—I like that about him. Men like him are in short supply.
“Which one?” I ask.
“Khevendorff.”
The Austrian baron with a proclivity for foie gras, cruises, and women who are not his wife. As far as my clients go, Khevendorff is about as tame as they come; I go easier on him than most.
“What about him?”
Woodrow’s lips tighten. “He spoke to ajournalist, sir.”
Ah. There it is. The underlying cause of all his concerns.
Woodrow knows who he works for. Like a dictator’s bodyguard, he expects the bullets, but he still doesn’t like having to deal with them.
“Do we know which journalist?” I ask.
“Daniel Mitchell,” he says, “formerly of theWashington Postand more recentlyTheRoyal Observer.”
“Do we know him?” I ask, jerking my chin in the direction of Woodrow’s all-knowing tablet. “Is he just another glorified gossip or is he one of the real ones?”
Woodrow taps his tablet, eyes flicking from my face to the screen. “He’s the journalist who broke the story on all those Washington lobbyists and the congressmen in their pockets. He also worked on the piece about those deviant US senators a few years back.”
I nod, tapping my fingers against my lip. “One of the real ones, then.”
Woodrow’s lips twitch. “You can be certain he’s definitely not talking to the baron about his favourite type of foie gras.”
“Right.”
My glance slides away from Woodrow and out of the windows. They are built floor-to-ceiling, an entire wall of glass giving way to manicured green lawns, and beyond that, the dense woodland that shields my property from the rest of the world.
I’m safe here in my fortress, but out there, beyond the walls of trees, that great barrier of forestry, my enemies conspire. I’m not a loved man, nor even a respected man. I doubt I’ve ever met a single person who’s genuinely liked me.
