Lair, page 4
Oh.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Emmie purrs, plump lips sucking suggestively on a wedge of Stilton, and Lucia cozies up to her and gives Adrian a seductive onceover. “We’re getting lonely, papi.”
Mr. Voper’s mouth twitches. He half turns. “That’ll be all for now, Mrs. Colding.”
“Of course, sir,” Mrs. Colding says, bowing, and tugs at my arm. Her fingers are like a vise. When I glance back, Mr. Voper is loosening his tie as Emmie and Lucia watch with undisguised hunger.
On the sun deck, Mrs. Colding turns to me and hisses through gritted teeth. “Never do that again. The Chief Stewardess always leads. Understand?”
I nod. I’m trembling from head to foot, I don’t know why. I blurt it out before I can stop myself. “Do you have any hair bleach?” Mrs. Colding blinks at me like a toad and I add, “My hair.” I gesture helplessly. “All the other stews . . .”
Mrs. Colding takes in a long, slow breath and says in a careful tone, “If he hasn’t told you to bleach your hair, then don’t.”
I stare at her. “But—he hates me.”
Mrs. Colding gives me a flat look. “That’s why he’s paying you, darling. So he can hate someone.”
I swallow, letting this sink in, and try to get my trembling under control. Mrs. Colding surveys me coolly, head to toe. “You should turn in. You have a long day tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mrs. Colding.”
Ten minutes of confused wandering later, I find my cabin and roll into my bunk, pulling the sheets up to my chin. I think of calling Cailee, but I can’t. I don’t know what I’m feeling.
The alarm on my phone goes off at some ungodly hour and I hit snooze twice before I remember what and where I am. A stewardess. On a superyacht in the Mediterranean. Who needs to get up at six a.m. Shit. I hop up to see Thea is already gone. I hastily wash my face, throw on some makeup and run upstairs. The chef has a quick breakfast waiting for me, and then it’s on to “heads and beds”—cleaning the staterooms. I’m on housekeeping duty today, and the guests are already up.
While the other stews serve breakfast on the bridge deck, I grab a cleaning caddy and get to work. Emmie’s room is a mess. Lacy panties on the floor, a bottle of lube on the bed, rose petals and anal beads among the rumpled sheets . . .
My face is hot, I suddenly can’t look anywhere long. What is wrong with me? Get it together, Aurora.
After making the bed, corners hospital perfect, I notice the Louis Vuitton luggage in the walk-in wardrobe—and a pair of diamond-encrusted Stuart Weitzman pumps. My jaw hangs. It wasn’t only two weeks ago that I was drooling over the same pair in a fashion magazine, knowing I’d never be able to have them. They cost more than I make in a month.
I glance at the door, biting my lip—and chicken out.
Professional, Aurora. Be a goddamn professional.
I’m gathering up fallen clothes worth a small fortune when I hear footsteps. I whirl, heart in throat—and Emmie Gallagher all but runs into me. “Oh, hello,” she says, taking a step back.
I’m all hot in the face again. “Excuse me, I—I’ll get out of your way—”
“You’re fine, keep doing your thing,” Emmie trills with a little toss of her wrist and disappears into the wardrobe. I’m frozen with indecision. Clothes still in my arms, I lean to the side and catch a glimpse of bare flesh, a sexy, Parisian-looking swimsuit getting thrown on. Why can’t I have legs like that?
This is what I have always done: envied other women’s bodies—compared my body to other women’s bodies—because Josh never seemed to take any interest in mine.
But isn’t that what all women do?
When Emmie sallies out again, I pluck up the nerve. “I don’t know if you remember me—Aurora, from high school?”
She looks me up and down, lash extensions fluttering. Then holds up a crop top. “I’ll need this stain out by tonight.” She adds it to the pile in my arms and saunters out, nose in the air.
It takes me a moment to register it, for the indignant rage to come.
What. A. Bitch.
I look over at the Stuart Weitzman pumps in the wardrobe, and my lip snarls. Screw it. I’m probably getting kicked off this boat, anyway. I drop the clothes, kick off my cheap Sperry deck shoes and jam my bare feet into the pumps, Cinderella reverence be damned. My heart is pounding, sweat beading my forehead. I don’t care. I’m drunk on disobedience, the sick, exquisite thrill of it. I’m so angry it takes a full minute before I realize the pumps are a perfect fit. I turn my ankle, admiring the sparkle of diamonds. I prance back and forth before the mirror, taking myself in. I’m exultant. I’ve never felt so adult, so glamorous. I envision myself on a runway. A man’s arm. Voper’s arm. Cameras are flashing, I’m radiant and full of significance. I am seen. I am—
Emmie Gallagher stands behind me, a delicious smirk on her face.
I let out a little shriek and stumble, grabbing onto the clothesline. In a flash the pumps are off and I’m smoothing down my skirt, hands fluttering. I can’t breathe. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I manage, not quite meeting her eyes.
It’s a game. An understanding between us. I pretend I wasn’t snooping, and she pretends she didn’t see me. She knows the rules instantly. She’s a woman, after all.
“Just forgot my hat,” she says with poisonous innocence, and I turn and see a big floppy sunhat on a shelf. I hand it to her. A subtle look, a lift of one finely plucked eyebrow, and she’s gone.
I clutch at the shelves, destroyed.
How’s the rest of this charter gonna go now?
SEVEN
By the time I’ve finished cleaning the cabins and main areas, it’s time to join Mrs. Colding for guest watch. Anxiety prickles through me. Tucking in my shirt and patting at my hair, I follow the shrieks of laughter to the stern and find we’re in no port.
All around me, needles of rock slant out of the clearest turquoise waters I’ve ever seen. We’re floating in a collection of low islets, the sun a warm, flaring delirium overhead, a snapshot of paradise. Beyond: the low, verdant cliffs of Corsica. As I descend one of the grand staircases flanking the swim deck, Emmie and Lucia jump shrieking and giggling into the water, tanned skin gleaming as they bob like mermaids and call out. “Come on, baby! Come join us!”
That’s when I see Mr. Voper lurking in the dark mouth of the tender garage, hands in pockets, Mrs. Colding at his elbow. He shakes his head and the girls poopoo him. “Oh, come on!” they cry, but he doesn’t move. They make pouty faces.
Mr. Voper’s mouth twitches in amusement. “How about Jason takes you out on the water for a while?” Jason and another deckhand are drifting up on Jet Skis, grinning. “We’ll have a snack and some fun inside later.”
This seems to mollify the models. They look at each other and smirk. “Okay.” They climb up behind Jason and the deckhand, and Emmie makes an admiring sound as she holds on to Jason’s muscular frame. He grins at her over his shoulder and they speed away in a flume of spray.
I turn, heart pounding, to greet Mr. Voper. Even on holiday, he hasn’t changed into more casual clothes, nothing to indicate he’s in the sun-loving Mediterranean. He’s buttoned up in a dark fitted suit like a priest or mortician: cool, urbane, closed off. His sunglasses glide to me, and I feel sparks and chills sweep me head to toe. Jesus, am I that terrified of him? The moment comes, I open my mouth to speak—
Mrs. Colding steps between, her mouth a grim line. “Stay here and wait for them.” And she follows Voper into the yacht.
I stand there, stuck with a vague feeling of rejection. How ridiculous. I snap myself out of it and go stand on one of the foldable platforms extending like a balcony out from the yacht, hands clasped behind my back. Far off, the Jet Skis thunder across the water, followed faintly by Emmie and Lucia’s squeals of delight. I crane my head and look down the length of the yacht. Sunlight flares off its polished exterior, but I can see Voper pacing behind the darkly tinted windows of the main salon like a hungry shadow, watching the models, too. It must be lonely, being rich. Lonely and alienating, imprisoned in your own wealth. Though he has Mrs. Colding there at his elbow, with her baleful looks and her inscrutable, fanatical loyalty. What is it with the two of them? What strange relationship do they have?
It’s almost half an hour before the guests return. Emmie is giggling and pushing at Jason, and they both tumble laughing into the water. I grit my teeth. And when Emmie climbs voluptuously up the swim ladder as if vamping for a magazine shoot, she flicks her hair back in an arc of sparkling water droplets and struts over to take my offered towel, her expression suddenly contemptuous. “Water,” she says without any inflection at all.
My teeth are outright grinding now.
When I open the cooler in the beach club, I’m at a loss at the number of brands: Evian, Voss, Fiji, Acqua Pana. I’ve no idea which one Emmie takes, but I can’t admit that. So I go for the most expensive. Evian it is.
When I hand it to her, she looks me up and down—and grabs it, breaking the seal with a brutal twist. She jerks her head at a dripping Lucia. “You gonna get her one, too? Or did you wanna try her shoes on first?”
I flush a deep red. Lucia puts her hands on her hips, shares a smirk with Emmie.
So. This is how it’s gonna go.
Great.
As I turn back for the water cooler, Lucia mutters loud enough for me to hear, “And I thought the peasants in my country were bad.” Emmie snorts water as Lucia calls after me. “You think if you were tall enough to walk a runway, you’d be in one of the VIP suites with us? Those shoes won’t make that shit any prettier, querida.”
My blood is boiling now. Why can’t I stand up for myself? I look over my shoulder at Jason, who’s removing his water jacket behind them, and he rolls his eyes. I can’t help but grin. Maybe it’ll be bearable after all.
It’s just enough of a boost in confidence for me to mutter under my breath, “Too bad your prettiness is only skin-deep.”
There’s an astonished silence behind me.
“What did you say?”
Shit.
Blood thuds behind my eyes. When I turn around, the mouths of the models are hanging open in gobsmacked fury. Jason has to turn away to hide his grin.
I fight down a prickling of shock, my hands trembling at my sides—What did I just do?—and plaster an oh-so-innocent smile on my face. “I said, Which kind of water did you want, miss?”
When I glance up at the salon windows again, Voper is watching me.
We anchor near Ajaccio for the night. I do cabin turn-downs, help Mrs. Colding and Thea clear dinner—Voper never even looks at me—and after some laundry I’m let go for the night. I barely notice; I’m still a little in wonder at what I’d said. That I’d had the balls to say it, mutter though it was. And my lie had hardly fooled Emmie and Lucia—they’d glared at me all night.
Too bad I’ll never have the confidence to say something like that to their faces.
When I shamble like the undead into the cabin, Thea is still up. “Well?” she says, hanging her head off the side of the top bunk as I sink into mine. “How was your first full day?”
I heave a sigh, and Thea arches a brow. When I tell her about the shoes she rolls away, throwing her head back in delighted laughter and clapping her hands together. “You didn’t. You didn’t! Oh my God, you’re so screwed.”
I lay a forearm across my eyes and groan.
“You’ve got issues, girl.” She’s still cracking up.
“Tell me about it. I kinda gave her and Lucia some lip today, too.” I pause. “And then there’s Voper . . .”
Thea is still with curiosity above me. “What about him?”
I glance at my cell. I’ve got no less than twelve texts from Cailee. The last one reads: ARE YOU DEAD?? CALL ME!!! Time to spare her the agony.
I hop out of my bunk. “I gotta make a call.”
Thea rolls on her side. “Good luck with that.”
“Any recommendations?”
She frowns. “Try the stern. It’s usually the most private at this time.”
I flash a grin at her. “Thanks.”
The yacht has an odd calm to it at night, an eerie, drifting feeling, like a vast dreaming presence. Its lurid red lighting system suffuses the waters about it with a wavering glow. I tiptoe down the teak gangway of the main deck in my bare feet, cell phone gripped tight, feeling like an impostor. I’ve almost stumbled through the hole before I realize the huge retractable panels of the pool roof are open.
I freeze, the blood drumming in my ears at the import of this. I know I should turn away, but I can’t. I inch to the edge and peek down.
Not twenty feet below, a body floats in the yacht’s lit-up internal pool, like a corpse at a crime scene.
It’s Voper.
This is when I should really turn away, I know, retire from my short career as a voyeur and go back to bed. I have stumbled on something that is private, intimate; something that should not be seen. But I can’t. I can’t turn away—my curiosity is too strong. It is impossible. I have to look on, like some figure in a fairy tale. I am enchanted. My eyes travel over his face, tracing its softness and hard angles. He looks strangely vulnerable, innocent, in this moment. Those full lips are blue, cold and bloodless. His eyes shut, lashes dark and curved against his cheeks, like a child’s.
The eyes suddenly fly open—staring right at me.
I jerk away, body tensed and hyperventilating. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck. What do I do? I’m about to make a break for it when a mild voice drifts up out of the opening, rooting me to the spot. “Come on down. Don’t be shy.”
Nice knowing you, Aurora.
EIGHT
There’s no going back now. I find the staircase leading down into the beach club and emerge into a space aglow with pool-lights casting wavering reflections on the walls. It’s as if I’m in the inward parts of some leviathan.
Voper has his back to me, elbows propped on the pool edge, hair slicked with water. Waiting.
I find I’m shivering.
What am I doing here? I part my lips. My voice comes out steadier than expected. “Can I help you, sir?”
His head turns slightly. His voice is a little wondering. “Help me.” He snorts, not unkindly. Then looks ahead again. “Are you going to come closer?”
I swallow, knees trembling, and slowly round the pool. His body floats pale and luminous as a fish before him, too blurred by the water to be seen clearly. His voice is hard with curiosity. “What are you doing wandering about at this hour?”
My heart thumps against my ribcage. I hold up my cell phone. “Just—calling a friend.”
A long moment before he nods, smooth brow furrowing, as if this is a new phenomenon to him. “Ah,” he says softly. “Yes.” He appears to feel no pressure to fill the following silence.
I do.
“Your supermodel friends must be looking for you.” I offer it up as a joke, but the faint smile that creases his face lets me know it amuses him in some other way.
“Yes,” he says, with something like sadness. “I suppose they must be.” Then his voice changes, glinting with something new. “Or perhaps they’re still smarting from your comment today.”
Heat rushes into my face. The words trip out of my mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that—”
“Or perhaps someone should have said it to them a long time ago.”
The remark leaves my head spinning. Did he just say that?
“It’s very rare that I’m amused,” he goes on. “I must thank you for that. I’ve never seen a model break so much Christofle crystal in one night.”
I stand there, my heart hammering. I don’t know what to make of his attitude. He won’t even look at me, but there’s an accessibility here that’s not been present before. It’s like a tender bruise; I have to touch it.
“Why . . .” I say, but trail off. Mrs. Colding would execute me.
That’s when Voper looks at me, and the shock of it urges me on.
“Why don’t you join them? In the water.”
He takes in the pool lapping about him, shining with light. He lifts his face. “I prefer the water at night . . .”
I follow his gaze. In the opening above, there’s a rectangle of night. The galaxy hangs in a vast twinkling aura up there, startlingly clear. I’d prefer that, too.
I can’t do anything about it. It rises up, a swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all my doubts and fears: I laugh. Voper jerks his head at me, and I lift a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s funny. That you’d own a yacht and not like the sun. They . . . usually go together.”
He stills and says, teeth gritted, “Do I look like somebody who’d enjoy the sun?” Almost, but not quite, a snarl.
I don’t know any better, I go on. Look at me now, Mrs. Colding.
For it’s hit me. A cool wash of sympathy, spreading through my bones.
The shock of it, to know. To know that a man can have everything, and not be happy.
“You look like you want to be seen,” I say at last.
He jerks, that cool, bare face slackening, and turns away, lips instinctively snarling back from white teeth. He makes a sound. What have I done? Then he stands in the pool, wades toward me—I take an involuntary step back—and placing both hands on the edge of the pool, massive muscles cording on his arms, he hauls himself dripping out of the water.
When he straightens he towers over me, huge and lean and deathly pale. I could never tell what kind of body he had under those suits, but it’s blindingly clear now. Water channels down between stacked muscles, sheening over puffed-up biceps and a lower abdomen ridged with masculine veins angling toward the groin and into black shorts. Those muscles tell you they were earned. They tell you they can kill.
I take another step back, and Voper leans in toward me, blue eyes hazing black. “I think it’s best you go now,” he says.
Oh.
How foolish. How very foolish I’d been, after all. To think I could make him change how he thought of me.
