Buying Him, page 10
The walk back home had never seemed so long.
Chapter Eight
Victoria’s well-manicured fingers played with the manila file at her side as the Rolls Royce slipped easily through the Avon streets. The dazzling lights of the bay fell away as they moved into parts of the city she’d never been to before. She frowned, watching the landscape changing from bright white skyscrapers or towers made of glass, to concrete blocks of grey and brown that grew shorter and more decrepit the farther they travelled.
‘This is the address, ma’am,’ her driver announced, pulling into a courtyard surrounded by buildings she could only describe as derelict. Clothing hung across tatty balconies, paint peeled from doors and window frames, and rubbish littered the streets as it spilt from giant bins half-pushed into alcoves under the block of flats. Cars that looked rusted and unsalvageable were discarded across the pavements around the yard, as if the drivers had parked and then simply given up on them.
Victoria stared in shock as children, covered in dust and mud, ran wild between the disused vehicles as others used the cars as climbing frames, screaming and shouting as they went. One claimed to be the king of the yard as he climbed atop an old 4x4 and dared the others to try and overthrow him.
‘Are you sure we’re at the right address?’ Victoria asked, unable to take her eyes from the children who scaled the vehicle to try and dethrone their king. What if one of them fell and cut themselves? They’d get tetanus or some other nasty infection. Where on earth were their parents?
One of the children scrambled up on the car’s bonnet and shouted charge! and Victoria did a double-take as she reached for the file next to her. She quickly rifled through it while the children continued to scream and shout as they clambered up the dilapidated car, and pulled a set of photos from within its pages. She glanced down at one of the photographs, taken only days ago, of the same young boy dressed smartly in a school uniform jumping into the waiting arms of Cormac Blake.
James Ross Blake, the younger brother and only living relative of Cormac Dean Blake, was the daring leader of the resistance. This was definitely the right place.
Victoria took a deep breath before silently nodding to the driver. She waited for him to open the door, reminding herself that this was the right thing to do over and over in her mind as the cries of the feral bunch outside raged on.
When the door opened and she climbed out of the back of the elegant car, she couldn’t help the wrinkle of her nose at the smell that assaulted her. She quickly smoothed her face back into the one of polite interest she relied on during all royal events as she glanced towards the overflowing bins and swallowed down the bile threatening to rise in her throat.
‘Oooh,’ came a girlish voice from Victoria’s left. ‘Pretty!’ Victoria turned to see a small, dust-covered child, whose hair she assumed had been blonde before someone had dunked her in a mud bath, grinning up at her with a semi-toothless smile. She couldn’t have been older than four, perhaps five years old at the most.
Victoria marvelled; at the girl’s age, she’d already learnt the finer points of dining room etiquette, the correct addresses for each noble line and world dignitary, and was beginning to be taught points of needlework and other arts and crafts fit for a lady of her standing. Mud baths and imaginary conquests on fictitious kings had never factored into her upbringing—although there’d been a number of occasions since those days when she’d imagined her grandfather being overthrown.
‘Are you a princess?’ the girl asked, the end of the word princess whistling between her missing front teeth. Victoria offered the girl a small smile, crouching down to be eye level with her.
‘No, I’m not,’ she told the little one honestly. The girl’s face fell with disappointment and Victoria dropped her voice to whisper conspiratorially, ‘But I do know a couple—they lent me their car.’
The girl’s blue eyes went wide as she turned them on the long Rolls Royce and Victoria stood back up to take her leave. ‘Shiny,’ the young child said.
‘Don’t let the boys climb on it,’ Victoria added with a wink as she headed towards the staircase with the numbers 20-39 written on a sign next to it. Cormac and his brother lived in number 35, so she assumed he’d be towards the top.
She wasn’t wrong. Six flights of stairs later and she was on the third-floor landing labelled 34-39, and deeply regretting her choice of footwear.
She smoothed out the wrinkles in her summer dress and pulled her compact from her bag. She checked her smile and ran her fingers through her hair, before holding her head high and squaring her shoulders as she shoved the mirror back in her bag. She took another deep breath and headed to the address on the file under her arm.
Number 35 was one of the flats with a door adorned not only with peeling paint, but with the added aesthetic of silver tape patching up a crack in the glass that ran diagonally from one corner of the thin pane to the other. She hesitated to knock; her hand posed ready to tap on the wood. What would she find inside? Was Cormac Blake the kind of man who willingly lived in such a state? Was this perfectly acceptable to him?
She glanced at the file as she nibbled at the corner of her lower lip. The file hadn’t said anything within its pages about Cormac being such a man, but it hadn’t said he wasn’t either.
Perhaps she should have given Marcus longer, allowed the guard to conduct proper surveillance as he’d requested, get the real nitty-gritty on her Prince Charming.
She licked her lips as she considered turning around and dashing back to the waiting car, but at the last minute she drew herself back up, shaking her head. No, she could and would do this, she decided, letting out a small growl of determination as she sharply rapped on the door with her knuckle.
She waited a moment. Then a beat longer, before knocking again just as a shadow appeared in the window and a muffled voice said something that sounded vaguely like an irritated, I’m coming. She cursed herself for her impatience.
‘Yo,’ Cormac said as he swung the door open. His mouth froze around the O sound as he saw who was standing on the other side of the door.
Victoria stared back. Her hazy memories from the previous week recalled him being handsome, and she definitely remembered being attracted to her hero. The photographs Marcus had acquired for her not only reinforced her memories but gave her something solid on which to judge him. A definite nine to her… what had her cousin Artie rated her? A five. A six at a push, but only when she allowed someone else to help her get ready. The bastard.
But Cormac in the flesh… Well, jeans and a t-shirt, she lamented, vaguely recalling smooth, tanned skin, well-defined muscles, and a stomach she wanted to trace with her tongue.
She shook herself of her thoughts. Dressed or not, the man was a ten. The demi-god she kept dreaming about wasn’t a memory exaggerated by the drugs Simon had sneaked into her system. No, the man was bona-fide Hollywood-level handsome and then some.
‘Mr Blake,’ Victoria said and thanked her stars her voice sounded normal. ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m-’
‘Lady Victoria Snape,’ he finished for her. ‘I couldn’t forget you.’
‘That’s… good…’ Victoria replied, unsure of what to say after being interrupted. ‘I’ve… come to pay my thanks,’ she said, her smile straining slightly as she glanced over his shoulder into his abode, hoping he’d get the hint. Standing on a doorstep for all the world to see was not exactly what she’d planned for this meeting, and by now it would have been polite to have invited her inside.
‘Aw, you didn’t have to do that,’ he said as he leaned against the door frame, bobbing his head slightly as his cheeks turned pink. The colour made his dusting of freckles stand out, and Victoria had to resist the urge to reach out and trace them, connecting them up to see what pattern they’d make.
‘I’d have done it for anyone in need. Just wish I’d got to get my hands on that prick- I mean… er…’ He glanced up at her looking at little lost and giving Victoria a chance to refocus on what they were talking about.
‘Prick is more than apt, I think,’ she reassured him with a genuine smile. It was a far tamer word than any of the ones her sisters had used for the pathetic excuse of a man. Hattie had even created a few new ones.
Finally, she sighed and simply asked, ‘Mr Blake, may I come inside?’
The man straightened up, and Victoria couldn’t help a quick glance at the bulge of his arm as it flexed with the movement.
‘Of- of course,’ he said, his voice thick with mortification at his own lack of manners. He stepped back to allow her entry to the tiny hallway and motioned to a room off to the right before closing the door behind them.
Victoria entered a tiny reception room, taking in the heady scent of man and all that it meant. This wasn’t just a reception room, she realised as she glanced around, taking in a small two-seater couch, a bookcase, an extremely old television set, and a small table a stack of papers sat upon. This doubled as a bedroom. It had that distinct scent of man she remembered from Marcus’ own room whenever she’d sneaked into his barracks.
She wondered what it would be like to be wrapped up in such a scent again, to feel the touch of a man who desired her, wanted her, begged her to let him have his way with her-
‘Would you like something to drink?’ Victoria jumped at Cormac’s unsure voice from near the doorway. She glanced at him over her shoulder, feeling the heat scorching her cheeks, and hoped he didn’t notice. The way his eyes roamed over her form, lingering on her small, pert behind made her pulse quicken as she wondered if he’d had similar thoughts of her. Maybe he’d like to saunter over to her, press his firm, hot body against hers. Nestle his thick, hard-
‘Some tea?’ he asked, his voice a little lower than before. ‘A glass of water?’
‘Tea would be lovely, thank you.’
He nodded and turned, heading through the adjacent door she assumed led to the kitchen.
She took a deep breath to focus back on her task and took another quick take of the room. Her eyes once more landed on the papers on the small table and out of habit, she gave them a brief glance, not enough for anyone to think anything more than her taking in her surroundings out of politeness, but enough for her to see what was on the topmost paper—a trick she’d picked up working for her father. She noted the thick red header on most of the letters she spied on the haphazard pile, but it was the words Eviction Notice that really drew her eye. Carefully, she used a single finger to lift the stack of papers and count how many final demands she could see.
Four, including the eviction letter. Marcus’ report had said he needed financial help, but it hadn’t detailed in what way. She’d figured he was living on the poverty line, not beyond it. There had been no indications of gambling debts or drug addictions, and she knew those would have been instant flags on Marcus’ radar. So, was this merely normal for people of Cormac’s standing? Did everyone in this area receive such bills?
Victoria frowned. She’d never received a bill. Everything was always handled by her father’s accountants. Her credit cards, hotel rooms, her private staff… not once did she see the expense her lifestyle cost.
She dropped the letters, annoyed at herself for being so oblivious to life around her, and moved around the room. She took in the few pictures he had on the walls and on the one bookcase the room held; the volumes were not fiction, but titles of politics, mathematics, and law. She frowned at them for a moment before glancing at the pictures again, noting they were all of family. No friends, no landscapes, just Cormac, James, and a couple she assumed were their parents.
The frames were tatty, some partly broken and held together by tape more than anything else, but they were still proudly shown. A wedding picture of the couple she supposed were his parents hung in the middle of a wall of other various pictures of them throughout their lives. Some had Cormac with them, while some were simply of the man or the woman. There was a picture of Cormac on what was probably his first day of primary school in his mother’s arms, which contrasted to the one next to it of James’ first day with Cormac standing at his little brother’s side. Cormac looked shy and nervous in his mother’s embrace, overwhelmed by the slightly too big uniform, while James’ seemed excited, with a smile that was big and toothy, his eyes filled with wonder.
Victoria noted each picture of Cormac with his parents was mirrored by one with Cormac and James as best as the older brother could remake it.
But it was a single picture, tucked away in the corner of the room on the bookcase, that made Victoria pause. Her eyes burned with a well of sudden emotion, her eyes blinking back the onset of unexpected tears that threatened to fall. In the picture, Cormac was dressed in his graduation garb, standing on his own in what appeared to be a school hall, diploma in hand. It wasn’t a fancy formal shot clasping his certificate against a terrible backdrop as the ones Pippa and Hattie had. This was a quick photograph taken by someone else, probably a friend or a parent of a friend as Cormac tried to smile for them. In the background, she could see other students standing for such candid shots, but with others gathered around them, hugging and squealing in delight, no doubt.
Victoria found herself reaching up and tracing her finger over the young man’s face. He’d lost his parents just six weeks before this day and his only living relative was still in an incubator in a hospital a fifty-mile drive away. While his friends were cheering and squealing around him, bragging about the futures they each had open to them, Cormac was already carrying the weight of the world. So, while his smile was wide and beaming, it didn’t reach his eyes. Their green depths screamed sadness and longing, of a wish buried in them she knew only too well, as she’d had a similar desire after her mother had passed.
She wanted to wrap her arms around the younger man, hold him and tell him he’d do brilliantly. That he’d take care of his brother, keeping him loved, fed, and educated. James was a happy and carefree six-year-old and his parents would be proud of him…
‘Do you take milk and sugar?’ Cormac’s shout made Victoria jump, and she quickly pulled her hand away from the lonely image. She resisted the urge to march into the kitchen and do exactly what she’d just imagined.
‘Touch of milk, please,’ she called back, heading towards the doorway, meeting him as he came in with two non-matching mugs in his hands. Victoria raised her brow as he handed one to her, but smiled politely as she took a sip, refraining from wincing as she realised it had been made from a teabag.
Cormac fell heavily onto the small couch and looked up at her over the rim of his mug as he took a gulp of his drink. His eyes travelled over her body, lingering on her tiny breasts, and Victoria felt her nipples tighten into buds under his scrutiny. His eyes darkened with desire and she watched his tongue sweep over his lips before pulling his lower one between his teeth and biting down.
‘Are you going to just stand there?’ he finally asked, his voice once again deep and gruff.
‘You haven’t invited me to sit, yet,’ Victoria said, her own voice husky with desire. His cheeks flushed red at the polite correction to his manners, and he quickly mumbled his apologies.
‘Oh, right, yeah,’ he stuttered as he made to stand up. ‘Lady and all that. Please, take a seat.’ He waved his hand to the place beside his and waited for her to sit before taking his own seat again. Victoria noted his attempt to inconspicuously adjust his trousers and had to bite back her own smile. She lowered her gaze to hide the gleam of triumph in her eyes as she began to believe this was going to go better than she’d dared hoped.
‘Thank you,’ she said with a polite smile as she glanced around for somewhere to put the heavy mug.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said, taking the mug from her hand and popping it on the floor at the side of the sofa. ‘I don’t expect royal visits so the neighbours know what I’ve done. So long as you’re safe and well, that’s all fine and dandy.’
A warm feeling settled within her chest at his humility. In her social standing, a commendation would be expected. Hell, if she hadn’t mentioned their actions to her grandfather for recognition from him, her name would be mud.
‘I see,’ Victoria said, shifting slightly in her seat to take him in properly. He gazed down at his cup, his fingers playing at the side of the rim. He was as uncomfortable with her presence as she was being in such a place, and the elation she’d been feeling just a moment ago quickly dwindled away.
She’d been looking at this rather one-sided. Could she make him comfortable in her world? She certainly knew she’d never be comfortable in his… Would she?
She glanced around the room with new eyes, trying to imagine it with different furnishings, lighter and brighter paint on the walls, some new curtains, cleaned windows… It would still be small, the outside would still be an almost apocalyptic wasteland, but the flat itself wouldn’t be too bad, she supposed. But, and this was the thought that kept nagging her, she wouldn’t be allowed to resign herself to this lifestyle and if she could elevate Cormac and his brother, surely they’d take that offer. It wasn’t as if he’d have to be in her social circle often. After all, once she got her money, she aimed to step back as much as she possibly could. Perhaps the two of them could find a new social circle, maybe somewhere in the middle where they could both fit in?
She glanced behind Cormac to the bookcase again, taking in the textbooks that lined its shelves. They weren’t the reading material of someone satisfied with their lot in life. Her eyes flicked back to Cormac’s graduation picture. What had he planned on doing with his life before his parents had died and he’d become the sole guardian of his brother?
‘Mr Blake—’
‘Please, call me Cormac.’
‘Cormac, I am incredibly grateful for your assistance last Wednesday evening-’
‘Like I said, you’re welcome.’
‘Yes, I understand.’ She bit back her frustration at once more being interrupted, and instead fixed her gaze firmly on him. Time to get straight to the point then.
