Obsession (55 page)

‘Jeannie explained. And I guess I owe you an apology for ringing off like that the other day.’

‘Apology accepted.’

‘So, you can’t get away, huh?’

‘It doesn’t look like it. I’ve tried everything I could think of, but she just won’t wear it.’

‘I see. Then it looks like I’m just gonna have to come to you, doesn’t it?’

Corrie’s eyes closed as her heart seemed to expand right across her chest. ‘But … Are you sure?’ she whispered. ‘I mean, I really won’t get off until late.’

‘Then I’ll just have to wait, won’t I?’

‘But what about your film? I mean, won’t they say something if you just up and come to London?’

Cristos laughed, and then Corrie realized what a silly question that was.

‘I’ll come pick you up at TW,’ he said. ‘Just over the Battersea Bridge?’

‘That’s right,’ Corrie answered, feeling as though she might just melt with sheer relief and joy.

‘Corrie!’ Annalise barked. ‘Can we have your attention here, please?’

‘I’d better go,’ Corrie said quietly to Cristos.

‘OK. See you in a coupla hours.’

The break at seven turned out to be for ten minutes only, when Colin ate the sandwiches his wife had packed for him that morning and Annalise and Corrie studiously ignored each other behind Saturday review magazines. Obviously
Luke
hadn’t returned from wherever he was, which was why Annalise was still there, but despite the fact that Cristos was on his way, Corrie was finding it very difficult to soften towards Annalise. She’d done all she could to ruin this weekend for Corrie, and spoiled brat that she was she was going to find no sympathy from Corrie tonight. Corrie didn’t even tell her Cristos was on his way, she’d find out for herself soon enough.

Just before eight o’clock there was a tap on the door and Bill, the security man, came in, beaming all over his face. ‘Corrie, you’ve got a visitor,’ he announced, and standing back he held the door wide for Cristos to walk through, waving an arm and all but bowing, as though Cristos were some kind of royalty.

Corrie stood up, and the instant she saw the wry humour on Cristos’s face her heart became so full that all she could do was smile at him. Whatever she’d thought she felt for him during these long months since Los Angeles was nothing to what she did now, she realized. And what was more it felt right for him to be there, just as it felt right for her to walk up to him and kiss him gently on the mouth.

‘Hi,’ he chuckled, looking so deeply into her eyes there might have been no one else in the room.

‘Hi,’ she said, a droll smile dancing around her lips. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw him wink, then following his eyes she turned to Annalise who was staring at him as though he were some kind of apparition. He walked over to her, holding out his hand, saying, ‘How you doing there, Annalise? It’s good to see you again.’

‘Um, I’m fine,’ Annalise mumbled, shaking his hand. ‘Nice to see you, too.’

He turned to Colin then, who was looking at him curiously, obviously trying to remember where he’d seen him before. And when, shaking Colin’s hand, Cristos introduced himself Corrie had to smother her laughter at the way Colin’s eyes rounded with near divine reverence.

‘Please, don’t let me interrupt,’ Cristos said, backing towards an empty chair to one side of Corrie. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ he said to Annalise.

Still slightly off balance Annalise shook her head.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll just wait until you’re through here. You know, I’ve never seen TV editing done before, so I’m kinda interested to see what happens.’

In order to try and keep herself from laughing Corrie stuck her tongue into her cheek, and turning back to her notes suggested that they now take a look at the piece to camera outside the refuge. As she gave Colin the relevant time codes Cristos folded his arms and stretched out his legs to make himself more comfortable as he watched.

After fifteen minutes Corrie was in such pain trying not to laugh that she had to walk out into the corridor to catch her breath. She knew precisely what Cristos was up to, and what’s more she was fairly certain he’d succeed, since Annalise was already showing signs of how intimidated she felt by his presence. He was being so outrageous in his absorption that Corrie could almost feel sorry for Annalise, after all, who the hell wanted a director of his stature looking over their shoulder when they were trying to make difficult decisions? Not that Cristos had said a word, he was just sitting there looking so rapt that even Corrie might have been convinced had he not just winked at her.

When she went back into the edit suite Cristos was sitting with his elbows on his knees frowning with concentration as Colin explained how he was storing up edit codes on the machine’s computer system ready for the dub. Annalise, with a pencil behind her ear and another between her teeth, was searching through her notes, which was presumably what had brought proceedings to a halt once again. Seeing that Cristos was genuinely interested in what Colin was saying Corrie eased herself in front of him and sat down quietly. He could still see, but pulling himself forward he leaned an elbow on the back of Corrie’s chair to watch
from
behind her. Corrie opened the transcript in front of her and started to ask Annalise what she was looking for, but the words dried on her lips as she felt Cristos’s fingers brush lightly over her waist. Her response was so instant and so powerful she almost gasped. She knew he was still watching the monitors, and shooting a quick look at Annalise and Colin she saw that they were too. So, folding a hand beneath the desk she reached out for his. He took it, linking his fingers through hers and giving them a gentle squeeze.

It wasn’t long after that, while Corrie’s hand was still in Cristos’s, that Annalise said, in a voice several notes higher than normal in its effort to sound casual, ‘You can go now, Corrie, if you like. I can manage here alone with this next interview.’

‘Are you sure?’ Corrie said, having expected this but perhaps not quite so soon.

Annalise shrugged. ‘I expect Cristos is hungry after filming all day. Why don’t you take him somewhere for dinner now he’s come all this way?’

‘Oh, I’m doing just fine right here,’ Cristos assured her, letting go of Corrie’s hand and leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head.

Corrie glared at him, but before she could speak he said, ‘It’s kinda fascinating watching all this technology at work, I could sit here all night.’

Catching the laughter in his eyes Corrie’s own narrowed as she muttered through her teeth, ‘Don’t push it!’

His face broke into a grin, and rolling her eyes, Corrie started to pack up her things. ‘I’ll see you at nine in the morning, then,’ she said to Annalise as she was leaving.

‘On the dot,’ Annalise answered, without turning round.

Corrie stood at the door, tapping her foot as she waited for Cristos, who was now standing with his hands in his pockets behind Colin having something else explained.

‘You’re incorrigible,’ she told him when they eventually walked along the corridor to the darkened office.

‘Me?’ he said, all innocence.

‘Yes you! You knew full well that you being here would browbeat Annalise into letting me go.’

‘But I didn’t say a word,’ he protested.

‘You didn’t have to. And all that business about pretending not to know about TV editing …’

‘But I don’t,’ he interrupted, taking her coat from her and holding it out for her to put it on, ‘and it
was
kinda fascinating.’

She slid her arms into the sleeves, and as he hooked it up over her shoulders she was about to say something else when he bunched her collar in his hands and turned her to face him. ‘It’s great to see you,’ he murmured, and using her collar to pull her closer be brought her mouth to his.

‘It’s great to see you too,’ she whispered when he let her go, ‘but if you do that again I don’t know if I’m going to be able to walk out of here.’

He grinned. ‘It was that good, huh?’

Laughing and shaking her head she heaved her bag up over her shoulder and pulled him out of the office.

‘Hungry?’ he asked, as they rode down in the lift.

‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, pursing her lips in a smile.

His eyes were dancing as he bent his head to kiss her again. ‘What do you say we pick up a Chinese and take it back to your place?’

‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, wondering how much more of this euphoria she could take.

His hire car was right outside on double yellow lines, where, Corrie discovered, Bill had been guarding it with his life. Cristos thanked him, wanting to tip him, but Bill wouldn’t hear of it.

‘You’ve made his day, you know that, don’t you?’ Corrie remarked as they edged out into the traffic.

‘I got a habit of doing that to people,’ he grinned.

Corrie’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh! You conceited …’

‘Conceited what?’ he asked when she stopped.

‘I don’t know, but I’ll think of something,’ she laughed.

‘You wanna tell me where we’re heading?’ he said, when they reached the lights at the Embankment.

‘Straight ahead to the next lights,’ she answered. ‘Cristos …’

‘Did I tell you yet how great you’re looking?’ he interrupted.

A mischievous light shot to Corrie’s eyes. ‘No, but you don’t have to, I already know.’

With a shout of laughter Cristos put the car back into gear and drove on.

‘Cristos,’ she began again. ‘I don’t know if now is the time to bring this up, but I’m going to. I mean, this is all pretty difficult to take in when the last time I saw you you walked out without saying so much as a word. You never even called me after … Yet now here you are and …’ She shook her head, ‘I just don’t understand. What happened?’

Though he was smiling as he glanced over at her as soon as he spoke Corrie heard the serious note in his voice. ‘I don’t know if now is the time to bring this up, but I’m going to,’ he said, repeating her words with a touch of irony. ‘What happened was, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. When I told you that we weren’t just for one night, I guess I meant it. There’s something special happening here and we both know it. But the night I came round, when you were swimming in the pool, Fitzpatrick said something that kind of got to me. I didn’t believe him, even when he said it, but back then I was looking for a way out so I used it. You got to understand, I didn’t want to get involved, but you were getting to me and I could feel myself going along with it. Then when Fitzpatrick started in about how you were his property, that he was sleeping with you …’

‘So that’s what he told you!’ Corrie interrupted. ‘I always knew he’d said something.’

‘We gotta make a decision here, Corrie.’

Bemused Corrie turned to look at him.

‘Left or right?’ he grinned.

‘Right,’ she chuckled. ‘So,’ she said, as they headed along the King’s Road, ‘you walked out because of what he told you? Meaning you believed it.’

‘I walked out ’cos I could see things were going to start getting complicated,’ he corrected.

Corrie was silent for a while, torn between her fury with Luke and the wonderful feelings Cristos’s admissions were evoking in her.

‘So,’ he said, ‘did you ever sleep with the guy?’

Corrie hesitated. ‘Twice,’ she confessed. ‘I slept with him twice and ever since I’ve wished it never happened. Pull in over there.’

Following her directions Cristos stopped the car and turned off the engine.

‘Do you mind?’ Corrie said when he still made no response to her confession.

He sighed heavily. ‘Hell, I knew you were no virgin when you came to me,’ he said, ‘but yeah, I mind it was Fitzpatrick. Was he the first?’

‘No. I slept with two other men before him. ‘And,’ she continued, ‘you’re the only man I’ve ever slept with without using a condom, if that means anything.’

‘Does it bother you?’

‘I don’t know. Should it?’

‘No. I had to get tested for the movie. But I guess we were pretty irresponsible.’ He turned to look at her. ‘But if I’m clear and you’re clear, what do you say we go on being irresponsible?’

‘That calls for fidelity,’ Corrie answered without even thinking about it.

He nodded. ‘I’m up for that. How about you?’

Corrie simply looked at him, so full of stunned emotion the words would barely come. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I’m up for that.’

Sliding his fingers under her hair Cristos began stroking her jaw with his thumb. ‘What are you doing to me, Corrie Browne?’ he whispered.

Corrie’s answer was to turn her face and kiss the palm of his hand, all the time keeping her eyes on his.

‘Let’s go get this food and get back to your place,’ he murmured.

Twenty minutes later Corrie was letting them into her studio and turning on the lights. ‘If you just put the food on the table I’ll get some plates,’ she said, dropping her bag on the floor and starting to unbutton her coat.

Cristos walked over to the dining table, put down the cartons of Chinese then taking her hand as she made to pass him he pulled her into his arms.

‘So this is home?’ he said softly, looking around the place.

She smiled shakily. ‘It’s no villa in the Holmby Hills I know, but …’

He interrupted her with a kiss so gentle his lips barely touched hers. He pulled back to look into her eyes then brushed his mouth against hers again. Corrie gazed up at him and seeing the way his eyes were clouded with such feeling her own fluttered closed as her lips parted. Then he was kissing her again, moulding his lips slowly and tenderly to hers, bringing her whole body against his and supporting her as she clung to him in sheer need.

‘Corrie, I want you so bad,’ he whispered, his lips still touching hers. ‘I want you now, here … Oh, Christ,’ he moaned as she pressed herself even harder to him and this time when he kissed her he pushed his tongue deep into her mouth.

Somehow they managed to climb the stairs, and as they went, kissing all the time, his hands were under her dress and Corrie’s fingers were seeking the hardness of him.
Cristos
reached the top first and turned to stand over her, one hand on the wall the other on the banister, as she unzipped his jeans. He watched her as she lifted his erection free, then gave a long groan as, stooping to take him in her mouth, she pushed his jeans to the floor.