Authors: Vanessa Fox
And the next day she had gone.
And the pain had been overwhelming, suffocating.
The first day, Tom had said she was out, had some college business to sort out. Maybe she’d forgotten to tell him; maybe it was a last-minute interview. But the next day she’d been out too, and the next. And there was no phone call, not even a note. Then, standing at the door of the two-storey stone cottage, his weathered face creased with worry, Tom had told him the truth. ‘She’s gone lad, packed her bags and left us. I don’t know exactly where too. I’m sure she’ll get in touch when she gets there. I’ll tell her to call you.’ And a part of him died right there. The part of him that knew she wasn’t coming back.
And he’d been right. There had been no word, no explanation. Nothing. Not even a postcard. Then his parents had been killed and his world had turned totally and utterly upside down.
Did she have any idea how long he’d waited for her, how hard he’d tried to find her? He’d even persuaded his grandfather to hire a private detective to look for her, spinning a story about seeing her in the pub with some oaf who might have done her harm. No go. Her trail was cold.
And so was he. Losing interest in everything, his grandfather had had an easy job to persuade him to switch from architecture to business, had tried to fill his days with estate duties, giving him more and more responsibility in the running of his empire until, when he left university, Sebastian virtually held the strings single-handed. But what good was that when his heart was dead?
And now, after all this time, here she was, breezing right back into his life like nothing had happened.
Well two could play at that game, and right now, despite all his plans, despite the conversations he’d had a million times in his head since that day, he wasn’t about to let her see the damage she’d done. No matter how tempting it was, he damn well wasn’t about to ask her what happened, ask her why she left, wasn’t about to show her how much he hurt.
‘
What do you think you can do here, in the living room?’ Sebastian still had his back to her, was standing squarely between the end of the breakfast bar and the glass wall, seemed unaware that he was blocking her way out of the kitchen. And after the last time she wasn’t about to get into his space, to try and squeeze around the end of the counter, get too near him. Glancing at his back, at the shirt straining across his shoulders, at the way his Levis gripped his butt, Alex busied herself sliding her laptop case onto the counter, unzipping it noisily, pulling out a moleskin notepad and pen. He still hadn’t moved, but she had a pretty good view of the room from where she was. It would do fine.
‘
Do you have floor plans?’
He nodded vaguely, looking around the room. ‘She hates this room. Can’t see what’s wrong with it myself but then I don’t spend much time here.’
Glancing at his profile, at the dimple in his cheek, Alex nodded, ‘I’ll have a look at those magazines. Get some ideas. We can soften some of the lines, make it more feminine, give it a focal point.’
Making a note on her pad, she fought the urge to reach out to him, stuck her pen decisively behind her ear. What they had was gone, they had both moved on.
‘
Where next?’
A glance into the study. Master bathroom next. Spare rooms. Each one looked like it had been decorated by the developer. Fashionable colours: terracotta, primrose, a mucky green. Natural surfaces. Wood, steel, stone. Impersonal, uninspiring. Like a trendy hotel.
Until they got to the bedroom.
He was inside before she realised what was coming next, was focusing on making notes, avoiding his eye as she followed him across the threshold. It took her a few moments to register where she was.
His bedroom…Alex could feel a blush hitting her face full force as she took in the chocolate raw silk curtains, luxuriously thick cream wool carpet, bronze satin bedspread and huge mahogany sleigh bed piled high with cushions and bolsters, gold, chocolate and coffee silk organza, iridescent taffeta, smooth satins. But if these made her blush, they were nothing compared with the single item that dominated the room – above the bed, a huge painting of a reclining nude ran almost the full width of the wall.
‘
Oh.’ It slipped out before Alex had a chance to catch it. It was a fabulous painting, thick black brush strokes confident, yet somehow it was breathy, impressionistic. One of the girl’s arms was thrown above her head, only her chin visible in the corner of the canvas, her breasts full, nipples a splash of red in a sea of pale skin tones, her legs parted, one knee raised. Writhing in ecstasy.
‘
Do you like it?’
He’d abandoned his coffee cup in the study, was leaning casually against the wall, hands hooked in the pockets of his jeans, his brow trapped in a speculative frown like they were in an exclusive gallery looking at a landscape he was about to buy.
‘
It’s, it’s…’ searching for the right words, Alex glanced at him, glanced back at the painting, not sure where to look, her cheeks flaming.
This was excruciating…here she was trying to stay professional, to focus on him as a client, and here he was asking her to comment on a highly erotic painting of a nude, IN HIS BEDROOM. Wasn’t this sexual harassment? Really she should just shrug, nod curtly and back out, say something like, ‘It’s great. I think I’ve all I need now, I really must dash,’ and make a rapid but graceful exit.
But somehow she couldn’t. Somehow, transfixed, Alex felt like the painting was pulling her in with a peculiar, powerful magnetism.
It was beautiful; the subject seemed to jump off the canvas, had a life, a movement that left her almost as breathless as the model, who most definitely appeared to be on the brink of something earth-shattering. There was no one else in the painting, the girl’s naked body filling the entire canvass, but somehow you could tell that she wasn’t alone. Perhaps it was the tiny shadow in the corner that suggested that someone was watching her, perhaps it was something about the way she was lying. One way or another, the implication gave the subject an electric charge that would have blown the fuses if it was plugged in.
Alex glanced sideways at Sebastian. He was watching her, his head on one side like he was looking for her approval. Why on earth? Panic fluttered in her chest, perhaps this was some sort of bizarre test…perhaps it was by some incredibly famous artist whose work she should recognise instantly…?
Pinpricks of sweat breaking out down her spine, embarrassed beyond belief at being trapped here looking at a painting that only fell short of pornography because it was supposed to be art, Alex knew she needed to say something, could feel the silence growing, loaded with innuendo and half-forgotten moments: the feel of his touch, the scent of his body against hers...The CD had finished – she hadn’t noticed until now – and she could feel his eyes on her, watching, waiting for her to comment. Waiting for her to say what? Beyond ‘It’s very nice’ or ‘great brush work’ what could she say? You made me feel like that…
She felt like she was locked inside a bubble, running out of air.
Desperate to break the tension, to say something, anything, to break the silence, to get this whole charade back to what it should be – a client consultation – she suddenly had a devilish urge to say something flippant, to ask what his fiancée thought of it, anything to bluff him that whatever he’d been planning by showing her this picture wasn’t working, that she was a professional, could cope with anything. Then she stopped herself.
And took a major double take.
Staring hard at the painting her mouth went dry, the hairs on the back of her neck standing rigidly to attention as a shiver paralysed her spine, and her eyes, locked on a small dark mole less than an inch from the model’s navel. Alex’s eyes widened in horror. Disbelieving, she shot a glance at Sebastian and back to the painting again – it was definitely a mole, not a drip or an accidental splash of paint. And there was another on her breast, paler, less obvious…
‘
Oh my God…’ The blood pounding in her ears, she felt herself hurtling back sixteen years, images of that summer flashing past like she was looking out the window of a high-speed train.
The drawings.
Every afternoon for weeks. Him sketching, while she watched the clouds pass overhead, dreaming of the Mill House, about what they could do with it, making plans, castles in the sky. But she’d had her clothes on!
‘
How could you…?’
She didn’t finish. Her train crashed, carriages concertinaing, piling up on each other with a force that even she couldn’t control. Then, throwing him a look of pure venom, she turned on her heel and ran for the lift.
SEVENTEEN
How could he have done it? How could he have taken those lovely drawings he’d done of her, quick pencil sketches, capturing the moment, practising his life drawing he’d said, and gone off and painted her naked?
And not only naked but with everything on show, and very obviously in the throws of an orgasm that would affect anyone who looked at it. Leaving nothing to the imagination.
AND THEN he’d put it up over his BED. Where everyone could see it. Like his girlfriends. Like his fiancée. Making love with her above him, like he was really putting it up to her, like he was getting his own back every time he brought a new woman home.
Hiding her face in her hands Alex could feel her whole body blushing, cringing with total humiliation. She’d been mortified when she’d seen it, then angry. Angry at his audacity. Angry that he could do something like that, that he could take those moments and exploit them, exploit her. But now she just felt sick. Exposed. Violated. He might as well have asked her to stand on the boardroom table and strip.
Above her, the rain hammered on the roof of the car, drowning out her CD player, the fan struggling to clear the windscreen. Normally, the sound of the rain would have been comforting, would have made her feel cosy and safe, but now the constant drumming was starting to get on her nerves. She’d been sitting here for almost an hour, trying to work out how, when he’d done it. Trying to imagine why.
She had been amazed when she’d first seen his sketchbook tossed into the jumble of pencils and folders on the desk in his bedroom, the old nursery in the east wing. The page had been open at a charcoal drawing – one of the dogs, a pedigree Clumber Spaniel puppy whose Irish Kennel Club name was so long and ridiculous that they just called her Doris, Dodo for short. In just a few deft strokes he’d captured her melting brown eyes, her hound-like expression, the nobility of her deep muzzle, the texture of her silky ears, captured her whole being better than any photograph.
‘
Did you do that?’ turning, her eyes alight with amazement; Alex had caught Sebastian’s blush as he realised what she meant.
‘
It’s nothing, just Dodo. She’s a devil; she was watching the cat on the kitchen garden wall, waiting for it to move so she could chase it – it nearly killed her when it went over the back and she couldn’t get it.’
‘
But it’s brilliant. You should frame it. Are there any more?’
Alex had the book in her hand, was flicking through the thick paper leaves before he could stop her. His grandfather, a quick sketch, scowling, as if he hadn’t known he was being captured; Cook laughing, her cheeks ruddy from the heat of the oven, sleeves pulled up; his mother in her huge floppy straw gardening hat; her own father – from a distance – striding through the heather beside the lake. And a stag, antlers stark against the sky, its strength and power captured in the ripple of its coat as it stood in silhouette on the Long Ridge, head held high, declaring its kingship. ‘They’re amazing. You’ll be wasted as an architect, you should do art.’
Sebastian had laughed, but it was hollow, ‘Yeah, I can really see grandfather going for that. He thinks architecture is a waste of time as it is, reckons I should switch to business.’
Their eyes had met, her grimace mirroring his. His grandfather was a force to be reckoned with on a good day.
‘
Here, let me do one of you. Sit down by the window.’
It had only taken him a couple of minutes, a portrait in midnight blue pencil, the first thing that had come to hand, her curls like a halo with the light behind her, eyes creased with laughter.
That had been the first. From then on Sebastian had carried his sketch pad everywhere with him, and pencils, 2B and 4B, meticulously sharpened with his penknife, catching the moments like the shutter of a camera. In the barn, the straw sticking into her back through her t-shirt as she’d posed, peeping out from behind the bales, the smell of the hay clinging to her hair, the scent of their lovemaking clinging to her skin; in the woods, stretched out in the long grass, bees buzzing, an orchestra of birds above them; in the back row of the cinema, her face lit by the moving images on the screen, completely absorbed.
And then…and then he’d taken all the sketches and put them together in one huge painting.
As Alex thought about it, it wasn’t so much the fact that he’d painted her that bothered her, but the way he’d painted her…and then…she drew in a sharp breath as it hit her all over again, it was where he’d put it.
Alex yanked her hair behind her ear; the rain had turned it into a mass of wreathing corkscrews that danced around her face with every movement, driving her nuts. The CD player switched track, Bonnie Tyler’s gravelly voice mournful, Cry me a River. And like the replay button stuck in the ‘on’ position in her head, the whole episode started to roll again: the look on his face as he’d led her into the bedroom, that frown with a hint of sheepishness; or was she imagining that? Then, watching her as she admired it, realisation unfurling in her chest like the petals of a lily. How quickly had she spotted that mole beside the model’s navel, the other on her breast, close to her nipple, flushed and inviting, her hand cupping its weight, fingers stretched in ecstasy, her back arched. It had felt like a lifetime, but must only have been a few seconds when it had dawned, beyond a doubt, that the subject of the painting was her.