Dark Nights (6 page)

‘Hey, Breeze,’ he homed in on her like a guided missile. ‘What’s up?’

It took her only moments to give him some cock and bull story about how Seb had been mean to her, how he’d criticised a report she’d written and made her burst into tears, how she hated his guts. As she knew he would, Richard drank it all in along with three quarters of the bottle of champagne. The more he drank, the more he revealed his treachery. She could see he was on a high as she kept refilling his glass and ordered another bottle, of which she drank only a glass. When she gave him an eyeful of her ample breasts and started running her hand up Richard’s thigh, it was only a matter of minutes before he suggested that he finance a hotel room for them both to enjoy a long lunch hour. 

‘I’ve fancied you for months, y’know that.’

‘Me too,’ Breeze had taken the bottle of champagne with them. She pouted her full lips. ‘Everyone goes on about how good looking Seb is but I’ve always thought you’re much more intriguing.’ Richard could barely stand up by the time they reached the room. He was over her like a rash. She slipped nimbly out of his hands whilst giving him her best come hither smile. ‘Come on; let’s have just a little more champagne. Then, you can watch me undress.’

She thought his eyes were going to bulge out of his head as he swigged back another glass all in one go, and his tongue crawled out of his mouth as he sat back on the bed and watched her undo her blouse buttons. ‘Now,’ she encouraged him, ‘what was it you were saying about that fucker, Seb?’

‘Oh God, don’t tell me you’re going to talk dirty. I love to talk dirty.’

‘I can talk as dirty as you want.’ She took a tiny swig from the bottle then handed it to him and watched him gulp it down as if it were mineral water. ‘But I want to hear first just how you’ve stitched up Seb, explain it to me.’

‘We’re gonna do it in three weeks time, only three weeks to go b’fore we make our move and Sebastian bloody Dark will be in shit up to his eyeballs.’ Richard laughed like all the devils in hell.

Breeze listened carefully, her sharp brain and photographic memory taking everything in. It didn’t take long to understand what Richard was up to. She only had to get down to her underwear before, lunging at her unsteadily, Richard crashed to the floor. He knocked himself out on the bedside table and gurgled into unconsciousness. She peered at him as he lay like a slug oozing treachery and snoring like a pig. She knelt down, examined the back of his head, no blood. He’d survive even though he’d have a helluva headache when he came round. So, that’s how they were going to do it, she thought as she quickly dressed and cleared out of the hotel room - insider trading. Richard was going to become the illegal eyes and ears of Mr Vanhoffer to bring Sebastian down. She felt a momentary sense of elation. After all, didn’t she want to see the man who had trapped her, who had virtually prostituted her for his own ends brought crashing to his knees? But the elation was short lived and born of the sense of injustice she had felt on being found out. She had been stealing tiny amounts from mighty companies for so long and getting away with it that it had hardly felt wrong. Until Sebastian caught up with her.

Her steps were slow, uncertain as she returned to the office, to Sebastian’s huge building, the crystal tower to his wealth and power. She looked at the large framed portrait of him which greeted the workers each morning. On first entering that building she had been awestruck by his staggering good looks. The determination in his jawline, the firm lines as he looked seriously out on his great business but she had been left cold by the distance of the man at the top. Then when he had trapped her, she had hated him with a fury. Since then, though, she had seen a different side to him. A vulnerability behind those black beaded eyes and a startling aloneness, the isolation all fabulously wealthy and successful men must feel but rarely show. 

For the first time ever, Breeze was in a quandary. One word in Sebastian’s ear and she could save him. If she remained silent however, he would go to the wall and all his power over her would disappear. The decision should have been simple. And yet, as she sat down at the computer to perform her proper job, that of earning Sebastian Dark yet more money, she suddenly had no idea which way to turn. Ever since that night when he’d challenged her, all the certainty had disappeared out of Breeze’s life. Damn him. Damn Seb Dark. Let Richard and Mr Vanhoffer take him down, what did she care? He could slap her in jail. He should rot in hell for jeopardising the family she had worked so hard to stick together. He had to go. That was it. Decision made. She only had to think up two more evenings filled with the sex - for it was sex and nothing else surely - he craved, to keep Seb ticking over and then he’d have other far more important things to occupy him than her. He’d be fighting for his business life like a drowning man fights to cling on to a piece of wreckage. She couldn’t wait.

Chapter Seven

‘SO, WHERE IS IT this time?’ Breeze felt a twinge of guilt as she settled down next to Seb in his Aston Martin DB9. He looked happy tonight, happy to be with her. ‘Or rather where am I taking you as I’m the one who’s driving?’

‘To the Sharlton Club, St James’s Street, off Piccadilly please driver.’

He had picked her up outside the office and was snaking the purring car through the city. ‘You look fabulous tonight, Breeze. Your hair’s changed, darker isn’t it? It suits you. I’d take bets that’s nearer to your natural colour. And that outfit’s knockout, you make it look timeless.’

Heat jolted through her, right down to her belly as she sat beside him. She smiled; he was nothing if not perceptive. ‘In a way it is, it’s my mother’s she wore it to a society wedding back in the 50s, it’s an original Chanel.’

‘Hmm a woman of taste. And it looks as fabulous on you today as I’m sure it did then.’

She smoothed down the little flared skirt which sat demurely over her stockinged thighs and undid the buttons on the jacket which made her feel like Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn rolled into one. A white gauze blouse, almost see through challenged the formal lines of the suit, making it instantly sexy. Pearls glistening at her neck nestled alongside the little heart Summer had given her. She wasn’t about to tell Seb that she had blown all her available cash on the evening dress she’d worn at the Albert Hall. That she had no other “posh” going out clothes, that her wardrobe contained mainly office clothes. Nor that this suit and pearls that had been given to her mother by her grandfather was one of the last things her mother had preserved to sell in case they were really hard up. Breeze wouldn’t ever let her part with such treasures. They came from a happier time before her father had nearly bankrupted the family. Never again would Breeze let them suffer near ruin as they had done then.

‘It’s sort of appropriate to where we’re going, the Sharlton Club requires something demure yet classy, as befits a famous gentleman’s club.’

‘I’m impressed,’ his delectable lips settled into a smile. ‘Five minutes around the corner from Buckingham Palace, within a coin’s throw of the Ritz. I went there once. I run a charity that gives millions to teenage entrepreneurs from deprived areas and I hosted a lunch there to sweet talk rich grandees out of some of their not so hard earned cash. They looked down their noses at a self made man. Going there with you will be a way of taking them down a peg or two.’

‘Excellent.’ Breeze stroked the leather of the Aston’s seat. Seb was surrounded with luxury, he was discerning and she had thought long and hard over where to take him next. To hear him talk of giving away his money to a charity knocked her off her axis somewhat. He said it matter of factly as if it didn’t matter, certainly he kept quiet about it and she had to admit a grudging respect that he didn’t shout it from the hilltops like so many other wealthy people did. She thought about all her aspirations when she was a teenager, fledgling businesses that she would have started if only she’d have been given some sort of help and his jawline which had appeared so sharp and unyielding seemed to soften in her eyes.

‘But isn’t it members only?’ Seb said after a moment’s thought.

‘That’s right.’

‘Then you’re a member?’ He looked at her doubtfully; members were all lawyers, captains of industry, MPs, the great and the good although in truth many of them were far from being that.

‘Not exactly, but I know how to get in. Trust me.’

He parked the car up and they walked down St James’s Street. The area exuded history, the heart of fashionable London. They paused at William Evans, purveyors of country clothing, gun and rifle maker. ‘Who nowadays would wear Hunter riding boots, tweed trousers and use walking sticks with handles shaped like affronted looking pheasants waiting to be shot?’ joked Breeze. 

Seb laughed and put his arm around her to shield her from the evening chill. ‘Oh I’ve met plenty like that at society parties. They bore me silly but they have money to invest.’

At James J Fox, cigar merchant, a city gent wafted cigar smoke into the air and Seb breathed it in. ‘Mmm, that’s one of life’s pleasures I’ve had to give up since ....’

The word hung on the air. ‘Since what?’ she asked.

‘Oh nothing.’ A sudden cloud came over Seb and he rubbed a place on the back of his head, at the base of the skull where she’d seen him put his hand before. When he did, he always gritted his teeth as if he was warding off inner demons, perhaps pain. But he brushed it off, forced a smile and strode on. ‘I used to smoke like a chimney; it helped me to get through the stress of buying and selling, kept me calm. But I gave it up just recently. Your pleasures can catch up with you.’

‘I guess they can.’ Breeze bit her lip and squeezed Seb’s hand which lay in hers. He was too private a person to reveal much about himself, but still she wondered whether he was battling something alone which would be much better shared. Then, just as he squeezed her hand in return, she let it fall. She reminded herself that this outing was not for pleasure, and that Sebastian Dark who had a hold over her and was using her for his own ends was not the sort of man ever to get close to. He was ruthless and would discard her once he had what he wanted as surely as he would discard his super smart car when a new model took his eye or his handmade suits when they started to fray. In the story of the thousand and one nights, the King who had a hold over Scheherazade put to death countless wives with whom he became disenchanted and Breeze wasn’t going to forget that in a hurry. Sebastian Dark was not the sort of man to whom any right-minded girl, would lose her heart.

Still, as he paced beside her, athletic, virile, strong, she remembered that twinge she had seen on his face, the hand placed to the back of the neck and recalled that she had seen that many times before. It had never meant anything because Sebastian himself had never meant anything to her. Now she found she had begun to scrutinise him more carefully. Why she didn’t know. After all, Seb meant as little to her now as ever, didn’t he? Maybe it was just that it felt good to be next to such a commanding man, to feel the protection of his broad shoulders. She had never experienced that protection before, had always stood resolutely on her own, battling the world on behalf of her sister and mother, always the strong one, the one who provided. Sebastian knew her darkest secrets, that she stole and lied to get what she needed. But he hadn’t shopped her. In an odd twisted way, he had protected her and it felt strangely appealing. It wouldn’t last forever, he would tire of her but at least before then Richard and Mr Vanhoffer’s plan to ruin him would come into play and then Seb would no longer be a problem because he would be fighting for his financial life. She wanted him to lose his power but she was surprised to find it saddened her as well. Respect, tenderness! Those were the last things she had expected to feel towards Sebastian Dark. She wanted to shake herself to her senses, she must get this evening over with and rush back to her beloved house where she was grounded and had her priorities right.

‘Here we are,’ she announced in front of anonymous but imposing-looking navy blue doors.

‘It’s well hidden.’

‘Yes, there isn’t even a number on the door.’ She gave the bell a persistent jab. This place had fascinated her ever since she had waited tables here, way back when she was doing her accountancy exams and dreaming of being self-sufficient and independent. With its boot-scraper at the door and its Victorian streetlamp it was like something out of Sherlock Holmes. The heavy stone steps had been worn to a curve by the booted feet of countless “gentlemen”, key members of the establishment, prime ministers and lords who over the decades had come into this hallowed building to plot and scheme the making of kings and the downfall of enemies over glasses of whisky and five course dinners.

‘Yes?’ The girl at the door was Polish, in a military-style suit, with sharp eyes.

‘I am Lady Mary St John. My wedding is booked for here for next February and I want to see the Gladstone Room where the ceremony’s being held.’

‘I am sorry,’ the security girl stood firm. ‘I cannot let you in. I haven’t been told of any booking to visit the rooms.’

‘I don’t book when I want to see a venue where I have pledged to spend thousands. You had better let me and my brother in, or I may well investigate other venues. I believe the Athenaeum has rooms just as good …’ Breeze gave her a haughty glance down her nose, playing the consummate aristocrat in her Chanel suit, ‘… Or even better than yours.’

The girl looked terrified. In the background there were people in overalls running hither and thither carrying huge vases of flowers with worried looks on their faces. They were obviously setting up for a major event that evening and the air was tense. Breeze caught Seb’s glance and saw his cheeks dimpled into a smile. He was enjoying her audacity, her bare-faced cheek as she blagged her way in.

‘Well, I suppose it won’t do any harm.’ As soon as the girl hesitated, and moved slightly aside, Breeze swept past her as if she owned the place.

‘We’ll not be long.’

Breeze clicked confidently in her high heels across the black and white tiled hallway, past the sweeping staircase and straight into the massive Gladstone Room. Seb clunked the door closed behind them and gathered her into his arms. ‘You were brilliant, every inch the aristocrat. I just hope you’re not going to be too much of a lady now you’ve conned your way in here.’