Fragile Crystal: Rubies and Rivalries (The Crystal Fragments Trilogy) (4 page)

She frowned at this. “Well I bloody well would!” was her only response. Something about his tone of voice and the look in his eyes made her pull away perhaps more quickly than she intended, but he simply shrugged and picked up the tablet again.

“Anything interesting?” she asked, eager to change the subject.

“Not really,” he replied. “Some facts and figures from Felix I need to attend to today. There’s a meeting here at midday and I need to catch up before then.”

“Will he... be here?” A mild prickling spread over Kris’s limbs. Felix Coltraine was the CEO of Stone Enterprises, and the last time she had met him was at Cascais, a meeting where he had been none too careful about hiding his contempt of what he obviously felt was a distraction in Daniel’s life.

If Daniel noticed her discomfort, he did not remark it but said idly: “No, he’s still in London. There’s some unfinished business here, though, that I need to attend to.” He let the tablet fall back towards the table and suddenly he looked tired, and though not so old his face looked lined as much with age as scars from his former crash.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her glance moving away from him for a moment as Anna returned with her coffee and some scrambled eggs and chorizo.

He rubbed his eyes then stared out through the window, watching the sunlight as it played on the pool. “Nothing much. Just these damn figures.” He paused, his gaze somewhere in the distance, and then he turned his face to hers, his expression serious.

“Remember Chiado? That shipping company?”

She scoffed at this. “How could I forget?”

This made him smile. “Indeed. It was you who made me scrutinize it more closely. Well, I think there are some decent opportunities there and I want to buy a controlling stake in the company. Felix thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“How can it be a bad idea?” she asked. “It’s one of yours.”

It was his turn to scoff. “If only that was always the case,” he muttered grimly, then he shook his head. “Anyway, some people will be here later to discuss how we move forward. One of them is a lawyer I’ve used before—someone I can trust.”

“What’s his name?”

“
Her
name. Maria. Maria Gosselin. She’s flying in from Paris. If anyone can see this through, she can.”

Kris felt uncomfortable—she knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help herself, just as the words slipped out before she could stop them. “Well, I hope she’s not too tall and too thin.”

It was Daniel’s turn to frown and, feeling foolish, she continued: “Why not use a local lawyer? I’m sure they’ll be better able to help you with local regs and whatever.”

Daniel shook his head. “They’ll be involved sooner or later, I’m sure. But I want—no, I
need
Maria to take control of this. I don’t want any fuck ups.”

Kris felt somewhat patronised by his tone, but was also aware that she was making a scene over something foolish and did not know why. Sensing her discomfort, Daniel attempted to change the subject. “How is that painting coming along?” he asked.

Kris pulled her mouth to one side and dug her fork into the eggs before her. “It’s okay,” she said between mouthfuls. “I hoped to get it finished before you returned but... you know how it is.”

Daniel gave a little snort at this. “You need some discipline to get you back on track.”

She slurped her coffee and then flashed him a grin. “I was hoping that you would be the one to instil some in me,” she told him.

He shook his head and picked up the tablet once more, but he could not help but smile at the thought of what that meant. “Later,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

For the rest of the morning, Kris lay on a lounger beside the pool, her dress in a heap beside her, her body naked as she absorbed the sun’s rays. The air was no longer as hot as it had been a few weeks earlier, but the autumn was still glorious enough to enjoy some final rays of the year. Some of the staff gave her stares that were amused or confused: what may have been sunbathing weather for mad dogs and English women was clearly a little too cool by local standards.

She had hoped that by lying there, so exposed, so... vulnerable, she might tempt Daniel to join her and administer the kind of discipline that she so craved—either that or simply forget any pretence of maintaining the other, boring discipline of necessity that drove him to work when there was a young naked woman in her twenties lying by his pool. He never emerged once from the house, however.

Around midday, she heard a door inside the house and the distant murmuring of voices. Her automatic instinct was to reach down for her dress, but instead she stayed her hand. Fuck ‘em, she told herself. What did she have to be embarrassed about? She leaned her head back, her neck arched and eyes closed, one thigh raised slightly, her leg forming a brown arch, her sex slightly visible in the triangle of her loins.

“Oh! Forgive me, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

The accent was French. Opening her eyes, Kris looked up to see a woman standing in the glass doorway that led to the tiled patio. For a second, she could not focus, but when she did she saw a woman, tall and elegantly dressed in a grey suit that framed her narrow shoulders and slender body, the skirt reaching down in conservative fashion to just above the knees. She was wearing dark tights or stockings, and her heels were so high that Kris was surprised that she had not heard her approach.

The woman was blonde, with her hair tied up tightly, and what could only be described as a smirk on her very attractive features. Kris was unable to read her thoughts, however, as a large pair of sunglasses blocked her eyes. There was a scent of perfume—something expensive, and from the delicate lobes of her ears hung two slender, pale gold loops.

Suddenly very self-conscious, Kris automatically pulled herself upright, her hand groping for the cotton dress and pulling its printed fabric up across her body. The other woman didn’t move but stood there, one hand resting across her abdomen, the other raised to her face, a perfectly manicured nail painted red gently rubbing against her lipsticked mouth. On one finger was a large gold ring, set with a gem that matched the colour of her lips, glinting in the light.

“Please, don’t trouble yourself,” the woman said in her clear and elegant accent. “I did not realise Daniel had company.”

Kris felt even more foolish now. She had hoped to be bold, confrontational even, towards Daniel’s visitors. How dare they disturb her idyll, this French lawyer in particular, but instead she had left herself open to the mockery of this chic woman. Despite herself, she blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said by way of apology, her hands still clutching the fabric against her breasts and, she cursed, the slight bulges of her own belly. “I didn’t hear you enter.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” the woman replied, and for a second Kris wondered what precisely the tone of that reply meant. “You must be Kris,” she said.

This was something of a surprise, and stupidly Kris could only reply, “Yes,” adding after a pause. “And you’re Maria?”

The woman nodded, that infuriating smile of hers still on her lips. Maria looked up at the sky. “I must say, I can see the attractions of Lisbon at this time of year. It’s already raining in Paris. Then again,” she stretched out her arm and looked at the pale skin, “too much sun is bad for me.”

She turned to leave but before she went she stood for a second, half looking towards Kris over her sunglasses. In the shadowy light, Kris thought she caught a flash of green. “Please don’t trouble yourself, Miss Avelar. I’m sure Daniel won’t be too long.”

Then she was gone, her hips swaying in far too lubricious a motion as she walked inside. Kris felt furious with herself. A stupid attempt to appear bold and bohemian, to show these rich bastards that she cared nothing for them, had simply made her look foolish. Standing, she lifted up the dress and let it fall down, a cascade of cotton against her bare flesh. Her nipples stood out against the front of the dress which was an array of folds against her curves, but what had made her feel sexy only a little while before now seemed immature. The world of necessity had cut across that of desire.

Returning into the house, she skulked past the door to Daniel’s study, hesitating only a moment when she heard laughter coming from beyond the mahogany panel. A woman’s laugh. Loud. Perhaps a little too loud, and then murmured noises. She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to listen. Shaking her head, she moved on. She did not want to appear foolish again were Maria to open the door and, in any case, she had heard before the sorts of things Daniel’s business associates said about her and it was unlikely to be flattering.

The chance encounter had thrown Kris into something of a fug. She knew that she was behaving like a spoilt child, but she realised just how much she
had
missed Daniel. She loved the new life that she was building here in Portugal, and she loved her apartment in Alfama. She loved that she was creating again. But... none of this was enough. She wanted him.

Returning to her own bedroom, she took off the dress. It was stupid, too informal. She refused to look at herself naked in the mirror, but instead pulled out a white blouse and dark trousers, changing into those and putting a pair of black heels on her feet. None of the shoes she owned were as high as those worn by the Gosselin woman, and she wondered how on earth she could even stand in them, let alone walk gracefully.

Wearing these new clothes didn’t quite feel right—dammit! She felt as though she were getting ready for her old office job at Hardy, Briskin and Sorrel. Nonetheless, she needed some armour, she told herself as she sat in front of the dresser, combing out her dark hair and making it neater. Rummaging through the drawers, she pulled out a lipstick and applied it, somewhat hastily, before adding a little eye shadow and blusher. It had been a mistake not to wear makeup.

For a little while she fumed. Why am I so damn angry? she asked herself. And why on why does my mind start playing its tricks, teasing me with memories of Daniel and me at Comrie. Makeup had been the last thing on her mind then, she thought—and it hadn’t been high on Daniel’s list of priorities. Just the merest hint of those ten days when first he had taken her—sometimes so brutally—were enough to make her wet, but instead she concentrated on the memory of his scruffy hair, that ridiculous beard he had worn. Whatever Daniel Stone might think of her, Maria Gosselin was not the woman for Daniel Logan.

She had calmed down over an hour later when she heard the door to Daniel’s study open, voices becoming audible in the hallway. For a second she pondered whether to remain in her room, but curiosity won out and she went as nonchalantly as she could towards the stairs, taking everything in as she descended.

There were three others alongside Daniel. The two men looked up at her. From their complexions, she could tell immediately that they were Portuguese, and one, the younger of the two, smiled with a little more than politeness at her, something that made Kris’s heart swell with stupid pride. The other gave her a little nod of his head to acknowledge her presence.

The Gosselin woman, however, did not look up at once. Instead, her focus was intently on Daniel and he also was talking to her seriously. She no longer had her sunglasses on, and Kris was infuriated to see that her face was even finer and more beautiful now that it was no longer hidden. No more than a few seconds could have passed with the two of them talking, and Kris was equally annoyed to see that it was Maria who broke eye contact with Daniel first, looking up the stairs towards her. Her eyes were green, bright and fiercely intelligent, and that same, slightly mocking smile was on her lips as she reached across gently with the hand that wore the red stone ring and brushed it against Daniel’s.

He looked up and smiled. His eyes were clear, there was no avoidance of her, no hint of hidden depths, and for an instant Kris was relieved. It was nothing. She was just being foolish. But the Gosselin woman did not move her own hand, and it still rested on Daniel’s who, more to the point, did not seem either to mind or even notice it. There was a familiarity in that touch that cut through Kris’s chest.

“Well,” Maria said, watching Kris as she came to the bottom of the stairs. “We shouldn’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you’ll be... busy.”

Daniel smiled at her and she finally returned her gaze to his, also drawing her hand away. They were barely a foot apart, and in that slender space between them Kris wanted to squeeze herself and push this interloper away. He, however, said nothing but simply nodded his head. Kris opened her mouth, perhaps to utter some conventional inanity such as to ask them to stay for a drink, but instead she just stood there, gaping like an idiot.

The older Portuguese man frowned at her slightly and then looked immediately to Daniel. “Don’t you worry, Senhor Stone. All your requirements will be well handled by my office, and I’m sure that Senhora Gosselin will be as effective and as efficient as ever.”

“I know she will.” Daniel shook his hand and that of the younger man who still looked slyly towards Kris. As her lover then took Maria’s hand, she suddenly leaned up on her shoes and kissed him, a gentle peck on his cheek.

“It’s been too long,” she said, and then flashed a glance towards Kris, the merest hint of an ironic smile on her lips. “I hope we meet again soon, Madame Avelar.”

“Yes, indeed.” That was an inanity. And a lie. Kris wanted to hit the woman, to escort her forcibly from the premises, but instead an English reserve kicked in and she forced a hypocritical smile of her own.

When they had gone, Kris tried to ignore anything that she had seen. It was nothing. She was reading too much into the smallest signs. Instead she called out to Anna, asking for a drink, something alcoholic, and went to stand by the door that led to the pool.

“How did it go?” she asked when Daniel finally joined her.

“It was fine,” he answered breezily. “There will be a few complications, certainly, but nothing that Maria can’t handle.”

“I would have thought the local firm was more than up to the task. They looked entirely capable.”