Masquerade (15 page)
Authors: Georgia Le Carre
B
lake’s private plane drops me off on the mainland. I take a boat out to the island and get the man to drop me off in the sea, swimming distance from the beach.
‘You sure?’ the boatman says.
‘I’m sure,’ I tell him and jump into the water.
‘Must be island love,’ he says, grinning and starting his motor.
I kick off my shoes, pants and top and then I begin to swim. I spot him immediately. He must have heard the engine of the boat.
He is standing alone, a mountain of a man, his hands jammed deep into his trouser pockets, staring out into the sea. He looks so abandoned and so despondent that my heart bleeds for him. This is my man. For better or worse I’m sticking to him.
When my feet touch sand I begin to walk toward him. It is that first morning we arrived. Me coming out of the sea. Him watching and waiting on the beach. I come out of the water and walk up to him, my feet sinking in the soft sand noiselessly. About five feet away I stop walking and we gaze at each other.
Oh God, the sight of him.
In two days he has already picked up the kind of golden tan that I would kill for and there are blond streaks in his hair that I have fantasies about. Something quivers inside me. Damn it, he is just so mind-numbingly handsome it is unfair. Objectively, the guy is more fuckable now than I have ever seen him before. An image of him naked flashes into my mind.
He takes his hands out of his pockets and lets them hang loosely by his sides. I love his hands. Big, manly… Useful. For putting into crab tunnels. For the first time since I have known him he seems tongue-tied.
‘Hey,’ I greet softly.
‘I didn’t run away,’ he mutters.
I barely catch it over the sound of the waves. He sighs. ‘I was working on a plan. You had to know that I chose you over the stones.’
‘I know that.’
‘And I wasn’t part of the team that tried to rob Lana’s jewels either.’
‘Oh! I
know
that.’
‘I was going to steal the pink diamond pendant that Lana wore to the art exhibition, but that was before I knew she was your friend.’
‘It’s OK, baby. I know you were not trying to hurt me.’
‘I love you. You know that, right?’
Tears start slipping quietly down my face. ‘That’s good because I’m crazy about you.’
He takes two steps toward me. ‘I want to marry you.’
I grin through the tears. ‘That’s real handy. I always wanted to be married on a beach.’
‘I’ll have to go straight. We might have to pay taxes and stuff.’
‘That’s OK. I’m quite rich in my own right.’
He looks at me quizzically. ‘You returned the jewels, right?’
‘Some,’ I agree non-commitally.
For a few seconds he looks at me with a mixture of shock and disbelief, and then he grabs me as if he
owns
me and pushes me to the soft sand and falls sprawled and laughing on top of me.
‘Tell me,’ he growls.
‘I gave Blake a few token pieces to return to their rightful owners in exchange for you.’
He looks at me curiously. ‘Blake bought that? He’s too sharp.’
‘Of course he didn’t, but I told you there are benefits to being his wife’s best friend.’
‘Where are the gems now?’
‘In left luggage, Victoria Station.’
‘You left hundreds of millions worth of jewels in Victoria station?’
‘Relax. It’s the safest place for them.’
He laughs and runs his fingers along my cheekbone. ‘Oh, Billie. You are a girl after my own heart,’ he says, and there is such a look of love and tenderness that I feel my insides melt. I look into his eyes, molten gold in the bright sunlight and the reflections of the sand. My face feels hot and there is already a wet throbbing in the soft flesh between my thighs.
‘Do you feel like fucking?’ I ask, arching my eyebrows.
‘Always.’
‘Because I’m ready to explode in a very unladylike way.’
He looks at me the way I would look at a very beautiful gerbil. ‘I love you, Billie. I’ve never felt for anyone or anything the way I feel for you.’
He takes my bra off and starts kissing my breasts. ‘You know,’ he murmurs, ‘I think I fell in love with you in that club on the very first night we met.’
‘And that’s why you didn’t call me, huh?’
His gaze is warm. ‘I always knew I was going to call you. There is no one in the world like you, Billie Black. But I had problems. I didn’t know you were friends with Blake and Lana. And then Ebony became angry and contacted the Mafia and my cover was blown forever. The best way to get caught is to lose control and team up with impulsive psychopaths. I didn’t want to do it so she went behind my back.’
‘She’s in love with you, you know.’
‘No she isn’t,’ he retorts instantly.
‘You’re such a man. So clueless.’
He frowns.
‘She came to see me.’
‘A fat lot of good that must have done her.’
‘Oi! Whose side are you on?’
‘Yours, yours and yours.’
‘Keep going.’
‘I’ve actually got to show you something.’
My eyes flick meaningfully to his crotch. ‘Take off your trousers then?
Patience, Black. Patience. He sits up and twists away from me, and I see that his entire back is filled with a massive spider tattoo. It is still raw and fresh.
‘Oh my god,’ I cry.
‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ I scream. ‘But why?’
He shrugs. ‘I never could before. I was always trying to blend into the background of the titled, the moneyed and the famous. I’m finished with all that now.’
‘It’s totally boss.’
‘Good. Because I did it for you.’
‘Does this mean you get to be on top until that spider heals?’
He cocks an eyebrow. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Black. You’re
always
going to be underneath me. Got that?’
‘Loud and clear.’
His grin flashes. ‘Now get fucking naked.’
‘Make me,’ I say.
And he does.
The End
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Disfigured Love
Once unmasked, can beauty love the beast?
My name is Lena Seagull. I should still be in school, hanging out with friends, meeting boys, falling in love—just like you. But on my eighteenth birthday my father sold me. Now, those are yesterday’s dreams.
My home is a remote castle. And the man who owns me? I have never seen him.
Guy Hawk keeps his face hidden under a mask. At first, I knew only fear, but now his voice and touch make me unashamedly want him. Each night, his hired help blindfolds me, and takes me to his room. He whispers that I am beautiful and we have sex. It is wild and exciting, but when I awaken he is always gone.
He and his castle hold dark secrets that I must unravel, but what he fears most—being unmasked—is my deepest desire.
Will either of us survive the consequences of my desire?
Disfigured Love is a full-length standalone novel.
Disfigured Love
Georgia Le Carre
—
Eugene Onegin
, Alexander Pushkin,
…
‘Her eyes are a mutation. A beautiful mutation.’
I
t was in the early morning hours that Guy Hawk stopped working—he hardly slept anymore—and reached for the red envelope carefully laid at the edge of the desk. He placed it in front of him, and simply looked at it as if it held some great and frightening secret. In fact, its contents were prosaic and vulgar.
Some months ago, late one night, he had felt so unspeakably, unbearably lonely and unhappy that he had longed for the forgiving curves of a woman, any woman.
He had contacted the agency.
Ever since then bi-weekly a red envelope had arrived. But that intolerable loneliness of that fateful night had dissipated and he had looked at the photos inside it without interest, even with regret at his lapse in judgment, sometimes marvelling at the extent of his need. Never in his life had he paid for a woman and certainly not for an unwilling one. He had opened the envelopes and looked at those poor girls. And not once had he been even slightly tempted, though each one was exquisitely beautiful.
He sighed and tore it open. And began to tremble. The photographs fell from his nerveless hands and landed on his desk with a soft hiss.
The girl had cast her eyes out…and looked at him.
As if in a daze he picked up the photo and gazed at her silently, ravenously. At her enormous translucent gray eyes, the small, perfectly formed nose, the blonde hair, the large, plump lips, the flawlessly pale skin. How strange—he longed to know the smell of her skin, the taste of those full lips.
His hand—beautiful, large, strong, squarish, disbelieving—shook as his fingers traced the unsmiling outline of her face. He felt it then, as if the photo was alive, an impression of quiet grief. He lifted his fingers away, as if burnt, and frowned at the photo. She was effortlessly and utterly stunning. He must not fall under her spell. And yet it was already too late. The connection was instantaneous. Fate had waved its cruel, uncaring hand. He wanted her so bad it hurt. He reached for the other photo. She was wearing a bikini and high heels and standing with her arms to her sides in a bare room, the same one all the other girls had stood in. Leggy. Flawless. He turned the photo over.
Lena Seagull.
A strange smile crossed his face. How fitting. The hawk’s prey is the seagull. Her age and vital statistics were displayed in English, French, Arabic and Chinese.
Age: 18
Height: 5’9”, Dress Size: 6-8-10 Bust: 34 Waist: 24 Hips: 35.5
Shoes: 8, Hair: Blonde, Eyes: Dove Gray
He turned to his computer screen and tapped in his secret code. The encrypted message was only one word long: YES.
Almost instantly his phone rang.
‘The auction will be held at 2.00 p.m. Friday. I believe there are two Arab princes who are also interested. She will not be cheap. What’s your limit?’
‘No limit.’
‘Very good.’
Guy terminated the call and stared again at the girl.
He had never known such an irresistible desire before. He felt desperate to acquire her, brand her with body. And make her, his. His hand jerked with the sudden pain blooming in his chest. It ate like acid. It was so horrendous that tears filled his eyes and a howl escaped him. The sound vibrated and echoed around the cavernous room. The truth yawned like a black mouth: she would never come to love him. A beauty such as her was stardust, and could never love him. He was destined only for the part of the love struck fool at the hem of her skirt as she blazed past.
His good hand moved to stroke the raised scars on his face. He heard again the sickeningly angry screech of metal against metal, the explosion that had strangely brought with it a blissful silence and then the smell of his own flesh burning, burning, burning: watching his skin bubble, crackle, glow and smoke. He shuddered when he thought of the shimmering waves that rose from his flesh. He had sizzled and cooked like a piece of steak on a barbecue.
He hardened his heart.
He would have her, anyway. And think no more of it. She would be his pet. She would never come to know his heart. He laughed out loud. Unlike the sound of his anguish, which had throbbed with vital life, his laughter was empty and soulless. It disappeared into that deathly quiet castle and went to lie softly on his two secrets as they lay sleeping.