Tall, Dark & Distant (12 page)

In fact it could only loosely be described as a
house
. Nik’s holiday residence looked more like a Balinese resort. Georgia wouldn’t have been surprised to see a team of linen-suited staff emerging to take her bag and offer a welcome drink. Sun loungers were set up around an enormous swimming pool as if waiting for the guests to check in. The pool itself seemed to blend into the ocean beyond it.

The tropical gardens, the vibrant crimson of the bougainvillea, and the frangipani trees with their perfect white-and-yellow flowers added to the feeling that Georgia had slipped into a private retreat. An immaculately maintained tennis court completed the resort scene. By the look of the court, Noosa had been added to the Grand Slam.

‘Wow,’ was all she could say.

‘It does the job for the summer holidays.’ Nik smiled. ‘We bought the house from an American tennis pro, he was pretty fussy about the court. Do you play?’

Georgia recalled Ella’s rule about tennis.

‘Not much,’ she replied. ‘But I’d like to learn.’

‘Maybe we can have a hit sometime.’

Georgia made a note to herself to have some lessons before that
sometime
arrived.

Nik opened the front door and they walked into the house. A vast light atrium stretched out ahead of them, merging into an entertaining area that overlooked the pool. The space was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling aquarium where countless species of tropical fish darted among the coral gardens. Georgia felt like she’d just walked into the Great Barrier Reef.

The marine theme continued on the far wall, where a tank was occupied solely by small white jellyfish drifting calmly in a blue world. The tank was flanked by two huge modern paintings – bold blocks of aqua broken up by vibrant flashes of yellow and pink, imitating the colours of the tropical fish.

‘An Australian artist,’ Nik explained. ‘It’s an honesty metaphor.’

Georgia nodded, blankly. She wasn’t sure if
Honesty Metaphor
was the title of the paintings or if that was Nik’s interpretation. It could have even been the name of the artist for all she knew. Contemporary art wasn’t really her thing. Georgia was well out of her depth there, but then she was pretty much drowning wherever she looked.

‘I don’t envy the guy who cleans these fish tanks,’ was all Georgia could say.
This guy has more money than Mark Zuckerberg,
she thought to herself.

Most people Georgia knew rented out their holiday houses when they weren’t using them. They filled their accommodation with easy-care furniture and decorated the walls with pastel prints. This wasn’t
that
kind of place; it was a private hilltop sanctuary.

‘Have a seat,’ Nik said, nodding to a sofa. ‘Just need to sort a few things out.’

Georgia was about to sit when she noticed another painting.

It didn’t have the scale to impress like the others, but the brush strokes, the colour, everything about it screamed out for attention. There was a hint of a woman’s face in among the chaos. Two green eyes were hidden in the colours. Georgia walked towards the painting to take a closer look. It enthralled and repulsed her at the same time.

‘Who’s this one by?’ she asked.

Nik hesitated a moment. ‘It’s … my mother’s self-portrait,’ he said. Georgia thought she sensed some strain on his face.

She stepped back from it. ‘It’s incredible. So … wild.’

‘That’s my mother,’ Nik said. He kissed her gently and then disappeared upstairs.

Georgia stared at the painting for a few seconds more and a shiver went through her body. The hairs on her arms stood to attention. There was something very sinister about the artwork. It wasn’t the sort of piece you could enjoy with your morning juice. Appreciate, maybe. Enjoy, no.

Georgia turned her attention to the fish – happy, busy, uncomplicated. She dropped into a huge leather sofa, just like the one she had dreamed of sharing with Nik, only much bigger – a modular version that would comfortably seat twenty. But no matter where she sat, the eyes in the painting kept following her. It was like Nik’s mother was trying to scare her off, or warn her about something.

‘Are you ready for the surprise?’ Nik asked, bouncing down the stairs with his hands behind his back.

He sat down beside Georgia on the sofa and slowly revealed a pair of large padded headphones with a funny little microphone attached to the front. ‘These are for you.’

Georgia looked at the headphones, totally confused. Nik had been right; she never would’ve guessed headphones were the surprise. She was really glad she hadn’t mentioned she’d been expecting a car.

‘Thank you,’ Georgia said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘I’ve always wanted a set of headphones like this. I was hoping to get them for Christmas, but I guess I can cross them off the list now. This is great. Really. I love them. Thanks. Wow. Headphones.’ She looked at Nik, who was laughing. She’d gone too far.

‘You have no idea what they’re for, do you?’

Georgia shook her head blankly.

‘I’ll show you.’ Nik led her towards the back of the house, through an impressively sized laundry.

‘Nice tumble dryer,’ Georgia said, stroking the appliance.

Nik looked at her and frowned.

She took her hand off the tumble dryer. She had definitely blown it this time. First she hadn’t been able to contribute to a discussion of the
Honesty Metaphor
, then she had homed in on a scary self-portrait that Nik obviously didn’t like. She didn’t understand the headphones and now she was enthusing about a laundry appliance. How much worse could this get?

Nik frowned. ‘Why’s the door open?’ he asked, looking at the back door standing ajar. He sounded annoyed, but Georgia was relieved. At least he wasn’t frowning at her unnatural obsession with tumble dryers.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t open it,’ she replied meekly, just in case she
had
done something wrong. ‘Maybe your sister?’

Sisters did things like that. One time Alice had even let in a snake, although she insisted the snake had come in through the bathroom window and not the back door, which officially made it her mum’s fault for opening the window.

‘My sister didn’t leave it open,’ Nik replied, blowing her theory out of the water.

‘Are you sure?’

Nik nodded. ‘She’s in Singapore.’

‘That was a quick visit,’ Georgia said, a little suspiciously. ‘I thought she’d just arrived.’

Nik shrugged. ‘She wanted to go shopping.’

‘She went to Singapore to go shopping?’ Georgia asked.

‘Sure.’ Nik shrugged like this was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Australia’s not exactly a retail desert,’ said Georgia, shaking her head. ‘Did she even go for a swim before she left?’

‘No. That’s Kat,’ Nik said. ‘She’s not really too nice. That’s why I didn’t introduce you.’

‘Oh,’ Georgia said. ‘Okay.’

‘I can’t believe I left this open,’ Nik said, returning his attention to the back door.

‘Do you want to check if anything is missing?’ Georgia asked. She’d seen a home cinema on her way to the laundry, and there was valuable-looking artwork on every wall and antiques at every step. If burglars had been in, they must’ve been extremely fussy.

‘Nothing’s missing,’ he said, without checking. ‘I must’ve left it open this morning.’

Eventually Nik gave a deep long sigh, then the frown slipped from his forehead. He gave Georgia a little kiss on the cheek.

‘After you.’

She took a few steps outside and suddenly the headphones made sense. A hundred metres down the hill was a landing pad. A landing pad with a helicopter sitting in the middle.

‘My turn to take you sightseeing,’ Nik said.

‘In a helicopter?’ Georgia asked, still not sure if she had it right.

‘You have
your own
helicopter? And a pilot, what, on standby?’

‘You’re
looking
at the pilot,’ Nik announced. ‘I’m flying the helicopter. And you’re the passenger.’

Georgia’s dumbfounded expression was plastered all over her face. Nik was a pilot? He was taking her for a ride in a helicopter? She had taken Nik to a modest waterfall in the middle of the bush. He was about to take her for an aerial joyride. It pretty much summed up the relationship.

‘Awesome,’ was all Georgia could say.

Nik helped her into the helicopter and went through an elaborate safety briefing. Georgia quizzed him on every detail. In the event of a crash on land she had fire to worry about. If they went down in the ocean she had to worry about drowning. She was wearing a life jacket, which gave her a small amount of protection, but Georgia was well aware that the chances of survival were pretty slim whether she followed the instructions or not.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about neurosurgeons picking splinters out of her brain. Georgia pretended that somehow compensated for the fact that she was about to go flying with a twenty-year-old. At least she wasn’t breaking any family rules – her dad had never banned her from helicopters.

‘All good?’ Nik asked as the rotor blades whirred noisily overhead. They sat side by side in the cockpit, communicating via headsets.

Georgia gave Nik the thumbs up. He took one control lever in his left hand and another in his right, and placed his feet on the pedals on the floor. Casually using every limb in a sequence that seemed ridiculously complex to her, Nik lifted the helicopter off the ground. The tail took off first and then the bubble-shaped body followed, forcing her forward in the seat and giving her a bird’s-eye view of the treetops.

Through the front window she watched the bushland disappear and the sea come into view. The beach was a great long cream ribbon, bordered by a turquoise sea that grew into an expanse of deep blue ocean.

They flew north along the coastline, across the narrow stretch of water to Fraser Island. The blue teardrop lakes on the island stood out from the green bushland. Nik skimmed over the coastline to inspect a school of hammerhead sharks. There were other sharks too, menacingly patrolling the beach, their dark shapes apparent in the shallow water. Nik swore he’d invest in a shark repellent.

Almost an hour later, as the light began to fade, the aerial sightseeing expedition came to an end. Nik landed the helicopter in his backyard and helped Georgia from the cockpit, kissing her passionately as he did.

‘I better get you back,’ Nik said, taking Georgia’s hand and leading her to the garage.

‘I guess,’ Georgia sighed. She clung to Nik, her legs a little wobbly from the flight and her mind still dazed from an unbelievable afternoon.

By the time Nik dropped her home, Georgia’s head was still somewhere between Fraser Island and a secret cavern behind a waterfall. She looked at Nik as the engine idled, waiting to see where things would go next.

‘So, I’ll see you … soon,’ he said, shuffling in the driver’s seat.

Georgia choked. There it was again – Nik’s
unreliable
streak. Georgia felt like he could have driven over her heart and it would have been kinder. She couldn’t believe after everything they’d done that day that Nik was trying to push her away again. She didn’t understand, and this time she decided she didn’t want to be
understanding
. She wasn’t going to face another week of torture waiting for Nik to swan back into her life. They’d just had sex in the seat she was sitting in, for goodness sake! Surely that qualified her for a regular place in his calendar. And a little more honesty.

‘When?’ she asked steadily.

‘Georgia …’ he began.

‘Look, it’s very easy, Nik,’ she interrupted in a patronising tone. ‘All you have to say is,
Georgia, I’ll see you tomorrow
. Have you never had a girlfriend?’

Nik looked away. Georgia cursed herself for saying something so stupid. Of course he’d had a girlfriend – he was super hot and super rich. He’d probably had hundreds of girlfriends. And here she was, with nothing to offer but a reasonable pair of running legs, an embarrassingly honest face and a strange obsession with medical-emergency scenarios. She already regretted going all the way with him. Why hadn’t she just left it at a kiss behind the waterfall? What had she been thinking – getting her gear off in the Ferrari? She’d been under the impression that it meant something. It had – to her. But apparently it hadn’t meant anything to him.

Nik ran his fingers through his hair, stalling. ‘I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you,’ he said.

Georgia looked carefully at Nik, trying to work out what he was getting at.

He shook his head slowly. ‘Georgia, you have no idea who I am. You don’t know anything about me.’

She huffed. ‘Of course I don’t. You won’t
let me
get to know you.’ Now she was getting annoyed.

Nik looked out the window and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

‘How bad can it be?’ Georgia asked impatiently.

Nik drew a deep breath and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘My name is Nikolai Morozov. My father is one of the richest men in Russia. He started with oil and gas interests in Siberia. We have businesses all over the world now – football teams, hotels, yachts, houses, apartments and I think we own a couple of third-world dictators.’ Nik smiled, but she wasn’t sure he was joking.

It was Georgia’s turn to go mute.

‘I came to Australia to get away from … everything in Europe,’ Nik continued. ‘Or, well, my father actually ordered me to get out of London or get out of the family. Things were getting … kind of out of control. I made up a new name as part of my fresh start.’

Georgia still couldn’t speak.

‘I’m sorry, Georgia. I’ve been trying to tell you for days. Once I started lying, it was easier to just keep going.’

‘But … I don’t understand.’ Georgia’s voice wavered; she was only just holding everything together. ‘I fell for a guy named Nik Ledbury. Are you telling me he doesn’t exist?’

Nik looked at his hands.

‘What the hell is going on, Nik?’ Georgia asked. ‘What are you running away from? Am I just someone to massage your ego while you’re escaping from your problems? I’m just a bit part in your life, aren’t I?’

Nik shook his head.

Georgia pulled her mobile out of her bag and waved it at him. ‘I am! You won’t even give me your number. Now I know why – so you can just disappear whenever you want!’