Page 85 of The House Guest

She didn’t respond.

‘There were so many! All of them with something. All of them beautiful and young and fit. All of them sweet and funny and gentle. All of them with some talent. Some kind of X factor. But none of them were right, Ruth. Some of them were too keen on the idea of having power. Some of them wanted too much. One or two of them wouldn’t stop weeping. Do you know what that’s like? To have that fucking noise in your head? That boo-hoo-hoo?’ He mimed a crying woman. ‘They all seemed right until we got them here.’

Ruth managed to speak. ‘And where are they now?’

‘Gone,’ he said. ‘Long gone.’

The way he said it made her go cold.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and lay a hand on her upper thigh. She tried not to flinch. She didn’t want to make him angry. She didn’t want to be long gone. He idly stroked her leg through her pyjama bottoms, fingers bending then unfurling, and she tried not to imagine where his hand would go next.

‘You seemed so perfect,’ Gabriel said. ‘When Mona called me from the cruise to tell me about you, told me you were playing Miranda, I had to track down a copy of your movie. And when I saw it – boom!’ He lifted his hand from her thigh and slapped himself on the chest. ‘I knew I’d found her, after all this time, after all those mistakes. The girl who was worthy to sit beside me. To join me at the top of the world.’

He lay his hand on her thigh again. ‘Maybe even the mother of my children. The next generation.’

She shuddered, and she knew he felt it because of the look on his face. Not anger. No, it was the look of a greedy little boy who’d been told he couldn’t have the toy he wanted for Christmas.

‘Do you remember the first time we met?’ he said.

She blinked at him. When was it? Yesterday? The day before? Time had almost ceased to exist since she’d been brought to this place. The days ran into one another. Why was he talking about it like it was a long time ago?

‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ he said. ‘It was in the park. You’d just lost your phone. That phone that contained all those special pictures of you.’

He licked his lips.

She recoiled. ‘It was you. You set it up.’

But he wasn’t listening. ‘You won’t believe how many times I’ve gazed at those photos, Ruth. I couldn’t believe how perfect you were.’

So the remote deletion of her pictures hadn’t worked. His eyes raked over her body now like he was seeing her naked again. She felt violated. Sickened.

‘I went to so much trouble to get you here,’ he said. He watched himself in the mirror as he spoke. ‘Because I knew you were worth it. And I thought you would be easy to persuade. A woman with your background. In and out of foster care. Desperate to belong to something. Hungry for success. Aware of how cruel the world can be. Not many friends. A boyfriend who you suspected was jealous of you. All the ingredients were there, and I thought I’d just have to show you how easy things could be for you.’ He touched her stomach with his fingertips. She felt his hand tremble. ‘I wasn’t lying, Ruth. You could have had everything. Perhaps I should have taken it slower. Let you get to know me better. Eden wasn’t supposed to tell you everything.’ He sighed. ‘And now it’s too late.’

‘Maybe ... maybe it’s not too late, Gabriel,’ she said, trying to meet his eye.Act, Ruth, she told herself.It’s the one thing you’re meant to be good at, so act like your life depends on it.

Because her lifediddepend on it.

‘It sounds so wonderful. To be protected. To not be at the mercy of all the predators and sharks out there. And success and fame and glory – it’s all I’ve ever wanted. To show all those people they were wrong. All the people who rejected me. Like my birth mother. She’s still alive. Still out there somewhere. I want her to see me on the big screen and realise what a terrible mistake she made.’ She caught his gaze in the mirror. ‘I shouldn’t have said those things. I wasn’t ... I wasn’t thinking straight. But if you give me another chance, I’ll let you manage me. Let you protect me.’ She forced herself to say it. ‘Let you love me.’

He stared at her. His breathing had grown heavy, pupils slightly dilated. His hand was flat on her belly now, beneath her pyjama top. He kept it perfectly still.

‘And I’ll love you too,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you all the love you never had.’

She could see he wanted to believe her. He wasdesperateto believe her.

But he withdrew his hand and leaned close to her, his nose inches from hers. She could smell his breath. Could smell the darkness inside him.

‘How stupid do you think I am?’ he said. ‘I saw the disgust on your face. Believe me, I’ve seen that look on women’s faces before.’

She could believe that, all right.

He stood.

‘Please don’t kill me,’ she said.

‘I’m not going to kill you, Ruth. You know why? I don’t need you to want this to happen. I don’t need you to be a fully active member of our network, going out into the world, becoming a star. All I need is for you to be here beside me. In my tower. In my bed.’

She stared at him.

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