Page 45 of Dimistrios's Bought Mistress
Lycos crossed to the bar. The evening was finished. He ordered a martini and knocked it back in one. Then he glanced around. He frowned. Arielle had disappeared. His frown deepened. He had not meant to shut her down like that, but he had warned her that she must not interrupt him.
Let alone for such a reason.
His mouth curled. In his jacket pocket was a signed and witnessed IOU, the signature a shaky scrawl. Of thevicomte’sgilded son there was no sign. Off to lick his wounded ego no doubt.
He pushed back his empty martini glass. Wherever Arielle had got to, she would find him ready to go home. Chips cashed, winnings ready to bank.
Time to celebrate. And he knew just how he would do so. Had it not been for years of rigid self-discipline Arielle tonight would have been a fatal distraction. But now, now she could distract him all she liked. He would apologise for snapping at her. They would get back to the hotel and order room service. He was hungry now for more than Arielle. And then for dessert… Well, the night was long and dessert could take a long, long time to feast on…
He left the room, heading downstairs. Arielle must have gone down already.
Arielle leant against the wall outside the bathroom. The door was closed shut, but she could hear the sound of retching. She knew who it was, she had followed him upstairs. He had held ittogether until Lycos had left the table. Then he had walked, like a zombie, white-faced, from the room.
The sound of retching ended and she heard water running. She backed away, down to the dimly lit end of the corridor, out of sight. He would not want his misery witnessed.
Only when she heard footsteps heading down did she move. On heavy tread she made her way downstairs to the entrance hall.
She saw Lycos waiting there.
His expression as she came up to him was warm.
But hers was like stone.
Lycos sat back in the taxi, Arielle beside him. She was looking out of the window, drawn a little apart from him and very quiet. He assumed she was tired. As for himself, he knew this state of mind too. Mentally exhausted, half still fully focussed, half detached. It took him a while to come down from the mental state he needed to be in to follow the play and fall of the cards. He sat back musing absently, eyes unseeing, as the Paris traffic went past at this late hour. The last time he’d played had been when he’d taken down Gerald Maitland. Taken his money and hismasand then driven up the Rhône valley through the night.
It had proved a fateful journey. And a fateful win.
It brought Arielle into my life.
His head turned slightly, eyes half-open. She sat, face averted, in half profile. On impulse he reached for her hand, folding his around it. It felt cold to his touch. Inert.
Arielle waited until they were back in their room at the hotel. Her head was aching, a tight band around it. She made for the bathroom.
‘I need a shower,’ she said. She knew her voice sounded strained, but she also knew why. She barely looked at Lycos.
He nodded. ‘I’ll get on to room service. What would you like?’
‘Oh…whatever,’ she managed to say. She shut the bathroom door, wanting only privacy.
Her mind was in turmoil, yet blank at the same time. For a moment she stared at herself in the mirror over the vanity. She looked like a stranger. Alien.
But then so had Lycos, sitting at that card table.
In her head she heard his low, bitten out words when she’d tried to intervene in his demolition of that hapless boy.
‘Laisse moi!’
She inhaled a sharp breath, which stabbed her as if a knife. Face contorting, with a sudden movement, she started to strip off her finery. Dress hooked on the back of the door, necklace with its pendent diamond dropped into the toiletries’ basket. She reached for her face cleanser and removed all of her make-up. When she’d finished her face looked bare.
And bleak.
Discarding her undies, she stepped into the shower, turning the water on full. Drenching her body. Washing something away.
Something she needed to wash away.
Lycos opened the door to room service. He was barefoot and dressed in his bathrobe, feeling a lot more comfortable out of his tux. Mentally he had pretty much come back down from his detached, elevated state. He was hungry for food. And for Arielle. He stood aside while the waiter set out the dishes and then left the room. He heard the shower cut out and Arielle emerged. Like him, she was dressed in a bathrobe. Her face wasclear of make-up and her hair had been brushed out. His face lit up with a smile and he held her chair at the table for her.
‘I’ve gone Italian,’ he announced. ‘I hope that appeals?’
