Page 15 of Lair

“Any recommendations?”

She frowns. “Try the stern. It’s usually the most private at this time.”

I flash a grin at her. “Thanks.”

The yacht has an odd calm to it at night, an eerie, drifting feeling, like a vast dreaming presence. Its lurid red lighting system suffuses the waters about it with a wavering glow. I tiptoe down the teak gangway of the main deck in my bare feet, cell phone gripped tight, feeling like an impostor. I’ve almost stumbled through the hole before I realize the huge retractable panels of the pool roof are open.

I freeze, the blood drumming in my ears at the import of this. I know I should turn away, but I can’t. I inch to the edge and peek down.

Not twenty feet below, a body floats in the yacht’s lit-up internal pool, like a corpse at a crime scene.

It’s Voper.

This is when I should really turn away, I know, retire from my short career as a voyeur and go back to bed. I have stumbled on something that is private, intimate; something that should not be seen. But I can’t. I can’t turn away—my curiosity is too strong. It is impossible. I have to look on, like some figure in a fairy tale. I am enchanted. My eyes travel over his face, tracing its softness and hard angles. He looks strangely vulnerable, innocent, in this moment. Those full lips are blue, cold and bloodless. His eyes shut, lashes dark and curved against his cheeks, like a child’s.

The eyes suddenly fly open—staring right at me.

I jerk away, body tensed and hyperventilating. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck. What do I do? I’m about to make a break for it when a mild voice drifts up out of the opening, rooting me to the spot. “Come on down. Don’t be shy.”

Nice knowing you, Aurora.

EIGHT

There’s no going back now. I find the staircase leading down into the beach club and emerge into a space aglow with pool-lights casting wavering reflections on the walls. It’s as if I’m in the inward parts of some leviathan.

Voper has his back to me, elbows propped on the pool edge, hair slicked with water. Waiting.

I find I’m shivering.

What am I doing here? I part my lips. My voice comes out steadier than expected. “Can I help you, sir?”

His head turns slightly. His voice is a little wondering. “Help me.” He snorts, not unkindly. Then looks ahead again. “Are you going to come closer?”

I swallow, knees trembling, and slowly round the pool. His body floats pale and luminous as a fish before him, too blurred by the water to be seen clearly. His voice is hard with curiosity. “What are you doing wandering about at this hour?”

My heart thumps against my ribcage. I hold up my cell phone. “Just—calling a friend.”

A long moment before he nods, smooth brow furrowing, as if this is a new phenomenon to him. “Ah,” he says softly. “Yes.” He appears to feel no pressure to fill the following silence.

I do.

“Your supermodel friends must be looking for you.” I offer it up as a joke, but the faint smile that creases his face lets me know it amuses him in some other way.

“Yes,” he says, with something like sadness. “I suppose they must be.” Then his voice changes, glinting with something new. “Or perhaps they’re still smarting from your comment today.”

Heat rushes into my face. The words trip out of my mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that—”

“Or perhaps someone should have said it to them a long time ago.”

The remark leaves my head spinning. Did he just say that?

“It’s very rare that I’m amused,” he goes on. “I must thank you for that. I’ve never seen a model break so much Christofle crystal in one night.”

I stand there, my heart hammering. I don’t know what to make of his attitude. He won’t even look at me, but there’s an accessibility here that’s not been present before. It’s like a tender bruise; I have to touch it.

“Why...” I say, but trail off. Mrs. Colding would execute me.

That’s when Voper looks at me, and the shock of it urges me on.

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