Page 76 of Untether

As a journalist, you always seize the opportunity to interview someone in their home. While they gain from being on their own turf, you gain, too. Because their home will almost always yield clues about them.

Unless you’re Emily Maitlis, performingthatinterview of Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace. The royal family probably had a different agenda there.

So when I say I’ve spent the past week impatient to get inside Cal’s home and prowl around, that’s an understatement. I have this sense that if I can see him in his natural habitat, I’ll understand him better.

There may be other reasons I’m excited to spend the evening with him, too.

It’s no surprise that he lives in a sleek, modern condo in Knightsbridge. I’m tempted to laugh at myself as I exit the elevator straight into the penthouse, no less, because what the hell am I doing? Going for Friday evening dinner at thepimped-up bachelor pad of a guy ten years my junior, who also happens to own a sex club, that’s what.

It’s almost like I’ve forgotten I’m a middle-aged divorcée.

Well, I don’t care.

Not tonight, anyway. God knows, I could use some fun. And if I want some fun, Cal’s definitely the man for the job.

His apartment is stunning on first impression. Huge and uncluttered, which is what every mom fantasises about. No toys or letters from school, crinkled from having been stuffed at the bottom of book bags. Nope. Just polished concrete floors, oversized furniture that works well with the surplus of space, and windows for days.

The vibe is warmer than I expected, too, with a kind of deep taupe on the walls and pendant lamps casting a rosy glow over the spots they hang above. The island. The huge rough wood table.

But none of it can compete with the guy standing in the middle of the space, damp-haired and barefoot and smiling at me like I’m the most delicious thing his elevator ever spat out. He’s wearing a navy polo shirt that hugs his pecs and strains against his biceps, and old, worn jeans that angels must’ve sewn to his legs. It really, really works.

‘I’ve got Aida Russell in my flat, finally,’ he says, prowling towards me. ‘Welcome to the lion’s den.’ And then he’s tugging me against him with an arm around my waist, and relieving me of the bottle of wine I’ve brought, and kissing me. His lips are soft, so soft, and his tongue is cool, like he’s been drinking a cold drink, and God, this feels easy.

It feels easy to wind my arms around his neck and kiss him back. To melt against his hard, warm body. It feels easy because Cal makes it effortless. There’s no over-thinking, no strategising. There’s just his beautiful smile and his natural affection and his seemingly genuine happiness at seeing me.

He holds the cold bottle of wine against my butt as he slides his other hand under my hair so he can grip my neck. His mouth moves against mine, his jaw working as he explores my mouth with his dangerous tongue.

I am a badass grown woman who may actually melt in his arms.

49

CAL

Ican’t believe she’s here.

I keep sneaking sideways glances at her as I busy myself with pouring her a glass of perfectly chilled Chassagne Montrachet from my wine fridge. I told her to keep it casual, and she arrived wrapped up in a Burberry trench that made her look like a very sexy spy.

She’s lost the coat, and now she’s floating around my flat in an olive-coloured longish, silky dress that’s belted at the waist and has buttons the entire way down the front. She’s left the buttons undone from mid thigh downwards and from just above where her bra begins.

All this makes me extremely happy and also a little hard.

When I think about the women I’ve fucked in my lifetime, they’re this faceless blur of hair and limbs, which is awful, I know. But Aida is so unforgettable in every way. She’s searing herself onto my consciousness so sharply I may not survive it.

I have to confess, I’ve fallen down a major Aida Russell rabbit hole online. Not just to be stalky, which I am. Not just to jerk off to, which I do, especially because I haven’t seenher in person for exactly a week. But also because I want to understand this woman more fully—this woman who’s let me into her body and her confidence. Who’s entrusted me with rebuilding her sexuality, in a way.

I watch interview after interview with everyone from Barack Obama to Russell Brand to Jane bloody Fonda, which is epic in itself. The size of her brain makes my own little brain hurt. Her ability to think on her feet, to pivot, to ask exactly the right question at exactly the right time in order to eviscerate her interviewee is simply staggering.

It’s like watching Nadal play some fifteen-year-old amateur. Total fucking annihilation, every time.

Don’t get me wrong. I know she has a huge team of people researching on her behalf, and briefing her, and even role-playing to prepare her for big events like the debate she chaired for prime ministerial candidates.

But none of that should take away from her ability to rhapsodise live from the Paris terror attacks or to land exactly the right question at the right time or to perceive, uncannily and seemingly effortlessly, the exact heart of any issue she’s addressing.

She makes it all look easy, and that makes my head spin.

Not to mention, she’s beautiful. So beautiful, it hurts my heart. She’s grown into her bone structure. Her cheekbones are more pronounced than they were even a decade ago. Her huge dark eyes are more hooded, more dramatic. She’s svelte and toned, and I can safely say, with my wealth of experience at hand, that she has the body of a woman ten years younger.

I’ve built her up in my mind into the icon that she is. You’d think, having fucked her, that feeling would fade with the relative familiarity and intimacy we’ve enjoyed. But it hasn’t. If anything, it’s grown. I idolise her, and thatsense of wonder, of worship, even, grows every time she lets me get close. And with that sense of wonder comes the responsibility for the wellbeing of a woman the nation adores.

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