Last Week: A Dark Romance Page 2

  I looked around me. Was he watching right now? Had he seen me take it? I was stupid to even think I could get away with this.

  Spinning on my heels, I headed back to the pub. I thought I could feel someone behind me, following me, but when I turned round there was no one there but shoppers, none of them giving me as much as a second look.

  I reached the charity shop. The old man with his collection tin took one look at me and then looked away. I guessed he could tell I had nothing left to give.

  I carried on, again feeling sure there was someone behind me, watching. I resisted glancing back for a few seconds before spinning on the spot. Still no one. I was clearly getting paranoid, expecting the police to descend on me at any moment.

  I made it back to the pub, stopping outside and taking a deep breath for a second to gather my thoughts. I’d just go in, hand it over, tell them I’d found it. Then I’d walk away and everything would be all right.

  Well, not everything. Nothing would have really changed. I’d still have the bank breathing down my neck, I’d still have to be the one to tell Grandma and Granddad that their last days would be spent on the streets, freezing to death, that would still have to happen. But at least I wouldn’t be in prison.

  A cold wind picked up, as if to emphasise how hard my life was about to become. I pushed open the door to the pub, stepping back into the warmth.

  A quick glance round told me the man hadn’t come back. I approached the bar, feeling his wallet weighing me down, like the chains of a convict. The bartender watched me cross the floor, his eyes narrowing. “Another Merlot?” he asked, his voice cold. I could hear loud and clear what lurked between the words.

  You don’t belong here.

  He was right. I didn’t belong here. All I was going to do was hand over the wallet and get the hell out of there. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. As I did so, I heard a cough behind me.

  A finger tapped me on the shoulder. With a sense of absolute certainty that I was about to be arrested, I slowly turned round, the wallet in my outstretched hand, a spluttering apology already forming on my lips.

  But it wasn’t the police. It was him, the man I’d stolen it from.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, taking the wallet from my hand, his fingers brushing over my wrist as he did so. I shuddered at his touch. What the hell? Why had I reacted like that?

  My mouth fell open but no words came out. He stepped round me and turned to the bartender. “Two glasses of the 2009 Château Margaux.”

  The bartender nodded as the man turned back to me. “You like red.”

  It was a statement, not a question. I tried to reply but I still couldn’t get any words out. A smile flickered across his lips as he opened his wallet and slipped out three twenty pound notes. “Here,” he said, holding them out towards me. “A reward.”

  I managed a half frown, saying in a bare croak,” What for?” as I tried to shake the feeling this was a terrible distraction while he waited for the police to arrive.

  “For finding my wallet,” he said, pressing the notes into my hand, folding my fingers over them, his hand lingering over mine for the briefest of seconds. “I think you’ll like the 2009, a good year for Margaux.”

  He slid one glass towards me before taking the other and lifting it into the air. “To good wine and good Samaritans.”

  THREE

  ETHAN

  The latest one was waiting for me in the pub. The one the agency assured me would be “perfect for my needs,” as if they hadn’t said that so many times before.

  I put on my most realistic smile, altered my body language to a warm, outgoing happy-go-lucky man who just wanted to have some fun.

  It was a fucked up thing to do, really. I was going to take a woman who had done nothing wrong, and turn her into a submissive so dependent on me that after a week was up, she would be unable to function. I never said I was a good person.

  I had high hopes it would work this time. But then, I’d thought that each time before. It was kind of fun dominating and possessing women but it wasn’t enough to achieve my goal. I wanted to break someone like Emilia had broken me.

  Most of them gave up before I even brought out the cane, yelling out the safe word and leaving me to count up the days wasted as they ran out of the door.

  They came to me, eager to begin, thinking it was just a way of earning some easy money from an eccentric guy with more cash than taste. It wasn’t anything like that. It was the hardest way imaginable to earn anything. I controlled everything about them, every aspect of their lives. They didn’t get to make a single decision.

  The only nod to normality that I made was letting them have a safe word. I had to. If I was to break them, it wasn’t enough that they obeyed me out of fear. They had to obey me out of desire. That was where the true bond would begin, where they would rely on me, lean on me, depend on me. Like I’d done on her.

  But one time after another, I had barely begun and the safe word was yelled. It was over. The fear was too much. The pain was too much. Reality was too much. They couldn’t handle it.

  I was beginning to wonder if anyone could handle me, my needs, my goal.

  It wasn’t going to be Stephanie, my latest interviewee. I could tell that from the moment she started talking. She was too eager, too happy to be doing this, telling me all about the BDSM clubs she went to, the things she did there. She was vanilla through and through, expecting me to be shocked by the idea of her being spanked.

  I was polite though, telling her I’d be in touch. I wouldn’t. I could have fucked her for the hell of it but the time when that would have brought me pleasure was long gone. All I wanted was to get this over with. But even as I was trying to get away from her, my eye was caught by someone else, someone who stood out.

  She was alone, her shoulders were slumped. She looked as if she’d already been defeated by the world. She also looked beautiful, even in those clothes that she had clearly chosen to try and hide her body.

  I knew the type well. A couple of years ago she was nothing and then her hips had swelled, her chest had grown, and instead of embracing adulthood, she’d tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, not wanting people like me looking at her with hunger in our eyes.

  No make up on her face, unlike Stephanie. She didn’t need it. There was an innocence to her skin, a youthful glow, even as her eyes seemed older than mine, tired, half closing as she passed my table and sat down opposite.

  She kept glancing my way. That wasn’t surprising. I knew the effect I had on women, innocent or not.

  When I finally managed to get away from Stephanie, I thought about approaching her there and then but Stephanie was still looking at me from the other door.

  I headed outside instead, walking down the street, leaving my car where it was. I’d circle round and then go back in. Then I could get her alone and talk to her, see if she might be interested in a little proposition.

  I thought about how she might look locked up in my house, her little body naked, ready for me to use. The thought turned me round and got me walking back to the pub. Then I saw her on the street, heading straight towards me.

  She looked scared, like she was being chased. I ducked into a shop doorway and let her pass by. She stopped to drop a coin into a charity collection tin before continuing on. I followed her until she stopped again.

  She muttered something to herself, shaking her head as she spun round and headed directly towards me again. If she lifted her head, she’d see me but as she walked forwards, she turned and looked behind her, giving me chance to duck into another shop.

  I hovered inside for a moment, looking out as she approached.

  “Can I help?” a man’s voice said behind me.

  “I’ll take this,” I said, snatching up a cushion from the shelf next to me, carrying it over to the till as I realised I appeared to be inside a shop that sold nothing but cushions. That was a thing, apparently. A cushion shop.

  “An excellent cho
ice,” the man behind the counter said, grinning broadly. “Seven fifty please, Sir.”

  I reached into my pocket to pull out my wallet and came up empty. I frowned, tapping my other pockets. “Of course,” I said, turning and heading for the door.

  That was why she’d looked so stressed. She’d stolen my wallet. How had she done it though? I hadn’t even seen her move from her seat.

  She was good, I had to give her that. But I had the upper hand now as she didn’t know I was following her.

  “Sir, your cushion?” the man called after me but I was already heading out, glancing down the street and seeing her in the distance. I marched after her, catching up just as she vanished back into the pub, no doubt going in for some more easy pickings. How had she done it without me realising? I was obviously concentrating so hard on getting away from Stephanie that I hadn’t noticed what she was up to.

  She was at the bar by the time I reached her. I coughed politely and tapped her on the shoulder. She spun round and looked at me with panic in her eyes as I saw my wallet in her hand.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” I asked, taking it from her, feeling her skin under my fingertips. It felt soft and cold like she needed warming up.

  She looked terrified of me and I had to keep my glee under control. For what I had planned, she would be absolutely perfect.

  FOUR

  ETHAN

  I’m not evil. At least, I don’t think I am. I kept this need in check for a long time after Emilia shattered my heart into a thousand pieces.

  Like a jigsaw puzzle without a picture to work from, all I could do was try to put the pieces back together from memory. It wasn’t my fault that it didn’t quite work. I was left with holes where compassion should have been.

  In a way, I should have been grateful. If I was a warmer person, I might not have built my empire up into the behemoth it eventually became.

  But when I decided to end my life, the need came back. I asked myself if there was anything else I wanted to achieve before I went. The only thing left that I hadn’t done was this.

  Why a week? Why not take months doing it? Wearing a person down? The truth of the matter was that it was a challenge. I could have spent months, years even, same as with my business empire. But where would be the challenge in that?

  It had only taken Emilia a week to break me. I wanted to know if I could do it in the same amount of time. If I failed? Well, I would just have to move onto the next woman. I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t going to let Emilia win.

  I couldn’t have set things up better. This girl was a thief. She had already crossed me. This would be a perfect revenge, even better than seeing her squirm as I collected our drinks.

  Did she know this was eight hundred a bottle? The way she gulped it down, I doubted it.

  She sat opposite me, table between us, her hands wrapped round the stem of her glass. Whenever she moved her fingers, I could see them shaking. She was clearly terrified.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” she blurted out of nowhere.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your wallet, I mean. I found it. I was just giving it back.”

  I waved her into silence. “I have an offer for you.”

  “An offer? What kind of offer?”

  “You spend one week in my house and I pay you a million pounds.”

  She looked shocked. That was different. Normally, they looked grateful or greedy. She went to stand up, glaring at me. “What do you think I am, a call girl?”

  “Sit down,” I said, my voice cold. She looked at me and I looked at her, neither of us saying anything. This was the first real test. I waited, not blinking.

  I could tell she was churning, torn between telling me to go fuck myself and her clear need to submit. She yearned for it, that was obvious, it was the only thing keeping her from walking away.

  Slowly, she lowered herself back into the seat, her cheeks flushing pink.

  “That’s better,” I said, picking up my glass. I took a sip before continuing. “If I wanted a call girl, I would get one. I want you to spend a week with me. In return, I’ll pay you a million.”

  “This is a joke, right?”

  I shook my head. “No joke.”

  “Then what is this? Some kind of game millionaires play?”

  “Actually, I’m a billionaire.”

  “Bullshit,” she blurted out, slapping her hand over her mouth as if she hadn’t expected to say it.

  “I assure you I am.”

  “An actual billionaire?”

  I nodded.

  “Like in the books?”

  “What books would they be?”

  “The romance books. They’re all billionaires.”

  “Then yes, I’m like the ones in the books. And I’m giving you a chance to be in my story. What do you say?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? I mean, you’re actually serious.” She looked dazed, as if she’d just woken up. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am serious and I want an answer.”

  “What will I have to do? At your house, I mean?”

  That was perfect. It meant she’d already moved on in her head from refusing to believe me to trying to establish the boundaries. She’d already accepted. She just didn’t know it yet. “You’ll do everything I tell you to do.”

  “Not…everything?”

  I took another sip of my drink. “Everything.”

  “What about her? Your girlfriend? What will she think.”

  I blinked before realising. She meant Stephanie. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I live alone.”

  “With a helipad on standby?”

  “I don’t own a helicopter.”

  “That’s a shame. The billionaires in the books all own helicopters. You should get one.”

  “I own a hover.”

  “A lawnmower?”

  “No, a hover. It’s the collective noun for a group of helicopters. A hover.”

  “You own more than one helicopter?” She looked shocked but then her mouth curled into a smile. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “What’s your name?” I asked, ignoring her question.

  “Zoey.”

  “Zoey. Zoey what?”

  “Zoey Greene.”

  “Well, Zoey Greene. Spend one week in my house with me. Don’t leave. Don’t contact anyone. Do everything I tell you to do. At the end of the week, I will pay you one million pounds.” I let that sink in for a second before continuing. “I’m going out to my car and I will set off in ten minutes. Either you’re sat in the back seat or you’re not. Time to decide whether or not you want this billionaire’s story to include you.”

  I walked away without another word, leaving her behind. I was already doing things differently. No contract in advance, no talking through the details. It was all being done on the spur of the moment.

  I climbed into the front of the Bentley, watching the traffic driving by. At that point, I still wasn’t sure whether she’d come. I knew that sitting down when I told her to was a good start. She was naturally submissive. That was good. Coming outside would cement that view, confirm what I thought about her.

  But I could be wrong. I’d been wrong six times before.

  Five minutes went by. No one came out.

  Eight minutes.

  Nine.

  Ten.

  I went to start the engine and then paused. I’d give her one more minute. The seconds ticked by on my Rolex. With ten seconds to go, I started the engine, trying not to feel disappointed. I’d have to ring the agency, book another candidate.

  I was just loosening the handbrake when she burst out of the pub door and ran over to the car. She climbed in the back, not looking at me, looking out the front window instead.

  Already defying me by being late, I liked that. It gave me an excuse to punish her when we got home.

  “Put the blindfold on,” I said, pressing down on the accelerator and pulling into the traffic. “Don’t take it off until I
say so.”

  I glanced in the rear view mirror to see her holding the length of silk cloth in her hands. She looked as if she was about to say something but then she wrapped the blindfold around her head, blocking out her vision, leaving her unable to see the broad smile that was already spreading across my face.

  FIVE

  ZOEY

  I’d worn a blindfold only once before. It was my sixth birthday party. My parents had set up a game of pin the tail on the donkey. The donkey poster was taped to the wall and the tail, with its wicked drawing pin spike on the end was passed from my mother to my father as if it was a machete wrapped in dynamite.

  “Be careful,” my father said as he passed it to me, my friends ranged behind us, watching in silence. A few seconds before, they’d been as loud as they were now quiet, an awed hush taking over as I held the tail in my hand.

  I’d not played the game before and set off at once for the donkey, aiming for where I thought the tail should go. “Hang on,” my mother said to laughter from the other adults in the room. “You need the blindfold.”

  It dawned on me then that life was a lot harder without being able to see. I was spun round three times and then sent stumbling towards where I thought the donkey was. I tripped over something and fell forwards, the tail catching in something a lot softer than the poster, my best friend Jenny’s leg.

  She was already screaming by the time I got the blindfold off. I took one look at the pinprick of blood I’d caused and then promptly passed out.

  I’d never worn a blindfold since. Until that car ride.

  I felt the same sense of confusion that I’d felt as a child. Being unable to see was scary. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was going to get hurt. Only this time, with a strange man driving the car, I began to think it might be me.

  Why had I agreed to this? I had no guarantees he was telling the truth. I had willingly stepped into his car without knowing where we were going or what was going to happen when we got there.