So close, p.6
So Close, page 6
The sky darkens to a deep gray, and raindrops begin to splash against the windows.
“We think so,” Ryan concurs. “But we can never be too careful. We’ve been beta testing for months, but it’s time for you both to give it a spin. Once you’ve determined you’re ready, we’ll do a soft launch with the models and influencers who contributed during the development stage. We’ll integrate their feedback and then take it live.”
“Will we hit our timeline target?” I ask. Launching a cosmetic line is a celebrity trend, making the beauty space more crowded and competitive by the day.
“That depends on how long it takes to receive your feedback and how extensive any requested changes may be.”
“I love it already.” My daughter reaches for and squeezes Eva’s hand, her beautiful face alight with joy.
I sigh inwardly. She hasn’t yet experienced enough adversity in life to be wary. She can’t picture future falling-outs, lingering disagreements or opposing visions. I should’ve given her more roadblocks to stumble over as she matured, as I did with her brothers, but then Kane’s resurrection of Baharan started making waves – and money. I’d had to circle back to my eldest to begin rebuilding the company as a family. There was no way I was going to lose Baharan a second time.
And so Rosana is naively optimistic. Eva looks just as hopeful, but that wolf she married ensures she’s protected.
I’ll just have to work harder on Rosana. So far, the seeds of distrust I’ve stealthily planted have failed to take root, but I won’t give up. A good mother doesn’t shelter her children from harm; she throws them into its jaws so that the scars toughen their skin.
A flash of brightness distracts me, drawing my attention to the storm outside. The sunlight has been blocked by roiling gray clouds, blanketing the city in dusk-like gloom. It’s the middle of the day but feels much later.
As I look back at the presentation, I see a text notification lighting the screen of my muted phone. I pick it up with my thumb on the fingerprint scanner, and the message displays.
She’s awake.
11
WITTE
With a soft rap on the open door to Mr Black’s office, I announce the arrival of the tea service I prepared in advance of Dr Vanya Hamid’s arrival. At my employer’s nod, I wheel the trolley in and set to work, measuring the appropriate amount of Nilgiri tea for the pot of freshly boiled water.
Mr Black sits behind his elegant yakisugi desk, the charred wood a deep, lustrous black. It’s bespoke to accommodate his long legs and torso. The chair, too, is custom-made, with arms that pair with the desk and cognac leather upholstery. He’s settled in with an avid gaze, his intense focus on every word that falls from the doctor’s lips.
The knot of his tie is loose, the clip askew. His hair needs a trim, and the shadow of a beard darkens his jaw. I usually address his barbering with fixed regularity, but he is too restless of late to sit for proper grooming. That he looks so dishevelled during video conferences worries me, but I also grasp the unintended benefit of planting at least a seed of doubt in the minds of the detectives. They drop by every few days to see if they can question Mrs Black. Instead, they see a man who looks as if he’s hanging on to sanity by his fingertips, a husband consumed by fear and worry for his wife.
Undoubtedly familiar with facing anxious family members, Dr Hamid’s posture is relaxed and at ease, although concern threads her melodic voice. Her dark hair is elaborately upswept, and her trim figure resplendent in a pale blue shalwar kameez, a traditional South Asian trouser and tunic ensemble embroidered with glittering gold thread.
Mr Black stands when she finishes speaking, turning to face the panoramic view of the city lost in a grey haze of rain. Large banana leaf plants frame the unadorned wall of windows, bringing a bit of the green from Central Park below into the clouds where he resides. He rubs the back of his neck; a blatant tell that fully betrays his frustration and anxiety. There are no answers to the question he has asked repeatedly: Why won’t she wake?
Since her momentary spell of consciousness on the day of the accident, Lily has slept without ceasing. And with every day that passes Mr Black grows more agitated.
Thunder splits the sky with a roar as if heaven itself resents the hubristic height of the tower in which we reside. The clamour is so enveloping that it very nearly drowns out the sound of a woman’s terrified scream.
Mr Black skirts me at a dead run, agile and quick as a gazelle, displaying the athleticism and speed that once hallmarked his game as a point guard in basketball. I wait, allowing Dr Hamid to precede me, then following her quick, steady pace while sorting through a mental checklist of possible scenarios and the resulting required actions. Through open doorways, I see the windows dripping with tears from the sky.
We enter Mrs Black’s bedroom and come to an abrupt halt.
Amy Armand hugs herself as she leans against the wall. My employer already sits on the side of the bed, both hands fisting the duvet on either side of his wife’s slender hips. Lily sits upright, her pale arms wrapped around his shoulders, her cheek pressed to his as tears sparkle on inky lashes. The bright red of her nails glistens like drops of blood amid the dark strands of Mr Black’s hair.
In her present surroundings, Lily Black embodies the brightest of full moons on the darkest of nights.
Bending, I collect the junior Mrs Armand’s handbag and shoes from the floor and approach her, lightly encircling her upper arm in a respectful grip.
“Mrs Armand,” I murmur, “allow me to escort you to the door.”
“What?” Her gaze is riveted to the tableau on the bed.
I smell the alcohol on her breath and sigh inwardly. Such a lovely girl, with so much potential, but she fights demons of which I’m unaware.
“The doctor will need to examine Mrs Black,” I murmur as I lead her gently out of Lily’s bedroom, “and we must afford her privacy.”
She resists when I exert slight pressure, her eyes wide and staring. I want to stare, too. It is so rare and strange to see Mr Black in an embrace, with his head bowed and knuckles white with strain. An unwilling supplicant.
He is not a demonstrative man. He avoids physical contact in public aside from what is necessary for proper etiquette and politeness. I’ve often thought of him surrounded by an invisible wall that keeps others a safe distance away.
But there are evidently no barriers capable of protecting him from Lily.
The sky opens, and a torrent descends.
12
LILY
With my cheek pressed to yours, I exhale. A shudder moves through you as my breath caresses your ear. The restless flexing of your fingers in the duvet makes me shiver, and I can’t stop once I start. The need to crawl inside you, to be united with my heart, is overwhelming. Holding you in my arms is everything I’ve ever wanted or needed.
You nestle your nose against my throat and inhale a hard, ragged breath, pulling the scent of my skin into your lungs. You nuzzle me as you exhale. You aren’t returning my embrace, but it’s not necessary. You mark me like an animal and take my mark on you in return. I feel you breathe me in again, then again, as if you’ve been submerged and without air for too long. Suffocating.
I know the feeling, my love. All too well.
Your body against mine is both hard and feverishly hot, like a column of stone that’s spent hours beneath the glare of the sun. You’re vibrating, every muscle reacting to the press of my body to yours. My indrawn breath fills my senses with the smell of you, a scent that takes me back to the night we met. Bonfire and salty air, the sharp bite of a storm carried on the evening breeze.
Ah, lilies, too. My chest aches with suppressed sobs.
You haven’t forgotten Lily.
13
WITTE
I wait with the younger Mrs Armand until she enters the lift with a blank, dazed expression. She is digging frantically into her handbag as the doors slide shut, not looking at me and offering no farewell.
I nod at the two guards flanking the penthouse entrance as I pass them, shutting the door soundlessly. Alone, I can admit that the scene I’ve just witnessed has shaken me to the core.
I cannot reconcile the woman who ran from Mr Black in the heart of Midtown with the wife clinging lovingly to him in the bedroom. The reactions are so outrageously different as to defy logic.
Thrusting aside my disquiet, I traverse the long, mirrored hallway to Mrs Black’s bedroom. My employer now stands in the farthest, darkest corner. He stares at the two women, who speak in hushed tones, and doesn’t acknowledge my return, his attention riveted, his stance wide and arms crossed. Commanding. Aggressive. The nurse, Frank, stands behind and near the doctor, at the ready. I call upon years of experience to disappear into my surroundings.
Dr Hamid holds one finger up, moving it from side to side as Lily’s gaze follows. It is disconcerting to see Mrs Black looking so artfully groomed as if she’s just indulged in a short midday nap instead of spending weeks unconscious.
She is, without question, the most ravishing creature I have ever seen. The photo Mr Black treasures is a shadow of the dynamism present in the living, breathing woman.
Beyond that staggering beauty, Lily is fearfully composed while facing a situation that would frighten the wits out of damn near anyone. She is in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Even her husband must seem a stranger; their separation has been lengthy and his evolution dramatic. And yet it was the younger Mrs Armand who screamed in shock.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” the doctor asks.
“Two.”
“And now?”
“Still two. Where am I?”
“You’re at home. Can you tell me your name?”
“Lily Rebecca Yates. Whose home?” She looks at Mr Black. “Kane …?”
“Ours,” he answers gruffly.
A look of wonder sweeps over her face, her eyes luminous with tears. “Ours,” she repeats in a whisper.
As I have, Dr Hamid has paused at hearing Lily’s maiden name. I am also taken aback by her voice. From the looks of her, I expected her to speak in husky flavours of smoke and Scotch. Instead, her tone is high and girlish, with the faintest hint of an underlying throatiness. I’ve never heard anything like it, yet I respond with surprising fervour. I want to listen to her speak at length, to have the time to catalogue the nuances of a voice that by rights should irritate but delights instead.
“Do you always give your maiden name?” the doctor asks.
Lily blinks slowly, then lifts her left hand and studies the ring there. She swallows visibly before she answers, “I’m not married.”
A low growl rumbles from my employer’s chest.
“It’s okay,” Dr Hamid says firmly. “There are no wrong answers. How old are you, Lily?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Mr Black stiffens beside me. The doctor glances at Frank for confirmation, whose head shakes in denial.
The doctor settles deeper into her perch on the edge of the bed. “Do you remember the accident?”
“Accident?”
“You were hit by a car about a month ago.”
Lily is too still for a long moment, then asks, “What’s the date today?”
I catch the doctor’s gaze as she glances at Frank after answering. Her full lips are pursed, her brow furrowed. All of us turn our heads to look at Mr Black. He is ashen and tense, so much so that I could almost swear the air vibrates around him.
Lily studies him, too. Then her hand – laden with a priceless stone that is deeply purple indoors and the same verdant hue as her eyes in sunlight – reaches out to her husband, trembling. “Kane …”
He stands unmoving for a long, fraught minute. Then his arms drop to his sides, and he takes a jerky step towards the bed as if resisting a lure and failing.
I’m at a loss for what to do when he pivots abruptly and exits the room with long, fast strides.
14
WITTE
“Well.” Lily’s delicate hand floats softly as a butterfly back down to the bed. My gaze is briefly arrested by the scorpion tattoo on her inner wrist that’s the size of a pound coin. With a deeply indrawn breath, she gathers her composure. “It seems our marriage needs work.”
“Do you remember being married now?” Dr Hamid asks.
“No. Did I wear white or black?”
“When?”
“At the wedding.”
“I don’t know. You’ve been in my care nearly a month, but really, we’ve just met.”
Mrs Black looks at me, and I find myself arrested by those striking emerald eyes. “Were you there? At the wedding, I mean.”
“No, madam. The pleasure was not afforded to me, as that was before my time.”
Her gaze narrows slightly, and she looks towards the windows. “Are we in London?”
“Manhattan,” I tell her. “I’m English, however, as you surmised.”
She takes stock of the room as if cataloguing every surface. She is near in age to my daughter, but there’s a hardness in her jewelled gaze thankfully absent in my child.
“Mrs Black –”
Lily suddenly shakes with laughter that soon verges on hysteria. Tears well, then trickle down like trails of liquid diamonds. Despair is weakening her, casting a troubling shadow over her vivid beauty. She squeezes her eyes shut and slides down into the bedclothes. “I want to wake up now.”
The doctor doesn’t take her eyes off her patient when she asks, “Frank, what’s the status of the ambulance?”
He looks up from his mobile, his mouth thinned into a tight line. “It’s here. They’ve got the gurney in the elevator and are on the way up.”
“We’re going to take you to the hospital, Lily,” Dr Hamid says soothingly. “Now that you’re awake, we need to run some additional tests. I’m going to be with you every step of the way.”
“Please excuse me,” I tell Mrs Black, fiercely reluctant to leave her. She is as fragile as spun sugar, delicate threads of sanity hardening to breaking point. “I’ll direct them back here.”
I leave the room, coming to an abrupt halt in the hallway to avoid colliding with Mr Black.
He ceases pacing. His dark eyes are as wet as Lily’s and look equally wild.
“You should be with your wife,” I tell him. “She needs you.”
“That’s not my wife.”
Something cold and slippery slithers around my vitals. “Mr Black –”
“She looks like Lily. Has her voice. Her skin. Her scent.” He rakes both hands through his hair and grips his scalp. “But there’s something about her eyes … Don’t you see it?”
I stare at him, roiled by confusion. His wife’s exquisite face is unparalleled. More than that, she looks at him as she always has in her portrait, with a feverish love, a possessive hunger. He’s slept beneath that gaze for all the years I’ve known him. How can he not recognize it?
His hands drop heavily to his sides. “Arrange for private security at the hospital,” he orders, his words raw as if cut glass lines his throat. “No visitors. Anyone who asks for her should be followed until they’ve been identified and vetted.”
I nod my acquiescence. “I’ll see to the emergency personnel now, then address the security. Do you want to keep guards on rotation here as well?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be travelling to hospital with her?”
“Of course.” He scowls. “What do you take me for? You think I’d let her go alone?”
The storm wind shoves against the building, which creaks and moans like a ship on a heaving sea. I look back before I turn into the entry hall.
My employer hovers in the space outside his wife’s room, notably more haunted by her revenant than he ever was by her memory.
15
AMY
“Baby, we have to go.”
Darius’s voice startles me. When his arms circle my waist from behind, I have to fight the urge to spin around with my fist swinging toward his handsome face.
Heart hammering, I struggle with my anger. “God! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
His body is warm against mine, his signature scent infusing the air in my walk-in closet. It’s my favorite room in our condo, a former guest bedroom I closed off from the main hallway and opened to the master bedroom. All white and mirrored throughout, the open shelves display my purses and shoes, while the racks are precisely arranged as specified by a professional organizer. It is the closet of my dreams, but I can’t find anything to wear.
I swear the maid is stealing and randomly rearranging my things so it’s harder to notice what she’s taken, but Darius says I’m imagining things. I am So. Fucking. Sick. of no one believing a word I say. Except for Suzanne. How twisted is it that the one person on my side is someone I can’t stand? At least I can trust her.
“You’re jumpy today,” my husband murmurs, his firm lips grazing my shoulder.
“What the hell am I supposed to wear?” It’s so important I get it right. Aliyah will be there with her judging gaze. And Kane. Most importantly, Lily is back from the hospital after a few weeks in physical therapy, and she may make an appearance. I’ve rifled through her closet at least a dozen times, and I know her style is dark, sultry and dramatic, which is the total opposite of Aliyah’s predilection for light, sexy and classic.
So … how do I overshadow Lily without hearing passive-aggressive backhanded compliments from my bitch of a mother-in-law? I picture duct tape wrapped around Aliyah’s head, sealing her vicious mouth shut, and I almost laugh out loud. The cool gray of the tape would clash so perfectly with her warm neutrals. And how fabulous would the strands of her bottle-blond hair look stuck to the adhesive when she rips it off with her clawed nails?
