Mr. Marshall pushed the contract back to her as he opened another contract. 'Sign and date again, please.'
When Malora raised her head he was watching her steadily. He smiled coldly. It occurred to her that he believed his dealings with her to be beneath him. She was expensive trash. He had thoughts about her that were supremely unflattering.
'Well, that's that, then. Here is your copy.'
He pressed a buzzer that brought his secretary. 'Lana here will take your bank details and tell you everything else you need to know.' He half stood and held his hand out. 'Thank you, Miss McCarran. Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any further queries.'
In the back seat of the Maybach, Malora found a Boots bag and inside it her prescription. She asked Henry to stop at a cash machine. Malora popped her debit card into the hole in the wall and could hardly believe it.
Two hundred thousand and thirty-two pounds, seventy pence.
By heaven!
*
Malora thought she would be prepared for the apartment Titan asked her to go to. But her thoughts turned out to be way off.
The apartment he had nonchalantly offered her was part of this crazy glass and steel-bladed monolith called One Hyde Park. Except somehow she'd expected him to be there when she arrived, so they could fall on each other in a mutual frenzy of desperate passion and have sex everywhere, in all the ways—up against the wall, knocking stuff off tables, even on the stairs like in the remake of the Thomas Crown Affair. She meant, for example.
But it was the middle of the day and Titan was obviously out of London and waiting for her instead was a blond guy. He was intimidatingly attractive up close: all lips and cheekbones and symmetry, the sort of face one would expect to see on a billboard for a product that would cost the earth and basically make no difference to one's overall attractiveness.
'You must be Malora.' He shook her hand before she had a chance to make sure it wasn't sweaty and awful. 'Justice Blake. Mr. Pitts' secretary.'
'Um. Yes. I remember you.'
'Likewise.'
Too shaken by this sudden turn of events, Malora attempted humor. 'You sure you haven't muddled me up with someone else who may have mistakenly walked into the wrong place at the wrong time?'
He didn't laugh. Didn't even look a teensy bit amused. This was going super well.
'Mr. Pitts asked me to help you settle in. And you'll need a retinal scan.'
'What? Why?'
'Security.'
It felt a lot like being arrested—well, the way being arrested looked in the movies. Malora was scanned, coded, fingerprinted, visually identified, practically strip searched, and eventually permitted into the lift with Blake, who had waited with this terrible patience through the whole extensive procedure.
He reminded her a little bit of Titan. Not that they were actually all that similar, unless you counted the fact that they were both scary hot, but Malora could imagine them having devastatingly efficient conversations together. Even more disconcerting was the realization that Blake couldn't have been much older than her, and he was already executive assistant to one of the richest, most powerful men in the UK. Oh God. She was doomed.
'This way, please.'
Malora trailed after him into the apartment and it was. . .she meant, holy fuck, it looked like a picture in a magazine. Beautiful in this totally unreal way. Everything was marble and granite and silk and. . .designed. In these somehow extravagantly muted colors, taupe and cream and pearl gray. Malora was lowering the value of the place just by being there.
'Guest bedroom,' murmured Blake, pointing languidly, 'and bathroom. Guest cloakroom. Master bedroom.'
So much. . .gleaminess. And the sense of space. Malora thought they called it lateral living or something. For people too rich for, like, rooms.
Blake peeled her hands off ushered Malora into the master bathroom, where he showed her how to use the shower. It was this shining marble enclosure where water came at you from everywhere. She wasn't sure how much of it she took in but, honestly, there were probably U2 spy planes less complicated to operate.
Then back out into the. . .for want of a better term. . .hall area.
'Kitchen, sitting room, reception room—'
'Sitting room and reception room?'
An elegant shrug. 'One for sitting, one for receiving—'
As ever when slightly nervous, Malora regressed to about the age of thirteen and started giggling.
'—guests,' Blake finished coldly.
'Sorry.'
'Dining room, study, shower room, balcony.'
'Thank you.'
'Finally, this is for you.'
This was a phone—the latest model iPhone something. Malora took it instinctively and then wished she hadn't. 'I thought only prostitutes, drug dealers, and spies needed two phones.'
'There's an app on there that controls the apartment. You can use it as needed or program it in advance, if you want the heating or lights or a particular electronic device to activate or deactivate at a certain time, for example.'
'And I couldn't just download it for myself because. . .?'
Blake clearly had a PhD in ignoring people. Well, ignoring her. 'The phone,' he went on smoothly, 'also contains Mr. Pitts' contact information in London, New York, Lisbon, Berlin, Tokyo, and Beijing. And you can access one of his drivers, a range of restaurants and private caterers, masseurs, hairdressers, manicurists, tailors, and similar services, all of whom are at your disposal. The apartment will be maintained daily and the details of the cleaning company are likewise to be found in the address book. In the unlikely event of an emergency, a private security contractor can be summoned by using the relevant application. Or by triggering any of the panic buttons situated around the apartment.'
'You do know that I'm not going into witness protection, right?'
'Finally, I am on speed dial one.' He gave her a surprisingly sweet and boyish smile—though there was something chilling in it, too. Maybe it was just a little too perfect. 'Please don't hesitate to call me should you need anything.'
Malora shuffled, feeling overwhelmed and faintly awful. 'Um. Thank you. But surely this isn't your job.'
'My job is whatever Mr. Pitts needs.'
Wow. Because that didn't have a ring of "pet assassin" or anything. Or maybe all the talk of panic buttons and private security firms had gone to her head. 'I'll try not to bug you.'
'Malora.' It was the first time he'd used her name to directly address her, but he said it meanly, like she was someone else's dog who'd pissed on his carpet and he didn't feel it was his place to rebuke her. 'I've been asked to look after you and I will do it to the best of my frankly considerable ability. However, if you make things more difficult than they have to be out of some misplaced bourgeois guilt, I will be quite displeased.'
As she opened my mouth to reply, Malora hoped something appropriate and vaguely sensible would emerge. Except what happened was, 'And I won't like you when you're displeased?' Because weak attempts at humor had served her so well so far.
There was a tense little pause and then Blake continued. 'Mr. Pitts mentioned you would be resistant to this next proposal.'
Well, it was nice to know she'd briefly crossed his mind while he was making all these arrangements. And, oh God, she was being a dick. Titan was letting her stay somewhere frankly incredible after giving her the money she asked for and her internal monologue was being super ungrateful about it. Just because she'd imagined—okay, hoped for—something different. 'Um, okay?'
He produced a credit card. One of the terrifyingly plain and discreet ones that you only got by having assets in the unthinkillions.
'Oh hell no,' Malora said. 'This wasn't part of the deal.'
'He's not suggesting you go on a spree. Well, not unless you want to.' His eyes, maybe unintentionally, did that up-and-down thing that people on TV property shows did when they were stuck with a fixer-upper. 'But it's for emergencies.'
'You mean so that when I'm kidnapped from the fifth floor of an impregnable building and haven't been able to summon a private security task force I can pay my own ransom?'
He sighed, very softly. 'Take the card, Malora. Put it your purse or in the freezer. I don't care. You don't have to use it.'
'I don't want his charity.'
'He's not giving you money. He's giving you access to money in case you need it.' Blake stepped past her and put the card on the dining table. The neat click of plastic against glass sounded way, way too loud. 'And I should have mentioned, the building also contains a range of leisure and entertainment facilities, including a swimming pool, sauna, steam room, gymnasium and exercise studio, and spa. Now, do you have everything you need?'
'I have way more than any reasonable human could ever need.'
'Then I can return to the office. Enjoy your stay.' He sounded like Titan again: polite and implacable.
Malora wondered if it had rubbed off on him, same as pets were supposed to get like their owners—oops, that sounded bad—or if he'd always been that way. Maybe it was what had led to him being hired in the first place.
'Um, okay. Thanks.'
He gave her a Jeevesy nod, if Jeeves had been infinitely hotter and quite a bit scarier. Then turned and walked away.
This threw Malora into a mini-panic because, since she technically lived here now, it was her middle-class duty to politely escort him to the door. Except, he was all tall and graceful with long strides like Titan, which left her scampering after him in a ridiculously futile fashion.
'I guess you think this is pretty weird,' Malora blurted out, just as he was about to leave.
He paused. 'What I think has no relevance whatsoever.'
And he was right. Apart from, y'know, the bit where she cared what he thought. Malora couldn't help it—he was close to Titan; in fact, he was the only person she knew who was close to Titan. So she didn't want him disapproving of her. Or believing she was a leechy gold-digging sponge type person. Or maybe Malora just wasn't used to having her personal logistics handled by someone else. And it was just about possible Blake was part of the whole arrangement in ways she far too pure-minded to contemplate.
Actually Malora could sort of imagine him standing discreetly to one side with the implements. Helping with the knots. Making the occasional suggestion. . .Okay that was pretty sexy. Apart from the bit where his suggestion would probably be 'Why don't you fuck somebody better?'
She took a deep breath. 'Look, you were honest with me earlier so. . .I guess I'll do the same? I really will try not to make your job more difficult but can you maybe be a touch less Mrs. Danvers about stuff?'
'What?'
On reflection, it wasn't the best comparison she could have made. 'She's like this—'
'No, I get the reference.'
'Oh good. I mean. . .not good. I mean, sorry.'
He stared at her and Malora could almost feel frost crystallizing on her eyelashes. 'I'm not entirely sure what you think is happening here. Mr. Pitts asked me to take care of you in accordance with his instructions. Quite why this has resulted in you casting me as a sinister housekeeper with suppressed lesbian desires I can't begin to imagine.'
'Um'—Malora shuffled her feet, appalled at herself—'because I'm an idiot?'
To her surprise, he nearly smiled. 'I'm only ever glad for Mr. Pitts' happiness. And, for the record, I would never maintain a shrine to his ex.'
He turned to leave then seemed to remember something and faced her again.
"You have an appointment with the beauty salon where you are booked for a full body wax, manicure and pedicure. Please bear in mind that Mr. Pitts does not like garish colors. He prefers light colors, but likes French manicures best They know you're coming. After that, you will be meeting with Janette, Mr. Pitts stylist, who would take you for shopping.'
With that, he was gone. Leaving Malora alone in One Hyde Park. In an apartment that looked like a scene from a Tom Ford movie. For which she had been hideously miscast.
Chapter dedication: LisaSprouse9
Thank you for reading and voting, Lisa.
A/N:
Too many movie reference, ey?
Fun question: favourite action movie of all time?
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