Chapter Twenty

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Pimlico

 

 

DINNER STARTED OFF strained.

Elder acted differently.

As I reached for a helping of roasted vegetables, his eyes tracked me. Yet when I picked up my knife and fork and looked at him, he glanced away as if his own cutlery was far more interesting.

He seemed almost guilty of something.

But what?

Most of the day, I’d spent relaxing on my own and learning what it was like to be bored. I’d never known the concept before or after such an unusual fate. But now, as I hung on the Phantom wishing Elder would find me and put me out of my misery, and learning I could stare at the horizon for only so many hours before my thoughts annoyed me, I was ready for a task.

Any task.

I wanted to get back to work, and because my mind was now healthier and happier than it’d ever been, I turned to the last thing that’d stretched and formed it.

My university degree.

Psychology.

I found myself going over Elder’s body language without thinking. Finding hidden snippets of understanding in the way he touched me, looked at me, and up until now, had successfully hidden things from me.

I analysed our time in the hotel, going over sleeping with him, recalling the way he’d forced me to bind him and reading between the lines.

He wasn’t lying when he said he would’ve hurt both of us because he couldn’t stop. He wasn’t dramatizing his OCD to keep me at a distance or to earn sympathy from those who knew him.

Everything he said and did was the truth.

With one exception.

And now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it.

It was so obvious I wanted to cuff myself around the head for being so blind.

Three.

Elder might have a brain bordering on genius perfectionism, but even he had safe-guards in place. Life had rules and everything—humans, flora, fauna, and every microbe followed those specially specified rules—always staying within their species boundary, forever moving forward.

Elder just moved forward at a faster rate than most.

Tonight, he’d ladled three roast potatoes, three sprigs of asparagus, and three salmon medallions onto his plate.

Meanwhile, I had two potatoes, one piece of salmon, and no asparagus.

I was chaos.

He was uniform.

He thought he was chaos.

He was wrong.

To prove my quickly evolving theory, I watched him eat. Three sips of water followed by three taps of his fork against his plate. Three chews before swallowing followed by three cuts of his knife.

Did he know himself?

Did he feel himself doing it, or was it so ingrained, he didn’t even notice?

I became mesmerised watching him. He was no longer just Elder eating dinner. He was a musician creating a dance.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

A waltz.

Forever moving forward, just like life intended, but in threes not ones like the rest of us.

My heart stopped.

Oh, my God.

Was that the key?

Was that all it would take?

Don’t be stupid, Pim…it can’t be that easy.

But then, in a long ago memory, my mother’s voice came back to me. About how textbooks and pharmaceuticals and so-called professionals often gave long-winded diagnoses and even more complicated treatments to hold the allure that they knew how to help when others didn’t. How paid therapy was upheld with regulations when true therapy—real therapy that worked—was sometimes the simplest of things.

There wasn’t one perfect fix for everyone. Each person was different. Some needed chemical help. Others just needed to talk. Some needed a new environment to heal. Others just needed loved ones around them.

My mother, despite her flaws, was good at her job, and her motto was simple:

Literally S.I.M.P.L.E.

Sometimes

Impossible

Mostly

Probable

Largely

Explainable.

She meant that the impossible cases normally came with probable reasoning and those explanations could be used—if not to find a cure, then definitely to grant an easier way of life for the suffering.

She studied all walks of life to understand and focus on her clients’ strengths and not their weaknesses—even if those weaknesses included crime.

Elder had a weakness; there was no denying that.

But he also had so many, many strengths.

And those strengths might be the key to sleeping with me without trying to kill us with an obsession that could never end.

One, two, three…

Repetition was his strength.

Could it work in the bedroom?

Was it conscious or unconscious?

Deciding to test my theory, I raised my glass of water and toasted him. “To my gracious host and for everything he’s done for me.”

His cheeks darkened in a suspicious masculine blush as he copied me and held his glass aloft. With a regal smile, he clinked with mine then held it to his lips.

I sipped once.

One time.

Like a normal person would in a toast.

Then put my glass back onto the table.

Elder, on the other hand, took another sip, followed by another before placing it down.

That could’ve been a coincidence. He could’ve been thirsty.

Needing another experiment, I pulled out what I’d been able to scrounge up this afternoon. I’d felt terrible asking, but boredom made me look for other ways to entertain myself. When a girl I’d become friendly with came to clean my room, I’d asked with flaming red cheeks if she had any one dollar bills.

She’d raised an eyebrow but hadn’t asked why. It wasn’t like a dollar could buy me freedom if that was my intention. Instead of giving me the single I’d asked for, she’d passed over a small handful and smiled. She’d given them as a gift even when I told her I’d pay her back…even if it meant dismantling my upcoming origami creations and ironing the bills to return to her.

I’d intended to teach myself from unfolding one of Elder’s. I had visions of creating a perfect crane and giving it to him like he gave currency animals to me, hopefully making him as happy as he made me.

But no matter how many hours I’d tried…I couldn’t do it. The folds didn’t work, the creases didn’t compute in my brain. I’d become far too frustrated and ready to tear up the money rather than create art with it.

This was Elder’s expertise, and if I was to learn, I needed the master to teach me directly. It didn’t matter that this lesson came with other intentions as well—veiled and secret research into him as a person.

Smoothing out the creases from my failed attempts, I deliberately placed four notes on the table and pushed them toward him.

His shoulders stiffened. His hands unwrapped from around his knife and fork. “What’s this?”

“I want you to teach me origami.”

“Now?”

“I’m not really hungry.”

He looked up. Our eyes glued together, and once again, that nasty tingly tension sprang into awareness.

Please let this work.

I needed a kernel of hope if I was ever going to attempt seducing Elder again.

Seduce?

That word…what a foreign word.

What a strange concept that I could even think about seducing someone.

Pride immediately followed my surprise. How far I’d come from deploring sex to scheming ways in which to earn it. How quickly I’d braved my past to clutch onto the passion Elder made me feel.

I ought to be embarrassed for orgasming on his leg yesterday; instead, I found myself sitting taller. He’d given me that release, but if I hadn’t wanted it, no way could I have achieved it.

I wanted sex.

I want sex.

My jaw slackened as I finally came to terms with such a strange epiphany.

I was a woman, and Elder was a man, and I loved him and lusted for him.

I needed to know everything there was to know about the way his mind worked before I did something that put us in danger.

We were a recipe for gunpowder…with our fuse growing ever shorter and more volatile.

Besides, all of this was because of him. My world was in an upheaval thanks to falling in love. And I liked to think his life was in an upheaval because of me, too. I would take responsibility for ruining his peace, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t do my damnedest to find a cure that would work for both of us.

“All right…” He pushed his plate away and fisted the notes. If I wasn’t watching for a purpose; if I wasn’t peering at him like he was an experiment, I might’ve missed it.

But sure enough, as he counted the bills and found four and not his welcome three, his lips twisted in disgust. His body twitched as if the extra note was abhorrent. But then his disapproval was gone, and he placed the notes on the table before peeling one off the top and snapping it between his fingers. “Origami takes patience.”

“I have patience.”

“It takes a steady hand.”

“I’m steady.”

I sat on my shaking hands, doing my best to hide my lie. I didn’t have concrete evidence that three was the magic number with Elder, nor should my mind be awash with scenarios of pouncing on him and forcing him to make love to me purely to see if he’d end after taking me three times.

But the more I studied him, the more my belly liquefied and the more I craved. It was past rational at this point. I’d walked away from him to stop this behaviour. I’d left him to protect him from the awakening inside me.

But I couldn’t ignore my female to his male anymore. The lust to his desire.

“You need to come closer if I’m going to show you.” His voice turned dark with a hint of soot.

Scooting my chair closer, the hairs on the back of my neck rose as Elder bent toward me then discarded the dollar on the table. Arching sideways, he pulled his wallet from his back trouser pocket. “We’ll do this on a different note, okay?”

I expected him to pull out worthless paper—after all, why waste money when I was a beginner. Instead, he yanked free a ten-pound note. The currency of my home. The colours and details just as I remembered.

“Pounds from England?”

He nodded. “We’ll be there in a few days. It’s appropriate.”

I’d started this purely to find some way into his lap, but now he’d pulled out a tenner and his eyes glittered with harsh intelligence, I found myself wanting the fake lesson.

His hair slipped over his forehead as he bent and smoothed the bill on the tablecloth. “It’s not square, so that’s your first challenge. Most origami—or at least the easier designs—are with perfect squares.”

“I want to do what you do.”

He smiled sadly. “Believe me…you don’t.”

Believe me…I do.

Silence thickened my heartbeat, and Elder somehow pulled away from me. Not physically but something mental and internal captured his attention, stealing him from the dining room, from the Phantom, from this moment.

Regret shadowed his features, followed by a cringe of denial and shame. Such thick, thick shame.

He fingered the money as if it wasn’t his but something he’d stolen. It wasn’t just an innate piece of paper with the value stamped on the face—it was a reminder to him…a reminder of what?

What could he be thinking to justify such self-hatred?

I placed my hand over his, cupping the ten-pound note. “What is it?”

Shaking himself, he blinked. “Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“Nothing you need to know.”

“Everything I want to know.”

His lips pursed, his eyes dancing from my mouth to my nose to my gaze. “If I tell you, you’ll once again think differently of me.”

“I’ve never once thought differently of you—no matter what you’ve told me.”

His fingers flinched under mine as if trying to deny the truth. Not once had I feared his honesty, nor had I made him regret showing me what he hid deep inside. I hadn’t asked questions about his father and brother’s death even though his mother blamed him. I didn’t demand to know if he was a good guy or bad because my heart had made its choice.

“Tell me…”

He sighed heavily, crushing the note beneath his palm. “You might as well know.”

“Know what?”

“How big a fraud I am.”