1
The moment the sleek brunette walks in the door, I know my employer will seduce her. She’s arrived on the arm of another man, but that’s irrelevant. She’ll succumb; they all do.
The lady’s resemblance to the photos Mr. Black treasures is unmistakable. She is categorically his type: shiny black hair, bright green eyes, pale skin, and red lips.
I greet them both with a slight tip of my head. “Good evening. May I take your coats?”
The gentleman assists her as I cast a glance at the living room, assuring myself that the staff is present but unobtrusive, supplying canapés and beverages, while clearing away the discarded glasses and plates.
Manhattan sprawls in a blanket of twinkling lights beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. The event is a black-tie reception in honor of a new start-up. Mr. Black celebrates often, surrounding himself with people as if that will bring the life to him that he lacks within himself.
His home is an excess of glass, steel, and leather, lacking all color and warmth. Still, it’s a comfortable space if not inviting, filled with oversize pieces carefully positioned to leave the vast room open and airy. The ideal showcase for the roiling storm of power my employer exudes.
I wonder if his preference for black and white is a reflection of his view on the world. Colorless. Lifeless.
I look for a moment at Mr. Black, searching for his reaction to the latest arrival. I see what I expected: a sudden stillness in his restless energy as he catches sight of her, followed by an avid gaze. As he studies her, his jaw tightens. The signs are subtle, but I sense his terrible disappointment and the resulting surge of anger.
He’d hoped it was her. Lily. The woman whose image graces all of his most private rooms.
I don’t know Lily; she was gone from his life before my services were acquired. I know her name only because he spoke it once, on a tormented night, when he was wild with drink and half mad. And I know the hold she has on him; I can feel it when I look at the massive photo canvas of her that hangs over his bed.
Her images are the only spots of color in the entire residence, but that isn’t what makes them so striking. It’s her eyes, and the utter trust and fierce longing one sees there.
Whoever Lily was, she’d loved Kane Black with everything she had.
“Thank you,” the brunette says as her escort hands me her coat. She’s speaking to me, but Mr. Black has already captured her attention and her gaze is on him. He is impossible to ignore, a dark tempest checked only by a remarkable force of will.
He’s recently been named Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor, as the previous holder of that title just announced his elopement on national television. Mr. Black is not yet thirty and already wealthy enough to afford me, a seventh-generation factotum of impeccable British lineage. He is a charismatic young man, the sort women are drawn to without any thought of self-preservation. My daughter assures me that he is blessed with uncommon masculine beauty and something she claims is even more compelling: raw, animal magnetism. She says his air of unattainability is utterly irresistible.
I’m afraid, however, that it’s more than an affectation. His many sexual liaisons aside, Mr. Black is taken in the most profound sense of the word.
His heart was given to Lily and he lost it when he lost her. All that’s left is the shell of a man I love as if he were one of my own sons.
“Did you show her out?”
Mr. Black enters the kitchen the next morning dressed for the day in an immaculate hand-tailored business suit and pristinely knotted tie, neither being an article of clothing he owned prior to my employ. I’d schooled him in the fine art of bespoke clothing for gentlemen, and he had absorbed the information with a thirst for knowledge I learned was unquenchable.
Judging by his exterior, one could scarcely see the uncultured young man who’d hired me. He’s been transformed, a task he attacked with single-minded ferocity.
I turn and set his breakfast on the island, positioning it perfectly between the silverware I’ve already set out. Eggs, bacon, fresh fruit—his staples. “Yes, Ms. Ferrari left while you were in the shower.”
One dark brow lifts. “Ferrari? Really?”
I’m not surprised that he never asked her for her name, only saddened. Who they are means nothing to him. Only that they look like Lily.
He reaches for the coffee I set in front of him, his mind clearly running through his plan of attack for the day, his latest lover dismissed from his thoughts forever. He rarely sleeps and works far too much. There are deep grooves on either side of his mouth that should not be there on one so young. I’ve seen him smile and have even heard him laugh, but the amusement never reaches his eyes.
I mentioned once that he should try to enjoy all that he’s accomplished. He told me he’d enjoy life better when he was dead.
“You did an excellent job with the party last night, Witte,” he says, rather absentmindedly. “You always do, but still.” His mouth curves on one side. “Never hurts to say I appreciate you, does it?”
“No, Mr. Black. Thank you.”
I leave him to eat and to read the day’s paper, heading down the hallway to the private side of the residence he shares with no one. The darkly beautiful Ms. Ferrari spent the night in the opposite end of the penthouse, a space free from the visual specter of Lily.
I pause on the threshold of the master suite, sensing the lingering humidity of a recent shower. My eyes are drawn to the massive canvas hanging on the wall directly in front of me. It’s an intimate picture. Lily lies on a disheveled bed, her slender limbs tangled in a white sheet, her long dark hair fanned across a rumpled pillow. Her sensual yearning is intensely evident, her lips reddened and swollen from kisses, her pale cheeks flushed, her adoring eyes heavy-lidded with desire.
How did she die? A tragic accident? An insidious disease?
She was so young, barely a woman. I wish I’d known my employer when he was with her. What a force of nature he must have been then.
I can’t help but grieve. Such a shame that two such bright flames would be snuffed out before their prime.
As I merge the Range Rover into traffic, I hear Mr. Black relay clipped orders into his mobile. It’s barely eight in the morning and he’s already deep into managing the various spokes of his growing conglomerate.
Manhattan teems around us, the brimming stream of cars flowing in every direction. In places, bags of rubbish are piled several feet high on the pavements, waiting to be hauled away. I was put off by the sight when I first came to New York, but now it’s just part of the milieu.
I’ve come to enjoy this city I now reside in, so different from the rolling green dales of my homeland. There is nothing one can’t find on this small island, and the energy of the people … the diversity and complexity … is unrivaled.
My eyes shift back and forth from the traffic to the pedestrians. Ahead of us, the one-way street is blocked by a delivery lorry. On the left pavement, a bearded man deftly handles a half-dozen leashes as he takes a group of excited canines on their morning walk. On the right side, a mother dressed for a run pushes a jogging pram ahead of her toward the park. The sun is shining, but the towering buildings and thickly leafed trees shadow the street. Horns begin to blare as the traffic delay stretches.
Mr. Black continues his business dealings with self-assured ease, his voice calm and assertive. The cars begin to creep forward, then pick up speed. We head downtown. For a short time, we are blessed with green lights in succession. Then our luck runs out and I’m stopped by a red light.
A flood of people hurry by in front of us, most with heads down and a few with ear buds that, I suppose, offer some respite from the cacophony of the busy city. I glance at the time, making sure we’re on schedule.
A sudden pained noise sends ice through my veins. It’s a half-strangled moan that is vaguely inhuman. Turning my head swiftly, I glance at the backseat, alarmed.
Mr. Black sits still and silent, his eyes dark as coal, his tanned skin drained of all color. His gaze is sliding along the pedestrian crossing, following. I look that way, seeking.
A slender brunette hurries away from us, trying to beat the light. Her hair is short, cut high at the nape in a bob that lengthens at the sides to cup her jaw. It’s not Lily’s luxuriant mane, not at all. But when she turns to walk down the pavement, I think it might be her face.
The back door swings open violently. Mr. Black leaps out just as the light turns green. The taxi driver behind us lays on his horn but I hear my employer shout over it.
“Lily!”
Her gaze darts toward us. She stumbles. Freezes in place.
Her face pales like Mr. Black’s. I see her lips move, see the name escape her. Kane.
Yes, the world knows his handsome face and what he has accomplished, but her shocked recognition is intimate and unmistakable. As is the desperate pining she cannot hide.
It is her.
Mr. Black glances toward traffic, then lunges between moving cars, nearly causing an accident. The barrage of honking becomes deafening.
The harsh sound visibly jolts her. She surges into a run, pushing her way through the throng on the sidewalk in obvious panic, her emerald green dress a beacon in the crowd.
And Mr. Black, a man who attains without pursuit, gives chase.