CHAPTER TWELVE
JAY HAD BEEN right. As the days had turned into weeks and the weeks into months—three of them, to be exact—there had been many wonderful times. There had been night after night during which she had thought she had climbed the heights, only to discover those heights had been mere foothills of pleasure.
Jay was an expertly sensual teacher, and Keira admitted she was a very eager pupil—his pleasure her own and hers his.
There had been nights when they had lain on the divans and Jay had shown her the beautifully illustrated plates in the ancient copy of the Kama Sutra he had told her he had bought as a young man in a bazaar. It had originally been the property of a maharaja whose library had been sold, he had explained to her, and was of immense cultural and financial value.
He had read the text to her, his voice sensually soft and erotic as he stroked the words as delicately as he stroked her skin. Uncertainly at first, but then with growing confidence, Keira had studied the illustrated plates whilst Jay encouraged her to choose a position she found erotically exciting so that they could experience it together. Jay had teased her that they should go through the alphabet, that every night they should pick a different letter and a different position. But some nights they would have run through half a dozen letters before dawn had streaked the sky, and others they would have enjoyed only one, taking their pleasure over and over again.
Against all her expectations—and Keira suspected Jay’s as well—his desire for her, far from burning itself out, had actually increased.
When he had to be away from her on business, his return often resulted in him breaking his rule of not having sex in his office, such was the intensity of his physical desire for her.
His physical desire for her, Keira reminded herself sadly. Because that was all he felt for her. Physical desire.
There had been pleasure beyond any pleasure she could ever have imagined between them, but for her—hand in hand with that pleasure, measuring it step by step and now finally outweighing it—there had also been terrible pain. It was a pain that came not just from knowing that Jay would never return her feelings, but increasingly from her own unexpected and dangerous feelings of mingled guilt and pain about her past. Guilt because she had withheld the truth about it from Jay, and pain because she could never be her true self with him—because she couldn’t ever know the kind of security that came from being accepted as she was.
The reality was that she was living not just one lie but several, and that could not go on. It was destroying her. She lived in fear of letting slip to Jay in the heat of their intimacy the fact that she loved him. She lived in fear of the ultimate ending of their relationship when he grew tired of her. And yet at the same time a part of her longed for the peace of mind that would come from knowing she would no longer need to lie by default.
She couldn’t bear the thought of the rejection and contempt she would see in his eyes once he knew the truth about her. And she would see them. She knew that. She hadn’t forgotten his attitude towards her when they had first met and he had mistakenly believed that she was the kind of woman willing to offer her body in return for material benefits.
Like mother, like daughter. How often had she heard those words from her great-aunt? They were branded into her—a curse that she carried with her, and a fear that would always haunt her.
She had given in to her own longing to be Jay’s lover believing his desire for her would burn itself out in a matter of days—no more than a couple of weeks at most. She had judged that that was something she could survive for the sake of the pleasure it would give her and the memories she would have. But now it had been three months, and with each passing day her longing for what she could not have was growing stronger. Soon it would overwhelm her. Before that happened she had to leave.
Her work on the houses was finished. Jay had been away in Mumbai for the last three days, and in his absence she had forced herself to think about her own situation and to make the decision she knew she must make for her own sake.
Her bags were packed and her ticket for her flight home bought. In just over an hour’s time she would be leaving for the airport in the taxi she had already booked. All she had to do was write the letter she had to leave for Jay, telling him that she had completed the work he had commissioned her to do, that she had enjoyed their time together, but that it was time for her to return to London and her own life and career.
He would soon find someone new to replace her in his bed.
* * *
Jay looked out of the window of his private yet as it touched down on the runway. He had no idea why he had felt this compulsion to conclude his business in Mumbai ahead of schedule. It wasn’t, after all, the first time he had been apart from Keira during their relationship. His absences had served to increase their desire for one another, and his returns had brought new heights of pleasure for them both. Keira had never reacted to his absence with sulks or demands—nor had she ever indicated that she had missed him, or would have liked to have gone with him. There was no logical reason for him to feel this almost driven urgency to get back to her. She would be there, waiting to welcome him with the sensual eagerness of her body for his possession and her open delight in the pleasure he gave her.
She was the ideal bed partner: sensual and spirited, taking and giving pleasure in equal measure. It had surprised him how much, given the fact that she had been so inexperienced, and yet her acceptance of his terms for their relationship and its lack of any commitment had allowed him to let down his guard with her and show her his passion for her, safe in the knowledge that she came to him out of her own desire for him rather than any desire for what he could give her.
Maybe that was why he continued to want her so intensely long after he had expected to have had his fill of her.
He no longer read the Kama Sutra to her because now they had created their own personal repertoire of intimate plea-
sures—pleasures she had taken eagerly and adapted inventively to her own needs and to his, making them special and personal by the way she had put her own mark on them.
And on him?
Jay frowned. His thoughts were fast-tracking down a route that was becoming all too familiar. No commitment, he had said, and he had meant it. He still meant it.
His car was waiting for him. He preferred to drive himself. He removed his suit jacket, throwing it into the back of the car along with his laptop and his case.
He had seen Bas whilst he had been in Mumbai, and the art director was pressuring him to set up an interview with Keira. The advertising was booked for the launch of the development, and he had seen the photographs of the interiors and understood why the agency he had hired to market the development had been so enthusiastic about its success.
Keira had excelled his remit and produced something that was iconically stylish in concept and yet at the same time extremely liveable. Looking at the photographs, he had caught himself wondering what she might do with his London apartment, had even mentally visualised her living there in it with him. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. In his pocket was a leather case from one of Mumbai’s most exclusive jewellers, containing a pair of antique diamond wrist-cuffs. He had known the moment he had seen them that Keira would love them. They were unique. Just like her.
* * *
It was time for her to leave. She could put the letter on Jay’s desk on her way out. Keira picked up her bag and reached for the handle of her trolley case.
Her bedroom door opened.
She swung round, the colour leaving her face as she saw Jay standing in the doorway, looking from her to the case and then back again.
His curt, ‘What’s going on?’ didn’t do anything to steady her nerves.
Keira knew that her voice was trembling as she told him unsteadily, ‘My work here is finished...’
‘Your work may be finished, but what about us?’
This was so much worse than she had expected. She must stay focused and be practical, not give in to her longing to beg him to make her stay.
‘I have to earn my living, Jay.’
So he had been right all along. It had all been an elaborate set-up—a trick to bring him to this point. A sickening rush of bitter anger seized him. But it wasn’t strong enough to stop him giving in and telling her harshly, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while to stay. How much did you have in mind? Ten thousand a month?’
Keira couldn’t speak or move. The ferocity of her pain gripped her. It was no good telling herself that she had known what he really thought of her, and that she had no one to blame but herself for the humiliation and anguish she was now suffering. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter—wasn’t she?
‘Not enough? Well, how about if I throw this in as a sweetener?’
Jay reached into his jacket pocket and removed the jeweller’s box, which he threw onto the chair close to where Keira was standing.
‘Go ahead and open it,’ he told her.
Keira felt as though her heart was shrivelling inside her chest, as if she was, in all the ways that really mattered, going through a form of emotional death. It was pointless reminding herself that she had known she would suffer. Knowing had not prepared her for the reality of that pain.
‘I’m not for sale, Jay,’ she told him. She felt leached of life and hope, her voice mirroring her feelings and recording her sense of emptiness and loss.
‘No?’
‘No.’
She thought that he was physically going to stop her from going. And to her shame a part of her actually hoped that he might, despite what he had just said and done. But, although he started to move towards her, he stopped short of reaching her.
She had to walk so close to him that she could almost feel and hear the angry thud of his heartbeat. That same heartbeat she had felt so many times against her own body, and wishing that it might match the love that filled her own heart for him.
Well, she knew now how impossible that was. All Jay wanted was to buy her for as long as he wanted her. That knowledge made her feel acutely sick.
* * *
The day she returned home Keira checked her accounts online and found that a very large sum of money indeed had been paid into her business account. Far more than was due to her from Jay on completion of the contract.
Keira emailed him, pointing out his error, and received an email in return saying that the extra was ‘for services rendered’. It would not be accepted if it was returned as he always paid his dues.
After she had finished crying Keira made out a cheque for the extra amount and gave it to a charity that helped rescue young women from prostitution, informing them that the money was a gift from Jay.
It was over. It should never have existed in the first place. But now it was over and she had to find a way to get on with her life.