FIVE

 

ALICE

 

 

It might not have been a penthouse but it was much more than just a house. It was almost as big as the club, a huge red brick building that looked like it should come with it's own retinue of liveried staff. If a butler had appeared on the doorstep to greet me, I wouldn't have been surprised.

If a horse had wandered past and the groom nodded, "Evening Master Powers," I'd have thought it perfectly normal.

"What do you think?" he asked, leading me up the steps to the door.

"It's all right," I said with a shrug. "Not as big as mine, obviously, but for you, it'll do."

"I'm glad it meets your approval. Now what would you like to eat? I've got a kitchen that can do pretty much everything."

"Can it order me a lemon chicken from the Red Dragon?"

"That's what you want to eat?"

I nodded, the craving for it growing stronger by the second. It was always the same when I had wine. "Sod the carbs, get me that with fried rice and I'll worship you forever."

"I'll remember you said that."

He unlocked the front door and we stepped inside to a wall of heat. Compared to the icy cold wind on the drive, this was bliss. "Plenty of pauper orphans keeping the boiler going I'm guessing," I said as we headed along a wide hallway.

"Only the poorest. They burn the hottest."

I giggled, the empty bottle slipping from my hand as I did so. "Whoops," I said as it hit the floor with a thud, somehow not smashing but instead rolling slowly away behind me.

"You're sloshed," he said.

"Maybe a bit. Just don't take advantage of me."

"I'll try not to. Now do you want anything else apart from the number seventeen."

"Nope. Hang on, how do you know it's a number seventeen?"

He lowered his voice. "Don't tell my chef but I might sometimes order it myself."

"Your secret's safe with me," I said before yelling, "Ethan orders lemon shicken from Red Dragon takeaway."

"Shicken?"

"Chicken."

"Not shicken?"

"Shush."

You mean chush."

"You're teasing me."

Only a little."

He pushed open the door to a drawing room like something out of a Merchant Ivory film. The only pretension to modernity was a phone on the far wall and a flatscreen TV in the corner. He picked up the phone. "Hi, Lee. Not too late to order am I? Great. Two seventeens and a twenty-three. Wonderful, thanks."

He hung up the phone and turned back to me. "Do you want to sit down?"

"I'm not sure. Are you allowed to sit on museum pieces?"

"Are you complaining about the furniture?"

"It's not exactly Ikea quality, is it?"

"Maybe not but can you forgive me?"

"For now but you better get some flat pack in your life soon or you'll regret it when these things crumble to dust."

"That's lasted three hundred years so far. I think we'll be all right."

I sat on a sofa so soft, I was almost swallowed by it. He took the seat opposite, sitting in an armchair and looking suddenly masterful. It came with a slight shift of his body language, his facial expression hardening at the same time. "While we're waiting for the food, we should talk."

"Oh, should we? What about?"

"About what wine to have with it."

I cheered. "You're my kind of guy."

"Glad to hear it. What would you like?"

"Can we have the one we had at the club?"

"The Lafite? I might have a bottle or two in the cellar. Be back in a minute."

While he was gone, I sat back and examined the room. It was like I was dreaming. I'd started the night working behind the bar, just another shift like the last week's worth. Now I was in some billionaire's mansion while he brought me wine and Chinese food as if he was my servant. Not only that but he'd paid seventy-five thousand for the privilege of enjoying my company.

I thought about him, about how quick his replies had been when we'd been talking. He clearly had a mind as sharp as the suit he wore. What was under that suit? I found myself thinking about that more and more as I waited. He'd said it was just an evening of company but I remembered Rowena's words. Everything was negotiable.

He wouldn't have invited me back if he wasn't interested in me. I didn't know why he would want someone like me but he did. I'd take that. Time to bring my flirting game to the fore.

It took him a while to get back and when he did, I was ready, leaning forwards, hint of cleavage on display, toes turned inwards, trying to act all innocent.

"Your wine," he said as the doorbell rang from far down the hallway. "And your food too by the sounds of it."

He left the open bottle and glasses with me and I poured out two generous quantities, sipping at mine while I waited. It really did taste good, sweet and subtle and there was the glass emptied already. Oh well, time for more.

It never occurred to me to wonder why I was drinking so quickly. If I'd stopped to think about it, I might have realised I was trying to drink away my anxiety. I had been insanely nervous since the moment my name was called out. The vodka from Rowena had helped take the edge of it and then when he'd given me wine, I'd gulped it down, my nerves fading more and more as the level in the bottle started to run down. Now I was having another glass but I wasn't thinking why, I was thinking how much fun this was, how much I wanted him, how relaxed I felt.

He walked back in with the food, handing me chopsticks which I tried and failed to use. "I'm normally really good at this," I said as I flung another portion of rice onto the floor. "Honest."

"I have a back up," he said, producing a fork from nowhere. "Try this."

"You don't trust me?"

"I just think carpets look better without the paddy field look to them, that's all."

When we'd eaten, I sat back and sighed. "That was good."

"Yes it was," he agreed. "Now we need to talk properly."

"No we don't," I said. "We've done enough talking. What we need to do is get down to kissing." Wine had upped my flirting game off the charts.

I stood up and slid my skirt up enough to reveal my thigh. "What do you think?"

"I think you're drunk."

"No, I'm not," I said, sounding indignant as I swayed across to him. "Kiss me."

"You are drunk. You'd never say that otherwise."

"Come on," I said, reaching up and fumbling with my top, trying to tease him, thinking it was a great idea, a fantastic way to show him I wanted him.

I can't remember much about what happened after that. I remember saying some other words but they might have been anything. I remember suddenly feeling incredibly hot and knowing that it was my clothes that were stopping me from cooling down. I needed to get rid of them. I remember a little voice telling me that was a bad idea. Then I remember a gap and then trying to kiss him but as I walked forwards, things went dark.

Then I don't remember anything at all.