The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2) Read online

  ‘What’s the matter, Polly? Ashamed of your deformed boyfriend?’ Pierre’s fresh antagonism is this time aimed at her. There is a harsh wobble in his voice. ‘Can you see now why I like to dress up? Why I have developed a fascination with masks and costumes? My life has had to be one long illusion. One long cover-up.’

  Gustav rubs his chin. I can see a little nick of dried blood under his jaw where the black bristles have resisted his half-hearted attempts to shave on the journey over from Europe. That little sign of vulnerability makes me want to take his face in my hands and kiss him. Whether or not it’s because he has an audience, Gustav is superb in the face of Pierre’s raging self-pity.

  ‘P, don’t lash out at Polly. Maybe you need help with this.’ Gustav’s knuckles are white as he lowers his hand to grip the windowsill again. ‘Maybe we both do.’

  ‘It never goes away.’ Pierre taps his temple, the one with the blue vein. ‘I’ve only ever talked properly about the fire with you, Gustav. And Margot.’ The two men stare at each other again. However hostile their earlier words, the way they hold each other’s eyes in this moment still speaks of their old closeness, the direct link they used to share.

  ‘I would take every one of those burns away if I could.’ Gustav’s eyes are shadowed as if he hasn’t slept for centuries. As if he’s been hollowed out.

  ‘I believe you. You didn’t start the fire. But you ran out on us.’ Pierre has a fragile calm about him now, as if rocked by his brother’s quiet gravity. ‘You should have been there to stop it ever happening.’

  ‘You and I know the truth and it isn’t how you’re painting it.’

  Pierre’s eyes flicker over to me. The scars near his collarbone and throat look like a vile red and white scarf trying to strangle him. I look back at him, still speechless, trying to communicate some kind of sympathy even while worrying how disloyal that might look to Gustav.

  I think Pierre has interpreted my intention, because he clears his throat. ‘I’m sorry for that display. It was clumsy, and it was unpleasant, and it nearly jeopardised everything we’ve come here for. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with me, but my simple diagnosis is that I still blame my brother for not being there when it mattered. I always will. But no. Gustav didn’t start the fire.’

  At last Pierre is calm, at least on the surface. Perhaps sensing that he’s scored some kind of victory. Because Gustav, despite his poise, looks shattered.

  Polly stands shakily and puts her arm around Pierre’s waist, but already she’s acting differently, gingerly, as if he’s made of glass. As if she’s scared. Pierre ignores her, a strange, sad smile playing around his lips. I can’t quite articulate it, but it’s as if he sucks strength from Gustav’s dismay. Even at this fragile moment he still reminds me of one of those Roman emperors who threw Christians to the lions for a laugh.

  The celebratory fireworks outside have long gone quiet. Gustav sits down and I follow him. He starts to speak.

  ‘We were living in Paris, near Montmartre, down a dead-end street. I was fifteen. Pierre was a little toddler of three. I had sneaked out to see a girl when I was supposed to be studying. They were loving and decent, our parents, but they were heavy drinkers and, once they were asleep, that was it. Nothing would wake them. I thought I could get away with disobeying them this once.’ Gustav watches Pierre, but Pierre’s head is down as he tucks his shirt into his trousers. I’m astonished to see him checking his phone before putting it back into the pocket. ‘Anyway, a fire broke out in our apartment on the top floor. It was a beautiful old building but decrepit. A tinderbox. The other residents had moved out. Something made me dash home earlier than I intended, otherwise – I should never have gone out. I should never have left him there.’

  Gustav lifts his fist to his mouth and coughs, almost as if he’s back in that smoke-filled house. I sit like a sentry beside him. Pierre’s face has solidified into one of the masks he sells.

  ‘I saw the flames. People panicking with buckets of water. Well, I rushed straight up, the fire hadn’t spread beyond our apartment, and I found this one crying in the hall. It was like he was wearing an orange liquid cloak. Just his little face was clear of the flames.’

  Polly grips Pierre’s arm, her mouth open in horror, and this time he doesn’t flinch as her nails dig in. As if she isn’t there.

  I slide my fingers over Gustav’s thigh and lace them through his. He turns his head as if it weighs a ton. His lips move, but nothing comes out.

  ‘Gustav rolled me in a rug and carried me down to the courtyard, but he couldn’t get back up the stairs.’ Pierre’s voice has lost the transatlantic drawl. The faint European trace of an accent clips at some words, just like Gustav’s. ‘The only good thing is that Gustav escaped the flames unhurt – he had no long-lasting damage. No scars. The rug protected him.’

  The images rip through our minds. The tall shuttered windows buckling, the grey Parisian stone starting to blacken, the tiles loosening like teeth and crashing onto the watching faces below.

  Gustav clears his throat. His grip is so tight that my fingers have gone white. ‘Do you see now why I cared so much about our parents’ jewellery? They weren’t trinkets. They were mementos.’

  ‘But they were also life-savers. They fetched a lot of money when I sold them. Surely our parents wouldn’t have begrudged me that?’ Pierre shrugs on his jacket, keeping his eyes on his brother. ‘Look. We’ve both done dreadful things. Made each other suffer. But don’t you think it’s time to call it even?’

  I stiffen. None of this is even. But, as Gustav said, it’s not my fight.

  Gustav nods wearily. ‘We could argue until the cows come home. But yes. Let’s call it even, if we are ever going to move on.’

  He stands as Pierre comes up to him and lays his hand awkwardly on Gustav’s arm. They’ve sucked the life out of each other as only warring brothers can.

  I wait for a moment, afraid to invade the space, then make a decision of my own. ‘Do you mind if we say goodnight now, Pierre? Polly?’ I murmur, turning to each of them as I say their name. ‘I think tonight has knocked the stuffing out of all of us, and in a way I’m glad. I don’t know much about families, or brothers, but it had to come out at some stage, otherwise Margot’s lie would have festered in there forever.’

  ‘She’s right, Pierre. Let’s give these guys some space. And you and I need to talk about all this, too,’ echoes Polly, tugging at Pierre. ‘Maybe you two brothers should make a pact. The angry words end here. And next time you should meet up alone, without me and Serena getting in the way.’

  ‘You two girls have been more help, more use, than you can imagine.’

  Gustav answers her but it’s me he is staring at, the dark fire glowing in his eyes and pulling me towards him. A secret flame ignites inside me.

  ‘Yes. We need to be alone now,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Happy New Year, G,’ Pierre says, and lifts his other arm to grasp Gustav. Gustav mirrors the gesture, his hands on Pierre’s shoulders. Pierre has to look up slightly to meet Gustav’s eyes. They stand for a long moment then stiffly move apart. ‘I’ll be the one to choose the next meeting. OK?’

  Gustav goes to the door and murmurs something to Polly. I am about to sink back in the sofa with relief when I realise Pierre is still standing above me.

  ‘Happy New Year, Serena, and here’s my wish for you.’ He bends down to me and whispers in my ear, so quietly I can barely make out his words. ‘That you are still here to celebrate with us this time next year.’

  I wait for the closing of the door. The chime of the lift. Wait till I know they will be at ground level and walking out on the pavement at this upper end of Broadway.

  And then I push brother and cousin out of my head and take my man. I get up, coil my arm around his waist then hesitate, as if it’s Gustav who has scars all over his skin. We stare for a long time out of the window, over the rooftops of Manhattan.

  ‘I’m worried about what he said just th
en. That he confided in Margot about the fire, and his burns. That kind of tragedy is something she would use again and again, if she could.’

  ‘Pierre is scarred inside and out. You’re the only person who can help him.’ I pause. ‘We can’t trace everything bad that happens back to her.’

  ‘Can’t we? Let’s pray that you’re right.’ Gustav turns me so that I’m lined up against him, body to body. Groin to groin. He buries his face in my hair, takes the long strands in his hands and yanks my head back so that he can look down into my eyes.

  I press against him, feel the hardness. He needs me badly. It’s going to be rough, and hard, and I can’t wait. The golden locket taps in time with my heartbeat.

  ‘But I still don’t like the way he gets a kick out of shocking people.’

  Gustav sighs. ‘I used to understand him so well. He was always troubled, and no wonder. That was my role in life, to clear his head, give him confidence, face the world. Can you see now why it was so catastrophic when Margot took him over?’

  ‘Everything is so much clearer now, Gustav. You and he have a long road to travel. But it started here, and that has to be positive.’ I aim the remote at the music player. ‘But, as you said at Christmas, I wonder if we can just think about ourselves for a little while now?’

  As the soft jazz croons through the room, I start to sway to the music. I let the white dress fall off my shoulders but when he starts to drag me down onto the sofa I shake my head and lead him out of the sitting room. Away from the arena of so much discord and into our bedroom, our glass-walled, starry-ceilinged eyrie.

  He follows me, a dark shadow in his rumpled dark clothes, the lights of New York glittering like hot coals around us. We don’t even pull the blinds. As I walk to the huge bed I let the dress slip right off me, and the whisper of air over my skin distracts me at last. I glance over at him. He’s stopped in the middle of the room, still watching me. I remember the first time I visited his town house in London, how he made me dance for him, how embarrassed I was to perform in front of that dark, watching face. But now he needs all that and more.

  ‘You were too long in Lugano.’

  I lie down on the bed, naked, stretched out before him, and extend my wrist where the bracelet glitters. Once the silver chain ensnares me everything else will disappear.

  He groans and at last I see the rise in his cheeks as a long-lost smile opens his face. ‘That sounds like a cruise-ship song.’

  I laugh softly and he rips off his navy-blue pullover and his shirt. I can smell the musky sweat of him after his long journey, and I love it. I beckon to him like a true temptress. His eyes glitter in the strange light, their blackness reflecting the backdrop of night sky and relentless metropolis. He smiles wider, my wolf, his teeth white and glinting hungrily. He sits beside me and clips on the silver chain. Lets it fall onto the white sheet while he unzips his trousers, pulls them slowly down, teasing me. The stiffness of his arousal springs forward. It’s like a spear, so big and hard, shaped so perfectly for me, and now the soft seduction I was planning flees, because I want him badly, quickly, now.

  ‘You’re even more special than I realised,’ Gustav says quietly as we both stare at his hardness. ‘The only person who could take my mind away from what just happened. Just for a few minutes.’

  My body bothers me with its urgent lust. I open my legs, hook them round his slim hips. I run my hands over his smooth, warm, unblemished skin, so different from his brother’s, but oh, God – suddenly Pierre is in my head, his black eyes blazing with all that wounded anger.

  Gustav falls forward to hang over me. I pray he can’t read my mind. I shove Pierre away, cling to Gustav, push my open, wet mouth and my breasts at him, my stomach heaving with catches of breath, and then he lifts my body and runs his tongue up me like a large black cat until I’m whimpering with wanting. But he’s not licking for long, because he lets me drop onto the soft bed and roughly pushes himself into me, holds my arms down as he presses his still wet mouth down onto mine.

  ‘My God, in all the rush to get here, all the furore that met me when I arrived,’ he growls as he starts to move. I pull away, alert with anxiety, but his mouth, all of him, follows me to keep me still, his body possessing mine, locked inside me, his teeth nipping at my lower lip to keep me there. ‘I never kissed you hello.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Focus, focus, focus. The photographer’s mantra. It’s been several luscious, lazy days since that traumatic New Year’s Eve with Pierre and Polly. Apart from that tricky meeting and some tentative emails back and forth between the brothers, Gustav and I have been cocooned from the world since before Christmas, which is exactly what we needed. So, apart from a commission for a gaggle of Park Avenue princesses yesterday, I’ve had more than two weeks off. I have to get back to work. I have to put the Levi traumas out of my mind, just for today.

  If I look behind me I can just make out our apartment amongst the phalanx of towering, tough buildings planted along Central Park West. Before I left this morning Gustav hung a Union Jack onto the end of his big new telescope bolted to the roof terrace. It’s my Christmas present to him to improve on the spyglass he brought from Lugano, and the flag means I can always find my way home.

  ‘Is that our code?’ I asked, as I packed up my camera kit in the hallway. My hands were shaking as I fitted the lenses and tripod into their sections in the bags and tried to quell the butterflies flipping in my stomach. ‘I mean, if the flag isn’t there it means you’re not at home, like the Queen? It will mean you’ve been called away on business?’

  Gustav took my shoulders and stood me in front of him. Stroked my face. Untwisted the golden locket to rest at the base of my throat where it constantly quivers with my pulse. Tucked wisps of hair into the heavy plait hanging down my back. Wherever he touched or brushed, he sent a ripple of tiny shivers through my skin. Every muscle was stalling, refusing to let me leave.

  ‘Too risky. Remember how Theseus forgot to hoist the white sail on his ship as the agreed sign that he had slain the Minotaur, and his father, seeing the black sail still up, thought his son was dead? I will never go anywhere without telling you face to face or at the very least using this marvellous contraption.’ He tapped my nose with my little silver phone and dropped it into my pocket.

  ‘Now, deep breaths. You’re already back in the saddle with those débutante portraits you took yesterday. Today’s assignment will be different, admittedly. But you’ll do this job standing on your head. Which I would love to see, by the way.’

  I stood on tiptoe and brushed my lips against his. Even now I half expect him to deflect me like he used to, turn his face and offer me his cheek instead, or move his mouth over my face, towards my throat, murmur in my ear, anything rather than actually allow himself full intimacy.

  ‘I’d rather go back to bed.’ I could hear the new huskiness my voice had acquired. The timbre of a happy, fulfilled, satisfied woman getting plenty. ‘I missed you when you were away.’

  ‘We’ve barely slept all week so you could show me how much you missed me!’ His breath mingled with mine as he wrapped his arms tightly round me, padded jacket and all. He lifted me right off my feet. ‘God, you’re still so hot this morning.’

  ‘All part of the service!’ Then I frowned, leaned my forehead against his. Suddenly serious. ‘I wanted you to forget all the things Pierre resurrected.’

  ‘And I did. For a few glorious few days and nights.’ Gustav squeezed me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. ‘But it’s my job, not yours, to put everything right.’

  ‘By forgiving him everything, while he barely gives an inch?’

  ‘I’m the oldest. If giving more ground heals us, that’s the way it has to be.’ Gustav lowered me to the floor again. ‘But you are still my priority, Serena. It’s you I need to keep close.’

  I stared at him, at the pulse throbbing in his neck, the silky question mark of hair bouncing with it. ‘I’ve never heard you talk like that.’

&nbs
p; ‘And I’ve never felt like this. My bella donna, I don’t want to let you out of my sight even for a day, in case you find someone else to tie up and tease.’

  Every word he uttered made me shiver with desire. And then he kissed me, and all the shadows retreated once again. I was melting as he nudged my lips open, slid his tongue over the hypersensitive surface of my upper lip, then kissed my mouth closed again.

  ‘Me be unfaithful to you? Never. This bod is for your eyes only.’

  I started to unzip the jacket, slid my arms under his suit, spread my hands to squeeze his firm bottom. He watched my face, his dark eyes flashing with amusement, his hands resting lightly on my face as I touched him.

  ‘You don’t know how beautiful you are, Serena. That’s the danger.’

  I giggled softly, bringing my hands round to the front of his trousers. There it was, under the expensive fabric, straining against the zipper, always ready for me. ‘I can always re-arrange this commission for later. Stay here with you for the morning and then go with you to your meeting about the new exhibition space you’re developing under the High Line?’

  He snatched at my wandering hands. He slid my soft green leather kid gloves over my fingers, one by one, pushing them snugly into the spaces, fastening the fiddly three buttons over each wrist.

  ‘My darling girl, rookie’s rule number one. You never postpone a commission. Rule number two, never stay home when your paramour suggests it. I’m rock hard just kissing you. I need to get my business head on. Go. This is a fantastic commission. The Weinmeyers are a real coup for your repertoire. If you hadn’t spent all last night practising your Girl Guide knots on me I’d have talked you through this already. They’re renowned for their art collections and fundraisers and general philanthropy. If you impress them your work will be plastered all over the walls of their mansion, and East Coast society will be flocking to see it.’

  I picked up my kit reluctantly, then stopped. ‘You didn’t pull strings to get this job for me, did you? I’ll be livid if you did.’