No, she'd just have to deal with this on her own, somehow. When she got back to London, she'd find some time — would make some time — to sit down with Alex and get him to open up. They'd get it worked out. She loved him, he loved her. How hard could it be as long as they had that?
Angela's flat was one of a row on Denbigh Street, a small place, but very neat and clean: a sitting room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. And she did have a massage table set up in the small sitting room. Michaels remarked on that: Did she do so much massage that she left the table out all the time?
No, she'd said. She'd gotten it out and put it up just today.
A small alarm went off in his head. Uh-oh.
She handed him a bedsheet. "Take off your clothes and lie facedown," she said. "Cover up with this. I'll get out of my work clothes and put on something less constricting."
She moved off into the bedroom, and Michaels found himself standing in the apartment of an attractive women he barely knew, holding a folded sheet, contemplating the removal of his clothes.
This was a bad idea.
Then again, she did have a real massage table, and she did seem to know a lot about bodywork.
He blew out a deep breath. What the hell.
He stripped to his underwear — a pair of black silk bikini briefs Toni had bought for him — stretched out on the table facedown, and pulled the sheet over himself.
When Angela came back into the room, she wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a tank top.
Sweatpants. Sweatpants were good.
"Ready?"
"Sure."
She started by digging her elbow into his upper back, and after a couple of minutes, he relaxed into it. Some tiny part of him was maybe a little bit disappointed — it was going to be a massage — but the larger part of him felt relief. She was bright and beautiful, but his life was already complicated enough. A back rub wasn't something he had to lose any sleep over.
She spent about thirty minutes working on his back. She moved to his legs, and he felt himself tense a little, but Angela was matter-of-fact about it, pummeling his hamstrings hard enough to be slightly painful, uncovering one leg at a time and folding the sheet so that the rest of him was under the thin cloth.
She worked on his feet and calves, then moved to his butt, hands under the sheet. "This won't do," she said, and she peeled his briefs off, slid them quickly over his legs and his feet.
"Uh… Angela…?"
"Relax, Alex. I can't work the muscle properly if it's covered up."
He tried to relax, but with her fingers stroking his ass that was hard.
And, unfortunately, that soon wasn't the only thing hard about him.
But at least he was facedown, so that wasn't embarrassing, just a little uncomfortable.
After five minutes of kneading his buttocks, he was beginning to relax again when she said, "Okay, turn over."
"Excuse me?"
"The back is only half of you. I need to work the front."
Crap. How could he say this? About his, ah, current condition? "Uh, well, I, uh, well, turning over might be kind of, that is—"
"Got a bit excited? Don't worry about that, Alex. I've done this before. It happens all the time."
She lifted up the sheet. "Turn, I'll hold this."
He wasn't thrilled with the idea of rolling onto his back and showing her where his mind had gone. When she let go of the sheet, it was going to look like a tent. But all right, fine. He kept his eyes closed and rolled over.
"My. How lovely," she said.
He opened his eyes as Angela dropped the sheet to the floor and climbed onto the table to straddle him.
Her sweatpants were gone — how had she done that? — and she wasn't wearing anything under them. In another second, he was going to be wearing her, and he knew if that happened, his mind would shut down completely. He would be lost.
"Hey, Angela?"
"Mmm?"
"Look, I really can't do this."
"You obviously can. And certainly you want to. I can tell." She pointed at him.
"Yes. But the thing is, I can't. I'm involved."
"She'll never find out from me. Nobody will ever know."
He shook his head. "I'll know."
She leaned back, looked down at him. "You sure about this?"
He sighed. "Yeah."
Michaels came out of a troubled doze back in his room with the sound of his virgil playing "Bad to the Bone." Man, was that ever true.
Toni!
Oh, man!
He was in deep shit now.
The virgil kept telling him it was b-b-b-bad, and he got up and went to find it. Yeah, okay, he hadn't actually done anything, but he should never have gone to Angela's flat, he knew at the time it was wrong, and he had done it anyway. And if they could hang you for thinking, he'd be swinging by now. The last thing he wanted to do now was talk to anybody, and especially he did not want to talk to Toni.
He left the visual off. "Hello?"
"Hey, boss."
Jay Gridley. Thank God. "Jay. How are you?"
"Doing a lot better. I tracked down the security program that thumped my head and wrecked it."
"Congratulations."
"This is the easy part, boss. I still have to find the guy who created it. But it ought to be easier with this out of the way."
"Good."
"Uh, is, uh, Toni around?"
Michaels felt a cold hand squeeze his guts. "Ah, no. She's in Paris. Be back this afternoon."
"I'll give her a call, there's some stuff in her files here I need to access."
"Fine."
"How's London? You having a good time?"
Was he having a good time? Well, no, not exactly. He was busy becoming the biggest, unfaithful, lying turd in all the world. All right, technically he wasn't unfaithful, but it sure felt as if he had been. He'd been inches away from it.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm having a great time. Talk to you later, Jay. Keep me advised."
He shut off his virgil. Jesus Christ. How could he have been so fucking stupid? A few drinks, some good food, and a massage didn't sound so awful. His neck had been sore, right? Taking off your clothes in front of a doctor or a massage therapist, there wasn't any harm in that. But the thought that it might continue into something had rattled around in his head, he had to admit it. It was only by the slimmest margin that he could claim any kind of victory, and it felt more like a loss.
He was going to have to tell Toni about it, of course.
The question was: How was he going to tell Toni? Oh, by the way, while you were in Paris? I dropped round Angela's place, took off my clothes, let her rub my back, and almost let her rub my front?
When was that going to come up in conversation?
Man.
Chapter 28
Goswell glanced over the top of his Times at Sir Harold Bellworth, who sat brooding at his cigar, which had gone out from lack of attention. The old boy had called for Paddington to fetch him another match, and Goswell figured this was a good time to broach the subject he had in mind.