“Just wondering how it went that’s all,” Warwick said breezily. “Come on, you can’t yank me from my bed at an ungodly hour in the morning to run Internet searches for you on some mystery woman and not have me itching to know what came of it!” He gave a bark of laughter that sounded unduly harsh through the Aston’s speakers. “So let’s have it—did the lady succumb to your wicked charms?”
“Unlike you, Steve I’m not looking for submission in a woman,” Lytton said dryly. “And if you’re itching for anything you should try a course of antibiotics.”
“Ha. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it old son.”
Lytton braked hard to avoid a ubiquitous white-van man who swerved into his lane. It took a moment’s continued static silence for him to realise Warwick was still on the line.
“Was there anything else Steve?”
“Not really,” Warwick said casually. “It’s just . . . well, we can’t afford to have anything rocking the boat—not right now. So if this bloody Mrs Mop is going to cause trouble do you want me to—?”
“Kelly Jacks won’t be a problem,” Lytton said. He changed down viciously and launched the big car through a closing gap between two buses that it had no right to make without a scratch. “Leave it to me—I can handle her.”
19
About the time Matthew Lytton was going hand-to-hand with the thickening rush of traffic near St James’s Park—and Steve Warwick was sitting alone at his desk—the glamorous Myshka was still in bed.
She lay quietly luxuriating in a dockside penthouse that gave just as panoramic a view of London as Kelly’s rooftop aerie, minutely aware of the silk sheets against her naked skin. And Myshka remembered a time when she’d been forced to don every piece of clothing she owned before climbing into bed at night. When not to do so was to risk freezing to death in her sleep.
She had vowed never to be cold like that again.
She stretched enjoying the sensuality of her surroundings. The bedroom was decadently large and decorated in a palette of muted creams and mushroom greys from the glossy doors of the wardrobes that stretched across one wall to the ridiculously deep pile carpet.
On the wall opposite the king-size bed hung a fifty-inch flatscreen TV. This, Myshka felt was an unnecessary indulgence. She had never got a kick out of porn—either watching it or taking part. So who needed a television that size in the bedroom where there were so many other avenues to be explored? But it was a small price to pay.
She turned her head on the pillow towards the wall of glass that looked out onto the immaculate roof garden and beyond over the river and the city. Lying between her and this magnificent view, snoring gustily, was the man she’d had sex with last night.
The price.
Myshka was ambivalent about sex, was neither enthralled nor appalled by it. It was simply a physical activity like Pilates or using a step machine—something that might be a little boring to undertake but the results were worth it. She’d learned to fake a convincing reaction she could never feel and viewed it simply as a means to an end.
On the bedside table her iPhone lit up and began to vibrate. She rolled over carefully and checked the display.
Dmitry.
Myshka slipped softly out of bed and thrust her arms into the sleeves of a thin emerald green kimono as she hurried out into the open living area with the phone still buzzing in her hand.
Dmitry sat at one end of the huge dining table, a copy of one of the financial papers spread out in front of him. He glanced up briefly and cancelled the call he’d made from his own phone.
Myshka hid her outrage and finished putting on the robe without hurry or embarrassment. She was after all used to men seeing her naked. Dmitry, to her amusement—or was it irritation?—studiously kept his eyes on the newsprint in front of him.
“Let yourself in, why do you not?” she said haughtily as she swept past him into the ultramodern stark white kitchen area. “Make yourself at home.”
“As you do,” Dmitry fired back. He indicated the closed bedroom door with a sullen jerk of his head. “You’d rather I rang the doorbell?”
Just because he had a valid point that didn’t mean Myshka was prepared to let him off the hook. “Why are you here?”
He showed his teeth, more snarl than smile. “Duty calls. I answer.”
Her annoyance waned. She crossed to him put her arms around his neck and kissed the top of his head, rocking him to her breast. He gripped her arm and squeezed tight for a second and she felt the tension go out of him.
“I do not like to think of you . . . with him,” he said at last, his voice muffled against her chest.
“Soon, Dmitry,” she murmured.
He stiffened, frowning. “Myshka—”
“Hush.” She bent her face close to his roughened cheek and put a finger to his lips. “Soon this will all be over and we will be free together I promise.”
He twitched and she let him go, straightened. For the first time she saw doubt in his eyes and with a flash of intuition knew the cause. Whatever faults and flaws Dmitry might possess, disloyalty was not one of them.
“He does not appreciate all that you do for him,” she said then, fiercely. “He wastes your talents.”
Dmitry raked a hand through his hair and stared back down at the newspaper columns. A bitter smile twisted the side of his face. “Perhaps you could speak with him—put in a good word on my behalf then it would not be—”
“If I thought for a moment he would listen to me I would do so.”
Dmitry gave a short laugh. “If you do not have his ear who does?”
“You know as well as I do that he listens only to the sound of money,” she dismissed. “And he thinks only of how to increase it.”
Not entirely true but true enough for this purpose. Besides it was entirely true that Dmitry was being taken advantage of. His contacts had been plundered, his authority frittered away until all he could be was his new master’s lap dog.
She moved back into the kitchen area partly so he wouldn’t see the sudden clench of her fingers and busied herself with the espresso machine. While it gurgled through its cycle she picked up her cigarettes and gold lighter from the countertop, headed for one of the huge sliding panels of glass. There she turned, struck an imperious pose, flicked her fingers.
“Come.”
Dmitry raised his head and looked at her with the blank cold stare of the killer she knew him to be. She shivered in glorious relief.
“Good,” she said with a short nod. “So you have not yet acquired the spine of a jelly baby.”