“Rumpelstiltskin always gets his due, old chap,” Thomas thought chuckling to himself over the comparison of the Mayor to the famous children’s fable.
That said, the fact, that “repayment” happened to suit the Federal Republic of Russia’s interests and not that of the United States of America, the traditional ally of the United Kingdom, was neither here or there.
Finished shaving he stretched again, feeling his old wounds in the process throb in the process. He turned on the cold tap very briefly to wash away the remains of his shadow mixed with the shaving cream and to wake him up, then turned to the power shower and stepped in.
As the water roared out hitting his body, he reflected again on his life. More and more he was beginning to feel like Achilles. Like many of the Oligarchs who had taken the wealth of Russia’s soil, he had become the instrument of the Mayor. He just wondered if his own particular heel would kill him one day.
“If I get this wrong, it will!” he concluded as his mind went over what he needed from the meeting that was due to place in a few hours’ time.
The warm water jets were exceptionally relaxing against his skin, though he had little to relax from at this precise moment—he had, after all, apart from the views whirling in his head just had a bout of passionate and stress-relieving sex with his amazing woman followed by a short, deep sleep.
He was so wrapped up by his thoughts he had not noticed the figure of Nara enter the bathroom until she spoke.
“Morning, my Thomas,” she said through a giggle, her smile widening as she watched him turn his head slowly back towards her with his own smile.
“Morning beautiful,” he said with his own naughty glint in his eye.
“You’re up early. Do you have to be somewhere, darling?” she asked innocently, earning a response that he did although not telling her who with.
“Then why didn’t you wake me?” she said as a siren to a sailor, wrapping her hand around the large silver handle set into the glass shower door making clear her intention to join him. “I need to shower too, my love,” she further added as she stepped in.
Seeing his devilish eyes twinkle with amusement, she laughed as she shut the door behind her.
“It certainly looks like I’m not the only one happy that I’ve joined you my Thomas,” she murmured looking at the stirring taking place below as her hand went about weaving its magic as the water hit them both.
11
Venice, 2001
The weekend they conceived Victoria was in many ways one of few moments in their life together when Thomas and Nara actually felt like an everyday couple losing themselves in romance like the rest of tourists that visited Venice over the ages. It was a time when they believed it was for it was just for them, and nobody else.
His exotic creature of Central Asia had been with him two years or as she preferred to tell him, “Allah had sent him to save her,” rather dramatically.
He had just received his knighthood, something he knew would have pleased his mother if she had lived and though Thomas and Nara’s relationship had certainly grown, it wasn’t until what she said in the car on the way back from Buckingham Palace to him that he actually realized what she meant to him notwithstanding their many passionate moments together.
Up until that moment he had been convinced she masked her emotions from him, something he thought was a direct consequence of her former profession.
“Your Mama would have proud, my Thomas,” she had said, looking at him tears forming in her eyes, her black kohl mascara running.
“Of what?” he had responded teasing her.
“Of seeing her son and the love of my life being made a Knight of the Realm by your great lady, of course!” she had replied her feelings hurt giving him the look of an innocent child.
“So I am your love of life?” he had teased again causing her to look at him with even more shock and horror because he questioned her statement.
“A-l-w-a-y-s, my Thomas” she had responded continuing to show her shock that he would think otherwise.
“My God! She means it!” he had thought, feeling guilty for teasing her.
Putting his arm around her as a way of an apology Thomas kissed her gently on lips before allowing his mind to drift for a few moments.
He knew he loved her. It was just that he was having trouble getting his head around the fact she was so young and he was sixteen years older than her.
“But he had made a vow,” Thomas had decided. “Vows are never broken!” he had admonished himself.
“I would like to take you to Venice this weekend just you and me nobody else,” he had said suddenly.
“I would like that, my darling,” Nara had answered
The person who didn’t was Mikhail. He went ballistic when Thomas had told him of his intentions. The two of them argued heavily over it.
“It’s not bloody Moscow!” retorted Thomas.
“No, it’s worse. It is the land of the Mafia!” replied Mikhail.
In the end he reached a compromise with Mikhail insisting that he would carry his Glock pistol at all times, and the team though not following them, would remain on station in Venice and out of sight.
Having arrived at midday and now on the launch, he took in the face of the young woman he had sworn to protect as she saw Venice for the first time, as through the mist and half sunlight the beautiful city appeared.
To many, the city is at its best when the high water known by the locals as “Acqua alta” takes away the decay floating around the city.
“Thomas, it is so beautiful!” she said excitedly.
“Not as beautiful as you my darling,” he said taking her hand.
Turning towards him, her lovely jet-black hair drifting in the light wind from the Adriatic she pulled him into her. She kissed him forcibly on the lips, her saltiness tasting to him like honey.
“I love you, my Darling!” she said with a smile as their long kiss ended.
That afternoon, no guards, no demands, just Nara and him like two young lovers, he showed her around the Venice of his youth that despite the tourists, never seems to change. When he last visited the floating city just after the First Gulf War to take up a position as a researcher for his former professor at Oxford who was writing a book, , he was a broken and bitter young man by what he felt was a betrayal by the politicians of him and his men when they had left them to die.
“I want to you meet a very special person,” he said as they walked hand in hand.
Taking her to an old church of the San Martino, he presented to the man who, with his kindliness and reflective advice had brought him back from the edge and set Thomas on the road to become the man he now was.
A charmingly cluttered parish church, built in the Renaissance Period, was located on a canal in Castello not far from the Arsenale. The church wasn’t listed in most guidebooks probably because it doesn’t have any famous masterpieces, but Thomas had loved it for its art including some modern twentieth century works mixed in with the old which ranged from the Byzantine to Baroque periods and, he had further explained to her as they walked together, that the church always felt less of a museum more like an active part of the neighborhood.
“Like our Mosques back home,” Nara responded trying to show him she understood.
“Yes, Darling,” he answered with a smile followed by passionate kiss, their tenth of the day, and again earning a “Bella Bambina” or “Molto benne” in admiration from the male Italian residents of Venice every time he did.
Walking into the Church he immediately spotted Father Umberto Amersini.
He caught sight of Thomas at the same time and quickly walked briskly towards him beaming and shouting out loud, “Thomas! It is so good to see you again my son,” he said in Italian to him as they hugged each other.