Scarred by You Page 19

  “My money,” she snaps.

  Caspar sits up, pulls off his condom, and covers himself with the duvet. He opens the drawer of his beside cabinet. I brace myself for a weapon, but he pulls out a wad of notes and throws them at the woman, who collects them from the floor and dashes out of the room.

  I calmly take a seat at the foot of Caspar’s bed and hold up the knife.

  “The rumours are true. You, a Layton. And a Cross.” He laughs, a sound that reverberates in the room. “The irony.”

  “I think this is yours. I wanted to make sure you got it back.” I throw the knife with as much force as I have. It lands right where I want it to, in the leather headboard, about four inches from Caspar’s head. If I’d missed, right now I’d only have been sorry if it landed further away from his skull.

  I rush to him before he has a chance to shift from startled into action. I have no idea what I’m going to do until I’m holding the point of the knife to the middle of his throat, pricking the flesh just enough to make his eyes bulge with terror.

  “You pick a fight with Dayna, you pick a fight with me. I’m a lot bigger and a damn sight more reckless. You don’t want to fuck with me, Kahn.”

  I move the knife back a touch and he speaks. “This is new. A Layton defending a Cross rather than wanting to end one.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  He chortles. Short. Sharp. “I wonder how Harold would feel about this.”

  “Harold isn’t the head of Layton Oil anymore. I am. And I’m warning you to stay away from her.”

  “Harold might be willing to lose that well to me, Clark, but I’m certain he won’t want to lose to a Cross. If you have a hand in making that happen, I’d say it’s you who should be warned. And I might not be able to touch her now, but if she wins my well, her time will come.”

  I hold the knife to his throat again and I push, watching his flesh stretch as it bends under the tip of the blade.

  Then I smack my other fist into his cheek, sending his head whipping back against the bed, his eye socket immediately swelling.

  I throw the knife onto the floor. “Your time will come long before hers if I get so much as a hint that you’re going near her.” I get in his face and hold his head up by the throat. “I will end you.”

  I leave him there, quivering, but I know this isn’t over. Dayna can’t submit an alternative bid. Her life means more to me than any well or whatever revenge she thinks she needs.

  How do I convince her?

  I head back to her room and quietly slip inside. She still sleeps. Peaceful. Beautiful.

  I take off my blazer, socks and shoes, and lie on top of the duvet next to her. She hums contentedly and whispers my name, reaching out a hand to touch my chest.

  “I’m here, baby,” I whisper, shuffling onto my side and pulling her into me, her back to my chest. She takes my hand and pulls it across her stomach.

  Finally, my adrenaline wanes enough to let me lie still, wrapped around her. If it weren’t for the duvet between us, and the fact I have too much to work out before I can sleep, I’d think this night ended perfectly.

  AT SOME POINT I must have fallen asleep, because I wake to the most exquisite sight I could ask for. Dayna is propped up on her elbow, facing me, watching me. I must have wormed under the covers during the night because I’m just inches from her, and my cock is betraying my lack of mental restraint.

  “Thank you for last night,” she whispers.

  I reach out to her cheek, which actually doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would — red, but not purple and angry like I expected. “How do you feel today?”

  “Better. I’m sorry you had to see me like that. I’ve got a handle on things now. I’m thinking more rationally.”

  I sigh in relief. “Good. There’ll be another opportunity out here, and the industry might have stabilised by that time so you can take advantage alone.”

  She leans back, her eyebrows scrunched. “I’m still bidding for the well. I’m not letting Kahn intimidate me.”

  The noise I make is somewhere between a groan and an animal crying for help. I sit up on the edge of the bed and rest my forearms on my knees. “Dayna, you can’t do this. It’s dangerous. Do you really want to end up the same way as your father? Is that what you want?”

  She sits up, cross-legged. “How can you say that to me?”

  I stand and start pacing the floor. “Because someone needs to tell you to stop behaving like a fool. I won’t see you hurt, Dayna. I refuse to let this happen.”

  I expect her to shout in retort. She doesn’t. She plays with her fingers in her lap, and she looks so vulnerable I want to wrap her up and keep her here, with me, away from everything in the world that could harm her, forever.

  “You can’t stop me.” Her words have no conviction. She knows this is madness. I just need to figure out another way to get through to her.

  “When are you going back to London?” I ask, thinking on my feet.

  “This afternoon.”

  “I have a few meetings here today, but I’d like you to stay. Let me take you to dinner tonight.”

  She lifts her head. “I can’t. I have to get back to SP.”

  “The company can run with you here. That’s not an excuse.”

  “Well, I also don’t think it would be a good idea. After the weekend and last night.”

  “It’s just dinner with a friend. Please.”

  JUST DINNER WITH a friend. That’s what I’ve agreed to.

  So why do I feel like I did when I was waiting for Clark to pick me up and take me on our first official date four years ago?

  I’d stayed longer than anticipated at Teddy’s drinks, the night we first met. But I hadn’t expected to meet a man whose smile could floor me, whose scent took over my senses, whose smooth voice gave me chills. I hadn’t known I’d meet Clark Layton.

  We’d had a perfect night that ended too soon. I remember fiddling with my fingers in my lap as we took a cab home together. Clark said he just didn’t want me to make my way home alone, but I still wondered whether he might want to come up to my apartment. I knew his reputation, after all.

  I climbed out of the cab outside my apartment, nervously biting my lip, waiting for him to make the first move and stop me from feeling so stupid. He got out of the cab behind me and caught my hand as I started walking to my apartment block. I turned back to him. Part of me wanted to invite him in. Part of me knew, as I had in the first moment we met, that this could be more, so much more than one casual night.

  “I don’t want to come up,” he said. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

  I looked across his shoulder at the cab driver, who was watching us anxiously. We hadn’t paid the fare, but Clark had left the door open, letting the driver know he was coming back, letting me know his words were as serious as the look on his face. He wasn’t coming in.

  “But I’d like to kiss you,” he said.

  I swallowed hard as I took a step towards him, my stomach knotted with anticipation. I’d thought about feeling his lips against mine for the last few hours.

  He tugged my hand, pulling me into him, his thigh gently pressed between my legs, putting pressure right where I was becoming desperate to feel him. He moved me closer, his palm on the small of my back, until I was arched against him, my body moulding to his. I licked my dry lips and let them part as he gripped my nape. When his mouth met mine, his soft flesh sent heat through every nerve in my body. I felt his kiss everywhere. In every limb. Between my thighs.

  I moaned when his tongue brushed mine. His grip tightened on my neck, and I felt him harden under his trousers. Then he pulled away.

  “You have no idea how hard it is for me to walk away from you right now,” he all but growled.

  “I think I do,” I said, taking a cheeky glance at his swollen crotch. He laughed all the way back to the cab.

  “What are you doing tomorrow evening?” he asked, his hand braced on the cab door.

&n
bsp; I shrugged, not wanting to tell him I had no plans, but wanting to tell him I had no plans.

  “I’m taking you to dinner. Be ready at eight.”

  He climbed into the cab without waiting for my response.

  “Goodnight, Clark Layton,” I’d whispered through a smile.

  The next night I was in my LBD, pacing the floor at seven fifty-five, apprehensive as I waited for him to pick me up for our first date, not knowing if I was over or under-dressed.

  “Would you stop already? You’re making me dizzy,” Rachel said through a mouthful of ice cream.

  She was midway through the tub, her legs curled under her, as she watched My Best Friend’s Wedding, mildly huffed because I’d bailed on our night out with a promise to make it up to her. It wasn’t a complete ditch. We used to have the same night out every Saturday. We were each other’s plan B, and if one or both of us couldn’t be bothered to go out, we’d stay in and binge-eat ice cream.

  “Do you think I’m too dressed up? Maybe I should have gone with the—”

  The honk of a car horn cut me off.

  “That’s your dinner date,” Rachel sang.

  “Fuck.”

  “Oh, stop. Think of it like dinner with a friend. Honestly, I’ve never known you be so jittery.”

  Nor had I ever been so edgy. But I’d also never felt every hair on my body stand on end under a man’s touch before.

  Clark was holding the door to the black cab open, wearing a blue blazer over a white shirt and dark jeans. My heart started racing, and for a moment I forgot how to walk.

  “Dayna,” he said with that smile I thought I’d maybe dreamt from the night before.

  “Clark.”

  “You look… phenomenal.”

  I felt myself blushing as I climbed into the cab. Clark instructed the driver to head to a restaurant in Mayfair then sat back into the seat next to me.

  We made small talk. It didn’t feel quite as easy as the night before. I was anxious, but I was calmer by the time the cab stopped. Clark paid the driver and climbed out first, turning to offer me a hand. When I placed my hand in his I knew the spark I’d felt the previous night was real. It was there then, in our touch, like a charge through my veins.

  I stepped onto the street and looked up at the restaurant.

  Shit.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing. It’s great.” I faked a smile. “Okay, I… I don’t think I like oysters.”

  He laughed, hard, so hard I wondered if he was relieving his own anxiety, despite looking cool and calm. “I brought you to an oyster bar and you don’t like oysters.”

  I giggled nervously. “Well, I don’t think I do.”

  “Okay, and that means what, exactly?”

  “I had one once and thought it felt like cold mucus sliding down my throat. I gagged, maybe, a little.”

  One side of his mouth curved. He was… beautiful. “Well, maybe I can change your mind. Would you let me try?”

  I bit my lip, thinking — knowing — I’d let him try anything. I nodded and let him lead me to the restaurant.

  The venue was plush. White walls seemed never ending as they drew up to high ceilings and elaborate retro lighting — frosted glass cylinders hanging from wires. Blossom trees, somehow real, decorated the periphery of the room, in full bloom. A subtle scent of jasmine almost entirely masked the smell of the sea. The menus at the bar were crusted with shards of broken mirrors. I wondered if he’d wined and dined women here before.

  We were seated at the oyster bar and a waiter took my coat and Clark’s blazer. His shirt was unbuttoned by three, his sleeves rolled back to his elbows. Right then I regretted that I hadn’t invited him in last night. I was dying to know what was under those clothes.

  Clark chose a bottle of white wine and ordered a selection of oysters. He took over, clearly on a mission to convince me I did like the slippery things. I watched him the entire time, noticing how the vein in his neck thickened when he was thinking, how his Adam’s apple moved gracefully under his thin layer of stubble as he tasted the wine.

  “Alright, connoisseur, fix this philistine,” I said when the waiter placed two plates of six oysters in front of us. Six different flavours, two of each.

  Clark turned my stool and pulled me closer to him, planting a foot next to mine on the rim, his knee pressed against my thigh. I forced my thoughts away from the things that slight touch did to my impatient insides.

  “Six attempts. If I can’t convince you with any of these, I promise that next time you can choose where we go.”

  “Next time? Getting ahead of yourself a tad, aren’t you?”

  He ignored me, focussing on the oysters and selecting a plain-looking one. I definitely wanted a next time. He lifted my chin so my head was angled back slightly. I opened my mouth, waiting. He tipped the oyster shell, and I swallowed the fish in one gulp. Lemon juice ran down my chin. Before I got to it with a napkin, Clark leaned in and sucked the juice from me, slowly, tenderly, in a way that made me totally, completely, utterly wet in my thong.

  He rubbed his own mouth and sucked the citrus from the tip of his finger. “In answer to your question, no. I don’t think I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ve been watching every move I make since we came in here, and if you felt an ounce of what I felt when we kissed last night, I’d say there’ll be another date, and another after that.” He winked, and I thought I might come, right there on my perch.

  I managed the oysters, washing them down quickly with wine. I confessed the one with bacon and cheese topping wasn’t too bad. Mostly because I could only taste cheese and bacon.

  “Was this an epic fail?” he asked through a half-smile.

  I shook my head. “I had fun. But maybe I’ll pick dessert.”

  Clark paid the bill, and I hailed a cab.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

  “Wait and see.”

  The cab dropped us at a frozen yoghurt café by the river.

  “You are joking? It’s ten degrees out here and you want frozen yoghurt?” he asked, following me into the café, where only five people were sitting.

  “If you behave I’ll help warm you back up.”

  I squealed as he grabbed my waist and hoisted me up from the floor, carrying me over his shoulder to the counter. “I’m in.”

  With two large pots of frozen yoghurt, we walked by the Thames, under the street lights, across bridges to the south side of the river and back to the north side. We talked about everything from sports — his love of them, my ambivalence — to theatre, holidays, the oil industry. I had no idea what time it was or how long we’d been wandering, and I didn’t care.

  That night, things ended well. Tonight, we really are just two friends going to dinner.

  I need to remember that.

  MY CAB DRIVES the main through-route of downtown Dubai. The road is flanked by rows of palm trees, each lit up by twinkling lights. We pull under a sandstone archway and into the forecourt of what looks like a palace. The driver draws a half-circle around an extravagant six-tier water fountain and pulls up to the entrance. A doorman helps me out, and I step onto a red carpet that leads me under a trellis roof. Candle lanterns flicker either side of the walkway. Fish swim in a small moat beneath my feet, illuminated by floating candles — pink, purple, white. As grand as the city is, this restaurant is possibly the most majestic place I’ve been in Dubai, possibly in my life.

  A waitress greets me at the arched entrance, her black hair twisted into a bun and held by chopsticks, her red dress buttoned high at the neck and fitted to her petite frame.

  “I have a reservation. Under the name of Layton, I think, Clark Layton.”

  “Yes, Mr Layton is here. May I take your shawl?”

  “Please.” I hand her the chiffon wrap I’d hung over my shoulders, covering the thin straps of my deep blue dress, to prevent being frowned upon by the cab driver and staff. If I’d chosen to arrive with Clark, it wouldn’t have be
en an issue, but I told him I’d meet him here. I made an excuse about work, hoping he wouldn’t see through the façade. In reality, I didn’t want to have him collect me from my room at the hotel as if this is a date.

  “I’ll show you to your table. This way.”

  I follow, my heels clicking against the tiled floor. I’ve been to Dubai countless times and rarely have I sat outside to dine. But tonight, the early-December air is enough to wrap around me and warm my skin without being unbearable.

  “Mr Layton requested a table by the water,” the waitress informs me.

  I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of him at a table for two on the veranda, the Burj Khalifa towering behind him. He leans back in his chair, slightly angled towards the view of the world’s tallest building. The top two buttons of his pale-blue shirt are unbuttoned under his blazer. My stomach tightens, and I feel sick with nerves. This is not a date.

  “Miss, just here.”

  Clark turns and runs his eyes quickly from my head to my toes. His lips turn into an earth-shattering smile. He stands to kiss my cheek. I hold his shoulders to steady myself as his lips meet my skin. I breathe him in, with no intention of moving out of his hold. Falling in love with him feels like just yesterday. The first look, the first touch, the first kiss, the first time he made love to me like no other man had ever done.

  I knew this was a bad idea.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispers.

  I’m falling for you all over again. And I can’t.

  I clear my throat, hopefully loud enough that he can’t hear my inner dark angel yearning for him, and sit down. A waiter puts two exquisite-looking cocktails down on the table — pale yellow topped with a purple flower.

  “I hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of ordering you a lychee cocktail,” Clark says. “They’re fantastic here.”

  “You’ve been before?” I ask, unreasonably wounded and jealous that he might have been here with another woman in the past.

  I laugh internally. Two weeks ago he was supposed to be married.