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“Dr Cavendish mentioned something about rhinos,” I recalled.
“Oh man. When she breaks out the safari comparisons, that’s a sign we had to go deep.” Luis gave a soft laugh. “At least it’s not at the ‘herd of wildebeest’ stage. That’s when you know we’re in trouble. Seriously though, he’s in safe hands.”
I took a deep breath and managed an entirely civilised ‘Thank you’ without embarrassing myself any further, then turned back to Finn and brushed his hair from his bloodied and bruised forehead so I could place a gentle kiss there. He didn’t stir. “I’ll see you soon sweetheart, I promise,” I assured him, aching to say so much more. I left the room without looking back.
To my surprise Nat was still waiting for me in reception, slumped in one of the vast mahogany and leather chairs that helped to give the place its air of an upmarket boutique hotel.
I walked over to him and gently shook his shoulder. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, thank you. For being here. For waiting. It must have been a long night for you.”
“Oh Jesus, I was hardly going to leave you to get a taxi home alone, Lilith. Not tonight.” He stood to meet me. “How is he?”
I shook my head. “Not good. Tied to the bed, drugged into oblivion. I think ‘Minus square one’ would be an accurate description.”
Nat groaned. “I am so sorry. For all of this. For Vanessa, and what she said, and what it did to him. This is the last thing I expected, you do know that, don’t you? I thought I’d got it right, checked everything out a hundred times so he’d be safe, and all that time she was just waiting for the chance to make a few Euros from whichever bottom-feeders bought the story. I mean, everything he’s been through, and the guy’s a mate…”
He looked as though he anticipated getting kicked across the room. In another lifetime, I would have done just that. Instead, I threw my arms around him.
“It wasn’t you, Nat,” I said. “You did everything you could. It wasn’t you.”
To my dismay he had to fight back tears of his own before he could speak. “I expected fury,” he said softly as he held me. “I could have dealt with fury.”
“Sorry. I’ll bear that in mind for next time, okay? Maybe smack you into that aquarium over there, just for old times’ sake.”
Nat attempted a smile. “Yeah. That would actually be more bearable.”
I hugged him again. “Oh God, this isn’t how it should have gone, Nat. Not for any of us. You deserved a happy bloody birthday party, and a date who didn’t need MI5 security clearance, and Finn, he deserved… Sod it. It’s not even worth saying, is it? It’s just one colossal clusterfuck.”
“Yup, a clusterfuck. That just about sums it up. Come on, lovely.” He put his arm around my shoulders and began to walk me to the door. “Let’s get you home.”
*****
As the taxi approached my apartment, I finally dared ask the question that had been on my lips since we left the clinica. “Do you think there’ll be any trouble about what happened at the bar?”
Nat shook his head. “Nah. I already called Ben. She was still pretty tempted to finish off the job you’d started with Vanessa, so she’s more than happy to swear that she slipped and landed on her face – oh, and she also told me to tell you that her boys spent a couple of hours catching up with a load of the dickheads who were taking shots of the drama and ‘persuaded’ them to delete – and if there’s any stupidity about taking this any further I don’t think Daddy Dearest would want to hear about his little princess’s predilection for smoking high-grade skunk in the nude on his roof terrace.”
My shoulders dropped with relief and I scrubbed at my grit-filled eyes with my fists. “I should feel guilty. Lies and blackmail – more Blaine’s territory than ours…”
“No!” Nat hit the back of the passenger seat with the heel of his hand, and his jaw tensed in a rare flash of anger. “You are not Blaine. Not that bitch. You’re not her. Nothing like. This is to protect a bloody good man, Lilith. You’ve got a long, long way to fall before you ever hit her level.”
I gave him a tired smile as we pulled up at my front door, and I leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s good to know one of us believes that. Thanks for the escort.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” Nat asked. “I can stay with you for a bit, if you want; kip on your sofa.”
For a moment I was tempted, but I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’ve got to sort out my strategy for tomorrow, and you’ve got work in the morning – go and get your beauty sleep. You’ve had something of a night of it yourself.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Nat said. “And you know where I am if you need anything at all. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I know. Go home. Sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I shut the door on Nat and realised that for the first time in my adult life, I didn’t actually have a strategy. No plan to at least begin to claw back control, no idea how to move forward by a single step; no idea if that was even possible, now.
We were too many leagues beyond the end of the fairytale: the prince had been rescued from his tower, the wicked witch defeated, and yet the fragile myth of our Happily Ever After had just burned to ash in the glowing braziers of the Plaza del Cristo.
I stood in the vaulted hallway of my apartment, in the suffocating, towering solitude I had so recently thought was my ideal life, and felt my world begin to collapse around me. I felt more like the bereaved fifteen year-old child who’d returned to a desolate council flat than the independent, successful artist I’d gone on to be. My current surroundings may have been considerably more luxurious than the night my mother had died, but once again I was exhausted, scared, and utterly alone.
A great tidal wave of self-pity brought me to my knees on the cold marble tiles, and I fought against the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm me as I rooted through my handbag for my phone. With a trembling hand I scrolled through the address book, and before I had chance to change my mind, I pressed dial.
As soon as I heard the dialling tone I lost my nerve. I was just about to hit ‘end call’ when there was a soft click on the other end of the line. “‘Lo?” a sleepy female voice said, and I glanced at the clock on the display. Three in the morning, which meant that it would be four o’clock in England.
