Fragile Crystal: Rubies and Rivalries (The Crystal Fragments Trilogy) (16 page)

And as she looked around, she remembered him taking her over the breakfast bar. And there, in front of the window, where he had held her down and penetrated her. That chair, where she had been tied up and roughly used. And the bedroom. What had they
not
done in the bedroom? She giggled as she glanced from lascivious memory to lewd recollection.

“What are you so happy about?” Daniel asked, bringing her a glass of wine and a water for himself.

She shook her head as he passed it to her and instead reached for the water. She had avoided drink since… that night. There were limits to losing control, and she didn’t want to experience that loss of self again for a very, very long time.

Daniel was surprised at this, but she simply took a sip of the water and placed it on the side before hugging him, nearly making him spill the wine down himself as he cried out in mock anger.

“You’re not really mad with me, are you?” she asked, looking up at him, her eyes twinkling.

“Not at all,” he told her. “By the way, before I forget. I know it’s not your birthday for another couple of weeks, but there’s something I have for you. I found it in New York and, quite frankly, I can’t wait any longer.”

“Oh, goodie!” Kris released him and clapped her hands. In truth, however, she was slightly nervous. The last gift Daniel had made a point of giving her had been more a chain than the exquisite piece of jewellery that he had intended it to be.

He returned with a box nearly a foot in length and half that in its depth and breadth. It was plain and white. “I nearly brought it out to Portugal,” he told her, “but at that point I was still making a pretence that this was going to be a birthday gift. Don’t worry about that,” he told her reassuringly. “I still have something planned on that score.”

Frowning slightly, Kris took the box from his hands. It was heavier, much heavier than she had expected. “Be careful,” Daniel told her. “I don’t think it’s
that
delicate, but I would hate it to break.”

Curiouser and Curiouser thought Kris. Placing the box on the table, she stared at its smooth, white surfaces for a moment. There was something embossed on it, but she could not quite read the monogram clearly and, in any case, it meant nothing to her. She had thought it was card at first, but then realised it was finely polished wood. Expensive.

The line at the bottom of the box indicated that it was a case of some sort and, very carefully, she lifted it up.

Beneath that white sheathe was another polished object, of honey gold wood with a tear-shaped eyelet carved through it. Across the space, thin spindles of brass ran from one side to another, and about a third of the way down the dome-shaped wood a piece of stone—quartz or some other crystal, equally polished as the wood—had been set.

“It’s beautiful,” she said at last, very quietly. That sculpture, not large but so fine, so subtle, brought back a thousand memories to her.

“You recognise it?” he asked.

She did not answer, but nodded her head. For a little while she simply couldn’t speak. Instead, she had a memory, herself perhaps not ten years old, looking up at Edward Avelar as he smiled at her. He was sitting at a workbench in the old, tatty studio that he hired to create his sculptures. The piece that he had on his bench, among all the chisels and awls and other tools, was smaller than the large lumps of stone, most of them unfinished, that were scattered around the studio. That was the Avelar curse, she knew: why should she ever give a title to her own works, other than
unfinished
,
untitled
.

This one had been different, however. “I’m making this for someone in America,” he had told her. “She likes my work, and wants something not too fancy for herself.” He had lifted her up onto his lap, his hands rough against her skin. There was the smell of oil and wood and a slightly smoky, burning scent that overlaid the familiar scent of alcohol. She had liked the smell of him that day.

“I like how the quartz is set into the wood,” Daniel said, gesturing to it as her fingers stroked the silky smooth texture of the wood.

“It’s amethyst,” she said. “Not a particularly fine piece of rock, but he ground it down, polished it.”

Daniel nodded, but for a few seconds she did not notice him. Her fingers were tracing each substance, each material, and when she moved from stone to wood to metal another memory was released. There were tears forming in her eyes, and her smile was joyful as she finally looked at him.

“Thank you,” she said, throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissing him again and again and again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“It was nothing,” he said, almost shyly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you, but Edward Avelar does not command a high price, though tracking down a completed piece was a task and a half.”

“The Avelar curse. It doesn’t matter what it cost you in money. I’d pay every penny of it back. To me, it’s priceless, but you know that, don’t you.”

He nodded his head, sombrely. “I do,” he replied.

“I love you,” she told him, kissing him again and pressing her face against his chest.

He kissed the top of her head. “I love you too,” he whispered.

For a day she was lost in her memories, and when she emerged from them it was simply to make love to Daniel again and again and again. This was soft and gentle. He had some knowledge of what he had released in her, and the tenderness with which he touched her was everything she needed at that point. If she had expected a reprise of their orgiastic flinging at each other when she returned to London, this was very different. Indeed, though he did not talk about them much, she was sure that when he watched her looking at her father’s sculpture his mind was filled with memories of his own parents.

And so although she was not necessarily glad to be back in London, she was more grateful than ever to Daniel. For a day, she was happier and more at peace than she had been for a long time.

Which was why, when they started again the day after, the messages were even more painful than they had been before.

Some were simple texts, but others were missed phone calls. Kris did not respond at first, even turned off her phone so that she would not have to reply. But it left her with a cold feeling of paranoia. At first, they were insistent and repetitive:
Call me, please
, or
Why are you ignoring me?
She did not dare answer, but then an abusive tone, something mocking entered into the texts she received.

I remember your taste, how sweet it was when I fucked you with my mouth, my fingers in your ass.
When she read that, Kris frowned. It was childish, stupid. What on earth was this woman doing? Indeed, after a couple more like this, she was tempted simply to block Maria Gosselin. Kris did, indeed, remember more than she cared to admit, but it had been a stupid mistake, a one night stand.

The final message, however, the one that forced her to respond, made her blood run cold.

Answer me, bitch, or I’ll tell him everything
.

For half an hour after that one, Kris sat looking at her phone. Daniel, fortunately, had some business to attend to and she was on her own in the apartment. She felt sick in her stomach. What was wrong with this woman? From what Daniel had told her, Maria had been perfectly civilised when he had sent Jorge with her to the airport, and the last day that he had been with her at Chiado Shipping she had been nothing less than professional. And now here she was sending texts to
her
like some crazy bunny boiler.

What she didn’t want to do, however, was to spoil everything—
anything
—with Daniel. Finally she dialled the number.

“And at last you reply.” Maria had answered almost immediately. “I thought you would. Even you know when you’re onto a good thing.”

“Why are you doing this?” Kris hissed into the phone. “Why don’t you leave me alone, for fuck’s sake?” She had intended to be cool, calm, collected, but her barriers had immediately collapsed as soon as she heard Maria on the other end.

This elicited a laugh from her tormentor. “Keeping your voice down? Is
he
there?”

“No he’s not! You don’t think I’d be having this conversation with you if Daniel was in the room. Why don’t you leave me alone—leave us alone?”

Another laugh. “You really don’t know him, do you. You don’t
know
what he’s capable of, what he’ll demand of you. If you’re not his slave yet, don’t kid yourself you’re his mistress. You’re just his whore, and he’ll take what he wants soon enough. He’ll pay well, but that’s all you are.”

Without interrupting this tirade, Kris could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Is that it?” she asked at last. “Are you jealous? Is that fucking it? Why don’t you leave me alone?” She had been prepared to launch into an attack all of her own, to tell Maria that
she
was the one who didn’t understand Daniel Stone, let alone Daniel Logan. In the end, however, she could not be bothered. The woman was clearly crazy.

Her reply, however, threw her.

“It’s not what you think,” Maria replied. “When first I came to Lisbon, I was glad to see Daniel, of course. I won’t lie. I’ve never entirely lost my feelings for him. But… you don’t get it, do you.”

Kris was about to speak but said nothing. She was only listening this to keep a secret, so that Daniel wouldn’t find out. At last, she released an exasperated sigh.

“You don’t get it Kris. I’ve often… played these games, of submission and domination. But that’s what it is, Play acting. For both parties. Even… even in the most… perverse situations.”

“I don’t really want to hear about your sexual problems,” Kris muttered sarcastically. This was more than enough.

“Wait! Don’t hang up. I just want to say this, and then think about it for a while, but I need to know, I need to speak to you. You… you don’t fake it, Kris.”

“Oh, stop calling me that! Did I tell you you could call me that?”

“I’m sorry.” There was something weird about Maria’s tone, and though Kris couldn’t put her finger on what it was precisely, it made her feel very strange inside. “You don’t fake it. I just want to let you know that. When you… give yourself, you do it completely. I can understand what Daniel…”

“Don’t you dare mention his name! Don’t you dare fucking mention him! The only reason I’m listening to you now is because you threatened to tell him. What happened that night was a mistake—do you understand? A fucking mistake!”

To her horror, Kris heard the elevator that led to the apartment ping. The doors had not opened yet, but in a moment they would. In a panic, she switched off her phone immediately and went to the window, looking out across the grey, London skyline.

Daniel emerged from the elevator. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “I thought I heard shouting.”

Kris turned and looked at him, as breezily as she could, her arms behind her as she clutched her phone in her hand. “Oh, stupid me,” she said. The lie came almost effortlessly. “I broke something and was mad at myself.”

“Not your father’s…” Daniel’s face was horrified for a moment.

“No! God, no! Just a glass, that’s all!”

She wanted to laugh at the expression on his face, more because it was so sweet than anything. Instead, as he came across to embrace her, she dipped her face to hide from him her desire to cry.

Chapter Fourteen

Fortunately for Kris, over the next week the texts and phone calls began to diminish. Yet every day when Daniel returned from a meeting or event her heart became a heavy stone inside her and her stomach wrenched sickeningly. Was this the day when Maria would reveal what had happened to him?

It felt strange being back in London as well. It had only been a couple of months since she had packed away her old life and moved to Lisbon, but already it felt like a lifetime had passed. One of the things that struck her most was the realization that once she had given up the lease on her old flat there was nothing of
hers
in London anymore. The family home where she had grown up with her father had long been sold, and even trivial things such as her desk at Hardy, Briskin and Sorrell would now have been passed over to someone new.

Not that she was particularly filled with any desire to return to her old place of work. That had been a job, nothing more, sometimes a painful one. In any case, presenting herself would have had unfortunate consequences in that now she was associated with the very wealthy owner of the firm. Whatever sense of victory that would have given her only shortly before was now utterly diminished. Like so many things in London, it was one of the things that had simply been discarded.

What surprised her most, perhaps, was how few friends she wished to visit or see. There were a few acquaintances from her days as a student, but she had drifted away from most of them. She could see clearly now that it had been her own disappointment in herself, her envy even, that had soured those relationships. As for former work colleagues, those mattered as little to her as her old desk at HBS.

When she had first met Daniel—Logan rather than Stone—she had been particularly struck by how misanthropic he had appeared to her, rejecting everyone in his croft at Comrie. His desire for solitude, his dismissal of everyone, had seemed utterly alien to her. Now she realised that for all her consideration of herself as a city girl, she was in fact as much a loner as he. Surrounding yourself with bodies was not the same as surrounding yourself with friends.

There was one person, however, that she missed, one friend who had remained steadfast through the years. When she called on Anne, the one person she still maintained contact with from her days as an art student at Saint Martins, she could not express her own happiness when her friend answered the door, smiling and eager to see you.

“I couldn’t believe it when you phoned,” Anne said, bundling her up the stairs that led to her flat. “I mean, when I found out it was Daniel
Stone
you were seeing… Okay, I must be honest, at first I had no idea of what the name meant, but then I did a quick search and found out that he’s a very wealthy hotshot… Wow! Go into the lounge while I get a drink. Excuse the mess!”