Fragile Crystal: Rubies and Rivalries (The Crystal Fragments Trilogy) (27 page)

She no longer looked like Karen Stone.

Behind her, Daniel nodded as though he had read her thoughts. Bending, he kissed her softly—chastely even—on the cheek. “Come on,” he said. “We better get you to a hospital.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

They had to make their way to the hospital in a taxi. When he had left Cascais for London, Daniel had resolved never to return and plans were already underway to sell the villa, there being no shortage of potential buyers. Filipe had also already found employment, encouraged by Daniel who did not think it right to pull back his driver at a former whim when he had been responsible for the sudden change of employment.

“I’m sure he would have come back if you’d asked him, even if only for a couple of jobs.”

“I’m sure he would have as well.” Daniel’s hands were unconsciously gripping the edge of the seat as they were driven along, the taxi stopping and starting at lights, jerking back and forth as the driver raised his hands in the universal sign cursing the incompetence of others. Kris rested one of her hands on his knee, squeezing it affectionately. He smiled and continued: “The point was, however, I’d told him that he would have to look for another job. There was no rush—not for any of them—but Filipe is well known.”

“For his driving?”

“For his discretion.” Daniel gave a low laugh at this and looked out of the window. Kris looked at him for a moment, then turned and faced the city as it flashed by her. She raised one hand to her head: it felt strange having such short hair—and it occurred to her that the last time that she had been shorn this close was during her tomboy phase as a child. Daniel was not going to win any awards for his stylist techniques, but at the same time it felt refreshing and free.

“And what did you need to keep discrete?” she asked him finally, turning her head back to him.

“I think both of us had secrets— he began to say, but she lifted a finger to his lips.

“No more of that, Mister Stone. I had one secret—yes, one I’m bloody well ashamed of. But that was it. One fucking secret. A big one, and if I’m honest I probably wouldn’t have forgiven you for the same. But what about you? What are you hiding?”

He blushed at this, then shrugged and looked away from her again. “Too much, but probably not the secrets you were thinking of.”

Kris watched him intently, tracing the line of his neck, where it joined the muscles of his shoulder, the fine shape of his ear and the hairline above it, slightly ragged like the shadow of a beard that was growing along his jaw line.

“We’ve hidden a lot from each other. Too much. No wonder we haven’t trusted each other.”

This made him turn around in surprise. “I trusted you!” he protested.

“No you didn’t.” She was calm as she watched him. “Who did you meet in Monaco?” she asked simply.

“It’s not what you think,” he replied. “As I said, it was a financier—

“How do you know what I think, Daniel?” Her voice was calm, but the determination within it was clear to him, and the look of surprise on his face told volumes. He was a man who was not used to being talked to in this way. Strange, thought Kris. This must be what it feels like to be a mother.

He blushed. “I have had to spin some tangled webs recently,” he confessed at last. “Felix is set against me, and there’s a tussle on the board.” He shrugged. “I never thought you were interested in the business side.”

“Perhaps I’m not, not really if the truth be told. But I am interested in you, and I can see how this has been affecting you. You’ve been hiding too much from me. It can’t go on.”

“We’ve hidden too much from each other,” he said bitterly.

“Daniel Stone!” Her voice was sharp, more like that of his old teacher, which made him flinch without even realising it. “Weren’t you listening? I had one secret—one, fucking secret that ate me up. You know all about it, every last gory, disgusting detail. Maria Gosselin made sure of that, though I’m intrigued as to what she left out.”

“Such as?” he asked, cautious of her mood.

“Did she tell you that I visited her in Paris, or that she came to see me in Alfama?”

He looked surprised at this. “No, did you...”

“No, I fucking well did not. I went to Paris because I was trying to find out what was going on in Monaco—and I must admit, I was curious as to the... others who have been in a similar position to me and... that woman. When she came to Lisbon again, it was to make the stupidest fucking proposal that I’ve ever heard.”

He was frowning now. “What was that?”

“That I should fuck you
and
her. She’s obsessed with you, Daniel. All this stuff about being the lawyer you should trust most—she’d do anything, and I mean
anything
, to get you back.”

He nodded solemnly. “I was blind,” he said at last. “Blind to too many things. I only saw some things clearly when you left—

“When you kicked me out, you mean. I haven’t forgotten
that
, nor forgiven you for it yet.”

He ignored this. “When you... were gone, I saw some things clearly for the first time.”

“What changed your mind?” she asked, her tone softening.

“You have had to forgive me twice—at least, for... serious mistakes on my part. There are probably plenty of more times as well. But the one time that I had to forgive you, my pride wouldn’t let me...” He continued to look out the window, his voice trailing away.

She squeezed his hand gently. “Come on, we’re at the hospital now. Let’s go and get my foot sorted out and you can take me for a meal. I’m bloody starving!”

Kris had explained away the cuts as a result of New Year’s Eve excesses, which in its own way was an accurate reflection of events. The doctor had fussed over her and reprimanded her for allowing the infection to spread, but also told her that with antibiotics and rest she was unlikely to suffer any long term damage. In truth, even though the nature of it was rather stern she rather enjoyed the attention.

“I seem to be destined to spend my life in hospitals with you Mister Stone. Which one of us is the impediment, I wonder?”

He smiled, providing an arm to support her and raising a hand to call for a taxi. “Where do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Somewhere that isn’t too fancy, and quiet. We need to talk.”

She directed him to a traditional restaurant that had very few visitors at this time of year. Both of them gave a slightly horrified look when shown the wine menu, a fact that made them both laugh as they ordered. “I do believe we should set up a branch of Methodism here,” Daniel observed wryly. “The Portuguese will wonder what has hit them.”

“So you intend to stay?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet. I have to spend far too much time in London and New York, and Felix insists that I also should be in China much more.”

“I thought Felix was trying to screw you? Why should you do as he says?”

“Oh, whenever you hold the knife to someone’s back in my business, you smile sweetly in their face and shake their hand so that they won’t realise you’re the assassin. I’m a shark, remember, and I swim with sharks.”

Kris nodded slowly. “It was Maria who told me that you were swimming with sharks.”

Daniel’s face darkened at this. “A lot makes sense,” he replied at last. “Indeed, I can’t believe how blind I was for a very long time.”

“About the... others, you mean?”

He smiled, sadly. “Yes.”

“And...?” She paused, waiting.

“Will you come back to me?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. Stop trying to change the subject. Maria told me there were five others, as well as her and myself.”

“Don’t include yourself in that list,” Daniel said, his voice clear and firm. Kris went to object but he raised a hand. “I’m not joking. Yes, there were five after Maria, but before I met you I had not been in anything approaching a relationship for two years. Don’t get me wrong, I had... needs, but these could be dealt with more... efficiently elsewhere.”

“Your club?”

He looked confused for a second, then his face darkened again. “I don’t need to ask you who told you that, but no. Not there. I haven’t been there in... many years.”

“What was it?”

He shook his head. “No, not that. Something from my past—and I mean my
past
. If you must know, in the past two years I would contact escorts—very beautiful women, even charming and witty. There were a couple I would return to. It was... simpler.” He shrugged.

Kris nodded her head slowly. “And recently? Since we met, I mean?”

He looked shocked by this. “No! No—there has been nobody since I met you.”

“I have to trust you Daniel—

It was his turn to interrupt her. “If it’s a matter of fucking around since we’ve been together, I really don’t think I’m the guilty party. There has been nobody else for me. Period.”

She took a deep breath and blushed. “Okay, a low blow, but I deserved it. I did wonder though, what you were thinking when you brought Maria to Lisbon.”

He laughed cynically. “I trusted her. It was as simple as that. I can see how stupid I was now, but that’s the benefit of hindsight. I was losing control of so many things around me, and in some ways Maria has... she’s always been there for me. I took it at face value, but some things make sense now.”

“Like the other... mistresses?”

He nodded. He wasn’t facing her directly now, but half looking over her shoulder, his gaze into the middle distance as he reminisced. “I’d just assumed it was me, that I was incapable of maintaining anything of value, so... I just gave up in the end. And Maria was always there to console me afterwards.”

“Sexually?” Kris’s voice trembled a little as she said the word, and she felt a stabbing pain in her stomach.

He shook his head and turned his hazel eyes towards her, staring at her fully. “No, never. That had finished a long time before. She and I were... incompatible.”

“She told me that you... made her do terrible things, that you corrupted her.”

He gave a wry smile and looked downwards for a moment. “There was never a young woman so eager to be corrupted as Maria Gosselin,” he said quietly. “You know what she’s capable of.” His eyes flashed upwards as he said this and Kris shuddered for a moment.

Both of them looked away and then, after a while, he continued. “She was twenty-four, or twenty-five. I was, what, five years older? It was a year after Karen had died, and that had been... a terrible year for me. I nearly lost it—everything. The business, my mind... everything. I met this young woman, beautiful, very beautiful, and smarter than anyone else I’d ever seen before. She saw... potential in me.”

He was still not looking at Kris but rather gazing through the window, summoning up memories from his past, dredging them from the subaltern banks of his mind.

“It was she who suggested the contract—the value of a legalistic mind, I suppose. She outlined certain things she was not willing to do.”

“Such as?”

“No permanent disfigurement or damage, no broken limbs or the suchlike. No animals, no children.”

“Daniel!”

“This was her idea, not mine. To be honest, yes, I can be... aggressive. And I won’t lie, the thought of dominating a beautiful young woman so completely was exciting. But... it was too open-ended, shall we say. It felt more like a pact with the devil.

“I don’t even know if she enjoyed it particularly. I suppose she was always a fantasist. She had read that this was how she was meant to behave and so... and so we did the things we did. Certainly I got less pleasure from them than I thought I would.”

“How did it end?”

“With greater difficulty than you can imagine.” The evident sincerity with which he said this made Kris almost laugh. “That bloody contract! Fortunately for me, in the two years we were together I was making leaps and bounds—with her support, or perhaps her goading me on would be a better way of putting it.”

“Gala Dali to your Salvador,” muttered Kris ironically.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter, go on, please.”

He nodded. “When we had met, I was wealthy, yes. A millionaire even, but so what? That’s small fry in the world in which I was moving. By the time I made my first hundred million, then two, then I began to realise the old rules didn’t apply any more.”

“So what did you do?”

“I tore the contract up. As simple as that. Made it clear I didn’t need her anymore—if she wanted, she could sue me, but by that stage she realised I’d unleash a legalistic hellfire upon her.”

“And yet... yet you stayed in touch?”

Daniel smiled and looked sad for a moment. “I’m not a complete monster. You know, for a while I even believed I was in love with her.”

“She’s besotted with you.”

He nodded, again smiling sadly. “Perhaps. No, okay, I realise she is. I was wilfully blind to it before. I should have cut her loose completely—I could move on but... she couldn’t. In any case, she seemed to recover pretty quickly, and she was... well, she was useful. I trusted her.” He shrugged. “It sounds stupid, I know, but there are so few people I trust. She was one of them. Wrongly as it happens.”

She reached across and touched his hand. “That’s what we’ve been missing, hasn’t it? Trust.”

He frowned at this. “I trusted you completely, that’s why it hurt so much when I found out.”

She shook her head. “No you didn’t, Daniel. You trusted me not to... not to have sex with anyone else, and I’m sorry I let you down on that. But no, you didn’t trust me with the other stuff—and in many ways that was more important.”

He nodded slowly.

“Oh, by the way,” she said suddenly. “I understand you got rid of Jorge.”

“Yes. After you’d... left, I called in all the staff. I found he had been far too indiscrete.”

“I could have told you that. Was she paying him?”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Honestly, I think it was far more innocent than that. Jorge is simply one of those men who like to talk, and when I leave him in the company of a beautiful young woman...” He shrugged.

Kris was nodding her head slowly. “I understand. But it wasn’t his fault, not really. You should hire him again, if he hasn’t managed to find any work.”