This Other Country (7 page)

Perhaps not so motherly after all.

Then an annoying thought occurred to her—she had probably just had a similar reaction to Ben’s transformation as Nikolas Mikkelsen. Nikolas must also think about Ben’s hair—only
he
still got to smell it and run his fingers through it. He possibly also gazed in awe as the summer sun created edible highlights—or perhaps not. He didn’t seem the type. Fuck, who was she kidding? She saw the way he watched Ben when Ben didn’t know he was being observed. Yeah, he thought about the highlights.

She tried to fix her gaze on Nikolas, who was still questioning her about the flowers—but it was impossible—it reverted to Ben as if drawn by an irresistible force.

She felt a tingle of something down her spine. Not so pleasant. A shiver of warning. Nikolas was a jealous rival. She’d discovered this many times when giving Ben what her boss clearly thought was too much attention. He monitored Ben like a hawk watched prey, which was a trite but very apt analogy, when she thought about it. She knew a great deal about this man who called himself Nikolas Mikkelsen. Killing and eating what he desired wasn’t off his agenda at all.

And what about Ben? What did Ben really think about this change? For all Ben’s protestations about not being vain, she saw all these men in her life very differently to how they apparently saw themselves. Ben not vain? It was laughable. Perhaps to other gay men, with all their associated body obsessions, Ben would appear the affable, self-deprecating nice guy he wanted to be taken for. She’d seen a different side. What had it said about him as a boyfriend that he’d preferred to spend three hours in a gym than in a bed with her? That he’d gone to parties but stood on the sidelines, watching, cautious, unwilling to join in anything. That he had once reacted so violently to her suggesting he wear a costume to a fancy dress party that she’d left him and gone with an old friend, who’d pranced and preened as Superman with no self-consciousness at all. As any other man she knew would have. Not Ben. He’d gone to the gym instead. So he’d said at the time. Ever since, however, she’d wondered. Sometimes Ben had returned from these apparent sessions with a haunted, restless air that contradicted the whole point of his workouts. Now, knowing about Nikolas Mikkelsen, she suspected he’d been working out another way.

Ben had told her once that his relationship with Nikolas had started long after theirs. She knew Ben better than he thought she did, and lying to protect his very, very fragile ego was not impossible. Had he come from Nikolas’s bed to hers? Fuck, from Nikolas’s body to hers? It was an uncomfortable thought that sometimes plagued her in the small hours of the morning.

But did this not entirely prove her point? If Ben were the sweet, kind, simple chap he wanted the world to take him for, he wouldn’t have found whatever he had apparently found in the blond bastard currently trying to read what she was thinking. She knew she was not the only one who pondered Ben and Nikolas’s relationship—what went on when they were on their own. Who did what to whom. And how, come to that.

Nikolas Mikkelsen apparently fed a hunger in Ben that she dimly perceived but didn’t understand.

She sighed. Thwarted, unrequited love was an unattractive companion. Why could she not shake off this man?

But for all his faults, and he had many—what man didn’t—Ben was…Ben was…

“Practise?”

She shook herself, and in reply to Nikolas’s annoyed echo of
practise
, explained, “Pretending to be Nigel, yes? You’re a florist? What if you have to…I don’t know, answer some questions about flowers?”
Oh, God, small victories, but so much fun.

Ben began to snigger and flicked his attention to Nikolas. Kate, pleased that he got the joke but not letting him off the hook either—
think you can choose Nikolas fucking Mikkelsen over me!
—rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a book, thrusting it at him. “Cordon Bleu. Complete home course. Ingredients are being delivered.” She handed another book to Nikolas. “Flowers A-Z.” His expression was priceless. She was a bad, bad woman. She cast a final glance at Ben, whether lovingly or not she would decide later, when thinking other things about Ben, and left them to it.

The room smelt very nice anyway.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nikolas laid the book about flowers very carefully on the counter next to the kettle. “I’m going to lie down.”

Ben was flicking through the incomprehensible book he’d been given and looked up alarmed at this uncharacteristic declaration. The only time he could remember Nikolas saying something similar he’d been sick, hallucinating and suffering from headaches. He stood, instantly worried and put the back of his hand to Nikolas’s forehead. “You okay?”

Nikolas caught his hand and smiled, a small, feral smirk. “I’m not going to lie down alone…I apparently have a stranger to explore.” He brushed his palm over Ben’s hair then captured his mouth, pulling him in tight. Ben got the message when he felt the hardness. He slid his hand down, stroking Nikolas through his jeans. Nikolas began to back him towards the stairs. When Ben’s heels connected with the lowest step, he fell back. Nikolas went with him, lying hard and heavy upon him. By the time they made it to the bedroom, Ben was in a fever of need. His mind had already pictured Nikolas naked; he already felt him deep inside.

Nikolas held him pressed against the wall, however, and shook his head. He brushed an unsteady finger over one of Ben’s eyelids. “Take these things out first.” Ben kissed him, roughly, trying to force him back onto the bed, but Nikolas was adamant. With an annoyed sound, Ben bent and removed the contacts, tossing them. Nikolas then fumbled with the diamond stud. It hurt like crap having it put in and now it stung coming out. Ben winced and held his ear about to protest, but Nikolas pushed him forcibly onto the bed and straddled him. He was rolling the stud between his fingers, staring at Ben.

Ben put a hand tentatively up to Nikolas’s face, ignored his pull away and cupped his cheekbone. “Do you remember when your face was all bashed in?”

Nikolas nodded, and if it hadn’t been too banal for him, Ben knew he’d have added
duh
. “Well, it was still you. Are you really so hung up on the superficial me?” For the first time, it struck Ben the answer to this was probably yes, and he added, far less sure of himself, “If I
had
been burnt in that fire. If my face was all burnt up, would you still love me? Want me?”

“It’s not really fair of you to ask me this, Ben. Who would know the answer to such a thing until it happens?”

“What?” Even though he’d been unsure of himself, he’d been sure of Nikolas, and had expected a violent profession of undying devotion—or Nikolas’s version of that, which was probably a grunt, a slap for stupidity, and then being turned over and fucked.

He tried to sit up, but Nikolas held him down, shifting to sit more comfortably on his favourite place. Desire between them was not gone, but it had certainly dampened a little.

Nikolas pouted. “How can I answer that, Ben?”

“Very easily I’d have thought! I’d still be me! So it’s not me you love but this face? If someone else could take it and put it on, you’d love—?”

“You’re becoming hysterical, stop—”

“This isn’t hysteria! This is fucking anger. Get off me!”

§ § §

“Ben, listen.” Nikolas avoided the punch and held Ben’s hand. “Please.” That always worked. It was one of the reasons he used it so rarely. “If you were burnt like that, do you think you would be the same person?”

“Of course I would!”

“Then you’re a fool as well as too beautiful for your own good.” Compliments were so sparingly given they were always good to throw in once in a while, too. “You don’t know this, because you’re at the centre of it and can only see from inside to out. But I’m outside and see it with all your other observers. You go through your life with a wake of awe trailing behind you when people see what you are. The wake washes over their reactions to you, easing your way, making life beautiful for you through your perfection. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

Ben was frowning so deeply it was pretty obvious he didn’t, but it gave Nikolas a chance to regroup and try to explain. “Your life is smoothed for you, eased as if your beauty were tangible—like a scent? Ack, I can’t explain it better.” He tipped off Ben and lay to one side, contemplating the ceiling. “All I meant was if your face were ruined then I think you would find life very different to how you do now, and consequently you would change before I had a chance to assure you
I wouldn’t
.”

§ § §

There was a long silence after this. Ben was pretty sure Nikolas had just told him it would be all
his
fault if Nikolas didn’t love him any more. He slid a hand onto Nikolas’s shirt, playing with a button. “It’s only dye and paint, Nik. It’ll fade. Grow out. Jesus. This is ridiculous.”

Nikolas nodded. “I know. Eight years I’ve been held captive of an alignment of bones and flesh and the shade of a pair of eyes. Perhaps I do deserve to be going on this course. Perhaps I can learn some perspective.”

“Learn to love my face less?”

Nikolas huffed. “No.” He had no intention of telling Ben the rest of his thought—he needed to learn how to admit Ben was his captor and that, therefore, Ben held all the power.

§ § §

Although Nikolas was fairly sure they wouldn’t be asked either to arrange flowers for the table or cook the dinner in the first place, and being very well aware that Kate was enjoying herself exacting some kind of petty revenge upon him, he knew at least familiarising themselves with these roles would help them make the transition from the people they were now to the ones they had to impersonate for the next week—and possibly longer if they, like other men, found some, as yet unknown, reason to stay for another three weeks.

He didn’t dislike flowers.

He’d actually grown rather used to having tasteful displays everywhere. Like most very wealthy people, his ex-wife had a standing order with an excellent florist who’d supplied artful seasonal creations weekly. Philipa also had personally indulged a great love of flowers and greenery, and spent many hours with her gardeners in her vast greenhouses, cutting and choosing blooms for the house. Nikolas had taken all this in the same way he did his clothes, furniture and artwork—as the background necessities to the fiction he presented to the world of the cultured, well-bred gentleman. He was a lion impersonating a pampered Persian house cat for a while, and surrounded by flowers, bespoke tailoring, literature and art, people didn’t see the untamed wildness of the amber eyes, nor suspect the killing rage that lay just beneath the surface of the impeccable grooming.

So he didn’t dislike flowers at all.

He just didn’t want to have to stuff them into vases himself.

He didn’t even own any vases and had to endure Ben smirking at him as he had to jam them into various cooking pots and some empty wine bottles.

Ben could laugh. Nikolas noted with some satisfaction that for a man who never stopped either eating or thinking about food, Ben was entirely undone by a cookbook that finally told him there was more to life than bacon sandwiches and steak—the only two things along with fried eggs and toast Ben could actually cook. It amazed Nikolas that he’d lived with a food addict for five years but had never once been offered anything remotely edible. They ate out almost every night or he ordered ready-made gourmet meals from a select caterer patronised by his ex-wife’s family. He was watching Ben now out of the corner of his eye, face scrunched up with effort over his book, dictionary to one hand because he refused to ask the meaning of such things as
sous vide
or
alginates
.

As he studied the lowered blond hair, fingers running through it, making the strands shine against the tanned fingers, he couldn’t help his thoughts straying back to the bed. Undressing Ben, turning him over, entering him, he’d indeed discovered all the changes were very superficial. Ben’s arse was as tight to enter as
he
needed it to be. He could recall now in startling detail the look of Ben spread and open beneath him when he pulled out to play with the wanton looseness he’d created. He could feel again the silky touch of him as he’d pushed fingers deep, stroking him from the in—

“You’ve just murdered that lily.”

“Huh?” Nikolas glanced down at the shredded petals and slumped dejected. He’d thought it was a rose.

He had a long way to go.

With a small, feral, private smile, he asked casually, “Do I need to make a reservation somewhere tonight or is all that,” he indicated the bags of ingredients still untouched on the floor, “going to turn into something impressive to eat?”

Ben carefully turned a page. “I’m getting there.” He turned another. “I think we’ll start with Thai cucumber shrimp. Hmm, then maybe lobster tail poached in…beurre monte?…With a—”

“I think that’s pronounced—”

“—
with
a julienne of carrots and…snow?…Snow peas followed—stop laughing—by chocolate soufflé.” He sat back, pleased with himself—then apparently realised he hadn’t actually cooked any of it yet.

§ § §

Nikolas discovered flower arranging could be done in the living room. And, amazingly, could be done whilst lying on the sofa, watching a movie. And drinking a bottle of red wine (if he used large glasses, he’d discovered he could drink the whole bottle and stay within his three-glasses-a-day limit). Which was a shame for Ben, as
his
new hobby needed him to stay in the kitchen. And swear apparently. Every so often, Nikolas heard, “Fucking hell!” or “Shit!” wailed to increasingly desperate levels of incredulity. He was glad he had a moment away from Ben anyway. He dug out his mobile phone and made a quick call. He still had some friends left in his old life. It was useful.

§ § §

He’d never been so glad to be a billionaire when he was finally invited into the kitchen to eat, because even when Ben apologised sheepishly, “I’ll clean up later, yeah? It’ll get cold if I do it now,” all Nikolas could concentrate on was the thought of calling his cleaning service and then ordering in all new pans to hang up, pristine, where they should be. But he was gracious enough not to let any of this show on his face as he sat down in the place Ben had laid for some reason with a screwed-up napkin. “That’s a swan.” Sometimes Ben read his mind too easily. The table was nice, Nikolas thought, with his… rose?…lily?…Some flower or other in the empty wine bottle. Artfully pushed in, if he said so himself.