‘Why do you need to buy a woman, anyway?  With that flashy car of yours, they must be leaving their phone number by the droves on your windscreen wipers.’

‘You were an impulse buy.’  His eyes crinkle at the corners.  She amuses him.

She looks at his perfectly cut suit, his beautifully manicured hands, and the Swiss precision watch glinting on his wrist.  ‘There is nothing impulsive about you.’  Her eyes take in that delectable lock of hair that falls over his forehead.  ‘Other than your hair.’

He laughs out loud.  She looks at him.  The man had lovely teeth.  ‘This might turn out to be a lot more interesting than I thought,’ he says.

The mussels arrive in tiny, covered black pots.  When Blake opens his she follows suit.  The smell is maddeningly good, but she waits until Blake reaches for his utensils before she copies him.

‘Bon appétit,’ he says.

‘Bon appétit,’ she repeats.

The mussels are meltingly soft in her mouth.

‘Good?’ asks Blake.

‘Very.’

But the portion is so small it is quickly gone.  ‘I don’t understand something,’ Lana says, daintily dabbing the corners of her mouth.  ‘How come the paparazzi never follow you around like they do other celebrities and eligible bachelors, and expose all your escapades and wrongdoings?’

‘For the same reason my family and the other great families are not on the Forbes richest list.  We don’t like publicity.  Unless it is sanctified by us you won’t see it in the papers.’

‘Are you trying to tell me your family has that much power?’

‘I’m not trying to, I’m telling you.  It’s easy when you control the media.’

‘Your family controls the media?’

‘The great, old families do.  It is in our interest to work as a group.’  His eyes glitter in the soft light.  Suddenly his lips twitch.  He leans back and flashes a smile.  ‘But enough about me.  Tell me about yourself.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Other than the fact that you live on a council estate and don’t earn enough, I know nothing at all about you.’

‘That’s not strictly true.  You know I am AIDS free, don’t have any sexually transmitted diseases, own a clean bill of health, am on contraceptives as of today, and have had a full body wax.’

His smile becomes a grin.  ‘How was the waxing session?  Not too painful, I hope.’

‘Not at all.  You should try it sometime.’

He laughs outright.  ‘The day you pay me to have sex with you, I will.’

She cannot bring herself to smile back.

The lamb arrives.  She looks at her plate.  Blood has eddied under the meat.  She cannot eat that.  She sighs inwardly.  It will be vegetables and potato again.

‘Where do you get your unusual coloring from?’

‘My grandmother on my mother’s side was Iranian.  The hair is from her and the eyes are from my father’s side of the family.’

He let his eyes wander around her face.  A Middle Eastern influence.  It had fleshed out her face and given her the generous mouth.

‘Have you been to Iran before?’

‘I went once as a child, but it is my dream to take my mother back to Iran.’

‘It’s dangerous there now.’

‘For you maybe, but not for me or Mum it isn’t.’

‘Still don’t you think you should wait until all this talk of war is over?’

‘There will be war.  It is better to go now, before Iran becomes another Iraq or Libya.’

‘What was it like when you were there?’

‘When I went it was a wonderful place.  We stayed in the desert.  It was very beautiful.  At night there was pure silence.  And the sand dunes sing.’

‘You can go to Saudi Arabia for sand dunes.  Do you need to go to a country that is preparing for war?’

‘You don’t understand. Isfahan is in our blood.  I remember when my mother was leaving she climbed to the top of the steps of the plane, then she turned around and did this.’  Lana opened her arms out as if to gather something in the air and bought it back to her face and kissed the tips of her fingers.  ‘I asked her what she was doing and she said she was kissing the air of her motherland goodbye.  I remember thinking even then that I must bring her back to that beloved land of hers.’

‘I’ve never been to Iran.’

‘Of course you haven’t.  Iran doesn’t have a central bank.  My mother says it is why the world wants to wage war with it.’

‘Does she also believe Elvis is still alive?’

Lana’s eyes flash suddenly.  She glares at him.  ‘We can dress this arrangement up and play it any way you want to, but don’t you dare criticize my mother.  Even the dirt at the bottom of her shoes is better than you,’ she cries passionately.

He gazes at her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes without anger.  She will be great in bed.  ‘You brought her up,’ he murmurs.

Her anger subsides as suddenly as it came. ‘Yes, I did,’ she agrees flatly, and suddenly looks so young and lost, he reaches out to cover her hand with his.  She pulls hers away.

He takes his hand away and looks at her coldly.  ‘OK, have it your way,’ he says, and looks for the waiter.

A waiter appears almost immediately.

The waiter looks at Lana’s plate. ‘Was everything all right, mademoiselle?’

‘It was fine.  Just not hungry.’

‘Perhaps you have left some space for dessert?’ he suggests with a tilted head.

She shakes her head.  The waiter looks at Blake.  ‘Monsieur?’

‘Just the check.’

‘Of course,’ the waiter says with a nod, and raises his eyebrow to another waiter hovering by a pillar.  The man comes and begins clearing away the plates.  The bill is presented discreetly in a black wallet.  Blake drops his card into it.  When the card comes back, Blake says, ‘Shall we?’

He stands and, with his hand on the small of her back, leads her out.

Twelve

The drive is completed in silence and when they get into the softly lit apartment, Blake tosses his card key on the side table and turns to her. ‘Money’s in the bank?’

She nods

‘We’re good?’

She nods again.

‘I gave you what you need; now you will give me what I need.’

She nods, ashamed by her own rudeness.  It was a deal and he had kept to his side.

‘I’ll pour us a drink.  Change into those and meet me in the bedroom,’ Blake says, and nods towards the flat box that Peter brought in earlier and put on the side table.  He leaves her and walks down that beautiful corridor into the living room.

She takes the box and turning into the first door in the corridor, goes into the main bedroom.  Someone has come in and turned on the bedside lights, and turned down the bed.  She goes into the bathroom and closes the door.  Inside the box are wisps of lace and silk.  She takes them out.  A little dress in some transparent white material, an all lace bra, a thong, suspenders and silk stockings and a pair of platform shoes very similar to the ones she was wearing the night they met.  Except for the fine baby blue ribbons on the suspenders, everything is in pure white.  She looks at the size on the bra.  Of course.  32B.

Lana quickly slips out of her clothes and gets into the bra and suspenders.  Then she carefully pulls on the stockings.  She has never worn suspenders before and the little hooks are fiddly and take her a long time.  She hears a noise in the bedroom.  Blake has already come in.  Nervously, she pulls on the lacey white knickers and looks at herself in the mirror.  She can hardly believe it is her.  She rinses with mouthwash, takes a deep breath and, opening the door goes into the bedroom.  And just stands there staring, her heart crashing against her ribcage.

Good God!

He is lying shirtless on the bed, propped against pillows, all sexy and toned.  His legs are crossed at his ankles and his eyes are hooded.  There is no expression in his face and no way of knowing what he is thinking. There is also something very bad and exciting about being in that lush bedroom with a cold, cold banker who has paid for you.