‘Jack, do you know where Lana is?’

‘No, why?’

‘Just trying to find her.  She’s gone out without her cellphone.’

‘It’s raining here.  Is it raining there?’

Slight pause. ‘Yeah… It’s raining here.’

‘I wouldn’t worry, mate, she’s probably just gone out walking in the rain.’

‘Right.’

Jack laughs.  ‘She’ll come home looking like a drowned kitten.  It’s something to behold.’

‘Right.  Thanks, Jack.’

Blake goes out onto the balcony.  It is pouring with rain.  A jagged flash of lightning splits the sky.  He waits for the thunder.  It comes deafeningly loud almost immediately.  He frowns.  He doesn’t like the thought of her in the rain.  He goes to the edge of the balcony and reaches a hand out to catch some rain.  Strange.  He leans over the edge and turns his face up to the shower.

He tries to imagine what she must be feeling, thinking.  The rain is cold and he is quickly drenched.  He peels off his shirt that has become transparent with the rain.  He balls his shirt in his hand and hears the key in the door.  It opens and they stare at each other.

Indeed, she is a sight to behold.  Instantly he knows she is not the same anymore.  There is such hurt in her eyes.  He strides to her.

‘Come,’ he says and takes her to the bathroom.

He guides her under the shower spray.  The water that pelts her cold shivering skin is perfectly warm. She hears him moving away and she closes her eyes and savors the pleasant sensation.  She feels life coming back to her fingers and limbs.  She has walked too long.  She leans her forearms against the tiles and lifting her face to the water, abandons herself to it.  She hears the shower door slide and her eyes snap open.  He is nude and standing outside.

Her eyes rove over him and settle in fascination on his manhood that is already half erect before she suddenly realizes what she is doing, and flushing with embarrassment, turns away.

He catches her by the chin and brings her eyes to him.  ‘I want you to look at me.  Look at me.’

She returns her eyes to his manhood.  It is no longer at half-mast but standing proud.  She lifts her eyes back to his face.  He steps into the shower. She moves back to make space for him.  She watches him through the drops of water and steam.  He chuckles and, finding the soap, slips it across the skin of her chest.

‘Lift your arms.’

She obeys.

He soaps her under her arms.  His touch is light and unticklish.  His swipes the soap along her shoulders and then down to her breasts.  Here he is rhythmic and meticulous.  The mounds get much attention.  So much she longs to have him take her nipples in his mouth.  The soap travels downward.  To her stomach and further to her bare-skinned sex.  He doesn’t have to tell her.  She spreads her legs and the soap slides between them.  The water sluices through his hands.

‘Turn around.’

She turns.  The soap is travelling her back and down her spine along her hips and finally entering the crack of her bottom.  She feels him kneel to wash her legs down to the soles of her feet, which he does one by one.  Then he stands.  In her line of sight she sees him return the soap.  And pick up the shampoo bottle.  She hears him squirt it into the palm of his hand.  Then he is washing her hair.  The bubbles run down her body.  Heat collects between her legs.

Now he is so close she can feel his hard body slipping and sliding against hers.  Her legs begin to tremble.  He turns her around and sucks her nipples.  His hands slide down her stomach and boldly without warning grab her hips.  She gazes into the storm clouds in his eyes.  His jaw is clenched tight.  He lifts her body and penetrates her.  She curls her legs around his hips and cries with an animalistic pleasure.  The deeper he buries himself inside her, the deeper she wants him to go.

Afterwards he carries her to the bed and dries her body carefully.

She looks up to him.  ‘What are you thinking of?’

‘Your body.’

She says nothing.

‘Why did you walk so far in the rain?’

She stares into his eyes.  They are unreadable. ‘I like the rain.  I’ve always walked in the rain.’

‘But the rain in England is cold.’

‘I don’t know any other type of rain.’

He brings the hairdryer and a brush and sits on the bed with them beside him.  Then he calls her to sit on the floor against the bed between his knees and begins to towel dry her hair.  He is careful not to rub hard. Afterwards he runs his fingers through her hair and gently untangles any knots he finds.  Only then does he switch on the hairdryer and begin to dry her hair.  When he switches off the hairdryer she says, ‘You can’t cook but you can blow dry hair.’

‘I used to dry my sister’s hair for her.’

She swivels her neck around. ‘You don’t have a sister.’

Firmly he turns her head to face away from him.  ‘I’ve told you before, don’t trust everything Wikipedia says.’

The brush glides through her hair in long, slow strokes.  ‘Why is she not known to the public?’

‘She was born with a genetic anomaly.  She’s not like you and me.  She lives in her own world.  All great families have such relatives—they just don’t acknowledge or advertise them.  It’s an unfortunate effect of interbreeding.’

‘So she is locked away?’

There is a pause.  ‘Something like that.’

‘Do you still see her?’

‘No, she is in our Buckinghamshire property.  She has a whole wing and sectioned off grounds.  Nurses and servants to care for her twenty-four hours a day.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘A four-year-old child.  She communicates by pointing and smiling.’  His voice is sad.

‘Why did you stop going to see her?’

The brush stops for a second, then starts again.  ‘The last time I saw her was when I was twelve.  I was brushing her hair and my mother walked into the room.  She was horrified.  “Are you going to become a great man like your father or a sissy like your great uncle George?”  He is another family member that we all pretend doesn’t exist.  I never went back after that.’

She turns around and catches his wrist.  The brush stills mid-air.  ‘I don’t care what anybody else says, you are a good man,’ she says.

‘Don’t fool yourself, Lana.  We’re all no good.  Don’t trust any of us.  Not even me.’

‘Is there no one you trust?’

‘No one.’

‘Not even your dad?’

‘Dad?’ he repeats sarcastically.  ‘Dad’s a sociopath.’

Lana’s eyes widen.  ‘Isn’t he a great philanthropist?’

‘Naïve little Lana.  My father’s a trillionaire.  And there is no such thing as a philanthropist trillionaire.  Do you know what one has to do to become a trillionaire?  Spend your whole life crushing people for profit and then donate a library?  I don’t trust him and neither should you.  It would cause him the same grief to crush you if you stood in his way as it would if he trod on an ant in his path.’

‘Do trillionaires exist?’

‘Think, Lana.  What is the debt of the United States alone?  Who are all those lovely trillions owed to?’

‘The Federal Reserve?’

He laughs.  ‘And who do you think owns that?  The Federal Reserve is a private company just like the Bank of England, and every central bank throughout the world.  Through a network of holding companies, the old families own vast controlling portions of not only their stocks, but all the too-big-to-fail banks that you hate so much.’

Lana frowns.  She needs time to think about the true meaning of what he has revealed to her.  ‘What about your mother?’

‘My mother threw us to the wolves a long time ago. My brothers and I grew up in stifling conditions.’

Lana shakes her head.  ‘And there I was, wishing I was rich, while I was growing up in stifling conditions.’

‘You don’t understand, Lana, and perhaps you never will.  We are different.  We are not merely rich.  We don’t own tracts of land, we own countries and politicians.  We have different responsibilities. We have an agenda.’ Then his face closes over.