Angrily I forbid her to ever again drag Victoria into our arrangement. A flash goes off in her eyes. It’s gone in a second, but even lidded it reeks of jealousy!  I seize the opportunity to manipulate her by exaggerating Victoria’s loyalty. I rub it in that Victoria stood by me through my worst period while she swanned off to Iran. ‘One day,’ I tell her, ‘I will wake up and this sickness will be gone. Until then…  You owe me forty-two days, Lana.’

She closes her eyes and hangs her head.

‘Name your price,’ I demand curtly.

Her head snaps up. ‘No.’ Her voice is very strong and sure. ‘You don’t have to pay me again. I will finish the contract.’

‘Good,’ I remark casually, but I turn away from her immediately. Cannot let her see how elated I am by her capitulation. I can hardly believe I have won so easily. My mind is doing victory back-flips as I go around the desk, and retake my position behind it.

Chapter 2

I slide into the black swivel chair and open the file in front of me. ‘So, you’re setting up a business?’

She drops into one of the chairs opposite me and tells me that she and Billie are thinking of starting a business. I ask the appropriate questions but my mind is elsewhere. I am not interested in hearing about her business plans.

‘That reminds me, how is your mother?’

To my surprise her face contorts with pain. Seconds pass in acute silence. ‘She passed away.’

I lean forward, eyes narrowed, shocked. ‘I thought the treatment was working.’

She bites the words out. ‘A car. Hit and run.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m real sorry to hear that, Lana.’ And I am, too, really sorry. She was a good woman. I liked her.

She blinks fast. Oh my God, she is going to burst into tears. She stands. I stand, too. Immediately she puts out a hand to ward me off, and runs to the door. In an instant I don’t hate her anymore; all my desire to hurt crumbles to dust and I just want to help her, make it easier, take her in my arms and protect her. I stride toward her and grab her arm. She twists away from me, but my grip is too firm.

‘This way. There’s a staff restroom,’ I say quietly, and quickly opening the door I lead her down the corridor. From the corners of my eyes I can see the tears are streaming down her cheeks. I hold open the toilet door and she rushes in. The door swings closed in my face.

I stand there looking at the door and then I hear her. Wailing for her mother. I lift my hand to push the door open, but I don’t. I take a step back. Then I begin to pace. I have never heard anyone cry like that. I come from a family where all our expressions of sorrow are carefully controlled, a dab from a handkerchief to the eye. When my grandfather died, my grandmother did not even stop the journey of her cup to her mouth. Only after she had swallowed her sip of tea did she say, ‘Oh dear.’ At the funeral not a tear was shed, by anybody.

More than once I go to the door and almost push it open. I want to go in, but I cannot. My feet refuse to move forward. Anyway, it is clear that she does not want me, and that it is unsafe for me. I am already too confused and unhinged by a few minutes in her company. A woman appears in the corridor apparently heading for the toilet. She glances at me and I growl at her. Yeah, that’s right, I growl.

She does a hundred and eighty degree right turn and flees. I look at my watch. Five minutes have passed. The wailing has become long sobs. I continue to pace. I jam my fists into the pockets of my trousers. She’ll be out soon. Suddenly the sobs stop. I go to the door. The door is cheap and I hear the tap running. I step away instantly and move a few feet away from it. I lean my back against the wall and stare at the ground. For the last year I have been dead inside. Now all kinds of thoughts, desires, and emotions are coming to the fore. They are like those strange, mud-covered creatures that the tide uncovers when it goes back to sea. The door opens. She is standing there, her blouse buttoned to the neck. She won’t lift her eyes. She won’t meet mine.

‘Are you okay?’

She nods.

‘Tom will take you home.’

Very slowly her eyes, the eyelashes damp and sticking together, rise up to meet mine. They are like her voice. Level. There is nothing there to hold on to. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Let’s get this loan business out of the way.’

If she had slapped me in the face it would have been better.

We go back to the clinical office.

I take up my position behind the desk once more. ‘Baby Sorab?’ I say and look up from her application form.

And what I see chills my blood. Her face is cold and totally devoid of expression. How could she howl one moment for her mother then sit opposite me with that look. She shrugs carelessly.

‘Yes. We thought it was a good name for our business.’

‘Why baby clothes?’ It seems a curious business for two young girls to get into.

‘Billie has always been good with colors. She can put red and pink together and make them look divine. And since Billie had her baby this year we decided to make baby clothes?’

‘Billie had a baby?’ I frown. I thought she was a lesbian. And then it hits me, of course. It’s what they do. Have a baby—the government gives them a flat and an income for the next eighteen years!

‘Yeah, a beautiful boy,’ she says, and suddenly I have a gut feeling. She’s lying about something. She says something else and I reply, but it is all just a charade. One I lose interest in prolonging.

‘OK,’ I say.

‘OK what?’

‘OK you got the loan.’

‘Just like that?’

‘There is one condition.’

She becomes very still.

‘You do not get the money for the next forty-two days.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ I say softly, ‘for the next forty-two days you will exist only for my pleasure. I plan to gorge on your body until I am sick to my stomach.’

‘Are you going to house me in some apartment again?’

‘Not some apartment—the same one as before.’

She sits up straighter. She looks me in the eye. She has some stipulations, too. She wants to bring Billie’s baby to the apartment for four nights a week. And she wants Billie and Jack—the guy she thinks of as her brother and I fucking know is in love with her—to be allowed to come to the apartment. I don’t like the idea, but I let it go for now. Nothing she has asked for is what I would consider a deal breaker. The baby might be annoying, but I’m cool with Billie. Jack might be another matter but I will handle that with time.

I engineer a bored expression. ‘Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Fine. Have you plans for tomorrow?’

She shakes her head.

‘Good. Keep tomorrow free. Laura will call you to go through the necessary arrangements.’

‘OK. If there is nothing else…’

‘I’ll walk you out.’

Heads turn to watch us. I ignore them all, but Lana seems disturbed by their regard. Again I have that unfamiliar sensation of wanting to protect and shield her. The bank manager catches sight of us and hurries toward me. He has an odd expression on his face, a cross between constipated and stricken, no doubt horribly concerned that I could leave without giving him the chance to flatter me. I lift a finger and he stops abruptly. I pull open the heavy door and we go into the late summer air. It is wet and gray, but it is not cold.

In the drizzle we face each other and make small talk. Suddenly the chitchat dries up in my throat and we are eating each other. The blue of her eyes reaches right up into my body and tears at my soul like a hungry hawk. Its power is enormous. In its claws I feel myself losing my grip. A gust of wind lifts my hair and deposits it on my forehead. She puts a hand out to touch it, but I jerk back. I won’t be won over so easily.

‘This time you won’t fool me,’ I say harshly.