One Stolen Kiss (10 page)

It was – very workshoppy. A large workbench took up the middle space, half-finished projects taking up most of the room. It smelled of wood and burnt metal. The back wall was a mass of shelves and pigeonholes filled with nuts, bolts, nails, screws and small offcuts, and hooks to hang tools on.

While he put the handbag down onto the far end of the bench, Christie gravitated towards a two-foot tall owl in progress, the framework of one wing visible, while the other was fully-feathered, with individually curled, paper-thin pointed metal strips.

“No touching,” Adrik warned again, seeing her lean closer. “It’s not properly counterbalanced yet. If it falls over it’ll slice off your fingers.”

“
I wasn’t going to…” The owl wobbled, even though she hadn’t so much as reached out towards it.

“
I think I’ll take out some insurance on that.” Adrik strode over, took hold of the cuffs of her bomber jacket and pulled them together, so that her hands clasped in front of her. Before she guessed what he was doing, he stretched the cuffs down into a nearby vice and spun the bar to close it firmly. “Now you can watch me, and not break anything or hurt yourself.”

He left a quick kiss on her stunned forehead, and returned to the other end of the workbench.

Instinct made her tug once or twice, but she was indeed stuck fast. She couldn’t slide her hands up into the sleeves to try and wriggle free that way, or reach the bar to turn it with either her fingers or her knee.

Concerned about rocking any of the objects on the workbench, she was forced to stand still where she was restrained, and wait.

Adrik wrapped the handbag in some protective sheeting, and affixed the metal plate part into another vice, before rolling up his sleeves and reaching down a worn-in, dark brown set of overalls to put on.

“
You won’t need any,” he said, pulling them over his smart trousers and shirt. “You’re far enough away.”

Then he reached into a pigeonhole on one of the shelves, and took out a pair of plastic goggles, like the sort used in school science experiments.

“But you should wear these, in case it spits, or sparks fly.”

Approaching her again, he gently brushed a few strands of her hair aside, and slid the goggles into place.

“They’re a bit too big,” he remarked, adjusting their position on her nose. “Make sure you don’t sneeze or anything. They’ll shoot off.”

“
I’ll try not to.”
God only knows what I look like
, she thought. At least he wasn’t laughing at her.

He nodded, and picking up a mask from the bench for himself, went back to get on with the job in hand.

Christie felt incredibly strange. She was being permitted – with limitations, obviously – a personal view into something he evidently kept to himself. And was quite sensitive about, given the circumstances under which his training in metalwork took place.

Circumstances that were due to his having met her, all that time ago.

Suddenly, the sleeves-trapped-in-the-vice issue seemed to have more karmic justification than the comparatively mere risk of a hazardous curiosity in the workplace.

So she watched in silence. She was used to having limitations, after all. In her experience, it was all about quiet compliance and careful observation of the rules set by the man anyway. It was nothing new.

She’d never been physically restrained, though. Derek’s power was in his superior knowledge of social psychology and the media. The only thing that could protect you, he would say, was self-control.
Don’t give them anything to write home about. Don’t show them your vulnerability.

Adrik pushed up his mask.

“Needs to cool off,” he said. “Wasn’t difficult – only a small soldering job.”

Christie nodded. He frowned slightly and straightened up.

“Are you okay? You’ve been a bit too quiet.”

“
Fine. Just – watching you work.”

He came over and leaned on the bench, taking her goggles off carefully and setting them down. He looked around almost idly at his workshop, enclosing her trapped hands in his.

“I don’t allow anyone in here. It’s my own private space.” His touch was warm, and he turned his gaze down to their hands as if only just aware of what he was doing, exploring the shape of her slim fingers, short neat nails, and delicate knuckles. “So I can’t let you wander around. It’s not safe.”

“
For me, or for you?” she asked quietly.

“
I was expecting more of a reaction,” he continued. “Not just standing here waiting.” He brushed her temple with a fingertip. “What happened in there, since we last met?”

Christie didn’t want to recall the bull-headed dressing-down Derek always handed out if she showed any sensitivity, needs, recriminations or emotions. As far as he was concerned, everything anyone did or said could come back to haunt them one day.

Bottle it up.

“
Never mind. And unlike
some
might, I’m not going to leave you stuck here.” Seeming to sense her mental discomfort, Adrik spun the bar again to release her, rubbing her wrists as they were freed. “Should be cool now.”

He handed over the Paddington, after testing the strength of the repair by suspending the bag from the reattached loop.

“You can see the join,” he remarked. “Maybe not invisible or perfect, but functional. You could have bought a new one, you know.”

Christie examined the shiny new junction in the brass ring and plate, still slightly warm from the gas torch.

“I like this one,” she repeated herself from earlier, and the words, strangely, seemed to come from deeper inside than she realised. Derek had no technical skills. He was about as practically useful as a chocolate teapot. “It’s the first time anyone mended anything for me…”

“
Is that how they say ‘thank you’ in New York?” He was peeling off the overalls again, and flashed her a teasing glance as she looked up.

“
Thank you,” she said, embarrassed at having been called out before she had a chance to express her gratitude.

“
You’re welcome.” He hung up the overalls and opened the door again, back out onto the garden. “Let’s get some lunch.”

* * * *

It wasn’t Christie putting on a formal dress that was giving Adrik a problem, as they prepared to go out that evening. He could remember the last formal dress he had seen her wear – every detail of it, all those years ago.

It was more the time she was taking to do so.

He knocked on the door of the dressing-room.

“
Are you decent?” he asked. “I think the car will be here soon. I don’t like these cufflinks.”

“
Come in, it’s fine,” she called, after only a small hesitation. “I think I might need your help, anyway…”

He opened the door and found her seated at the mirror, smudging the edges of her eyeliner.

“What for…?” he grinned, but then stopped, as she twisted in the seat.

“
I think this is too loose,” she admitted, looking embarrassed and sheepish. “And I can’t tighten it properly – it slips through my fingers.”

He stared at the back of the dress.

Laced up, with an endless black satin ribbon.

“
Can’t have that,” he muttered, darkly.

“
I’m not going to tie you up with it,” she sighed, but swallowed nervously at his glare.

“
Exactly.” He dropped the rejected cufflinks on the marble beside her, and his hands rested on her bare shoulders, feeling her tense immediately under his touch. “You’d better stand up.”

She rose out of the seat slowly, avoiding his gaze in the mirror.

“Lean forward on your hands – on the dressing table,” he told her.

Christie did so, and he noticed her elbows shake briefly before she stiffened them.

Adrik ran his hands down her shoulders to the lacing. The ribbons were tied in a bow at the bottom of the vee in the back of the strapless gown, and he could see that they needed to be progressively shortened from the widest point downwards, to hold the dress effectively around her slender build.

“
What made you choose this particular dress?” he asked, tugging the ribbon lacing together at the topmost point to begin tightening it.

“
It was the smartest one I saw,” she replied. “Classic.”

“
Not that it reminded you of anything?”

“
I don’t think so…”

“
It reminds me of something.” He tugged again, harder, a notch or two further down, and was rewarded with a little gasp.

“
I doubt that a little piece of ribbon would give you any trouble…” she replied, regaining her breath.

“
Another compliment.” He pulled again, working his way down to her waist. “I’m starting to think that you might like me.”

“
You wish.”

He twisted the loops of ribbon around his fingers at her waist as if to tighten them further, and pulled her back against him, away from the dressing-table.

“Maybe I do wish,” he whispered in her ear. Sensibility made him release her again immediately, and carry on with the lacing. “Be careful what you say.”

She was visibly trembling now as she leaned back onto the counter. It cooled him off slightly. Although he’d thought about it on many occasions in the past, now that she was here – and pretty much at his mercy – he didn’t have it in his heart to truly frighten her. He was starting to think that someone else had already beat him to it.

In fact, in spite of the teasing, he wanted her to feel something else around him – and it was conflicting him greatly.

“
Would you open the drawer just by your right hand there?” he asked, in as normal a voice as he could summon, while cinching the laces together at the end. “There are some other cufflinks in there.”

She slid it open with a shaky hand, possibly anticipating a trick. Only cufflink boxes were revealed, and he felt rather than heard her sigh of relief.

“In the red box,” he said. “My father’s old ones. I think I’ll wear those.”

Christie took out the box, and held onto it while he finished shortening the ribbons.

“Is that too tight?” he queried.

“
I don’t think I’ll pass out,” she replied, and patted her ribs with one hand. “No, that’s fine – thank you.”

Adrik finished tying the lacings together, adding a double knot and bow for his own peace of mind.

“No problem,” he replied, and accepted the red velvet-covered box as she handed it to him. “Your turn – you can help me put my awkward things on. You’ll like these ones, I think. I wasn’t trusted with them while he was alive.”

A car horn sounded outside, and Christie’s face turned almost as red as the velvet, evidently guessing what he meant. He opened the box, and took out the diamond cufflinks.

* * * *

Be careful what you say…

It was another echo from Derek. But the context now was so, so different…

“
An accessory that a bad girl might utilise to perform mischief,” Adrik muttered, still toying with the end of the ribbon attached to her dress, where it trailed beside her on the car seat.

She wasn’t in a mischievous mood. More of a nervous one. However, regardless of his own concerns and issues, he apparently felt called upon to reassure her.

“I don’t enjoy these things too much either,” he said. “You get to find out how all these people behave and speak to one another face-to-face, without the shielding of their managers and PR. The women get drunk and the men talk to anyone but their wives. Tomorrow will be even worse.”

“
Not that much different from Manhattan, then,” she remarked.

“
You make a very good point.” Relaxing somewhat, he let go of the ribbon and took her hand instead. “I think you will be fine.”

The diamond-studded cufflink winked at her from his wrist, and she didn’t know whether to scream or cry.
This is all your father’s fault!
She wanted to shout it out, that it was neither Adrik nor herself responsible for all of this.

If Maksim Senior hadn’t chosen to test him, if he’d just taken his own son on trust, none of this would be happening. But she couldn’t bring herself to speak up. If Maksim Senior wasn’t dead – perhaps this would already be resolved.

Her life wouldn’t be such a huge, complicated, public mess right now.

“
We’re here.” Adrik squeezed her hand.

And speaking of public…

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“
Are you?” she countered.

He only gave her a wry smile in response, as the car door was opened for them.

Heart in her mouth, Christie’s eyes were glued to the red carpet as Adrik stepped onto it, turned and reached back into the car to offer his hand again to help her out.