The Key (Sanguinem Emere) (2 page)

But what if I’m misreading things? What if he doesn’t want me after all?

My stomach ceases its excited buzzing and I can feel a leaden weight of shame sinking through my soul. What if my affections were too obvious and he feels bad for me? And that’s why he’s being nice?

What if I’m a pity date?

The warmly-lit room around me quite suddenly feels empty and cold. The laughter of my friends’ turns to cackling as they find my humiliation amusing. I look up at Delilah and realise that she is, once again, diverting Dimitri’s attention.

She has leaned forward in her seat and is regaling him with some or other bullshit story; all in a vain attempt to get him close enough to feel the heat rolling off her body in waves. Her burgundy cocktail dress leaves very little to the imagination and even I can’t deter myself from noticing the depth and magnitude of her plunging neckline.

Dimitri, however, seems unfazed as the hand left to rest between us is lifted, quite suddenly, and placed on my thigh. His skin is cold through the thin lace of my skirt, but the cool weight of it burns through to my flesh, seeping along my leg. Warming me; and I blush again.

Mostly my face flushes out of shame for my internal monologue of self-doubt.

Delilah smiles. I recognise the grin and attempt to signal her to behave herself, but her mirthful expression broadens at the concern in my eyes and she states quite matter-of-factly “There is a room upstairs if the two of you need it.” My blush reaches fever heat and I pick a ridiculous red, velvet cushion from beside me, hefting it at her head. She catches it, her voice let loose in a high-pitched laugh, “I think Sonja had that lovely prep with the blonde surfer hair in there a moment ago, but it’s free now.”

“You’re vile, D,” I hiss from between my teeth, but Dimitri quietens me as his hand flexes on my thigh in a movement that catches my breath.

“Thank you, Delilah,” He smiles sweetly at her.

Delilah shoots me a mockingly-mortified glance as he takes my hand and helps me stand, draping an arm around my waist. He brushes his lips across my temple and the tickle of his breath sharpens the edges of everything around me, colouring the world of Delilah’s apartment with generously textured hues. I can feel my heart thundering beneath my ribcage like a drum beat, picking up pace at the eve of a sacrifice. It would be enough to drown out his words, but my self-awareness makes me flush hot and embarrassed.

“Eva and I will avail ourselves of your kind hospitality,” the rumble of his faint accent, barely stroking the tails of his vowels makes me wish I could stop my humility before it forces me to blurt out my shock, but I gasp and duck my face instinctively attempting to curl away from his arm.

He smiles sidelong at my hesitation and graces me with a questioning eyebrow and a smirk as he shrugs and slides his hand along my shoulders, meaning to pull away entirely. I can already see one of Delilah’s other girlfriends eyeing him wistfully as she flicks her hair temptingly over her shoulder. His attention seems nearly lost, teetering on the edge of being bored with the situation. As his eyes graze over the scene, his demeanour focuses again on the bimbo with the expressive hair and his glance registers vague interest. Something in me withers painfully as I resign myself to my sad fate.

Not tonight I guess.

Delilah gives me an exasperated huff and sashays over to stand on the other side of Dimitri who acknowledges her with a wan, distracted smile, his attention drawn away. She leans up to his cheek and that green haze falls over me again. I kick myself internally for my idiotic reluctance.

Dimitri’s face, however, turns back to me with a wicked smile, which speaks volumes of temptation, and I can feel his fingers interlacing with my own as he bends to my lips.

I sway gently, overwhelmed by him, encompassed by him, lost in him. His unobtrusive cologne, the chilled velvet of his skin, the roughly tender abrasion of his beard. All this barely broken by the insistent notes of Delilah’s voice as she mutters near to me, “Have fun, Duckling.”

A thrill tickles through my nerves as he retreats, his hand still holding mine, and the green monster in me chuckles as I see a myriad of female eyes beyond his face, glaring balefully at me.

“Come,” he pulls me along with him.

I follow.

The staircase is dark, but he seems to deftly feel his way along the wall with one hand. The music blaring from Delilah’s stereo vibrates through him and into my palm. As we ascend to the landing I can hear noises emanating from one of the rooms to our right. Thank god he cannot see my face in the darkness.
From the heat in my cheeks, the blush must be back and beacon-like.

He directs me instead down the left passageway and opens the first door, neglecting to flick the light switch.

The shadow wraps itself around me as the click of the door signals an end. To my hesitation? To my reputation?

I can’t begin to try and fathom the amount of gossip most likely flooding the mouths of individuals whose opinions I hold dear, and those that I do not even recognise, still entrenched in Delilah’s shindig. The man circling me in the dark is high-profile and I am a Lamb of high-profile figures. But I never suspected I would be here with him. Alone in a bedroom, conveniently bedecked with fresh linen, satin sheets and alcohol (to misdirect the shame) by my unabashedly scandalous friend.

When I first encountered Dimitri Kron four weeks ago, I had to have him.

But not like this.

Playboy, billionaire and attractive bachelor, Dimitri is one of those high profile men that seems to have no place in the halls of fame and yet he still succeeded at being graced with the ambiguous title, Socialite. Apart from one or two charity auctions, a magnificently decadent lifestyle and an assortment of scandals severe enough to make one’s hair curl, Dimitri’s foray into the media has been quiet. And yet he has been known for years, as the man everyone loves to hate.

The eager journalist in me, the small corner of my being devoted to garnering a story to make the others display some semblance of respect towards me, begged Delilah to introduce me to him. The girl knows everyone. At the ripe young age of eighteen, Delilah also fell under the mantle of Socialite and has flourished under its tender care ever since. She obliged me in my wish to have a cocktail or six with the infamous Dimitri and I approached the event with a fair amount of study beneath my belt. I knew that he claims to be distantly related to the Kron noble family, and that he is suspected to live with a number of women who all seem to fawn over him and revel in the attention granted to them by the jealous media. I knew that he styles himself something of a Hue Hefner, although his sole contribution to the media has been to provide ample fodder for the scandal rags who love to berate his decadent lifestyle one week and praise him on his genuine nature the next. I knew that he was voted most eligible bachelor last year and that he has hosted the Southern Debutantes’ Ball for three years running (the proceeds of which were deposited directly into the funds account for National Animal Welfare).

What I had been unable to uncover was his past before his foray into our city, or for that matter how long he has been here. The details of his lifestyle are murky and uncast, almost deliberately so, which I had assumed to be par for the course for any billionaire Socialite. But I had to admit, my curiosity (where before I had just wanted a good story to tell) was now piqued. Why ignore rumours of living with more than one woman? How has he garnered so much money and how does it keep growing?

Who was Addison Fleur? And is it true she mentioned his name in the note marking her suicide?

I wandered into the meeting like a smug cat that had succeeded in clawing its way into a mouse hole. But the Dimitri Kron I was to attend drinks with was calm, one might say tranquil, and soothing, but with a vastly extensive voice which boomed through the bar with his joviality one moment and growled with his aggression towards certain public figures and the heinous acts they may or may not have committed the next.

I have never met a man so charismatic as to feel comfortable and informal with him after only one drink. Dimitri made me feel these things. And much more than that.

He registered my enthusiasm with a soft chuckle which made me beam and, taking my hands between his, promised he would answer any questions a Mona Lisa such as myself, could throw at him – his words, not mine. I was instantly entranced, despite the corny compliment, much to Delilah’s amusement as she told me later, giggling over her eighth glass of chardonnay. The way poetic language seemed to flow from him, lilted with interesting notes of an accent almost faded into extinction, made me hang on every word. I wanted to listen to him speak forever, and by the end of the night, I had not been able to ask a single question, a point which he brashly brought up, insisting that we meet again in order to continue our discussion.

Delilah arranged it all, fervently embarrassing me at every opportunity she could scrounge up when we were alone together with her insistence that the man had never offered a second meeting before. He wanted me, she was sure of it. And as much as I would love to say my feelings were purely professional, I began to dream about him, at work and in my sleep. And when we did meet we would entertain hours of leisure time over drinks, coffee, films, parties, dinners and charity functions without ever approaching the subject of his past or, in fact, any of the questions I had neatly scribbled down in my notepad which seemed to follow me to every meeting like a lonely, forgotten puppy.

It was only ever after the fact, when the sunshine warmth of his presence began to fade in his conspicuous absence that I would verbally berate myself before my dressing room mirror at my utter lack of self-control. What kind of reporter cannot even hold it together enough in front of a rugged man to ask him a few simple, non-invasive questions?

It’s no wonder, really, that my career is currently lagging on the edge of a dark, rocky precipice. None of my peers would have been so frivolous upon meeting the infamous, hated, and much sought after, Dimitri Kron.

And then I would go to sleep and my dreams would mimic the mockery of my soul. Visions of Dimitri would have me awakening with frustration. Frustration at my lack of will and burgeoning desire for a man that was only ever supposed to be a story. And when next we met I’d feel as though we had spoken only a few hours ago. My dreams edged into our conversations and I would engage him in discussions I felt we’d already resolved.

Two days ago, Dimitri had grasped my hand in his as we ducked into a cab, escaping the crowds waiting for us outside Newton’s Theatre. The driver had snatched at the wad of cash he was offered to not make a comment over the celebrity lounging in his backseat, and the money had miraculously disappeared from sight. The celebrity in question turned to me and I felt that shallow dip in my stomach which made me instantly want to slap myself for letting any man get to me like that. His eyes, since the moment I met him, when he had taken my hand in both of his and stared through my face, my skin, my flesh, my skull, had enraptured me; seemingly so sincere, even with a playful grin twisting his lips.

“I still owe you a story, yes?”

My mind rumbled with guilt once again at my inability to focus on the matter at hand as I found his words to be unimportant. But I pulled my hand out of his and drew myself up as much as possible, trying to distil some semblance of control through my spine, “Yes,” I grinned mischievously at him, “And here I was beginning to suspect that the last three weeks have been a decoy to deter me from uncovering your deep, dark secret.”

He raised an eyebrow with that same, smug, smirk gracing his lips. But before he could stop my sudden self-assurance I delved in, “So, Mister Kron, what skeletons are you keeping from me?”

My fingers curled closed around the edge of my journal, small enough to be unnoticed and large enough to carry a vast amount of script, buried and neglected in my pocket. But his hand reached out for my arm and, involuntarily, I drew in a shaken breath.

“It’s late, Eva,” My nerves tingled as his fingers squeezed lazily about my wrist, “Delilah said something about a do on Saturday. Something to do with her father winning his case. I can’t be certain of the details, my mind was on other things,” He smiled slyly at me, “However, the event is being held at her residence. Be there.”

I gave him an exasperated look at that. After weeks of being in one another’s company, he had to have realised I loathed commands made on my time, but he winked disarmingly at me and once again I cursed myself for the ridiculous schoolgirl blush making my face light up like a paper lantern.

“I promise you, you will leave satisfied.”

The words practically made me sigh, but the tone of his voice and the heady look in his eyes made me cringe with my inability to greet him properly when the cab dropped me off at my flat.

And now he curls around me in the shadows, somewhere in this darkened room and I can’t think where to begin.

Dammit! The journal. I left it with my bag downstairs. Not the end of everything; surely Delilah will be keeping an eye out for my things. And besides, I have a memory like a vault; nothing he says will fall by the wayside.

“Dimitri,” I try not to whisper into the night-time haven surrounding me, but the quiet in this room makes me feel like my words are breaking the tender calm of a mausoleum. His cold fingers on my throat silence me as my back arches like a pleased, pleasured cat. My hair is lifted from the nape of my neck and I can feel soft, velvet-ice lips brushing against the sensitivity of my skin, making me shiver and want to crawl away, but also to crawl into him, causing muscles all along my spine to contract as I lean closer to him.