The Driver Page 11

  “That’s excellent.”

  “Thanks,” he said, grinning, “I’ve added it to the menu.”

  “You should pay Molly commission.”

  “I’ll probably have to soon, that girl is too intelligent for her own good.”

  I smiled weakly and drank some more, trying my best to get my mood to lift, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Cal called me back and I wasn’t sure I could cope with sitting in a car with him for another excruciating evening.

  “You really have it bad, huh?”

  I glanced at Martin, who, thankfully, didn’t look like he pitied me. There was no use denying it.

  “When did you work it out?”

  “About ten seconds after you told me you’d started working with him.” He cocked his head to one side and tried to do a cack-handed attempt at my voice. “Oh yeah, he’s this cocky little shit who looks like a model and bosses me round from the back seat of my car.”

  I snorted. “I did not say he looked like a model.”

  “So…what’s going on between you two?”

  “Nothing, and since when have you been interested in my love life?”

  There was a long pause so I winced and looked up at him, feeling dread pool in my stomach.

  “Um…since you started referring to it as a ‘love life’ for a start. What the hell?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. Nothing is going on. Although now if I get fired I guess it isn’t as serious for our financial situation.”

  He suddenly looked worried.

  “We haven’t signed anything, yet. Don’t do something rash.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I won’t.”

  He re-filled my coffee and didn’t say any more. Marv was like Marie in that respect, she had always known exactly how long to probe for before leaving a topic unfinished, but on a cliff hanger. It guaranteed that you’d have it swirling round your head for several more hours and invariably sorted it out in the process.

  “I’m gonna huddle in a corner until his royal highness requests my services again.”

  “Can I give you some cakes to take? I don’t want to extend your time with him but he did say he’d try them and whatever’s going on in this ‘nothing’ of yours clearly means he isn’t going to come in here tonight, given the look on your face.”

  I scowled at him even as he grinned and he went out back, returning with a little branded box from the café that contained what appeared to be four different types of cupcake with varying shades of neon-covered icing.

  I went and sat down in the corner and pulled out my book. It looked as though Cal was going to be a while anyway, and I could see the entrance to Blakeman’s opposite.

  The rain was heavier now and the streetlights were reflected in the puddles down the cobbled street outside the café. It was quiet and still and after a couple of hours I was feeling pretty relaxed.

  The text that came through just said I’m coming out.

  I went back to the car, running through the massive drops of rain, and almost getting soaked to the skin before I got in. I took off my jacket, as it was wet through from shielding the cake box, and then tried in vain to dry my trousers. Giving it up as a lost cause I quickly drove to the entrance of Blakeman’s as I saw Cal emerging from the revolving doors. He was partially obscured by the bouncers but I realised with irritation that I’d seen ten percent of a person coming out of a door and automatically knew that it was Cal.

  My phone, which I had intelligently balanced on top of the cake box, fell off the seat as I stopped and after I’d retrieved it Cal was already in the back and slamming the door. I wanted to change the privacy screen so I could look at him.

  “My flat,” came the instruction, and I set off. The traffic was bad for this time of night and there were roadworks nearby, so we sat in traffic for almost ten minutes before I could go anywhere. The intercom clicked on.

  “ – yeah, sure, that’s what I said. I just want to make a quick stop.”

  I froze, clenching my jaw so tightly I almost cracked a tooth. He’d fucking brought a woman into my car two days after he’d climaxed down my throat.

  “John-boy, I need to make a stop to get some cash.”

  I took a deep breath before clicking the button to speak back. “Right away.” And I clicked it off again. I could hear it now, the muffled additional voice, the extra weight in the back of someone, or a few someone’s with Cal. I was so angry I thought I might explode. I needed to calm down. This was not conducive to good driving.

  There are cash points all over London, pretty much on every corner in the centre of town, but I realised that I was looking for one that was undercover so that Cal wouldn’t get too soaked and I ground my teeth together. Let the little prick get soaked to the skin, it wasn’t as though he’d be keeping his clothes on for more than the twenty minutes when he got home.

  I eventually pulled up to a NatWest and Cal leapt out into the rain without a comment to me. He slammed the door behind him and wandered over, in no rush after he got under the canopy. I watched his back for several moments, wondering what the hell he needed cash for. With some clients I might have been worried he had another kind of company in the back, requiring a cash settlement, but that wasn’t Cal’s style at all.

  I thought he might have been stalling for time, but then the reason why he had wanted an excuse to get out of the car became crystal clear.

  “Hey man,” there was a pause, “is this the button I press to speak to you? This dude is too swanky.”

  I sat motionless in my seat for a few seconds, trying to control the red wave of rage that had descended.

  Cal had brought a fucking guy into my car. He was going to get a blow job off some random American prick he’d met in a bar, just to spite me. He might even be drunk enough to let the guy fuck him in the back. I bit the side of my mouth so hard I tasted blood.

  “Yeah, that’s the right button.”

  “So, do you have to take him anywhere he wants to go? Like, if he had a private jet and he wanted to go to Hawaii would you drive him to the airport?” Oh good, an intellectual.

  “Probably. But he doesn’t have a jet.”

  “I bet his Dad does. His Dad is a legend, I once saw him eviscerate a guy at a conference, just for asking a question in the fucking Q&A, it was insane.”

  I couldn’t feel my fingertips. I looked out through the rain at the blurred figure of Cal, still standing by the cash point as though he didn’t have a care in the world. I was going to kill him.

  “Hey, man, what’s your name again?”

  “Jonathan.”

  “But he calls you John-boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bet you hate that.”

  I said nothing.

  “Bet you feel like his bitch. I wouldn’t mind. Seriously, Cal Emerson is a God in this town. He’s rich as fuck. I bet he has a big dick. Does he have a big dick, John-boy? I bet you want to find out.”

  I waited. It felt like hours until the passenger door opened and Cal got back into the car.

  “You are so wet, man.” His companion was laughing, and had left the button fully on, so I could hear everything. I stared at the small glowing light, willing it to fail, but it didn’t. I set off. I don’t think I saw a single thing on that road the whole way.

  “Dude, your driver is kind of weird. I think he wants to watch us fuck.” There was a muffled oomph and then the unmistakable sound of kissing. We reached a set of lights and I wanted to get out and throw the kid into the road, but I stayed put, silently listening to the sickening sound of someone else getting to taste what was mine.

  “Fuck, you’re so hot.” That was the American again.

  I just about heard Cal tell him to shut up before I reached the next set of lights.

  “Why don’t you let me take the lead, huh?”

  There was a stifled grunt and what sounded like a scuffle. I kept my eyes on the road, but every muscle in my body was poised to slam on the
breaks.

  “Wait,” Cal’s voice, “wait a second. No, wait.”

  “You were all over me in the club, dude, just let me get my pants off and you’ll get what you asked for.”

  “No -” Cal’s voice was the loudest sound in the world, and it was all I needed to hear.

  I veered sideways and stopped. We were on a double yellow line and knowing my luck there was probably a police car nearby. I slammed on the breaks, mindful of Cal, but pretty sure the other guy was on top of him and he wouldn’t be thrown far. There was a blare of a horn from the twenty or so Uber’s behind me but I didn’t care.

  I got out, into the rain, and yanked open the rear door, hauling the other guy out of the car and slamming him against the side of the Phantom. He was only partially out of his clothes, thank God.

  “What the fuck? Get the hell off me.” He was a weedy little thing, and I found I could lift him off the ground without any effort whatsoever.

  “You’re getting into a cab and you’re fucking off, got that?” It was raining so hard I could feel the shirt fabric clinging to my back.

  “Who the hell died and made you boss? Get off me, or I call the cops.” I stared at him. He was a head shorter than me, scrawny, unattractive and trying too hard.

  “Some drunk tourist gets into a car,” I mused, in a sing-song voice, “and is witnessed trying to molest Cal Emerson by his very sober and reputable driver. Who do you think the police, or his father, are going to believe? That’d be the end of your little career, arsehole.” I dropped him onto the pavement and he scrambled to get to his feet, hurriedly righting his clothes. I felt a rush of fury that Cal had let this idiot touch him. I could have snapped him in two.

  I raised a hand, and by some London miracle, because despite what the films suggest, there is never one around when you need it, a black cab was passing by and slowed to a stop.

  “Now fuck off.”

  He was smirking. There was every chance he would go to the press about this; it wasn’t as though Cal was out and proud and could afford to have this bandied around London. The media would eat up a rumour of him picking up a guy in a bar much more quickly than they would a random woman. However, looking at him, I had a feeling this kid was more sensible than that. He wouldn’t go up against the Emerson’s unless he had a really good reason, and a lot of money.

  The American was doing up his jacket, trying to wrench the power back, but if he thought he had a hold over me because he could have had me fired, he was mistaken. I had lost the most important part of the job, and it was sitting mutely inside the car and hadn’t said a single word.

  “Guess that was a stupid question.” He was looking me up and down now, sizing me up. I didn’t respond. “You’ve already seen his dick. Of course you have.” He walked round the vehicle, and over to the black cab that was idling at the pavement. I watched him get in. He was soaked to the skin, and so was I. Actually, I was shivering. I slammed the passenger door without a single glance inside at Cal. I knew he hadn’t really been hurt by the moron in Armani, but I didn’t want to show how shaken I was.

  We drove to his flat and I killed the engine.

  The rain was hammering on the roof and I could feel the car beginning to warm up, the steam clouding the windows from the heat rising from my skin.

  I waited a full five minutes, knowing he knew where we were, but unwilling to break the silence. I felt a bit of an idiot for making the guy leave. Maybe that had been what Cal wanted; I hadn’t had any right to interfere except for my own jealousy.

  The intercom was still glowing at me teasingly. “We’re here.”

  Nothing.

  I sighed. I was so out of my depth. I had two choices. I could wait, or I could manhandle him out of the car.

  I chose option three.

  I opened the driver side door, got out, opened the passenger door and got in.

  The back of the Rolls was oddly unfamiliar, seeing as I didn’t spend any time inside it. Cal was huddled on the opposite side, drawing patterns on the window in the fog. He didn’t look at me.

  I didn’t like apologising at the best of times, especially when I considered the situation and thought about what could have happened if I hadn’t been there. If Cal had been in some anonymous car and the driver had just allowed whatever they were doing to go on. I closed my eyes, thinking over my options. I knew that this was partly my fault because I had pushed him away, but I just wasn’t sure what to say.

  I looked down at my hands, “Cal, listen -”

  A heavy weight landed on my legs and strong arms wound around my neck. Cal’s thighs straddled mine and I found myself holding on to him, helplessly. He breathed with me for a few minutes, just sitting astride me, probably soaking in more of the rain and nuzzling the side of my neck.

  “Cal?” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “You’re a twat.” He said with quite a lot of venom behind it.

  I stroked his back for a few moments, breathing in the scent of him before replying.

  “So was he.” Cal huffed a laugh and tightened his grip.

  “He wouldn’t have done anything to me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Cal sighed and sat back, his face mostly in shadow from the darkness of the car. His breath was sweet, something like a fruit cocktail, but he didn’t look drunk. He was staring at me with very wide, sparkling eyes and I couldn’t look away.

  “Are you coming in?”

  The vulnerability in his voice almost broke me. He was expecting me to refuse, and I should have, but right then I just wanted to soothe away the night and my cruelty and I didn’t really think about the consequences, or what we would do in his flat, I just wanted to be with him.

  “Sure. Let me park the car.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By the time we reached his flat, which I had only seen properly once before, he was starting to look exhausted. We went inside into the spacious, beautifully appointed living room and Cal sat on the sofa, looking at his hands, without moving. He looked very young, very tired, and very wet.

  I went and ran him a bath. I sat watching the water rise in the huge whirlpool basin for a long time, uneasy about going back out there to find Cal in that same lonely position. I could feel something shifting between us. Something broken was being mended, while something else, infinitely more fragile, was gently beginning to grow.

  I heard quiet footfalls and Cal came into the bathroom, resting his hip against the sink and watching the water with me. He had taken his jacket and tie off and was standing with his shirt open at the neck and tucked into his suit trousers, his feet bare against the tiles. I had to wrench my gaze away.

  “Who’s that for?”

  “You. You’re exhausted and you’re soaking wet.”

  “Are you getting in with me? You’re soaking wet, too.”

  I looked up at him, trying to show him I wasn’t rejecting him. “No. But I’ll stay in here and we can talk, how’s that?”

  He thought about it for a few seconds and then nodded.

  “Okay. You want some hot chocolate?”

  I laughed. “Sure, why not. There’s a box of cupcakes on the side for you, too. Martin is apparently taking you up on your offer to critique his new recipes.”

  Cal grinned and skipped out of the room to fetch them. In about ten minutes I was sitting on the closed toilet seat, with my shoes and socks off, holding a steaming cup of hot chocolate, watching Cal settle his beautiful body into the bath, with care. He was also holding a mug of cocoa, and I wanted to offer to hold it for him, but the panicked look on his face was too amusing to pass up.

  He scowled at me, but was eventually happily ensconced in the water. He had a wooden contraption that fitted across the narrowest part of the bath and he’d carefully placed a cake there before he got in. Thankfully, I was just far enough away that I could only see his knee and his torso and I didn’t have to stare at his half hard cock while we talked.

  For a long time, once he
got settled, neither of us said anything and I was at a loss as to how to start the conversation.

  “Why’d you kick me out?”

  He asked it so bluntly I was momentarily too surprised to respond. I watched him and took a sip of the hot chocolate.

  “I wanted it to be uncomplicated.”

  “How’d that go?” His voice was drenched in sarcasm.

  “How’d picking up a random bloke to make me jealous go?”

  He smiled. “Pretty fucking well, now you ask.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at that. “You’re a nuisance.” I sighed watching the silhouettes of raindrops run down the translucent glass of the window. “I decided while I was out on my run that it would be easier to see less of you. In private, I mean.”

  “Why?”

  His head was rolled to the side, the bottom strands of his hair kissing the waterline and his big dark eyes watching me knowingly. He was so beautiful my stomach hurt.

  “I liked the friendship we were developing. I liked that you had trust in me about Deidre.”

  “So, why do you care who I’m with if you don’t want anything to do with me?” His voice was bitter.

  “I didn’t like the idea of some shit in a suit fucking you while I listened over the intercom.”

  He had the decency to look ashamed but then his expression hardened again. “We sucked each other off, we went to sleep, I woke up, took a shower, made coffee and then you came back and acted as though I’d shat in your bed, or something. What the hell do you think that felt like for me?”

  “Not good. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked.”

  “About what? I’m not a juvenile idiot. I’m not going to fire you because you don’t want to sleep with me. You could have just said.”

  I froze, the cup halfway to my mouth.

  “You think I got back from my run and I just didn’t find you attractive anymore?”

  “No. I think you realised it was stupid trying anything with your boss’s son, and that you could probably do better than some little kid who had cried on you three times in two days.”