The Price Of His Redemption

What he wasn’t used to, though, was a woman like Libby. Her flat shoes made no sound on his marble tiles as she went over and looked out at the view and, Daniil was sure, she had another conversation going on in her head.

He lived above the clouds, Libby thought, or at least that was how it felt. They were so high up that she could be flying now, or in a hot-air balloon.

‘You don’t sound like a pony clipping around,’ he observed.

‘Ah, yes, noise irritates you.’ Libby smiled as she nursed a brandy and stared out at a dusky London, the sky flaring orange and promising that tomorrow would be another hot day, and she thought about the lead-up to tonight. ‘I was going to knock on your office door just to annoy you. And then knock again.’

‘Is that why you were smiling when you came in?’ Daniil asked, as he recalled thinking that she had been laughing at some private joke.

Now she shared it.

‘It was.’ Libby turned from one delicious view to another.

Him.

‘Do you know that I was sent off to clean myself up before Cindy would let me in to see you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I felt like I was at school and they were doing uniform inspection,’ she said, and then got back to peering at Big Ben and wondering if you could hear the chimes from in here, but her question never got asked because he spoke first.

‘Do you have your navy panties on?’

She wanted to lift her skirt and flash her bottom at him and she laughed out loud as she imagined doing so. ‘I’m most unlike me tonight,’ she admitted.

‘In what way?’

She thought for a long moment, wondering how best to describe the sheer heady pleasure of self-indulgence, how, till today, she had contained herself, unless she was dancing. Instead of saying so, though, she shook her head, just as Daniil did when there was something he would rather not discuss.

He accepted her silence.

‘I’m most unlike me, too,’ he said.

Usually he’d be just about on his way out.

Dinner with Libby had been very civil and certainly it was early to be home. More pointedly perhaps, they hadn’t kissed their way up in the lift, neither were they in bed already.

Instead, she wandered around and, rarely at ease with that, he let her.

It was a vast floor space; the walls, to the sides of the glass one, were brick, and the effect was amazing against the night sky. There was a storm rolling in and it was a sight to behold, the sky lighting up pink in the distance with each strike, yet there were no rumbles of thunder to be heard; rather she felt them. Looking out, it was almost as if you were on a very high balcony, suspended there on the outside. In fact, it was a little dizzying, as if you should be able to feel the breeze. After a few moments of taking it in, Libby stepped back and, as she did so, she felt she should be closing doors behind her. ‘Your home is stunning.’

It was.

The dark leather sofas were so wide and inviting she could happily sleep on a quarter of one of them, and naturally there were all the mod cons.

Except there was something missing.

There was no artwork on the walls, no photos on the shelves.

‘No books!’ Libby exclaimed.

‘I read online.’

‘But what about all your old ones?’

‘I dispose of them when I’m done.’ Daniil shrugged as Libby almost fainted in horror at the thought of him callously tossing them out.

Well, there’s your lesson, she warned herself. She’d be shivering in the recycle pile tomorrow, with all evidence of her ever being here tidied away by his maid.

Yes, it was somehow, despite the beauty, sterile.

The kitchen was something that would have any serious cook weeping with envy but, unlike her sister, Libby wasn’t a cook by any stretch of the imagination so she passed by quickly.

‘You don’t like the kitchen?’ he called over his shoulder as she walked past it.

‘It’s a kitchen,’ she said.

She hesitated as she approached the master bedroom, where she would be performing later, but was surprised at her lack of stage fright.

They might not even make it to the bedroom, Libby sighed, because right now she was fighting the temptation to turn around and run over and do him on the sofa.

She could feel his eyes on her and she had a prickly, excited feeling that at any moment he might choose to pounce.

What a bedroom, she thought as she peered in.

Just a bed.

That was it.

There was one perfect, vast, four-poster bed, which was dressed in white and was up against a huge brick wall.

No art on the walls, no mirrors...

It was curiously beautiful in its simplicity because there was nothing and nowhere to hide.

‘Where do you put your clothes?’ she called from the doorway.

‘There is dressing room behind the wall to your right.’

There were no bedside tables, either.

‘Where do you put your glass of water?’

‘I get up if I want a drink.’

‘Condoms?’

‘Ha!’ He laughed at her brevity. ‘I have a woman who hands one over at the necessary moment...’