Loverman Page 13

  Ten minutes later, she pushed the chair back a degree, folded her hands on the table, and turned her head to meet Charles’ stare. He had the very strong impression she was forcing herself to do so. There was revulsion in every line of her. At him.

  “Has Kemp seen this?” she spat.

  “None of your concern.”

  “Has Vivian?”

  “None of your concern.”

  “This could land her in jail.”

  Charles raised an eyebrow. “So you pointed out to Kemp—ten years ago—on the tape. Your concern would still be interesting to the authorities. I have a suggestion. Over the past decade you’ve spent your time mostly in the States. If you choose to stay there, I will pay your living expenses—within reason—until you remarry, which I am certain you will. I’ll also settle the worst of your outstanding debts.”

  Maxine glared at him. “You’d have me living like a pauper.”

  “I’m aware of your lifestyle, Maxine,” Charles replied dryly. “You won’t be living like a pauper.”

  He saw her long white throat work as she swallowed. He could almost see it, her brain calculating every angle. No doubt, all of them were foul. This was the woman, he was certain, who had arranged for his house to be burgled, and along the way, Stephen Halliday had been beaten bloody. It was astonishing the man hadn’t landed in hospital. Collateral damage. It seemed she collected a lot of it.

  Eventually, Maxine said, “I was protecting your father. You’ve always known that. For all your moral superiority, you’ve done nothing but bank on me protecting his reputation, his legacy. If this got out—”

  “If the contents of the tape got out, you wouldn’t be able to walk down the street,” Charles said icily. “And as for protecting my father’s reputation, don’t trouble yourself. I’ve made it clear I don’t. Now, if my offer is acceptable, what I require in return is that you stay out of your children’s lives—unless they specifically invite you in. Do you understand? You’re a toxic woman, Maxine. I won’t have you causing further damage.”

  Her lips parted, an angry flush of colour hitting her cheeks. She shook her head and said disbelievingly, “Does Kemp even know you’re like this?”

  Charles felt himself still. “Like what, Maxine?”

  “So utterly, ridiculously protective of him—even of Vivian, and the girl can’t stand you.” She stared at him for a long moment and then burst into spiteful, delighted laughter. It lashed with a razor’s edge. It took all of Charles’ strength not to flinch. “My god, you love him, don’t you? You really love him. Oh my god, how wonderful. How incredibly funny.”

  She was still laughing as she left the room.

  Kemp awoke that morning, and Charles’ horror story hit his mind like a freight train. Nothing could scour the grime of Richard Durant’s actions away. Shoving the last of sleep aside, he reached out for Charles. He wasn’t there. Yeah, the couch. Downstairs. He’d said he’d be sleeping on it.

  Groaning, Kemp left the bed. He needed to process. To think. He needed to understand… hell, what Charles best needed from him. How to help him in whatever way Charles needed.

  What Charles had told him the night before had shifted every perception.

  Kemp didn’t know what he’d expected.

  “Your father took you to a prostitute when you were thirteen?”

  He couldn’t tell if his shock was the reaction Charles had been waiting for.

  Last night, Charles, still lying on the bed, long golden back to him, had run a hand over the crumpled sheet, smoothing it before saying flatly, “Yes, just.” Kemp had put his hand on Charles’ arm. Charles moved just enough to make his hand drop away. “But the woman wouldn’t… I remember being surprised, because no one refused him. So he went with her into the bedroom instead. The next time, the woman—girl—woman, I suppose, she was still in her teens, she didn’t turn it down. I knew I was gay. I’d already told my father I was gay. I think that was why he was so insistent. But I wouldn’t do it. Not even to prove to him that his son was man enough. So I refused.”

  Kemp had felt his mind wiping out. This was—no matter what he’d known about Richard Durant, this was beyond anything he’d guessed at. He’d known the man bullied his son, because fuck, he bullied everyone. He’d known what that rapist had done to his sister, but— “Let me get this right. Firstly—he took you to a prostitute, and she refused because you were only bloody thirteen. Then, later, even though you told him you were gay, he took you to another hooker. To uh, what, make a real man of you?”

  Charles nodded as if Kemp had just stated the blindingly obvious. Which he guessed he had. Even while he listened carefully, wanting to reach for Charles, he felt his rejection of any contact in every nerve ending. Charles had pulled himself up in the bed, knees drawn up, one of the many pillows Kemp liked to sleep with crumpled up behind him as he reached for the half-empty glass of wine.

  It seemed to help. When he spoke, his voice was less tight. “I thought he’d hit me when I said no. He didn’t. Instead, he made me stay in the room with them both, he and the woman he’d hired, while he—while he used her. Fucked her. Did things to her.”

  Sitting cross-legged beside him, Kemp made a choked sound. He placed his hand, carefully, on Charles’ arm, ran it up his shoulder, waiting to be shrugged away again. He wasn’t.

  He shifted a degree closer, as close as Charles’ fierce limits would permit. He listened.

  Charles cut his eyes to him. There was a terrible defiance in them. “It happened a few more times after that. When he returned to town—he was often away on business trips—we’d go to one of the city hotels. Sometimes, there would be more than one woman. I didn’t have to be in the room anymore. Sometimes he’d forget about me totally, and I’d just go to the window, stare out at the view. Those suites always had the most magnificent views of the harbour. I would just stand there and watch the ferries and imagine I was somewhere else, anywhere else entirely.”

  Charles was utterly dry-eyed. Terrifyingly so. Kemp wanted to reach out. Hold him. He sensed that was the last thing that Charles would welcome.

  Charles gave him a long, considering look. “You see, Kemp, that was why I knew your mother should never marry him. I tried to warn her off, behaved badly.”

  Kemp shook his head, hesitated.

  “I thought you were just a rich snotty brat who hated us.”

  Charles gave a rough laugh. “I probably was. But I just wanted you all to go away. I tried to make you all go away. You see, I’d taken one look at Viva, and I knew—”

  Kemp went very still. Charles had drawn back further, was looking at him square in the face with that chilling calm, and Kemp knew.

  He understood. Charles knew everything—or almost everything.

  Everything but the most explosive secret of them all.

  The one that had finally made Kemp cut ties.

  Charles continued. “I knew that he would take one look at Viva and—well, my father mostly hired teen girls. Late teens, but… I’m certain that was why he wanted to marry Maxine. A beautiful woman to act as his hostess, who also had a young beautiful daughter… I didn’t want to believe it, but—”

  Kemp did not bother to deny that one terrible truth they’d never discussed. No point, now. Instead, “But you were right. Only we thought you hated us. I thought you hated Viva the most.”

  “Not hate. I was scared for—” Charles bit the words back and drained the wine, put the glass aside to scrub his face. “I don’t think the rest of us were ever actually human to him. We were just things. Objects. Possessions. The kind of insane drive my father had, he built an empire, yes, but he destroyed lives in the process. Business associates, rivals. And my mother.” Charles paused, drew in a shaky breath, and rubbed his knuckles over his mouth. Above them, the blue of his eyes blazed. “I was afraid of what he would do to your sister. I knew he was a fucking pervert. I was even afraid, a little, for Maxine.”

  Kemp made a sound that should have been
a laugh. It wasn’t. Abruptly Charles pulled away with none of his usual grace and got to his feet, moved around the room, reached for his chinos, pulled them on. He paused in the doorway. “I might grab some coffee. I’ve got some stuff I have to work on. I’ll set up downstairs.”

  Charles had let Kemp in. Really, really, truly let him in.

  Did that feel good at all? Or was Charles already regretting it? Judging by the haunted look on his face, the answer was regret.

  Somehow he’d known all along about Viva, about Durant and Viva.

  Christ, what else did Charles know about that?

  Did he know exactly how it had ended? The biggest secret of them all, the one that could explode Viva’s life to hell? The one Kemp had fought so hard to protect, the one that had always acted as a ten-mile-high fucking barrier between Charles and him, although Charles didn’t know it, because fuck, how could Kemp have allowed himself to get involved with Charles, care about Charles, when he was supposed to be keeping Durant’s son a million miles away from any discovery of exactly how his father had died? Of Viva’s role in it?

  That fucking weakness had felt like a betrayal of the private vow Kemp had made. It said something about their bond that when Charles had come back into his life, he’d hadn’t fought it.

  Kemp could scarcely breathe. He ached to offer comfort. Charles’ expression forbade it. Instead, somehow Kemp said calmly, as if this was all normal, “Work to do? You can’t do it in the morning? Come on, Chaz, stay here with me—”

  Charles looked at him blandly. His control was back, ice over harsh waters.

  “I’ve a meeting in the morning.” A comma of blond hair fell into his eyes. “I’ll probably fall asleep on the couch when I’m done. Don’t wait up.”

  Looking back in the morning light, Kemp remembered the way Charles hesitated for a moment, almost flinching, as if waiting for some smart-arse comeback. Some stone-cold dismissal. But he was wrong. Even in his worst moments, Kemp could never have turned on him. No, instead it broke his bloody heart.

  But still, it came as no surprise Charles had said don’t wait up.

  Their relationship was not built on heart-to-hearts. On sheer human kindness. They were both hardened survivors. From the beginning they’d told each other it was just fucking. Sheer lust and the easiness that came from two people with a shared history who knew how difficult it was to trust outsiders.

  They could trust each other—just enough, anyway.

  No wonder Charles recoiled from his own display of vulnerability. Christ, what it must have cost him to have opened up like that? And why? In his own way he’d even tried to protect Viva, a woman who’d shown him nothing but open hostility.

  In the morning Charles left for that unspecified appointment. Kemp paced downstairs, thinking. Finally, he picked up his iPhone.

  He keyed in a text to Viva: Urgent. You free? Breakfast? Lunch? Gotta talk

  Viva made time. He took her out for a late breakfast at one of her favourite hangouts, a cafe on Oxford Street. It was quiet enough. They sat at one of the tables just inside the thick glass windows fronting onto the sidewalk.

  Viva shot Kemp a droll look, her voracious, lipsticked mouth twisting a little.

  “Incognito?” she drawled.

  He was, as much as he ever could be, and it was usually enough that no one looked twice: beanie jammed down, hair shoved into it, face rough with stubble, but most of all, he just held himself differently. No strut, no slink. Just an average Joe, as they used to say.

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and leant back in his seat, stirred a fat chip through mayonnaise and then put it to one side. It looked good, but his stomach was churning. The nightmare story that Charles had told him last night had left him feeling powerless, useless in the face of Charles’ refusal to accept any anger on his behalf. Because there was no easy way to open that conversation, he dodged, “Chaz thought the video was brilliant, by the way.”

  Viva lifted a finely arched dark brow. “Really. I feel so much better. Because before, you know, I’d suspected it was utter shit.”

  “Don’t be a bitch.”

  Viva ceased attacking her plate of bacon and eggs. “What is this? This was urgent? Passing on Charles’ approval?” Shaking her head, she said, “Let’s be clear—I don’t need anyone’s stamp of approval. Okay?”

  Kemp would have flinched, but he knew where she was coming from. Charles had set the seal on where their relationship would head years ago. They were the gold-digger’s trash invading his home. He also had Charles’ secrets from last night drumming in his skull like a bedtime story from hell. Neither Viva nor himself had truly understood exactly why Charles had been so hostile, so obnoxious back then, but fuck, turned out he’d had his reasons.

  Jesus Christ.

  He cut a look about the cafe. Still fairly quiet, no one near them. Over the way, the guy that had served their table was muttering something to the hipster bearded barista, but so far, no one was bothering them. Cuban beats thrummed from the speakers. So far, so good.

  Back to why they were here.

  “It wasn’t about approval,” Kemp said flatly. “Come to dinner Friday night.”

  Viva’s beautiful eyes—grey as cool lake water, smoky with shadow—went wide over her forkful of egg. “What?”

  “Dinner Friday night. My place. Charles and I. Dinner, you and Red.”

  Christ, he didn’t even know if Charles was free Friday night—Kemp certainly hadn’t been—but then he was playing this by ear. Was kind of shell-shocked, in fact.

  Viva set her fork down. “I’m busy.”

  “Saturday.” He was fucking busy then too, but whatever.

  “Booked up. Dinner with Red’s fam.”

  “Sunday night, then.”

  Viva’s head tilted at an angle. He’d seen it before: now he was an exotic creature in a zoo, a puzzle, and Viva was going to sort it out, yank out the knots in the rope, toss it aside once resolved and decoded. “What is this, Kemp?”

  “You don’t know him, Vivi,” Kemp murmured. He stared down at the bowl of chips. His mind supplied images to the secrets Charles had given him, and he was appalled. “You remember when I boarded at school, and they put me in the same room as Charles?”

  “Sure.” Wherever this was going, she didn’t exactly like it. But then she’d never liked anything about Charles and him, together.

  “In the middle of the night, when he was certain I was asleep, he’d… he’d make noises, like he was waking up from a nightmare. Almost sobbing. Only he wasn’t waking up. He was just lying there, and the nightmare—I think he’d been living it.” Kemp paused, lifted his gaze to hers. “He’s not what you think, Viva. He’s not what either one of us thought, back then. And maybe, if he was a shit to us, back in the day, it was because he was trying to warn us off. You understand? He—he saw a lot more than he let on.”

  Viva had become very still. The colour was draining from her face. Yes, she understood.

  “Just come to dinner Sunday night. Bring Red. We’ll have dinner and talk, nothing special. We’ll just be… you know, like civilised human beings.”

  She was almost immobile. Her eyes were fixed on his face. In them he read everything. “Just dinner? Just chat?”

  “Just dinner. Like civilised human beings.” Christ, that word. Civilised. Turned out he liked it as much as Charles did.

  “No… games?”

  “Dinner. Chat. That’s it.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. Kemp sat back in his seat and took in the deep breath he’d been starving for. He tried not to notice that the staff behind the counter had truly cottoned on to who he was. Soon they’d be snapping photos of him from over there. Probably already had been.

  It was all okay. He stole a slice of Viva’s toast and tried to tell himself that he knew what he was doing. It was a hard sell. Especially when his sister was looking at him as if every horror story from the past was rearing back and roaring at them both, bloody in claw, bloody in
fang, and he’d been the one to open the door and let them back in.

  He was about to make it so much worse.

  “One other thing, Vivi,” Kemp forced out. “Our mother’s back in town. Trying to hit Charles up for money. The usual antics.” Viva was looking at him as if the horror show had just hit overload. “Just a warning. Be aware. You know… just in case.”

  That afternoon the sea didn’t work its usual rough magic. Kemp watched the sun slowly shift in the sky. He swam and later walked the beach sands but got no closer to any answers. He got back into his car, shirt pulled on over damp board shorts, and sticky with seawater, ran his thumb over the sun-warmed glass screen of his phone, debating.

  Finally, he tapped out: Chaz. We’ve got to talk

  Chapter Fourteen

  The phone pinged with a notification when Kemp was halfway back to Balmain from the beach. He pulled in to the first supermarket carpark with a bottle shop he saw, parked the Datsun in the dying afternoon sun, and checked his phone.

  Charles’ text hit the screen. We’ll talk, but the problem is solved

  Kemp scowled, keyed, Solved?

  In the midst of Charles’ revelations about Richard Durant, Kemp had pushed his mother’s reappearance to the back of his mind. Apparently, Charles was more adept at juggling multiple life events than he was. The next text chilled him.

  Maxine is now out of the picture

  Kemp’s scowl deepened. He tapped back, What the fuck have you done Charles?

  No need to thank me

  A memory hit: Charles’ long golden body writhing beneath him the night before, pinned by Kemp’s cock, by the binding grip of his hand on Charles’ crossed wrists. Another memory: Charles’ face, taut, carved marble, mouth like stone as he told Kemp those terrible, tightly held secrets. Another: Charles’ profile, contorted in ecstasy as he’d come, body hot and tight about Kemp’s.