Page 16 of The Expat Affair
I drop my hand into his and let him haul me out of the cocoon of his Bentley and into the cool parking garage under his building. A smelly space of cement and fluorescent lighting that, as far as I can tell, seems to be devoid of humans, which is good. The last thing we need is for someone to spot me here.
“This way,” Xander says as soon as I’m upright. He takes off toward a set of double glass doors at the far end. A man on a mission.
I follow behind as quickly as I can in this pencil skirt and five-inch heels, my soles clicking on the cold concrete floor. I catch up to him at the bank of elevators, one of them waiting to whisk us upstairs.
“I have a wine cellar in the basement.” Xander searches through his keys for a fob, a round gray thing he holds against a sensor by the buttons. It beeps once, and the top button lights up.PH, for penthouse floor. “I could send down for a bottle of Cristal if you’d like.”
“A wine cellar, huh? Sounds fancy.”
“There’s also a catering kitchen for whenever I need a private chef. I’ll have to have you and Thomas over sometime.”
“Do you even hear yourself? No oneneedsa private chef, Xander, or a wine cellar for that matter. When did you become so bougie?”
“Twenty years ago, when I made my first million. And you’re one to talk. Isn’t your chef named Marina?”
“It’s Martina, and she works for Thomas, not me.”
He cocks asure she doesbrow, and I laugh and lean a hip against the side wall. Xander and I only talk like this when it’s just us two, and always out of earshot of a Prins. Even Thomas. Especially him. For Thomas, my and Xander’s mutual climb out of poverty puts us on the same team, makes us co-conspirators in a game Thomas doesn’t want or know how to play. He’d see our back and forth as, at best, shutting him out, and at worst, flirting, but Thomas would only be partially right.
Yes, Xander and I have a lot in common. Yes, we both clawed our way into a life most people dream about. But mostly, what we like to do is push each other’s buttons. Depending on the day, our exchanges are a volley of either affectionate teasing or snarky exasperation.
I jut my chin at a round object in the corner of the ceiling. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t work. Well, the camera works, but the footage isn’t saved, just streamed to a screen behind the concierge desk downstairs. Joop sees it, but Joop is cool.” Xander waves at the camera. “Trained in the art of discretion.”
“In other words, Joop is used to watching you sneak strange women up to your apartment every night.”
“Noteverynight. But he might have seen it once or twice.”
The doors ping open, and the lights in the foyer turn on, almost as if by magic. He sweeps an arm at the gleaming space.
“After you, gorgeous.”
Rayna
On Sunday afternoon, the stress finally catches up to me. I fall asleep hard, but my dreams are like shallow puddles, the images so sharp and vivid that they feel almost tangible.
Me, standing alone on Xander’s terrace. The wind has picked up, the icy gusts whipping my hair and the duvet all around, raising chill bumps wherever it touches my naked skin.
And on its tail, Xander’s voice, speaking in Dutch.
I follow the sound inside, chasing the guttural gibberish through the empty bedroom and down a long, art-lined hallway, black-and-white framed photographs of faces I recognize, models and actors and rock stars. Xander’s voice grows louder, more heated, until suddenly, there he is, standing between his desk and the far wall of his study, talking on the phone.
No, not talking. Screaming. Under the buttery terry cloth of his robe, his back is rigid with fury. I don’t understand any of what he says, but I know instinctively that it’s not pleasant.
And all around him are diamonds. In giant piles on the floor, spread in glittering heaps on his desk, spilling over from his fist and a safe cracked open on the wall. Massive mounds of diamonds everywhere.
Suddenly, he turns. His eyes meet mine, and he mouths one word.
Run.
I lurch upright on a gasp, blinking into my dim beige bedroom.The metal table lamp on the dresser is still glowing, sending up a halo of dirt-tinted light. I fish around in the bedding for my laptop and check the time: 8:17 p.m. Outside my little window, the sky is black with night.
That one word echoes through my brain:Run.Did Xander try to warn me? Did he know he was in danger that night? That I was?
I fall back onto the bed and replay my memories for the millionth time. I squeeze my eyes shut and poke around the edges of what I can summon up, playing back the snippets over and over in my mind, trying to connect them, to line them up in chronological order. The booze, the terrace, the sex, the bed, the shades that peeled up the terrace windows unprompted like they worked on a timer.
But anywhere during those however many hours, did I follow his voice to the study? Was there really a phone call and piles and piles of diamonds? The dream felt so palpable. The smell of night jasmine on the wind, the feel of the hallway runner under my bare feet. Xander’s dismissive tone, the sharp blade of anger behind every word. I can’t tell what’s real and what is my mind playing tricks. Did Xander even have a study?
