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In the main, it was a very Upper East Side crowd that had been invited back, but to her great surprise Aubrey had found herself being guided into a black car and driven to a hotel, and now she stood in a plush room labelled ‘Private Function’.
Brandy and the others had commandeered the hotel bar and Aubrey was wondering if it might be better to head out there and join them.
Waiters were doing the rounds with trays of drinks and delectable food, but, though hungry, Aubrey declined to accept as her stomach was too knotted up to accept and her hands were too unsteady to be around glass.
Aubrey could feel the daggers being shot in her direction and felt her cheeks burn amidst curious stares. She had done her absolute best not to stand out, but amongst the elite, of course, she did. Her friend’s dress was just a little too polyester and a little too big, and the same friend’s shoes a touch too long and wide. There were low, polite conversations going on all around but Aubrey stood alone until one portly gentleman came over. He didn’t mince his words. ‘You knew Jobe how?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Aubrey responded. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’
He blustered for a moment and then went back to his wife and Aubrey again stood alone.
Chantelle worked the room, thanking the guests for their attendance, presumably accepting condolences while sharing small anecdotes, but she gave Aubrey a wide berth.
Aubrey again declined a drink from a passing waiter and was wondering if it might just be simpler to leave. She was already seriously questioning the wisdom of coming back for the wake when a very elegant woman came over and proffered a kind smile before reducing Aubrey with words—‘I think you’ll find your friends are all at the bar.’
It was the final straw. With her mind made up that she was leaving, Aubrey headed for the doors, but unfortunately, as she did so, the brothers turned from the group they were speaking with and she came face to face with one of the sons that she knew from the tabloids to be Abe.
‘Miss Johnson.’ He offered a thin smile and a vice-like handshake but even if his stance was polite, his black eyes were unfriendly and the message was clear—You are not welcome.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Aubrey offered, surprised that he knew her name and realising it hadn’t been chance that she had been allowed into the service. Perhaps they knew about Jobe and her mom after all. ‘It was a lovely service.’
He didn’t respond.
‘I was actually just leaving,’ Aubrey said.
‘Perhaps that would be for the best.’
Ouch.
Khalid now came and stood at her side, like a security guard, Aubrey thought, and it angered her, for they all clearly thought she was either trouble or not good enough to be here.
Aubrey was actually now tempted to accept a drink from the passing waiter just to throw it in Abe’s face, to tell him that his father had never looked at her or her mother with such contempt. She was suddenly sick of the Devereuxes and their closed ranks and minds, and tired of being looked at as if she’d brought in dirt on her shoe.
Khalid could feel the tension rip through her, and privately he considered it deserved—Aubrey had been nothing but polite and discreet and had clearly been about to leave.
It was too late for that now, though, for Chantelle had arrived.
Ah, Chantelle.
Khalid inwardly sighed.
She had never quite made it to wife and remained bitter about that fact. Her hair was coiffed to perfection as always, yet her face was flushed from champagne and, if there was such a thing as too many diamonds, Chantelle, to Khalid’s mind, was just that.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ she said to Aubrey. ‘I’m Chantelle, Jobe’s partner.’
Khalid felt his jaw grit a little. Chantelle had been Jobe’s date on many an occasion, yes. But the great man himself had kept her at arm’s length before his demise.
‘I’m Aubrey,’ she said, and held out her hand. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
Aubrey’s hand wasn’t accepted.
‘The correct thing to do, at an occasion such as this,’ Chantelle hissed, ‘is to say who you are and your relationship to the deceased.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Aubrey said, refusing to let on she was terrified. ‘I wasn’t aware of that—it’s my first funeral.’
And Khalid, who rarely smiled, especially on a day like today, found that he was suppressing one, as Aubrey sidestepped the demand for more information as to who she was.
Yet Chantelle, having spent a week locked out of Devereux discussions and attorneys, having spent a week being less than magnanimously told that while she could join the family at the service, the fact was she wasn’t one of them.
The Devereuxes were bastards to those not their own.
And Aubrey, alone, stood in the volatile thick of it.
‘So where have you travelled from?’ Chantelle asked, assuming correctly that Aubrey wasn’t from the East Side.
‘Vegas.’
‘Oh.’
Yes—oh.
Just. How. Old. Is. She? Chantelle’s eyes screamed as she spoke. ‘Do you get to Manhattan much?’
‘It’s my first time here,’ Aubrey answered.
‘And you know Jobe, how?’
He had a long affair with my mother, Aubrey was tempted to sweetly reply. He adored her and treated her like a queen. They used to play strip poker in our trailer. Not while I was there, mind. Jobe was a gentleman like that. He really was. I only found that out the other day when my mom was reminiscing. I was there, though, when he drank cheap whiskey while my mom cooked him spiced chicken wings. They were his favourite, not that you’d know.
He helped with my homework. You’d twist that and make that sound sleazy, but it never, ever was. He took us to Disney and to see the Hoover Dam and we went in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. Me! A girl from a trailer park who’d never had a daddy, let alone been on a holiday, flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter.
They loved each other and my mom never took a single red cent. Not even when she got so burnt, so broken she couldn’t afford her bills, still she didn’t let him know. She wanted him to remember her as the beauty she had been and the love they had once had.
But, of course, Aubrey didn’t say any of that.
She had nothing left in the tank. Fuelled on no sleep and a single granola bar, suddenly she felt a little sick and also terribly close to tears when Chantelle, her eyes bulging, finally snapped. ‘Who exactly are you?’
Aubrey could feel all the eyes on her. She had no idea what to say and was ruing her decision to come. Her heart felt as if it had moved up to her throat and she wanted to turn and run.
Khalid could feel her silent agony as she stood before the inquisition.
While his brief was to protect the Devereux family from Aubrey, his instinct was suddenly to protect her from them. As much as he loved them, Khalid knew their might and, aware of their ruthlessness with outsiders, he stepped in. ‘Aubrey is here with me.’
Aubrey blinked as he spoke and dared not turn to him; instead she watched as Chantelle turned from angry, to confused, to mollified, right before her eyes.
‘Oh...’ Chantelle’s pursed lips parted in surprise. ‘I must apologise. I didn’t realise.’
‘Why would you, Chantelle?’ Khalid responded. ‘I never discuss my private life.’
‘So, how long have you two been—?’ Chantelle persisted, but Khalid would not be interrogated by anyone and interrupting the question he turned to Aubrey. ‘Come on.’
Oh, the blessed relief of walking out of the wake with Khalid by her side where it felt no harm could come to her. She liked it that he did not take her hand or snake an arm around her waist, just because the scenario he’d created possibly meant he could, and in the foyer Aubrey turned and faced him, and was suddenly shy. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘It’s no problem.’
‘I just didn’t know what to say...’
‘You don’t have to explain your dealings with Jobe to me.’
Dealings? Aubrey frowned at his choice of word, unsure quite what he meant. ‘Well, thanks again.’ She offered her hand and perhaps that was the wrong thing to do, for he did not accept it, though for a reason Aubrey hadn’t thought of—‘Isn’t that a little formal when we’re supposed to be a couple? Chantelle is just over there.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She nodded and pulled her hand back, and then nerves caught up and generated the most stupid thing Aubrey could possibly say. ‘Perhaps I should have kissed you instead?’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Khalid responded.
She flushed in embarrassment at her stupid words but then he stepped in and saved her there to. ‘Aubrey, even were you my date there would be no affection between us and Chantelle would know that.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled in relief and even made a little joke. ‘So, no public displays of affection. Noted.’
Khalid was about to correct her—no, no affection. Period.
But that would have led them into dangerous waters indeed, for she might ask him to clarify just what he’d meant by that.
And Khalid would love to clarify.
They stood in a busy foyer, yet it felt as if only they two were there. There was warmth in the air between them and there was an awareness too great to share with a stranger on a funeral type of afternoon.
Khalid realised then that he had been wrong earlier about her wearing too much blusher, for colour now spread on her pale cheeks. He understood the effect was because of him. Or, rather, them. For though Khalid did not blush, of course, there was heat elsewhere. The effect of Aubrey on him had been unexpected, for she was not to his usual, sophisticated, taste.
And, as they stood there, Aubrey found that she wanted to know the name of his scent, and to know how the silk of his suit felt to touch. And she wished now that he had snaked a hand around her waist, just to know brief physical contact with this imposing man. And for Aubrey, those feelings were so unfamiliar that suddenly she had to get away.
He was simply too much.
The whole day had been too much and the antibiotics had made her feel sick. She felt overwhelmed and, not so much dizzy, more that she just had to sit down, so she flicked her eyes from his gaze and thanked him again.
‘My pleasure.’
Such a rare pleasure, Aubrey thought as she went and sat on one of the plush lobby chairs and tried to summon the energy for the journey home.
Well, not home—her night would be spent at the airport. Aubrey was just wondering how long she could stretch out sitting here before being moved on when she saw his dark suited legs and even without looking up she just knew it was him.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘I will be.’ She nodded. ‘I just needed to sit down.’
‘Are you staying locally?’
‘No, I’m headed for the airport,’ Aubrey said, a little taken aback when he sat down on one of the plump seats beside her.
‘What time is your flight?’
‘Nine.’ She didn’t add that it was at nine a.m. tomorrow but she could see concern in his eyes. ‘I’m just a bit wiped.’
‘Perhaps because you haven’t eaten?’
‘I have, there was loads of food...’
‘No,’ Khalid said, surprising himself that he had noticed, but he had seen her decline the hors d’oeuvres each time the waiters had come around. ‘You didn’t eat anything.’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘My stomach was in knots.’
‘Would you like me to have something brought to you...?’ He was about to raise his hand and summon someone, but she halted him.
‘Really, I’m fine, just a little tired—I’m getting over an ear infection and I flew through the night to get here.’
Khalid lived a luxurious life, but did understand that not everyone travelled in the style that he did. She was, he guessed, more than a little tired. He watched as she managed to stand and he glanced at her shoes, which were slightly too large, and then up to her face, which was suddenly slightly too pale.
‘Well, it was nice meeting you,’ Aubrey said, and all Khalid knew was that he did not want her walking off, weary, hungry and sad.
‘Wait,’ Khalid said, and of course she swung around. And now he had to think of a reason for calling her back. ‘Aubrey, do you want to go for a lie down?’ He saw the flare in her clear blue eyes and immediately realised she had misinterpreted his words. He didn’t blame her, for even Khalid was having difficulty qualifying what he had just said.
‘Excuse me. What I meant was that my suite will be vacant for a couple of hours.’ She gave an owl-like blink of her huge blue eyes that forced Khalid to explain better. ‘I have to see the family back to the house, then stay for drinks and, no doubt, dissect who was who at the funeral...’
‘Such as me,’ Aubrey said, and for a second she thought she saw a flicker of a smile grace his lips, but then decided that she must have imagined it for that glimmer had gone.
‘I have already explained to them that you are with me.’ Khalid could not quite believe he had offered her the use of his suite. Even his lovers did not get freedom to roam like that. Yet she moved him in unexpected ways. ‘You are more than welcome to use my suite for a couple of hours before you go to the airport.’
God, but a lie down sounded nice, Aubrey thought, and then remembered she hadn’t been born yesterday. ‘I don’t think—’
But he interrupted her. ‘The choice is yours. I doubt I shall be back till late this evening, so there would be plenty of time for a sleep before you head off.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘My role today is to take care of Jobe’s friends and I believe you are one of them.’
‘But why would you trust me?’
‘Trust you?’ he checked.
Aubrey saw his frown and wondered if she had used a word he did not comprehend. ‘I might trash the room, take off with your things,’ she explained further.
But, no, Khalid knew very well what she’d meant. ‘Why would you do that, Aubrey?’
He was so measured.
And so very withheld.
Aubrey didn’t even know what she meant by withheld, except that was the word that sprang to her mind.
