The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(14)

We’re dropped off at the Plaza Athénée at eight in the morning, blinking dully beneath the pink and orange sky. Mara is pale, exhausted—she slept on my shoulder on the flight as I typed, but fitfully. I watch her, the membrane of her eyelids a light purple, her dark lashes curled and fluttering with dreams. I wondered what was happening behind those eyelids, under her dark waves of hair, inside that head. She never did manage to get back to the ruins, and I never did manage to find out more about Sam, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m heir to the Shaw estate. Ms. Gao’s sole occupation is to take my orders as I give them. But my desire to give Mara everything is greater than hating myself for taking what my father made, and used to torture her.

The documents—his, my grandmother’s—I feel polluted when I touch them. But I can do things now that they never would, make choices they would never make. Try and fix what my father had broken, help the people he hurt. So sign the papers I do. In a week, the revolution would begin, and I can find out everything I never wanted to know about my family if I choose. But for now . . .

We’re whisked into the hotel, glimmering chandeliers above, the papered walls bursting with rich colours, and Mara hardly notices that we don’t formally check in. Everything’s been handled already.

“Oh my God,” Mara says, collapsing onto the bed, splayed out like a starfish. I unbuckle one of her boots, then the other, letting them drop to the floor. Peel off her socks. She flips over onto her back to watch me with artist’s eyes, then arches up so I can slide off her jeans, blinking dreamily.

I’ve seen her in the middle of the night and the middle of the day, with makeup and without, with her hair done up and when it’s been unwashed for days. I’ve seen her in jeans and in silk and in nothing. I would gladly spend the rest of my life just looking at her.

Thankfully, I’m allowed to do more than that. I climb up her body to take off her shirt, and the feel of her skin makes me ten times more awake.

And then I see what she’s wearing underneath. Her chest is cupped in black edged with ivory lace, her arse in cheeky boy-shorts that match.

“Do you like them?” she asks, her voice soft, her eyes closed now.

“Not enough to keep them on you,” I say, reaching to unfasten and tug, but she doesn’t move.

“Mara?”

No answer. Her breath is deep and even. I bounce lightly on the bed just to confirm it, and, yes, she is in fact asleep.

With a heavy, pathetic sigh, I get up to close the curtains so the sunlight doesn’t wake her, and pull the comforter up over her body. I bend down to kiss her cheek and whisper, “You’re a mean girl, Mara Dyer.”

She smiles in her sleep.





10


THE AMUSEMENT OF MANKIND

HER MOBILE RINGS IN THE evening—we’ve both slept away the day, it seems.

“Who?” she moans, her voice hoarse. She makes no move to get it, so I untangle myself from her limbs and search her discarded clothes for it to no avail.

“Nightstand,” she mumbles.

My carefully cultivated look of disdain is completely wasted on her, as she’s thrown her arm over her eyes.

A glance at the screen reveals the caller. “It’s our favourite bisexual Jewish black friend.”

“Which?”

I try handing the phone to her and she waves it away. “Can’t. Exhausted.”

“It’s jet lag, not Ebola.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” she says, awake now. “Just answer it.”

I do, whipped dog that I am, and put it on speaker. “Hello, you’ve reached the winter of man’s discontent.”

“That’s Mara’s line. Did you throw her into the Thames?”

“I’m afraid not. She’s here, sleeping.”

“Well, wake her up! I need her.”

“Then come over and rouse her yourself,” I say just as Mara snatches the phone from me. Speaker still on.

“Hey,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“Hijinks. Gang’s all here.”

“Who?” I ask, as she says, “Where?”

“Me, Daniel, Sophie. Frank.”

Sophie being Daniel’s girlfriend. She made it into Juilliard, thankfully, as he’s so besotted with her he might’ve followed her if she’d gone somewhere else.

“Who the devil is Frank?”

“Restaurant between Fifth and Sixth on Second.”

“We should invite Goose,” I say to Mara. She nods.

“WTF?” Jamie says. “You want to eat goose?”

“You’ll like him,” Mara says. The strap of her bra slips down her shoulder as she gets up, pulls on her clothes from yesterday.

“When’ll you be here?”

Mara glances at me over her shoulder. “Car or train?”

“Either.”

“We’re taking a car,” Mara says. “So maybe nine?”

“We’ll entertain ourselves at the bar while we wait.”

“Mind-fucking the bartenders of New York already?” I ask.

“Why waste a good mind-fuck on drinks?”

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

“Exactly. Now get your asses over here before I tell the staff it’s your birthday and have the restaurant sing when you walk in.” The call ends before I can respond. “Twat,” I say to the phone.