I’ve stopped talking. Or maybe I’ve stopped thinking. At any rate, my throat closes. The pain of loss is like a physical blow, but I don’t move.
The gunman has shifted his position. He’s lost interest in my sad tale.
I stare out at the water, willing myself to breathe as long as I’m still able. For five years, I’ve lived on this remote coastline. Despite the constant threat of discovery, I’ve known moments of peace and even joy. Today might have been one of those occasions. Except for this gunman and his employer, the man who tried and failed to control my life.
All because I fell in love.
~
Brian Foster. Who could have seen it coming? Not my mother, who probably believed me incapable of any feelings. Not Victor, whose comprehension of passion’s power has always been incomplete. He knows how to manipulate human emotion in order to prey upon his subordinates’ weaknesses or vanquish his enemies. I doubt his ability extends to recognizing love in all its raw glory.
And not me, for whom such feelings have always carried too much risk.
Had I been younger, I might have understood how I could develop a crush on my teacher. As an adult, I considered myself immune to any such adolescent impulses. When I first encountered the language teacher Kemp hired for me, I was nearly twenty-eight. I’d been working for Kemp for four years. I was a jaded woman of the world, or so I thought.
If I expected a fussy sort in a bowtie, I was in for a surprise. A tall, broad-shouldered man awaited me in the conference room. He looked like the type who worked outdoors. I noticed his tousled red hair, bright green eyes, and big hands. A lopsided grin kept him from being model-perfect. It didn’t matter. He combined masculinity with an appealing boyish quality.
I tried to ignore the heat that rose in my body, ascribing it to a weird hormonal surge. Slow breathing didn’t work and neither did thinking of the luckless man who’d been recruited to be my latest boyfriend. I can guarantee Arabic studies weren’t on my mind. I’m amazed I ever managed to learn enough to carry on a conversation.
Belgian-born and Cambridge-educated, Brian Matthew Foster left a career in the Navy to start a consulting business after his father was killed in a car accident. He was fluent in seven languages and conversant in eight others. His talents as both instructor and meeting facilitator were much in demand; he marketed exclusively to high-end international corporations. His widowed mother resided in Bruges; his sister Juliette lived in Brussels with her banker husband and twin boys.
Brian maintained an apartment in London, although he was on the road most of the year. In his mid-thirties, he’d never married. He had little trouble attracting beautiful women, I soon learned.
Or so Victor Kemp told me. No surprise my employer knew so much about his language consultant. Any hire would be subject to his stringent vetting process. It did occur to me to wonder why he chose to fill me in about a short-term instructor. One never asked, though. Kemp had his own reasons and kept them close.
He couldn’t have known how Brian would affect me, akin to lust at first sight. I’d never experienced anything comparable. The only thing that kept me from fleeing the room in embarrassment was that Brian looked as if he’d been hit by lightning. Mutual attraction. We could have powered a mid-sized city with the charge that ran between us.
Even after we’d been together awhile, I denied ever being pulled to him so forcefully.
“You might have sparked a bit of interest. You’re tolerably good-looking. I was mostly attracted to your mind, however. And your wit.”
He laughed, something he did with ease and frequency.
“Really? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. You must be either blinded by love or in denial. Or both. I’m much more than tolerably good-looking, as my mother will tell you. Although I’m not in the least surprised that you recognize how truly clever I am. I've my Irish great-grandmother to thank for that.”
We went to bed. The physical pull couldn’t be ignored. I told myself it would be a one-time-only experience and knew I couldn’t keep that promise. At first, I put it down to lust. The need went beyond that, though. Brian reached into me. His desire filled me, suffusing parts of my being that had been dormant for years. To my surprise, something about me answered a longing on his part as well.
Our affair went on for more than half a year. We arranged to meet in odd little corners of the city far from work. We even met abroad from time to time. My job performance didn’t seem to suffer. In retrospect, however, I wasn’t as alert as I might have been. For instance, I refused to ask myself how Brian found it so easy to get to Munich, Madrid, or wherever I happened to be.
My biggest fear was that the man I worked for would find out about the man I loved, would sniff out our connection like an animal on the hunt. Every encounter mixed anticipation with apprehension. I often felt physically ill. Simply passing Brian in the corridor set off a tidal wave of emotion. Even in those pre-cellphone days, before the ubiquity of cameras on street corners and buildings, I felt exposed. What did Kemp suspect? What did he know? Brian couldn’t have understood how truly vulnerable I felt. He might not have understood how devious my employer could be. Not the way I did.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover what Kemp really expected of me. Yet he caught me off-guard.
“How are you feeling, Susan? You’re looking a little thin.”
We sat in his office one afternoon drinking the strong tea he favored. It was a ritual I could not avoid when he was in New York. At that point, I’d been studying with Brian for nine months and sleeping with him for five.
Victor Kemp’s concern for my well-being didn’t fool me. He wanted something.
“I’m fine. Working hard.”
“You’ve been studying hard as well. Tell me, what do you think of your teacher?”
“He’s a good instructor.”
Kemp raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“What do you want me to say, Victor? He’s good-looking and sort of charismatic if you like that type.” I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I preoccupied myself with my tea.
“I want you to get close to him.”
I choked and flushed at the same time.
“Hot. The tea.” I cleared my throat. “What exactly do you mean by close?”
“Physically and emotionally close, Susan. Get under his skin. Get into his bed. Get into his heart. I don’t care how you do it.”
I didn’t bother to hide my surprise. “Victor, I’m not a prude, but that does seem to be above and beyond the call of duty.”
He waved away my comment as if it were an annoying gnat.
I tried again.
“My lessons must be coming to an end soon. It’s been nearly a year. What would I use as an excuse to see him?” As if I needed one, I thought, and wondered if my face had reddened again.
“We’ll find some pretense to continue the lessons. Perhaps we’ll add another language.”
“I’m still confused. What exactly am I looking for?”
Victor tilted his head, a gesture more Gaelic than Russian.
“I think the professor is something more than a talented teacher who charges his international clientele an arm and a leg. He’s hiding something. Maybe it’s personal; maybe it’s professional. I want to find out what our friend is keeping from us.”
He grinned, revealing those frightening teeth.
“I should say, I want you to find out. Perhaps he’s a corporate spy. Perhaps he’s something more. It should be easy for you to discover. So. You will get to know him, and you will tell me what he tells you. I will decide what is valuable and how I wish to proceed.”
What did Victor know? What wasn’t he telling me? I started to object. Victor’s grin disappeared.
“You will do this, Susan. Is that clear?”
I knew I was in no position to refuse.