Forty 2 Days (The Billionaire Banker) by Georgia le Carre Page A

minutes I get out and, wrapping myself in a fluffy bathrobe that smells of squashed berries, I go into the kitchen.  
    In the fridge there I find two bottles of champagne lying on their sides.  I remember the last time when I stood in the balcony and drank to my mother’s health.  This time champagne doesn’t seem appropriate.  I close the door restlessly and go to the liquor cabinet.  There I pour myself a very large shot of vodka.  Standing by the bar I knock it back.  It runs like fire into my empty stomach, but it has the desired effect of almost immediately settling my nerves.  I look at my hands.  They have stopped shaking.
    I go back into the bathroom and carefully apply my make-up.  Two layers of mascara, a touch of blusher, and nude lip gloss.  I move away from the mirror.
    ‘ Not bad, Bloom.  Good job.’  
    I go back to the alcohol counter and pour myself another large vodka, down it and, feeling decidedly light-headed and, devil may care, go to the bedroom.  I take my beautiful white dress off the hanger and change into it.  As I gently ease it over my head a hook catches on my hair and pulls a lock out of place.  I stare in horror at the dangling lock.  Cursing, I try to twist it and push it back into place.  My efforts are somewhat successful and I sigh with relief.  I zip up and step into my shoes and look at myself in the mirror.  
    A sophisticated woman with glittering eyes and high color stares back.  Too much blusher.  With cotton wool I remove it all.  The heat and the alcohol have tinged my cheeks pink.  No need for blusher.  I dab my finger with perfume and touch it behind my ears.  
    There I am, ready for the great Barrington.
     

Eight
    I kill ten minutes pacing the balcony tiles in my Cinderella shoes.  At 8:05 exactly Tom rings the bell.  His eyes widen when I open the door.  
    ‘ That’s a beautiful outfit, Miss Bloom,’ he says, with an embarrassed cough.  He is holding a long cardboard box, which he awkwardly slips onto the side-table.  I look at it and feel the color rush up my neck.  Oh my God! Blake really means for this to be a re-creation of our first night together.
    As the lift descends I already know where Tom is taking me.  
    Madame Yula is filled with the same sort of people that had populated it the last time I was there.  If this is a re-creation of our first night together then I know exactly where I will find Blake.  Waiting at the bar.  I turn towards it and even though I know what I will see, my heart stops.  He is wearing a charcoal suit, black shirt and a white tie, and he is the most beautiful man in the place…but that is not it…  I am being eaten alive by his eyes.  For a long moment I stand frozen, simply caught and staring back at the hunger in his stormy blue eyes.  It is so naked and raw it shocks me.  
    ‘ Mademoiselle,’ someone says, close to my ear.  I turn in the direction of the voice, my expression blank, distracted, perhaps even confused.  ‘Can I help you?’ the waiter queries.
    Before I can answer, Blake is there.  
    ‘ She’s with me,’ he says smoothly, and the waiter slips away, the way waiters in movies do.  I turn my head and look up into Blake’s face.  In the glow of candles and soft lighting he seems dark and impossibly mysterious.  For a moment neither of us speaks.  We never broke up.  It’s all there crackling between us.  The sex-rumpled sheets, the slim hips wrapped only in a towel, the hungry mouth, and the hours upon hours of fucking.  I shiver with the memories.  My lips part.   An invitation that cannot be missed.  
    But a shutter comes over his eyes.
    ‘ How complete is the illusion that beauty is goodness,’ he murmurs.
    Vaguely it registers that it is quotation, but my stunned brain cannot locate the source.  A hand reaches out to take that escaped lock of hair that has worked free of my efforts to keep it up.  Gently he twirls the strands in his fingers and carefully