Finding Lily. Vivacia Ahwen K.

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       CHAPTER 2

       Reflections

      We entered Dorian’s luxurious apartment, and he helped me wriggle out of my fitted Ferretti black peacoat. The place was nothing short of fabulous – the team of hot carpenters and whoever decorated knew what they were doing – but I’ll spare details, seeing as he rushed me through the kitchen, dining room and living room, and didn’t so much as open the door to his master bedroom. So really I couldn’t take in the whole scene and do the ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s you’re supposed to when someone is showing off their renovated home. Particularly when some part of you says, It’s your home he is renovating. The space felt smaller than I’d expected, as I’d pictured the square footage of a floor with eight apartments being hugantic. But, like I know jackshit about square footage.

      Or maybe I did, since when he flung open the final door and showed me what was taking up about a third of the apartment, it all made sense. In the darkness of the enormous expanse there I could make out large shapes and shadows, but couldn’t identify exactly what of. I glanced at Dorian, and he said, ‘I had those carpenters Beezus hired build you a studio. Since word’s out that I’ve been revamping the company, suppliers have been sending us more gear samples than I know what to do with.’

      ‘So this is more a storage unit for your new toys than a studio for me.’ My voice was guarded. Let’s call a spade a spade, Dorian, I thought.

      ‘Or you could just be a lady and say thank you, Lily.’ He rubbed his temples. ‘As you know, I’m not one for exercise equipment, as I’d rather do it, live it, than play make-believe. But, OK, I may just mess around with that rotating climbing wall. With or without you.’

      ‘Hmmn.’ I tapped my foot, as though impatient. Meanwhile, my pulse was picking up, as a ripple of excitement and fear began coursing through my veins. ‘So turn on the light already.’

      ‘Preferably with you, given how much I’d like to be your belayer.’

      ‘Huh?’

      ‘Oh, I will harness you, watch you hang, guide your rope, then bungee you up against those phony rocks and have the two of us rotate together.’

      ‘What if you fell? Where’s your gear in this little fantasy?’

      ‘No ropes, no belts, not for this guy. It’s just a wall, not a mountain; I could run up this thing blindfolded. I don’t need protection, Lily. But you do.’ He closed his eyes, obviously visualising me hanging from the protruding artificial stones, crying like a baby while he leaped all over me like a half-starved mountain lion. Fearless of free-falling, because Holders Never Fall. ‘We shall see.’

      ‘Indeed we shall.’ I could picture him latching the safety belt around my waist, buckling the straps roughly around my thighs. In my fantasy, I’m not weeping, though. I am stone-faced and egging him on. Tighter, Dorian.

      ‘And no doubt we’ll find a way to use that anti-gravity yoga swing, sure. I’ve got faith in us. Et tu?’

      I didn’t answer.

      ‘Lily?’

      Dorian flipped a switch, and our strange surroundings came into focus. Like a good girl, I followed his directive and looked around the room.

      For the record, even before all of this phooey-hooey went down? Despite the fact that I worked for Apollyon LLC, supplier to the athletic, well-toned, extreme sorts? I have never so much as entered an outdoors-sporty store in my life. Should I have done so, I’d have been laughed out of there faster than you could sing the first verse of ‘Pretty Woman’. Despite Dorian Holder’s apparent fascination with a diamond-in-the-rough girl next door, he could have whoever he wanted, we had not made any solid promises, and somehow he was already Master of my Universe.

      But it wasn’t the array of complicated machinery that grabbed my attention, and I gasped against my will.

      Thousands of Lilies and Dorians were reflected in what felt like infinite mirrors. He had set the lights to dim, so our images and the shapes surrounding us flickered like candles, warm reds, oranges, yellows, displaying a strange and beautiful space where I could come and go as I pleased.

      Three of the walls were a masterpiece of the two of us in instant flashback, bevelled and placed at angles which made me feel as though we were in the centre of a fire opal, or swimming in a glasz ocean. The entire ceiling was a myriad of mirrors, catching the cerulean blue of his porcelain-tiled floor. For the multitudes of looking glasses reflected not only the two of us but another painting. A fuzzy-looking mural: a duplicate of Monet’s Water Lilies.

      Not a bad one, considering that he must’ve bullied a ‘paint it in twelve hours’ contract on some poor unsuspecting artist. The painter signing off, hoping it was his (or more likely her) big break.

      I could relate, 100 per cent. My big break.

      ‘Do you like it?’ his voice was husky as he drew closer to me.

      ‘It’s …’ Words escaped me, as he knelt at my feet, pulled my boots off and tossed them aside.

      He rose to his feet. ‘Now strip.’

      Since he’d asked me to do a pole-dance for him before, I assumed he wanted me to grab one of the aerobic pole-dance stands. Not tonight, it would have been too much. Instead, I slowly removed my garments, letting them drop to my feet like a puddle of cloth. I shivered, though the room was quite warm. Something about being entirely skyclad, while the man you borderline worship observes you with such a blank face, can chill a girl to the bone. But I lifted my chin, and tried to find emotion somewhere in his dark eyes, which now flickered with amber, emerald and desire. Which was something.

       Consider the lilies of the field …

      ‘Do you see yourself? Look.’ He stood behind me, gripped my shoulders hard, and we faced our reflection. ‘See, just for a moment, what I see whenever I look at you, Lily. You, darling girl …’