The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET. Scott Mariani
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thoughts. As he walked into the ante-room to answer it, he slipped the Browning into his belt, against the flat of his lower back. He untucked his shirt to cover it. ‘Who is it?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘The food you ordered, Monsieur ‘Arris,’ came Joseph’s muffled voice. ‘And your champagne.’
‘I didn’t order any champagne.’ Ben unlocked the door, his hand hovering near where the pistol nestled coldly against his skin. When he saw the shrivelled old man standing alone outside with the service trolley he relaxed and pulled the door open.
‘Monsieur, the champagne is complimentary,’ Joseph said as he wheeled the trolley into the room. ‘It comes with the suite.’
‘Thanks, just leave it there.’
With his large tip from earlier on still nestling in his pocket, and the promise of more to come, the old man’s step seemed more sprightly as he wheeled in the trolley. There was charcuterie and a selection of cheese, fresh baguette and champagne on ice. Ben gave Joseph some more cash, showed him out and locked the door behind him.
The champagne took the edge off their mood. They ate in silence. In the background the radio was playing soft jazz. By the time the bottle was empty it was nearly midnight. Ben grabbed a pillow from the four-poster and tossed it on the leather couch near the window at the opposite end of the room. He took some spare blankets from the wardrobe and threw down a rough bed for himself.
The radio had moved on to playing an old Edith Piaf song. Roberta moved close to him. ‘Ben, will you dance with me?’
‘Dance?’ He looked at her. ‘You want to dance?’
‘Please. I love this song.’ She took his hands, smiling uncertainly, and could feel him tensing up.
‘I don’t know how to dance,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah, that’s what they all say.’
‘No, really, I don’t know how. I’ve never done it.’
‘Never?’
‘Never once in my life.’
From his wooden, awkward movements she could see he was telling the truth. She looked up at him. ‘It’s OK, I’ll show you. Just take my hands and relax.’ She moved towards him gently and rested one hand on his shoulder, taking his hand with the other.
‘Put your free hand here on my waist,’ she prompted him. His hand was rigid. She moved with him, and he tried to follow her motion, shuffling stiffly with her steps.
‘See? Feel the rhythm.’
‘OK,’ he said hesitantly.
The song ended and another followed straight on: ‘La Vie en Rose’.
‘Oh, this is a good one too. OK, here we go again…that’s it…enjoying it?’
‘I don’t know…maybe.’
‘I think you could be good at this, if you could relax a bit more. Ouch, my foot.’
‘Sorry. I did warn you.’
‘You’re thinking about it too much.’
From a simple dance he could feel a million conflicting emotions. It was the strangest sensation, and he couldn’t decide whether it was pleasant or not. A warm and inviting world seemed to beckon to him. He wanted to embrace the warmth, let it into his heart again after so many years alone in the cold. Yet the moment he began to feel himself giving in to it, he stiffened, and a barrier seemed to come crashing down somewhere inside him.
‘Thought you had it for a moment there.’
He pulled away. It was too much for him. It was as though his space had been invaded, his comfort zone breached after years of being alone. He threw a sidelong glance at the mini-bar.
She saw his eye. ‘Don’t, Ben, please.’ She laid a warm hand on his.
He looked at his watch. ‘Hey,’ he laughed nervously. ‘It’s getting late. We’ve got an early start in the morning.’
‘Don’t stop. It’s nice,’ she murmured. ‘Come on, we’ve had such a rotten day of it. We both need this.’
They danced a little longer. He felt her body close to his. He ran his hand up her arm to her shoulder and caressed it. His heart was beating faster. Their heads began to move closer to one another.
The song came to an end, and the voice of the radio presenter spoilt their moment. They stepped apart, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
There was silence between them for a few minutes. They both knew what had come close to happening and they both, in their different ways, felt a sadness descending on them.
Ben went over to his makeshift bed on the couch and, too tired to undress, he got into it. Roberta climbed into the vast nuptial bed and lay looking up at the canopy above. ‘I’ve never slept in one of these before,’ she said after a while.
Silence again as they lay there on opposite sides of the dark room.
‘How’s the couch?’ she said.
‘Fine.’
‘Comfortable?’
‘I’ve slept in worse places.’
‘There’s room in this bed for about six people.’
‘So?’
‘I just thought.’
He raised his head off the pillow and gazed at where she lay in the dark. ‘You’re asking me to get in the bed with you?’
‘O…On the bed, then,’ she stammered, embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t a come-on, if that’s what you think. I’m just a bit nervous. I could use a little company.’
He hesitated for a few moments. Then he got up and pulled the blankets off the couch. He felt his way over to the bed, groping blindly about in the un familiar room. He moved to the far side of the bed and lay down beside her. He pulled the spare blankets over him.
They lay there in the darkness, a wide space between them. She turned towards him, wanting to reach out to him, feeling awkward. She could hear his breathing next to her.
‘Ben?’ she whispered.
‘Yeah?’
She hesitated before saying it. ‘Who’s the little girl in the picture?’
He raised himself up on one elbow and looked at her. Her face was a pale blur in the moonlight.
She yearned to put her hand out and touch him, hold him tight.
‘Let’s get some sleep,’ he said quietly, lying back down.
Around two, he woke up to find her slender arm draped over his chest. She was asleep. He lay there for a time, staring upwards at the dim play of the moonlight on the canopy of the bed, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her warm body as she slept.
The touch of her arm was a curious feeling. It was strangely electrifying, unnerving and yet deeply comforting. He let himself relax into the feel of it, closed his eyes and dozed off with a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
Ben slept less than an hour before his dreaming thoughts jerked him guiltily awake and he kicked his legs from the bed. He carefully lifted Roberta’s sleeping arm off his chest and rolled out from under it. He got up, lifted the Browning from the table and grabbed his bag.
Finding his way by moonlight he padded quietly into the ante-room. He clicked the door softly shut behind him and flicked on a side-lamp.
The rules of the game had changed. Suddenly it was clearer that these people, whoever