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Lucy strips off her wet hoodie. She accepts the proffered towel and dries her hair. Nick goes to a drinks cabinet and pours her a cognac.
At the firepit, she holds out her hands to the flames. She’s conscious, suddenly, of her damp vest and what it exposes. On her arms, her flesh puckers into goosebumps.
Nick brings over her drink. He sets it on the edge of the stone surround.
She stares at him. He stares back.
‘Lucy,’ he begins. ‘I always—’
‘Daniel doesn’t know I’m here.’
He nods, eyes wandering over her bare skin. His throat bulges as he swallows. ‘I hardly imagined he would.’
Another long silence as they appraise each other.
‘It’s been a while since I came to the house,’ Lucy says. ‘You’ve done a lot of work. It looks … amazing.’
Nick swells a little at that. He takes another sip of whisky. The ice cubes clink together in his glass. ‘Some might say it needs softening. A feminine influence.’
Already, the heat from the firepit has dried Lucy’s vest. She pulls on what Nick brought from upstairs – an old rugby jersey with his name printed across the back. Doubtless he’ll get a kick from seeing her wear it.
Considering that, Lucy feels her heart thump harder. She tosses back the cognac in one gulp. ‘Must’ve cost a small fortune.’
‘Money well spent, now it’s done.’
‘Nice to be able to afford it.’
Nick measures her. Then he flashes his teeth. ‘I’m starting to wonder why you came.’
‘Why do you think I came?’
He takes her empty glass and retreats, returning with a refill. ‘You know how I feel about you. You’ve known a long time. And we both know you’ll get something from me that you’ll never get from Daniel. When you look around this room, there’s a part of you that imagines yourself here. A part of you that realizes you’d fit right in.’
Lucy’s stomach tightens. She tries to control her breathing; aware of her chest rising and falling; of the growing flush of blood at her throat. ‘I’m Daniel’s wife.’
Nick hands her the refilled glass. She takes it, maintaining eye contact. ‘Why do it, Nick? If you wanted out that badly, you could have sold to Daniel. We’d have found the money somehow. Nothing would’ve been destroyed. Nojobs would’ve been lost. Everything you helped to build would have survived.’
‘You couldn’t have afforded what they offered. Hartland wanted us out of the way. They wanted Daniel neutralized. They were prepared to pay a premium to make that happen.’ His mouth twitches. ‘A huge premium, it turned out.’
‘And that’s all you have to say? There wouldn’t havebeena business without Daniel.’ She gestures around the room. ‘There wouldn’t have been all this. It was his idea, his design work. He even funded the expansion. We have loans secured on our house we’re still in the process of paying off.’
‘Life’s tough. Daniel knew what he was taking on.’
Lucy stares. She’s not surprised by what she’s hearing. She knows this attitude – knows how and why it develops. Fruitless appealing to Nick’s conscience. To him, life’s a zero-sum game. What he wants, he’ll take – better to be a winner than a loser because that’s all there is. Despite her abhorrence of what he’s done, she can, at least, recognize his motivation.
‘I know you, Nick,’ she says at last. ‘You always plan six moves ahead. Whatever deal you did with Hartland, you’d have left yourself a way back in. You enjoy the game too much to cash in all your chips and walk away.’
Nick studies her. ‘Are we negotiating, Luce? Is that what this is?’
She takes a swallow of cognac. ‘You know we’re negotiating.’
‘I thought we might be.’
He finishes his whisky, savouring it before he swallows. Then his eyes crawl over her, languid. ‘So what have you brought me to trade?’
2
Lucy gasps and the memory recedes. In the Drift Net’s cramped office, she leans closer to the iMac’s screen, moves her mouse, clicks. The email from Daniel opens.