Liz Fielding - Fairytale Christmas

And Christmas trees, everywhere there were Christmas trees.

Big ones in squares, rows of small ones atop buildings, every shape and size in gardens and shining out of windows. The colours reflected in the big soft flakes of snow falling like feathers over the city, settling on parks, covering trees, rooftops. Wiping the world clean.

He hadn’t answered and she turned to him, expecting to see him smiling, amused by her totally uncool reaction.

But his face was expressionless.

‘When I’m in London,’ he said. ‘There are stores all over the country, as well as abroad. I seem to spend a lot of time in hotels.’

‘They don’t all have apartments like this on the top floor?’

‘No. I can say with confidence that this is unique. It was commissioned by my cousin, Christopher Hart, as part of the refurbishment of the Hastings & Hart flagship store.’

‘It’s amazing. I bet you can’t wait to get home.’

‘This isn’t home…’ He bit off the words as if they’d escaped before he could stop them. And when she waited for him to tell her why, ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Is it? Well, here’s the deal. You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.’

‘Long and very boring. Make yourself at…’

‘Home?’ she offered, filling the gap.

He managed a smile. He had an entire repertoire of them, she discovered. Sardonic. Amused. The one that lit up her insides, fizz, whoosh, bang, like a New Year firework display.

And then there was this one. The blank-eyed kind you cranked up when you didn’t want anyone to know how you were really feeling. The shutters had come down so fast she almost heard them clang, excluding her. And now they were down she knew how much she wanted to go back two minutes.

‘Or not,’ she said when the silence had gone on for far too long.

‘My problem, not yours, Lucy. Look around. Find yourself a room—there are plenty to choose from. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

He didn’t wait to see if she accepted his invitation, but returned to the trolley, disappeared through a door. Something had touched a raw nerve and while every instinct was urging her to go after him, put her arms around him, kiss it better, he might as well have painted a sign saying keep out on his back.

Instead, she took him at his word and looked around. The small flat she’d occupied at the top of Rupert’s townhouse had been elegant, comfortably furnished, but this was real estate on an entirely different level.

It was the kind of apartment that she’d seen featured in the ‘at home’ features in Celebrity. So tidy that it looked as if no one lived there.

This was a somewhat extreme example, she decided. There was no Christmas tree here, no decorations. Not so much as a trace of tinsel.

Maybe, she decided, when you worked with it all day, you needed to escape. Maybe.

This might be a stunning apartment but he’d said himself that it wasn’t home. So where was? She wanted to know.

Her fingers trailed over the butter-soft leather of the sofa as she turned, taking it all in and, looking up, she saw an open gallery with the same stunning view of the city. It was reached by a circular staircase and, taking Nathaniel at his word, she went up, finding herself in a space wide enough for casual seating. Armchairs in more of that soft black leather.

There was a single pair of black panelled doors. Assuming that they led to an internal lobby where she’d find the bedrooms, she opened one and stepped through.

For a moment all she could see was the blinking of the navigation lights of a plane passing overhead, then soft concealed lighting, responding to movement, gradually revealed the room she’d stumbled into.

The dark, asymmetrical pyramid of glass above her that would, by day, light the room. The tip of a landmark that rose like a spear into the sky. Silver in the rain. Bronze, gold, fiery red when struck by the sun. Never the same.

Below it was the largest bedroom she had ever seen, perfect in every striking detail. The walls were a soft dovegrey and, apart from the bed, a vast space of pure white, the only furniture was a cantilevered slab of black marble that ran the entire width of the room behind the bed.

Unable to stop herself, she opened a door that led to a pair of dressing and bath rooms. His and hers.

Nathaniel’s?

No. Despite an array of the most luxurious toiletries, the designer suits, couturier dresses, in the walk-in wardrobes, it was obvious that neither of them was in use. It wasn’t just the fact that all the clothes were cocooned in plastic covers.

There was no presence here. Like the rest of the apartment, it was visually stunning, austere, silent.

But here the silence was a hollow, suffocating emptiness.

Even the art was monochrome. Just one piece, a black-framed architectural impression of the Hastings & Hart building that filled the space above the bed.

The only point of colour in the room was a single crimson rose in a silver bud vase gleaming against the black marble.

She touched a velvety petal, expecting it to be silk, but it was real. The one thing in the room, in the entire apartment, as far as she could tell, that was alive and she shivered as she stared up at the drawing.

The building was a thing of light, energy, leaping from the earth. While this…

‘This isn’t home…’

And then her eyes focused on the signature on the drawing.

Nathaniel Hart.

Nat emptied the groceries onto the central island of the vast kitchen that he rarely used for anything other than making coffee.

He’d offered to pitch Lucy a tent but wasn’t that what he was doing? Camping out. Living here but doing his best not to touch anything.

As if by not making an impression, not disturbing anything, maybe one morning he would wake up and he’d be back in his own life. The nightmare over.

Lucy closed the doors, quietly retraced her steps down to the lower floor, found the kitchen.

Nathaniel was standing with his back to the door, arms spread wide, hands gripping the counter so hard that his knuckles were white. Certain she was intruding, she took an instinctive step backwards, but he heard and half turned, his face as empty as the room upstairs.

‘I’m lost,’ she said quickly.

‘Lost?’

‘Not so much lost as confused. I went upstairs. It seemed the obvious thing to do.’ She lifted a shoulder in an embarrassed little shrug.

‘My fault.’ He straightened, dragged both hands through his hair. ‘I should have given you the guided tour instead of leaving you to find your own way around.’

‘I could have found my own way. I just didn’t want to blunder in anywhere else that’s private.’

‘It’s not private. It’s just…’ He shook his head. ‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’ He grasped her hand and led the way to a wide corridor with a series of doors, all on one side.

‘Linen cupboard,’ he said, keeping her hand tucked in his. ‘Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom…’ opening doors to reveal three empty bedrooms, all decorated with the same pale walls, black marble night tables, white linen as the room upstairs. ‘Bedroom,’ he repeated, opening the last door to reveal yet more of the same, finally releasing her hand, leaving it for her to decide whether or not to follow him inside because this was not just another bedroom.

‘This is your room,’ she said.

‘The master suite upstairs spooked you and you don’t know me.’ He turned to face her. ‘I wanted you to see for yourself that I have nothing to hide.’

‘You don’t feel like a stranger,’ she said, following him, placing her hand in his. Foolish, maybe, especially considering the way her heart leapt whenever he was within ten feet of her. Yes, the room upstairs had spooked her, but it didn’t seem to be doing much for him either, and his fingers closed about hers. Almost as if they were uniting against the world.