‘Black is fine.’
She lined up the mugs and put coffee in each, and while she was waiting for the kettle to boil, she switched on the tree lights and the twinkle lights dotted around the apartment. She felt safer with Jack here and wasn’t worried about her uncle watching the apartment and knowing she was inside.
‘I bet your place has a closet as big as this apartment,’ she said, trying to lessen the weight that hung between them in the air. ‘Where do you live, by the way?’
‘In a condo in the East Village.’
Evie wasn’t at all surprised his place was in such a coveted location.
‘You’ve made this place homely,’ he said, although by his clipped tone she knew he was anxious to move the conversation forwards.
The kettle coming to the boil filled the silence between them. Evie’s hand shook as she poured the water onto the coffee granules. The only reason she wasn’t going for the gin right now was that she was freezing and she longed to wrap her hands around a warm mug for comfort. And she had to do this. If Jack was going to keep her secret and not tell the world, she had to tell him everything.
‘Here you go.’ She handed him a mug.
‘Thanks.’ His fingers brushed against hers as he took it carefully from her hands. He set it straight down on the coffee table while she cradled hers between her palms.
‘Evie, I have to ask you.’
She slurped her coffee. ‘Ask away. I said I’d tell you everything.’
‘That man, is he your … oh God.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I’m just going to come right out with it and say … is that man your pimp?’
She almost sprayed her mouthful of coffee everywhere. If the situation wasn’t so awful, she’d laugh at his ridiculous assumption. She shook her head. ‘I swear to God, it’s nothing like that.’
‘So what’s with the nude picture? Is he an old boyfriend?
The thought turned her stomach. ‘He’s my uncle.’
Jack had started to lift his coffee mug, clearly relieved to have asked the question and have her deny it. But now, he put the cup back down again.
‘Your uncle?’
‘That’s right.’
‘He’s family, and he has those sorts of pictures of you? I didn’t see all of them, but I got the gist.’
She cringed at the thought of him seeing any. The top one, she knew because she’d just seen it herself, was of her lying on top of a white fur rug wearing a black lace basque and matching knickers. But there were worse photographs than that. There were countless pictures of her in different styles of underwear, some in raunchier poses than others; but there were also photographs of her topless, wearing nothing but a thong, a handful of shots where she wore nothing but her birthday suit.
Evie looked down into the depths of the remaining black liquid in her cup.
‘Come on, Evie.’
She met his gaze, pleaded with her eyes not to make her do this, but she had no choice.
‘Just start from the beginning.’ He took off his coat as the apartment started to heat up. The radiators may be dire, but the space was tiny after all.
Evie stared at the Christmas tree lights, the angel on top, the baubles almost iridescent in this light, the silver reindeer hanging from the bottom branch. And then she told Jack her story.
‘My father emigrated from England to run a business with his brother. The business in the UK had expanded and international reach was what he’d always strived for.’ She harrumphed. ‘He was one of the most ambitious men I’d ever known.’
‘What was his business?’
‘It was a furniture business and it grew more rapidly than even my father had predicted. Dad took on Uncle Brett who, up until then, had drifted from office job to office job. We all settled into life in America, especially Mum who loved the glamour compared with her dull village life on the south coast of England, dealing with nothing but school drop-off and pickups and the only highlight a trip to the pub if Dad had time at the end of the day. She joined committees, had a wide circle of friends and for a while everything was perfect. Until she got cancer.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, cancer’s a bitch.’
