swamped her. Why was she here?
Desperately, and a little recklessly, Natalia turned the handle and to her surprise the door swung silently open. She stepped inside Ben’s house, her heart surely beating loud enough for him to hear, wherever he was.
She came straight into the living room, a large, airy space with a few modern leather sofas and some rather stark contemporary art. The room was dark and empty, yet Natalia still saw a few small signs of Ben’s presence: a pad of paper and a silver-plated pen on the glass coffee table, a paperback on the sofa. She crept closer and saw it was a rather light-hearted mystery. So Ben Jackson relaxed by reading a little fiction. The thought made her smile.
In the pristine kitchen she saw a coffee cup and cereal bowl washed and left on the dish drainer, and a bottle of vitamins by the sink, all fascinating glimpses into Ben’s neat and rather stoic existence.
Hesitating, knowing she was being incredibly nosy, Natalia finally moved down the hallway that could only lead to the bedrooms. Two of the bedrooms were empty and unused; the third and last clearly belonged to Ben. Natalia’s gaze swept the room but she could already sense it was empty. The king-size bed with its navy silk duvet had been made up with military precision. She saw some crumpled clothes in the corner, having missed the washing basket by about a metre, and a paperback by the bed. She crept closer and saw it was another light mystery. She smiled, imagined teasing him about his choice in reading material.
She peeked into the en suite bathroom, but it was also dark and empty. She saw a toothbrush, razor, a bar of shaving soap. The towels were hung to dry, the bath mat hanging off the edge of the tub. Ben, Natalia acknowledged without surprise, was a neat and rather Spartan man. He also wasn’t home.
She walked back out into the living room, wondering where he was. What to do. She felt instinctively that he would not have left the door unlocked all day so he had to be nearby or else expecting to return soon. So should she wait? And why?
Just what was she doing here? What did she want?
Natalia pushed the uncomfortable questions aside and turned to stare moodily out at the white-sand beach that led right up to the sliding glass doors of the living room. Then with a jolt she saw that the door was partially ajar.
She slipped outside, kicking off her trainers that sunk into the sand. The sun was starting its descent towards the sea, streaks of vivid colour emblazoning the sky. Out here all Natalia could hear was the rattle of the wind in the palms and the gentle whoosh of the waves upon the sand.
As her eyes adjusted to the oncoming twilight, soft and violet, she made out a cluster of palm trees, a few scattered boulders and then Ben, sitting alone on the beach with his head in his hands.
BEN glanced up as Natalia approached, trepidation and compassion warring within her. He looked grave and perhaps even grim; was he displeased to see her? Natalia couldn’t tell, yet she could certainly feel the depth of some nameless emotion rising from within him. His hooded gaze seemed to blaze through her senses and as she came to a halt a few metres away they stared at each other for a long moment, neither speaking.
Then Ben gave a strange, cynical little smile and Natalia braced herself for some cutting remark or command to leave. Instead he said, ‘I’ve just been sitting here, thinking what a selfish bastard I am.’
Surprise flashed through her and she came to sit down next to him on the cool, hard sand. ‘That doesn’t sound like much fun.’
‘No,’ Ben agreed, turning back to stare straight ahead again at the darkening sea. ‘It isn’t.’
Natalia stared at the sea for a moment, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. ‘Is it because of Roberto?’ she finally asked.
‘I was working him hard and I should have known better.’
‘Known he would break his leg?’ Natalia said with a lilt of wry disbelief. ‘Because that’s rather a difficult thing to know.’
‘Know that a ten-year-old kid doesn’t need to be a superstar,’ Ben said flatly. ‘Even if you want him to be. Even if you weren’t.’
So this wasn’t just about Roberto. ‘You still couldn’t have known, Ben. It was an accident. And accidents are out of your control.’
He let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘Exactly.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
She didn’t think Ben was going to answer her. He remained silent, his gaze still on the sea, and then finally he spoke. ‘I’ve spent my whole life trying to be in control of everything, to feel like I was in control. I told myself I was doing it for everyone’s else sake—my family’s or my mother’s or whoever—but it was really for me.’
‘I told you you were a control freak,’ Natalia said lightly, but Ben didn’t even smile. ‘So did it work?’ she finally asked quietly.
‘Not really. Because I never was. Everything always spins out of control, every time.’
She certainly knew how that felt. ‘You can’t control other people’s actions.’
‘I haven’t even controlled my own.’
Natalia felt her heart freeze for a suspended second. Was Ben talking about his actions with her? Kissing her? Surely not. She swallowed. ‘So. Welcome to the club.’
‘The club?’
‘You don’t think you’re the only one who feels that way, do you?’
Ben let out of a bark of genuine laughter. ‘You’re not going to give me a shred of sympathy, are you?’
‘Poor little princess?’ Natalia reminded him. ‘Nobody loves you? Nobody understands you?’
Ben gave her a sudden hard stare that sent awareness sizzling along her spine. ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ he said slowly, and it took Natalia a stunned moment to consider what he might mean. He understood her? He loved her?
‘Of course it’s not true,’ she said briskly. ‘Just like it’s not true that you’ve ruined everyone’s life including your own because of this obsessive and unhealthy need for control.’
He smiled. ‘Obsessive? Really?’
‘Why are you so concerned about being in control?’ Natalia asked point-blank, without any humour or lightness in her voice to let Ben off the hook and deflect the question. She wanted to know the answer too much.
‘Because I never felt like I had it,’ he replied, his tone turning bleak. ‘Everything about my life—my childhood at least—has been so up and down. So crazy. My mother divorced my father—twice. We moved from house to flat, one minute we were riding high and the next everything seemed a mess. My father was in the Premier League—’
‘Like you wanted to be?’ Natalia asked before she could stop herself, and Ben stared at her for a second.
‘Yes.’
