Chapter Four #3
I would have stopped it if she’d wanted that, but it would have been hard.
She was so sweet, hot and slick, and I woke multiple times in the night, my body hard and aching for round two…
and rounds three and four. But she’d looked so young and untroubled in sleep, I couldn’t bear to wake her.
Now, though, in the cooler light of day, I am glad that I didn’t.
More than once would be harder to write off as the mistake it is.
Although, it didn’t feel like a mistake at the time. It felt like poetry.
I make my way downstairs to the archives.
It’s an office within the office, a glass-sided box in the centre of the legal department.
I can’t see Hennessy. But the asteroid belt of young men orbiting the archive room confirms her presence.
My jaw tightens. Even down here, in what is essentially the museum of the office, she somehow manages to disrupt the routine running of the business.
As I arrive, her admirers hurriedly melt away and I see her.
She is sitting at a desk, flicking through a past edition of FROW, looking surprisingly classy in a wrap skirt, fitted white shirt and dark heels.
Her hair is in a ponytail that makes me want to reach out and tug at the end like a schoolboy.
Tug her towards me… My fingers close around the chips in my pocket, and I swear under my breath. ‘Good morning,’ I say tersely.
Her gaze slants up to meet mine, and I feel it fizz on my tongue as if I’m biting down on a blueberry. ‘There you are. I was just finishing up.’
‘Good, then you can explain why you’re skulking down here instead of upstairs firefighting.
Because, in case you haven’t noticed, the building is metaphorically burning.
’ I drop the newspapers onto the table beside her.
To a letter, their lead stories are Charlie’s crimes and abscondment.
‘I’ve had five calls already this morning. ’
‘I’m not skulking,’ she says calmly and, instead of picking up the papers, she picks up her laptop and slams it shut. ‘And that’s old news. To you and me, anyway.’
Which is true but does nothing to improve my temper.
‘You’re sitting in the archives. There’s nothing but old news down here.’
She does one of those maddening, provocative shrugs and her ponytail does a little shimmer. ‘I was actually doing some research.’
‘You’re co-CEO, Hennessy. Your job is to lead,’ I snap. ‘To lead, you need to be visible.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Please don’t raise your voice at me. And, as for being visible, I’ve been in the building since seven o’clock this morning.’ Unlike you. She leaves the end of that sentence unfinished, but the shape of her mouth says it for her.
‘What happened to being on time and appropriately dressed?’ She lets her gaze float down over my damp shirt.
‘I’m late because you took my limo. And I’m soaked to the skin because I had to walk some of the way.’ Untrue, but the truth would reveal how deeply she got under my skin.
She bites her lip, and I know she wants to laugh. Which does nothing to defuse my temper.
‘You told me to keep a low profile, so I borrowed your car.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘What can I say? You slipped my mind.’
Slipped her mind? I slipped her mind? I feel a stab of disbelief and outrage, then she tilts up her chin and I have a sudden flashback to when she took me in her mouth. ‘Anyway, I thought you might be having a lie-in.’
It’s oblique but it’s the first time she’s referred to what happened yesterday at my apartment, and I feel it like a punch to the gut.
Because that is why I feel so tense this morning: Hennessy and her ‘take it or leave it’ manner.
As if I’m some bellboy she tipped for bringing up her luggage who now has the temerity to want another tip.
‘Next time, wake me up.’
‘But there’s not going to be a next time, is there?’ She smiles, a sweet smile that knocks me sideways. ‘Yes, Gerry?’
I stare at her blankly and then realise that my PA is hovering behind me.
‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Valetti, but I have—’
‘It can wait. I need to discuss something with Ms Wade,’ I say sharply. ‘In private,’ I add.
As the door closes behind me, Hennessy stands up, her eyes flaring. After seeing her smile at Gerry, her scowl feels unduly harsh. ‘You are such a hypocrite. I thought it matters how we behave.’
‘It does.’
‘Clearly not or you wouldn’t be taking your frustrations out on Gerry.’
‘I’m entitled to feel frustrated. You took my car.’
‘And I explained why, and I’d rather you didn’t discuss what happens in my private life at work. Charlie absconding is scandal enough. We don’t need any more gossip to power up the rumour mill.’
It feels as if my brain’s being pummelled. Apparently, Hennessy Wade is giving me a dressing down about causing scandal. The world has gone mad.
‘Rest assured, I won’t be discussing it with anyone.’
‘Good. Because there is nothing to discuss. Things got a bit out of control, that’s all.’
She says this in such a blasé way that I want to reach over and remind her of what ‘that’s all’ feels like. Instead, I say coolly, ‘It won’t happen again.’
She shrugs. ‘Why would it? We both got what we wanted and, now it’s done, we can focus on the job in hand.’
I know what I’d like her to take in hand and it’s not the job. My body tenses as I remember Hennessy unzipping my trousers and the clumsy, inexpert urgency of her fingers.
‘You’re right. We did. So, let’s just forget about it.’
She frowns. ‘Forget what?’
There is a knock at the door. It’s Gerry again. ‘I’m sorry, but I need you both upstairs. The FBI are here to talk to the CFO, and they want to talk to both of you too.’
As Hennessy moves to follow Gerry, I step in front of her and block her exit. ‘Just so we’re clear, there are to be no more stunts like this morning. If you need a car, ask me.’
The morning passes in a fever dream. The FBI agents are thorough and professional, but it still blows my mind that my ordered life is now subject to investigation by federal law enforcement officers.
Hennessy is interviewed separately, which I don’t like, and she emerges looking pale but defiant ten minutes after my interview ends.
Some of the more sensitive advertisers have already pulled their accounts in response to Charlie’s fugitive status, so we draft a statement to reassure the ones that remain.
And then I spend hours trying to sweet-talk the ones who have left into returning.
But it’s hard to downplay a story that is front and centre on all of the news outlets.
And to add colour to the story they are deep-diving into his scandalous past, which means multiple pictures of Hennessy in her ‘wild child’ era, and lots of quotes from anonymous but extremely forthcoming ‘sources close to the family’.
Despite being in the same building, and often the same room, she and I hardly spend any time together on our own, which is a relief—but oddly disappointing, and also thought-provoking.
Her position was hardly meritocratically earned, so I expected her input to be negligible at best. But she is focused, well-informed and she has a good way with people.
They like her. Or maybe they just get lost in that magnetic Bermuda triangle of legs, hair and light curves.
Finally, the staff start to leave, and by six-thirty only Hennessy and I remain.
In fact, I’m the one who goes to find her.
She is typing something into her laptop, but it is the pen between her teeth that pulls my gaze across the room, as if my eyes are on strings.
Rogue strands of blonde hair have escaped her ponytail, and she looks tired.
But then, it’s been a long day, for her particularly.
‘You worked hard today,’ I say, and she looks up and meets my gaze.
‘Careful, Renzo, that sounds almost like a compliment.’
‘It’s an observation. I saw a different side of you.’
‘I saw a different side of you too.’ Her eyes flicker over my face, and her attention feels precious, like a hummingbird’s wings brushing against a flower. ‘You were less robotic. More human.’ She pauses and muses for a second. ‘Or maybe I mean humane.’
‘I’m not a monster, Hennessy. Even if I do dress like a hit man.’
My body tenses as her pupils do that flaring thing and then she glances back at the screen.
‘What are you working on?’ I ask.
She opens her mouth, then stops. ‘It’s just an idea. It can wait. Right now, I need to book a flight for tomorrow.’
My pulse stumbles. ‘A flight to where?’
‘I’m going to Milan.’ She frowns. ‘It’s fashion week, or did you forget?’
‘No, I didn’t forget. I’m flying out tomorrow.’
‘You are?’ She looks stunned. ‘You’re going to fashion week? But this is my gig. You’re just a back-up singer.’
‘I’m co-CEO of the lifestyle media company that produces the biggest fashion magazine in the world. That is the reason I’m going, but there’s every reason for you to stay and keep your head down.’
My tone is definitive, non-negotiable. End of discussion, I think, but Hennessy scowls up at me, her glinting violet gaze snuffing out our brief harmony of moments earlier.
‘Of course I’m going. I always go.’
Not happening. It’s hard enough keeping her out of trouble here in New York—but chaperoning her in Italy surrounded by twenty-four-hour party people?
‘This isn’t a mini-break, Hennessy, it’s work. I need people with me who know how to behave.’
‘I know how to behave, Renzo.’
‘Do you also know that the Italians invented the paparazzi?’
She lifts her chin. ‘Actually, it was one Italian: Fellini. He named the photographer in La Dolce Vita “Paparazzo” because he wanted him to be like a buzzing mosquito.’
‘I know the reference, but there are a lot of fountains in Milan, and I know how you love to strip off around water.’
Our eyes collide, full of hostility, but something else too—something that is more confusing. I choose to ignore it.
‘Are you still going on about that? I was fifteen. Didn’t you do stupid things when you were fifteen? Didn’t your circuits ever malfunction?’
I stare down at her. No, they didn’t, because that wasn’t an option for me. I was working two jobs, after school and at the weekend, putting money aside to prove that I could look after Antony on my own. But that isn’t a part of my life I’m about to share with Hennessy.
‘Almost certainly. But I didn’t end up getting my name in the paper, or myself and my so-called best friend expelled from school.’
‘He is my best friend. That’s why I did it,’ she snaps.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
But her face is already shuttering. ‘Nothing.’
‘In that case, any chance you had of going to Milan is now less than zero, because you’re not leaving this office until you tell me what you meant.’
‘You’re such a monumental jerk, Renzo.’
I turn and flick the door to her office shut with my fingertips. ‘Have it your way.’
She is quivering with fury. ‘You know, for someone so smart and omniscient, you can be really dumb.’
‘And you’re too stubborn for your own good. But, if this is how you want to spend the evening, I’m happy to trade insults all night.’
‘Why don’t you just ask Antony?’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘Perhaps you should wonder why you have to.’ She glares at me. ‘Maybe it might be a starting-off point for some kind of self-reflection.’
I hold her gaze. ‘If you’re trying to imply that I don’t talk to my brother—’
‘Oh, you talk. You just don’t listen.’
‘So, I’m to blame for Antony’s expulsion?’ That I’m even having this conversation is symptomatic of the chaos Hennessy has already brought into my life. ‘Unlike you, I prefer facts to fiction. And the facts are that you hated school and—’
‘I didn’t hate school. Antony did.’ Her jaw is taut. ‘Or rather, he hated being a full-time boarder. So, I faked an email from you. I knew you’d tell the school, and when Antony said it was his idea, they’d have no option but to exclude both of us—happy now?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, Antony was. He liked being at home at the weekend. Or perhaps you didn’t notice. Too busy conquering the world.’
‘Everything I did, I did for my brother.’
‘Bullshit. You did it for yourself because you have to be in charge of everything. Because you’re essentially a tyrant. Any bit of the world you happen to be in becomes your personal fiefdom.’
She suddenly runs out of steam. ‘Right, I’ve told you what you wanted to know, so now can we agree what time we’re leaving for Milan?’
‘I don’t make business decisions on the basis of some tit-for-tat arrangement.’
‘But you said—’
‘I said that you wouldn’t go if you didn’t tell me, not that you would if you did.’ Catching sight of her mutinous expression, I sigh. ‘It’s been a hell of a day, and I think the week isn’t going to get any easier, so could you just go with me on this?’
‘No, I can’t. This is my family’s business.’
‘You’ve been working here for three months.’
‘And you’ve been working here a day,’ she counters swiftly. ‘Besides, I’ve been coming into this office since I was a child. I watched Charlie work—and I know you don’t like how he worked, or like him, but he makes things happen.’
‘Yes, he has a real talent for that. Unfortunately, they just don’t happen to be the right type of things, unless you think that having FBI agents crawling all over your office is some kind of business opportunity.’
I can see her bristling beneath that airbrushed complexion of hers. ‘I watched David work too. I saw the way he treats people, how he showed everyone respect. They loved working for him. He was the sweetest man…is the sweetest man.’
There is something precarious in her expression now that blindsides me, so for a moment I lose the thread of my thoughts. That never happens, so my tone is rougher than I intend it to be when I finally reply. ‘And now he’s a very sick one.’
‘Because of Charlie. And you can keep blaming him, blaming me, for that. But it doesn’t change the facts.
You might be some business titan, but I know Wade and Walters and I know fashion.
And if I don’t show, then it sends out the wrong message, like I’m hiding.
Like we’ve got something to hide. How’s that going to inspire confidence? ’
There is a long, pulsing silence.
‘Fine. You can come to Milan. But I’m warning you, Hennessy—you mess me around and I will go straight to the board—’
‘I understand.’ She cuts me off and stares at me, her gaze cool and assessing. ‘As long as you understand this is fashion week, not an undertaker’s convention. So that tie has to go. Maybe the shirt too.’