Chapter Five
Hennessy
WE ARRIVE IN Milan at eight p.m. Of course, in my head it’s two o’clock in the afternoon, so it’s weird walking off Renzo’s private jet into darkness.
We are staying at his apartment on the via Torino.
The location is unsurprising, given that it’s the most expensive residential street in Italy.
Helpfully, it’s also within walking distance of the city’s famous cathedral, the Duomo, and the quadrilatero della moda, Milan’s fashion district.
All the famous fashion houses are there and many of the shows are held at locations just a stone’s throw away.
I glance out of the window of the limousine that picked us up from the private airfield.
There are people shopping and catching up after work.
Mopeds weave erratically between the buses and cars.
It all looks very humdrum, but I wonder who is hiding in the shadows. ‘Do you think anyone knows we’re here?’
Renzo hesitates, then nods. ‘Yes. These days, the paparazzi use flight-tracking apps to find out where the rich and famous are, and even I can’t do much about that.’
I appreciate his honesty. Any honesty, really. But, coming from Renzo, it feels like a big deal because telling someone the truth requires an element of trust. But, then again, what do I know? With a father like mine, trust has never been a big part of my life.
‘You don’t need to worry. I take my privacy seriously, and if anyone decides to test just how seriously, I have ways and means of making their lives very unpleasant.’ His blue gaze meets mine and for a moment his heartbeat envelops me. ‘And, as my guest, you are under my protection.’
A flicker of warmth dances over my skin and my stomach turns over in a fierce, uncontrollable response to his words.
Which is stupid, really, because I know they are just words.
Renzo would personally serve me up on a platter to a pride of lions.
But then, nobody has ever offered to protect me before.
On the contrary, I have spent most of my life feeling like prey surrounded by predators.
My body tenses as I remember the evening that plays out in my nightmares so often.
I was nine years old when I woke up to find a man in my bedroom, a stranger, staring down at me.
Even now, it has the power to still my breathing.
Nothing happened, or that’s what Charlie said at the time, and I believed him at first. But then it crept back in.
Not what happened, but what might have happened.
Every time I got into bed and closed my eyes, he was there, sitting on my bed, staring at me in the darkness.
I started having night terrors and Charlie had to install a panic room in our house.
It helped. It still does, but for some reason Renzo’s words wrap around me like a protective charm.
Maybe because he made my body work like it should, instead of freezing like an actor forgetting her lines.
Because that’s what has happened in the past. But not anymore.
Now I am healed, whole. I have faced my demons.
Because that’s the trouble with a faceless man—he could be anyone.
Or maybe not anyone, I think, glancing over at Renzo. He is impossible—arrogant, autocratic, overwhelmingly so at times—but he doesn’t scare me. There is a straightforwardness to him that is as rare as it is steadying. Maybe that’s why the one-time sex worked with him.
And yet, the strange thing is, with other men I’m in control. I select them. I wait until they pass out and then, when they wake, I let them think we had sex.
But I didn’t choose Renzo. With him, it was more like a current sweeping me out to sea. And even though it was pulling me further and further away from the shoreline, I felt safe, supported.
On arrival, we are greeted by his housekeeper, Simonetta.
She speaks fluent English, so there is no reason for me to flex my Italian.
She is a small, dark-haired and elegant woman who stirs up memories of my grandmother for no reason that I can think of, other than that she is quietly spoken and smiles a lot.
I still think about my grandmother. It was only a year of my life.
A year of calm bookended by Jade walking out on me and Charlie reluctantly taking me on.
We lived in New York, near Central Park.
She used to take me to the Plaza for afternoon tea, and every night she would read me a story before bedtime.
She was strict, but also kind, and I was happy.
Nobody shouted. Nobody smashed things or stormed out in the middle of the night.
She took me to buy my uniform for nursery school. I was so excited I wanted to sleep in my navy tunic, but I never started school. My grandmother died in August and that year of my life turned out to have been the eye of the storm.
‘We’ll do the full tour tomorrow, Simonetta.’ Renzo’s voice cuts through my thoughts and I turn to where he is waiting impatiently for me to join him at the bottom of the curving marble staircase. ‘I’ll show Ms Wade to her room.’
The house is beautiful in the way that all grand Italian houses are.
The rooms are well-proportioned with high ceilings and large windows that offer tempting glimpses of the city.
As for the interior, it is the same blend of the discreet, neutral aesthetic and comfortable functionality that I have come to think of as Renzo’s signature style.
‘There’s a sitting room through here.’ He gestures towards an open door as we reach the first-floor landing.
‘Although, I doubt you’ll have time to use it.
We have a show every day, and meetings, and there are events in the evenings, so we probably won’t be back until midnight.
’ He does one of those stares, this one tinged with bafflement, as if he can’t quite understand what I am doing there.
‘I take it you’ve brought something “appropriate” for evening events? ’
Boy, does he love that word. I sigh. ‘I’ve been coming to fashion week since I was a child.’
I speak lightly but my body tenses involuntarily. I hated it then. I hadn’t worked out how to block out the curious gazes that followed my father as we walked into any room, or how to front up to the strangers yelling my name with their flashing cameras.
‘But, as I said in New York, this time you’ll be working.’
He turns and continues walking, and I stick out my tongue at his back, then almost trip over as abruptly he spins round to face me.
‘I’m down there, and you’re this way,’ he says, and the distance in his voice scrapes over my skin so that I can almost feel it tingling.
The cagey conversation we had back at the office has led to a kind of cool-edged truce, but we still haven’t talked about what happened in New York.
Which is fine by me. I don’t need to hear Renzo say it was a mistake.
That I was a mistake. My mother’s already done that.
It didn’t feel good then and I doubt it will feel good now.
Besides, if Renzo and I talk about it more, there’s a risk I might let something slip. Such as how, for me, those frenetic minutes in his bedroom were not just a sublime cohesion of breath and body but a transformative act. That before then my body was an uncooperative, damaged tool.
On the plus side, he has stopped making jibes about my sobriety.
In fact, he must have told the stewards that it was a dry flight, because they didn’t offer alcohol.
I muse on that for a moment, but mostly I remember how I looked up to find him watching me in that assessing way he has, as if I am a puzzle he is trying to solve.
Only, there is no puzzle. My life can be summed up in three sentences.
My mother hates me, and my father tolerates my presence out of curiosity and a sliver of guilt.
I have one friend and a job I got entirely thanks to my surname.
And, for a time, I drank too much, and took drugs occasionally.
But I’m trying to live up to the legacy of my name.
Trying to make something of myself and my life.
Not that Renzo will ever acknowledge that.
Even though he knows I’m sober now, our highly charged sexual encounter in his apartment seems only to have confirmed his deepest suspicions—that I bring out the worst in him, in everyone.
‘This is you.’
He pushes open a door and I follow his broad back, my gaze hovering on the muscles of his shoulders, remembering how I fell asleep against his chest. It feels like a dream now, or a snatched memory, like a photograph.
‘Oh, wow…’ I stop, my eyes widening. It’s a beautiful room, square and spacious, with a Murano glass chandelier, a beautiful, gilded bed and a pale-green and pink colour scheme that makes me think of pistachio and raspberry gelato. ‘It’s lovely,’ I say truthfully.
He is doing that staring thing again, as if I’m speaking in code.
‘We should eat.’ He frowns, then tilts his wrist to look at his watch. ‘I can get Simonetta to book us a table. There’s a couple of decent trattorias nearby. They always fit me in at short notice.’
My heartbeat jabs the skin of my throat.
I didn’t eat on the plane, and I know I should eat now, but even before I stopped drinking, I avoided eating out.
There’s something exposing about sitting opposite someone in a restaurant.
Bars, clubs, anything with low lights and loud music, I can handle.
If there’s a DJ, even better. It’s hard for people to start a conversation, much less sustain it, when I’m dancing; and if I’m dancing, I’m already moving.
And if I’m moving, then nobody can get close enough to notice that I’m fighting stage fright.
But a meal is different. I’m trapped at a table. There’s nowhere to hide. And, frankly, it’s awkward enough being a reluctant guest in yet another of Renzo’s homes. I don’t want to have to eat with him alone in a performative way.