Chapter Five #2
‘I’m not hungry,’ I lie. ‘I might just turn in. Like you say, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’
His gaze keeps me pinned to the floor and then finally he nods. ‘Breakfast is at seven-thirty. Don’t be…’ He checks himself. I know he was about to say, ‘Don’t be late’, but instead he says quietly, ‘Don’t stay up too late. Sleep well.’
‘You too,’ I mumble, but he is already walking away.
I watch the door close behind him and wait for a minute to pass.
I prefer to sleep in a panic room, but if that’s not an option then I lock the door, and if there’s no lock then I wedge a chair under the handle.
But tonight, I hesitate, even though there is a heavy, old-fashioned key, because I don’t feel like I do when I’m in a strange house.
Maybe it’s because of what Renzo said earlier about being under his protection, but I feel safe in a way that I wouldn’t normally. But out of habit I still turn the key.
I let out a long breath. After hours of being in close proximity to Renzo, I am finally alone.
Except I’m not. I’m never really alone. I’m not crazy, but there’s a whole bunch of uninvited guests inside my head: teachers telling me that I could do better; Charlie’s friends with their inappropriate remarks.
And, of course, Jade, the one woman on earth who should love me unconditionally but who resents my very existence.
Her voice is the most strident, the most critical of all.
I can feel it corroding me, undermining me.
Normally, I play music on my headphones to an ear-damaging volume but, thanks to Renzo hassling me, I left them at my apartment.
Instead, I take a shower, turn the water on full and let it pound my body until I can’t think straight.
I didn’t lie to Renzo. I was planning to turn in, and I do get into bed and turn out the lights.
But then the sheets seem to caress my skin and I remember Renzo’s hands moving hungrily over me and the hum of pleasure spilling over my limbs and I have to switch on the light to banish him from my bed.
Then I am so wide awake it might as well be dawn.
A cup of herbal tea would help. A tisane.
Surely Simonetta will have just such a thing, and I’m sure she won’t mind me helping myself.
There is a dressing gown folded neatly on the sofa, and I shrug it over the shorts and camisole I wear to bed.
It takes a few deep breaths for me to snatch up the courage to brave Renzo’s house in the dark but as I open my bedroom door, hugging my laptop to my chest, I realise two things.
One, the house isn’t dark—there are multiple table lamps, each offering a rich halo of light in every direction—and two, nobody is up.
I’m an expert at listening to houses breathe. And this one is sleeping.
It takes me five minutes to find the kitchen.
The lights come on as I walk in, which removes the need to look for any switches, but finding the tisanes proves a little harder.
As I gaze at the food in the huge walk-in larder, my stomach rumbles.
But tea is one thing; cooking myself a late-night snack might wake someone up.
Finally, I discover the teas in a drawer.
As predicted, there are multiple options, including what looks like home-made chamomile tea.
Having made myself a cup, I sit down at the large, pine table that dominates the room and flip open my laptop.
The lights have dimmed overhead, and instead they have lit up under the cupboards, bathing me in a warm, comforting glow as I gaze at the proposal I was working on back in New York. The one I didn’t show to Renzo.
It’s a good idea—essential, I would say.
The September issue is safe, but how many more will there be if we lose any more advertisers?
We need to make FROW the story, not Charlie, or me.
But I don’t want to think about that now.
Instead, I move the cursor up to the tabs at the top of the page and click first one, then another.
My stomach cramps, not from hunger this time, but shame.
I know I shouldn’t look, shouldn’t care after everything he’s done and everything he hasn’t done, but Charlie’s still my father.
Is it him? Heart pounding, I lean into the screen. It could be. Then again…
‘I thought you said you were turning in.’
The deep, familiar voice makes me scramble back from the screen so fast, I almost fall off my seat. Renzo is standing in the doorway, his blue gaze sweeping over the scene, the shadowed curve of his jawline stark against the smooth gold of his skin. He looks calm, curious and serious.
My palms itch. Oh, brilliant. He’s not wearing a shirt. He walks towards me slowly and I feel every footstep loud in my blood as I try not to stare at his torso. He looks engineered, architectural. Tempting.
‘I did. But then I thought I’d go through the schedule for tomorrow, get it firm in my head, and I wanted a tisane, so I came downstairs. That’s not a problem, is it? I’m not confined to quarters, am I?’ I ask to provoke him, although I’m not quite sure why I feel the need to do so.
That’s a lie. I do know why. It’s because it is late and it’s just the two of us standing semi-naked in a softly lit room and it’s giving me flashbacks to what happened by the lift in New York, so I need to make things a little confrontational between us.
‘You need to call it a night.’ He doesn’t rise to the bait, but his gaze dips to where the dressing gown has fallen open and there is a rough edge to his voice that feels like a caress.
I nod, mainly to distract him from what’s on my screen.
‘I was just finishing up.’
Renzo
She’s lying. I know because I was watching her from the doorway and she wasn’t just staring at the screen, she was poring over it as if it was a crime scene. I tilt my head pointedly, and she shuts her laptop, but not quickly enough.
‘You shouldn’t look at that stuff.’
Her hair is loose, and she glances down, letting it fall in front of her face.
‘I don’t. I don’t usually.’ She hesitates and her throat works through a swallow.
For a second, she veers towards anger or defiance, and then abruptly she says, ‘Someone’s posted a picture of Charlie in Switzerland.
I was just trying to see if they were right.
’ She hesitates then flips open the laptop, leans back and crosses her arms tightly, as if she is trying to stop something from bursting from her chest. ‘Do you think it’s him? ’
It’s an amateur snap, probably from a phone, and the man in the photo is turning away, either intentionally or by accident, so it’s only a part of his profile. But it’s enough to make out the shape of the head and the blond hair. It looks like Charlie. And yet…
I lean in closer, and as I do so my eyes drift from the screen to the neckline of her dressing gown. Whatever she is wearing underneath, it is cream-coloured and edged with lace, and my brain starts suggesting in far too much detail what it would look like if Hennessy took off that robe…
Blanking my mind to the unsettling array of images unspooling inside my head, I straighten up. ‘I’m not sure. It could be. But it could also be Michael, the sandwich guy.’
She nods slowly, and her shoulders dip a little, either with relief or despair.
It’s hard to read her expression. She is wearing that mask, the one she presents to the world, to me, whenever anyone gets close to the tripwire of her family and her feelings.
Because I am starting to understand that Hennessy Wade is not just one person.
She’s not just the spoiled heiress who selfishly pursues her own agenda and the hell with the consequences.
Which is why I suddenly decide to cross the line.
‘Are you worried about him?’
Her eyes meet mine. I see her confusion, and I’m confused too by my previous resistance to the idea that she might be worried about Charlie. But then, she seemed so blasé about his disappearance.
‘He’s never been gone this long before without contacting me.’
Now I’m more confused. I thought she and Charlie were thick as thieves. Are his absences a regular thing?
‘Those photos of you outside the office look pretty intense,’ I say, pointing to a drone-shot of the paparazzi crowding around Hennessy, my body tensing at the memory of how I found her, pinned against the glass. ‘I’m sure when he sees them, he’ll get in touch.’
Am I sure of that? Losing my parents so close together and so young upended my world, but it also made me aware of how fragile life is, how vulnerable humans are.
That’s why I’ve built this life. Why I have so many checks and measures in place to protect Antony.
I know he thinks I am over-protective, but I can’t lose him as well. I will do anything to keep him safe.
So where is Charlie Wade? I can’t understand why he isn’t here with Hennessy, or why he hasn’t texted or called. Could something have happened to him? I’m not even his father but my brain is hard-wired to feel that I need to take care of Antony.
‘Sorry.’
A low rumbling dams the current of my thoughts mid-flow, and I glance down to where Hennessy is clutching her stomach. ‘Are you hungry?’ I frown as, in answer to that question, her stomach rumbles again. ‘Why didn’t you say? Simonetta would have made you something.’
‘It’s fine. I can wait until breakfast. I don’t need you dragging her out of bed now.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m not an ogre, Hennessy. Do you eat eggs?’
Her violet gaze flickers over my face.
‘It’s a simple enough question.’
As she nods, I reach for a pan.
‘What are you making?’
‘Uova strapazzate: scrambled eggs.’
She surprises me by getting to her feet and coming to stand next to me. I feel something pinch under my ribs. Antony used to watch me cook when he was younger, and it reminds me that he and Hennessy are the same age.