Chapter Six
Hennessy
‘EXCUSE ME, HENNESSY, the people from Eos just called—they’re running five minutes late. Shall I bring them up when they get here?’
I glance up from where I am working my way through the guest list.
‘Yes please, Cassie.’
It’s already been a long day.
We started at six this morning. It is now ten o’clock, and I doubt we will wrap up before midnight, but I feel energized and excited.
This is my project. It’s not my trade, but I doubt many professional party planners have been to as many parties as I have.
I know what works and what doesn’t. And I want people to see that, just because I share his name, I’m not Charlie’s daughter.
I’m not going to take the money and run.
Wade and Walters is my family. This is my business.
And Renzo’s. I glance over to where he is sitting on a ridiculously beautiful eighteenth-century chaise longue, typing on his laptop whilst talking on his phone in rapid Italian.
To keep things under wraps, we are meeting people at the house, and so far, it’s working well.
Even more impressively, we are working well together, which is a sentence I couldn’t have imagined saying last week.
Because most people, men particularly, only value my legs, my hair or my smile.
Either that or they want to exploit my connections.
It’s as if I’m just a collection of body parts or a selection of headlines rather than a person. But Renzo is treating me like an equal.
As if he can feel himself being scrutinised, he looks up from his laptop, his incisive dark-blue gaze bumping into mine, and we stare at one another in silence until I can’t bear it any longer.
I glance back down at my list, but I can still hear his voice.
He has a faint Neapolitan accent which gets more pronounced when he is emphasising something.
It makes him sound as if he’s guillotining the words, as if he’s impatient.
I like it a lot. My pulse twitches as I remember that day in the apartment and the sudden splaying of his pupils as he closed the distance between my mouth and his.
He was impatient then. Urgent. I was too.
And I don’t even have to close my eyes to imagine how it felt.
It’s imprinted into my skin so close to the surface that I feel as if he is touching me now, gripping my hair as he comes uncontrollably inside me and I come apart around him…
‘Is that okay with you, Hennessy?’
My face jerks up and I know my cheeks are red because I can feel the heat of them.
‘Sorry? I was thinking about the after-party gift bags,’ I lie.
‘What about them?’
His gaze is sharp, and I have that sensation again that he can see inside my head.
‘I was veering towards ethical gifts, but now I think it’s not necessary. There’s something crass about giving wealthy people free gifts, however ethical, don’t you think?’
He doesn’t answer, just keeps staring at me, almost as if he is confused. Or intrigued. Or more likely because I’ve got something on my face. I glance at my half-eaten pastry, then reach up and rub my hand across my mouth. ‘Do I have crumbs on my lips?’
Renzo shakes his head. ‘No, your lips look…’ He hesitates and clears his throat and his eyes drift to my mouth. He stares as if hypnotised and then abruptly glances away. ‘They look perfectly normal.’
I run my forefinger slowly over my lips. I have forgotten about the crumbs. Everything in my schedule—the meetings, the calls I need to make—has fallen out of my head. All that matters is that he keeps looking at me like that. As if he sees me, the real me. As if he’s claiming me.
Which is ridiculous on so many levels. For starters, he made it quite clear that he sees what happened in New York the same way I do—as unfinished business that got finished.
And just because he knows that I’m sober doesn’t mean he knows me.
If he did, he certainly wouldn’t claim me any time soon.
Renzo Valetti has a type. He likes those put-together women with classical profiles who meet their personal trainer before work and are a consultant on a not-for-profit in addition to their day job—which is always something intimidatingly senior for their age.
They don’t have a back story filled with hangovers and hangers-on.
And their fathers aren’t on the run from the FBI. They’re in control of their lives.
Getting to my feet, I walk over to the large gilt-framed mirror that almost stretches the length of the wall. I glance at my face. There are no crumbs on my mouth or anywhere else. So why was he looking at me like that?
‘Is my word not good enough?’
I feel as if someone is drawing a comb over my skin as Renzo gets to his feet and walks towards me. Our eyes meet in the mirror as he comes to a standstill behind my right shoulder, and my stomach flutters as though actual butterflies are beating their wings inside me.
We’re too close. He’s too close for us to be having this conversation, any conversation. I can feel the heat of his body and I know, if I breathe in too deeply, I will smell that scent he wears. The one that acts like catnip on my senses.
I deal with it the way I deal with anything that gets under my skin by treating it like a joke.
‘I don’t know. After that mix up with your car, I thought you might think it funny if I looked like a dork.
What? You’re Italian, and you definitely give off a “revenge is a dish best served cold” kind of vibe. ’
His mouth pulls up at the corner into a shape that suddenly makes my skin feel feverishly warm.
‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Hennessy,’ he says. ‘And I’m not sure you’re genetically capable of looking like a dork.’
He moves then, stepping backwards, maybe a foot at most, but my throat tightens with relief. Or regret. Or maybe both. I turn my attention back to my reflection and mess around with my hair to give myself time to get my breathing under control.
‘What were you asking me?’ I say finally, and oh-so-casually.
‘So far, it’s just trade press on the guest list. We could open that out to journalists from other organisations.
I just wanted to check if you were okay with that.
Obviously, my security team would be there to supervise.
But after what happened in New York I thought you might feel uncomfortable. I didn’t want to assume.’
He’s worried about me? That is surprising enough.
Nobody has ever bothered to ask how I feel about anything.
Not even the people who, theoretically, should care the most. Jade walked out of my life without even saying goodbye.
And Charlie never discusses anything with me—not when he moved me out of school, or to an entirely different country with no warning, or even when he hooks up with yet another random woman.
Something warm is curling around my body and there is a lump in my throat.
‘No, that’s fine. I can deal with them. I’ve been dealing with them all my life.’
‘I know that. But what happened outside the office…that shouldn’t have happened.
’ He frowns, and it ought to make his features harsh but there is gruffness to his voice that softens his stubborn, uncompromising face.
‘And I want you to know it won’t happen again.
We might not always see eye to eye, but I will protect you, Hennessy. ’
Silence swells between us and I don’t understand what it is I’m feeling. Just that his eyes, or maybe his words, are keeping me tethered to him. And he feels it too. The tension between us is not just palpable but sinuous. I can feel it weaving over my skin like warm silk.
‘Mr Valetti, Ms Wade…’
We swing round as one, and Renzo takes a step backwards, as if we are performing an elaborate dance. Cassie is there with two women, one tall and dark-haired, the other shorter with plaits.
‘Ciao.’ The taller woman steps forward and holds out her hand. ‘I’m Emilia Blasi; we spoke on the phone.’
‘And I’m Oshana Gardner. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.’
I smile. ‘I’ve just realised why you’re called “Eos”—it’s an abbreviation of your first names. I thought it was something to do with Eos, the Greek goddess.’
‘Correct on both accounts. Most people get one or the other. But it’s quite rare for someone to get both.’
I laugh. ‘When your father christens you after his favourite drink, it makes you hyper-sensitive to names.’ I take a breath. ‘I thought I’d get Charlie out of the way so that he doesn’t loom large over what I hope is going to be a very productive and satisfying conversation.’
There is a small, stunned pause but then Renzo steps forward and holds out his hand. ‘I think what my co-CEO is trying to say is that we don’t choose our relations. So I hope you will judge us—’ my heart beats in my throat as he glances over at me ‘—judge both of us as you find us.’
Everyone laughs then.
‘Absolutely.’ Oshana is smiling. ‘My family would wipe your father off the front page in a nanosecond.’
‘Ditto.’ Emilia nods. ‘My brother is…’
I nod too, smiling, but I never find out what her brother is because I’m not listening anymore. My blood is humming in my ears and my head is spinning. Renzo had my back. Has my back.
‘So, you might be wondering why I chose Eos,’ I say as we take our seats. ‘Part of the reason is that you’re local. The second is that you are professional party-planners who understand that parties are given, not planned.’
Oshana nods. ‘That’s very much our philosophy. We want your guests to feel welcome, to feel loved, as if they’re visiting family.’
‘I want that too. Wade and Walters has been a family-run business for one hundred and fifty years. I think we’re still a family now.
But the world is changing, and I want our business to change too.
Fashion, publishing—both bring a lot of collateral damage to people and the planet, so I want this party to be clean and green and ethical. ’
‘By “clean”, are we talking about a sober party?’