Chapter Seven
Hennessy
THE FLIGHT TO Amalfi takes no time at all, or at least it feels that way.
But then, I am so stunned by the way the party ended that my brain is numb and incapable of forming even simple thoughts.
I am unbearably conscious of my own cowardice.
Of how I left the party, fleeing like Cinderella when she hears the clock chime midnight.
Only, that’s where the similarity between us ends, because Cinderella is good and wronged but, as far as the world is concerned, I’m just wrong.
And, judging by the hard, flat, unapproachable expression on his face, Renzo thinks so too.
That sweet truce we brokered over the last few days is over.
Whatever he said in the bathroom was just a white lie to get me out of the building.
He hasn’t said a word since we got into the helicopter—or at least not to me.
But then, what is there to say except I told you so? So perhaps I should be relieved.
But all I feel is despair. This was my chance to prove I could step up and be the person I wanted to be, but it was all for nothing, because the party will be just a footnote to yet another Wade scandal.
My eyes ache with the dryness of unshed tears.
I cannot believe that Jade met up with Charlie.
Their marriage was inflammatory, destructive, toxic.
They made each other and everyone around them unhappy.
But now she is playing Bonnie to his Clyde.
I feel as if I am three years old again and I can’t blow out the candles on my birthday cake because I am trying not to cry.
She didn’t say goodbye that day. Didn’t explain or apologise.
She just upped and left, and I didn’t see or speak to her again for nineteen years.
And yet she is in touch with Charlie. Has always been in touch.
My fingers bite into the soft, leather arm rests.
In the past, I’ve sometimes caught him talking on the phone, and he had this voice that he doesn’t use with anyone else.
It’s furtive and teasing, combative, conspiratorial.
Intimate. Charlie never said anything, and I didn’t ask.
Didn’t care, or maybe I just didn’t want to know.
But I know now that he was talking to her—to my mother.
And now she’s wearing a stupid wig and meeting up with him.
She can do that for Charlie, but she doesn’t even remember my birthday.
As the helicopter touches down, Renzo offers me his hand, but it is a gesture based on courtesy, not empathy.
‘I’m going to make some calls. You should get some rest,’ he says in a voice that could anneal steel as we walk towards a beautiful, sun-washed villa. But we are moving so fast there is no time to do much more than fleetingly admire the pale-yellow stucco walls.
‘Buongiorno, Paola,’ he says to a tall, grey-haired woman, as we sweep inside.
‘Hennessy, this is my housekeeper, Paola. She will show you to your room. I’m afraid there wasn’t time to get your things before we left, but they’ll be brought down later today, so if you need anything in the interim just let her know. ’
He peels away from us, his long strides echoing through the house, and I have a flashback to my childhood and all those other times when I was handed over to some random woman.
‘Would you like to follow me, signorina? I’ve put you in the blue room. It has a beautiful view of the sea and the gardens.’
I nod numbly and follow her up the stairs. The room is charming, but not blue. Instead, it is a pale peach that shimmers in the mid-morning sunshine. There is a tray with a small teapot on a table by the bed.
‘I made you some chamomile tea. Would you like me to close the shutters?’
‘No.’ The thought of being locked in the darkness with my self-loathing makes my voice sharp and vehement and I shake my head. ‘Sorry, no. That won’t be necessary.’
She nods then turns, and moments later I hear the soft click of the door. My heart is beating in a crazy, syncopated rhythm, and I want to cry, but I know if I do then I won’t be able to stop. Instead, I pour myself a cup of tea and make myself breathe in every time I take a sip.
Then quite suddenly I feel exhausted, and I sit down on the bed and curl onto my side.
My stomach is a hollow ache. Since I can remember, I’ve felt alone.
I have no place in my mother’s life, and a grudging one in my father’s.
But for a short while today I felt accepted, wanted, for who I really am.
Renzo was right: people weren’t there waiting for me to mess up, they were there to support me.
He was there, supporting me. Even when we got separated, I could feel his gaze tracking me around the room, making sure I was okay. But now, I know he wishes he’d never met me. And I have never felt more alone.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I wake suddenly with a jolt and scramble to my feet, my heart pounding.
I didn’t lock the door. But the room is empty, and I make myself move.
Moving helps stem the panic, and the square of calming blue sky beckons me, so I walk to the window and rest my head against the glass.
The sea is a perfect strip of shimmering blue, but it is the garden that pulls my gaze down.
It’s not just the verdancy of it. There is a paved area with a table and seating, and beyond that the garden has been created with the lightest of touches.
There is no rigid structure of formality to it, which surprises me, because in my experience Renzo likes to stamp his authority on every living thing.
My body tenses as something moves at the margins of my vision and I inch backwards, pressing my body against the window frame as Renzo appears on the terrace below, almost as if I can conjure him up by the power of thought.
He has a phone tucked under his chin and he is talking, pausing occasionally as he paces back and forth across the terrace.
I watch, my stomach lurching as he yanks out a chair from the table and sits down to write in a notebook, striking out words with a pen.
Even from this distance, I can read his frustration, and I have to press my hand against the wall to stop from remembering the way he squeezed it, that moment of heat and strength.
The skin on my face feels so tight it makes me feel trapped inside my own body. I glance back out of the window. Renzo has disappeared and suddenly I am walking towards the door. I might not be able to shed my skin, but I can get out of this room.
Renzo
‘Thanks for sorting this, Ben. I appreciate it. I’ll be in touch.’
I hang up on what is my tenth call of the day, lean forward against the table and press my hands into the warm wood, trying to ease the ache in my shoulders. Having spent most of the morning in my study, I am now back outside on the terrace.
It is past lunchtime, but I can’t think about food. I feel unpleasantly alert, and my muscles are taut, as if I’m a sprinter waiting for the starter pistol to fire. But it has already been fired.
My eyes flick to the open screen of my laptop.
Predictably, the photo of Hennessy’s parents together has caused the Internet to break.
On the plus side, thanks to the volume of fake news stories and conspiracy theories which dominate social media, there are quite a few people claiming that the picture was AI-generated. Or that it is someone else entirely.
None of which is reassuring to either the shareholders or the advertisers. I breathe in deeply and rub my hand over my face. This is not how I work: firefighting; publicity triage. My business interests are scandal-free models of steady, exponential growth—with one exception.
My ribs stretch around the tension in my chest. I should never have bought shares in Wade and Walters, let alone agreed to be co-CEO. I am pathologically risk-averse. And the Wades are pyromaniacs, arsonists, fire-starters.
All of them: Charlie, Jade… Hennessy? Did she know about her mother meeting up with Charlie? It hurts more than it should to think that she has been lying to me. But then I remember her face. She looked winded, as if everything good had been punched out of her. I know how that feels.
My gaze drifts towards the distant sea. I lived here in Praiano until I was six years old.
We were poor. Even as a child I knew that.
We lived in a tiny first-floor apartment.
It overlooked the main square, so it was noisy even at night, but in my memory at least the sun seemed to shine every day, and I didn’t know fear.
That’s why I bought a house here. Why I brought Hennessy here. Seeing her panic, her fear, my first thought was to take her somewhere safe. Only, it wasn’t a thought. It was something elemental and instinctive. More of an impulse.
Because that is what I am now—that is what I am with her—I am impulsive, reckless. I don’t just watch buildings burn, I run into them.
And I should be scared—more scared. Scared of the pain that comes from letting the random and unplanned into my life.
I know what happens when you just let things unfold without forethought.
I lived through it as a child in care. I fought against it as an adult.
That I stopped fighting both angers and confounds me.
‘Scusi, Signor Valetti…’
It is Paola, bringing out a fresh pot of coffee. ‘Thanks, Paola. Could you bring out some tea for Ms Wade? The herbal stuff. I’m going to go and wake her.’
Paola frowns. ‘But she is not sleeping now, signor. She has gone to the beach.’