Chapter Seven #2
It takes me four minutes to get to the stretch of sand that belongs to the villa.
At first, I can’t see her. For some reason, I think she might be swimming, so I scan the sea, but then I see her on the beach, and I feel something snake across my skin like electricity.
She is walking at the shoreline. Her feet are bare, and the water is curling over them, tugging at the hem of her dress.
She is staring out to sea. Her profile is a clean gold line against the dark blue of the waves and she has never looked more beautiful. Or more alone.
The waves are light but vigorous so that she doesn’t hear me until I am quite close.
She spins round to face me. Her eyes are all irises in the sunlight and there are smudges of mascara beneath the lashes.
She looks tired and pale, less substantial but still defiant, and I feel relief that this latest ambush hasn’t broken her.
‘Paola said you were here. Did you get some rest?’
She nods. ‘Did you make your calls?’
The pragmatism of this exchange both reassures and grates on me. I want that softness back in her eyes, but the barriers are back, the trust is gone. She is a fortress.
‘I have something I need you to read.’
Her mouth curves stiffly into a smile that looks as if it is made of glass. ‘Let me guess. It’s something your lawyer helped you compose.’
I nod slowly. ‘I know it feels cold-blooded but it’s best to take the emotion out of it.’
‘Is that how they told you to spin this? As if you’re doing me a favour? Just so we’re clear, I don’t care how you spin it; I’m not signing anything.’
‘There isn’t anything to sign.’
She stares at me, blinking.
‘That’s not just cold-blooded, it’s illegal. You can’t sell shares without a stock transfer form—’
‘Hennessy.’
I cut across her, but her voice rises and there is a slight tremor to her hands. ‘This is you all over. You’re so convinced you’re right; you don’t even do me the courtesy of asking me the question. You just assume I knew about Jade and Charlie. That I was in on it too.’
Her accusation stings, because I did make that assumption in Milan, and in that moment, I tried to imagine a life without her. I expected relief. What I felt was a bone-crunching misery.
‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘Oh, please.’ The laugh that accompanies those words is a brittle, humourless sound that jars with the soft, rhythmic cadence of the waves. ‘It only matters what you think. Well, it’s not happening. Those shares are mine.’
She is finding it difficult to speak and seeing her struggle wrenches at something inside me. ‘They might have been given to me, but I’ve earned them now, and I’m not selling them to you, and you can’t make me—’
‘You’re right. I can’t. But, even if I could, I wouldn’t. Listen to me, Hennessy, I’m not trying to force you to sell your shares. This is a letter for the FBI. They called you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I took your phone.’
Her eyes widen.
‘From your bag in the helicopter. I didn’t want you sitting in your room, doom-scrolling through photo after photo on your own.
When they called, I said you were resting and that you would call back.
They made a few threatening noises, but I got my lawyers onto them, and they backed off.
While you were sleeping, we drafted this letter. ’
She watches me warily as I hold out the laptop.
After a moment, she takes it, and I watch her eyes as they scan the document.
‘This is the latest draft but it’s not definitive.
If you don’t like the wording, we can change it.
All that matters is that we make it clear that you aren’t obstructing justice.
I saw how shocked you were to find out that Jade is in touch with Charlie,’ I add, because it matters to me that she knows that.
Her hands tighten around my laptop, the knuckles whitening in the sunlight.
‘When did you last speak to your mother?’ I say, gentling my voice. ‘You don’t need to know the exact day.’
There is a pause, and if I didn’t know better, I might think she is scanning her memories, only for some reason I know that this memory is one she wants to shake off.
‘But I do know.’
She gives me a small, twisted smile. ‘It was that day in Vegas. You know, when…’ She hesitates. ‘Sorry, to bring it up, but that was the last time I saw or spoke to her.’
I don’t know what shocks me more—the fact that she hasn’t had contact with her mother for over three years or the careless tone of her voice.
It’s the same one she used when she was getting expelled.
It’s designed to provoke, to distract, I realise suddenly.
In the past, I got provoked and distracted, but now I focus on her face, and I see that she is close to tears.
‘But that would be three years ago.’ I choose my words carefully, because there is tension to her now, almost a hostility, that feels deep rooted, as if I have stumbled across an archaeological dig.
‘What?’ She glances away, shrugs. ‘It’s only three years. That’s short compared to the last time.’
‘How long was that?’
She turns then, and her smile twists a little tighter. ‘Nineteen.’
My heart jolts. That can’t be right. ‘But you used to spend weekends with her. I remember Antony telling me—’
‘I lied to him.’ The violet of her irises is lost in the sunlight, but her jaw and hands are clenched tight. ‘I didn’t want him to know that she didn’t want me.’
I’m still trying to get my brain to restart. ‘So where did you go?’
‘Sometimes I went home. Sometimes, I’d book into a hotel.’
‘You weren’t old enough.’
She looks at me pityingly. ‘It’s not that hard. I’d pretend to be Charlie’s PA. Book a room for the two of us, and then turn up and say he was delayed. It wasn’t hard to convince people. He’s not exactly reliable.’
I remember a day when she had been left sitting at school and I had taken her home. The memory is like a punch to the throat.
‘So, you were three when she left?’
‘I was exactly three. It was my birthday—another memorable day. She left at some point between pass-the-parcel and me blowing out the candles. And she never came back. My dad dumped me on his mother and then she died a year later, and Charlie had to take me.’
Had to—not wanted to or chose to.
‘And you didn’t see Jade again until Vegas?’
‘It was supposed to be our big reunion. She contacted me out of the blue. Said she wanted to get to know me.’
After nineteen years? My head is spinning.
‘That must have been nerve-wracking.’
She nods slowly. ‘I was terrified, but I was still drinking then, so that helped. I went to her hotel and at first it was fine. Then she started talking about my birthday and what kind of party I wanted, just as if she had forgotten leaving me on my birthday. And then I realised that she had.’
There is a shake to her voice now, and I want to reach out and take her hands in mine and steady her, but I don’t want to do anything that might stop her talking.
‘Because it didn’t matter. This huge moment in my childhood meant nothing to her.’
‘Or maybe she felt so guilty she buried the memory. I mean, she reached out to you.’ I don’t believe that, but I will say and do anything to take the ache from her voice.
Something flares in her eyes. She shakes her head, and it is the saddest thing I have ever seen. ‘I was going to inherit some money from my maternal grandmother on my birthday. That’s why she reached out. She got cut out of the will when she married Charlie, so she thought I owed her.’
Now I reach out and lightly touch the back of her hand and she lets out a shaky breath. ‘I refused to give her anything. And then she screamed at me. She said I was spoiled and ungrateful. That I ruined her life. That I was the biggest mistake she’d ever made, and then…’
My ribs are squeezing my lungs so tightly that breathing is hard, painful. And then I bumped into you and gave you a piece of my mind. A savage deconstruction of her personality largely driven by anger at my own lack of control.
She is crying, and I take the laptop from her fingers and toss it onto the sand and pull her against me.
We’ve only been this close twice, and on both occasions it has led to some kind of physical intimacy.
But this is different. There are no sexual undertones, and it feels all the more dangerous for that. But I want, I need, to comfort her.
‘You didn’t ruin anything. You were a baby. Your parents were both adults. That makes them responsible.’ I lift her face and smooth my thumbs over her cheeks.
‘She never wanted me.’
‘That doesn’t make you a mistake, Hennessy. It makes you unplanned. Penicillin was unplanned. Columbus discovered America while he was trying to find a route to Asia.’ I lean in and kiss her forehead.
‘You’re not a mistake. You’re a marvel. A miracle.’
She breathes in jerkily. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t usually cry.’
I feel a gut-wrenching sadness at the unsaid part of that sentence because I know she is telling the truth, and I know why she doesn’t cry—there would be no point. On a shallower note, I am stupidly pleased that she let herself cry in front of me.
‘You have nothing to apologize for.’
Her eyes find mine. The lashes are still wet, and her irises look smudged. ‘You don’t regret me coming to Milan with you?’
‘No, I absolutely don’t regret coming with you to Milan as your back-up singer.’
She bites into a smile. ‘Don’t do that—don’t make me laugh.’
‘But I like making you laugh.’ I touch the corners of her mouth. ‘I like watching you smile.’
‘There hasn’t been much to smile about over the last few days.’
‘I disagree. You went into the ring for Wade and Walters. You did something pivotal, and you should be proud of yourself. I’m proud of you.’
Her eyes hold mine a second and then she reaches out and touches my jaw, her fingertips grazing the shadow of stubble. ‘You know, you’re nice. Nicer than you let on. Nicer than I thought.’