Chapter Ten
Renzo
‘WOULD YOU LIKE a coffee, Mr Valetti?’
It is Chrissie, the air steward but I don’t bother to look up from my newspaper.
‘Not now,’ I say tersely. I sense her retreat, and I know she has gone to confer with Caleb, the other steward. I know because for the last twenty-four hours, my staff has been conferring on and off behind my back about my ‘mood’.
You are such a hypocrite. I thought it matters how we behave.
That sentence spoken in Hennessy’s voice is so pitch perfect that I glance jerkily over my shoulder around the cabin, because just for a moment I thought she was here.
‘Is everything okay, Mr Valetti?’ Chrissie again, looking nervous, probably because she’s expecting to have her head bitten off.
‘Everything’s fine. Sorry about snapping at you a moment ago.’
‘It’s not a problem, Mr Valetti. Would you like that coffee now?’
‘Yes…actually, no. Do you have any kind of herbal tea?’
She blinks. ‘Of course. I’ll go and check which flavours we have.’
‘It’s fine. Just surprise me.’
Smiling uncertainly, she nods and retreats again. She clearly thinks I’m losing my mind. And it feels as if I am. I have all the symptoms. I know because I looked them up on my laptop last night: behavioural changes; mood swings; lack of appetite; problems sleeping; inability to concentrate.
And then there is the ache. I don’t know what that is. It’s not on the list. But I feel it all the time. It’s as if I’ve been hollowed out, and yet it drags down inside me like a leaden weight. It is cold like lead too.
Hennessy didn’t take the jet, or the car.
The local taxi took her to the airport in Naples, which was a blessing of sorts.
The city is not a favourite with celebrities, so paparazzi are thin on the ground.
The flight to Buenos Aires is a gruelling eighteen hours.
And the gods must have smiled on her, because she managed to make her way to the police station unnoticed.
The gods are smiling on me too. The initial due diligence on Noah Barker’s assets looks promising and the exodus of advertisers from Wade and Walters has stopped.
Why, then, does it feel as though I’ve been cast out of paradise?
I lean back against the upholstered head rest and glance down at the crossword I am trying and failing to complete: eight letters; an eighteenth-century French, fruit-based spirit designed to intoxicate.
I don’t need another clue, but if I did, I could write my own: a blonde beauty with brains, violet eyes and a smile that can melt polar ice.
Dropping the newspaper onto the empty seat beside me, I stare out at the pale-blue sky.
I feel as if I’ve swallowed ice. I’m cold all the time.
Even the Italian sun couldn’t warm me. It’s as if I have the flu.
And the symptoms get worse whenever I picture Hennessy trying to hold herself together out by the pool at the villa.
I hate everything about that memory. I hate that she looks so stricken and the way her shoulders are braced.
But most of all I hate that she is alone.
Because she was alone. I was there. But, when it came to it, I didn’t stay by her side. I looked after number one. And I had the gall to say I’m not like Charlie.
Reaching into my pocket, I retrieve Hennessy’s sobriety chips. I wanted to take the fear from her eyes, the loneliness and the hurt. But that’s all I can see when I remember her face: fear, loneliness and hurt. And I put all those things there.
Where is she now? I check my phone. She is not on a private jet, but the paparazzi have caught up with her now. Her every movement is a matter of public record, so I know that she is no longer in Buenos Aires. Could she be back in New York? No, she won’t have landed yet.
But there is one question I can’t answer by looking at my phone, and it is the only one that matters. How is she? Is she coping? Is she sleeping?
I grit my teeth and go to loosen my tie, then tug it off and toss it on top of the discarded newspaper, because that is three questions. But I have no restraint anymore, even inside my head.
Especially inside my head. My mind is a tangle of snapshots. Memories of Hennessy fronting up to me that first morning in that dress. Tucking her hair behind her ear as she scanned the guest list for the party. Arching beneath my body for the first time. Not on top, but beneath.
‘I went for chamomile tea, Mr Valetti. I hope that’s okay.’
‘Thank you, Chrissie.’ This time, I meet her gaze.
‘My pleasure. Oh, and just to let you know, sir, we are about three hours out from the airfield in St Andrews, so we’re right on schedule.’
She beams at me because my staff know how much I value keeping to my schedule.
Time-management increases productivity, which in turn increases profit.
But keeping to a schedule also demonstrates that I am in control.
In the driver’s seat. Because I’m never not the boss. I can’t surrender control to anyone.
Except Hennessy.
In Milan, I followed her lead. And in Praiano I let her take control in bed.
I let her mould and shape my desire. I surrendered to her.
I was her willing slave. And now I can’t think, sleep or eat.
I have a deal in the pipeline that will give me power I could only imagine as a child in care.
But none of it matters. There is only one thing that matters.
Eight letters: a blonde beauty with brains, violet eyes and a smile that can melt polar ice.
I glance up at Chrissie. ‘About the schedule—could you have a word with John, please? Tell him that there’s been a change of plan? I’ve changed my plans.’
She stares at me as if I have started capering about the cabin in a kilt. But then those words have never been part of my vocabulary. They couldn’t be. Not until Hennessy moved into my life. And into my heart.
My heart?
I can’t breathe, and I tell myself I’m mistaken, but it doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels as if I am soaring. That I have won the jackpot, scaled a mountain peak, written a symphony. Because that is what it feels like to love someone.
And I love Hennessy Wade.
‘A change of plan?’
Chrissie’s voice tugs me out of my stupor, and I nod. ‘By which I mean a change of course.’
‘So, you don’t want to go to Scotland.’
I shake my head. ‘No. I want—I need—to get back to New York.’
She nods. ‘Yes, sir. Is everything okay?’
I am about to tell her that everything is fine. But then I remember what Hennessy said about admitting she was an alcoholic—that saying it out loud was the first step to real change. And I want to change.
‘No, it isn’t. I messed up—big time. But I’m going to fix it.’
As Chrissie turns and walks towards the cockpit, my head is spinning, but I let it. After all, who doesn’t want to ride on a merry-go-round?
Hennessy
The sky above New York is bruised. Not the dark of a fresh bruise, but that mottled yellow, blue and green that happens a couple of days after the original injury.
The sky is basically my heart—a giant bruise that aches and aches.
I know one day it will stop aching. Well, maybe not stop, but it will dull to something manageable.
But then it is only seven days since I left Renzo’s villa in Praiano.
There are some plus points in my life. Wade and Walters’ share price has gone up even higher than before Charlie went AWOL.
And speaking of Charlie… We are living together.
Not at my apartment; that’s under siege from paparazzi right now.
This belongs to someone Charlie knows through work, which makes me nervous.
But the FBI is allowing it, so I suppose it must be legit.
Sharing a space again is strange on multiple levels, mainly because in the past it was always Charlie’s space, and I was just tolerated.
But things have changed since I flew out to Argentina.
After I left Italy, everything went surprisingly smoothly.
I got to the police station without anyone hassling me.
Charlie was stunned, then delighted, to see me.
Jade had fled, but then the fantasy of life with Charlie was always better than the reality.
It took forty-eight hours to sort out all the paperwork with the Argentine authorities and then we flew back to New York five days ago for the bail hearing.
My shoulders stiffen and I stare down at my black coffee.
That was hairier. There were so many people, all shouting our names; it was like walking on stage at a rock concert.
But Agent Carson and Agent Merrick were really good.
Somehow, they cleared a path through the swelling tide of reporters, photographers and news teams, and they let me stay with Charlie right up until he was taken into the court room.
It was a closed court. I think the judge didn’t want to get caught up in all the media craziness. Which was fortuitous because, incredibly, Charlie got bail. He hasn’t said so, but I know David must have put up the money.
So, this is our home until the trial. And it’s a beautiful home. David has been very generous. It’s a duplex with views across the city to the Chrysler building. If Renzo looked out of his apartment, our eyes would meet across the skyscrapers.
Renzo… I try not to think about him because his name is a sharp pain, a stiletto blade beneath the ribs.
It’s been hard staying sober with that pain, but Carrie has been so supportive.
I can call her day or night, but I only call her during the day.
At night, Renzo is there in the darkness with me.
I know it’s stupid. Those things he said to me are just symptomatic of his need to take charge.
I know that what happened in Praiano stays in Praiano.
But if I call Carrie in the night, he will vanish for ever.
‘Essie, do you know where my loafers are—the brown ones that Giorgio gave me? I can’t seem to find them.’