Chapter 79
HARPER
Ifold the last of my clothes into the packing box that will be shipped to Alex’s apartment.
Mum enters with Kat in tow.
“Nearly done?” she asks.
“I am.”
I take in the empty wardrobe, almost the size of the bedroom in my apartment in New York. Oh, how life has changed.
Mum smiles. “I don’t think Sophia and I could ever have foreseen you and Alessandro. Perhaps Kat, being the eldest, would have seemed more likely… but fate has a funny way of weaving her web.”
I sit down in the chair next to the fireplace in my room.
“How do you know Sophia? She would never tell me.”
Mum chuckles.
“We were at school together. Sixth form, it was called back then.”
“It’s more than school. She said she owed you.”
Mum’s smile widens. “I think I’m probably the one who owes her, if the truth be told.”
“For goodness sake, Mum,” Kat says. “Put us out of our misery. There’s clearly a story here.”
“Let’s just say I wasn’t your father’s first marriage prospect.”
Kat and I look at each other and then at our mother.
“What, Sophia?” I ask, then clamp my mouth shut. Dad and Sophia?
Mum nods and smiles.
“Their parents arranged their marriage while they were still children,” she explains. “They wanted a Frazer-St Clair merger. Not just of their businesses, but of their families too.”
“But you and Dad?” I ask. “I thought yours was an arranged marriage.”
Mum’s eyes twinkle. “Oh, it was. Your father was livid when I helped my friend elope with her true love.”
“Edoardo?”
“Yes, his family owned a small jewellery shop near the school. Sophia met him when she was buying a present for her mother. It was love at first sight.”
“Are you telling me St Clair jewellery is Edoardo’s business?”
“It’s more complicated than that. Sophia probably told you she lived in the UK until Alessandro was ten. All their children were born here, including Enzo and Gabriella. Her father disowned her after she and Edoardo eloped and embarrassed him.”
I drop back into the chair. “Wow.”
“Hang on, so how did you end up with Dad?”
“He needed a wife. My parents owned a small group of boutique hotels, although they weren’t called that then. They weren’t fancy or grand, but I had a lot of input into their design.” Her eyes twinkle as she is transported back in time. “He decided I was the next best thing.”
“And you agreed?” Kat says.
“Your father needed a wife to appease the hotel board, and he could be rather… persuasive when he wanted to be.”
“What did Dad do?” Kat asks.
She simply smiles at us both. I know they loved each other, anyone could see it, and they never hid their love from us children.
“But you loved him?” Kat says, unable to mask the horror in her tone.
She knew Dad better than any of us and understood his ruthless streak.
“I did, still do, with all my heart. As I said, fate has a strange way of throwing the right people together. You just have to be open to it. Now it’s chosen Alessandro for Harper, the same way you and Jaxson were destined to be together. It always finds a way.”
We sit in silence, letting her words sink in.
“How did Dad get mixed up in the mess with Montague Peregrine and Leonard Crawley?” I ask, needing to know the answer.
Mum sighs.
“You do know?” Kat asks, placing a hand in our mother’s lap.
Mum laces her fingers through Kat’s, then beckons me over and takes one of mine with her free hand.
“I do,” she says, her smile fading. “Your father was a good man with a strong moral compass.” She looks at us both. “And I would not have had him any other way.”
She sighs.
“Your father always employed ex-military men and women as part of the hotel security teams, offering jobs to those who had left the services. Something you still do today, Kat.”
Kat nods.
“One evening, one of his team came to him. Something had come up on one of the security feeds. A meeting.”
“But…”
“All the tapes I found,” Kat whispers as Mum nods.
“Your father realised they were using the Frazer hotels to hold their meetings. He couldn’t ignore it, so he spoke to one of his friends in the House of Lords, someone he thought he could trust.”
“He introduced him to The Seamstress?” Kat asks.
“Yes. These men were involved in some nasty business. Young women had been going missing. It was all over the news. But on the tape, they talked about drug runs and arms deals. If it was illegal, they appeared to have a hand in it.”
“But we had Sir Leonard in our house,” I say, a shiver running down my spine.
What would have happened to April if Elijah hadn’t intervened?
“We were told it was safer not to show our hand. These people moved in our circles.”
“Keep your friends close, your enemies closer,” I say.
“Exactly.”
“But Montague? Dad didn’t know about him?” Kat asks.
Mum shakes her head. “Montague…” Her voice catches. “Montague was the man your father trusted.”
A silence descends as Mum’s words sink in.
“Your dad was closing in. Some of the group were getting sloppy, greedy. The only thing I can think of is that Montague was scared they would sell him out.”
“So, Montague arranged to have Dad taken out?”
Mum shakes her head. “No, I think that was more likely his son and his friends, trying to earn their stripes. A show of allegiance.”
My stomach turns over, and I choke down a sob.
“Your father knew the risks he was taking if they ever found out what he was doing. They threatened me after his death, wanting the evidence. I told them it would remain hidden unless something happened to one of my children or me. There are letters lodged with multiple solicitors, around the world, that would have been sent to law enforcement should anything have happened to any of us.”
“The sex tape. You kept up your end of the bargain?” Kat asks. “Why did they go after Harper?”
“Elijah unwittingly stirred up a hornet’s nest the day he stepped in to protect April.
Leonard became unstable, and it’s since come out that he was in a lot of debt.
But that’s not important. When his files were uncovered, the threat that I might hand over your father’s findings became real.
The sex tape was their way of telling me they were still in charge.
They knew we could prove it was a fake, so it was the equivalent of a shot across the bow.
It’s also why The Seamstress and I felt it was safer to send you away. ”
“But those tapes, they may have helped put them away sooner,” Kat says.
Mum shakes her head.
“The Seamstress knew about them and had seen them. After your father’s death, she came to visit me, but there wasn’t enough evidence in them alone.
Your father had never been able to work out who the kingpin was.
When I told her about their threats, she told me to keep them hidden, and when the time was right, she’d come for them. ”
“But I found them first,” Kat says.
Mum smiles.
“You did, but you simply bumped up the timeline.”
“So, it’s really over?” I ask.
Mum nods and squeezes my hand. “It is. I’m sorry you got dragged into this. Your father was trying to protect you. He would never have wanted any of this to have touched you.”
“You’re right, Dad did have a strong moral compass,” Kat says.
Mum smiles. This time it reaches her eyes.
“Believe me when I say we may not have begun life as a love match, but I loved your father with every ounce of my being, and I miss him every day.”
I wrap my arms tightly around Mum and Kat, holding them while we all cry for the man we loved and lost.