Chapter 32
Every day is a blank canvas.
Paint it with the colours of your soul.
Logan’s mindfulness calendar
Henry
In the last few weeks, I’d hardly had a moment for myself.
My calendar was crammed with appointments.
Rakesh had taken a lot off my plate, yet most of the workload still landed on me.
The temptation to cancel today’s bouldering session was strong, but I knew I’d feel better afterwards.
I felt like the walls were closing in on me at the hotel—which wasn’t much of a surprise, given that the precious little time I had away from my office, where I sat from dawn until well past dusk, was spent arguing with Vivian or my dad.
I loved the hotel, but right now, I hated my work.
The only highlight of my dreary routine was Kate.
We messaged a lot, but that only got me through her waking hours, because she had to sleep at some point.
And I didn’t want to rob her of her sleep, even if I often fantasised about us keeping each other up at night.
But as much as I longed to be in bed with her again, something held me back from going to her.
Probably the same part of me that had held back from kissing her that night in her bed, even though she had clearly wanted me to.
Maybe it was my fear of dragging Kate even further into the maelstrom of my family’s problems. Or maybe it was just my guilty conscience.
Kate had been completely on her own for months.
I could only imagine the horrors she must have endured on the streets.
She had come a long way since then, but deep down, the frightened woman I had found in the park that day was still there.
I had sensed that all too clearly when she had told me about Mr. Fleming.
Despite everything that had happened to her, she trusted me, and I didn’t want to break that trust, let alone take advantage of it.
Kate needed a friend more than a lover—someone who would support her, stand by her, and help make her world a fairer place.
She deserved a shot at a decent life. That was what I should have been focussing on, not how good she felt in my arms, how incredible she smelled, or how adorable the little sounds she made when she slept were.
But despite knowing all that, it hadn’t stopped me from asking her to accompany me to the masked ball. As my date.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Because I wanted to spend time with her.
Because I wanted to dance, wrapped in her embrace.
Because I needed her close to me, even if it was just as a friend.
Sweating, my muscles burning, and my head a little clearer, I wrapped up my bouldering session.
The only sounds in the gym—which I’d had to myself this morning, as usual—were those of my footsteps and heavy breathing.
I showered quickly, and ten minutes later, I was behind the wheel of my Bentley, driving back to the hotel.
It wasn’t quite rush hour yet, and the streets of London were still relatively empty.
A Sleep Token song played over the speakers, and my fingers drummed rhythmically against the steering wheel, as if they had a life of their own.
Suddenly, the music was interrupted by an incoming call.
Logan.
I accepted the call, and my brother’s face appeared on the dashboard screen. Unlike Ethan and I, who were the spitting image of my dad, Logan took after our mum. He had brown eyes and blond, shoulder-length hair that he usually wore in a top-knot or a plait to show off his undercut.
I stopped the car at a red light. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Logan replied. He was sitting in his usual café—I recognised the counter and the slate menus in the background. He often had breakfast there before heading to the market. Sometimes, Maxton joined him, but today, he seemed to be on his own. “You’re already out and about?”
“I was bouldering.”
Logan sipped his coffee. It was probably so strong that it would have given anyone else a heart attack, but he gulped it down like water. “Perhaps you should have stayed in bed. You look like crap. Did you sleep at all?”
“Not much. There’s a lot to do right now.”
“You sound like a broken record: I’m Henry, and there’s a lot to do right now,” he mimicked. Much to my annoyance, he perfectly captured my tone.
The light turned green. The old Kia in front of me struggled to get going, and it took a moment before we were moving.
“Is there any particular reason why I have to put up with your annoying personality this early, or are you just trying to piss me off?”
Logan laughed. “Someone’s touchy today!”
“I think I’ll hang up now.”
“Don’t you dare!”
I rolled my eyes. “So make your point.”
“There is no point,” Logan said, and although I had my eyes fixed on the road, I sensed he had grown serious. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. You said you were thinking of coming by for lunch, but you never followed up. Is everything OK?”
“Yes, it’s fine. There’s just—”
“Don’t you dare say that there’s just a lot to do, or I’ll have to come over there and set you straight,” Logan interrupted.
“OK, I won’t. But I promise I’ll come and see you when things calm down a bit.”
“And when will that be? In two years?”
“After the masked ball?” I suggested. The Pearl Gala would be looming on the horizon, requiring far more organisational effort than the ball, as it would be in the media spotlight—but I doubted Logan would be willing to wait until next year.
Anyway, I wanted to see him too. I missed him.
And even though he refused to help me with the hotel, he always made time to listen when I had problems or needed to vent.
“Sounds good,” Logan said. “Are you going with Olivia again this year?”
I suppressed a smile. “Not this year, no.”
“Did she bail on you?”
“No, I bailed on her,” I replied, turning a corner. The London Eye came into view on the other side of the Thames. A lone boat drifted past The Darlington Hotel, which, with its pillar arcades and small balconies, had looked unchanged from the outside for decades.
Logan snorted. “As if!”
“It’s true.”
I stopped at another red light, Big Ben ahead of me. On the dashboard display, Logan raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Are you seriously telling me that you, someone who never has time for anything, have found someone who is not Olivia Asterdam to be your date for the ball?”
“Yes.”
“Did Amanda set you up with the daughter of one of her friends again?”
Amanda. Not Mum. Logan never called our parents Mum and Dad.
“No. I’m capable of finding my own dates.”
“What’s her name?” Logan asked.
“Kate.”
“Last name?”
“Hamilton.”
“Kate Hamilton,” Logan repeated slowly, his expression thoughtful.
I knew exactly what was happening in his head: He was trying to link her name to a respectable family.
We didn’t usually date outside our social circle—it was snobbish, but it was the truth.
Before Kate, I had never dated a woman whose last name wasn’t associated with wealth.
Not because I wanted to date only wealthy women, but because doing so was the path of least resistance. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It would have surprised me if it had. She’s not from a wealthy family.”
Logan’s second eyebrow shot up. “Oh, oh. A mere mortal?”
I nodded and turned left onto Westminster Bridge. An ambulance with flashing lights raced past me to St. Thomas’ Hospital.
“Do Richard and Amanda know you’re taking her to the ball?”
“No, and it’s none of their business.”
Logan let out a bitter laugh, as if I’d told a joke with a macabre punchline. “I’d really like to see their faces when you introduce Kate to them. It would almost make coming to the hotel worth it.”
“The Darlington doors are always open to you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Do that,” I answered, even though we both knew that he wouldn’t.
Logan avoided the hotel like the plague, and our parents would rather starve than step foot in The Meridian.
I had tried everything over the last few years to bring my family together again, but nothing had worked.
The media speculated that my dad’s atrocities would tear our family apart, but the truth was, it had already happened long ago.
Something had been broken when our parents sent Logan away, and there was no fixing it.