Chapter 10
‘…And we all know he is gay. But he still insists on projecting an alternate image. For what purpose? The straight people know he is gay. The queer community know he is gay. Who is he pleasing with this charade?’
Luca nodded, trying hard to stifle a yawn as he listened to Sybille.
They were at one of Sybille’s favourite French restaurants in the area – Loulou – and it wasn’t because his boss’s conversation was boring him – far from it – it was just since Ronnie’s visit the other morning he hadn’t been able to sleep.
He could tell himself this was just the typical bully-boy tactics his father always deployed when he wanted something, and remind himself he had survived worse, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t tap-dancing all over his consciousness like Fred Astaire.
‘Mr Manning, if your head falls into that chicken paillard it will be a crime I myself will report you for.’
Luca sat up in his seat and tightened his grip on his fork. ‘Sorry.’
‘Do not say sorry to me. Say sorry to the excellent food you aren’t eating. And why are you not eating it? I have enough friends I go to dinner with who are on the latest diet fad and do not eat, I do not need you to start with that.’
‘I am eating,’ Luca refuted, digging his fork into the meal. ‘Look!’ He put the food in his mouth and chewed. It was good. It was always good here.
‘But there is something on your mind. You have concerns about tomorrow? With Gabriella Felix?’
No, Gabriella Felix was the least of his concerns. Currently he had to work out how he was going to avoid taking a trip to a penitentiary and endure a family meal when he felt like the sheep that had been virtually marinated in squid ink. But his boss definitely didn’t need to know that…
‘Yeah,’ Luca answered. ‘Because… there’s not enough about her on the internet.’
Sybille coughed just as she took a sip from her water glass. ‘What do you mean? Did you think I did not look her up? There are pages and pages of interviews and—’
‘Soft interviews, Sybille.’ He took another bite of his food, relieved the conversation was forcing him to move his thinking. ‘You know the kind where the journalists have been told the questions they can ask.’
‘Ah,’ Sybille said, nodding. ‘You feel you do not have anything of Miss Felix’s true essence to work with.’
‘Well,’ Luca began, sitting back in his chair. ‘You know I believe it is not all about the colour palette of the outside.’
‘I do know this,’ Sybille said. ‘And I agree. But, sometimes, we have to work with what we have.’
‘I also know that,’ Luca said. ‘And, I will. But…’ He stopped because he didn’t know if there was a point to carrying on. He would be meeting his client soon enough; perhaps that would be all it took.
‘But…’ Sybille elongated the word much more than Luca had and she was now peering at him over the top of her glasses.
He had no choice but to continue. ‘I just… think there is,’ he admitted, ‘you know, more maybe.’
Sybille was quick to laugh. ‘Ah, Mr Manning, is there not always more? Like we were talking about Carlton Carmichael.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. Everyone has their secrets.
’ Him included. Because everyone in his family knew how opposed he was to the ‘business operations’ of his father, but none of them knew it was Luca himself who had reported his father to the police.
No one knew. And although he didn’t regret what he did, he lived with that decision every minute of every day.
Then, suddenly, the door to the restaurant flew open and two people rushed in like they might be trying to evade capture.
Both female and gasping for breath. One was young, a teenager, with a pale pink hat covering long mousey brown-coloured hair.
Her coat was fide Canada Goose. The other woman was older, late twenties, early thirties maybe.
She was wearing something that looked like Prada but, in his expert opinion, definitely wasn’t.
And then the non-Prada wearing woman turned in his direction and it wasn’t the dark-framed, definitely-not-designer sunglasses she was wearing that shocked him.
It was her face. Because this was the woman he had internet researched for hours upon hours, the person he had just been talking about with Sybille. This was Gabriella Felix.