All In

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  It always was, he thought. Sex or money. So depressing.

  “But why would he hate us for that?”

  Alexander looked her in the eye, her gaze wide and uneasy. Shit, she was in this deep. Alexander shook his head. This wasn’t good—she should steer well clear of David Hammar.

  “Because they said Peter was the one who whipped him,” he said quietly. “Peter abused him.”

  She blanched but didn’t say anything, just looked at him for a long time. Alexander wanted to say something astute and comforting, but he’d never been very good at playing the role of the considerate brother.

  Someone drew Natalia’s attention, and she turned away. Someone else asked Alexander to pose for a picture, so he rubbed his eyes and then faked a smile. Damn, he was tired. He looked at the glass in his hand. And clearly he was already drinking. He didn’t remember how the glass had gotten into his hand, and now it seemed to be empty. He looked at Natalia.

  This was problematic, this business with Natalia and David. That notorious venture capitalist had a lot of secrets. And many of them seemed to have something to do with the De la Grip family.

  Alexander excused himself and walked over to one of the bars serving drinks along the shore promenade. It was lunchtime, he rationalized, avoiding reflecting on what self-delusions like this actually meant.

  He twirled his glass and let his mind wander.

  Yesterday at J-O’s massive party, he had wound up behind a heavy curtain. A thick velvet drape, long enough to hide a couple who needed hiding when someone unexpectedly walked into the room where they’d been having sex over the back of an armchair.

  He’d hastily flung himself behind the curtain, along with the far-too-young second wife of one of those men who considered themselves pillars of the nation. She was a bored, thrill-seeking woman with exhibitionist tendencies. But she was also a woman who would really prefer to stay married. So when the door opened, she had quickly pulled Alexander behind the curtain.

  With her eyes wide from suppressed laughter, she continued to satisfy him with her hand. She had talented hands, and Alexander had never been one to object. So he’d stood there behind that heavy curtain, in a window on the second floor of J-O’s extravagant house, and let himself be jerked off by a pampered housewife seeking affirmation while he listened to the man who’d entered the room have a quiet conversation on his cell phone.

  Alexander hadn’t seen the man who was talking, but he had still known who it was. And the conversation had clearly been with a woman. The man’s voice had been warm and loving. The whole time the conversation (and the hand job) had been underway, Alexander’s eyes had been on the yard below. The estate had been filled with partying guests. He’d seen many people, including his big sister. Dressed in red, Natalia had been drinking champagne, chatting with J-O and laughing in the middle of the garden.

  Natalia had not had a phone in her hand.

  Therefore Alexander was entirely sure that the person David Hammar had been talking to on his cell phone, the person Alexander was convinced must be a woman, and to whom David in a gentle, loving voice had said, “I love you,” could by no means have been Natalia.

  This could only end one way.

  Badly.

  30

  If J-O’s Thursday party was the most festive and extravagant of Båstad week, then the De la Grip family’s customary Friday barbecue was the most traditional. The average age of the guests was somewhat higher and the snoot factor, based purely on the number of royal and titled attendees, a notch greater. Natalia’s father socialized with a group of men who knew the king, and Natalia’s mother cultivated those connections carefully. No detail could be off; no one was permitted to deviate from the code of conduct when the royal couple was expected.

  The party was held at her parents’ villa. Somber music filled the air. The black-and-white-clad wait staff worked efficiently. The wine being served came from the De la Grip family’s vineyard in France. Linen tablecloths and the silver table service were family heirlooms, and everything that could be polished gleamed. The refrigerators were filled with midnight snacks. The aroma of the food wafted over the grounds—the same menu every year, tables heaping with meat and game. Classic, Swedish dishes.

  Natalia scanned the room where the guests were quietly mingling. French doors opened out to the garden; door attendants made sure the right people got in and that everyone else was kept outside. Natalia saw Louise chatting with her mother by the antique credenza. They wore nearly identical dresses and similar jewelry and gesticulated in the same feminine way. Louise was actually more like the daughter Natalia suspected her mother had always wanted, blond, interested in interior design, art, and genealogy. And just like her mother, Louise mostly communicated through subtle digs and pregnant sighs. With her arrogant ways and her blond French twist, Louise actually resembled the rest of the De la Grip family more than Natalia ever had. She turned away. Uncle Eugene, with two cut-crystal vodka glasses in his hands, was heading her way.

  “Natalia, darling,” he said effusively, handing her one of the glasses. He took a swig of his own drink and then looked over at his sister Ebba with a slightly curled lip. He shook his head and then said to Natalia, “Things haven’t been easy for you, milochka.”

  Natalia tasted the vodka. She’d always wondered why Eugene looked down on his own sister so much, but she’d never dared ask.

  “It’s always the same people who come to all the parties,” she said instead. All these cookie-cutter people, she thought gloomily, men in identical suits, women with their discreet little dresses and even more discreet plastic surgeries. Somehow it felt more stifling than usual. “Don’t you think it’s depressing?” she asked, taking another sip. Maybe she should just get a bottle of vodka and sit down by herself in a corner somewhere?

  Eugene studied her closely. “Are you missing someone in particular?” he asked casually.

  Natalia looked away and took another little sip of the cold liquor. “Who is that Alexander’s talking to?” she asked, skirting her uncle’s far too insightful question. Apparently she hadn’t been as careful with David as she’d thought.

  David.

  Just thinking his name quietly to herself set her heart aflutter. Damn it, she really, really had it bad.

  She nodded at Alexander, and Uncle Eugene looked that way. Alexander stood with one hand nonchalantly in his pocket, smiling at the redheaded woman she’d noticed at J-O’s party. She did not return his smile at all. It was so unusual that a woman wouldn’t be completely spellbound in Alexander’s presence that Natalia was actually startled. When Alex directed his charm at someone, they usually had no chance.

  “No idea,” Uncle Eugene said without any interest. “Some doctor, I think.” He studied the two more closely. “Alex can just give up on that one right now,” he confirmed.

  Natalia smiled. “He’s not very used to encountering resistance.”

  “No,” Uncle Eugene agreed and then greeted a man who joined them. “Have you met Count Carl-Erik Tessin?” he asked.

  The man, who was Natalia’s father’s age, was gray-haired, suntanned, and distinguished in his conservative suit. A man who spent a lot of time outdoors, Natalia thought. She smiled automatically and held out her hand. He shook it, but he was looking at her so intently that she thought maybe they already knew each other. “Have we met before?” she asked in an apologetic tone. She didn’t recognize him at all.

  But Count Tessin shook his head. “No, but I know who you are. You’re Gustaf’s daughter. I went to Skogbacka with him.” He smiled a smile that did not really reach his eyes. Count Tessin generally seemed to be bearing some underlying sorrow. “Ages ago,” he added.

  He seemed pleasant, and Natalia tried to call to mind more exactly who he might be. Her mother and Louise would have known, of course. Those two had the who’s who of Swedish nobility memorized. They would have known whom he was married to, the name of his estate, and how many children he had.

&nbs
p; “Carl-Erik and I live near each other,” Uncle Eugene explained. “We’re almost neighbors.”

  Uncle Eugene had been living at Alexander’s mansion south of Båstad for a couple of years as some sort of house sitter. The von Essen siblings, Ebba and Eugene, had grown up in Sweden, but while Ebba had carefully tended her Swedish noble heritage, Eugene had taken their mother’s maiden name and never called himself anything other than Eugene Tolstoy. He had spent many years in Russia, but Natalia had never really had the guts to ask him what he did there. Despite his Russian teddy-bear-like charisma, her uncle had some sharp edges and dangerous contours. But in recent years Eugene, who was openly gay, had settled permanently in Sweden. In the mansion that Alexander owned but rarely visited. Natalia was glad her uncle had friends, because despite his booming laugh, he often seemed lonely.

  “We drink brandy and talk about better days,” Carl-Erik laughed and looked as if he were about to say something else, but they were interrupted by the appearance of Natalia’s father.

  The mood in the group changed instantly.

  As usual, Gustaf De la Grip dominated the space with his presence. He was like a king, used to obedience and attention, secure in his position, convinced of his own superiority. But that created friction, and the mood became more strained.

  Eugene greeted Gustaf with a handshake. Gustaf looked at Count Tessin. The two men sized each other up. They were the same height, the same age, and actually equal in all regards. But something in their postures revealed the balance of power. “It’s been a while,” Gustaf said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “And yet here I am,” Carl-Erik responded quietly. “Thanks for the invitation.”

  It wasn’t actually a strange conversation. Their tone was polite, their phrases courteous, and their faces calm. But there was a hostile undercurrent between them that Natalia couldn’t put her finger on, a barely evident aggression that seeped through, making their gestures jerky and their tone staccato. Gustaf turned to Uncle Eugene and said something about hunting and his hunting club. Carl-Erik moved back, pulled away. He apologized to Natalia and surprised her by taking her hand and kissing it in the old-fashioned way before leaving them. Natalia watched him go, still unsure what she’d just witnessed. But something had just gone on below the surface, she was sure of that. Unspoken words and scarcely concealed looks had been exchanged. She had a frustrating sense that she should have been able to interpret them and thereby solve some mystery.

  “Dad,” Peter said, joining them.

  So typically Peter. He was probably scared to death that Gustaf would say something important. Peter was always protecting his interests, always uneasy. First he nodded to Gustaf with his usual fawning respect. Then he shook hands with Uncle Eugene but made sure to avoid the Russian kiss on the cheek. Peter had never liked physical contact. Maybe that’s why he and Louise were such a good fit, Natalia thought unfairly, and then greeted him with a nod but nothing more. She had the lowest rank and they never hugged. Although, it occurred to her, no one in the family aside from her and Alex hugged. How was it that she’d never reflected on that? Her mother hugged Louise. And her mother had hugged Jonas. But never her own children. Wasn’t that strange? Why hadn’t that struck her before?

  “Have you heard anything else about the stock price?” Peter asked, and Natalia paid attention.

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  Peter gave their father a questioning look, as if asking for permission to tell her. As if they had secrets that they needed to decide whether they could share with Natalia. “Tell me,” she said sharply.

  Gustaf nodded his brief consent.

  “Investum shares are being traded,” Peter began. He spoke slowly and sparingly, his eyes on his father the whole time, as if he were prepared to cut himself short if he happened to say too much. “We’ve been following it all week. No one knows what’s going on,” he continued. “But some unknown names have started turning up in the shareholder list. No one knows who they are. We’re going to have to look into it next week.”

  “Can’t we look into it right now?” Natalia asked. This could affect the deal she and J-O were working on. Shares changing hands and winding up with unknown parties was never good. “How many shares are we talking about?”

  Peter turned abruptly to her. “You haven’t said anything about the deal to anyone, have you?”

  She stared at him and then at her father. What the hell did they think of her? “No,” she said brusquely. Damn it, she was angry. She swallowed, feeling a little jumpy, because she had been so close to saying something to David. If he hadn’t stopped her, maybe she would have told. “No,” she repeated.

  It wasn’t as if David had anything to do with the movement in the stock price, right?

  Or did he?

  David was driving his blue Bentley. Michel had finished his coffee with Åsa Bjelke, and they were finally on their way out of Båstad. David hesitated and then made a hasty left turn. The road to Stockholm disappeared off to their right.

  “Which way are you taking?” Michel asked, perplexed.

  “This is just a little detour,” David said.

  As they approached the big villa, they saw the crowd of people outside and inside the garden. The guards at the gate let invited guests in through the wrought-iron fence. Outside, people stood and gaped at all the extravagance. The music could be heard out on the street.

  David slowed down. It felt as if he still had a choice.

  “Uh, what are we doing here?” Michel asked. “Isn’t this the De la Grip mansion?”

  David nodded. He looked, knowing that ultimately there still wasn’t any choice. He’d been planning this for half his life. And he had to think about Carolina, not about a woman he’d known for . . . what, two weeks?

  He looked out at the laughing guests in their party clothes, the elite. Some of them were actually people he cared about, people whose lives he was going to impact.

  “David?”

  He shook his head in response to Michel’s question. He took his foot off the brake, took one look in the rearview mirror, and pulled out.

  They drove home in total silence.

  David dropped Michel off and then drove home.

  He parked the car, took his bag, and went in the door. They had agreed to meet at the office at seven the next morning.

  It was time.

  31

  Monday, July 14

  “Thirty–love.”

  Natalia hit the tennis ball over the net with all her strength.

  “What the hell,” Åsa complained with no more than a very half-hearted attempt to reach it. “I can’t take any more now. Can’t we go get a drink instead?”

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” Natalia pointed out, fetching a new ball. “Ready?”

  Åsa nodded gloomily. Natalia served the ball, and Åsa returned it.

  Natalia had had an early tennis reservation at the Royal Tennis Hall, and in an unusual momentary lapse of judgment, she’d forced Åsa to join her.

  “Why did you agree to come if this is so awful for you?” she asked when Åsa swore again.

  Åsa twirled her racket and then swung it menacingly. “Because otherwise I’m going to kill someone. I have to burn off some hormones.”

  Natalia more or less felt the same way. She served another ball. She hadn’t heard a peep from David since Friday in Båstad. Now it was Monday morning, and she refused, absolutely refused to sit home and be depressed about a man, dissecting everything he’d said or hadn’t said, compulsively checking her e-mail and text messages every five minutes.

  She had texted him on Saturday. He hadn’t responded. And now here she stood angrily smashing balls at a grumpy Åsa.

  “You want to play another game?” she asked, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

  It was hot and stuffy, and she felt tired, really worn down. Båstad had been unexpectedly exhausting. She’d left her parents’ party early, had lain i
n bed and watched the sea, inhaling David’s scent on the sheets. On Saturday she’d swum and slept, and on Sunday she and Åsa had come back home together. Natalia needed to work in Stockholm for at least another week, and Åsa had suddenly decided not to stay in Båstad after all. They were pathetic.

  “Are you going to see Michel again?” Natalia asked over the net.

  “Maybe,” Åsa said. “I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t handle any more right now.”

  They showered and sat in the club café, each with a smoothie. Åsa sipped her drink, muttering something about wasting good cocktail mixer material.

  Natalia absentmindedly picked at her open-faced cheese sandwich. “When you said they had some kind of job they needed you to come home for,” she began, “did you get any sense what it was?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  Something wasn’t right.

  Natalia felt it so strongly it was almost palpable. For some reason she found herself wondering about Investum’s stock price, which was behaving so oddly. And she wondered why the price had been slowly, very slowly going up the last six months.

  “Have you ever heard Peter say anything about Skogbacka?” she asked, feeling her pulse start to pick up. “He and David were there at the same time. Apparently Peter did something to him.” She thought about the scars on David’s back.

  “Like bullying?”

  “Yeah, but worse.” Peter whipped him.

  Her head was spinning.

  Everything is personal.

  There was a woman involved.

  The blonde in the picture frame.

  J-O thought Hammar Capital was working on something big.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” Åsa said. “I could ask around a little if you want. Are you feeling alright? You look really pale.”

  Natalia dropped her sandwich. She couldn’t eat. Waves of nausea washed over her.

  “Do you think Hammar Capital is working on something involving Investum?” she asked slowly, hoping that Åsa would laugh out loud at her silly question.