by Joanna Rees
Brett bounded up the stairs towards them. ‘Wait for me,’ he said.
He was wearing a matching suit to Griffin Maddox, but he’d bulked out in the last few years and looked uncomfortable and constrained, a fold of his neck spilling over his collar. Despite his cheery manner, his cold eyes looked Thea up and down for a second, making her skin crawl.
‘This is the shot to use,’ Brett called out, grinning down to the photographers, hoisting his arm around Thea’s father’s shoulder. ‘Griffin Maddox and his children.’
‘Children? But you’re not—’ Thea began, unable to stop herself.
‘Did you tell her, Griff?’ Brett interrupted, looking at the camera and grinning. ‘Your dad’s going to adopt me officially. Which means that, as of today, I’m changing my name to Brett Maddox and then I’ll be your brother for real. Isn’t that cool?’
The next part of the day passed in a blur, as Thea’s head was reeling from the implications of Brett’s announcement, even as she followed Storm down the aisle towards her father. Why did it matter so much that Brett had taken her name? Why was the fact that Brett was now officially family so much worse than her father getting married in the first place? She couldn’t place her sense of betrayal, only that it felt very real. As if once again she’d been somehow demoted or overlooked.
But as the pastor talked about the importance of family and how much Griffin and Storm cared about uniting Brett and Thea with them, Thea found herself having to put on a brave face, despite Brett’s smug grin.
And afterwards, seeing her father so happy, she couldn’t help but be affected by the atmosphere, not to mention the sheer sense of occasion and glamour of the wedding. It was the first time she’d seen so many of her father’s colleagues since her mother’s funeral, and the various family friends who came to congratulate her couldn’t have been more flattering. She’d been shocked to realize the power of her dress and her make-up and how they caused everyone to tell her how grown-up she looked, how sophisticated, how she was no longer a child, but was becoming a woman.
As the wedding spilled from the reception into the evening, the night seemed to be filled with magic. The sides of the marquee were open, letting the balmy air waft through, like a caress after the fierce glare of the day. The trees were lit by fairy lights, as the big-band orchestra played ‘My Everything’ and Thea joined the crowd to watch, as Storm took to the dance-floor with Thea’s father.
‘Come on, you,’ Justin Ennestein said, taking her hand and leading her out to join them. As she danced with him, Thea realized that she was almost the same height as him now. ‘You were brilliant today,’ he whispered, as he held her formally. ‘Social glue.’
Thea smiled, flattered.
‘So how do you like your new stepmom?’ he asked. She noticed a hint of something in his voice – as if he thought it was baffling that Griffin had married Storm. Five hours ago Thea would have agreed with him, maybe even confided in him, but now she felt a new-found sense of family loyalty rising up in her, as she remembered her vow not to ruin Griffin’s day.
‘Oh, she’s lovely,’ Thea said quickly, smiling at her father and Storm as they twirled by.
Justin nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said, as if relieved. ‘Just never forget who you are, Thea. I promised your mother before she died that I’d always look out for you.’
Had he? Thea tried to picture the conversation. Once again, she felt a pang of sadness . . . and respect, too. Her mama had known she was going to die. Somehow, that bald fact made her mother seem so incredibly brave. But now Thea longed to know what else she’d discussed with Justin. Why had her mother felt it necessary to tell someone like Justin to protect her daughter? Had Alyssa Maddox sensed that her husband might remarry one day? Or – the realization suddenly came to Thea – maybe Alyssa Maddox had insisted that he did? Maybe she’d made Griffin Maddox make promises too. Ones Thea had no way of knowing about.
‘Mind if I cut in, old man?’ Griffin Maddox asked, leaving Storm to Brett, who leant her back across his arm dramatically, causing a smattering of applause.
‘My pleasure,’ Justin said, kissing Thea’s hand and looking into her eyes for just a fraction of a second.
Griffin Maddox held Thea in his arms and pulled her close. She breathed in his familiar aftershave.
‘Oh, my Thea. My gift from God,’ he whispered. It had always been the sentiment her mother had uttered, and Thea feel a pang of something so bittersweet that it took her breath away. ‘See, it wasn’t so bad. I told you. I know you hate change, darling. But the world goes on. It doesn’t end.’
Thea laughed, blinking away tears, as he kissed her on her forehead. There were so many things she wanted to say, but somehow she couldn’t say any of them. She wished she could apologize for being so offhand and surly these past months. That she hadn’t really understood before, but now she did. That she’d seen for herself that he and Storm were in love. And love was all that mattered.
‘You’ll always be my number-one girl,’ he said.
And at that moment Thea felt as if he’d grounded her back to something she’d lost for the past few months. More than just a sense of well-being, but a certainty of her place in the world – in his world – that had been missing.
She was Thea Maddox. His only daughter. His true flesh and blood. Nothing . . . nobody could change that. Not even Brett.
Michael Pryor stood at the bar in the ballroom and filled up another glass of champagne. These people were unstoppable, he thought, smiling at the woman in the backless purple dress as she sashayed away, her laughter high and shrill. He’d never seen such excess, so much wealth on display.
He supposed it would always be the same. The rich were the rich, the poor were the poor. He’d always known he was in a different class to the likes of Griffin Maddox, but days like today made it all the more painful.
He hoped that he’d get a tip later on for working so hard all night. His mom had managed to get three tickets for the show-jumping event at the Olympics in Los Angeles in August in the ballot. Michael was saving up for Greyhound tickets to get there and planned to ask Thea and Johnny to come with him, if Thea’s father would let her. He knew all too well that if he told Thea of his plan, she’d immediately ask her father for the money for them all to fly there, but Michael desperately wanted to do this by himself, without her money or charity. That way it would mean so much more.
‘What are you doing? There’s staff for that,’ Thea said, sidling up beside him and pinching him playfully, as Michael replaced the champagne in the bucket of ice behind the bar.
‘I am staff, Thea.’
He watched as she bit her lip. He knew that his bold declaration had drawn a line in the sand between them, but sometimes she needed reminding.
‘You look like you’re having a good time?’ he said, his tone making it obvious that he’d been watching her all day. He suspected her of faking her way through the whole thing, and maybe she’d been caught out, because he noticed a blush rising in her cheeks.
‘There’s fireworks, then they leave at midnight. Then everything can go back to normal,’ she said.
Normal. What was normal about any of this? Michael wondered. But even though he knew what she meant, he wondered how long he could go on faking ‘normal’ for her.
‘Well, you must be tired,’ he said. ‘I promised Johnny I’d check on the horses before I turn in. They’ve been inside all day.’
Storm hadn’t wanted ‘those ghastly beasts’, as she’d put it, ruining her wedding shots, but Michael didn’t tell Thea that.
‘I’ll come with you, if you like?’ she said.
And there it was again. That look he’d seen increasingly often in the last few months. The one that made his stomach feel funny. He’d thought about doing something about it countless times – confirming what he suspected she might feel for him. But Thea was just a kid, and he couldn’t imagine the trouble he’d get into if he so much as laid one finger on Thea Maddox. But someti
mes the temptation to kiss her was overwhelming, especially when she looked like she did right now. He wondered whether it was a good idea for them to be alone later.
A firework lit up the sky, breaking the moment.
‘I’ll be right back,’ Thea said, her infectious smile making him laugh. ‘Wait for me. Promise?’
‘I promise,’ Michael said, watching her go. Then he picked up the cloth, a sigh heavy in his chest. He’d promise her everything, if she asked him.
Thea ran upstairs to call Storm. She wanted to say goodbye to her before she set off with Griffin on their luxury honeymoon. She wanted to show them both that there really were no hard feelings, and that she wished them both a bright and happy future together.
But just as she was running up the final flight of nursery stairs, she heard raised voices. Thea opened the bedroom door just the tiniest crack. In the reflection of the white mirrors inside, Brett was pacing, staring at Storm, who had changed again from her evening dress into her going-away outfit. It was a gorgeous green velvet suit with gold buttons and big shoulder pads, and Thea felt momentarily disappointed that Storm hadn’t waited for her. But she was much more shocked by what was going on.
‘Calm down, Brett, please,’ Storm pleaded, as she pulled on her gloves. ‘What more can you want?’
‘You know what I want. I had it spelled out in black and white.’ She saw Brett shaking a sheaf of papers in Storm’s face. ‘Do you know how hard the lawyers worked on that pre-nup? You told me he’d sign it.’
Thea flinched, amazed to see the fury in Brett’s eyes and the terror they inspired in Storm. What was Brett talking about? A pre-nup? What was that?
Behind Storm, through the window, fireworks lit up the night sky. The fireworks were for the new Mrs Maddox. Storm glanced anxiously at the door and Thea flinched away.
‘He wouldn’t budge, Brett,’ Storm said urgently. ‘I tried, believe me. If I’d pushed him more, he’d have gotten suspicious. But I trust him, OK?’
Thea squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, longing for this conversation not to be happening, for the sickening suspicion to go away. She put her eye once more against the crack of the door.
‘Trust? Trust Griffin Maddox. What? Are you crazy? You trusted the last two losers, and look what happened. We ended up with nothing,’ Brett said.
‘It’s not going to happen again. I’m happy and we’re rich.’
‘Until you blow it,’ Brett snapped. ‘What happens then?’
‘He’ll give you a job. Make you successful. The past doesn’t matter. You’re family now.’
Thea held her breath, her heart pounding as she watched Storm lean in to soothe Brett’s temper. She put her hand on his chest, her voice changing.
‘Do you think I’ve put in all this work for it to go wrong? Christ, Brett. I’ve had to put up with living in this mausoleum. And marrying here. When I think of all those venues I could have had, it makes me weep. I’ve even tolerated that freakish brat of his.’
Thea recoiled as if Storm had slapped her face. Through the blur of tears that now clouded her vision she could see Brett softening.
‘Ah, yeah. Thea. Now she’s one of the good things about this place,’ he said.
At first Thea thought she’d misheard. Was Brett really standing up for her? But then she saw his sneer.
‘Don’t you touch her,’ Storm said. ‘Not a finger, you hear?’ She pointed in Brett’s face, as if she’d resumed control. ‘Don’t you dare.’
‘Then you’d better pack Thea Maddox off to boarding school, far, far away. Soon,’ he warned. ‘Or I might just not be able to hold myself back.’
CHAPTER SIX
April 1985
Romy woke in the dark, with a gasp, her fist clutched around the closed penknife. She felt her dream evaporating into the cold air, but her breath still stuttered in her chest.
The same dream again.
The fear. The fear always woke her.
But now she exhaled, reminding herself of the facts, forcing herself to retrace the past, in order to let hard facts guide her step-by-step out of her nightmare.
In a second, she was back in the woods outside the orphanage. The sound of her raggedy breath, the crackle of ice, the menacing blue shadows as she’d lurched through the funnel of snow. But just as she’d run out of hope, she’d stumbled upon a hunter’s cabin. She remembered how she’d burrowed underneath it, how the snow had caved in after her, burying her in the freezing crawl space.
Moments later she’d heard the muffled noise of Ulrich and the others arriving. Arriving, then stopping, shaking the cabin’s padlocked door and rattling its locked shutters, her heartbeat crashing in her ears, before they’d given up and run on again. Whistles, shouting, the snarl of the dogs, gradually fading into the night.
Only when she’d been certain that they wouldn’t be coming back, that they’d given her up for dead – already frozen, or devoured by wolves – had she started kicking upwards. Harder and harder. Bloodying her bare heels against the cabin floor’s rotten wooden boards. Finally she’d burst up, smashing through the floorboards, like a corpse from a coffin, into the still air above.
She’d lain there huddled on the floor, too afraid to move. She’d fought the urge to sleep, to keep her limbs moving, to keep herself alive. She’d been shaking so hard, it had taken half an hour to light a match in order to see around the cabin in the dark. She’d thought about lighting a fire, but she knew the smoke from the chimney would give her away. Fumbling in the dark, she’d ransacked the cabin, finding spare clothes and boots and a pile of rags, which she wrapped herself up in on the hard bunk.
But she was too scared to sleep. As the dawn light had crept in through the dirty windows, she’d shaved off her hair with a blunt razor that she’d found, changing her appearance as much as she could. When she’d stared at herself in the small shard of mirror by the basin, she’d been sickened by her haunted eyes.
She’d limped through the woods in the oversized boots, her cut, bruised feet bound in the rags that had kept her from freezing the night before, until the land had fallen away to the railway line. For the whole of the day and into the next night she had stumbled along the snowy track, before she’d found a place where the trains stopped at a signal junction, where she’d climbed unseen aboard a freight train.
She’d been hauled into consciousness by a stationmaster who had gripped her in an armlock and frogmarched her along the platform, muttering about calling the Polizei. But Romy had remembered Lemcke’s cash and had offered a bribe that had made the man’s eyes widen. Keen to get shot of her without implicating himself, he’d put her on the right train to Berlin, with an ID that would allow her to survive a cursory inspection.
And that’s where Romy had met Ursula.
Thank God for Ursula, Romy thought, starting her daily ritual before her shift downstairs. She listened to the sound of her fellow workers in the clothing factory’s dorm waking up around her. Quietly and carefully she stored the penknife under her pillow, touching the picture of the ocean view that was taped to the board behind her bed, then working her fingers into the split in the mattress, checking for the plastic bag with Lemke’s cash inside.
Yes, how different life might have been without clever Ursula, Romy thought, remembering now how Ursula had boarded that train at a stop halfway to Berlin and had swung her hips into the empty seat opposite Romy. She had frizzy auburn hair and was wearing a man’s military coat, but despite that she’d exuded femininity, and a knowingness that Romy had found captivating.
Romy had gazed, entranced, as the girl had opened her knapsack and pulled out a bundle of brown paper, oil already soaking through in patches. Inside were fresh schnitzel and, as Ursula had started to eat, she’d caught Romy’s eye.
She’d told Romy afterwards that Romy had practically been drooling, which is what had prompted the kind Ursula to share her picnic.
Romy would always remember the taste of that crumbly, oily fresh schnitzel, the
meat inside still warm. Ursula had joked about how ironic it was that her mother had given her such a large picnic, when the truth was that, with so many other children to feed, Ursula had been sent packing to fend for herself in Berlin. Not that she had the first clue where she’d find work.
So Romy had produced the slip of paper from the dictionary that Karl had given her all those years ago, with the address of the clothing factory in which he’d once worked. But as Ursula had inspected it, it had occurred to Romy for the first time that the factory might no longer even exist. That Karl’s information must have been old. She had been about to declare as much when Ursula had announced that they’d go together. Then she’d given Romy a bottle of beer and clinked it with her own to seal the deal. Romy had taken a sip, then burped loudly and they’d both laughed.
‘You’re just like my brother,’ Ursula had told Romy, who realized that Ursula had assumed she was a boy. ‘It’s safer to travel if you’re with family. You can be my cousin,’ Ursula had told Romy. ‘What’s your name?’
Romy had looked at the ID the stationmaster had given her, for more of Lemcke’s cash. ‘Jorgen,’ she’d told Ursula.
‘We’re more likely to find work together, Jorgen. Stick with me. I’ll keep you safe.’
Now, over a year since that day, Romy swung her feet out of bed and flattened down her chest with the grubby length of crepe and tied it tightly, before pulling on her trousers and overall, ready for the day’s shift in the factory.
The others complained all the time about the harsh working conditions, the lack of light, the fact that the factory was a fire hazard, but compared to the orphanage, this place felt like heaven.
The only problem was that now Romy’s disguise was starting to wear thin. She’d lied about her age, so that everyone here thought she was younger than she was. She’d thought it would be easier to pose as a boy that way. The problem was that now her voice should be starting to break, and stubble appearing on her chin. It wasn’t long before questions would be asked. What then? Where would she go? She had money, but to spend any of it would arouse suspicion anywhere she went. And she didn’t want to go anywhere. Not yet. Not until she’d worked out a plan.