by Joanna Rees
‘Thank you again, Susan,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ she said.
She waved to Lars as he set off on his bicycle, pumping his Superman fist into the air once more, much to the children’s delight. Then they set off in the other direction to the park, Romy pulling her tatty cardigan around her.
She watched Gretchen and Alfie on their scooters as they weaved in and out of the lamp-posts, amazed that she’d just offered to look after someone else’s child. It felt flattering that Lars trusted her enough to hand over his daughter. Perhaps she wasn’t quite so socially out of touch as she feared.
Would Lars have done the same thing if he knew who Romy really was? She wondered that too. Would he have reacted to her in the same way if she still looked as she once had? Or would he have been intimidated by her? Would he even have tipped off her whereabouts to one of the tabloids and turned her life into a nightmare again?
In the park, the horse chestnuts were in bloom and the warm air was filled with birdsong. Romy sat on the bench watching Alfie go up the steps to the slide over near the skateboard park with Gretchen. Seeing them together, Romy thought again how she really did need to start socializing Alfie with other kids.
She even had the prospectus for the International School, but hadn’t been brave enough to enrol him yet. Not just because she was worried about spending time away from Alfie, but because she’d got used to a life without questions. When she enrolled him, she’d have to answer questions. Lots of them. Not just from the school, but from the other mothers.
Worse, Alfie would have to answer questions too. They’d had so little contact with other people that she hadn’t had to tell him yet that she wanted him to keep secrets. About who his father was. And his mother too.
‘Watch,’ Alfie called to her.
He was waving over from the slide.
‘I’m watching,’ she called back, as he slid down the slide.
He stood up at the end, grinning. ‘Did you see me? Did you?’
‘Yes,’ she called, clapping her hands. ‘You were brilliant.’ Sometimes he was so heartbreakingly cute that she wished he would never grow up, or change. Wished that she could hold these precious moments forever.
Bella Giordano couldn’t wait to leave Amsterdam. She’d been up all night partying and the last thing she needed to do was film a bunch of dumb-arse kids in the park. She’d been working for Italian MTV for three years now, and still no sign of a proper break. Why didn’t they ever give her the interviews to direct? Why did she have to do all the donkeywork filler shots, whilst Risso, the so-called real director, got a lie-in on a Saturday?
The worst part was they’d probably cut these shots of the skateboarders anyway. It was a complete waste of her time. She should have listened to her parents and stayed at the newspaper as a reporter. But at the time the job at MTV had been too hip to turn down. If only she’d known then what she knew now. About the lifestyle that went with it. And the terrible pay.
She watched the kids rolling back and forth on the wooden ramp, her head aching from the racket they were making.
‘That’s good,’ she called, forcing a smile onto her face. ‘Keep it going. Look like it’s fun.’ She turned to her cameraman, Kas, next to her. ‘You getting all this?’ she asked, blowing on her coffee.
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Hey, look, we’ve got an audience.’
Two little kids had stopped on their scooters, keen to see what the action was all about.
Wow, he sure was a cutie, Bella thought, looking at the little dark-haired boy. Big brown eyes. He’d look great on camera. Maybe she could do some filming of him and the girl on their scooters. To contrast with the older kids. A kind of next-generation-skater thing. Something to help pad out their slot.
‘You want to be on MTV?’ Bella asked, first in Dutch, then in English, smiling at the kids, her voice husky from all the cigarettes she’d smoked last night.
The little girl nodded eagerly, her eyes shining excitedly.
‘Your mom or dad here?’
‘My papa is dead,’ the little boy said.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Bella replied, grimacing, but all the boy did was smile.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘he’s up in heaven with the angels. And did you know he’s very famous too?’
‘Is that a fact?’ said Bella, playing along, relieved to be off the subject of death.
The little boy puffed out his chest in pride. ‘He is Alfonso Scolari. The racing driver.’
Bella stared at the little boy, hardly daring to believe what she’d heard. She wasn’t the only one. Kas had lowered his camera to look at the boy direct. He raised his eyebrows at Bella.
Bella stared back at the little boy.
‘And your mother? What’s her name?’ she asked, slowly looking round the park. ‘Is she here?’
‘Romy,’ said the boy. ‘Though sometimes she tells people it’s Susan.’
Bella felt the adrenaline rushing through her now. She remembered Romy Valentine’s wedding to Scolari all right. Who could ever forget those amazing pictures of their honeymoon? They’d been like a dream couple, and Bella – still a student back then – had mourned with everyone else when the handsome Alfonso had died less than a month later after some gangsters had tried robbing him in his own home.
‘Why don’t you take me and my friend here over to meet her?’ Bella said, reaching for her phone and pressing the speed-dial button for Risso. He’d have to get his sorry arse out of bed for this.
‘Shall I start filming anyway?’ Kas asked, under his breath.
‘Hell, yeah,’ she replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
June 2005
If Thea had had the time to study the view from her office at the top of Maddox Tower, she would have noticed the hazy Manhattan late afternoon outside and enjoyed a glimpse of Central Park, shimmering in the distance.
But as always she was too busy working. Inured to the heat of the day by the cool air conditioning, it could have been snowing out there, for all she knew. She swivelled in her chair to look from the latest tax-relief proposals that Legal had put forward to the live feeds of market data flowing across the bank of trading screens on her desk.
Maddox Inc.’s shares were holding steady on the Dow Jones, but Maddox Media, their Internet media spin-off, which was listed on the NASDAQ, was already up three points on yesterday’s price, and 30 per cent since its launch. Clear confirmation that the launch of the hip new social-networking service they’d funded had been an undisputed success.
All the more power to Brett, Thea thought grimly. The board had applauded him during last month’s meeting when he’d presented his figures.
Yes, there was no doubt that Brett was golden boy of the month, especially after his recent wedding to Bethany Saunders, which had been a lavish affair at Crofters. Thea had had no intention of going, but at the very last minute her father had scooped her out of her office and taken her with him on the company jet. She’d been horrified to discover that Peter Shardlake and Dennis Wisely, two of the Maddox board members and her father’s closest allies, had been asked to be ushers at Brett’s wedding. It wasn’t so much a wedding as a total cementing of Brett’s place in the Maddox structure.
Storm had spared no expense for the beachside wedding, and Bethany had invited all her A-list Hollywood acting friends. As the news helicopters swooped overhead, whipping up the sand and rippling the water, the priest had had to shout his blessing. Thea had stood in the front row, marvelling at Storm’s extraordinary sequinned kaftan outfit, which was low-cut at the back and had a high collar at the front, which Thea supposed must be to hide yet more plastic-surgery scars. As she posed for the photos afterwards, Storm could barely close her mouth, her rictus grin stretched by her smooth cheeks. She’d certainly gone to every effort to outshine Bethany, but Bethany was more hard-nosed than Storm had bargained for.
The whole event had been so nauseating in its over-the-top ego-massaging and air-kissing that
Thea had been sorely tempted to blow the whistle. She’d wanted to take perfect Bethany aside and tell her that she’d married a monster. But the girl was so vain and so utterly self-absorbed that she probably wouldn’t care.
Thea had coolly observed the entire proceedings from the sidelines, trying to stay out of the spotlight. She’d been just about to sneak off to stay on Justin Ennestein’s yacht, where she knew she’d be safe, when Brett had lurched up to her. He’d been a little drunk and looked like the cat that had got the cream.
‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Thea?’ he’d asked.
‘No,’ she’d said bluntly, not hiding her hatred.
‘It’s such a pity you’ve turned into such a frumpy old maid,’ he’d said, enjoying the effect of his words. ‘You know, Dad always wanted Maddox Inc. to be a family business. You know – family. Husbands . . . children . . . or,’ he paused, as if realizing something, ‘maybe you’re a lesbian.’
Thea had been furious with him and his words still smarted. It had given her extra reason to work towards tomorrow’s quarterly review, when she’d be making her own presentation. Brett was getting too powerful for her liking.
The only problem was that where Brett was excelling, her side of the business had far less headline-grabbing results. Her father had set her the task of getting Maddox Inc. to trade itself out of the recession. He’d ordered Thea to expand their interests, not bury their head in the sand. Yet despite all the successes she’d achieved so smoothly in Germany – where she’d increased Maddox Germany’s advertising revenue share by 20 per cent, by snapping up two regional newspaper groups and a popular cable-TV network – her attempts to move into other European countries had stumbled or, in some cases, even ground to a halt.
Scolari, for example, had proved impossible to break. Thea’s several overtures to buy it had each been roundly rejected. Even after old man Scolari had been devastated by the death of his son, Alfonso, he’d stood as firm as a rock with regards to his business. Scolari was not – and would never be – open to a takeover. The message had been resoundingly clear.
If Thea had glanced up then at the television playing silently on her office wall, she’d have seen a breaking-news announcement from Reuters featuring Roberto Scolari’s daughter-in-law Romy, who’d vanished from the public eye since her husband’s death, but had now been found living in obscurity in Amsterdam.
Instead Thea’s attention was snagged by the arrival of a new email in her in-box and, seeing the name of the sender, she pounced on it right away.
The moment she read it, she smiled.
It was one of several messages she’d received from Michael since she’d visited him in Germany. He’d still not been discharged from Landstuhl, but was hopeful that he would be soon. His nightmares had been getting less frequent, he’d confided in her during the course of their brief correspondence. And his temper had been getting easier to control. He’d started feeling more like the old Michael, he’d written.
Of course she’d wanted to do whatever was possible to help speed his recovery, no matter what it cost. But Michael had been resolute. He’d told her that the Landstuhl doctors were the best in the world. Time was what he needed most of all.
And so she’d decided to be patient. Just like him. But even so, more and more frequently lately, she’d found herself thinking about him, imagining him not in Landstuhl, as she’d last seen him, but here in the States – happier, healthier, somewhere near Little Elms perhaps, walking together with Thea along a cool, deserted country road.
She sighed, catching herself doing exactly that right now. She felt herself blush, embarrassed by the childish romanticism of such a thought. But the fleeting vision of the two of them together had been so vivid that she could almost believe the scent of apple blossom was still lingering in the air. Would they end up friends? she wondered. She hoped so. She’d do all that she could to ensure they would.
This email Michael had sent her today wasn’t long. Only one line, in fact.
You didn’t have to do that, Thea, he’d written. But thank you.
She couldn’t help but smile once more as she read it again. So he’d found out about her contacting the Brightside Home and paying for his mother’s bills and care in perpetuity, as well upgrading Mrs Pryor to the top facilities that the home had to offer.
He’d found out and he’d not stopped her. He’d let her do that much for him, at least. He’d not pushed her away.
‘Thea,’ her personal assistant, Sarah, chastised her from the doorway, frowning, ‘you haven’t stopped all day.’
‘There’s too much to do before the meeting tomorrow,’ Thea said, feeling her skin prickle now as she forwarded Michael’s message to her laptop at home and deleted the original.
She’d learnt never to leave any trace of anything personal at work. Anything at all that Brett might use against her. There’d been instances – too many to ignore – when Brett had seemed to second-guess her too accurately and she’d been left wondering whether he’d really been guessing at all.
Sarah was wearing a tight red dress that showed off her toned figure and tanned legs, and her dark hair had been curled. Thea remembered then that she was going on a date, which Sarah had kindly suggested she could turn into a double date, although Thea had turned her down.
‘You should think about getting changed,’ Sarah said, tapping her watch, a Tag Heuer that Thea had given her last Christmas in lieu of her normal bonus, which Brett had blocked for all junior staff in a fit of ostentatious cost-cutting – whilst simultaneously doubling those of senior executives at his level, of course.
‘Changed?’
‘For Justin’s leaving party,’ Sarah said, pointedly reminding Thea of her excuse for getting out of the date. ‘It’s due to start upstairs in about half an hour. You’ve not forgotten, have you?’
‘Shit,’ Thea swore.
She had forgotten. A whole bunch of eminent New Yorkers had been invited to the head of Legal’s final send-off – and the invitation had specified ‘Formal’.
She stared at the stack of papers that she was still only halfway through. The top sheet was covered in red marks – her queries. The tax-relief proposals had been instigated by Brett. Meaning that she was going to check through every single damned word.
‘I’ll have to leave this all until later,’ she said, thinking she might be able to come back down here and finish off once the party was over.
But now she needed to get a move-on. She had just enough time to make it home to change out of her suit and into her favourite black dress.
Ten floors up, Brett Maddox surveyed himself in the bathroom mirror in his apartment in Maddox Tower and liked what he saw. He took the bottle of Hermes aftershave and sprayed it liberally around his face.
‘Which one?’ Bethany said from the doorway, holding up a long floaty pink dress and a black sequinned cocktail number.
‘Neither. Wear that green one I bought you,’ Brett said, smiling at her. She looked so slutty in her black lace underwear. He could feel himself hardening, wishing he could stride across the room and take her roughly over the bed. She said she liked it when he did that. That is, after all, why he’d married her. Because she behaved like a hooker in the bedroom.
Which – he’d discovered to his delight – only made his secret life with his hookers all the more rewarding, and his thirst for kinky thrills even stronger. Not for the first time he wondered whether Bethany would mind if he suggested a threesome. She probably wouldn’t. She’d already tearfully admitted how she’d slept with a sixty-year-old Hollywood producer when she was seventeen, to get her first break. A career move that Brett approved of. His wife wasn’t stupid.
Which is why she nodded now. She knew tonight was all about playing the perfect corporate wife.
‘You’re all ready . . .’ she put her hand on her hip and giggled, ‘. . . already.’
‘You’ve got time, don’t worry,’ he said, winking at her and straightening his bo
w tie. ‘I’m meeting Peter, Max and Dennis in five minutes.’
‘Oh?’ Bethany asked, intrigued.
She might be canny, but there was no way Brett was going to share the finer points of his business plan with his wife, he thought as he smiled at her in the mirror.
A few minutes later, however, as he faced his three colleagues in the library room of his apartment, and poured them each a large Scotch from the decanter, he felt slightly nervous. He didn’t know how loyal they were to Griffin Maddox, but Brett wanted them to be loyal to him.
‘I wanted to discuss something . . . delicate with you,’ he said, after the usual banter had died down, and Max had made a rather filthy Brokeback Mountain joke after the latest Heath Ledger film. ‘Two delicate items, actually.’
Dennis, in his snappy blue suit and trendy haircut, slumped back in the chair, all ears. Peter was more upright. One of Maddox’s most trusted financiers, he was grey and starched, with metal-framed glasses that made his beady accountant’s eyes even smaller. Max, the marketing guru, wasn’t in a suit at all, but in a cashmere jumper and slacks. He’d made no secret of his attraction to Bethany, and Brett liked keeping his philandering enemy close.
‘Firstly – and this is strictly confidential between us – I’m sorry to tell you that my father’s health isn’t great. Mom is very anxious about him. I didn’t know this, but he’s been for several heart-scans.’
Dennis sat up in his chair, his face concerned, and glanced at the others. ‘He hasn’t said anything.’
‘I played three rounds of golf with him last week,’ Max said. ‘He was fine.’
Brett rolled his eyes. ‘Well, he’s not going to tell any of you, is he? I’m not even supposed to know. I just wanted to share the information with you. Just so we’re prepared.’
‘Well, that’s good of you, Brett. I think Justin’s handled everything,’ Peter said. ‘If . . . you know . . .’ he trailed off.
Brett nodded and smiled sympathetically, as if they were all thinking the same thing.