Special Relationship (38 page)

In the car on the way home she unwrapped the small parcel and bit into the contents. She undid the tiny scroll inside and read the hand-written message. “You will be good friends with a person who treated you very badly.”

Three days later she was packing her bags for a weekend in the English countryside to see the racehorse, only for Christos to drive her to the airport for a flight.

“No, Manarola, the town in Italy, not the horse. I told you he is a a bad man,” Christos laughed as they approached Heathrow. She now remembered how he had precisely phrased the text invitation: “Do you want to see Manarola?”

“You are right, CG, I should have never got involved,” kissing him on the cheek before leaving the car. He carried her bag, the contents ill-equipped for the trip as they were, to the terminal. “Italy is nice but it's not Greece,” he said. “You and Nick will visit, won't you?”

“We will,” she smiled.

She remembered now Kerry had asked her for her passport a few days earlier, citing some Companies House technicality. Now she saw Nick holding it aloft with a big grin and a look of triumph on his face.

“You are such a fuckwit,” she greeted him.

“I know I am.”

They boarded the plane to Genoa and took the rest of the journey by car. He had hired an open-top BMW which he planned to drive himself.

“What no driver and no Ferrari?” she joked.

“Wanted it to be just the two of us,” he explained. “And we don't need to show off, do we?”

“So says the man who has an Aston at his seaside home.”

“A fine example of English class and understatement,” he replied.

Once they had left the city and started to follow a coastal road, Nick stopped the car to lower the roof. She took off her jacket and put on sunglasses, kissing him in between.

“They don't do much in the way of roads here,” he warned her as they arrived on the edge of Manarola and he carefully navigated one of the steep, narrow streets.

He told her that it was the oldest of the Cinque Terre, the five villages or “lands” that made up the world heritage site. “They are only about twelve miles apart, so we can visit every one,” he said. “And we might become members of the Cinque Terre club”.

“You are not already?”

“No the club hasn't started yet. And we will be its first members,” he laughed.

Their hotel, La Toretta, although expensive by Alex's standards, was probably bargain basement for him. But she could quickly tell how happy he was to be there.

“Mr
Hensen, so glad to see you again,” the receptionist greeted him. “And you have a beautiful guest,” she added looking at Alex.

“Best I could find Maria,” he joked before Alex kicked his leg.

“You very lucky to have any guest at all,” she replied, winking at Alex. “Come, I'll show you to your room.”

The small balcony looked above the rooftops of small, yellow, orange and pink houses over a valley between the hills to the blue sea. “It's absolutely beautiful,” she said. He joined her and rubbed the back of her white shirt. But recognised the shuddering in her shoulders.

“Alex, don't cry.”

“Nick, I just feel so guilty about being happy.”

“I know you do” he said, turning her around and holding her tightly. “Take a shower and I'll order us some food.”

He ordered wine,
buratta and bread and sat at the metal table made for just two.

“
Riomaggiore is south, very near, but Corniglia and the others are north. So I think if we pack light and rather take the hotel situation on the fly we should be good. But we'll take Riomaggiore first – it's an easy walk. Just be prepared for blisters for the others.”

“Well if you had told me we were coming to Italy rather than the racing stables, I might well have been prepared.”

“That's what I hate about you Alex Anderson, whether it be Frank's café or the Italian Riviera, you always fail to appreciate the efforts I go to...”

She took his hand and squeezed it tight.

The next morning, after she had woken him by biting him playfully on his rear. They skipped breakfast, nibbling only on the previous day's bread, washed and dressed for their trip.

“Wear mine,” he said after she
had complained that her heavy top was meant for Berkshire not Italy. She put on a stone-grey T-shirt and he laughed at her as she presented herself with the oversize clothing. “Seriously, it's not too big,” he assured her.

They walked along a pathway built into the dry-stone cliff and stopped regularly to look at the sea.

“Shared passion, isn't it?” she said as they watched the gentle rippling of the Mediterranean. “Imagine if the world was made up all of land.”

“Nearly three-quarters ocean, thankfully,” he replied.

It was their second day at breakfast when he revealed he had other “other things to sort.”

“Like?”

“Not the time or place, but can we discuss it on the way to Corniglia.”

She looked at him and for a reason she couldn't explain other than some comments he'd made about visiting Megan's grave, and that she was growing ever closer to him, had an inkling what might be in his mind. “Must pee,” she said, going to the bathroom and sitting on the closed toilet seat.

Nick had chosen the location carefully. Nowhere too public and not so remote that might involve a long, awkward car journey before or after he had made his suggestion. They could see Corniglia in the valley below when he asked if they could sit down and admire the view.

They had been there a few minutes, neither saying anything, before, picking at the grass and without looking at her, he carefully broached the subject.

“Alex, this is going to very painful for you and tell me if it's a really terrible idea and whether you don't even want to go there...

“I didn't know the best time to suggest it...and now maybe is not the time...but I would do anything to make you as as peaceful as you can be... after what happened.

“What I'd like to know is...well, firstly...I just need to know, you don't want to go back to New York?”

“No, I don't.”

“If it were possible, and I think it might be, would you like Megan to be closer to you, like in England?”

“What are you saying?” she said, feeling her heart beat faster,

“If you want to leave her undisturbed then I understand. But it is possible that she can be brought to England so that you – and, I hope,
we
- can be closer to her. You will have to get the permission of the father – the natural father. But most of the legal stuff would go through our lawyers and it's your decision whether you want to go through the process. But I'm sure it can be done.”

“You have checked?”

“I wouldn't even suggest it if I wasn't certain it was possible – although the father's permission is the unknown. We would arrange a funeral here and that you'd have to be strong for that – but I'd be with you.

“You would, though, of course then be rather committed to England, and if that's not what you want...well, you'll have to think.”

Alex felt herself going pale.

By the time Lord and Lady Ashton's 'Farewell to Britain' event was a few, cold autumn days away, their relationship was in the open and she had semi-moved into Nick's Park Lane flat, only returning to hers when he was on business trips. She'd even managed to achieve what she'd feared when she'd first been there and spilt red wine on his light-coloured cloth sofa.

With the company, Kerry had by herself won them a new contract after which Alex insisted she take a bigger equity stake. She also ensured the two of them continued their once or twice weekly evening meet-up's, trying to fit them in when Nick was away.

On one of their nights out, they laughed together how after his pay rise Adrian had given up his joke T-Shirts and had started to dress like a young executive and, how, after hers, Suzanne spent even longer on Facebook.
Then Kerry whooped with delight when Alex told her she was invited to the “Lord and Lady” bash. “Hubby and Ollie too,” she told her.

“We made it, didn't we babe...like with the company,” Kerry said.

“You know I think we did,” Alex replied. “And you know what, thanks to you, I think I will too.”

Katherine's fortune cookie message, that they would become good friends, proved prophetic, and she spent time with her too, enjoying her company while also, she hoped, helping to assuage the obvious loneliness induced by her errant husband.

And Tavis she had met for a couple of whisky-drinking binges in Soho when he talked of her future with Nick, rather than question her past.

On one of their jaunts he told her: “You know, I really did believe you were up to no good. Couldn't work out why you weren't a WAG already, which Alex knew to be an acronym used in the British press for wives and girl friends, usually of rich football stars.

“But he has given you the all-clear and I trust his judgement,” he told her on one of their trips.

There was however one problem she hadn't anticipated. A picture of her and Nick leaving a night club turned up in a gossip magazine under the headline 'Special Relationship'. Alex cringed on reading the sub head, “Yank babe snares rich Brit”, but it got worse several days later when he told her that an American
journalist, recognising her from the picture, had been on to to him to ask whether this was the woman involved in the Harris murder case.

“I think I persuaded him that whatever your resemblance to Leigh Harris, you are not her. But, I'm sorry, can't promise he won't dig further.”

“Fuck it, Nick, I just can't get rid of my past.”

“You don't want to get rid of your past – your past is your beautiful little girl.”

She held him tightly. “Why do you have to be so fucking perfect?”

The rain pelted against the big glass windows of his apartment and she sat on the new sofa listening to music. Nick was at the table with his laptop working on some figures for a meeting he had the next day.

In her mind – as it had been since Italy – remained the biggest decision she'd ever had to make. She wondered again that if Megan was brought to England whether she could continue to hide her past to everyone outside Kerry and Nick. But the other consideration was most important – what her daughter would have wanted. Nick hadn't discussed it since Italy but she knew it was on his mind too.

The next day she went to lunch with Lord and Lady Ashton in Bayswater.

“At last I've got you all to myself ,” the Lord bellowed with his characteristic guffaw as he opened the door. “The old girl is having her hair done, but she'll be back soon, so we'll have to be quick.”

“Henry, please behave yourself.”

“OK, I'll settle for a brandy. You too?”

“Why not,” she smiled.

She had been to the Ashton's many times since Italy and she had grown even fonder of both of them. He told her that all the plans were in place for the weekend in Sussex and that they were both looking forward to the warmer climes of the Canaries.

“We'll only come back if you and Nick announce your wedding date. If not we'll see you
either if you visit or next May, but you must stay in touch. I don't know how to use that inter web thing, but Ellie does, so mail her electrically.”

“Definitely,” Alex, suppressing a laugh, promised before Lady Ashton returned with her driver.

“I thought you were going to get your hair done, woman?”

“Yes, I did, Henry. Now try to act your age.

“How much did they charge?” he asked. But Lady Ashton ignored him and kissed Alex on both cheeks. “You bring sanity to our home, I'm so glad you came,” she said.

They spent the evening discussing the plans for the big event and Alex assured them that, with Katherine's meticulous planning, everything would be fine.

“We do it every year, Ellie. What can possibly go wrong, apart from some drunken politician falling in the lake and drowning?”

“That wouldn't reflect very well on us and probably delay our trip, Henry.”

Alex laughed at them and was reminded why Henry got on so well with Nick, with their shared penchant for wisecracks and banter.

She was as buoyant as she had been since making her escape from New York and, as she travelled back in the taxi, looked forward to rewarding the man who had helped make it possible. The lift knew her by now – face recognition, apparently – and there was no need to wait for the screen.

”Where are you?” she called as she entered the apartment.

“Here,” he replied, laying on the sofa, looking at flashing prices on his laptop.

“Hope the high-flyer is not too busy or tired,” she said as she undid his zip.

“I think the Japanese stock market can wait.”

He ran his hand under her skirt and dragged down her underwear as she straddled him face down. “And to what do I owe this show of affection?”

“Oh she said,” as she came up to reply, “I was propositioned by Henry today and I just wanted to check I'm with the right man.”