‘That’s all love is, you know. To know someone: to be fully known.’
And Flora couldn’t speak as they headed back into the kitchen, where Joel and Mark were deep in a discussion of the intricacies of potential impeachment trials which, both the women intuited immediately, was their way of telling each other how much they loved each other. The evening passed pleasantly as Mark and Marsha talked about a disastrous trip to Italy that appeared to include a tour of the country’s craziest hotels; about how Mark was refusing to retire, pointing out that half the people he saw were miserable because they had done so and had lost their purpose in life, plus he loved what he did; Marsha talked about her interior design course and the awfulness of the women who went on it; Joel did not talk much, as usual, but he laughed in the right places, and neither of their hosts did the thing Flora had been most excited about while also dreading: asking the couple what their plans were or where they were headed.
At 10.30, Flora let out an involuntary jet-lag yawn and Mark jumped up to get the coats. Joel went to the bathroom and they left, both thinking that it had gone as well as could be expected. Flora fell asleep against Joel in the car, Marsha’s words ringing in her ears. As she nodded off, she swore to herself she would do it – she would know him.
Chapter Twenty-two
Flora tried to act nonchalant but she was fundamentally terrible at it. She sat on the huge bed, still staring out at the sensational view – she wondered if the people who lived here ever got tired of it, even as she wondered whether Paul Macbeth’s lambs had been born yet and hoping she didn’t miss their first days of bouncing cheerfully about. She was looking forward to going home tomorrow. She wished Joel was coming with her. She watched him untie his tie and he looked so alone, suddenly, standing in the dim light of the bedroom, and she walked up to him and put her arms around him.
‘So they knew you as a child,’ she said. ‘What were you like?’
Joel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s the problem with psychiatrists. They never give you an end-of-year report.’
‘Did you like being a child?’
He stiffened. ‘Not terribly,’ he said. Then he pulled her round swiftly and hard up against him and looked straight at her, his hands locked on to her back in that way that made her gasp.
‘Last night in New York,’ he said. ‘Let’s make it count.’
He was up early on Sunday morning and she sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, watching him. She told him about Saif’s children coming back, and was gratified by his happiness at the news, and concern for how they would be. She lay back, faux casually.
‘So was it mostly in New York you were brought up?’
Joel eyed her. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’m interested,’ said Flora. ‘It’s quite a normal thing to want to know, isn’t it?’
Joel shrugged. ‘Well. Here and there.’
‘You said that before.’
Joel looked at her, his dark eyes unblinking. ‘I told you about my childhood.’
‘You didn’t,’ said Flora, hating herself for sounding like she was nagging at him. ‘You told me you grew up in care. You didn’t tell me anything else about it.’
‘There’s nothing else to tell,’ said Joel, glancing at his watch. ‘I was fostered. I moved around families. Then I escaped and went to boarding school. Right, I have to shoot.’
‘Do you … do you know what happened to your parents?’ said Flora gently. Joel’s face closed up tightly.
‘I have to go,’ he said again.
Flora looked around in dismay. ‘You can’t have brunch or anything before I go? It’s Sunday.’
‘Colton doesn’t recognise Sundays. It’s the big meeting today. For which I am not remotely prepared, thanks to being distracted by you. And the faster I’m done, the faster I can leave this place!’
And he kissed her and left, and that was that.
Chapter Twenty-three
In truth, although he’d tried to shake it off, Flora’s visit had bothered Joel far more than he could bring himself to say. That he’d had a message from Marsha saying how much they’d liked her made matters worse. It felt like she was a cop, moving closer and closer to the truth about him. And he couldn’t bear that. He wanted the soft-skinned girl who sat in the firelight, whose presence soothed his tortured soul, who acted as a balm to his troubled mind.
Not someone else like all the others – like all the legions of others whose hands he had passed through, who had wanted a full history, who had wanted to hear the whole story again and again and again, and you would think it would lose its power but it didn’t. And the one decent thing he had in his life …
He had had to leave the hotel room as quickly as he could in the faint hopes that this would not be spoiled too.
He was under no illusions that she hadn’t noticed.
Had the meeting with Colton gone well, then he might have been able to smooth it over; deflect it. The meeting did not go well.
The room was closed and private. There was nobody else there. This was very unusual. When Colton did business, he usually had a massive entourage around him, even if they were just there to laugh at his jokes. No Fintan, which was rarely a good sign. Fintan had done Colton Rogers nothing but good. He had toned down his abrasive side and made him laugh.
But here, in this huge conference room on the eighty-sixth floor of a midtown skyscraper mostly owned by Colton, was nothing but a vast table, a pot of coffee and the two men.
Joel took out the paperwork. ‘I just … I realise it’s not for me to question your decisions. But consolidating absolutely everything … I mean, what does Ike say?’
Ike was one of Colton’s local money men.
Colton waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. He pulled out a sheaf of paperwork from his hip backpack. Joel furrowed his brow; this was new.
‘Here,’ said Colton, hurling it across the table. ‘Look at this.’
‘You want me to take it away?’
‘You can’t take it away,’ said Colton. ‘You read it and redraft it and I get it typed up. Now. Today.’
Joel blinked, then put his head down and started to read. Colton watched him intently. There was absolute silence in the room.
After half an hour, Joel raised his head. ‘Colton, you can’t do this.’
Colton shrugged. ‘I can do what I like.’
Joel looked at it again. ‘But … but, Colton. It’s wrong. What it’ll do …’ His voice trailed off. ‘I mean. Seriously. Are you sure?’
Colton shrugged. ‘Well, it’s my money.’
‘But …’
There was silence. Colton’s face became mutinous. ‘Joel, you’re my lawyer.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘No buts about it. You’re hired. You’re my lawyer. I don’t want anyone else. You do what I ask. Or I can fire your ass and you can leave the island and break that sweet girl’s heart and wash up fuck knows where, like I give a shit. Or a reference.’
He stared at Joel, very hard.
‘But …’
‘Joel, you’re a lawyer. You get murderers out of jail.’
There was a long silence.
‘You gotta do it. Or I’m just going to find someone else, and you’ll just make this whole thing take longer. Oh, and by the way, you breathe a word of this and you’ll find yourself in more trouble than you can possibly imagine. I will dedicate the rest of my life to making yours a misery. And don’t you forget that.’
There was a very long silence. Then Joel spoke up. ‘I can redraft from these notes.’
‘Good,’ said Colton. ‘Do it. And hurry up. I’m getting out of this hellhole.’ He gesticulated to the stunning Manhattan views outside his window. ‘And getting back to where things really matter.’
Chapter Twenty-four
‘Are you absolutely, totally, one hundred per cent sure he isn’t just a dickhead?’
Fintan was doing his best to be encouraging.
Flora thought back to how Joel had been as her boss in London: squiring a selection of models; never even glancing at people he considered his inferiors; his rude manner.