Tatiana watched the thick flakes of snow falling outside the café window and sipped her hot chocolate contentedly. According to the BBC weather-forecasters, this was set to be the coldest December in London in fifty years. A white Christmas was now so likely that bookies had stopped taking bets on it.
For Tati, the snow was a fitting end to a tumultuous year. The blanket of white on the streets felt like a metaphorical clean sheet: a crisp, white piece of paper on which a new chapter of her life would be written. The pain of her miscarriage still walked with her. But after three months, she no longer felt the raw desolation that she had in New York. Back then, at the hospital, Brett Cranley had seen her at her lowest ebb. Mourning her baby, her marriage, her business and her birthright all at the same time had brought her to the brink, with the collapse of her relationship with Leon di Clemente the icing on a rotten cake.
But a lot could change in twelve weeks, and a lot had. The nation had belatedly caught up with the Cranley family’s travails – the simultaneous divorces of Tati and Jason and Brett and Angela had prompted a flurry of salacious rumour and gossip in the tabloids, while business analysts still argued over Brett’s intentions for the newly acquired Hamilton Hall. Despite his threats to Tatiana in New York, Brett had yet to start selling off assets, and both the London schools were still operating – so privately Tatiana felt the worst was behind her. With the Eaton Gate house to herself, the country house on the market and a comfortable cushion of cash from the Hamilton House deal nestled in her bank account, she’d begun to feel her ambition returning, and with it her appetite – for food, life and business, if not for romance. Fate had decided she wasn’t going to be a mother, or a wife. But she was too young to sit around doing nothing. Brett Cranley was right. She was free. It was time to start making the most of her freedom. Brett had also been the one who’d suggested that she start a new school. Tati could hear his voice in her head now. ‘Why not? You’re good at it.’
She was good at it. Just imagine what she could do without the millstone of a hostile board around her neck? This time around she’d be more careful. She’d make sure she kept control, total control. She’d find a silent partner, maybe someone in Asia or the Middle East … the possibilities were endless, and exciting.
Unfortunately, not everyone had emerged from the latest round of Cranley family drama unscathed, or with such a positive attitude.
Tati watched as the café door opened and Maddie Wilkes walked in. Scanning the room, waving cheerlessly when she saw Tati, Maddie came over to the table looking haggard and ill. Even in her thick coat and scarf she looked thin. When she took them off and sat down she looked positively emaciated. Her twig-like arms and gnarled, veiny hands dangled uselessly at her side, and the skin stretched over her cheekbones was so paper-thin it was almost see-through.
‘Thanks for seeing me.’ She smiled thinly at Tatiana.
‘Of course. How are you?’
‘Oh, you know. Fine.’
Ignoring Maddie’s protests, Tati ordered her a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a plate of warm cookies to share. Maddie left both untouched. She’d come here to talk to Tati about her divorce, not to enjoy herself. Talking about her divorce had replaced eating, sleeping and breathing for Maddie Wilkes as the number one priority of her existence. There was still so much anger and shock and pain. If she didn’t lance the boil and let the bitterness out, she would die.
‘He wants half the house but he won’t get it.’ Her thin lips moved quickly, powered by resentment. ‘Can you imagine? After everything he’s done, he thinks he’s entitled to a share of my home.’
It was his home too, thought Tati, but wisely didn’t say anything.
‘And now, to top it all, he says he can’t pay the school fees. According to George, the lawyers have cleaned him out.’
‘Perhaps they have?’ Tati offered meekly.
‘I daresay, but whose fault is that? If it hadn’t been for his sordid little affair, he wouldn’t have needed lawyers. If he hadn’t betrayed me and the children and broken every vow he ever made …’
Tati listened patiently while Maddie railed on. After a solid fifteen minutes, she finally ran out of steam.
‘Anyway, I know you still talk to them. Face to face, I mean, not through lawyers. I wondered if you’d give George a message from me.’
‘I’ll help if I can,’ said Tati warily.
‘I want the house and the business.’
‘You want the gallery?’ Even Tati couldn’t hide her surprise.
‘Yes. If he gives me both I’ll drop the claim for maintenance.’
‘If he gives you both he’ll be bankrupt!’
‘Nonsense,’ said Maddie curtly. ‘His boyfriend can keep him. Jason’s filthy rich now, thanks to you. George has made his bed and he can bloody well lie in it.’
‘But Maddie,’ Tati tried to be reasonable. ‘That gallery is George’s whole life’s work. He built it up from nothing.’