by A. E. Radley
Holly looked around the room as she slowly nodded. “I’d like to leave here. And maybe I’ll remember something when I see New York?”
“Maybe you will,” Victoria said, trying to keep things light without providing the girl with any false hope. “Would you like to be discharged into my care?”
Holly looked to Victoria and opened her mouth to speak.
“Apologies for eavesdropping,” Charlotte said as she appeared by their table and sat down.
“Understandable,” Victoria commented. She gestured for the doctor to continue.
“Clémence, are you comfortable with this? Once you leave the hospital you will not be able to return to us.”
“Holly,” Victoria muttered.
Holly ignored Victoria, focusing her attention on Charlotte. “I want to go back to New York. I might remember who I am. Or at least recognise something. I’ve been here forever, and everything still seems alien to me.”
“Going back to New York may help your memories to return, but, as we discussed before, there is a real possibility that those memories are gone forever.”
“I know,” Holly said softly. “But I want to try.”
“I understand,” Charlotte said. “Are you comfortable with Victoria having power of attorney for you and your affairs?”
Victoria picked up her phone from the table top and started to check her email messages. She didn’t want Holly to feel pressured, even though she desperately wanted – no, needed – the girl to say yes.
“I-I don’t know what that means,” Holly confessed.
“It means that she will be legally responsible for you, for your well-being. You maintain control, but she can make decisions on your behalf that will directly affect you. She can manage your financial affairs, she can make limited decisions regarding your medical treatment, and she can decide where you live. As you have sustained a brain trauma, there may be other powers she has, so you may want to consult a legal advisor regarding the laws in America.”
Victoria gripped her phone a little tighter. She may have been endeavouring to look like she was not paying attention, but Charlotte’s words hit her like a freight train. She hadn’t taken into consideration the complexities of Holly’s care.
She started to wonder if she should be more open with the girl. Maybe she should explain that she was considered the most difficult woman to work for in all of North America. Maybe she should hint at the number of times her unreasonable demands had previously reduced Holly to tears.
And then there was the matter of Holly’s departure. One moment she had been there, the next she hadn’t. Before today, Victoria had assumed that the girl had quit her job and walked away. She’d been a monster throughout Fashion Week the previous year. It had felt possible, even probable, that Holly had quit as a result.
Now the timeline was muddied. Maybe Holly had quit. Or maybe she had walked away to take a breath with every intention of returning later. Although her room had been emptied of her belongings when Victoria had hammered on the door a few hours later, nothing was certain. Whatever had happened, the fact remained: Victoria had driven the mild-mannered woman to abandon her post.
But Victoria feared that any amount of honesty at this point would ruin everything. She already felt that she had less than a fingertip grip on the girl. She wasn’t willing to loosen that hold further.
A new email from Louise flashed up on her screen. Victoria opened it and scanned through the contents. Apparently, she had managed to wake the head of human resources and asked them to either log into the archives remotely or to go into the office early and immediately send a copy of Holly’s file to her and Victoria.
Oh, heaven help her. The girl had even used the word stat.
The impossible now seemed a little closer. Victoria smiled to herself and looked up with the intention of rejoining the conversation.
Holly looked deep in thought as she stared out of the window.
“This isn’t a decision to rush into,” Charlotte said. “There is no hurry.”
Victoria felt her tightly-packed schedule slipping through her fingers. She was already aware that missing her flight to New York was going to have a knock-on effect. She wanted to say that there was a hurry, but she knew that patience would win the battle.
“I think I should go,” Holly said. “I want to go home. If that’s okay with you, Victoria?”
“Absolutely.” Victoria turned to Charlotte. “A member of my staff is currently sourcing Holly’s passport, I should have it within the next hour. What do we do from there?”
“I need to speak with our legal team. Once we have the passport, we’ll need to draw up a power of attorney and have it signed by a judge. That will take some time.” Charlotte sighed.
“How much time?” Victoria asked.
“I’m not sure, at least three days,” Charlotte said.
“That’s unacceptable,” Victoria snarled. “This will be completed today. I have already missed my flight to New York for today, but I fully intend for us to both be on the same flight tomorrow.”
Both Holly and Charlotte looked at Victoria in surprise. Holly more so than Charlotte.
Charlotte stood up. “Of course, I will speak with my legal team in order to start proceedings immediately. I cannot guarantee any speed in the matter. Our courts are notoriously slow and that is, unfortunately, out of my hands.”
“I will ensure that feet are not dragged,” Victoria promised.
Charlotte nodded and left the two women alone. Victoria’s gaze settled on Holly to find that the girl was looking at her with a half-smirk.
“What?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing.” The smirk became a smile.
“That kind of delay is uncalled for,” Victoria explained. “The French are so lax. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.”
“I agree. Dealing with them so far hasn’t been great.”
Victoria was pleased that Holly hadn’t reacted badly to her outburst, although she suspected that was because she was on the right side of it. In the past, such outbursts would have sent Holly scuttling to fix whatever mess had befallen her.
“So, what does a second assistant do?”
Victoria sat back a little, surprised at the question. The truth was, she had no idea what a second assistant did. She had no idea precisely what either of her assistants did, other than ensure her office ran with the clockwork precision she demanded.
“Assist the first assistant, who assists me,” Victoria finally responded. It wasn’t entirely true. Once Holly had proved herself, Victoria had taken to going directly to Holly with her requests and cutting Louise out of the loop entirely. But there was no need to get into that now.
“So, I’m pretty low on the food chain?”
Victoria blanched. “Absolutely not. You’re second assistant to the editor-in-chief of Arrival Magazine. A million girls would kill for your job.”
Holly’s expression became distant.
“What is it?” Victoria asked.
“I’m… I’m just wondering why you didn’t report me missing?” Holly looked at her. “I mean… I’m just trying to piece together what happened.”
Victoria swallowed. The entire situation was difficult, but this moment, in particular, was one she dreaded.
“Well, you vanished, and we suspected that you had quit. The day before we were due to return home, you walked away from me. One moment you were there, the next minute you weren’t.”
Holly’s eyes widened in shock and she raised a hand to cover her open mouth.
“Later, I went to your room in the hotel and your things were gone. Naturally, I thought you had left and gone home.”
Victoria started to recall the events of that night. She had expected Holly to reappear, apologetic and embarrassed by her actions. But when she didn’t, Victoria’s anger had built to a crescendo. At the end of a packed day, she returned to the hotel and hammered on Holly’s hotel room door.
She’d expec
ted to find Holly in her room, awaiting hell and begging forgiveness. Eventually, she used the spare keycard she had been given in case of emergency and was shocked to find the room had been emptied.
A quick search of the wardrobe and the bathroom confirmed that Holly had left. Victoria had sat on the edge of the perfectly made bed, replaying the last conversation she had with the girl for clues.
A mere half-hour passed before Victoria left the room, but the feeling of loss and later anger remained for a long time.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know why on earth I would have done that.” Holly shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like me. Well, I don’t think it does.”
“It’s done now.” Victoria offered a small shrug.
Holly hadn’t been the first person to leave her, nor would she be the last. If anything, Victoria was at fault for letting the girl slip so stealthily under her defences.
A nurse walked up to Holly, and Holly looked at the clock on the wall with surprise.
“Oh, wow, is that the time already?” She looked at Victoria apologetically. “I… um… I have a physiotherapy appointment.”
Victoria could see fear flash in Holly’s eyes. Fear of abandonment, she presumed. She recognised it well.
“Then I can occupy myself by calling my lawyer and setting the wheels in motion to get you home. I’ll head to my hotel, but I’ll be back this evening to update you and tell you what our plan of action is.”
Holly looked relieved, though still uncertain. “Thank you, I-I can’t thank you enough.”
“No need to thank me,” Victoria told her. “Go and have your appointment. I’ll be back later.”
Holly looked at her for a moment, uncertainty clear in her eyes. Eventually she nodded and stood up, accompanied by the staff member.
A moment after Holly left, Charlotte returned.
“How are you doing?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s all rather difficult to take in,” Victoria admitted.
“It is, and it will be,” Charlotte agreed. “There’s nothing that can prepare you for a situation like this.”
“That’s certainly true. How intensive is the physiotherapy?”
“She currently has a two-hour session each day, as well as another two hours of memory building and retrieval exercises. Both these treatments will need to be continued when she returns to America.”
“Of course,” Victoria said. In her mind, she was already planning the best way to organise Holly’s treatments. Naturally, she’d be seeing the best doctors in New York.
Charlotte took a piece of paper out of the deep pocket of her lab coat and handed it to Victoria.
“Here are the details of our legal manager. She will be able to speak with your legal advisor to make arrangements.”
Victoria glanced at the information before dropping the paper into her handbag.
“I shall return to my hotel and make the necessary arrangements. I promised Holly that I would return this evening.” She wasn’t asking permission.
Victoria was rapidly running out of patience with the entire process. She was beyond the shock of seeing Holly and now wanted to process the legal side of things as quickly as possible.
She handed a business card to Charlotte as she stood up.
“My contact details,” she explained. “Thank you for all you’ve done. I hope you don’t find it disrespectful of me to say that I hope we can resolve this matter quickly.”
Charlotte stood as well and gestured towards the corridor they’d entered from.
“Absolutely not disrespectful. My primary goal is, and has always been, Holly’s care. I’m sure that we can work together to ensure everything moves smoothly.”
It didn’t escape Victoria’s notice that Charlotte wasn’t making any promises as to the future. She hoped that the doctor wouldn’t prove too much of an obstacle. While she’d initially been concerned about being allowed access to Holly, now her trepidation had melted and been replaced by determination.
Now that she had seen Holly, she wouldn’t stop until she brought the girl home. Money and legal expertise would not be spared in her quest to do so.
It was no longer a matter of if Victoria would bring the girl home, but when.
9
Gideon covered the mouthpiece of his mobile with his hand and leaned towards Louise.
“Call the Shangri-La, tell them to get the presidential suite ready for Victoria. She’s on her way back there now,” he whispered.
Louise grabbed her phone and dutifully swiped at the screen.
He returned his attention to the call.
“I’ll need you to speak with Edmond, obviously,” Victoria was saying. “And we need to do something about the cosmetics layout. Speak to Stella—”
“Sheila,” Gideon corrected.
“Mm, that one, and tell her no to the greys, we need warmth. Try to do something about the budget preparations; I may be a genius, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to put out a Christmas edition with anything less than four hundred thousand. Tell Louise to prepare my guestroom, I’ll need everything, obviously.”
“Your guestroom?” Gideon questioned.
“Yes, Holly will have to stay with me. We can’t have her roaming the streets of New York, can we?”
Gideon smiled at Victoria’s dramatization. “I thought you’d put her in a hotel.”
“That would be wholly inconvenient. Besides, we know she’s not good at staying in hotels. The last time she stayed in a hotel, she got herself into the mess she’s in now! No. She’ll stay with me. Besides, if I’m going to be legally responsible for her, I need to be able to keep an eye on her.”
“Legally responsible?”
“Yes, please keep up, Gideon.” Victoria let out a sigh. “If I’m to get her out of that hole, then I need to have power of attorney.”
Gideon suspected the facility wasn’t a hole but decided to keep quiet.
“I see,” he said simply.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, just I see. I understand what you’re saying,” he clarified. “What else can I do?”
“That’s all for now. I’ll email you anything else that comes to me, and I’ll liaise with Claudia in New York. I don’t need to tell you that I don’t want anyone knowing about this yet.”
“Of course, my lips are sealed.” He wasn’t entirely sure how to keep events secret when Louise was about to be asked to speak with Victoria’s household staff to set up the guestroom. There was no point in asking Victoria. She wouldn’t be interested in the how, just the result.
He paused a moment. “How is she?”
“A shell,” she replied honestly. “She’s lost so much weight, not that she didn’t have a few pounds to shed, of course.”
Gideon rolled his eyes. He’d never been a fan of Victoria’s insistence that all women working at the Arrival offices were impossibly skinny. Everyone at the magazine had considered Holly Carter on the heavy side, but to the average onlooker she probably would have been thought of as slim.
“She doesn’t remember me,” Victoria continued.
“That must be a relief,” Gideon mumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
“You know what it means, you and Holly weren’t exactly close. The girl was a nervous wreck around you, justifiably so most of the time. It must be nice to speak to her when she’s not in the middle of heart palpitations.”
A tsk was the only reply he got.
As director of photography, Gideon often had to liaise with Victoria’s office. Louise was a frantic mess half of the time, and so he usually communicated with Holly instead. She had been a breath of fresh air, someone from outside the fashion world.
“You should come to the house for dinner one night when she is settled. Maybe she will remember you,” Victoria suggested.
“Maybe. Whatever the outcome, I’d like to see her.”
“I’ll make the arrangements. I should go. Yo
u wouldn’t believe the legal hoops I’m being forced to jump through.”
Gideon imagined the exceptional situation probably called for some legal hoops but decided to not mention it.
“Good luck, I’ll contact you when we land,” he said.
As soon as he hung up the call, Louise appeared beside him.
“What is going on?” she demanded.
“Nothing that you need to know about at the moment,” he told her.
He looked up at the departure board and then at his watch.
“Come on, we need to get to the gate,” he said.
“Is this about Holly? What about the schedule? What’s happening?” Louise asked.
“Cancel the schedule for the next few days. Yes, it’s because of Holly, but don’t ask any further questions because I can’t tell you. Suffice to say, you’re going to really earn your paycheck over the next few days.”
10
Victoria waited patiently while the waiter wheeled in the lunch and tea she had ordered upon checking back into the Shangri-La. He removed each item from the trolley and arranged it carefully on her suite’s dining room table.
Behind him, a widescreen television showed a man smothering a yawn. The moment she had arrived she had woken Michael in New York and demanded an immediate Skype conference. As her lawyer, he was used to such demands and didn’t express irritation or surprise at her command.
Finally, the waiter seemed to realise that he was interrupting an important conversation and rushed from the room, the service trolley squeaking as he did.
The moment the suite door closed, Victoria let out a sigh and returned to where she had been standing in front of the television. The little square at the bottom right showing her irritated posture.
“You’d think the Shangri-La would have some oil for that trolley,” Michael commented.
“They’ve been sent to try me.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where were we?”
“I was saying that my guy in London will be with you in a couple of hours.” He smothered another yawn.
