Private Player

by Louise Bay

  “Presumably no one cares so long as you’re doing the job.”

  “In a perfect world, that would be the logical conclusion. Who in the hell does everyone think built Astro in the first place?”

  “You’ve always plowed your own path. Why are you trying to clean up your image? Do what you’ve always done.”

  Jacob wouldn’t understand. Doctors were gods. Businessmen were mere mortals. “Easier said than done. The shareholders hold the power now. And the board members are so scared, they do whatever the pension funds tell them. If they demand my head, they’ll serve it to them on a silver platter.”

  Jacob put down his spoon and leaned back. “That’s ridiculous. Why do you put up with it?”

  “That’s the way corporations work. I don’t have a choice.”

  “Of course you do. Fuck them. Resign. Let them kick the next guy in the head.”

  Typical. He would assume I’d just give up. “I’m not going to let them win.” I wasn’t about to walk away from what was mine.

  “You’ve got to ask yourself if it’s worth it.”

  This was the same old conversation in my family. Anything outside medicine was pretty much worthless—easy come, easy go. I might not be a surgeon like my mother had been, or a cardiologist like Jacob, but it didn’t mean what I’d done building Astro had been easy. And I wasn’t going to walk away. “I can handle it. I think this journalist’s profile will be okay. And that should keep them quiet for a bit. As long as the Audrey thing doesn’t blow up.”

  “If you’re not sleeping with Audrey, what’s going to blow up?”

  I sighed and dabbed the corners of my mouth with a paper napkin. “Nothing . . .” Not only had I promised Audrey complete confidentiality, but I wasn’t about to potentially implicate my brother by telling him that Audrey suspected her husband’s business of being a glorified Ponzi scheme. “She’s just got some things going on that she’s not told Mark about, so don’t go telling anyone.” My parents saw Audrey and Mark from time to time when they dropped by. I didn’t want anyone saying anything to anyone. In a family like mine, the most innocuous statement could lead to China declaring war on Barbados by the time the message had been passed among different members of the family.

  Jacob looked up from his phone. “What kind of things?”

  “Just some stuff. Pretend I never said anything.”

  Jacob groaned. “That sounds messy. Why do you need to be involved? If you’re not sleeping with her, why sneak around town?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “Nathan,” he said, his tone admonishing. “I hope you’re not getting into any trouble.”

  It wasn’t just because he was my older brother that his tone was admonishing. My entire family used the exact same voice with me. It was the same one my parents used when I got into trouble at university—frustration laced with disappointment. The taste it left in my mouth still turned my stomach to this day.

  “I’m fine,” I said, not wanting to talk anymore.

  “I worry about you. Maybe you need a break. Why don’t you take some time out and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.”

  “Oh right. And because I’m not a medic, I can’t possibly want to work in the field I’m in now, in the company I’ve built.”

  Jacob looked at me. “You need a break. I might not know what exactly is going on but it sounds like you’re on the edge of something. I just hope it’s not a cliff. The constant threat of being sacked, and now this Audrey thing—”

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I snapped.

  Jacob’s phone went off and immediately, he stood. “I’ve got to go.”

  This was how most of our lunches ended.

  “Sorry, mate,” he said. “I’ll call you tonight. I’m worried about you.”

  “No need,” I said as he glanced back down to his phone.

  “I’ll call you,” he said again, and sped past me.

  Of course he had to go—he was in the business of saving lives. Whatever I did, however hard I worked or successful I became, I would never live up to what Jacob or any of my family did. Theirs wasn’t a living. It was a calling. And I couldn’t compete with that.

  I pulled Jacob’s empty soup bowl and his spoon onto my tray and took the remnants of both our meals to the metal trolley.

  Jacob was right about one thing. My life was complicated enough at the moment. I needed to keep things simple and focus on my goal. Madison was a distraction I didn’t need that could potentially put everything I’d worked for at risk. I’d been flirting with her, and it felt like the chemistry between us had been ramping up, higher and higher each time we saw each other.

  But I was done. It had to stop.

  Sixteen

  Madison

  Flat land and large skies as far as the eye could see, Norfolk was living up to its reputation. I hadn’t expected to be so blown away by the beauty of the countryside here. I’d grown up in London. It may have been the leafy part, but it was impossible to escape the dull hum of the traffic wherever you were. Here, it was as if the traffic was encroaching on the landscape and not the other way around. There was so much green. Perhaps I was just enthusiastic over having Craig off my back for a bit. When I’d told Bernie I’d snagged an invitation to Nathan’s family home, he’d been almost as thrilled as I was. There was no mention of “sharing notes” with Craig, though I knew Craig wouldn’t give up so easily. I’d have to make this weekend work.

  I glanced over to Nathan, who was driving. “It’s gorgeous,” I said, taking in the tufted plumes of green and white grasses that separated the road from the water, and the huge expanse of blue sky that stretched out in front of us. “Is that part of the broads?” I asked, referring to the narrow stream that ran parallel with the road. I’d heard about the Norfolk broads before, but I wasn’t entirely sure what bodies of water they included.

  “I think technically only the lakes are the broads, but I imagine that these waterways are tributaries,” he said.

  “Oh my God, there’s a windmill,” I said as we turned onto the next road. “Are we in Amsterdam?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, as if he was trying to hold back a smile. That wasn’t all he was holding back. It was as if Nathan had put up some kind of invisible wall between us over the last few days. The casual flirting had disappeared; the familiarity I hadn’t noticed before it began to ebb away was missing. It was probably for the best to keep the waters from getting muddy, but a warmth gathered in my belly at the thought that it took effort for him to stop smiling around me. “Well, eight thousand years ago, before we split away from the continent, it would have been just a short drive. Now it’s about a hundred miles and a boat ride away. But we’re still closer to Amsterdam than London.”

  “If I wasn’t looking forward to meeting your family so much, I would say, hell, let’s get on that boat. I’ve never been to Holland.”

  “There’s no need now you’ve been to Norfolk. It’s pretty much the same.” He grinned at me then sharply turned his head back to the road. I could practically see the mental chiding he was giving himself. Apparently, Nathan had decided that smiling in my direction was a bridge too far. “And don’t be too excited to meet the Coves. You might be disappointed. Or at least shell-shocked. There’s a lot of noise involved when all five of us are back. I’m used to it and it still takes a little adjustment from living on my own.”

  I shrugged. I was looking forward to seeing where Nathan came from—the kind of family that raised someone so successful. “You didn’t grow up around here though, did you?”

  “No, we grew up in Battersea.” His lips assumed that familiar straight line and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “Both my parents were in London teaching hospitals, so we had to be close by.”

  I put my hand up as if I was telling traffic to halt. “Wait. Beau is a doctor. Your other brother. And your parents? They’re doctors too?”

  “Yup. All
my brothers.”

  “All of them? And you didn’t want to be a medic?” There must be a huge reason he didn’t follow the same path. The journalist in me sat to attention, but another part of me—the part that had heard the resignation in Nathan’s voice just now—hoped the reasons for his changed course weren’t too painful to recall.

  “I think I did at one point. I started down on that road.”

  “You trained as a doctor?”

  “Originally, when I went to Oxford to study medicine.”

  Well, that was news. “And what, you didn’t like it?”

  He sucked in a breath and then exhaled, but stayed silent. Whatever explanation had been on the tip of his tongue had evaporated in the tense air between us.

  Why had he not gone into medicine when he had the perfect start at one of the best universities in the world? Perhaps he didn’t want to be in his parents’ shadow. I understood that. “It’s a certain type of pressure, following in your parents’ footsteps,” I said. “My mum’s a journalist.” I was hoping he’d open up if I did the same thing. I was tempting fate; I couldn’t risk Nathan finding out exactly who my mother was. He might not even slow down the car when he threw me out.

  “I didn’t know that,” he said, shooting me a glance.

  “Yeah. I have my dad’s surname, so most people don’t know, not at first anyway.” Somehow everyone always ended up finding out who I was related to. My mother had been in the business a long time and knew everyone who was anyone. She was never hesitant to reveal our familial connection, though I’d done my best to keep that information private. “We had different goals and aspirations in the industry so . . . it’s better to keep separate.”

  He stayed silent, concentrating on the road as if he were negotiating traffic around the M25 and not on an abandoned A-road in East Anglia.

  “Is that why you gave up medicine?” I prodded him. “You didn’t want to follow in their footsteps?”

  “Not sure about that.” He grinned. “I told you, you’re looking at the black sheep.”

  I knew Nathan well enough to know he was trying to make me laugh—and pivot us to a new topic in the process—but it was a cover. He was hiding something. “Yes, it must be terrible to feel such a failure when you’re the youngest CEO ever in the FTSE 100, you’ve made gazillions before you were thirty, and keep thousands employed and thriving.”

  He didn’t reply straightaway and when he did, he said simply, “I suppose that depends what your family values most.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Before I could question him further, he snapped on the indicator. “Here we are.”

  There was a gap in the hedgerow and we turned in, past open, white wooden gates onto a gravel drive. Nathan pulled up in front of a red-brick, higgledy piggeldy house that looked as if bits had been bolted on to it at various points over its life. A flowerless wisteria covered the walls around the white front door and stretched entirely across one section of the facade.

  “It’s so pretty,” I said.

  “Yeah, they bought it about five years ago when they retired.”

  “Do you miss them being in London?”

  “I still see a lot of them,” he said, turning off the ignition. “You ready?”

  I nodded. Did he think I was nervous? It wasn’t like I was here to meet my boyfriend’s parents. I was on the clock.

  Before we’d stepped out of the car, the glossy white front door was flung open to reveal a woman wearing a mile-wide grin, her blond hair piled on top of her head, and an apron with a thousand pictures of a man’s face printed on it. She held out her arms and met Nathan as he slid out from the driver’s seat.

  She must have been around my height so Nathan had to bend down to receive his mother’s embrace. “Good to see you, my darling,” she said.

  “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  She laughed and pulled back, glancing down at her apron. “You’ll never guess who bought me this.”

  “Jacob is such a narcissist,” Nathan said. “Why does he want his face plastered all over your apron?”

  “Wants to stay close to his mother. Nothing wrong with that,” she replied.

  I closed my passenger door and Nathan’s mother snapped her head in my direction. She lifted her hands in a gesture of greeting and, if I wasn’t mistaken, joy. “Madison!” she said, rounding the engine and coming to meet me. “Thank you so much for coming.” She pulled me into a hug as if I were a long-lost friend.

  “Thank you for having me, Mrs. Cove. You’re very kind to open your home to me.”

  “Of course. Any friend of Nathan’s is a friend of ours. And I insist you call me Carole.”

  I shot Nathan a look. Had he told them who I was, or did they think I was just a friend? Or . . . that kind of friend?

  He just rolled his eyes and went to get our luggage from the boot. “You go inside,” he said.

  “I’m baking,” Carole said as she led me inside. “So it’s a bit of a mess but come through.”

  Terracotta tiles covered the floor in the large hallway that had a long dining table in it and led to a pretty, cream kitchen.

  “You have a beautiful home,” I said.

  “You’re sweet to say so. We moved in just over five years ago and haven’t even given it a lick of paint. I thought we were busy when we were both working at St. Thomas and living in Battersea, but there’s something about being in the country that means I never sit still. I’m always baking or going on walks, dealing with the dogs or Nathan’s father.” She pulled out a wooden chair from the kitchen table and nodded, indicating that I should sit. “Do you live in London?”

  “Hampstead. I rarely make it outside the M25.”

  She shook her head. “I was the same way. Can I get you tea or coffee?”

  “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

  “Where are we sleeping?” Nathan called from the dining hall.

  “Madison’s in the yellow room and you’re in the office,” Carole yelled and then turned back to me. “We’ve got a full house tonight. Which of course John will complain about, but he secretly loves having his boys back. I’d have them all move back in if it was up to me.” Her eyes sparkled as if she was letting me in on a mischievous secret.

  A loud buzzer sounded and I jumped.

  “Apple pies,” she said and spun around toward the Aga.

  Nathan appeared at the door and looked between us. “Any chance of a cup of tea?” he asked.

  “If you get the pies out, I’ll do the tea,” Carole replied.

  I laughed as Nathan wrestled on the lobster-shaped oven gloves and took out two enormous, perfectly golden pies. “Are you expecting to feed the five thousand?” he asked, setting them on the wire racks beside the Aga.

  “Just my five sons, a hungry husband, and Madison—finally another woman in the house—and me. That’s eight people in case you’re counting.”

  Carole turned to me. “When this lot was growing up, I thought about giving up medicine and just throwing the doors open to tourists. What was a few more mouths to feed?”

  “It’s not like you didn’t have unpaid help,” Nathan said, his hair ruffled, his navy polo shirt stretched across his chest as he moved toward the kettle and flicked the switch. Looks like he was doing the tea as well. He seemed younger here somehow. As if Norfolk were some kind of anti-aging machine on Beauchamp Place that could take ten years off you instantly. Did I look younger when I was with my mother? I doubted it. Perhaps it was because I’d never moved away and come back. Maybe it was just because life was so much quieter in our house, or that my mother’s work always created some kind of barrier between us.

  “Hey kids,” someone called from the hallway.

  “I should have put more water in the kettle,” Nathan said, pulling the jug from its stand and heading to the sink.

  A very tall blond, who was one of those men most accurately described as a hunk, appeared at the door. “Hey, mum. I parked right up by the barn if
that’s okay.”

  “Of course it is, darling. Very thoughtful.” Carole pulled another of her sons into a hug.

  “I brought some wine,” he said, holding up a bottle of red.

  That reminded me. I’d brought a gift. From my jumbo-sized tote, I pulled a bottle of wine and a box of shortbread and put them on the side. “I forgot I brought you these,” I said.

  “Oh sweetheart, that’s very kind of you. Zach, have you met Madison? Nathan, you’re in charge of introducing your guest.”

  Zach glanced between Nathan and me. I stood and held out my hand. “I’m Madison, interviewing Nathan for the Post.” If I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know, Nathan had had a whole drive from London to warn me.

  He frowned as if to say that my explanation didn’t tell him why I was here. Now I was in the Coves’ kitchen, at the beginning of a weekend with what was clearly a very close-knit family, I was beginning to wonder that myself. I’d thought it was a great idea to get to know the real Nathan, the person he was with the people who knew him best, but now I was here it seemed kind of silly. I was writing a newspaper article, not his biography.

  “Excellent,” Zach said. “We can tell you all his deep, dark secrets.”

  Nathan mumbled in the corner. “What, like how I used to beat you at every sport you ever tried?”

  “I was thinking more about how you used to shit in the paddling pool,” Zach said.

  Carole let out a whoop of laughter. “Every single time. You couldn’t help yourself. Not that I laughed when it happened. It was gross, Nathan,” she said, her face contorting as if it had just happened again.

  “I was three years old. I’m not sure why we still need to bring it up regularly.”

  Then another Cove brother burst into the kitchen. “I’m dying for a cup of tea.”