Special Relationship

by Fox, Alessandra

  “And if there was no bug?”

  “Then either one of us must have told someone, or Elroy or someone was hiding in the wardrobe and we didn't notice. Which seems very unlikely to me.”

  Katherine rubbed under her eye. “I don't know, Nick. I just don't know.”

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “Well, obviously, Jonathan won't be best pleased if he finds out what happened. But otherwise I suppose not, just that there might be some freak out there who is spying on us and then using information he discovers for reasons we can't yet work out.

  “And, also - and I don't know how to put this delicately – if it wasn't directly a third person it was one of us who passed on the gossip, however inadvertently.

  “I didn't tell anyone, Katherine, inadvertently or not.”

  The markets were down that day and the fund had a bad position in the dollar against the yen but Nick couldn't concentrate on the screens. Katherine and, in particular, Alex were monopolising his thoughts.

  His minder in London was Jamie Thompson, an ex-Special forces man who was always proud to remind him that he had yet to lose a single private client. “There's always a first,” Nick was keen to remind him.

  Despite Jamie's record, Nick managed to leave the office without him noticing, and was soon walking along Piccadilly, towards the Circus, to gather his thoughts and break free from the constraints his wealth had imposed on him.

  It was still hot and sunny and the tourists were again out in vast numbers.

  He thought the famous road would be a disappointment to most of them. The head offices of East European, Middle East and Russian airlines were probably far busier in the pre-internet days. Then there were the few chain bars and the shops selling very expensive rugs to the gullible and those who had enough money not to care about the price tag.

  Leicester Square was a hub of tacky souvenir shops selling cheap memorabilia of the city. The cinemas were showing the worst that Hollywood could offer and fast-food chains occupied every corner.

  Even Chinatown was more quick, convenience food than the authentic experience he used to remember. The only thing that broke his feeling of depression was the thought that tomorrow he would be enjoying breakfast with Alex.

  Walking round London took the place of him needing gym membership. He'd discovered that fast walking was more effective at losing weight than all the strenuous stuff on treadmills and exercise bikes and even this part of London made the whole experience a lot more interesting, if not always in a positive way.

  His phone buzzed again, and he checked the list of missed calls. Jamie, Katherine, a few investors wondering why they were still long the dollar against the yen. And Alex.

  He hit her number. “Hi, you called?”

  “When you say smart, how smart?” she asked.

  “Oh, The Wolseley is meant to do a very nice breakfast. So Piccadilly smart, if you can manage, although I haven't totally decided on the venue yet.”

  “And you are having a good day, making enough money to pay for such luxury?” she teased.

  “Not really, I'm in the Charing Cross Road about to visit a bookshop or two to see if they have anything on life improvement.”

  “Perhaps you should write it yourself,” she suggested. "You know, like 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'. You could make a lot of money.”

  “I'll bear it in mind, thanks,” he replied.

  “Eight's not too early is it?”

  “Nope, look forward to it. And, you know, I might take you up on 'London for Dummies' if I find breakfast agreeable.”

  “You will, Alex...you will,” he smiled while wondering why her outlook seemed altogether more positive.

  The answer was Kerry. “It's not a big deal, honey,” she'd told Alex. “Just breakfast and a bit of sightseeing afterwards. You think he is a nice guy and if there are any problems make your excuses and come back to the office. Just chill for the day, you deserve it.”

  When the car turned up the next morning, and the doorbell rang, Alex was putting the finishing touches to her makeup. “Not bad,” she thought. But she worried about the logistics of a tourist trip that might follow breakfast. She decided she'd have to come back and swap her smart suit for jeans and casual jacket.

  The driver greeted her at the door. “Good morning, Miss Anderson. The car is just on the other side of the road, not much parking space, I'm sorry.”

  Alex followed the portly figure to the Mercedes and, though she always thought sitting in the back was far too formal, she decided that on this occasion, sitting in the front next to a driver she didn't know would be unusual.

  After a few minutes she realised that they were travelling away from Piccadilly.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I thought we were going to The Wolseley.”

  “I think Mr Hensen had a change of mind regarding venue, madam. But we shall be there in a few minutes.”

  “Where's 'there'?” she asked.

  “Mr Hensen asked me to keep it a secret. He said he wanted to make it a surprise.”

  What the hell is he playing at? thought Alex.

  “How far is it?” she asked the driver.

  “I promise you we will be there in ten minutes, madam. Mr Hensen, I think, is having a little joke with you. But don't tell him I told you.”

  The car pulled up outside Frank's Café in Bermondsey Street which was busy with builders and market traders setting themselves up for a day's work.

  “Mr Hensen is in there?” asked Alex incredulously.

  “Yes, Miss Anderson, in Frank's. He is waiting for you. ”

  She walked into the café and ignored the wolf whistles and “babe” comments from the patrons.

  On one of the smaller tables, she spotted a casually-dressed Nick looking at her with a wide grin on his face.

  “You bastard,” she said.

  He laughed. “Not The Wolseley, I know, but they do a really good breakfast here and I thought that this might be the sort of place you'd like.”

  “It is. But do you not think I'm a little over-dressed, you idiot,” swiping him with the Financial Times he had been reading.

  She overheard one of the customers whistling the tune to “West End Girls” with laughs and jeers from his workmates and sat down quickly to avoid the attention.

  “I recommend egg, bacon, chips and beans, two slices of toast, and a mug of tea.”

  “Nick, you are one complete sod. I can't believe I'm here, dressed like I'm going to one of The Queen's garden parties.”

  “Just wanted to prove that I'm down to earth too,” he replied, still enjoying the joke.

  “You should be under the fucking earth, Nick Hensen.”

  “I'll order,” he smiled, shrugging off the complaints.

  “I don't think they do waiter service here, so if you let me know what you'd like, I'll organise everything.”

  “Full English breakfast and a Blue Mountain coffee, please,” she said, trying to get her own back.

  “I think they might be out of the Blue Mountain, but they do a nice instant,” he laughed.

  As he went to order Alex thought that, as amazing as it seemed, there might be something about this ultra-rich fund manager that she really liked. Blueberry cheesecake all the way from New York and now a fry-up in a greasy-spoon café. Previous boyfriends had adhered to the program, smart restaurants, buying her roses and sending her cards. This man was confident and self-assured enough to break all the rules.

  They ate their breakfasts, even the baked beans, while talking about the benefits of The Wolseley against Frank's Café.

  “So, do you come here often?” Alex asked sarcastically.

  “Only when I have a meeting with someone special.”

  “So why I am here?” she replied, realising after she'd said it that if this were a game of tennis she had just left him with a simple shot for match point.

  Thankfully, he didn't take it. “I hope,” he said, “that we'll get to know each other a lot better, and be
come good friends.”

  “For why?”

  Nick looked at her, flabbergasted. “It's not a binding contract, Alex. If you find you hate spending time with me, and I call you to see a film or something, you can pretend you are washing your hair.”

  “Sorry, what I said came out the wrong way. What I really meant in 'for why' is more about me than you. I know it sounds very sad but I don't really do big friendships.”

  “You must have friends?”

  “Well, Kerry, of course, and we go out one or two evenings a week. And obviously I get on well with Suzanne and Adrian, but we don't really socialise outside work hours. And all the other people I know are just business contacts and, you know, just casual acquaintances.”

  “The more I find out about you the more confused I get,” he said. “Don't you get lonely?”

  “Anyone can get lonely, Nick, no matter how many friends they have. I was in a long-term serious relationship back home...sorry, London is my home now... back in the States...and I'd never felt so lonely in my life.”

  He looked at her, wondering what it was in her past that had damaged the most beautiful person he had ever met. But maybe this was neither the time nor the venue to be probing further.

  “So what do you fancy, art gallery, museum, one of Tavis's pub crawls around Soho?”

  “You know what I haven't done since I've been here?”

  “Go on.”

  “I've always been meaning to take the boat to Hampton Court Palace and since it looks like being another very nice day...”

  “Sounds good to me. But first I think we need to sort out your dress. Think you might have overdone things.”

  “I've got a mean right hook, you know.”

  Chapter fourteen: A beautiful day

  So Alex could mingle with the other tourists without looking like someone who had got lost on the way to a high-level business meeting, they went on a dress-down mission. She wanted to go back to her flat to change but Nick suggested she took advantage of his company's clothing accounts with a couple of shops in the Fulham Road.

  “Tax deductible, And with all the bad press we have got from the government over the last few years, I don't mind fiddling them for a few quid,” he confessed.

  “Evil bankers.”

  “No, just my little revenge against all those politicians who have fiddled far more expenses than I ever have.”

  In the car, he formally introduced her to the driver, Christos Georgiades, who drove for Nick to support his family back in Greece.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Anderson. I had to check ten times with Mr Hensen that the venue was right, and very sorry for being part of the joke.”

  “No worries Christos, I don't blame you, just your boss.”

  “He is a very bad man,” Christos laughed.

  Alex liked the way the driver could joke with his boss without any obvious fear of reprimand.

  He dropped them at the the first shop, but after a while had to drive around the block several times to dodge the parking wardens.

  Nick and Alex decided they had to be quick if they wanted to make the most of their Hampton Court trip and she wasn't too picky in getting a summer dress, a jacket and some trainers. The outfit that she had been wearing was placed in a bag in the back of the car which Christos said he would deliver to her flat in the evening.

  “OK, all done, I think we need Westminster Pier.. .apparently there is a boat at eleven, so foot down, CG,” said Nick.

  Alex asked once again to pay for the clothing but Nick refused and Christos, again showing no concern about upsetting the man who paid him, argued that if she had known she was going to Frank's she would have “dressed more appropriate,” as he put it. “And also I'll charge overtime for this evening,” he laughed.

  “You only work thirty hours a week, as it is, so don't push it,” Nick retorted before looking at his phone to see a text message, among others, from Katherine.

  “Where are you and are you in today?”

  He replied “Day off, see you tomorrow,” only to receive a call from her a couple of minutes later. Although it made him feel very guilty after what had happened in New York, he pressed the reject button. He did the same when Tavis called as the car arrived at the Pier and then switched off the device so that he could enjoy his day out with Alex.

  He also felt uncomfortable about not telling Alex what he'd found out why she was shopping, that the boat journey took a full three hours, compared to twenty minutes on the train. He doubted that she knew, but didn't want her to pull out as the two of them on a boat for so long was to him a pleasant prospect, although he realised he'd probably need Christos to drive them back.

  They arrived just in time to get their tickets and catch The Connaught, a vessel built more than 100 years earlier but continually refurbished since then. It still retained its Edwardian charm and, though facilities were basic, Nick looked forward to the lengthy trip.

  It was only when it left the Embankment that he mentioned what he had found out earlier.

  “Three hours! I thought it would be about 40 minutes,” she said. “Hope you are not going to get bored.”

  “Not me,” said Nick.

  “I think it's a great way to travel,” she replied. “I'm going to turn my phone off.”

  They passed Lambeth Palace, which the tour guide informed them had been the residence of the the Church of England's principal, the Archbishop of Canterbury since the 13th century. From there they cruised at a very leisurely pace past The Tate, which housed some of the country's most treasured art works; the affluent homes of Putney and Barnes, and Strand On The Green where Oliver Cromwell planned his battles against the Crown which led to Parliament surpassing Royalty as the maker of England's laws.

  “So much history,” she said, still fearing that a multi-millionaire might have preferred to be spending his day in what might be more familiar surroundings. But what those might be she couldn't guess – the more she knew of him the more she realised he didn't fit the stereotype.

  “I haven't done this trip since I was a kid,” he said. "I guess living here you take things for granted. I'm glad I came.”

  “Me too,” said Alex, smiling at him.

  After Kew, they passed inns, towns and grand houses significant in the chronicles of the country's history. For the first time in ages, she felt wonderfully relaxed and untroubled. In some way imagining the past lives of others helped her think more about her own present.

  He bought them iced fruit juice and scones at the bar and they conversed easily about the places on the route.

  Ham House caught Alex's imagination. A 17th century red-brick building, three storeys high across nine bays, was according to the announcer on the boat the residence of several royal mistresses in the 18th and 19th centuries.

  “I bet those walls could tell a few tales,” she said. “Love to know what went on with all those royals and nobility.”

  “I doubt they spent all their time playing backgammon,” Nick said.

  “Do you play?”

  “You mean backgammon?” he quipped.

  “Yes, you know exactly what I mean, Nicholas, and don't be so rude.”

  “Of course I play, it's all about chance and maths, exactly what I do in the day job.”

  “I am so going beat you,” she said.

  “Don't stake your company, Alexandra,” he replied, thinking how Katherine had made almost the exact same comment in New York only days earlier. Again, it made him feel guilty.

  “Look, Canada geese,” she pointed to him. “You know what they say about them?”

  “What's that?”

  “They stay with one partner for life. They only take a new one when one of them dies.”

  “What happens if they choose the wrong partner in the beginning?”

  “Could be a shit life,” she smiled.

  A couple of weeks ago she only knew Nick Hensen by name. Now, he had a big presence in her life and, outside the text messages, mo
stly in a positive way. She loved it that a man so successful and wealthy could be so relaxed and normal - and normality was what she craved.

  She was still thinking what a good time she was having and how relaxed she felt in his company, when they arrived at Hampton Court, and she quickly became transfixed with the Palace and its grounds. This is where English history was shaped by King Henry VIII and his six wives, she knew. The King had made belonging to the Catholic church a treasonable offence, punishable by death.

  “Divorced, executed, died, divorced, executed, survived. Every schoolboy knows that,” he said as they were looking at a painting of Anne Boleyn.

  “And Anne Boleyn, I know, was one of the executed.”

  “Yes, for adultery – even with her own brother - and treason among other things,” Nick answered.

  “Funny how infidelity can change lives.”

  He was going to tell her that there was doubt whether the Queen had been adulterous at all but the comment took him by surprise. Was Alex finally loosening up and giving away something of her past?

  He was still thinking about her remark as they toured the magnificent Great Hall, a huge medieval expanse where great banquets were held and Shakespeare plays performed. The walls were adorned with splendid tapestries, telling of lives past, and the heads of stags, spoils of the hunting trips of people who by dint only of ancestry became masters of all they purveyed.

  “I love it here, it's the nearest I've come to time travel,” she remarked.

  “I'm glad,” Nick said, briefly touching her on a shoulder. The physical contact, as hasty and placid it was, did not go unnoticed.

  Later in the afternoon, they bought sandwiches, fruit and wine and picnicked in the gardens. Afterwards they tackled the maze, covering a third of an acre, and laughed hilariously as they continued to find nothing but dead-ends.

  “We need a Sat Nav,” joked Alex.

  “No need, it's definitely this way, trust me, I'm a banker,” he laughed back but found only another impasse.

  After they had finally found their way out they went to the park where deer roamed free.