Tania was also as opposed as Adrianna to Jeffrey’s pitting his children against each other in a death race for the top job. Like Adrianna, she had done her best to dissuade him from setting them this challenge, and failed. For the last six months, Tania had been monitoring developments from her eyrie on the twentieth floor. According to her, Bella’s team was on lockdown, not breathing a word to outsiders about what had happened during the hacking incident.
However, Tania, like Nita, had tentacles everywhere. Bella had been seen, before her meeting with her father, hurrying towards her brother’s office; casual enquiries of Bart’s two ‘assistants’ had elicited that Bella had been extremely angry with him, and that Bart had been hitting the tequila heavily that day. Putting two and two together, adding in the fact that Charlotte had been waiting to intercept her sister in Jeffrey’s office, and that Bart would never have engaged in anything nefarious on his own account, Tania had correctly concluded that Charlotte had organized the sabotage herself, using her younger brother as a pawn. She had passed this conclusion on to Adrianna.
So this was what Adrianna was expecting to hear. But when Bella actually spoke, her words came as such a shock that the gasps in the room were as loud as viewers of a horror film reacting to the sudden appearance of the psycho killer.
‘It’s true!’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I have been having an affair with Ronaldo for months now, and I really cared about him. I thought we had a future. Until I found out Charlotte was having an affair with him as well, way before he got together with me! The two of them set me up!’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jeffrey turned his head wildly from one daughter to the other, identical lovely faces with wildly different expressions. Bella’s was agonized: she had won a Pyrrhic victory, in which the winner suffered such heavy losses that they might as well have been defeated themselves. And Charlotte had suddenly gone pale, putting a hand out to steady herself against the back of a nearby chair. Bella’s accusation was obviously true.
‘They set me up,’ Bella repeated, her voice still unsteady. ‘They’ve been seeing each other for over a decade. He staged bumping into me at a bar in Chicago when I was there on business – I checked. Charlotte’s assistant rang Robin’s office that night – Robin’s the Sachs head of PR there – and asked where she’d taken me for drinks, so he’d know where I was. He did a great job, by the way,’ she said bitterly to the side of Charlotte’s head. ‘A truly brilliant job. I believed every word he said. He isn’t even in advertising, apparently – that was a lie too. The investigator I hired says he’s some sort of freelance travel consultant. He lied about everything.’
Adrianna was shaking her head in disbelief. It sounded too unbelievable to be true: and yet Charlotte’s face was clear confirmation of Bella’s story. It could easily have been a coincidence that Ronaldo had bumped into Bella and perversely decided that it would be fun to seduce the other twin sister, bag the set. The phone call from Charlotte’s office, however, made it clear that she was involved.
‘I imagine you did that as a backup in case your plan to sabotage my relaunch of the bookings system didn’t work,’ Bella continued, still to her sister. ‘You were really thorough, weren’t you? Yes, Daddy! It was Charlotte who did that! We weren’t hacked by anyone! She made me tell you that story. She blackmailed me by saying that she knew I’d been having an affair and that she’d tell the police about it if I didn’t go along with her version of events.’
‘The police?’ Adrianna asked, since her husband was still speechless.
‘I was Skyping Ronaldo when Thomas came home,’ Bella confessed. ‘There was a big scene. Thomas grabbed me, I pushed him away and he fell down the stairs and hit his head. It was an accident – or self-defence – he left bruises on me, Daddy’s lawyer saw them—’
Adrianna pursed her lips in sympathy.
‘But Charlotte said that it would look suspicious,’ Bella continued, ‘that Thomas had caught me Skyping with another man and fallen downstairs straight afterwards—’
Adrianna nodded, understanding the point. She glanced sideways at her husband, who seemed frozen in place. She put her hand on his; it felt cold to the touch. He was breathing, but still grey, and his gaze was distant, staring at the far wall of the bedroom, unable to look at either of his twin daughters. Obviously, he had been hit terribly hard by the revelation of how far Charlotte had been prepared to go in her attempt to take Bella out of the running.
‘Jeffrey?’ Adrianna said softly, but he did not respond.
‘So you see, Daddy?’ Bella concluded. ‘Yes, I had an affair with Ronaldo! But so did Charlotte! And, much worse, she was the one who sabotaged the systems, lost us all that income and caused such terrible publicity! She’s not fit to run the company!’
Bella, Adrianna noticed gratefully, was at least having the decency to keep Bart’s name out of this. She jumped: she had forgotten about Bart beneath her, listening to his sisters tear each other apart like this, finding out that the contest Jeffrey had created had caused infinitely more damage than anyone could possibly have expected—
‘He’s your brother,’ Jeffrey said.
Adrianna froze. Did Jeffrey know somehow that Bart was lying directly below where he was sitting? Her brain raced, trying to come up with an explanation that would cover his being stretched out on the floor underneath his father’s canopy bed.
‘What?’ Bella said blankly.
‘Ronaldo. He’s your brother,’ Jeffrey repeated in a flat, emotionless voice. ‘I had an affair with Maria a long time ago. She only told me the baby was mine after it was born. She knew I would have insisted she get an abortion.’
Charlotte and Bella stared at their father in utter horror. Bella reeled as if she had been slapped in the face, teetering so much on her high heels that Mrs Rootare jumped up and guided her over to the sofa, pulling the wedding dress away to make room for them both. Bella flopped down like a rag doll, her head on Mrs Rootare’s shoulder.
‘So that’s why you sent him away to school!’ Charlotte said eventually, her knuckles showing white bone through the skin as her hands formed into fists. ‘So we wouldn’t hang out with him any more! That’s why he went to Harvard! You must have told the school to make sure he didn’t go to a British university.’
‘I paid for everything,’ Jeffrey said, ‘as long as he stayed away. That was the arrangement. He gets a very generous monthly allowance from me as long as he lives in America. Maria wasn’t happy about that, but it was the deal.’
‘Wait – if you’re sending him an allowance, that means he knows!’ Charlotte gasped. ‘He knows he’s our half-brother?’
Jeffrey nodded.
‘His mother insisted on telling him, and I couldn’t stop her,’ he said. ‘Though I tried. I tried very hard.’
‘And she’s still working for you,’ Adrianna commented, her carefully cultivated poise standing her in very good stead. At least she sounded calm, even if her heart rate was through the roof.
‘She cares about me,’ Jeffrey said, shrugging. ‘And she’s so good at her job. I’d hate to have to replace her.’
Well, it’s a very good thing I didn’t marry you for love, his new wife thought, meeting her mother’s eyes, exchanging a glance of silent shock at this family of which Adrianna had just become a member.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ Charlotte choked, clapping her hands to her mouth.
‘There!’ Adrianna urgently pointed across the bedroom to the bathroom door. ‘Over there, the bathroom—’
Charlotte took off running across the room, ominous noises bubbling in her throat. She shot inside the bathroom, in too much of a hurry to shut the door behind her; Adrianna walked over and closed it to silence the explosive noises Charlotte was making. She must have drunk more than usual at the post-wedding reception, probably to give herself Dutch courage for the revelation she was planning to make to her father. It sounded as if she were vomiting up a fountain of champagne and stomach acid
.
By contrast, there was absolute silence in the bedroom. In a bizarre parody of good hostess manners, Adrianna poured Bella and her mother glasses of champagne and handed them round, deciding that everyone could do with a pickup. Looking over at Jeffrey, however, she felt he required something stronger. There was a well-stocked bar in the living room, and she returned from it with a snifter of brandy for her husband. He seemed barely aware of her presence, but at least he took the glass.
On hearing the revelation about Ronaldo, Mrs Rootare had drawn Bella into her arms, hugging her for comfort just as she would have done with one of her own daughters. As Adrianna offered the flutes, Mrs Rootare encouraged Bella to sit up and drink a little, murmuring that it would do her good. Bella obeyed, still half leaning against Adrianna’s mother, sipping at the champagne.
‘How did you find out about him and Charlotte?’ Adrianna asked Bella, sitting back down beside her husband. ‘You had some suspicion about them?’
‘Not of him,’ Bella muttered. ‘I wanted some ammunition on Charlotte, something she didn’t know I had. I got a team of private investigators to follow her everywhere she went. She took a trip on the Eurostar for the day to Paris and met him there. And once they found out about him, they kept digging. They’ve been involved for years. He must really care about her to have set me up like that. And she must have thought I was such a passive idiot! That I’d let her spy on me, undermine me, and not start spying on her as well!’
She managed a bitter half-smile.
‘I can’t say it feels very good to have proved her wrong.’
‘And . . . you cared for him?’ Mrs Rootare asked delicately.
‘It broke my heart,’ Bella said desolately. ‘But at the same time, finding out that it had been a set-up wasn’t as much of a surprise as you would think. I realized straight away he’d been too good to be true. He was . . . perfect.’
Mrs Rootare put her arm around Bella again.
‘Ah, that is not possible,’ she said kindly. ‘You will know in future. If they seem to be perfect, they are not. Actually, it is a very bad sign. I am sorry, but it’s good you learn this now.’
Bella took a long breath. ‘He must really hate us. To do something so terrible, for such a long time. He must have been laughing at us all along – how stupid we were, how ignorant.’
No one looked at Jeffrey, who was staring down at his brandy glass.
‘This is a very difficult time for you,’ Adrianna said, as gently as she could. ‘Thomas is still in his coma, and now – this! And Charlotte has behaved so badly, your own sister! You must be very kind to yourself, Bella. You must go slowly, and be kind to yourself.’
‘The doctors say I have to get ready to turn off Thomas’s life support,’ Bella mumbled. ‘There’s no positive prognosis for him coming out of the coma.’
Adrianna and her mother shook their heads, partly in sympathy, partly in disbelief at the magnitude of what Bella was going through.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Adrianna said, as Mrs Rootare stroked Bella’s arm comfortingly.
‘Honestly, I’ve been expecting it,’ Bella admitted. ‘It isn’t a terrible shock. From the moment I saw him at the bottom of the stairs . . . he looked dead already. I never really thought he would recover from that.’
Mrs Rootare pursed her lips.
‘It’s better this way,’ she said frankly. ‘Better than if he wakes up and there are things very wrong with him. You remember Uncle Alek, Adrianna? It was not good. He was drunk and fell downstairs,’ she explained to Bella. ‘But he did not die, just broke his back and could never walk again. It was very, very bad for everyone. Him most of all.’
Bella nodded.
‘I’ve thought that too,’ she said. ‘It’s a huge relief to hear someone else say it.’
‘Life is hard,’ Mrs Rootare said simply. ‘But we must carry on. Life is for the living. Drink more champagne, smile if you can, put the past behind you. Have only good thoughts and good memories.’
She patted Bella’s arm firmly. Clearly, an Estonian woman who had been through the mill herself was exactly the person to lean on when your husband was in a coma and your lover had turned out to be your half-brother. Mrs Rootare’s words had a cheering effect; a spark of light came into Bella’s eyes, which had been dull as clouded glass before.
Over her head, Mrs Rootare’s eyes met her daughter’s. Her expression said clearly that this was all very difficult and dramatic, but they had no choice but to move on with the wedding celebrations; there was a roomful of VIP guests downstairs waiting for their dinner. Adrianna gave the slightest of nods in reply.
‘Listen to Mummia,’ Adrianna said to Bella. ‘She talks great sense. Mummia, you will take care of Bella today, won’t you? Make sure she is okay?’
‘As if she were my own daughter,’ Mrs Rootare said, smiling at poor Bella, who managed another half-smile in return.
‘Well, this is very sad for everyone,’ Adrianna pronounced, taking full control of the conversation. ‘It’s hard to know what to say in a situation like this. But one thing I must say, and that is that Jeffrey has to give up this idea of announcing tonight who will be CEO. It is too much. I never liked the plan, and now I am putting down my foot.’
She finally turned to look at her husband, who, though sitting upright, seemed almost as comatose as Thomas.
‘I will say now what I think,’ she continued, ‘and then we will talk about it later. Not today. This was always stupid and dangerous. Like the play King Lear, when he asks all his daughters to say how much they love him! Look what happens at the end! You can see that King Lear was not a good father. If he had been, his two older daughters would not have been so bad when they took power. Jeffrey, you have not been a good father. You ignored your grown-up children for years and you do not know them very well. Drink some brandy. You have had a shock. It is good for shocks.’
Her husband raised the glass to his lips with trembling hands.
‘You should have decided yourself which one of the children it should be, not set them against each other like dogs after a bone,’ his wife said reprovingly. ‘Tania agrees with me.’
Bella’s eyebrows shot up at this; invoking Tania demonstrated how sure Adrianna was of her position.
‘You know what I think, Jeffrey,’ Adrianna was saying. ‘We have talked about who should take over from you, and this . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘This new information changes nothing. It’s clear that, when she is ready, Bella should become CEO. When she has dealt with the situation with her husband, taken some time to rest and recover from . . . everything. The technological upgrade has been a great success – we can see that already. It’s very exciting and brave, what she has done, and it makes good business sense. You think that she is boring, the safe one, but you are wrong. She has taken a big risk and it is working.’
Bella choked on her champagne, but Adrianna carried on; as far as she was concerned, she was simply stating facts with which no one should have any problem.
‘Charlotte is not suitable for the job, obviously, not after this. But what she has done was out of desperation, and not typical of her normal way to work in the company. Tania says this and I believe her. She must be watched in future, but I do not think that Charlotte would do things like this if you had not made them all act like – like dogs with a bone. I think also she has been punished by what you have just said. Much more than Bella.’
Everyone glanced briefly towards the closed bathroom door. The palazzo was large, the rooms huge and sprawling; the bathroom was far enough away that nothing could be heard inside. Whether she was still throwing up or not, Charlotte was showing no signs of being ready to emerge.
‘So we keep Charlotte, I would advise, but with checks on her,’ she said. ‘Put her in charge of the design across all the hotels, not just Sachs. Call her design director. She is wonderful at that, and it will make her feel better about not running the whole company. Bella is not good at design. Not at all.’
>
Bella meekly accepted this. It was no more than the truth.
‘The Sachs hotels need Charlotte,’ Adrianna continued. ‘They need to be fresh, chic, smart. Everyone wants that now, not just the guests who stay in boutiques. Everyone wants to feel they are in a boutique!’
Jeffrey had taken some brandy now, and colour was returning to his cheeks as he stared at his bride, nodding slowly.
‘Conway is fine as CFO, Tania says,’ Adrianna stated. ‘I know you are angry with him, Jeffrey, but what he does with his marriage is not to do with his job, in my opinion. Still, he is not – how do you say it, with the hands?’
She waved hers in the air for inspiration.
‘Hands-on!’ she said triumphantly. ‘He is not hands-on with the hotels, and the CEO should know about them. He should not be CEO. As for Bart—’
She couldn’t help glancing at the base of the big canopy bed to see if she spotted any movement, even though she knew she wouldn’t; what did she expect? Was Bart going to jump so violently at the mention of his name that the mattress bulged up in the middle, like a slapstick comedy film?
‘ – as for Bart, there is no point in him having an office in the building with two pretty girls who cost a fortune in salary and do nothing, apart from maybe have sex with him when he’s bored,’ she continued firmly. ‘His charity work is good for the brand. He should do that. Also he should travel around the hotels, around the world, to meet politicians, ministers for tourism, mayors of cities. He should be a travelling ambassador. He is charming, handsome, everyone will love him. But he should not have an office with secretaries! He could not run a public toilet, why should he have an office? Tania’s assistant can easily organize this and work with the travel department to make the arrangements.’
Bella’s eyebrows were up again at this further indication of how closely her new stepmother and her father’s treasured PA were working together. There was the faintest movement of the valance on one side of the bed, but no one apart from Adrianna noticed it.
Bad Twins Page 36
