by Hyland, Tara
“Face it, love,” he said that night, taking a long drag on his spliff. “You’re past it. Happens to the best of us. I’ve had to get used to it. So should you.”
She was tempted to remind him of what had happened eighteen months earlier when one of the other band members, Dave Ridwell, had released his first single—and it had gone straight to number one. Johnny had gone on a bender that lasted two days. Since then he hadn’t spoken about trying to get a record deal.
But was he right? Did she just need to resign herself to the inevitable?
As if sensing her resolve weakening, Johnny held out the joint to her. “Here. This’ll make you feel better.”
She stared down at it. She could think of nothing better than to lose herself in the sweet aroma; to forget cold, hard reality for just a little bit, to let the edges blur, to feel the peace and calm descending on her.
Finally, with a show of willpower she hadn’t thought she possessed, she shook her head.
He shrugged. “Okay. Your choice.”
Amber felt proud of herself. She wasn’t ready to give up quite yet.
For the first time in their relationship, Johnny was the breadwinner. He never seemed short of cash now. Amber had a good idea where it came from, although she pretended she didn’t. People turned up at the house all hours of the day and night, strangers with carryalls and backpacks stuffed full of God knows what. They would follow Johnny into the back room, never staying for long.
Business was always conducted behind closed doors. Amber never asked what went on, and Johnny never volunteered any details. She always stayed out of the way when Johnny’s “business associates,” as he called them, were around. She didn’t like the way they looked at her, especially Weasel.
Weasel was a whigger—a tall, skinny white boy who thought he was black. He wore his jeans baggy and low, had an array of wife-beaters and a tattoo of a weasel smoking a joint on his scrawny right bicep. He didn’t smile often, but when he did he displayed a set of yellow-brown teeth, apart from the left front incisor, which was solid gold. What annoyed Amber most was how he liked to talk ghetto.
“’S’up, my niggaz?” He’d high-five Johnny while looking at her, his eyes crawling all over her body. Amber always reached for something to cover up when he was there. She hated having him around. The house wasn’t exactly big, but Weasel always seemed to disappear into dark corners, pouncing whenever she walked by.
“Does he have to come over here?” she asked Johnny once.
“If you want to keep eating.”
There wasn’t much she could say to that.
One night, she got home from another disastrous audition, for a walk-on part in a TV commercial. She’d waited in line for two hours. She’d kept her head up and tried to ignore the bitchy comments from the other girls. But when it got to be six and the runner had come out to say that they were finished for the day, and everyone left would just have to come back tomorrow, she’d felt her resolve slipping.
She’d rushed home, hoping that Johnny wouldn’t have any friends around and they could spend the evening alone together, like a proper boyfriend and girlfriend. She knew as soon as she got back that he wasn’t there. It was dark, and there weren’t any lights on. She let herself in, trying not to feel disappointed. A note on the kitchen counter said he’d gone out with Weasel and would be back soon. She crumpled it up. With Johnny, she never knew what “back soon” meant.
The hours crawled by. She didn’t want to eat—someone had told her last week that she was carrying a bit of weight on her hips—so she turned on the TV, but she couldn’t concentrate. She kept looking at her watch, feeling anxious and tense, wondering where Johnny was.
By midnight, he still wasn’t home, so she went to bed. He’d be back by the next morning, she was sure of it.
Two days later, he finally walked through the door, as casually as if he’d popped out to get milk. By then, Amber was beside herself.
“Where were you?” she cried hysterically, rushing into his arms. She’d called every hospital and police station looking for him. “I thought something had happened to you!”
“Hey, hey.” He pushed her away. “I’m here now, aren’t I? Quit your whining, woman.”
“But where were you?” she sniffed.
“With Weasel. We went down to Nuevo Laredo.”
“Oh.” She wanted to ask what he’d been doing at the Mexican border town, why he hadn’t called. But she knew he wouldn’t like that, so she kept quiet.
“I was worried,” she said instead, feeling a fresh batch of tears start to run down her face.
Johnny shook his head. “Jeez-us. You need to chill.”
He was right, she realized. She felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept for nearly forty-eight hours, but it was more than that. She was tired of trying so hard; she was tired of constant rejection; she was tired of feeling so aware of her misery. And she knew there was one thing that could make her forget all that.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You’re right—I do need to chill. What exactly did you have in mind?”
50
_________
It was early morning in Paris. Sitting in his top-floor office at Grenier, Massé et Sanci’s headquarters, Armand Bouchard’s thoughts were across the Channel, with his English counterpart, William Melville.
Along with every other major fashion house, GMS was based on rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. Renowned for being one of the most fashionable streets in the world, it was a prestigious location. Even though being based there was expensive, Bouchard was happy to put up with the extra cost for the cachet. Whenever he looked around GMS’s headquarters, he could feel proud of what he had achieved. There was nothing like being able to see a lifetime’s achievements every day to make you feel good about yourself.
Of course, even the most successful businessmen made mistakes along the way. For Armand, Melville was one of those. He could see that now. Eight years earlier, he’d known the English fashion house was in trouble. He should have moved then, but he’d hesitated. It had been hard to see any value in the business, and he’d thought that by waiting a while, he could pick it up at a bargain price.
Well, he’d been wrong. Now the company was worth three times what he would have paid for it then. But he wasn’t going to beat himself up about it. William Melville might be driven by pride and arrogance, but Armand Bouchard was cold and logical. It was how he had gotten his nickname—Napoléon—in the press. Sure—he wished he’d moved sooner with Melville, but that didn’t mean he would walk away now. Quite the opposite, in fact—he still saw value there.
“But surely nothing has changed since last time, Armand,” his second-in-command had challenged him at the last board meeting. “With 60 percent of the shares in the family’s hands, how can you hope to get control? None of them will sell to you.”
The other directors had murmured their agreement. A week earlier, Armand would have conceded that they were right. Except they hadn’t been privy to the phone call he’d received, out of the blue, the other day. A phone call that suggested the family wasn’t quite as unified as everyone assumed.
Lately—well, ever since she’d moved in with Lucien, really—Caitlin had found herself thinking about having a baby. Perhaps it was something to do with finally being in a stable relationship, or perhaps it was simply that she wanted a family of her own, something she had missed out on during most of her adult life.
At first, she tried to put the idea out of her mind. Naturally they’d talked about having children at some point, but she’d imagined that time was still a few years from now. And it seemed something of a cliché—wanting to be a mother to make up for the loss of her own. But, however hard she tried to forget about it, she simply couldn’t.
“I know it’s a silly idea,” she told Lucien, after finally confessing how she felt to him one evening, “and that there are so many reasons to wait. We’re both so busy at the moment, and we haven’t even been together that long . . .”
Lucien n
odded solemnly. “You’re right,” he agreed. “There are a million reasons why this would be a terrible time to have a baby.” Caitlin felt a twinge of disappointment. But then he leaned forward, and she saw his eyes were dancing with amusement. “But who cares about that?”
She drew back, startled. “Really?”
He gave her a slow smile. “Really, chérie.”
Two months later, to their delight, Caitlin found that she was pregnant.
The following weekend, she and Lucien went down to Aldringham to tell William their news. To Caitlin’s amusement, he looked a little shocked and embarrassed at first. She had expected as much—he was terribly old-fashioned, after all. “Not that he can say very much,” she had reassured Lucien on the drive down there. “Not after what happened with my own mother.” But it still didn’t stop him frowning disapprovingly at Lucien. Although once it was clear they intended to marry before the child was born, he seemed a lot happier.
In fact, William was thrilled at the thought of becoming a grandfather. He’d been saddened by Elizabeth’s report of her meeting with Amber. He had no idea how to reach his troubled youngest daughter after she’d rejected his overtures again. But the news of his first grandchild cheered him.
He’d been thinking for a while that he wanted to make a gesture toward Caitlin, to reward her for all her hard work at Melville and to signify that she was part of the family. Now seemed like a good opportunity to do that. So, the following Monday, he asked his lawyer to start drawing up the papers to transfer 5 percent of his shares in the company to Caitlin. “You don’t have to do that,” she protested, when he told her of his intention.
“But I want to,” he said firmly. “Elizabeth and Amber both have a stake in the company. It only seems right that you should, too.”
He also insisted on throwing an engagement party. At first he wanted to make it a grand occasion, but Caitlin persuaded him not to—she had already agreed with Lucien that they would keep everything low-key. So instead, the following week, they gathered for an informal cocktail party at Eaton Square and broke the news to the rest of the family and a few select friends.
Mostly, everyone was pleased for them. Elizabeth was the only one who seemed a little off, her congratulations forced, her questions about their plans rather sharp.
“So where are you planning to tie the knot?” she asked.
“Aldringham,” Caitlin told her. “It’s going to be very small—”
“Aldringham?” she cut in. She downed her wine and held out her empty glass to a passing waiter. “How lovely. I bet Daddy’s delighted.” She gave a thin smile. “It seems like everything’s turning out perfectly for you at the moment.”
“Elizabeth,” Cole said warningly.
She rounded on him. “What?”
He nodded at the wineglass in her hands. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?”
“No, I don’t, actually,” she retorted and walked off.
Caitlin watched as Cole followed her out to the terrace, where they continued their argument away from the party. She couldn’t help remembering how in love the two of them had been. What on earth had happened?
“I hope we don’t end up like that,” she said to Lucien later that night, as they lay in bed together.
He turned over and hugged her gently to him. She had noticed him doing that a lot lately, treating her as though she was glass, liable to break at any second.
“Of course we won’t, chérie. We will always be as happy as this.”
She closed her eyes, feeling tiredness wash over her. Right now, when everything felt so perfect, it was easy to believe him.
The following Monday, she arrived at work to find a message saying that there was an emergency board meeting starting at ten. With only five minutes to spare, she grabbed her camomile tea and headed upstairs.
“Any idea what this is about?” she asked Douglas Levan, as she slipped into the seat next to him. She usually didn’t like the slimy sales director, but today nothing could spoil her good mood. She was successful, pregnant, and in love—what could go wrong?
Douglas pulled a face. “How the hell should I know? It’s not like anyone tells me anything.”
Caitlin ignored the gibe. She was feeling too happy to let him get to her. In fact, Caitlin was so caught up in her own little world that she hardly noticed the grim expressions on the faces of Elizabeth and William as they walked through the door. It was only when William stood to speak, and the room fell into an uneasy silence, that she felt a prickle of concern. As far as she knew, Melville was doing brilliantly: all the sales figures were good, the commentary in the press was excellent. What on earth could be going on?
“I hoped we were out of the woods with this,” William began. “I thought with the recovery . . .” He came to a halt.
Everyone in the room was frowning, confused. Caitlin suddenly noticed his ashen face. Whatever this was about, it was bad.
He coughed a little, clearing his throat. “It’s just been announced to the market that someone has built up a 5 percent stake in Melville.”
“Who?” demanded Douglas Levan.
William gave a derisive snort. “Armand Bouchard, of course.”
The room exploded, everyone talking at once.
William lifted his hand for quiet. “I know, I know. It’s a terrible shock. But make no mistake—we will fight this.” He drew himself up to his full height, warming to his theme. “I’ve already been on the phone to our bankers. We’re going to set up a war room, get our defenses in place.” He turned to Caitlin. “I want you to sit down with an HR specialist to go over your contract—they’re going to insert a clause that says you can walk out in the event of a third party acquiring over 30 percent of the shares. Elizabeth, you’ll come with me to talk about shoring up our financial position.”
“Do you want me along, too?” Piers asked.
William looked over at him briefly. “That won’t be necessary.”
“But—”
“Piers, please.” William didn’t bother to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “This is important.”
Piers watched them go. He’d given William one last chance to make him part of his inner circle. And he’d been rejected again. If he’d been at all undecided about whether to go ahead with his plan, that exchange had made up his mind.
The house looked ordinary enough. It was an anonymous single family home on a busy road in Hounslow, West London. Sullivan Road itself was that odd mix of commercial and residential, with a Chinese takeaway, dry cleaners and DVD store at one end and tired housing at the other. The residents were mainly low-income renters and public-housing tenants. That meant no one stuck around long enough to notice the goings-on at number 32.
Irina Serapiniene had been living at number 32 for five months now, but she still didn’t know much about Hounslow. The one important detail she did know was that it was only a twenty-minute drive from Heathrow, where she had arrived twenty-three weeks, five days, and seventeen hours ago. From there, it was only a two-hour flight to Lithuania. That knowledge, the proximity of home, was what kept her going as she looked out of the top-floor window—nailed shut so she couldn’t escape—at the busy intersection below.
Irina knew now that she had been stupid. Back in her hometown of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, she had always been on the lookout for adventure. At fifteen, she was a pretty girl, with her fair hair and slight build, and vivacious, too, the most daring of her friends, going to new places and staying out after curfew. So when she got to chatting with a woman at a nightclub, who said she could organize work in England over the summer, Irina jumped at the chance.
“What would I be doing?” she asked eagerly.
Her new friend, Sonja, was vague. “Probably waitressing in London—it’ll be fun and well paid. Oh,” she added as an afterthought, “and your flight will be taken care of, too.” Later that week, Irina forged her parents’ signatures on the document allowing her to leave Lithuania una
ccompanied. Then she packed a small bag, left a hasty note for her mother, and went off to meet Sonja at the airport.
It was only when they got to Heathrow that Irina began to feel nervous. Sonja asked for her passport, and they were then joined by an older, thickset man, an Albanian named Bedari.
“He’s a friend,” Sonja told Irina. “He’ll take you to your accommodation.”
That was the last time Irina ever saw Sonja.
Irina grew increasingly apprehensive on the journey. The man didn’t speak once. When they finally arrived at number 32 Sullivan Road, she followed him inside and up to a small, shabby room on the second floor. She had barely put her suitcase down when he knocked her to the ground and proceeded to rape her.
“Getting you to England cost twenty thousand pounds,” he told her once he’d finished. “This is how you’ll pay that debt off. And if you try to escape, I’ll kill you.”
Then he left her alone, turning the key in the lock so she was in no doubt that she was his prisoner.
Over the next week, Bedari and three other men took turns to condition her. After a month, Irina ran out of tears. She was expected to service twenty to thirty men a day, and she learned to do it without complaining rather than risk Bedari’s fists. The men themselves disgusted her. Sometimes they were rough; sometimes they paid more for anal sex or so they didn’t have to use a condom. She was terrified of getting sick, of getting pregnant. She wasn’t allowed out by herself. The girls rarely got to speak to each other, but what Irina heard terrified her—some of them had been sold to three, four, five different people. She hoped that wouldn’t happen to her. At least here she knew how close she was to the airport. It was something to hang onto.
And now there was a bigger reason for not wanting to be sold on. Hope. Someone had promised to help her. One of her regular clients, a man called Matthew. He was softspoken, shy—in his late twenties, she guessed—and kind, too. He had started coming to see her regularly and seemed to have taken a shine to her, bringing her little gifts of soaps and chocolate. Even Bedari had joked about it.
