A Twist of Fate

by Joanna Rees

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’ she asked. She was almost too afraid to ask. Too ashamed that she’d let Michael go, like Johnny.

  ‘He joined the army. The last I heard he was out in Iraq.’

  ‘Iraq?’ Thea couldn’t keep the shock from her voice.

  ‘Quite a hero apparently. It’s just a shame old Mrs Pryor can’t see him.’

  Thea felt her chest tighten. ‘You don’t mean she’s—’

  ‘No. But she might as well be, poor old girl. She’s in a home. Alzheimer’s. I think it broke Michael’s heart to put her in there.’

  She took a breath to steady herself.

  ‘Sorry . . .’ she said to Johnny. ‘It’s just . . . I feel so guilty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I should have been there for Michael.’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘We were all your father’s staff. His responsibility, not yours. When the house got sold – well, our jobs there ended too. We all moved on. That’s just the way of the world.’

  ‘I always thought of us as family,’ Thea said, failing to hide the note of hope in her voice.

  Johnny’s eyes crinkled at that.

  ‘I’ve missed you too, if that’s what you’re saying,’ he told her.

  No, I’m not just saying that, Thea wanted to explain. It’s more than just missed. Everything good ended back then, when Storm moved in and everyone started moving away.

  Johnny smiled, looking over Thea’s shoulder, clearly not realizing how upset she was. Again she remembered what Shelley Lawson had told her all those years ago. That Johnny Faraday and Thea’s mother had been inseparable. No, she told herself now, it was an absurd idea. Too crazy to ask Johnny about, particularly since he’d just told her that working for her parents had been nothing but a job.

  ‘And who might this be?’ a woman asked.

  ‘Thea, meet Gaynor Leveaux,’ Johnny said.

  Thea forced herself to smile and let him introduce her to the tall woman with curly blonde hair, who was obviously not only Johnny’s boss, but his friend. She was tanned, with deeply scored laughter lines around her eyes, and she exuded an earthy sort of healthiness, which immediately made Thea’s jetlag and exhaustion from the long drive kick in.

  Thea blushed as Johnny described her to Gaynor as his onetime protégée and the daughter of Alyssa McAdams, who had ridden in the Olympics. Impressed, Gaynor insisted that Thea take Lightning Strike out, to put him through his paces, in the morning.

  Thea happily accepted the offer and soon took her leave, telling Gaynor that she had some work to do. She was amazed by how quickly she made up the lie, giving the impression that she was passing by Leveaux because she was here on business.

  But as she checked into the exclusive country club, where she’d been looking forward to a week of pampering, Thea felt foolish. She shouldn’t have come here on a whim. Much as it was lovely to see Johnny, his life had so clearly moved on that Thea was left wondering what she’d really wanted from her spontaneous visit.

  Later, after a long bath, Thea stood in her room, looking out at the craggy mountains in the moonlight, the silence only broken by the clinking of the ice-cubes in her water glass as she went over the past few hours.

  Johnny had just been staff. That’s what he’d told her. She was still surprised by how much that had stung. Did that apply to Michael too? Everything she’d felt for him – everything she thought she’d felt – had that been nothing but an illusion of family? Had her real family vanished, along with her mother? Were her father and her memories of them all together really all she had left?

  Michael. She could picture his face so clearly, as if with one small step forward she could push her fingers back through his honey-coloured hair. Why, if he’d really meant so little to her, could she not push the thought of him away. Was he the real reason she’d come all along, she wondered?

  She tried to picture her hazel-eyed blond boy in an army uniform, but she couldn’t. But just the fact of it made her realize how much everyone’s lives – Michael’s life – had moved on. So why was she here? Why couldn’t she move on too? Why was she still desperate to find that happy little girl she’d once been?

  Was dredging up her memories really the answer? Would that really solve the problem of that empty feeling that she carried inside her all the time. The one that always resulted in her being lonely, as she had been at the turn of the millennium a few weeks ago, when she’d watched television alone in her apartment.

  Maybe she was a freakish little brat after all, she thought, remembering how Storm had once described her. Maybe there was a fundamental part of her missing that stopped her forming proper relationships with people.

  Like with Reicke. Thea was still puzzled over what had happened there. He’d never acknowledged that night they’d spent together in Vienna. She would have thought that the new head of Maddox Global Media in Germany might have found a moment to say something personal to her at the launch party a few months ago, but he’d stringently avoided becoming entangled in any situation where they might have to spend time together, just the two of them.

  The way in which he continued to pretend they’d never had sex left Thea feeling insecure and paranoid. Hadn’t it been as great for him as it had been for her? Hadn’t she been worth pursuing emotionally too?

  Maybe he was ashamed, she thought, because she was so senior to him. Maybe he worried that she’d think he’d only seduced her to curry favour with her. And maybe that had been his motive after all. Or maybe, unlike her, he’d moved on, and was now in a proper relationship and didn’t want to be reminded of what added up to nothing more significant than a one-night stand.

  Whatever the reason, the end result was that Thea had been left feeling embarrassed, as if she’d let herself down. As if Reicke no longer respected her as much as she’d have liked. The fact that she’d been too busy even to think about getting into a relationship with anyone else since then had only heightened her sense of failure. Other people had someone special. Why couldn’t she? Why did the thought of letting someone into her life always strike her as so complicated, so hard?

  She thought about the magazine her father had shown her a few weeks ago. Thea had been named as the Most Resolutely Single Person in New York. Her picture had been put beside several high-powered businessmen as potential husbands, but Thea had been horrified. She told herself that it was just a journalist making up copy, but nevertheless her father’s meaning had been more than clear. He, like everyone else, expected her to settle down. Not as someone’s wife – her father knew her better than to think she’d quit her own career – but as someone’s partner. Someone’s matching half, or ‘someone who’ll love you and bring you happiness’, as her father had actually said.

  But it seemed so unfair to Thea. She was at the top of her game in business. Richer by far and, in some cases, more successful than the men she’d been linked to, but they didn’t have the public pointing at them, expecting them to settle down. No, the onus was clearly on Thea – the implication being that she would only be truly happy if she was a brilliant wife and mother, as well as a brilliant businesswoman.

  Well, screw them, she thought. I am happy. And I don’t need anyone else to complete me. Especially a bunch of suits in a society mag. And least of all Michael Pryor, some kid she’d known half a lifetime ago.

  She booted up her laptop. She knew the only way to stop thinking like this was to immerse herself in work. Sure enough, within minutes she was totally absorbed, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she fired off emails, making more demands on her staff.

  It was time for action on Scolari, she decided. Time to make another bid for the company. She’d failed last time, but she wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Italy was the only area where they were weak in Europe, and Thea was determined to focus everyone on getting the elusive media company.

  That would bring her happiness. That would make her smile.

  Thea was up just after dawn. It was
chilly, the mist still settling over the hills as she joined Johnny at the stables and he introduced her to the black stallion she’d seen him with the day before. The pride of the stables, and destined to be sold to one of the greatest racing trainers in the States, Lightning Strike was a formidable beast. Johnny assured Thea that she’d be OK, but as she mounted the powerful black stallion and he snorted and stamped at her unfamiliar touch, she felt her pulse racing. With a horse this valuable, she couldn’t afford anything to go wrong.

  ‘You know what you’re doing,’ Johnny assured her.

  ‘But he’s enormous.’

  ‘Showbiz was bigger,’ Johnny said, reminding Thea of the horse her mother had ridden.

  Thea was immediately determined not to show him how scared she was, as Johnny mounted Gossip, another stallion from the stables, and they set out through the paddock and into the valley beyond. The sun was breaking through the mist, shafts of light illuminating the rich green grass. Her senses filled with the chirrup of birds and the breath of her horse, and Thea felt herself reconnecting with a part of herself that she’d forgotten.

  ‘You should ride more at home,’ Johnny told her when she told him how much she was enjoying herself.

  ‘What, in Manhattan? No time,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Weekends?’

  ‘What weekends? As I said, I have no personal time.’

  ‘Then make time,’ Johnny scolded her. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be the miracle-maker?’

  He was quoting from a Time article a few years ago, when she’d talked about women’s roles in corporations. She felt touched that he’d kept track of her, even from a distance.

  ‘Come on. Get the engines running. Put your foot down,’ he said, making her gallop after him.

  Thea was still exhilarated as she joined Johnny for lunch with Gaynor and Marcel in the ranch house, with their children Alice and Jack, along with a couple more of Johnny’s colleagues. She wondered whether they too felt like she once had, as if Johnny were one of the family. Despite their warm welcome and the hearty banter around the table, Thea couldn’t help feeling jealous of their closeness and of all the events stretching into the future that marked the calendar of the ranch and vineyard. With such a full life, when did Johnny ever have time to think about the past?

  It was at the end of the lunch that Thea next got to chat to Johnny alone. Being last at the large kitchen table in the farmhouse, having helped clear away the dishes, they carried on where they’d left off their conversation yesterday. Before long Thea told him about school in England and how lonely she’d been. Then she told him about meeting Bridget and how she’d fallen in love with Tom.

  ‘What happened?’ Johnny asked.

  Thea shrugged. ‘It didn’t work out,’ she said, forcing her voice to stay calm, not to betray the emotion she felt, just talking about it. She was determined to keep her secret shame about Brett to herself, even though the urge to tell Johnny all about it felt so strong.

  ‘But the good thing to come out of it was that Tom led me to you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  She explained the connection, about how Tom’s mother was Shelley Lawson, and how Shelley had mentioned Johnny to Thea. But rather than seem pleased, Johnny appeared subdued. When she’d finished talking, he got up and paced, rubbing his hand over his jaw. It was the second time Shelley Lawson’s name had had an unexpected reaction. She remembered now how her father had looked strange when she’d introduced Tom to him and had explained the connection to Shelley.

  ‘What else did she say?’ Johnny asked. She was surprised by the harshness of his tone.

  ‘That’s all. Why?’ Thea asked, staring at him.

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  Johnny shook his head and looked up to the beams. ‘Isn’t that why you’re here, Thea? You know, I’ve wondered all these years whether this would ever come out.’

  Johnny Faraday stared at Thea, weighing up what to do. Is this why she’d turned up out of the blue? Just when he thought his connection with the Maddoxes was over forever and his life had moved on?

  After all the hours he’d spent thinking about her, wondering about her. And look at her! She’d grown up to be so beautiful. Lis would have been so proud. He’d missed his little Thea more than he could possibly tell her.

  When she’d said she’d thought of Johnny as family – well, she’d hit the nail on the head. Thea had felt like family. It had ripped him apart to lose her.

  So would it really be so awful to tell her the truth? After all, what could Maddox do to him now? After all these years? From what Thea had told him, he’d well and truly moved on with his life.

  And hadn’t he promised Lis that he’d always take care of Thea? In those dreadful secret moments they’d shared before she’d died.

  But he hadn’t. He’d been too intimidated by Maddox, just as Lis had been when she’d been alive. So he’d lived with the guilt all these years.

  That seemed to be the story of his life, Johnny thought – letting the important things slip away. How could he possibly tell Thea the lifetime of regrets he’d had? How could he explain to this gorgeous young woman the pain of heartbreak? Of loss. What would a rich girl like Thea Maddox know about that?

  ‘Please, Johnny,’ Thea said, reaching out for his hand. ‘I need to find out. I want to know the truth about my past. I want to understand why my father left it all behind.’

  Johnny sighed. ‘Let’s walk. I talk better when I’m on the move.’

  They left the house and walked down towards the paddock. Thea stopped by him as they rested on the white bars of the gate. Ahead of them, on the far side of the dusty expanse, Gossip, the stallion, whinnied and shook the flies away from his head. But Thea hardly took any of it in, concentrating instead on Johnny, who seemed to be lost in memories.

  Memories of her mother.

  And as he started to speak about those long-gone days, he talked of how he’d trained with Alyssa, how talented she was, how they spent as much time as they possibly could together. How horses were their lives.

  ‘So it was true,’ she said, remembering again what Shelley Lawson had told her. ‘You and Mom were inseparable. Were you . . . ?’ Thea steeled herself, ‘Were you lovers?’

  ‘I loved her. She loved me. They were the happiest days of my life.’

  He said it so simply that Thea realized how obvious it had been all along. Now she remembered that last day her mother had come to Little Elms to watch Thea jump. She hadn’t come back to say goodbye just to Thea, but to see Johnny one last time too.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You really don’t know? Shelley didn’t tell you?’

  Thea shook her head, trying not to betray how fast her heart was beating with anticipation. ‘She hinted at something, but . . . ’

  He took another deep breath. ‘I – we . . . well, we were kids and we . . . well, she got . . . Lis got pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ Thea felt her heart jolting.

  ‘Lis was terrified. She was training hard. She wanted to get rid of the baby, but it went to full term. We were young. That’s what happened back then.’

  Thea stared at him, her mind whirring. ‘She had the baby? Where? What happened to it?’

  ‘Lis went to her schoolfriend Shelley’s house. She had the baby there. Then she left the baby with Shelley. Lis felt it had to be that way.’

  Thea felt her skin tingling all over. Shelley had known this about her mother? This enormous fact. Her mother had had a baby . . . in Shelley’s house. Did that mean Bridget had known? Had Tom?

  What if Thea hadn’t ended things with Tom – how would things have played out? Would Shelley really have kept such a big secret, with Thea right under her nose?

  Her head was flooded with questions, hundreds of questions, and her mind started scrambling for dates and timings. What if that baby . . . Tom . . . No, that couldn’t possibly—

  Thea felt adrenaline pumping t
hrough her. ‘What kind of baby? What was it?’

  ‘A little girl. We had a baby girl.’

  She stood very still, letting the information sink in. Somewhere out there was a little girl – Thea’s half-sister. Her own flesh and blood.

  A sister.

  And there and then Thea knew, without a doubt, that this was the reason her heart had brought her here. Had her subconscious known all along that there had been something – someone – missing from her life?

  A sister.

  Her heart soared at the thought. Staring up at the fist-like mountain, Thea vowed that she would find her sister, no matter what. No matter how long it took.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  September 2001

  ‘And then,’ Alfonso was saying, ‘you chop the oregano up very fine. See? Rub it between your fingers. Now smell.’

  Romy smiled as Nico reluctantly dipped his head towards the proffered herbs. Alfonso’s impromptu cookery lesson had already been going on for more than an hour.

  They were in the kitchen of Villa Gasperi, Alfonso’s family’s home in the centre of Milan. Maria and Roberto had given Alfie and Romy a couple of months here alone whilst they were travelling. After their wedding in the summer, the press speculation on the couple had been so intense that the old convent, with its thick stone walls and large garden full of towering palm trees, was the only place they could truly be protected from the prying eyes of the press.

  ‘And then you’re going to stir it into the sauce right at the very last second, before you serve it up,’ Alfonso said.

  ‘It seems a lot of effort,’ Nico complained, taking solace from another fortifying slug of wine. Romy smiled. He was the one who wanted to impress his new boyfriend, Pierre, who was arriving in Milan tomorrow.

  It had made Romy’s honeymoon even more special when Nico had fallen for the handsome Pierre. Nico had been there for the first week of their trip to the Maldives, to do the official honeymoon shots as the final part of the wedding deal that Romy and Alfonso had done with Vogue and Grazia. Out on the dive-shoot his romance with Pierre had sparked.