A Twist of Fate

by Joanna Rees

  Thea walked towards him, towards where she normally sat to chair these meetings, but Brett didn’t move. Because of the way he’d positioned himself she found it impossible to get to her seat.

  ‘You’ve heard the wonderful news then?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know how you could have—’ The words were out of Thea’s mouth before she could stop them, her surprise and incomprehension clear for everyone to see.

  ‘Convinced old man Scolari?’ Brett said with a grin.

  Thea felt her pulse quicken as she saw that all the other board members were seated around the table. One or two of them were even smiling.

  ‘The truth is, I didn’t have to,’ Brett said. ‘I decided to think laterally instead. To get the other shareholders on-side. To bring them round to my way of thinking.’

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ Thea said. ‘Roberto Scolari and his wife and daughter-in-law – they had a majority shareholding. None of them would ever have sold to you.’

  Lance Starling cleared his throat.

  ‘Er, that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said, getting quickly to his feet. ‘If I may?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Brett said, and he and several other directors all turned – in a clearly rehearsed show of unity, obviously designed to sideline Thea – to watch Lance Starling as he switched on a projector and began to explain quickly how the deal worked.

  Thea sank down into a chair as Lance continued to speak and several other of Brett’s closest allies began to chip in, congratulating him, mentioning other acquisitions he had in the pipeline. Brett didn’t even look at her. As if she was no longer significant. As if she was no longer even there.

  ‘As you all know,’ Brett said then, as soon as Lance Starling had finished, ‘I’ve called a press conference, which will begin in less than’ – he checked his Rolex, her father’s Rolex, Thea saw, with horror – ‘half an hour. Which,’ he added, would also seem an opportune moment to announce, Thea, your resignation as Chairwoman of the board.’

  Thea sprang to her feet.

  ‘Resignation? But I’m not resigning.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Brett said. ‘We’ve been having an emergency board meeting, which I note you failed to be here for, during which we cast a vote of no confidence in our Chairwoman.’

  ‘No confidence? But—’

  ‘Frankly, Thea, this has been on the cards for quite some time. And your personal failure with Scolari’ – Brett took a moment to smile at his colleagues – ‘well, it’s only served to highlight your shortcomings, both as a leader and a businesswoman.’

  Thea couldn’t believe this was happening. The speed at which he’d moved had taken her completely by surprise. ‘But . . . ’

  ‘That’s all, gentlemen,’ Brett said, ignoring Thea’s protests and gesturing for the others to leave the room. ‘I’ll see you at the press conference.’

  ‘You’re just going to let him do this? Sit here and take this bullshit?’ Thea cried out, but everyone stood up and started to file quickly past her. But this was wrong. She’d done all she could to close the Scolari deal, all that anyone could. Brett couldn’t be allowed to do this . . . Only it seemed that he could.

  ‘Good luck,’ Peter said under his breath as he left.

  ‘Wait,’ Thea implored, wanting them all to come back, but in a moment she faced Brett alone.

  ‘I will not let you get away with this,’ she cried. ‘I will fight you.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Brett said. ‘But I doubt you will.’

  He opened his laptop and hit a few keys. The screen loomed into life. ‘There are plenty of reasons why you had to go,’ Brett said. ‘Professional, of course, but personal too. The fact that you aren’t really Griffin and Alyssa Maddox’s daughter being one. And I’ve checked. He didn’t legally adopt you, whereas he did legally adopt me. Which means that I have much more right to this company than you. Now unfortunately, because your mother is dead, I can’t take steps to prove with a DNA test that she didn’t by fluke manage to have you with somebody else. Which means I can’t get you disinherited.’ His fury about this blazed in his eyes. ‘God only knows where they got you from, Thea,’ he said, as if she was dirt on his shoe. ‘But there’s another personal reason too. What I would term . . . professional misconduct.’

  Now a grainy but clear image of Thea and Reicke in the hot-tub in Vienna came up on the large screen at the far end of the table.

  ‘Turn it off,’ Thea said. She slammed the lid shut.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Brett chastised her, grinning widely – triumphantly – at her now. ‘Because this really is one of my favourite films. I like the bit where you let him fuck you over the tub.’ There was a malevolent glint in his eye. ‘Now, then. You could accept your resignation and go quietly in a dignified way, or I could easily email this file to, say, your good friend Michael?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  November 2009

  Lars Artman jolted awake. Careful not to disturb his daughter, Gretchen, who had once again slipped into his bed, he rolled back the heavy duvet and got up. He picked up Gretchen’s worn and much-loved teddy bear and placed it in her arms, before tenderly smoothing her blonde hair from her face.

  Lars shivered in the pre-dawn cold, treading as quietly as he could across the bare floorboards into the sitting room.

  Pale-yellow lamplight from the Amsterdam street below spilled through a crack in the curtains. Beyond the kitchen table, which Lars had dragged through here and which was now crowded with laptops and papers – as well as the remains of last night’s Indonesian takeaway – the sofa bed was pulled out.

  Beneath a twist of white sheets Lars saw the long, angular shape of Romy Scolari. Her brow was wet with sweat.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d woken him in the night. She hardly ever slept, but when she did . . . this happened. It wouldn’t have mattered so much, he supposed, if she hadn’t already been so exhausted. But as it was, she hardly ever ate, and only remembered to drink water when he told her to. He was scared she would burn herself out.

  She’d arrived here unannounced three days ago, on Thursday morning, just after he’d got back from a two-week business trip to India and had been about to go to the office.

  When the doorbell had sounded, but no one had spoken into the intercom, Lars had assumed it was a delivery. He’d gone down to open the front door, only to be confronted by his old neighbour, Susan, standing there, trembling visibly, wearing dark sunglasses and a hat pulled down low on her head.

  Except that she wasn’t Susan any more, he’d remembered. She was Romy Scolari.

  Lars had become the subject of much ribbing at the agency since his neighbour’s true identity had been splashed all over the Dutch and international media. His colleagues had thought it typical of his ignorance of celebrity gossip that he’d had a supermodel living upstairs and hadn’t even realized. What kind of an investigator was he, they’d all joked, if he couldn’t even see what was going on right under his nose?

  But why should I have guessed her real identity? That’s what Lars thought now, staring down at Romy’s dark hair, streaked in damp fronds across her face, resisting the urge to tidy them as he’d just done for Gretchen. Wasn’t being a model just the name of her old job, not the actual person she was at all?

  All Lars had known right from the start was that his new English neighbour had been disarmingly attractive. So much so, in fact, that he hadn’t even been able to look her properly in the face those first few times they’d spoken, for fear he might actually gawp.

  Even dressing down the way she’d done, without make-up or any other obvious signs of care for her appearance, her striking natural beauty had been impossible to miss.

  But not only had she not dressed like a model, she hadn’t conducted herself like one, either. Lars had witnessed none of the prima-donna behaviour that the press so often associated with such types.

  In fact, after he’d got over his initial nerves about speaking to he
r, she’d just become Susan – his shy, but charming neighbour, and a good and loving mother to her son, Alfie. He’d got to know her a little then, but certainly not as much as he’d have liked. And certainly not enough to have ever expected to see her sleeping here in his apartment.

  After she’d gone back to Italy, from time to time he’d tapped her name into Google and had read the news-bites covering her re-emergence into society and her blossoming into a successful businesswoman.

  She’d emailed him a few times when she’d first left, just some personal details, such as how Alfie had been getting on and how much she still missed her husband, but also what a wonderful extended family she now had. But then her emails had fizzled out.

  Lars had tried to imagine what it must have been like for her, living such a glamorous lifestyle with Alfie, and had concluded that she probably felt much more at home there than she had ever done here.

  He’d been happy for her, but he’d missed her all the same, and had sometimes even regretted his shyness with her while she’d been living here. But he’d come to accept, too, that they were now from different worlds and he’d probably never see her again.

  Only now here she was.

  It had been a big enough shock to see her back here in Amsterdam. Without an entourage, or even a chauffeur. An even greater shock to discover that she’d come without her son.

  But what had shocked Lars most had been that, beneath her dark glasses, Romy’s dark-blue eyes had been red-rimmed from crying and her lips dry from dehydration. She’d looked like some kind of hunted creature, as if at any second she might collapse.

  He’d taken her in and up to his apartment – glad, so glad, that Gretchen had been with her mother until Saturday and therefore had not been here – and had listened as Romy’s whole story had poured out.

  She’d told him about how horrendous the last month of her life had been and how she’d had to flee Italy because she’d been blackmailed by a man called Brett Maddox into signing over her Scolari shares, thereby allowing the media giant, Maddox Inc., to take control of her family’s firm.

  More terrifying still, she’d confessed to Lars about all the information they’d used to blackmail her. About her husband’s killers coming from Germany, from her past. A past that involved her horrible escape from an abusive orphanage, and how she’d had to kill a boy to protect her best friend, she’d claimed, and Lars had believed her.

  She’d begged Lars then to forgive her for coming to him. But this had been the only place she’d been able to think of where she might find sanctuary, and Lars had been the only person in the world she’d known who might have the skills to help her make amends for what she’d done, and – most important of all – get her precious Alfie back.

  And it was this, even more than the affection and pity Lars had felt for Romy, that had clinched his support. The thought of having Gretchen taken from him. The thought that anyone could stoop so low as this man Brett Maddox. The thought that anyone could ever put money and power above a mother and her child.

  Romy Scolari was in trouble all right. But Lars would do all he could to protect her. Using every skill and contact he had, he would try and win back her boy for her.

  She let out a shuddering groan. He crouched down and gently squeezed her arm. He couldn’t stand it any more, seeing her look so scared. ‘Hey,’ he whispered as she twisted in her sleep.

  Romy woke with a start from her nightmare: Ulrich, the dogs, Claudia on the ground. The same nightmare she’d had all her life. Only this time it had been worse. This time they’d been adults and she’d been running, with sirens at her back . . . police and fire engines had hurtled, somersaulting, past her, bouncing off the tarmac, exploding into flames . . . Then she’d heard Alfonso screaming . . . and then their son – and she’d known that they were all about to die.

  ‘I wanted to leave you to sleep,’ Lars said, his face swimming into focus, ‘but I worried you might wake Gretchen up again.’

  Romy sat up on the sofa bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She looked up at Lars in the dim light. He was wearing stripy pyjama bottoms and a tatty grey T-shirt. He smiled at her gently. As he yawned and stretched, she saw the lean curve of his hips. His hair was messed up and his jaw was thick with stubble.

  Romy looked at her watch on the small coffee table by the sofa. It was five in the morning.

  ‘Do you want some tea?’ Lars asked. ‘I’m awake now. I thought I might as well stay up.’

  ‘Sure. Thanks,’ Romy said, suddenly aware that she was wearing only her knickers and bra.

  As Lars padded into the kitchen, she pulled the sheet tighter around her, lay back down on the bed and felt herself slipping back into a darkness. A moment later, when she opened her eyes, she found herself disorientated, as if she’d just been dredged up from the bottom of the sea.

  It was this apartment. It had the same layout as the one she’d had upstairs. For a fleeting second, hope soared through her, as she imagined Alfie might be sleeping safely behind the door just over there. It was all she could do not to leap out of bed and push it open, but she knew it was only Lars’s storeroom and was filled with coats and skis.

  And not her precious son.

  She swung her legs off the side of the sofa bed and pulled on one of Lars’s old sweatshirts that he’d lent her, then buried her face in her hands. Even though she was awake, the nightmare of her real life persisted.

  Because that bastard Maddox had done it anyway. After he’d blackmailed her into signing over Scolari, he’d leaked the information he had on her to the press. To ensure that she’d never come back. To blacken the Scolari family name. To break Roberto by breaking his heart.

  The first television report about how Romy Scolari had covered up her connection to Alfonso’s murderers – and how she herself was still wanted for questioning in Germany in connection with a young cadet’s murder – had appeared less than an hour after the conclusion of her meeting with Brett Maddox, Franco Moretti and their lawyer, during which she’d signed over her Scolari shares to Maddox Inc.

  Afterwards Romy had gone to her office to clear out her personal possessions, under the watchful eyes of two security guards who only two hours before had owed their loyalty to her. Brett’s first move as acting Managing Director of Scolari had been to fire Romy. But even in her fury over the unjust way in which she’d been manipulated and usurped, all she’d been able to think about was how she was ever going to break the news to poor Roberto.

  Now, she decided, shutting her desk drawer for what would be the final time. She’d have to do it now. She’d have to tell him the truth: that she’d sold the shares to protect his family from a public scandal that would have consumed them all like a fire. She’d have to tell Roberto about Fox, she decided. About what she’d done. And why. She’d have to tell him and pray he’d forgive her. But not the fact that she knew Ulrich and Claudia. He didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know what her secret past had done to his son.

  One of the security guard’s intercoms crackled. A static-laced voice hissed a garbled message into the guard’s ear. He walked to Romy’s old desk, picked up the control and switched on the wall TV.

  ‘Mr Maddox said there’s something you should see,’ he told Romy impassively, as the screen flickered into life.

  A photograph of Romy’s face stood alongside an excited newscaster.

  That’s when Romy discovered that Maddox had betrayed her and had gone public with everything he knew – everything, including her prior knowledge of Ulrich and Claudia. He might have given Romy the dossier in exchange for her selling her shares, but he’d kept a copy. And he’d given that copy to the press.

  Romy reached Villa Gasperi less than twenty minutes later. But as she drove in through the new steel gates, she was greeted by silence. Cesca’s party was over. The guests had all gone. Glasses were still half-full, plates of food left half-eaten, the flares in the marquee still alight, the record o
n the DJ turntable hissing with static.

  As Romy hurried through the courtyard, a movement caught her eye and she looked up at one of the second-floor windows. A curtain there snapped shut. But before it did, Romy was certain she saw Maria’s face.

  ‘In here,’ Roberto’s voice boomed out, as she closed the front door behind her.

  There were no staff in sight. As Romy passed the kitchen, she saw it was still in a mess. Dirty dishes and wine bottles lay stacked in piles on the floor. As if in the middle of their job, the entire staff had walked out. Or were dismissed, Romy realized, nausea rising up inside her now. Or were dismissed when Roberto cancelled the party and sent everybody home.

  ‘Maria has told me of her stupidity,’ Roberto said as she walked into his study. ‘And about how Franco took advantage of her and went behind my back.’

  He was sitting behind his desk, a half-drunk bottle of whisky gripped in his fist. He gazed at her flatly. His face was a mask of indifference. It frightened her more than if he’d been angry. This was his boardroom face, the one that already had all the answers, which had already made all the decisions.

  ‘And now I learn that you have signed over your own shareholding too,’ he said.

  ‘They blackmailed me. Brett Maddox—’

  ‘Yes.’ He cut her off. ‘I imagined as much. From that.’ He gestured with his bottle towards the television news channel, showing his own face, playing silently on the wall. ‘They lied to you, and told you they would keep all that quiet. And you agreed because you thought you had no choice.’

  Relief burst inside Romy. So he did understand. Even though she’d known Ulrich and Claudia, Roberto was still on her side.

  ‘But you did have a choice not to lie to us,’ he said. ‘Not to lie about your past. For all this time.’ The betrayal that he felt was clear in his voice.

  ‘Roberto, please. I’m sorry. Let me explain. I—’

  ‘Explain why you’ve let us keep you so close, when you’ve done all these terrible things? Things that you knew would undo our family if they ever came to light?’