Текст книги "The Billionaire Banker"
Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
Twenty nine
Your hands are inside my heart.
Blake stands on the embankment and watches the water rushing by. He thinks of Lana and feels confused. There is a room inside her that he can’t enter. It is like the room inside him that she cannot enter. It is where she keeps all the hurts he has caused. There are other things in that room, too. She has secrets now. He tries to imagine what else could be hidden there.
A man talking loudly on his cell phone in some European language intrudes on his musings. He glances away from the water at the tramps sleeping rough. For the first time in his life he sees them as people. People who have fallen on hard times because of the things that his family is doing. They are not the real parasites. She was right that night when she accused him and his family of being the parasites. He has always known. He has just never cared before. His phone rings. He looks at it. Marcus.
‘Hello.’
His brother gets to the point immediately. ‘Morgan just called me. Why is his loan still pending?’
‘Morgan is a crook.’
There is a shocked silence and then his brother sighs heavily. ‘What’s going on with you, Blake?’
‘Nothing. It bugs me to approve the loan. This green energy thing is a scam.’
‘Of course it is. And so what?’
‘Why do we have to be part of everything crooked?’
‘My God, you’re beginning to sound like Quinn,’ his brother says referring to their youngest sibling. Quinn turned his back on the family fortune and ran off to Paris to be an artist.’
‘I’m beginning to think Quinn had the right idea.’
‘It’s a big account—government approved. We’re just facilitating the funds.’
‘We’re always only facilitating the funds.’
‘Father worked hard to get us on board. The other banks will kill for an opportunity like this.’
Blake sighed. ‘I’ll sign off on the papers in the morning.’
‘I don’t care about the loan—what I care about is what’s happening to you? You’re still in training. You can’t get soft, Blake. These are shark-infested waters you’re swimming in. They’ll eat you alive. The entire system is corrupt. You can’t fight it. If you try to, it will only break you.’
‘Yeah. Just having a bad day, I guess.’
‘Have you spoken to Victoria?’
Blake frowns. ‘No, why?’
‘Nothing. Her father was telling me you haven’t called in some weeks. It’s not a good thing to leave these things for too long.’
Blake does something he has never done before. He confides in his brother.
‘I think I might have found someone.’
‘Someone? What do you mean someone?’
‘I think I’m in love.’
‘What?’ The burst of sound is so explosive and sudden that Blake has to pull the phone away from his ear and hold it away.
‘Hell! Blake! Have you lost your mind?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Not one of us.’
‘Set her up in an apartment and visit her every day until you are bored of her.’
Blake smiles in the dark. ‘Done that.’
‘You’ve fallen for a gold-digger!’
‘She’s not a gold-digger.’
‘They all are.’
‘Well, she’s not.’
‘Look, Blake, don’t fuck this up. This is your future. You have to marry Victoria.’
‘I don’t have to do anything. I don’t want to end up like you. A wife you detest, three kids you never see, and cold fucks with models and movie stars in luxurious apartments and hotel rooms.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
Blake sighs.
‘You’re going to fuck this up, aren’t you? This is not a club, Blake. You can’t terminate your membership and walk away. There are consequences.’
‘Quinn did.’
‘You’re not Quinn,’ he says, his voice heavy with meaning.
‘Look, I got to go. I’ll call you soon. Bye, Marcus.’
Blake cuts the call and stands looking at the cold, black water.
‘Spare some change,’ someone says from behind him.
He turns back. A tramp. He puts his hand into his pocket, but there is no ‘change’ in his pocket. He never carries change. He opens his wallet. There is nothing there but fifty-pound notes. He pulls one out and holds it out by the corner. The tramp’s eyes widen.
‘God bless you, sir,’ he cries delightedly, and staggers away to spend the money on more booze. Blake looks up and watches a star tumble from the sky. And takes it as a sign. He wants to go back to the apartment and get into bed beside her, but he won’t. That will be a bad idea. She will be asleep and he would only wake her and want to get into that beautiful body. No, he will go back to his own apartment and tomorrow he will tell her. He is madly in love with her.
He sends her a text:
Meet me for breakfast outside the café? 9am. X
Lana is not asleep. She looks at his message. Even the thought of breakfast makes her feel sick, but she will go anyway. Perhaps she will have some black coffee and pretend she is on a diet or something. She wonders where he is. Why has he not come to her? Has he begun to lose interest? So quickly? Alone, she goes to sleep and sleeps badly, tossing and turning. Eventually, when she falls into a deep sleep, dawn is in the sky.
Her alarm goes off at eight a.m. and she dresses hurriedly. She pulls an Alice hairband on, dresses in a long shirt and navy and white trousers. There is no bump yet, but it seems like a good idea to start dressing in loose attire. She leans against the mirror and fights the nausea. She shouldn’t have agreed to go, but she doesn’t want to make him suspicious. She waves to Mr. Nair and walks out of the building.
The café is only down the street.
As she walks her thoughts wander. What will become of her and the little life growing inside her? She puts her head down and makes a decision.
She steps onto the road and hears a shout. ‘Watch out!’
In that split second, she sees Blake running towards her. He is no longer shouting. As if in slow motion she turns and sees a car speeding towards her. But her feet are unable to move. Rooted to the spot. Even far into the future she will remember how she saw everything so clearly it was like looking through a very clean glass. How Blake, his eyes urgent and full of desperate fear reached her and with both hands pushed her with such force that she was thrown backward out of harm’s way.
The car ploughs into him instead. She lies on the ground and watches him flying in the air like a rag doll to land on the other side of the street. Even from her prone position she can see the stream of blood running away from his head into the grey asphalt.
She stands and runs to him screaming. He is lying on his front, but his head is turned in her direction.
‘Are you all right?’ he mumbles vaguely in the direction of her voice, but his eyes seem unable to focus.
‘I’m fine,’ she sobs, and he closes his eyes and falls into some deep, dark place.
Someone has already called the police and the ambulance is quick to arrive. They take him to the nearest emergency room, but Lana is keenly aware that his family will want him to be taken to the best hospital. She takes his mobile and finds Marcus’s number.
‘Hello,’ she says. Her voice is strangely calm. It must be the shock, she thinks.
‘Who’s this?’ comes the suspicious reply.
‘Blake has been in a road accident.’ Her voice shakes on the word accident. ‘He’s been taken to the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. I just thought you should know.’
‘How bad is he?’
‘It looks like a head injury, but there might be other internal things that I don’t know about.’
‘Are you at the hospital right now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you wait for me? I’ll be right there.’
Lana sits on a chair. She feels numb. There is blood on her wrists and hands. Blake’s blood. Suspended inside her cloud of shock she stares at it blankly. She touches it with a finger. It feels sticky. I’m not dreaming, this is really happening, her brain says. She wipes her hand on her stained navy and white trousers, takes out her own mobile and calls Billie.
Billie is quicker to arrive than Marcus. The sight of Billie’s worried face hurrying towards her undoes her.
‘Oh, Billie,’ she sobs. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going. If he had not pushed me out of the way it would have been me that the car hit.’
‘Banker boy threw himself under a car to save you?’
Lana stops crying as she registers what she has not with the shock. But he is cold and unemotional. He hardly ever touches her unless he wants to have sex. Why? Why did he do that?
‘People only do that for the people they love,’ Billie says.
‘He doesn’t love me. If you knew what kind of relationship we have you’d never say that. He must have acted instinctively.’
Billie says nothing. Her eyes are on the door. ‘Here comes big brother.’
Lana turns in the direction Billie is looking in. Indeed, it is Blake’s brother; he has the same superior air. He is standing at the door scanning the room. As soon as he spots them he comes over. His surprised eyes slide quickly over the spiders climbing on Billie’s throat, but he addresses Lana, as if he instinctively recognizes the type of woman his brother could fall in love with.
‘I’m Marcus. You must be the one who called me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. Where is my brother now?’
She points towards the desk. ‘They won’t tell me anything.’
‘What happened?’
‘He pushed me out of the way of a speeding car and took the hit himself.’
Marcus’s face is incredulous. ‘My brother did that?’
Tears began to roll unchecked down Lana’s face. She feels like a fool crying in front of that disapproving stranger, but the tears refuse to stop.
He looks at the tears unemotionally. ‘It will be the shock,’ he says.
Lana nods.
He glances quickly at the two ladies behind the reception desk, obviously eager to talk to them. ‘Look, if you give me your name and address, I will be happy to compensate you for what you have done.’
Lana feels as if he has slapped her. She takes a shocked step away from him. She remembers Blake saying, we are not like you. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she says.
An expression passes across his face. Irritation. ‘Well, thank you for calling me, anyway.’ He turns away from them and begins to walk towards the enquiries desk. Then he remembers, stops and comes back to her. ‘Can I have my brother’s phone back, please?’
Silently she puts the phone into his outstretched hand.
‘Thank you again for what you did for my brother,’ he says awkwardly.
Lana nods. She feels Billie’s hand come around her waist.
Marcus strides away. After the fear, the guilt, and the worry, the shock of his brother’s utter rejection finishes her. She sags weakly against Billie.
‘Fucking heartless, rude bastard. Fuck them and their pissy billions. They can keep it.’ She leads Lana outside and hails a black cab. They get in and do not speak during the journey, but Billie tightly holds Lana’s hand in hers for the entire duration of the trip.
When they get out of the cab, Lana retches and is sick by the side of the road. An old biddy walking on the other side of the road stops to stare and Billie hails her to ask if she has a tissue. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she says, and crosses the road. She fishes a handkerchief from her handbag. ‘What’s the matter with the poor child?’
‘She’s pregnant,’ Billie says.
Lana’s eyes swing around to Billie.
Billie claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God! You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’
‘Can I have the handkerchief back?’ the old biddy whines plaintively.
Billie takes the soiled cloth from Lana and ungratefully stuffs it into the woman’s hand. ‘Thanks, love. You want to stock up on tissues in future. More hygienic.’
The woman leaves with a sniff and Billie turns to Lana. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I just found out myself. Besides, I can’t keep it.’
Billie’s eyes open wide. ‘What?’
Lana blinks back the tears. ‘It’s in my contract. If I don’t terminate I will forfeit all rights to it. I’m not going to give up my baby to that cold bunch.’
Billie’s eyes flash. ‘They can’t do that.’
‘They can, Bill. The way they feel about crushing us is the way you feel about killing a row of ants heading towards your jam jar.’
‘Who do they think you are? Fucking Oliver Twist? Please, sir, can I have some more, sir? You know what? I haven’t used any of the money that you gave me. Let’s give that back to them and work out some plan where we pay the rest back with interest.’
Lana shakes her head tiredly. ‘Oh, Bill, they don’t want the money back. It’s all about their precious bloodline. The purity of the great Barrington line must be safeguarded at all costs. And any bastard children must go back to the Barrington care. They don’t trust the likes of us to bring up children properly.’
Billie looks as though she is about to go into one. A very long and loud rant.
‘Not now, Bill. Please. I just want to go somewhere I can sit.’
Billie holds out her hand. ‘Come. I’ll take you home.’
‘I don’t want my mum to know.’
‘It’s OK, we’ll go to mine and you can clean up there. We don’t have to tell anyone.’
‘Remember when you said you didn’t know whether you would share your lottery money with me if you ever did win?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Now you know, don’t you?’
Billie smiles sadly. ‘Yeah, now I know.’
Thirty
Victoria walks up to the nurse smiling deferentially at her.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Montgomery.’
‘Good afternoon. How is he today?’
‘He seems better. I just looked in on him a few minutes ago and he was asleep, but he was conscious for a few minutes this morning, and seemed desperate to know if someone called Lana was all right? Do you know this person?’
Victoria can’t stop the pure rush of shock that invades her body. She shutters her beautiful green and smiles. ‘If he asks again, tell him not to worry about her. She is fine.’
‘I certainly will, Miss Montgomery.’
Victoria nods politely and walks down the corridor. Her heart feels as if it is breaking. She enters the room tentatively. It is quiet and full of flowers. Her eyes move to his face. His eyes are closed. She walks up to his bed and stands looking down on his sleeping face. He looks so pale under his dark tan. She knows it is very dull of her, but she loves this man. She doesn’t even care that her friends call her Sticky Vicky behind her back.
‘Oh, darling,’ she whispers. ‘What a perfectly awful fright you gave me.’ She takes his big hand in her small dainty ones and caresses the inside of his wrist. Every since she met him at her garden party when she was ten years old she has loved him.
‘I’m going to marry that boy,’ she told her father. Her father threw back his head and laughed but over the years, he has been shocked by her total dedication to ‘that boy’. While Blake indulged in his meaningless affairs and liaisons she refused to seriously date anyone else. Of course, her father did not and would never know about the drunken one-night stands. Those didn’t count.
She lets her finger trace a vein. There is nothing she will not do for this man. She bends down and kisses that straight mouth. His lips feel cool. She remembers that other time she pressed her lips to his. Then, he was fifteen. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and looked at her scornfully. ‘You’re just a baby. Lip kisses are for grown-ups,’ he chided.
She gently pushes back a piece of hair that has strayed onto his forehead and smoothes it down. She knows he is not in love with her. But she can live with that. She wants him on any terms. She wants his seed in her. She wants to see him in her children’s faces. She wants to watch the grey appear in his temples, and she wants to sit out in her father’s French seaside home when they are old, watching the sunset. A fond look. An affectionate smile, a caring touch from him would be enough for her.
For a long time, she simply sits with her cheek against his hand. Eventually, there is a noise at the door and she turns her head.
Marcus has entered the room. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the room for a moment.
‘Hello, Marcus,’ she says.
‘Hey,’ he says and coming to her, kisses both her cheeks.
‘The nurse told me he regained consciousness for a short while. Did he say anything?’
She shakes her head. She didn’t want to tell him about Lana. ‘How did it happen?’
‘I don’t know…exactly,’ he says evasively, and moves to the other side of the bed. He didn’t want to tell her about Lana. About the stupid thing his brother did for love.
Victoria knows he is hiding something from her. Now she knows his accident has something to do with that Lana woman he has installed in a penthouse in St John’s Wood. But all this while she thought it was not serious. That it was a strictly sex thing. She saw the contract, after all.
‘I guess I’ll come back in the evening,’ she says.
She closes the door and walks along the corridor. She hates the smell of hospitals. It always reminds her of her grandmother. The many months she spent in a hospital bed before she died. As she rounds the corner she stops and takes a step back. The nurse at the desk is talking to Blake’s tart and a ghoul-like creature covered in tattoos.
Anger bubbles inside her. These low people. How dare they? How dare they show up at this hospital where her father could very well come to? The cheek of it. She hears the nurse very firmly enforce the instructions she has left. ’I’m sorry but I have very strict instructions not to let anyone but the family members on this list.’
It looks to Victoria as if the ghoul would fight it out but Blake’s tart takes a step back and the ghoul says loudly, ‘You’re right, Lana, leave these stuck-up, la di da shits to get on with it.’ She grabs the Lana’s hand and pulls her away. They do not see Victoria. Now Victoria knows. Something has to be done.
Thirty one
The doorbell rings and Lana turns in surprise and simply stares at the door. None of her friends are allowed to visit, so she has never had a visitor. There is always somebody at her mother’s door wanting to borrow a hairdryer, a pen, red lipstick, a sparkly handbag, or something. But here? Such a possibility does not even cross her mind.
She walks to the door and opens it. There is a woman standing outside. She looks to be in her early twenties. She is dressed as if she is going to a lawn party. In an elegant linen dress and black pearls. Dully Lana notes that she would never have thought to combine black pearls with such an outfit. Her blonde hair is held back by a black band. She has very good skin and is wearing pale lipstick. Her mouth curves into a smile. From every pore of her flawless skin exudes good breeding and finishing school class. She is pure style.
You can live in a fine home, wear the right clothes and even go to the right parties but you will never be one of us, her very being seems to say.
‘Hello, I’m Victoria. May I come in?’
Lana cannot stop staring at her. So this is the woman that Blake is going to marry. This is the woman who will have his babies and live with him.
‘Please,’ Victoria says.
Lana opens the door wider and stands back.
Victoria enters. She looks around the room, but refrains from commenting. Lana precedes her into the living room and turns around to face her.
‘You are prettier in real life,’ Victoria says.
Lana doesn’t know if she should acknowledge the compliment.
‘May I sit?’
Lana nods and Victoria perches. Her movements are all dainty. She puts the small pink purse she has been holding in her hand into her lap and crosses her legs at her slim ankles. She smiles again. ‘Will you sit too?’
Lana flushes and sits. This is not the woman’s place and yet it seems she has somehow taken charge.
‘I know you are shocked to see me here and even more shocked to see that I neither hate nor feel angry with you. You see, our ways are different. You’ll probably never understand so I won’t try to explain too much. Suffice to say that I don’t think it is ideal, but I have been trained to understand that men must sow their wild oats before they settle down, so I allow it. I can see what’s going through you.’
Lana makes a strangled sound in her throat.
‘You are thinking and hoping for exactly the same thing that every woman who has signed one of these sordid agreements and who then falls in love wants. You want Blake to fall in love with you and marry you. But he never will. Men like Blake have been taught since they were knee high how to take, how to have their cake and eat it in every situation. Marrying you or staying with you will not be that. This agreement until he gets bored and then marrying me will be the options most desirable to our men. And that is what Blake will do too. Has he in any way suggested more than this arrangement? Perhaps given you hope for a different future with him?’
Woodenly, Lana shakes her head.
‘You see, the most important thing for us is to secure the right bloodlines for our children and ensure our wealth is not dissipated away into careless hands. Blake knows where his loyalties lie. Consequently, I fear nothing from you. If anything, I feel sorry for you and want to be fair to you. I can see that you are in love with him, and in the end, you will be left with nothing more than a broken heart.
‘Well, I guess I might as well come to the point. Nobody knows I’m here and Mummy would scream blue murder if she knew I was.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘I know about your contract and I know it will expire in six weeks.’
‘How?’
‘I have my ways. It is not important to our discussion today. Strange as it may seem, I am now your only friend.’
Lana has been staring at the carpet but at her words her head snaps up. She cannot imagine a scenario where this proud, self-assured woman could be her friend. Let alone her only friend.
‘What is important to you must be that you are adequately compensated at the end of your time here.’ She pauses meaningfully. ‘Of course, there is a possibility that Blake will extend or renew the contract for another three months. Then again there is the possibility he will not. I am here to offer you a hundred thousand pounds for you to leave…not at the end of the contract, but today without any explanation. There is no punitive action allowed in your contract if you end it earlier than its term.’
Lana looks at her with shock. She has glanced through the contract so fast she has not even registered that clause. Yet this woman has perused the contract carefully and is here to bargain with her. ‘I will increase the amount to two hundred thousand pounds if you will leave the country. No note. No goodbyes. Just gone.’
No note. No goodbyes. Just gone.
Wow! Lana looks at the young woman who sits so brazenly before her and feels a bubble of hysterical laughter forming in her throat. She stands up and walks to the glass wall. Far below there are small children playing with a dog in the park. With her back to the woman, she closes her eyes. She tries to think, but her mind is blank.
‘Did you think that the billionaire’s son would marry the poor girl from the council estate?’
Lana flushes. ‘Of course not.’
Except for that once when she tasted her name joined with his, she has not really thought that. Always from the start it has been made clear to her that it is a purely temporary arrangement based solely on sex. He has only ever wanted her for one thing and he has been brutally honest about it. There have been no protestations of love or flowery words. Just an animal craving for her skin.
As if the woman opposite her has heard her thoughts she remarks quietly, ‘Cravings go away.’
‘Please leave,’ she says, and does not turn around. She hears the woman stand. ‘You will regret this one day,’ the woman says. There is no malice in her voice. She is simply stating a fact. Unemotionally.
‘If you change your mind, my card is on the table. Please don’t mention my visit to anyone.’
Lana nods. She hears the door close and she goes to stand in front of the beautiful gilded mirror. She looks at herself. How changed she is. Her eyes are full of pain. There are bruises under her eyes where there were none. Her hand moves to her belly. Soon she will be showing. She thinks of the woman. The heartless determination hidden within the beautiful exterior. Between them, they will kill the life growing inside her. She loves Blake but for him she is only a wild oat.
She must think of the little one inside her now. Secure his or her future. She presses her hand to her mouth and stops the cry that threatens to escape. Tears are running down her face. She wipes them with the back of her hand and runs out of the door. Victoria is waiting by the lift. She turns to look at Lana. And for that one pure moment, Lana understands how murderers feel. She wants to steal this woman’s heartbeat, take her life and the man that fate has so arbitrarily assigned to her.
‘I’ll take…’ Lana’s voice breaks. She forces herself to spit out the words,…’the money.’
The woman smiles. It is not the smile of a victor. It is not malicious. It is not unkind. Neither is it pitying nor condescending. It is simply the lucky smile of a woman who has never been refused anything her heart desires.
