He’d fought in all four corners of the globe and taken on assignments no one else was willing to entertain. He’d spent time in anger management—that she wasn’t surprised about, and she was sure it hadn’t worked—time under psychiatric care after the death of his wife and child—she wasn’t sure that had worked either—and he’d also been a bodyguard for an Austrian princess. She didn’t like the idea of that.
She knew she couldn’t take the file with her, but she was sure one photo wouldn’t be missed, and she didn’t have any of her own. She needed something to refer to, because no matter what people said, memories did fade. There was one that said it was taken in Mexico. Nathan had been part of a team sent in to extract a billionaire UK businessman after he was taken hostage. In the photo, he was half-smiling, wearing combat gear and camouflage paint, but it was his eyes that made her want that picture. They were staring out of the photo as if they were looking straight at her. She wanted to keep that image, and hold it in her heart forever.
Forty-Two
‘Now, how about some eggs? I’ve got some salmon we could have with it.’
She wasn’t sure she liked the new mother who had come into her life. She had installed Autumn in the spare room of her luxury house in Mayfair, and had hardly left her side. She knew she should be grateful for finally receiving the love and attention she had craved, but it was already starting to suffocate her.
‘Mother, I don’t like fish,’ Autumn reminded her.
‘But, Autumn, you hardly ate a thing last night. You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to travel to the US tomorrow.’
That trip was another bone of contention between them. It was less than a week since her kidnapping, but she had decided to travel back to America to take part in the IMAs.
She had done three solid days of sitting in the spare room at her mother’s house, looking at the gilded wallpaper and counting the number of flecks in each strip. She couldn’t think about anything else but Nathan. The photo she sometimes kept on the nightstand—but mainly in her hand—was the only thing she looked at apart from the wallpaper. She’d picked at meals her mother had brought in, meals Alison had no doubt paid a fortune for to be delivered, as there was no way they were homecooked. Then, as soon as her mother was out of the room and out of earshot, she had sloped off to the en-suite and thrown up what little she had eaten. On the third day, Nathan’s eyes told her she was wasting away, not through lack of nourishment, but through lack of will. Her will had left her, and she didn’t know what to do. Long-term, she still didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t want to be holed up in her mother’s house. It was almost as bad as being held prisoner in a warehouse. The only difference was filtered water on tap and Egyptian cotton sheets.
She needed something else to think about. She needed a distraction, and the IMAs were her distraction of choice. The sooner she got back into the world, the sooner those photos of her after the kidnapping—after the death of her boyfriend, after the Rockweiler/Janey debacle, after Blu-Daddy—were published, the sooner she could move on. Where she was going, she didn’t know, but she had to get this done before she made any real decisions about the future.
‘I am going. You won’t change my mind,’ Autumn said, picking up a cup of coffee.
‘I know.’
‘And I don’t want you to come with me. I’ll have the usual team of… security.’
She’d hesitated slightly before she’d said the word. It didn’t feel right. Nothing felt quite right. It was like the past couple of weeks of her life had meant more than the rest of her life put together, and now she was at a loss.
‘I’ve hired someone to go with you, a new PA. You can’t go without someone to manage your schedule. If you win those awards, Autumn, there will be meetings and television interviews. You can’t coordinate that yourself, and the last person from the record company was utterly useless,’ Alison said, breaking eggs into a bowl and getting yolk on the sleeve of her blouse.
‘Mother! You can’t just hire someone without asking me! Look what happened the last time you did that.’
She tried not to cry, but the tears were at her eyes so easily these days. Two sprang forth and fell down her face. She grabbed a linen napkin from the table and swiped at them.
‘It will get easier, Autumn. It might never go away, but it will get easier,’ Alison said, her tone soft.
Autumn put her coffee cup down with a shaky hand. ‘I don’t want it to go away. I never want to forget him.’
The intercom heralded a caller, and Alison moved into the hallway to answer it. Autumn let out a heavy sigh and picked up a piece of toast. She wasn’t hungry, but Alison was right about America. She didn’t want to turn up there frail and ready for nothing but collapse. Nathan had fought his whole life, and that’s what she had to do. She had to honor his life. She had to win those awards for him. And when she did, she would stand on that stage and tell the world how much she loved him.
Alison returned to the kitchen. ‘Autumn, the new PA is on her way up. Will you let her cook you some eggs?’ she asked.
‘You mean, she cooks as well as handling my schedule? What else does she do?’
‘People say I am quite good at braiding hair, child.’
Autumn choked on a mouth full of air as Tawanda entered the room, her hands in the pockets of her denim pinafore dress.
Autumn leaped from the table and ran to the
