Power Games

‘Life is too short to argue. Respect your father’s decision.’

‘I do respect him. If only he’d extend me the same courtesy.’

‘He loves you very much.’

‘That isn’t the same thing.’

Angela bit her tongue. Isabella didn’t understand her wish to take the spotlight. As far back as she could remember, whatever her fathers and brothers were doing had been infinitely more exhilarating—the closed doors, the hushed voices, the secret conversations, the covert business trips. Angela didn’t care about baking and flower-arranging and the correct way to iron a suit shirt, and while she adored her mother, as women they couldn’t be less alike.

Home wasn’t enough.

Angela wanted more.

She preferred the south steps to taking the main stairs. ‘Why?’ her girlfriends used to pout, as they flounced prettily down the banisters like Cinderellas at the ball. ‘It makes me feel like a princess!’ Which, Angela saw now, was precisely why.

Her old room was on the second floor. The bed, immaculately made with peach sheets and silky fat pillows, was against the window. A stack of plump, fresh towels was arranged at its foot. Angela pressed one to her face and inhaled.

She settled on the linen, listening to the delicate tick-tick of a carriage clock and the occasional flutter of birdsong. In her bedside drawer were a collection of journals (ANGELA’S DIARY: KEEP OUT!), trinkets, postcards and jewellery.

Inside one of the diaries was a photograph. Her fingers traced its familiar edges. Slowly, she drew it out. Noah.

Her favourite picture of him, on that first summer they spent together.

Scruffy blond hair, bronzed skin, mischievous blue eyes …

He’d been the neighbourhood bad boy: bad family, bad schooling, bad all over. They had come from different ends of the earth.

But Angela hadn’t cared. Not even then.

Everyone else had treated her like a queen—but not Noah. Noah had treated her like a friend. They had both been outsiders, in their way. He had been ostracised by the rich for failing to meet their standards, while Angela, wealthy beyond reason, harboured her own kind of leprosy: ordinary people were too afraid to touch.

She leaned on the windowsill, her chin resting in the heel of her hand, and looked out at leafy Bourton Avenue. She remembered waiting here on sultry nights, waiting for Noah to arrive on the steps so that they could exchange dreams with each other long into the dark. Outlawed by her father, they had held the secret of their friendship, and Angela had longed to be able to reach down and take his hand. Noah had written her poems, thrown the words up to the open window like whispered confetti.

She touched the silver band she wore on her first finger.

She knew what she had to do. She had to set the past to rest.

Noah, I’m yours. She would tell her father tonight.

Donald Silvers’ library was rich with leather and the scent of wood. Behind him, through the arched portico, Italianate lawns were aglow in the glare of the outdoor lamps, the fountains on, spraying the grass with diamond dewdrops. Their empire stretched as far as the eye could see: her father’s, Orlando’s, Luca’s … but not hers.

‘Skip the bullshit.’ Angela cut to the chase. ‘Why not me?’

‘The boys are ready.’ Donald eased back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘It’s time they stepped up to the plate.’

‘It’s time you credited me. I know why you did it. It’s because I’m a girl.’

‘It’s because you’re the youngest.’

‘Orlando, fine—but Luca? You saw what a mess he made of the hotels—’

‘Luca requires discipline. Management will give him that.’

‘So Luca fucks up and you reward him, is that how it works?’

‘I’m not discussing strategy with you, Angela.’

‘Maybe I should require discipline too; then I’d get a break. Or else it would give you an excuse to get rid of me altogether—’

‘Calm down.’

Nothing fucked her off more than being told to calm down. She met the wall of her father’s inscrutable glare and every frustration she’d ever had against him boiled over. ‘I’m through,’ she lashed. ‘I’ve done everything to earn my place. I’ve achieved twenty times what they have and if you’re too blind to see it, if you still make this decision, it isn’t my issue. I’m done.’

‘Good.’

‘That’s it? Good? After letting me lose sight of what’s important—my friendships, my relationships? Because there’s something you should know—’

‘Yes,’ Donald cut in, ‘you are through, Angela. And you are done.’

She fought to get her words in a line. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘You are ready. I’ve known it for a while.’

‘Then why—?’

‘What I want you to do for me is vital. It’s more important than anything Orlando or Luca could offer.’ He spoke slowly, each word measured. ‘They’re not capable of this, Angela. Only you are. You and I have serious business to share.’

She waited, sceptical and excited. Her father watched her, curiously, gently, and, in his eyes, she saw something that was new to her: a need, nascent and afraid.

‘I want you to listen very carefully,’ said Donald Silvers, ‘for if you choose to accept, our empire is yours. Everything. You take over. But be ready, Angela: because what I am about to propose will change your life for ever.’

6 (#ulink_738aafbc-acad-517c-81e1-da3627640dc9)

In a hotel suite across town, Kevin Chase woke suddenly, his skin dripping with sweat and his heart hammering wildly. The room was pitch black. He had no idea where he was. His breath rasped dry and painful, as if he had swallowed razor blades. Groping in the dark, he fumbled towards a switch. When the room flooded with light, it was painfully bright. Images from the nightmare were still scorched on his mind: the red flames engulfing the jet, and the descent … the horrifying, inevitable descent towards death.

Briskly he patted around to make sure he hadn’t wet the sheets. Mortifyingly, it had happened in the past. Joan had even gone through a phase of laying diapers on top of the mattress, until one day Kevin had lost it, yelling at her so loud and for so long that she had whined about tinnitus for a week—and Joan knew how to whine.

Apart from a patch of hot perspiration, it was dry.

Trembling, he closed his eyes. It seemed important to pick out the details.

The nightmare had been real—real enough to touch, as if he had been there, as if it had happened! They said you couldn’t dream your own death; you woke before it ended that way—and Kevin was certain, certain, he had been about to die. Dark sky all around, thick black dark, and the ground rearing up to meet them—or rather the sand, for it had been a beach, yes, a beach, the contrast stark even in moonlight between the thick water and the alabaster shore. Kevin grasped at the people he had been with, for he had not been alone, but their outlines were dissolving, leaving only ghosts. All that was left were the screams of panic ringing between his ears.

Fear swamped him.

He was never setting foot on an airplane ever again.

But even as Kevin thought it, he knew it was an absurd notion. International commitments meant he got thrown about the globe like a coin in a pinball machine.