What a Girl Wants (33 page)

‘But I’m awake,’ I said, running my fingers lightly through his hair, sliding down the back of his neck and making circles on his strong back. ‘I can’t sleep.’

‘You clearly aren’t trying,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ll wake you up properly in an hour.’

‘I was wondering, have you spoken with Artie at all?’ I asked, making a silent note of his offer. ‘Since we’ve been here this week, I mean?’

‘Go back to sleep and don’t get involved,’ he said, turning his head away.

I stopped my circling and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

‘Don’t get involved in what?’

Nick growled, the muscles in his back moving under his skin as he turned his head again. With one eye open, he looked at me.

‘What do you know?’ he asked.

‘What do
you
know?’ I asked.

‘It’s too early for this.’ Nick dropped his head back into the pillows, face down. ‘I’m a writer. I’m here to tell the story. Never get involved in family business, Tess.’

‘So something
is
going on.’ I scrambled up into a sitting position and kept shoving him until he turned over with a muffled roar. ‘You know something! What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know anything for certain.’ He grabbed hold of my wrists to stop my feeble attack and yawned loudly. ‘But I heard Artie on the phone to a Chinese factory the other night and he certainly wasn’t encouraging them to take his father’s business. And I’ve seen him talking to Warren, the bloke with all the photos of tits on his wall.’

‘He’s the pattern cutter,’ I sniffed. ‘But it’s good to know what you took away from that meeting.’

‘I’m sorry, I have a penis, there were naked woman.’ He closed his eyes again and pressed his forearms over his face. ‘Can you shut the curtains?’

‘I heard someone talking Chinese – was that Artie?’ I said, picking up Nick’s shirt and slipping it on as I went so as not to flash the entire Corso Venezia below. ‘How do you know he was on the phone to China?’

‘I speak Cantonese,’ he mumbled, ‘and some Mandarin. But he was speaking Cantonese and as I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know who you heard but it’s likely. He’s running interference on Al. I don’t know why. Yet.’

‘Why haven’t you told me about this before?’ I pulled the curtains to, reminding my reproductive organs that we were in the middle a very important conversation and that now wasn’t the time to insist he knock me up with genius, Cantonese-speaking babies, no matter how sexy that was. ‘What did Al say? He acted like he didn’t know any of this when I spoke to him yesterday.’

‘I don’t think he does know,’ Nick replied from underneath his arms. ‘It’s fucking tragic. His son is a really nasty piece of work.’

‘Wait, what?’ I held on to the heavy curtains. ‘You haven’t told him?’

He let out an impressively exasperated sigh.

‘No, I haven’t told him,’ he said slowly as if he was explaining to a child. ‘One, I don’t know anything for definite yet and two, I’m the journalist. It’s my job to observe and then tell the story. I don’t get in the middle.’

My hands curled tightly around the curtains.

‘But he’s our friend,’ I said, just as slowly. ‘You’ve got to tell him.’

‘He’s your boss,’ Nick corrected. ‘And I’m a journalist. This is a story.’

I stood in between the two curtains at the window, one leg warmed by the early morning sunlight, the other cold in the shade of the bedroom, and stared back at the bed. Nick was already half-asleep again, breathing steadily and all curled up under the covers. I couldn’t quite process what he was saying.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me you’re not OK with me working in advertising because that’s whoring my creativity to the man, but you’re totally fine with keeping Al in the dark about his own son trying to sink his new business because it makes a good story?’

‘Anything would sound bad when you put it like that,’ he replied without moving.

‘No, it sounds bad because it
is
bad,’ I said. I didn’t want to lose my temper and shout at him because, for once, I was entirely in the right and if he gave me that patronizing ‘calm down, dear’ look, I was very like to strangle him with his own boxer shorts. ‘You have to tell Al what you know.’

‘I don’t know anything.’ Nick emphasized the ‘I’ very carefully.dpka ‘And you need to calm down. I’m working on it.’

And there went my temper.

‘That’s funny,’ I snapped, ‘because it sounds a lot like you’re letting someone I care about, someone who has been nothing but good to both of us, get spectacularly shat on for the sake of a story.’

‘Tess …’ Nick dragged himself upright and pushed his hand through his messy bedhead. ‘This could be a big deal, not a bit of a family tiff. Will you please stop being so naïve? You do not get involved in things you do not understand. You’re not Lois Lane, you’re not going to rush in and save the day.’

‘This is ridiculous!’ I hated being this angry this early. I hated being this angry at him. ‘You’re not going to tell Al anything?’

‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I’m going to follow the story and report it.’

‘I hope you enjoy your moral high ground,’ I said, scooting around the room and collecting my clothes. ‘I’ll be in my room being naïve and failing to understand how you can look Al in the eye.’

‘I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.’ Nick rolled over, showing me his back and his lack of concern, all at the same time. ‘It’s too early for this.’

‘I don’t want to have this conversation either,’ I said. ‘In fact, I don’t think I want to have any conversations with you for a bit. I’ll let you sleep.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ He didn’t even attempt to stop me from leaving. ‘This is what I
do
. It’s my job.’

‘Well, I happen to think convincing people to try a new kind of Pot Noodle is less morally compromising than shitting on good people.’ I heard the sting in my heart sound out in my voice. ‘So this is what
I’m
doing.’

I slammed the door, checked both directions and pulled my knickers on very quickly.

I stomped down the hall and up the stairs to my room, stewing on how easily he’d admitted to all of it and how little he seemed to care. But I didn’t have time to dwell on potential heartbreak – I had to find a way to help Al. He was right about one thing at least: I wasn’t Lois Lane, intrepid girl reporter. Clearly that was him. I was Superman and I was going to save the day.

Somehow.

As if I wasn’t frustrated enough, I couldn’t get hold of anyone when I got back to my room. Neither Al nor Kekipi were answering their phones and Domenico reluctantly informed me that they had all left the house already, Artie too, although obviously not at the same time. I took my rage into the bathroom and fumed in the shower, trying to work out what I was going to say when I did get hold of Al and wondering how much Domenico knew. After all, I had seen him coming out of Artie’s room the other night. Was he involved?

And as for Nick? I lathered up my hair with previously unknown vigour. How could he be so callous? I was starting to think I had made an epic fuck-up. After all this nonsense, what if the whole Nick or Charlie predicament was pointless? The thought that neither of them was right for me hadn’t even crossed my mind until now. Charlie said he loved me, but the girl I was, the girl I’d been for the last ten years, she wasn’t around any more. All the things he loved about me weren’t real. I didn’t love all the same things as he did, I just said I did so he would hang out with me. Coldplay made my skin crawl and, yes, I enjoyed
Star Wars
as much as the next girl but did he really need to watch it every other week? There were so many other movies out there.

But how could anyone choose to be with a man who was so very happy to go back to bed when a good man was about to get shafted so royally? What would happen five, ten years from now? So sorry, darling, can’t make parents’ evening, I’m very busy selling my mother down the river for a byline in
The Times
. Give whichever child has done well my love and tell the other one I’ll ruin his life when I get home.

And so it was down to me. Clearly, I couldn’t call the factory in China and have a quick chat with them, and given that my Italian was about as good as my Cantonese, there wasn’t much point in trying to get any information out of the people dealing with the lease on the shop, but there was one person in this mess who did speak English. I could definitely speak to him – as long as he was in his office. And he agreed to see me.

I tied up my hair in my best shit-kicking ponytail, grabbed my bag and marched on my enemy.

‘
Buongiorno
.’

The receptionist I had already met twice in the last five days stared at me blandly as though she had never seen my face before in her life.

‘Bonjouro?’ I offered. Italian was never going to be my language. ‘Um, hello. I’m here to see Mr Warren.’

I smiled, hoping there was a direct correlation between the number of teeth I showed her and how quickly she let me in.

‘No,’ she replied without even checking her computer screen. ‘No meeting today.’

‘I’m working with Bertie Bennett?’ I said, taking my camera out of my bag and waving it around until she cowered behind her monitor. Because threatening her with a heavy object was definitely going to change her mind. ‘It’s very important.’

‘No,’ she said again. ‘No meeting today.
Arrivederci
.’

‘Right, I know it’s not in the diary,’ I leaned over the desk, attempting to look terribly conspiratorial, ‘because it’s actually a personal meeting. I’m going to be modelling for Mr Warren.’

The receptionist peered over the desk, looked me up and down and then laughed.

‘No, no, no!’ She gave me a shake of the head as she continued to titter. ‘No model.’

I stayed on my side of the desk, making a note of her adorable put-down and adding her to my list. I’d deal with her later, but right now I had to find a way to get to Warren. There was no way I was skulking back to the palazzo, to Nick, defeated. I really should have woken Amy before I left; she would have been a fantastic distraction.

That was it. What would Amy do in this situation? Thinking about it, Amy would probably charge the reception and leave this bitch hogtied behind her desk. Since I didn’t really fancy that and was running out of time, I opted for a compromise.

‘Excuse me, could I please use your bathroom?’ I asked as politely as humanly possible. I bent my knees towards each other and bent down slightly, a pained expression on my face. Everyone knew that meant you needed a wee, right?

‘Bathroom?’ She kept her eyes trained on her computer monitor.

‘Toilet?’ I said, crouching more.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘My English is not good.’

Her English was fucking flawless. Now I knew she was just being an objectionable twat.

‘I need a wee,’ I shouted across the desk. ‘I’m going to wet myself.’

‘Oh,
si
,’ she smiled up at me before shaking her head. ‘No,
mi dispiace
. No, I am sorry, no toilet.’

‘But I’m pregnant.’ I pushed out my stomach and attempted to look sad. Not nearly as sad as I would look if I really were pregnant but I thought I did a pretty good job. ‘Baby?’

‘Oh,
bambino
!’ Suddenly, she looked delighted. ‘
Si, si, si
, this way.’

I rubbed my nonexistent baby and bumped her right up to the top of my list, following her across the reception, through a dark wooden door next to lift and waited while she worked away on three different locks.

What did she do when she was desperate? I wondered. Maybe she was never desperate. Maybe she was the only human on earth that didn’t suffer a casual need to pee when she was outside that transformed into an uncontrollable, desperate urge as soon as she had her keys in her hand. Or maybe that was just me.

She waved at the loo like she was offering me the crown jewels before reaching out to press her hand against my barren, echoing womb and sighed happily.

‘Is soon?’ she asked. ‘Baby is soon.’

I replied with a smile, keeping my mouth shut. I’d got this far; blowing my cover by calling her a bitch wasn’t going to help.

Safely inside the bathroom and surrounded by yet more black-and-white photographs of naked women, I turned sideways, checking my bump in the mirror on the back of the door. God help her if she thought this looked like a full-term pregnancy, I thought, patting my jeans, I didn’t even have a food baby. Clearly, if your stomach was not concave in this building, you must be eight months along.

I waited a few minutes, sitting on the edge of the sink, my pulse sounding loudly in my ears. I knew this was a terrible idea but I had to get in and talk to Warren. I had to know why he was prepared to shaft his alleged friend Al on behalf of a boy he had spanked in front of an entire Parisian frow. Nick might be comfortable with moral ambiguity when it benefited his career but I wasn’t prepared to let Al walk out at his party tonight and tell everyone his fashion line had failed before it had begun and not know why.

‘I’ll go in ten,’ I told my reflection, pleased with my Burglar Bill-style black-and-white striped T-shirt, wrapping my hair into a bun and flexing into a couple of low squats in preparation. Badly. ‘Nine. Nine and a half; nine and a third.’

‘Oh, just go.’ My reflection had about as much patience with me as my rubber duck. ‘It’s either going to work or it isn’t.’

Mirror Tess was right. Sucking up a big deep breath, I puffed out my chest, pulled in my belly and gave myself a nod.

‘Don’t be a chicken,’ I mouthed at myself. ‘Be brave.’

This was it. I bent down to my hands and knees and opened the bathroom door as quietly as I could and crawled along the floor, into the lift. At least the disinterested receptionist wasn’t looking for me. What kind of pregnant woman crawled out of a toilet on her hands and knees and snuck into a lift? This kind. The kind that wasn’t pregnant but was in fact a super genius; a super genius, who managed to get herself into a lift, only to find out that it was operated by a key card. Bollocks. The doors I had so cunningly opened, slid shut on me but the lift didn’t go anywhere. I tried pressing all the buttons but nothing. Curled up in a ball, my arms wrapped around my knees, I pressed myself into the corner of the lift, waiting for something to happen. So much for my grand plan; so much for helping Al; so much for sticking it to Nick. So much for – oh, hang on a minute! I was moving.