···
I just put four billion dollars into his pocket and that fucker didn’t even thank me, Oliver thought after Nick had abruptly hung up. Then he picked up his phone again and called Kitty’s cell phone.
“Kitty? It’s done. The Youngs have accepted the offer…Yes, really…No, no, you can’t move in next week, it’s going to take a few months at the very least to get the deal done…Yes, they will sell some of the furnishings…Of course I will tell you what’s worth acquiring, don’t worry…I don’t think we can pay them more to move out tomorrow. This has been a home to the family for more than a century, Kitty. They need some time to get things sorted and dismantle the estate. The silver lining is that you’ll have time to plan the new interiors…Henrietta Spencer-Churchill? Yes, I do know her, but Kitty, why would you want the same designer who’s already doing Colette’s new house?…I know she’s related to Princess Diana, but I have an even better idea…I can think of only one person in the whole world I would trust with a redo of Tyersall Park. Can you meet me in Europe next week?…No, not Paris. We’re going to Antwerp, Kitty…No, it’s not in Austria. Antwerp is a city in Belgium…Oh, you’ll swing by London to pick me up? How awfully kind of you…Perfect. Look forward to it.”
Oliver hung up the phone and stared into his computer screen for a few minutes. Then he clicked on iTunes and scrolled through his albums until he found a song. He clicked play, and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” came blasting on.*2 Oliver sat in his chair and listened to the first few verses of the aria. As it reached the crescendo, Oliver suddenly leapt out of his chair and started dancing madly around his flat. It was a wild, Dionysian release, and then he collapsed on the floor and started sobbing.
He was safe. Safe at last. With the commission earned on the sale of Tyersall Park, the long nightmare of the past two decades was finally over. His 1.5 percent commission on the Tyersall Park sale would garner $150 million, enough to pay off all his student loans and his parents’ crushing debts. They wouldn’t be rich, but at least they would have enough to survive. His family could be restored to a proper level of respectability again. He would never, ever have to fly economy again. As Oliver lay on the carpet of his London flat, staring up at the cracked plasterwork on the ceiling that had needed fixing ten years ago, he cried out in joy, “All’alba vincerò! Vincerò, vinceròòòòòòò!”
* * *
*1 Cantonese for “so long-winded.”
*2 The Pavarotti version, of course.
CHAPTER THREE
THE PENINSULA HOTEL, LOS ANGELES
“It’s as baffling to me as it is to you,” Alex Leong said, stirring the ice cubes in his scotch glass with his finger. “Astrid’s never left Cassian for this long a period before. I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind.”
From his chair on the rooftop bar, Charlie gazed out at the palm trees that seemed to line every street in Beverly Hills. He didn’t know if Astrid’s brother was truly sincere or putting on a performance, especially since he knew that Alex—long estranged from his parents—was especially close to Astrid. Trying a different tactic, Charlie said, “I’m worried Astrid’s had some sort of breakdown and she’s unable to get help. She’s been MIA for five weeks now. You’d think your parents would be the least bit concerned.”
Alex jerked his head indignantly, his Persol sunglasses reflecting against the setting sun. “I am the last person to answer this question, since I haven’t spoken to my father in years.”
“But surely you know them well enough to know how they might react?” Charlie pressed on.
“I was always the black sheep of the family, so I suppose I was more prepared when my parents took out the knives. But Astrid has always been the darling princess. She’s been raised her whole life to be absolutely perfect, to never put a wrong foot forward, so it must have really hit her hard when things didn’t go so perfectly. Astrid’s scandal makes me look like a saint at this point—I can’t begin to imagine how they must have reacted, the things they must have said.”
“She did tell me that her parents ordered her to go into hiding. But if they adore Astrid as much as I know they do, I don’t understand how they could be so coldhearted. I mean, she’s done absolutely nothing wrong! None of this was her fault,” Charlie tried to reason.
Alex leaned back in his chair and grabbed a fistful of wasabi peas from the little bowl on the table. “The thing you have to understand about my parents is that the only thing that matters to them is their reputation. They care about appearances more than anything else in life. My father has spent his whole life crafting his legacy—being the elder statesman and all that shit, and my mum just cares that she’s the queen bee of the establishment crowd. So everything in their world has to be according to their exacting standards. They excommunicated me for defying their wishes and marrying a girl whose skin tone was just one shade too dark for them.”
“I still can’t believe they disowned you for marrying Salimah. She’s a Cambridge-educated pediatrician, for God’s sake!” Charlie exclaimed.
“How accomplished she was didn’t matter to them one bit. I’ll never forget what my father said to me when I told him I was marrying her with or without his blessing. He said, ‘If you don’t care about your own future, think of the children you will have with that woman. For eleven generations, the blood will never be pure.’ And that’s the last conversation I ever had with my father.”
“Unbelievable!” Charlie shook his head. “Were you surprised that he harbored those feelings?”
“Not really. My parents have always been racist and elitist to the extreme, like so many in their crowd. Peel away the veneer of wealth and sophistication and you’ll find extremely provincial, narrow-minded people. The problem is that they all have too much money, and it’s come so easily to them that they think they’re bloody geniuses and so they are always right.”
Charlie laughed as he took a swig of his beer. “I’m lucky, I guess—my father always told me I was an idiot who was wrong about everything.”
“By sheer dumb luck, my father was born in the right place at the right moment in time—when the whole region was going through enormous, unprecedented growth. And oh yeah, he also inherited an empire that had already been set up four generations before him. I think he looks down on people like your father—people who are self-made—because at the heart of it he is a deeply insecure individual. He knows he did absolutely nothing to deserve his fortune, and so the only thing he can do is disparage others who have the audacity to make their own money. His friends are all the same—they are frightened of the new money that’s rolling in, and that’s why they cluster in their little enclaves. I’m so glad I got away from all those people.”
“If Astrid ever comes back to me, she’ll never have to put up with her parents if she doesn’t wish to. I want to build a whole new life for us, and I want her to live anywhere in the world she wants to live,” Charlie said, his voice thick with emotion.
Alex raised his glass to Charlie. “You know, I always thought it was a pity the two of you didn’t get married the first time around. You and Astrid let my parents scare you off too easily then. I swear to you, if I knew where Astrid was, you’d be the first person to know. But my sister is a smart girl. She knows how to disappear, and she knows where everyone’s likely to be looking for her. If I were you, I’d be looking in a
ll the unlikeliest places, rather than all her old haunts or cities where her best friends are.”
After seeing Alex off, Charlie went back to his suite and found that the butler had already performed the turndown service. The shades were drawn, and the television was set on the channel with New Age music playing softly. He threw off his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt, and sank into the bed. After dialing room service to order a hamburger, he reached into his pocket and took out the letter that Astrid wrote to him from Paris, reading it yet again.
As Charlie stared at the words, the glow coming from the flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed shined through the piece of paper, and Charlie saw for the first time something on the heavy stationery that he’d never noticed before. Near the bottom-right corner was a faint watermark with a distinctive, ornate monogram pattern:
It suddenly occurred to Charlie that while the envelope had been from the Hotel George V in Paris, the letter itself was written on someone else’s expensive custom stationery. Who in the world was DSA? On a lark, Charlie decided to call his friend Janice in Hong Kong, who was one of those people who seemed to know everybody on the planet.
“Charlie, I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been ages!” Janice purred into the phone.