His fingers tightened around the stem of his wine glass as he thought back to his twelfth birthday, when he’d been packed onto a private jet and sent over to Switzerland. The school had been exceptional, the program tough and demanding; designed to get the best out of its elite group of students. He credited the tough schedule for his unwavering approach to life now. He rose every morning at five o’clock, so that he could fit in a five mile run. Rain, hail, sun or snow, no matter where he was, he started his day with the burst of physical activity. It cleared his mind and focussed him for the day ahead.
He worked long and hard, but smart too – never procrastinating or doubting himself. It was how he’d amassed the fortune he had in such a short space of time. Sure, Vivas Industries had been a good start in the business world, but it was small-time compared to what he’d achieved.
His evenings were devoted to pleasurable pursuits. The counter-balance to his no-nonsense days was the certainty that he could enjoy his evenings with beautiful women, fine wine, great food, in any city of the world. Sleep was a luxury and he indulged it minimally. Five hours a night was all he needed. If he’d been coddled by his parents, and kept at home to grow soft and complacent, would he have found that hunger in his belly? The fire in his soul?
He looked again at Carrie. She had the world at her feet, not only because of the wealth at her disposal, but also because she was clearly intelligent. And yet she dithered. She doubted. She was insipid and uncertain, balanced on the precipice of two opportunities, afraid to properly grab one for that would mean shutting the door on the other.
Such doubt bored him.
He didn’t understand it.
“Darling, save some for Gael. You’ve had enough. And you know men have healthy appetites,” Alexandra chided, as Carrie moved to help herself to a second portion of the risotto.
Carrie replaced the spoon without saying anything, and clasped her hands in her lap.
Gael felt something stir inside of him. A protectiveness that was foreign – as unwanted an emotion as Carrie’s childish crush. “I’m fine, Alexandra,” he contradicted, but the mother was not to be put off.
“Nonetheless, Carrie would do well to leave it for tonight.”
Carrie’s throat was thick with embarrassment. Beneath the table, she pressed her legs together, wishing that she weren’t so fat. Wishing she could be slim and beautiful and perfect, like Alexandra.
“Do you make a habit out of telling people when they’re sufficiently full?” Gael pondered, a note of challenge in his voice that made both women regard him with interest.
For Carrie’s part, she was beyond mortified. “It’s fine, Gael. I really have had enough. I was just being greedy.”
Alexandra’s lips pursed
together in silent approval. “I wish they wouldn’t cook so much. With your father indisposed, Carrie and I really don’t need this amount. I eat like a sparrow.”
“Yes,” Gael’s boredom was increasing by the moment. His father might have chosen well when it came to looks, but Alexandra’s personality could do with a significant tweak. Such vanity would get old fast, if he were to spend any real time with her.
“Carrie, darling, don’t you have some reading to do?”
The subtext was clear. Her presence had been tolerated at dinner, but now, Alexandra wanted to be alone with Gael. Carrie dug her fingernails into her palms to resist the very strong urge to point out that Gael was technically Alexandra’s stepson, and that his father – Alexandra’s husband – was lying ill upstairs.
She didn’t, though. Standing up to her mother would have required Carrie to break a lifelong habit of obedience and fear, and she was not yet ready to do so. The time would come, but it would not be for many, many years.
It was a glorious Summer’s night. The sun had dipped down, low in the sky, but it was still sending little whispers of peach towards them, breaking up the blackness of night with remembered warmth of the day. The air smelled like honeysuckles and gardenias, and the night birds were singing mysteriously to one another, telling tales of what they’d witnessed.
Carrie perched on the edge of the rose garden, staring down at the arrangement of standard bushes that surrounded the less formal collection of blooms in the middle. The garden had been her father’s pride and joy, and Carrie adored it for that reason alone. Though it was a triumph in floral artistry, it was memories of her father lovingly tending the roses, pruning them with such particular care, that kept her coming back to it time and time again.
And even when she was away from Forest View, she made sure to have a bunch of real roses on her desk – not hot-house ones. She made a habit of sourcing proper, wild, over-grown blooms – even if it meant scaling a fence in the dead of night to crop them illicitly from someone’s garden. She’d done that in the village, near their school, creeping out once a week to gather a suitable bunch. Not, as the other girls had done, to go to the local pub and chat up the unsuspecting tourist trade. She’d crept out and risked detention to collect armfuls of roses.
She smiled now, dropping her feet from the stone-wall and falling elegantly onto the gravelled path. She was drawn to her favourite; the Albertine. She reached up and touched one of the buds – it was soft like silk. She held her fingers to her nose and let the gentle fragrance wash over her as a wave. It was glorious.
She broke the bud from the bush between her finger and thumb, making sure the stem was long enough to sit in a vase, then moved onto the next bush. A robin crested over her head and settled on a thin sprig of rose bush, eyeing her with undisguised curiosity.
“Hello, little one,” she said quietly, reaching a finger out and stroking its chest. It didn’t flitter away. Instead, it released a beautiful song. A happy tale that made Carrie smile. “You don’t care that I like second helpings of dinner, do you?”
The Robin’s song took on an indignant note, and she laughed. “Exactly my thoughts,” she agreed, lifting her hand in the air and watching as the bird took flight towards the forest.
Gael was too far away to hear the exchange, but the moon shone perfectly on Carrie’s face. He saw the happiness and beauty in her, and he froze. Midway back from his car, he had spotted her, leaping from the stone wall into the sunken garden. And a strange feeling had made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The word perfection came to mind, but he quickly brushed it aside. Gael did not believe in such sentimental stupidity.
He took another step towards the house, but then Carrie began to sing, and the sweet sound of her voice mingled with the cry of the nightingale and the robin, and he was powerless to resist. He changed direction, walking in long strides towards her location. He was quiet and it wasn’t until he was almost upon her that she saw him. She stopped singing and cleared her throat self-consciously.
Gael didn’t speak. His dark eyes seemed to cling to her face, as though he was trying to understand something. As though something was wrong with her? No. Her cheeks flamed. He looked at her as though something was right with her. She knew, though no one had ever looked at her with anything near that intensity.
She lifted a hand to her throat, her pulse hammering wildly beneath her fingertips. Her eyes, shimmering like jewels in the moonshine, were hooded with desire.