Page 97 of The Heir Apparent
“Mr. Rossi, my name is Alexandrina, but you used to call me ‘carina.’ Do you have a moment to talk?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
16 November 2023
Colin sat down beside me on the sofa and handed me a whisky.
“I’m glad you called. It’s been a while.”
I took the heavy crystal glass and sipped. It was so expensive, it didn’t even burn as it went down.
“Yes, sorry about that.”
“Being the heir is a full-time job,” he said and pulled my bare feet into his lap.
Everything about his apartment was beige. It looked like one of the first-class lounges at Doha Airport. Colin was the type of man who had a single drumstick framed on the wall, no doubt a collector’s item from some rocker I didn’t know. In his closet was a special velvet drawer for his watch collection. There was a leather squash bag in the entrance that never seemed to move from its position leaned against a limestone console.
That morning, I had climbed into the Range Rover next to Mary and we rode silently to Aberdeen International Airport for our flight home. As she dozed beside me in the blue light, I studied her face and tried to conjure memories of her, but none came. At first I thought it was unfathomable that Amira would know someone I didn’t at Astley, but by our last year I had lost Mum and thought of nothing else. I had always sensed that Maryand I shared a past she preferred not to discuss. I thought perhaps she’d had a hand in the leaks that came from Wolseley House when it belonged to Papa, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe our past stretched further back than I ever realised.
Once we’d landed in Heathrow, I texted Colin and asked if I could come over. He was still at work, so I had my driver drop me off at his flat, where his concierge let me in. Colin worked at his father’s company that managed the family’s real estate holdings and investments. I had a bath in his enormous clawfoot tub, and he had come home a few hours later, dressed in his flawless suit, with a bottle of whisky tucked under one arm.
“Can I ask you a slightly illegal question?” I said now as the peat turned to vapour on my tongue.
Colin laughed and dug his knuckle into the arch of my foot. “Well, that’s the most interesting thing anyone’s asked me in a while.”
“This is all extremely hypothetical,” I said, my head swimming. “But imagine that you have to give money to someone. And you couldn’t personally do it because they live in another country. And you would need to get them the money without ever being found out.”
He looked at me seriously, but he didn’t stop kneading my feet. “Finding an intermediary would be simple—there’s three people I could call now whom I’d trust to do it. I’d ask them to make the deal and then I’d do the exchange with Bitcoin. Or you’d put all the cash on a private jet and have it flown over—that’s not a bad option either.”
I stared into the glow of his minimalist fireplace and wondered about myself.
“Hypothetically speaking,” he said, lowering my foot into his lap, “if you were ever to need something like that, I could help.”
I said nothing. When he crawled towards me on the sofa, I let him kiss me. He pushed me into the cushions, and I wondered if I could succumb to this life. Tomorrow, I could ask Vikki to write a cheque, and Colin would funnel the money into aBitcoin wallet for Davide Rossi. Next summer Colin could stand in the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle and watch while Granny placed the coronet on my head. His presence would be enough to divert the press’s attention from the inevitable Scottish independence protests I had no hope of snuffing out.
But when he wove his fingers into my hair, it was Jack’s face that surfaced in my mind. I thought of the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me, the way the early sunlight had caught in his hair on New Year’s Day. A great panic rushed through me, and I squirmed out of Colin’s arms.
“Sorry,” I said, covering my lips.
“You alright?”
“Yes,” I breathed, though I wanted out of the prison of his heavy limbs. I sat up and let my chest heave. “I’ve been having these dizzy spells. Sorry, I’m not sure I’m up for anything tonight.”
He tentatively rubbed my back. “That’s okay. Want to just order a takeaway and go to sleep?”
We slid into his gargantuan bed, and I listened to his rhythmic breaths while I soothed myself by naming in my mind all the bones in the human hand. When I was done, I moved on to the foot, then all the signs of pneumonia, then every step to insert a central line without causing an infection. I lay there, steering my mind through black waters until finally, just before dawn, I sank into sleep.
In the morning, I woke to the smell of coffee. I came into the kitchen and found Colin sipping an espresso, already dressed for work and reading his iPad.
“You’re up.” He smiled. “Would you like a coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
I sat on one of the stools lined against his marble island and watched as he ground coffee beans, measured them on a scale and then brushed off the excess with a tiny brush. He submerged a cup in hot water before pouring in the espresso.
“Can you make designs in the froth?” I asked.
“I actually can.” He laughed.
