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Emily understood love. She gave it freely, without conditions...
‘Has Marat spoken to you about this?’ he asked.
‘I rarely see him,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Since Andrei died he doesn’t bother with me. It wasn’t just you he didn’t want in his life. He didn’t want to share Andrei with anyone. With me, he was just more subtle in showing his dislike.’
Pascha sighed and leant his head back. Now he thought about it, he could never remember Marat displaying any affection to her. He was always polite and cordial but never affectionate. Never a son.
And never a brother.
‘If Marat didn’t tell you, how did you know I tried to buy the company off him?’
This time his mother’s smile carried to her eyes. ‘I will show you.’
She left the room for a few minutes, returning with a folded up piece of white paper. ‘This arrived last week from England. It was sent by courier.’ She laughed. ‘I think the sender used some kind of Internet translation for her Russian.’
Her?
His heart thundering, Pascha took the letter from his mother’s hand and opened it. He knew who the sender was before he even started reading.
Printed out from a computer, he saw what his mother had meant. Emily’s sentences were all jumbled, a literal translation from English of what she had tried to say. But her meaning was clear. Her words were heartfelt. Her plea was transparent: for his mother to understand just how much her son loved her and how their estrangement was destroying him.
‘This Emily, she must love you very much,’ his mother said after he’d read the letter all the way through three times.
He inhaled deeply, trying to hold on to emotions that threatened to smother him more than his thoughts had.
‘Does this mean there is a wedding to look forward to?’ she asked hopefully.
He shook his head slowly before dropping it forward and cradling it in his hands.
After everything he’d said to her, the blame he’d unfairly heaped on her shoulders, Emily had done this for him?
It had been a fortnight since he’d seen her. A whole two weeks without a word.
He’d missed her, badly enough that some nights he couldn’t breathe through the pain.
How quickly the world could turn and change everything.
In all his years he’d never met a woman like her. Someone full of life. Someone with such intense loyalty... And an infinite capacity to love, just as Andrei had had...
He’d spent two weeks torturing himself with thoughts about whether or not she really had said she loved him. Her words had been shouted out in anger, to make a point.
Now, for the first time, his heart dared believe...
‘I need to go,’ he said, gripping his mother’s shoulders and kissing her cheeks. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’ She smiled. ‘Maybe soon you can take me to this island you named after me?’
‘I would like that,’ he said.
‘And maybe I’ll be able to meet this Emily?’
He attempted a smile of his own. He failed. ‘I’m going to try my hardest to make that happen.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PASCHA COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d been to a photo shoot. When he’d first started buying fashion brands, he’d been fascinated with every aspect, but the novelty had soon worn off. Photo shoots were the worst. He was more than happy to leave the experts to deal with the day-to-day matters. After all, what did he know about fashion? Regardless, he didn’t buy companies to tear them apart. He bought them to make a profit. Some needed restructuring or, in the case of the luxury luggage company he’d bought three years ago, a new marketing strategy. A few simple changes and that particular company had seen a four-thousand per cent increase in turnover—in its first year. Now that company alone had an annual turnover of half a billion dollars.
As he stepped into the vast white room filled with bodies hanging around not doing much at all, a small man with a silly flat cap on his head looked at him. ‘You’re too late. You were supposed to be here eight hours ago. We got a replacement for you.’
Taken aback, Pascha said, ‘You must have me confused with someone else.’
‘Aren’t you a model?’
‘No.’
‘Shame. You could make a fortune.’ He winked at him.
Too exhausted to react, Pascha said, ‘I’m here to see Emily Richardson. I was told she was here.’
‘She’s through that door,’ the small man said, pointing at the far end of the room. ‘She’s fitting Tiana into the last dress, so keep it quick—some of us want to get home tonight.’
