was Hollywood royalty, the industry’s most sought-after bachelor. Every project he took he was ambushed by female co-stars, and while it wasn’t Angela’s style to be jealous it couldn’t help but sting.
‘I only want you,’ he told her every time, and while she wanted to trust him, she was no idiot. Noah had been a player from the moment they’d met.
She was scared of getting hurt again. Giving herself to him totally, risking it all. At the same time, he wouldn’t wait for ever.
After her father’s revelation, she wondered why she bothered concealing it from him at all. Donald had no intention of empowering his daughter with muscle in the business, now or ever. What difference did it make who she dated?
But the itch remained : Tell him this and it’s over for good.
Donald hated Noah. He hated everything Noah stood for. He hated Noah’s past. He hated Noah’s family, where he had come from and where he had wound up. Countless times Angela had promised her father that the friendship was at an end.
To confess the betrayal would be kamikaze.
Noah’s cell went to his machine. She listened, just to hear him; her heart lifted at his voice but she decided against leaving a message. In any case, he’d advised her against the Boston trip—he himself never returned to their childhood ground, the place owed him nothing and the memories were raw—and would be frustrated that she’d come. Donald needed time, he had promised, to realise the mistake he’d made. Angela was amazed at Noah’s reluctance to take sides, at his fairness. After all Donald had thrown against him, still he didn’t resort to cheap shots.
‘I love you, and you love your father,’ he said. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
She ended the call as they pulled onto Bourton Avenue. Hers was a majestic neighbourhood, lined with giant Victorian brownstones, grand porticos and gated driveways. Sunshine glinted on the Charles River. There was the Amity Street Church where Angela had spent reluctant Sunday mornings as a child, the Preston Historical Institute where many a school trip had wound up, and the Clemency College of Dance, where she had made out once on the steps with Henry Lambert. So much was unchanged, yet Angela didn’t feel the same. Boston was her heritage, but now its magnificence seemed outlandish and silly. Coming in past the flagship Silvers Hotel, its peaks like turrets on a castle and its doormen tipping their caps, and the inaugural store her great-grandfather had founded, here, at least, they were royalty.
Commonwealth House was the most splendid on the street. The car eased through and Angela stepped out, thanking her chauffeur and breathing the old air.
She was home.
‘Hello?’
Inside, the hall was vast. Her enquiry echoed, bouncing off the marble chequered floor. A staircase that wouldn’t have been out of place in the world’s most celebrated museum divided beneath a portrait of her great-grandfather, stern in his suit, his black walking cane in one hand. Cabinets housed relics from their schooldays—sporting trophies, certificates and photographs. In one portrait, a teenage Orlando and Luca were suited for their aunt’s wedding. Angela stood between them, scowling because Orlando had told her she couldn’t come camping at the weekend. Another was a still from Angela’s tenth birthday party—she’d been a pain in the ass in those days. All the guests were in pink frilly frocks apart from the birthday girl, who wore a Back to the Future T-shirt and denim shorts, and was sticking her tongue out.
‘In here!’ Her mother’s voice drifted through from the kitchen.
Angela emerged into a bright, richly scented space. The kitchen faced out onto rolling lawn, at the foot of which shone a serene lake, a rowing boat tethered in the reeds. It smelled of warm bread and rosemary and the spice of a cooking oven. Isabella was prepping salads, joined at the counter by Angela’s nonna, and on the veranda a bunch of her extended family were drinking wine and mingling.
Angela kissed the women. ‘You know I’m not staying for dinner?’
‘Of course you are,’ said Isabella.
‘My return flight’s booked—it leaves at nine.’
‘And your father isn’t home until this evening, so you’ll have to cancel.’ Isabella slapped her hand away from the just-baked ciabatta. ‘Eh, smettila, Angela!’
‘Is Orlando here? Luca?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Isabella clicked her tongue. ‘I wish you three would not fight all the time.’
‘I wish for a lot of things, Mom.’
‘Life is too short to argue. Respect your father’s decision.’
‘I do respect him. If only he’d extend me the same courtesy.’
‘He loves you very much.’
‘That isn’t the same thing.’
Angela bit her tongue. Isabella didn’t understand her wish to take the spotlight. As far back as she could remember, whatever her fathers and brothers were doing had been infinitely more exhilarating—the closed doors, the hushed voices, the secret conversations, the covert business trips. Angela didn’t care about baking and flower-arranging and the correct way to iron a suit shirt, and while she adored her mother, as women they couldn’t be less alike.
Home wasn’t enough.
Angela wanted more.
She preferred the south steps to taking the main stairs. ‘Why?’ her girlfriends used to pout, as they flounced prettily down the banisters like Cinderellas at the ball. ‘It makes me feel like a princess!’ Which, Angela saw now, was precisely why.
Her old room was on the second floor. The bed, immaculately made with peach sheets and silky fat pillows, was against the window. A stack of plump, fresh towels was arranged at its foot. Angela pressed one to her face and inhaled.
She settled on the linen, listening to the delicate tick-tick of a carriage clock and the occasional flutter of birdsong. In her bedside drawer were a collection of journals (ANGELA’S DIARY: KEEP OUT!), trinkets, postcards and jewellery.
Inside one of the diaries was a photograph. Her fingers traced its familiar edges. Slowly, she drew it out. Noah.
Her favourite picture of him, on that first summer they spent together.
Scruffy blond hair, bronzed skin, mischievous blue eyes …
He’d been the neighbourhood bad boy: bad family, bad schooling, bad all over. They had come from different ends of the earth.
But Angela hadn’t cared. Not even then.
Everyone else had treated her like a queen—but not Noah. Noah had treated her like a friend. They had both been outsiders, in their way. He had been ostracised by the rich for failing to meet their standards, while Angela, wealthy beyond reason, harboured her own kind of leprosy: ordinary people were too afraid to touch.
She leaned on the windowsill, her chin resting in the heel of her hand, and looked out at leafy Bourton
