Читать книгу Behind The Billionaire's Guarded Heart - Leah Ashton, Leah Ashton - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE

Six weeks later—London

APRIL FELT GOOD.

She was thirty-two, and her first ever job interview was today.

Sure, she’d been interviewed for the couple of internships she’d had back at uni, but they didn’t count. Today was her first real-life I actually really, really want this job interview.

That was significant.

She smiled.

Around her, the Tube train was packed. Everyone looked completely absorbed in their own world—reading a book, swiping through a phone, gazing out of the window into the blackness of the tunnel.

Nobody noticed her. Nobody realised how momentous this day actually was.

Since her disastrous wedding anniversary there’d been weeks of numbness for April. There’d been shock, then anger, then the awfulness of telling her mum and her sisters, Ivy and Mila. There’d been weeks of meetings with lawyers and endless discussions about property settlement. There’d been tears and wine and long conversations.

Time had seemed to go on and on. Especially at night, when she’d been alone in her ridiculously too big concrete-and-angles home. Mila had stayed a few nights to keep her company—but she had her own life and a partner to worry about. Her mum had stayed every night for a fortnight, determinedly focusing on the practicalities of lawyers and legal details. Ivy had brought her son, Nate, to visit regularly—although she had been mortified when the toddler had accidentally pushed a salad bowl off the table, shattering it into millions of pieces.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ April had reassured her. ‘It’s one less thing we need to decide who gets to keep.’

At first, sorting out the things that she and Evan had bought together had seemed vitally important. Maybe it was the focus it had given her—or maybe there was more of her ruthless businesswoman mother in her than she’d thought.

But as the weeks had worn on, and she’d spent more time staring at her ceiling, not sleeping, all their stuff had begun to feel meaningless.

As it probably should for a woman with a billion-dollar family trust that she held with her sisters.

So Evan could have everything. Of course he could have everything.

I don’t love you...

April didn’t sugar-coat what Evan had said. He’d wrapped it up in superfluous words to blunt the blow, but that didn’t hide the reality: Evan didn’t love her. He’d never loved her—at least not the way April had loved him.

In those endless nights she’d analysed that relentlessly.

How could she not have known?

I don’t love you.

You.

Who was she, if not married to Evan?

The feminist within her was horrified that she could even ask herself this question. But she did. Again and again:

Who was she?

This woman Evan hadn’t loved enough. This woman who had been oblivious to the end of her marriage.

Who was she?

She was thirty-two, single and had never worked a day in her life.

Her home had been a wedding gift from her mother.

Everything she’d ever bought had been with a credit card linked to the Molyneux Trust. She had been indulged by a family who probably didn’t think her capable of being anything but a frivolous socialite. Why would they? She’d applied herself to nothing else. Her days had been filled with shopping and expensive charity luncheons. Her evenings with art gallery openings and luxurious fundraising auctions. She’d spent her spare time taking photos of herself and posting them online, so millions of people could click ‘like’ and comment on her fabulous perfect life.

What a sham. What a joke.

She hadn’t earned a cent of the fortune she’d flouted to the world.

And her husband hadn’t loved her.

She was a fraud.

But no more.

April smoothed the charcoal fabric of her pencil skirt over her thighs. It wasn’t designer. In fact it had probably cost about five per cent of the cost of her favourite leather tote bag—which she’d left back home in Perth.

She’d left everything behind.

She’d booked a one-way ticket to London and opened up a new credit card account at her bank—politely declining the option to have the balance cleared monthly by the Molyneux Trust. From now on she was definitely paying her own way.

She’d also located her British passport—a document she had thanks to her mother’s dual citizenship of both Australia and the UK.

Only then had she told her family what she was doing.

And then she’d ignored every single one of their concerns and hopped onto her flight the next day.

Now here she was. Three days in London.

She’d found a flat. She’d bought reasonably priced clothes for the first time in her life. She’d researched the heck out of the environmental sustainability consulting firm where she was about to have an interview.

Oh—as she noted her long ponytail cascading over the shoulder of her hound’s-tooth coat—she’d also dyed her hair brown.

She felt like a different person. Like a new person.

She even had a new name, of sorts.

The name that was on her birth certificate and her passport: April Spencer.

Like her sisters, she’d made the choice to use her mother’s surname within a few years of her father leaving them. But she’d never bothered having it formally changed.

Turned out that had now come in handy.

Today she didn’t feel like April Molyneux, the billionaire mining heiress whose life had collapsed around her.

Today she was April Spencer, and today she had a job interview.

And for the first time in six weeks she felt good.

* * *

As Hugh probably should’ve expected, it had rained through the remainder of September and then most of October. So it was a cool but clear November morning when he retrieved the tin of black paint from beneath his stairs and headed out from his basement to the front door of the main house.

It was just before sunrise, and even on a workday Islington street was almost deserted. A couple walking a Labrador passed by as he laid out his drop cloth, and as he painted the occasional jogger, walker or cyclist zipped past—along with the gradually thickening traffic.

It didn’t take long to paint the door: just a quick sand-down, a few minor imperfections in the woodwork to repair, then a fresh coat of paint.

Now it just needed to dry.

The door had to stay propped open for a few hours before he could safely close it again. He’d known this, so he’d planned ahead and dumped his backpack—which contained his laptop—in the hallway before he’d started work. Now he stepped inside, his work boots loud on the blue, cream and grey geometric tessellated tile entryway.

He yanked off his boots, grabbed his laptop out of his bag and then on thick socks padded over to the grand staircase ahead of him. To his left was the first of two reception rooms on the ground floor—but he wasn’t going to work in there. Instead he settled on a stair third from the bottom, rested his laptop on his jeans and got to work.

Or at least that was the plan.

Instead his emails remained unread, and the soft beep of instant message notifications persisted but were ignored.

Who was he kidding? He was never going to get any work done in here.

It was impossible when his attention remained on insignificant details: the way the weak morning sunlight sauntered through the wedged-open door to mingle with the dust he’d disturbed. The scent of the house: cardboard packing boxes, musty air and windows closed for far too long. The light—or lack of it. With every door but the front door sealed shut, an entryway he remembered as bright with light seemed instead gloomy and...abandoned.

Which, of course, it was.

He hadn’t stepped foot in here since the day he’d moved into the basement.

Back then—three years ago—it had been too hard. He hadn’t been ready to deal with this house.

Hugh stood up, suddenly needing to move. But not out through the front door.

Instead he went to the internal door only a few steps away and with a firm grip twisted the brass knob and yanked the door open.

He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath—but he let it out now in a defeated sigh. As if he’d expected to see something different.

But he’d known what was in here.

Once, this room had been where his mother and her second husband had hosted their guests with cups of tea and fancy biscuits.

That would be impossible now. If any antique furniture remained, it was hidden. Completely. By boxes. Boxes that filled the room in every direction—stacked neatly like bricks as tall as he was—six foot and higher.

Boxes, boxes, boxes—so many he couldn’t even begin to count.

Hugh reached out to touch the nearest box. It sat on a stack four high, its plain cardboard surface slightly misshapen by whatever was crammed within it.

Some of the many boxes that surrounded it—beneath, beside and beyond—were occasionally labelled unhelpfully: purple treasures...sparkly things.

Others—the work of the woman Hugh had employed to help his mother—had detailed labels and colour-coded stickers: a relic of Hugh’s attempts to organise his mother’s hoard into some sort of system.

But his mother had resisted—joyfully creating ridiculous categories and covertly shuffling items between boxes—and in the end her frustrated assistant had correctly informed Hugh that it was an utter waste of time.

Which he’d already known—but then, what option had he had?

Doctors, specialists, consultants...all had achieved nothing.

How could they? When his mother knew exactly what she was doing?

She’d been here before, after all. Before Len. When it had been just Hugh and his mum and her hoard. And her endless quest for love.

With Len she’d finally had the love she’d searched for for so long. A love that had been powerful enough to allow her to let go of all the things she’d collected in the years since Hugh’s father had left them. Things she’d surrounded herself with and held on to so tightly when she’d been unable to possess the one thing she’d so badly wanted: love.

Without Len his mother had believed that her hoard was all she’d had left. And, despite still having Hugh, despite his desperate efforts, it hadn’t been enough.

He’d been helpless to prevent the hoard that had overshadowed his childhood from returning.

Hugh closed his eyes.

There was so much stuff in this room that if he walked another step he would walk into a wall of boxes.

It was exactly the same in almost every room in the house—every living space, every bedroom. Except the kitchen, halls and bathrooms—and that was only because of the staff Hugh had employed and his mother’s reluctant agreement to allow them into the house each day.

So that was all he’d managed: to pay people to keep the few bits of empty floor space in his mother’s house clean. And to clear a safe path from her bedroom to the front and back doors in case of a fire.

Really, it was not all that different from how it had been when he’d been ten. Except this time he’d had loads of money to outsource what he’d only barely managed as a kid.

And this place was a hell of a lot bigger than the tiny council flat he’d grown up in.

He opened his eyes, but just couldn’t stare at those awful uniform boxes any more.

Back in the entry hall, Hugh grabbed his laptop and backpack, ready to leave...but then he stilled.

The new paint on the door was still wet. He wasn’t going anywhere.

But he also wasn’t going to be able to work—it would seem that three years had done nothing to ease the tension, the frustration and the hopelessness that those damn boxes elicited within him.

Even waiting another three years—or ten—to deal with them wasn’t going to make any difference.

They’d still represent a lot more than they should.

They needed to go. All of them.

This house needed to be bright and light once again. It needed to breathe.

So he sat back down on the bottom step of the grand old staircase, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

It was time.

* * *

It had started with confusion at the supermarket checkout.

‘Do you have another card?’ the checkout operator had asked.

‘Pardon me?’ April had said—because, well, it had never happened to her before.

It had, it seemed, happened several times to the not particularly patient operator—Bridget, according to her name tag. She’d studied April, her gaze flat, as April had tried what she knew to be her correct PIN twice more.

And then, as April had searched hopelessly for an alternative card—she’d cut up every single card linked to the Molyneux Trust back in Perth—Bridget had asked her to move aside so she could serve the next in a long line of customers.

April had dithered momentarily: was she supposed to return the Thai green curry ready-meal, the bunch of bananas and bottle of eye make-up remover to the shelves before she left?

But then the weight of pitying stares—possibly only imagined—had kicked in, and April had exited the shop as fast as she’d been able, her sneakers suddenly unbelievably squeaky on the supermarket’s vinyl flooring.

Now she was at home, still in her gym gear, on her butter-soft grey leather couch, her laptop before her.

For only the second time in the four weeks since she’d been in London she logged in to her internet banking—the other time being when she’d set up her account at the bank. Her fully furnished flat didn’t come with a printer, so she’d have to scroll through her credit card statement onscreen.

But it was still easy to see the reason for her mortification at the checkout—she’d maxed out her credit card.

How was that even possible?

She’d been so careful with her spending—more so as each still jobless week had passed.

She hadn’t bought any new clothes for weeks. She’d stopped eating at cafés and restaurants, and had instead become quite enamoured with what she considered a very English thing: convenience stores with huge walls of pre-made sandwiches in triangular plastic packaging. And microwaveable ready-meals for dinner.

They must only be costing a few pounds a meal, surely?

She had joined the gym, but that had seemed very cheap. And fortunately the flat came with Wi-Fi, so she hadn’t had to pay for that.

So where had all her money gone?

Five minutes later she knew.

With pen and paper, she’d documented exactly where her money had been spent.

Her rent—and four weeks’ deposit—was the biggest culprit. Only now did it dawn on her that even if she did get one of the many, many jobs she’d been applying for, her starting salary would barely cover her rent. With absolutely nothing left over for sandwiches in plastic triangles.

She flopped back onto her couch and looked around her flat.

It was small, but—if she was objective—not that small. And it was beautifully furnished. Expensively furnished. Her kitchen appliances were the same insanely priced brand she’d had back in Perth. Her small bathroom was tiled in floor-to-ceiling marble.

She even had a balcony.

But she couldn’t afford a balcony. She couldn’t afford any of this.

Because she didn’t have any money. At all.

Not for the first time in four weeks, she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake.

The first time had been after she hadn’t got the first job she’d been interviewed for.

Now, several job interviews later—and many more applications that had led to absolutely nothing—her initial optimism astounded her. She literally had a degree, an internship and then almost ten years of nothing.

Well—not nothing. But nothing she was about to put on her CV. A million followers and a charitable foundation that she’d established herself could possibly sound impressive to some HR departments. But they weren’t relevant to the environmental officer roles she was applying for.

And, just as importantly, they would reveal her real name. And she just couldn’t do that.

Although it was tempting at times. Like tonight. How easy it would be to still be April Molyneux and organise the reissue of one of the many credit cards linked to her insane fortune? By this time tomorrow she could be eating all the Thai green curry she wanted.

She could even upgrade to a far more impressive flat.

April pushed herself up and off the couch, to search for something to eat in her lovely kitchen.

Her fridge was stocked only with expensive Australian Riesling, sparkling designer water—also expensive—a partially eaten wheel of camembert cheese—expensive—and the organic un-homogenised milk that she’d bought because she’d liked the pretty glass bottle it came in—probably also more expensive than it needed to be.

April felt sick.

Was she really so disconnected from the reality of what things cost?

Her whole life she’d known she was rich. But she’d thought she still had some sense of the reality of living in the real world: without a trust fund, without the mansion your mum had bought for you.

She’d liked to think she’d projected some sort of ‘everywoman’ persona to her Instagram and Facebook followers. That despite the good fortune of her birth that she was really just like everybody else.

She poured herself a bowl of probably overpriced granola and used up the rest of her fancy milk, then sat back in front of her laptop.

Earlier today, before heading to the gym, she’d scheduled the next couple of days’ worth of social media posts.

April Spencer might be in London, but April Molyneux—to her followers, anyway—was still in Perth, effortlessly adjusting to her new single life.

Before she’d dyed her hair she’d made sure she’d honoured every single product placement agreement she’d signed, and had posed for months’ worth of photos. She’d taken even more selfies, with all manner of random backgrounds—she’d come up with something to caption them with as she needed to.

Plus she still took random photos while here in London—the habit was too ingrained for her to give it up completely. She just made sure her hair and anything identifiably London wasn’t in any of the photos. So the book she was reading...the shade she’d painted her toenails...that kind of stuff. All was still documented, still shared, interwoven with her blonde April photos and carefully coordinated with her assistant back home—thankfully still paid for by the Molyneux Foundation.

So her social media life carried on. Her followers continued to grow.

And what were they seeing?

She scrolled down the page, taking in her last few years of photos in a colourful blur.

A blur of international holidays, secluded luxury Outback retreats, designer shoes, amazing jewellery, beautiful clothes, a gorgeous husband and attractive—wealthy—friends.

They were seeing an unbelievably privileged woman who had absolutely no idea what it was like to exist in the real world.

April slapped her laptop screen shut, suddenly disgusted with herself.

And ashamed.

The whole point of all this—the move to London, her quest for a job, living alone for the first time in her life—had been about finding herself. Defining who she was if she wasn’t Evan’s wife. Or one of the Molyneux heiresses.

But so far all she’d achieved was a self-indulgent month during which she’d patted herself on the back for ‘living like a normal person’ but achieved absolutely nothing other than a new, reasonably priced wardrobe.

She knew her mum, Ivy and Mila all assumed this was just a bit of a game to her. They assumed that once she did eventually get a job she’d supplement her income with Molyneux money. On reflection, no one had pointed out the now damned obvious fact that she couldn’t afford this apartment.

And, unlike April, they would know. Mila had never used her Molyneux fortune: she knew exactly how far a dollar or a pound could stretch. And Ivy had dedicated her life to building up the Molyneux fortune—so she knew, too.

She couldn’t even be annoyed with them. Up until tonight, and that stupid, sad ‘declined’ beep at the cash register, they’d been right.

They’d been right to think that their pampered middle sister couldn’t cut it in the real world.

And, if she was brutally honest, she hadn’t even been trying. She’d thought she had, but people in the real world didn’t have no income for a month—and no savings—and then casually take their time applying for some mythical perfect job while living in a luxury apartment.

She flipped her laptop open again.

She needed to find a job. Immediately.