The Sisters Read online

  Jeff held her hand as they walked down the hallway towards his apartment.

  ‘So, finally I get to see your place?’ asked Violetta. ‘You have been so cagey not letting me see it.’

  ‘Yes, well it’s not that exciting. My interior decoration skills are about the same as my fashion sense,’ he laughed as he opened the door.

  Violetta looked around. It was a gorgeous space, large, and with wonderful details around the ceilings and the windows. Violetta could see through the enormous archways into other rooms. There was a staircase on the side that led up and she could make out French doors on one side of the room.

  ‘You have an upstairs and a balcony?’ she asked, amazed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jeff, ‘but sadly no furniture.’

  Violetta looked around the vastly under-furnished room and frowned.

  ‘I have to ask this, why are you living in such a huge place by yourself?’

  ‘I don’t know. I bought it when I got my residency and then when upstairs came up, I bought that also. And then I put a staircase in but I have done nothing to it,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘You need a decorator,’ Violetta said, walking to the French doors. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jeff.

  He walked over and swung them open to reveal a balcony that overlooked Central Park. ‘OK, you officially have the best apartment in New York, and I have seen many of them, trust me,’ she said, leaning over the balcony.

  Jeff pulled her to him. ‘Come here,’ he growled, and kissed her passionately.

  Violetta was swept away by his passion and she let herself be kissed.

  ‘Man, you are so sexy in that suit, I think I’m going to faint,’ she said in his ear.

  Jeff laughed and pulled her inside.’ I have to make love to you now, Violet. I have thought about nothing else all day and night.’

  He started to unbutton her cardigan. Violetta stood still as he pulled it from her shoulders and she stood in her black lace bra. He undid her pants and she unzipped her boots and kicked them off. He pulled off her pants and she stood in her briefs as he unhooked her bra. She slipped off her briefs and stood naked in front of him, raising her eyebrows as if to say, what else?

  Jeff stood back and assessed her. ‘You are so, so beautiful,’ he said, standing still.

  Violetta felt herself becoming shy. He looked at her in a way no man had ever seen her, beyond her body and instead as a woman.

  ‘So, now that you have me naked in your empty but fabulous apartment, what will you do with me?’ she teased to cover her embarrassment.

  Jeff led her by the hand to his bedroom and opened the door. The room was empty except for a bed. And a phone charger.

  ‘You live like a terrorist,’ said Violetta, as he took her to the bed. ‘Or maybe a spy,’ she added, pulling at his bow tie.

  Jeff undressed quickly and stood opposite Violetta, not touching.

  ‘Is this just a fling, Jeff?’ she asked, overcome with insecurity.

  ‘Is it for you?’ he asked, equally worried.

  ‘No,’ she answered.

  ‘I’m in love with you, Violetta. I hope you will be mine,’ he said. He reached out and held her face in his hands. ‘I even asked your mom when she was in a coma how to make you mine,’ he said seriously.

  Violetta felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘I love you too, Jeff, and I think my mom heard you.’ She kissed him on the mouth.

  That night they made love, slowly and with a tenderness Violetta had never known. Waking in his apartment the next day, she watched him as he slept and smiled.

  ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she heard him say with his eyes still shut tight.

  ‘Just looking,’ she laughed.

  ‘You’re creepy,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I know.’ She lay back and hugged herself with happiness. ‘I’m going to give a dinner, a fundraiser for the hospital. Will you come?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, his eyes still closed.

  ‘Will you wear your suit again?’ she teased, and rolled over on top of him.

  ‘If it will make you happy,’ he said, as he wrapped his arms around her.

  She felt his hard-on beneath her and wriggled down until she felt him slip easily inside her. He gasped with pleasure and she laughed, sitting on top of him. He held her breasts as she ground herself into him and he pulled her down on to him and flipped her onto her back. Now it was her turn to gasp as she felt him fucking her hard. He grabbed under her ass and she felt herself about to come.

  ‘Jesus, Christ,’ she said breathlessly, as Jeff’s rhythm got faster.

  Soon he came with her. He rolled off. ‘Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I hope I wasn’t too rough.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I love it fast and furious. I love it when you are taken over by passion, I love sex in any form and I love it all the better with you,’ she said, smiling at him, her hair tumbled around her face.

  ‘You do something crazy to me, Miss Violet. You are like a drug I can’t get enough of.’

  He lay on his side and kissed her arm. She rolled over to face him, and he gently circled a rosy nipple with his finger.

  ‘What do you want to do today?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you have to work?’

  ‘Nope, Saturday. Two days off.’

  ‘Really?’ Violetta sat up excitedly.

  ‘Really,’ he said, laughing at her. ‘What do you want to do?’

  She lay back down. ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘OK, you plan today and I'll plan tomorrow. That’s if you can bear to spend two days with me.’

  ‘I think I can bear it,’ she said, kissing his chest. ‘All right up. Let’s go,’ she ordered, and jumped out of bed.

  The morning was spent having brunch, where Violetta ate eggs and drank coffee and signed six autographs, much to Jeff’s amusement.

  As they walked through the city, Violetta told Jeff to wait for her at a bookstore as she wanted to hit a drug store and buy a toothbrush and pop into Pajaro to pick up a few items of clothing to see her through the weekend.

  Violetta couldn’t remember when she had ever been happier. She had purpose, love, laughter and most of her family back.

  32

  Carlotta spent the evening with Chris. He didn’t mention his suspicions and his brief moment with Violetta at the drugstore, and she didn’t mention her sickness. She avoided wine, saying she was on antibiotics, and spent the night chatting to Alexia about horses and riding.

  After Alexia went to bed, she stood up. ‘Well, I might head home,’ she said. Tiredness washed over her and she wondered if she would even make it home.

  Chris looked up surprised. ‘You not staying?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, and walked to the door.

  ‘That’s a shame, I would have liked you in my bed.’

  ‘For how long?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘How long what?’

  ‘How long would you like me in your bed?’

  ‘I don’t know, it depends how good my stamina is,’ he laughed.

  Carlotta smiled ruefully. ‘You see, I don’t want to just be in your bed, I want to be in your life, Chris.’

  Chris put his hands in his pockets of his pants. ‘One step at a time, Carlotta. I have to take it slowly, this is all new to me.’

  Carlotta snorted at him. ‘Well, you see, I don’t have that time, so let’s just call it quits while we’re ahead, OK?’

  She walked to the front door and opened it.

  ‘Bye Chris,’ she said, and the doors closed on her.

  Downstairs she dialled Violetta's number again. ‘Hi,’ she said, crying into the phone.

  ‘Are you OK? Where are you?’

  ‘I was at Chris’s and he was giving me the shits.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Violetta.

  ‘Because he wants everything on his terms and it pissed me off,’ she said, composing herself.

  ‘He wants what on his terms?’

/>   ‘He wants me in his bed but not in his life. Doesn’t believe in marriage or happily ever after or anything.’

  ‘Do you want to marry him?’ Violetta asked.

  ‘Not really, but it would be nice if I got to turn him down. I don’t know, we just started this but his assumption that he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it shits me.’

  Violetta started to laugh. ‘Oh, Lotty, you are like that. The qualities you hate in him are what you hate about yourself.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Carlotta good-naturedly.

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I know, so why am I shitty with him?’

  ‘Because he thinks he is right and he hasn’t asked you what you think and you think you are right,’ said Violetta.

  ‘Why are you so smart?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just am.’

  ‘And so modest too,’ laughed Carlotta.

  ‘Yes, I’m that as well.’

  ‘Thanks for talking to me,’ said Carlotta quietly.

  ‘Anytime, you know that.’

  ‘Say hi to Jeff for me,’ she said cheekily.

  ‘How did you know?’ squealed Violetta.

  ‘Grace told me,’ said Carlotta as she hung up.

  Everyone seemed to be moving on. She was pregnant, in lust with the child’s father, one sister was a recovering alcoholic, the other one happily dating a brain surgeon while starring in a reality TV series, and her mother in some fantasy marriage to a man who could potentially be her biological father. Carlotta started to laugh at the absurdity of her life and by the time she arrived back at her apartment was almost weak from laughing so hard.

  As she took the elevator upstairs, she felt dizzy from the movement and struggled to get the key into the lock. She ran to the bathroom and threw up into the sink. This was going to be hell, she decided.

  33

  Spencer, Atlanta – October 2010

  Birdie would be here with him tonight. She said she had something to tell him, something important. He walked around his house, waiting for Birdie’s arrival, wishing he was in New York with her. He had wanted to be with her when she left Leon. He didn’t trust that man, but Birdie was insistent that she had to do it alone.

  He waited for her phone call, he was to meet her at the airport. She would call the girls when she arrived. None of them knew about her plans. She was going to tell Violetta, the one Birdie knew would understand the most, but they had fought over lunch.

  Spencer worried about the girls. Carlotta, lost in her horses and afraid of connecting to real people. Violetta and her endless parties and need for love. And Grace, an old woman at twenty-five. He wished he was closer to them, could offer them guidance. But he never intruded, only helped when asked. He didn’t want to push them away. He had a feeling that one day they would come to him when it really mattered.

  He checked his watch. Birdie should have called by now, he thought, beginning to become worried. Then the phone rang. Filled with relief, he almost ran to answer it.

  ‘Birdie?’ he asked. ‘Thea? Hi, what’s wrong?’ he asked, listening to the woman bawling on the end of the phone.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he said, and hung up.

  You will die for this Leon, he thought, as he ran from the home he had built for the woman who lay in a coma in New York.

  34

  Grace dressed in her most sombre outfit, a Jason Wu tweed grey dress, with a black Stella McCartney wool blazer. She attached vintage Georg Jensen earrings and a matching bracelet. Black heels and opaque tights. She looked at herself in the mirror. Minimal makeup and a spray of Aromatics by Clinique and she was out the door.

  Carlotta was sitting at the boardroom table with Chris, Violetta and Spencer when she arrived.

  ‘Morning,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ said Violetta.

  Carlotta smiled at her. Grace gave her a look as if to ask how she was and sat down next to her. Carlotta lifted up her long sleeved black jumper and showed her the motion sickness bands beneath her sweater. Grace raised her eyebrows.

  Spencer’s phone rang and he picked it up and walked from the room. The sisters sat in awkward silence while Chris pretended to be absorbed in the spreadsheet in front of him. When Spencer walked back into the room, Grace spoke. ‘Everything OK, Spence?’ she asked, hoping to change the conversation.

  Spencer looked distracted. ‘Fine, fine.’ And he sat down in his chair.

  The door opened and Chris’s secretary stood in the doorway. ‘The board is here,’ she said.

  The men filed in, murmurs and greetings filled the room, and the sisters suddenly felt nervous.

  Chris stood up. ‘Thank you for finding the time to reschedule,’ he said. ‘As you know, we have our new shareholder in today. There has been a closed meeting between the previous shareholder and this new party, and so we have no idea who they may be. I would ask that whatever happens we keep our heads about us and remain calm.’

  ‘Why all the cloak and dagger, Chris?’ asked Nicolas Canturi.

  ‘It was part of the deal. I would have liked to know earlier but I haven’t been able to source any details.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Nicholas of the sisters.

  Violetta shook her head. ‘I haven’t heard a thing.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Grace.

  ‘I saw Matthew and asked him and he told me he has signed papers that forbade him to not speak of the deal till after this meeting,’ Carlotta said.

  Chris and her sisters stared at her. ‘You never told me,’ hissed Violetta.

  Carlotta shrugged. ‘Well, it didn’t make any difference,’ she said, and avoided Chris’s pointed look.

  A knock at the door came again and the secretary popped her head back in. ‘I have a few gentlemen to see you.’

  Violetta’s stomach fluttered. Please let it be all right, she thought, I have finally found what I want to do, please don’t take it away from me.

  A man walked through the door, older, greying and wearing a striped suit. A lawyer, thought Violetta. Then a woman walked through, elegant, fabulous and tailored. Violetta felt her heart sink. She hadn’t figured it would be a woman, maybe a designer.

  The two strangers sat down at the table. Grace afforded them a nervous but welcoming smile. The woman tossed her hair and flicked her a small smile. Violetta sat up in her chair. The dress was Oscar De Larenta, Violetta noted, and the hair was like silk, at least a five-hundred-dollar haircut.

  ‘Chris Koch,’ said Chris, standing up and extending his hand.

  ‘Marion Willmers,’ said the exotic woman in a transatlantic accent.

  ‘Gregory Stone,’ said the man, and he shook Chris’s hand.

  ‘Shall we get started?’ asked Chris.

  ‘We are waiting on one more,’ said Gregory Stone.

  Just as he spoke another man walked into the room. Carlotta gasped. It was the man from Matthew’s apartment.

  Grace’s hands flew to her mouth. There in his suited splendour stood Frank. He walked into the room, sat down next to Marion and ignored the sisters. Grace felt herself becoming dizzy, and Carlotta grabbed her hand beneath the table and squeezed it hard.

  ‘I’m Frank Thurlow,’ he addressed the room. ‘I am the purchasing party of the remaining shares in Pajaro and I believe I own forty-nine per cent,’ he said formally.

  Chris nodded and smiled at Carlotta who looked shocked.

  ‘I have bought these shares for the sum of twenty-five million dollars,’ he added, looking down at the notes that Marion Willmers placed in front of him.

  ‘Do you intend to stay on at Pajaro as an active shareholder?’ asked Nicholas Canturi.

  Frank cleared his throat for effect. ‘No, I do not. At this point I have had my lawyers, Marion and Gregory, draw up an agreement to sign the shares over to the de Santoval sisters equally.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked Nicolas Canturi.

  There was a dull hum in the room from the conversations and comments, but the sisters sat
still.

  ‘As I said, I will sign these shares over to the sisters equally.’

  ‘For what cost?’ asked Chris carefully. Who was this Thurlow guy, he wondered.

  ‘Nothing, it is my gift to them.’ He looked at Grace who remained shocked. ‘The only thing I ask is to give any children I have stock options, which I have outlined in the documents we have drawn up.’ He looked pointedly at Grace who turned her head away from him.

  ‘So if I can sign here, we can stop these arguments about ownership and hopefully go back to our lives.’ Frank looked pointedly at Grace who refused to look at him.

  Frank took the pen that Chris offered him. He signed the papers and both his lawyers witnessed them, and then Frank pushed the papers towards the sisters. Violetta signed first and gave Frank a brief smile. As her eyes met his she realised how nervous he was and he accepted her smile gratefully. Carlotta signed next, speechless. Finally it was Grace’s turn. She held the pen in her hand and then looked up at him, her eyes cold. She signed while she kept hold of his stare and then pushed the papers towards him.

  Frank picked them up, his hands shaking a little and handed them to Chris. ‘I believe you will find everything in order.’

  Chris laughed. ‘Man, this company is crazy,’ he said, and a few people in the room laughed nervously with him.

  ‘Well, that’s all in order then. We can contact you if we have any questions?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Frank, looking at Grace.

  The room stood up, except the sisters. Chris and a few of the board members introduced themselves to Frank and he spoke briefly but pleasantly to each one before they left the room. Violetta saw him whisper to Marion and Gregory and they too left. Then it was just the sisters, Chris, Spencer and Frank.

  Frank paused, waiting for them to speak but no one volunteered.

  ‘Grace, I know you are angry but I wanted to do something to help you and your family. It was the greatest thing I could think of that would give you and Pajaro freedom again,’ he implored her.

  Grace crossed her arms. Carlotta and Violetta sat in silence. There were so many questions but clearly Grace wasn’t about to ask them.