CAROL MARINELLI - The Socialite's Secret

‘Has your mother been depressed lately?’

‘No, no.’ Scarlet shook her head. ‘It’s nothing like that. She just took too much.’

‘How, when her physician keeps her pills?’

‘She keeps some on her,’ Scarlet said.

Luke honestly didn’t know if Scarlet was covering up for her mother or simply had no idea how serious the problem was.

‘Scarlet.’ Luke tried to meet her gaze. ‘Why did you go in to check on your mum? I’m not going to write anything down. Just tell me.’

‘I was worried.’

‘More so than usual?’ Luke checked, and she nodded. ‘I need to know why.’

‘We had a row.’

‘About?’

‘Please don’t ask, Dr Edwards.’ It was Scarlet now who rebuked him, just a little but enough for him to get what she meant—if there were lines that could not be crossed, if he wanted to keep this professional, then, right now, the answer to that question could not be discussed. ‘We had an argument.’

‘Okay.’

‘They want my mother to be moved to another hospital,’ Scarlet said.

Luke had guessed that they might. ‘Well, as of now, the only place your mother is being moved to is Intensive Care. Here.’

‘They think that she needs to be somewhere more used to dealing with …’ Scarlet stopped what she had about been to say. Luke loathed the word ‘celebrity’.

‘She’s in the best place and in no condition to be moved,’ Luke said. ‘As her daughter, you get to make that call.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Scarlet gave a worried shake of her head.

‘I know so,’ Luke responded.

‘But she has Vince. He deals with all that type of thing.’

‘Yes, well, Vince is going to be a bit busy for the foreseeable future. After I’ve spoken with you, believe me, I’m going to be speaking with him and getting a far more accurate history than the one he gave me earlier. I may also be speaking with the police so trust me when I say that I’ll back your call if you want your mother kept here.’

‘Luke, please, don’t bring the police into this.’ Scarlet started to cry and not very quietly.

He sat and watched unmoved. Those tears did not move him and certainly he would not be swayed by hype and celebrity status when he made his decisions.

He just needed more facts but few were forthcoming.

His pager trilled and Luke checked it. Seeing that it was Heather, he made a phone call and rolled his eyes as she told him that the press were becoming more insistent. ‘Just say no comment,’ Luke responded tartly. ‘How hard is it to say that?’ He let out a tense breath. ‘Unless there is a change in Anya’s condition, or you need me for another patient, you’re not to disturb me. I’m speaking with a relative now.’

He looked over and saw that in the couple of minutes it had taken to speak with Heather, Scarlet had stopped crying long enough to take out her phone. Luke watched with mounting irritation. They were speaking about her mother’s near-death and yet Scarlet was checking the news reports and quickly scrolling through social media!

‘What are you doing?’ Luke asked.

‘It’s everywhere!’ Scarlet said, but then she really started to cry and they weren’t false tears this time. As she put the phone down on the desk, Luke saw an image, and he reached over and picked it up.

The photo that he saw was of Scarlet. She was dressed in a pair of red pyjamas and her feet were bare as she stood on the street beside the ambulance that her mother was being loaded into. Two bodyguards were restraining her from climbing in. Her black hair was a mop of wild curls, her usually pale skin was red from crying and there was a look of sheer terror on her face.

Luke looked up from Scarlet’s phone and at the woman who now sat on the other side of his desk—she was the perfectly groomed star in crisis now! Scarlet was wearing tight leather leggings and a tight black top. Over that there was a large silver leather jacket that looked as if it had been thrown on at the last minute. Her black curls were now perfectly tousled. Luke knew, though, from very personal experience, that the photo was a truer portrayal of Scarlet’s morning locks.

He pulled away from that memory; instead, he looked back at the phone and the image that had been captured by the press.

It showed a rare moment of reality in a very unrealistic world and this would be the photo that would dominate, Luke was sure.

Scarlet looking less than perfect.

It was the Scarlet he far preferred.

‘It’s going to be worse than ever now …’ Scarlet could not stop crying. Yes, she was terrified for her mother, but she’d had so much hanging on today, so many plans in place. There wasn’t a hope of escaping from the press now and, Scarlet knew, now more than ever her mother needed her to be near.

‘They’re going to make my life hell.’

‘Don’t feed them, then,’ Luke said. Her head was in her hands, her fingers were scrunched in her hair, but she lifted her face and gave him a scornful look as he continued to speak. ‘You don’t have to respond to the press, just focus on your mother and yourself.’

‘What would you know?’ Scarlet scoffed.

‘Oh, I know,’ Luke said. It was pointless to sit and pretend that he could take a comprehensive history from Scarlet and leave the personal aside. ‘David, the anaesthetist, will take a more thorough history once your mother has been transferred to ICU.’ He handed her back her phone, and as he did so he looked at Scarlet’s slender, manicured fingers and remembered hands that were as smooth as a kitten’s paws.

No, anger at her spoiled, pampered life didn’t now gnaw at him; instead, it saddened him that that funny, adventurous mind had been locked away for so long.

Yes, the world was supposedly Scarlet’s oyster, but Luke knew that since the day she had been born, her life had been magnified by a lens.

‘You’re handing me over.’

‘I’m handing your mother’s care over,’ Luke said. ‘That’s normal policy when a patient is moved. I need to get back out there, Scarlet. I have patients to see.’

‘What about me?’

Typical, Luke thought, but, though he tried to generate anger, though he did his best to remind himself of the spoiled princess Scarlet was and the absolute diva she could be, he failed.

‘What about us?’ Scarlet said.

‘There’s no us,’ Luke lied.

He was angry now as he recalled all she had done, but instead of standing to leave, he sat there.

And so did she.

They sat in the silence of his office and as the world carried on outside, both went back to a time when things had seemed so different.

When hope had arrived in both their hearts.

Even if it killed them to do so, both remembered.

‘I’VE GOT A HEADACHE.’ Anya closed her eyes and massaged her temples. ‘I’m going to have to go back to the hotel and see Vince.’

Scarlet frowned in concern and said all the right things to her mother but inside all she felt was relief. All she wanted was to get away from the noise of the club and close her eyes and go to sleep. It was after midnight and Scarlet had been up since seven. She had given interviews and done a shoot at London Bridge, and the rest of the day had been spent propping up her mother, telling her that she could get through the show.

‘We’ll get you back,’ Scarlet said, and nodded to her mother’s bodyguard.

‘What would I do without you?’ Anya asked, and Scarlet felt the knot that had lived in her chest for more than ten years now tighten a notch. And then, because she was Anya, her mother changed her mind about leaving when a young guy came over to their table with a drink and told her how amazing her performance that night had been. ‘I’ll just stay for one more,’ Anya said.

Scarlet moved over to give the young man room to sit next to her mother but then she stood up.

She saw the exit door and started to walk towards it.

Scarlet wanted fresh air.

More than that she wanted to run.

‘Hey, Scarlet …’ A hand was on her arm and she turned to the face of one of her mother’s bodyguards. ‘I’ll send Troy outside with you.’

She didn’t want Troy.

Scarlet didn’t want anyone, she just wanted one day, one moment to be allowed out in the world alone.

She didn’t want to be here in this club.

And then she looked up and saw a man who looked as if he didn’t want to be there either.

He was taller than most and, unlike others, he was wearing a suit. His hair was dark and as he raked a hand through it, it remained a touch messy. He was smart yet dishevelled, present but unimpressed, and there was something about him that had Scarlet intrigued.

‘We’re all leaving now,’ Troy suddenly informed her. ‘Your mother’s ready to go.’

‘I’m going to stay on.’

It was a rare request.

An almost unheard-of request, in fact, and one that did not go down too well.

‘I don’t need your drama now, Scarlet,’ Anya hissed. ‘I’ve been working all night and my head feels as if it’s about to explode …’

‘Vince will sort that out,’ Scarlet said.

It ended the conversation.

Scarlet had known that it would.

Anya could stay and argue for ten minutes with her daughter or head back to Vince.

How Scarlet loathed that man!

And so, as her mother left the building, Scarlet remained.

Not alone, of course. Three bodyguards were still present, but for now at least she was minus Mom.

Luke, even before they had arrived in the club, had had enough.

It was his younger brother’s twenty-first birthday and Luke really didn’t want to be here, but up until now he’d had no real choice.

He’d bought dinner and had done the cursory pub crawl and had decided that he’d buy the first round here, stay for a little while and then disappear.

It wasn’t a regular nightclub. Marcus’s friend knew someone and had got the boisterous group into some very trendy, exclusive basement club.

At twenty-eight years of age, Luke felt old.

He’d always been more sensible than most, more responsible than most, and this place tested that to the limit. Everyone was off their heads and the noise just ate at him.

Still, it was his brother’s birthday so Luke had gone along with things till now. He had been down from Oxford anyway, in London for an interview, and at lunchtime he had checked into a hotel.

His interview had been scheduled for four, which should have given him plenty of time to meet his brother and friend at seven. Except the interview had gone really well. So well that not only had he been extensively shown through the department, his potential new boss had asked him to wait back so he could meet a colleague who was in Theatre. Of course Luke had agreed. This was a senior registrar’s position with a junior consultancy at the end of it at the London Royal after all.

There hadn’t been time to get back to the hotel to change so he had arrived half an hour late to meet his brother and had felt on the back foot ever since. Especially here. Everyone was dressed in far less than a suit and drinking bright cocktails and were high, if not on life, just high.

‘Nice to be single again?’ Marcus asked, as Luke bought the drinks.

‘Actually, yes,’ Luke said, though it was wasted here, he thought privately.

Marcus and his friends hit the dance floor, which actually consisted of most of the place, and Luke took a mouthful of his drink and leant against the bar. He thought about the day he’d just had.