One month later …
“Will wonders never cease?” Jemmy leans up against the frame of my office door. “It’s not even noon yet and you’re at your desk.”
“Ha ha. I might skive off from work occasionally, but I do actually earn my pay. Speaking of which, I have to leave soon for a meeting with a potential corporate investor and I need to prepare.” I make a shooing gesture for her to leave.
Instead, she slips inside and shuts the door. “You’ll be fine. You’ll just switch on the charm and win them over, like always.”
“I’m hurt that you think that’s all I’m good for.” I bend forward over the printed spreadsheets and reports on my desk, hoping she’ll take the hint.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks, sis. I love you too.”
“Are you getting any sleep?”
“Enough.”
She knows I’m lying, but for once she doesn’t call me on it. “As much as I love your newfound dedication to your desk, when do I need to start looking for a replacement for you?”
“And now you’re trying to get rid of me. Your sisterly love knows no bounds.” I push myself back from my desk to look at her. “As long as I can get to Erdély a couple of times a month for meetings or official events, you’re stuck with me a while longer.” Eventually, I’ll need to move to Arenberg full-time, when Lajos is older and I need to take over more of his duties, but for now he’s happy for me to carry on living and working in London. That’s already more than Nick did.
“I’m not worried about whether Erdély needs more of your time. I’m worried about you. With everything you’ve got going on, all you do is work. You need to have a life outside of work.”
I work because as long as I keep busy I don’t have time to think. How is it possible to miss someone so much when you only knew them a few short weeks?
“I never thought I’d see the day you lecture me about working too hard. Since when do you have a life outside this office?”
Jemmy looks smug. “Actually, I have a date tonight.”
“Who’s the unlucky guy?”
“Your new language tutor.”
I groan. “Please don’t scare him off. I need him.”
“I don’t try to scare guys off. It’s just so hard to find a man who isn’t intimidated by a confident, successful trust fund baby. Well, unless they’re after the trust fund, of course. Then you can’t get rid of them.”
“Are you just trying to annoy me, or is there a reason you’re preventing me from getting any work done?”
“Mum asked me to speak to you. She was in Westerwald yesterday for a meeting of the ballet trustees, and she had lunch with Phoenix.”
“Oh?” I try not to sound too interested.
“Apparently Khara is seeing someone.”
The hum of the laptop fan is loud in the sudden silence. I loosen the tie constricting my neck and remind myself to breathe. “I’m happy for her.” My mouth is dry. I reach for the half cup of cold coffee on my desk and gulp it down. It tastes awful.
“Liar,” Jemmy says.
It’s possible to be happy for someone and utterly devastated for yourself at the time, I discover.
Jemmy leans forward. “So are you going after her?”
I assemble the papers in front of me into a neat pile. “You’ve just told me she’s dating someone else.”
“Exactly. If you don’t hurry, you’re going to lose her forever.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that I’ve already lost her, but I don’t say the words. Is there a chance I could still win her back? And who is this guy she’s dating – is he good enough for her?
“Was that the whole message from Mum, or was there more?”
“She also said she wants you to come for Sunday lunch, if you can squeeze us into your hectic schedule.” Jemmy rises to leave, but pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “I’m proud of you. I think you’re finally doing something that truly challenges you, something that’s worthwhile. But you’re still living a half-life. It still feels as if you’re just going through the motions. You need to figure out what makes you feel whole and happy, and you need to go after it. And if that thing is Khara, then you need to do it soon, before it’s too late.”
For a long while after she leaves, I sit and stare out of the floor-to-ceiling window at the constant motion on the street below.
I can remember very clearly the first time I ever felt truly whole and happy. When I felt a sense of completion I’d never known before. It was that moment in the crowded drawing room of the palace in Neustadt, before the paediatric hospital dinner, when I wrapped my arms around Khara to make Elena go away.
The first time I pulled her close against me, and didn’t want to let her go.
Rubbing the back of my neck where yet another tension headache is forming, I rise and gather the papers off my desk. I’m going to be late for the meeting and I haven’t read through all the statistics, which means I’m going to have to do what I always do: switch on the charm and hope for the best.