Lies and Weddings(130)
Diego and Julie nodded their heads solemnly.
Thomas turned white as a sheet.
“He needs some water—I think he’s about to pass out,” Jane said.
Skip Notes
* Harry’s Bar may be more well-known, but the bar of the Metropole is where illustrious guests such as Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, and Thomas Mann preferred to nurse their Negronis, the latter purportedly even writing parts of his masterpiece Death in Venice there.
VII
PALAZZO GATTOPARDO
SAN MARCO, VENICE ? LATER THAT AFTERNOON
Eden was sitting on the balcony of the palazzo, enjoying the sight of all the boats and gondolas passing along the Grand Canal below. She heard footsteps behind her and saw her father emerge onto the balcony.
“Back so soon? Was the Guggenheim too crowded for you?” Eden asked.
“I didn’t go to the Guggenheim,” Thomas confessed. “I had a business meeting.”
“A secret meeting in Venice?” Eden was surprised. “Please don’t tell me that you’re MI6.”
Thomas chuckled. “I wish it were that, but no. Remember how I told you that your mother never wanted her brother, Roger, to know about you?”
Eden’s heart sank for a moment. “Oh no. Has he suddenly surfaced?”
“No, not quite. But I feel I must tell you what happened to him.”
“I didn’t want to pry, but I did wonder whatever became of him…”
“After Roger Gao’s arrest, my father actually helped to hire the best solicitors for him, and they managed to get him a far more lenient sentence. Roger was sent to Stanley Prison for three years, where he had the tremendous luck of being put in a cell with Enrique Tan, a tycoon from the Philippines who was serving a light sentence for securities fraud. They became fast friends, and after Roger was released he went straight to the Philippines, where he became Enrique’s right-hand man and enormously wealthy himself.”
Eden’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute, is Roger…”
“Roger Gao is Rene Tan. He changed his name when he moved there. Rene, from the Latin renatus, which means ‘reborn,’ and Tan, in honor of the man who gave him a new lease on life.”
“Rene Tan was my uncle!” Eden said, shaking her head in astonishment. “Did he know who I was?”
“He figured it out when he met you. You told him that Mum’s name was Faye Wang. And Rene knew that his sister’s favorite actress was Faye Wong, from Chungking Express. She used to sing that song from the film around him too.”
“?‘California Dreamin’,’?” Eden murmured with a smile, remembering the tune her mother used to sing her to sleep.
“Yes. He put it all together rather quickly, but he never let on that he knew.”
“I’m so glad I got to meet him before he passed.”
“Yes, my worst fear turned out to be quite a blessing, strangely enough. And this leads me to the strangest development of all, which came out of today’s meeting. I have been tasked with informing you that you are the beneficiary of a trust that Rene established before he died. The MET Trust, which stands for ‘Mary and Eden Tong Trust.’?”
“So Rene left me a little money?”
“A little. A hundred million dollars.”
Eden laughed. “Gosh, let’s go shopping!”
“I’m dead serious.”
“Stop pulling my leg.”
“I’ve never been more serious. This trust that Rene established for you was meant to come to you on your thirtieth birthday. It seems that after your uncle discovered who you were, he wanted you to have a small legacy from him. Well, small for him. I think he never forgave himself for what happened that night at Felix, and he felt that he had inadvertently destroyed three lives that evening—not just Henry’s and your mother’s, but your life. I feel this was his way of atoning for that.”
“That’s quite an atonement. Come on, there’s no way he would leave me a hundred million dollars! I barely knew the man.” Eden shook her head in disbelief.
“Well…to be honest, he didn’t leave you that. As it turns out, there was another contingency clause to his original trust. The clause stipulated that if his only son, Luis Felipe, did not survive to his thirty-fifth birthday, everything in the original trust—the R. S. Tan Trust—would flow into MET Trust.”
“I’m confused. What does this mean?”
“Well…my darling, it means that as his nearest surviving next of kin, you are now fully in control of his entire conglomerate of companies—Rene Tan Enterprises.”
“What?!” Eden’s eyes widened.
“You are the sole heiress of his business empire, his properties, his chattel—worth, as of market close yesterday, in excess of ninety billion American dollars,” Thomas said, his voice quavering.
Eden made a little squeak.
“And perhaps most significantly to you, you’ve also inherited all the debts owed to Rene, which include the promissory notes from Lord Francis Gresham.”
Thomas handed the trust document to Eden. As she began reading it, she put a hand to her mouth and started to tremble uncontrollably. Thomas found himself tearing up as he witnessed his daughter’s astonishment and confusion. He let tears flow down his cheeks unabashedly as he cleared his throat and continued, “Now, you have a big decision to make. If you choose to call in those promissory notes, you shall become the sole owner of Greshamsbury Hall. However, you may choose to extend the loan and allow the Greshams to continue living at the manor.”