“Don’t worry, it’s fine. If I need to contact anyone, I have my laptop.”
But later, when I was alone in my bedroom, I opened my laptop to email Carolyn and the screen was completely blank. I tried holding down the power button, but it didn’t make any difference. Without thinking, I picked up the hotel phone and dialed Ned’s room number. He answered after only three rings.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Ned, it’s Amelie. I’m sorry to call so late, but I can’t get my laptop to work…” I trailed off, realizing that he probably wasn’t going to be able to help.
“Did you knock it or drop it?”
I blushed, suddenly remembering dropping my bag on the floor in the bathroom at the airport. “Not that I know of,” I lied, because I didn’t want to seem too much of a liability after having left my phone on the plane.
“Let me make a few calls, see if we can get it fixed. If not, I’ll get you a new one.” He paused. “Don’t sound so worried, it’s not a problem.”
“But what if you need me to do any work?”
“Relax, it’s the weekend. And to be honest, I don’t think there’ll be much for you to do until I meet with Paul Martin, and that won’t be until Monday now. But can you make sure to stay within the confines of the hotel for when I do need you? Until then, you’re free to enjoy yourself.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Use the pools, go to the spa, have a couple of treatments. Just give them my name and it will be taken care of. If I need you, I’ll send someone to find you.”
After breakfast together the next day, Ned disappeared into the business lounge. I wanted to use the pool, but I hadn’t thought to pack a swimsuit, so I headed to one of the hotel shops and bought a red bikini. I also bought myself a pair of black aviator sunglasses and spent the morning swimming lengths and lying in the hot desert sun. At lunchtime, a young man came with a message from Ned, asking me to meet him for lunch.
“Paul Martin is now saying he can’t meet until Tuesday or Wednesday.” Ned looked different today. His face was unshaven and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was playing with his salad and there was an edge to him I hadn’t seen since the journalist had tried to talk to him at the party. “He knows that I came out specially to interview him. I’ve told his agent it has to be Wednesday at the latest, because we’ll be flying back on Thursday.”
“That’s my birthday,” I exclaimed. “I’ll be twenty.”
“Twenty?” He raised his wineglass. “We’ll have to celebrate that before we leave.”
Despite his darker mood, I liked being with Ned. He was funny and charming, and when he asked me to tell him about myself, I ended up telling him that both my parents were dead. He couldn’t believe that I was all alone in the world.
“You must have relatives somewhere in France,” he protested, taking a drink of wine.
“I don’t think so,” I said, glancing around the room at the other guests. “My father was an only child and my French grandparents died before I was born.” I swapped my wineglass for my water glass and took a sip. Ned had persuaded me to try the wine he’d ordered but I wasn’t sure I really liked it. “My English grandmother died a few years ago. My mother had a cousin somewhere in Scotland, I think, but I’m not sure she ever met him. Even if I do have relatives, I wouldn’t know where to begin searching for them.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’m an only child too, now. Although my father does have another child, the Hawthorpe Foundation.”
“You must be proud of it, and of your father.”
Ned twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers. “Yes, I am. But to be honest, the foundation has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment on a personal level.”
“Why is that?”
He shifted in his chair. “It was supposed to be something my father and I could do together. He was just about to launch the foundation when I got into a bit of trouble—had a fight with someone, wrapped a car around a tree, that sort of thing. Of course, because of who I am—because of who my father is—it made it into the press, and he had to put the whole thing on hold because some of the potential benefactors got cold feet, muttering that the foundation would be tarnished by my ‘indiscretions.’ My father was furious and when he finally launched the Hawthorpe Foundation ten years later, he refused to let me have anything to do with it.” He paused, drained his glass, and signaled to the waiter to bring more wine. “When I told him that I knew people who would be happy to make substantial donations, he said he didn’t think the people I had connections with were the sort of people he wanted associated with the foundation. The fundraiser I did in September is a case in point. We received millions in donations, but he wouldn’t take it, so we donated it to another charity.” He waited while the waiter poured him wine. “The truth is, my father cares more about the foundation than he does about me.”