56. Natalie

56

NATALIE

F or some reason, the relief I feel isn’t due to knowing that Mum is already a fan of Adam, that she’s one less family member to get on board.

Not even close.

Instead, it’s thanks to this incredible revelation that somehow, amid all the pain and panic and worry of Stephen’s horrific maiming, she found it within herself to recognise his attacker as a lost, terrified, betrayed boy and to do something about it.

Every time I imagine her visiting him in prison, the tears well up again. My brain is reframing what I know of Adam’s sentence, piece by piece. Yeah, it was horrific for him. It was a travesty, really. But he had my mother in his corner: one of the warmest, strongest, most compassionate people I know.

I hope that, over the years, the knowledge that one member of the Bennett family saw him and forgave him and was actively rooting for him gave him that extra reassurance that his future was worth fighting for. That he was worth fighting for .

What an extraordinary gift to have given him. What incredible generosity, humanity, to have shown him.

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Adam says as I lose it again. He reaches into the middle of the table, where napkins and cutlery stand in shiny silver julep cups, and shakes out a linen napkin before pressing it gently to my face. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘We’re all good. Everyone’s great. There’s nothing to be sad about, honestly.’

‘I know.’ I nod my head like a child. ‘I just can’t believe it. For some reason, the thought of you being there for him in that place makes me so emotional,’ I say to Mum.

She purses her lips sympathetically. ‘I take it you know the whole story, then?’

I nod again. ‘Yeah. And it makes me so angry.’

‘I’m glad,’ she says. ‘I’m glad you know what a good boy he is.’

That makes me giggle. ‘ Such a good boy,’ I say, wiggling my eyebrows at Adam, who’s looking very much as though he wants to put me over his knee here and now.

Fine with me.

‘But I’m still waiting for your story,’ Mum prompts gently. ‘Can I assume you met through Anton Wolff?’

My mouth falls open.

‘I always wondered if your paths would cross,’ she continues. ‘When you told me about that lovely lady, Gen, marrying him, it seemed such a coincidence to me that your boss was marrying Adam’s old boss, but I just put it down to one of life’s fun little morsels of happenstance.’

I give Adam a slow smile before answering her. ‘We met through Anton,’ I confirm. ‘Adam came in one night with him and Gen, and I recognised him instantly. I kind of had a meltdown when I saw him. Gen had to bundle me up in a cab and send me home.’ I grimace at the memory, and Adam takes my hand under the table, squeezing it reassuringly.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Mum says. ‘It’s not like you had any sense of who he really was as a person.’

‘Exactly. Anyway, it turned out he was in talks with Gen to buy Wolff’s stake in Alchemy off him, so Gen called me in for a meeting with Adam to see if we could work things out.’ I hesitate and hold up my hand in warning. ‘Please don’t freak out, okay? But I was so stressed about the sit-down that I didn’t eat enough, and I ended up having a hypo in the middle of the meeting.’

Mum’s horrified gasp has me pausing, but I push on. ‘I know, I’m not proud of it. But Adam was amazing. He totally nursed me through it, even if I wasn’t at my most gracious.’

Adam laughs. ‘She was an ungrateful little horror, more accurately. Not that I can blame her.’

‘I can only imagine,’ Mum murmurs. ‘But Adam, that must have been horrifically upsetting for you.’

He attempts to deny it, but I butt in. ‘It was, and I was awful. Just awful. Obviously, I didn’t know anything about Ellen at the time, and I just thought he was this overbearing pain in the arse. Anyway, he basically kidnapped me and took me back to his place and forced all sorts of doctors and chickpeas and nutritionists down me, and he even made me stay the night.’

I glance over at him, and the softness on his face, in those pale blue eyes, as he listens to me recount the story almost fells me.

How far we’ve come since then.

How profoundly wrong I was about him.

I let my eyes drift closed for a moment as I brush my thumb over the back of his hand under the table.

‘It’s kind of gone from there,’ I conclude lamely. ‘He looks after me so well, and he’s a major, major feeder. Oh, and he’s been incredible with Gossamer, too.’

Mum’s been watching us as closely as she’s been listening, it seems. She cocks her head and regards us thoughtfully.

‘Thank you, Adam, from the bottom of my heart, for looking after my little girl. Even if she is an ungrateful little horror, as you say.’

‘She’s improving,’ he teases. ‘Slowly.’

I pout like the brat I am.

‘And it’s serious?’ Mum presses. ‘It certainly seems that way.’

‘It’s still early days,’ I hedge, right as Adam says firmly, ‘It’s serious.’

I swear my heart does a full somersault.

It’s not until our soups and salads have arrived that I broach the topic of Stephen. The conversation has flowed non-stop, actually. Mum wanted to hear every detail about our relationship, although clearly the version we’ve given her is highly sanitised.

‘I was actually going to tell you about Adam today, Mum,’ I confess between spoonfuls of my deliciously velvety butternut squash soup. ‘That’s why I suggested lunch. I was hoping you wouldn’t totally freak out and that you’d be able to give me some advice about how to tell Winky.’

Adam sniggers. ‘I still think it’s seriously fucked up that you call him Winky.’

‘He can take it,’ I say airily. I turn back to Mum. ‘But obviously I’m worried that he’ll be a lot less amenable to getting to know Adam properly than you’ve been. ’

Mum frowns. ‘Oh dear. Yes, I can see that he might go off the deep end. But at the end of the day, you’re an adult and you’re entitled to be in a relationship with whomever you choose, as long as they make you happy, which I can see Adam does.’ She shoots him a smile. ‘I imagine your best bet is to try to persuade him that Adam isn’t the man Stephen thinks he is, or ever was, really. I can talk to him, too.’

‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘It needs to come from me.’

‘I agree, darling, but if your news doesn’t land well, I can talk to him afterwards.’ She turns to Adam. ‘I’ll come clean about my visits to you in prison. That man has no idea what you’ve done for him. I assume you were behind the Totum job?’

‘What?’ I demand through the roaring in my ears.

Adam groans, shooting me a panicked look. ‘Jesus, Adelaide.’

‘What? I follow you on Instagram. You’re always hanging out with Aidan Duffy. It didn’t take a genius to make the connection.’

‘You got Stephen his job?’ I ask, my mind racing. Fuck, I can’t believe this. Neither can I believe I didn’t work it out for myself. ‘Does he know?’ I ask Mum.

‘I didn’t get him anything,’ Adam says firmly. ‘I simply asked Aide to take a look at his LinkedIn profile. Your brother earned that job on his own merit—Aide says he’s a very fine programmer.’

‘He definitely doesn’t know,’ Mum says to me now.

‘And it’s going to stay that way, got it?’ Adam says, glaring at me. ‘It was an intro. Nothing more. Let’s not make a big deal of it.’

‘What about this new prosthetic thing he’s so excited about?’ Mum asks him. ‘That seemed to come out of the blue. Know anything about it?’

The panicked looks Adam’s shooting me just keep on coming. I’m torn between amusement that Mum is blithely laying bare his apparent secret side hustle of fairy godfather to my brother and a rush of emotion so strong it’s threatening to overwhelm me.

Adam is such a good man. Such a kind man. And clearly, a man who seems to believe he still has to make reparations to Stephen, all these years later.

‘Good God, Adelaide,’ he grumbles to Mum. ‘You need to work on your discretion.’

Mum sits back and crosses her arms with a satisfied smile. ‘I knew it.’

‘It was a single phone call,’ Adam insists. ‘A mutual friend hooked me up with the CEO. But again, Stephen will get that eye on his own merits. He may be a good candidate, he may not. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about that.’ He turns to me. ‘And for the love of God, I won’t let you ever use this stuff as leverage when you’re pitching my good name to your brother. Never. Understand?

‘He accepts me, or he doesn’t. Either way, we’ll deal with it. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. But I don’t ever want him feeling beholden to me, because the truth is that I ruined his life, and if I call in a million favours on his behalf, none of them will change that fact.’

‘Yeah,’ I say quietly. ‘I understand.’

Mum opens her mouth to speak, then pauses. When she finally speaks, her words are measured. ‘I truly believe, Adam, that you didn’t ruin his life. You altered the trajectory of it, yes. He suffered a lot of trauma and a great loss, but he’s fine. We’re all fine.

‘Of all of us, you’re the one who’s suffered the most unimaginable losses, and look at you. I don’t need to tell you that a good life can be forged from the ashes of tragedy. You don’t need to worry about Stephen anymore. It’s not your job, you hear me?’ She winks at him, and it’s filled with affection. ‘Just focus on my daughter for now.’