IT
HAD all started with a look: blue eyes from an English father; ebony hair from
an Italian mother. Once he had not cared that his eyelashes cast long shadows upon
his cheeks, that he had the Cupid’s bow of a cherub or that his cheekbones
chiseled out at a geometric angle, but when he did, he became what the English
termed a wanker or a prick. Perhaps they confused the expression for a heartbreaker.
The
camera loved him at least.
He
could recline on silk sheets for cologne or seethe in a sportscar. His life
became the silk sheet he had once reclined upon: smooth, compliant and without
substance. In pursuit of something, he enterprised. His upbringing on Lake Como
receded as he found himself sipping sangria on a Monte Carlo balcony, basking
on his cruiser in Cannes or cheering Chelsea within a glass suite above the
terraces.
His
choice expanded with his acquisitions: hotels, leisure centres, nightclubs, a
recording studio. Those he found company with complied to fulfill their talents,
wit, resource and diplomacy.
He
convinced himself he’d fallen in love and got bored. He got high and watched
endless sunrises. American girls were fun, the English rose, a tease; Europeans
were flamboyant but he knew how to let them all down easy.
He
reinvented himself. No longer just a playboy but a mind turned industrious. He
managed and delegated. The routine grounded him and his prosperity burgeoned.
He hosted charity events to satisfy his guilt but concealed his disdain for the
unfortunate. Soulless, someone had gibed about his lifestyle, but that was fine
by him. Those that gibed would never be seen next to royalty, pop stars or
politicians. The alternative was unthinkable. And he wouldn’t have it any other
way.
Until
the day he had glimpsed her face in the half-light, unrepentant and not of his
world. As the black void engulfed him, his worldly achievements counted for
nothing.
He
thought he’d never wake again.
