‘Hello, darling,’ said Nick.
Now it was my turn to clear my throat.
‘Um, has Daisy been back here by any chance?’ I asked, keeping my tone light and bright so as to not in any way cause alarm.
‘Wasn’t she with you?’ asked Nick, confused.
‘She was. But then she didn’t want to go into the Uffizi. She was adamant about it, said she’d rather go window shopping.’
‘Well, I hope you didn’t let her?’ said Sophia.
Fuck.
‘I tried calling you,’ I said to Nick. ‘She assured me that neither of you would mind. That she goes out on her own in London all the time.’
‘This is not London, Maddie. For God’s sake!’ snapped Sophia, standing up. ‘So where is she now?’
This was hands-down the most awkward situation I’d ever been in. My mind started racing ahead to the worst-case scenario. What if she’d been abducted? What if we never saw her again and Nick and Sophia lost their precious daughter forever and it was all my fault? What if she was being held hostage by one of the predatory Italian men Peter was so quick to assume would be lurking on every street corner?
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘She said she’d meet us—’
‘Who’s us?’ demanded Nick, who had also stood up now, the relaxed stance from minutes ago long gone.
‘The other people on the tour. The guide, Francesca. Daisy was supposed to meet us at eleven thirty at the statue of Donatello.’
‘And she wasn’t there?’ pressed Nick.
I shook my head. ‘I waited for twenty minutes and then I thought I’d better come back here.’
‘She might still be at the Uffizi,’ said Sophia, who was gathering all her things together, her bag, her scarf. ‘We’d better get down there, Nick.’
I was going to have to tell them about Aidan. Casual, I thought to myself. A fellow guest of the hotel simply doing me a favour.
‘That guy from the wine-tasting tour said he’d wait,’ I explained, cringing inside. ‘You know that journalist guy? He was on the tour too and offered to wait while I came back here.’
Nick flashed me a look. ‘So, right now, Daisy could be with some older man we barely know, essentially a complete stranger?’
‘Look, I’m sorry, OK. She was very persuasive, and—’
‘She’s a teenager, Maddie, of course she’s bloody persuasive,’ said Sophia, raising her voice so that the concierge and a couple of hotel guests looked over with interest. ‘Surely you’re intelligent enough to work that out.’
‘Right,’ I said, trying to stay calm.
It was understandable that she’d be lashing out at me, but because it was Sophia, of course she had to be extra awful about it.
‘I did try to check in with you before I let Daisy go,’ I said to Nick.
‘I must have left my phone up in the room,’ Nick replied, giving me a dark look. ‘Seriously, Madeleine, how could you be so stupid? You should never have let her go off on her own.’
‘Come on, Nick,’ said Sophia, sweeping towards the door. ‘We need to go and find our daughter.’
Nick followed dutifully without so much as a glance in mydirection and I was left standing alone in the lobby as they rushed through the doors and out onto Via Tornabuoni.
I made my way miserably to the lifts, reaching our room in a daze. I’d really fucked up this time. Although Florence felt very safe, and there were people everywhere, so unless she’d completely wandered off the beaten track, it was unlikely that anything terrible had happened, wasn’t it? She could have got lost, I supposed, but she could always ask for directions. She was sensible enough to be able to go into a hotel foyer or ask a policeman or something.
I let myself into the room. The cleaners had been in and everything was neat and pristine. The windows were still thrown open, as I’d left them this morning. I looked around, confused. There was no sign of Nick’s phone. Not on the bed, nor the bedside table. His charger was plugged in under the desk, but his phone wasn’t attached. I checked in the bathroom: nothing. I wondered if he’d been lying about having left it up here. But why would he do that? Unless he felt bad about something. After all, he’d been perfectly happy to let me go off with his daughter alone for over three hours without once checking his phone to make sure that everything was all right. Not that it was excusing my part in it all, far from it, but it was interesting to note that he’d gone to the trouble of lying about it. And it made me think about the other untruths that might have been covered up, on both our parts. Because if I hadn’t been able to tell him about Aidan, then there were probably things that he’d kept from me, too. And suddenly the thought of marrying him made me sink onto the edge of the bed. I put my head in my hands feeling clammy and hot. What if I didn’t want to marry him anymore? What would I do if I’d changed my mind?
London