‘More wine, dearest?’
Leah, the make-up girl with the most obvious crush on him, leaned in closer as she topped up his glass. She had spectacular tits, Vio noticed, pale and freckly like her face but as buxomly jiggly and fun-filled as a pair of water balloons. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t ever focused on them before.
‘Thanks.’
The thought crossed his mind that if he weren’t with Sabrina, he’d probably have slept with Leah tonight. And that if he
didn’t
sleep with Leah tonight, he would almost certainly never see her again. Another chance lost forever. Another door closed.
‘Is it really that bad, the life of a movie star?’ Leah did a funny impression of his miserable pout. ‘Down to your last pair of spun-gold boxer shorts, are you? Got the second-best seat on the private jet?’
Vio smiled. ‘Sorry. Do I really look that tragic?’
‘I’d say you had a good chance of making the Olympic sulk squad, yeah.’ Leah took a sip of her own wine. It was getting late and they were all distinctly tipsy. ‘You know, you can tell me what’s on your mind. I’m a good listener.’ When Viorel didn’t say anything, she added teasingly, ‘Of course, I’d probably sell it to the
National Enquirer
first thing tomorrow morning. But a problem shared is a problem halved, right?’
Vio laughed loudly, taking her face in his hands.
‘You’re adorable. You know that, right?’
Leah froze.
I could kiss her
, thought Vio.
Right now, in front of everybody. Blow things up with Sabrina just like that. Blast open the doors and walk to freedom.
Then he glanced across at Sabrina. She was still talking to Dorian, throwing back her head and laughing at something he’d said, her long hair streaming out behind her like leaping flames, her angel’s face a picture of happiness. She wasn’t just beautiful. She was perfect. And she was all his.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
He drew back his hands from Leah’s face.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I’m a jerk. I think I need to be on my own for a while.’
Without saying anything, Leah rummaged in a bag under the table, pulled out a packet of Marlboro Lights and a silver Zippo lighter and pressed them into his hands. Vio was touched.
‘You really are adorable.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ said Leah. ‘If you ever discover you’ve got a long-lost twin brother, be sure and give him my number.’
Back at Loxley Hall, Tish slumped down on one of Vivianna’s new B&B Italia sofas, utterly shattered. Her flight to Bucharest was at eight tomorrow morning, and she desperately needed some sleep, but she was determined to finish the accounts and filing before she left. At least, she reasoned, if she left everything in a clear, organized state for Jago, there was a chance, however technical, that he might eventually get out of bed and start taking his responsibilities at Loxley seriously. At least she would know that she’d done her level best and that no one could blame her if the estate fell to rack and ruin.
I tried.
In a minute, she would go back to Henry’s study.
I’ll just sit down for a few moments. Rest my eyes.
She was woken by what was becoming one of her least favourite sounds in the world: the irritable buzz of her mobile phone.
Who on earth would call her so late?
She contemplated not answering. But then it occurred to her that it might be Carl calling about a problem with one of the kids at Curcubeu. He wouldn’t call at this hour if it weren’t something serious.
‘Hello?’ she said groggily.
Sitting on a wooden bench in the grounds of Dorian’s Schloss, Viorel took a long drag on his cigarette.
I shouldn’t have called. She sounds pissed off already.
‘Hi.’ He coughed nervously. ‘It’s me.’
Silence.
‘Viorel.’
More silence.
‘I was just wondering how my friend Abel’s doing?’
He tried to keep his voice light and casual, but was conscious of the agitated
thump thump
of his heart. Even from eight hundred miles away, Tish could make his heart beat faster. But not in a good way. More like the feeling you get when you see the cops in your rearview mirror.
‘He’s fine,’ said Tish coolly. ‘No thanks to you.’ Inside she thought:
Why am I being so horrible to him? Is it force of habit?
‘What do you mean, “no thanks to me”?’ Vio sounded irritated. ‘What have I done now?’
‘It’s what you haven’t done that’s upset him,’ said Tish. ‘No letters. No calls.’
She knew she was being unfair. Breaking off contact with Abel was the kindest thing Vio could have done for him, under the circumstances. It was impractical to think he’d be able to visit them in Oradea or stay in any kind of regular touch, so why drag the thing out? But she couldn’t seem to stop herself lashing out at him. Hearing his voice made her aware how much she missed him, which only angered her more.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Vio. ‘I’ve been gone less than a month.’
‘Have you any idea how long a month is to a five-year-old child?’
‘Jesus,’ snapped Vio, ‘I was trying to be diplomatic, OK? After the whole Sabrina and Jago thing, I didn’t know if a call from me would be welcome.’
‘Diplomatic?’ Tish scoffed. ‘You? You’re about as diplomatic as Russell Brand with Tourette’s. Abel’s got more tact than you.’
Viorel inhaled deeply on his cigarette. Why, why, why had he called? At the wrap party, flirting dangerously with Leah, watching Sabrina from across the room, he’d felt anxious and unhappy. He wanted somebody to make him feel better, and had found himself dialling Tish’s number before he was really aware what he was doing.
I must be drunker than I realized.
‘For your information,’ Tish continued, ‘Jago hasn’t got out of bed since Sabrina broke things off with him. He’s in a terrible state.’
‘Pull the other one,’ said Vio robustly. If he must, he would take a guilt trip about not calling Abel, but he wasn’t about to shed any tears for Tish’s drama queen of a brother. ‘He’s faking it. Jago never loved Sabrina.’
Tish, who’d privately thought exactly the same thing, was not about to take this from Viorel.
‘How do you know?’ she challenged him.
‘Because it was bloody obvious,’ snapped Vio. ‘He wanted to get in her pants like everybody else.’
‘Except you, of course,’ said Tish sarcastically. ‘You’re deeply in love with her I suppose?’
‘As a matter of fact I am,’ Vio fired back, unthinking.
There was a pause of a few seconds, while they both retreated to their respective corners. When the bell went for the second round, it was Vio who landed the first punch.
‘You know, you ought to be thanking me,’ he said provokingly.
‘Thanking you?’
‘That’s right. For putting an end to your brother’s fantasy engagement. Admit it, you hated that relationship even more than you hated me.’
‘I don’t hate you,’ said Tish, shocked.
‘Whatever,’ slurred Vio. ‘I did you a favour, seducing Sabrina.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Tish.
The arrogance!
‘A bit like the favour you did for Dorian, was it? By screwing his wife? You were actually helping a friend, putting an ailing marriage out of its misery.’
‘That was different,’ Vio mumbled. He was not proud of himself for what had happened with Chrissie.
‘You know you’re really quite saintly, when I think about it,’ said Tish, warming to her theme. ‘I can’t
think
how I misjudged you so badly. You’re like a sort of hands-on therapist, aren’t you, Viorel? Not just a selfish bastard who follows his own dick around this world like a dog with a bone, never caring who he hurts.’
‘You’re impossible,’ snapped Viorel. ‘What are you going to blame me for next – the Middle East fucking peace crisis?’ He hung up, the phone still shaking in his hand.
Back at Loxley, Tish sat stunned on her mother’s overpriced Italian sofa, listening to the long beep of the dial tone. The drawing room suddenly felt freezing. It also looked cold and unfamiliar, more like a furniture showroom than the shabby old home Tish had always loved, packed with all the expensive knick-knacks that Vivi had refused to return, despite Tish’s pleading.
Viorel’s call had upset her, not least because
she
was the one who’d turned it into a row. She’d been totally over-emotional recently, not to mention physically shattered, and she was taking it out on others. She put the tears welling up in her eyes now down to this, and the fact that she was leaving tomorrow, with no idea when she would see her beloved Loxley again. That was one of the biggest ironies about her falling out with Viorel. He seemed to believe that Tish found it easy to go. That it was only Abel who was upset to be leaving England. If he knew how much Tish was dreading it too, perhaps he wouldn’t be so hard on her?
Opening up her wallet, she pulled out a picture of Michel and turned it over in her hands, rubbing the thumb-eared corners thoughtfully. Had it really only been one summer that she’d been away? When she’d first got back to Loxley, that picture had been her lifeline, an umbilical cord linking her with Oradea and her life there, a talisman that she could touch and that would transport her back to the place where she had left her heart.
But where was her heart now?
‘You’re never still up.’ Mrs Drummond burst into the drawing room. ‘Do you know what time it is, child? You’ve a flight in the morning. Get to bed at once.’ In a long, fluffy pink dressing gown that had seen better days, and with her grey hair tightly wound in curlers, Mrs D looked more Nora Batty-ish than ever. The sight of her filled Tish with relief.
At least some things at Loxley would never change.
Los Angeles, two months later …
‘No.’ Chrissie Rasmirez’s angular face hardened, her lips drew tighter and her ice-blue eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t accept this. You’re not looking hard enough. Or you’re looking in the wrong place.’
Larry Harvey observed his client with a depressing feeling of déjà vu. After thirty years working as a divorce attorney in Beverly Hills, he had seen the whole gamut of human emotion and frailty played out in his impeccably decorated corner office on Canon Drive: desperation, greed, grief, hatred, Larry had sat across the desk from them all. He’d represented tearful, wronged wives struggling to come to terms with their husbands’ betrayals, and heartless Hollywood hookers intent on bleeding their rich, elderly husbands dry. And he treated those two imposters just the same: like open chequebooks.
Divorce had made Larry Harvey a very rich man indeed, and there were aspects of his job that, even after such a long and arduous career, he still enjoyed. But the business of divorce was changing. These days it was all about forensic accounting and jurisdiction shopping. Watching Chrissie Rasmirez’s hard, loveless face
demanding
that he wave a magic wand and miraculously uncover more money in her husband’s bank accounts, Larry Harvey thought,
This isn’t as much fun as it used to be.
‘I know Dorian has more money than that,’ Chrissie insisted. ‘He’s hiding it somewhere. He has to be.’
‘Mrs Rasmirez.’ Larry Harvey’s low, nasal voice wasn’t loud, but somehow still managed to fill the luxurious taupe and cream room. ‘I can assure you we have the best forensic accountants in the country scouring your husband’s finances with a fine-tooth comb. If there were other monies, we would have found them.’
Chrissie shook her head defiantly, like a petulant child.
‘We’re still looking at several million dollars here,’ the attorney went on. ‘I’m confident I can get you a full fifty per cent settlement, and that’s before child maintenance payments, which in your daughter’s case would be … significant.’ He pronounced this last word with relish, like a cat slurping a saucer of cream.
Chrissie didn’t share his enthusiasm.
I’m paying this asshole a thousand bucks an hour because he’s supposed to be the best. ‘A Rottweiler,’ that’s what Linda Greaves called him. More like a fucking poodle. All he does is sit here and tell me that Dorian’s money is stuck in Romania and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can get Dorian’s attorney to tell me that without paying for the privilege.
‘I’m not interested in “significant”,’ she barked, tapping her red-taloned fingers irritably on the desk. ‘I’m interested in
fucking enormous.
My husband sleeps with a Velásquez over his bed, Mr Harvey. That painting alone is worth more than the number you’ve just shown me. I have girlfriends in this town with dry-cleaning bills bigger than what you’re proposing. I’m the wronged party here, OK? I want my fair fucking share.’
You want your pound of flesh
, thought Larry Harvey,
but you ain’t gonna get it. Stupid woman, don’t you think I would if I could? The more you make, the more I make. What part of the words ‘national treasure’ do you not understand? The Romanian assets cannot be liquidated and that’s the beginning and end of it.
Aloud, he said calmly: ‘Are you instructing me to continue with the accounting investigation?’
Chrissie’s face was by now so rigid with rage she looked as if she had lockjaw. ‘Yes, I’m instructing you to continue,’ she hissed. ‘Continue until you find something. That’s what I’m paying you for.’
Sweeping out of her attorney’s office in high dudgeon, she emerged a few minutes later onto Canon Drive feeling ready to punch someone. In a new pale pink Hermès suit teamed with delicate blush calfskin pumps from Louboutin (she’d splashed out on clothes in her first few weeks in LA; after what Dorian had put her through, she deserved it, and she’d get it all back in the settlement anyway), Chrissie looked as rich, slim and carefree as any of the other wealthy wives and girlfriends out shopping in downtown Beverly Hills that day.
Only I’m not
, she thought furiously.
It’s all a façade. And if I go through with the divorce, it’ll all come crashing down around me. I’ll be another middle-income housewife. A nobody.