Pleasure Island (2 page)

‘All?' The woman raised a thin, black brow.

McKenzie turned to her, and felt the heat of her from where she sat, her fragrance lightly reaching his nostrils.

‘
All
,' he said, matching her smirk with his own. ‘So,' he continued, ‘if everyone is happy?'

The men in the room exchanged brief looks at one another, each in the hope that the other would instantly forget their faces.

‘Good. The plane leaves next Tuesday. Access will be via the usual method. Your individual pin codes will be delivered personally to your door via Fed Ex. I suggest, if I may, that you memorise them and then destroy them.' He rose from the table. ‘Your cars, gentlemen, are waiting for you outside. I trust you will have a safe return journey to your respective destinations. I do hope we don't meet again. And above all –' McKenzie paused for dramatic effect ‘– enjoy!'

The men began to stand but the woman stayed seated, watching as they made their solemn leave one by one until it was just herself and McKenzie in the room.

As the door closed behind the final guest, the woman stood to face him, unfazed by his imposing bulk. McKenzie stared into her eyes, catching a flicker of recognition in them as he undid the zipper on his trousers
. Kindred spirits.

‘It's been a pleasure doing business with you, madam,' he said as she silently dropped to her knees and looked up at him, her red lips parting slightly, dark eyes ablaze. He saw his own reflection in them and smiled as she reached inside his trousers and took him in her red manicured hand.

‘The
pleasure
, sir,' she said, as she bared her teeth and let out a small primeval growl, ‘is all mine.'

T
he sound
of the post hitting the doormat caused Angelika Deyton to momentarily look up from her newspaper.

‘What time are you due in court?' she asked her husband, watching as he made himself busy with their new Gusto coffee maker, his gown flapping as he attempted to make sense of it.

‘You should know,' he immediately retorted, growing impatient with the machine, ‘you lot seem to think you know everything about this case.'

She ignored the comment and reached for another piece of French toast.

‘You need to fill the water up to the marker level. And it would probably help if you plugged it in first.' She flashed him a little smile, one he translated as a smirk.

‘You really do know everything, don't you, Angelika?' he snapped irritably. He glanced around, looking for their housekeeper. ‘Where's Miriam today anyway? She usually takes care of all of this.'

‘She's on holiday. Remember I told you? She's gone away with her husband and kids, you know, like normal people do.' She shot him a condescending look.

‘I'm in court at eleven,' he said, finally answering her question.

‘Kirkbride wants me to file copy before 5pm,' she said, ‘to make tomorrow's headlines. Do you think you'll have made your closing speech by then?'

He gave her a glance that told her she should know better than to ask such a question.

She bit the bullet. ‘Do you think he did it, Rupert? Do you think he's guilty?'

Rupert Deyton sighed. ‘You know we're not supposed to discuss it, Angelika. He's my client.'

‘And I'm your wife. Come on, off the record.'

‘Nothing is ever off the record with you lot,' he smarted. ‘You have it your way and the poor man would be hung drawn and quartered before he'd even been to trial.'

‘It's a rape case, Rupert. No one likes a rapist, especially a famous one.'

‘The girl was falling down drunk,' he fired back. ‘She'd been all “up on him” as the kids say these days, just another groupie, a tart wanting her five minutes of fame. She'll sell her sordid little story for a six-figure sum once I get him off, you just bloody watch ... little tramp.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘A little tramp who said “no”.'

‘Get the post, will you,' he said roughly, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘I'm expecting a postcard from Malaysia. Serg should be there by now.'

Angelika inwardly sighed. She was used to being spoken to in this manner by her husband. These days they rarely had a normal conversation; it was just a series of snide snipes littered with the odd bit of need-to-know information. It depressed her but she couldn't seem to do anything to change it. Any sort of civility between them was always a conscious effort and painfully short-lived. They had both tried, but it was never too long before they reverted to type. Being at each other's throats and point scoring was par for the course with them now. It had become habitual.

Deliberately scraping her chair across the marble floor of their perfectly designed country-style kitchen just to grate on her husband's nerves, Angelika schlepped from the room in her cotton pyjamas to collect the post. Plain, comfy and functional, she only wished they were indicative of her marriage. She would have settled for that now.

The Deytons had been such a dynamic couple once upon a time: him the brilliant barrister in the making – her the rising young journalist with star potential – young, fabulous and in love.

And they had gone on to achieve such dizzying heights together; Rupert was now a high-profile celebrity barrister, one of the Bar's most dynamic and charismatic, and she was at the pinnacle of her journalistic career – a household name whose opinion counted.

On paper they had it all: the Mayfair town house complete with AGA, designer furniture and housekeeper, a couple of four-by-fours in the driveway, a holiday home in Tuscany and platinum membership to the Hurlingham Club. Hell, they even hobnobbed with royalty and celebrities.

However, the love they had once felt for each other – that mutual appreciation, respect and admiration that had been the underpinning of their relationship at the start – had somehow diluted along the way, replaced instead by a need to compete.

Their marriage was now little more than a game of one-upmanship, a game in which they were equally complicit, and equally matched.

‘No postcard from Serg,' she said almost gleefully, tossing her long, caramel-blonde hair over her shoulder as she shuffled through the post. ‘Perhaps he's having too great a time to remember his old dad. Now ooh, this looks interesting,' she remarked, coming across the gold-leaf envelope. ‘An invitation. The polo perhaps?'

Rupert took this to be a dig, just as he took everything his wife said to be a dig. He was an avid polo player and felt that she resented the small enjoyment it afforded him.

‘Or maybe there's a sale on at net-a-porter.com,' he reposted with a grimace. ‘Or one of those high street surgeries ... buy a new pair of tits and get a facelift for free. You should think about booking yourself in, dear, now that 40's knocking on the door.'

‘Oh, shut up, Rupert,' she said, unamused by his lame attempt at humour as she opened the envelope and began to read. ‘Actually, it's neither.'

‘Oh?' his interest was pricked by her expression. ‘Well...?'

‘It's from Martin McKenzie.'

‘
The
Martin McKenzie?'

‘How many Martin McKenzie's do you know?'

He rolled his eyes. ‘And …?'

She straightened her back. ‘And it says we've been invited – actually it says, ‘
exclusively
chosen
' – as two of six – oh my God – just
six
guests to attend the opening of his latest state-of-the-art venture into the world of luxury holiday destinations.' She looked up at him, mouth open.

‘Really?' Rupert pulled his chin to his chest. ‘And why the hell would he invite us?'

‘I have no idea,' she said, staring at the exclusive hologrammed invitation that had been embossed in gold-leaf calligraphic ink. ‘Perhaps I made a lasting impression when I interviewed him that time,' she joked.

‘Or perhaps more likely he wants to thank you in person for it. What was the headline again, “Media whore is 64...”?'

‘Well, I was instructed to write a controversial piece on him. Not that it was a stretch, mind.'

Angelika had not warmed to McKenzie in person and as such the subsequent article she had been commissioned to write had been a less-than-flattering portrait. She wondered if perhaps McKenzie saw this as a chance to set the record straight – that or revenge for ever having written it in the first place.

Either way she suspected it had ‘ulterior motive' written all over it because that's how men like McKenzie rolled. She'd neither liked the man nor trusted him on sight but her inquisitiveness as to why he had picked them for such an auspicious invitation was enough of a reason for her to want to agree to it.

Whatever McKenzie's true agenda behind selecting them was, she recognised it as being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At the very least she would get a fabulous holiday, not to mention story, out of it – a win-win situation as far as she was concerned.

‘It's a marketing ploy, Angelica,' Rupert said dismissively, already moving on to the next envelope on the pile.

‘No,' she said, her tone suddenly serious, ‘no, it's really not. This is a bona fide invite, Ru. We've been invited as one of six hand-selected guests to fly in his private jet to, and I quote, “the most exclusive island in the world; a homage to state-of-the art five-star luxury and beyond”. A place called Pleasure Island.'

‘Pleasure Island? How original,' he snorted. ‘Bloody hell; let me see that.' He dropped the rest of the mail and attempted to snatch it from his wife's clutches.

Martin McKenzie was one of the most powerful – not to mention richest – businessmen on the planet. The self-styled ‘King of Media', he was the brains behind the most successful reality TV and game shows in the world, and was well known as an bon vivant of the highest order, famous for his excessive lifestyle as much as his body of impressive work. The media were obsessed with him and his strange-looking elusive wife, Elaine, who, rarely photographed, seemed content to remain in the shadows of her husband's planet-sized ego.

‘“The ultimate in hedonistic luxury”, it says here.' She raised an eyebrow. ‘“State of the art accommodation in private and secluded surroundings on one of the most beautiful unspoilt islands in the world ... the finest haute cuisine and the most spectacular entertainment on earth.” Wow, that's some statement!'

‘Unspoilt island?' Rupert scoffed. ‘Who does the man think he is, Christopher bloody Columbus?'

‘The plane leaves next Tuesday. They're sending a limo to take us to the airport.'

‘Next Tuesday? I promised Lucian I'd take part in the polo next week, and stand in for Boris while his ankle heals.'

‘Are you kidding?' Angelika glared at him. ‘This is Martin McKenzie we're talking about here. He's invited six people,
just six
people, of which, Lord only knows how, we are two. Two weeks of unadulterated luxury of the like we've never see before and are never likely to again, and you'd rather play bloody polo. Are you insane? Can you even begin to imagine what it's going to be like?'

Reluctantly he conceded she did have a point.

‘What's the bloody catch?' he grumbled, ‘aside from very short notice?'

Angelika wasn't sure how to answer him, though she also suspected there was one.

‘You can get the time off.' She was suddenly excited, her sharp journalistic brain sensing that regardless of motive, this was not something to be turned down. ‘The case will be over then and you're due a holiday. We were planning a Tuscan trip anyway.'

He sighed. He'd been thinking of how to get out of that one too.

‘Yes, but I think we ought to at least know who the other guests are going to be. I mean, you and I have both upset a few folk in our time. Frankly you'd be fucked if Nancy Dell'Olio turned up after that piece you wrote last week.'

‘Oh, come on, Rupert, it's only a couple of weeks. Let's do it; let's say yes!' Perhaps it would also be an opportunity for her and her husband to spend a little quality time together. It was a long shot but maybe a fortnight spent in abject luxury was just what they needed to begin to bridge the gulf between them, a gulf that had become so wide you could launch a thousand ships in it.

‘What does the small print say?' he asked.

‘Formalities, by the looks of it,' she said, ignoring her sharp intuition, her mind already made up thanks to her intrigue. ‘It says here it just needs one of us to sign a disclaimer.'

‘A disclaimer? Ha! See, I told you it was a bloody marketing ploy. Well, I'll have a proper look at it when I'm back from court, and then we'll decide.'

He was standing now, making his leave, the coffee he'd spent so long making only half drunk.

‘See you in court, Angelika,' he said, turning to leave without so much as a goodbye kiss.

‘Good luck getting the famous rapist off,' she goaded, as he left the room, the sound of the front door slamming behind him.'

Angelika Deyton looked at the invitation once more.

‘
Pleasure Island
,' she said aloud, biting her lip nervously as she hastily signed the accompanying RSVP form. She felt sure that McKenzie had something big in store for them. And she wanted to know exactly what that something was.

‘
I
'm
afraid it's not
bwilliant
news, sugar.'

Lennard Bailey looked up at his client from his desk as she flounced into his plush New York office, swishing her long curtain of jet-black hair from her thin, delicate face and depositing a waft of her trademark Shalimar fragrance around her, a fragrance that seemed to linger inside his nostrils for days, forcibly reminding him of her presence – which, he assumed, was the whole point.

‘OK, Bailey, hit me with it.' Mia Manhattan flopped into the leather chair opposite him and lit a cigarette. She already had a look of disappointment on her face which he vehemently resented. Damn woman hadn't even heard everything he had to say yet.

‘Well?' she prompted him with a raised eyebrow.

Mia Manhattan was one of Bailey's oldest long-standing clients. She had been huge once upon a time, a proper star, not like these fly-by-night flash-in-the-pan charlatans he was forced to represent today. Mia had been ‘The Tiny Girl with the Big Voice' who'd sung with them all: Barbara, Whitney (God rest her soul), Aretha, Shirley, Stevie, Cliff, Tom, Rod, The Bee Gees … she was a quintessential child of Studio 54, which, sadly for her, was now defunct and largely irrelevant by today's standards.

‘Can't you hook me up with that Guetta DJ chap, or how about Adele ... now she's right up my boulevard, darling,' she'd announced with astonishing self-entitlement.
Like it was that easy
.

Bailey had welcomed the comeback conversation with Mia like an unexpected visit from the IRS, but he had expected it regardless. He suspected that the recently divorced Mia's sudden burning demand for another shot at the limelight was largely fuelled by revenge as opposed to revenue. After all, her marriage had been purported to be one of the strongest in the industry, not least for its twenty-five-year longevity. It can't have been easy being ruthlessly cast aside for the stereotypical younger model. A woman with the kind of ego Mia possessed simply wouldn't be able to rest.

Mia blew smoke in Bailey's direction in a deliberate bid to commence with the conversation. Surely the old bastard had something for her. He was still on a hefty retainer, after all.

Bailey had been her agent for more years than she cared to recall and their relationship had always been tempestuous at best, but he was one of a very select few people Mia actually trusted and had been surprisingly sympathetic during her recent divorce from Richard.
Richard Adams
, a name that was so familiar to her but now sounded like a stranger's.

Mia felt the familiar ache in her chest begin to burn as she thought the man to whom she had given the very best years of her life, a man she had trusted so implicitly and loved so unconditionally. His betrayal had decimated her, not least because it had been so unexpected.

Well, she had certainly had a lesson in humility, make no goddamn mistake about that. That treacherous bastard had been her life, and moreover he was one of the only people who knew her past.
Her real past
.

Bailey cleared his throat and wondered if it might be too early for a nip of Cognac. A meeting with Mia practically demanded it.

‘How's Josh?' he asked. ‘Still busy battling it out on the pub circuit with his little pals, turning it all the way up to eleven?' Joshua was Mia's latest in a long line of revenge fucks, the prerequisite being the younger the better. Still, he regretted the words as soon as he'd spoken them. He needed her on side today, especially after what he was about to put to her. His fat ass depended on it.

Mia's arched brow twitched. ‘You may mock, Bailey –' she crossed her legs, a defiant swing of tanned skin ‘– but actually Josh
-ua
has had a recent breakthrough career-wise.'

She sounded smug. She was. After all, what woman wouldn't be? Joshua Jones, or JJ as his adoring legion of young female fans called him, had just signed a rather lucrative record deal, or rather his band,
The Dopamines
, had. He was young and talented with the face of an angel and the kind of body that had made women want to drop to their knees, even at her age.
Two can play at that game, Dickie darling.

‘Sony has given him a two-album deal.' She flashed him an sickly smile. ‘He'll be a star in no time, mark my words.'

‘Good for him.' Bailey was unable to fully disguise the surprise in his voice. From what he'd seen of Josh
-ua
, that useless layabout would be lucky to get a kite off the ground in gale force winds.

‘Isn't it?' came her rhetorical response. Joshua Jones was just another walking dick as far as Mia was concerned, another way of trying to fill the bottomless black void inside her. Still, as far as revenge fucks went he was certainly above average: terribly young, terribly energetic, and terribly eager to please.

Her mind flashed back to that morning as she had looked down at him between her open thighs, his curtain of soft, wavy, blond hair – so very
rock star
– gently brushing against her pelvis ...

‘You've done this before,' she'd smiled between gasps, his breath warm against her delicate skin, ‘many times.' He'd glanced up at her and grinned, wet lips glistening. So what if he was young enough for her to have given birth to him (and brought him up), she was Mia Manhattan, for fuck's sake, and he was an aspiring rock star who she could introduce to people. It was a mutually advantageous arrangement, for now at least.

Bailey flashed a warm smile that belied his true feelings. Silly old bint, flashing her clout to men young enough to be her second son, she was making a fool of herself with this conveyor belt of virtual teenagers keeping her four-poster-bed warm, the latest being the most wet behind the ears, and the most cerebrally challenged. When the lad spoke, the word lobotomy sprang to mind.

Mia looked past Bailey and out onto the spectacular midtown-Manhattan skyline displayed like a postcard behind him in the floor-to-ceiling office window. The Empire State, Chrysler and Rockefeller buildings in all their art-deco inspired splendour, spires standing erect and proud in a one-fingered salute to the world. God, she loved New York. New York, New York, so damned good they named it twice. She'd never tired of it in the decades she'd been coming here. What was it Liberace once said ... ‘too much of a good thing is ... wonderful.'

‘This is the thing, sugar.' Bailey had no choice but to give it to her straight. She was too long in the bloody tooth to bullshit; besides, he needed to play this one very cool indeed. A lot was riding on it, his neck for one. He adjusted the collar of his stripy, ill-fitting shirt. ‘What can I tell you? No one's
weally
biting ...'

Mia winced. When Bailey was imparting bad news, his speech impediment became almost intolerable.

‘OK, forget about a bloody comeback,' she snapped. ‘What about a Vegas tour? It worked for Manilow and Celine.'

Bailey audibly exhaled. ‘We've been over this a million times, Mia.'

‘I don't know, Bailey,' she sing-songed, then took a deep sigh. ‘You must be losing that magic touch of yours.' She lit another Vogue cigarette, her jewelled Manolo's tapping anxiously against the polished, wooden flooring. ‘I've been in this business for nigh on forty years –
forty fucking years
– and not one bastard wants to throw me a lifeline?'

Bailey jumped up from his desk, his crumpled shirt sticking to his ever-expanding waistline with perspiration. He stood by the huge glass wall and looked out onto the skyline –

a view that continually provided him comfort no matter how often he looked at it – and he paused for a moment, preparing to play his final card.

‘Well, actually, there is
one
thing ...'

‘Oh?' Mia's eyes widened, a flicker of interest reigniting, momentarily softening her obstinate expression. She watched as Bailey opened the drawer to his antique desk: Victorian, very Sherlock Holmes, shipped over from London, no doubt. Bailey slid the envelope across the desk towards her.

‘And what is this?'

He took a cigarette from her discarded pack on the desk. He'd spent the past six weeks on those damn patches in a futile attempt to quit but ten minutes with Mia was enough to have him reaching for his Dunhill lighter.

‘It's an invitation,' he said, biting the tip between his yellowing veneers as he flicked the flint with his thumb.

‘To what?'

Baily snorted, smoke escaping his nostrils like steam from a raging bull's.

‘Well, read it and you'll see.' He was careful to keep the impatience from his voice, watching her carefully as she began to read. There was a moment's silence before she finally spoke.

‘I take it this is a joke?' She looked up at him with dark eyes, her lips thinning into a grim line.

‘Do you see me laughing, sugar?'

Mia threw the envelope back at him across the desk as if she'd touched poison.

‘Forget it, Bailey.' Her tone was sharp as a blade.

‘It's a free holiday, Mia,' he quickly added as part of his pre-rehearsed sales pitch. ‘Think about it: two weeks of unadulterated luxury on this new place of his ...'

‘But
McKenzie
...' Her voice was tight as a trampoline.

Bailey took a breath and softened his tone. ‘Look, you want a comeback right? Well, if anyone can give you what you want it's McKenzie.'

‘That
bastard
has nothing I want,' Mia fired back, her hands visibly shaking as she extinguished her cigarette.

Bailey felt the panic swell inside his guts like rising dough. He'd made McKenzie a promise he'd get her to agree to this somehow – anyhow – though frankly that goddamn blackmailing motherfucker had given him little choice.

Bailey watched his client carefully for clues as to her state of mind. He'd always been intrigued by Mia's hatred of McKenzie. Clearly she had her reasons.

‘As your agent I would advise you to think about it,' he said, with as much professional clout as his conscience would allow. ‘Personal opinions aside, you know he could turn things
wround
for you in a heartbeat.' He paused. ‘And imagine Dickie's face when he sees you back in the spotlight, eh? Think about it, cherie, hmm?'

Mia stood bolt upright, and Bailey's spirits instantly lifted.

‘Who else has been invited?' she enquired with a sideways glance.

‘Ah, well, regrettably that's P 'n' C, apparently.'

Mia struggled to suppress a burgeoning sense of intrigue. She had to concede that Bailey had a point. Regrettably that evil bastard McKenzie could put her back on the map as fast as he could stick a pin in it, should he be so inclined. And Dickie would no doubt get wind of it: an idea that pleased her more than was necessarily healthy.

She tentatively picked the envelope up from the desk once more, and tapped it against her Rouge Noir lips.

‘I guarantee that with the
wight
pwress
exposure my cell will be on fire by the time you return.' Bailey cocked his large, shiny, balding head to one side. He was selling her out and he knew it, but McKenzie had given him little choice. Hell, he'd given him
none
.

Mia chewed her bottom lip for a moment.

‘OK, Bailey,' she eventually said, with a deep sigh, ‘make the goddamn phone call.'