They arrived in Vegas on Friday afternoon. It was the first time Lori had been and the scale and sparkle of the Strip dazzled her. This time a year ago, she’d never have seen herself as part of a world so glamorous. It didn’t seem real, just another of the improbable storylines that had kept her going back home, and in a heartbeat she’d wake, bleary-eyed from a midday sleep, resting on the counter at
Tres Hermanas
with the sound of Anita’s scolding ringing in her ears.
At the Mirage, they settled into their rooms. Several girls represented by La Lumière were performing in tonight’s show and had suites adjacent to Lori’s. She had seen them arrive: tall, steel-faced beauties, alarmingly thin; black, white, Asian, all ravishing.
‘They seem nervous,’ she commented as she and Desideria headed to one of the hotel’s magnificent bars. The show was taking place at the Parthenon, a little way down the Strip, but, while a handful of celebrities had already started to arrive, Desideria wanted Lori to hit the carpet a fraction after everyone else.
‘That’s because they are,’ said Desideria. Her hair hung sheer and straight, fluid as oil.
‘Of what?’
‘Tonight’s a big night.’ She ordered drinks, vodka martinis with a twist. ‘It’s the biggest showcase of the Moreau house there is.’
‘I thought it was a fundraiser?’
‘It is. But it’s also a publicity gambit—not just for the fashion line, for the models, too. They’ve got to make a good impression. It’s not every day they get to exhibit their
abilities in front of the man himself. It’s rare he attends events like this.’
Carefully, Lori sipped her drink. It was strong. ‘They want to impress JB.’
‘Our girls know what they want. They’re ambitious, they’ve got their heads screwed on—they’re not puppets in lipgloss. But, even so, the minute they clap eyes on Moreau it all goes out the window.’ Desideria watched her sideways. ‘I hope that’s not going to happen to you.’
Lori laughed. It hit an odd pitch, like an instrument being tuned.
‘All he has to do is snap his fingers and they come running. It’s the French thing: that accent ought to carry a health warning. And they think he’s what they want, you know? Rich, handsome, driven, successful …’ She shrugged. ‘The next day, they’re history.’
Lori felt sick. ‘He’s known a lot of women?’ she asked.
But not in the way he knows me. He didn’t do for them what he did for me
.
Desideria nearly spluttered out her martini. ‘What are we in, the nineteenth century? Honey, he’s known them and
then
some. Are you getting the picture?’ Her expression was grave, her voice soft. ‘Look, you’re a sweet girl. I like you. I don’t want you getting hurt. Do you hear what I’m saying?’
She nodded.
Desideria reached for her hand. She opened her mouth to speak, lowered her gaze then closed it again. In her eyes was a glimmer of conflict, as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t.
‘Just be careful. OK?’
The women took a cab to the Parthenon. Desideria had a brief word with the La Lumière officials manning the carpet and ushered Lori in between a Czech supermodel and a movie star couple who were friends of Stefano Gabbana.
She had dressed in vintage Moreau: a dusky pink off-the-shoulder figure-skimming dress, her hair harnessed in a loose bun below one ear, its darkness offset by a blooming lilac flower. It was a simple look, one that showed off her coppery skin and exotic black eyes, in one glance a virginal Spanish girl-next-door, in another an icon.
Cameras danced and throbbed, the wall of paparazzi a moving shadow giving way to bursts of light. Desideria had told them her name and they shouted it again and again.
‘You starting to believe it now?’ she asked, placing a hand on Lori’s arm once they were inside the lobby. Trays of champagne circulated; jewels glittered and gowns shimmered like light on water; TV crews interviewed the biggest names in the industy. Everywhere she turned, Lori saw faces she recognised. All except his.
‘Believe what?’
‘That you’re going to be as famous as them all,’ said Desideria, collecting two flutes from a passing tray. ‘More, I should think. You’re incredible-looking, Lori.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘You know that’s what I think.’
Not for the first time, Lori had to drag her gaze from the other woman’s. She didn’t know much about Desideria’s private life and didn’t want to make assumptions.
There was a reason he avoided nights like this.
The spotlight—that solitary, staring eye—was a lonely place to be. Everyone here, despite their wealth and riches
and glamorous connections, craved its heat and at the same time despised its scrutiny. It was a trap he had become adept at eluding. JB Moreau was in the business of not getting caught.
Nevertheless, his evasion fuelled their gossip. WHO IS JB MOREAU? headlines demanded. MOREAU HEIR AN ENIGMA. Speculation raged on his whereabouts and how he spent his time. MOREAU IN SECRET CULT was a popular line the previous year. FRENCH TYCOON HOLIDAYS IN SPACE. Or, less imaginative: ORPHAN MOREAU RETURNS TO FRANCE TO SCENE OF PARENTS’ DEATHS. Then, last month, his favourite: JB MOREAU ACQUIRES REMOTE TERRITORY TO INITIATE CLANDESTINE BUSINESS.
That was the closest they had got. Even the prowling eye of the media could never guess at the truth. Hacks were hacks: they wanted a quick, easy story. If the curtain were ever pulled up on Cacatra, its ruse exposed, he doubted they could even find the vocabulary to write it up.
For a man ill at ease on a public stage, JB didn’t let it show. Making his way through the teeming lobby, graciously greeting acquaintances, he played a perfect game. Absence and reappearance: the oldest trick there was. A white rabbit out of a hat. JB’s charm, his intelligence and his brutal beauty were quick to secure the devotion of women and the admiration of men.
Poise and proficiency ran through his veins. From the earliest point, JB had been treated like a man and expected to behave like one. Infancy had been nothing of the sort, an inconvenient prelude to the time when he would eventually become useful. His parents, the notorious Paul and Emilie, would be absent for months on end, working, travelling,
honeymooning. There’d been no brothers or sisters—he, the accident child, was enough of an exasperation—and for long stretches he’d been left alone, until, at the age of five, he’d been sent away to a series of international academies. There had never been time to be young. Life was a challenging issue and the sooner that was realised and confronted, the better.
Another reason why JB resisted attending parties: the industry’s unrelenting interest in the Moreaus and their legacy. His upbringing was not a territory he wished to revisit.
Do you remember them fondly?
They were my parents
.
What does such a tragedy do to a teenage boy?
It was a difficult time. Painful
.
How have they inspired you?
I choose my own inspiration
.
He was steered into an interview with a rampant TV crew. Tonight’s gala was in aid of troops fighting abroad, a fund-and-awareness-raiser.
‘What is Frontline Fashion hoping to achieve, Mr Moreau?’
The reporter was new on the job. JB had a way of separating the green from the ripe like sorting buttons. Inexperience was something he could sense.
‘This evening is about demonstrating our support,’ he replied, ‘to the men and women risking everything, miles away from home. Fashion might seem an unorthodox approach, but it’s what we do and we do it well. Every industry should be looking to offer assistance to the forces.’
‘Are you planning a stay in Vegas?’
‘No.’ He smiled on one side of his scar. ‘Vegas and I don’t get along.’
‘Are you a gambling man, Mr Moreau?’
‘Only when I know I can win.’
The reporter couldn’t help himself. ‘Reuben van der Meyde was a close friend of your father’s. Is that why he’s with you tonight?’
One of JB’s assistants moved him along. ‘That’s all,’ she sharply told the crew.
As they slipped into another interview, JB glimpsed Lori Garcia across the room. Careful not to look too long, he focused on the dialogue at hand. For the moment, at least, she was safe in conversation with Desideria Gomez. Right now she was too scared and confused to dare confront him—and he was counting on it. He knew he could not guarantee her silence for ever.
JB had not wanted her here. Yet what choice did he have? He should never have become involved. He should have walked away, turned his back and left her alone to her fate. It was beyond unprofessional to target a possibility so brazenly, and if JB could hold one thing aloft and claim it was entire, it was his professionalism. But to see her so helpless, so desperate—and he could not imagine what might have happened had he not intervened—for only the second time in JB Moreau’s life, impulse had reigned over logic. Against every principle on which Cacatra thrived, Lori Garcia had seen his face, he had spoken to her, and the path he had taken to reach her had become one he could never retrace.
Perhaps then, afterwards, he could have let it lie.
He should have let it lie
.
Only it wasn’t that easy. He had to make sure she was safe, just as he’d promised. It was a question of protection …
An acclaimed designer had pinioned him in conversation.
Among JB’s abilities was sustaining a conversation while considering another matter entirely, and he managed to conduct himself with characteristic ease. In any case, he found that people were most content when they were talking about themselves.
Soon as the man drifted off, his wife wasted no time in making her move.
‘You and me,’ Arabella Kline murmured huskily, leaning in so he could detect the cloying fragrance behind her ears, ‘after the show.’
They had shared nights together before. She was a brittle lover, but capable.
Taking her hand, JB slipped a fold of paper into her palm.
‘You know where I’ll be.’
Lori was seated five rows back from, but directly behind, JB Moreau.
With his entrance, the theatre had fallen quiet. Despite the hundreds of guests, the excited babble of conversation and the anticipation of the night ahead, a reverential hush had descended. JB was that breed of man that demands veneration without even trying. It was a grace, an impression: an abstract thing. Lori understood for the first time what it meant to have
it
.
JB had it. He had it in spades.
Centre-front by the catwalk, he was flanked on one side by a middle-aged woman with a deep red chignon, gazing straight ahead with an expression still and sad. On his other was an unshaven, slightly scruffy but gamely suited Reuben van der Meyde, the world-famous entrepreneur.
Lori recognised him from the magazine piece on Cacatra Island.
‘I didn’t know Reuben van der Meyde had an interest in fashion,’ she whispered.
‘Van der Meyde has an interest in anything that makes money,’ Desideria replied. ‘He’s in with all the major Hollywood players.’
‘Really? Who?’
‘Dirk Michaels, Linus Posen. They were a four-man gang back in the eighties. All the powerhouses, drinking, partying … no doubt womanising.’
‘And the fourth?’
‘Paul Moreau. JB’s father. Van der Meyde and the Moreau family go way back.’
‘How did they meet?’
‘Who?’
‘JB and Reuben.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Desideria, bemused by her questioning. ‘I know he was around when JB was growing up. The Moreaus would vacation on his island.’
‘Cacatra seems like a beautiful place.’
‘Hopefully you’ll never need to go.’ At Lori’s expression, she went on, ‘Cacatra is the finest rehab facility money can buy. Celebrities use it for recovery—pure isolation, no vice, no distraction,
nada
. Van der Meyde’s got his own stake of nirvana. Who says you can’t buy paradise? Clever guy.’
Up front, Reuben was fidgeting, digging about in his ears and shifting in his seat. He made a marked contrast to the woman on JB’s other side, who sat so immovable and solemn it was as if she were made of wax.
‘He doesn’t look that clever,’ she suggested. ‘He looks like a boy.’
Desideria rested a hand on Lori’s knee. ‘That’s what makes it clever, I suppose.’
Lori watched the back of JB’s head: the dirty-blond hair cut precisely above the collar of his shirt, the angle where the skin below his ear caught the hollow of his jaw.
Who are you? What are you hiding?
Before the lights dimmed, JB took the podium. Lori was aware of Desideria’s hand still on her dress and withdrew under the pretence of crossing her legs. As she did so she exchanged glances with Stevie Speller in the bank opposite. The women smiled at each other.
Silence enveloped the space without needing to be summoned.
JB glowed beneath a single spotbulb. When he dipped his head it emphasised the carve of his features. Lori felt herself opening up to him, a flower to sunlight.
‘When I was a boy,’ he began, his accent hypnotic, ‘my uncle asked me what courage was.’ A beat. ‘I told him what I believed. That it was being brave.’ The quiet was absolute. ‘Yes, he said, but what is being brave? I told him it was when the helpless need our help.’
His words came back to her.
I’m not going to hurt you
.
‘Like an animal, my uncle prompted, when it’s sick? Yes, I agreed, like that. Even when you are afraid? Even when you don’t know if your help will be enough? Yes, I said. Even then.’
You’re safe with me
.
The hush was profound. JB allowed it to stand before continuing.
‘As I grew up, so did the analogy. Animals evolved into people. Sickness became more than disease. It became corruption and sorrow. It became poverty …’
Lori was unable to tear herself from the way his mouth moved as he talked, the scar and the starlit eyes, which in dim surroundings seemed to glow brighter, like something nocturnal. If she could memorise every line, every contour, she could fold it away till later, when she could unravel the image and lay it flat, examine it, savour it, in the only way she knew.
You’ll be all right …