The rocky peaks of Capri could be made out across the water, the low, thick haze of the midday heat obscuring the crags. As the girls whipped from the quay, abandoning the dirt and dust of Naples in their wake, Aurora breathed deeply the sea-salty air and heard the receding clamour of Italians on the mainland, quickly drowned beneath the humming engine of the speedboat.
‘Pretty, don’t you think?’ said Pascale, slipping on her Gucci shades.
‘Totally.’ Immediately Aurora wished she hadn’t said ‘totally’. She needed to get a handle on what Pascale would call ‘this crass American thing’. She was in Europe now. With Arnaud and Gisele Devereux. She wished she had just a pinch of Pascale’s sophistication.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the island. There
was a queue of vessels waiting to come to ground: one by one, tourists were being assisted to shore on the solid bronzed arm of a young Italian. Open-top taxis, all white, hovered to take visitors to their hotels or apartments, or over the winding, jagged cliffs to the southern, older town of Anacapri. Aurora noticed how the Devereux boat had its own docking space and a flock of men descended as it landed, seizing the ropes, tying them down and helping the girls out with their belongings.
Pascale located her father’s driver right away. Aurora reckoned he must have a different one for every place in the world.
Arnaud and Gisele’s house was set on a rugged outcrop, a golden three-storey pied à terre sporting a huge, sea-facing semicircular veranda. Olive-green shutters, paint peeling in the warmth, lent an old-world glamour entirely at home on the island. Lemon trees burst with ripe, thick-skinned fruit, and a lagoon-like plunge pool dazzled in the sun.
It was windy. They were at the highest point of the island. Below, the chalky outcrops of the town of Capri, above, wide blue sky.
The villa was empty. Gisele had left a note, penned in flamboyant script, on the refrigerator. While Pascale scanned it, Aurora wandered aimlessly through the lofty, cool space, running her fingers across ornate dressers and cabinets, the frames of paintings and the spines of books, grooves and hollows soft with dust. Inside, the place was more like the English churches she had been forced to go to at St Agnes—quiet and chill, echoey, and smelling of oldness.
‘They’re out,’ said Pascale, stating the obvious. ‘Want to go into town?’
‘Sure,’ said Aurora. ‘Where are they?’
Pascale tucked the note into the waist of her jeans. ‘Meeting my cousin.’
Aurora’s interest was aroused. ‘JB’s here?’ She remembered the conversation she’d had with Gisele in Paris, the photograph of him in Pascale’s dormitory.
‘Didn’t I say?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll get to meet him in the morning. Papa’s taking us out on the boat.’
‘The one we came on today?’
Pascale laughed. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘That one’s just a toy.’
The boat they ended up sailing was a majestic ninety-foot superyacht with on-board games room, casino and fully stocked bar. They travelled at speed across the glinting sea, hot wind and sun and sparkle on the water. Smaller vessels passed—Italian, French, German flags rippling in the breeze, cresting on the waves the mammoth yacht left in its wake.
Over the bow, a swimming pool was carved out of the deck and framed by plush recliners, several uniformed staff ready to jump at the first signal. Gisele was sunbathing, her dark hair secured beneath an elegant turban headscarf and her enviable figure encased in a cutaway black swimming costume with a cluster of jewels at the cleavage. Pascale was beneath one of the parasols reading a book.
‘Mind if I take a look around?’ Aurora asked, unplugging her iPod.
Pascale didn’t raise her head. ‘So long as you keep to this end.’
‘How come?’
A shrug. ‘They’re talking business.’
Aurora wondered if she’d
ever
get a chance to corner JB by himself. Since he’d come aboard, Pascale seemed to be trying everything to keep them at a distance.
‘He’s married, you know,’
she’d said primly when they had set sail at dawn, yet another smaller boat coming to collect them from the island and take them to where Arnaud’s ‘princess’ was moored, a great white cut-out in a canvas of blue.
‘So?’
Aurora had countered, reminding herself she was so over boning whatever guy happened to be there at the right time.
Yet on seeing the cousin in the flesh, Aurora was forced to acknowledge first that JB Moreau was about as far from Billy-Bob Hocker as it was possible to get, and second, not since before Paris had she fancied anyone so much. Plus the fact remained that he was a huge deal: he was one of the biggest names in fashion. When she’d let slip to Farrah—regrettably—that she’d made friends with his family, she’d been barraged with questions. Was he superhot? Was he a weirdo? Was he shy? Was he divorced from his ancient wife yet? Not that Aurora had been able to dispense many details: Pascale was just as cagey about Moreau as her parents were.
‘Back in a sec,’ she said breezily, choosing to ignore her friend’s sidelong glance. If she could catch JB’s eye on her way past and tempt him into one of the cabins then what Pascale didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
A panel of frosted glass doors opened to the grand saloon. Aurora glimpsed the men at the stern, engrossed in conversation on the L-shape banquettes. JB was wearing
a white shirt that was shivering in the wind, open to his navel.
He didn’t look over.
Fuck.
She’d get his attention some other way. It was a dead cert he fancied her. How could he not? Weeks in LA had banished the waxy pallor awarded by St Agnes and restored Aurora to the all-American long-legged sweetheart men found impossible to resist. The moment they’d been introduced, she’d caught him scoping her out. If Pascale hadn’t been there she’d have ramped her flirt banter into overdrive, but no such luck. His gaze was mesmerising, as unnerving as it had been in the photograph at school—intense, straight on, unblinking, even in sun. It was weird to meet him. She realised she must have been carrying his image in her head all that time without knowing it, because the truth of him was uncanny, as if he were a figure in a remembered painting come miraculously to life.
Below deck, Aurora found herself in a wood-panelled corridor adorned with works of expensive art. She perused at leisure, liking what she saw but not understanding it. She decided that one day, when she had her own place, she’d fill it with stuff like this that would have people coming past and oohing and aahing and drawing conclusions about what it said about their host, even if their host hadn’t an idea what that was herself. Yes, she’d be intriguing. She’d be mysterious. She’d be—a word Pascale liked—
beguiling
.
‘Hello.’
The voice came from behind. It was deep, and even in those two syllables carried an accent far stronger than Pascale’s or her parents’.
‘Oh,’ she stammered, turning, putting a hand to her
chest in surprise and pissed he had caught her off guard. ‘You frightened me.’
‘Sorry.’ JB smiled. His eyes were the bluest she had ever seen. It looked like he was wearing contacts or something. He raised a hand so it was resting just beneath the picture rail, leaning his body in close. The movement parted the material of his shirt.
‘I—I thought you were upstairs,’ she fumbled. It sounded like such a dumbass thing to say. Where were her playful one-liners and glittering repartee?
‘I was,’ he replied. ‘Now I’m here.’
‘Guess so.’
‘Looking for something?’
‘Just exploring.’ Great—now she sounded like a five-year-old with a bucket and spade. She bristled, on the defence because it was easier. ‘What’s it to you?’
JB made a very French expression, a sort of shrug. God, he was sexy up close. Especially the scar, which was less pronounced than she’d envisaged but which gave his top lip a malice that was totally and utterly fucking ruinous.
‘Making sure you keep out of trouble.’
Bingo! He was flirting. ‘Trouble’s not such a bad thing.’ Aurora glanced up at him through sun-kissed eyelashes, at last hitting her stride. ‘Is it?’
‘That depends how often you get into trouble.’
Coquettish, she lifted an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’
‘You know what I mean.’
Abruptly, his demeanour changed. Aurora suddenly felt as if they weren’t flirting at all. There was an unsettling awareness about JB, as though he knew every single thing she was thinking, had ever thought, the colour of his stare beaming into her like a laser.
‘You should look after yourself better,’ he said, drawing back.
The words threw her off course. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your body is a precious thing, Aurora. You shouldn’t give it to anyone who asks.’
‘Whatever,’ she spluttered, unable to fathom that he was now assuming to give her some shitting lecture. ‘You’re not my dad.’
‘Someone ought to be.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Guidance. It’s important.’
‘How
dare
you? You’ve never even met my dad! You know nothing about him!’
‘I know that you’re too young to behave the way you do.’
She was raging. ‘What would
you
know about the way I behave?’
‘I know when someone wants me to make love to them.’
Aurora opened and closed her mouth, struck dumb by his candour. ‘As
if
!’ she spluttered, mortified. ‘What makes you think I’d want to do anything with you …
Grampa
?’
‘I’m thirty-three.’ He was amused. She wanted to slap him.
‘Exactly,’ she spat, certain if ever she’d made a tit of herself, it was now. It sounded like all she’d done was suck off a few frat boys with buckteeth and braces.
‘Get back upstairs,’ he said. ‘Pascale will be wondering where you are.’
‘I’m not doing what you tell me.’
‘As I thought: astounding maturity.’
‘Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you.’
He smiled but it didn’t reach the eyes. ‘So much attitude.’
‘I wouldn’t
have
an attitude if it weren’t for you dicking
me off,’ she lashed. She folded her arms. ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ She’d said the first thing that popped into her head and bitterly regretted it. Despite her anger, she had no desire for JB to be imagining her crouched over a toilet. ‘To freshen up,’ she added lamely.
JB regarded her strangely. Again she had the sense he already knew her: that they had been introduced at another time, maybe, and she wasn’t remembering.
‘Have I met you before?’ She realised she’d asked it aloud.
He smirked. Yes, it
was
a smirk, as if she’d told a joke. Unbelievable! He had to be the rudest guy she’d ever met.
Without answering, JB peeled open the doors to the upper deck and seconds later vanished in a wash of white light.
Aurora visited the nearest restroom, splashing her face with cold water. Classical music piped into the closets; a selection of bottled hand therapies lined a Roman-bath-style bank of sinks next to squat cubes of unbearably soft white towels.
To hell with JB Moreau!
He was insufferable. The worst type of up-himself Mr I’m So Fucking Important. Well, he could shove his stupid
loco parentis
(one of Mrs Durdon’s favoured phrases) up his (grudgingly pretty nice) ass and be done with it. What would he know about her life? Nothing, that was what.
Nothing
.
Jerk!
Re-entering the corridor, Aurora turned to make her way back out, but something stopped her: a sealed panel to her left, a gateway to the private life of Arnaud and Gisele
Devereux. Inquisitiveness spurred her on—that and a pinch of rebellion at JB’s earlier reprimand. She decided she would try the door. If it opened, then surely it was fair game.
It did. Behind the panel, a giant room folded out, opulent and den-like. Swathes of red curtain were draped around a four-poster bed, lavish black rugs were spongy beneath her bare feet and a curved, gleaming drinks bar faced into the room. So this was where the great French couple slept when they were at sea. Aurora went quietly across to the bed, running a hand over its silky cream linens and the thick iron twists of its elaborate bed-head. Looking up, she caught sight of a huge ceiling mirror lit with tiny spot-bulbs.
She put a hand to her mouth to stifle her giggle. The famed politicians had their kinky scene, who’d have guessed it? Images of Arnaud screwing his wife popped into her head, Gisele’s pale legs wrapped round him from beneath as she gazed up at their tangled reflection, at his tight ass, bright below the line of his swimming shorts.
One palm resting on the silken bed sheets, Aurora closed her eyes. In a flash, it was no longer Gisele beneath her husband, it was she entwined with JB … He was kissing her slowly on the lips, deeply and with feeling, his tongue finding hers, his strong arms lifting her from beneath, and then he was chastising her again, branding her an immature kid, and positioning himself above her, steering his cock into her mouth and telling her how to make him come.
Her fantasy was interrupted by the sound of the men’s voices. Panicking, Aurora’s first thought was to hide. They had found her out. Then she realised where the voices were coming from. In the corner of the bedroom was a hatch,
partially open, that lifted on to the stern of the boat, exactly at the point where they were having their clandestine conversation. Indeed they spoke quietly, in a mixture of French and English.
‘Of course it is her …’ JB’s accent was more pronounced than the older man’s. ‘We never lose sight of any of them.’
Arnaud’s voice was cutting. ‘The
concerned fathers
, I am sure.’
‘In some ways.’
A rumble in French that she didn’t understand, before Arnaud continued: ‘You know how we feel. Gisele, in particular.’
‘I never asked you to get involved.’
‘We are your family.’
‘I have no need of family.’
Aurora moved closer, standing on tiptoes, straining to hear.
Arnaud’s voice followed, hushed and urgent. ‘What do you think your mother would make of this? Paul, too.’
‘Paul supported Reuben unconditionally. They were like brothers. In any case, they cared little for what I did.’