He reached for her again. ‘How am I meant to hold out?’ he protested, wiping his face with the back of his arm. ‘You’ve got a hot-blooded man living here, baby. You knew
that all along. And living with
you
, such a prize piece, y’know, sometimes I gotta get a release …’
She gestured at his outfit. He seemed to remember he was wearing it. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yeah.’
She put one hand on the banister. ‘I understand you have needs,’ she said reasonably, ‘believe me, I do. But this is disrespectful. It’s disrespectful of my property and it’s disrespectful of me.’
He pouted. ‘You’ve been disrespecting Little Peter since the moment we moved in.’
We?
She wanted to laugh. ‘Screw Little Peter!’
‘I wish you would.’
‘That’s it. I can’t do this any more.’
‘Do what?’
‘This. With you. We’re too different.’
‘Hey, it’s just one freaking mistake!’
‘It’s too …’ She thought of his feet sandwiched into her shoes. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
Peter’s face hardened. ‘You’re breaking up with me?’ he asked coldly. ‘What’re we gonna tell everyone?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what PR is for.’
‘But we make a great couple.’
‘You know we don’t.’
He folded his bulky arms. ‘I’m not gonna beg.’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
Lori couldn’t understand. Was the whole of Hollywood set on their sex games? Was it all they ever thought about? She didn’t want to be part of it. Couldn’t. She’d seen how it might end.
‘Try not to take it personally, Peter,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I want you out.’
Days later, Jacqueline Spark gave her the news.
‘He’s telling anyone who’ll listen that you’ve got a problem with sex.’
Lori’s face was burning. She took the phone outside and sat with her back to the pool. ‘Just because I’m saving myself doesn’t make me some kind of freak.’
‘I know.’
‘How about if I tell the world he likes dressing up in women’s underwear?’ She wasn’t used to this snappy version of herself, but couldn’t take this lying down. Or in any other position Peter might be envisaging.
Jacqueline sighed. ‘Lori, hear my advice. I don’t want to involve you in an ugly public spat. Better to be dignified and let people make their own minds up.’
‘But why’s he saying all this?’ She couldn’t understand his vitriol. ‘I mean, we were friends … sort of.’
‘He’s digging his own grave. The fans aren’t stupid; they’ll read between the lines. Is Peter telling the truth, or could his ego not handle the rejection?’
‘I’d imagine his ego was so huge it could handle anything.’
‘Never overestimate a man, honey.’
Lori closed her eyes. ‘So I’m learning.’
‘Let’s keep quiet, ride it out.’
She knew Jacqueline was right. Her publicist hadn’t been pleased when she’d learned about the fallout—to her, Peter’s behaviour was irritating, but not surprising; inconvenient, but not bang out of order. ‘These things happen all the time,’ she had counselled. ‘It’s LA. You’re in a bogus relationship. He’s an
actor
. You can’t be that astonished.’
And maybe she hadn’t been. Only, the Posen affair had been a wake-up call. Lori had tested her ethics with Peter but this was one step too far. She didn’t want to go down
that road, find herself in ten years looking in the mirror and not knowing who she was.
‘I didn’t think he’d react so badly,’ she told Jacqueline. ‘It’s like I’ve actually dumped him. Like we were really going out with each other.’
‘Well, he certainly thinks a lot of himself.’
‘Sure does.’
‘It’s probably a defence mechanism. He thought we’d get to the press first and he wanted to beat you to it.’ A pause. ‘Was he
really
in your underwear?’
‘I’m not sure “in” accurately describes it.’
Jacqueline laughed. ‘I’ll call you later.’
Alone, Lori thought about inviting Dante over, but decided not to. She needed to get used to the mansion again and to living here by herself.
A niggling voice told her that now the place was empty she would have to readdress Angélica’s threat to move in. It seemed no matter how successful she became, they still had, and always would have, the power to make her feel like a frightened girl.
Exhausted, Lori slid to the floor, cradling her head in her hands.
Later that evening, her cell rang. She had returned early from a drinks party in West Hollywood, where speculation over the break-up with Peter was raging at fever pitch. There were only so many times she could brush off the probing questions, tell the photographers, ‘No comment,’ before she’d had to call it a night.
She let herself into the house and, without thinking, picked up.
‘Lori. It’s JB.’
In the darkness of the hall, the moonlight pouring a silver puddle at her feet, the sound of his voice wrecked her.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘I heard about what happened with Selznick.’
How had he got this number? Why was he calling her? His tone was impossible to read. She didn’t think Jacqueline had told the officials at La Lumière about Peter. Had she changed her mind? Or had he found out some other way? His words came back to her, words she had buried deep but now sprang forth with familiar devastation.
You’ll be all right … I’ll make sure of it … I always will …
‘We’d like to get you out of LA while things calm down.’
‘That isn’t necessary,’ she replied curtly.
‘You’re one of my girls,’ JB came back without hesitation.
I bet I am
.
‘I say what’s necessary.’
‘This isn’t.’ Lori refused to back down. She was sick of people making decisions for her: Tony, Desideria, Jacqueline, and now him, the man who’d reeled her in and spat her out. Why couldn’t they let her live her life? ‘I’m fine,’ she said coldly. ‘I don’t need to go away.’
‘We’ll fix your appointments,’ he finished, in a tone that defied argument.
‘No,’ she reiterated. ‘Thank you, but no.’
‘This isn’t a discussion. It’s an order. My car will collect you at seven.’
The line clicked dead. He was gone.
For seconds, Lori kept the phone to her ear, listening for what she didn’t know. All she heard was silence, a world of it, standing alone in the night.
36
Aurora
Returning to St Agnes was worse than Aurora had feared. It wasn’t just that winter was settling in, the grey skies of England turning ever darker, the mornings pitch-black when Mrs Durdon rang the breakfast bell and the sun making a grudging effort behind a bank of dense cloud before disappearing completely at about four o’clock. It was that, since her trip to Capri, Aurora had barely slept a night through. She would lie awake in her new dorm, one she shared with Pascale, and listen to the bad weather thrash the old building, rain incessantly battering the windows and wind whistling through the cracks, seeping uninvited through vulnerable spaces and rattling from the inside out. Pascale slept, she dreamed of her faraway planets, while Aurora turned bad thoughts over in her head and stared out at the pale moon.
Of course it is her … We never lose sight of any of them …
Do you think she never wonders about her mother and father?
She was plagued by that dreadful conversation and what it had meant. Every lesson, every prep, every evening spent trying to think of another thing, but it always came back.
What had JB and Arnaud been discussing?
Tell me she would have been better off staying with her real mother
.
They had been talking about her. She knew it in her bones and in her blood.
Thoughts of Tom and Sherilyn spooled, chaotic, in her mind—their remote relationship, her mother’s unhappiness, the way they had always spoiled her and handled her like a china doll … Her eavesdropping had pulled at threads she had always known were there, hidden, not wanting to be touched, but now coming loose like a giant knot unravelling. Maybe this was what she’d been hoping to express to Rita Clay when they’d met that day. Yes, she felt an enduring emptiness about her charmed life, but she also felt that it was somehow based on one huge lie. As if she were living in a TV show and acting it out and speaking a script, and, at least in LA, so was everyone around her. Fake.
What were her parents hiding? And what did it have to do with JB Moreau?
After her encounter with Arnaud she had emerged from below deck, settled on her lounger, her towel rumpled as she had left it, her bottle of Sun Perfect oozing lotion that melted in the heat, just as if nothing had happened. She’d lain back, shades in place, heart plummeting and stomach turning, waiting for Arnaud to tell them all how she’d misbehaved. But Arnaud said nothing—he remained his usual aloof self for the rest of her stay—and JB departed on business as soon as they returned to the island, presumably none the wiser.
On their first night back at school she had broached the subject with Pascale. ‘Your cousin,’ she’d said, as casually as she could. ‘What exactly does he do?’
Pascale had been folding her clothes, deliberately and with care, feeding them on to the shelves in her closet: pastels in one pile, blacks, whites and greys in another. ‘You know what he does,’ she said. ‘He’s the House of Moreau.’
‘I know that. But he does other stuff too … right?’
‘Like what?’
‘That’s what I’m asking.’
Pascale had her back to her. ‘He’s involved in charities.’
‘Such as?’
She’d rounded on her. ‘You find him attractive, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Come on.’ A condescending eyebrow shot up. ‘
Everybody
finds JB attractive.
I
find him attractive and … well, we’re family, so it’s forbidden.’
Pascale’s voice caught her attention.
‘You haven’t …?’ Aurora swallowed. ‘With JB, I mean. Have you?’
The French girl had smirked, reminiscent of her cousin. ‘That would be wrong.’
‘But have you?’
‘See? You find him attractive. Jealousy is the first giveaway.’
Since the trip Aurora had felt as if her friend was mocking her, giving her sly looks and deliberately confusing her. Maybe she was paranoid: she’d been smoking too much grass and that sometimes messed with her head. But when she thought about it,
really
thought about it, she realised
that Pascale had never been an open book. When had Pascale ever given much away?
Maybe she was more like JB than she cared to admit.
Monday morning came around with its usual sluggish disinclination. The bell rang shrill in Aurora’s ears. Outside, the sky was still dark. It seemed like only five minutes ago that she’d finally gotten to sleep. Pascale, in the adjacent bed, rolled over and tugged the sheets over her head. Aurora thought about the motions of getting up, planned in her head the outfit she’d wear (it was own clothes in sixth form) to save time, and rapidly fell back to sleep.
Ten minutes later, Mrs Durdon charged in without knocking.
‘GET TO BREAKFAST THIS INSTANT!’ she bellowed, slamming the door repeatedly against the wall in an attempt to rouse them. To Aurora’s fragile head it sounded like gunfire.
Pascale sat bolt upright, the back of her hair a messy black nest where she’d slept on it. She swore in French and pulled a sweater over her pyjamas.
The girls made their way to the dining room without speaking—Aurora had learned a long time ago that Pascale didn’t like to talk before ten in the morning. They were ticked off a register by a pinched-faced housemistress in a baffling lemon-yellow onesie, minutes later slumping on to one of the long wooden benches with a bowl of soggy cereal.
Fran Harrington, in contrast, was chirpy in the mornings. She’d chosen the hot breakfast option: flaccid curls of boiled bacon, a slippery fried egg and some button-headed mushrooms that looked to Aurora like the inverted cock of
a virgin musician she’d once had sex with. English people ate some creepy things.
‘Hey, Aurora, want to partner me today?’ Fran asked, plopping herself down next to Pascale, who put on her best bitchface and inched down the bench.
‘Sure, whatever.’ Aurora was taking Art. She didn’t excel in anything academic so was opting for the ‘general’ qualifications that supposedly gave her more choice further down the line but she knew was just a term designed to make thick people feel better. Pascale was doing languages and Science, meaning they hardly had any lessons together any more. Fran attempted to pair with her at every opportunity.
‘Great!’ Fran sucked buttery fingers as she slathered more grease on to her toast. ‘Virginia Pringle-Stoat heard Mr Wade saying we could do life drawing, if we want, for our final pieces. What do you think?’
Aurora couldn’t help the expression her face fell into. ‘Erm, no.’
‘It wouldn’t be weird or anything.’
Pascale leaned across. ‘I’m trying to stomach my breakfast,’ she said, with a swift, practised glance up and down Fran’s body. ‘Must we talk about such
grotesque
things?’
Fran’s face coloured. It was no secret she was afraid of Pascale. Normally Aurora found the regard her best friend was held in gratifying, but today she just came across as mean.
‘Thanks for saying,’ she told Fran, who seized Aurora’s weak smile like a life buoy, ‘but let’s forget it, yeah?’
Across the table, Pascale fired a sharp look and continued to eat her cereal.
Friday lunchtime, Tom called. Her parents hardly ever got in touch in term-time so it had to be bad news. Her first thought was that Sherilyn had died. Her second thought was that her first thought hadn’t been that earth-shattering. What kind of a daughter did that make her?
‘Dad?’ She took her iPhone past the hockey pitch to her and Pascale’s usual smoking patch: a clearing in the dense bushes that lined the school gate.
‘Honey, it’s Dad,’ he said pointlessly.
‘I know.’ His voice made her want to cry. She lit the cigarette and sucked. ‘What’s up?’
‘Do I need a reason to call my only daughter?’
Aurora was overcome with the need to blurt her anxieties. See if he could allay them. Get to the truth. But she was afraid of what the truth might be.