‘But it was easy!’ Carrie exclaimed.
‘For you,’ Anna said. ‘For me the real work comes now. First I write the book, then set it into sections. We go over what I have written to make sure you approve. Then we begin to choose the pictures and decide what new ones are to be taken.’
‘It’s so exciting!’ Carrie said.
‘If the book is a best seller it’s the most exciting feeling in the world.’ Anna smiled. ‘If it flops, it’s the worst.’
‘How do we make it a best seller?’ Carrie asked naively.
‘If I knew that, Fred Lester would be working for me.’
‘Tell me about him’, Carrie said. ‘He seems such a nice man. Is he married?’
‘Are you interested?’ Anna teased.
Carrie was taken aback. Why on earth would she be interested? She had given up on men when she divorced Elliott Berkeley and now she was too old and set in her ways to start thinking of another relationship. Besides, if she did become involved with a man again she would have to be truthful about her past. And who would want her when they heard the truth?
No. Involvements were out. She had Steven back, thank God. She had a few friends. What more could she possibly want?
‘Certainly not,’ she said, primly.
‘He’s a widower,’ Anna volunteered, packing up her tape machine. ‘But I think I should warn you that he’s living with a woman.’
Carrie was longing to ask who the woman was, but she didn’t pursue it. How embarrassing if Anna thought she desired her boss. Quickly she began to talk about something else.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Lucky had no idea how she got through dinner. She tried to avoid looking at Lennie, and she knew he was attempting to do the same with her, but it was impossible. Their eyes met constantly and when they did the electricity they generated seemed to ignite the entire room.
Over the course of dinner they both found out a few things.
Lucky – who rarely read anything other than Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Blues & Soul and books, and never watched television, learned – mostly from Alice – who couldn’t seem to stop talking, that Lennie had hit the big time, and was now a big personality and television star.
‘Didn’t you read about our wedding?’ Olympia asked belligerently. ‘We made world-wide headlines.’
‘No. I didn’t see it,’ Lucky replied politely, causing Olympia to pout.
‘What about my Lennie on the cover of People. Surely you saw that?’ scolded Alice.
‘Sorry,’ apologized Lucky.
‘He should have been sorry,’ remarked Alice darkly. ‘He left me out. But they’ll be writing a piece about me soon. Probably not a cover, but you can’t have everything in this life, can you, darling?’
Lennie learned just exactly who Lucky was. Not only was she married to Olympia’s father, but she was Lucky Santangelo – the Lucky Santangelo who had canned his ass two years before at the Magiriano Hotel.
Suddenly everything fell into place. Now he knew why he had been fired so abruptly and run out of town like bad eggs.
She had wanted to get laid.
He hadn’t obliged.
Get rid of the sonofabitch. He could just imagine her giving Matt his orders.
With good reason he was furious.
‘Are you the same Lennie Golden who just headlined at my hotel?’ Gino asked.
‘Yeah,’ Lennie replied. What was this? Family week? Lucky with her father. Alice sitting at the table – the original proud parent. Christ! He felt like he was in the middle of a bad dream.
‘You broke house records,’ Gino said. ‘I told Matt I want you back whenever you can make it. In fact I asked him to work out a deal with your agent – like you do a week for us every couple of months. Exclusive.’
Lucky had not realized Gino still kept an eye on things, she had thought he collected the money and that was it.
Lennie Golden headlined her hotel and she hadn’t even known. She felt like a fool.
It’s not your hotel any more, an inner voice reminded her. You sold out, ran out. Why should you have known? Why should you even care?
Yes, goddammit. Why should she care? Who was Lennie Golden in her life anyway? So she had balled him – big deal. Sex was sex, and it was unfortunate that she had ever set eyes on him again.
Oh yeh?
Yeh.
* * *
After dinner several of the guests wished to go ashore nightclubbing.
‘I want to go,’ Olympia announced to Lennie. She was nicely coked up and ready to fly all night.
He, on the other hand, was beginning to feel the effects of non-stop travelling, not to mention the tension of sitting through dinner with Lucky just across the table. ‘I’m gonna check out,’ he said.
‘Like hell you are,’ Olympia replied crossly. ‘You’ve been checked out all day while I’ve been stuck here. We are going nightclubbing, so jump to it.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ he said angrily.
‘I’ll talk to you any way I like,’ she sneered.
He stared at the woman he had married. She had small blue eyes in a puffy pink face. Her painted lips curled derisively, and her blonde curls were drooping. Yes. Jess was definitely right. Insanity had struck.
‘Listen,’ he said, his voice low and even. ‘Talk to who the fuck you want that way – but don’t ever talk to me like shit. You got it?’
She refused to be intimidated. She tossed her hair back. ‘I take it you don’t wish to come,’ she said haughtily. ‘Well, I’m going, with or without you.’
‘Have a wonderful time.’
‘Don’t think I won’t,’ she said, flouncing off.
Across the other side of the room, Lucky pleaded a headache to Dimitri, who was only too delighted.
Francesca, of course, was ready, willing and able. She did not consult Horace on his preference. ‘You’ll stay here,’ she informed him. ‘You know how you hate nightclubs.’
Since no one was inviting Alice, she put on a brave front. ‘I’ll look after Horace,’ she volunteered.
Francesca ignored her. Francesca had a habit of ignoring most people with the exception of Dimitri.
Jenkins and Fluff Wilder elected to go. So did Saud and his Contessa. Susan said yes. Gino said no. She was tempted to take off without him, but he didn’t suggest it, so she stayed – reluctantly. The Contessa was such an interesting woman, she couldn’t wait to find out more about her.
As soon as the nightclubbers departed, Gino said goodnight, and he and Susan retired. Lucky felt her eyes drawn toward Lennie. He returned her gaze. Alice was regaling Horace with stories of Las Vegas. She was in her element with a captive audience of one and limitless supplies of Grand Marnier – her favourite tipple. Lennie gestured imperceptibly toward the door.
Lucky nodded her agreement. ‘Goodnight, all,’ she said quietly, and was gone.
Lennie waited a beat of ten, then he too rose.
‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed Alice, with a girlish giggle. ‘Are you leaving us alone? I’m not sure I can be responsible for my actions if I’m left alone with such an attractive man!’
Lennie did not know which he hated most. The cloying mother or the flirtatious ingenue.
Out on deck he looked for Lucky. She was leaning against the rail smoking a cigarette, her eyes dark and watchful as he approached.
‘It’s a smaller world than we think,’ she said in a low voice. ‘We should have left it the way it was in Vegas. Less complicated.’
He had plenty to say to her – like why did you have me fired, for starters. But words were elusive. He just wanted to hold her.
She dragged deeply on her cigarette, then flicked it over the edge. Without another word, as if by mutual agreement, they fell into each other’s arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. He was ready for her at once, all thoughts of tiredness and tension gone forever.
She kissed him with her lips, her tongue, her hands caressing
his face, then moving down his body with indecent haste.
He returned her kisses, slipped his hands beneath her white tuxedo, and freed her breasts from the confines of the scant silk top. ‘I want you,’ he muttered. ‘All the time, everywhere. I want you.’
Weakly she tried to push him away. She had no desire to tell him to get lost. He awakened feelings in her long dormant. Sexually he turned her on to a degree she had forgotten existed. He was a dangerous ride, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself from taking it.
Silently they kissed and caressed until it was his turn to push her away. His voice was strangled. ‘What are we playing here, cocktease?’
‘I never tease,’ she said, unzipping his pants and sinking to her knees. ‘Never.’ And her mouth was on him, taking him to heaven and back and swallowing the evidence.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ he exclaimed. He had experienced good sex, bad sex, mediocre sex. He had never experienced sex as erotic and exciting as Lucky Santangelo.
‘I thought about doing that to you all through dinner.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘Sort of like a farewell present.’
‘Hey, lady – if that was goodbye, I can’t wait to see the way you say hello!’
She didn’t laugh. ‘It was goodbye. Neither of us is looking for trouble. Today was a dream . . . a fantasy . . . Now we go back to real life.’
‘Are you kidding?’ He gripped her by the arms. ‘Do you love the old guy you’re married to, or did you marry him for his money?’
‘That’s not your concern,’ she said sharply. ‘And while we’re asking questions, why did you do the deed with Olympia? Was it her sunny personality that hooked you? Or her astronomical bank balance?’
He grabbed her urgently, bending her backwards while bringing his head down to her breasts.
‘No!’ she commanded.
‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘Oh, yes.’
She lost herself in his arms. Something was happening. A passion she hadn’t felt since Marco. And Marco had been dead five years . . .
She was strangely frightened and yet exhilarated at the same time. All reason deserted her as he crushed her to him. And she wanted him again.
Captain Pratt, crouched on all fours on an upper deck, nearly fell over the edge. The rich! They were no different from anyone else. He wondered what Mr Stanislopoulos would have to say about this little lark?
What could he say? That very afternoon Dimitri Stanislopoulos had taken the ugly Fern woman to his study and stayed in there for over an hour with the shades pulled down and a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. No wonder his wife was randy, she probably never got anything from the old Greek – he was too busy giving it all to his girlfriend.
Captain Pratt stood up and brushed himself off. He wondered how much he could sell his story for. The English newspapers loved scandal and gossip – especially about the super rich. The News of the World or the Sunday Mirror would pay a fortune for some of his stories. Not to mention the Enquirer or the Star.
Yes. Captain Pratt reckoned that when he was ready to retire he had his nest egg waiting.
* * *
‘We’re crazy,’ Lucky said, finding her abandoned clothes and struggling into them. ‘Absolutely crazy. Anyone could have stumbled across us. This yacht is crawling with servants. We’re crazy. I mean it.’
‘You don’t have to keep on saying it. I’m convinced.’
She turned to face Lennie defiantly. ‘This is sex, just sex. You do know that, don’t you?’
He returned her gaze. ‘I don’t know about you, but my marriage was over before it began. I married Olympia one wild night in Vegas at the Wee Wedding Chapel of Love and Honour – can you believe it?’
She nodded. ‘I know it well. It’s the place chorus girls drag out of town mustangs who’ve scored more than a hundred grand on the crap tables.’
‘You could say that I scored, but for all the wrong reasons. I was stoned out of my head, recovering from bitch of the century, and anxious to destroy myself. You get the picture?’
‘I’m beginning to.’
‘You – are probably the woman I’ve been looking for all my life. Only I got sidetracked by a million blondes.’
‘Great sex does not a relationship make,’ she observed wisely.
‘But it sure beats the hell out of lousy sex.’
‘True.’
‘I only speak the truth.’
‘When it suits you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘C’mon, Lennie. You’re a lady-killer, a hotshot lover-boy. You’re not even my type.’
‘And what makes you think you’re mine?’
They both burst out laughing.
She touched his cheek lightly and couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘Lennie Golden, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think something’s happening.’
‘Like a thunderbolt,’ he responded.
‘A flash of lightning.’
‘Not just sex.’
‘Nope.’
‘More.’
‘Right.’
‘Much much more.’
‘You said it.’
‘And we don’t even know each other.’
She stared at him. So many feelings all at once.
Before she could think of what to do or say next, Alice and Horace stumbled upon them.
‘Oh!’ exclaimed a startled Alice, adding a delicate hiccough. ‘What are you two doing out here?’
Horace shuffled uncomfortably.
‘Playing tennis,’ Lennie said dryly.
Alice giggled. ‘Saint Troopo is a lovely place,’ she trilled, and hiccoughed again. ‘So very . . . tropical.’
‘St Tropez,’ murmured Lucky.
‘Horace is showing me the boat,’ Alice offered, staggering slightly, and clutching the railing for support.
‘How nice,’ said Lennie sarcastically.
‘Come along, Horace,’ flirted Alice. ‘I want to see the lifeboats. I can’t swim y’know, so I must make sure everything is shipshape and ready for action.’ Shrieking with laughter, she dragged a reluctant Horace off.
‘My mother!’ Lennie said dourly. ‘The last of the all-time great swingers.’
‘Does she embarrass you?’
‘I’m too old to be embarrassed.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty. And you?’
‘I’m going to join you at that illustrious milestone in two days. It’s the official beginning of being a grown-up, isn’t it? The end of the frivolous twenties.’
‘No more outdoor fucking, huh?’
‘It’s not something I make a habit of.’
He gripped her by the shoulders. ‘What are we going to do, Lucky?’
‘About my birthday?’
‘Don’t be flippant.’
She shrugged impatiently. ‘I don’t plan to screw up anything because of you. I’ve told you what I think. We say goodbye and pretend nothing happened.’
‘Just like that, huh?’
‘I can do it if you can. Easily.’
‘Oh,’ he said acidly. ‘Your solution to everything, right? Just blank it out. Is that why I had my ass run out of Vegas – so you could pretend our little scene never happened?’
‘What was I supposed to do? Keep you around to remind me of our one night of nothing?’
‘You don’t can somebody just because they won’t sleep with you.’
‘I can do without the lecture, thank you.’
‘I’m trying to teach you something.’
‘Teach me.’ She raised her voice. ‘Teach me. Ha!’
‘Don’t yell.’
‘Who’s yelling?’ she yelled.
The low throb of a motor boat announced the arrival back of the nightclubbers.
‘Christ!’ Lennie exclaimed in disgust. ‘When am I going to see you again?’
‘Tomorrow. At breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Unless one of us takes off there’s going to be no avoiding each other.’
‘You kno
w what I mean.’
She was already moving toward the stairway. ‘I gave you my goodbye present, Lennie. Let’s just leave it that way.’
They both had a feeling it was impossible.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Eden had every intention of ending up in the sensuous embrace of Vitos Felicidade. If she was going to stray it might as well be into the arms of the popular Spanish lover. However, sometimes the best laid plans go astray, and as the evening wore on she found herself increasingly drawn to Quinn Leech. He was a heavily bearded man in his fifties, cadaverously thin, with lecherous eyes and pawing hands. But he was a film director, and therefore he had the edge. She had seen several of his movies. Strange commercial thrillers, with more than a healthy dose of sex and violence. He liked ripping women to pieces – on screen. Feminists enjoyed ripping him to pieces – in print. His last two movies had been box office disasters. Once he had been ‘a young hot director’. Now he was just marking time until his next big hit. The studios were off him, so when his old friend Ryder Wheeler had approached him about doing a movie financed by ‘connected’ money – he had agreed immediately. What did he care where the money came from?
Ryder had warned him up front, ‘Stay away from Bonnatti’s girlfriend,’ he had said. ‘Don’t fuck with the paid help.’
But Quinn never had liked being told what to do.
They rolled out of Chasens before midnight. Vitos climbed into his limousine with his manager, and bid Eden and Quinn a polite goodnight.
‘Schmuck!’ Quinn muttered as the limo slid off along Beverly Boulevard.
‘Don’t you like him?’ Eden asked.
‘What’s to like or dislike? He’s an empty canvas.’
She tapped her long nails against the small gold purse she was carrying and waited for him to proposition her. She had already decided to say yes.
‘Where’s your car?’ he asked.
‘Don’t you remember? We sent the driver home.’
‘You sent the driver home.’
The doorman appeared with a black Porsche.
‘Can you give me a ride?’ she asked quickly.