Do Not Disturb

  God, it felt good. He was pretty close now.

  An enthusiastic amateur filmmaker, over the last ten years Anton had built up an extensive video collection of himself having sex with a variety of different women. A true obsessive-compulsive, he’d cataloged the footage alphabetically by the girls’ first names: the long shelf in his Geneva screening room ran all the way from Abigail to Zoe. Today he was enjoying some five-year-old footage of Heidi, the bitch who’d done so much to damage his reputation by selling her story to the Evening Standard a year and a half ago.

  Looking back at it now, sex with Heidi had actually been pretty average. Despite being an exotic dancer back then, she’d always been disappointingly prissy in bed, reluctant even to let him do her from behind and absolutely vetoing anal. Nonetheless, watching the film now still gave him a powerful erotic thrill. As with all the other lovers he filmed, Anton had assured Heidi that he’d destroyed the tapes years ago. Knowing that, without her knowledge, he could access her naked body whenever he felt like it—rewinding and freezing the frame on her spread legs and open, inviting cunt whenever he wanted to, for his own private pleasure—felt like a sort of mental rape. Rubbing his groin faster and faster, he felt his excitement building, as much from the sensation of revenge as from the titillation of the images themselves.

  “Yeaaah,” he moaned, snarling at the screen as he finally came, his left hand gripping involuntarily tighter onto Mitzi’s collar while his right hand cupped his twitching balls. “Fuck you, you fucking whore.”

  Grabbing a couple of Kleenex from the box by his side, he gave himself a perfunctory wipe and zipped up his pants. Then, turning off the flat-screen TV, he ruffled Mitzi’s fur and got to his feet. “Daddy won’t be long,” he cooed, dropping another chocolate into the dog’s slavering mouth, and heading for the door.

  Once outside, he strolled around the grounds of his new hotel, watching the growing crowd with quiet satisfaction. He’d been right to hire Lucas. The boy had done a fantastic job under difficult circumstances, and today’s launch party was the culmination of sixteen months of effort. It was the sort of glorious early summer’s day that could make even the most lackluster of gardens look beautiful, and the Herrick’s grounds were anything but lackluster. An exquisite Japanese water garden, complete with koi pond and a twenty-five-foot waterfall, dominated the landscape, adding to the overall air of tranquility and peacefulness. There were no garish flowers here, none of the riotous candy-pink blossoms so ubiquitous elsewhere in the Hamptons at this time of year. Instead, the Herrick designers had gone for a consciously muted palette of greens and whites, offset with softly winding paths of gray slate, and the occasional smooth black granite sculpture. It was a restfulness that mirrored the clean lines of the hotel itself with its curved glass frontage, which glinted and gleamed in the sunlight now like the overpolished windshield of a new car.

  Yes, it was modernist. Very. But only a dyed-in-the-wool philistine could deny its serene beauty. Certainly it had exceeded Anton’s own expectations. He’d seen thousands of pictures during construction, but they were nothing compared to its beauty in the flesh.

  Despite his satisfaction, he felt tired. Having flown into New York yesterday afternoon, he hadn’t gotten out to East Hampton until nearly ten at night but had insisted on meeting all the staff personally, then getting a two-hour rundown from Lucas on the plans for the launch party before he finally went to bed.

  “More champagne, sir?” A pretty uniformed waitress offered him a flute of Cristal from a glinting silver tray.

  “Thank you.” Stifling a yawn, he swapped his empty glass for a full one. Across the lawn he could see Lucas, surrounded by a gaggle of journalists. Since the Vogue article on the Herrick’s rivalry with Palmers—Five-Star Wars they’d called it, which Anton thought was rather good—media interest in both the hotel and Lucas personally had risen exponentially. This was good for business, of course, and was exactly what he had hoped for when he hired Lucas. But now that it was actually happening, ironically, he found it annoying. Lucas was getting all the press attention, not to mention his dick sucked by the prettiest girls, while he, the owner and inspiration behind the Herrick, seemed to be practically invisible. There must be more than five hundred people here, many of them genuine A-listers, yet still the hacks swarmed around Lucas as if he were the big draw.

  The guest list was certainly impressive. Billy Joel had shown up with his new, very young wife, as had the Seinfelds, and even Martha Stewart, who normally turned down all invitations that were even semipublic. But the biggest coup of all had undoubtedly been getting Magnus Haakenson, the Danish action star and Hollywood’s latest Next Big Thing, not just to come to the party but to book himself and his entourage into the hotel for a four-night stay. Honor Palmer must surely be crying into her cocktail over that one.

  Honor, in fact, had yet to hear the bad news about Magnus. No sooner had she stepped out of her limo and wandered into the gardens than the paparazzi swooped like vultures, their flashbulbs popping.

  “Miss Palmer. We weren’t sure we’d see you here.” A reporter Honor vaguely recognized from the New York Times society pages popped up at her side.

  “But of course I’m here, John.” She smiled serenely, hoping her gray dress wasn’t washing her out too much. “It’s a beautiful evening; there’s free champagne. What’s not to love?”

  “What about the comments Lucas Ruiz made about you in last month’s Vogue? You’re not offended?”

  Honor waved her hand regally, as if swatting away a fly. “I don’t have time to read fashion magazines, I’m afraid,” she lied. She’d read Lucas’s poisonous quotes so many times now she could recite them backward in Hungarian. “I’m far too busy running the best hotel in America. Ah, Billy. How are you?”

  More bulbs flashed as she strolled over to a waving Billy Joel, greeting him warmly with a kiss on both cheeks.

  A few feet away, Devon was chatting to the chairman of the golf club. When he saw Honor, he shot her a furtive smile, which she returned equally cautiously. They both knew they’d have to be careful today. Lucas would be even more confident on his home turf, and he’d be watching Honor like a hawk. One slip and he’d strike at her like a rattlesnake.

  Rather to Honor’s surprise, since his original barbed comment at Karis Carter’s birthday party last year, Lucas had made no further hints about her relationship with Devon, either to her face or, heaven forbid, in print. She was starting to think she must have misheard him that night or somehow misinterpreted what he’d said. She had been very drunk, after all, and it was deeply uncharacteristic of Lucas to let her off the hook about anything, never mind something as potentially explosive as her and Devon’s affair.

  But her palms still started to sweat uncomfortably when she saw Lucas cutting through the crowd and making a beeline for Devon. What was he up to? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. If only she were close enough to overhear what they were saying.

  “Devon. Michael. Welcome.” In his white linen suit and pale-pink shirt, Lucas looked like more of a Miami playboy than ever, his teeth shining white and predatory against his deeply tanned skin when he smiled. “I trust you’re both having a good time?”

  “Indeed,” said Devon stiffly.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Mike Malone, the chairman of the golf club, gave Lucas the sort of look he normally reserved for things found stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “I’d better go and join my wife. She gets pretty antsy if I desert her for too long.”

  Rude son of a bitch, thought Lucas. The only thing that made Lucille Malone antsy was when the cucumber-sized vibrator she used to compensate for her husband’s inadequacies ran out of batteries.

  Though he feigned indifference, it really got under his skin the way the locals continued to look down on him socially. Whether it was because he was Spanish or working class or simply because his name wasn’t Palmer, he didn’t know. But it bugged the crap out of him.

  “You must be pleased
with today’s turnout,” said Devon.

  Privately, like his friend Mike, Devon also considered Lucas to be little better than a third-rate dago waiter who’d gotten lucky. And he was livid about the vicious things he’d said about Honor in that horrible, one-sided interview. But unlike Malone, he knew how to be diplomatic.

  “I am pleased,” said Lucas. “And Anton’s thrilled. I hope, now that we’re up and running, we’ll be seen to have answered some of our critics. She’s beautiful, no?” He pointed behind him to the cathedral-like splendor of the Herrick’s facade, its glass glinting in the sunlight and sending rays ricocheting off the Gucci sunglasses of the partygoers.

  Devon smiled patronizingly. “If you like that sort of thing, I suppose.”

  “You don’t?” Lucas maintained a stiff smile, but inside he was seething. Why couldn’t these people give credit where it was so clearly due?

  “Perhaps it’s a cultural difference,” said Devon, unwittingly adding insult to injury. “Our concept of beauty is rather different from yours and Mr. Tisch’s, I suspect. It’s a question of what one grew up with. What one was born to, if you like.”

  Lucas didn’t like. Who did this asshole think he was, the Prince of fucking Wales?

  “How’s Lola doing?” he asked, delighted to see a cloud of distrust and disapproval fall immediately over Devon’s face. “I was hoping she might be here today.”

  Lucas and Lola had enjoyed a brief fling last summer, much to Devon’s fury, but it had fizzled out once she returned to Boston. The last thing Devon wanted was a rerun this year. Quite apart from his social unsuitability, Lucas was far too old for her and a well-known playboy. She should be meeting eligible boys her own age.

  “She’s in the city this weekend,” said Devon tersely. “Staying with friends. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason. She’s a terrific girl, that’s all,” said Lucas, twisting the knife. “You must be proud.”

  “I am,” said Devon, with a grimace worthy of someone undergoing root canal surgery without anesthetic. “I’d hate to see her get hurt or throw away her future…”

  “On someone like me?” Lucas smiled sweetly.

  “I was going to say, over a relationship that can’t possibly go anywhere,” said Devon.

  “Not all relationships have to go somewhere, do they?” said Lucas. “I mean, if someone were married, say, and had a long-term mistress on the side, that arrangement might work very well for everybody, without it having to go anywhere. Don’t you think?”

  Devon’s eyes narrowed. Was that a veiled reference to him and Honor?

  “Lola’s still only eighteen,” he said gruffly. “You know very well that it’s inappropriate, Lucas.”

  Lucas shrugged calmly. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I do need someone a little more worldly. Miss Palmer, perhaps? She’s single.”

  “Honor?” Devon’s teeth ground audibly. “Don’t be preposterous.”

  Lucas laughed. “Please. I didn’t mean Honor,” he said scathingly. “I wouldn’t fuck that bull dyke with somebody else’s dick. No, I’m talking about the other Miss Palmer. The sexy one. Over there.”

  Devon spun around. Oh Christ, poor Honor. That was all she needed.

  Tina, in her trademark cutoff denim hot pants and boots, her newly augmented breasts covered only by the tiniest of waistcoats—no shirt—was fawning over Anton like a groupie at a rock concert.

  “Wow, Mr. Tisch, I gotta hand it to you. This place is awesome,” she gushed. “How on earth d’you get it built so fast?”

  Anton smiled and sucked in his paunch as the paps began snapping the two of them together.

  “Please. It’s Anton,” he purred. “And you know, when you’ve built as many hotels as I have, these things become rather second nature, Miss Palmer.”

  “Call me Tina,” said Tina, resting one red-taloned hand on his arm and leaning even farther forward, the better to show off her jaw-dropping cleavage.

  She’d decided to come out to the Hamptons on a whim. Well, sort of a whim. Having finally broken up with Dick Grate, she’d been caught in bed with the CEO of Paramount a few days ago by the guy’s deeply unimpressed wife, and it had all gotten a little ugly. The old battle-ax had too much to lose to expose her husband publicly, but she’d sure as hell gotten her pound of flesh in private. When Mr. Paramount suggested that Tina might like to skip town for a month or so while the marital heat died down—adding weight to his suggestion with the two hundred grand worth of Neil Lane diamonds that dangled from her wrists now—she simply hadn’t the heart to refuse him.

  Besides, having seen the amount of press Honor and Palmers had been getting recently (though why anyone should be interested in a tedious old hotel, Tina had no idea) she was itching to get in on the action. She was still a part owner of Palmers, after all. And the Herrick’s opening party was the hottest ticket in New York this weekend.

  Having finally managed to extricate herself from her conversation with yet another journalist, Honor seized her chance to casually wander over to Devon.

  “Have you seen who’s here?” he whispered, kissing her on both cheeks.

  “You mean Magnus Haakenson? Yeah, I saw,” she whispered back. “If Lucas got any smugger about it he’d disappear up his own asshole.”

  “Really, darling,” Devon frowned, “your language is appalling. But I wasn’t talking about Magnus. Look over there.” He nodded toward Tina.

  Honor went white. There was her sister, looking cheap as usual, all over Anton Tisch like shrink-wrap. “Oh. My. God,” she whispered. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “Sizing up her next victim, by the look of it,” said Devon.

  “Don’t joke.” Honor shuddered.

  “I’m not joking,” said Devon. “Tisch has everything your sister looks for in a man, after all. Money. Money,” he counted them off on his fingers, “and, oh yes, money. If he weren’t such a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, I might even feel sorry for the guy. Uh oh.” Stepping back from Honor, he smiled over her head and started waving enthusiastically into the middle distance. “It’s Don Hammond from the church council. I’d better go.”

  No sooner had he scuttled off than Honor felt a tap on her back. Expecting another journalist, she fixed on her best PR smile, but replaced it with a glare when she found herself face-to-face with Lucas.

  “I must say, I’m half surprised you made it,” he gloated. “It can’t have been easy for you.” He waved at the swarming sea of VIPs triumphantly.

  “On the contrary,” said Honor, “it’s a welcome distraction. We’ve been so busy at Palmers I haven’t had a second to relax. Besides, there’s nothing I like better than helping your boss to waste his money. How much did all this cost, anyway?” She gestured around her at the free-flowing champagne and the hundreds of open mouths devouring Russian caviar blini, which must have cost at least twenty dollars a pop, as if they were Oreos.

  “Looks like your sister’s asking Anton the very same question as we speak,” said Lucas. Tina was flirting so outrageously now, her back arched and her improbable chest thrust forward like an exploding airbag, that Honor couldn’t help but blush for her.

  “Ah. Listen.” Grinning, Lucas cupped his hand to his ear as Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” came thumping through the state-of-the-art outdoor Bose speakers. “They’re playing her song.”

  Honor shot him a look of purest hatred. Lucas noticed again what incredible, Kryptonite-green eyes she had, and how they looked even more striking when lit up with anger, as they were now. Shame about the rest of her. At least she was wearing a dress, a welcome change from all those gruesomely butch pantsuits and boxy jackets, but even today’s brushed gray silk number was conservative enough for an off-duty nun. Why did she go to such lengths to hide herself? He wasn’t into scrawny girls, but even he had to grudgingly admit that Honor had good legs and a lovely tapered waist, so small that his fingertips could probably meet around it, in the unlikely event that he ever got to touch her. What
a waste, covering it up like that.

  Her sister might be soft on the outside, but you could tell at a glance that Tina was hard as nails beneath all that womanly display of flesh. Honor, Lucas imagined, was the reverse. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that her “fuck you” exterior masked a heart of pure marshmallow. There was a woman in there somewhere, he was sure of it. She just needed a real man to bring her out—not a crusty old fart like Devon Carter.

  “That Vogue interview you did was a crock of shit, by the way,” said Honor, anxious to steer the conversation away from Tina.

  Lucas shrugged. “After all the libelous things you’ve said about me and my hotel, you’re hardly in a position to throw stones.”

  “Please,” sneered Honor. “It’s Tisch’s hotel, not yours. You’re just a paid employee. The way you talk about it, anyone would think you’d designed the place yourself and built it brick by brick.”

  Now it was Lucas’s turn to look daggers. He was well aware that he was only the Herrick’s manager, while Honor owned Palmers outright. He tried not to let this difference in status rattle him. After all, by any objective standard he was incredibly lucky to have climbed so far at such an early stage in his career. And yet it did rankle that his dream of owning his own hotel—his Luxe—remained years away, while Honor had had Palmers handed to her on a plate. Or rather, she’d snatched the plate out of her own father’s hands while the poor bastard was too incapacitated to stop her.

  “May I interrupt?”

  A smiling, middle-aged woman in wide-leg sailor trousers and a blue blouse with a huge pussycat bow at the neck inserted herself between Honor and Lucas, handing each of them a business card. “Megan Grier, Talk Today. I’m a producer at NPR,” she chirruped. “I’d really love to get the two of you on my show. That Five-Star Wars thing in Vogue was terrific.” She smiled at Lucas. “Exactly the sort of real-life story we’re looking for.”