“Listen,” he said, opening the closet door a crack to check that the coast was clear. They could hear the Hora, the traditional Jewish wedding dance, in full swing next door. “I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of weddinged out. I don’t suppose you want to sneak back to my place?”
“Definitely not,” said Lola teasingly. “My mom told me never to go with strangers. You could be an ax murderer, for all I know.”
“Me? No way,” said Marti, squeezing her hand. “I’m a terrible coward. Faint at the first sight of blood. I’m more of the poisoning, smother-you-with-a-pillow type.”
Lola giggled.
“So’re you coming or not?”
“Yes, please,” she said, kissing him again.
He wasn’t as good-looking as Lucas, or even Igor. But he was fifty times funnier, and nicer. Suddenly she longed to be waking up with him tomorrow, eating bagels in bed like an old married couple. Sian would be OK to find her own way back to the hotel.
Marti took her hand and was just about to slip out into the lobby when raised voices made them both slink back. Lola felt her heart jump into her mouth and squeezed his hand even tighter. She recognized the voices. It was her father and Honor Palmer.
“Because I miss you,” Devon was saying. “That’s why. Hell, Honor, can’t we even talk to each other anymore?”
“No.” Honor sounded furious. “We can’t. You have some fucking nerve, Devon Carter. Just leave me the fuck alone, OK?”
Grabbing her by the hand, Devon dragged her down the side corridor directly toward the closet where Lola was hiding.
“Get back!” Lola hissed at Marti. He did as he was told, pulling the door almost completely closed, but leaving a crack so Lola could still see what was happening.
Honor, jacketless now, looked so tiny in her aqua shirt and pants she could almost have been a child. She’d always been skinny, but Lola could see now that she’d lost even more weight. Her collarbones visibly jutted out, like a human rack of lamb.
“I know you’re angry.” Devon’s voice was smooth and conciliatory. “You have every right to be.”
“Don’t tell me about my rights,” Honor snapped, freeing herself from his grip and backing away. “Or my feelings. You threw me to the fucking wolves!”
“That’s not fair,” said Devon. “I couldn’t control what the press were writing. You think it didn’t hurt me too, seeing them lay into you like that?”
“I’m sure you were devastated,” said Honor, witheringly.
“I was, sweetheart. Truly I was.”
Lola winced at the endearment. Sweetheart? But painful as it was to listen to, wild horses couldn’t have torn her away from that door.
“So devastated you forgot my number?” Clearly Honor was in no mood to let him off the hook. “Not one call from you, Devon, in all this time. Not one shred of concern. You let those bastards paint me as the marriage wrecker, while you sailed off into the sunset with Karis on your little boat of so-called regret. You make me sick.”
“I hardly sailed off into the sunset.” Devon laughed bitterly. “Life at home has been hell, complete hell. Karis has me under surveillance night and day. I’m trapped. But I don’t love her, Honor. I love you.” Lola gripped Marti’s hand so tightly her nails were in danger of drawing blood. He could feel her breathing stop dead.
“After the overdose, I couldn’t risk pushing her any further. For me to defend you in the press, contact you, even mention your name—don’t you see? It might have pushed her over the edge. She had me by the balls, sweetheart.”
“What balls?” said Honor.
“Damn right,” Lola whispered indignantly from the closet. Up until now it had been easy to believe what she read in the papers and blame Honor for everything. But suddenly, for the first time, she wondered if maybe her father wasn’t the true villain of the piece. A few hours ago, he’d been holding her mom’s hand in the chapel, playing the contrite husband. But now here he was, telling his mistress it was her he really loved. He was so two-faced it made Lola’s blood curdle.
“Darling, listen to me.” Stepping forward, Devon laid a hand on Honor’s shoulder. “I think we’re over the worst. Tonight, when Karis realized you were here, she was OK about it.”
Honor’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“I mean, she wasn’t thrilled, obviously,” Devon conceded. “But, you know, she didn’t insist we go home. She didn’t try and confront you.”
“She didn’t have to,” Honor shivered. “Lola did that for her. Not that I blame her, poor kid. After everything we’ve put her through…”
“You’re not listening.” Devon grabbed her hands.
Despite herself, Honor let him. She hated the fact that the warmth of his palms wrapped around her own still felt so comforting.
“A few months ago Karis would have been in pieces,” he said. “But today, she didn’t even cry. I think this whole mental instability of hers—this depression or whatever it is—I think it’s gonna pass. And when it does…”
“When it does, what?” said Honor.
Bending down, Devon kissed her softly on the neck. “Well,” he whispered, “we can carry on where we left off.”
For a second, Honor stood there, stock-still, while he nuzzled into her. Then, like someone snapping out of hypnosis, her head whiplashed up and she pushed him away.
“Karis isn’t mentally unstable,” she said, ignoring his frantic hand signals and making no effort to keep her voice down. “I am. Or at least I was. For ever trusting you in the first place. My marriage is a sham. We haven’t slept together in years. Jesus. How could I have fallen for that old cliché?”
She was a brilliant mimic and had his hectoring tone down to a T. It gave Lola goose pimples to hear her. Was that really what her dad had told her to get her into bed? Suddenly, Lola could believe it. Had all his protestations of love and regret to her mother been a crock of shit too?
“It might be a cliché,” said Devon, doing his best to sound wounded. “But it happens to be true. Karis and I haven’t shared a bed in years.”
“Bullshit!” said Honor and Lola simultaneously. Luckily, Honor’s roar of rage drowned out Lola’s furiously hissed whisper.
“Lola told Lucas she had to put earplugs in at home to block out the sound of you guys making love through her bedroom wall,” said Honor. “Lucas told me all about it.”
“And you believe Lucas Ruiz over me?” said Devon, indignantly.
“I didn’t at the time,” said Honor. “I loved you, God help me. But now? Now I’d believe Osama bin Laden over you, Devon.”
“But Lucas was the one who exposed us! If it weren’t for that little shit, we’d still be together.”
“Well, in that case, he did me a favor,” said Honor. “I’ll have to write and thank him.”
And turning on her heel, she stormed off.
Only once Devon had gone too and he was sure they were alone again did Marti speak.
“You OK?” he asked Lola, pushing open the closet door and stepping out into the light. But one look at her tear-streaked face told him the answer.
“Not really.” She shook her head miserably. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Honor was already downstairs, scanning the deserted streets in vain for a cab. Above her, the night sky, its natural blackness stained by the dim orange glow of the city’s light pollution, rumbled ominously. At first the rain fell in slow, heavy drips that burst like water balloons on the sidewalk. But it wasn’t long before the ponderous early splashes had turned into a full-scale torrent that left her soaked to the bone.
The rain was so cold it made her gasp. But at the same time, it was exactly the physical shock she needed. Soon she was laughing out loud as she skipped about in the puddles. Maybe she really was losing it. She’d expected to feel pain after her conversation with Devon. Or shock, or disillusionment, or regret. Something bad, anyway.
But in fact, the overwhelming sensation was relief. It was as if some te
rrible, heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. But when it was set down in front of her, she could see that it wasn’t a boulder at all. It had been nothing but a tiny, insignificant pebble all along.
Falling in love was incredible. But falling out of love, she now realized, could be even better.
At last the scales had fallen from her eyes completely. She had her self back. And for the first time in years—probably since before her mother died—she felt truly, deeply content.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A YEAR TO the day after the Burnstein wedding, Lucas stood in the newly finished lobby of his new hotel, Luxe Ibiza, feeling like Lazarus risen from the ashes. All the new-building smells still lingered: varnish mingled with sawdust and drying paint, overlaid by the scent of freshly laid turf, which wafted in through the open French windows. Lucas inhaled joyously.
In a few weeks, all these smells would be gone, replaced by the ubiquitous aroma of calming lavender. Lucas had already received the first shipment of scented Dyptique candles from Paris—expensive but worth it—and the midnight-blue gas lamps that would burn essential oils of lavender and cedarwood in each suite should arrive in the morning. A local artisan glass-blower had made the lamps for next to nothing, with his brother throwing in the hand-pressed oils at an even more outrageously knocked-down price. They should have asked for more. Lucas would happily have paid them. Local, natural products were at the core of the Luxe ethos, and he was quite prepared to pay a premium to get the ambience of his new hotel pitch-perfect.
Connor Armstrong, his Irish partner and financial backer, was a pompous, preening prick of a man and a pain in Lucas’s ass on many levels. But at least he knew better than to try to tinker with Lucas’s artistic vision. The twelve bedroom suites and two guest studios were all furnished with low, unfussy teak beds, decked out in old-fashioned starched white linen. Lucas was allergic to those stupid little decorative cushions so beloved of other luxury hotels, and to beds piled high with enough pillows to give people neck ache. At Luxe, nothing was extraneous. Flower arrangements were simple and fresh, with lots of greenery. Artwork was minimal and calming, mostly local landscapes, mixed up with the odd interesting antique map or illustrated page from an old book. Every room had an open fire, the pine logs carefully chosen for their scent and crackle, and was well stocked with books to suit every taste and inclination. There were no televisions, no ghastly piped Muzak, nothing to remind his guests that only a few miles below them, at the bottom of a hill scattered with olive trees, was the neon, drug-fueled buzz of Europe’s most infamous party island.
Stepping through the open windows into a central courtyard garden overhung with faded pink roses, Lucas offered up a little prayer of thanks. Sometimes he still found it hard to believe that he’d actually made it this far, that his fantasy had at last taken solid, physical shape. Two weeks from now they’d be open for business.
He could still remember the phone call he’d made to Ben last June, the day that Connor had agreed to back him.
“I’ve done it!” he panted breathlessly, leaning against the plastic wall of a phone booth in Santa Eulalia.
“You have? That’s great!” said Ben, who had no idea what he was talking about but didn’t want to burst his bubble by asking “what?” He’d only heard from Lucas twice since he’d gone back to Ibiza. The first time he’d been drunk out of his mind, rambling incoherently about Anton and Petra and the great injustices of the world. The second time he was sober as a judge, but also deeply depressed. He’d insisted that he was going to turn his life around and that he wouldn’t call Ben again until he had. That was six weeks ago, and he’d been as good as his word, not even leaving a number or address where a worried Ben could get in touch with him.
“I’ve got a backer for Luxe,” said Lucas excitedly.
It took Ben a moment to remember what Luxe was: the fantasy hotel that Lucas had been banging on about ever since they first met in Murren, all those years ago.
“Wow,” said Ben. “Who?”
“A guy called Connor Armstrong,” said Lucas. “You remember him, right? He used to drink at the Cadogan sometimes. Irish. Bit of a twat.”
More than a bit, thought Ben, but all he said was, “Sure, I remember.”
Connor was exactly the sort of smug, self-important prick that gave bankers a bad name; a man who considered it a great joke to harass his secretaries or tell the minimum-wage Pakistani janitor in his office how much he’d spent on dinner the night before. He wore too much aftershave, spoke too loudly on his cell phone, and affected a nauseating mid-Atlantic accent that made him sound like a local radio DJ trying to be cool.
“I didn’t know he was in the hotel business.”
“He isn’t,” said Lucas. “Well, he is now, but he wasn’t. He’s in property. He made some canny deals in Marbella: villas, condos, tourist apartments, that sort of thing. He’s done well.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Ben truthfully. The assholes always did.
“Anyway, now he wants something in Ibiza. I told him about my ideas for Luxe, and he was sold.”
“That’s terrific,” said Ben. “How’d you convince him?”
Lucas made a grunt that seemed to imply he didn’t understand the question. “I didn’t have to convince him,” he said. “He knows any hotel of mine will be the coolest thing to happen on this island since manumission. Why wouldn’t he want in?”
Ben smiled but said nothing. It was a relief to hear some of the old Ruiz arrogance making a comeback. Without it, Lucas just wasn’t Lucas.
As it turned out, it wasn’t just idle boasting. From the beginning, there was a buzz of excitement on the island about the Luxe project that gave Lucas an incredible frisson and fueled his already rampant ambition. The name alone seemed to have a sort of magic to it, generating hype and anticipation even before the first brick had been laid. Leveraging off that magic for all he was worth, Lucas worked inhuman hours to get the thing off the ground, whirling like a dervish from supplier to supplier and breathing down the necks of his builders like a jealous lover.
Knowing that Petra Kamalski had replaced him at the Herrick only added to his sense of inner urgency. It wasn’t enough to build a great hotel. Luxe had to be the greatest, the boutique David that would one day bring down the Goliath Tischen brand, and with it both Petra and her scheming, two-faced bastard of a boss. As far as Lucas was concerned, Ibiza was just the beginning. Once he’d achieved success here, he could tweak the concept, ironing out any early glitches or issues, then roll his Luxes out across Europe and, eventually, America and Asia too.
Unfortunately, Connor turned out to be rather less of a big thinker. From the beginning he’d moaned on like an old woman about risk. And that was just on the Ibiza project.
“It’s too remote,” he whined, the first time Lucas drove him up to the site he’d found, high up in the hills close to where he was born. He’d chosen it because land was still relatively cheap up here, and the views were nothing short of spectacular. “No one’s gonna want to hike all the way up here,” said Connor gloomily. “They’ll need a chopper just to get to the clubs at night.”
“Fine,” said Lucas stubbornly. “We’ll build a helipad.”
A screaming match ensued, but Lucas eventually got his way. His raw energy and natural flair, combined with Connor’s cash and contacts, acted like rocket fuel, propelling the building work forward at a frightening speed despite Connor’s cup-half-empty attitude and almost ceaseless naysaying. Lucas acted as architect, project manager, and PR chief rolled into one. Having had every detail of the plans in his head since he was a teenager, he was damned if he was going to pay some outsider to come and tinker with them, wasting money and time on sketches and pie charts.
He’d also learned a number of lessons from building the Herrick. All the construction workers on the Luxe site, down to the lowliest plumber’s assistant, had their pay tied firmly to deadlines. The result was that now, a mere ten months after construction b
egan, the hotel was finished. And a fucking work of art she was too.
“Fuck you, Anton Tisch!” Yelling at the top of his lungs, Lucas listened as his voice ricocheted off the walls and steep hillside in a volley of echoes. With the contractors finished, paid, and sent home, he had the place entirely to himself—king, at long last, of his castle.
“Fuck you, Petra!” he roared, sending a second ripple of sound off in pursuit of the first. “I’m back! Lucas Ruiz is fucking back!”
Annoyingly, he was interrupted midshout by a buzz from his inside jacket pocket.
“Yes?” he barked grumpily into his battered old Motorola. But seconds later the annoyance was gone and his face suffused by a broad grin.
“That’s wonderful! How long are you here?” he asked, picking up a stray pebble and hurling it high into the air, then watching it fall out of sight into the depths of the valley below.
“Tonight then. At seven.” He laughed, shaking his head as he hung up the phone.
Well that was one for the books. It looked as though his already glorious day was about to get even better.
Bounding up the gravel path a few hours later, clutching a chilled bottle of Moët and a fistful of wild daisies he’d picked on the way, Lucas rapped loudly on the front door with his fist.
God it felt strange to be here! The last time he’d been in this garden—three years ago now, although it felt like thirty—he’d been running the other way, taking off down the hill like a bat out of hell before old man Leon could get his hands on him. He remembered his feelings so clearly: the panic and adrenaline mingled with the joyous rush of the great sex he’d just had and an overwhelming urge to burst into laughter. Nothing had seemed very serious to him then. Now, he thought with a pang, everything did.