“No? Not a smoker?”
Honor ignored her and turned back to what was left of her drink. But Petra wasn’t done yet. Her hatred of Honor ran so deep she couldn’t rest until she’d gotten her to rise to the bait.
“Come on,” she said. “I was only kidding. You shouldn’t be sitting here, drinking alone. Why don’t you come and join us?”
“I’ll pass,” said Honor, coolly.
“Are you sure?” said Petra. “We’re all headed back to my room. Apparently they have one of your sister’s movies available upstairs, on the X channel. I’ve heard it’s very good. Can’t I tempt you?”
Her posse watched Honor for her reaction like a drooling pack of hyenas. But they were disappointed. Tightening her grip around her glass, she took a moment to compose herself. Much as she’d love to leap on Petra like a wildcat and scratch her malicious, ice-blue eyes out, she knew she was outnumbered and that a scene was exactly what the vicious cow was hoping for. Why give her the satisfaction?
“Sorry,” she said, draining the rest of her drink and leaving a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. “Not for me. But hey, you kids have fun. Every dollar that movie makes goes to UNICEF. I’m sure they’ll be grateful for your contribution.”
Only once she had reached the sixteenth floor and the safe privacy of her own room did she allow herself to react. Shutting the door behind her, she turned the TV up and screamed at the top of her lungs for a full minute:
“Bitch!” she yelled. “Fucking Russian slut, whore, BIIIIITCH!”
Then, peeling off her sweater, white pants, and underwear, she jumped naked onto the oversize bed and began pummeling her fists into the pillows in frustration.
Finally, exhausted but feeling a whole lot better, she slipped into the nude Calvin Klein camisole and panties that served as her nightwear, opened the minibar, and pulled out four miniature bottles of Jack Daniel’s. It wasn’t malt, but it’d have to do.
Stretching her legs and wiggling her toes luxuriantly in the thick pile of the carpet, she turned down the volume on the TV, flipped channels to Seinfeld, and began the long process of drinking herself into a stress-free oblivion.
Across town at McCarran International Airport, Lucas’s evening was proving to be anything but stress free.
Thanks to a French air traffic controllers’ strike that had brought Charles de Gaulle to a grinding halt, he was already three days late for the conference. But now it transpired that the stupid fuckers at Air France had sent his bags, including his laptop, to Milwaukee or Mogadishu, or some other place beginning with M that sure as hell wasn’t Las Vegas. Between this and the thundering headache that had gripped his skull forty thousand feet over Colorado and clung on like an asylum-seeker to an undercarriage ever since, it was safe to say he was not in the warmest of moods.
He’d had a shit Christmas, working constantly and battling ever more bitterly with Connor, his so-called partner. The crux came when Lucas had drawn down on a bank loan to pay for an expensive plot of land in the Hamptons, about a mile farther along the beach from the Herrick, on which he intended to build his new hotel, tentatively—and more than a little grandly—entitled Luxe America.
Connor had hit the roof, showering Lucas with more expletives than Ozzy Osbourne with a stubbed toe: “Fucking Spic!” “No fucking restraint!” “Greedy, ignorant, paella-eating peasant!” It amused Lucas when people’s racism and prejudices emerged in anger or drink, like so much scum floating up to the surface. In Connor’s case, the tirade had provided him with the excuse he needed to break away and look for a new, better-capitalized partner. For all Connor’s protestations about not wanting out of the business, they both knew they couldn’t go on as they were.
His biggest problem was finding the time to hunt for such a person. Rushing around like a blue-assed fly between the East Hampton building site and his two existing hotels, he barely had time to sleep, never mind network.
Standing in the arrivals hall, searching in vain for a sign with his name on it among the many placards being waved around, he wished fervently he were back in Paris. He much preferred it there to Ibiza, where he’d installed a very competent local guy called Alessandro as interim manager. The city itself was astonishingly beautiful, of course. Lucas had never been much of a culture vulture, but Notre Dame blew him away, and the Louvre was a labyrinthine world of its own that he never seemed to tire of. But it was the women who really had him hooked. French girls had a natural sexual confidence that was so much more attractive than the brash sluttishness of their Ibizan counterparts, all tits, tan, and tassles. It was something like the difference between Honor and Tina Palmer. To this day, he regretted having had sex with the Ibiza Palmer sister and not the Parisienne. But he wasn’t about to lose sleep over it. It was Honor’s loss.
After fruitlessly scanning every single sign and finally running out of people to scream at, he filed a complaint with the airline and made his way, bagless, to the taxi line.
“The Wynn,” he snapped bad-temperedly at the driver, then felt guilty when he saw a crucifix and rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror, along with pictures of the man’s kids. The poor guy was only trying to make a living, after all. He didn’t deserve to have his head bitten off.
He spent most of the forty-five-minute journey checking his BlackBerry for e-mails—thank God he’d kept that in his pocket and not in his bag, or he really would have been screwed. Only in the last few minutes of the ride did he put it away and focus his attention on the insane display of lights that signaled the approaching city.
Despite his exhaustion, he was horny. Sandrine, an exotic dancer from the Crazy Horse who he’d been dating on and off back in Paris, had sent him a couple of X-rated texts that had helped to push the whole lost-baggage drama to the back of his mind. One of the perks of his insanely hectic travel schedule was being able to have three totally separate, concurrent sex lives—in Ibiza, Paris, and the States—without fear of discovery, jealousy, or tedious female tantrums of the kind that Lucas previously had an uncanny knack of attracting. Emotional women bored him to tears. Happily, Sandrine wasn’t remotely given to that sort of nonsense. He had no doubt she’d be screwing half the fourteenth district while he was away, a mental picture that, combined with her graphic texts and the prospect of the many libidinous pleasures awaiting him in Vegas, made his dick begin to harden in his pants.
He wondered how complicated it would be to get ahold of a hooker once he got to his room. Not very, he imagined. Although it wouldn’t do his reputation much good if anyone at the IHA conference saw him paying for sex. To many people in the US, he remained indelibly connected to Tina Palmer, sex, drugs, and videotapes, an image he needed to change if he was going to make Luxe America a success. Being caught calling dial-a-vagina would be a major PR disaster.
When they got to the Wynn, he headed straight for check-in.
“You’re in room sixteen O six, Mr. Ruiz,” the blonde at the desk told him brightly, “on the sixteenth floor. Is there anything else I can help you with at this time?”
“Actually, yes,” quipped Lucas. “You could you find my fucking bag for me. I think it might be in Maryland. Or Munich. One of the two.”
The girl looked at him blankly. Like most Vegas girls, she had the body of a goddess and the face of an angel but the eyes of a retarded rabbit. Lucas suspected her IQ was somewhere around the level of a floret of broccoli. A small floret.
“Never mind,” he said wearily. “I’ll see myself up.”
On his way to the elevators—there were banks of them; the place was so huge it felt like the Pentagon—he stuck his head into the cocktail bar off the lobby, but withdrew it again instantly when he caught sight of Petra. It was the first glimpse he’d had of her in the flesh since his Lausanne days, although he’d seen her picture countless times in the trade press. Somehow photographs failed to capture her aura of chilly, brittle malevolence that Lucas remembered so well. Her hairstyle and dress sense might have changed, but she hadn’t.
Having said that, from the brief glimpse he’d caught of her, she seemed to be the worse for drink, which was distinctly out of character. Or perhaps in Petra’s case, he should say the better for drink. The alcohol had evidently loosened her up a bit. Her red stilettos had been kicked off and at least one button of her crisply severe white blouse had popped open at the top. No doubt Connor would have found this sexy, thought Lucas with a shudder. He was welcome to her.
Desperate to get away, he slipped into the waiting elevator. All he wanted right now was some room service, his bed, and possibly a decent porno—if he could keep his eyes open long enough.
“Oooh! Turn off, you stupid thing!”
Honor, blind drunk, stabbed away at the TV remote with rising annoyance before realizing that it was actually her cell phone she was jabbing.
“Crap. Where is it?” she mumbled, staggering around the room looking under cushions and sweeping aside the minibar detritus that lay strewn across the floor: empty bottles, beer cans, and boxes of peanuts were everywhere. She’d even eaten the cheese-and-onion Pringles, which she hated, on the assumption that the more food she ingested to mop up the booze, the better.
Giving up, she ripped the TV cord out of the wall, sending sparks flying and a sharp, stabbing pain shooting up her arm before the entire room plunged into darkness.
“Fuuuuck,” she whispered. “Goddamnit.”
At least the TV was off. Ty from Extreme Makeover had really been starting to get on her nerves. Why did he have to shout the whole time? Opening the minibar fridge provided a sliver of light, enough to see that she’d somehow managed to get through an entire tray full of ice and consequently had none left for the two remaining miniature bottles of vodka. Remembering vaguely that she’d seen a sign saying “ice” near the elevators, she got unsteadily to her feet and padded out into the corridor.
The lights were off out here too. She must have shorted the entire floor—oops! Only the dim glow from the emergency floor lighting enabled her to get her bearings. On the plus side this meant she could run to the ice machine under cover of semidarkness, fill up her glass, and get back to her room without anybody noticing she’d forgotten to put a robe on over her underwear. Double oops!
Finding the ice machine was the easy part. Making her way back to her room—what number was it again?—without spilling the precious contents of her crystal tumbler proved to be a lot tougher.
Finally swaying to a halt outside her door, she reached for the key-card in her pocket. Except there wasn’t any pocket. Or any key-card.
“Shit.” She stared blankly at the impassive wooden door, its key slot blinking red as if taunting her. Seconds later, she let out a wail of horror as the lights came back on. All of a sudden, the full force of her predicament was brought home to her: she was locked out of her room, as good as naked, standing in a public corridor in glaringly unflattering platinum-bright light.
Where the fuck did she go from here?
“Can I help you?”
Honor froze. The voice came from behind her, but she didn’t dare to look.
It couldn’t be him. Could it?
“Forgot our key, did we?”
Lucas tried not to laugh, but it was impossible. She was just standing there, stock-still, like a two-year-old playing hide-and-seek who thinks that by not moving and covering her own eyes, she can somehow make herself invisible. It was awfully cute.
The last time he’d seen her was in the hospital, when he’d brought her flowers to try to make peace and she’d thrown them back in his face. Then, the weeks of bed rest and starchy food had given her body a certain softness at the edges. But it was all gone now. Her figure was leaner than ever—too lean, actually. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, and five pounds of that was her newly long hair. Even so, in that truly minuscule underwear, her tiny, boyish body was displayed to highly alluring effect.
And what a treat to have caught her in such a humiliating, compromising position! For once in her life, Little Miss Prim and Proper was going to have to be polite to him. In fact, if she wanted his help, she was going to have to do more than that. She was going to have to grovel.
Apparently, however, she didn’t want his help.
“Go away.” Turning around reluctantly, she glared at him as if he were somehow responsible for her predicament. “I’m fine.”
Her nude camisole was sheer enough for him to make out the dark berries of her nipples beneath the fabric. It stopped about an inch above her G-string panties, allowing the faintest of glimpses of flat, toned belly, which was almost more tantalizing than the barely covered triangle of pubic hair below. But it was the brazen aggression in her eyes that really did it for him. How he longed to screw all that poor-little-rich-girl rage right out of her.
“Oh, well, if you’re fine,” he shrugged, feigning a nonchalance he knew would drive her crazy. “I’ll go then. I was going to suggest you come to my room to borrow a robe. But if you’d rather go down to the front desk on your own…like that…”
He gave her the sort of look a hungry lion gives a gazelle. Honor blushed, and belatedly tried to cover her breasts with her hands.
“Be my guest.”
He started to walk away.
Honor was torn. Damn him! Why couldn’t it have been someone else, anyone else, who came to her aid?
The way he’d looked at her just now had sent her pulse racing—something she put down to shock, possibly combined with extreme drunkenness. It may have felt like desire. But it definitely wasn’t. It couldn’t be, because she was absolutely, categorically not attracted to Lucas. God no. She’d rather sleep with George Bush.
On the other hand, a robe would seriously come in handy right now. The alternative—going down to the lobby in her underwear—would mean public humiliation on a scale that would dwarf today’s earlier litany of indignities. She couldn’t do it.
“Wait!” she shouted after Lucas’s retreating back. Slowly, infinitely slowly, he turned around.
“Yes?”
You bastard, thought Honor. You’re loving every minute of this.
“I will borrow your robe,” she mumbled, gracelessly.
“Oh, you will, will you?” said Lucas. “Well I’m not so sure anymore. I mean, you haven’t asked very nicely. What’s the magic word?”
Honor gritted her teeth. “I hate you,” she muttered murderously.
“Sorry?” said Lucas. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Please,” said Honor. “OK? Please. Please may I borrow your robe?”
“Of course you may.” Lucas’s grin broadened. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The corridors at the Wynn were longer than most East Hampton streets, and it seemed to take an age before they reached Lucas’s room, especially as he insisted on ambling along deliberately slowly, prolonging her agony. But at last they got there. As soon as he slipped his card in the door, Honor darted inside like a fish, making straight for the bathroom. She emerged moments later wrapped in an enormous toweling robe, her hands lost somewhere inside the cavernous sleeves so that only her feet and tiny, doll-like head were visible.
Lucas burst out laughing. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!”
“Ha-ha,” said Honor mirthlessly. She started for the door, but he stepped in front of her, barring her way.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She was angry, but for some reason her voice emerged all high-pitched and strangled. Reaching over her head, Lucas pulled the bathroom door shut behind her, pinning her between it and his body.
“I’m doing exactly what you want me to,” he said. And before she could respond, he’d slipped a hand inside her robe and started caressing the bare skin on her shoulder.
For a split second Honor closed her eyes as an erotic charge shot through her body. Then she stiffened.
“Fuck off!” she said, pushing him away. “You make me sick. You think you can…you can…” Fuck. Why had she drunk so much? She longed to
come out with some witheringly acerbic put-down, but all she could do was babble like a cretin. “Oh, just fuck off, all right?”
“No,” he said, pulling her close again. “It’s not all right. Not until you listen.”
“And why should I listen to you?” said Honor, not bothering to try to push him off again, as it clearly wasn’t going to work and the effort was making her feel dizzy. “Give me one good reason.”
“Because,” said Lucas, “you’re wrong about me. You always have been, since that first day on the beach.”
“You reckon?” Honor’s cat’s eyes narrowed distrustfully. She wished the smell of his aftershave weren’t quite so distracting.
“I had nothing to do with your sister’s tape,” said Lucas, looking her right in the eye. “And it wasn’t me who leaked your affair to the papers. I swear to you, Honor, on my mother’s life. I didn’t do it.”
Once again she felt torn. She didn’t know what to believe. He looked like he was telling the truth; he really did. But then, consummate liars knew how to pull off that trick, right?
“It was Anton,” said Lucas, his voice dropping to the low, husky whisper that seemed to make every woman but Honor melt. “Why can’t you believe that? What are you so scared of? Admitting you were wrong?”
“Scared?” Honor bridled defensively. “I’m not scared.”
But in that moment, she realized that she was. Horribly scared. Scared of forgiving him. Scared that if she stopped hating him, even for a moment, she might feel something else. Something beyond her control.
“Let’s just say for a minute that you’re right—that it was Anton,” she said. The fear seemed to be helping sober her up. “That still doesn’t let you off the hook. You introduced Tina to that guy.”
“I did,” said Lucas. “But only because Anton told me to. Look, he told me to do a lot of stuff that I regret now, OK? But, you know, he was my boss. I didn’t realize he had this whole hidden agenda.”
“Hmm.” Honor looked up at him, willing her anger not to desert her. “So do you always jump like a monkey when the organ grinder says jump?”