The twig laughed dutifully. Crouched behind the bush, Sian’s heart was pounding. Nick being here was bad enough. If he saw her, he’d blow her cover in an instant. But since when was Lola in town? Lucas hadn’t mentioned anything, and the last Sian had heard, the whole Carter family was avoiding East Hampton like the plague.
“Come on.” Nick led the girl by the belt of her dress toward the marquee, much as one might a recalcitrant puppy. “Let’s check out the Russki’s attempt at La Mamounia. I bet it’s lame.”
Once she was sure he’d gone, Sian reemerged, brushing the dirt and leaves off her apron and legs. Please God, don’t let Lola and Marti show up tonight. Any more stress and she was going to go completely bat-shit.
On the other side of the gardens, at one of the myriad outdoor bars, Petra shimmered beside Anton like a towering black shadow. Saskia, she noticed happily, was still stuck behind the newly built podium, sorting out technical difficulties with the sound system. Petra watched her scurrying around among the technicians like a fuchsia-pink mother hen—the tiny dress she was wearing made the absolute worst of her chunky, shot-putters’ thighs, and even from here you could see her breasts spilling over the top of it like cookie dough. Better still, she appeared to be having a perfectly miserable time.
Much as she would have liked to spend the entire evening watching Saskia squirm, Petra was distracted moments later by another voluptuous blonde. Along with her sister, she was making quite an entrance, preening and pouting in front of a vast bank of cameras, whose flashes were going off one after another like sheet lightning. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered furiously to Anton, under her breath. “Tina Palmer’s here. With Honor. I thought you said they weren’t coming?”
Excusing himself from the Viacom CEO, Anton pulled her to one side.
“They weren’t,” he said. “Honor declined, and as far as I know Tina was never even on the list. But I don’t see that it matters much. Do you?”
“Hmm. I suppose not,” said Petra, grudgingly. But inside she couldn’t shake the feeling that it probably did matter. That the Palmer sisters’ unexpected presence was a danger signal they ought not to ignore.
“Don’t you find it odd, though? I’d have thought this was the last place Tina would want to show her face, wouldn’t you? And look how pally she is with her sister. I thought they hated each other.”
Anton shrugged. “So they kissed and made up. Who cares?”
“Apparently they’re not the only ones,” said Petra, her concern mounting. “Take a look at that.”
Lucas had just arrived, looking dapper in a Paul Smith suit and Hermes tie. Marching straight up to Honor, he kissed her warmly on both cheeks, then proceeded to offer the same friendly greeting to her sister. Once again, Anton didn’t seem bothered.
“You knew we’d invited Lucas,” he purred, running one finger languorously up the length of Petra’s spine and massaging the nape of her neck. “Now who’s getting too tense?”
“I knew he was coming,” she said testily. “But look at the three of them, thick as thieves. Not so long ago those girls had a death warrant out for Lucas. What’s changed?”
“I don’t know,” said Anton. “Luxe is going down the toilet faster than a lead turd, and Tina Palmer seems to have money to spare again these days. He’s probably trying to butter her up for a loan.”
“And Honor?”
Anton shrugged. “Maybe she’s doing the same.”
Petra looked skeptical. “I don’t like it.”
“You’re being paranoid,” said Anton. “Besides, what do you want me to do about it? Have security throw them out?”
“Don’t be facile,” snapped Petra. Grabbing a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, she drained it in one long gulp and put the empty glass back on the tray. “You invited them. I just think we should keep an eye on them, that’s all. A close eye.”
Finding himself enveloped in a bear hug by Tina, Lucas tried to breathe through his mouth and wondered how long it would be before he passed out from the fumes of her cloyingly sweet scent.
“Shalom,” she whispered breathily in his ear. “It’s been too long, my friend.”
With typically appalling timing, Tina had turned up at Palmers six hours ago, although Lucas hadn’t actually seen her in person until now.
As usual, her arrival had been unscheduled. Wafting into the hotel lobby barefoot, wearing some sort of Hari Krishna kaftan (but incongruously followed by two minions weighed down with six massive Louis Vuitton trunks), she noisily demanded to see her sister.
“I’m afraid Miss Palmer isn’t here,” the receptionist told her meekly. “She’s over at the cottage on Main Street.”
“Fine,” said Tina serenely. “Give me the address. And find rooms for my staff, would you please? They all need feeding and watering.” She waved airily at her entourage like Marie Antoinette to the peasantry.
“But…we aren’t open for business yet,” stammered Betty. “We don’t have rooms. Or a kitchen staff. Miss Palmer?”
But Tina wasn’t listening. She’d already set off into the village in search of Honor.
When she eventually found her, she was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with a dark-haired girl Tina didn’t recognize, surrounded by a jungle of editing equipment, CD burners, and wires, and staring intently at the TV screen.
“Peace!”
Standing in the doorway, Tina threw her arms out wide. But Honor and her friend were so engrossed, neither of them looked up.
“I said, peace!” said Tina again, more sharply. When no one looked up, she resorted to shouting: “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”
In the end, Honor had decided it would be easier to let her in on the plan than to try to come up with a cover story at this late stage.
“She’s got as much of a reason to hate Anton as any of us,” she reasoned with a deeply skeptical Lucas over the phone. “And as nothing I say or do will keep her away from that party tonight, we may as well have her help us. She’s actually not as stupid as she looks, you know.”
“No one’s as stupid as your sister looks,” said Lucas moodily. “Can’t you send her back to LA?”
“Oh, sure, like she does what I tell her!” Honor laughed. “Look, she’s here now, like it or not.”
Lucas definitely didn’t like it. But as he couldn’t come up with a viable alternative, other than have Tina motormouthing her way through the party, asking awkward questions and drawing unwanted attention to all of them, he’d reluctantly agreed to clue her in.
Looking at her now, though, dressed about as discreetly as a transvestite at Mardi Gras, his misgivings returned with a vengeance. Feeling increasingly like a rodent in the grip of a Chanel 19–soaked boa constrictor, he gently prized himself free from her embrace.
“It’s good to see you too,” he lied, wondering not for the first time what had ever possessed him to sleep with her. She was an attractive girl underneath, if you liked that sort of thing, but with all the makeup, and the diamonds and the hairspray, she looked much older. She actually reminded him of Zsa Zsa Gabor, and not in her young starlet days either.
By contrast, Honor’s simple, white empire-line dress and face almost completely bare of makeup was so much more alluring. She’d changed beyond recognition from the spiky tomboy of old. When he’d kissed her earlier, she’d smelled of some faint lemony cologne, like the stuff they used to put on babies back home in Ibiza—fresh and natural. He loved it.
“You know, we shouldn’t spend too much time together,” he warned Tina. “Not here. Petra’s already looking over. I think she can smell a rat.”
“Takes one to smell one,” said Honor. “Honestly, just look at her, glued to Anton like the Grim Reaper.” But she took Lucas’s advice and, dragging Tina by the hand, disappeared across the lawn and into the crowd to mingle.
Seconds later, Lucas felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Well, well, well.” The familiar, put-on British acc
ent with just the faintest undercurrent of German menace made Lucas’s blood run cold. “Look who it isn’t.”
It was the first time he’d seen Anton in the flesh in almost five years. If you could call it flesh—the man had so much botulism and fillers running through his veins these days he looked more like a Madame Tussauds waxwork than a human being. Despite himself, Lucas felt his pulse start to race with nerves.
“Anton.” He held out his hand. After a brief moment’s hesitation, Anton shook it. “Congratulations. Great party.”
“I’m thrilled you’re enjoying it.” Anton smiled. “Although I must say, Petra and I were surprised you could spare the time away from your own…empire.” He injected the last word with enough sarcasm to sink a ship. “Some might say you were fiddling while Rome burns. Or in your case, while Paris burns. How’s the court case going?”
“Oh, you know what the EU contract laws are like,” said Lucas breezily, determined not to betray any hint of weakness. “These things take an age, but there’s no doubt we’ll win in the end. Luckily my partner is a patient man. We’ll get through it.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Anton frostily. Not even the powerful freezing agents in his face could completely suppress the spite suffusing his features as he spoke. Lucas felt his own hatred bubble inside him like lava, but he kept his cool and smiled affably.
“True,” he said. “None of us can predict the future, can we? Even a great hotel like this one can fall from grace.”
Sure that he was being provoked but unsure how to respond, Anton let out an impotent mewl of annoyance.
“If I were you,” he said curtly, once he’d rediscovered his voice, “I’d focus on what was left of my own pitiful business before throwing stones at others.”
“Again,” said Lucas, draining his glass. “Good advice. I’ll do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
And handing his empty flute to a speechless Anton, he walked off.
By ten thirty-five, Saskia decided she could wait no longer. Anton was positively twitching with impatience, chatting distractedly with a radiant Christie Brinkley twenty feet away, and shooting her looks that got more and more agitated by the second. With any other client, she’d have held off. Madonna and Guy Ritchie were still not here, nor were Donald and Melania or the Hilton sisters. But if she didn’t start soon, she ran the risk that some of the A-listers who had shown up might start leaving. And wouldn’t that bitch Petra just love that? She’d already contrived somehow to turn Anton against her, quite how Saskia had no idea, but she wasn’t about to hand her any further ammunition.
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
Up on the podium, microphone in hand, she made a brave bid for the now-massive crowd’s attention.
“People!” She shouted louder, signaling to the sound guys to up the output on her mic. “If I could ask you all to look this way for just a moment.”
Slowly but surely, the noise levels began to dim as an enormous, multiplex-sized screen loomed up behind her on the stage, apparently out of nowhere.
“As you know,” she went on, her braying British accent strangely at odds with her mutton-dressed-as-lamb-crotch-skimmer dress, “we’re here today to celebrate the Herrick being voted world number one.” A polite ripple of applause punctuated by a few drunken whoops and cheers echoed around the grounds, bouncing off the hotel’s glass walls.
“But some of us also wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to a remarkable man,” Saskia simpered.
On cue, a lone spotlight made a great show of sweeping searchingly across the crowd before alighting on an apparently unsuspecting Anton.
“A man whose vision, hard work, and above all, generosity of spirit, have made not just the Herrick, but the entire Tischen family, such an outstanding global success story,” said Saskia.
Lucas laughed out loud at Anton’s blatantly fake surprise, complete with hand on chest, possum-wide eyes, and “surely you don’t mean li’l old me?” expression. He’d have liked to catch Honor’s eye, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. Instead he saw Sian, slipping unnoticed through the guests and looking whiter than her starched apron with nerves. He prayed she wasn’t going to bottle it.
“The following short film, A Magnanimous Magnate, from award-winning director Bowen Langford,” Saskia went on, “is a tribute to your host, and my friend,” she beamed at Anton adoringly, “Mr. Anton Tisch.”
“Who is that creature?” a woman close to Petra could be heard asking her friend as the footage began to roll, earning herself untold brownie points by adding in a sotto voce whisper, “She looks like a billiard ball with legs.”
Clearly, no expense had been spared on production values. A Magnanimous Magnate opened with some rousing John Williams–esque music, accompanying a number of stills from Anton’s childhood: Anton as a baby in an old-fashioned stroller, wearing a frilly sun-hat; Anton aged about eight, standing at the foot of a ski slope, clutching a medal with an oddly endearing gap-toothed grin; Anton looking groomed and preppy at sixteen in an official high school photograph. But it wasn’t long before the stills gave way to a series of high-profile talking heads, each giving suitably glowing testimonials about the great man himself.
“Tisch is a fighter.” A smiling, casually dressed Richard Branson spoke straight to camera, his legs dangling from a swing seat on the veranda of his Necker mansion. “I’ve known the guy fifteen years, and I still wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.”
More polite laughter from the crowd.
Testimonials followed from a slew of British politicians and business leaders. From where she was standing Petra could see the eyes of a number of the Hollywood contingent glazing over.
“What’s ICI?” one starlet could be heard asking her friend.
“I think it’s a studio,” the friend replied earnestly.
But just when it seemed she was about to lose her audience’s interest altogether, Saskia suddenly began pulling out the big guns. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a genuinely funny joke about Anton’s golfing prowess, or rather lack of it, then praised him for his charity work on both sides of the Atlantic. He was followed by a glowing Brangelina, neither of whom said anything particularly interesting but whose impossibly beautiful features were enough to ensure the rapt attention of every sexually active person there, male or female. Finally, warm words from Kofi Annan and the chairman of the international Red Cross were interspersed with shots of smiling children, mostly cancer or liver transplant patients, thanking Anton for his generous contributions to their various hospitals/research foundations.
“Mr. Tisch doesn’t have children of his own,” an adorable, wispily blonde girl of six lisped in finale. “But he’s been like a father to me. Thank you, Mr. Tisch. I hope you enjoy your party.”
The screen went blank, to wild applause. Anton, still hamming up his surprised and embarrassed shtick, was beckoned up to the podium by Saskia. At yet another prerehearsed cue, the press were ushered farther forward, and space was miraculously created for the TV crews with their bulky boom mics and camera equipment. Only once the media were all in place did Anton start to speak.
“I won’t bore you with a long speech,” he said, taking the microphone, “not least because I had no idea they were going to spring this on me.” He wagged an admonishing finger at Saskia. From their various posts, Lucas, Honor, and Sian all cringed. “So I have nothing prepared. But I would like to say a few words of thanks, off the cuff, as it were. To all of you,” he held his hands out magnanimously, “for being here tonight to help celebrate the Herrick’s remarkable achievement.” More cheers. “To my loyal staff, especially Ms. Petra Kamalski, my outstanding manager here, whose hard work is in large part responsible for this happy occasion.”
Despite herself, Petra flushed with happiness. He’d singled her out publicly, without giving Saskia even a passing mention. Knowing how crushed her rival would be filled her with a warm inner glow.
“But most of all, I’d like to th
ank the children, like little Leila whom you saw there, with whom it has been my honor and privilege to work over the last twenty years. I can truly say that they have given me more, far more, than I have ever given them.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” muttered Sian.
Reaching for the perfectly pressed white handkerchief in his breast pocket, he dabbed at his eyes with one swift gesture: manly but compassionate. It was a bravura performance. Even Lucas, at the back of the audience, was impressed.
The applause for his speech, respectable at first, swelled to an almost deafening crescendo. Standing on the podium, basking in the adulation, it took some seconds before Anton realized that it wasn’t, in fact, he who was the focus of this rapturous reception, but Tina Palmer, who had somehow appeared behind him onstage. Wearing a (for her) conservative creation in blue-gray bias-cut silk, she nevertheless looked every inch the star, with Elizabeth Taylor–size diamonds at her throat, ears, and wrists and her blonde hair piled on top of her head in a solid hair-sprayed mountain. The drag queen look that Lucas found so off-putting up close seemed to evaporate with distance, as well as on camera. To the partygoers below, and all the viewers at E! and beyond, Tina looked Screen Siren perfect.
She was holding up an enormous bouquet of lilies, freesias, and roses, a vulgar but impressive riot of color finished off with a red silk bow the size of a small child’s head. Leaning forward, she presented it to a bewildered Anton. More than a little annoyed to have his limelight so shamelessly usurped, but with the spotlights trained firmly on him, he had little option but to smile and take the flowers, which obscured him from view almost completely. As he reached for the bouquet, Tina deftly relieved him of his mic.
“What the hell is going on?” hissed Saskia, stepping forward and looking officious. “You shouldn’t be up here.” But Tina held her ground, shooing her away with all the languid unconcern of a cow flicking its tail at a fly. Saskia reviewed her options silently for a moment, then withdrew into the shadows. Tina Palmer was bona fide A-list these days. She could hardly have her manhandled from the stage.