Pete had given up completely and preferred to communicate with her via FedEx. This suited Siena, who was spared the charade of trying to muster up any pretense of daughterly affection, or the futile effort of attempting to reason with her father, whose mind was invariably already made up by the time he put pen to paper.
This last letter had been even stronger and less forgiving in tone than his usual communications. Siena already knew its contents by heart:
Siena, (It was typed.)
What the hell are you playing at? I have just had a long and highly embarrassing conversation with the Master of Keble, who is now under the impression that you have been suffering a severe bout of German measles that left you too ill to attend matriculation in September. I have assured him that you will present yourself at college no later than the end of this week. I hope I don’t need to spell out for you how lucky you are that he has accepted this version of events and agreed to hold your place.
This stops here, Siena. Under no circumstances are you to go to Paris, for this show or any other. Your mother and I will not allow you to throw away your education and your future through sheer, blind defiance. I am warning you, in the strongest possible terms, that I will deal with any further disobedience on this issue very severely.
I expect you in Oxford within the next five days.
Dad.
Claire had followed this up with an emotional and impassioned letter of her own, pleading with Siena to abandon her modeling and get herself up to college, intimating that Pete might even go so far as to cut her out of his will if she continued to defy him.
Siena had ripped up her mother’s letter in disgust. Claire’s weakness revolted her. She had more grudging respect for her father’s brutality—at least she knew where she stood with Pete.
She read the letter again, an unpleasant feeling of nerves bubbling up in her stomach along with the champagne. She knew Pete well enough to realize that he rarely made completely idle threats. But cutting her out of the will was a bit over the top, even by her father’s deranged standards. Her mother must be exaggerating, as usual.
Besides, what choice did she have but to go to France? If she didn’t stand up for herself now, she would end up as some brain-dead provincial GP in England, lancing farmers’ boils for the rest of her life. The very thought of it made her shudder.
No, she had to stand her ground. Once she had done the McQueen show, once she could prove to her father that she could earn her own living as a model, that she could be successful at it, he would have to ease up on this Oxford business. Perhaps she could ask him to let her defer her place for a year? By then, hopefully, her modeling would really have taken off—she might even have made the crossover into acting—and then even Pete would have to admit that she’d been right all along.
Replacing the note carefully in her jeans pocket, Siena took another fortifying slug of champagne. Mario de Luca looked back over his shoulder and raised his glass to her in lascivious salute, the perfectly defined muscles of his tanned forearm flexing slightly as he lifted his hand.
Paris. De Luca. Alexander fucking McQueen. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this happy.
Pete would come around eventually. He had to.
Back in the Hollywood Hills, Claire was tearing her hair out. She and Pete had been due at Costello’s ten minutes ago, but she was still stuck with her fingers down the sink, trying to free her engagement ring, which had somehow managed to slip off her finger as she washed her hands, and was now jammed tightly between two strips of stainless steel.
“Let’s just go,” said Pete impatiently. “It’ll still be there when we get back, and we’re late enough as it is.”
For the last ten minutes he’d been hovering in the bathroom doorway, hopping from foot to foot like a three-year-old with a weak bladder, which wasn’t making Claire’s task any easier.
“But what if it’s not there, honey?” she pleaded, not looking up from the glinting flash of ruby guiding her fingers. “If it gets dislodged and falls down that drain, I may never get it back.”
“It’s just a ring,” said Pete irritably. “I’ll buy you another one.”
A momentary flash of pain registered on Claire’s face. “It’s my engagement ring, Pete,” she said with quiet dignity. “It can’t be replaced.”
Even now, after almost twenty-five years of marriage, she still felt wounded by her husband’s frequent insensitivity. As a young wife, she had laid the blame for Pete’s bad temper and his mean streak squarely at the door of his father. It was Duke who had made him bitter and angry. Duke who was to blame.
But the real tragedy in their marriage had occurred after the old tyrant had died. Claire remembered how pathetically high her hopes had been that, with Duke gone, Pete might finally relax, might finally become the man she knew he was capable of being.
How wrong she was.
In some ways, of course, he had changed. Professionally, his confidence had soared from the moment they lowered the old man into the ground. Success had followed success, and Pete was worth infinitely more now than his father had ever been. But somehow, it was never enough for him. Instead of giving him a sense of self-worth, the money had become an obsession. Some deep but nameless fear drove him ever harder to make more, more, more, working fourteen-hour days and most weekends. His stress levels seemed to rise rather than fall the more successful he became. And eventually Claire felt cut out completely.
Perhaps things would have been different if Siena had stayed at home? Perhaps between them, Claire sometimes thought, she and Siena could have loved Pete enough to make him stop, to make him realize that he had nothing to prove, that they loved him for himself alone.
But Pete had insisted, with the full force of his will, that Siena be sent to England. Even worse, in his blind hatred of a father he was no longer able to hurt, he had separated two innocent children, banishing poor, blameless Hunter from their lives forever. And Claire had been too weak, too stupidly weak and afraid, to stop him.
How many times had she cursed herself for that decision? So huge a sacrifice, and what had it achieved? The gulf between father and daughter was now wider than ever. Sometimes Claire suspected that Siena actually hated her more than Pete for letting it happen. And she didn’t blame her daughter for that, not for a second.
With one sudden twist, the ring shifted position, and Claire pulled it triumphantly to safety.
“Got it!” She smiled, her face flushed with happiness and relief, Pete’s hurtful remark for the moment forgotten.
“At last,” he grunted gracelessly. “Does this mean we can finally get going?”
In the car on the way to the restaurant, Pete’s temper deteriorated further. He was, as usual, fixated on the problems with Siena.
“I swear to God, I have had it with her attitude. I don’t know where she got the idea that finishing her education was optional. FUCKER!” He roared at a black SUV that had moved into his lane without signaling, leaning on his horn till Claire had to block her ears. “Modeling!” He laughed derisively, as if the word itself were a joke. “What kind of a career is that for a girl with her brains?”
“Honey, I agree with you,” said Claire, in the soothing, quiet voice she subconsciously adopted to try to calm him down. “Of course she should be doing more with her life than that, and she will do . . .”
“Damn right she will,” he muttered darkly.
“But you know what Siena is like,” she continued, resting a hand on his knee. “Stubborn as hell, just like her father.” She smiled hopefully across at him, but Pete kept his eyes glued to the road and didn’t smile back. “All I’m saying is,” she pushed on, “that maybe if we let her go to France, let her do this McQueen show she’s set her heart on . . .”
“No. No way,” said Pete, swerving off the freeway onto the Third Street Promenade exit with unnecessary violence. He had always been a shocking driver, especially when he was angry. “She is not having her way this time. She i
s not going to Paris. For once in her life, she’s going to do what she’s told.”
Claire decided to try a different tack. “You know, she is eighteen, honey,” she remonstrated mildly. “She’s legally an adult. I don’t think it’s totally unreasonable that she should want some say in her own future, do you?”
“Ha!” Pete laughed aloud. “You think she’s an adult? You really think Siena has the maturity to make these kinds of decisions?”
Claire sighed. He had a point there.
“She’s a kid,” he said firmly, slowing down and pulling into the valet parking in front of Costello’s. “And a damn stupid kid at that.”
A sullen-looking attendant opened the passenger door for Claire, and the unusually chill night air burst into the warmth of the car, making the downy hairs on her forearms stand on end. Drawing her gray pashmina more tightly around her shoulders, she stepped onto the sidewalk, while Pete handed a second attendant his keys and a five-dollar bill.
“If she wants to be treated like an adult,” he said, putting his arm around Claire and leading her into the bustling warmth of the restaurant, “then she’ll have to start behaving like one. And that means accepting that her actions carry consequences.
“Hey, Santiago!” He embraced the maître d’ warmly, all smiles suddenly. “You know my wife, Claire?”
“Sí, sí, of course, bella,” proclaimed the fat, silver-haired little man, stooping to kiss her hand. “’Ow could I forget a face so beautiful?”
As Santiago led them to their table—the best in the house—Pete looked back over his shoulder at his wife. “I really mean it this time, Claire,” he said, in a tone of voice that left her in no doubt that he did. “If she defies me on this, she’ll live to regret it.”
Siena reached across to her bedside table and fumbled for a cigarette, her last. She wondered if room service would bring her some more, or if she’d have to send Mario out to the tabac in the morning?
Inhaling the uniquely sweet, rich flavor of her Gitane—there was something so romantic, so Audrey Hepburn about French cigarettes, Siena felt—she admired the taut, smooth lines of the footballer’s body as he slept beside her.
Mario de Luca! She’d just fucked Mario de Luca. Or, to put it more accurately, she’d just been fucked by him. And how! If only the girls at school could see her now.
He looked exhausted, poor darling, with his arms outstretched and mouth open, dead to the world. But then she had put him through his paces rather, insisting on a second and then a third performance before she finally took pity on him and allowed him some sleep before his big match tomorrow. She chuckled quietly to herself at the thought of him stumbling around the pitch, totally shattered. Come to think of it, she might not fare much better herself. She hoped she wouldn’t look too puffy-eyed and bowlegged on that catwalk tomorrow. Right now she doubted whether she could even stand.
Holding her cigarette in her left hand, with her right she felt beneath the covers for Mario’s dick. Even in its semi-soft state, it felt gratifyingly large in her palm, and began to twitch and harden involuntarily at her touch. Mario groaned in his sleep and pulled her naked body toward him.
It felt so nice to lie in his arms, to feel his comforting strength wrapped around her and smell that smell of man, a mixture of aftershave and sweat. That smell always triggered her childish sense of security and happiness, and brought back memories of being protected, held, and loved.
She sighed drowsily. Disengaging herself gently, so as not to wake him, she took a last long drag and stubbed out her cigarette, snuggling down beneath the covers for some sleep of her own. It had been a lovely, magical night. She would never forget it.
But she had already decided. She mustn’t become too attached.
She wouldn’t be seeing Mario again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
At eleven o’clock the next morning, she found herself shivering in a drafty corner of a disused railway station, wearing little more than a red silk scarf, a pair of neon-pink see-through panties, and thigh-high silver stiletto boots.
Although it was only October, central and northern France were in the grip of a freak cold spell just when London looked set for an extended Indian summer—much to the delight of the British papers, which had been reveling in BOILING BRITAIN/FREEZING FRANCE headlines for the past fortnight. Siena thought longingly of her blue ribbed cashmere sweater, a freebie from the Ailsa Moran shoot, and wondered how badly her nipples were showing through the red silk.
The theme of this year’s events, as decreed by the mighty Fédération Française de la Couture, was neo-industrialism. While the PRs and journalists argued over exactly what that might mean in theory, in practice it involved the meticulous construction of catwalks in a series of vast warehouses, factories, and “architecturally significant” railway stations, all of which were of proportions ill suited to being effectively centrally heated. Thus, while the great and the good of the fashion and media worlds huddled bravely beneath their full-length minks, with cold toes swaddled in cashmere socks and last winter’s oh-so-chic sheepskin boots, the models spent most of the day on the brink of hypothermia.
The Paris events were the culmination of a grueling worldwide circuit of shows—London, New York, and Milan—that had begun with the fashion weeks in early February. This was the last and most important opportunity for designers to show their spring collections for the season ahead. Although perhaps not as prestigious as the spring fashion week, the Paris autumn shows were nevertheless considered one of the most exciting and dynamic events in the couture calendar, with their distinctive celebratory, end-of-term atmosphere. Paris in October was where every designer, model, stylist, photographer, and fashion journalist wanted to be, and competition, in all areas, was extremely fierce. The best or most eagerly anticipated collections were always sold out months in advance, and even A-list movie stars had been known to resort to everything from begging to bribery to secure a coveted front-row seat.
Siena, who had never been known to be on time for any appointment in her eighteen years on the planet, had arrived at the Gare St. Michel two hours early and had already consumed four cups of nuclear-powered espresso at the little café across the street before Marsha had shown up.
Sunglasses and a natty blue beret had done little to hide the older woman’s raging hangover as she ushered her young charge into the reception area for the McQueen girls. Siena was feeling none too chipper herself after her previous night’s exertions, but a happy combination of youth, cold Parisian air, and the hot, strong coffee had already put the color back in her cheeks.
Once Marsha had scuttled off to find the nearest bar, a thin, brusque young woman named Florence, whose rather pinched features were made worse by her hair being drawn back too tightly into a bun, handed Siena a time sheet. It outlined each of the outfits she would be wearing, how long she would have to change into each one (seconds, rather than minutes), and what her audio cues would be for every entrance and exit. The show itself would not start until four o’clock, but the girls would be practicing their poses and changeovers until they were called for hair and makeup at two.
“Do we get any lunch?” asked Siena, feeling faintly ridiculous in her underwear-and-boots ensemble. She had bolted out of the hotel in such a rush this morning there’d been no time for breakfast, and after her marathon shag-fest with Mario she was starting to feel quite ravenous.
“Zere will be food lat-eur. Now you re-urse,” said Florence disdainfully, staring disapprovingly down at Siena’s ample bosom heaving beneath the wisp of red silk.
Stupid French bitch, thought Siena. Who did she think she was talking to?
She glanced around despondently at the waiflike creatures surrounding her, feeling like the one fat pupa in a swarm of stick insects and decided that requests for food at these events were probably few and far between.
Just then her stomach gave an embarrassingly noisy rumble and a rather gawky but friendly-looking girl with long red hair and a big
gap between her two front teeth caught her eye. Wandering over, she handed Siena a fat-looking green pill and a glass of champagne.
“Try zees,” she said in a heavy Spanish accent. “Ees fabulous, it weel keel your appetite. And your nerves.”
“Thanks,” said Siena, sipping at the champagne but eyeing the pill warily. “What is it?”
“Oh, don’t worry.” The girl smiled. “Ees ’erbal. Ees no drugs. Look, see?” She produced a second pill and swallowed it, knocking it back with the remnants of her own champagne. “Ees fine.”
Siena followed suit, and soon the two of them were perched on two “neo-industrial” plastic chairs, chain-smoking and chatting away like old friends. The girl’s name, it transpired, was Ines Prieto Moreno. This was her third trip to the Paris shows but her first time at McQueen, and she was amazed to discover that today was to be Siena’s catwalk debut.
“At McQueen?” She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t believe eet. Ees incredible. Your first show? I am eso jealous! I waited five years for zees.”
Siena shrugged. “I have been kinda lucky so far, I guess,” she admitted. “To be honest, I’m a bit mystified as to why I’m here. I assumed he’d have lots of shorter girls, girls with my kinda look, you know? Old-fashioned? I figured maybe it was a forties theme or something. But all the girls here are just regular models.”
“Hey, thanks a lot,” said Ines, trying to look offended.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Siena, “that came out wrong. I didn’t mean . . .” She looked so flustered, Ines couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s just that you’re all so tall. And thin. And blond.”
“I am not blond,” said Ines reasonably. “I ’ave red ’air and funny teeth. I’m deeferent. Like you.”