Pete and Claire had never been big on Christmas when she was growing up. Even Duke had focused more on buying her expensive presents than on the decorative side of things. Siena had always dreamed of a house stuffed with Christmas trees and a magical winter garden smothered in snow. Now she had one, and she had to admit, it looked every bit as lovely as she’d imagined. For a brief moment, she felt a pang of loneliness and wished that Hunter, or even Ines, could be there to share it with her.
She had trained herself never to think of Max.
Ines especially would have been amazed to see her playing at being the accomplished hostess. Siena remembered that night back at the beach house, when she’d tried to cook a special meal for Hunter, and she’d called Ines for advice.
The night she’d first slept with Max.
That was only eight months ago. Sometimes it felt like eight years, another lifetime.
She missed Ines terribly, her irreverent sense of humor, her unstoppable energy, but most of all she missed the stupid, giggly, girly chats they used to have about everything and nothing. Randall had been very firm with her about moving on though. If she wanted to have a new image, a new life, then she had to leave her old crowd behind. Particularly anyone still associated with modeling.
“The last thing you want is to always be thought of as an ex-model,” he’d told her. “If you want to play in the big league, you have to make sacrifices. There can be no looking back. Think about your grandfather. How many friends from the old days did you see him hanging around with?”
Apart from Seamus, Siena couldn’t remember Duke “hanging around” with anyone, at least not with anyone he called a friend, from the old days or otherwise. For the first time ever, she wondered whether Grandpa might have been a bit lonely. The possibility disturbed her more than she cared to admit.
She made a quick pit stop out in the rose garden to check on the lighting, and had a brief word with the official photographer, before disappearing upstairs to have a much needed soak in the bath and begin her grand transformation.
Randall didn’t get home till six, and when he did, disappeared straight into his study to make a couple of business calls, much to Siena’s fury. By the time he finally nipped upstairs to change, there was under half an hour till the guests were due to arrive.
Siena couldn’t remember when she had last felt so exhausted. Only nervous energy, and the ceaseless churning of her stomach at the prospect of having to entertain every big-name producer and director in Hollywood (with the exception of her father) kept her eyes from closing.
Mercifully, a new fake-snow machine had been unearthed, the ice sculptures and vodka fountain had finally been delivered, and the complicated outdoor lighting system had miraculously decided to work after four earlier failed attempts.
“The house looks great,” said Randall, kissing the back of her neck as she sat at her dressing table.
She was wearing a midnight-blue silk halter-neck dress, full-length but slashed to the thigh, with a towering pair of open-toed Manolos in the same blue, laced up with criss-crossed ribbon up her calves. She wore her hair in a loose chignon, with occasional stray curls escaping to frame her face.
Siena, as a rule, was not a huge makeup fan. In a town full of surgically enhanced faces and harsh, overtanned, over-made-up skin, she preferred to let her own natural beauty help her stand out from the crowd. Tonight, though, she had gone for very dark, dramatic eyes, using a perfectly blended mixture of silver, gray, and black shadow, with intensely mascaraed lashes that seemed to go on and on forever.
“I know the house looks great,” she said ungraciously, pouting at herself in the mirror and applying a second coat of lip gloss. “I’ve been working on it flat out since seven this morning, with no help from you. So how was golf?”
“Good,” said Randall, not remotely apologetic. He put one warm hand on the back of Siena’s neck, then moved it around to caress her smooth creamy chest and the top of her ample cleavage. “You look very sexy,” he whispered gruffly. “You don’t think it’s too much though? I want these guys to take you seriously. You’ll be meeting some very influential people tonight.”
“For Christ’s sake, Randall.” She brushed off his hand and stood up, straightening the line of the dress around her ass. She hated it when he patronized her. “I am well aware of who’s coming tonight, and I’m more than capable of handling myself, thank you. Anyway”—she admired her reflection in the bedroom mirror—“I think I look great.”
“Hmmmm.” He frowned and walked toward her, slipping his hand around her waist and pulling her close to him. She could feel the swell of his paunch just below her breasts and his erection pressing against her belly. She tried to pull back.
“Shit, don’t muss me up, honey, please. This dress cost sixteen thousand dollars, and you haven’t even showered.”
Randall looked at her coldly. Despite his hard-on, he was obviously not thinking about screwing her. Siena stared up at his big Roman nose and tiny, impenetrable eyes. Involuntarily, she shivered.
“Just remember,” he said, “these people are coming here because of me, not you.”
Good God, was he jealous? Scared that she might be the center of attention? It seemed so unlike him. Randall was never insecure.
“I know that, darling,” she said meekly, anxious not to provoke his temper. “But you want me to look beautiful for them, don’t you?”
His brow knitted instantly into a frown. “No.” He drew her even tighter to him. “Not for them. For me. I want you to look beautiful for me.”
Before Siena had a chance to move, he plunged his right hand between her legs, through the slit in her dress, pulled her panties aside, and thrust three fingers roughly up inside her. She gasped in shock. She was so unprepared, it actually hurt.
He lowered his face to within millimeters of hers, still keeping his hand inside her. “I made you what you are now, Siena,” he whispered ominously. She could feel his warm breath on her skin, making her hairs stand on end. “I gave you all this, and I was happy to do it. But don’t cross me, sweetheart. Remember: I can take it all away. Like that.”
He jabbed deeper inside her, for emphasis.
Then, just as suddenly, he let her go and walked through into the bathroom as if nothing had happened, leaving her stunned and trembling in his wake.
Two hours later and the party was in full, riotous swing.
The A-list had turned out in force, in even greater numbers than in previous years. Everyone from the Spielbergs to the Spellings was there, milling around enjoying the latest Hollywood gossip, washed down with Randall’s vintage champagne. Even Mel Gibson, Siena’s childhood heartthrob, put in a brief, early appearance, much to her surprise and delight.
In quiet corners all around the estate, diets and discretion were both being thrown to the wind. Guests tucked into huge slices of brandy-soaked Yule log and held hushed conversations about their host and his beautiful young companion. How long would the relationship last? Did Siena really have the talent to live up to Randall’s hype? And did anybody know what Pete McMahon made of his daughter shacking up with a long-time business rival who also happened to be four years older than Pete himself?
“Do you know, he hasn’t seen Siena once since she moved out here?” an overexcited young CAA agent was whispering to his boss’s enthralled wife.
“I know. Incredible,” she said, nodding through a mouthful of pecan pie. “It’s the mother that I can’t understand, though. As a mother myself, I don’t understand how you can just walk away from your children like that. From your only child.”
“Pete McMahon’s got a screw loose,” chipped in her husband, who had just returned from the bar with more champagne. “He’s a virtual recluse nowadays; Claire, too. I’m not surprised they haven’t seen Siena. As far as I can tell, they haven’t seen anybody in the last eighteen months.”
“Look at Stein, though,” said the young man. “He’s besotted.”
The three of th
em looked over at Randall, who was nodding at the head of merchandising at Paramount and his bimbo wife, pretending to be avidly listening to their conversation while actually sneaking glances across the room at Siena.
If she was troubled by their little fracas in the bedroom earlier, she didn’t show it now. She looked utterly radiant, confident, and relaxed, throwing her head back and laughing at some comment of Jamie Silfen’s.
Every straight man in the room wanted her, thought Randall with pride. He felt his hard-on reviving and, with some effort, tore his thoughts back to Mr. Paramount and the subject of the Asian distribution rights to Ocean Drive.
Siena, meanwhile, was enjoying herself enormously with Silfen.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the front row at McQueen,” she laughingly reminded the great casting agent of their first nonencounter. “What on earth were you doing there?”
“I like fashion, actually,” Jamie replied with a straight face. “I follow the trends.”
Siena looked at his portly form squeezed into an ill-fitting tweed suit, his bald head popping out at the top like a giant billiard ball, and found this statement rather hard to believe. If it had been anyone else, she would have laughed out loud, but Jamie was a close associate of Randall’s and far too important a person for her to accidentally insult.
“Really?” she said, trying her best to sound convinced.
“Of course not really!” He roared with laughter. “You didn’t think I picked up this little number at Alexander McQueen, did you?” He launched himself into a ridiculous twirl, wiggling his fat behind in Siena’s direction like Tweedledee. She giggled.
“That’s better,” said Jamie. “I like you better when you laugh. They should have you smiling more in pictures.”
“I know,” said Siena, forgetting for a moment Randall’s strict instructions never to talk about modeling with movie people, “but photographers almost never want the models to smile. We have to look permanently aloof and pissed.” She struck a regal pose, and now it was Jamie’s turn to laugh.
“I enjoyed The Prodigal Daughter,” he said, changing the subject for no apparent reason. “You were good.”
“Thank you,” said Siena, smiling modestly. She always said she’d have Jamie Silfen eating out of the palm of her hand one day. “I’m so glad you liked it.”
“Muller was fucking fantastic though, directing,” Jamie went on. “You shouldn’t have bad-mouthed him in that interview.”
Siena blushed. She’d been feeling guilty about her “second-tier” remark for some time. She knew she owed Dierk a hell of a lot.
“That sort of thing won’t help you, you know. Getting ahead,” said Silfen. He was deadly serious all of a sudden. “You might not know it, but loyalty goes a long way in this town. Further than you’d think.”
“I know,” said Siena humbly, “you’re right. It’s just that Randall felt—”
“Listen, honey,” Jamie interrupted her, putting a fat, clammy hand on her arm. “Randall’s a brilliant producer. He’s made a lot of good decisions, and a lot of money, and all credit to the guy. But trust me, he ain’t no life coach. Don’t let anyone go putting words in your mouth, Siena. Otherwise, who the hell are you anyway?”
She was standing, silently digesting this advice, when the whole room turned at the sound of an almighty crash coming from the entrance hall. The crash was followed by raised male voices, one of which Siena thought, to her horror, she recognized.
“Fuck off! Get the fuck out of my way before I hurt you.”
The clipped English accent was unmistakable.
Suddenly two of Randall’s so-called security guys came flying backward into the room, one after the other, smashing a priceless Venetian vase in the process. They were followed by the one person she had hoped she would never come face-to-face with again.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, barely audibly.
“Someone you know?” asked Silfen.
But Siena just stood and stared at Max in complete horror.
“Stein!” he yelled. “I want to talk to you. Where are you?”
She wondered for a moment if he was drunk, but his voice seemed steady, and there was no hint of a stagger as he moved among the stunned guests, like the one moving actor weaving his way through a freeze-frame.
Randall had started to step forward, but as he did so, Max caught sight of Siena, staring at him from across the room.
It was the first time he’d seen her since that awful day at the airfield, and he felt afterward that his heart must have stopped beating in that instant. She had never looked more beautiful, like some sort of otherworldly dryad in her column of clinging blue silk. Her eyes looked different—stronger, more sultry—but otherwise she looked exactly as she did in his dreams. Except that the reality was even more breathtaking.
The miracle wasn’t that he’d lost her, thought Max, taking in this vision. It was that he’d ever had her in the first place.
Siena gazed back at him, dumbstruck. In the months since she’d left, she had trained her mind, with ruthless self-discipline, to banish all thoughts of Max, both good and bad, from her consciousness. She had made a decision the night she flew to Vegas, never, ever to make the mistake of laying herself open again. She had shut down her heart, with Randall’s help, almost completely.
But seeing Max now, so lovely, so big, so out of place in his old jeans and Cambridge sweatshirt, standing right there in front of her, she felt all her good work unraveling like a ball of string. She was, momentarily, helpless.
“Siena, I’m sorry,” he began, his voice dry with nerves. “I’m sorry to burst in on your evening like this. But you won’t take my calls—I totally understand that,” he added quickly, before she could release a tirade. “And this place is always shut up like Fort Knox. This was the only night I had any chance of getting past security, with so many people coming and going. And I had to see you.”
Randall glared at the two security men still reeling from Max’s left hook—what the hell was he paying them for?—and made his way to Siena’s side.
“I hid in the back of a catering van,” Max explained unnecessarily. He knew he should stop talking, but he felt a need to fill the deafening silence.
The carolers had finally gotten the message and realized something was up, lamely spluttering to a halt halfway through their rendition of “Silent Night.” The guests maintained a rapt hush, watching him.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, Siena helped him out by speaking, although it was hardly the response he’d been hoping for.
“What do you want, Max? As you can see, I’m busy.” Her voice was as cold as ice.
“I want to take you home,” he said, pushing his hair out of his face and wiping the sweat from his brow. He was still ten feet away from her, but he didn’t want to risk moving any nearer in case she bolted or Randall took a pop at him before he’d said what he came here to say.
“He’s seriously cute, isn’t he?” whispered the daughter of a famous director to her girlfriend. “Who in their right mind would leave that for Randall Stein?”
Max cleared his throat and continued. “Not home to me, though. I know what I did was unforgivable. I know there’s no way back for us.”
“Good,” said Siena.
“But to Hunter. He loves you, Siena, and he misses you, even if he is too proud to show it.”
“Are you finished?” she asked.
“No. Not yet.” Max looked her in the eye. Siena was terrified that he would bore straight through into her soul and see how frightened and confused she was behind the ice-maiden facade. She willed him to hurry up and get this over with before she cracked.
“I’m worried about you,” he said. “Everybody is. You’ve changed, Siena, and not for the better. Stein is poison. He’s no good for you. Whether you go back to the beach house or not, you have to get away from him. Please. Not for me, but for yourself. He’s fucking evil.”
At this, Randall broke
the spell and clapped his hands, signaling to the security reinforcements who’d been waiting by the door to make a move on Max.
“No!” said Siena, so loudly and firmly that the goons obeyed her and hung back. “I can deal with this, Randall.”
“I don’t think so,” he said and, grabbing her quite roughly by the arm, nodded to the men. He had already allowed this little scene to go on too long, and he wasn’t about to be overruled in his own house by Siena or anyone else. It was time to assert a little authority.
“Don’t you touch her!”
Before security could lay a finger on him, Max had launched himself across the room at Randall, bringing the older man crashing to the ground in a full-bodied rugby tackle. They came down with such an earth-shaking thud that a huge wreath of holly and ivy, festooned with red berries, swung down from the ceiling and landed right on top of them.
Max pulled back his fist to slam it into Randall’s face, but his arm was grabbed from behind and twisted agonizingly behind his back. Before he knew it, he was on his feet, tightly restrained by two of the heavier heavies.
He needn’t have bothered with the punch anyway. Randall was already out cold.
“See what I mean?” he said passionately to Siena. He was held so firmly that he couldn’t even begin to struggle. “See how he grabbed you like that? He’s an arsehole, Siena. He’s violent.”
“He’s violent?” She was so shaken up by what had just happened that she reverted to the safest reaction she knew: white rage. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Max?” she hissed at him. “You come in here, shouting the place down, telling me how I’ve changed, and how Randall’s such a terrible influence. Where the hell do you get off?”
Max opened his mouth to speak, but Siena was on a roll. “You’ve got some nerve, trying to take the moral high ground with me. If memory serves, I think you were the one running around in L.A. with your dick in every cheap fucking waitress who’d give you the time of day. So don’t you dare come storming in here and start telling me how to live my life.”