Lovers and Liars: An addictive sexy beach read

by Nigel May

  ‘He made Heather so happy,’ said Nikki through her tears. She kept repeating the words, before adding, ‘happier than I’ve ever been’. She pulled Blair close to her. Though they were still naked from their lovemaking there was no air of sexuality between them as they held each other. What existed was a shared rawness, a pure and uncomplicated connection.

  ‘How can a happiness like that be demolished so fruitlessly?’ asked Nikki. ‘It’s just so unfair. Heather has never hurt anyone and Max has always been the perfect man for her. I really don’t know what she’ll do without him, she doesn’t deserve this.’

  ‘Does anybody deserve to lose a loved one?’ said Blair, kissing the top of Nikki’s forehead as he wrapped his arms tighter around her. The thought struck him how uncharacteristic it was for him to actually give a shit about what his one-night stand – as that was all she had been so far – really felt. But there was something about Nikki that made him care. She seemed so vulnerable cradled there in his arms, telling a man she had only just met that her sister was happier than she herself had ever been. Was it a cry for help? Blair wasn’t sure, but something inside him made him want to find out.

  ‘Max was a good man, a total rock for Heather and like a brother to me. I can’t count the number of times that Heather used to confide in me about how she loved him. She’d tell me about their hopes for the future, their dreams away from all of this…’ Nikki waved her fingers at the hotel suite around them. ‘Heather has never been a Velvet girl. She has always had her own ideas about what she wanted from life, unlike me. If I hadn’t been born into money and the Velvet empire then I’m not sure what I would have done. It’s always been me who appears at the openings, struts the catwalk in a new designer frock or tumbles out of some nightclub with another random bloke on my arm…’ She stopped as she realised what she’d just said and shook her head. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Blair, and he meant it.

  ‘I may be a few years older than Heather but she has always had her own identity, away from the family madness, and that makes her so much wiser than I am. Without this empire I am nothing. But without this empire Heather still has everything…’ Her words tailed off in contemplative thought. ‘Or at least she did.’

  ‘You and Max always got on well then?’ asked Blair. ‘He’s the shopping TV guy, isn’t he? I’ve read about him in some magazine or on some website, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Max was wholesome, pure and totally loved by everyone who met him, including me, and I don’t normally have a penchant for cheesy telly hosts, but he was special, he had a good heart. I remember on my twenty-fifth birthday he found me a copy of an American Vogue issue from years ago that I had wanted and never been able to find. He used one of his contacts on the TV to track down a copy. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. He was just that kind of guy. He was like a little brother to me…’ Nikki’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘But now he’s gone and things will never be the same again.’

  ‘Things will become better,’ said Blair. ‘I promise.’

  ‘How can you promise that?’ asked Nikki.

  ‘Because I know what you’re going through.’

  Nikki thought she detected a hint of a tear in the corner of Blair’s eye as he started to speak.

  ‘I used to know this guy, Cain. He grew up with me here in New York. He was two years younger than me but he had a really streetwise head on his shoulders and we became friends. We liked the same music, had a similar taste in girls and we were like brothers to each other. Anywhere I went, Cain went too, and vice versa. He was one of the first people to really encourage me with the DJing. He thought it was cool as fuck and told me one day I’d be playing the biggest clubs on the planet.’

  ‘He was right,’ said Nikki, using the past tense and sadly sensing where the story might be going.

  ‘He was,’ said Blair, a wash of pride spreading across his face as he spoke. It was replaced almost immediately by a wave of sadness. ‘When Cain was fourteen and I was sixteen, we went out to find some vinyl at a store over in the Bronx. I was determined to have the right tunes if I was to try and make my mark as a DJ and Cain was on board with that. He knew this store that sold some seriously rare records, imports and all sorts, and said we should go.’

  Nikki automatically squeezed Blair’s hand as he unravelled his story. There was a softness in his voice and a naked exposure in his manner that went beyond just the fact that he was without clothes.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘We were in the shop, flicking through the vinyl, when these two thugs came in. I’m a New York boy, I know what trouble is, but there was something about these two that freaked me out. I knew something bad was going to happen. I could feel it.’

  A solitary tear ran down Blair’s cheek as he continued. ‘The guys were high on heroin or crystal meth or something, I don’t know what it was, but they were shooting their mouths off from the moment they arrived in the store. They needed money, probably to get their next fix, and thought that the shop might have the cash. They went up to the guy at the desk and demanded the money. When he refused they drew a shooter and held it to his face. I can still see the look of fear in his eyes if I close mine now. They asked the guy again and he refused, so they blew his face off.’

  ‘Jesus wept! And you and Cain saw it?’

  ‘In gory detail,’ replied Blair. ‘But it didn’t end there.’

  Nikki had guessed as much.

  ‘Cain and me stood there just looking at the guys. We were fucking petrified, shit scared. There weren’t that many of us in the shop and Cain and me were nearer to the counter than anybody else. The thieves opened the till and grabbed what cash was there. As they went to run out the store, one of them pointed the gun again. Straight at me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing, I just stood there literally about to piss myself, thinking this is the last thing I am ever going to see. That two deadbeats off their heads on smack were about to end any dreams I had. I think Cain must have thought the same. I don’t know what possessed him but he shouted at them to stop and that they shouldn’t shoot me. Cain leapt in front of me as the man fired and took the bullet square in the chest. He was dead before he found the shop floor. I will never know if the man intended to shoot me or just got scared when Cain shouted and fired anyway. But my little bro was dead.’

  Nikki could see another tear cascading down Blair’s face as he finished his story. ‘It may not be comparable to Max’s death – that was an accident as opposed to somebody taking his life from him – but there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of Cain.’ Blair fingered a small silver cross around his neck. ‘This was his. He wasn’t religious but he thought it looked cool. I removed it from around his neck before the police came to take his body away. I needed something of him to remember. Everything I have I owe to Cain. He knew I would make it.’

  ‘You lost somebody you loved, somebody you still love. A little brother who believed in you. Loss is loss, no matter how it happens,’ said Nikki. ‘But with time the grief became easier to deal with?’

  ‘Much. Because I know Cain is there looking down on me. He sees what I’m doing. His body may not be here, but his spirit always is. You will find that with Max, I’m sure, and so I hope will Heather.’

  Nikki moved her lips to find his, needing to feel intimacy between them. What they had shared had been one of the most intimate things she had ever known, closer than any sexual adventure. The connection that she suspected they both felt was a strong and, to her, deeply visible one.

  Nikki never wanted their lips to part but she knew that they must. The day had brought heartache but it had also brought a flash of clarity. Life was too short; Max’s death and Blair’s story about Cain proved that more than anything. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew who she hoped might be by her side.

  ‘How do you fancy coming to Barbados?’ she asked.

  Sutton held Heather’s hand in hers.
Sheridan, his face bruised and a line of stitches tacked across his temple, held onto Heather’s other hand. For a moment Sutton had an image of the three of them standing in line when Heather was about five, she and Sheridan holding her hand as they took her onto a thrill ride at a fairground in the UK. Heather had wanted to play thrill seeker and go on the ride despite being remarkably scared and insisting both her parents go on it with her. If Sutton remembered correctly it was only a little rollercoaster type thing, the Crazy Mouse or something it had been called. The ride was tamer than a house rabbit, but Heather had screamed throughout but they had been screams of joy and a smile as wide as candyfloss as she conquered her fears. She had been so brave.

  Today was the first time since then that Sutton could remember both she and Sheridan holding their youngest daughter’s hands at the same time. But this was no funfair, no Crazy Mouse. Now they were standing outside a clinical room in a Crete hospital, where Max’s body had been cleaned up after the accident and laid out to rest. It was the first time Heather had seen his body since he had died the night before. As they entered into the room together, Sutton knew her daughter would have to be the bravest she had ever been.

  23

  ‘And it was with great sadness that the body of Max Stoneham, TV personality and loyal husband of Heather Stoneham, one of the heiresses to the Velvet global empire, was laid to rest today in a private burial service near the couple’s home in St Lucia. The intimate ceremony, overlooking the Caribbean Sea, was a strictly family affair, with Max’s own family and the heads of the Rivers dynasty, Sheridan and Sutton Rivers, in attendance. A separate, more public, ceremony for friends and colleagues of Max will be held in the near future…’

  Hatton Eden flicked the TV screen at the gym to black and felt a cloud of sadness hang over him as he climbed off the treadmill, rivulets of sweat running down his naked chest and forging their way between the light dusting of chest hair that gathered where the mounds of his two pectoral muscles joined.

  Funerals upset him, especially those of good people. He may not have known Max but it was clear that he had been a decent human being, somebody who was loved. Hatton had heard quotes and listened to sound bites from those who knew him. Sutton Rivers had spoken of how Max was a pure soul. His sister-in-law, Nikki Rivers, had told how Max was like a younger brother to her and the perfect husband to her own sister, Heather; and his own parents had spoken of their golden boy, a true American beauty. Hatton had to admit that Max had been scarily handsome, even if he himself did prefer his men a little rougher around the edges, a statement that his partner Fidge Carter would no doubt take as a compliment – as intended.

  As Hatton walked to the changing room, he thought about the report he had witnessed and analysed not just what had appeared onscreen but also that which had not. If there was one thing that Hatton was good at, aside from being the welterweight number-one in the world, it was analysing those around him. And sometimes, even though English wasn’t his first language, he found himself to be more astute than many of those who were UK or USA born and bred.

  The one person who had been absent from the screen, apart from Heather of course – but a grieving wife could obviously be let off for not giving a quote about how her life was beyond sad – was Sheridan. He was the head of the Velvet chain of hotels and the father-in-law of the dead man. He was the one who had survived the accident that had killed Max – he had been driving the car in which Max Stoneham had died. If anyone was to give a quote, then it should have been him, thought Hatton.

  As Hatton pulled off his trainers and sweatpants, he walked to the showers and thought about Sheridan as he turned on the jets of water and felt them against his skin. He didn’t think Sheridan Rivers seemed like a very nice person. He hadn’t really liked him when they had met in Barbados for the stone-laying ceremony, but if he was the one paying for him to defend his world title and potentially upping Hatton’s earnings by millions then he didn’t have to like him: he just had to deal with him. And the professional side to Hatton was always able to do that.

  There was no doubt that Sheridan was a tour de force when it came to his professional life – hotels from Canada to Cape Town proved that – but he wasn’t sure that Sheridan was the best father figure.

  As Hatton soaked his hard body, he replayed the news report again in his mind. Were there any shots of Sheridan consoling his poor daughter in her hour of grief? Hatton didn’t think so. They had shown paparazzi shots of Sutton supporting Heather from the funeral car as it arrived at the place of burial. They had shown Nikki Rivers and her sister arm in arm, their faces wet with tears. There had even been a brief clip of Sheridan’s right-hand man, Julian Bailey, leading a weeping Sutton away after the service. But Sheridan had been strangely absent. He was there in body, but to Hatton, it was clear that he was not there in spirit. The father figure was a figure of absence as far as he was concerned and that was inexcusable. Didn’t he realise how lucky he was to still have his children around him, to still have that family unit? Hatton would give anything to still have that in his life.

  One moment something was there in front of your eyes, easy to see, easy to take for granted. And in the next moment it was gone for good, never to be seen again, forever out of reach and out of sight. It was abhorrent how that could happen to something. Or someone…

  Hatton Eden was born Zlaten Angelov in the remote village of Balgarevo in northeastern Bulgaria. The population barely reached four figures and the community was based on strict religion, with two churches and a monastery present on the tiny streets.

  Zlaten was the first and only child in his family, his parents both workers in a guest house in a nearby village on the way towards the famed Kaliakra headland, not far from Zlaten’s place of birth. The family was poor and while his mother worked in the guest-house kitchens preparing hearty Bulgarian delights for visiting tourists, his father toiled as a cleaner making sure that every inch of the guest house was as spotless as it could be. They were both proud people and Zlaten, as he grew into a young boy, was proud to have them as parents. He could see that they both worked hard and strived to make sure that food was always on the table for their son to eat. They would work extra hours and often Zlaten would hear his mum and dad coming home from a long shift in the small hours as he lay on his hard, lumpy mattress in the tiniest bedroom of their home. The Angelov family may not have had much in the way of riches, but they always had a loving home, filled with warmth despite the draughts that whistled through the rooms in the winter months.

  Zlaten spent many of his childhood years on his own, amusing himself while his parents worked to keep a roof over their heads. When he wasn’t at school learning about God and the history of his nation, both things that he took a great deal of interest in, he would spend his time riding his prize possession, a rusty yet trusty bike that his parents had given him for his birthday. He adored that bike and would spend hours riding it to places nearby.

  Zlaten was a loner and didn’t need the company of his school friends. While they chose to kick a football around the streets of Balgarevo, Zlaten would instead go exploring on his bicycle. He loved the feel of the wind in his bright red hair as he cycled through roads that were no more than dirt tracks and the feeling of exhaustion that he would experience at the end of the day as his mother tucked him up in bed if she wasn’t still at work. As Zlaten moved into his teenage years he would cycle further and further afield, venturing to places that he had no notion of, that weren’t even marked on the map of his country pinned to his bedroom wall. He would ride for kilometre after kilometre, looking forward to the moment when he could sit down with his parents back at home and tell them of where he had been, the sights he had seen and the people he had met. Zlaten was an adventurer, a lone spirit who loved the idea of seeing things that maybe others his age hadn’t.

  It was while on his travels one Sunday, at the age of thirteen, that he came across the medieval fortress of Kaliakra. Zlaten had spent the morning at church w
hile his parents worked at the guest house and with his head full of the things he had heard at church he headed out onto the open road with his bicycle. Cycling gave him time to think, to contemplate things that interested him and to strengthen his mind, as well as his body, which due to the amount of cycling he did was becoming increasingly athletic. His legs were powerful and carved with muscle, his upper torso lean and defined.

  He had cycled far and it was while he was on the way back to his house in the late afternoon that he inadvertently came across the medieval fortress. Here was a place the teenage boy knew of, but had not yet visited. He rested his bicycle against a wall and ventured inside, wondering why he had never been there before.

  Zlaten loved it. The towers of stone, remnants of a bygone era, stood underneath the view of a metal cross, looking out at the most incredible views across rocky beaches and the inviting blue sea. He marvelled at Kaliakra lighthouse, its cylindrical tower fascinating him. He read the leaflets about the fortress; the building, which sat pride of place on the dangerous cliffs that dropped seventy metres to the raging sea below, was the site of what was thought to be the greatest naval battle in the Black Sea. He learnt of Fyodor Ushakov, the most illustrious Russian naval commander and admiral of the eighteenth century, who led the Russian forces to victory in the Russian-Ottoman war, believed to have ended at Cape Kaliakra in 1792. It was something that he and his classmates hadn’t yet learnt during history lessons at school and Zlaten couldn’t wait to share the information with his parents.

  His favourite piece of information about the fortress was the legend of how forty Bulgarian girls had preferred to tie their hair together and jump to their deaths in the Black Sea rather than risk being captured and tortured by the Ottomans. Zlaten loved the idea that they had chosen the nobility of death and standing up for what they believed in rather than risk becoming feeble, subservient and weak at the hands of their enemies. He had cycled from the fort to a giant obelisk at the entrance to the cape called the Gate of the Forty Maidens, celebrating the women who were said to have perished in order to protect their faith.