She changed her instructions and tried to decide what to wear. Dimitri liked her to dress up, but she preferred casual, so she settled for soft black leather pants and an oversized white silk shirt which she belted tightly. Black boots, gold hoop earrings, and her panther brooch completed the outfit. She wore her hair loose.
By eight o’clock she had changed her mind again. Why see him? He obviously didn’t understand what a delicate situation they were caught in. Like most men he probably thought he was on to a good thing – an available piece of ass presented itself and he went for it. Shit! He had suckered her. He was chasing an easy lay. That’s all she was to him. Men couldn’t seem to understand that women could be as sexually free as the male sex. Screw Lennie Golden. Why should she see him?
‘I’m going out,’ she informed the butler. ‘When Mr Golden gets here tell him I won’t be back tonight.’
‘Yes, madame,’ said the butler, his Englishness not betraying a flicker of interest.
Where was she going to go? Gino was with Paige, and Costa had returned to Miami.
Maybe she wouldn’t go out. The hell with it. Just have the butler tell him she was out.
Frightened of facing him?
Absolutely not.
She fixed herself a Pernod and water and chainsmoked two cigarettes.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she told the imperturbable butler. ‘When Mr Golden gets here, show him in.’
‘Yes, madame.’
She paced the sumptuous living room. Sumptuous and perfect and expensive and boring. If Dimitri expected her to live in this apartment he had better agree to redecorate. She felt stifled, period. Why had she married him? Why had he married her? It was obvious his heart belonged to the horse-faced Madame Fern, and quite frankly she didn’t care. No jealous pangs. Dimitri and she had married each other for reasons that did not include love and passion. Was this to be the story of her life? Two husbands, neither of them lovers in the true sense.
She felt lonely and restless, as if her life was one big void.
The hotel will fill it, she thought. My hotel . . . Mine . . . And Roberto. My wonderful little boy.
The butler presented himself at the door. ‘Mr Golden, madame,’ he said with a slight bow.
She stubbed out her cigarette, took a deep breath, and turned to greet him with a falsely polite smile. ‘Lennie!’
Their eyes locked and she was lost.
‘Hiya, beautiful lady,’ he said, walking over and taking her hands in his.
His touch made her weak. What was going on here?
‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’ inquired the butler, hovering solicitously.
‘Vodka. On the rocks,’ Lennie replied, glancing around.
‘Yes, sir.’
Lennie grinned. ‘I feel like I’m in a museum!’
Lucky couldn’t help smiling back. ‘You are,’ she said softly.
Silently they waited while the butler poured, cubed, and stirred. Then he handed over the lead crystal glass and exited discreetly.
Lennie stared directly at her, raised his glass in a salute and said, ‘To us. To our life together. To the way it’s going to be.’
Chapter Eighty-Five
Susan returned to Beverly Hills to find Gino missing and her daughter, Gemma, in residence. ‘Why are you here, dear?’ she asked, trying to conceal lurking resentment. Gemma was such an untidy girl. It had been quite a relief when she had set up house with her boyfriend.
‘We had a fight,’ Gemma explained, biting into an apple.
‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ fussed Susan.
‘It depends on what you consider serious,’ replied Gemma, discarding the apple on a polished table top. ‘I caught the jerk with his hand up my best friend’s skirt, and she wasn’t wearing panties. What category would you place that little bit of business in?’
‘Are you sure, dear?’
Gemma regarded her mother with amusement. The woman was unreal. She lived in a dream world. ‘I’m sure,’ she said calmly. ‘How was your trip?’
Susan re-arranged a vase of flowers, carefully removing a dying rose with a touch of annoyance. ‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘A charming group of people.’
‘Who?’ questioned Gemma, not really caring, but she felt she should make conversation as she had moved back home and she didn’t want her mother complaining about that.
‘Oh, Francesca Fern and her husband. Saud Omar.’ An imperceptible pause. ‘The Contessa Zebrowski. Lennie Golden.’
Gemma snapped to attention. ‘Lennie Golden!’ she exclaimed. ‘Really?’
Susan finished with the flowers and began straightening ornaments. ‘He’s married to Dimitri’s daughter,’ she explained.
‘He’s hot,’ sighed Gemma.
‘Hot is a very vulgar expression,’ Susan chided.
‘Hot is where Lennie Golden’s at,’ enthused Gemma. ‘Can I meet him? Can you throw one of your dinner parties or something?’
‘No,’ snapped Susan. ‘Gino’s still in New York, and I’m tired. I need to rest. It’s been an arduous trip.’
Gemma reached into a silver dish for another apple and took a large bite. ‘I didn’t mean tomorrow,’ she sniffed. ‘Next week maybe.’
‘Will you still be here next week?’ asked Susan, hoping the answer was no.
‘If the jerk doesn’t come crawling to me on his knees and apologize, I could still be here next year!’ Gemma smiled. She had very small, very even, very white teeth. ‘I’m home, Mother. To stay.’
* * *
Gino saw Paige off with regret. Their few days in New York together were memorable. She was his kind of woman.
He sent her off with a contented smile on her face. She enjoyed being with him as much as he enjoyed his time with her.
‘I’ll be back in LA in a few days,’ he promised.
‘Then I shall book our suite in the Beverly Wilshire,’ she said warmly. ‘Just let me know when.’ Neither of them had any idea where their affair was going, but they were both on for the full ride.
Paige arrived home to find a depressed Ryder. ‘You can shove Bonnatti, Vitos, Quinn fucking Leech, and the whole goddamn movie up your ass,’ he announced.
Paige summoned wifely concern. ‘Wasn’t the dinner a success?’ she asked.
‘We haven’t had the fucking dinner yet,’ Ryder snarled. ‘I had to cancel your goddamn caterers who are trying to stick me with the bill anyway. Vitos got sick, Bonnatti got called out of town, and Quinn got temperamental. I’ve arranged another dinner for Monday.’
‘The same caterers?’
‘Are you kidding? Chasens this time.’
Paige nodded. ‘Wise choice.’ Then she waited for Ryder to ask about her trip. He didn’t. Why should she feel guilty when he didn’t even care?
Susan Martino Santangelo had left three messages. Reluctantly Paige called her back. She wasn’t sure she could go along with the I’m screwing your husband but we can still be best friends game.
‘I must see you,’ Susan said.
‘I’m inundated with work,’ Paige replied briskly.
‘It’s vitally important,’ Susan insisted, lowering her voice to a whisper.
Had she found out? Paige hesitated. ‘Well . . .’
‘Come for tea tomorrow. Four o’clock at my house.’
‘You’re so English!’
‘Please come.’
Paige sighed, best to face up to things immediately. ‘I’ll be there.’
* * *
Gino had thought that with Paige despatched to L.A. he would spend a couple of days with Lucky before returning to the Coast. But Lucky informed him breathlessly on the phone when he tracked her down, that she was incredibly busy, that she would love to see him, but that right now it was impossible.
To say Gino was put out was an understatement. He was hurt and angry. He had stayed over in New York to spend time with his daughter, and she didn’t seem to care.
Kids. Appreciation. What did they know? You gav
e up your life for them and they couldn’t even be bothered to give you the time of day. Conveniently he forgot that for the past few days he had been closeted with Paige and had had no time to bother with anyone – including Lucky.
‘Not even dinner tonight?’ he demanded on the phone.
‘I’m really tied up,’ Lucky explained apologetically, sounding remarkably happy for someone too busy to find time to have dinner with her father.
‘Sure,’ said Gino. ‘I understand, kid.’
But he didn’t. And he decided to leave for L.A. early – surprise Susan and Paige.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Falling in love is like getting hit by a large truck and yet not being mortally wounded. Just sick to your stomach, high one minute, low the next. Starving hungry but unable to eat. Hot, cold, forever horny, full of hope and enthusiasm, with momentary depressions that wipe you out.
It is also not being able to remove the smile from your face, loving life with a mad passionate intensity, and feeling ten years younger.
Love does not appear with any warning signs. You fall into it as if pushed from a high diving board. No time to think about what’s happening. It’s inevitable. An event you can’t control. A crazy, heart-stopping, roller-coaster ride that just has to take its course.
Neither Lucky nor Lennie were expecting it. Oh sure, they were attracted to each other, the whole sexual bit was in full swing. But love?
Come on.
They were two strong-minded, independent, smart people who had been around the track a time or two. They were career oriented with definite goals in mind. Lucky had her hotel to build, and Lennie was set to soar as high as he wanted to go.
Theirs was an impossible relationship.
And yet . . . They were two soulmates who found each other. Two reckless, passionate people filled with a sensual zest for living.
‘What are we going to do?’ Lucky asked after forty-eight hours of togetherness. The most exciting, incredible forty-eight hours of her life.
‘We are going to extract ourselves from the craziness we’re caught up in – and then we’ll do something really stupid – like get married, grow old, have a dozen kids. Whatever,’ Lennie joked. Only he was serious.
Lucky was in a daze. No longer in control. And it didn’t disturb her at all. She felt wonderful. ‘We win?’
He grinned. ‘Whatever.’
‘Stop saying that.’
‘Why? Does it turn you on?’
She leaped upon him. ‘You turn me on. You really do.’
Giggling, they rolled around the bed in her East Hampton house. The house that had once been Gino and Maria’s when Lucky was just a little girl with wide eyes and an inquisitive nature.
Lennie pinned her down, and lay across her. ‘Hey, lady – why are you always fighting me?’ he demanded.
She put out her tongue and rolled it suggestively. ‘So’s you can win,’ she said huskily. ‘I like winners.’
He crushed her with a kiss and she revelled in his strength, the feel of his body and the smell of his skin. Her reserves had crumbled. Lennie – with his rangy good looks, light banter, admirable talent, gentleness to kids, not to mention bedroom performance – had won her over. He was the sort of man she had never known before, and he was special.
One date was all it had taken. He had collected her at the New York apartment and taken her to a Chinese restaurant where they shared spring rolls, spicy shredded beef and a bottle of vodka. Polite conversation lasted exactly ten minutes. After that they were into exploring each other’s lives, trading experiences, listening, telling, revealing. When the restaurant closed at one a.m. they were still talking, so they went on to a Greenwich Village jazz joint that accommodated them until four in the morning.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ Lucky remembered saying.
‘Who’s talking home?’ Lennie had replied.
He took her to a place frequented by waiters and night workers that didn’t even open until dawn. There, they sat in a corner and drank endless coffee, while Billie Holiday belted blues on the old juke box, and an over-painted whore danced gaily around the tiny dance floor.
Lucky told him things she had never told anybody. Discovering the mutilated body of her mother when she was only five. The withdrawal of her father. Running away from school with Olympia when they were both teenagers. And the marriage Gino had forced her into at sixteen. ‘I hated him for years,’ she explained. ‘But you know something, I think I always loved him.’
‘I can understand the whole love/hate trip,’ Lennie sympathized.
And they began to talk about Alice, and how it was to grow up with a mother who truly didn’t give a damn.
At eight in the morning they stopped by the basement garage where Lucky kept her Ferrari. She threw Lennie the keys and directed him to the East Hampton house.
With Otis Redding on the tape deck and light morning traf-fic, it was an easy drive. At a local supermarket they bought French bread, butter, bacon and eggs.
‘I can’t cook,’ Lucky confessed.
‘I can,’ Lennie assured her, adding mushrooms and tomatoes to their haul.
The East Hampton house was locked up. The housekeeper had returned to her family in Finland for a month’s vacation.
‘No problem,’ Lucky announced, springing a downstairs bathroom window and gaining an undignified entrance.
Neither of them was sleepy, but after breakfast, cooked quite professionally by Lennie, they retired upstairs to the large white wicker master bedroom and made slow leisurely love as if it was their first time together. And then they slept – entwined in each other’s arms.
Lucky awoke at dusk. Lennie sprawled asleep beside her.
Quietly she went downstairs to the kitchen, opened a can, and fixed two large mugs of steaming hot potato soup. Then she switched some slow soul music on the stereo and returned upstairs.
She kissed him awake and handed him his soup. ‘Sustenance,’ she explained with a grin. ‘You’re going to need all the strength you can get.’
‘Hey!’ He sipped the hot soup. ‘You certainly know how to open a can!’
She laughed softly. ‘For you I’ll learn to cook.’
‘You will?’
‘Not really. But it sounds good!’
He abandoned the mug and reached for her. ‘C’mere.’
She didn’t argue. She yearned for his touch, he made her skin electric, and every caress gave her small exquisite shocks.
They experimented with each other’s bodies, teasing, holding back, testing to see who could last the longest before dissolving into orgasmic ecstasy.
‘You are really something,’ Lennie said, meaning every word.
‘And you are not exactly a slouch yourself,’ Lucky replied, smiling.
They talked deep into the night. She told him about Gino’s tax exile and how she had taken over the family business. ‘I built the Magiriano,’ she said proudly. ‘I was twenty-five years old and female. It wasn’t easy.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘No you can’t. Not really.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Try this.’
She wanted him in her mouth. She wanted to feel his hardness, the beat of his maleness. She wanted him in her power, under her spell.
He groaned his pleasure.
She smiled her triumph.
He confessed his once passionate obsession for Eden. How trivial it seemed now.
‘What did she look like?’ Lucky wanted to know.
‘Skinny, blonde, predatory.’
‘She sounds like a bird.’
‘She was very beautiful.’
‘Who cares?’
‘I don’t.’
He spread her olive thighs and buried his head between them. Her jet pubic hair felt like silk. She tasted of musky crushed flowers. Bittersweet.
She threw her arms above her head and murmured his name over and over until she came in heavy throbs of abandonment as he sucked her dry wi
th feverish desire.
They slept through the rest of the night.
In the morning Gino called. She couldn’t remember what she said to him. She didn’t want real life invading her time with Lennie. Soon Dimitri would be back and things would have to be settled.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Francesca dragged on a long thin black cheroot as Dimitri’s plane flew her and Olympia toward Paris. ‘Did you ever think about having a series of slimming injections?’ she asked Olympia with harsh directness. ‘There is a clinic in Switzerland . . . they specialize in weight problems.’
‘Oh,’ said Olympia brightly. ‘Is that the place where you had your face lifted?’
Francesca frowned. ‘I have never had a face lift,’ she lied.
‘No?’ said Olympia innocently.
‘No,’ stated Francesca firmly.
Conversation lapsed. Olympia wished Flash had come with her. She could just imagine him with Francesca. What a collision!
She summoned the stewardess, a tall Swedish woman with tanned skin and an icy smile. When Dimitri travelled she gave him massages. Olympia imagined that was not all she gave him.
‘I need a chocolate fix,’ she told the Swede. ‘What do we have?’
‘Parfait, sundae, fresh berries.’
‘Strawberries?’
‘Blueberries.’
‘Dip them in chocolate sauce for me, I suppose they’ll have to do.’
The Swede flashed her icy smile and retreated to the galley.
‘Blueberries, in chocolate sauce,’ admonished Francesca, fanning her horsy countenance with a copy of French Vogue. ‘You must be desperate.’
Olympia, secure on coke, smiled. ‘Not half as desperate as some of the people I know,’ she said, and reached for a set of headphones.
* * *
‘How civilized,’ observed Paige, gazing at the English tea Susan had set out. There were wafer thin cucumber sandwiches, light scones with a touch of cream and jam, a ginger cake, Earl Grey tea, and fine bone china plates, cups and saucers to put it all on.
‘Tea was served on the Stanislopoulos yacht every afternoon at four,’ Susan announced proudly.
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