by Victoria Fox
‘What, like making the world a better place?’
‘Allegedly you’ve said of your family that—’
‘I’ll stop you there,’ Jean-Paul intervened, ‘I think that’s time. Did you get everything you need?’ But he turned away, not bothering to hang around for an answer. Tawny’s hair crew were next to descend, rattling bottles of spray and cooing over their darling’s fragrant mane as if it were the last head of hair on earth.
‘Get me my grapes,’ came a bad-tempered bark from somewhere inside the melee. ‘I need sugar, JP. I’m dizzy.’
Jean-Paul scurried off to obey.
Eve Harley was frozen out. The interview was over.
The evening was a showcase of upcoming designers, each teamed with an established name in a kind of haute-glitz mentorship programme. Opposite Eve in the ranks sat a prim arrangement of fashionistas, editors, rock musicians and royalty, anyone whose image was regularly splashed across the London society pages—a colourful tableau of elaborate hairstyles, sharp suits and sleekly crossed legs, all with that slightly self-conscious way of sitting, as if these VIPs’ entire lives had become a public display and a lurking photographer could be about to jump out at any moment.
A new collection spilled onto the runway. Tawny Lascelles strutted down the walk, glossily gorgeous and all too aware of that fact, in a Japanese-flavoured drape dress courtesy of a breakthrough artist. But for someone who was all too happy to disclose the finer points of her colonic irrigation regime, or how many egg whites she consumed for breakfast, Tawny was ferociously private about her past.
Eve would get the story, no matter what it took. She always did. She would hunt down the facts and she would hunt them her way. She didn’t do failure and she didn’t do backing out. Her column in the UK’s biggest tabloid relied on it.
The show over, she made a swift exit. January in London was bracing and chill, shining red buses sliding past, their windows clouded with condensation. The River Thames glittered beneath a chain of bridges, snaking down to the golden crust of Westminster, whose peaks were obscured by shifting mist.
Eve checked her phone. It was the usual address, the one he used whenever he visited town. Hailing a taxi, she climbed in. The city rushed past, a blur of lights and sounds, and she spritzed perfume onto her wrists and between her legs.
She couldn’t suppress the wave of butterflies that came with the inevitability of their meeting. It wasn’t as if there were feelings involved—just sex, always sex—and the cold, efficient transaction of it somehow made it more of a thrill.
The cab dropped her at Marble Arch and she walked the rest of the way. Down a moon-frosted lane, away from the crowds, she arrived at his townhouse.
Tapping in the security code, the gates parted, a fairytale twist of black iron.
Orlando Silvers was already on the porch. The door was open, spilling yellow light.
They didn’t say a word. He drew her into the warm and pushed her against the kitchen counter. She went to speak and he crushed her with a kiss, hooking her knee and flipping her round, strong thumbs tearing down her knickers. She felt them rip and he spread her wide and in a second he was inside, hot and deep and thick, her face pressed against the cool steel surface as he pounded, his hand snaking beneath her blouse and freeing her tits.
Eve let him drive against her, her skirt up over her back, one shoe kicked off, her hair pulled and grabbed and her lipstick smudged, until the calm, composed journalist of thirty minutes ago was all but obliterated. Only when Orlando was ready to come did she ease off and draw him to the floor. He was flat on his back, his dick straining beneath the crisp white fabric of his shirt. Slowly she mounted him, unbuttoning her top with tantalising leisure, and he groaned and reached for her as she backed away, peeling off her bra and watching his eyes feast. Making him wait, she finally sank onto him, feeling him fill her up, easing him in and out, right to his tip and down to his base, wetter and wetter each time as his cock became stiffer.
She rode him hard. Only through sex could Eve feel this way—like all the anger and hurt was set free, existing in some separate universe, and all she had here, now, was the intensity and blaze of their combat.
She collapsed against him, their explosions colliding.
Afterwards, Orlando lit a cigarette. They spilled onto the couch, naked and spent. Eve leaned on his chest, running her fingers across his torso, the skin olive-brown and scattered with dark hair. Orlando was the opposite of what she normally went for, serious-faced journos who smoked roll-ups and read satire. He was a cocky Wall Street boy, a glossy Starbucks American—not to mention one of the richest men on the planet. She felt him inhale, heard the crackle of cigarette paper.
‘Is it true your father’s retiring?’ she asked.
Orlando laughed. ‘That was a record.’
‘What?’
‘Fifteen seconds before you went for the story.’
Playfully, she smacked him. He grabbed her, kissed her again.
He was right, though. Eve had worked in this business ten years, yet she never tired of the buzz; what it was to chase a scandal. Today, millions across the globe read her work. Her biting appraisals were infamous. She took no prisoners, she refused to sugarcoat and her allegiance couldn’t be bought—she wrote what she thought and she was faithful to her instinct, whether her subject liked it or not. Over the years she had gained a fearsome reputation. Eve wasn’t out to hurt these celebrities, or to sabotage them, but she believed that if you were going to put yourself up for scrutiny, to use the media to your own ends, then you had to be prepared for it to use you back. Stars who crowed on about privacy didn’t seem to mind so much when they were summoning paparazzi to the opening of their new perfume, or when they had a hot date on their arm or a radical new look to unveil.
Teen superstar Kevin Chase was a prime example. His success was so closely entwined with his courtship of the press that it was impossible to separate the two, yet when Eve had challenged him on the issue of sex (Kevin’s stance had, until recently, been emphatically chaste), he had fumbled his way through a confused, tetchy, half-baked response before barking at her to fuck off because it was none of her business.
None of her business … It was a red rag to a bull. Eve intended to make it her business, whatever it was, and she would stop at nothing until she got there.
‘So?’ she tried again.
Orlando ground out his smoke.
‘Don’t want to talk about it,’ he said. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘give me something.’
‘I’m forever giving you something.’
‘And I’m not?’ She raised herself up on one elbow. ‘What about that exclusive I kept back on the Mitzlar Brothers—?’
‘You were planning to hold fire anyway.’
‘I wasn’t. My editor would kill me if she knew—sex dens, strippers, a world-class banking family …’
‘We needed their sponsorship. This story would have ruined them.’
‘Exactly.’ Eve trailed her fingers down his stomach, felt him harden once more. ‘So what do I get in return? I did it because you asked me …’
‘You don’t do anything you’re asked.’
‘That depends who’s asking.’
He threw her off the scent. ‘Tawny Lascelles just signed for my sister’s label.’
Eve leaned over, reached into her bag and pulled out her pad. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘D’you know Tawny?’
‘She was at the launch a couple of weeks back.’
‘Yeah, I figured that part out. Who was she with?’
‘No one, I don’t think.’
‘Does Angela run checks on models before she employs them?’
‘Why?’ he scoffed.
‘Tawny’s press people are like Rottweilers, she’s giving nothing away—but I know, I just know there’s something there, if I could just …’
Orlando touched the end of her nose.
‘You never let up, do you?’
‘I came from the gala,’ she explained. ‘Tawny and I chatted.’
‘Why didn’t you ask her?’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
‘Don’t use long words.’
She stuck up her finger. ‘That short enough for you?’
‘Cute.’
Eve got up. She fixed herself a drink, raised the carafe in question. He nodded.
‘Come on,’ she said, leaning back against the mahogany dresser, ‘I already had it in the bag about Tawny and Fit for NYC. What else?’
Orlando narrowed his eyes. ‘What if I just wanted to see you?’
‘Crap. I know you see other women.’
‘Do you see other men?’
‘What’s it to you?’ But she didn’t see other men. She didn’t have time.
And I don’t want to.
He pulled her back to the couch.
‘For chasing other people’s secrets, Harley,’ he murmured, ‘you’ve sure got some mysteries of your own.’
Orlando held her down, his tongue tracing its practised route down her neck and across her breasts. She didn’t answer, but then he didn’t require it.
Suffice to say, there was a good reason why Eve did this job, and she wasn’t about to compromise for anyone. Not even for him.
4
Tawny Lascelles took the red-eye back to LA. She was tired and crabby, pissed off at that bitch reporter for sticking her fat beak in where it wasn’t wanted and then later at some piglet-faced model she had never worked with telling her she’d gone too fast down the catwalk. The nerve! Tawny wanted to slap her. The last thing she felt like doing now was getting stuck on an airplane for hours, but such was her schedule these days that she seemed to spend half her life zooming back and forth over the Atlantic.
Everything in the supermodel’s first-class cabin was as requested, which helped soften the blow. Tawny’s rider went everywhere with her—road, sea or air, she was never without her essentials: chamomile and echinacea tea, a cashmere blanket (silver, never grey), three bouquets of lightly scented peonies, a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle, her music station (Gaga for when she needed to hype up, Taylor for when she needed to wind down), and the only food she ate with any frequency, or indeed with any relish, a jumbo-sized bag of Haribo Sours.
Two thousand miles across the Atlantic, she stuck her arm above the parapet.
Immediately a glass of water was brought—carbonated but with just the right amount of fizz: Tawny hated to get burpy. She sipped carefully to avoid bloating, then without saying thank you settled back in her recliner booth and flipped open a magazine. A stinging flick brought the page open on a column by Eve Harley.
Prying tramp!
It was all Tawny could do not to rip the paper to shreds. She scowled at the reporter’s name and at what unsuspecting prey had been targeted this time.
Kevin Chase.
The article accompanied a picture on stage during his latest World Tour.
My opinion? Kevin Chase is an out-of-control teenage brat. So he’s young, so people make mistakes, so we should cut him some slack—but the fact is there are countless young kids out there with nothing, no money, no job, no support, no future, and still we’re supposed to feel sorry for this guy? A nineteen year old who set fire to a stack of hundred-dollar bills last week as a PR stunt? Give me a break …
It was a shame about Kevin, Tawny thought, assessing the superstar’s dwarfed yet rippling torso—it was like all the ingredients were there, like he had the potential to be hot, only everything about him was so … well, small. It was as if he had gone through a photocopier and been reduced by forty per cent.
Give him a few years, she decided. The handsome part wasn’t nearly as important anyway, since there was only room for one truly beautiful person in any relationship and Tawny would always win that crown. She had no interest in competing, even if there was competition to be had (which there wasn’t).
Tawny was the worshipped, never the worshipper. And oh! Imagine how Kevin would worship her. She was tempted to bag him, just for the fun. Tawny loved it when a man fell under her spell—there were at least six out there right now who would take a bullet for her if she flashed them her tits and offered a BJ. Ha!
She folded the mag, trying not to think about the lashing no doubt hurtling her way courtesy of that British cow. It wasn’t Tawny’s fault women got jealous. She was everything they wanted to be and they simply couldn’t handle it.
Eve Harley would never get the truth, anyhow. Tawny had buried her history so deep that she wasn’t even sure she knew where to find it. No way was she going back there, not ever, and she would happily top herself before anyone else did.
Her manager called.
‘Everything all right, my diamond girl?’ he crooned.
‘Fine.’
‘I’m in the mood to spoil my favourite client. Breakfast at Clementine’s?’
‘I’d sooner die. I’ve got a date with a spa, a hot masseur and my bed.’ Tawny paused, allowing herself a smirk. ‘Maybe his.’
‘Lunch, then.’
Tawny cringed. Food after sex always seemed a grim proposition. The idea of filling herself up on cock and then cramming in Eggs Benedict on top was disgusting.
‘I’ll call you later,’ she said.
‘Oh, and babe? Remember your slot on The Bianca Show tomorrow night.’
‘Ugh, hell, I forgot about that.’
She hung up.
There was never any reprieve, but in her heart Tawny loved the attention. Wasn’t this what she had prayed for, ever since she was a girl? To be admired, to be revered—above all, to be adored! She had been granted her wish.
Tawny smiled. Tucked into her Silvers tote was the other item she could never leave home without: the inscribed hair straighteners gifted to her by a legendary Italian designer at the beginning of her career, when she had been an upcoming starlet and named as his muse. The lemon-yellow tongs were her lucky charms: she insisted on using them for every shoot and every show, and they were emblazoned with the immortal line: ‘TO THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL, WITH LOVE & ADMIRATION’.
Tawny Lascelles really was the fairest of them all. She always would be.
She would rather die than have that crown taken.
Satisfied in that knowledge, she fell fast into a deep and dreamless sleep.
5
Boston
Angela Silvers hated to fly. She had always possessed an irrational fear of airplanes. She hated the roaring take-off, the jumps of turbulence and the way that every sound and shudder convinced her they were about to fall out of the sky.
She closed the blind, shutting out the sprawling blue and floozy clouds.
‘Excuse me?’ She smiled at a passing attendant.
‘Yes, Ms Silvers?’
‘Would I be able to get a drink, please? A martini?’
‘Coming right up.’
Noah would tease her. Angela had a fleet of jets at her beck and call—why not make the trip in luxury? But there was something ugly about jumping on a plane for one as easily as if you were hailing a cab. Besides, her father’s aircraft were way too light for her liking: at least on a 737 it felt as if there were something between her and the ground. Her drink arrived and she threw it back in one.
She hoped the liquor might knock her out, but while it took the edge off it wasn’t enough to relax her completely. The knack was to focus on something else, anything to detract from the fact they were 35,000 feet up in the air in a rattling tin can. Normally the promise of landing was enough to pull her through—thoughts of arriving at her hotel, taking a long soak in the tub, ordering room service, slipping into bed and Skyping Noah—but today, the flight was just the beginning.
Angela was heading to company HQ, the house in Boston where she had grown up. She intended to thrash it out with her father once and for all.
‘I’m taking this moment to announce my retirement,’ Donald had proclaimed at the FNYC
launch. ‘As of tonight I plan to step back from the front line and apportion duty between my two gifted sons, Orlando and Gianluca …’
Two weeks after the event Angela still couldn’t believe it.
Never mind the fact that her father had stolen her thunder—this had been her night, her project, her triumph, and instead of crediting her as he should have done he had snatched the attention right back onto the boys—his words had shaken her to her core. The injustice was breathtaking.
My two gifted sons? It had to be a joke. But as Orlando and Luca had paced proudly up to claim the prize, the grim reality had become clear.
All the while Angela had worn a rigid smile of congratulations, bitten her way through countless toasts and declarations of, ‘Yes, they will be wonderful, won’t they?’ and crushed wave after wave of hot, irrepressible anger.
In the days that followed, Angela had turned Donald’s decision over in her mind. Forget about it being unfair, it was simply illogical to give the reins to her brothers. She had stepped up time and time again to work alongside her father, drawing up proposals, putting forward solutions, re-organising budgets, but none of it came to any use: she was, and always would be, at a disadvantage because of her sex.
She would stand for it no longer—and her father wouldn’t know what hit him.
The pilot’s voice came on the PA system. They had begun their descent.
She braced herself for impact.
Logan International was packed. Angela was escorted through Arrivals, her head bowed against the burst of attention her appearance sparked, and was relieved when they emerged into fresh air. Paparazzi surged as she approached the BMW. In black Ray-Bans, skinny jeans and a coral blazer, her spike heels punching the tarmac, it was clear this was no pleasure trip. Angela Silvers had landed on business.
Eternally the paps fished for a bout of reckless behaviour that would give them the money shot and cement her role as spoiled heiress—a bad attitude, a crabby pooch or, best of all, a wardrobe malfunction, anything to prove she had succumbed to type. But with Angela it never came. She understood her position and carried it with grace, stopping to sign autographs for fans, which she delivered with a flourish and a smile. If the press weren’t so desperate to capture the first fall—for surely at some point it would come, it did for the best of them—they would have given up long ago.
