Toxic Bachelors

by Danielle Steel

  Whatever genetic mix he had come from originally, whoever his birth parents were, Gray had an enormous talent, and although never financially viable, his career as a painter had always been a respected one. Even the critics conceded that he was very, very good. He just couldn't keep his life together long enough to make money at what he did. What his parents had made in their early years, they had spent on drugs and traveling around the world. Gray was used to being penniless and didn't mind it. What he had, he gave to others whom he considered more in need. And whether on Charlie's yacht, in the lap of luxury, or freezing in his studio in the Meatpacking District in New York, it was all the same to him. Whether or not there was a woman in his life didn't matter to him much. What mattered to him were his work, and his friends.

  He had long since proven to himself that although women were appealing sometimes, and he liked having a warm body in his bed to comfort him on cold nights, they were all insane—or the ones he found in his bed always were. There was no question in any-one's mind, if a woman was with Gray, more likely than not, she was nuts. It was a curse he accepted, an irresistible pull for him, after the childhood he'd had. He felt that the only way to break the spell, or the curse that had been put on him by his dysfunctional adopted family, was to refuse to pass that angst-making lifestyle on to a child of his own. His gift to the world, he often said, was promising himself never to have kids. It was a promise he had never broken, and knew he never would. He said he was allergic to children, and they were equally so to him. Unlike Charlie, Gray wasn't looking for the perfect woman, he would have just liked to find one, one day, who was sane. In the meantime, the ones he did find provided excitement and comic relief, for him and his friends.

  “So, what are we doing today?” Charlie asked, as the three men stretched out on deck chairs after breakfast.

  The sun was high, it was nearly noon, and the weather had never been better. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Adam said he wanted to go shopping for his kids in St. Tropez. Amanda always loved the things he brought home for her, and Jacob was easy. They were both crazy about their dad, although they loved their mother and stepfather too. Rachel and the pediatrician had had two more children, whom Adam pretended didn't exist, although he knew that Amanda and Jacob were fond of them, and loved them like a full brother and sister. Adam didn't want to know about them. He had never forgiven Rachel for her betrayal, and never would. He had concluded years before that, given the opportunity, all women were bitches. His mother had nagged his father constantly, and was disrespectful to him. His father had dealt with the constant barrage of verbal abuse with silence. His sister was subtler than their mother, and got everything she wanted by whining. On the rare occasions when she didn't, she got out her claws and fangs and got vicious. The only way to handle a woman, as far as Adam was concerned, was to find a dumb one, keep her at arm's length, and move on quickly. Everything was fine, as long as he kept moving. The only time he stopped to smell the roses, or let his guard down, was on the boat with Charlie and Gray, or with his children.

  “The shops close for lunch at one,” Charlie reminded him. “We can go in this afternoon when they open.” Adam remembered that they didn't reopen until three-thirty or four. And it was too early to have lunch.

  They had just had breakfast, even though all Adam had had, after the excesses of the night before, was a roll and coffee. He had a nervous stomach, had had an ulcer years before, and rarely ate much. It was the price he paid willingly for being in a stressful business. After all these years, negotiating contracts for athletes and major stars, he thrived on the excitement and loved it. He bailed them out of jail, got them on the teams they wanted, signed them on for concert tours, negotiated their divorces, paid palimony to their mistresses, and drew up support agreements for their children born out of wedlock. They kept him busy, stressed, and happy. And now he was finally on vacation. He took two a year, one on Charlie's boat for the month of August, which was a sacred commitment to him, and a week on the boat with him again in winter, in the Caribbean. Gray never joined them then, he had bad memories of the Caribbean from when he had lived there with his parents, and said nothing could induce him to go back there. And at the end of August each year, Adam spent a week traveling in Europe with his children. As always, he was meeting them at the end of this trip. His plane was picking them up in New York, stopping in Nice for him, and then the three of them would go to London for a week.

  “What do you say we pull out and sit at anchor for a while? We can anchor off the beach, and go in to lunch at Club 55 with the tender,” Charlie suggested, and they nodded in unison. It was what they usually did in St. Tropez.

  Charlie had all the appropriate toys on board for guests—water skis, Jet Skis, a small sailboat, windsurfing boards, and scuba equipment. But most of the time, the three men enjoyed being lazy. The time they shared was mostly spent on lunches, dinner, women, drinking, and a little swimming. And a lot of sleeping. Especially Adam, who always arrived exhausted, and said the only place he ever slept decently was on Charlie's boat in August. It was the one time of the year when he had no worries. He still got faxes from his office every day, and e-mails, which he checked regularly. But his secretaries, assistants, and partners knew not to bother him more than they absolutely had to in August. And if they did, God help them. It was the only time when Adam took his hands off the controls, and actually tried not to think about his clients. Anyone who knew him well, and how hard he worked, was well aware that he needed the breather. It made him a lot nicer to deal with in September. He coasted for weeks, and even months sometimes, on the good times he had with Gray and Charlie.

  The three men had met originally as a result of their philanthropic bent. Charlie's foundation had been organizing a benefit to fund a house on the Upper West Side for abused women and children. The chairman of the event had been trying to find a major rock star to donate a performance, and had contacted Adam, who represented the artist in question. Adam and Charlie had eventually had lunch in order to discuss it, and found that they genuinely admired each other. By the time the event had taken place, the two men had become fast friends.

  Adam had actually gotten the rock star he represented to donate a million-dollar performance, which was unheard-of—but he had done it. One of Gray's paintings was auctioned off at the same event, which he had donated himself, a major sacrifice for him, since it represented six months of his income. After the event, he had volunteered to paint a mural at the safe house Charlie's foundation had funded. He had met Charlie then, and Adam when Charlie invited both him and Gray to his apartment to dinner to thank them. The three men couldn't have been more different but, in spite of that, had discovered a common bond, in the causes they cared about, and the fact that none of them were married, or seriously involved with anyone at the time. Adam had just gone through his divorce. Charlie was between engagements and invited both of them on the boat he had then, to keep him company during the month of August, when he had planned to be on it for his honeymoon. He thought a trip with the two men might be a pleasant distraction, and it had turned out better than he'd hoped. They'd had a fantastic time. The girl Gray had been going out with had attempted suicide in June, and left with one of his art students in July. By August, he had been greatly relieved to leave town, and grateful for the opportunity Charlie offered to do so. Gray had been even more broke than usual at the time. And Adam had had a tough spring, with two major athletes sustaining injuries, and a world-class band canceling a concert tour, which had spawned a dozen lawsuits. The trip to Europe on Charlie's yacht had been perfect. And it had been their annual junket since then. This year promised to be no different. St. Tropez, Monte Carlo for a little gambling, Portofino, Sardinia, Capri, and wherever they felt like stopping in between. They had been on the boat for only two days, and all three men were thrilled to be there. Charlie thoroughly enjoyed their company, just as they did his. And the Blue Moon was the ideal venue for their shared mischief and fun.

 
“So what'll it be, boys? Club 55 for lunch, and a little swimming first?” Charlie pressed, so he could let the captain know their plans.

  “Yeah, what the hell, I guess so,” Adam said, rolling his eyes, as his French cell phone rang and he ignored it. He could listen to the message later. He carried only one while in Europe, a vast improvement over the battery of phones and papers he carried in New York. “It's tough work, but someone has to do it.” He grinned.

  “Bloody Mary, anyone?” Charlie inquired with feigned innocence, as he signaled to the steward that they'd be leaving. The purser, who'd been standing by, a handsome young man from New Zealand, nodded, then disappeared to tell the captain, and make the lunch reservation. He didn't need to ask anything more. He knew Charlie would want to go ashore for lunch at two-thirty. Most of the time he preferred eating on board, but the scene in St. Tropez was too tempting. And everyone who was anyone went to Club 55 for lunch, just as they went to Spoon these days for dinner.

  “Make mine a virgin Bloody Mary,” Gray said as he smiled at the steward. “I thought I'd postpone my trip to rehab for a few days.”

  “Make mine hot and spicy, and come to think of it, make mine with tequila,” Adam said with a broad grin as Charlie laughed.

  “I'll have a Bellini,” Charlie said—they were peach juice and champagne, and an easy way to start a day of decadence. Charlie had a fondness for Cuban cigars and good champagne. They had a lot of both on board.

  All three men sat drinking and relaxing on deck as they motored carefully away from the port, avoiding the many smaller boats and the daily tour boats filled with gawkers who snapped their picture as they drove by. The usual flock of paparazzi were huddled together at the end of the quai, waiting for big yachts to come into port, so they could see who was on board. They followed celebrities on motorbikes, hounding them every step of the way, and they took a last picture of Blue Moon as she sailed away, assuming correctly that the superyacht would be back that night. Most of the time they took photographs of Charlie as he strolled through town, but he rarely if ever gave them fodder for the tabloids. Aside from the immense opulence and size of his yacht, Charlie led a relatively quiet life, and avoided scandal at all costs. He was just a very rich man, traveling with two friends, whom no one reading the tabloids had ever heard about. Even with the stars Adam knew and represented, he always stayed in the background. And Gray Hawk was just a starving artist. They were three bachelors, and devoted friends, out to have some fun for the month of August.

  They swam for half an hour before lunch. Afterward, Adam took out one of the Jet Skis to take a tour around the other boats, and work off some of his energy, while Gray slept on the deck, and Charlie smoked one of his Cuban cigars. It was the perfect life. At two-thirty they took the tender to lunch at Club 55. Alain Delon was there, as he often was, Gerard Dépardieu, and Catherine Deneuve, which caused the three friends to discuss her at length. They all agreed that she was still beautiful, despite her age. She was very much Charlie's type, although considerably older than the women he went out with, who more often than not were somewhere in their thirties, or even slightly younger. He rarely went out with women his own age. He left the women in their forties to men in their sixties, or older. And Adam liked them much, much younger.

  Gray said he would have been happy with Catherine Deneuve, at any age. He liked women closer to his own age, or even slightly older, although Ms. Deneuve was disqualified in his case, because she looked completely normal and relaxed as she laughed and talked to friends. The woman Gray was looking for, or would have noticed anywhere, would have been crying softly in a corner, or talking between sobs on her cell phone while appearing distraught. The girl Adam had in mind would have been ten years older than his teenage daughter. And he would have had to buy her breast implants and a nose job. The girl of Charlie's dreams would have been wearing a halo and glass slippers. But this time, in his fairy tale, when midnight came, she wouldn't run away, or disappear, she would stay at the ball, promise never to leave him, and dance in his arms forever. He just hoped that one day he'd find her.

  2

  THE CAPTAIN DOCKED THE BLUE MOON AT THE END OF the quai in St. Tropez that afternoon. It was a major feat since dock space wasn't easy to come by in high season. Because of her size, they had to have the first spot, but as soon as they tied her up, Charlie was sorry they had gone in, instead of coming into port in the tender, as he usually preferred to do. The paparazzi were out in full force, and instantly drawn by the sheer size of the boat. They snapped a lot of photographs of all three men as they slipped into a car waiting for them. Charlie ignored them, as did Adam, and Gray waved.

  “Poor bastards, what a shit way to make a living,” he said sympathetically, as Adam growled. He hated the press.

  “Parasites. They're all bottom-feeders,” he said. The press constantly created problems in his clients' lives. He had gotten a call from his office just that afternoon. One of his clients had been caught coming out of a hotel with a woman other than his wife, and the shit had hit the fan. The irate wife had called the office ten times and was threatening divorce. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, and she either wanted a huge settlement in a divorce, or five million dollars to stay married to him. Nice. Nothing surprised Adam anymore. All he wanted right now was to find those Brazilian girls again, and dance the samba until the wee hours. He could deal with the rest of the crap when he got back to New York. Right now he had no interest in dealing with the tabloids, or the infidelities of his clients. They'd done it before, and would do the same things many times again. This was his time now, not theirs. Time out. He had turned his meter off.

  They went into town to shop that afternoon, took naps, and had dinner at Spoon at the Hotel Byblos, where a spectacular-looking Russian supermodel had come in wearing white silk pants, and a little white leather bolero, wide open, with nothing underneath. The entire restaurant got a full view of her breasts, and seemed to enjoy it. Charlie looked amused, while Adam laughed.

  “She has amazing breasts,” Gray commented as they ordered dinner, and an excellent bottle of wine.

  “Yeah, but they're not real,” Adam said clinically, unimpressed but also amused. It took a lot of guts to sit down to dinner in a nice restaurant with your tits hanging out, although they had seen it done before. A German girl had walked into a restaurant the year before with a see-through net blouse you couldn't even see, and no one skipped a beat. She had sat there eating dinner all night, naked from the waist up, talking, laughing, smoking, and obviously enjoying the sensation she had caused.

  “How do you know they're not real?” Gray asked with interest. Her breasts were large and firm, and the nipples pointed up. He would have loved to draw them, and was already slightly drunk. They'd been drinking margaritas on the boat before they went out. Another night of decadence and debauchery had begun.

  “Take my word for it,” Adam said with confidence. “I've paid for about a hundred pair by now. Actually, a hundred and a half. A couple of years ago some girl I went out with only wanted one done. She said the other one was fine, she just wanted to match up the smaller one.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Charlie said, looking amused, as he tasted the wine and nodded to the sommelier. It was fine. Better than fine. It was superb. It was a very old vintage of Lynch-Bages. “Instead of taking them out to dinner and a movie, do you send them out for new breasts first?”

  “No, every time I go out with some budding actress, she hits me up for a new pair on the way out. It's easier than arguing about it. They go quietly after that, as long as they like what they got.”

  “Men used to buy women pearls or diamond bracelets as consolation prizes. I guess now they buy them implants instead,” Charlie commented drily. The women he went out with would never have asked him for new breasts, or any of the other things Adam paid for. If Charlie's dates had cosmetic work done, they paid for it themselves, from their trusts, and it was never discussed. He couldn't think of a single woma
n he'd gone out with who'd had plastic surgery, at least not that he knew about. Adam's girls, as he and Gray called them, had been entirely remodeled for the most part. And Gray's women needed lobotomies, or heavy sedation, more than anything else. He had paid for a number of therapists, rehab programs, shrinks, and attorneys' fees for court orders to restrain the previous men in their lives who were either stalking them or threatening to kill them, or him. Whatever worked. Maybe paying for the implants was simpler in the end. After the surgery, Adam's women thanked him and disappeared. Gray's always lingered for a while, or called when the new men in their lives began abusing them. They rarely stayed with Gray for longer than a year. He treated them too well. Charlie's women always became friends, and invited him to their weddings, to someone else, after he had left them, once their fatal flaw had been unearthed. “Maybe I should try that sometime,” Charlie said, laughing over his wine.

  “Try what?” Gray asked, looking confused. He was dazzled by the Russian woman and her breasts.

  “Paying for implants. It might make a nice Christmas present, or a wedding gift.”