“There’s certainly a lot of interest,” admitted Scarlett. “Has anyone bought anything yet?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Salma ordered two pairs of earrings, and Anna May, one of my regulars, is springing for the daisy-chain necklace as we speak.”
He nodded in the direction of the open cabinets, where Perry was cupping a delicate yellow tourmaline, platinum, and diamond chain between his manicured fingers while a man and a woman looked on.
“That’s the most expensive piece in the store,” gulped Scarlett.
“I know,” said Jake. “Those are my stones, remember?”
Back home in Notting Hill, she’d have expected to hold on to a necklace that valuable for months or even years, using it as a display or catalog piece until she happened upon some freakishly big spender. But this couple looked like they were preparing to drop a million dollars on a passing whim.
“Hold on,” she said, looking at the woman more closely. “Isn’t that the girl I saw getting out of your car the other morning? The one you were snogging the face off?”
Jake looked at her blankly. “Which morning? I do wish you’d be a bit more specific, angel.”
“My God, you’re shameless,” said Scarlett disapprovingly. “But then again, so’s she. Isn’t she nervous to bring her husband here? I mean, what if someone says something to him?”
Jake laughed out loud. “This is Hollywood, not Kansas bloody City. Everyone has affairs here. Two of her old man’s exmistresses are over there.” He turned and pointed to a pair of identical brunettes, admiring the rings on display behind them. “And that’s his present squeeze, Leila Collins, with her husband, Don. Another loyal client of mine,” he added, enjoying Scarlett’s evident discomfiture.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I think it’s awful,” she said seriously. “Isn’t anyone happily married in this town?”
“They’re all happily married,” said Jake. “Anna May’s one of the happiest married women I know. And I know a few.”
After three months of working together, thrust into one another’s company almost daily, Scarlett was still no better at figuring out when he meant something and when he was teasing her—winding her up, as he put it. Suspecting a tease with Anna May, she managed a smile, which Jake returned with a megawatter of his own.
“That’s better,” he said. “You know you’re much prettier when you stop disapproving of everything for five minutes and give peace a chance. Here.” He thrust a lethal-looking cocktail into her hand. “Have a drink.”
“Thanks, but no, I shouldn’t.” She pushed it back at him. “Tonight’s work, remember?”
“Drink it,” said Jake, and for some reason she found herself complying. “There’s nothing worse than an uptight hostess.”
Watching him drift off into the sea of, to him at least, familiar faces, she began to wonder how many of the women here he must have slept with over the years. Half? Three-quarters? Somehow she found the image of him jumping naked onto so many faceless bodies, like an obsessive rodeo rider, deeply unsettling. So far she’d spent most of her time in LA holed up at Nancy’s cottage, working on her designs, or running around town with Perry, sourcing interesting interiors for Flawless. She hadn’t really been exposed to the other side of life here—to Jake’s LA, with its bed-hopping, its conspicuous consumption, its all-around trashiness glinting like a fake diamond beneath the ever-shining sun. This was the side she’d dreaded back in London, when she’d thought about making the move. Was it really possible to live in Sodom and Gomorrah, amid so much that she disapproved of—and not just to live here, but to sell diamonds to the richest of the rich—and not become tainted herself, infected with the same morality-eating virus that seemed to have struck down everybody else?
Nancy had managed it. And most of Nancy’s friends, struggling screenwriters making ends meet as waitresses or part-time tarot readers in Topanga, convinced that their stay in LA was temporary, even after decades stuck here, trying to get a break.
Is that what would happen to her? Would she get sucked in to the black hole of LA life, telling herself year after year that she’d move back to London soon, right after the next sale/store opening/ad campaign? The thought made her shiver.
“You cold, sweetie?” Nancy, a breath of fresh air among all these overdone women in hot pants and jeweled flip-flops slipped an arm around Scarlett’s waist. With Scarlett in heels and her in flats, the height difference between them was even more comical. “Hey, I could be your ventriloquist’s dummy!” she laughed, self-deprecatingly, gazing up at her friend. “Then you could say whatever you wanted to Jake and his harem and blame it all on me. It’s going well though, isn’t it? Perry’s selling up a storm to Barbie and her husband.”
“So I hear,” said Scarlett, laughing herself. The wicked green cocktail was at last starting to work its magic, and she did feel more relaxed.
“Shame there aren’t any decent single men hanging around,” said Nancy, scanning the sea of couples as best she could from her low vantage point. “Whoa, scratch that. Jake Gyllenhaal lookalike, two o’clock.”
“Where?” said Scarlett idly.
“Over there!” whispered Nancy. “Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God. He’s coming over!”
Scarlett felt her heart leap, twirl around, then plunge back into the pit of her stomach in a complicated corkscrew motion, as if it were trying to take gold in the Olympic high dive. There, making his way toward her in a simple dark suit, a smile as wide as the Mississippi plastered across his face, was Magnus.
“Hello, stranger,” he beamed, taking her in his arms and kissing her directly on the mouth before she had a chance to protest. “Did you miss me?”
“Not in the least,” lied Scarlett, crossly. Really, married people had no business being such good kissers. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I came to see you, of course.” Magnus looked hurt. “I know it’s been months. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
“Oh, don’t give me that pout,” seethed Scarlett. “You lied to me.”
“What…when?” he frowned.
“What do you mean, when? We’ve only ever seen each other once. At Drumfernly, of course, when we had our ‘one-night stand,’ as you so charmingly put it at the time. The night you conveniently forgot to mention that you were married.”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes,” said Scarlett caustically. “That.”
“Look, I know what it must look like,” said Magnus. “But honestly, Carole and I have been living apart for over two years now—”
“Save it,” said Scarlett, wishing she didn’t still want him so much, even after all this time.
“Hello, handsome.” Nancy, with her usual impeccable timing, inserted herself between Scarlett and Magnus, unconsciously thrusting her ample chest in Magnus’s general direction. “I’m Nancy, Scarlett’s best friend. But I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I’d betray her without a second thought if you felt like sleeping with me. And you are?”
Magnus roared with laughter, and offered her his hand.
“Magnus,” he said, still not taking his eyes from Scarlett’s. “Is this the part where you tell me that you’ve already heard a lot about me?”
“Oh, I have,” said Nancy, grinning. “None of it repeatable in public, unfortunately. It’s rude not to tell a girl you’re married before you seduce her, you know.”
“Jesus, I am not married, OK?”
“So you’re divorced?” shot back Scarlett.
“Well, no. Not yet. Not officially…” stammered Magnus.
“Don’t worry about her,” said Nancy, seeing his face fall as Scarlett swept off into the crowd to mingle, shooting him a scathing look as she went. “She’s punishing you, that’s all. Which you fully deserve. She’ll get over it.”
“I hope she gets over it sometime this evening,” said Magnus ruefully. “I was kinda relying on staying at her place. So much for surprising her on her big nig
ht.”
Across the room, Jake was deep in conversation with the producer of NBC’s latest hit legal drama when he caught sight of Scarlett storming off from the good-looking giant in the dark-gray suit.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” he asked. The producer stopped in his monologue, realizing that Jake hadn’t taken in a word.
Suit guy was whispering with Nancy now, thick as thieves. He obviously knew Scarlett well, and from his confident stance and body language, you could see instantly that he was full of himself. Jake found himself fighting an urge to wipe the smile off his face by strangling him with his blue-and-white Harvard tie.
“Never mind,” said the producer crossly, stalking off. Six months ago he was struggling to pay the mortgage on his exwife’s four-bedroom in the valley, but now he had a hit show on his hands he expected the world to stop when he spoke. He wasn’t about to hang around for some two-bit diamond dealer to notice him.
Meanwhile Magnus had moved away from Nancy and was scanning the room for Scarlett when he was surprised by a forceful tap on the shoulder.
“Hi,” said Jake coldly. “I’m Jake Meyer, Scarlett’s business partner. And you are?”
“Magnus Hartz.” Magnus smiled, revealing a mouthful of expensive dentistry to rival Jake’s own. “Scarlett and I are old friends.”
“Really?” said Jake. “Because I couldn’t help but notice she seemed less than thrilled to see you. May I see your invitation?”
“All right, look, I don’t want any trouble,” said Magnus, his smile fading in the face of Jake’s naked hostility. “I came here to surprise Scarlett.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve done that now. So if you don’t have an invitation, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“This is ridiculous!” said Magnus. “Half of these people don’t have invites. It’s a store opening, not a wedding reception, for heaven’s sake.”
“Out!” Jake pointed imperiously to the door.
“Listen, you little shit,” said Magnus, finally losing his temper. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken to Scarlett. Scarlett!” He shouted over the heads of the other guests, determined to get her attention.
In the middle of a discussion with a client about the latest Amnesty report on Russian diamond mines, Scarlett was in no hurry to respond. OK, so Magnus was divine beyond words, and probably only very faintly married, but if he thought he was going to swoop in and sweep her off her feet…
“Erm, it looks like your friend is in some trouble,” said the client, gently. “You might want to get over there.”
Turning around, Scarlett clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. For there was Jake, his face beet-red with exertion, physically dragging Magnus to the door while a gaggle of amused spectators looked on.
“Let go of me! Let go, you fucking thug.” Although a good six inches shorter than he was, Jake was as strong as a pit bull and just as determined. Unused to physical fights—he didn’t think he’d punched anyone since school—Magnus was no match for him and could do little more than yell as he was ignominiously ejected from the store, thrown onto the street like a sack of garbage.
“Stop it! Stop!” Scarlett arrived just in time to see Magnus sprawl out onto the sidewalk amid a barrage of camera flashes. “What are you doing?” she turned on Jake. “Have you lost your mind?”
“He refused to go quietly,” said Jake, dusting off his suit and restraightening his tie like a gangster in a movie. “I asked him nicely, didn’t I, Perry?”
He looked to the store manager for support, but the poor man was too overwhelmed with delight, seeing his crush get so unexpectedly physical, he could barely get a word out.
“He left me no choice.”
“I could have you arrested for assault,” seethed Magnus. On his feet now, he dabbed at his cut cheek with a Brooks Brothers linen handkerchief.
“Up yours,” said Jake firmly. “You were trespassing.”
“Of course he wasn’t trespassing, you Neanderthal,” said Nancy, who’d emerged from the store and now stood by Scarlett’s side.
“Stay out of this,” snapped Jake. “Nobody asked you.”
“He’s a friend of Scarlett’s,” she shot back, undeterred. “Tell him, Scar.”
“That’s right,” said Scarlett. Seeing Magnus’s bleeding face, the nurse in her took over and she began to tend to him, examining the wound with her fingertips. “He flew in from Seattle to surprise me.”
Seizing the moment, Magnus pressed her fingers to his mouth and kissed them.
It was no good. Married or not, liar or not, she’d missed him like hell.
“I’m sorry about Jake. Are you all right?” she asked gently.
“Fine,” he whispered. “Listen, Scarlett, about my divorce…”
“Shhh,” she said, stroking his cheek. “You can tell me later. Let me deal with this first, OK?”
Jake looked, as his mother would have said, as if he’d lost a cow and found a chicken. If his hope had been to get rid of Magnus and score some macho points with Scarlett, the strategy had backfired terribly. He should have known she’d automatically be attracted to the bird with the broken wing.
“You’re a disgrace,” she scolded him.
“I’m a disgrace? Great,” said Jake. “So that’s all the thanks I get for trying to protect you, is it?”
“Protect me?” Scarlett frowned. “Protect me from what exactly?”
“Undesirables,” said Jake, glowering at Magnus.
“I’d hardly call him that,” muttered Nancy, not quite under her breath.
“Like Mr. Seattle here. What exactly is it you do in Seattle, Marcus?”
“It’s Magnus,” said Magnus coolly. “And I’m an attorney.”
Jake gave a derisory laugh. “What a surprise.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Magnus.
“Nothing.” Jake gave an innocent shrug. “It means it doesn’t surprise me, that’s all. You look like a lawyer.”
And you look like a pimp, thought Magnus, eyeing Jake’s flamboyant shirt and perma-tan with ill-concealed distaste. But he bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted was to get back to fisticuffs and make himself look like a dick in front of Scarlett.
“Next time you find yourself on the wrong side of the law, call me.” He smiled, handing Jake his card. “My specialty is human rights cases. But I’d be glad to make an exception. Any friend of Scarlett’s is a friend of mine,” he added, sardonically.
Jake, furious at the implication that he was both a lawbreaker (true, but not the point) and the sort of person who might, in a month of Sundays, require the help of a loser like Magnus, searched in vain for a suitably withering comeback. But one too many cocktails seemed to have played havoc with his linguistic skills, and nothing came to him.
“I think I’m going to go,” said Scarlett, whose hand seemed to have found its way into Magnus’s quite of its own accord. “I’m pretty sure I’ve spoken to everyone here at least once, and people are starting to leave already.” She nodded toward the steady trickle of revelers making their way out the door. “Magnus and I need to talk.”
“You are joking?” said Jake. “What if someone else decides to buy? What d’you want me to tell them?”
“I thought you said Perry could handle that side of things?” said Scarlett.
“Not on his own,” said Jake indignantly. Had he said that? Why the fuck had he said that? “You’re the designer. You’re the one I dragged all these clients out to see. You can’t bail on your own fucking launch party.”
Seeing her hesitate, Magnus saw another chance to play the good guy.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I can wait. We’ve got all night, after all,” he added, shooting Jake a meaningful, triumphant glance. It was obvious the guy liked her—why else would he be playing the jealous lover to such a ludicrous degree? Serve him right to have to imagine them in bed together, the violent little so-and-so.
“OK,” said Sc
arlett, hugging him gratefully. “I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Catch you later,” said Magnus to Jake, slipping his arm casually around the small of Scarlett’s back as they strolled back into the party. Jake bit down on his tongue so hard it bled.
“Pretty girl, your partner. Screwed her yet?”
Jake spun around. Terrific. That was all he needed.
“Fuck off, Tyler,” he snarled.
Tyler Brett, his hated rival, stood behind him with a girl on each arm, one of whom Jake could have sworn he recognized. Was she a porn actress from one of his Vivid Video productions? In a cream jacket and jeans, with his newly dyed black hair gleaming and a cigar clamped between twenty thousand dollars’ worth of Hollywood White porcelain veneers, Tyler looked oilier than a tinned sardine and a lot less palatable.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ I guess?” he smiled smugly. “Not into the old rebel type, huh? Prefers the preppy type, it seems?”
Porn Girl giggled, her eyes rolling wildly. She was clearly high as a kite.
“Cheer up,” said Tyler, who was enjoying needling Jake. “Looks like she’s bailed out your business, even if you aren’t getting any pussy. Smart move, hooking yourself up with a store like this. It’s gotta beat sitting around watching me take off with half your clients. Right?”
He laughed, a weird, strangled, braying sound, like a donkey being tortured. For the second time in as many minutes, Jake felt his fists twitching. But this time he managed to restrain himself. Brett might talk a good game, but he must be feeling the heat tonight, seeing Flawless make such a resoundingly big splash on her opening night. Not even his very public altercation with Magnus could take away what they’d achieved.
“See you around, Tyler,” he said civilly, making his way back indoors. Deciding he needed a stiff drink, he made a beeline for the bar. Within minutes he was engulfed by a bevy of beautiful, eager girls. Automatically, he turned on the charm. But for once their naked adulation gave him no thrill.
Flawless Page 21
