Killer Diamonds

by Rebecca Chance

  With the same intelligent planning, Vivienne had eschewed fillers, Restylane and collagen lip implants. She had seen almost all her contemporaries fall victim to temptation, and it seemed that once they started down the filler route they could never stop. It was a slope so slippery it might have been greased with pints of oil. Even Jane Fonda, who had on the whole been sensible with her facial surgeries, was baring her shoulders in evening dresses at seventy-seven and dieting herself to an extreme of thinness that Vivienne found both unflattering and dangerous.

  ‘Twenty-six?’ she said, leaning to look closely at Christine. ‘You take good care of your skin. And you have young features. You’ll age well.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Christine flushed. She didn’t particularly like her round face and snub nose, but Vivienne was right: they did make her look more youthful.

  ‘You find Tor attractive,’ Vivienne said, sipping her own cappuccino.

  It wasn’t a question, so Christine remained silent, wondering where the conversation was going. They were breakfasting in Vivienne’s suite: since Vivienne Winter could not be expected to go down to the buffet, the buffet was, literally, brought to her. In all her meetings with the uber-rich, Christine had never seen anything like this level of VIP treatment. Three separate serving trolleys were arranged along one side of the living room, stacked with selections of the cold cuts, smoked fish, salads, fruit, cheeses and crispbreads which were so lavishly displayed in the restaurant, just in case Vivienne might be tempted to snack on one of the offerings. Christine would not have been entirely surprised to see an omelette station set up in the far corner.

  Vivienne had asked her if she wanted eggs, as she was ordering them for herself from room service, but Christine’s stomach was churning with nerves, and she couldn’t contemplate eating anything cooked. She was also worried about not eating with sufficient elegance under Vivienne’s assessing gaze. Instead she had taken slices of cold ham and chicken, and was cutting them into small pieces that wouldn’t slip off the tines of her fork.

  ‘Tor is very attractive, of course,’ Vivienne continued, reaching out for her napkin. ‘He’s always been a charismatic boy. Wild, too, ever since he was little. He was always climbing trees and getting into scrapes and coming back with blood pouring from some wound or other. All that need to explore, strike out for points unknown! He’s never been able to settle – his wife’s certainly found that out the hard way.’

  Christine, who was politely breaking a piece of crispbread over her plate so that it wouldn’t shed any crumbs as she bit into it, heard the snap of the rye bread like a small bone cracking. A chicken wishbone, maybe. Only in this case, her desire would certainly not be coming true.

  ‘Did he tell you he was married?’ Vivienne asked, taking a black grape from the fruit bowl, contemplating it for a moment. ‘I do hope so. He can be very naughty that way. His grandfather was just the same – too charming to stick to one woman. We had a long affair, but I never dreamed that he was faithful to me.’

  She smiled naughtily.

  ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘I wasn’t either. But then, I wasn’t married most of the time.’

  She popped the grape into her mouth and chewed it, all the time watching Christine’s reaction.

  ‘Tor is very charming,’ Christine agreed, setting the crispbread pieces down on the plate.

  She had suddenly lost her appetite. The breakfast table had been placed in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the terrace, and the view was even more beautiful up here on the top floor of the hotel. She could see the whole of the little island, the sweep of the bay, the steep rise and descent of the sand dunes, the steely grey-blue of the sea and sky melting into each other at the far horizon. The sun was almost visible, its outline radiating a pale haze of light through the cloud cover.

  Christine’s gaze fell to the beach below the wooden staircase, on which, just yesterday morning, she had been capering around like an idiot – an idiot who couldn’t spot a married man who was obviously much too attractive and funny and delightful to be single. What had she been thinking? When did it ever happen that you met a gorgeous man on a beach, and he asked you out, made up songs about you and introduced you to a legendary film star, and was actually eligible to boot?

  Never. Not once. It was like something out of a film, and now Christine had bumped heavily down to earth.

  Determined not to be perceived as a fool by Vivienne, Christine used every ounce of her self-control on keeping any reaction from her face. She was desperate to look as if she had been fully aware of this information, considering Tor merely an amusing acquaintance.

  ‘We had a fun time over dinner last night,’ she said as airily as she could. ‘He sang some songs with other people in the bar.’

  This, she hoped, sounded as if they had formed a group with other diners, rather than sat tête-à-tête; certainly, she was not mentioning the fact that the songs had sprung from a private joke, and centred around her beauty.

  ‘Oh good! I’m glad you had a nice evening,’ Vivienne said, selecting another grape. ‘Tor’s so delightful, such a lovely boy. He gets on so well with women that he can’t limit himself to only one. I’m sure we both know the type very well, don’t we?’

  Despite the emotions roiling inside her, Christine could not help but be flattered at the easy way Vivienne – one of the most famous beauties of all time – included her as an equal in this observation.

  ‘Oh, yes! Great company, but not to be taken seriously,’ Christine said as lightly as she could.

  ‘Do eat something!’ Vivienne said, fluttering her fingers at Christine’s plate. ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I was always saying that to Pearl and Angel when they were little.’

  Dutifully, Christine dug her fork into a piece of ham and ate it, washing it down with a gulp of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. A seagull perched on Vivienne’s balcony, cawing loudly and making a welcome distraction for Christine. She could glance over at it, allowing the lump of misery in her throat to settle, averting her eyes from Vivienne’s all-too-knowing gaze. A knock came on the door of the suite. Moments later Gregory entered, carrying a plate topped by a stainless-steel warmer.

  ‘Your omelette, Vivienne,’ he said, setting it in front of her.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want eggs?’ Vivienne asked Christine, who shook her head, more than ever disinclined to eat. Gregory removed the warmer and himself in swift succession, vanishing into another room in the suite and closing the door behind him.

  ‘Mmm, delicious,’ Vivienne said, looking at the plate. ‘So light. Goat’s cheese and shredded leek – I must get my cook to put shredded leek in my omelettes in future.’ She picked up her fork. ‘So, I’m off to London after breakfast,’ she added, quite unexpectedly. ‘Cutting short my spa break. Angel has brought me some news that we need to . . . work through there. I’m assuming you’re based in London? No reason, of course, apart from your accent.’

  ‘I am,’ Christine said quickly, not knowing where this was going but grateful to have the conversation switched away from Tor and onto her job. ‘Although Berkeley has salerooms all over the world, of course. New York, Tokyo, Milan and Geneva.’ She had left this one for last deliberately, and she saw Vivienne give a little nod of appreciation.

  ‘And you have a detailed proposition for me, I imagine?’ Vivienne continued. ‘You haven’t just turned up with a pretty smile and pleasant social manners?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Christine said, taking a deep breath. ‘I have a whole proposal for you and your management. I’m suggesting an approach that will take in not only your iconic status as an actress, but a businesswoman with several internationally successful product lines. If we work on the sales and marketing as I’d like to, we can loop in your perfume, jewellery, even skincare brands, and incorporate them in the sale, so that we can not only derive the highest possible gain from pre-sales and the auction itself, but build your brands even further to increase your revenue with th
ose too. We’ll incorporate a wide range of social media to publicize the jewellery collection as visually as possible, linking it in with designs from your various products and also, ideally, historic photographs of you wearing them.’

  Christine hesitated, then plunged forward with the most crucial element of her pitch.

  ‘My vision would be to have the catalogue run chronologically,’ she explained. ‘Telling the whole history of your life and films through your jewel collection. My dream title for the auction would be Vivienne Winter: A Life in Jewels.’

  Did I go too far? she thought, unable to read Vivienne’s expression. Did I make it too personal? Vivienne had never agreed to an authorized memoir, despite repeated attempts by publishers to offer her millions to sit down with a ghostwriter. She might well recoil from this idea, which would inevitably have a degree of autobiography about it. Christine had done her research, known her proposal might be risky for that reason; and yet the title was so perfect, the concept so striking, that she had not been able to restrain herself from suggesting it.

  ‘I really see this as being much more than just an auction,’ she continued, almost stammering now with nerves. ‘It’s a historic moment, a celebration of your entire career. That’s how it will be seen by the media, so my thinking is to get out ahead of that, capitalize on it. Make the catalogue a celebration of all your achievements first, and a sale guide second. That way it’ll look much classier –’

  Christine caught herself, having learned from Berkeley’s posh staff members that actual upper-class people never, ever used the word ‘classy’.

  ‘Much more elegant and memorable,’ she corrected herself. ‘I want it to be a collector’s item in itself. And that will make people even more eager to bid for the jewellery. They won’t feel that we’re selling to them – they’ll feel privileged just to be able to buy, if you see what I mean! The Elizabeth Taylor jewel auction fetched nearly seventy-five million pounds. I honestly think if you let Berkeley handle yours the way I suggest, we can easily beat that figure.’

  She wound down, feeling as if she had been talking for hours. Vivienne’s poise was magnificent. She had been sitting serenely, cutting and forking up small pieces of her leek and goat’s cheese omelette, all the way through Christine’s pitch. Now that Christine had finally come to a halt, Vivienne took another bite of omelette, washed it down with a sip of ice water, reached for her cappuccino cup – and then, to Christine’s barely suppressed agony, drank from that too, her expression entirely neutral, prolonging the suspense to a point that Christine felt nervous sweat beading on her palms. She slid her hands to her lap, scrunching the linen napkin to absorb the dampness, wadding it into a tight ball that she squeezed hard to stop her begging Vivienne pathetically for her verdict.

  ‘My goodness,’ Vivienne finally said, with that superb raise of her eyebrows. ‘You’re even more efficient than I was imagining! What an excellent pitch! And you managed to get that first part out almost in one breath! I’m definitely intrigued.’

  She set down her cup.

  ‘I need to hear more about this very persuasive concept of yours,’ she continued. ‘I think you should come back to London with me today. You can break down your ideas for me in more detail on the plane.’

  Christine stared at her, speechless.

  ‘Angel will be travelling with us,’ Vivienne said. ‘Or rather, we’ll be going with him. He’s organized a private flight. I want him to work on the auction too, so it’ll be convenient for us to hear you talk about it when we’re all together.’

  She glanced at Christine’s plate.

  ‘You don’t seem very hungry. Have you finished?’

  Christine nodded mutely; she was far too worked up to have managed to eat more than those first few bites of ham. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The revelation that Tor was married, that she had been foolish enough to start falling for a man who was clearly too good to be true, had knocked her off balance. Reeling from the news that her judgement was severely flawed, she had summoned up every ounce of energy to nail her pitch to Vivienne, remember everything she had planned to say and deliver it in the right order, sounding infinitely more confident than she felt. Having succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, she suddenly felt exhausted.

  ‘Well, in that case, why don’t you pop back to your room and pack your bags?’ Vivienne suggested. ‘We’ll meet in the lobby in an hour. Gregory’s already seeing to my cases and settling the bill – which includes yours, my dear. No arguments, please, it’s a drop in the ocean to me. Take it as a tribute to your enterprise and ambition. Oh, and don’t worry about getting peckish later – there’s always plenty to eat on board private planes!’

  She favoured Christine with such a blinding smile that its recipient was grateful she was still sitting down; if she had been standing, she was sure her knees would have buckled even more hopelessly than they had in the bar the night before. Vivienne Winter was paying her hotel bill, inviting her to travel on her private plane and talk in detail about her ideas for the auction! It was unbelievable, a dream come true! Christine needed to assign Tor firmly to the past tense, where he belonged, and concentrate on the blessed, miraculous fact that she had achieved the unthinkable: convincing Vivienne Winter to seriously consider Berkeley for her jewel auction.

  ‘I hope,’ Vivienne said as Christine stood up to follow her instructions, ‘this is going to be the start of a simply delightful . . .’

  She paused for a moment, choosing the right word.

  ‘Relationship,’ she finished.

  And for a split second – so fast that Christine was sure, afterwards, that she must have imagined it – one of Vivienne’s eyelids flickered down and up again, her lips quirking as she executed the tiniest and most subtle of winks.

  Chapter Ten

  London – very late the same day

  ‘She wants what?’ Nicole demanded furiously. ‘I don’t believe this! Are you fucking kidding me?’

  ‘It all happened so fast!’ Angel said, practically giggling. ‘It’s a whirlwind romance!’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Nicole had her hands on her hips. ‘You go away for one night and come back practically engaged?’

  ‘Hey, hey, let’s not put the cart before the horse,’ Angel said, walking over to the lavish built-in wet bar of his living room. ‘Shall I mix us a nightcap? I’m feeling rather celebratory! What about a Negroni? Sweet but bitter at the same time. That should suit the mood you seem to be in, darling.’

  ‘I’m just . . .’ Nicole searched for the right word to sum up her emotions, and after a while, found it in vocabulary picked up from a fellow student at the Chateau, the son of an East End entrepreneur. ‘Gobsmacked,’ she finished.

  ‘Well, you look fantastic,’ Angel said, meeting her eyes appreciatively in the mirror behind the bar, then running his gaze up and down her body. Nicole was clad in a clinging red silk negligee that lifted her small, perfect breasts and presented them to the viewer as if they were miniature vanilla cupcakes in crimson wrappers; over it she wore a matching silk robe, trimmed and sashed with deep burgundy silk velvet. Her feet were bare, and her pedicure was immaculate.

  ‘Love the nail colour,’ Angel observed.

  ‘The colour’s called “Coca-Cola”,’ Nicole said, tilting one hand from side to side so he could see the red glitter inside the black polish, the same shade as her toenails. ‘Clever, isn’t it?’

  ‘Charming,’ he said as he reached for the gin and Campari. ‘The whole ensemble.’

  ‘I’ll really miss Honkers,’ Nicole said, sighing. ‘All my clothes are custom-made, you know? I designed a lot of things, or had them copied from pictures. The tailors there can do anything, anything at all. And the material’s the best in the world. Everything I have on is copied from a La Perla catalogue, customized for me. And look! The colour goes with my stripes!’

  Swivelling round, she lifted the hems of her negligee and robe, showing off the marks from the caning Angel had
laid on her the day before.

  ‘Mmm, sexy,’ he purred. ‘You must take a look at the bite marks you made on my bum. I think those are coming along nicely too.’

  ‘We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, darling? Like peas in a pod,’ Nicole cooed, letting the silk fabric fall. Gliding forward, she picked up the ice tongs and dropped ice cubes into the two lowball glasses in which Angel was mixing their Negronis.

  ‘Nicole,’ Angel said, and there was a rapier point to his voice now. ‘Let’s not play the betrayed wife game, shall we? Before you came back into my life so agreeably a couple of days ago, we hadn’t seen each other in years.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m not jealous!’ Nicole said airily, taking the heavy-based glass from Angel’s hand, swirling the sunset-coloured liquid, making the ice cubes clink. ‘I just don’t want to be cut out of the deal! I brought this to you, after all – you must admit that. You wouldn’t even have known about the auction if it weren’t for me.’

  ‘I don’t quite see the issue . . .’ Angel began, strolling over to the built-in window seat with its view over Knightsbridge and, in the distance, Hyde Park. He lounged elegantly on the dark grey suede cushions.

  ‘This isolates me from the centre of things!’ she protested.

  ‘But Nicole, the whole idea was that I was going to be the liaison with Viv, while you had the contacts with Silantra and Big Cookie,’ Angel said, taking a long drink of his cocktail and smacking his lips together in relief as the alcohol hit his bloodstream. ‘I don’t see how this changes anything.’

  Nicole ignored Angel’s play on Lil’ Biscuit’s name. ‘Because now Vivienne’s going to have you chained to the side of this auction girl!’ she said petulantly. ‘That wasn’t the idea at all!’

  ‘Not all the time,’ Angel said patiently. ‘I have to have my “radiation treatments” and recoup from them, remember? There’ll be plenty of time with all my “doctor’s appointments” for our fiendish plotting. And fun times. Lovely fun times.’ He winked.