Beauty

by Louise Mensch

  Then back inside – to receive congratulations, show off her rock. And then he’d have the chauffeur drive them a little way to their cottage. It was all laid out and ready: heated, warm, champagne on ice in a silver bucket on the kitchen island, a fire crackling in the grate in the living room, fresh silk sheets on the engagement bed. Dina Kane would fall asleep to the sound of the ocean in the distance, knowing that, in the morning, she would wake up as chatelaine of all Ludo owned. She could swim in the pool, eat a breakfast of strawberries and fresh-baked croissants, and then he’d broach the fact she was stepping down from Torch.

  He needed a wife, not a rival, and it was time for her to break from all that stress. Besides, men in his position kept the family. The wives didn’t work. Not ever.

  ‘You’re completely sure you have stuff at the house?’ Dina said, now, breaking into his thoughts.

  ‘Toothbrush, clean underwear, ten different outfits, sports gear . . .’ Ludo ticked them off. ‘Believe me, I have it all. Right down to your favourite perfume. Jo Malone, right? Pear and Freesia.’

  Dina actually laughed. ‘Wow! Very good. I’ll just grab my coat, then.’

  ‘Me too; I’m ready.’ He stood up and walked to the door.

  It was a crisp spring night, still cool. Summer would be here soon, and it was an excellent time for a drive.

  Edward Johnson was enjoying himself behind the wheel.

  Things were rolling his way. His mother, wracked with grief, had been packed off to a health farm in the Florida Keys, part of an exclusive resort, where she could have sun, water, a bunch of well-paid fakers to get her in touch with her spiritual self, and be guaranteed to meet absolutely nobody she knew.

  It was a dry resort. Edward didn’t want her diving back into the vodka bottle. After all, he loved her. He’d killed for her.

  Once again, his mind drifted back to the delicious memories. The shrieking call at seven fifteen the next morning. His mother, hysterical. His careful call to the family doctor, to see ‘if anything could be done’. The police interview; the way the detectives trampled through the house, his mother sobbing, Edward frantically trying to comfort her.

  But it was all good. The prints on the pill bottle were perfect. The alcohol and clonazepam in Philippe’s blood had induced a coma, sleep apnoea; he’d just gone under, stopped breathing.

  ‘It’s such a goddamned tragedy. I had no idea he would mix them up. He was drunk . . . I didn’t think he was that drunk,’ Edward said, shaking his head. ‘I blame myself.’

  The detectives wanted to blame him, too, but he came up clean. All that wedding planning, the first-class tickets on his credit card. The staff, his mother’s friends . . . so many witnesses to the bonhomie, to the habit of knocking back aspirin after a night on the sauce.

  It was death by misadventure. Edward loved that. He read the coroner’s report again and again. As he organised the simple and elegant funeral – Philippe, as a successful gigolo and con man, had no family and no real friends – Edward felt the most incredible surge of power. He hadn’t fucked this up. The threat to his money, his dignity, was dead. Edward had killed him, and he’d got away with it, scot-free. The whole episode was gloriously pleasurable and, for a while, he went back to banging whores, not hitting them. It was like the monkey had been lifted off his back, and he was whole again.

  ‘I’m finished,’ Penelope sobbed at the crematorium. She buried her head into Edward’s shoulder. ‘Oh God! I can’t bear it. All those women coming around. I can’t take it; I don’t want to see them.’ She shuddered and started to hyperventilate. ‘I’m panicking, Edward; I’m going to have a panic attack.’

  ‘Here.’ He pressed her hand and gave her a clonazepam. It was thrilling to medicate his mother with the same pills he’d used to kill her lover. ‘Take this, quickly. Now breathe deep. It’ll work soon – you know it will. Fill your lungs; hold your breath. Great, Mom. Exhale . . . Exhale . . .’

  Her panics had returned. She was a mess; wholly dependent. It was a week’s work to persuade her to give him full power of attorney. Edward drew up papers, lots of them. There were the ones giving him controlling shares in the family trust. The change of her will, to name him as the sole beneficiary. The irrevocable trust set up to place half her wealth in Edward’s hands. His name was added to the deed on the family house. Penelope was in no condition to fight. She was desperately, pathetically grateful that Edward would take care of ‘business things’, as she put it. And he doled out what she needed: drugs and a flight out to someplace warm, where her days would be regimented and she wouldn’t have to think.

  Edward was happy to spend big money on it. He wanted Penelope out of his hair, and wanted to be able to show any court that he had done the best by his mother, in case they challenged things down the line.

  Once her plane departed, he got to work. He let go of all the domestic staff, one by one. They had all seen too much, and he was the master of the house now. Some of them cried and wept, but Edward was implacable; there was severance, a handshake and he was done.

  ‘I’m not my father, Ronald. I don’t need a valet.’

  ‘Mrs Johnson will be living very simply when she returns, Lia. She prefers to be alone.’

  ‘We will be using a cleaning service.’

  ‘But, Mr Edward, I keep house for you twenty years,’ Consuela sobbed. ‘Is all I know. My family . . .’

  ‘I will give you an excellent reference.’ Edward patted her hands. ‘And four months’ pay. We all have to move on. You can find another household; I’m sure of it.’

  ‘But not like this. Oh, por favor, did you speak to Mrs Johnson, Mr Edward . . . ?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and nor will you. We never did get your immigration status sorted, did we?’ he asked, silkily. ‘Four months is generous; you have plenty of time to find good employment elsewhere. And you will need my word for that.’

  She got the message. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you; gracias for the four months.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Edward said, nobly, and of course it really wasn’t.

  Once they were gone, he hired the decorators. Every old piece of art was catalogued and sold. His parents’ fussy French style was gutted from the house; simple, modern masculinity went in. There was to be nothing that reminded him of either one of them. The father who had destroyed them; the mother who had betrayed him: he didn’t know whom he despised more. When Penelope returned, she would be living elsewhere, in a small, chic apartment more suitable for an older woman.

  Like the one he had left.

  Edward cleared house. The money from the art more than paid for the redecoration, and left two million dollars in the trust account. He put seven hundred grand aside for his mother’s modest retirement, and kept the rest for himself. All of a sudden, his little office in midtown hummed with real activity. Now Edward was managing his own money, he suddenly cared – cared hugely.

  The brokers were summoned. This time, they all came to him. Edward was treated to slides and presentations and talks on wealth management over coffee at the Four Seasons.

  ‘I want the highest income,’ he told them. ‘Screw growth. This is my time to have fun.’

  ‘Very good. Yes, sir.’

  He started to dress well, to drink less. He made a few calls to those old school friends he hated so much, the ones that walked away after Dina Kane’s stunt, and invited them round for dinner.

  It was his house now. They came; money talks.

  Edward circulated, careful of his image. No violence, no drugs, no loose women. He wanted to take a leaf from the book of poor, dead Philippe. Taking his mother’s money was a piece of cake. Next, he wanted a wife that could cement things: an heiress with a fortune of her own.

  Why work? That was for suckers.

  A girl who was loaded would reset his personal clock. Once he had her married and pregnant, and tied up with an unbreakable prenup, it would be time to step back into the life he should always have led. The life he was leading before th
at bitch, Dina Kane, ruined everything.

  You could blame her for Philippe; she split the family.

  Blame her for beating those sluts; she drove him to it.

  Blame her for his stupid, broken mother, and her stupid betrayal; Dina had put a wedge between them all.

  Blame her for his father’s pathetic attempt to grasp back his youth, to run from his past.

  Edward was doing just fine. But he did not forgive, and he did not forget.

  Philippe Leclerc found that out the hard way. Dina Kane was about to do so, as well. An eye for an eye, sugar.

  Edward smiled, and put his foot on the gas.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘How do I look?’ Susan asked.

  She spun before him, and the hem of her dress flared out. It was a stately sheath in azure velvet, strapless, that flattered her ample bosom, lifted and firmed after breast-feeding the boys. Around her neck she wore a filigree necklace of white diamonds and platinum, shaped like a leaf, and he could see some sort of jewelled slippers peeking out from under her hem.

  ‘You look great,’ Gaines answered. It was certainly dramatic. He supposed, if she was going strong on the make-up, this was the way to complement it.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ She came over, swishing as she walked, and kissed the air at the side of his cheek, so as not to disrupt her make-up.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Gaines said. He didn’t know if he was dreading this, or longing for it. Only that it had to be done.

  Ludo held his hand out mutely, the wind from the chopper blades whipping round his coat and jacket. It was no use talking; the roar of the helicopter was too loud. Dina stepped out carefully, one hand on her head, steadying that up-do against the torrent of air; her coat lifted behind her like a cloak and her skirt moved deliciously up those legs. Goddamn! Those calves in old-fashioned silk stockings . . . the ladder to paradise, to those firm, milky thighs above them. He got a stir just looking at them.

  He tugged her along, off the helipad and down the steps to where their chauffeur was waiting, hired for the night. It didn’t pay to keep one in the Hamptons, but maybe in the future, once his shares in Torch were worth more, maybe double, he could upgrade the house . . . A bigger place, a proper estate, with a servant’s quarters and a cook/driver to live in, year round. Everything on tap.

  For now, though, he kept a Mercedes at the cottage, and this guy was from a decent service. He touched his cap and held open the door for them. As it shut behind him, he saw Dina fixing her hair, smoothing herself down; she was so pretty, so simple. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and she squeezed his hand.

  ‘You know the address.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the driver said. The limousine purred off into the darkness, the low lights of the Hamptons houses all around them, so different from Manhattan’s endless neon towers. He was really looking forward to this.

  ‘Who’s going to be there . . . ? I mean, that we know?’

  Ludo smiled. ‘Not my parents. They went back to LA. I know a few people from the tennis club. There’s Paul Turman and his wife, Mindy, and Luke Herlihy with Sophia, and I think my friend Emmett Lewis is coming along. Oh, and Joel and Susan Gaines; you’ve met Joel, haven’t you? So that’s at least one person you know yourself. Roxana Felix is a friend of my father’s. As is her rock-star husband.’ He looked over at her. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone all tense.’

  Dina was sitting bolt upright, rigid, staring straight ahead. Underneath her perfect, light make-up, she had paled.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing wrong.’

  ‘What? You’ve fallen out with Gaines? Or you just feel overwhelmed? Come on, baby, you can eat all these people for breakfast back at the office. I know you can handle a social setting. They’re our neighbours. And, besides, Joel Gaines is big business, major league. Much bigger even than my father. He could buy and sell us all a hundred times over.’

  ‘I . . . I know that. It just might be a little awkward.’

  ‘I can’t afford for you to fall out with someone so powerful. His wife is a main mover in everything social round here. So be nice, OK?’

  Dina swallowed hard. ‘Fine. OK. I expect it’ll be a big party.’

  ‘It will, but I want to get us introduced. Anyway, didn’t he call my dad about you? That’s why you got hired.’

  ‘Yes, I . . . he did. It was before we fell out.’

  ‘Over what? He was making eyes at you or something?’

  She blushed deeply. ‘No! Of course not. I was just angry that he made so much money on Meadow – my cream. I only got half a million for it, you know. He . . . he ripped me off.’

  That wasn’t true, wasn’t anything like true. But what could she say? She was so embarrassed at his casual joke. Making eyes . . . She had made them at Joel, and he’d told her to go jump in a lake. And now she had to see him again, here, tonight, with his wife.

  Dina tried to collect herself. Come on, she would have to face him some time. Why not now? And see the woman he belonged to. And always would. She felt a moment of real thankfulness for Ludo, felt her ambivalence vanish; he was here beside her, her partner, boyfriend, whatever; she was with a man of her own, so she wouldn’t look like some desperate bunny-boiling freak. Gratefully, she reached out and squeezed his arm. He wasn’t muscular like Joel, but he was hers, he was there.

  Perhaps she wanted too much, and this was real love. That sick, squirmy, sexual feeling she got with Joel couldn’t be love; that was obsession . . . imagination. They hadn’t ever even made love. Most couples weren’t crazy about each other, right? They were fond of each other. Friends . . .

  ‘Well, that’s all forgotten now. Right? Promise me you’ll be nice.’ Joel squeezed her hand. ‘This is a special night for me. I don’t want anything to ruin it.’

  ‘I’ll be nice,’ Dina managed. ‘He probably won’t even remember me.’

  The mansion was incredible. Flaming torches were stacked across the wide sweep of the drive; lit candles, sunk into the lawn; the soaring modern architecture of the grand, thirty-million-dollar beach house was breathtaking. Dina clutched Ludo’s arm as they fell in line with younger girls wearing Gucci, Prada, Prabal Gurung – all haute couture – and older women in St. John and fussy clouds of silk and taffeta.

  The jewels all around her flashed and sparkled like strings of fairy lights. Dina had never seen such a concentration of wealth and power. Even as they waited to go in, party staff wearing chic light-green dresses or tailored suits hovered around them with flutes of vintage champagne, pink and white, and trays of hors d’oeuvres that looked meltingly delicious: tiny chunks of real honeycomb pierced with white Cheshire cheese, little paper flutes of home-made French fries, tiny quiches, little pear tartlets, caviar and chopped egg on whole-wheat blinis, and everything clever in between.

  ‘Dina! This is Malcolm Bruce, the director . . .’

  ‘Oh. Hi. I loved Marianne . . .’

  ‘And you know Solomon Perry, the banker? And his wife, Sarah.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘And here’s Jake Carter, the best tort litigator on the East Coast . . .’

  One after another, Ludo hit her with them: actresses, models, hedge-fund guys, a defence contractor, an award-winning architect. These were the rich people and, she realised as she looked at the women, those pretty enough to hang out with them: the plus ones. You were either a wife with a string of pearls the size of gulls’ eggs and a smug look of adoration for your husband, or a jittery model type, nervous and hoping to get lucky.

  At least it kept her busy. Dina was shaking hands and smiling, and coming up with quick one-liners, fast enough to make her head spin. But that was good – she could see Ludo glowing – it was as if she were back on opening day at Torch, with all the beauty bloggers and the new customers pushing and shoving and trying to buy every product she could put out there.

  And the girls, those eager girls who all looked at her, with Ludo on her arm, so enviously – it made her want to laugh – b
ut they actually did a double take, and wanted to speak to her.

  ‘Wait – Dina Kane?’

  ‘You started Meadow cream, right?’

  ‘You brought in the Dr Lowe stuff to Torch. I kill for that cleanser! It’s the only place you can get it outside of London! Wow! I love you.’

  ‘Don’t actually kill for a cleanser,’ Dina joked. ‘But thank you.’

  The redhead was beanpole tall and lean, with that clear Irish skin, a dusting of freckles, and Dina could see that she was flawless.

  ‘In my line of work, it’s the most vital thing there is,’ the girl gushed. ‘They make you up, like, every day. And it all has to come off. I can’t afford a zit. You have the best stuff that works. Oh my God. Dina Kane.’

  ‘I know, right?’ asked a brunette, sidling up to her. ‘I’m Erin Lanster. They made me up at Torch and, like, my boyfriend proposed that night at dinner.’

  ‘I really don’t think one thing happened because of the other, but I’m so glad you liked it . . .’

  ‘Who did your make-up tonight?’ asked a blonde. ‘Can I get her number?’

  ‘Uh, that was me.’

  ‘Oh my God! Like, wow.’

  Ludo laughed, delighted. He’d been in the middle of a crowd of girls like this, but never had their attention been focused on anything else. A crew of pretty chicks paying homage to his woman; he felt more secure than ever in his choice.

  ‘Excuse us, ladies; I have to take Dina to meet our hostess.’

  He extricated her and steered her into the centre of the vast room, with a huge fire blazing in a two-sided chimney. There was the sight of the sea, lit up from the enormous open windows, just in front of the stretch of private beach.

  ‘Roxana? I’m Ludo Morgan.’

  He introduced himself to a tall, stunning older woman with long, dark hair, wearing a gorgeous tailored evening pantsuit in silk, and teetering heels. Chandelier earrings hung from her lobes, and she looked as wild as a gypsy.