Do Not Disturb

by Bagshawe, Tilly

  For his part, Ben didn’t think he’d ever met someone with as much energy and ambition and lust for life as Lucas. After the mind-numbing tedium of his business trip, being in Lucas’s company was like being jolted back to life with a cattle prod—only funnier. They laughed all the time, about Petra and Ben’s hopeless love life and the fat Swiss matrons in their bright-pink jumpsuits, wiggling their hippo-like rear ends down the bunny slopes. By the time Lucas finally returned to Lausanne and Ben boarded his private jet back to London, both of them nursing hangovers worthy of a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records, a lasting friendship had been forged. For a loner like Lucas, this was a seismic event in his life and, though they didn’t see much of each other for the next few years, he never lost the feeling that in Ben he had gained a new brother.

  Those carefree days in Murren with Ben felt like light-years ago now. Jumping onto the bus for Ibiza Town, Lucas sank gratefully into a vacant seat and began to get his breath back. He flattered himself that he was still fit, but there was no doubt that the adrenaline involved in putting distance between himself and a potentially murderous, cuckolded husband took a lot more out of him than an hour on the treadmill.

  Still, Carla was definitely worth it. She always had been. And a summer of exciting extramarital sex was the very least he owed her after everything she’d done for him.

  As the rickety blue bus wound its way down into town, he could see the tan-tiled roof of the guesthouse where he was staying. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was clean and the service was friendly. Certainly it was a world away from the dreaded Britannia.

  He’d already come a long way. He knew he ought to feel happy, coming back home triumphant after graduating top in his MBA class. But in fact he felt more anxious than he had in Lausanne before his finals. Part of it was nervousness about his upcoming interviews in London. He was applying for jobs at a number of hotels there, but the one he really wanted—a junior management position at the world-famous Tischen Cadogan in Chelsea—was going to be very hotly contested. Candidates with a lot more experience than he had were sure to be applying. And yet he knew, he just knew, that he could do a better job than any of them, if only he were given the chance.

  But it wasn’t just work that was bothering him. Yesterday he’d been to see his mother.

  It was only the second time Lucas had been back since the day he’d stormed out at fifteen. The first time was after he got accepted at EHL four years ago, and that had been so uncomfortable he’d been in no hurry to repeat the experience. He and his stepfather had hovered in the same room, barely acknowledging each other’s presence, as awkward and stilted as teenage lovers at their first dance. Their mutual loathing hung in the air like the stench of rotting meat, but the only way to break the tension would have been through violence, a step neither man wanted to take.

  It wasn’t that Lucas didn’t miss his mom and brothers, or that he’d stopped loving them. Far from it. But the pain of watching Ines wasting her life and continuing to take abuse from that monster Jose was more than he could bear. Instead he’d salved his conscience by writing and sending money. Even back in the Britannia days, when he could barely afford a stamp, he made sure to save something each week for his mother. Inevitably, though, the distance between them took its toll.

  He hadn’t realized quite how irrevocably his life had diverged from the rest of his family’s until yesterday. Thankfully this time his stepfather was not around when Lucas turned up at the house. But that was all there was to be thankful for.

  The house itself was even more dirty and dilapidated than he remembered it.

  “Jesus, Mama,” he said, looking around him in horror at the grimy windows, crumbling woodwork, and broken furniture. “What did you do with the money I sent you last month?”

  Ines shrugged. “Your father took it. He had to pay some bills.”

  Had to buy some more whiskey, you mean, thought Lucas bitterly. The lines around his mother’s mouth and etched-in deep grooves along her forehead spoke of a lifetime of hardship—hardship that could have been avoided, if only she’d had the courage to come with him, to break away. She was only forty, but she looked twenty years older at least and so fucking defeated it made him want to scream.

  “And what about Paco? He’s earning, isn’t he? Or Domingo. Why aren’t they contributing?”

  The two older boys were eighteen and twenty now and still lived at home. It was a disgrace that they’d let the place sink into such squalor.

  Ines gave a short, bitter laugh. “Your brothers? Since when do they help me? Paco’s girlfriend is pregnant, nearly six months now. All his money goes to her.”

  Lucas shook his head. Fucking idiot kid. How hard was it to use a condom?

  “And Domingo, he’s just like his father. Drinking.” She picked up an empty beer bottle from the table and threw it onto the overflowing trash.

  Sighing, Lucas rolled up his sleeves and set about tidying the place up. He’d wanted so badly to talk to his mom—really talk—about his life in Switzerland and London and his plans for the future. But he realized now how futile that would be. There was nothing about his world or his friends that Ines would understand. Nothing at all. The education that had liberated him had also driven a wedge between the two of them that made communication impossible. He may as well have been talking Urdu.

  By the time he left, the house was at least clean, and the flowers he’d brought his mother added a tiny touch of color and joy to the otherwise cheerless kitchen. That had made her smile, as had the rolled-up wad of bills he’d pressed into her hand despite her protests and made her promise to hide from Jose.

  Even so, when they said their good-byes, Lucas drove straight down to the first dive bar he could find and drank until he could hardly stand. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so depressed in his life.

  “Ibiza Town!” The bus driver’s voice jolted him back into the present.

  “Everybody off, please.”

  Wearily, Lucas got to his feet and staggered down the steps into the harbor. It was after two now, and the early afternoon sun beat down on his head remorselessly, reawakening the hangover that his tryst with Carla had made him temporarily forget.

  He’d go back to the guesthouse and sleep. And then tomorrow he’d look into booking himself onto an earlier flight to London. Summer in Ibiza had seemed like a great idea when he was back in Lausanne. But now that he’d done his duty by the lovely Mrs. Leon, he realized there was nothing left here for him to stay for.

  The Tischen Cadogan. That was the future.

  And as far as Lucas Ruiz was concerned, the future was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER AN UNPLEASANTLY humid and muggy start to the summer, July brought a welcome still, dry heat into Boston that was already starting to turn the city’s leaves a glorious pale gold. Like most college towns, Boston sank into a weird sort of suspended animation during the summer. The sedate flow of the Charles was no longer disturbed by rowdy rowing squads every morning, and America’s gilded youth with their armfuls of books suddenly vanished into the ether, replaced by flocks of summer tourists who crawled all over Newbury Street with their cameras and fanny packs like so many heat-exhausted ants.

  With the students gone, city gossip shifted from academic backstabbing and faculty affairs to the comings and goings of the great old Boston families. Gossip, Honor had often thought, was Boston’s lifeblood, and this past summer it had been her family’s turn to provide the civic entertainment. Everyone who was anyone in Boston society had an opinion about Trey Palmer losing control of the family assets to his headstrong elder daughter. Most of them, Honor was all too uncomfortably aware, seemed to have decided that she was the villain of the piece.

  “Do you still prefer to wait, Miss Palmer, or would you like to order an appetizer now?”

  The waiter hovered awkwardly by Honor’s table, waiting for a response. He looked barely old enough to have left high school and seemed to suffer agon
ies of embarrassment every time she looked him in the eye. Beautiful women clearly made him nervous, poor kid.

  “I guess I’ll order,” she sighed, glancing again at the understated antique man’s watch on her wrist. “Fucking Tina,” she added under her breath.

  She ought to have gotten used to her sister’s lateness by now, but somehow it still pissed her off every time. How come she, with a vast business empire to run and a schedule so rammed with work it made the president’s look lightweight, could manage to show up to lunch on time; but Tina, who appeared to do nothing but paint her nails all day and get her picture taken, was incapable of getting her shit together?

  What made it worse was that they were meeting today at Tina’s request. She was demanding an astronomical raise in her monthly allowance from the trust, which Honor had flatly refused to authorize. But Tina wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  A commotion out on the restaurant terrace made Honor look up. A small gaggle of kids, college boys by the look of them, had pushed their way through the tables and were fighting with each other trying to get pictures on their cell phones, much to the annoyance of the alfresco diners.

  “Step back now, please.” A booming male voice rang out through the melee. “No pictures. Let Miss Palmer through.”

  Honor put her head in her hands. Why did her sister always, always have to make a scene?

  Dressed utterly inappropriately for the formal restaurant in a tiny pair of white shorts and pink tank top, Tina was strutting through the throng, accompanied by a suited black man not much smaller than a rhino.

  “Hi,” she said breathlessly, reaching Honor’s table at last but sitting down only once she was sure that all eyes in the room were on her.

  “Sorry about that. Ever since I hooked up with Danny I can’t seem to go anywhere without, you know,” she waved regally at the gaggle of boys outside, “all this shit.”

  “Is Godzilla staying for lunch?” Honor asked frostily, nodding at the black giant who stood looming over them, arms folded, like a sentinel. “Because if so, you can eat on your own.”

  “He’s my security,” Tina pouted. “I need him.”

  Seeing Honor pushing her chair back to leave, she reluctantly relented.

  “Oh, all right then. Mike,” she turned to the heavy, “you’d better go wait in the car. I won’t be long.”

  Once he’d gone and the furor in the restaurant had finally died down, Honor let her have it: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.

  “What do you mean?” Tina feigned innocence. It wasn’t a look that suited her.

  “Turning up here looking like Christina fucking Aguilera,” said Honor. “Courting publicity like some cheap starlet. You promised me you’d cut it out, at least until I make some progress with Palmers. You know how conservative our clientele are—what’s left of them,” she added ruefully. “Everything this family does reflects on the business.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” said Tina, looking bored. “Change the record, would you? Martini,” she added, barking at the waiter without looking up.

  “And you’re late,” said Honor. Her green cat’s eyes were flashing with irritation, and her knuckles were white from where she’d been clenching her napkin so tightly. But other than that she betrayed no outward sign of her fraying patience. Unlike Tina, she had always preferred to keep her inner feelings private. Even at school, kids used to tease her that the “C” of her initials—actually “Constance” in Honor C. Palmer—stood for “Control.”

  “I’m late because people kept stopping me for pictures,” said Tina. “And I’m not courting publicity, thank you very much. I can’t help it if people find my life exciting or think I’m a sex symbol or whatever, can I? That’s the way life is when you’re a famous actress.”

  Honor bit her lip. The arrogance was breathtaking.

  “Tina, you’ve done two commercials. That doesn’t make you a famous actress.”

  “It makes me an actress,” Tina shot back. “And dating Danny’s made me famous. Whether you like it or not.”

  Ah, yes. Danny.

  Danny Carlucci, officially a local real estate entrepreneur, was in fact a well-known mafioso, tapped by those in the know as the likely future boss of Massachusetts. He was pushing sixty, heavily overweight, and already had a wife, two grown sons, and a legion of grandchildren. He was also Tina Palmer’s latest lover.

  “We need to talk about that, too,” Honor whispered. “It’s got to stop.”

  Tina’s martini arrived at the same time as Honor’s sparkling water. Taking their drinks, they both ordered salads—Tina was on a diet and Honor seemed to have suddenly lost her appetite. It was a few minutes before either of them spoke again.

  “I’m open to it. Breaking it off with Danny, I mean,” said Tina, taking the olive out of her drink and pulling it in and out of her mouth slowly, like a porn star.

  “Really?” Honor was surprised. She hadn’t expected her to give in so easily.

  “Sure,” said Tina. “If I can afford to, that is. Danny pays for a lot of my shit right now. And he’s been talking about setting me up in my own place in LA. I really need to be there now, for my work.” Oh, so that was the deal. Blackmail. She’d drop the mobster if Honor upped her cash. It was such vintage Tina, it actually made her smile.

  “How much?”

  Tina looked blank.

  “How much for you to drop Danny and move to the West Coast?” Honor clarified.

  “Well, LA’s not cheap,” said Tina, downing the last of her cocktail and immediately scanning the room for the waiter to order another. “And I’d have to live in Holmby Hills, obviously.”

  “Oh, obviously,” said Honor, rolling her eyes. Holmby was by far the most expensive neighborhood in the city, outpricing homes in next-door Beverly Hills by almost three to one. “So. How much?”

  “Forty-five a month,” said Tina.

  Honor choked on her water. “Forty-five thousand? Dollars?” she spluttered. “A month? Jesus, Tina. Do you understand the financial hole Dad’s gotten us into? Palmers is losing money every day. Every fucking day.”

  “Fine.” Tina shrugged as her salad arrived and started attacking it with gusto. “So I’ll stick with Danny. He can pay. Or I’ll move to New York. See what turns up there. I am willing to compromise, you know, Honor. I don’t know why you always make me out to be this, like, unreasonable bitch.”

  A move to New York was Honor’s absolute worst nightmare, and Tina knew it. It was bad enough having her sister all over the gossip columns in Boston. But at least Boston was insular, a tiny social world unto itself. Once Tina started flashing her underwear and flaunting her underworld sugar daddies on the New York club scene, it was only a matter of time before the bad press went national.

  Honor was flying out to the Hamptons herself next week, and when she did she wanted Tina to be as far away as possible. For the last month she’d been holed up with the accountants in Boston, poring over Palmers’ depressing P and L and trying to figure out a plan of action. But the time had come to see the hotel’s problems for herself. She was dreading it.

  “Fine,” she said, waving at the waiter for the check, although she hadn’t touched her own food. “You win. I’ll sign off on forty-five thousand.”

  “Good.” Tina positively beamed with triumph.

  “But I want you on a plane to LA by the end of the week. And the very first whisper I hear about you and that slimeball Carlucci…” Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet. “The money stops like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Are we clear?”

  “Sure,” said Tina. Having gotten what she wanted, she was more than willing to be accommodating. “I’ll get the check here, don’t worry. And hey, good luck with the hotel next week, OK?”

  “I don’t need luck, Tina,” said Honor drily. “At this point I need a miracle.”

  Slipping on her sunglasses, she strode out of the restaurant.

  Sitting in the ba
ck of a blacked-out limo five days later, Honor tried again to focus on the papers in front of her. On the top was a spreadsheet of all the Palmers staff and their monthly wages. Normally she was brilliant with figures, but today for some reason the numbers swirled around her head like the pink elephants in Dumbo, and she couldn’t concentrate.

  Giving up, she gazed out the window instead. They were almost at Southampton now, and she could still feel a faint echo of her childhood excitement as the familiar landmarks rolled past: The Boxfarm Inn; the roadside cherry stall that had been there since Honor was a tiny kid and looked completely unchanged; the hollow tree where she and Tina used to play hide-and-seek.

  Honor hadn’t been back here in almost seven years, not since she first started college, and already she was regretting her long absence. Despite everything, the Hamptons still felt like home.

  Not that today was likely to be much of a homecoming. Though she feigned indifference, the spiteful whispers about her “conning” Trey out of Palmers and “stealing” her inheritance had left her deeply wounded and insecure about the reception she’d receive. She was also acutely aware that most of the industry shared her father’s view that she was far too young and inexperienced to turn around the failing hotel. They’d written both her and Palmers off, and beneath all the spiky bravado, Honor worried herself sick that they might be right.

  She’d deliberately decided to show up unexpected a day early so that Whit Hammond, Palmers’ dilettante manager for the past decade, wouldn’t have a chance to get too prepared. However bad things had gotten at the hotel, she needed to see the reality, not the edited, Sunday-best version.