Adored (28 page)

Max raised one eyebrow at her knowingly. She was slightly bland-looking, long blond hair, very regular features, but undeniably an extremely sexy girl. Perhaps his hangover was starting to dissipate after all.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” butted in the girl’s friend rudely, pointedly turning her back on Max. Like most models, she had no tolerance for flirtation unless it was directed toward herself. “I’ve never understood what all the fuss was about. As far as I’m concerned she’s short and she’s fat. It’s a mystery to me what men see in her.”

“I know,” said the blonde. “Zane says he thinks it’s because she looks so slutty and available.”

“Not a bad look,” muttered Max under his breath.

At that moment, a gap appeared in the crowd and he found himself looking, albeit from a fifty-foot distance, directly at Siena.

The first thing he noticed was that she looked nothing like any of the other women in the room. Dressed conservatively in immaculately cut white palazzo pants and a crimson silk shirt that displayed only the slightest hint of her famous creamy-white cleavage, she radiated confidence and sex appeal, smiling and air-kissing her way through each new group of admirers.

The thick mass of dark curls was exactly as he’d remembered, as was the pronounced and incongruously demure dimple in her chin, a chin that still jutted arrogantly upward toward every man who came to worship at the altar of her beauty.

Because whatever other, jealous girls might say, there could be absolutely no doubt that Siena was beautiful. Magnetically, terrifyingly beautiful.

Holy shit, thought Max. She could light up the whole of Park Avenue with that charisma. It was like magic.

Try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“I loved your
Vanity Fair
pictures,” a chiseled, Armani-suited clone was gushing as he approached her. “So brave. So raw.”

Oh please, thought Siena. She hoped Ines was right and there were men other than models at this party. Despite the fact that she had lived and worked among New York’s modeling fraternity for the past two years, her inanity threshold remained perilously low. If there was one thing she had no tolerance for, it was pretty, stupid men.

“You make me sound like a carrot,” she said rudely, looking past him in search of someone, anyone, more interesting.

At first she couldn’t quite place him. At the back of the room, an enormous, powerful-looking blond man, dressed like a hobo, was staring straight at her. Siena was used to being looked at, but something about the intensity of this man’s gaze left her stomach churning. He was definitely handsome, like a trawlerman who’d gotten very lost and somehow wound up in a Manhattan loft surrounded by a bunch of spoiled, rich bankers and their beautiful toys.

And yet, he did look familiar.

It was only when she started walking toward him, and he stood up to greet her, that the penny dropped.

No. It couldn’t be. Siena froze in her tracks.

“Hello, Siena,” said Max, towering over her like a Roman statue. “Long time no see.”

She could hear her heart pounding and felt a torrent of conflicting emotions raging through her.

Max De Seville! How could Max De Seville be here? Just seeing his face and hearing his voice transported her back in an instant to Hancock Park and the earliest, happiest days of her childhood. Suddenly, she was no longer the world-famous model, envied, desired, and in control. She was a seven-year-old girl, being ignored and dismissed by Hunter’s twelve-year-old best friend, and ordered out of their tree house.

Ridiculously, she found her old resentment of Max, always her rival for Hunter’s affections, flooding back, as though the last eleven years had never happened. But fighting with the resentment was enormous curiosity, combined with another, more unsettling feeling that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

She wished he would stop staring at her like that.

“Max.” She smiled thinly and extended a perfectly manicured hand. “What a nice surprise.”

Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. Max instantly bristled. So that was the way she wanted to play it? Well, if she thought she was going to come the supermodel diva with him, she had another think coming.

He shook her hand. “Isn’t it? I hardly recognized you at first, actually. Must have been all those clothes you’re wearing.”

Despite herself, Siena blushed. That was fifteen-love to Max. “Yes,” she said, “I have this thing about dressing appropriately for social occasions.” She allowed her eye to wander disapprovingly over his threadbare sweater and dirty jeans. “But I see that’s not one of your priorities.”

Fifteen-all.

Max took a deep breath. He was determined not to let the little bitch provoke him. “How are you enjoying the modeling?” he asked.

“Oh, you know.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s a means to an end. Of course, the money’s fabulous. But I’m going to be doing a lot more acting in the future.”

“Oh really?” said Max with a sly smile. “What have you done so far?”

Was the bastard laughing at her?

“Other than make millions, you mean?” she snapped, wishing he didn’t make her feel so defensive. Max raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “A couple of indie films,” she said eventually, “some music videos, that kinda thing. I have some very interesting scripts I’m looking at right now,” she lied. “But I can’t really talk about it yet. What about you?”

“I’m a director,” said Max, feeling very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“Is that so?” said Siena. Like her grandfather, she could smell weakness like a shark smelled blood and instinctively moved in for the kill. “Of what? How come I’ve never heard of you?”

Max struggled to think of a comeback. “I don’t do mainstream Hollywood shit,” he said lamely.

“Oh, I see,” said Siena. “Yes, I can see from your clothes that you must have sacrificed a
lot
for your artistic integrity.”

The fucking snide little bitch. How dare she? “Well, lovely as it’s been, Siena”—he smiled down at her with a self-control he was justly proud of—“I don’t think I’ll be staying to see the New Year in, so I’m afraid you must excuse me.” He put down his empty glass on a side table and turned to go. “I’ll tell Hunter you said hello.”

At the mention of Hunter’s name, Siena felt her knees give way and reached out instinctively to the arm of the sofa for support. Her head had started to spin and her mouth went dry with panic. Max was still in touch with Hunter? She watched, paralyzed, as his back receded into the throng. Oh God, she couldn’t let him leave.

“Max, wait!” she called out, more loudly and anxiously than she had intended, so that a cluster of revelers nearby turned around and stared at her.

Reluctantly, Max stopped and turned.

“Do you . . .” she began, obviously struggling to find the words. If she weren’t such a vain, selfish little madam, Max thought, he might almost have felt sorry for her. “I mean, are you and Hunter still friends, then?”

“Of course,” he said harshly. He knew it must hurt her to know that his relationship with Hunter had survived when hers had not. But she was so beautiful and confident and successful, so damn perfect, at that moment he wanted to hurt her. “Actually, we live together in Santa Monica,” he twisted the knife. “Have done for the last three years.”

“Oh.” She looked completely lost at this piece of news, so much that he instantly began to regret having told her. He should have just let it lie.

“Look, I should be going.”

“Oh no, Max, please, don’t go,” she pleaded, grabbing his arm.

He looked at her panicked face and saw a flicker of vulnerability that instinctively made him want to put his arms around her, as he had done all those years ago when she’d fallen out of the tree house and he’d thought for one awful moment that she might have been killed.

But he stopped himself. What was the point? She was so fucked up and obviously emotionally damaged. It would be like trying to pet a porcupine.

“Does he ever talk about me?” she asked.

He knew how much it had cost her to ask the question, and softened slightly. “He did,” he said, not unkindly. “But he doesn’t anymore.”

“Well, sure.” Siena shrugged in a failed attempt at nonchalance, desperately trying to fix her mask of self-confidence back in place. “I mean, it’s been, what, ten years? That’s a lot of water under the bridge.”

“Yeah,” said Max. “I guess it is.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been so rude before. Just tell Hunter I said hi, or whatever.” She tossed her mane of hair and gave a practiced, professional fifty-megawatt smile, a signal, he assumed, that the conversation was over and she was ready to get back to the business of receiving more male attention.

“I will,” said Max. Suddenly he was longing to get away from her, away from everybody.

He strode through the party without looking back or stopping to say goodbye to any of his friends, even Jerry. Bolting into the elevator as though he were fleeing for his life, he fidgeted impatiently until he reached the lobby and then ran out into the street.

Leaning back against the cold brickwork of Jerry’s building, he paused for a moment to savor the cold night air and the relative quiet and stillness of the city.

Goddammit. Why had Siena made him feel like such a piece of shit?

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was only a minute till midnight. Within a few seconds, he started to hear cheers and shouts, bell ringing, and the honking of horns as the city began to welcome in another New Year. He thought briefly of Angela and wondered if she and her boyfriend—of course she had a boyfriend—were enjoying a lingering New Year’s kiss somewhere out there. He guessed they were.

As he headed in the direction of his hotel, his head still throbbing from a renewed burst of hangover, a wave of loneliness and exhaustion hit him like a ton of lead. He thought of Henry and Muffy back in Batcombe, and of Hunter and Tiffany, no doubt wrapped in each other’s arms at the beach house. He’d never been much for relationships, not really. But tonight he wished to God he had someone to hold on to.

Bitterly, he thought of Siena, still holding court upstairs at the party like the perfect, spoiled goddess she seemed to have become, while he stood exhausted, hungover, alone, and freezing his ass off out on the street. What was he even doing here? He had no job to speak of, no money, and no girlfriend. No wonder Siena had put him down. His life was like one long bad joke.

Roll on, 2002.

Things could only get better.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Uptown in Beverly Hills a couple of weeks later, Max and Hunter were tucked away in the prestigious corner table at the Brasserie Blanc. Hunter had already been pestered by three fans before they’d ordered their appetizers. He refused to wear sunglasses or a baseball cap indoors like so many other celebrities, on the very sensible grounds that it didn’t fool anybody anyway and made you look like a self-important jerk. But unfortunately, this gave people the impression that he was always approachable.

He put up with the endless intrusions on his privacy with typical good humor. But Max found going out with him in public increasingly trying.

“So come on then, buddy, spill the beans,” said Hunter after signing yet another autograph for a middle-aged tourist from Ohio and sending her joyously on her way with a kiss on the cheek. “How was New York? Tell me more about your meeting with Alex McFadden.”

“There’s nothing more to tell, I’m afraid,” said Max gloomily. “He was a very nice chap, very complimentary about my film and so forth, but he’s a Broadway man. I simply don’t have enough theater experience to play in that league.”

“I thought you’d done lots of Shakespeare and all that in London?” said Hunter.

Max loved the way Hunter referred to anything written before 1950 as “Shakespeare and all that.”

“Some, not lots,” he said. “Not enough, evidently. But let’s not talk about my work, it’s too depressing. What’s been going on here while I’ve been gone?”

“Not much,” said Hunter. “Tiff and I went up to Big Bear, which was pretty cool. Four whole days to ourselves, no work, no distractions, no nothing. I can’t remember the last time we had that much time alone.”

“Well, it suits you,” said Max, smiling at the dopey, besotted expression that had spread across his best friend’s face. Just talking about Tiffany sent him gaga. It was cute.

They both took a big slug of California Merlot.

“Never mind me, though,” said Hunter. “Fill me in on
your
romantic adventures. How many girls did you sleep with in New York, huh? Three? Four? How long were you there again?” he added with a knowing grin.

“Two weeks,” said Max, pretending to look affronted as he snapped a bread stick in half and began nibbling at it. “And I only slept with one, thank you very much.” His mind wandered happily back to the night he’d spent with Angela.

“Look at you!” Hunter laughed. “Like a kid with a fistful of candy. So? Are you gonna see her again?”

“Nope,” said Max, stuffing the rest of the bread stick into his mouth all at once.

The waitress arrived with a plate of carpaccio for Hunter and a big bowl of deep-fried squid for Max, who was starting to feel like the invisible man, watching the girl fawning and simpering and fluttering her eyelashes at Hunter, utterly oblivious to his own presence at the table.

“So, what else happened in New York?” asked Hunter after a few mouthfuls of delicious raw beef. Max normally couldn’t stop talking whenever he got back from a trip, regaling Hunter with one funny story after another, never-ending tales of one-night stands, all-night parties, and every little step he’d taken toward that ever elusive big break. He’d been unusually reticent tonight. “How was your New Year’s Eve?”

It was the question Max had been dreading. He ought to have called Hunter from New York and told him about his encounter with Siena right away. Now, almost two weeks after the event, he found himself unsure where, or even if, to begin.

“It was good,” he said, uncertainly. “It was fine.”

“What’s with all this ‘good,’ ‘fine’ shit?” asked Hunter. “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you aren’t telling me?”

Max cleared his throat nervously. There was no way around it. “I ran into someone in New York,” he said at last. “At Jerry’s party.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Hunter. “Who?”

Max hesitated, looking from Hunter to his plate, then back again before blurting it out. “Siena.”

He hadn’t known exactly how Hunter would react to the news; whether he would be shocked and numb or just confused and upset. But nothing had prepared him for the look of pure, unadulterated delight that swept across his friend’s face.

“Siena?” He leaned forward and grabbed Max by the shoulders, as though he were about to kiss him passionately. “Are you kidding me? You actually saw her? Did you speak to her?”

“Sure,” said Max. “Only for a couple of minutes, though. We said hello.”

He wasn’t about to let on to Hunter that she’d actually been as self-centered and arrogant as he could ever remember her, and that he couldn’t wait to escape and get away from her.

“Did she ask about me?” asked Hunter.

Max lit up a cigarette, ignoring the loud complaints from nearby diners. “Yes,” he said, cagily.

“Come on, man, don’t keep me in suspense,” said Hunter, releasing Max’s lapels only when the smoke started getting in his eyes. “What did she say?”

“Well . . .” Max hesitated, flicking ash awkwardly onto his side plate. “She asked how you were, and I said you were fine.”

“What else?” demanded Hunter.

“She asked if you ever talked about her,” said Max. “I told her that you used to, after Duke died, but that you didn’t anymore.”

“Why the fuck did you say that?” Hunter shouted, flinging his napkin down angrily on the table.

The whole restaurant turned to stare at them.

“Because it’s true,” said Max flatly, taking another long drag of his cigarette as if nothing had happened. “And don’t you start shouting at me. I’m just the hapless fucking messenger here, all right?”

Hunter relaxed. “All right. I’m sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t want her to think . . .”

“That you’ve moved on?” offered Max.

“Exactly.”

“But haven’t you though, mate?” Max persisted, risking a second outburst of Hunter’s rarely seen temper. He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and looked his best friend in the eye. “Look, you can tell me this is none of my business, if you like.”

“Thanks,” said Hunter, who was already smiling again. “This is none of your business.”

“But don’t you think you might get hurt?” persisted Max.

“By Siena?” Hunter looked genuinely surprised. “No, of course not. Why would I? Tiffany’s always going on about me getting hurt. Says I should learn to protect myself. What neither of you seem to get is that it was being
separated
from Siena that hurt. And that sure as hell wasn’t her fault. We were kids, for God’s sake.”

“I know, I know,” said Max. “I was there, remember? I’m not blaming her, Hunter. I’m just saying that it was over ten years ago, man. She’s changed. What if it’s not the same between you when you see her again? You don’t think that could hurt you?”

Hunter rubbed his eyes in disbelief. It was all too much for him to take in.

“Look,” he said, “I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. I know you and Tiffany both care about me. But I think”—he struggled to find the words—“I think that this is fate.”

Max rolled his eyes.

“Seriously,” said Hunter, willing Max to believe him. “I was just thinking about Siena in Big Bear only last week—we used to go there sometimes with the nannies when we were kids. It’s like, she was meant to come back into my life now. Do you know what I mean?”

Max shook his head. “Not really.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” said Hunter without bitterness. “I don’t think anyone really understands what Siena meant to me. What she means to me now. Not even Tiffany gets it.” He sighed. “But Max, I have to see her. Did you get her number?”

“No.” He watched Hunter’s face crumble. “But I have the name and number of her agent.”

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Hunter, who snatched at it greedily, read it, and placed it carefully into his own wallet.

“Thanks,” he said, more calmly, although the excitement in his eyes still gave him away.

“Be careful,” said Max. “I’m worried about you.”

“I know,” said Hunter. “But there’s no need to be, really. You’ve just made me the happiest man on this planet.”

“That can’t be right.”

Henry Arkell looked up from the piece of paper in front of him and rubbed his temples. He was sitting in the farm office at Batcombe, across the desk from his accountant and old school friend Nicholas Frankl. “Are you sure?”

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He always hated having to give bad news to clients, but with Henry, a close personal friend, he felt doubly like the messenger of doom. Avoiding Henry’s gaze, he glanced around him. The poky little office in the corner of the farmyard was piled floor to ceiling with clutter. Stacks of old receipts and important legal letters were strewn willy-nilly among photos of Muffy and the children, betting slips, and Christmas cards, one of which Nick saw was three years old and covered with a thick layer of dust, no doubt unmoved since the day it was opened. Perhaps if Henry made some basic attempt at filing or organization, his accounts might not be in such a desperate state? He’d been exactly the same since their school days, though—energetic, hardworking, but always terminally scatterbrained.

“Completely sure I’m afraid, old man,” he sighed. “It’s not looking good.”

“Not good?” said Henry. “It’s bloody catastrophic. According to this, I’m four hundred grand in debt, and that’s not including the back taxes. Which are how much again?”

“I don’t know exactly,” muttered Nick grimly. “At least one-fifty, possibly quite a bit more.”

Henry winced. What the fuck was he going to do? A big part of him longed to unburden himself to Muffy, for sheer comfort if not for practical advice. But somehow it had never been quite the right time to tell her that the debts were getting on top of him, and now things had gotten so bad he wouldn’t know where to begin. In the past, his tax problems had had a happy knack of working themselves out in the wash eventually, and Nick had been a genius at putting the revenue off until he’d managed to scrape together enough cash to keep the wolf from the door. But this time it wasn’t just taxes. What with the cost of diversifying the farm, the lost revenues from the mad cow crisis, which had had a knock on effect on every farmer in England, and a couple of bad investments, his interest payments to the bank alone came to over forty grand a year. Worst of all, a few months ago he had taken out a small lien against the house in an attempt to see off one of his more rabidly litigious creditors—despite having sworn to Muffy long ago that their equity in the manor would always remain sacred. She would absolutely hit the roof if—or, he supposed, when—she heard about that one.

“There must be something we can do. Some sort of stalling tactic,” he said desperately, getting up from his chair and pacing the boxlike room like a cornered cat. It was still bitterly cold outside, but a tiny dilapidated fan heater was belting out heat in the corner, making the office feel like a bread oven. “Just until we start to see the income back from the arable.”

Nick gave a gloomy shrug, as if to say “I’m not so sure.” “Maybe you should talk to Muff?”

“No. No way.” Henry held up his hand and shook his head, blotting out the awful possibility. “She can’t know about this.”

“Well, look,” said Nick, gathering up his papers and slotting them back into his neatly organized briefcase. “I can probably buy you a bit of time with the revenue. But the bank’s a different story. You’re going to have to come up with something concrete, some sort of repayment plan that you can actually deliver, or they’re going to start getting nasty.”

“All right, all right,” said Henry, ushering him out into a blast of welcome cold wind. “You deal with Johnny Taxman and I’ll work on pulling something out of the bag for the bank. I’m sure we’ll figure it out somehow.”

Nick tried to smile and wished he could share his friend’s innate optimism. He didn’t know how many other ways to tell him that his financial problems were beyond pressing and were not going to magically dissolve into the ether, however hard he wished them away. It was a bit like trying to explain to your eight-year-old that Father Christmas wasn’t real. Losing Manor Farm was, for Henry, a literally unthinkable prospect.

“But not a word to Muffy, all right?” Henry whispered, locking the office door behind him. Before Nick had a chance to answer, Muffy herself had appeared in the kitchen doorway looking flushed and triumphant, carrying a plate of what looked like freshly baked scones.

“Ready for some tea, you two? Maddie and I just made these from the new Prue Leith cookbook. What do you think?” She walked over to join them, proudly wafting the still-steaming scones under their noses until both men could feel their mouths watering. Looking at his friend’s wife, with her pretty un-made-up face, still-girlish blond hair, and trusting, playful blue eyes, Nick could totally see why Henry found it hard to confide in her about his money problems. Her trust in him was total and implicit. How could he bear to disappoint someone so utterly loving and loyal, never mind the impact it would have on the children if things got really bad. Nick just prayed that Henry was right and that somehow, between them, they would come up with something.

“Wow. They look bloody amazing,” said Henry, wrapping his arm around his wife’s waist and beaming with pride, as though he’d baked the scones himself. “You’ll stay for tea?” he said to Nick.

“No, no.” The accountant shook his head and pulled out his car keys from his inside jacket pocket, blowing on his already frozen fingers for warmth. “Thanks, but I really must be heading back to London. Lots to do,” he added, with a knowing look at Henry.

“All right, well look, thanks again for everything,” said Henry. Muffy disappeared back into the kitchen. “Let’s talk next week.”

“Fine,” said Nick. “I’ll get you some exact figures on the back taxes. But in the meantime, you might want to invest in a lottery ticket.”

Reaching into his back pocket, Henry pulled out a scrunched-up piece of pink paper and waved it at him.

Nick put his head in his hands. “That was meant to be a joke.”

“Ah, but you see, I’m way ahead of you, mate.” Henry grinned. “How’s that for financial planning, eh?”