Do Not Disturb (49 page)

A few days after Lucas’s lunch in Paris, Honor ducked into the East Hampton market, grateful for the blast of warm air that enveloped her as she slipped through the automatic doors.

“Good grief, it’s cold out there!” She smiled at the checkout girl, who smiled back. “Can you believe it’s still only October?”

“Gonna be below freezing tonight, they said on the radio,” said the girl. “Better bundle up.”

Honor shivered at the thought. With the electrics at Palmers now on their very last legs—“borrowed time” was how the last
engineer to inspect the system had described it—she’d been trying to use the central heating as little as possible in the public areas, relying instead on open fires. Happily, the guests all much preferred this arrangement, but if this cold snap continued she’d need more than pine logs to keep out the chill.

Unfortunately, time wasn’t the only thing that Honor had borrowed recently, in her increasingly desperate attempts to shore up the hotel. The scandals of three years ago had hit the business hard, and she was now remortgaged up to the hilt. New hotels like the Herrick could get away with a high guest turnover and expected to see different faces around the poolside every season. But Palmers relied on her regulars, families who returned to the hotel like clockwork every summer and Christmas. When they started defecting, as they did in droves after Tina’s sex tape, Palmers’ profits went into free fall. Thanks to a relentless and bravely fought rearguard action, Honor had managed gradually to claw some of these deserters back. But it was a long and arduous process, and in the meantime Anton was pouring money into the Herrick like Croesus, funding ever more indulgent facilities—an Olympic-size mud bath was his latest folly—making it harder and harder for her or anyone to compete. How could Palmers not look tired and shabby when up the hill Petra was offering diamond-dust facials and eight-handed massage in his-and-hers Polynesian love-pools, whatever the hell they were.

Things had been tough for Honor on the personal front too. Her affair with Devon, not to mention Tina’s sex-and-drugs shame, had shaken sleepy East Hampton to its judgmental, Republican core. Only now, three years later, was Honor finally beginning to be accepted again.

A number of circumstances had conspired to help ease her back into the social fold. Firstly, Devon had rented out his Hamptons summer home and decamped to Boston for good, so he and Karis weren’t around to remind people of what had happened. Last Honor heard, they were still together and (outwardly,
at least) happy. They’d even bought a new place on Martha’s Vineyard, where Devon was apparently already busy reinventing himself as a local politician and general all-around good guy. Good luck to him. Thankfully, his wannabe-Kennedy fantasies weren’t Honor’s problem anymore.

Secondly, Palmers was visibly struggling, and everybody loved an underdog, particularly a homegrown one. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly from Honor’s point of view, there was the Petra factor.

Whatever she might have told the
Robb Report
, the Herrick’s new manager was in fact universally loathed by the locals. Many of the older generation were simply anti-Russian: the “poor Ron Reagan would be spinning in his grave,” “once a commie, always a commie” brigade. But even the younger, more broad-minded Hamptonites rapidly took against Petra’s frosty, regal bearing, not to mention her complete disregard for the local community and its wishes.

She’d made things worse at one of the few local events she’d deigned to attend—a charity auction on behalf of the Make-A-Wish foundation—by refusing to join Honor in auctioning herself off to local businessmen as a double date.

“Come on, Ms. Kamalski.” Walt Cannon, the rotund, sweet-natured former mayor who was organizing the event tried to egg her on. “It’s just for fun. And remember, it’s all for the kids in the end.”

“I’ve already made a donation,” said Petra haughtily. “A generous one, I might add. I’m afraid prostituting myself to men I don’t know is not my idea of fun, Mr. Cannon. I’ll leave that sort of thing to Miss Palmer.”

From that remark on, it was open war between Honor and Petra, and the town knew whose side it was on. With the Wicked Witch of the West installed up the street, it was inevitable that Honor would eventually be reinstated as Dorothy, albeit a morally tainted one. Her new, more feminine style helped too. It was
so much easier to feel protective toward a woman who looked like a woman and not a K.D. Lang–alike who might pull a jackknife on you at any moment.

Unfortunately, it would take a lot more than local goodwill to save Palmers. Honor could no longer afford to keep topping up the hotel’s coffers from the family trust, especially not now that she had interest to pay on the whopping new mortgage. Lise, her wicked stepmonster, had successfully sued Trey’s estate last year for a bigger payout, swanning off to the Bahamas with her new tennis instructor boyfriend and a chunk of Honor and Tina’s inheritance. The judge must have fallen for her sob story. Either that or her gravity-defying new boob job, which Lise had displayed in court to great effect in a low-cut Roland Mouret dress. (Black, of course. She was mourning, after all.)

Anyway, the point was that the black widow had won. Meanwhile Tina was still spending what was left of the family money like water, despite the fact that she was now earning millions in her own right. The dubious celebrity she’d earned from the sex tape had translated into modeling and endorsement deals up the wazoo. Only in America, right? But none of that money made its way to Palmers.

To make matters worse, no sooner had the money started rolling in than Tina got herself hooked up with a pseudoreligious group called The Path. A bunch of former hippies and con artists, they were happy to relieve her of the burden of her wealth in return for “speerchal” enlightenment, LA style. So while Tina continued to pay extortionate rent on a Holmby Hills penthouse she never used, she now spent most of her time at one of The Path’s “wellness centers” in Santa Fe.

The last time Honor had called her there, she’d been stoned out of her mind.

“You know,” she mumbled drowsily down the phone, “you really need to reconnect to your well.”

“My
well
?” Honor sighed.

“Sure. Your energy well. We all have a pool of positive energy deep within us that we draw on, that we need to grow. Like flowers,” Tina added helpfully. “I’m sensing a lot of negativity from you right now, Honor. Your well is drying up.”

“Listen, Tomasina Cruise,” said Honor. “The only well drying up around here is the Bank of America well. That’s looking pretty fucking parched right now. We have to talk about your spending, T. How much money are you giving these wackos, exactly?”

“Spiritual growth can’t be measured in dollars and cents,” said Tina, in the new, serene voice she’d affected recently, which she thought projected inner peace and Honor thought made her sound retarded.

“I couldn’t agree more,” she said robustly. “So go ask your guru for your money back. What does he need it for? More incense sticks?”

But she may as well have been speaking Martian. Tina wouldn’t give an inch. Nor did she give a rat’s ass about Honor’s problems bailing out Palmers.

Turning into the organic produce aisle, Honor threw a few essentials into her shopping cart—milk, whole wheat bread, recycled toilet paper. Suddenly seized by a very nonorganic craving for Oreo cookies, she was about to make a U-turn to the junk food section when she overheard something that made her stop in her tracks.

“If he does open here, I’m definitely applying.”

Honor recognized the voice of the Herrick’s maître d’.

“Careful,” said his friend. “Walls have ears. I wouldn’t put it past Petra to have bugs in the supermarket. KG Bitch.”

They both laughed.

“But I wouldn’t bank on Lucas being any easier a boss. All the old staff say he could be a real hard-ass when he ran the Herrick.”

“He was never as bad as Kamalski,” said the maître d’. “He only yelled at you when you’d fucked up. I can handle that.
Besides, it’d be worth a few ear bashings to work at Luxe. Those hotels are gonna be the new Tischens, you mark my words.”

Honor, who was marking his words, edged closer to the shelf, moving aside some packets of lentils so she could hear them more clearly without being seen.

Surely Lucas couldn’t be planning to open a Luxe here?

No, no. It was a European brand. And East Hampton would be the last place Lucas would want to return to. Wouldn’t it? They must be mistaken.

“Well if you go, I’m going,” said the maître d’s friend. “I can’t take much more of that snake pit. I’ve even thought about moving to Palmers.”

The maître d’ laughed. “Forget it. They’ll be bust in six months.” Honor flushed red. Was that what everyone thought? That they were finished already?

“We’ll just have to hope Ruiz doesn’t lose his nerve,” the maître d’ went on. “I don’t mind admitting, I wouldn’t wanna take Petra on head-to-head. The woman scares the living shit out of me.”

They moved on toward the cash register at that point, out of Honor’s earshot. She was itching to follow them, but there was no way to do it without being spotted. And as soon as they saw her, they’d clam up, so there was no point.

Grabbing a packet of Oreos on autopilot, her mind raced as she ran over the significance of what she’d just heard.

Of course, it was only gossip. But she knew from experience that hotel gossip was usually accurate. And they’d both sounded horribly specific about the details.

Lucas was planning to open another Luxe here, in the Hamptons. She tried to imagine worse news. But short of nuclear war, a direct meteorite hit on Palmers, or Devon Carter being elected president, she couldn’t think of anything.

How could he? After what he’d done to her, betraying her in the worst way possible, how could he have the balls to even
contemplate showing his face in this town, never mind setting up shop here with one of his damn stupid, overhyped Luxes? God, how she hated that name. It sounded like a fricking soap.

Like everyone else in the business, Honor had read reams of copy about Lucas’s famed comeback. Unlike everybody else, however, her heart wasn’t remotely warmed by his rags-to-riches story. What kind of karma was it that allowed assholes like him to bounce back from ruin like a pinball, while decent, hardworking people like her got to sit in a shower of shit that never seemed to end?

If there was a God, she decided, he was definitely a man.

As for the whole Luxe phenomenon, she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. A bunch of candles and lavender oil and a few velvet cushions. That was the big concept, as far as she could tell. Big hairy wow. Like no one had ever done boudoir chic before.

“Are you OK?” The girl at the checkout looked concerned, and Honor realized with embarrassment that she’d been mumbling out loud. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

The two Herrick workers had gone, and she was once again the only customer in the store. Listening to the lonely
beep, beep
of the scanner as her items passed through it one by one, she thought about Lucas. In her mind, his handsome, arrogant face was laughing at her.

“
You
couldn’t beat Anton Tisch,” he seemed to be saying. “But I’m gonna show you how it’s done.”

Outside, weighed down with groceries, she drew her chunky-knit cardigan more tightly around her against the bitter wind.

She couldn’t let him have the last laugh. Not this time. She’d have to come up with some sort of plan.

A week later, Anton arrived back in London in excellent spirits.

He’d spent the last week at St. Hubert’s, an exclusive private clinic in Switzerland, having his Botox secretly touched up and
was highly satisfied with the results. St. Hubert’s no TV, Internet, or phones policy was a pain in the ass, but the cosmetic surgeons there were such artists, it was worth the inconvenience once a year.

Marching through terminal three at Heathrow while his chauffeur struggled on ahead with the luggage, he allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. Life was pretty damn good right now. Excelsior had had a fantastic write-up in last week’s
Wall Street Journal
—the European Superfund, they were calling it now, much to his delight. Ben Slater’s Stellar Fund had barely rated a two-line name check.

It particularly amused him how no one in the city could fathom how he’d managed to poach quite so many of Stellar’s clients over the past eighteen months. As if it weren’t patently obvious. He might have gone out of his way to distance himself socially from the Azerbaijani oligarchs to whom he owed most of his vast fortune, but that didn’t mean he was above accepting their money. They were all the same, these Slavs and Russians and Central Asians: sheep. Born followers. Not like the Germans or the British, or even the Americans. Now that a select few of them had come into such phenomenal personal wealth, they were still following one another blindly, investing in the same funds, the same cities, the same yachts, the same property deals. All Anton had to do was to massage a few of his old contacts and land one or two big fish for Excelsior, and the rest of them had jumped on the gravy train like lambs to the slaughter.