Prima Donna (2 page)

‘You really rocked it out there tonight,’ Sophie said as she gradually tamed Pia’s hair, pulling it up into a high ponytail. ‘The Goldman Sachs table was going
bananas.’

Pia rolled her eyes. That figured.

From behind her, there was a discreet cough.

Turning, she found herself staring at an elegantly tailored back belonging to the CEO of Victoria’s Secret.

‘It’s okay. You can turn around, Mr Spence. I’m decent.’

‘What a shame,’ said another voice, from the far side of a hanging rail. A tall man stepped forward, one arm resting nonchalantly on the rail, the other in his pocket. He was wearing
Brooks Brothers’ black tie and a self-assured smile. His dark brown hair was worn long on top, and he had deep-set grey eyes and a Roman nose that looked as though it may have been broken
once. Judging by the cockiness radiating from him, Pia was quite sure he’d deserved it.

Pia raised an eyebrow and looked at Bryan Spence questioningly. His dove-white hair was offset by a mahogany Caribbean tan.

‘Please. Forgive my companion’s insolence,’ he said, bemused. ‘I hope you don’t mind our intrusion backstage. It’s just that when Mr Silk
here—’

‘Will,’ the handsome stranger offered, bowing forward like Hamlet.

‘When Will heard you weren’t staying for the auction, he offered a rather substantial sum to the charity if I would introduce you before you left.’ Mr Spence shrugged
apologetically.

Pia smiled back at him. ‘Well, seeing as it’s for the charity . . .’ She looked at Will Silk. ‘A pleasure,’ she said demurely, offering an elegant hand, every inch
the poised ballerina.

Will took it and kissed it.

Pia withdrew her hand quickly. ‘But I’m afraid I really can’t stay.’ She turned her head slightly towards Sophie, who checked her watch again.

‘Seven minutes,’ Sophie said.

Pia shrugged. ‘I have to fly.’

‘Of course,’ Bryan smiled.

‘So soon?’ Will said, astonished. He looked at Bryan. ‘That must have been the most expensive minute of my life.’

‘I did tell you.’

‘Well, never mind. We shall become better acquainted soon enough,’ he said, slipping a casual hand into his trouser pocket as he watched Pia. Sophie was tucking and spraying the last
stray tendrils into her bun.

Pia cocked her head, irked by his self-assurance on the matter.

‘Will’s going to be among the many bidders trying to win the lot for the private solo and dinner with you, Miss Soto.’

‘Trying?’ Will retorted. ‘You know me better than that, Bryan.’

Bryan Spence nodded his head, laughing. He turned to Pia. ‘Will heads up the Black Harbour hedge fund and he’s known for his . . . uh, winning streak.’

‘It’s true. I never lose,’ he shrugged.

Pia stared at him, a scowl beginning to form across her pretty features. ‘Is that so?’ she asked.

‘Five minutes,’ Sophie whispered, beginning to break into a cold sweat. This was cutting it too close. She held out Pia’s voluminous orange quilted parka and helped her into
it.

‘I’m also a patron of the Royal Ballet in London,’ he added, aware that his formidable business renown had failed to impress her. ‘Unlike most of the men who’ll be
trying to win you tonight, I do at least know the difference between a
pirouette
and a profiterole.’

‘Win
me
. . .’ she echoed quietly, before suddenly shrugging. ‘I’m just amazed we’ve never met before now.’ Sarcasm hovered above her words but too
lightly to settle.

Will tried to read her eyes but Pia looked away. She grabbed her duffel bag and shook Bryan Spence’s hand quickly. ‘It’s been a pleasure, Bryan,’ she smiled, her eyes
twinkling.

‘The pleasure has been all ours, Pia. We’re on course to raise over three-quarters of a million dollars here tonight and in a very large part that is directly due to you. So thank
you. You are truly our angel.’

Giving Will the briefest of nods, she ran lightly to the back door, turning to Sophie as she got there. She whispered in her ear and handed her the duffel bag. ‘I’ll see you back
there.’

And then she ran out into the snowy night, a woodland nymph swaddled against the New York winter.

Adam was already back on stage, when she burst in through the Met Opera’s stage door ninety seconds later.

‘Oh my God! Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea the worry you’ve caused? The panic that’s been going on?’ ranted Raymond, the stage manager, as she sat on
the ground and pulled off her snowy boots. Her shoes and costume – a diaphanous white tulle dress – were exactly where she’d asked Sophie to leave them. Quickly, Raymond spoke
into his mic. ‘It’s okay. She’s back! She’s back! Tell Ingrid she’s off the hook, and she’s Willi number four again.’

Raymond looked down at Pia. ‘Do you have
nothing
to say?’ he demanded hissily. ‘You walk out during the interval and tell no one where you’re going? It’s
been bedlam back here. We thought you’d been abducted. Old Badlands has practically had a stroke. The orchestra has had to play the overture twice, not that the audience seems to have
noticed. Oh but, please God, don’t let that bastard critic Bowles be out there tonight.’ He rocked his head dramatically in his hands. He could feel one of his migraines coming on. Why
did artistes have to be so damned . . . unpredictable?

Pia began tying the ribbons around her ankles, stretching and pointing her feet in the blocks, and resolutely ignoring him. She needed to get her muscles warm again, and immerse herself in
solitude and calm. She needed to get back into character. Giselle was weak, broken, and if Pia got into a confrontation now she’d be anything but.

Standing by the podium in the wings, hidden by the thick velvet curtain, she stretched her arms into
port de bras
, slowly unfolding a leg like a flamingo. She extended a leg, in
attitude devant
, her supporting foot flat, before raising herself effortlessly on
pointe
, moving through
la seconde
to
arrière
.

Instantly entranced and silenced, Raymond stepped back out of her orbit. And not just to let her concentrate. Getting in the way of one of her powerful legs would be like being hit in the face
with a mallet. He knew better than most the tension at the heart of ballet: brute strength cloaked in delicate fragility.

‘Okay. We’ll talk about it later, then,’ he said quietly. Right now, the show had to go on.

Pia heard the music rise, the first flute beckon, the oboes soar. She didn’t need to count the bars. The music was calling her, an irresistible pull tearing her from the shadows, drawing
her out into the limelight and back onto the stage, the only home she had ever known.

Only when she was on the stage did she realize she still had the black leg warmers on.

An hour and a half later, and for the second time that night, Pia found herself stealing out of the Met Opera before anyone could notice.

‘A secret assignation perhaps?’ Will Silk quipped, leaning against a limo.

Pia frowned at him. What was he doing here?

‘I decided that for the amount I had paid to meet you, the least Spence could do was tell me where you had escaped to,’ he explained, walking towards her. His black cashmere coat was
turned up at the collar, his hands stuffed into his pockets. ‘Starring at a charity gala midway through a performance, huh? Did your bosses even know?’

‘I guess they will tomorrow,’ she shrugged, looking down the street for her car. She needed to get away from here before Baudrand came after her. The leg-warmer gaffe wouldn’t
be easily forgiven.

‘Do you fancy that dinner now?’

‘No. I’ve got a flight to catch.’ She stared at him levelly. ‘Besides, you didn’t win.’

Will shifted, surprised. ‘How do you know? You weren’t there.’

‘I have my spies,’ she replied coolly. ‘What did it go for in the end anyway?’

Will frowned. ‘So you
don’t
know.’

‘No, I do,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I just don’t know for how much.’

Sophie came jogging up the street, Pia’s duffel banging on her shoulder. She hit an icy patch just as she reached the duo, careering past in a flurry of limbs.

Will reached out and hooked an arm gallantly around her waist.

‘Careful there,’ he grinned.

Sophie blushed. ‘Thanks.’ She looked quickly at Pia, terrified of being bawled out. ‘The car’s just coming. Sorry. It was still outside the Mandarin Oriental.
Miscommunication on my part.’ She dug into one of her pockets and handed Pia a form to sign. ‘Here. You just need to sign on the dotted line.’

Pia autographed the form just as the limo purred up to the kerb and the driver got out to open her door.

Pia nodded. ‘Two hundred and forty thousand dollars? I thought you never lost, Mr Silk.’ She gave the form back to Sophie, who in turn handed over some flight tickets.

Will stared at her, baffled. What was that she had signed? ‘Well, to be honest, I thought I could probably persuade you to have dinner with me anyway. I had already paid a similar amount
just to get backstage. My accountants would have been very displeased with me if I’d shelled out over half a million dollars just to be introduced and have dinner with you.’ He shot her
a winning smile.

‘So, you assume I can be bought, Mr Silk . . .’ Pia said slowly, her tone deliberating. He thought she sounded like a Bond Girl. ‘But that I’m only worth a certain
price.’ She looked at him coldly.

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ he said, surprised. She was unbelievably prickly. Everything he’d heard about her was true. ‘But I apologize if
I’ve caused offence, and insist that you let me make it up to you. What are you doing this weekend? Come to Europe with—’

Pia started walking away. ‘I’ve already told you I’m going away, Mr Silk,’ she said, bored by his charm offensive.

‘Anywhere nice?’ he persevered. He didn’t usually have to try this hard.

‘Given that I would now define “nice” as anywhere you’re not, then yes,’ she said rudely, stepping into the car. She just wanted to get into the mountains and ride
her raw, poor, wicked lover.

The driver shut her door and walked around the car.

Will Silk stood in the cold night and stared at the car’s blacked-out windows, which remained defiantly shut.

‘Something tells me we’ve got off on the wrong foot,’ he said with impressive understatement to Sophie, who was standing beside him, utterly mortified.

He turned to face her. ‘What is that piece of paper you’re holding anyway?’ he said, taking it from her hands before the words were out of his mouth.

‘Oh no. I really don’t think you should . . .’

There was a stunned silence.

‘
She
was the winning bidder?’ he asked incredulously. ‘She bid for herself?’ He glared at Sophie furiously and she cowered beneath his gaze. ‘Why would she
do that?’

‘So that . . . you wouldn’t . . . win, I think,’ she said quietly, not able to meet his eyes.

‘She paid two hundred and forty thousand dollars
not
to have dinner with me?’

‘Something like that,’ Sophie muttered. ‘Basically gave her advertising fee back to them.’

Will looked after the car as it slipped into the inky night. A small part of him was impressed. Not much surprised him, but he hadn’t seen
that
coming.

‘Well, I’m delighted to have made such a strong impression on her,’ he said finally, a smile back on his lips. He turned to face Sophie again. ‘But tell your boss that
she’s thrown down the gauntlet and I am obliged to pick it up. I won’t allow her to get away from me next time.’

And with that, he strode back to his car, angry, intrigued and smitten. The game was on.

The plane landed with a satisfying whush, the mighty engines’ roar muffled by the snowy Aspen mountains on all sides. Pia looked up at the pistes, still teeming with life
as the night-skiers added darkness to gradient for their thrills. She was itching to get up there. Her insurance precluded it of course – day or night – but what they didn’t know
didn’t hurt them, she reckoned. Besides, breaking the rules was almost what she liked best about it.
That
was her sport. Renegade, rebel, bad girl. Getting away with it.

During the flight she’d changed into the clothes Sophie had packed for her. Skinny grey jeans, black crocodile-skin boots and a berry-coloured cashmere roll neck. As the hostesses readied
the doors, Pia belted her black Prada ski jacket more tightly and pulled up the fur-lined hood, partly to brace herself against the cold that would come rushing through, partly as cover from the
other passengers’ excited stares.

She was first off, and stalked straight to the car that was waiting for her on the tarmac. She tried Andy’s number again. Where was he? Not on the slopes still, surely? The Winter X Games
– the Olympics of extreme snow sports – was finishing tomorrow, and as one of the event’s headliners, Andy Connor, defending his Snocross title for the third year running, needed
to be resting.

Well, after a fashion anyway. She didn’t intend to let him get much sleeping done tonight. After all, she hadn’t seen him for twelve days now. She closed her eyes as she thought of
him and what they had together. It wasn’t love. Nothing like. But they’d been together for four months, and the sex was scorching. She was hooked.

The car drew up outside the Little Nell and a good-looking young porter dashed outside to take her bag.

‘Such a pleasure to see you again, Miss Soto,’ he beamed. The hotel got more than its fair share of celebrities, but Pia Soto was a class above. She wasn’t just famous, she was
notorious.

‘Andy Connor’s in the Paepcke Suite as usual, I take it?’ she asked, going straight through the lobby and towards the lifts. There was a pause in the buzz of conversation as
the other guests clocked her long legs and stunning deportment.

The lift doors opened and she stepped in. The porter followed, her canvas Marc Jacobs duffel bag on his shoulder, and pressed the button to take them up. He watched Pia in the mirror as she
untied her jacket and fluffed up her hair. Ready for action.