Prima Donna (8 page)

‘See? It’s all fine. I told you so,’ Pia said, climbing onto a stool as Sophie got out the nail scissors (the only ones she had). ‘I’m far too young to look so
“done”,’ she pouted, while Sophie crawled around her, cutting three feet of fabric from its masterly seams.

Sophie felt like a butcher as she hacked at the gown. It made her want to weep to be destroying such an object of beauty. And yet . . . she had to admit, once she stood up again, that –
amazingly – it worked. The slightly wonky hem, with wispy threads hanging down Pia’s thighs, transformed the dress from a banker’s wife’s couture piece into something much
more tantalizingly urchin.

‘Perfect,’ Pia proclaimed at her reflection. She turned to Sophie, hands on hips. ‘And now for you.’

‘Me?’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘But I’m not going.’

‘Oh yes, you are,’ Pia replied. ‘I don’t have a date. You don’t expect me to walk in there on my own, do you?’

‘But it’s not like you’ll be walking out on your own, is it?’ Sophie laughed. ‘You’ll be mobbed by beautiful men the second you walk in. You always
are.’

‘I know,’ Pia shrugged, fastening her earrings. ‘But I still need an escort on the way in.’

Sophie looked around the room. It was the ‘my other car’s a Porsche’ version of her apartment in Chicago, with clothes piled up on the bed, bottles and powders cluttering the
work surfaces and mismatched pairs of shoes strewn, hurricane-style, across the floor.

‘But there’s no time. You’re just about ready to go and I’ve got absolutely nothing to wear,’ Sophie wailed.

‘Sure you have,’ Pia said generously, indicating her tower of cast-offs.

Sophie picked up a silk coffee-coloured Phillip Lim dress. She held it against herself. It didn’t even go past her bottom. ‘We are
not
the same size,’ she said
sternly, eyebrows to the ceiling.

‘Pah, there’ll be something there that fits you,’ Pia said breezily, applying more gloss to her already luscious lips.

There was. A silk Prada forties-style cocktail dress in a rust colour that did absolutely nothing for her.

‘Okay, it fits me,’ she said sulkily. ‘But it doesn’t
suit
me. I look like a nail.’

‘I know,’ Pia agreed, laughing and smacking her thighs. She loved Sophie’s sulks. ‘But it
is
Prada.’ She shrugged her shoulders as if that was all that
really mattered.

Sophie rolled her eyes and gave up. There was no point in arguing. Pia was going to make her walk in with her one way or the other, and frankly it was either this or her pyjamas. She wondered
whether she should turn the dress inside out, so that at least everybody else would know it was Prada.

They took a car over to the Palazzo Hotel where the party was being held. Although it was only a five-hundred-yard stroll from the Black, the ride took a good twenty minutes, as the driver had
to wait for the bottleneck of Maybachs and Mercedes-McLarens to be valet-parked.

Once inside, the luxury didn’t let up. Installations of Swarovski sculptures glittered from corners and niches, and an elaborate light show flickered across the domed ceilings. The grand
red-carpeted staircase had Cavalli-clad model-waiters, laden with trays of Krug, positioned on every other step, and Sophie grabbed them each a glass.

They climbed the stairs slowly, like royalty – it was important that everyone should see Pia and clock her formidable legs. As they crested the top, rows of purple velvet banquettes and
low ebony tables were set in the middle of the room, with spotlit resin cocktail bars positioned all around them against the walls, hemming in the guests like Bacchanalian sentries.

Pia and Sophie scanned the room, equally desperate to alight on someone the ballerina knew. The sooner Pia found herself a date, the sooner Sophie could get the hell out of this dress.

Cosima Harlow – Valentino’s muse and a top-tier socialite – had set up her court in the centre of the room and was lying out on a banquette like Cleopatra. Pia recognized her
fuchsia dress as one she had rejected, and gave a small smile of satisfaction. Cosima, mistaking it for a smile of welcome, gestured for her to come over, but Pia was looking for another familiar
face. One in particular.

She was determined to get that Argentinian back to her room. She’d be damned if she was going to spend another night alone. The fact that it would be one in the eye for Will Silk was also
an enticing prospect – seducing his infinitely more talented teammate would show him he was out of his league with her. She’d show him once and for all that money and power never came
into it when it came to bedding her.

‘Talk to me, Sophie,’ she commanded as she checked out the room – and the competition. There were a lot of cosmetically modified women in attendance. ‘Look interesting.
Don’t just stand there like a lemon.’

‘Oh . . . uh . . .’ Sophie stalled. Her command of the English language deserted her. ‘I, uh . . .’

They continued to stand in silence.

‘Hurry up,’ Pia whispered through a gritted smile. ‘Say something. Make me laugh. Tell me the time. I don’t care. Just something.’

‘Uh . . . knock, knock.’

Pia frowned, looking at her like she was crazy. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Telling you a joke,’ Sophie said, swivelling her eyes around shiftily and trying not to move her lips – as though someone might be lip-reading their conversation. ‘You
say: “Who’s there?”’ she prompted.

Pia’s frown deepened. Sophie nodded encouragingly. ‘Who’s there?’ Pia said finally, and very suspiciously.

‘Dwayne.’

Silence.

‘Now you say: “Dwayne who?”’ Sophie prompted again.

Pia sighed, her eyes narrowed. ‘Dwayne who?’

‘Dwayne the bathtub, I’m dwowning.’

More silence.

‘Now you laugh,’ Sophie said, dejected. That was her best joke.

Pia was still staring at her, baffled, when Cosima came over. Clearly, if Mohammad wouldn’t go to the mountain . . .

‘Pia, you simply must come and sit with us,’ she smiled, kissing Pia airily. ‘I’ve got some friends who are
dying
to meet you. Bring your friend too.’

Cosima smiled and offered a slim hand. ‘Hi, I’m Cosima.’

Sophie went to take it. ‘I’m So—’

‘Oh no! Sophie’s not my friend,’ Pia shrieked, batting Sophie’s hand down and laughing shrilly at the mix-up. ‘She’s just my assistant.’

‘Oh,’ Cosima said, removing her offer of friendship and straightening up. ‘Come on, then. Have you met Luca d’Orsognio? His father’s the . . .’

Sophie watched the international beauties drift into the centre of the social universe, her cheeks burning at Pia’s tactlessness. She knew that technically Pia was her boss, that theirs
was a working relationship. But Sophie also knew that she was closer to Pia than any other person in the world. They spent more time in each other’s company than they did with any other
person, lovers included; they laughed at the same jokes (well, nearly always); hell, they even shared clothes. Yes, Pia insisted on pulling rank and she was so unbelievably self-centred that she
probably didn’t know Sophie’s birthday, the colour of her eyes or what she was wearing on any given day. But she did need her, and not just to pick up her dry-cleaning. They were both
walking wounded, and Sophie had recognized it in Pia instantly. She knew, even if Pia did not, that the only people they had in the world were each other.

Sophie stood like a maypole for a few moments–as people laughed and drank and danced around her – before making a furious beeline for the bar. Well, to hell with her! Pia had made
her leave Adam still in her bed to come and stand here in this hideous dress. Why
should
she slink off now? It wasn’t like anyone was looking at her anyway. She was entitled to just
as good a time as anyone else. And the drink was free.

Blinking back the tears, Sophie ordered a dirty martini, downing it in one.

She ordered another.

She was on her third when a man pulled up a bar stool next to her.

‘May I join you?’ he asked. ‘I couldn’t help but notice that you are drinking alone. And a woman like you should never have to do that.’

Sophie smiled sarcastically. He was gorgeous, but it was an embarrassingly cheesy chat-up line. He had to be one of the grooms – shaggy brown hair, tanned, muscular forearms, liquid brown
eyes. It looked like her wish at the match had come true.

‘I saw you earlier, at the match,’ he said, his eyes glittering. ‘My name’s Alonso. What’s yours?’

‘Sophie,’ she grinned, as though she’d said something really naughty, the alcohol swimming around her bloodstream.

‘Sophie,’ he repeated, as though hearing the name for the first time. ‘A very pretty name for a very pretty girl.’

‘Ha!’ Sophie snorted, before she could stop herself. It looked like all the clichés really were true.

‘But yes,’ Alonso frowned. ‘You don’t think so?’ He tucked a ringlet behind her ear so that he could see her more clearly. ‘I don’t meet many girls who
look like you. They’re all fake:
fake
blonde, with
fake
tits and
fake
tans,’ he said sneeringly. ‘You’re so tall, so elegant, so mysterious
– you look like . . . like you grew up in fields in the rain.’

Sophie spluttered with surprise. ‘I did,’ she cried earnestly. ‘I’m Irish. I spent most of my childhood messing about on my mother’s family’s dairy
farm.’

‘See? That is why I am drawn to you. In Argentina, I too grew up on a cattle farm. Cows.’ He shrugged. ‘We share cows.’

‘Cows!’ Sophie laughed and held up her glass for a toast. ‘To cows, then.’

‘To cows.’

Tanner Ludgrove turned the handle and stepped into the shiny black lorry to a fanfare of whinnies and snuffles.

‘Hello, you lot,’ he said gruffly, as the six ponies all pushed their heads out of their stalls, eager for an apple or a pat. He inhaled the aroma of leather and manure – the
best smell in the world – and listened to the sound of their hooves turfing up the fresh hay. The farrier had done his job and they had all been newly shod, the cleated shoes they used in the
snow taken off already. They wouldn’t be needing those for another year now.

His favourite pony, Amos, bent his head down for a comforting rub. Tanner smiled and put his arm beneath the horse’s head, patting the far cheek. They both knew the journey that lay ahead.
They had done it together several times over the years now – the thirty-hour drive back to England through the Alps, micro-managed and planned down to the last loo break.

Tanner checked his watch: 11.42 p.m. In four and a half hours, the first convoy of three lorries of ponies would be making its way back to Dorset. The second team would be coming on tomorrow,
after the final. He despised the early start but it was the only way to do it if they were going to get through the Vereina tunnel and past Zurich before rush hour.

He yawned, exhausted, shrugging off his arctic expedition-style jacket. He’d be glad when this was over. He hated doing such long journeys with the horses; the prospect of one of them
falling lame was a real possibility. Not that Silk cared a damn about the horses’ welfare, so long as they won him his trophy and his financial largesse – sorry, sporting prowess
– was admired by a crowd of thousands.

Still, it was done now.

A sudden noise – a shuffle – above him stopped him in his tracks and he felt his pulse quicken. He looked at the ponies, who seemed wholly unconcerned by the prospect of an intruder.
Aside from the considerable worth of the horses themselves, the kit in the truck was worth tens of thousands. And with the final being held tomorrow, and Black Harbour going in as the favourites,
doping was a real threat too.

He grabbed a whip that was propped against the wall and tiptoed across to the fitted ladder that led up to his bunk. He climbed it silently, the whip dangling – at the ready – in his
hand.

He knew he was at a disadvantage. Apart from the fact that he was holding the ladder with just one hand, the intruder would have seen him come into the truck. The element of surprise was gone.
There was only one thing for it.

‘HA!’ he cried, warrior-like, springing himself up and over the parapet, so that his head banged hard on the roof. ‘Aargh!’ he cried, less impressively, unable to rub
it.

He dropped the whip in surprise. It had been the last thing he was expecting to see – a mass of bronze curls tumbling over the side of his pillow, long milky limbs entwined with a hard,
dusty, mocha-coloured body that didn’t even break rhythm.

Tanner’s shoulders and heart rate dropped as he took in the all-too-familiar scene. ‘Still riding, Alonso?’ he said, deadpan. ‘I thought that was all done for
today.’

‘Not for me,
amigo
,’ smiled the player, completely unfazed. His nine-goal handicap made him a celebrity back home and the prize asset for any polo patron. He could name his
terms and set his own price – and if he wanted to have sex with a pretty girl in the horsebox, absolutely no one was going to try to stop him.

Tanner sighed and climbed back down again. There went any chance of sleep. It wasn’t even like he could kip on the floor. It was bad enough the horses having to listen to every last thump
and groan. He pulled his jacket back on again and stepped out of the lorry. He may as well get a drink.

In spite of the fact that she was the most tantalizing woman there and was being fawned over by an American thrash rock star – usually just her type – Pia was not
having the time of her life. Sophie’s early departure had left her stranded with basically a bunch of strangers, and her lusty Argentinian prospect was nowhere in sight. To make things even
worse, Will Silk was standing at the opposite end of the room, surrounded by a pack of fine young fillies who were doing all they could to become his number one pick, and he hadn’t looked
over at Pia once. She wasn’t sure he had even seen her.

From under the singer’s fedora – which she had coquettishly pinched and alluringly perched on her head, dismantling the gown’s formality even further – she watched him as
he regaled them all, brandy in hand, with some hilarious story that set their bosoms quivering and exposed their long, smooth necks. Something about him made him look different to the other times
she had met him. She squinted intently. It was because he looked undone, less manicured. She liked her men rough and ready but even in the gym today he’d looked coordinated, like he was off
for a game of racquetball. But now, Pia noticed how his top button was undone, his tie hanging limply, his shirt scarcely tucked in over his flat stomach. He looked rumpled, like the women were
gently mauling him, trying to get at him. From a distance she could see why, although she wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon for his conviction that she could be bought.