“Oh, Jack,” said her mother gently, seeing Tiffany’s horrified face.
“No, Marcie, I’m right about this and you know it. The waitresses are the lucky ones. Half of those girls end up working the streets. Or in”—he could barely bring himself to say it—“in one of those depraved pornographic films.”
“Jack Wedan!” her mother remonstrated, shocked. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tiffany would never get involved in anything like that.”
“And I won’t be working as a waitress for the rest of my life either, Daddy,” Tiffany jumped in, her face flushed with anger and disappointment. “Don’t you have any faith in me at all?”
How those words had come back to haunt her as she sweated away in Benny’s kitchen alongside her best friend and roommate, the gorgeously camp Lennox, another struggling actor. Tiffany had almost given up hope of ever making it in L.A. when Lennox had hauled her ass into that UCLA audition. And then suddenly, overnight, her life had changed. Just like in the movies.
The role of Sarah may have been only a small part, but it was network television and a regular income, two things she had hitherto barely allowed herself to dream of. Even more incredible, though, had been her blossoming relationship with Hunter. Of all the beautiful girls in the world, Hunter McMahon had chosen her. Her. Even now, three years later, she sometimes had to pinch herself when she woke up next to him, in case the whole thing were some sort of heavenly mirage.
For his part, Hunter knew that a lot of women wanted him, whether for his looks, his fame, or his money. But he’d never been able to do what Max did, charming his way from one bed to the next, reveling in the fun and excitement of transient, casual flings. Unlike his best friend, Hunter had always been looking for companionship with a lover, and he had nothing in common with 90 percent of the hot young L.A. actresses and models who pursued him.
But the way Tiffany wanted him, that was different. The way she clung to him and screamed his name when they made love, the way her eyes lit up like a little kid’s at Christmas the moment he walked through the door—that was something else. He had never imagined that a woman so intelligent and talented and good and kind could ever love him the way she did. She filled him with joy, and her love had given him a confidence he had never felt before.
Tiffany was the first woman, the first person in fact, he had ever opened up to about his childhood. She had made him feel safe, slowly but surely gaining his confidence and trust until he felt able to talk about the loneliness and misery of growing up in Hancock Park, his difficult relationship with his mother, and the terrible pain of his enforced separation from Siena.
Privately, Tiffany had always felt that if his supermodel niece was so perfect and had loved him so much, she could have made some sort of an effort to contact him after she became famous. She had never met Siena, of course, but the impression she got from magazine and TV interviews was of a pampered little prima donna, nothing like the angelic figure Hunter so lovingly described. But she knew better than to question or challenge him about his precious memories. She understood that apart from her, they were all he had.
Gently easing himself out of her, he rolled onto his side and pulled the covers up over her naked body proprietorially.
“You’ll catch cold,” he said, kissing her wet cheeks, which still tasted salty from her sweat.
“You’re so sweet,” she whispered, pulling him closer. “But I’m not staying, baby. I gotta take a shower and get going.”
Hunter pulled away from her. He was so fed up with this.
“For God’s sake, Tiffany, why?” he snapped, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. “Why can’t you just sleep here tonight? I’ll set the alarm for six and drive you to the set myself in the morning. You won’t be late for anything.”
“Hunter, please,” she said, climbing out of bed and starting to pick up various scattered items of her discarded clothing. “I’ve told you before, I need my space.”
“What space?” he shot back at her. “That rat hole of an apartment you live in is barely big enough to swing a cat in, and Lennox and his buddies are always hanging around like a bad smell. You have more space here.”
Tiffany sighed. It had been such a great night, she hoped he wasn’t going to spoil it now. “Look, can we not make a big deal of this?” she said, scrabbling under the bed for one missing sneaker. “All my stuff is at home, okay, it’s just easier. Besides, I promised Lennox I’d clean the place up before tomorrow.”
She padded into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then came and stood naked in the doorway while she waited for the water to heat up. Looking at her flat, tanned stomach and neatly trimmed blond bush, Hunter felt himself starting to get hard again. If only he didn’t want her so fucking much.
She walked back over to the bed and sat down beside him. He could still smell the sex on her body, and her closeness made his senses reel. She took his hand in hers and kissed it. “Look,” she said gently, “I’m sorry I can’t stay tonight. But I’ll make it up to you, okay? I promise. If you like, I’ll come and spend the whole weekend here. I’ll even put up with Max’s singing in the mornings. How’s that for devotion?”
Hunter put his arms around her. Why did he always find it so hard to let her go?
“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, kissing her neck and the smooth naked skin of her shoulder. “I just want us to have more time together.”
“I know,” she said, moving back across toward the bathroom. “And we will, honey. I promise. We will. Just not tonight.”
Speeding back east on the 10 freeway twenty minutes later, with the roar of her Jeep’s battered old exhaust bombarding her eardrums, Tiffany punched the dashboard in frustration.
Why, why, why did she always do this? She loved him so much it killed her, so why did she keep on pushing him away?
With the rational part of her brain, she already knew the answer to that question. She was afraid to trust in Hunter, afraid to believe that their love could possibly last. With every woman in the world lusting after him, and stunning models making plays for him night after night, looking right through her as though she were nothing—how could she possibly expect to hold him?
Moving into the beach house, as he was constantly begging her to do, seemed too much like tempting fate. The moment she let him know how hopelessly, desperately in love she was, the spell would be broken and he would leave.
No, the only way to survive was to hold on for dear life to her independence. After three years together, she still lived well within her means, driving her shitty old truck, living with Lennox in their run-down Westwood apartment, never letting Hunter buy her anything beyond dinner and the occasional vacation. She was not about to get used to Hunter’s rich, glamorous lifestyle, only to have it all snatched away at a moment’s notice.
Back at the beach house, Hunter couldn’t sleep. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen, taking an iced tea out of the fridge and sipping it thoughtfully. He wished Max were here to talk to, but he was still in England with Henry. It must be great to have a family like Max’s.
For the first time in months, Hunter found himself thinking about Siena. It was funny: Although Pete’s Machiavellian scheming and attempted sabotage of his career had fixed him as a constant, looming presence in Hunter’s life, he never made the mental association between his brother and Siena, or the rest of the family. He had run into Claire once, about two years ago at Chaya Brasserie, but when he’d asked after Siena he’d been met with a blank wall of silence. If it weren’t for the ubiquitous billboard pictures of her face—itself only a distant echo of the childish features that Hunter had once known and loved so well—he could almost have believed that she no longer existed.
He knew about the estrangement from her parents, of course. Every supermarket tabloid in America had run versions of Siena’s Vanity Fair interview last year, in which she had tearfully recounted Pete and Claire’s abandonment. Many of them, in fact, had supe
rimposed his own picture next to hers, drawing parallels between Pete’s vendetta against him and the disinheriting of his only daughter.
When he was a teenager, the pain of their separation had been huge for Hunter, almost unbearable. But now? Well, life had moved on, and it had been pretty damn good to him, to both of them in fact. He wasn’t in any hurry to risk opening up those old wounds all over again.
Still, on nights like tonight, he couldn’t help but wonder what Siena would have made of Tiffany. They were the only two people he had ever loved in his life—with the possible exception of Max, but that was different—and they were both so smart, so independent, so fucking difficult!
Tiffany wasn’t spoiled or selfish like Siena had been. Then again, she had grown up in a normal, happy home, not the dysfunctional madhouse of Hancock Park. But she had a similar strength about her, something that seemed to tell him “I don’t need you,” that reminded him painfully of Siena. He wished he could discover one ounce of that strength in himself. But the truth was, he needed Tiffany like air. He’d be lost without her.
He broke off his thoughts with a start when the phone rang. The clock on the microwave said it was two A.M. No one else would be calling him at that hour. It had to be Tiffany.
Heart thumping with happiness, he sprinted into the bedroom to pick it up. “Baby?”
“Hunter, I’ve told you before, I’m very flattered, but I just don’t think of you in that way.” Max’s deadpan voice was slightly faint on the long-distance line.
“Max!” said Hunter, fighting to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “How are you, man? When are you coming back?”
“That’s what I called to tell you,” said Max. “Oh, fuck, have I just woken you up? What time is it?”
“Two in the morning, but don’t worry, I’m up. Tiffany went home to that shit hole she lives in, and now I can’t sleep.”
Max was taken aback. He had never heard Hunter sounding so bitter about anything, especially not Tiffany.
“Oh,” he said lamely. “Well, cheer up, fella, you see the girl every day. I’d make the most of a night off if I were you. At least you can fart in bed with impunity.”
“Hmmm, I guess,” said Hunter. “So what’s up anyway. Did you change your plans?”
“Slightly,” said Max. “I’m still leaving here on the twenty-eighth, but I’m going to New York for a few days. There’s a chance I may have a meeting with Alex McFadden on the twenty-ninth.”
“Max, that’s great!” said Hunter, genuinely impressed. Alex McFadden was a big producer of Broadway musicals, and Max had been angling for a one-on-one meeting with the guy forever.
“Yeah, well, it hasn’t happened yet,” said Max, ever the pessimist. “But in any case, a couple of mates of mine from school are having a big New Year’s Eve bash at this loft in SoHo. Jerry, my mate, just got a whopping great bonus from Goldman, so he’s spending a fortune on this thing. It’ll be wall-to-wall beautiful women—and I’m talking New York beautiful, none of your plastic, L.A. silicone bullshit. I know you and Tiffany are as good as married, but there’s no law against looking. Wanna come?”
Hunter chuckled quietly to himself. Sometimes Max reminded him of nothing more than an overexcited Labrador. Listening to him chattering happily away about this party, he could almost hear his tail thumping on the ground.
“Thanks, man, but I can’t,” he said, stretching out his arms in a huge, full-bodied yawn and rubbing his head drowsily. “We’re shooting on New Year’s Eve.”
“You’re kidding?” said Max. “Doesn’t that slave driver Orchard ever give you a night off? It’s New Year’s Eve, for Christ’s sake.”
“What can I tell you?” said Hunter. “He works hard, and that means the rest of us have to keep up. Anyway, I don’t mind. Tiffany is working too, so we can maybe have dinner together or something later. To be honest with you, I’m feeling kinda low-key right now. And you know how much I hate New York.”
“Suit yourself,” said Max, who considered hating New York to be a form of mental illness. “I’ll see you back in Hell-A on the second or third, then.”
“Oh, get over yourself!” Hunter laughed. “Don’t give me that Hell-A shit. You love it here and you know it. Just wait till you’ve had three days of subzero winds and hail in Manhattan. You’ll be begging to come back home.”
Once Max had hung up, Hunter took his drink with him and climbed back into bed, pulling the covers up around him. The lingering smell of Tiffany’s body still clung to his sheets. With all his heart, he wished she were lying there next to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It had been a bitterly cold winter in New York, one of the worst on record.
Tourists still flocked there in droves, to skate around the Christmas tree at the romantic Rockefeller Center ice rink, to marvel at the snow and the lights on Park Avenue, or to visit Santa’s grotto at FAO Schwarz. Ruddy-cheeked families, with Dad in his Brooks Brothers cashmere coat, Mom in full-length mink, and the kids in scarves, woolly hats, and down jackets from the Gap, stamped their feet on every corner against the cold, wolfing down cheap hot dogs smothered in fried onions just so they could feel something warm hitting their stomachs, while passing drivers splashed them with icy spray from the puddles as they honked and swerved their way down Lexington.
The snow had turned to grimy slush on the streets, but it still kept falling, and the taxi drivers came in from Queens every morning with six inches of pure white icing on top of their marzipan-yellow cabs. Manhattan was crowded and dirty with a windchill factor that could have shamed the North Pole.
But there was nowhere quite like New York at Christmastime.
For just over a year, Siena and Ines had shared a Manhattan apartment, although each spent a good half of her time traveling, doing shows and campaigns around the world. Both the girls had left the city over the holiday, Ines to visit her family in Seville, and Siena to stay with a well-known designer and his boyfriend at their weekend retreat in Vermont. But after five days away, they had both found themselves going stir-crazy and decided to fly back to New York in time for New Year’s Eve.
Sitting in the window seat of their palatial living room overlooking Central Park, with a red-and-green tartan blanket pulled up over her knees and a big glass of cognac in her hands, Siena looked out over the snowy greenery below her.
“So was it lovely in Spain?” she asked Ines, who was busy applying a third coat of purple polish to her toenails. “You don’t look very brown.”
“Ees weenter in Espain, you eediot,” Ines laughed. “But yes, I ’ad a great time. Eet was so long since I saw all my family togethair.” She rolled her eyes to heaven. “I ate like a peeg, though.”
“Me too,” said Siena, thinking back longingly to the rum-soaked Yule log she’d eaten almost single-handedly at Fabrizio’s. “I’m on champagne and cigarettes only for the rest of the week.”
Ines raised a questioning eyebrow at her friend’s half-drunk cognac but said nothing.
“So what are your plans for tomorrow night?” asked Siena. “Are you going to Matt’s New Year’s thing?”
“No, I don’t theenk so,” said Ines, screwing the cap back on her nail polish bottle and blowing gently on her toes. “I am so tired of heem. I theenk he prefairs you, anyway.”
“Oh, baloney,” protested Siena, blushing.
In fact, Ines’s most recent boyfriend had already made his feelings toward her perfectly clear at a party a few weeks ago. Fucking slimeball. As if she would do the dirty on her best friend with a scumbag like him. She was glad that Ines was finally seeing the light about Matt.
“I haird about thees party in SoHo,” Ines continued, “you know, the Eenglish friend of Anya’s? A lot of cool people are going to be there, maybe we should stop by?”
Siena finished her drink and walked over to the fridge, extracting a cold sausage and munching on it contemplatively. She’d start the nicotine diet tomorrow. “Sure, I don’t mind,” she said.
Her own supposed boyfriend, a Brazilian model called Carlo, had been putting pressure on her to join him and his friends at some bash downtown, but Siena’s relationship claustrophobia was already starting to kick in. She’d much rather hang with Ines and the girls.
“Those Wall Street guys spend money like water,” she mused, leaning back against the cold fridge door. “I remember the last banker party I went to, the guy had this fuck-off fountain flowing with Cristal the whole night. He must have spent fifteen thousand on that fountain alone. Totally vulgar but kinda cool.”
She finished the sausage and started gnawing away on a slightly stale hunk of cheddar. They really must get around to some grocery shopping. “So who else is going?”
Ines carefully removed her white foam toe separators and stood up. She was so tall and thin, with her shock of red hair—she had cut it very short about three months ago—she reminded Siena of an extra-long safety match.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Anya, I theenk Zane and some of the other boys will be there. A lot of bankers.” She wiggled her purple toes admiringly. “But of course”—she grinned—“as soon as we arrive, every man in New York weel be banging down that door!”
Siena laughed. Sometimes Ines could be even more of an arrogant bitch than she was.
Max struggled miserably along Fifth Avenue. With his sleet-soaked raincoat clinging like shrink wrap to his huge shoulders, and his pants splattered from the knee down with filthy spray from the streets, he looked exactly like he felt—utterly dejected.
New York sucked.
His meeting with the great Broadway producer Alex McFadden yesterday had been yet another waste of time. The guy had said some complimentary things about some of Max’s English theater work, and had even admired the short film he’d had at Sundance last year. But Max had been to enough of these “love your stuff, must get together sometime” meetings to know when he was being given the brushoff, however gracefully it was done. Unlike most of the L.A. producers he dealt with, McFadden had been a gentleman, taking time out of his day to encourage a struggling young director he didn’t know from Adam. But the fact remained, Max was no nearer to hitting the big time than he had been last week in Batcombe, and he was starting to feel increasingly hopeless. He couldn’t wait for this year to be over.