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 hur
t?” 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 yo
u see, I’m way ahead of you, mate.” Henry grinned. “How’s that for financial planning, eh?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Two weeks later, Siena was sipping her freshly pressed apple juice contentedly and looking down at the white sandy beach below her balcony. It was only nine-thirty on a Saturday morning, but thanks to the blazing February sunshine, Santa Monica was already starting to look busy.
Professional-looking Rollerbladers in tight black spandex whizzed past families poodling along on their rented beach bikes, while buff-looking gay couples jogged through the sand with their dogs. Everyone was in T-shirts and shorts, and the sky was a cloudless California blue. New York, with its freezing winds and urban grime, seemed a million miles away.
Siena was staying at Shutters on the Beach, one of the oldest and most luxurious hotels right on the ocean, adjacent to the gaudy lights of the Santa Monica Pier, where Duke used to take her on the Ferris wheel when she was a little girl.
She was back in California on a second audition for The Prodigal Daughter, a low-budget but high-profile art-house movie, where she was up for the female lead. It was the first real film role she’d ever been offered that didn’t require her either to play herself or to strip, and her screen test had gone extremely well. The producers had told her yesterday that it was between her and one other girl, but that, off the record, they were likely to confirm today that the part was hers. After all the stress and anxiety of the last few weeks—seeing Max again and hearing about Hunter had thrown her more than she cared to admit—Siena had woken up this morning feeling more rested and contented than she had been in months.
Her next modeling job wasn’t until the twenty-sixth, in New York. To Marsha’s delight, Siena had recently won a very lucrative contract as the face of French design house Maginelle’s new makeup line, so she could afford to take a bit of time off. If the news today was good, she reckoned she might treat herself to a week’s break in the West Coast sunshine and recharge her batteries. Perhaps drive up to Santa Barbara or spend a few nights at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a real vacation.