“More coffee, Miss McMahon?”
An incredibly good-looking Hispanic waiter hovered over her with a divine-smelling pot of Brazilian roast. The day was just getting better and better.
“Mmmm, thanks,” said Siena drowsily, luxuriating in the long-forgotten feeling of sunshine on her back.
It was funny, after all her fears about coming back to L.A., her terrible fretting about seeing Hunter again or running into any of the rest of her estranged family, now that she was here, she felt more relaxed and happy than she had in ages. Perhaps it was because the audition had gone so well? Or maybe it was just the joy of being back in her home city at last. She’d realized on the plane that she hadn’t in fact set foot in California since the Christmas before her A-levels, over three years ago.
Back then she was just a schoolgirl, trapped in a life that her father had created for her, with no control over her own destiny. Now here she was, a world-famous model and soon-to-be actress.
It felt good. It felt very, very good.
She was reaching across the table for another freshly baked cinnamon bagel—her third—when she caught sight of a diminutive English woman, dressed for New York in head-to-toe black wool and Gucci sunglasses, pushing her way through the tables and waving at her frantically.
“Hello, Marsha,” she sighed. Just when she’d been feeling so mellow, the hyperactive dwarf had to show up and shatter the mood. “What’s up?”
“Well,” said Marsha, swiping a chair from a neighboring table without asking and sitting down opposite Siena. “They called.”
“Already?” Siena choked. A piece of bagel had gone down the wrong way and she took a big gulp of coffee to wash it down, promptly scalding her mouth. Fuck.
She could already tell from her agent’s tone that the news wasn’t good. No one said “they called” if the news was good. If the news was good, they said, “You got the part!” Goddammit. She’d been so sure this time. What could have gone wrong?
“You got the part,” said Marsha morosely, helping herself to a cup of coffee and a bowlful of Siena’s strawberries.
It took a moment to sink in. “I did?” said Siena, grinning from ear to ear like a little girl on her birthday. “Shit! Why didn’t you say so?”
“I thought I just did,” mumbled Marsha through a mouthful of fruit.
“Well, you might sound happier about it.”
“What’s to be happy about? The movie pays peanuts, and it’ll take you four months to shoot,” said Marsha matter-of-factly. “Maginelle pays millions for ten days’ work. And there’s a lot more where that came from, if you’d only focus on your modeling. I make no secret of it, Siena. I think you’re fucking crazy.”
One thing you could say for Marsha: At least she was up-front about what she believed in. The dollar was king, always had been, always would be.
“I can still do Maginelle,” said Siena, trying to mollify her agent, who looked as if Santa had just left the proverbial lump of coal in her Christmas stocking. “Acting and modeling aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. Besides, if I make a name for myself as an actress, my modeling fees will go through the roof.”
“Hmmm.” Marsha sounded unconvinced. “You should be in New York, honey. Or, if not New York, London. These guys want you here in L.A., from March through June, maybe longer. You’re going to miss the whole season.”
Siena shrugged. “So what else did they say? Do they want to see me again? Did they talk to you about a contract?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Marsha brushed away her questions with a dismissive wave. “You leave the contract to me.”
“Of course,” said Siena. “Always.”
If anyone could screw an extra few grand out of the producers, it was Marsha. Despite her desire to act, Siena was far more conscious of her financial interests than Marsha gave her credit for. She had no intention of working on low-budget movies indefinitely, and saw The Prodigal Daughter very much as a means to an end. Until she made it big in Hollywood, she had no intention of giving up her modeling contracts either.
A gentle ocean breeze blew her hair back off her face. Siena sat back in her chair, indulging for a moment in her triumph. Her first leading role at last. It had been a long time coming.
“You know what?” She sat forward and grabbed Marsha’s hand, determined to engender some enthusiasm. “Let’s celebrate!”
“Yeah. Sure,” the older woman grumbled.
“Come on! I’m serious,” insisted Siena. “Let’s throw a little party here tonight, just a few people. We can have apple martinis on the beach, do the whole L.A. thing.”
Marsha still looked nonplussed.
“Oh, come on!” Siena coaxed her. “You know you love a good party. I know you, remember? I’m doing this film, so you might as well get used to it. And who knows? Maybe this will be the start of something big? For both of us?”
“I guess,” conceded Marsha.
Sensing she was weakening, Siena decided to play her trump card. “I’m paying,” she said, giving her agent the benefit of her million-dollar smile.
“Oh, all right,” said Marsha, giving in with something approaching good grace. “I guess a little party wouldn’t hurt.”
By eight o’clock, 250 of the L.A. in crowd were mingling noisily on the hotel’s private beach, getting happily drunk at Siena’s expense. She’d say this for Marsha: Her organizational skills were nothing short of miraculous. Once she got on board with the idea of a party, she managed to pull the whole thing together in a matter of hours.
Siena herself was still upstairs in her room, trying on two different pairs of loaned diamond-drop earrings, undecided as to which went best with her floor-length crimson silk halter-neck dress. She’d pulled all the stops out tonight, and looked every inch the supermodel that she was, with the halter neck simultaneously showing off her full, high breasts and a smooth, newly tanned expanse of bare back. Her favorite red Manolos, the only shoes in the world that managed to achieve the double whammy of being both sky-high and comfortable, completed her ultra-sexy look. Not many girls could have pulled off something so glamorous and formal at a beach party. But Siena was blessed with enough confidence to turn up naked at the Oscars and not look out of place.
Finally opting for the smaller, subtler earrings, she sprayed herself liberally with Rive Gauche and headed for the elevator. Landing this part had filled her with a wave of confidence that, after a few hours, had translated into a raging libido. She felt powerful and beautiful tonight. She wanted to be made love to, worshipped, and adored.
The instant she appeared on the wooden steps leading down to the beach, an excited throng of people surged toward her. Siena smiled and kissed her way through them on her way to the bar and a pre-cocktail glass of champagne.
She could see Marsha chatting up a well-known director, and recognized a group of three or four model-cum-actresses from the audition circuit perched at the bar. The trio was being attentively looked after by Jeff Black, a sleazeball real estate developer with a penchant for underage girls and silicone, but he immediately transferred his attentions to Siena when she arrived at the bar, ordering herself a chilled glass of Moët.
“Let me get that for you,” he leered, ostentatiously pulling out a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.
“Put your money away, Jeff. It’s all paid for already. By me, as I’m sure you know by now,” said Siena bluntly.
A lot of the girls tolerated Jeff, because he never tried to sleep with them or touch them. He was just a rich, middle-aged man who liked the ego boost of being seen surrounded by pretty young things. But Siena found him disgusting. If she wanted a ride in a private jet, she’d get her own.
Turning back to the party, she scanned the beach for familiar faces but found to her disappointment that apart from a couple of acquaintances, the whole place was heaving with faceless hangers-on. She wished she’d been able to persuade Ines to come with her to the West Coast, but she’d had a job in Boston and couldn’t make
it. Suddenly, Siena felt deeply depressed. Here she was in L.A., her own hometown, celebrating the biggest success of her career—and not a single person she loved was there to share the moment with her. Was this what her life had come to? Was this what success, fame, and wealth really meant?
She spent the next two hours dutifully pressing the flesh with the smattering of producers and directors who’d bothered to show up, smiling at everybody Marsha told her to. By eleven, she was feeling utterly deflated and decided, despite Marsha’s protests, to call it a night. By then the beach was such a crush that it took her a further forty minutes to battle her way through all the so-called well-wishers back into the hotel lobby. One tenacious paparazzo who had somehow made it through the manager’s elaborate defenses thrust a camera in her face just as she gave way to a full-throated yawn while waiting for the elevator. That really was the last fucking straw. The familiar clicking and whirring won him perhaps six or seven shots of Siena scowling before two of the bellboys manhandled him away, and the electric doors mercifully closed and allowed her some peace.
When she made it up to her room, she collapsed on the bed, totally exhausted.
Marsha had been right in the first place. The party was a stupid idea. What had possessed her to shell out twenty thousand dollars to feed and water a bunch of assholes she had never laid eyes on before, and wind up in bed, alone and miserable, before midnight?
Dropping her dress in a heap on the floor and kicking off her shoes, she padded into the bathroom in just a Trashy Lingerie G-string and her diamond-drop earrings and began running herself a hot bath.
The gushing, steaming water was so loud that at first she didn’t hear the knock on the door. When she finally made out the insistent rat-tat-tat, she hurriedly turned off the tap and attempted to cover herself up with the pitifully small hotel bath towel.
“Just a second!” She raced into the bedroom looking for her robe or anything that might do a better job of covering her steam-flushed nakedness, but both bed and floor were covered with evening dresses she had rejected earlier and she couldn’t find anything suitable.
Giving up, she ran to the door and opened it—it was probably only room service and they’d seen it all before.
“Jesus, Siena!”
Hunter was standing in the corridor with a huge bouquet of white roses in his right hand. He turned the color of Siena’s discarded dress and clapped his left hand over his eyes. “You can’t answer the door dressed like that! I mean, undressed like that.”
She screamed and slammed the door in his face.
Oh my God. Hunter. She’d just flashed her tits at Hunter.
Shaking, she sat down on the end of her bed and pulled a green velvet slip dress mindlessly over her head. After a few seconds, he knocked again.
“Siena?” she heard his sweet, loving voice inquire tentatively. “Are you all right, baby? I didn’t mean to scare you. Can I come in?”
Slowly, she went to the door for a second time, pulling it open with infinite trepidation. Was it really him? She’d dreamed about seeing him for so long, it was hard to accept his presence here, now, in this very moment, as a reality.
At first, the two of them stood on the threshold and stared at each other, both unwilling to say or do anything to break this longed-for moment. But then, suddenly, somehow, their bodies moved together, and they found themselves clasped tightly in each other’s arms.
“How did you find me?” said Siena eventually, once they had been able to stop holding each other, as if checking that the other one was real and not some sort of enticing, ghostly projection.
“It wasn’t hard,” said Hunter. He was still holding her hand and stroking it as they sat together on the wicker sofa on her balcony. She had finally found her bathrobe and was wearing it over the green dress for warmth. “Half of L.A. knew you were having this party tonight. Although, to be honest, I’d tracked you down before that. After Max told me he’d seen you, I called your agent in New York.”
“Marsha?” said Siena incredulously. “And she gave my number out? I’ll fucking kill her.”
“You aren’t happy I found you?” He looked crestfallen.
“Oh, sweetheart, of course I am,” said Siena, flinging her arms around his neck and squeezing until she almost choked him. “It’s just, the agency isn’t supposed to give out our private numbers. To anyone. And I can’t believe she didn’t tell me she’d heard from you, the sly witch.”
“You can’t blame her for that, I’m afraid,” he said. “That was my fault. I swore her to secrecy.” He raised an eyebrow in what he mistakenly believed to be a clandestine, James Bond sort of way. God, he was so sweet. “I can be pretty persuasive, you know.”
Siena giggled. “Of course you can, darling,” she said, indulging him. “That runs in the McMahon family.”
At the mention of the F word, a palpable chill descended on both of them, and they fell silent. Siena was the first to speak. “I read about Dad, you know, trying to screw things up for you on Counselor and everything. I’m sorry.”
Hunter sighed. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. It wasn’t your fault. Besides, it never got him anywhere in the end. Hugh, my boss, told him to fuck off.”
“Good,” said Siena. “It’s about time someone did.”
“As I remember,” said Hunter, “you used to make quite a habit of it when we were kids.”
Siena laughed bitterly. “Yes, I’m told I was a terrible daughter,” she said. “That must be why they cut me off and sent me to find my own way without so much as a kiss for good luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Hunter, stroking her hair with the slow, comforting caress that had always soothed her as a little girl.
“Don’t you start,” said Siena. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. My dad always hated my guts, so that was hardly news. And as for the money, well,” she shrugged. “I’m not doing too badly, last time I checked.”
“What about your mom?” asked Hunter. “Has she been in touch?”
He knew how much Claire had always loved Siena, even when the feeling hadn’t been reciprocated. She was frightened of her husband, and weak, but she wasn’t a bad person. At least that wasn’t the way he remembered her.
“Are you kidding? She’s worse than Pete,” said Siena with complete contempt. “She’s like Grandma Minnie. No fucking backbone.”
Minnie, like the rest of the family, had done nothing to stand up to Pete when he’d announced he was banishing Siena from their lives, although the press had reported at the time that she’d been devastated by his decision. She had always been fond of her only grandchild.
“I don’t suppose you ever hear from Grandma, do you? Or Aunt Laurie?”
Hunter shook his head. “Hardly. You want to talk about people hating your guts?”
Siena got up from her seat and sat down on his lap, snuggling in close to him the way she used to as a kid. He smelt faintly of aftershave, which seemed all wrong somehow. But then she supposed the last time she’d seen him he’d been barely old enough to shave.
“What about your mom?” she asked. “How’s she?”
“She’s okay,” said Hunter noncommittally. “She’s in England. Remarried to a very nice man called Christopher Wellesley. Given up drinking.”
“And exactly how loaded is Christopher?” Siena couldn’t resist. “Are we talking regular rich or Bill Gates?”
Luckily Hunter laughed. “I know,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “She’s terrible. But you know, she’s not such a horrible person deep down. She’s improved a lot since she married him. We keep in touch.”
God, thought Siena sadly. That was probably the best family relationship they had between them: Hunter and his mother “kept in touch.” Other people loved their parents, but Hunter “kept in touch” with his. And she couldn’t even say that about Pete and Claire.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. But when they told me how upset you were
by my letters . . .”
She looked at him blankly. “What letters?”
Hunter felt a shiver run through him. “Siena, please tell me they gave you my letters. I wrote to you every day for almost a year.”
Bewildered, she shook her head. “Dad told me that you didn’t want any more contact with any of us. He said you’d asked to be left alone . . .”
Her voice trailed away as the full enormity of Pete’s betrayal began to dawn on her. All these years Hunter had wanted to find her, had longed for her just as passionately and painfully as she’d longed for him. Not only had her father denied her his own love and robbed her of her mother. He had taken Hunter away from her as well, and in the cruelest way imaginable.
How could she have been so stupid?
Why had she believed him?
Unable to stop herself, she started to cry.
Hunter pushed his hair back from his face, and she could see that he was on the brink of tears himself. “You thought I didn’t want to see you again?” he stammered. “Oh, Siena, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. How . . . how could Pete do that to us?”
“You know what?” she said, wiping her eyes and half smiling at the irony of it. “I really didn’t think it was possible for me to hate him any more than I did.”
Hunter shook his head, still too shell-shocked to know how to respond.
“There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about you,” she said. “When I haven’t wondered where you were or what you were doing. But after so many years . . .” Her voice trailed away. “I don’t know. It just got harder and harder to pick up the phone. I was so scared you might reject me again.”
“I never rejected you!” His voice was hot with indignation. How could Peter have told her that? What kind of a sick parent was he?
“I know that now,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”