Beautiful People

by Wendy Holden

  "Lose the weight, or lose the part," Mitch had warned her. He could talk, Darcy thought.

  The situation was simple enough. The sooner she reached the requisite point on the scales, the sooner she would be allowed to go on set in Florence and film her scenes. And see Christian. If she'd do it for nothing else, she'd do it for him.

  She missed him. Not spiritually or companionably, but physically. They had met only briefly, but searingly. Christian had lit her blue touchpaper, and now she wanted more. He was passionate and skilled. Was there a better lover in the world? No. Did she believe in love at first sight? Well, she hadn't, not before. But now everything seemed different.

  It had taken Emma some minutes to work out, amid the confusion, that the bossy blonde with the doggy bangs, fishy lips, and uncomfortably tight ginger-suede trousers was a model agent. She had, apparently, spotted Orlando in London, and he had run away then.

  Emma, while aghast at his sudden departure, could nonetheless see why he might. But when, after the agent finally stomped off, Orlando failed to return before she had to leave for her bus, Emma's sympathy turned to despair. She had no address and no phone number for him—a fact the exasperated agent clearly had not believed.

  The night that subsequently passed was one of the most miserable and joyous Emma had ever known, as alternately she recalled the kiss and the probability the kisser was lost to her forever.

  "You're in love," Mara teased in the kitchen the next morning.

  "Of course I'm not," Emma riposted. "Don't be silly."

  "So if you not in love, why you leave the milk to boil over all the time?" Mara chided, snatching the pan off the stove. "Why you put Morning's clothes on back to front and walk around in a daze?"

  "I don't!"

  "And your face!" Mara teased. "You are glowing!"

  "I'm just hot."

  "And you are not eating!" the housekeeper accused. "Last night, I serve you some of my cannelloni, you not eat a thing."

  Emma reddened further at the memory. It had been particularly embarrassing as poor Darcy, who had been condemned to some sort of diet and was eating broccoli, had stared at the steaming dish of pasta with eyes like saucers.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Darcy tried to recall Rupert's words. But it wasn't true. Just about anything tasted better. She'd only been on the diet a day, and already, with the right sauce and seasoning, she felt she could eat the tablecloth.

  And now Mara had just gone back into the kitchen after having carefully put down a dish of pork fillet with cannellini beans at the table under the parasol. It was the same dish whose sumptuous sweet-savoury scent had been drifting around the villa all morning and driving Darcy mad as she performed her star jumps.

  Her own scheduled lunch was poached chicken and steamed broccoli, prepared by a Mara still tight-lipped after the experience of having to watch the Queen of Lean's dietary instructions on the DVD. She had agreed in the end to make what the Hero of Zero instructed—but her own dishes at the same time.

  To see, now, the two side by side on the table—what she had to eat and what she wanted to—was torture for Darcy. Only the thought of Christian made it worthwhile.

  It was intensely frustrating, communicating only by text. But as Darcy found herself effectively banned from the set, Christian seemed more or less permanently on it, and texts were the only form of mobile communication Saint apparently allowed, it was the only way. Until she was thin enough, that was.

  It was ridiculous. She, who adored food, was in an Italian palace equipped with a wondrous cook. And yet she was on a diet of steamed broccoli and undressed salad.

  No one had yet emerged from the villa for dinner. Meaning, thought Darcy, tiptoeing towards the table, the mice could play. Or at least taste what everyone else was having for supper.

  As a great stab of hunger pierced her, Darcy picked up a shining silver fork from where it lay on a crisply folded white linen napkin. She reached over towards the pork and bean dish. Her mouth watered as she anticipated the taste of bean, crunchy on the outside, giving in the middle, soaked in all the juices of the sage-infused meat.

  "Hoo, hoo, hoo! Hey, hey, hey! Whoa, there!"

  There was a flash of pink. Something whooshed across the terrace and grabbed her fork.

  "Thank God," panted Belle, with the air of James Bond having saved the world. "Darcy, you should be thanking me. I've just saved your career."

  "Thanks," muttered Darcy heavily, trying not to notice how Belle's rake-thin body looked thinner than ever in her hot-pink wrap dress. Was she dressing skinnier on purpose? To make a point?

  Belle shook her shining hair mock-sorrowfully. "I sympathise, Darcy. I really do," she breathed.

  "You're very kind," Darcy said shortly.

  "I mean, it's just so hard to stay thin," Belle added in syrupy tones. "For people like you, that is."

  "Sorry?"

  Belle smiled. "Personally, I don't know my BMI, and I have no idea what I weigh. I'm just made like this, I guess." She smoothed her tiny hands over the hipbones jutting through her pink wraparound dress and gave another of her tinkling laughs.

  "Oh, c'mon Darcy, cheer up," she urged. "At least you're eating off a whole side-plate. Some actresses I know had to eat from a saucer for months. Or a teacup," she added with another tinkling laugh.

  "I'm going running," Darcy growled. Anything rather than stay near that pork dish another second.

  Marco sighed happily as he munched the chocolate that had, along with a croissant fresh from the restaurant oven, made up his late breakfast. As the last bitter-sweet grains melted from his tongue, the chef paused, his dark brow creased in thought. It was splendid chocolate, the best he had ever tasted, and from a new supplier, someone who dealt with the oldest, most traditional chocolate houses in Italy. Just an old man and his brother had made this; they made very little, apparently. But what they made was good. Excellent.

  Marco picked up another piece of chocolate and slipped it into his mouth. It really was the best. He knew because of the way, like all wonderful ingredients, it fired his brain with ideas.

  He closed his eyes and savoured. Real, pure chocolate, using genuine Venezuelan criollo, the Ferraris or Lamborghinis of cocoa beans, complex and sophisticated like no other and producing a rich, fruity flavour of amazing power. Virtuoso chocolate you could do anything you liked with. Nougatine, parfait, mousse…the only question was which.

  On the other hand, Marco asked himself, why choose at all? You could do all those things—mousse, nougatine, parfait—but on the same plate. A tasting plate, with little pieces of everything. What fun that would be for the customers as well as the chefs; they could show off their skills and the many ways in which such a perfect ingredient could be used.

  Marco stretched. His mind was, suddenly, full of chocolate tart. A small slice, with the nougatine and parfait on the tasting plate. What could be better?

  Something moving rapidly up the cobbled hill now caught his eye. Marco looked; speed of motion was not something usually associated with Rocolo's main street. People tended to struggle up it, panting and straining, red-faced and pop-eyed with the effort.

  As the figure came nearer, Marco saw that it was a woman. She really was a beauty, he thought, admiring the long, pale thighs, the high bottom, the pert and deliciously unanchored breasts, the black hair flashing in the sun.

  Before his rational brain could register it, something deeper and more visceral within him had produced a swell of excitement, a racing of the heart, a certain breathlessness.

  It was her. The food-loving brunette who had come to lunch the other day. The one with the ridiculous swaggering boyfriend in the tight white trousers. Who had appeared in his restaurant later that day with that ridiculous blonde and her ridiculous dog.

  Excitement gripped Marco. His new chocolate. This woman would love it. She had a boyfriend; she had no interest in him; but what Marco now wanted to offer went beyond flirt
ation, beyond romance, into the blessed realm where one food lover reached out to another.

  "Hey," Marco called, as she staggered past. He raised his plate of chocolate. "Come and try this!"

  He was unprepared for her response. Darcy looked at him in horror and sped off.

  What on earth, Marco wondered, had he said?

  "Mr. Saint is ten minutes from the set." The information boomed through the studio PA system.

  The great marble hall of the palazzo was a swarm of activity. Great wheelborne cameras rolled about along lines of tape on the floor; cables snaked; lights rose, fell, and were twisted into position amid shouts and arm-waving from the assistants. There were people everywhere, some dressed as aliens, some as space mercenaries, and some, the technicians, in black T-shirts and baseball caps with the Galaxia logo on them.

  Belle, sitting in a director's chair, the script on her knee, felt a thrill of triumph. She was back. Back among her people. Even if most of them were wearing helmets and white plastic armour and some of them had three eyes.

  Her own costume looked like some kind of satellite, all great silver cylinders and intersecting tinfoil ruffs. You could probably pick up Sky on it, maybe even NASA. She had a silver face too, looked like the goddamn Tin Man, frankly. Still, she should complain, Belle told herself. Look at that guy over there with a lizard's head. A red, black, and white lizard's head.

  The guy with the lizard's head kept looking at her. But he could forget it. Belle shot the lizard a disdainful look. Reptiles weren't her thing.

  Speaking of reptiles, Christian was supposed to be in this film too. Belle was insufficiently familiar with the script to be sure in what scenes he appeared—in what scenes she herself appeared, come to that. But she was curious about seeing him again, for the first time since he had walked out on her in L.A. How would he react, she wondered. Defiant? Ashamed? Ashamed, had to be, especially after the way he treated her.

  Never had she imagined then that her star would rise in so unexpected a fashion and they would find themselves on the same cast list. It was pretty obvious Christian hadn't imagined it either. But Belle's sense of triumph, of relief, was such that she almost felt warmth towards him. When you were successful, you could forgive people almost anything. Especially people as good-looking as Christian.

  "Mr. Saint is five minutes from the set," announced the PA.

  Belle's gaze returned to the lizard. He was closer to her now

  and was walking up and down, flicking through his script in a concentrated fashion that she, who had no concentration whatever, found rather sexy. He had a pretty good figure too, which his black rubber-effect costume was hugging tightly. Broad shoulders. Neat, tight tush. Strong thighs. And it was abundantly obvious he was well hung. Looked like he had a salami down there.

  Belle shifted in her director's chair and parted her thighs slightly under her cumbersome dress. There was a familiar ache there, an ache that demanded satisfaction. She was burningly aware of her nakedness beneath the costume. Behind the hot plastic bodice, her sweaty breasts, artificial as they mostly were, nonetheless yearned to be touched. What was it about that lizard? Who was it, come to that?

  Beneath his reptile mask, Christian smiled. He could feel from afar that she was hot for him again. Just as he had hoped. Had she been able to see his face, there could have been trouble. She might have wanted to settle a few scores. But now all he had to do was give her the ride of her life and reveal himself afterwards. She could hardly argue then.

  Everything was going his way, Christian reflected as he walked slowly, purposefully towards a Belle squirming and preening in her chair. The set had been alive with the news that Darcy Prince had been banned until she dropped a few pounds. If Christian thought about it at all, it was to vaguely regret the condemnation of those splendid curves, which hadn't been all that big, for Chrissakes. But if Hollywood dictated otherwise, so be it. Just as well he'd decided to move on from her. Once again, his instincts had been unerring. He wished she would stop texting him though. It was embarrassing.

  "Mr. Saint is now on the set," announced the speakers. Christian turned to see the spry director with his check shirt, jeans, and neat white beard walking energetically into the midst of the cameras and cables, followed by a retinue bristling with clipboards and clapperboards.

  Belle had bobbed up to her feet on hearing the director was now

  among them. Christian rushed to her side. "You're not needed yet," he growled at her. "Not by Jack Saint anyway."

  Belle peered into the lizard's face. It was completely covered in latex and red, black, and white paint. Something about it reminded her of someone—the guy out of Kiss maybe. She smiled. "Hey. You're cute. For a lizard."

  She thrust her hands seductively upwards, expecting to push them through her hair, remembering too late that her hair had been plaited, gel-sprayed and now stuck up out of her head as if she had suffered an electric shock.

  The lizard seized her round the waist and, in a deft, bold movement, pulled her into the darkness under a nearby flight of balustraded marble stairs. Belle found herself being devoured in an urgent kiss; kissing him passionately back, she felt herself being slowly pushed down to the marble floor of the terrace. Above the rustling of her plastic dress, as, gasping, she pulled it up, Belle heard the squeaking and snapping of snaps as he eased himself out of his rubber suit.

  "Oh, God," gasped Belle, from somewhere deep in her throat, deep within herself, as he entered her. "Oh, God," she repeated, rolling her head from side to side, stretching her arms above her head as he began to slowly thrust in and out. "I've never been screwed by a lizard before," she squealed. "I didn't realise what I was missing. You're incredible. Oh! Do that again! Ohhhh! The last fuck I had that was this good was Christian Harlow…oh…oh…ohhhhh!"

  "Funny you should say that…" Christian breathed into her convulsing, silver-painted neck. "Because…"

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Darcy groaned as she pulled on her trainers. She had not thought it possible to be so hungry. She thought about food all day and had even started dreaming about it, a recurring dream about a castle made of chocolate cake. The hill on which the castle sat was made of profiteroles, and above it, in the blue sky, were great summer clouds of whipped cream. She would climb up this hill and reach the castle, but then a portcullis made of chocolate bars would fall, blocking her entrance.

  Still, better get the hated run over with. She summoned all her willpower, pulled her baseball cap down hard, and made a move across the patio. Then, at the prospect of the torture ahead, she emitted a loud wail and retreated to the shade of the parasol.

  Emma, by the pool and dangling Morning's legs in the water, could not help noticing this little show. She made no remark but sensed that Darcy, having staged her little tableau of resentment, was looking for sympathy.

  "Apparently even after I've been running for half an hour, I've only worked off the equivalent of two slices of toast," Darcy wailed. "And you know what?"

  "Er…what?"

  "I'd so much rather have had the toast!" Darcy buried her head in her arms on the table. She looked up again, the picture of despair. "You know, dripping with butter. Like that pile Toad eats in The Wind in the Willows." The image glowed in her imagination, and her head pounded with longing.

  "Oh yes!" Emma exclaimed. The Wind in the Willows was one of her favourites. "When poor old Toad's in prison…" She stopped, remembering with a pang how Hero and Cosmo had loved it too.

  "What's the matter?" Darcy asked, seeing the nanny's expression fall.

  "Nothing." But as the actress's dark eyes remained on her, Emma found herself continuing. "Some children I used to look after. They loved that book as well."

  Darcy waited, half-sensing a story, but as nothing more was forthcoming, she embarked on her warm-up, bending and stretching. Her muscles resisted and protested. "Ouch." She stopped and groaned. "God, I don't want to be doing this. I want to be sitting in the shade with a drink. But
alcohol's off. Ouch. Ouch!" Darcy jerked energetically up and down, trying to ignore the pain. "One glass would be two hundred sit-ups."

  "Really? Two hundred?" It sounded extreme to Emma.

  "A minute in the glass, a month on the ass," Darcy grinned. "This DVD I've been sent from L.A., it's got these useful little tips all over it. A couple of sips, hey presto, big hips…oh God. Can you believe it?"

  Her smile faded. Beyond the edge of the sunshade, the blue air was full of birdsong and that fizzing, cricket rasp that is the sound of still, hot weather. Beyond, the green and brown hills baked under the summer sky. Did she want to go running? No, she did not. What she wanted to do more than anything was to sit there, or perhaps lie by the pool, flicking through some of Mara's recipe books until lunch was ready.