“No thanks,” said Honor, tersely. These radio talk show hosts were all sweetness and light when they met you, but as soon as they got you on air, live, they ripped into you with all the balance and compassion of a great white shark in a dolphin sanctuary. “I know your show, and I don’t feel it fits with Palmers’ profile.”
“Which is what, exactly?” said Lucas, still smarting from the “paid employee” jibe. “Stuffy, over-the-hill small-mindedness?”
Before Honor could think of a comeback, he’d turned his most flirtatious smile on Miss Grier. “I’d love to come on. It’d be great publicity for the Herrick, and I’d be happy to explain to your listeners exactly how we’ve eclipsed Palmers as the hotel of choice in East Hampton.”
“Terrific,” said Megan, returning Lucas’s smile. “But we would really need a debate. I’m afraid you’d both have to be there to make it work.” She looked at Honor, who was busy choking on her martini olive.
Eclipsed Palmers indeed!
“That’s a shame,” said Lucas to Megan, shaking his head. “It seems Miss Palmer is too frightened to put her money where her mouth is. She’s used to being the biggest fish in this particular little pond, you see, and now she feels out of her depth.”
Honor knew it was childish, that she shouldn’t rise to his schoolboy taunting. But something about his revoltingly handsome, cocky, chauvinistic face pushed her over the edge.
“Fine,” she spluttered, dislodging the offending olive at last from her esophagus. “I’m game, Miss Grier. Name the day.”
A few minutes later, after Lucas had disappeared to attend to his other guests, Tina popped up beside Honor, smiling from ear to ear like a simpleton.
“Boo!” she giggled. “Why the long face?”
“Hmm,” said Honor. “Well now, let me see. I’m at a party to celebrate the launch of a hotel whose sole purpose is to put our hotel out of business. I’m being harassed by the most objectionable, arrogant, sexist asshole ever to walk the face of the earth—with whom I now have to do battle on live fucking radio, by the way, with a host who clearly wants to jump his bones. And to cap it all off, my publicity whore sister shows up, without a word of warning, and starts prostituting herself to the very man who has spent the last year and a half doing his utmost to destroy what’s left of our family.”
“Jeez,” Tina rolled her eyes, “lighten up, would you? Are you on your period or something?”
“What are you doing here, T?” Honor’s voice rose in exasperation. “And what were you thinking, flirting with Anton Tisch like that? Don’t you have any fucking shame?”
“Shame?” Tina looked blank. “About what? Anyway, I wasn’t flirting with him. We were talking, that’s all. He’s a very interesting guy.”
“He’s trying to ruin us!”
“Oh, fiddlesticks. Stop being so melodramatic,” said Tina dismissively. “He’s a hotelier and he opened a hotel here. So what?” She looked around her admiringly. “I actually quite like it. I might book in myself, if Anton’ll give me a decent rate.”
“You will not!” said Honor furiously.
“I was joking.” Tina looked at her like she had a screw loose. “You know, joke? Ha-ha? Of course I’ll be staying at Palmers. It’s free. Who knows, I might even hang around for a while. Things are a lot more interesting around here than they used to be.”
Honor followed her gaze some thirty-odd feet away, to where Lucas and Anton stood huddled deep in conversation.
“Now that is a good-looking man,” sighed Tina, whistling through her teeth.
“You are kidding me. Right?” said Honor. “Lucas? Have you read the things he’s been saying about me and Dad in the press?”
“Yeah,” said Tina absently, still drooling like a puppy. “He can be pretty harsh, I guess. But then so can you.”
“Promise me you won’t go near him.” Honor grabbed her by the arm. “Near either of them, in fact.”
“Are you serious?” said Tina.
Honor didn’t reply, but the painful tightness of her grip spoke volumes.
“OK fine, jeez. I’ll leave them alone,” said Tina. “But personally I think you’re missing a trick. I could be, like, a honey trap.” Her eyes widened mischievously. “If I got Lucas into bed, I could pump him for insider secrets. I could be a double agent!”
“This isn’t a game,” snapped Honor, and stalked off.
Across the garden, Anton was listening while Lucas filled him in about the NPR talk show. Though his face gave nothing away, he was irritated. Here was yet another example of Lucas rushing to take credit and plaudits without bothering to first clear it with him. It hadn’t occurred to him to suggest that Anton himself might have been a more appropriate guest for Miss Grier. Still, no matter. It was more good PR for the hotel, and there would be time enough to teach the boy a lesson in humility later. Right now another idea was crystallizing in the recesses of his mind, one for which he would need Lucas’s help.
“What do you know about the sister?” he asked, interrupting Lucas midrant about Honor and how she was running scared over at Palmers.
“Tina?” Lucas smiled. “Yeah. I noticed the two of you getting cozy earlier. As far as I know, she’s single. She was hooked up with some teenage kid called Big Dick or something, but that’s all over, apparently.”
“I’m not attracted to her, you idiot,” snapped Anton, his annoyance beginning to show despite himself. “I’m wondering how we might use her to our advantage.”
“Use her?” Lucas frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the elder girl’s obviously frigid. I doubt we’re going to unearth many skeletons in her closet.”
“Actually, I’m not so sure,” said Lucas. “Honor’s a hard-nosed bitch, but I suspect she’s not as squeaky clean as she makes out.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I’m pretty sure she’s having an affair with Devon Carter.”
“Really?” said Anton, quietly storing this golden nugget of gossip for use later, like a spider stowing away a captured fly. “Interesting. Well, be that as it may, it’s Tina I’m more concerned with right now. She’s a loose cannon. I want you to get close to her.”
“Me?” Lucas frowned. “To be honest with you, she’s not really my type.”
Anton laughed mirthlessly.
“I don’t give a shit if she’s your type. I’m a businessman, not a fucking dating agency. I want Palmers out of business by this time next year.”
“Of course,” said Lucas, hurriedly. Anton seemed very touchy all of a sudden. “So do I. But how will getting close to Tina help?”
Anton, so lost in his own vitriol, didn’t seem to hear him.
“I want that little cunt Honor Palmer bankrupt,” he spat. “I want her penniless and scrounging at my feet, like a stray fucking bitch. Understand?”
Lucas suppressed a shiver. He was no fan of Honor’s, but Anton’s unbridled hatred was disturbing. It seemed to have exploded out of nowhere like a bizarre, splenetic volcano. Then again, what did he expect? Clearly Tisch hadn’t gotten to the top of his game by being Mr. Nice Guy. If he was going to play in the big league himself one day, he was gonna have to learn to toughen up.
“OK,” he said. “I’ll work on Tina.”
Anton wandered back inside, and for the first time all evening, Lucas found himself alone. Looking around, his eyes rested on Honor, who was chatting with some local bigwigs over at the oyster bar. He knew she was worried about the prospect of their radio showdown and about the Herrick’s burgeoning profile in general. But watching her throw her head back and laugh, glad-handing his guests like she hadn’t a care in the world, he’d never have guessed it.
She might be an heiress with no experience in the hotel business, but despite what he’d told umpteen reporters, she was also a consummate professional, and she’d fight for Palmers to the death.
Squeezing her out of business was going to be no mean feat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BEN SLATER FUMBLED wi
th his mouse, desperately trying to shut his screen down before his secretary, Tammy, could see what he was up to. But he was too late.
“I saw you stuck on that bloody stupid geography quiz again,” she said, laying a stack of mail down in front of him and somehow managing to look disapproving without once glancing at either him or the computer. “If you’ve really got nothing else to do, why don’t you piss off home and let the rest of us do the same? It’s a nice day out there.” She nodded toward the window, through which the July sun could indeed be seen glinting off the polished chrome and glass of the NatWest tower. “I could be down the pool with my kids having an ice cream.”
“It is my company, you know.” Ben defended himself sheepishly, maximizing the boring window of spreadsheets he’d been looking at before. If there was one thing Tammy excelled at it was making him feel guilty. “Anyway,” he lied, “I haven’t been on it that long.”
The geography quiz—a borderless line drawing of Europe where you had to fill in all the countries from memory—was the latest e-mail craze sweeping the city, and it was horribly addictive. Some of the guys in the back office had got all forty-three countries in less than a minute. Ben’s personal best was a less than impressive thirty-five, which, despite his protestations to the contrary, had in fact taken him most of the morning.
While Tammy tut-tutted back to her own desk, Ben gave the numbers in front of him another desultory glance. It was no good. He couldn’t concentrate.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when he’d loved this business. The thrill of building up his fund from nothing, of venturing forth into the jungle of the financial markets every day and outwitting his competitors—he was sure he used to enjoy it. He couldn’t pinpoint when, exactly, the excitement had faded. But faded it definitely had. Recently he’d been unable to shake the feeling that there really must be more to life than the endless accumulation of wealth. He’d tried to talk about it with his sister Karen last weekend when he’d gone down to Essex to visit her and the kids. But if he was looking for sympathy, he’d come to the wrong place.
“You’re a bit young for a midlife crisis, Benny,” she laughed, stirring a saucepan of SpaghettiOs with one hand and scooping dried formula milk into the baby’s bottle with the other. “If you’re that bored, you’re welcome to stay with us and help with Darren’s dirty diapers. Yesterday he did four poos in an hour. Four! And one of ’em went all over his new car seat. Jim was up scraping the last of it off at six this morning, before he went to work. The ’ole car smells of shit now, apparently.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “What a lovely picture of domestic bliss you do paint, Karen. I think I’ll pass.”
“Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” said his sister. “I’m not the one who thinks her life ain’t got no purpose. It’s about time you got married, Benny boy, and had a couple of kids. Then you wouldn’t have time to sit around moping, staring up your own ass all day like the Dalai bleeding Lama.”
God bless Karen. She certainly had a way with words. But deep down, Ben realized she also had a point. He would have loved nothing more than to find a nice girl and settle down. But for some reason, Miss Right was proving aggravatingly elusive. The last two girls he’d dated had both seemed sweet enough when he met them, but both turned out to be after more than just his personality, demanding jewelry and expensive vacations almost as soon as he’d gotten them into bed.
“What do you mean you’re not going to St. Tropez this year?” Mischa, the last one, had berated him a few weeks ago, after he changed his holiday plans at the last minute. “Everyone’s going. What’s the point in us dating for the summer if all you want to do is stay in London and work?”
“We don’t have to stay in London,” said Ben reasonably. “We could go anywhere. Provence. Tuscany. Maybe even Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” Her face implied that this was tantamount to suggesting they vacation in a sewage treatment plant.
“What?” Ben looked baffled. “Cornwall’s gorgeous in the summer. I just can’t be bothered with the whole sceney bullshit in St. Tropez, you know? Or Sardinia, or any of that wank. I’d much rather go somewhere quiet. With you.”
That was the last he’d seen of Mischa. Two days later she’d dropped him for a derivatives trader from Lehman. Depressed, Ben had called Lucas. Neither of them had had much time to chat since Lucas moved to America, but their bond remained as close as ever, and as soon as Lucas picked up, it was straight back to the same old banter.
“Well, of course she dumped you!” He laughed heartily when Ben explained what had happened. “Cornwall? Jesus Christ, how old are you? Sixty?”
“Not you too,” said Ben. He sounded genuinely put out. “What the fuck’s wrong with Cornwall? St. Tropez’s a shit hole, especially in July. You know that.”
“So, come out to the Hamptons,” said Lucas. “Come and stay at my hotel. It is, as you would say, the bees’ bollocks.”
“Oh. Your hotel, is it now?” Ben teased him. “Don’t let Herr Tisch hear you say that. He’ll have you straight off to the Gestapo before you can say sauerkraut.”
“Very funny,” said Lucas drily. Honor’s “paid employee” comment still rankled. He didn’t need the same shit from his friends.
“Oh, come on, I’m only kidding,” said Ben, sensing his shift in tone. “I’ve been reading all about you. There was a massive article about your launch party in W. It looked bloody brilliant. Cheers for the invite, by the way.”
“You should have come,” said Lucas.
“I wanted to. Honest,” said Ben. “But work was insane last month. Your boss’s fund is doing so fucking well right now, the rest of us are having to scramble to keep up.”
Lucas found it hard to picture Ben “Genius” Slater scrambling to keep up with anyone, but he let it go, returning instead to the subject at hand. “I’m serious,” he said. “Why don’t you come out? You wouldn’t even have to bring a girl. The Herrick’s crawling with them.”
“Yeah,” said Ben. “I can just imagine the kind of birds you have propping up your bar. They’re hardly likely to be wife material, are they?”
“Careful,” said Lucas. “You’re in danger of getting vertigo on that high horse of yours, my friend. Look, I’ve got to go. But think about it. You’d have fun here, I promise you. I’ll save you a room, just in case.” That conversation had been a week ago, and Ben hadn’t thought much of it since. But now, with nothing better to do, he idly opened Outlook and clicked open Lucas’s contact details again.
Fuck it. Why not take a holiday?
Tammy was right. He was only spinning his wheels in the office anyway. Every other fucker and his wife in the fund business had taken July off. Why should Ben be the only schmuck stuck at work?
“Tam,” he said, buzzing the intercom next to his monitor. “Get me a flight to New York tonight, would you, darling? I’m taking a couple of weeks off.”
“Great!” she said, enthusiastically. “Does that mean I get a break ’n’ all?”
“No, it bloody doesn’t,” said Ben. “You’ve already taken twice your allotted vacation time this year, you cheeky cow. Someone’s gotta keep this place going.”
“I could ’ave you for sex discrimination, talking to me like that,” said Tammy. But she was smiling broadly. Like everyone else who worked for him, she thought Ben was the best boss in the world. If anyone deserved some time away, it was him.
Honor looked at her brushed-steel Philippe Patek watch—a birthday present from Devon—and felt her irritation building. Where the fuck was Lucas?
She was sitting in the lobby of an NPR satellite radio station, freezing her ass off thanks to a broken fan that was belting out arctic temperatures into a room roughly big enough to house a hamster. The radio station’s offices, in the attic of a grand old Victorian building on Bleecker and Broadway, were an attempt at old-world style that veered dangerously toward just plain “old.” The couch Honor was sitting on had once been white, but decades
of spilled coffee and clammy, newsprint-covered hands had turned it into the sort of amorphous, overboiled cabbage color of old ladies’ panties. This, combined with the peeling paint on the walls, vase full of dead lilies by the door, and selection of tattered, four-year-old magazines lying forlornly on the antique coffee table gave the place a down-at-heel air that was distinctly depressing.
Shivering in her city shorts and vest—outside, temperatures were in the midnineties with the off-the-scale humidity that Manhattan summers seemed to specialize in—Honor wondered for the umpteenth time what the hell she was doing here. She’d had four weeks since the Herrick party in which to cancel today’s live, on-air head-to-head with Lucas. But she remained genuinely torn about it. On the one hand, it would surely be more dignified to rise above the fray and let the interest in the Herrick burn itself out naturally. But on the other, as much as she loathed him with every breath in her body, even Honor had to admit that Lucas was proving to be a master of spin. He’d already painted Palmers very effectively as the Herrick’s poorer, shabbier cousin, not to mention the damage he’d done by insinuation to her own reputation. Leaving him to run rampant in the press, unchallenged, was a very risky strategy.
“Would you like to come through, Miss Palmer?” Megan Grier’s assistant popped his perfectly groomed head into the waiting room. Clearly he was more used to the air-conditioning malfunctions than Honor and was swaddled from head to toe in cashmere. “Mr. Ruiz isn’t here yet,” he said, plainly disappointed, “but we can go ahead and sound-check you. Save ourselves some time later.”
“Sure,” said Honor, hoping it would be warmer in the studio. It wasn’t.
After making polite small talk with Megan, she was offered a hard plastic seat on the other side of a console covered in more switches than the Starship Enterprise and told to put on some headphones.
“Let me know if you get any feedback,” said the assistant. “Just start talking in your regular voice. You can say anything you like, doesn’t matter.”
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