Do Not Disturb

by Tilly Bagshawe

  “I have no idea,” said Lucas truthfully.

  “You introduced Tina to this guy Candelle, right?”

  “Toby Candelle? He’s the guy in the video?”

  “Lucas.” Guy’s exasperation was building. “You introduced them!”

  “Only because Anton asked me to!” said Lucas vehemently. “I don’t even know the man. I’ve met him twice, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “Uh-huh. And Honor’s affair with Devon Carter? Devon Carter, whose kid you’re dating?”

  “Was dating,” said Lucas.

  “I suppose you’re gonna tell me you knew nothing about that either?”

  Lucas ran his hands through his hair. He could see it must look bad.

  “I knew they were having an affair,” he admitted. “But I never told any—”

  The words died on his lips as he remembered the one person he had told. And how that person had sworn to him, sworn on his honor, that the story would never see daylight. “That must be why Lola left that message,” he muttered to himself. “She thinks it was me.” Slowly, horribly slowly, the pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place. Tisch had set him up.

  “Who ran the Honor/Devon story? Which paper?” he asked. Guy didn’t reply.

  “Look, humor me, OK?” said Lucas. He knew Guy didn’t believe him, but he didn’t care. All he wanted right now was the information.

  “The Post. A paper whose entire features desk claims to be on first-name terms with you,” said Guy. “The networks only picked up the story this morning, after Tina Palmer’s home vid got released on the web. Or at least parts of it did. The rest’s gonna be Pay-Per-View starting Monday, apparently. Not that you know anything about that either, right?”

  Lucas hung up at this point. If his own PR guy didn’t believe him, the conversation was pointless.

  What if no one else believed him either?

  The Tina story was still running on E! but he switched the TV off. He needed to think. Picking up the phone again, he dialed Anton’s number in Geneva.

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Tisch is unavailable at present,” barked his rottweiler Swiss assistant.

  If it were Monday, Lucas could have called dear old Rita in London, but the business office would be shut up like a clam today.

  “Ask him to call me back,” he snapped. “It’s urgent.”

  But he was already starting to get the sinking feeling that Anton had no intention of calling him back. Now or ever. He’d made a preemptive strike against the Palmer sisters. And he’d deliberately set Lucas up to take the fall.

  His next call was to the Herrick.

  “Ah, Debs, thank God it’s you,” he said, relieved that the competent head receptionist had picked up the phone and not one of the useless temps. “I need you to keep calm and keep the press out until I get there. I’m in a bit of a jam here right now, but I hope to be with you soon.”

  “Lucas—” She tried to interrupt him, but he ignored her.

  “These fucking hacks are everywhere. But once I figure out a way to get past them, I’ll come straight to the hotel—”

  “Lucas!” She spoke louder this time. “Look, I’m really sorry. I hate to be the one to tell you this. But we’ve had instructions from Mr. Tisch himself this morning not to allow you back into the building.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you now. If anyone heard me, I could lose my job.”

  “Debs, that’s ridiculous,” he laughed. “You must have misunderstood. I had nothing to do with these stories. Mr. Tisch knows that better than anyone,” he added, bitterly. “Now listen, I’m still your manager, OK? And I’m telling you, as your manager—”

  “I’m sorry, Lucas.” The poor girl sounded near to tears. “But I don’t think you are my manager anymore. I have to go.” And to his utter amazement, she hung up on him. His heart was beating at a mile a minute and his brain, still foggy from alcohol, sex, and an almost complete lack of sleep, struggled to keep pace. He’d have liked to call a lawyer, but he didn’t have one. Weirdly, he found his thoughts turning to Ibiza and his mother, eking out her pitiful existence in that squalid one-room flat. He’d promised to come back one day and rescue her. Promised to build his own hotels, his Luxes, and make enough money that she would never need to work or worry or go hungry ever again.

  How was he going to keep that promise now?

  If he really had been fired from the Herrick—and it was starting to look that way—what then? People would think he was some kind of Rick Salomon–type asshole. He’d be branded a pervert and a blackmailer. No one in the luxury hotel world would touch him. Not if Anton made this stick.

  But why? It didn’t make sense. Whichever way he flipped it, he couldn’t figure out why Tisch would want to do this to him. What had he ever done to deserve it?

  Meanwhile, in London, Ben was lying in bed in his London apartment, morosely chomping his way through a family-sized tub of rum-and-raisin ice cream and idly flipping through the channels on cable, when he stumbled upon E! News and caught the tail end of the Tina Palmer story.

  Since he’d gotten back to England he’d sunk into something close to real depression. Sian hadn’t called since his going-away party, and neither had he called her. He was still furious with her about the bet. But it didn’t stop him from missing her so badly it felt like a physical pain in his gut. He didn’t think he’d ever been so miserable in his life.

  He still dragged himself into the office every day, plowing through his workload on autopilot. With Tisch’s Excelsior fund snapping at his heels like a tiger shark, he really didn’t have any choice. But as soon as he got home he unplugged every phone in the apartment and crawled straight into bed, then proceeded to spend the rest of his evening watching trash TV and drinking beer until he eventually passed out in a sea of potato chip crumbs and used Twinkie wrappers.

  But the footage of Tina was enough to rouse him from his stupor. When the presenter mentioned Lucas’s name he leaped off the bed, plugged his bedside phone back into its socket, and immediately called Lucas at home. The answering machine picked up: “Hi,” said the recording, in Lucas’s distinct Spanish accent. “You have reached Lucas Ruiz. Leave a message.”

  “Mate, it’s me,” said Ben. “If you’re there, pick up.”

  “Ben?” There was a click as he came on the line. Even in that one short syllable of greeting, Ben could hear the strain in his voice.

  “Yeah. You all right?”

  “Not really,” said Lucas. “You’ve seen it?”

  “I’m watching it now,” said Ben. “Shit.” He almost dropped the phone. “Anton just came on. D’you want me to turn it up so you can hear what he’s saying?”

  “Yes,” said Lucas shakily. “They’re on a commercial break here.” Retrieving the remote from beneath an empty Doritos packet, Ben turned the volume up to high.

  Tisch was being interviewed on the lawn of his Geneva mansion. Lake Geneva shimmered in front of him, and behind him stood the gothic splendor of his palatial pile, bordered on either side with perfectly symmetrical formal gardens.

  Neat freak, thought Ben. But it was an impressive display of wealth. And it looked every bit as old-money and conservative as Anton could have hoped.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, genuinely shocked. “What’s he done to his face? He looks like one of the Thunderbirds. His lips are the only things that move.”

  “Shhhh,” said Lucas. “I want to hear.”

  “All I can do is apologize to both the Misses Palmer for this grave intrusion into their privacy,” Anton was saying smoothly, with barely a hint of his native German accent lacing his clipped, proper vowels. “The individual responsible for leaking these stories is no longer in the employ of the Tischen Group, and I am looking into what legal measures, if any, are open to us at this time.”

  “Legal measures!” spluttered Lucas. “This is insane. He wants to fire me and sue me? I haven’t done anything!”

  “Quiet,”
said Ben. “Listen first, fight back later.”

  “I can only imagine the anguish of both the Palmer and Carter families,” Anton went on, glancing at his manicured nails while he spoke, like a cat examining its bloody claws after a kill. “And I would like to extend my sympathies to all concerned. That’s all I have to say at this point.”

  The camera panned out as he strolled back into the chateau, affording an even more glorious view of the estate. Then they cut back to the studio, where a presenter was trawling through archive footage of Tina Palmer with various former boyfriends in the absence of any further actual news.

  “Is that it? Is that all he said?” On the other end of the line Lucas’s voice sounded hollow, as if he’d been winded.

  “That’s it,” said Ben.

  A long silence followed, broken in the end by Ben.

  “You didn’t really set her up, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t!” Lucas was practically shouting. “I would never do a thing like that.”

  “All right, all right,” said Ben. “I didn’t think so. But I had to ask. ’Cause, you know, you did sleep with her.”

  “So did half of East Hampton,” said Lucas reasonably.

  “Yeah. But they didn’t do it ’cause their bosses told them to,” said Ben. “And they’re not trying to put her sister out of business.”

  “Maybe not,” said Lucas. “But it wasn’t me. It was Anton, obviously. He’s setting me up.”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Ben.

  “I don’t know!” Lucas sounded close to tears. “I should never have told him about Honor’s affair with Carter.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Ben. “Did you say Carter? Honor’s been sleeping with Lola’s wanker brother?”

  “Try father,” said Lucas.

  “Devon?” Ben laughed. “No! Are you serious?”

  “It’s been going on for years,” said Lucas, “since before I moved out here. I mentioned it to Anton in passing, ages ago, mind you. I know I shouldn’t have, but it was before me and Lola got together, and he promised me he wouldn’t say anything. But now it’s all over the papers, and Lola thinks it was me who blabbed, of course, because I’m being blamed for this stupid sex tape…Christ, it’s a mess. Doesn’t she know me better? I mean, I would never betray her like that. Not deliberately.”

  Ben couldn’t help but think that screwing Tina Palmer rated pretty high on the betrayal scale, but he didn’t say anything. Lucas was already being punished enough for what he’d done, as well as for quite a few things that he hadn’t, apparently.

  “What am I going to do?” he wailed. “I’m innocent, but I can’t prove it. Anton’s crucifying me.”

  “Come here,” said Ben. “Come to London.”

  He hadn’t spoken to Lucas since telling him to go fuck himself at his going-away party last month. But their friendship ran far too deep to let one silly spat come between them now. If Lucas was in trouble, Ben wanted to help. Besides, maybe focusing on Lucas’s problems might help take his mind off Sian for a nanosecond.

  “There’s nothing left for you in East Hampton,” he said bluntly. “You need to lie low for a bit and let the dust settle. You can stay with me.”

  “Thanks,” said Lucas. He was so touched by the offer, he felt quite choked. “But you don’t need me getting under your feet.”

  “Bollocks,” said Ben. “If you really wanna know, I could use the company. I’m turning into a right lard ass, sat here on my own moping about Sian. Pretty soon they’ll be winching me out of the window with a crane.”

  Lucas laughed. “I’m sorry about Sian,” he said sincerely. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  “Forget it,” said Ben. “This business with Anton is much more important. I doubt he’ll sue you, though, whatever he says. If you’re right and he did set you up—”

  “Of course I’m right,” said Lucas indignantly. “There’s no ‘if’ about it.”

  “Well, if he did, the last thing he’ll want to do is go to court. Besides, he’s a typical Kraut, isn’t he? All mouth and trousers.”

  Lucas laughed. He’d missed Ben’s pearls of cockney wisdom.

  “Of course, your job’s fucked.”

  “Thanks for that,” said Lucas drily.

  “If you want my advice, tell anyone who asks that you had nothing to do with it. Then get yourself to JFK pronto and disappear. I can book you on a flight right now if you like.”

  Listening to Ben start up his laptop thousands of miles away, Lucas was shocked to find himself blinking away tears. He hadn’t cried since the day he’d left home at fourteen. But with his world crashing around his ears, Ben’s stalwart friendship moved him more than he could put into words.

  “Thanks,” he said, reining in his emotions with an enormous effort.

  “I owe you one.”

  “Don’t mention it, mate,” said Ben cheerfully. “That’s what friends are for.”

  By four o’clock Honor was back in her office at Palmers, having made a brief statement to the press. Sam Brannagan’s flight got delayed, and she couldn’t keep them waiting indefinitely. At least, not without looking like she’d gone into hiding, which was the last thing she wanted people to think.

  Even so, a large group of reporters was still hanging around outside the gates, hoping for something juicier than the terse two-liner Honor had given them, blaming Lucas for orchestrating a smear campaign against her family and denying the affair, as Devon had asked her to.

  Ideally, she’d have liked to have made a joint statement with Tina and presented a united family front. But typically, her sister, having not deigned to return any of Honor’s calls, had gone ahead with her own press conference in the Beverly Hills Hotel, which Honor had watched on TV along with everybody else.

  It was quite a performance. Dressed in a demure cream pencil skirt and chocolate-brown jacket, her hair swept up under a silk Louis Vuitton headscarf, Tina had channeled Grace Kelly for all she was worth. Putting on a faltering, little-girlish voice while her nervous fingers fiddled constantly with a boulder-sized Tiffany solitaire on her ring finger (was she engaged?), she had evidently mastered the Princess Diana gaze (half-shy, half-coquettish, guaranteed to reduce grown men to dribbling idiots from twenty paces). Peppering her public apology with charged words like “betrayal” and “entrapment,” she somehow managed to turn the tables and shift her own role from vixen to victim. By the end of it even Honor was starting to feel sorry for her.

  Unfortunately, not all of the guests at Palmers felt the same way. Four families had already cut their stays short and checked out, disgruntled to find their relaxing vacation hijacked and themselves thrust into the eye of a breaking media storm. When not fielding calls from the press, Honor spent most of the hours waiting for Sam desperately trying to convince her fall and winter bookings not to cancel.

  “C’mon Danny, you can’t do this to me,” she pleaded, squeezing a rubber stress ball with her left hand while trying to type a begging e-mail with her right.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. No choice.” Danny McGee, an old family friend and Republican senator, was explaining that he would no longer be able to spend Christmas at Palmers. “I just can’t be seen to be endorsing drug taking, in any way. This is purely about Tina and that awful tape, you understand. It’s not about you and Devon.”

  “There is no me and Devon,” said Honor, grateful that he couldn’t see her blushes over the phone. Unlike Tina, she was a terrible liar. But it hadn’t made any difference.

  “What you do in your private life is your own business,” said Danny. “But it’s different for me. I’m a public figure, and Palmers is indelibly linked in the public mind with you and Tina. I’m sorry, angel, really I am, but I can’t swing it.”

  When the knock finally came on her office door, Honor jumped, dropping the phone with a clatter as Betty ushered in a harassed-looking Sam Brannagan.

  “Why did you make a statement?” were his first, accusatory
words. “I told you not to talk to anyone. And certainly not to lie to anyone. Can’t you see that’s gonna make things worse?”

  “Worse?” Honor let out a hollow laugh. “How could they be worse? Anyway, relax. People are far more interested in Tina’s bedroom antics than mine. Devon and I agreed to stick to our story and let it all blow over.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Sam, “it looks like your story got a little unstuck.”

  “What do you mean?” Honor’s eyes narrowed.

  “I mean, lover-boy admitted the whole thing.” Sam threw his arms wide in a dramatic I-told-you-so. “I heard him myself on the radio on the way from the airport.”

  Honor shook her head in disbelief. “That’s not possible. He wouldn’t do that. Not without warning me.”

  “Well, he did,” said Sam bluntly. “Half an hour ago.”

  Poor girl. Underneath her whole tough, feminist facade, she was still terribly young. Devon Carter had pulled the oldest Indian rope trick in the book, and she’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

  The guy was a walking cliché. All that drivel he spouted about family values; it was only a matter of time before he got caught with his pants down. Sam only wished that it hadn’t been with Honor. She could have done so much better.

  “Like I say, I only heard it,” he said, more gently. “I haven’t seen the footage yet. But apparently he went the whole nine yards, standing outside the family home with his wife, looking suitably contrite. He said some bullshit about how much he regretted what happened, blah, blah, blah.”

  “He said he regretted it?”

  Bent forward, clutching her stomach as though she’d just been punched, Honor’s body language gave away her anguish more clearly than any words. Sam’s heart went out to her.

  “He asked for privacy for him and Karis, so they could rebuild their marriage,” he went on. “Basically, he painted you as Monica to his Bill. The decent man led astray. I’m sorry, Honor. I did warn you.”

  Walking across the room to the window, Honor cracked the blinds open a fraction and peered outside. The rhododendrons were in full bloom, heavy with blossoms that looked ready to drop into the gathering carpet of russet-red leaves already littering the lawn. Between the blanket of fall leaves and the copper-yellow light of the early autumn sun, the whole garden glowed as peacefully golden as a sepia photograph. Only the noisy gaggle of cameramen shattered the idyll. Forced by the local cops into a compact group in front of the hedge, their long lenses jutted out viciously like weapons, and their ugly, furry boom mikes protruded into the still afternoon air like giant mechanical bulrushes.