Fortune

by Megan Cole

  Simonetta lowered herself into the chair opposite him. ‘I thought I would come and see how everything is going.’

  ‘With business, you mean?’ Brad asked, watching her eyes move round the room, taking in the gold and platinum discs adorning the walls.

  ‘Of course. I know business is a man’s world, but I have a strong interest in it too.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Brad told her.

  ‘You don’t believe I’m interested? You—’

  He smiled at her, raising a hand to cut her off. As fiery as her mother too. ‘I meant that I don’t believe business is a man’s world.’

  Simonetta shrugged. ‘Of course not. You are… modern, you move with the times. But in my village,’ at this her lips curled in disgust, ‘men go out to work and women are expected to stay at home, having babies and washing and cleaning.’

  ‘Is that why you left?’

  Simonetta nodded. ‘I got spotted by a scout in the street when I was in Rome one day, but I would have moved there anyway.’

  ‘And your mother, how is she?’ Brad prompted.

  Simonetta gave another, dismissive shrug. ‘I was glad to get out. She suffocates me.’

  Brad leaned back in his chair and studied her. ‘What do you want out of life, Simonetta? Are you going to stay in modelling?’

  ‘That and other things. You don’t just have to be a model these days. Look at Elle Macpherson — she is a very successful businesswoman. Underwear lines, art, property… that is what I want. I don’t think small.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Brad said, smiling.

  Simonetta nodded regally.

  ‘I think, Brad, that you and I are similar people. We understand money and what can be achieved with it.’ She gave him a meaningful look and with a murmured ‘Ciao’ got out of her chair and wafted out.

  After she had left, Brad put his hands behind his head, thinking. Simonetta was a smart cookie, there was no doubting that. If he made her his heir he had no doubt that she would become very successful. But he couldn’t underestimate Madison — she might come across as an airhead, but Brad was sure a sharp brain was ticking away under all that fluffiness. She was her mother’s daughter, after all, and Brad remembered how resourceful Candy had been when it had come to setting her sights on him. His lawyers had drawn up a watertight contract to make sure Madison would be looked after, but he knew Candy would have pushed for more if she could have. Brad sighed. He didn’t want that woman getting her hands on any more of his money, but at the same time there was no way he could deny one of his daughters the right to become his heir.

  This was going to be very interesting indeed…

  ‘Look at the size of my bush! Does anyone know where I can get a Brazilian around here?’

  ‘You are disgusting,’ Simonetta said, as Madison hitched her cutaway swimsuit even higher to examine her bikini line.

  ‘I can’t help it! I didn’t know we were going to be here for so long.’ Madison eyed Simonetta suspiciously. ‘Why, what are you doing to keep yours under control?’

  ‘I had it all lasered off. Waxing is so last year, darling.’

  ‘Slut,’ muttered Madison.

  Simonetta looked up from her sunlounger. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Madison sighed, throwing herself back on the sunlounger. ‘I’m bored of all this lying round. I want to party.’ She shot a conspiratorial look at Simonetta. ‘Brad’s away with Cam tonight, we could always raid his bar.’

  ‘Not with that Maggie woman hanging around. She always seems to be watching us,’ Simonetta grumbled.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we can get rid of her,’ said Madison. Then she clocked Sapphire walking up the path to the pool. ‘Oh, great, it’s Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ Sapphire said moments later. There was a heavy silence. Busy slagging me off again, she thought. Luckily, she was beginning to care less with every day that passed.

  At that moment, a plan started to formulate in Madison’s devious little mind. ‘Come and sit down next to me,’ she said in an over-friendly voice. Sapphire looked at her strangely, but sat down.

  ‘Simonetta and I were just talking about tonight. Brad said we can help ourselves to drinks from his bar.’

  Simonetta shot a look at Madison, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘That’s cool of him,’ Sapphire said. She wasn’t much of a drinker, although she did like a cold beer.

  ‘Yeah, but because Simonetta and I have some urgent business to attend to, we wondered if you could get the drinks sorted. We can meet in your bedroom — it’s much bigger than ours. And you’ve got the balcony,’ she added.

  Sapphire raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘What’s this “urgent business” you’ve got?’

  ‘Emergency bikini waxes. I swear, mine is, like, the size of Texas!’

  As if Madison knew where that was. Sapphire wished she hadn’t asked. She hesitated. ‘I suppose it would be nice to hang out. We haven’t had any proper girl time yet.’

  ‘Our thoughts exactly,’ gushed Madison.

  ‘So I’ll get a couple of beers, maybe a bottle of wine. That should do us.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no!’ Madison sat up. ‘Bring the whole caboodle, sweetie. Champers, spirits, we want it all! We can take all the unused stuff back,’ she said, seeing Sapphire’s disconcerted expression.

  ‘If you’re sure Brad said so—’

  ‘More than sure!’ Madison interrupted brightly. ‘In fact, Brad said to help ourselves to a particular bottle of champagne. I think it was the Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam.’

  ‘The White Gold what?’

  ‘White Gold Jeroboam. Brad insisted we have it.’

  Sapphire grinned. ‘Cool, see you at mine later?’

  Madison winked. ‘Not if we see you first!’

  As Sapphire walked off, Simonetta turned to Madison. ‘Is this the same Dom Perignon Brad told us about — the one Michael Jackson bought him?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘The Dom Perignon he was saving for his sixtieth birthday?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Simonetta exhaled. ‘Mio Dio!’

  ‘We’re going to have to watch Sapphire tonight,’ Madison told her. ‘That girl’s shady.’

  And I’m going to have to watch you, Simonetta thought. Give Madison her due, the silly airhead was shaping up to be stiffer competition than Simonetta had originally thought.

  Chapter seventeen

  ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’ said Madison, as she stretched out luxuriantly on Sapphire’s king-sized bed. She eyed Sapphire like a cat watching its prey from a treetop. ‘Is that a guitar?’

  ‘No, Madison, it’s a fork-lift truck.’

  ‘Oh, LOL, Sapphire. You actually play that thing?’

  Sapphire nodded. ‘I’ve brought it out here so I can practise.’

  ‘You’re such a dork!’ Madison propped herself up on one elbow. ‘Open the bubbles then, Little Miss Hostess. I’m literally dying for a drink.’

  ‘Uh, OK.’ Sapphire went next door to the fridge in the living-room, and came back with the champagne a few moments later. She looked at the label on the bottle. ‘It looks really old. Do you think it’s vintage?’

  ‘Of course. Nothing but the best for our Bradley! He must have, like, hundreds of them,’ said Madison. She exchanged looks with Simonetta, who was stretched out on the chaise longue at the end of the bed. Sapphire was too busy wrestling with the cork to notice.

  ‘Here goes!’ she said. Finally, and with a loud pop, the cork flew out, closely followed by a spray of champagne that went all over Madison. She screamed, and in her haste to escape getting wetter, tumbled head-first off the bed. Moments later, she popped up, hair wet and stuck to her forehead.

  ‘O.M.G!’

  All three girls looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  An hour later, they’d polished off the bottle and had moved on to the vodka. Sapphire was feeling a litt
le light-headed and asked Madison, who was in charge of the drinks, for just a tiny slug of spirit and a lot of mixer. She was sitting on the edge of the bed while Simonetta stood over her with a pair of tweezers.

  ‘Ow!’ She winced as Simonetta plucked out another stray hair.

  ‘Oh, stop being a baby,’ Simonetta said in a motherly way. ‘Your eyebrows have been bugging me since you got here.’ She did one final pluck and stood back, satisfied. ‘Mamma mia! So you have got eyes under those great hairy things!’

  Sapphire got up, stumbling a little, and went to look in the mirror. Simonetta was right, plucking her eyebrows had opened up her eyes more. When she got home she was definitely going to invest in a pair of tweezers. She came back and sat on the bed, reaching over to get her drink from the bedside table.

  ‘Whoa, look at the size of your boobs!’ said Madison, getting an eyeful of Sapphire’s cleavage. ‘Are they real?’

  Sapphire went bright red. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh, leave her alone,’ said Simonetta lazily, reclining against the pillows. They all sipped their drinks before Madison sat up and looked at them both.

  ‘So, girls, what will you do with the cash if you get the golden ticket to Brad’s money?’

  The air took on a sudden tension. No one had dared bring it up yet. It had been like a big, fat, white, trumpeting elephant in the room when they had all been together.

  ‘Simonetta? You go first.’ Madison’s squeaky voice had taken on a steely tone.

  ‘I would invest it — start up my own business. My own clothing line, then other things.’

  Madison raised a dismissive eyebrow, ‘Forget making money, how about spending it? I’m talking my own island, private jets…’

  Simonetta shrugged nonchalantly. ‘That as well.’

  ‘How about you, Sapphire?’ Madison asked, turning to her. ‘Would it all go to Save The Arctic Snow Monkey or something totally lame like that?’

  Sapphire ignored the jibe. ‘Yeah, I would give some to charity. Then I’d redecorate our kitchen, buy my mum a new car…’

  ‘Jesus, don’t go too crazy!’ Madison exclaimed. She sighed, raising a long leg in the air to admire it. ‘I wonder where Cam is? We should have asked him along.’ She shot a curious look at Simonetta. ‘What happened with you guys anyway?’

  Simonetta took a delicate sip of her drink. ‘We kissed, that was it. He is too young for me.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind hooking up with him!’ Madison rolled over to look at Sapphire. ‘What do you think of our resident hottie?’

  ‘I hadn’t really noticed,’ Sapphire said, trying to sound casual.

  ‘A-ha! You have totally gone red! So our sweet little Sapphire has it bad for Cam.’

  Sapphire threw a cushion at Madison. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘I wonder how… endowed he is…’ Madison pondered. ‘He’s pretty built up top…’

  ‘Eeew, Madison,’ said Sapphire, pulling a face.

  ‘Has anyone seen that other guy around, the one with the curly black hair?’ Simonetta said, changing the subject. She found the way Madison talked about sex immature and tasteless.

  ‘I think you mean Raphael,’ Sapphire said. The ceiling was doing funny swirly things above her. ‘He’s Brad’s chauffeur.’

  ‘Yet again, too young for me,’ said Simonetta. ‘But it is nice to have pretty things around to look at.’ She laughed throatily.

  ‘He looks a bit weird to me,’ sniffed Madison.

  The swirling above Sapphire’s head was getting faster. She sat up, suddenly feeling rather sick. ‘Madison, can you get me an orange juice?’

  Madison jumped up. ‘Of course I can,’ she said and went over to the sideboard, where they’d put all the drinks. Once again she mixed Sapphire a super-strong vodka and orange, just as she had secretly been doing all evening. The stupid bitch hadn’t even noticed the difference. Adding a few lumps of ice, she took it back to Sapphire.

  ‘There you go honey, drink it all up!’

  Sapphire took one sip and then everything went black.

  Sapphire opened her eyes. The pounding in her head started immediately. It took a few seconds for her eyes to focus. Gradually, Madison’s face came into view, her features set in a picture of concern. An upset-looking Maggie was standing behind her.

  ‘Thank God you’re all right!’ Madison said. Sapphire flinched as Madison wiped her forehead with a damp flannel. She tried to sit up, but the room was still blurry.

  ‘What happened?’ she croaked. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s past midnight and you’ve had far too much to drink,’ Maggie said sternly. ‘Sapphire, I thought more of you. Why can’t you be sensible like Madison and Simonetta?’

  Madison smiled sweetly at Maggie, while from the other side of the bedroom Simonetta watched the proceedings silently.

  ‘But I didn’t have that much to drink…’ Sapphire said. She managed to sit up and saw the empty vodka bottle by the bed. Maggie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Someone must have spiked my drink!’ she cried. ‘Madison, you were making them…’

  Madison’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, Sapphire! How could you say such a thing? Simonetta and I told you to slow down.’ She looked across at Simonetta, who gave a small nod, backing her up.

  Maggie folded her arms. ‘I want to know why you thought you could go and help yourself to Mr Masters’ bar? He’s been nothing but hospitable to you, and you act like this!’

  Sapphire looked at Madison in confusion, ‘But you told me Brad said we could!’

  Madison widened her innocent blue eyes. ‘No, I didn’t, Sapphire! Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘Simonetta!’ pleaded Sapphire, but the model shrugged and looked away. Just then, there was a noise at the door. It was Brad, still dressed in his suit and tie.

  ‘Is Sapphire all right? Tito said she was ill.’ His eyes took in the empty bottles littering the room and his face lost its concern. ‘I see. That kind of ill.’

  ‘Madison and Simonetta have been looking after her. They came and fetched me.’ Maggie told him. Brad saw the empty champagne bottle lying carelessly on the floor and his expression darkened.

  ‘Is that my Dom Perignon?’

  ‘We tried to stop her,’ Madison simpered.

  ‘You said we could drink it!’ Sapphire shouted, then she stopped at the sight of Brad’s face. He looked furious.

  ‘Sapphire, I’ve given you the free run of my house with your every whim catered for. Why the hell would you do this?’

  ‘I don’t understand…’ Sapphire started.

  Madison cleared the matter up for her. ‘Michael Jackson gave it to Brad. He was saving it for his sixtieth birthday.’

  The stitch-up became immediately obvious. ‘You bitch!’ shouted Sapphire. She lunged at Madison, but Maggie, surprisingly strong, stopped her.

  ‘You’ve done quite enough for one night, young lady!’

  Sapphire watched miserably as Brad stalked from the room, closely followed by Madison and Simonetta. ‘Brad!’ She heard Madison yell. ‘Wait up!’

  She lay back on the bed, eyes filling with tears. ‘Maggie, I honestly didn’t know. Madison said we could drink it. I didn’t know it was a present from Michael Jackson!’

  Maggie sighed. ‘Well, pet, it’s done now anyway. The best thing you can do is get a good night’s sleep and go apologise to Mr Masters in the morning. He’s fairly upset.’ She patted Sapphire’s hand and, with a command to drink lots of water, closed the bedroom door quietly behind her.

  Sapphire stared up at the ceiling, a horrible taste of stale alcohol in her mouth. Why had Madison and Simonetta done this to her? But then again, she knew why. They were trying to get her into Brad’s bad books. Tears of anger filled her eyes. Why had she gone along with this stupid idea in the first place?

  The answer was clear. She had to leave Capri, as soon as possible.

  Chapter eighteen

  Sapphire knocked on the door nervously. It was
a few moments before Brad answered.

  ‘Come in.’

  Heart pounding, she pushed the door open and entered the room. Brad surveyed her from behind the desk, unsmilingly. Sapphire gulped. It felt like she was in a headmaster’s office for doing something naughty.

  ‘I just wanted to say how sorry I am about last night. I had no idea Michael Jackson had given you that champagne. I feel terrible that you were saving it for your sixtieth birthday. Honestly, I would not have drunk it if I’d known…’ She trailed off, miserable.

  Brad stared at her hard for a few moments. Sapphire dropped her gaze; it was like his eyes were boring into her.

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  She looked up, astonished. ‘Really? Honestly, Brad, I’m so sorry.’ She contemplated telling him Madison and Simonetta had set her up, but he probably wouldn’t believe it. After all, she was the one who had been drunk and not the other two.

  ‘Sit down,’ Brad said sternly. Sapphire slumped down in the chair opposite him. ‘As I said last night, I’m surprised at you, but I have faith it won’t happen again.’

  Sapphire sighed. ‘I’ve been thinking, Brad — I don’t know if I should be here.’ She was feeling homesick for her mum’s cooking, the flat, Jerry and the shop. She hesitated. ‘I think I might go home.’

  Brad folded his arms and looked at her. ‘Because of this? It will make you a better person if you stay and face up to your responsibilities rather than run away from them.’

  ‘I’m not running away, I just—’

  ‘Look, Sapphire,’ Brad’s voice was gentler now. ‘Despite what’s happened, I really would like you to stay. Will you think about it?’

  An image of Cam, suntanned and muscled, flashed through her mind. It stirred more feelings than the money.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay.’

  Brad suddenly smiled, and relief rushed through her body. ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ He looked down at the paperwork spread over his desk. ‘Now, if you don’t mind…’

  She jumped up. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Just as she reached the door Brad spoke again.