The Santiago Sisters

by Victoria Fox

  Once more, Tess felt that pull, a mischievous switch that promised to draw her to a place she had never accessed before. Vittorio Da Strovisi was shameless, his wealth was shameless, and his manners were shameless; his looks were shameless and his house and cars and private aircraft were shameless. His flirtation was shameless.

  Tess wanted to be shamed. For the first time in her life, she did.

  It was a while before she saw the man himself. She caught glimpses of him, tantalising as an exotic bird through a shivering tree canopy, and felt his eyes on her back, but he didn’t come to say hello. He was playing with her, and with every passing second she was focusing less and less on whomever she was talking to and more and more on the red-hot burn between her legs. Several times she had to excuse herself to go to the bathroom, splash her face and wrists, and pull herself together. Something had been set free in her, dislodged, unfastened. She felt like an animal, savage and powerful. Sex wasn’t about making her the victim, no, not any more. She could be in charge. She would be in charge. Seeing Vittorio reminded her of the men on the front of those romance novels she had devoured as a child. The Billionaire’s Mistress …

  Books Calida had told her were rubbish. People like that didn’t exist. Money like that didn’t exist. Men like that didn’t exist. Well, look at me now.

  At midnight, Vittorio stood before his guests and made a speech. Scarlet Schuhausen hovered close by, elegant and palely sleek as a swan, yet with the feral glare of an Alsatian guarding the homestead. It was weird to think of Scarlet and Vittorio swapping partners, if that was what they did, because the way Scarlet looked at her man implied she would claw the eyes off any bitch who dared glance at him.

  Afterwards, as Natalie disappeared to take a call from Greg, Tess went alone to refresh her make-up. Away from the crowds, she crossed the open-air terrace with its shimmering blue baths and hexagonal pool house; the water twinkled invitingly and she wondered how many excessive parties it had been host to.

  She padded through to the east wing, silent and empty, and descended an old stone staircase that wound like honeycomb to a lower floor. A chain of cavernous, low-ceilinged chambers greeted her, flickering with bulbs and running as far as the eye could see towards a dim inkpot of black. A draught whispered round her neck and she shivered. Her footsteps were hollow and echoing. Where did this lead?

  The scent was inebriating, musty as cellars and rich as plum. Tess arrived at a chamber filled wall to wall, ceiling to floor, with dust-caked bottles of wine, their necks protruding like raised pistols and their bottoms deep and concave with age.

  A wide arched door led off one wall and she went to it, pushing it open with an ancient creak, as blind in the labyrinth as Alice down the rabbit hole. Inside, she gasped as if she had stumbled across another, separate gathering; she thought she had company but then realised she didn’t. Dozens of suits of armour gleamed in the moonlight, dead but somehow living. Tess stepped between the ghosts and touched the smooth, cold metal of a chest, half expecting a drum to be beating inside. Two eyes were carved from the pewter helmet, dark and sightless. She held her breath.

  ‘Hello.’

  She turned. Vittorio stood before her, as still as the army surrounding him.

  ‘A hobby of mine,’ he explained. ‘I like to collect things that inspire me.’

  Tess forced herself to speak. ‘They’re magnificent.’

  ‘You find them unnerving.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Why?’

  Vittorio took a step towards her, so she was forced to move backwards and felt her spine come up against the hard, smooth chest of a phantom soldier; caught between them, the living and the dead. Vittorio’s blue eyes appeared silver.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I always think it is because they are watching me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you feel it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you like how it feels?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I like that you like it.’

  Her throat was dry. There was a long silence.

  ‘There is energy in them,’ said Vittorio at length, ‘but it is quiet and unmoving. They watch but they cannot comment on the things that they see.’

  ‘What do they see?’ Tess tried for lightness but the question emerged full of promise. Vittorio’s face was close to hers. His hand landed on her waist.

  ‘What do you think your husband would say if he could see us now?’

  ‘What would your wife say?’ she countered.

  Vittorio’s eyes narrowed in amusement. ‘Scarlet doesn’t like my extra-marital liaisons. Call me wicked, but that makes me enjoy it more.’

  Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Vittorio’s hand moved down Tess’s leg and his fingers crept under the hem of her skirt. Their mouths were a pinch apart, close enough to feel his breath, warm and sweet with a note of brandy.

  Tess’s flesh trembled beneath his touch. His thumb hooked under the elastic of her panties; he was millimetres from her sweet spot but he didn’t move.

  Neither of them did. One slip and his thumb would be inside her. Tess was pulsing with want. Every fibre yearned to thrust on to him. Her chest rose and fell between them; she imagined Vittorio tearing open her blouse and devouring her breasts and she would come straight away, she would come for the first time ever, the elusive orgasm she had heard so much about but thought was impossible.

  But Vittorio’s thumb didn’t move. Neither did he. The empty suit at her back seemed to hold her from behind; the soldier was in conspiracy with Vittorio, together they had her pinned, they would claim her and she would fall at their mercy.

  ‘Steven’s your friend,’ she whispered. Even speaking her husband’s name had no effect; he had lost all power over her. Vittorio’s thumb stayed where it was, on an out breath grazing her strip of pubic hair, the very edge, incidentally, as if neither were aware it was happening. Having a conversation with a stranger in a store, with their thumb inside her knickers. A tide of heat surged up from her toes.

  ‘He had sex with my wife, you know,’ said Vittorio. ‘Before you.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’ she asked, but only because she didn’t. She wanted sex with Vittorio. She would do anything for sex with Vittorio. She had never wanted a man like this, never thought she’d be able. His thumb eased towards her wetness but refused to indulge it. A groan escaped her lips. How could they still be fully clothed?

  ‘We are not meant to be with one person,’ Vittorio said, totally measured as his thumb came so close that she moaned. ‘We are primitive. Scarlet can do as she wishes. Steven is into things that I am not. Their business is their own.’

  ‘Do we have business, Vittorio?’

  He smiled, then; at last, an acknowledgement of what was happening.

  ‘Scarlet will not like this,’ he told her. ‘You are too beautiful—and you are too strong. I see myself in you.’ The statement crackled between them. In you …

  ‘I don’t care,’ he breathed. ‘When I see something I want, I must have it.’ His chest crushed against hers and she felt his erection through his suit pants, iron-hard and pressing her inner thigh. He was enormous. Thick. Hot. Ready to pop.

  Tess’s hand shook with the force of resistance it took not to reach down and seize it. She wanted it in her mouth, on her tongue, in her cunt, everywhere. She wanted Vittorio absolutely, all to herself, on tap to bring her rapture whenever she demanded it. He was the ultimate prize. The trophy she had imagined winning when she was a wide-eyed girl on a ranch in Patagonia. Though his wife wasn’t with them, Tess fought that woman right now—she fought her with her beauty, her legs, her breasts, her willingness to bathe in his adulation, the contest to have him without reserve. She understood, then, Scarlet’s wolf-like expression as she had stood by at Vittorio’s speech, scanning the crowd for challengers, daring them to step into the fray because she would butcher them limb from limb. Tess’s mind told he
r she was delirious with want; she had collapsed on the altar of her yearning and she wasn’t thinking straight, but her body told her she would destroy any rival who tried to take him away. She had waited too long for this. Nobody was standing in her path.

  ‘Please …’

  She didn’t know what she was saying any more. Unable to play the game, whatever game he had devised, she could no longer uphold her part in it. She was dripping now, dripping down the inside of her leg, dripping down his thumb.

  Still he waited on her periphery, the tip of his digit taunting her, torturing her, until it struck the line between pleasure and suffering. ‘Please!’ she cried.

  The following moments were an unbearable, intolerable, brilliant haze.

  Tess didn’t know what happened or what came first; her knees collapsed and she fell against him, coming and coming, shocks of pleasure rushing through her bloodstream as his thumb plunged deep, and she was so drenched with lust that when he got up to his knuckle she parted wider and his other hand came round and then there was more inside, the thickness of his wrist against her and the cold metal of his watch, and he was holding her while she came, supporting her while she cried out his name. For once, she didn’t smell lavender. She didn’t think of her papa. She didn’t think of death, her father’s death or her sister’s death or her mama’s death, because she had met her own and survived it. She had cheated the fate that had stolen them.

  Losing all senses, Tess grappled to free Vittorio’s hard-on—she needed to see it, touch it; have it inside her. But her crescendo had drained her of energy and coordination and Vittorio took a step back, watching her with interest as she moaned and panted against the suit of armour, her knickers torn around her knees.

  ‘You are a thing of wonder,’ he told her, touching her face. ‘When the time is right, I will give you what you want.’

  She closed her eyes and when she opened them again he was gone.

  33

  A week later

  Calida opened her eyes to the sleeping, naked form of Vittorio Da Strovisi, and smiled, stretching luxuriously. Sunday morning in her lover’s Tuscan escape, a stone-built retreat high up in the Italian hills, and there was nothing to do but have sex. She crossed the room and divided the shutters. Cypress trees formed a chain on the amber earth, strewn across the distant hillside like a bracelet. A little church glowed in tentative sunlight, over a cluster of red-roofed houses gathered on the mount.

  Turning to the master bedroom, the outlook was no less sublime. Vittorio lay splayed on the linen, his chest bronzed and his cock huge, swollen even in sleep and pointing like a rod to his belly, the base of which was smattered with dark hair.

  She had been sleeping with Vittorio Da Strovisi for six months.

  She still couldn’t really believe it. Calida knew just how exceptional and powerful he was, one of the richest, most desired businessmen in the world, a global, unstoppable powerhouse and the object of every woman’s fantasy. Despite herself, how she was training herself so hard against it, Calida couldn’t help but occasionally think of her twin. She imagined presenting Vittorio to Tess Geddes and gloating:

  ‘Surprised? I bet you never thought he’d look twice at me …’

  It had all started when she was sent to Milan to take his picture. No one had been more surprised than she at the intensity of the attraction. Heading out to his city pad, she’d had zero lead on the capitalist save for Ryan Xiao’s contagious excitement. On the flight she had researched Vittorio Da Strovisi, and recognised him instantly. He was the guy who owned the flagrant mansion in Glen Cove, the one she and Lucy had been to with Winona and her set. Memories of that night were muddled and sinister, but she clearly remembered seeing his picture; not at all her type.

  All the way across the Atlantic, she had sensed a force drawing her near. The coincidence felt part of a design, as if she was meant to meet Vittorio, meant to fall into his bed, meant to crave him every second, every minute of the day, because … Because what? By now Calida was moving in ever more influential circles; her client list was soaring; she had entered a new echelon, no longer bound to media darlings or model starlets. Now she was mixing with the big league, the truly, obscenely rich, the eccentric recluses and the icons who would abide no second best. She was hailed as ‘the new Mario Testino’. But something about Vittorio was pivotal. She sensed, inexplicably, that she was being guided into this scenario—that its outcome was intended to take place and, when it did, would be of the utmost importance to her.

  On the day she arrived, she had taken the tycoon’s picture. Within hours, they were stripped and fucking on his bed. Calida extended her stay; they’d made love non-stop, on his sheets, in his bathroom, the veranda, the pool, the terrace, the balcony. Since then, they hooked up whenever they could, each time he visited the States or she was on commission in Europe: a hunger that could never be sated.

  ‘You’re different to other women,’ Vittorio told her, after doing things to her with his hand or his tongue that had to be illegal. ‘I cannot bear to be without you. Stay with me. I vow to leave my wife. We are nothing to each other.’

  Vittorio was upfront about his marriage: the union with Scarlet Schuhausen was one of convenience. It wasn’t that Vittorio had fallen out of love with her—it was that neither loved the other. Scarlet wouldn’t care, he promised. She was out sleeping with other men. The couple rarely saw each other, seemed only to hook up for public engagements, and never exchanged calls. Vittorio told Calida they were ‘seeking the right time’. She preferred not to enquire as to what happened after this—did Vittorio intend to start a relationship with her? Was that even what she wanted?

  It was better than being alone. Better than thinking about Daniel Cabrera and where he was and what he was doing, the woman his arms enfolded when he fell asleep. Daniel was married. Somewhere across the world, another woman was Señora Cabrera, and, try as Calida might to deny it, much as she immersed herself in the body of another man, that fact made her sting every single day. Some nights she dreamed of him, and he appeared to her so real that when she woke it seemed impossible that he wasn’t there. Her first love … her friend. Stop. It’s been too long. Let him go.

  Now, she crossed to the bed and leaned in to kiss Vittorio. At once, he grabbed her wrists. Calida screamed, delighted as he pinned her down. Holding her arms above her head, he sliced into her with a violent passion, then flipped her on to her front and did her the same from behind, until Calida hit that magic, helpless spot and climaxed, her scream stifled in the satin pillows. Vittorio came directly after.

  Calida lay, breathless, hair stuck to her cheek. After a moment, Vittorio said:

  ‘I was with Astrid last week. She’s interested in you.’

  It took Calida a second to register which Astrid he was referring to: partly her post-orgasm and partly because she sometimes forgot the circles in which he mixed. Astrid Engberg was the girlfriend of Prince Gustav Frederick; the Swedish papers had been speculating for months on the possibility of a forthcoming engagement.

  ‘He is going to propose soon,’ Vittorio went on, getting up and going to twist on the shower. ‘Astrid knows it. He is taking her to Umbria at the weekend.’

  ‘Why is she interested in me?’

  Vittorio grinned. ‘Because I recommended you, darling—and Astrid knows that when I like something, it is worth having.’

  ‘She wants me to photograph her.’

  ‘Not just any old sitting.’ Vittorio settled next to her, the sound of running water drumming from the bathroom. ‘Their engagement pictures.’ His BlackBerry beeped and he scooped it up; a brief smile as he read the message and then he tucked it behind him, out of sight. Calida wanted to ask: Who was that? But she didn’t. Just because Rodrigo Torres had twenty women on the go at once didn’t mean Vitto did.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  She thought it was a big deal. Prince Gustav Frederick was first in line to the Swedish throne, and Astrid
as his girlfriend was set to be queen. Astrid was glamorous, all tumbling blonde locks and nipped-in waist. Both in their twenties, they had done wonders for perceptions of the royal family. Photographers across the world would be vying for this gig. If Vittorio were anyone else she might doubt his conviction—as it was, she knew he would have ensured it was a done deal.

  ‘You will meet her tomorrow,’ he instructed.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘At my studio in Stockholm.’ He put an arm round her. ‘That is the best place, Astrid says. She does not wish to draw attention.’

  ‘You’ve already arranged this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Without consulting me?’

  ‘I am consulting you now.’

  ‘I don’t like being told what to do.’

  Vittorio’s gaze gave no room for manoeuvre. ‘I think you do,’ he said, as he took her hand and led her to the steamed-up shower and turned her to face the wall.

  Astrid Engberg glowed. She was flawless, pretty and perfect as a china doll, and appeared impossibly regal despite her lack of royal blood: a high, pale forehead, wide green eyes that were flecked with gold, and a waterfall of tresses that swirled around her shoulders. Calida thought she was one of the loveliest women she had ever seen.

  But it was Astrid who was beside herself.

  ‘I am so pleased to meet you,’ she said in gently accented English. Her pastel-pink lips broke into a smile. ‘I have heard so much about you.’

  ‘From Vittorio, no doubt.’ Calida smiled back.

  ‘Oh, everywhere,’ gushed Astrid. ‘Everywhere I’m going, I am hearing about Cal Santiago. Gustav is pleased, too. If I am satisfied, he tells me, we will go ahead.’

  Calida’s brow lifted. ‘The engagement’s official?’

  ‘We have not announced it yet, but …’

  ‘Congratulations, that’s wonderful news.’

  ‘It is confidential, you understand.’