by Joanna Rees
It was show time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Savvy stared up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and swore. The plaster section showing the finger of God giving life to Adam had come away and now lay cracked on the floor, pointing at her like a terrible omen.
The giant reproduction of Michelangelo’s masterpiece in Vatican City had been painted in Europe and shipped in sixty sections to the casino hall of El Palazzo in Shangri-La, where it had been resurrected. But the exterior roof tiles had been fitted with the wrong type of cement and the whole thing had leaked overnight.
The resulting flood had caused tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. And now there were workmen everywhere trying to rescue the situation.
Drills screeched in the cavernous, gloomy space, scaffolding poles clanked. Above it all a Chinese radio station blared and echoed, making the decibel level ear-splittingly high. A huge crane was lifting ten engineers in a cage to survey the damage up close. A team of artists and artisans were already on their way over from Italy.
Savvy held on to her yellow hard hat and quickly stepped in to a gritty puddle on the concrete floor, as another shower of dust swirled down from the ceiling. Shit, she thought. Her new Louboutins were trashed.
She’d flown into Shangri-La an hour ago, but so far her visit to the El Palazzo complex had been an unmitigated disaster. Luc had lost his temper with the builders twice and he seemed as if he might snap at her at any minute. At this rate, if the guy bit his tongue any harder, he’d draw blood.
After hearing about this latest disaster to throw El Palazzo even further off-schedule, she’d decided to fly over herself and see how bad the situation really was. Luc was clearly in the middle of a full-blown crisis and was making it plain that Savvy was the last person he wanted to see.
She hadn’t been alone with Luc like this for a long time. After Hud had died two years ago and Savvy had torn up the documents that would have put Luc in charge, he’d been furious. But she’d stood her ground. In the arguments that followed, she’d been sorely tempted to fire Luc and ditch the whole Shangri-La project altogether. But she’d quickly seen – mostly thanks to Paige spelling it out – that there was no way she could extricate herself from the complex financial deals that Luc and Hud had struck to get the Shangri-La concession.
So she’d dispatched Luc almost immediately and told him to run the entire project on the ground over here. It had been an arrangement that suited everyone, except perhaps poor Paige, who seemed to spend her life on a plane, flying back and forth between Shangri-La and Vegas to report on progress.
But the reports – even with Paige’s rosy twist on them – hadn’t been good. Delay had followed delay, until the head start El Palazzo had secured over its rivals had been lost. First there’d been the fact that the foundations weren’t dug deep enough, leading to subsidence so that the main concourse needed to be demolished and rebuilt. Then there’d been a series of disasters over local labour relations.
All of which threw Luc’s management ability into doubt. But Savvy had already got Paige to secretly employ an independent analyst to check up on him, and they’d concluded that Luc had done as good a job as anyone could have done in the circumstances.
Savvy watched now as he slumped down on to the boards of a scaffolding tower and rubbed his eyes. He was wearing jeans, brogues, a designer stripy pink and white shirt and, like her, a yellow hard hat. And he was still just as handsome as ever.
‘So there it is,’ he shouted above the cacophony, gesturing to the ceiling. ‘Totally and utterly fucked. So,’ he said, lifting his eyes wearily to hers, ‘I guess you’re going to fire me.’
His accent . . . In spite of all the cruel words he’d said in the past, she still loved the sound of his voice.
‘No, Luc. I’m here to discuss how you’re going to put it right,’ she said.
As Paige frequently told her, the Hudson Corporation’s best asset was its staff. And now her gut told her that balling out Luc when he was clearly exhausted and demoralized was not going to help.
‘It’s not your fault. I know that,’ she continued, glancing up one final time at the ceiling. Savvy already knew that it was the Chinese sub-contractors and the confused surveyors who’d caused the problem this time. And the ever-present language barrier. Luc had fired six translators in the last two months alone. She knew he was trying his best to keep on top of the situation.
Besides, Luc might not think it but by Savvy’s reckoning there was lots to be positive about. Hud might have had a romantic vision of a noble European palace, but the truth was that, behind this big centrepiece, El Palazzo was crammed with small, cheap hotel rooms with the bare minimum of facilities to pack in the customers. Most of them were almost ready.
‘Excuse me, Luc?’ a short, squat man interrupted them.
‘Ah,’ Luc said, smiling for the first time. ‘Chester. I’d like you to meet Savannah Hudson.’
The man, who had a gingery goatee beard over his roll of chins, was sweating profusely. ‘Miss Hudson,’ he said, extending a fat hand. ‘I was a great admirer of your father’s,’ he said. ‘Chester Malone. Very pleased to be at your service.’
‘So, Chester,’ she said, ‘how is security coming along?’
He glanced at Luc. ‘Well, slowly. It’s a problem training these . . .’ He paused and Savvy was convinced he was about to say something horribly racist. He realized in time that it would not be wise in front of Savvy. ‘Training these newcomers to the control room of a casino,’ he said judiciously. ‘But I think I’ve got it covered.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘Now then, you’ve set up the meeting tomorrow, right?’ she asked Luc.
Savvy had insisted on calling together the heads of all the contractors working on El Palazzo. It was time to show them who was boss and give them the face of the chairwoman and owner of the Hudson Corporation.
‘Yes. Tomorrow morning,’ Luc said. He sounded as if he didn’t think it was a good idea, but Savvy ignored his tone.
‘I’d like Chester to be there, too,’ she told them both.
She didn’t tell either of them that she’d be announcing that they were going to open in six weeks. Three weeks ahead of the planned schedule. Savvy had heard that Lois Chan had invited Jai Shijai to a baccarat championship and she knew she had to get El Palazzo open if the high rollers were in town. Whatever it took. She had to lay out her stall. El Palazzo was the competition and everyone was going to know it.
Savvy thanked Chester and politely dismissed him, before walking on through the casino with Luc.
‘I don’t know if Paige emailed you, but I worked out a bonus structure for the new contractors,’ she said.
‘That was your idea?’ Luc was obviously surprised – and impressed.
His praise shouldn’t be important, or his approval, but somehow it was. More than she’d care to admit. Because no matter how much she told herself otherwise, the last two years had been dominated by just one secret desire. To make Luc Devereaux respect her again. To prove to him that she’d filled Hud’s shoes.
‘Of course,’ she told him. ‘We’re going to get this place back on track. And fast. Now show me the roof.’
Up on the damaged roof of El Palazzo, Savvy leaned back against the scaffolding. It was such a relief to be away from the noise and stress inside and up here in the fresh air.
She wondered what Hud would have said, if he’d been here today. Would he have handled Luc the same way?
She was full of remorse that she hadn’t taken her father – or his business – more seriously when he was alive. It had all been there for her, right under her nose, if only she’d just looked. And now she’d missed out altogether on having Hud as her mentor.
On one level, his death was still very raw, but on another, she felt more connected now to Hud than she’d ever felt in the past, now that she was running his business. She was determined to see his vision through. She had to. She was the only one le
ft.
A fact made more apparent when she’d attended Martha’s quiet funeral a month ago.
Poor Martha had died peacefully in her sleep after heart problems had left her unable to work for the past year. Savvy knew that she’d never really got over Hud’s death. Savvy had solemnly promised Martha that she’d get to the bottom of what had happened to Hud in his final hours.
And now it was on the tip of Savvy’s tongue to tell Luc what she’d heard about the latest call girl kiss-and-tell that would hit the headlines in Vegas this week. They kept on coming. Women who wanted to make a quick buck by spreading sleaze about Michael Hudson.
Each one cut a little deeper. But the mystery woman Hud had allegedly been with on his last night seemed to have vanished into thin air. The police investigation had turned up nothing and Len Johnson, the PI Paige had hired, had got no further. Nobody had been held to account for Hud’s death, and it rankled more than ever.
Which was why Savvy had taken matters into her own hands. Since all official lines of inquiry had failed, she’d decided to employ someone she trusted, someone well accustomed to operating in a city’s seedy underbelly. Before she’d flown out to Shangri-La, she’d enlisted Marcus’s help to track down the agency who’d supplied girls to Hud.
Marcus, at Savvy’s expense, had come through a short stint in rehab and was a changed man. Much to Paige’s disapproval, Savvy had thrown him in at the deep end and given him a job as head of comps at La Paris. Just as she’d expected, Marcus was thriving. He’d just clinched next year’s MTV awards.
None of which she intended to discuss with Luc. She had the sense to know that Marcus would probably always be a sore subject between them.
Reaching into her bag, Savvy pulled out her packet of Lucky Strike and lit one.
‘You haven’t given up then?’ Luc said.
‘No,’ she said, inhaling and putting the lighter back in her bag. ‘I will. One day soon. A girl needs one vice.’
Luc nodded. ‘You’ve done very well, Savvy,’ he said quietly.
He didn’t look at her. Did he still think of her in terms of her vices? she wondered. Did he still assume she was the slut and liar he’d declared her to be all that time ago?
But now she could never raise the issue with him. Because life had moved on. And because Elodie was dead. And that, more than everything – Marcus, Hud, her decisions in Vegas – was something that they could never broach. Ever.
She sighed. ‘Look at it,’ she said.
A vision of Shangri-La was rising up from the mud right before their eyes. Giant cranes stood sentry on the skyline, huge diggers chomped at the ground like modern dinosaurs. She breathed in the hot stink of the tarmac pouring from the burners. And that humid, exotic smell that told her she was in the East.
A large red sun was sinking beyond the horizon across the sea, and in the moment of silence, the distant sound of music, which must be from the Good Fortune’s opening party, drifted over to them on the breeze. She could hear drums and cymbals clashing. But Savvy ignored it, turning the other way to survey El Palazzo’s leisure complex in the grounds below. She had to focus on the positive.
‘The pool and the golf course are all nearly there,’ she said. ‘It’s like Vegas must have been. Nothing there, and then . . . Bam!’
She knew he was looking at her as she continued to stare out.
‘I’m glad you’re here, Savvy. Thank you for keeping faith in me. I can turn this around and I will.’
Savvy smiled. ‘Good. That’s what I want to hear.’
‘Maybe you should have come before.’
Savvy crushed the cigarette beneath the toe of her shoe.
‘Actually, I think our arrangement has worked rather well. Don’t you think so?’ she said. Any other arrangement and you’d have quit, was what she was actually thinking. Leaving me with no one to run the project at all.
He nodded down at the workers still toiling on the site, even at this late hour. ‘Those people down there,’ he said, ‘they work for money, sure. But sometimes to get the best out of them . . . they need to hear something more. Like what you just said about Vegas . . . that they really are making history here.’ He turned to face her and looked her in the eye. ‘I think it’ll mean a great deal to them that they’re finally going to meet the boss.’
The boss. He’d actually said it. Like he meant it.
As if he’d finally accepted that she was the real deal.
Her triumph should be complete. She’d worked so hard for this moment. From day one, she’d taken on Hud’s mantle. She’d worked 24/7, eating, breathing and (barely) sleeping the business. She’d learned hard and fast, pumping Paige for information, shadowing Hud’s team, learning his business models, mastering the finances. And in the back of her mind, all along, she’d wanted just one person to take notice and be impressed. Luc.
And now he had.
So why didn’t she feel triumphant? Why did she feel sorry for him?
She forced herself to turn in the opposite direction.
‘Well, I’ll do my best. You know, I like it here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think I would. But I think Shangri-La is going to be very special.’
Luc sighed. ‘Do you? It has no soul yet for me,’ he said. ‘It’s not like Macau with all the Portuguese buildings and the old town.’ He sounded so wistful and exhausted.
Savvy turned to Luc. His face was softly lit in the setting sun.
‘You sound like you could do with a break,’ she said. ‘You know, Luc, I’m going back to Vegas the day after tomorrow. But I’m flying via France. I’m stopping in to meet some people in Monte Carlo.’
‘Oh? Who?’
‘Some disgruntled investors from the failed French consortium. They still want to get in on Shangri-La. They’ve been hunting us down for a share in El Palazzo.’
‘You’re not going to give them one, are you?’ He sounded suddenly alert.
‘Why don’t you come with me? I could do with your opinion.’
‘I can’t. I mean – I can’t possibly. There’s far too much to do here.’
‘Luc, you need some perspective. It’ll also give us time to plan who to bring from Vegas. We’re going to have to throw people, power and money at this thing to get it done.’
‘I appreciate that, Savvy, but—’
‘You’re exhausted and you need to get out of here. Fix it with whoever you need to. That’s an order,’ she said.
Luc bowed his head deferentially. There was a small silence. Again the music from the party at the Good Fortune drifted towards them.
‘Come on then,’ Savvy said, standing and putting her hands on her waist. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Really? Are you sure you want to? They’re not expecting us to actually turn up, you know.’
‘Which is precisely why we’re going. It’s all about face. If you lose face, you lose the war,’ she said. ‘And I’m not losing.’
CHAPTER FORTY
As Savvy got changed in one of El Palazzo’s minuscule bedrooms, she knew that this was exactly why she’d avoided Luc all this time. Because she couldn’t trust herself around him. And now she’d gone and invited him to Monte Carlo with her.
And she shouldn’t have, she now realized. Not if she still had feelings for him.
What good would getting any closer to him do? They had a professional relationship which just about worked. But all the other personal stuff – all their past, Elodie, everything – was still there. Buried. Where it should stay.
Savvy threw open her suitcase on the bed. She pulled out the mint-green and silver dress, then stood in front of the mirror on the wardrobe.
She held the figure-hugging evening dress up against herself. She’d worn it to a party at La Paris and Marcus had told her it was a knock-out. But how would Luc think she looked in it?
Stop it! she scolded herself. Who cared what Luc thought of her? Anyway, for all she knew, he had a local girlfriend out here. Someone like these grinning Asian girls on
the dreadful tourist posters on the walls.
But even as she thought it, Savvy knew it wasn’t true. Luc Devereaux looked like a man who’d not had any female attention for a long time.
She saw the glint in her eye as she mussed up her hair in the mirror. Because now a deliciously naughty thought occurred to her as she remembered how she’d seduced him at La Paris all that time ago. The moment when he’d not been able to help giving in to her.
OK, so the past was the past, but . . . but what if . . . ?
What if she could make Luc desire her again?
Well, surely she’d win, really win, if that were to happen? How delicious would that be? To hear Luc overcome with passion again? To see him lose all his principles and the moral high ground and admit that he was a slave to the lust he felt for her . . .
She smiled at herself. Being his boss was one thing, but she knew she wouldn’t feel satisfied until he was grovelling at her feet.
Because only then would she get her real victory. Because the moment he admitted that he wanted her – truly wanted her – she’d tell him that he couldn’t have her.
Not ever.
And then she’d be even. Once and for all.
Her reflection stared back at her. She knew she was contemplating a dangerous game. One that she’d never dare to play if Paige was around. But wasn’t it only by doing this that she could truly put the past to rest and quell the what-ifs that still haunted her, whenever she spent time with Luc? Wouldn’t she be taking charge of her life in exactly the way Max Savage had counselled her to do from the start?
She bit her lip and smiled at herself. Was that why she’d packed a green dress? To remind Luc of the green dress she’d worn the night they’d made love? Had this plan been in her subconscious all along?
Savvy deliberately didn’t look at Luc as they walked out of El Palazzo and across the road with its orange and white cones, to where the crowd had gathered outside the Good Fortune. He’d changed too and was wearing a tuxedo with a black shirt, which showed off his tan and made him look – Savvy had to admit it – damn sexy.