Adored

by Tilly Bagshawe

  “Oh, right,” said Max, who could happily have smacked the triumphant-looking Siena over the head with his laptop, which he was clearing off the table. “Well if it’s the more the merrier, I think I’ll join you, too. You and Hunter can go in the Mercedes, enjoy the drive on your own. I’ll take Siena in my car.”

  Siena spun around and gave him a look that could have frozen molten lava. Making sure he was out of Hunter’s line of sight, Max stuck his tongue out at her.

  Tiffany, who was observing this little exchange as she disengaged herself from Hunter and laid out the fruit plates, felt her heart swell with gratitude. Thank God for Max.

  Stuck in traffic on the 101 two hours later, Max was beginning to regret his selfless gesture of support for Tiffany. Siena was being utterly unbearable. First she’d delayed them all by insisting on changing her outfit three times before she felt completely comfortable.

  “It’s Montecito, not Monte fucking Carlo,” Max had yelled in exasperation after her third change, into an utterly unsuitable sky-blue linen suit with a pencil skirt and high heels.

  Now she was sitting beside him with two bath towels thrown over the passenger seat of his Honda Civic in case she should contaminate her perfect outfit with any dust from the car, her face screwed up like a disgusted debutante who had woken up to find herself knee-deep in sewage.

  For the first half hour of the journey, neither of them spoke, choosing instead to maintain hostilities via an ongoing battle for control of the stereo: He put on classical, she changed the station to pop, she turned the volume up, he turned it down. But when Max insisted on taking the faster, less scenic freeway route rather than the coast road, her barely repressed rage had exploded in classic McMahon style.

  “Why the fuck are we going this way?” she demanded as he joined the sluggish-looking lane of northbound traffic. “I thought this was supposed to be a beautiful Sunday drive, not a freeway crawl.”

  “It was,” said Max. “It was supposed to be a beautiful drive—for Hunter and Tiffany. And I sincerely hope”—he changed lanes suddenly, throwing Siena deliberately against the right side of the car, linen suit and all—“that they’re enjoying themselves. Despite your best efforts.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Siena brusquely, brushing the dirt angrily from her sleeve.

  “Oh, pull the other one,” said Max. “You knew they wanted some time alone today. You only wanted to come so you could mess things up for the two of them. Again.”

  Siena drew her shoulders back defensively. She hated it when he was right. “My, what an active imagination you have!” she sneered. “I suppose being such an abject, unemployed failure leaves you plenty of time to sit at home and work on your conspiracy theories.”

  Max smiled. “You can say what you like about me, sweetheart. But I’ve got your number. And so does Tiffany. Believe me, Hunter may be a soft touch, but he’s not stupid. Sooner or later he’s going to see through you, just like everybody else.”

  Siena’s eyes flashed with fear and hatred, but for once she managed to control herself. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I wanted to come today because I want to see Montecito?” she said. “And because I like to be with Hunter. And he likes to be with me.”

  Max yawned pointedly as Siena drew breath.

  “Why can’t you and Tiffany,” she spat out the word with heavy sarcasm, “just accept that?”

  “Because it’s crap,” said Max flatly. “This has nothing to do with Montecito. Or you and Hunter having time together. If you really cared about Hunter, you wouldn’t begrudge him and Tiffany their happiness. You’d see that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him and stop trying to fuck everything up for him like some sort of neurotic child. You’re pathetic.”

  “How dare you!” exploded Siena, hitting him hard with both fists on his right arm so that he swerved dangerously toward the meridian.

  “Jesus,” said Max, trying to keep control of the car while shielding himself from her blows. “Are you trying to kill us or something?” He pulled unsteadily back toward the hard shoulder, eventually pulling off to the side of the road as Siena continued to pummel him.

  “You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about!” she yelled. She was becoming increasingly hysterical. “What the hell do you know about me and Hunter, about what we’ve been through? You know nothing about my life, Max, nothing! I lost him for eleven years. Eleven fucking years. You were with him for all that time, all that time when I was alone, when I had no one. And now, after everything we’ve been through, we finally find each other again, and there’s some stupid damn girl trying to take him away from me all the time. You have no idea what that feels like. I hate her, Max. I fucking hate her. I hate both of you!”

  Gently, Max took hold of each of her wrists, effortlessly stopping her punches. For a second she struggled against him automatically, but her efforts soon melted into the firm warmth of his grip. She glared up at him defiantly through tears of frustration.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself pulling her toward him and kissing her passionately on the mouth. In one confusing moment, he felt the soft, wet skin of her cheeks against his own, and her tongue probing hungrily, almost desperately, for his. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.

  He let go of her and sat back, shocked. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his heart still pounding hard.

  “Are you?” whispered Siena.

  Her voice sounded changed, thick with desire. Max noticed that her left hand was still resting on his thigh.

  He gazed across at her. She looked like a clown who’d been left out in the rain—first the tears and then the kiss had played havoc with her makeup. “I don’t know,” he stammered, staring at her hand on his leg. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Siena miserably. The desire in her voice had already been replaced by something else. It might have been panic.

  Oh God. She felt horribly confused. She’d despised and resented Max for as long as she could remember. As a child, he’d always come between her and Hunter, and even now he never failed to take Tiffany’s side and to undermine her in Hunter’s eyes as often as he could.

  When she’d gotten so upset before, all she’d wanted was for him to understand for once, to stop preaching for five minutes and tell her that her need for Hunter, her deep, desperate love for him, was okay. She wanted him to tell her that Hunter loved her more than anyone else on the planet. That girlfriends would come and go, but that she, Siena, would never lose his love again.

  But he hadn’t done that. Instead, he’d told her off for her behavior, chastised her like a naughty child. And then he’d gone and kissed her.

  How was she supposed to react to that?

  She toyed with the idea of slapping him, pulling the whole “how dare you” routine. But unfortunately, there was no escaping the fact that she had kissed him back.

  For a long time.

  Enthusiastically.

  In that instant, she had wanted him, and he knew it. There could be no going back.

  Oh God. What had possessed her?

  Flustered, she pulled her hand off his leg as though she’d just realized it was resting on hot coals, and fumbled in the glove box for some tissues.

  “Here, let me,” said Max, reaching over to dab at her smudged cheeks.

  Siena flinched. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “I can do it. You just, er . . .” She waved her hand at him to get going. “You just drive. We’re going to be late otherwise.”

  Max’s face fell. So that was it, then? They were just going to pretend it had never happened?

  Maybe it was for the best. Siena was trouble, big, big trouble, and the last thing he needed in his life right now. She was right. It had been a moment of madness, an emotional release for both of them, a stupid mistake that was best forgotten.

  So why did he feel so overwhelmed with disappointment?

  Reluctantly, he fastened his s
eat belt and restarted the engine.

  “Fine,” he said eventually, not quite suppressing a sigh. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Siena decided that the kiss with Max must have been some sort of evil omen. From that moment on, everything started to go wrong.

  The afternoon in Montecito had been complete torture. Hunter and Tiffany were totally wrapped up in each other, endlessly reminiscing about this boring restaurant and that tedious gallery. Siena couldn’t have felt more like a third wheel if she’d tried, and she wished with all her heart that she’d listened to Max in the first place and stayed home.

  “Oh, look, honey, it’s that little tea place, you remember?” Tiffany grabbed Hunter’s hand and began dragging him across Main Street. “I wonder if they still do that passion fruit and mango?” She had changed into a clinging white vest and a pair of lemon-yellow shorts for the trip, which, even when paired with flat flip-flops, emphasized her endless brown legs. That was one area where she definitely trumped the petite Siena, whom she was gratified to see looking overdressed and grumpy, with most of her makeup inexplicably smeared all over her overpriced jacket.

  “You coming?” Hunter called over his shoulder to Siena and Max, but they both shook their heads and hung back, looking awkward. He hoped they hadn’t had yet another fight in the car.

  For Siena, the afternoon had gone from bad to worse, with Tiffany scoring point after point and looking radiantly happy with Hunter. Max, meanwhile, had withdrawn into monosyllabic isolation. He didn’t make eye contact with her once that afternoon, nor on the long journey back to L.A. in the evening. Clearly, he regretted what had happened, which only served to heighten Siena’s own feelings of embarrassment and confusion.

  When they’d finally gotten back to the beach house, they had bolted to their separate rooms and a long-awaited respite from the tension of each other’s company.

  What a fucking mess.

  Over and over she told herself that she hated Max, that he would stop at nothing to turn Hunter against her, that he was and always had been her enemy. He was a loser, a sponger off her family, a patronizing, self-righteous English prig. He was arty and pretentious.

  And blond. She hated blonds.

  When she thought back to the kiss, she felt revolted, ashamed. And yet, however hard she tried to shut it out, the feeling of his body against hers, the power of his arms, the smell of his sweat, and the unexpected violence of his kiss all rushed back to assail her senses with what, despairingly, she could only recognize as pure and very intense desire.

  For the next week, she threw herself into her work. She would leave the house at seven, before Max or Hunter were up, arriving over an hour early at the set in nearby Venice, where she would pore over her script making notes and memorizing the director’s suggestions before rehearsals started.

  But not even all her extra diligence could protect her from the wrath of Dierk Muller, the director, when he was less than 110 percent happy with a scene.

  Muller was a first-generation German immigrant, a charmless little wisp of a man with thinning gray hair, physically striking only for his oversize Adam’s apple, which bobbed up and down grotesquely whenever he spoke. Despite his unprepossessing appearance, he was revered in Hollywood, not only as a brilliant director whose energy, focus, and commitment to all of his projects was second to none, but as that rarest of things in L.A.: a true, incorruptible artist. His films were all critical successes, and although he was at best hit-and-miss at the box office, there was no shortage of top-flight actors, writers, and cinematographers lining up to work with him.

  He was not, however, an easy man to work with. Or, in Siena’s case, to work for.

  Dierk knew Siena had talent, but he also recognized her lack of discipline and her tendency to pull back emotionally in difficult scenes, a self-protective mechanism common in younger, inexperienced actresses. His response was to yell and scream and pour scorn like acid on her performance, bullying her into dropping her inhibitions. It worked, but the process was emotionally exhausting for both of them.

  Siena, who was used to being the fashion world’s darling, pampered and indulged by designers and photographers at every turn, was in a complete state of shock. At night she would crawl back home feeling worthless and defeated, longing to be left alone with Hunter, the one person who could always make her feel better. But invariably, he’d be doing something with Tiffany.

  Fucking perfect, sweet, wonderful, always-there Tiffany, who had herself wrapped around his heart like poison ivy.

  Embarrassment after their kiss had not stopped Max from continuing to stick up for Tiffany whenever Siena tried to pry her away from Hunter. She was sick of it always being two against one at the beach house, and often her only comfort would be long phone calls to Ines in New York.

  Ines, at least, was a true friend, accepting unconditionally that Tiffany was a bitch-cow from hell who must be destroyed, and blindly taking Siena’s side in everything. At the end of every call, she would beg Siena to come back to Manhattan.

  “L.A. is sheet. Acting is sheet. Teefany is sheet,” she would insist, neatly summarizing Siena’s own feelings on those three subjects. “Come back to modeling, honey, we all mees you so much.”

  But miserable as she was, Siena knew she couldn’t go back. She’d waited too long for this movie, for a real shot at Hollywood, and to be back with Hunter again. She would show Dierk Muller what she was made of. And she’d get the better of Tiffany fucking Wedan as well.

  So if Max self-righteous De Seville didn’t like it, he could go to hell.

  One evening a few weeks after the fateful Montecito trip, Siena decided she would cook supper for the four of them at home.

  One of Tiffany’s most irksome attributes was the fact that she effortlessly excelled at all things domestic—cooking, flower arranging, sewing, interior decoration, you name it, she was a regular Martha Stewart, one of those infuriating women who had only to rearrange a few cushions to make a room look warm and homey and who whipped up delicious, interesting meals from the few unpromising leftovers she happened to stumble across in the fridge.

  Siena knew that Hunter, who had never really had a mother figure in his life, valued such feminine skills very highly, and she was damned if she was going to let Tiffany bask in all the glory. Tonight, she, Siena, would be the angel in the house. Hunter couldn’t fail to be delighted.

  After two hours alone in the kitchen, however, she was starting to regret the whole domestic escapade.

  Her first attempt at winter-vegetable soup had ended up a charred and sticky mess, stuck, probably forever, to the bottom of a giant saucepan. She figured she had just about enough ingredients left to attempt a second batch, but that left her very little time to make the rosemary baste for the rack of lamb, not to mention whip up the raspberry pavlova she had rashly already told Max would be on the menu.

  Hastily throwing some semi-chopped carrots and parsnips into the blender, she picked up the portable phone and called Ines. “Lamb,” she shouted over the whirring of the blades. “How long per pound? And how hot should the oven be?”

  “Whaaat?” asked Ines, who had been happily drifting off to sleep on the couch in their Manhattan apartment with her face caked in a green algae mask. “Siena? Ees that you?”

  Siena turned off the blender. “How long should I cook this lamb for?” she repeated. “It’s quite big.”

  “’Ow the fuck should I know,” replied Ines reasonably. “I’m a model. I don’t eat, let alone cook. Why don’t you eat out, like normal people?”

  “I’ve told you,” said Siena, wrestling with the lid of the blender, which finally came free, spraying vegetable puree into her face and hair. “I want to cook something for Hunter. I want to show him that I’m better than she is at something.”

  “Honey,” Ines reassured her, “you are bettair than her at everything. Bettair-looking, bettair actress, bettair everything. You ’ave nothing to prove to Hunter.�
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  Siena loved the way that Ines dismissed Tiffany’s talents completely, despite the fact that she had never met her, spoken to her, or even seen a picture. “Thanks, babe.” She wiped the mess from her hair with a tea towel, realizing in panic that she would now need to wash and dry her hair before supper as well as finish preparing the food. It was already almost half past six.

  “I’ve got to go,” she told Ines, turning back helplessly to her pile of carrots.

  “Good luck,” said her friend. “And remembair, ees better to cook it too much than not enough.”

  By seven-forty-five, things were beginning to look a little more under control. Siena had washed and changed into a pair of clean chocolate-brown suede pants and a faded green T-shirt that contrasted beautifully with her blue eyes—she didn’t want to look like she had made too much effort. She hadn’t had time to blow-dry her hair, so she’d piled it, still damp, in a messy mop on top of her head, held loosely in place by her favorite silver and topaz hair clip. She didn’t normally wear makeup at home, but this evening she had decided to warm up her porcelain cheeks with a dusting of bronzing powder and slick some clear gloss over her lips.

  “You look lovely,” said Hunter when she emerged into the living room, where he and Tiffany were ensconced on the sofa watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island.

  “Wow, you really do,” added Tiffany graciously. “And you smell terrific, too. What is that?”

  “Chanel Nineteen,” said Siena. “You’re welcome to borrow some if you’d like.”

  Tiffany, who knew this display of sweetness was aimed entirely at Hunter, smiled and declined very politely. “But I’d be happy to help out in the kitchen, if there’s anything you need doing?” she offered. Two could play at this game.

  “No thanks,” muttered Siena. She’d rather die than accept help from Little Miss Perfect this evening. “I’ve got it covered.”

  “Yeah, honey,” said Hunter, stroking Tiffany’s hair in a way that made Siena want to run over there and strangle her. “Let Siena handle things tonight. You’re always slaving away in that kitchen. You deserve a night off.”