Pete’s office was positively palatial and crammed with trophies of his movie-making triumphs from the past decade. Signed pictures of a host of Hollywood legends who’d worked with him lined the three walls that weren’t taken up with window. Just about everyone Claire could ever remember having seen on-screen was up there somewhere—Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Nicole Kidman—and all of them had written personal notes of thanks or admiration to her husband, the boy Duke McMahon had insisted would never amount to anything.
There were very few pictures of Pete himself on the wall. Despite his phenomenal success, he remained deeply insecure about his physical appearance, particularly his red hair. Even though it was now thinning and heavily flecked with gray, Pete couldn’t shake the feeling that it lit up his head like a beacon and that it was still the first thing everybody noticed about him.
He preferred to soothe his vanity by prominently displaying his two Best Picture Oscar statuettes, alongside a whole host of other, lesser film awards, at the very front of his desk, right in the immediate line of sight of any visitor who walked through the door.
He picked one of them up now, passing it from hand to hand, as if weighing up a problem. Then he turned to face his wife, who was anxiously wringing her slender hands beside him.
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “We aren’t going to do anything about Siena. Nothing has changed, darling. Not really.”
“What do you mean nothing’s changed?” asked Claire, taking the naked golden figure from him and carelessly plonking it back on the desk, ignoring his sharp, worried intake of breath. “Of course something’s changed. She’s been seriously hurt, Pete. She needs us.”
He took her hands in his and looked her straight in the eyes. “Claire,” he whispered. “How many times are we going to go through this? Siena is no longer a part of this family. And she never will be again. Ever. I thought we’d agreed.”
“But Pete,” she began, although by now she already knew it was hopeless. His eyes had taken on the blank look that meant total emotional shutdown.
“No,” he stopped her. “Please, Claire. Are you with me or against me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
She got up and began pacing in front of the window in frustration. Why? Why did it always have to be this life-or-death battle? Why couldn’t he see that she did love him, that she loved them both?
She pressed her face up against the glass and stared down at the tiny, toy-town cars on Century City Boulevard, some thirty stories below. This being L.A., there were no miniature people running around, just traffic, weaving in and out of the lanes like a confused army of ants.
It was a very, very long way down. Claire felt a lurching sensation of being pulled forward, almost as if the glass might be about to magically disappear or shatter, and she would plunge helplessly to her death far, far below.
She shivered and moved back from the window hurriedly.
What had she expected? That just because Siena had had an accident, because her face was in the papers again, Pete was suddenly going to relent and see sense?
Claire cursed herself for being so naive, for running down here to see him on a stupid impulse. The fact was that no story, no pictures were ever going to make him see Siena for who she really was: a frightened, confused, lost little girl, desperate for her parents’ love.
Just then Tara came in with the coffee, without knocking, still ticked off about having been asked to perform such a menial task in front of Claire and having her perceived status so cruelly undermined.
“Leave it on the desk,” said Pete, oblivious to his PA’s indignant pout. She did as she was told, then turned on her heel and left.
“So?” he said again, this time to Claire’s back.
He’d asked a question, and he wasn’t about to let her leave without giving him an answer.
“I’m with you, Pete,” she said wearily.
Kissing him with almost maternal fondness on the cheek, she left him, her cup of coffee still steaming and untouched on the desk behind her.
Las Vegas in the summertime is like nowhere else on earth. Teeming with tourists who don’t know any better than to take their holidays in temperatures that could fell cattle, as well as with the lost souls from all across America who come to forget, to try to escape their demons amid the noise and the neon and the relentless clicking and whirring of the slot machines, it’s like some bizarre science-fiction world of its own.
Siena had first come here as a child with her grandfather. Duke adored the place. He used to say he and Vegas were made for each other. She remembered watching him and his friends playing poker in one of the private rooms at Caesars Palace while she had stuffed herself on a giant tub of rum-and-raisin ice cream in the corner. She could only have been about six or seven.
Duke always wore a suit when he played cards, she remembered; he used to look like an even handsomer version of Dean Martin, with his whiskey in one hand and his cards in the other, grinning around the big cigar he always smoked when he gambled. Grandpa had made Vegas seem so glamorous, and Siena had never quite shaken the feeling that beneath all the tacky freak shows and Siegfried & Roy kitsch, it was still a place where the big players played.
Duke had been a big player back in his heyday, the biggest.
One day, Siena told herself, she would be too.
As soon as she emerged into the lobby at the Venetian, she was greeted by the blinding flashes of a thousand cameras and a myriad of strange voices, male and female, calling out her name.
“Siena! Over here!”
“How do you feel, sweetheart? Is it true you broke your ribs?”
“Have you heard from Max? Anything you’d like to say to him?”
Before she had a chance to respond, she found herself being swept up by the hotel manager, whose goons were making a valiant effort to beat back the throng, and bundled into the relative safety of his office.
“Holy shit,” she said, easing herself gingerly down into a chair. “How long have they been here?”
“Since late last night, I’m afraid, Miss McMahon,” said the manager with a pained, what-can-you-do expression. He was a very short, very round Italian with a ruddy, drink-ravaged complexion. Siena thought he looked like a human tomato and fought back a strong urge to giggle.
“We’ve done our best to keep them out of the reception area, and security has been tightened inside the hotel. But I’m afraid as soon as you step outside . . .”
“I know, I know,” said Siena. “I’m buggered.”
“Excuse me?” The tomato looked bewildered.
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Siena waved her hand dismissively. “It’s an English expression, something I picked up at school.”
The manager nodded and tried not to stare too openly at Siena’s fabulously full breasts, revealingly outlined by the clinging fabric of her dress. He didn’t normally go for models, but he thought he could make an exception in this young lady’s case.
“I guess I have to face the music sooner or later,” she said, with a sigh that wasn’t 100 percent convincing. “I think I might do some shopping, and they can get their pictures then. Get them out of the way.”
The manager had seen this act before with countless other celebrities. The brave, resigned smile, intended to say: “All I want is to be alone with my pain, but regrettably I have a public to think about.” It was all a load of baloney. Sure, the girl was upset, some guy just screwed her over. But she was also loving the attention, every last minute of it. No one came to Vegas for the privacy.
What he actually said was: “I know this must be a difficult time for you, Miss McMahon,” tilting his head with practiced, professional sympathy. “If you like, I can loan you a couple of my security guys to come shopping with you? Things could get a bit outta hand.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll need them.” Siena got up and extended her hand, which he shook politely. “It has been a difficult forty-eight hours, and I appreciate your c
oncern. But I think I can cope on my own.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said the manager, admiring her back view as she headed for the door. “Not for a moment.”
For the first twenty minutes, Siena had a whale of a time. The very best antidote to heartbreak, she decided, was a wave of public adulation.
She strolled along the artificial canals, looking suitably beautiful, victimized, and brave, answering two or three questions before diving into Gucci or Prada, where the doors would close firmly behind her, allowing her to shop in peace while reporters pressed their lenses up against the glass. Then she would emerge for another short round of questioning and photographs before disappearing again.
The slightly surreal atmosphere of the whole exercise was intensified by the seamless artifice surrounding her: fake gondoliers with fake mustaches waved and shouted out to her in their fake Italian accents, beneath a fake painted sky, peppered with fake, neon-lit white clouds.
It must be incredible to wander through the Venetian on acid, thought Siena. She felt like she was tripping already.
After twenty minutes though, she was beginning to understand why they called them “the press.” So many people were swarming around her, it became quite physically intimidating, and before she knew it she seemed to have crossed the line from indulged diva to trapped rat.
The questions were also becoming more personal.
“Do you have any message for Camille Andrews?” asked one wiry little Hispanic woman who’d gotten so close to her that her bad breath was making Siena feel sick.
“Not that you can print,” she snapped, her Pollyanna image slipping for an unguarded moment.
A hundred pens began frantically scribbling.
“Do you think you can ever forgive him?” yelled a male voice.
Siena ignored that one and tried to turn left into a Ferragamo store but found herself hemmed in by a solid wall of tape recorders and cameras. Why hadn’t she taken the manager up on his offer of some muscle? She started to feel panicked.
“Do you still love him?”
The voice came from about two feet behind her. Siena swung around and searched for its owner, apparently a middle-aged black reporter, whose badge proclaimed that he was from the L.A. Times.
“Do you still love him?” he repeated.
She stood and stared at the man blankly for a moment, while the cameras flashed. Then, out of nowhere, she burst into tears.
The crowd went wild, pushing even closer, their raised voices babbling in an indistinguishable roar: Photographers were punching each other to jostle their way into a more advantageous position for a shot of the unfolding drama.
Oh God. Help.
Siena was sobbing and spinning around frantically on the spot, desperately looking for a way out. Just then she felt a slight easing of the pressure of bodies to her left and saw a hand, a man’s hand, being held out to her. Instinctively she grabbed it. The hand pulled her swiftly and forcefully through the throng, and before she knew it she found herself disorientated and gasping for breath inside Ferragamo, the bloodhounds mercifully shut out on the other side of the door.
Only then did she look up from the hand to acquaint herself with its owner.
She had never met him before, she was sure of that, although something about his face was eerily familiar. She guessed he was in his mid-to-late fifties, completely bald except for one small strip of closely shaved gray hair forming a semi-circle at the bottom of his head. He was immaculately dressed in a dark blue suit and a white Italian-cut shirt, and he smelled very faintly of some expensive aftershave.
He was overweight—not obese, but heavy—and not at all good-looking in any traditional sense. He had a boxer’s nose, wide and oddly flattened as if it had been multiply broken, and it looked enormous above his small, thin mouth. His eyes were a deep brown, almost black, and were surrounded by symmetrical fans of wrinkles. But despite these unprepossessing features, the overwhelming impression he gave was one of power and masculinity.
Her tiny hand lost in his grip, Siena was horrified to find herself thinking simultaneously that he reminded her of Duke and that she was strongly attracted to him.
“You looked like you could use some help,” he said, smiling down at her. His voice was deep and betrayed only the faintest traces of a long-lost southern accent. “I’m Randall Stein.”
Of course! Of course she recognized him. She must have been on another planet not to have gotten it right away.
Randall Stein was a legendary producer, bigger even than her father. He had made his name by funding action movies back in the early eighties, and had almost single-handedly created the action-comedy genre that went on to dominate the box office in the early nineties. Stein was also well known as a shrewd investor in real estate and on Wall Street. She was sure she’d read something in one of Max’s Forbes magazines about his having a personal net worth somewhere in the billions.
Holy shit.
Randall Stein.
And here she was looking like something the cat had sicked up, bruised and tear-stained and revolting. “How do you do?” she said, hastily wiping away her running mascara on the back of her right hand. Randall was still holding her left. “I’m—”
“I know who you are, Siena.”
It was that voice again. Siena felt her knees going weak. “Really?”
“Of course.” Randall released her hand and pulled up a chair beside her. The Ferragamo staff, who had all been loitering, gazing at the drama and particularly at Siena—in their world, a top model was of infinitely more interest than some dull-as-ditchwater producer—now disappeared to the other end of the store after a meaningful glance from their manager.
“I know your father. In fact, I used to know your grandfather as well, for many years.”
“Really?”
She could have smacked herself. Why couldn’t she think of anything interesting to say?
Randall smiled again. He seemed to find her embarrassment rather amusing. “Yes. But that’s not why I know you. It may have escaped your notice, my dear, but a lot of people out there seem to recognize your face these days.” He gestured to the paparazzi outside. “I enjoy looking at beautiful models as much as the next man. You could say I’m a fan.”
Siena smiled at this. She doubted very much whether Randall Stein was anybody’s fan.
“Actually,” she said, finding her voice at last, “I’m not really modeling much anymore. I’m an actress.”
Randall threw his head back and gave a great roar of a laugh. Siena looked offended. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, honey.” He wiped away tears of mirth. “It’s just that I wish I had a dollar for every beautiful young girl who’s told me that.”
“I am an actress,” said Siena again. The steeliness in her voice wiped the smile off Randall’s face, and he looked at her with renewed respect. “A fucking good one, as it happens.”
“Well,” he said, apparently somewhat chastened, “you certainly have the genes for it. But never mind all that. You look, if you’ll forgive an old man for saying so, terrible.”
“You’re not an old man,” said Siena, who hadn’t taken offense. “I know I must look a mess. I’ve been having a few . . .” She stumbled for the right word. “A few problems in the last couple of days.”
“I know,” said Randall. She looked at him questioningly. “I have a TV.”
“Oh,” said Siena. “I see. Of course.”
“Look,” said Randall, “it looks like the boys in blue have got your little fan club under control.” Siena glanced outside to see the press pack dispersing resentfully under the watchful eye of four heavily armed cops. “Why don’t you let me have one of my guys take you back to your hotel to get some rest. You really shouldn’t be out here today, not till things die down.”
“Okay,” Siena nodded. “Thanks.”
“And I’ll come and pick you up from the Venetian at around eight,” said Randall firmly, as if referring to a long-standing arrangement betwee
n the two of them.
“Oh. I don’t know,” began Siena.
“Eight-thirty, then?”
“No, I mean, you’ve been very kind and everything. But I’m really not looking for”—she blushed, trying to think of a way to say this politely—“I think I’m still in love with someone else. I’m not really ready for, you know, dating.”
She waited for him to fill the silence, but he didn’t let her off the hook. Again, he seemed to be enjoying her awkwardness.
“I’m just not interested in you in that way,” she blurted out eventually.
“Good,” said Randall briskly. “Because I have absolutely no interest in you romantically.”
“Oh. Right. Good,” said Siena, who felt oddly like she’d just been punched in the stomach.
“But I’d like to get to know you a little better. As I said, your family and I go back a long way. And you never know, we may even discuss a bit of business.”
He noticed Siena’s eyes light up at the mention of the magic word business. A girl after his own heart.
“Great,” she said, and flashed him that million-dollar McMahon smile. “I’m glad we got that straightened out.”
They shook hands again.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “For rescuing me.”
“My pleasure,” said Randall. “Now go get some rest. I’ll see you tonight.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Back in L.A., Max sat on a rock high up in the hills above Will Rogers Park, with his head in his hands.
He’d had some paparazzi problems of his own.
Ever since the news broke, a posse of press had been camped outside the beach house, waiting for him to emerge, like the groundhog. He’d had a hell of a job shaking them off yesterday, on his way to try and see Siena at the airfield.
That was the only small mercy he could think of in this nightmare so far: At least the press hadn’t been there to witness Siena dismissing him like some disobedient dog. She wouldn’t even look at him, let alone listen to his apology.
He’d been expecting anger, hysterics, and tears. Instead he got clinical, almost disinterested rejection. Which was far, far worse.
Adored Page 39