Adored

by Tilly Bagshawe

  “It’s been done to death, though,” said Siena, apparently happy to talk business now that her tears had dried. “Me and Hunter, the family outcasts.”

  “It’s been done badly,” said Randall, “thanks to your friend Marsha. It’s a great card, baby, and I’m going to show you how to play it properly. Besides, things are different now. Your profile is in a whole other league from your pretty-boy uncle’s. Your grandmother’s death is a gift. Let’s make you the star of the show.”

  Despite everything, Siena felt a stab of distaste, hearing Minnie’s death described as nothing more than a PR opportunity. She also wasn’t crazy about the idea of using Hunter to help promote her image. Things had been strained between them, to say the least, since Randall came on the scene. She couldn’t go to the beach house, what with Max still living there and the annoying Tiffany back in almost permanent residence. And Randall had made it quite clear that he disapproved of her closeness with Hunter, or with anyone other than himself in fact, so she couldn’t really ask him out to Malibu, either.

  Between their geographical problems, filming schedules, and Siena’s constant need to be in the limelight, she and Hunter had had precious little time together recently. She knew this had hurt him deeply, and she was ashamed of herself for allowing the rift between them to grow.

  “I thought you hated Hunter?” She made a last attempt to stall Randall. “Aren’t you always telling me not to spend so much time with him, and never to get our picture taken together?”

  “This is different,” he repeated, in a tone that was intended to indicate the matter was now closed. “Call him, ask him for tonight. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

  “What about the second thing?” said Siena. “Didn’t you say calling Hunter was the first thing you wanted me to do?”

  “Ah, yes,” Randall smiled wickedly. “The second thing.”

  Siena gave him an over-the-top look of mock surprise. She already knew exactly what the second thing would be.

  Placing two strong hands on her shoulders, Randall pushed her down onto her knees. Wordlessly, she unzipped his fly and freed his rock-solid erection. Then she looked up at him, smiling. Despite everything, despite all the crudeness, controlling, and bullying, Randall’s power was still the ultimate turn-on for Siena.

  Gently, he lifted her mountain of dark curls and cupped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her pretty rosebud mouth down onto his cock.

  Then he sat back and sighed contentedly as, with consummate skill, she gave him exactly what he wanted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Across town, Tiffany put the finishing touches to the table with a little sigh of contentment. Grabbing her novel—she was addicted to Patricia Cornwell at the moment—and a chilled glass of Chardonnay from the fridge, she slipped out onto the front porch and sank down onto the wicker sofa to await Hunter’s return for lunch.

  They had decided to spend the weekend at her newly rented cottage in Venice, a charming, whitewashed twenties affair on one of the walk streets, with a white picket fence and fruit trees in the front garden.

  Tiffany had fallen in love with it the moment she saw it and put down a deposit for three months’ rent on the spot, but she hadn’t actually moved in until a few weeks ago, when Sea Rescue had finally wrapped.

  The cottage was a compromise solution. It was only a ten-minute drive along the beach from Hunter’s place, which was a lot easier than her old Westwood commute. She still didn’t want to move into the beach house: Even with Siena gone, it still felt too much like Hunter’s space. But she understood that Hunter felt he couldn’t sell and desert Max in his current hour of need. So they’d agreed to divide their time as equally as possible between the two houses and, unless either of them was away shooting, not to spend a night apart.

  She sipped her wine happily and admired her new garden. She was so much happier here, away from the heavy atmosphere over at the beach house. Ever since Siena had run off with Randall, it was as if a nail bomb had exploded into all of their lives.

  Max’s initial confidence that he would win her back had soon been replaced by despair. Mercifully, he had landed a really decent, paying job directing two short films for a famous Hollywood actor with money to burn who wanted to dabble on the production side. This at least meant he was out of the house and occupied most days.

  Even so, he carried his broken heart around with him wherever he went, and Tiffany found it painful to watch. He had lost a shocking amount of weight, and lack of sleep had taken all of the mirth and playfulness out of his lovely eyes. Worst of all, though, was his insistence that he alone was responsible for his misery. Nothing Tiffany or anyone said could change his mind about that. He was so acutely aware of his own guilt that he refused to hear a bad word about Siena. The agony of being constantly bombarded with images of her with Randall, rich, famous, and completely beyond his reach, Max thought of as nothing more than just punishment for his betrayal of her and their love.

  Hunter was not much better, moping around like a lost puppy, hoping against hope for word from Siena. It made Tiffany’s blood boil, the way that she had dropped him like a hot brick, now that she had her billionaire sugar daddy to take care of her and was a newly minted Hollywood superstar. As far as Tiffany was concerned, Siena had at last shown her true colors and proved once and for all that all she really cared about was fame and money.

  But Hunter, as always, point-blank refused to see it.

  “Have you seen the news?”

  Hunter, dripping with sweat from his run along the beach, was clutching a damp copy of the L.A. Times. He bounded over her fence in one giant stride and sat down on the terrace with his head between his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  Tiffany picked up the paper and read the headline. “Oh, darling, that’s terrible,” she said with real sympathy, putting a hand on his sweat-dampened shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded breathlessly and ran into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

  “I’m fine, actually,” he said, wandering back out. Tiffany scooted over so he could sit beside her. “It seems funny to say it, but I never really knew Minnie that well. I mean, I grew up in the same house, but we had very separate lives.”

  Tiffany sat patiently and listened.

  “I remember when I was very small, she used to scare me a bit,” he went on. “Claire, Siena’s mother, would always try to stick up for me. I think the problem was, she could never quite forgive me—Minnie I mean—for being my mother’s son. Which is understandable, I guess.”

  “No it isn’t,” said Tiffany bluntly. Sometimes Hunter’s turn-the-other-cheek nature could really wind her up. She wished he would stick up for himself more. “It isn’t understandable at all. You were a wholly innocent child. Anyway, I’m sure I remember you or Siena telling me she’d squandered half your inheritance or something.”

  “I told you that, but she didn’t do it deliberately,” he said. “She just never had a clue about money. My dad used to handle all that. Anyway.” He gave her a kiss, careful not to press his sweaty, salty face against hers and smudge her mascara. “I’m fine. Must be tough on Pete, though.”

  Good, thought Tiffany, but she didn’t say anything. Hunter might be able to forgive his mogul brother, but she wasn’t about to forget the way Pete McMahon had tried to destroy his career.

  Hunter picked up the paper again and started to read some of the comment. “I wonder how Siena’s taking it?” he said nervously. He had become wary of bringing up Siena’s name these days, fearful of Tiffany’s disapproval. “Do you think I should call her?”

  “No,” said Tiffany firmly, getting up and leading him into the living room, where she’d laid out the delicious-looking lunch. “She hasn’t bothered to call you, has she? She’s got your number, darling, if she needs you.”

  Hunter looked sad, but he wasn’t going to fight about it. “You’re right,” he said.

  Tiffany was astonished. She hadn’t expected h
im to let it go so easily. Then again, things had been fairly distant between him and Siena this last couple of months.

  “I ought to call my mom, though, after lunch. I’m sure she’ll have found a few spare moments to talk to the press.”

  He rolled his eyes, imagining Christopher’s bemused tolerance as his mother lapped up the press attention. Now that he was so happy and settled with Tiffany, he was inclined to feel much more indulgent toward Caroline’s foibles and weaknesses. He viewed her more as a sort of charmingly naughty, overgrown child than the woefully irresponsible parent she actually was.

  Tiffany had never met Caroline, although they’d spoken several times on the phone. She knew she ought to dislike her for her horrific neglect of Hunter when he was growing up. But she was so charming and funny and outrageous that it was difficult to keep the anger going.

  Plus, she seemed to be the only person to have come in close contact with Duke McMahon and emerged, or so it appeared, more or less unscathed. Tiffany couldn’t help but admire her for that.

  “Just give me five minutes to grab a shower and we can eat,” said Hunter. “The food looks incredible, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” She beamed, throwing back her mane of golden hair, delighted to have pleased him. “I hope it’ll taste okay.”

  “You certainly taste okay.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips, slipping a hand inside her faded pink shirt to caress her left breast. She was barefoot and wearing a worn pair of black jeans, but nothing could disguise her beautiful, willowy figure. As far as Hunter was concerned, she was the sexiest woman in the world.

  Before he could get any further in unhooking her bra, his cell phone rang. It was on top of the fridge in the kitchen, and he dashed in to answer it, with a “hold that thought” look to Tiffany.

  “Hello?”

  She knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. His smile said it all.

  “It’s Siena!” He grinned triumphantly, holding the phone in the air like a trophy. “She’s feeling a bit shell-shocked about the news. Wants to know if we’d like to join her and Randall at the Dodgers game tonight?”

  Tiffany thought she’d rather chew her own arm off than watch baseball with Siena and her lover, but she knew how much her support meant to him. “Sure, honey.” She forced a smile. “Sounds great.”

  “Oh, what’s that?” said Hunter, who was back on the line with Siena. “Okay, fine. No, I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll call you back in five.” He hung up.

  “What?” said Tiffany, buttoning up her shirt.

  “Well, the thing is,” he began apologetically, “apparently they only have one spare ticket. And since Siena and I haven’t seen each other in ages, I was wondering, you know, if you’d mind . . .”

  “Oh, I get it.” Tiffany laughed. Siena was so rude, it was actually funny. “I’m not invited, right? She only wants you.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” said Hunter. And the tragedy was, he believed it. “Honestly. She only has one—”

  “I know, she only has one spare ticket, you said.” She knew she shouldn’t resort to sarcasm, but she couldn’t help it. “And of course there’s no way in the world that Randall Stein and Siena McMahon could possibly get ahold of another ticket for a baseball game.”

  “Please, honey,” he implored her.

  He looked so cute and vulnerable, with his big, pleading blue eyes, she didn’t know how she ever refused him anything. She really did love him so much.

  “Fine,” she said at last. “You go.”

  He walked over and picked her up, forgetting about his dirty running clothes, kissing her again and again in gratitude. “Thank you, baby. I love you. Thank you so much.”

  “No problem,” said Tiffany. “Just don’t get your hopes up, Hunter, okay? In my experience, Siena doesn’t do anything unless there’s something in it for Siena. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I won’t,” he yelled, bounding up the stairs two at a time toward his shower. “Everything’ll be fine, trust me.”

  Over at Hancock Park, Tara was thoroughly enjoying herself, wandering from room to room with a clipboard, barking orders to three of Pete’s gofers while nosily rummaging her way through Minnie’s things.

  Pete was downstairs, holed up in the drawing room with his lawyers and his wet blanket of a wife. Frankly, Tara was pleased to get away from him.

  Things at the office had been terrible recently, and Tara had been having about as much fun as a germ in a bath of disinfectant. Pete had been even more distant and irritable than usual. Admittedly, McMahon Pictures was in the final stages of production on two hugely costly new movies, which always upped her boss’s stress levels. But there were clearly other things on his mind as well.

  Although he never spoke about Siena—mentioning her name was strictly verboten at work, and more than one of MPW’s senior execs had been canned last year for breaking this taboo—Tara could tell that his daughter’s relationship with Randall Stein was driving Pete to distraction.

  She had managed to glean enough information, largely through the time-honored method of pressing her ear against Pete’s office door, to understand that his problem was not so much with Siena—who, by his own admission, he no longer thought of as his child—but with Stein. Apparently, Randall had been quite tight with Duke back in the day, and the old man had taken him under his wing as some sort of protégé.

  Duke had never recognized his son’s formidable business skills, as either a producer or an investor. From what Tara had heard, it was Duke’s early admiration for Randall as an up-and-coming producer, over and above his own son, that had started the bad blood between the two of them. The affair with Siena was simply the very bitter icing on an already stale cake of enmity and resentment.

  What made matters worse was that Claire had taken to hanging around the office all the time, and she and Pete were constantly fighting. Infuriatingly, the boss’s wife was so soft-spoken that Tara usually couldn’t make out the content of their conversations through the wall. But her white, drawn, tight-lipped face as she left spoke volumes, as of course did the foul temper that Pete was plunged into for the rest of the day: Claire had come to plead Siena’s case.

  Between the spiraling production costs, his marital problems, and his growing obsession with Randall Stein, Pete had been like a bear with a sore head.

  Minnie McMahon dropping dead yesterday was by far the most interesting thing that had happened at work in ages. Tara hoped that it might break the deadlock and that, in his grief, her boss might start to lean on her again like he had in the old days. He had already put her in charge of organizing the mammoth operation of the funeral and memorial service, and this morning he had asked her to begin sorting through some of his mother’s things.

  A whole morning of snooping around the old McMahon mansion! And her own little posse of minions to help her do it! Tara was in seventh heaven.

  “You stay in here and start going through the clothes,” she commanded two of the gofers imperiously, leaving them to get started on Minnie’s huge private dressing room. “Alice can come into the study with me to start itemizing the jewelry.”

  Minnie had long ago taken over what used to be Duke’s study, and used the room every afternoon to conduct all her private business, from tracking her investments to managing her formidable charity commitments. It was now painted an airy magnolia yellow, with blue Provençal-style wooden shutters, offset by a large bunch of irises, now peeling slightly at the edges, that Minnie must have bought only a few days before.

  Tara, of course, was quite oblivious of her surroundings and failed to register the poignancy of the wilting flowers, the half-written letter still lying on the desk, or any of the other tiny reminders of a life unexpectedly ended. She made a beeline instead for the jewelry box, which Pete had told her his mother kept in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.

  “Dammit,” Tara said, heaving the heavy leather box up onto the d
esk. It weighed a ton; Minnie must have some pretty incredible pieces locked away in there. “It’s a combination lock.” She rattled the box uselessly, then set it down again on the desk.

  “Do you want me to go downstairs and ask Mr. McMahon for the code?” said Alice. She was a very pretty, shy little thing who had only been working at MPW for the last six weeks and was still desperately eager to please.

  “No, I’ll go,” said Tara. She didn’t want Pete distracted by this pretty blond child. Hurrying downstairs, anxious to get the code and return to the treasure trove in Minnie’s study, she was enjoying the smooth sensation of the polished wooden banister beneath her fingers when she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

  There in the hallway, beneath the shimmering grandeur of the vast chandelier, Pete was standing with his back to her. The lawyers were nowhere to be seen, and he was hugging Claire so tightly that his knees were visibly buckling. She appeared to be literally holding him up.

  Neither of them made a sound. But Tara could see Pete’s broad back shuddering, rocked with spasms of bottomless grief, as he collapsed into his wife’s arms.

  She knew how much he had loved his mother. At that moment, in the tiny, wizened part of herself that passed for a conscience, she felt a twinge. To her, Minnie’s death had been a welcome distraction. To Pete, it was the end of the world.

  Quietly, so as not to disturb them, she tiptoed back upstairs to Alice. The jewelry could wait.

  Hunter and Siena had agreed to meet outside the stadium at six, so they could be ushered into their VIP front-row seats together a few minutes before the game got under way.

  At six-fifteen, Hunter was still waiting, and his Dodgers baseball cap pulled low over his eyes was doing little to disguise his identity from a growing cluster of teenage girls seeking autographs.