“I’ve heard good reports about you, Monsieur Delaflote.”
Axel nodded. He wanted to say “thank you” but he had a mouth full of bread.
“You may have wondered why you were invited to join our meeting this evening,” Randon continued.
“It had crossed my mind,” said Axel. He had definitely been the most junior person present at the boardroom table that night. “I suppose you wanted someone to represent Stefan.”
“I’ve decided that I want to give you more responsibility.”
Axel raised an eyebrow. He tried to look cool. As though such an honor were inevitable.
“As you know, Domaine Randon began with, and still very much revolves around, my family business in Champagne. Maison Randon dates back to the eighteenth century. It was a favorite of Napoléon. It is the seat of my family and the heart of my empire. So you can imagine how much it concerned me when that heart began to ail.”
Axel nodded.
“That’s why I asked Stefan to bring you across from Napa Valley.”
“Thank you for the opportunity,” said Axel.
“You’ve proved yourself to be worthy of it.”
Randon paused for a moment while the waiter placed their omelets in front of them.
“You’re a Champagne man yourself, Delaflote. You know how proud the Champenois are. You understand the meaning of family pride. Well, I want to reinvigorate my family name. I want to grow Maison Randon. Here is a list of the land I would like to acquire over the next three to five years.”
He passed the list on monogrammed paper across the table to Axel, who read the names written thereon with a sense of rising panic.
“I want you to do due diligence on each of these houses. I want to know how much you think they’re worth. I trust you, Monsieur Delaflote. I know you won’t disappoint me. And people who serve me well are always rewarded.”
Dinner over, Randon offered Axel a ride to the Gare de L’Est in the back of his chauffeured car.
“Damn nuisance to have to catch a train at this time of night. We should get you an apartment in Paris,” Randon commented, peering out of the car window. “I’ll have the personnel department find you something in town.”
“I’m happy in Épernay. It suits me just fine,” said Axel.
“Not with your new job title, it won’t. You’ll need a place here, as well as in Champagne.”
“I’m sorry … ?” Axel began.
“Kill the engine for a moment,” Randon instructed his driver. “Stefan Urban takes a lot of holidays,” he continued. “I’m not entirely sure of his dedication to the cause. Since he seems to enjoy his time off so much, I think it may be time for him to take a proper sabbatical. And for you to take a promotion. How do the initials ‘MD’ sound to you, Monsieur Delaflote?”
Axel’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“We’ll talk about it further in the morning. My office. Nine o’clock sharp. Now get some sleep. By the way,” Randon said, almost as an afterthought, “I do hope you didn’t have to cancel an important assignation on my behalf.”
Axel shook his head automatically. He was absolutely in a daze.
“Of course not.”
“Good,” said Randon, nodding approvingly. “Because as every man should know, love is the enemy of success.”
CHAPTER 12
Christina and Bill hadn’t seen each other in almost a month. Since their anniversary, Bill had been spending most of his time in New Mexico filming an action movie called Kings of the Stone Age. It was about a paleontologist who foolishly believes the modern scientific community’s view that the dinosaurs were made extinct before humankind evolved, but is suddenly transported back in time to a world where dinosaurs and man co-existed. And all the girls wore fur bikinis …
“This shoot is pure hell,” Bill assured Christina whenever they spoke on the phone.
“Are you lonely, honey?” Christina asked.
“Very.”
Christina didn’t know that Bill was so lonely that he had generously agreed to share his Winnebago with model/actress twins Misty and Lisa from Dallas.
Each phone conversation would end in exactly the same way.
“I miss you, baby,” Bill would tell Christina.
“I miss you too,” she’d tell him back.
But the truth was, Christina didn’t have all that much time to miss her husband. The Hello! magazine anniversary spread and the gorgeous publicity stills released from the Maison Randon commercial shoot seemed to have reminded the fashion world that Christina still existed. She was on a small roll. Marisa had her fully booked for a month: editorials and commercials back-to-back, culminating in her own swimsuit calendar shoot in Baja. Every supermodel had to have her own swimsuit calendar.
It was while she was in Baja that Christina caught up with a very old friend …
Christina was kneeling in the sand, having Evian water sprayed on her thighs and décolletage to make her skin glisten for the camera, when the commotion began.
“Hey!” one of the shoot’s bouncers shouted at a couple who were trying to walk by. “You can’t come through here. The beach is closed.”
“You’re shitting me. You can’t close the fucking beach,” the man shouted. “This is public property.”
“Not today it’s not,” said the bouncer.
“Says who, asshole?”
The makeup artist who had been making Christina glitter paused to watch the fight. The stylist and the hairdresser craned over Christina’s head to see what was happening. The photographer’s assistant let the reflector he had been holding aloft droop to the sand. Even the photographer was distracted.
Christina was furious. How had members of the public gotten so close to her in the first place? She stood up and pulled on a dressing gown. The shoot team seemed to have forgotten that she was topless. Not that she would be showing any nipple in the calendar. She would have her arms folded tastefully across her chest.
Christina strode over to the water’s edge, where the bouncer and a small, skinny white guy in voluminous board shorts were scuffling while the entire team watched. Christina addressed the shrieking girlfriend.
“Will you please take your boyfriend and go back to whichever skanky low-rent all-inclusive resort you came from? We are trying to work.”
“Fuck you,” said the girl. “Who do you think you are anyway?”
Christina’s mouth dropped open. The girl squared up to her. The circle that had formed around the men fighting shifted their attention to the altogether more exciting possibility of a bitch fight.
Christina stood firm but felt her legs turn to jelly. The last thing she needed was a single scratch on her perfect form.
Meanwhile, the bouncer finally subdued the girl’s boyfriend, trapping him in a neck-lock and knocking off his sunglasses to reveal his famously mismatched eyes.
“Oh my God!” the stylist shrieked. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Rock god, to be precise.
Christina Morgan’s chin dropped farther still when she recognized her ex-boyfriend, Rocky Neel.
“Christina Morgan!” Rocky shook his head affectionately inside the bouncer’s armlock when he saw her. “My oh my, haven’t you grown.”
Christina quickly ensured Rocky’s release and he spent a jolly half hour signing autographs for the shoot team, including the bouncer, who was suitably mortified at not having recognized his victim. Together with his band, Cold Steel, Rocky Neel had been one of the biggest-selling rock artists in the late nineties. His star was somewhat out of the ascendant these days but Cold Steel could still sell out an international stadium tour. They’d just released their second “greatest hits” album in five years.
That night, Rocky and Christina dined together on the private terrace of his oceanfront suite at the exclusive Santa Maria spa and resort. The girl Rocky had been promenading with on the beach that afternoon was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh her? She’s just a friend,�
� Rocky claimed. “I sent her back to Los Angeles. And you?”
“Happily married,” Christina assured him. She fluttered the fingers of her left hand and Rocky gamely pretended to be blinded by the bling.
“Ah yes. To the film star. I saw the eight-page spread in Hello! How come I didn’t get an invite to the wedding, eh?”
“Didn’t want to walk down the aisle in front of all my ex-boyfriends.” Christina smiled.
“Not even me?”
“Especially not you,” said Christina as he turned on that old Rocky twinkle. “Are you kidding? Bill would have had a seizure.”
“That’s good to know.”
Rocky went to pour more chilled white wine into her glass. Christina put her hand over the rim to stop him.
“Uh-uh. I’m working tomorrow,” she told him. “Can’t risk having puffy eyes.”
“As I remember,” said Rocky, “you look rather lovely even when your eyes are puffy and bloodshot … ”
“My eyes are never bloodshot!” Christina swatted him on the hand. “Rocky Neel, you haven’t changed at all.”
“Oh no, I’ve definitely changed,” Rocky assured her. “After I had that near-death experience I realized that there’s more to life than material success. I’d been living like a maniac. You know how it gets, Chrissy babe. I had six houses, twenty-four cars—OK, twenty-three, after the crash. But while I was in hospital, I realized that none of it matters. A man’s got to have some spiritual fulfillment too.”
“Spiritual fulfillment?” Christina rolled the words around her mouth as though she’d never heard them before. “Has the real Rocky Neel been abducted by aliens?”
“Let me finish.”
As he explained to Christina just how important this “spiritual fulfillment” was, Rocky illustrated his speech by waving his hands in the air. On his left wrist was a solidgold Rolex. On his right pinkie finger, a diamond as big as an almond. Around that wrist, he wore four thick gold bangles. There were more diamonds in his ear and a gold hoop through his left eyebrow. Still, he seemed quite sincere as he introduced Christina to his latest project.
“None of the material stuff matters. It’s all about icicle now,” he said.
“Icicle? Rocky”—Christina leaned forward and put her hand on his arm—“are you talking about some kind of drug?”
Rocky let out a laugh.
“God, no. That’s funny. I am completely clean these days. I swear. Almost … Actually, it’s ISACL: the International Society for the Abolition of Child Labor. Stay there. I want to show you something amazing.”
He jumped up.
Christina couldn’t help remembering the first time Rocky had uttered those words: “I want to show you something amazing.” It was the night she discovered he had a gold bar through the tip of his cock. But this time, Rocky slipped into the suite and returned with his trousers still safely done up. He was carrying a black MacBook. He logged into the hotel’s wireless network and opened up a connection to ISACL’s website.
“I’m telling you, this is such bad stuff,” he said, as he clicked on the photo of a small, sad-eyed orphan. “I knew I had to do something after I met these kids in India. They have no choice but to work for a pittance wherever they can. It’s that or begging, prostitution. They have to work or starve. You can’t believe the conditions they live in, Chrissy. It’d break your heart. Look at that. That’s not a pile of rubbish I’m showing you. It’s this poor child’s home.”
Christina felt her eyes begin to tear up.
“This is just awful,” she said, as Rocky flicked through the pictures, each more shocking than the last. “I will write you a check at once.”
“I’d like you to do more than that,” said Rocky, laying his hand over hers. “You and I meeting on the beach this afternoon, that’s destiny. I’ve been thinking about how I can get the message out to a broader audience. You could be the perfect spokesperson for ISACL. Will you help me make an infomercial?”
Christina put her hand to her throat in surprise.
“Me?”
“Yes. Of course. Not only one of the most beautiful women in the world, but an incredibly caring one too.”
“Are you serious?”
Rocky nodded. “It was your caring heart that made me love you.”
“Wow, Rocky, that’s … of course I’ll do it.”
Christina was delighted to be asked. And her delight only grew when Rocky told her about the other celebrities who had already agreed to take part. The list was like a Who’s Who of Hollywood (her husband excluded). Christina would be in incredible company. To be associated with such a cause could only be good for her profile. She couldn’t wait to tell Marisa.
Rocky proposed a toast to their new association. Christina toasted in water. She’d already had that night’s glass of wine. And then he proposed a walk along the shoreline in the moonlight. Christina agreed. It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear. The moon was nearly full and its cool white light made it almost as bright as day. As they walked, Rocky reached for Christina’s hand. She held his happily. It seemed appropriate. As did allowing him to slip his arm around her waist and pull her close. Friendly. It was lovely to be back in Rocky’s company, as his friend, so many years after they dated and broke up. And she felt so very honored that he had asked her to be in his campaign …
After walking for an hour, they were back at the gates of the hotel.
“Nightcap?” Rocky suggested.
“I can’t,” said Christina. “I told you I have to be up at six.”
“Decaf coffee?” he tried again.
Christina shook her head.
“You’re right,” said Rocky. “Decaf coffee is horrible.”
They were standing face-to-face. Suddenly, Rocky tucked his fingers through the belt loops on her jeans and pulled her closer.
“How about we just go to bed?”
“Rocky!”
“Just a kiss? For old times’ sake.”
“Rocky … ”
He didn’t wait for permission. Instead he leaned in and placed his warm lips upon hers. He wrapped his arms tightly around her so that their bodies were pressed together and she felt his hardness against her. Taken by surprise, Christina found herself returning the embrace. But, seconds later, reality overtook her and she pushed Rocky away.
“I’m a married woman,” she said, brushing herself down.
“Worth a try,” said Rocky ruefully.
Christina shook her head.
“I hope this doesn’t mean you won’t be in my infomercial.”
He gave her the cheeky, English schoolboy smile that had first attacted her to him more than a decade before. It was such an innocent look that Christina didn’t consider for a moment that he might only have asked her to support his cause in an attempt to flatter her back into bed.
“I’ll do your infomercial,” Christina told him. “For the sake of the kids.” Then she grinned and planted a goodbye kiss on Rocky’s cheek. Quite chastely. “Have your people call mine.”
“The minute I get back to NYC.”
As Christina sashayed away, Rocky sang a few bars of “Super-Sexy Lady,” the hit song he had composed especially for her—and the two other women he had been seeing at the time.
CHAPTER 13
At the Elson household in South London, an affectionate mother-daughter exchange was taking place. A man walking his dog in the alley behind the scruffy terraced house bent to fasten the dog’s lead just in time to avoid being decapitated by a plate flung from the open kitchen window. He straightened up just in time to see a couple of mugs fly past, also at head height, and smash against a wall.
“You’re an ungrateful little cow,” Marina screamed at her only daughter. “I gave up all my hopes and dreams to have you. I could have had an abortion.”
“I wish you had had an abortion,” Kelly spat at her. “I didn’t ask to be born into this shit-fest of a life.”
Marina paused in throwing the contents of her
crockery cupboard into the street to light another cigarette. “You are breaking my heart,” she said, between anguished drags. “Why do you have to be so nasty to me all the time? Your own mother?”
“Oh, boo hoo,” said Kelly. “Here we go. Here come the waterworks. You expect me to feel sorry for you, you old slag? You stole my last fiver to buy those fags.”
“I’d have paid you back,” said Marina, affronted.
“Like you paid me back all the money my father sent you for me? For my upkeep? Five hundred pounds a month for the past eighteen years! And you spent it all on yourself!”
“Not all of it. But it’s fucking hard being a single mother. You’d begrudge me some happiness?”
“You begrudged me a fucking school uniform.”
“Whaddya mean? I put a roof over your head!”
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a crappy one if you’d spent my money on rent instead of fags and brandy.”
“Well,” said Marina, stubbing out her cigarette on a dirty plate and stiffening up for a fight again. “You don’t have to stay under my crappy roof now, do you? I’ve had enough of this. Go on. Go upstairs and pack your bags. Get out of here. Go on. Fuck off.”
“If that’s how you want it,” said Kelly, “I will.”
Kelly slammed her way out of the kitchen and ran upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her wardrobe and flung every item of clothing she owned onto the sagging single bed. It didn’t take long; there wasn’t much to fling. Then she took the one proper piece of luggage in the house and stuffed as much as she could inside. The rest, she stuffed into a trash bag. Which promptly split open.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Kelly started again.
Marina watched from the doorway, puffing on three more cigarettes in quick succession and occasionally shouting encouragement.
“I’ll be glad to get rid of you, I will. I’ll rent your room out and spend all the money on fags!” she roared.
“You do that.” Kelly set her jaw and carried on packing.
“You can’t take that,” said Marina, when Kelly tried to pack a ratty old towel. “That’s linen, that is. It belongs to the house. That stays here.” She snatched it from Kelly’s hand.
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