by Joan Collins
Max was well aware that Fabrizio’s show-business sights were set a good deal higher than a gig in Kazakhstan. He had found out about the French TV show that had been secretly interviewing and auditioning Fabrizio for the Gallic version of Dancing with the Stars, which would be far more prestigious. Fabrizio had also been taking singing lessons in Paris and was trying to wheedle enough money from Lara to make a record.
‘I’m so glad you encourage him, Lara, my dear. You are so unselfish.’
‘Unselfish? What do you mean?’
‘Well, don’t you see? He is so good – I think he’s almost as good as Harry Connick, Jr.’
‘What do you mean “almost”? He’s younger, better-looking, and much sexier than Connick! He could be a star.’ She smiled dreamily, remembering the early evening sexathon with Fabrizio. He never failed to turn her on, even if she was angry with him.
Max noticed the dreamy look and leaned in for the kill.
‘Yes, much sexier than Connick. You are so right. As usual you have a sharp eye for talent. Who knows what fame and success he might achieve?’
He almost could read the rest of his unspoken sentence writing itself on Lara’s face. It dawned on her that, if Fabrizio found fame and fortune, she would be left far behind.
Maximus decided to administer the coup de grâce. ‘How about marrying him now, Lara, darling? Forget about that silly pre-nup – no? I don’t believe that Mr Meyer cares that much whether you agree to that stupid rule to never marry again – don’t you agree, my dear? You deserve happiness, darling. Let’s have a wedding next week!’
Max released her hand so she could down another vodka, then he simultaneously signalled the waiter for another, and to Fabrizio, who was by now doing his strolling troubadour act around the room. Fabrizio swaggered over to Lara’s table and crooned softly into her ear: ‘You’re just too marvellous, too marvellous for words.’ His hand caressed her bare shoulders, and she shivered in anticipation of tonight’s delights if she could remain sober, and not get angry about watching other women lust after her property.
‘Like glorious . . .’ Lara preened. ‘Glamorous . . .’ Lara smiled. ‘And that old standby, amorous . . .’ Lara cast her ‘cat got the cream’ look towards the crowd, unaware that they were talking amongst themselves and not paying the least bit of attention to Fabrizio’s crooning.
Fabrizio finished his set, planted a tender kiss on Lara’s Botoxed lips, glanced at Carlotta, who seemed not to notice him, then took a bow to a smattering of giggles and applause – but Maximus was jubilant. As Lara tottered off to the Ladies’ room to repair her lipstick, Max clapped Fabrizio on the shoulders. ‘Mio caro, I think we’ve got it!’ he crowed. ‘The way you sang to her she was practically coming in her seat. She’s gonna forget about the pre-nup now, I know it! When I suggested you get married next week she didn’t disagree . . .’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Fabrizio said gloomily. ‘But you know, Max, I still wanna live the dream. I have aspirations. I wanna become a great singer.’
‘Forget it,’ said Maximus brusquely, ‘you’re never going to live that dream. You got Lara now, for Christ’s sake – be happy, Fabrizio!’ He clapped the younger man on the shoulder and grinned. ‘You’ll be Mr Lara Meyer, and all the rest of my . . . er . . . boys for hire will be green with envy.’
In the Ladies’ room, Lara reapplied her cyclamen lipstick. Since she was short-sighted, she leaned forward towards the mirror, then to her dismay saw Vanessa Meyer standing behind her, Jonathan’s third and youngest trophy wife. Vanessa was hanging on to her marriage to Jonathan, whose roving eye was legendary, by the skin of her Hollywood-whitened teeth, which she bared now with a disingenuous smile.
‘Daahling, you look maahvellous!’ Vanessa lied, taking in the overtanned skin and last season’s too-tight Hervé Léger. They exchanged an indifferent mwah-mwah as Lara checked the younger woman’s almost flawless skin and the latest Dolce & Gabbana couture dress, which her Pilates-toned curves enhanced.
‘I didn’t know you were in town,’ Lara trilled.
‘We just managed to get a mooring in the port. Jonathan has business here; we arrived last night.’
‘So Jonathan is here?’ In spite of herself, Lara’s heart started to thump. She couldn’t help but still harbour a longing to be back with him, queening it up in his gorgeous duplex on Park Avenue and being invited to all the best social events in Manhattan and The Hamptons. Mrs Jonathan Meyer had a great deal more cachet about it than plain Lara Meyer. In spite of her sexual obsession with Fabrizio, Lara still longed for those days when she was the undisputed queen of New York society; when she was on the boards of all the best charity events, and photographs of the fabulous couple frequently appeared in Woman’s Wear Daily and the New York Post, while layouts of their Connecticut and Palm Beach mansions were featured in Town and Country, Vogue and Bazaar. Shot by the likes of Mario Testino and Terry Richardson they caused envy amongst the super-rich. She’d even made Vanity Fair’s best-dressed list for two years in a row. Not bad for a poor little chorus cutie from Minsk.
How could I have thrown it all away just because of my stupid jealousy? thought Lara, applying another coat of gloss. She remembered that day on the slopes of Gstaad too well. She had been skiing with Valentino, having celebrated New Year’s Eve the previous night at his chalet, when they had decided to take a hot chocolate at an out-of-the-way inn off one of the pistes. She’d spotted Jonathan’s distinctive black parka with its yellow lining immediately. He was standing at the bottom of the piste, his parka open and his arms enclosing a lissom blonde, his lips locked with hers. Without further ado, Lara had marched over to them, spewing a stream of abuse in Russian. The girl, no more than eighteen and one of the contestants in the Miss Teen USA contest that Jonathan sponsored on TV, had turned around, shocked. Lara had grabbed her long blonde hair and punched her hard on the face, breaking her pretty little nose. As if by magic a photographer appeared, eagerly snapping pictures of the melee. The teenager began screaming as blood dropped from her nose on to her baby pink ski jacket, and Jonathan started yelling at Lara. She screamed and began pummelling her husband, ‘I vant a divorce – I vant a divorce, you cheating bastard!’
‘Well, you can have one!’ he bellowed, rushing her away. ‘It’s time I got you out of my life, you nagging Russian bitch!’
This caused Lara to explode even more. She stopped hitting him and grabbed at Jonathan’s shiny black toupee, whipping it off his bald pate and waving it in front of a bemused Valentino and a crowd of interested onlookers while crowing, ‘Now you know he has no hair! Ha ha ha!’
The photographer was gleeful. ‘I’m in pap heaven!’ he thought as he continued snapping away until a security guard came and escorted an incandescent Lara away.
Jonathan attempted to replace his wig – another photograph that hit all the papers and went viral. The girl sued, her hopes of becoming Miss Teen America shattered like her nose, and Lara’s apologies and entreaties to remain Mrs Meyer fell upon Jonathan’s deaf ears. The divorce was a quickie; a few months later Jonathan married the Honourable Vanessa Anstruther-Formby, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of an English aristocrat whom he had been banging for the past four months. Six months later, Vanessa gave birth to the apple of Jonathan Meyer’s eye, his first child, a son whom they named Jonathan Junior. Lara never got over it. She hid her sorrows in the vodka bottle and latched on to a selection of gigolos, the latest of whom was Fabrizio.
‘Nice to see you again,’ Lara muttered to Vanessa, and stalked out of the powder room with her head held high.
Carlotta had been surreptitiously watching the two women and noting their obvious dislike of one another with interest. In San Miguel she had had one loyal girlfriend and she had never really been aware of the animosity and jealousy that seemed to fuel these jet setters’ lives. They all had so much stuff, she thought as she nodded a greeting towards Vanessa and started touching up her make-up.
Yes, Nicanor had been proflig
ate, but they had only owned one home, the villa in San Miguel, and just two or three cars. These people had multiples of everything. They all owned at least five homes, some of which they hardly visited, even though they kept them fully staffed. They all had yachts and the men competed each year to see who could acquire the biggest one. Carlotta smiled to herself as she remembered what Maximus had told her.
‘The guys who insist on having the biggest boat are the ones with the smallest willy!’
The sad thing, thought Carlotta as she snapped shut her compact, was that so many of these transient Saint-Tropeziennes seemed so miserable. The old cliché ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness’ sprang to mind.
But I wonder if it can buy me love, she thought fleetingly, and just as quickly dismissed it.
Some of the young scions of wealthy families in town had approached her for a date, but they all seemed spoilt and callow. She sighed and began to walk out of the door. Maybe Saint-Tropez isn’t the right place to meet the love of my life.
Returning to her table, Lara grabbed Fabrizio’s hand and, looking into his eyes, said, ‘Darling, I will marry you. Fuck the pre-nup and fuck Jonathan Meyer – I don’t care anymore. I love you – I do, I do!’
Embracing Lara with joy mixed with a sense of impending doom, Fabrizio high-fived Maximus, then quickly refilled her vodka glass as he asked, ‘When shall we do it, cara?’
‘Oh, er . . . next June, I want to be a June bride,’ she simpered.
Oh God, thought Fabrizio, no way, a year to wait. I’d better try to make that record or get that gig in Kazakhstan, or Dancing with the Stars in France.
Maximus leaned over to whisper in Fabrizio’s ear, ‘It’s too long to wait, dear boy. CRAP are giving me problems,’ he hissed, evoking Fabrizio’s ex-lovers, Carina and Raimunda, and their children. ‘You’d better start working on her again – this time try harder.’
Maximus was distracted; he wished he could overhear what property wunderkind Roberto LoBianco at the next table over was saying to Carlotta, who was sitting next to him. She seemed to like what he was saying as her eyes sparkled and she nodded her head in agreement several times. As Maximus passed her table he bent down to whisper, ‘Don’t forget about lunch at the beach tomorrow, cara.’
‘Of course not,’ Carlotta smiled. ‘I can’t wait.’
The following day Maximus sat at the table at Eden Beach with Carlotta and three handsome young men from his stable whom he thought would amuse her. The DJ was playing a popular track of a French chanteuse warbling about trying to ‘trouver mon souvenir’. His iPhone beeped every five minutes with one or other of his hostesses bombarding him with questions about the table plans for their soirées, or how many house guests the invitees were bringing. The competition for the best dates for the upcoming mid-July party week was fierce, and Maximus was a mine of information and advice about what the best dates available were and how to navigate the tricky social waters of Saint-Tropez. He also collected favours, and more than the occasional ‘consideration’ from a grateful hostess when he unravelled a knotty problem.
Vast mirrors on the beach wall reflected the sparkling sea and, in the middle of the wooden dance floor, a small old-fashioned bathtub sat incongruously. After the group had consumed their starters, four dancers came out to perform an energetic can-can. The girls wore tight corsets, frilly petticoats and lacy knickers, and the boys were chiselled and bronzed. They enthusiastically splashed the bath water on some of the nearby patrons, who squealed with laughter, while the girls danced between the tables, flashing their undies at the men.
It was a hot and humid day but Carlotta was enjoying the open-air atmosphere and the sun glittering on the white-capped waves. After the cabaret, the sounds of Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s song ‘Love Never Felt So Good’ radiated from loudspeakers hanging from the wooden rafters. The warm breeze ruffled Carlotta’s hair as she glanced up to where several heads had swivelled as Fabrizio and Lara entered and stood looking around for a table.
‘Come, join us!’ Maximus waved eagerly. ‘Move up, boys!’ He shooed his three young studs along to the far end of the table and put Lara in a wicker chair next to him and Fabrizio at the far end of the table.
Lara stared at the dancers in a hung-over daze, while Fabrizio couldn’t stop staring at Carlotta in her white cotton sundress and straw hat from the market. God, she is pretty, he thought. And when she flicked a glance at him through her Ray-Bans, he could almost imagine her voluptuous body lying next to him. He adjusted his black cargo shorts then, when the dancers left, mouthed to the DJ, ‘Play “Happy”.’ Obediently the DJ changed his track and launched into the hit of the summer. Go get her! he said to himself.
All three of the studs bounced on to the floor, pulling Carlotta with them. Fabrizio closely followed and all of them hit the wooden dance floor. Soon the whole beach club was rocking to the sound of Pharrell Williams. Fabrizio had filled Lara’s wine glass copiously so she was feeling no pain as she lay back, closing her eyes and listening to the music.
I’ve never felt so happy and so free, thought Carlotta, as she clapped along and whirled with Fabrizio, who was showing off his coolest moves in front of her and Susie and Warner, two of the best dancers in Saint-Tropez.
‘This is so much fun!’ Carlotta was breathless as she finished dancing two more sets then plopped on to her chair next to Fabrizio. ‘I love it here!’
‘I’m so glad, cara.’ Max frowned at Fabrizio. He looked like he was doing far too well with the young Contessa – a positively ‘cat and canary’ scenario. Through half-closed eyes, Lara also observed Fabrizio looking and laughing with Carlotta. She felt a pang of jealousy but then Maximus refilled her glass and she nodded off again.
As the afternoon wore on, the customers became more raucous and the music became louder. Soon most of the patrons had lost their inhibitions, thanks to the copious amounts of Pétale de Rose they had all consumed. Maximus’s three studs whirled Carlotta around again and again till she was flushed and giddy. They then performed a mock fight for her benefit, which ended with one of them being thrown into the bathtub. One of them tried to grab Carlotta and pull her into it, but Maximus took hold of her elbow. With a firm, ‘Time to leave, cara,’ he ushered her out towards the back.
‘Oh, but I’m having such a good time.’ Her eyes were bright and glowing. ‘I don’t want to leave.’
‘Yes, my dear, but when I see paparazzi on the beach trying to get an undignified snap of you, that’s when I must pull the plug.’
‘Oh well, in that case, thanks,’ she laughed. ‘Actually I’m quite exhausted now.’
Back at their poky apartment, Lara started screaming at Fabrizio as soon as the door closed.
‘How dare you disrespect me!’ she pointed a scarlet-tipped claw at his face while advancing on him screaming insults. ‘You bastard – you flirt with that slut, you embarrass me in front of the whole beach – you bum! You piece of shit!’
‘What have I done?’ wailed the hapless Fabrizio. God, this woman was unbelievable; she was becoming more psychotic each day and yesterday she had said she wanted to marry him. Talk about unpredictable. He backed off towards the tiny window that faced the bustling port.
‘For God’s sake, Lara, stop it!’ he yelled, but she was wallowing unrelentingly in her fury, her make-up running down her face, her ginger hair a mess.
‘Bastard, you’re nothing but a spineless, cock-sucking cunt!’ she screamed, throwing her sunglasses at him.
‘What have I done? What the fuck have I done, Lara? You’re not making any sense.’
‘You flirt with that foreign slut . . . I saw you dancing – oh, so close – and loving it!’
‘We were all dancing, you idiot.’
‘Don’t call me an idiot!’ She looked around for something else to throw and, grabbing Fabrizio’s iPad, hurled it at his head with all her might. In a save worthy of Fabien Barthez, he grabbed the device with one hand while trying to control the raving Lara with
the other.
‘I was not flirting with Carlotta. It’s you I love,’ he lied, then screamed as she bit his arm. He tried to hold her back and propelled her, kicking and screaming, to her bed. There was only one way to calm Lara when she was like this. Throwing her on to the bed, he summoned thoughts of Carlotta into his mind and proceeded to stem the flow of her fury in the only way he knew how.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gabrielle had been on the Saint-Tropez police force since leaving college at the age of nineteen. Her father had been with the gendarmerie practically all his life, and although he didn’t actively discourage his only child from becoming a gendarme, he didn’t encourage her either.
Jacques Poulpe had brought Gabrielle up almost single-handedly. His beloved wife and ten-year-old son had been killed in a car accident on the Moyenne Corniche in Nice, and brokenhearted, he had taken over sole custody of his eight-year-old girl. Sadly, Jacques had been unable to give the child the nurturing and motherly love and understanding that Madame Poulpe would have supplied in abundance. Not to mention instructing her in the facts of life – and how to buy tampons.
Jacques was a good man, a strong and stoic member of the police force, but he was often away all day and into the night. An ancient aunt, Greta, came in to cook and help out, but she spent her days watching endless soaps on TV and paying scant attention to Gabrielle.
But Gabrielle adored her tough, hard-working papa. Completely dedicated to his work, he knew everyone in Saint-Tropez and was much respected. He had hoped his son would follow in his footsteps and was devastated by his death. He loved his daughter but didn’t really know how to show it. Wanting to spend more time with him, as a child Gabrielle became a tomboy, excelling at sports and accompanying her papa to the many sports events he liked. She took karate and boxing lessons, had little time for boys, and by dint of complete application and slog was, in spite of her papa’s lack of enthusiasm, eventually accepted into the Saint-Tropez gendarmerie.