Fame and Wuthering Heights

‘Fine.’ She smiled sweetly, unhooking her bra and letting it fall into her lap, cupping her magnificent breasts admiringly, as if she’d never seen them before. ‘I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow then. Be a darling and turn the light off on your way out, would you?’

It was all Vio could do not to whimper. He walked to the door and turned off the light.

‘Goodnight, Miss Leon.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Hudson,’ Sabrina whispered. ‘Sweet dreams.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chrissie Rasmirez stretched out her lithe legs on the sun-lounger and sighed contentedly, glancing around for the handsome waiter she’d seen earlier. She was at the rooftop pool of the chic SLS Hotel in downtown Beverly Hills. It was almost noon, the June sun was blazing down, scorching its way through Chrissie’s Lancaster factor-30 sun cream and, just as soon as she got her second vodka lime and soda, all would be right with the world.

She’d flown out to LA two days ago to spend five gloriously childfree days in town, shopping, catching up with friends, and of course doing her bit for charity. Linda, a girlfriend from Rumors days, had invited Chrissie to the Starlight Ball, an impossibly ritzy fundraiser and the closest thing that Beverly Hills’ ladies-who-lunch got to the Oscars.

‘The economy’s so bad, our ticket sales are way down this year,’ Linda complained to Chrissie over the phone last week. ‘We need you, honey.’ At the time, Chrissie had been elbow-deep in playdough, helping Saskia make yet another princess castle for her collection of plastic dogs, and quietly losing the will to live. It was a hundred degrees in Bihor, with a hundred per cent humidity, but of course Chrissie wasn’t allowed to sell off any of their mountains of antique silverware to pay for air-conditioning.

‘It’s not ours to sell,’ Dorian repeated for the umpteenth time on one of his rare calls from his movie set in England. ‘And, even if it were, they wouldn’t let us install air-con, not in a historic building like ours.’

What was the point of living like a queen when you spent your days cooped up in a stifling playroom, sweating like a pig? Especially when one’s friends on the other side of the world ‘needed’ one, and for such a worthy cause too.

Linda had offered Chrissie a room in her ‘little guesthouse,’ actually a mini-Versailles at the southern end of her palatial estate off Benedict Canyon, but Chrissie preferred to stay at a hotel. It gave her more freedom, plus she didn’t want anyone to think she was in need of Linda’s charity. (After a few short years of acting, Linda Greaves had married well and divorced even better, retiring into alimony-funded luxury at the grand old age of thirty-four. She was generous with her money, in the manner of people who have never had to earn it, but she did enjoy lording it over her less fortunate friends; those scraping by on their last few million, like Chrissie.)

A shadow fell across Chrissie’s sun-lounger. ‘Can I help you, ma’am? Is there anything you need?’ The exquisite specimen who’d waited on her earlier was back, biceps bulging through his dark blue linen shirt, perfectly straight teeth gleaming, blinding white against the mocha tan of his skin. Chrissie put him in his late twenties, and a classic ‘strug’. (Strug was short for ‘struggling actor’ and was the term used to describe all the film-star handsome staff in LA’s upscale hotels.)

‘I’d love another drink, please.’ She uncrossed then recrossed her legs in as inviting a manner as possible, sucking in her nonexistent stomach.

‘Of course,’ he smiled. ‘And is that all?’

Chrissie looked him up and down, like a farmer considering a fattened calf for slaughter. ‘For now.’

It was almost a month since Dorian had left for England, and longer than that since he and Chrissie had had sex. She had been so angry with him the last time he’d deigned to come home, she’d refused to share his bed. Under normal circumstances, she’d have distracted herself while he was away with one of the boys who worked in the grounds, or even a kid from the village. But ever since he’d caught her with Alexandru, Dorian had become crafty. She knew he had staff watching her, spying on her. Between the beady, resentful eyes of the servants following her everywhere, and Saskia’s ceaseless demands for attention – despite three full-time nannies, the little girl constantly moaned for her mommy – Chrissie had begun to feel more like a prisoner than ever. Linda’s phone call was like someone throwing a rope ladder into her tower. Chrissie had grabbed the chance to escape with both hands.

Needless to say, Dorian had bitched about it.

‘The Starlight Ball? Isn’t that, like, ten thousand bucks a ticket?’

‘Fifteen,’ Chrissie deadpanned. ‘So what? It’s for a good cause.’

Not as good a cause as our bank balance, thought Dorian. He also doubted very much whether Chrissie knew what cause the ball was raising money for. But he let it go.

‘If you want to get away, why don’t you come here? I miss you, honey.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Chrissie laughed bitterly. ‘That must be why you’ve made so many trips home.’

‘Come on,’ sighed Dorian. ‘We’ve been through this. I’m working.’

‘Exactly. Why would I want to fly to some shitty, rainy film set in the middle of nowhere so you can ignore me for a week while you focus on your all-important work?’

Dorian was silent. She had a point.

‘I don’t like Linda Greaves,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s a gold-digger.’

‘It’s LA,’ shrugged Chrissie. ‘If they threw out all the gold-diggers it’d be a ghost town. Anyway, you don’t have to like her. I like her. And I need a break.’

Tonight’s ball was at six, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Chrissie had bought her dress yesterday, at one of the boutiques on Robertson, a backless, knock-’em-dead D&G number in gunmetal grey sequins, to match her new six-inch Jonathan Kelsey stilettos. In an hour, she’d have one of the hotel’s drivers whisk her up to Ole Henriksen on Sunset to get her nails and eyebrows done, then it was back to Melrose for hair at Ken Paves and finally back to her suite to have Betty help her into the dress and do her make-up. When they lived in Holmby Hills, Chrissie had had beauty treatments daily. In Romania, a week could go by without her so much as washing her hair. What was the point, with no one there to see it?

In the new, acid-green Madison beach bag by her side, Chrissie’s cellphone started to ring. Lost in a particularly enjoyable sexual fantasy involving the strug waiter, a camera and a bottle of baby oil, she answered bad-temperedly.

‘This is Chrissie.’

‘Oh my God, honey. How are you? Are you okaaaay?’ Linda still tended towards the melodramatic in her phone manner, a hangover from her soap-star days.

‘I’m fine,’ said Chrissie, admiring the strug’s ass in his tight white shorts as he bent low to deliver a drink to another guest. ‘Grabbing some lunch before the spa at Sunset Plaza. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Oh my Gaaaaad!’ said Linda again. ‘You haven’t heard, have you?’

‘Heard what?’ asked Chrissie, still only half listening. Linda could open a sentence with that kind of drama and end it with a remark about the weather.

‘Dorian. And that tramp Sabrina Leon. It’s all over E!, honey.’

Chrissie’s blood ran cold. She watched as the downy hairs on her forearm stood on end one by one, like tiny, frightened dominoes. ‘What is all over E!, exactly?’

She’d given Dorian a hard time about Sabrina last time he came home, but that was only because she was mad at him for leaving her again, and for enjoying his life while she couldn’t. Never for a moment did she actually believe he would cheat on her, with Sabrina Leon or any other woman. Dorian was so fucking faithful and devoted, he could make a puppy look disloyal.

‘Pictures, honey!’ panted Linda, who was now clearly enjoying herself. ‘Pictures of the two of them togeeeeether. They ran them in some British newspaper. Oh my God. Like, what are you gonna do? I’ve already had reporters calling my house. It’s crazy!’

‘Why would they be calling your house?’ asked Chrissie, realizing immediately after the question had passed her lips that there could only be one reason: Linda had tipped off the media that Chrissie would be coming by later, and that they’d be going to the ball together. Publicity-hungry bitch. But Linda wasn’t important now. She had to get to a TV.

‘Are you still coming tonight?’ The note of panic in Linda’s voice was unmistakable. Without Chrissie, she wouldn’t be the centre of attention in front of the whole of Beverly Hills society. And she’d look like an ass to all the TV stations she’d already spoken to.

‘Probably,’ said Chrissie. ‘Yes. I need to talk to Dorian.’ She hung up.

‘Here you go, ma’am. One fresh vodka lime soda. And was there anyth—’

‘No,’ Chrissie barked, downing the drink in one long gulp till the soda bubbles stung the back of her eyes. Suddenly the waiter’s bland, regular features and Ken-doll body had lost all their appeal. If Dorian really had cheated on her, if it were true, she would have nothing to live for. Not because she loved him. But because he loved her. Her famous husband’s devotion was the last remaining prop holding up the withered remains of her self-esteem. Without it, she’d be nothing: another scorned Hollywood ex-wife, replaced by a younger, more beautiful model. She’d be like Linda, only poorer. No one would invite her anywhere. All their friends would stick by Dorian and the new bimbo – that was simply the way it was. The only men who’d want to sleep with her would be strugs and plastic surgeons. No! She couldn’t bear it.

She forced herself to calm down, gathering up her things and hurrying inside. There was a TV in her room that played E! 24/7.

It’s not true. It can’t be true, she told herself. Not Dorian.

‘Cut!’ Dorian shook his head, disappointed. ‘Come on, Sabrina. Heathcliff’s betrayed you. You’re angry with him, you’re furious.’

‘I know,’ said Sabrina, smiling playfully up at Viorel. ‘This is me being angry. What do you want me to do? Hit him?’

‘I want you to quit smirking and play the goddamn scene,’ snapped Dorian. ‘And you can stop encouraging her,’ he added tersely to Viorel.

It was two weeks since his run-in with Sabrina at The Carpenter’s Arms, and since then her on-set behaviour had deteriorated sharply. She could still deliver a pitch-perfect Cathy when she chose to. The more he saw of Sabrina’s acting, the less Dorian doubted her innate ability. But she seemed more interested in flirting with Vio Hudson, or deliberately attempting to get under his skin, than in showing Dorian what she was capable of. The attention-seeking was both blatant and wearing.

The girl needs a father, Dorian found himself thinking, over and over again. Someone to draw her a line in the sand.