Fame and Wuthering Heights

Walking back upstairs to bed, Tish also felt shaken by their encounter. How dare Viorel question my parenting! What the hell does he know about it, or about our life in Romania? Judgemental wanker.

She tried to focus on her anger. But a small, questioning voice in her head made it difficult.

Am I being selfish? Am I putting myself before Abel?

She hoped not. Wuthering Heights had been Loxley Hall’s saviour. Tish was glad she’d come back and let them make the film. But the sooner they left and life got back to normal, the better. For all of them.

Outside the Regent Beverly Wilshire, a legion of paparazzi lay in wait for the glamorous attendees of tonight’s Starlight Ball, like a shoal of piranhas scenting blood.

In the back of Linda Greaves’s chauffeur-driven Bentley Continental, Chrissie Rasmirez positively throbbed with excitement. It was a long time, years, since she’d been the object of so much media attention. Of course, she was used to having her picture taken. As the wife of a Hollywood winner, she’d been snapped on Dorian’s arm at countless awards ceremonies and exclusive industry parties. But always as an appendage, a plus one. Tonight, she told herself, I’m the star. It’s me they’ve come to see, not Dorian.

The fact that they were here because of Dorian’s alleged infidelity did slightly take the edge off her triumph. But only slightly. For one thing, after speaking to her husband today and hearing the utter desperation in his voice, Chrissie was certain that Dorian hadn’t, in fact, cheated. He wasn’t going to leave her, for Sabrina Leon or anybody else. For another thing, if there was one role that Chrissie knew how to play to perfection, it was the role of the victim, the wronged wife stoically standing by her man. Make that wronged, drop-dead gorgeous wife. Her backless Dolce & Gabbana number looked even hotter on her tonight than it had in the store. Or perhaps it was Chrissie herself who was hotter, flushed with pleasure at so much unsuspected attention?

‘You OK, honey?’ asked Linda as they pulled up outside the hotel. ‘You’re sure you wanna do this?’

Chrissie looked at her friend, and felt her confidence swell still further. In a red Valentino sheath, with half of Siberia’s annual diamond output round her neck, Linda looked rich, glamorous and old. Too much Fraxel had frozen her once-beautiful face into a bland, featureless mask. Her hair was too blonde, her tits too big and her smile too desperate. She was the perfect date.

‘I don’t want to do it,’ Chrissie lied, arranging her face into an expression of fragile vulnerability. ‘I have to. I can’t let malicious gossip ruin my marriage.’

The popping of flashbulbs and calls of ‘Chrissie! Chrissie!’ as she stepped out of the car were almost enough to give her a small orgasm on the spot. Clasping Linda’s hand, head down in a perfect Princess Diana pose, she walked slowly into the building, making sure the photographers got plenty of time to catch her sexy back-view before disappearing inside.

Tonight, she decided, was going to be a lot of fun. And it was. Friends old and new flocked around her, drawn to the drama like junkies to a dealer.

‘Of course it isn’t true,’ Chrissie repeated to all of them, with practised, sorrowful dignity. ‘Dorian’s tried to act like a father to that troubled girl. He’s too generous for his own good. Everyone knows Sabrina Leon’s addicted to the press. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d planted the story herself.’

‘Aren’t you mad?’

Cue modest, forgiving head-tilt. ‘I try not to waste energy on anger. Not when I have so much to be thankful for.’

By the time dinner came around and they all sat down for the auction, Chrissie was thoroughly enjoying herself. She’d had just enough glasses of champagne to loosen her up, been flirted with by at least two men who were better-looking than Dorian and another three who were richer, and she’d seen on the table plans that she’d be sitting next to Keanu Reeves, on whom she’d always had a mini-crush.

‘Hello, Mrs Rasmirez. You’re quite the belle of the ball tonight.’

Through her semi-drunken haze, it took Chrissie a few moments to recognize the immaculately dressed, handsome blond man who’d sat down beside her. Not until he’d kissed her hand and chivalrously pulled out her chair did it come to her.

‘Harry Greene.’ She giggled coquettishly. ‘I don’t think I’m allowed to talk to you.’

‘Says who? Dorian?’ Ignoring the dirty looks from his fellow guests, Greene pulled a cigarette out of a vintage silver case and lit it. ‘Don’t tell me you’re the kind of girl who takes orders from her husband. I couldn’t bear the disillusionment.’

‘It’s not a question of taking orders. It’s a question of loyalty,’ said Chrissie. ‘And that’s somebody else’s seat.’

‘Not any more it isn’t. I’m afraid I wanted you all to myself, so I told Keanu he was moving.’ Harry waved across the room to table nine, and a familiar dark-haired man waved back. Chrissie was torn between annoyance and gratification. She’d been looking forward to flirting with Keanu, but it was flattering that Harry Greene had singled her out, and sexy that he had the power to tell major movie stars where they could and couldn’t sit. Chrissie had always been turned on by power.

‘You know, your husband’s a fool.’ Harry leaned back in his seat, languidly blowing smoke rings into the air. ‘Fooling around with Sabrina Leon when he has a woman like you at home.’

‘He hasn’t been fooling around with her,’ said Chrissie stiffly. ‘It’s just the tabloids, stirring up trouble.’

Harry raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, but said nothing.

Chrissie looked irritated. ‘I trust my husband.’

‘Is that why you’re flying out to his set next week?’ Harry asked wryly. ‘Because you trust him so much?’

Chrissie cocked her head to one side, curious. ‘How did you know I was going to the set?’

‘I know a lot of things,’ said Harry. He took another deep, satisfying lungful of nicotine and looked at her appraisingly, the way a trainer might examine a racehorse. Locking eyes with her he said: ‘If you were my wife, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.’

Chrissie felt a rush of pleasure course through her. Of course, she knew that Harry Greene had it in for Dorian, and that he was probably flirting with her so outrageously to settle some kind of score. She’d never entirely understood Harry’s beef with her husband – something about his ex-wife and a screenplay – but she knew he had damaged Dorian professionally. Not that she gave a shit about Dorian’s precious career. No, what Chrissie cared about was the look of pure lust in Harry Greene’s eyes. That was something that could not be faked.

This is what I’ve missed, she thought, stuck out in Romania, running after Saskia all day like the hired bloody help. I’ve missed being adored.

‘Sure you would.’ She played along. ‘You’re all the same, you directors. You’re workaholics.’

‘It’s true I love my work,’ admitted Harry, leaning in closer. ‘But not as much as I’d love spreading your legs and licking you till you come and come and come.’

Chrissie gasped. ‘You can’t say things like that!’ But she was so turned on, she felt her eyelids getting heavy and her lips instinctively beginning to part.

‘I can say whatever I like,’ said Harry.

Chrissie squirmed helplessly as his hand began caressing her thigh under the table.

‘I can do whatever I like. I’m a god in this town, sweetheart. I don’t have to run around with a begging bowl every time I want to get a movie made, like your husband. You know what I heard?’ His hand was creeping higher.

‘What?’ Chrissie breathed heavily, so aroused now she felt as if she’d been hypnotized.

‘I heard all this bad press swirling around Sabrina Leon is killing interest in his movie. Withering Heights, they’re calling it.’ He laughed, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘The film’s dying on the vine.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Chrissie, trying to block out the sensations in her groin and focus on what Harry was saying. ‘If you must know he’s had a lot of early interest from the big studios.’

‘Like who?’ Harry tried to keep his voice casual.

‘Like Paramount,’ said Chrissie smugly, ‘among others.’

‘And what “others” might those be?’ asked Harry.

Chrissie opened her mouth to tell him, when something made her hesitate. It was as if the hypnotist had suddenly clicked his fingers and awoken her from the trance. I’m being played, she thought, furiously. He’s not interested in me. He’s just pumping me for info on the damn movie. Removing Greene’s hand from her thigh, she cleared her throat. ‘Nice try,’ she said tersely. ‘But if you want information about my husband’s business, you’re going to have to fish for it elsewhere.’

Turning her back on him, she engaged the man on her other side in conversation, and proceeded to ignore Harry Greene for the rest of the night. Irritatingly unfazed, Harry focused his attentions on the pretty blonde to his right, ‘helping’ her to bid for a number of items at the charity auction, including a delicate Fred Leighton emerald necklace that Chrissie coveted wildly and a six-night stay at the Post Ranch Inn, which just happened to be Chrissie’s favourite hotel in the entire world.

They didn’t speak again until they were leaving. Reunited with an out-of-her-mind-drunk Linda Greaves, Chrissie was waiting at the coat check for her borrowed vintage mink when she felt someone come up behind her and slip a hand around her waist.

‘You’re right,’ Harry whispered in her ear. ‘I did want information. But I wanted you more.’

Before Chrissie had a chance to say anything, he planted a kiss on the back of her neck that made every hair on her body stand on end.

‘Next time,’ he murmured, and disappeared into the night with the blonde trailing in his wake.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN