Grace stared at him for as long as it took until he turned away from the snowy vista and met her eyes. ‘I fucking hate you,’ she enunciated slowly and clearly.
Vaughn shrugged and his lips quirked maybe a half of a millimetre upwards. ‘I know,’ he said, sounding not the least bit surprised.
chapter twenty-three
‘I think it’s a combination of jet lag and being in such close proximity to a film star,’ Vaughn said to Robert Simmons, when he unsuccessfully tried to bring Grace out of her energy slump. The adrenalin shot had long since worn off. ‘She’s not normally so shy. Quite the opposite. Usually I can’t get a word in.’
Grace tried to send him a dirty look but just thinking about narrowing her eyes made her head hurt. She didn’t even have the energy to hate on the eight other people, who all laughed at Vaughn’s comment as they sat in the private dining room of a restaurant that called itself a bistro, even though everything came heaped with black truffle shavings (including Grace’s onion soup, which was the only thing she could swallow).
Vaughn was glaring at her from across the table, while simultaneously sucking up to Martin Halpert, who was an able-bodied Doppelgänger for Stephen Hawking. Then there was Robert Simmons, star of stage and screen, and a UN Ambassador who helped starving orphans and had an old skool Hollywood glamour that brought to mind Cary Grant by way of the Ratpack. In the flesh, he was so devastatingly handsome that Grace finally understood the meaning of over-trumpeted clichés like charisma and star quality. But his lunch-date wasn’t his quirky, indie actress girlfriend but a quiet, homely-looking man in his forties who made Grace’s Gaydar ping. And when Robert Simmons shook her hand (Vaughn had advised him not to kiss her because ‘she’s just getting over a cold, Rob’), Grace’s Gaydar had practically vibrated. It was probably just as well that Vaughn had made her sign a non-disclosure agreement all those months ago.
The other two men were standard-issue, moneyed douche-bags. Both of them had blatantly checked Grace out, eyes lingering on her boobs and bottom, when they were introduced, but compared to the three other women at the table, Grace didn’t measure up. Two of them had the slightly glacial features that Americans mistook for class: hair carefully streaked to what Maggie, the
Skirt
Beauty Director, called heiress blonde. Their breasts were maybe half a cup size too large for their frames and perky in a way that breasts aren’t after the age of seventeen, without the efforts of a really good surgeon. Kelly wore Calvin Klein. Anna wore Gucci and both of them ordered the winter greens as a main course and had only one glass of the 1995 Gosset Celebris Brut champagne.
But Lucy Newton? She was one hot mess of an ex-motor show model. Everything about her was too much, from the Day-Glo tan, to the pneumatic tits, to the leopard-print Dolce & Gabbana dress she was almost wearing, to the huge amounts of vintage champagne she was knocking back like it was fizzy pop. If Grace hadn’t felt like she had only twenty-four hours to live, then she’d have definitely wanted to hang out with Lucy. She was the kind of girl who was made for bar-hopping.
As it was, Grace couldn’t even bring herself to make eye-contact. That would have required all her powers of concentration, which were currently being employed so she didn’t collapse across the table. Even The Last Supper couldn’t have taken so long, she thought forlornly, but finally they cleared away the cheese course and one of the douchey men said, ‘You ladies might want to take coffee in the lounge while we talk shop.’ It was like fifty years of feminism had never happened. Kelly, Anna and Robert Simmons’s maybe-boyfriend were making noises about touring the wine cellar, but all Grace wanted to do was find the nearest sofa and fall down on it.
Grace had just made it to the door when Vaughn’s arm clamped round her waist. ‘Be back in a minute, guys,’ he said jovially in a very un Vaughn-like manner. Then it didn’t matter that Grace was having trouble walking because Vaughn marched her down the hall so quickly that her feet barely touched the ground.
The waitress in the lounge looked up in surprise as Vaughn pushed Grace through the door. ‘Get out!’ he demanded. One glimpse at the thunder and lightning on his face and she was gone.
Grace stared longingly at the couch but before she could negotiate the five steps to get her there, Vaughn practically lifted her up and threw her down on it. Then he placed his hands on the cushions on either side of her head so he could get right up in her face. Grace could have individually counted each one of his pores if she’d had a mind to.
‘You’re not even trying!’ he said menacingly in her ear. ‘You’ve had an adrenalin shot, so why the hell are you sitting there like a wet weekend in Wigan?’
Grace leaned back as far as she could, which was a matter of mere millimetres. ‘I’m ill.’
Vaughn’s smile was as icy as the view of snow-capped mountains out of the window. ‘Boo hoo. You’re ill.’ He cupped Grace’s chin so she couldn’t look away from the uncompromising, couldn’t-give-a-fuck set of his features. ‘If you screw this up for me, Grace, then God help you.’ He didn’t specify just what assistance the Almighty would provide but Grace got the message.
She turned her head and before she could start to splutter, Vaughn let her go. He watched her hack out another cough with his arms folded, then turned on his heel and left.
She was beyond tears, which was a Grace Reeves first. Instead, she popped another lozenge in her mouth and curled up in a tight ball on the couch, as the shivers seemed to turn her body inside out, then back to front.
The door opened just as Grace was struggling to get her shoes off, and Lucy Newton staggered in, a bottle of champagne clutched in one red-taloned hand. ‘Oh, I think we just had lunch together,’ she said in a high-pitched breathless voice, like she’d been inhaling helium.
‘Yeah,’ Grace agreed. She was meant to be launching into the hard sell right about now, but she couldn’t remember her Abstract Expressionists from her YBAs. ‘I’m Grace.’
Lucy was fiddling with her Louis Vuitton clutch. ‘Have you got a light?’
For the first time that day, Grace managed to do something right and handed Lucy her disposable lighter. Then she pulled out her own crumpled pack of cigarettes. The nicotine could hardly make her feel any worse and it might even numb the ache in her throat.
Lucy came and sat next to Grace so they could share a saucer as a makeshift ashtray. The other girl was clutching at herself and rocking slightly as if she was having a psychotic episode rather than just being very, very drunk.
‘Are you all right?’ Grace ventured softly.
Lucy gave Grace a limpid look from artificially blue eyes, then the foundations of her face began to crumble. ‘No,’ she said, fighting back tears. ‘I’m pretty fucking far from all right. That bastard, I gave him the two best years of my twenties!’
It wasn’t difficult getting Lucy on side. Though Grace wasn’t sure that’s what she was doing as she stroked the other girl’s surprisingly soft platinum-blond hair and told her not to cry. She was just down with her pain.
‘Look, you can do so much better than him,’ she advised when Lucy had come to the end of a long, tear-soaked rant about how Martin’s lawyer had told her that she had to vacate the Bel Air mansion no later than 15 January. ‘You’re gorgeous and he looks like he fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. No offence.’
Lucy stared at her in amazement. ‘But I love him!’
Grace stared right back. ‘Really?’
‘I know he’s not much to look at, but the handsome ones don’t try so hard. And Martin looked after me. He made me feel safe but now he’s sniffing around some preppy bitch who looks like she came off the WASP assembly line, and siccing his lawyer on me. I can’t believe he’s doing this!’ Lucy finished on an anguished wail that made Grace’s headache feel like a migraine. ‘You should be taking notes, honey. Don’t think this won’t happen to you.’
It would happen to her, Grace knew that. Probably sooner rather than later, if her performance today was any indication. But, on the other hand, she’d gone into this knowing she had an expiration date because Vaughn had never lied to her. In fact, he’d spelled out just what an objectionable wanker he was in unflinching detail, but Grace had been too distracted by the shiny things she was going to buy, to pay attention to the small print.
‘Speaking of Vaughn . . . look, Lucy, he wants me to talk about your . . . your . . . leaving gift. Like, maybe you might want to think about investing in some art?’ She pulled a face, as Lucy’s eyes glazed over, then coughed and said, ‘Fuck art! Where are you going to live?’
‘Well, my boyfriend before Martin bought me some property. I have a place I sublet in New York and this sweet little condo in Silverlake but it’s not a Bel Air mansion with a room just for my shoes.’
Lucy Newton might walk and talk like a Barbie doll, but she knew how to pick her boyfriends. ‘OK, so what are you going to ask Martin for?’
Diamonds. A limited edition Bugatti sports car designed by Hermès. Part share in a private jet. ‘Oh, and I definitely want a new fur but mostly I want Martin to realise that he’s in love with me.’ Lucy swigged from the bottle of champagne. ‘Fat chance of that, isn’t there?’
Grace squeezed her hand. Having a front-row seat to Lucy’s pain and humiliation was really taking her mind off her own impending death. ‘Do you think you might be interested in some art though?’ Grace wished she wasn’t sucking quite so badly at the hard sell. ‘I can’t even remember who the good artists are, but Vaughn buys stuff that isn’t worth shit, holds on to it, then flogs it a few years down the line for a gazillion times what he paid for it.’
The door had opened in the middle of Grace’s speech and Kelly, Anna and the maybe-boyfriend of Robert Simmons trouped in, yapping on about some dude who’d just sabred a bottle of champagne.
‘But I don’t know anything about art,’ Lucy protested, as the man sat down with a cup of coffee.
‘It’s Grace, isn’t it? I’m Eric,’ he said, turning to Lucy. ‘Sweetie, invest in art. I wouldn’t put a dime into a hedge fund with the economy the way it is, but the art market’s still pretty buoyant. I bought a Basquiat for twenty thousand dollars fifteen years ago and just had it valued at nearly three million. And don’t even ask me how much my Keith Harings are worth.’
‘Not diamonds?’ Lucy breathed.
‘You get a good uncut stone worth a few carats and your money’s all gone,’ Kelly declared, leaning against the arm of the couch. ‘So, what does Vaughn think the next big thing is?’
They all turned to look at Grace, who tried to visualise the words on the crib sheet that Vaughn had made her memorise. But she couldn’t remember and it had become cloyingly hot in the room, so she settled for clawing at the neckline of her dress, which felt like it was choking her.
‘You should talk to him,’ she croaked. ‘He’s here for the next few days and I know he closed on some big acquisitions before we left London.’ Vaughn was
always
closing on some big acquisitions and it sounded better than pleading ignorance.
Anna was already brandishing her phone. ‘Let’s swap digits,’ she commanded. ‘I know Al is after a particular light installation but I’m really into figurative pieces, y’know?’
Grace didn’t know. Didn’t much care. But she had one phone number.
‘Robert’s going to talk to Vaughn about some pieces for the place we just bought in Aix-en-Provence, but I’ll give you my number too.’ Eric sighed. It was conclusive proof that Robert Simmons was a far better actor than Grace could ever have imagined. ‘If I leave it to him, he’ll bring home yet another Jeff Koons.’
Lucy was definitely wavering. ‘But I already made an appointment to look at a jet,’ she said. ‘It has hand-embroidered leather seats.’
‘Give Grace your number,’ Anna snapped. ‘And don’t buy any piece just because you like the colour.’
Grace tipped her head back and took in tiny sips of air, as the room tilted around her. ‘I’m getting property this year. It’s so cheap at the moment,’ Kelly was saying. ‘I’m just about to close on a sweet little apartment building in Florence, on the good side of the Arno.’
Grace didn’t think she’d ever felt so out of place as she did right then in her stupid itchy chainstore dress, with no severance package in place for her imminent severing and a head that felt like it had swelled to twice its normal size.
The waitress came back with fresh coffee. ‘Can I get anybody anything else?’ she asked.