Chapter Forty
Three days later
Lexy was so relaxed that it was all she could do not to start snoring. The heated marble lounger on which she was lying in the sheer luxury of the spa at the Corinthia Hotel was the culmination of two hours of total rest and relaxation. Not even a four-handed massage in the Maldives with the sea lapping softly beside her was more restorative than visiting the thermal suite floor.
She had swum in the pool, sweated in the amphitheatre sauna, sunk her hands wrist-deep into the ice fountain and scattered chips of ice all over her heated body, curled up in one of the tiled recesses of the steam room and done two circuits of the ‘vitality pool’, where you sat or lay on various underwater seats or beds through which powerful jets pounded different parts of you into dazed and happy submission. The heated lounger was the final stage, an ergonomically designed chaise that looked cold and oddly space-age, until you lay down: the warmth of the stone and the cleverly angled shape cradled the body in an instant embrace.
In front of the loungers was a long glass cabinet in which a line of flames flickered and leapt, gold against the black background. This was the only spa Lexy had ever visited which was kept as dark as possible, and she had never failed to fall asleep on the lounger at the end. Earlier that day, she had had a facial at Skin3, so that she had arrived at the Corinthia already in a trance. The effect of the mask going over her face was by now as familiar and comforting as a heavy blanket in winter, snow falling onto a statue, settling gently first on the eyes, then on the mouth. A calm hand smoothed everything down: the current started, tingling, trippy, but becoming the new normal so swiftly that when, after twenty minutes, it switched off, Lexy felt almost bereft as the heavy, rubbery mask was lifted off her face, surprised that the lights flickering before her eyes from the electricity passing through the mask had disappeared. Then came the last cleansing, hands working oil into her face with confident curving strokes, a glass of cucumber water placed on the side table as she lay there on the ridiculously comfortable treatment bed, tucked in under the charcoal duvet, her face gently tingling still.
Lexy had wanted to pamper herself to the maximum today. Not only was she celebrating Caroline’s downfall, but this was the first day she was spending away from her children in over a month. Sophie was picking them up from school and taking them for a sleepover at hers. Laylah and London, it turned out, adored Sophie’s home, which was like a cross between an Outward Bound course and a very benign boarding school. James and Libby were allowed to run wild in their huge garden all day long, could get as filthy and muddy as they wanted, but were also expected to do chores around the house, help cook and clear up after meals, and do their homework before any TV or tablet watching was allowed.
Lexy was going to make the most of every child-free minute. And she needed to achieve as Zen-like a state as possible, as after this, she was heading over to the Chelsea apartment to meet Frank. It would be the first time she had seen him since he had handed the children over to her in Sandbanks and taken off to London with Caroline. Lexy had no idea what was waiting for her, and the mere thought of the approaching meeting terrified her: the stakes were so high. Every instinct told her that this was make or break. By the end of the evening, she would know whether she was still married, or whether her husband wanted a divorce.
Lexy had barely been able to eat that day for fear of throwing up anything she put in her stomach. Despite her nerves, however, the atmosphere of the spa had worked wonders. The flames flickered in front of her like the lights that had danced on her eyelids during the facial. Wrapped in a thick white robe, her feet in slippers, her body relaxed onto the warm marble, her head propped on a neck roll covered with towelling that supported it at the perfect angle, she closed her eyes and contemplated the triumph of her plan to bring down Caroline, humiliate her as Caroline had crafted Lexy’s own public rejection.
Santino had rung her yesterday, telling her that Caroline now knew everything about the situation, and wishing Lexy a successful reconciliation with Frank. She found her thoughts slipping away to that holiday in Barbados, she and Frank and little Laylah sitting on the dining terrace of their hotel in the warm, moist evening air on the first night of their holiday. They smiled over at the table on the other side of the terrace at which a family like theirs sat, with a little boy rather than a little girl, recognizing Santino dell’Aquila from his TV appearances: Lexy speculated on whether the kids might want to play together on the beach tomorrow.
And then Santino and his wife leaned in towards their son. Something was wrong: was he choking? The wife’s voice rose, panicky, appealing for help: diners started to look over, thinking that the little boy was choking, a waiter running over to try to Heimlich him. Lexy spotted the blotchy pink bloom of rash forming on the little boy’s face, saw his hands rising to start scratching the irritation, remembered a friend of Laylah’s who was allergic to strawberries, and knew immediately what was happening.
Santino was calling for a doctor, and if there were one nearby, fantastic. They would know exactly what needed to be done. But if there wasn’t . . .
There was no time to lose. Lexy kicked off her strappy sandals, grabbed the room key from the table and took off barefoot at a tearing run, dodging startled waiters, heading for her suite and the medications in the main bathroom, on a shelf too high for Laylah to reach them; once the little monster had eaten an entire vial of Lexy’s homeopathic pills and just giggled, completely unrepentant, when Lexy shrieked at her, and Frank didn’t help by pointing out that those pills were nothing but sugar in the first place . . .
This was why working out regularly was so important. Add to that having learned not to care about making a fool of yourself in public by shooting outrageous scenes for your reality show. Lexy shot down that corridor like greased lightning, shrieking: ‘MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!’ in the kind of piercing tones that most British people would be mortified to use in a public place.
She crashed into the bathroom, tore the zippered pill case from the shelf, shot out again without even checking that the suite door closed behind her: she was entirely focused on getting back on the dining terrace, scrabbling through the pill sheets, popping one out, cutting it up – grabbing the Coke she’d yelled at the waiter to bring, insisting that the little boy swallow the crudely halved antihistamine tablet. In the absence of a doctor with an EpiPen dosed for a two-year-old, it was his best chance.
And the parents managed to keep it together. Lexy had been ready to throw a glass of water in the mother’s face, but as soon as Lexy snapped that her panicking could make the kid worse, she understood, took a deep breath and held it till she got some control over herself, squeezing her husband’s hand with everything she had as he told the sobbing, scratching little boy to do what the lady said and take the pill that would make everything better . . .
Lexy had no idea of the appropriate dosage for a two-year-old. She knew, however, that anaphylaxis could choke him to death with terrifying speed: so when he managed to swallow that half-pill she almost sobbed with relief, because it meant that his throat was not yet closing up. Ten minutes later, it was clear that the rash had spread no further, and after twenty, Lexy was fairly sure it was receding. The kid was no longer trying to scratch his face, and he was still sipping the Coke, so his throat was obviously fine; he was lying in his father’s arms, very drowsy, a side-effect of the antihistamine, but now managing to smile.
A doctor arrived, shone a torch down the little boy’s throat, gave the all clear and confirmed that Lexy’s quick thinking might well have saved Giovanni’s life. The mother started crying again at this, thanking Lexy profusely; Santino swept the kid up to carry him back to their suite, seconding everything his wife was saying, his face taut with the exhaustion and stress he had not yet been able to give free rein.
The dell’Aquilas were scheduled to fly out two days later. They spent most of their time holed up in their suite, recovering from the shock of nearly having lost Giovanni. Santino had met Lexy and Frank the next day to beg them to ask him for anything in the future, anything at all, and invited them to his restaurant as soon as they were back in London.
They had accepted the invitation, of course. But although it would have been natural for the two couples, each with a small child of a similar age, to make friends and socialize together, their lifestyles were quite incompatible. Although Lexy was settled down with Frank, she was not slowing down her hard-partying ways, while the quiet, modest Ilaria was visibly uncomfortable with Lexy’s saucy tongue and salty language. Family gatherings were not Lexy’s style, and the couples had swiftly realized that they had little in common beyond mutual goodwill.
The incident had never got into the papers: the hotel had comped both families’ stays in return for avoiding adverse publicity. So when Lexy had conceived the plan to detaching Caroline from Frank, after she saw that promotional ad for Celebrity Island Survivor on the bus coming off the Studland ferry, she had known that there was no way Caroline could be aware how profoundly Santino was in her debt.
Lexy had rung him first, aware that he had already signed up for the show. Initially, Santino had been taken aback by the request to flirt with and then dump a random woman; but once he realized that Frank and Lexy were actually separated, and that Caroline had had a considerable hand in making that happen, he instantly agreed. Lexy had then reached out to the producers of her reality show, asking for a contact at Celebrity Island Survivor, and promising them a series of dramatic interviews during the show if they signed up Caroline.
Of course, she had never had any intention of going through with the interviews. But she had had to offer them something, and she had been aware that they would be wary about the idea of a staged, pre-planned romance, worried that it could blow up in their faces if Santino failed to go through with it, or, worse, broke down and confessed on live TV what he had intended to do.
Lexy, of course, had known she could rely on Santino. It was, after all, a very easy task for him: like so many Italian men, he was a natural and instinctive flirt, and to charm Caroline into falling for him had been as simple for him as breathing. And in the post-show interviews it had been very simple for him to explain, his handsome face very serious, that he had very strict views on marriage – much too strict to be comfortable introducing his sons to a woman who he had found out was a homewrecker.
That explanation had been universally accepted. Not only was it entirely plausible, no one could possibly think of any other explanation for Santino’s behaviour. He had gone on to say that, though Caroline had clearly not been the one, his flirtation with her had made him realize that it was time, at last, to move forward. He was finally able to contemplate the idea of bringing a woman home to meet his sons who might potentially become their stepmother.
This, naturally, had been greeted with great excitement, and not only by his devoted fans. With considerable amusement, he had told Lexy in their phone conversation yesterday that he had already had two approaches from TV companies eager for him to star in a reality show about him finding love again.
Drifting off to sleep, Lexy found herself wondering if she knew anyone she could introduce to Santino. It was mortifying to acknowledge that among her social circle of reality stars, TV presenters and television executives, there wasn’t one who was genuine, unselfish and kind enough to be suitable for a widower who was bringing up three young sons.
Maybe Sophie knows a nice woman, she thought, and as her breathing slowed, as she started to fall asleep, she remembered Ilaria, her thin elegant features, the high-bridged nose and delicate bone structure, the big dark eyes, the absolute lack of any make-up, all very characteristic of a sophisticated Italian woman. She imagined Sophie’s friends, Home Counties blondes like Sophie herself, with sturdy muscles from skiing and horse-riding, sensible hair and no-nonsense attitudes: actually, Lexy reflected drowsily, that might be perfect for him. His kids would love her, just like mine do Sophie. It would be a new start for them all, someone as different as possible from sensitive, quiet Ilaria . . .
And on that thought, Lexy slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep, a gentle snore issuing from her parted lips. The next thing she knew, her face was covered in burning hot coals and she was screaming in shock and fear.
‘You bitch!’ Caroline hissed. ‘You’ve completely ruined my life!’
It had taken Lexy several shrieking seconds to identify that it was ice she was frantically shovelling off her skin, that the scorching sensation was from cold rather than heat. But what the hell was going on? She hadn’t signed up for a spa treatment which consisted of having her adrenalin levels spiked by therapists dumping ice on her unexpectedly!
And then, belatedly, the penny dropped.
‘What the fuck!’ she shrieked. Mashing the last chips of ice from her eyelids, blinking the water away frantically, she grabbed the lapel of her robe, wiping her face. ‘What are you doing, you stupid bitch?’
‘You completely set me up!’ Caroline yelled. ‘And no one believes it! My publicist’s rung everyone and nobody will run an interview with me about you and Santino taking me down! The Mail actually laughed at her and hung up!’
Lexy looked up at Caroline and started to laugh as well. After the scare she’d just had, it was the most enormous relief to let it all out. Big howls bubbled up from deep in her diaphragm, rocking her body like a comic actor clowning for effect.
‘Oh, I bet they laughed!’ she managed to say between the giggles. ‘I bet they thought you were a crazy delusional bitch! I can’t believe you were stupid enough even to try telling them that story!’
This was too much for Caroline, who was smarting from the humiliation she had endured over the last few days. Her flight had been met at Heathrow by massed ranks of press, all of whom had gleefully shouted one mortifying question after another at her. It was the celebrity equivalent of the walk of shame: she had kept her head down, not saying a word, trying to deafen her ears and blinker her eyes to the prying lenses and invasive stares of bystanders who had seen her being rejected by Santino live on television just a couple of nights ago.
Beside her, Louise, who had dipped very regularly into the drinks trolley onboard, made things worse by swearing at the cameramen. She even pushed one away, to his great delight; he’d recorded her arm thwacking towards him while deftly dodging to one side.
You wanted this, Caroline had kept telling herself. You wanted fame, and now you’ve got it . . .
Caroline had done her hair and make-up on the plane, of course. She’d meant to walk off flashing smiles for the cameras, seeming unaffected by what had happened with Santino. But she had been unable to muster the strength to pull it off. Instead she looked defeated, ground down, humiliated, especially because she was bitterly aware that Lexy would have made lemonade out of lemons, sashayed through Heathrow looking fabulous, lean and tanned, reminding everyone to buy Bad Girl when it hit the shelves in a couple of months . . .
Rage surged up in her as she got into the cab, still surrounded by yelling paparazzi. Caroline knew she would have no peace until she had confronted Lexy, the author of all her recent misfortunes.
Posing as one of Lexy’s publicity team who needed to get in touch with her urgently about an interview, Caroline rang Jason, Lexy’s manager, and asked his assistant about Lexy’s schedule. The assistant checked and reported back that Lexy was unavailable that afternoon, as she was booked into the Corinthia Hotel spa; a quick call to the Corinthia ascertained that Caroline could purchase a day spa visit herself. So, having unloaded Louise at Waterloo to catch a train back to Southampton, the cab proceeded along the Strand, into Trafalgar Square and down Northumberland Avenue to the ocean liner that was the Corinthia Hotel.
Caroline had located Lexy easily enough, and revelled in the satisfaction of seeing her genuinely shocked and frightened by the ice landing on her face. But now Lexy was actually laughing at her, taunting her with how she had turned the tables on her so successfully, and it was unbearable, intolerable – she couldn’t let it go on another moment, she couldn’t –
Bending over, Caroline grabbed hold of Lexy’s hair with both hands and tugged at it viciously, screeching:
‘Fuck you! How dare you laugh at me!’
The spa manager, who had been standing just inside the entrance door, could no longer stand back. He had been watching Caroline and Lexy yell at each other, too nervous to interfere; it was a highly delicate situation. But once Caroline dug her hands into Lexy’s hair, he practically ran forward. It was the first time two clients had ever brawled, let alone two famous ones, and he had absolutely no experience in breaking up this kind of thing, but he knew he had to calm things down.
Lexy, screaming in fury, grabbed Caroline’s hands and started trying to prise one of her fingers free; she got hold of Caroline’s middle finger and forced it painfully back. But even as Caroline yelped in agony and pulled her hand away, with it came a chunk of Lexy’s hair extensions, and Lexy’s cries became bloodcurdling as some of her own hair was ripped out as well. Caroline staggered back, cradling her damaged hand, the hank of hair dangling from her fingers.
Assessing her escape route with one swift, frantic glance, Lexy calculated that she couldn’t scramble over the wide marble lounger in the heavy robe she was wearing before Caroline came around it. Instead, she made for the open space beyond her attacker, heading around the fireplace wall; she was intending to put the large vitality pool safely between herself and Caroline, buying plenty of time while the spa realized what was going on and summoned security.
Because Lexy had absolutely no wish to engage in a public brawl with her love rival, let alone on the very day she was supposed to meet her husband and convince him that she had sobered up and was ready to truly settle down! How on earth would this look when the press got hold of it? And even apart from Frank, she was damned if she would give Caroline a smidgen of extra publicity. That bitch had written what, Gareth had warned Lexy, was a tell-all about her life: Lexy would be livid if news of this catfight gave Caroline extra pre-orders for the bloody thing.
But unfortunately for Lexy, her spa slippers were, literally, her downfall. Designed for walking with the slow, relaxed pace of a spa visitor, they were much less useful when fleeing a crazed attacker. With every stride they caught under Lexy’s feet, and as she rounded the fireplace wall she found herself tripping, the toe of one flapping disastrously, sending her off balance. She struggled, arms flailing, to get some kind of purchase on the slippery marble floor. The two people in the vitality pool, lying on the moulded beds, bubbles surrounding their elegantly toned bodies, stared over at her, shocked dumb by this intrusion into their very expensive, very exclusive paradise.
And as Lexy desperately tried to right herself, Caroline came up behind her, took hold of her shoulders, and threw her sideways into the pool.
In Caroline’s defence, she had never visited the spa before. She had simply dashed around a corner, seen a swimming pool and followed an irresistible impulse to throw Lexy into it. In a normal pool, Lexy would have tipped in, thrashed around in the heavy robe, then either been fished out or managed to unwind herself from its folds. Caroline was quite unaware of the silver bars lying dangerously in wait below the surface of the bubbling water. As Lexy toppled in, her head and shoulder hit the bars with an audible smash. Bouncing off them, she sank like a stone to the floor of the pool.
Caroline screamed, as did the woman in the pool. The man was sitting up, struggling against the force of the jets to climb off the bed and help Lexy. Caroline dropped to her knees, looking down into the water. Everything was black, however: the walls, the floor, the tiles of the pool. All she could see was the white robe, heavy with water, billowing dramatically against the black background, blown back and forward by the jets; on either side of it were silver bars, and Caroline couldn’t see how to climb down without stepping on a possibly unconscious Lexy.
The thought that she had injured Lexy, who might actually be lying at the bottom of the pool, knocked out, bleeding, starting to drown – that Caroline could be arrested and charged for what she had just done – was racing through her mind with such terror that she could barely breathe. So when, from the white folds a figure arose, black hair plastered to her face like something from a horror film, dripping with water, the robe discarded, one swimsuit strap slipping down from her shoulder, almost completely revealing one recently enhanced, artificially perky 34DD breast, Caroline barely had time to gasp in shock at the apparition as the creature reached up, sunk its hands into Caroline’s hair and dragged her into the water.
Caroline tumbled in awkwardly, rapping her ankle so hard on one of the bars that it immediately started to throb. As soon as she hit the water, the robe she herself was wearing weighed her down like a wet blanket, slowing down all her movements. The pool, it turned out, wasn’t deep, and she got one foot under her, unable to stand on the injured one. She brought her fist up to hit Lexy under the jaw, but, since she was trying to undo the tightly knotted belt of her robe with the other hand, neither attempt was successful.
The next thing Caroline knew, the iron grip on her hair changed: Lexy’s hands flattened on the top of her victim’s head, and, Caroline’s face was pushed underwater. She flailed frantically, her hands coming up to try to grab Lexy’s arms, nails digging in, trying to force Lexy to let go. Air bubbled from her nose and mouth, and she swallowed some water, her body convulsing as she choked on it. Her eyes bulged out in panic. No matter how deeply she sank her nails into Lexy’s arms, the grip on her hair didn’t budge. Lexy had Caroline exactly where she wanted her and wasn’t planning to let her up any time soon.
Caroline had been underwater for long enough that her breath had run out. She had barely a few seconds left before her bursting lungs compelled her to take in water. In a last-ditch attempt to force Lexy to let go of her hair, she charged forward as best she could in the completely saturated robe, ramming her head into Lexy’s chest.
Lexy staggered back and let go of Caroline’s head. Caroline bent her knees and pushed upwards with everything she had. After the months of running on the damp sand of Studland beach, her legs were solid muscle, twin pistons driving her torso up as her head broke the surface, water flowing off her eyes, her nose, her mouth – she was dragging in a long, agonized breath, the effort ripping at her lungs. There was a rasping noise in her ears that she realized was her own body: she sounded like a rusty old tractor trying to start up.
But she was breathing air, not water! Around her, she felt pushing and shoving, other bodies cramming in between the bars. Her scalp was aching. She stumbled and felt a body behind her, raised a hand to wipe water from her face, and saw Lexy with her hair matted to her forehead and arms pinned to her sides, the man who had been on the bubble bed gripping on to her to hold her still as she struggled against him. Her left breast had popped completely out of her swimsuit by now, and a considerable part of the right one, but she seemed completely unembarrassed by this. In fact, as she writhed to get free, it was the poor man holding her who was rearing back, doing his best not to touch her impressive bosoms.
Someone caught Caroline, restraining her too, and as the pounding in her lungs began to lessen, she looked around to see, to her great surprise, that it was a fully clad man, his clothes sodden, his expression contorted with embarrassment.
‘Miss,’ he said, ‘I’m the spa manager, and you’re going to have to leave this area immediately, I’m afraid—’
‘Oh my God!’
The woman on the bed was pointing at Lexy, her voice hysterical as she exclaimed in a heavy Russian accent:
‘She’s bleeding! Look at her! It’s all over her head!’
The dark decor of the spa, the black-tiled pool, the dim underwater lighting, meant that the people in the water were shadowy silhouettes to each other. The woman sitting up, however, could see by the light of the fireplace what the others did not: that it was not water matting Lexy’s hair to her head, but blood.
‘It’s going in the water!’ the woman shrieked. ‘Oh my God! François, let go of her! You could get it on you! I feel sick!’
François did let go of Lexy, who, frowning, put a hand up to the side of her head. Clearly, the adrenalin rush of attacking Caroline had meant that Lexy had failed to realize how badly she had been hurt when she hit the bars falling into the pool. Her hand came away smeared with blood.
Lexy stared at her palm. It was as if a wide brush had been dragged over it, thick with red paint, glossy and slick. Slowly, she probed her head, feeling for the extent of the damage that had been done when she landed on the bars, realizing for the first time that her shoulder was stiff and bruised as well. Her fingers touched her skull, probed around, and located a deep dent into which her index and middle finger sank right up to the base of her nail.
With blood dripping down her cheek, dark drops falling one after the other from her chin to her bare breast, her fingers exploring a terrifying indentation in the bone of her skull, Lexy was suddenly overwhelmed by dizziness. Her head felt as light as a balloon: her eyes rolled up, her face went pale as a ghost, her legs buckled and she slumped over, her face slapping onto the surface of the water.
François, seeing her fall, managed to step forward and catch her under the armpits, saving her from possibly hitting her head on the bars once more. And then he stood there haplessly, Lexy’s unconscious body dangling from his hands as his girlfriend shrieked at him hysterically to let go, get his hands off her, get out of the water now –
‘Oh no,’ the spa manager wailed. ‘Oh no, we’re going to have to empty the whole pool!’