Chapter Forty-One
Two months later
‘It’s a fantastic turnout,’ the bookshop manager gabbled excitedly to Caroline and her publicist. ‘Really, beyond our expectations. And you’re in the Sunday Times bestseller list, the first week the book’s out! You must be over the moon!’
‘I am,’ Caroline said happily. ‘I can’t believe it, I really can’t—’
‘It’s been an amazing ride,’ the publicist agreed smugly. ‘Did you see the interview with Caroline in the Sun last week? She got a two-page spread and a great review for Bad Girl in their Something for the Weekend review page as well!’
The interview had featured a photo spread of Caroline in the skimpiest clothes they could coax her into, swimwear with a range of elegant, see-through cover-ups: she had reasoned that she was probably in the best shape she would ever be in her life, with her weight loss on the island and her very flattering tan. The photographer, Krystyna Fitzgerald-Morris, was famous for her extremely sympathetic and beautiful portraits of women, and Caroline looked positively doe-eyed, her hair curled and soft around her face. Krystyna had assured Caroline that there would be discreet but effective Photoshopping if necessary, and certainly Caroline’s figure had never looked better, her jawline as tight as if she had had one of Lexy’s CACI treatments.
No word of the confrontation in the Corinthia had leaked to the media. That kind of publicity was anathema to a five-star hotel. François had turned out to feel exactly the same: he was a hedge-funder skiving off work for a day with his mistress, something made abundantly clear by the stream of abuse she threw at him once they were both out of the pool and being fussed over by the spa staff.
She had wanted to go shopping, the mistress had complained very loudly, instead of soaking like a prune for hours; he had promised her a trip to the New Bond Street boutiques, where she knew he had taken his wife last week, and instead she’d had to lie around in stupid pools and watch stupid women bleed into the water, which was absolutely disgusting and something he’d never make his wife do –
As François and the spa manager lifted Lexy out of the pool, laying her on the tiles to wait for the hotel doctor, the general manager arrived, grasped the situation instantly and offered the unhappy couple access to the best available penthouse suite plus anything they wanted to order from room service, at which point all their complaints magically disappeared. Clearly, neither of them had any idea who Lexy and Caroline were, nor any interest in finding out.
So none of the publicity arranged by Caroline’s publisher had been tarnished by news of her bashing Lexy’s head in. She had been deluged with interview requests, had even been invited on live breakfast TV to promote her book, an almost unheard-of feat for a first-time author. The crowds today, filling the bookstore, spilling out onto Piccadilly, were proof of how effective Celebrity Island Survivor had been in making Caroline a household name. Lexy might have set Caroline up for humiliation, but the side-effect had certainly been to markedly raise her victim’s profile.
Caroline was dressed to look as relatable as possible – a word that her editor and publicist had used repeatedly in every conversation with her since her return to the UK. There should be nothing sexy, nothing provocative in her clothes or demeanour that could give off a homewrecker vibe. It was all very well to do a photoshoot in swimwear, to write taboo-breaking racy sex scenes, but in real life Caroline should look like the girl next door.
So, after handing herself over to a personal shopper at Selfridges, Caroline had emerged with the perfect outfit: a silk ruffled chiffon blouse by Chloe over fitted J Brand jeans, and on her feet, blue velvet Charlotte Olympia ‘Kitty’ low heels, with cat’s faces embroidered in gold thread on each toe, playful, fun, and, slightly less relatably, costing five hundred pounds. The personal shopper had described these confidently as an ‘investment’, and Caroline had bit her tongue to avoid asking how on earth a pair of shoes you were planning to wear could be an investment, because the shoes were adorable, and she wanted so desperately to be talked into buying them.
Simple gold jewellery was draped round her neck and dangling from her ears, her hair loose and tonged at the ends in the current faux-effortless style. Her publicist had nodded approvingly, commenting that she not only looked like the girl next door, but the one you wanted your son to date, bring home for Sunday lunch and eventually impregnate with adorable grandchildren.
And as Caroline signed copies of Bad Girl, the reaction from the people queuing up to buy it was surprisingly positive, much more so than she had imagined. Popular as Lexy was, the reality star clearly had plenty of detractors, or wannabes who were secretly envious of her glamour and success.
Just like Caroline. The irony did not escape her. Here she was, making a considerable amount of money by channelling the resentment felt towards Lexy by women less talented and attractive than her: women who were jealous of her many lovers, her handsome husband, her lovely children. Like them, Caroline had wanted to be Lexy, to step into her shoes, take over her life. Instead, she had managed only to ride Lexy’s coattails for a while before Lexy contemptuously shook her off and took a devastating revenge.
Well, enough of that! she thought as she smiled and signed the next copy, aware that her hand was starting to cramp. Lexy and I have done enough damage to each other. After this book, I never want to have to talk or write about her again. I want to pretend she doesn’t even exist . . .
Which made it even more annoying that she could hear Lexy’s name now, being murmured eagerly in the crowd; not by the people closest to the signing table, but at the front of the bookshop, by the big plate-glass windows facing onto the street. It was a name that was very easy to distinguish, with that X both hissed and tongued to pronounce it; the word Lexy, Lexy, Lexy ran through the bookstore like a wave far out at sea, gathering strength, breaking hard, sending up a spume of white foam, and then crashing hard against the shore with a smack as it rolled into land . . .
And now the sea was parting. Caroline could see ripples at the front of the store, bodies moving, pressing closer together. The crowd was splitting down the centre, creating a channel down which a woman could pass, a woman dressed in a pillar-box red trouser suit cut tight to the body, a sliver of white silk bodysuit showing underneath it, its neckline low to show off her impressive bosom. Her black hair was piled high on top of her head, her heels so high that she positively stalked down the avenue formed for her by the people pressing back on either side.
Lexy’s ears were hung with glittering diamonds; a chain of pearls was wound around her neck, dropping down to a larger stone that nestled at the base of her cleavage. Her lips were the same shade of red as her suit, her big blue eyes outlined dramatically in black, and from Silantra she had copied the idea of mink lashes. Caroline could only gawp at how magnificent Lexy looked. She might have been a younger version of Joan Collins in Dynasty, confronting a rival in a cliffhanger scene from the legendary soap opera.
Caroline braced herself. She had not seen Lexy since that afternoon at the Corinthia, when Lexy had been treated by the hotel doctor and then taken to hospital for what they had described as an accidental slip and fall in the spa. Caroline herself had been escorted from the premises and curtly informed that she was banned from the hotel for life. For all she knew, Lexy might be out for physical revenge.
Caroline glanced nervously at Lexy’s hands to see if she was carrying anything. She wouldn’t have put it past her to be armed with a brimming martini glass, ready to throw its contents dramatically in Caroline’s face.
But as Lexy arrived at the signing table, it was clear that her attack was to be purely verbal. Lexy’s perfectly painted red lips parted. Looking down at Caroline, she said:
‘I’d like a couple of books signed.’
The gasps from their audience were audible. This was the last thing anyone had expected.
‘You what?’ Caroline stammered.
‘You heard me,’ Lexy said, her tone very clear, aimed to carry to the farthest corners of the bookshop. ‘I want two copies. One for Frank, one for Santino.’
Louder gasps resulted, followed by a positive babble as people who didn’t even know each other repeated the extraordinary request that Lexy had just made to their neighbour.
Lexy’s eyes bored down into those of her former ghostwriter.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s a book signing, isn’t it? Get on with it and sign some books!’
In retrospect, Caroline realized she could quite easily have refused. But Lexy’s stare, her physical presence, were as warlike and intimidating as an Amazon. Meekly, Caroline picked up her pen again and, her publicist wordlessly sliding the next pre-opened book towards her, wrote the words: ‘To Frank, love Caroline’ on the title page as if on automatic pilot. As soon as she finished the word ‘love’, she cringed: but it was too late to change it.
‘Now do one for Santino,’ Lexy commanded, inexorable.
Caroline didn’t understand what was happening: but what she wanted more than anything was to make Lexy disappear. So she took the second book and wrote: ‘To Santino, from Caroline’, at least managing this time to avoid the word ‘love’.
She closed the second book, sliding it over to Lexy in its turn. Lexy picked up the two books and fixed that piercing blue gaze on her victim once more.
‘Good luck finding someone else to leech off,’ she said. ‘You came into my home and tried to steal my husband, and now you’ve tried to steal my story. Good luck finding someone else to thieve from. Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look as if you have a man or a story of your own.’
Lexy was no actress, but for years she had uttered heavily scripted and rehearsed lines for her show. This little speech had been thoroughly practised in advance, and she delivered it in heartfelt tones, nailing every emphasis, every beat, pausing to let it sink in before she turned on her heel and swept back down the channel at the centre of the room.
Someone at the back started to clap in appreciation. It was swiftly taken up. By the time Lexy reached the doors, most of the people inside the bookstore were applauding. Lexy stopped, cast a smile of thanks around the room, and then said to the bookstore employee who was standing nervously by the door:
‘Can I get a dustbin?’
‘I’m sorry?’ the young man stammered.
‘A dustbin,’ she said, and behind her, someone in the crowd said:
‘Lexy wants a bin! Is there a bin anywhere?’
The room buzzed with activity, people at the edges turning to look around them to see if there was a dustbin against the wall; over at the cash desk, an employee called: ‘I’ve got one here!’ and hoisted it in the air. The person beside her reached out and took it, passing it over his head towards the front of the shop. The dustbin crowd-surfed through the air, held by its base, until it reached the bookstore employee, who reached out, took it and set it down in front of Lexy.
Like everyone else in the bookstore, Caroline’s attention had been entirely on Lexy in her red suit and glittering diamonds. It was only now, with horror, that she saw a photographer at the back of the store, busy capturing every moment of this scene; staring more intently, she saw someone else with a professional-looking video camera, holding it high . . . and of course the mobile phones were out, of course everyone was frantically snapping and recording away, capturing Caroline’s latest public mortification at Lexy’s hands . . .
‘Thanks, everyone,’ Lexy said, and one by one, she dropped the two books into the bin.
‘Trash into the trash,’ she said – and, to the bookstore employee: ‘Bill Caroline for those. Fuck knows, she can afford it after the dosh she’s made screwing me over. She bloody owes me.’
It was the perfect closing line. With a toss of her head, Lexy stalked out of the store, people jumping to open the door for her.
‘Wow,’ someone in the signing line breathed in awe. ‘She’s such a diva.’
‘That was amazing,’ the person beside him sighed.
Like spectators at a tennis match, the faces swivelled back to Caroline. Lexy had dominated the rally from the start, finished with a smash that it was impossible for Caroline to return, comprehensively won the game; their expressions clearly said that they were looking at the loser. She wanted to get up and run away, back into the stockroom, collapse on a pile of books and burst into hysterical, loser tears. But then she found herself asking:
What would Lexy do?
Caroline sat up straight, bit the inside of her lip to stop it from wobbling with nerves, and pegged her chin Lexy-high.
‘Okay!’ she said, as brightly as she possibly could. ‘Who’s next in line?’
Both her publicist and the bookstore manager let out involuntary sighs of relief. As the next book buyer stepped forward, Caroline’s publicist patted her on the shoulder encouragingly, saying in a loud voice:
‘Caroline’s not going to discuss what just happened – we’ve got so many fans of hers who want their books signed, we need to push on . . .’
As Caroline took the book and asked the buyer for her name, she caught sight of someone at the front of the crowd who she was sure had not been there before. Riz must have taken advantage of the scrum to work his way forward, and here he was, raising a hand to her, smiling shyly as he waved a hello.
She’d moved out of the Edmonton house into a rental flat as soon as she got back from Australia: she hadn’t seen him for quite a while. He looked okay. He had lost some weight, toned up a bit, bought himself some more fashionable clothes, maybe even shelled out for what looked as if it could be a Reiss shirt. And he was carrying flowers, a bouquet of yellow roses, now very bashed by being squashed as he worked his way through the throng of people. But still, roses.
Lexy had taunted Caroline just now for not having a man of her own. Well, here was a candidate: he was no Frank, no Santino, God knew, but he was better than nothing. Clearly, also, he was willing to put the past behind them, the way she had dumped him to take up with a married man – overlooking, too, how she had seamlessly moved on from Frank to Santino.
Maybe Riz was just a fame-whore, wanting to be close to the centre of the action. But then, so was she. And given the choice, after this signing, of going back to her rental flat all alone – of googling her name to find gloating online posts about Lexy throwing her books in the dustbin, complete with photos and videos from the paps Lexy had clearly hired – or taking Riz back with her and riding him hard as long as he could last to work off all her pent-up frustration and rage . . . well, if Caroline asked herself What would Lexy do?, there was no question that Lexy would pick the option which involved angry sex.
Caroline jerked her head to the side of the room in an easily understandable gesture that said Hang out there and wait for me. Beaming, Riz obeyed.
She bloody owes me, Lexy had just said. And it was true. Look where Caroline had been when she first met Lexy, and where she was now; not just with a career earned off the back of writing for Lexy, but a lover willing to hang around while she fucked other men and take her back afterwards . . .
Caroline grimaced. Damn it. Even after the scene Lexy had just thrown, Caroline was still in her debt. She really did owe her.