Everything to Nothing (46 page)

‘His
girlfriend?’

Sally nodded.
‘If it had been any other circumstance it would have been quite
funny, watching the Prince naked using his pillow as a bat. Of
course, I quickly put two and two together and came up with three,
and we all know that three doesn’t go too well in a relationship.
Apparently she had been studying overseas and had just got back and
heard about the woman the Prince had been seen with so many
times.’

‘What a
bastard.’

‘To say the
least. I was heartbroken Michelle, fucking heartbroken. He saw me
in the doorway and she noticed that he was looking at something
else so she turned and saw me. She walked towards me; I can only
presume swearing at me in Arabic. I panicked and ran off to my
bedroom, locking the door behind me. For ten minutes she battered
the door, screaming. I sat on my bed and prayed that the door held.
I swear that if she had got through that door she would have killed
me; she wasn’t rational. Eventually, a few members of staff pulled
her away and I can only presume locked her in another room
somewhere in the palace.’

‘So he didn’t
even come to stop her?’

‘No. He had to
rely on his staff. He didn’t have the balls to confront her
himself, which I suppose says a lot really. That night I didn’t
sleep, and I didn’t sleep for a week. The next morning, early, I
snuck out of my bedroom and begged one of the staff to take me to
the airport. I had nothing but my passport, some cash and my bank
card. I got on the first flight out of there. Turned out it was a
flight to Bangkok. I spent a month on my own in a hut on an island,
crying my eyes out.’

‘Oh Sally, I’m
so sorry. I had no idea. I thought you were with your dad, jet
setting around the globe.’ She put her arms around Sally and hugged
her while Sally wiped away the tears that were now rolling down her
face.

‘He totally
broke my heart and as a man who is older than me, a Prince no less,
he should have known better than trying to take advantage of a
young woman, innocent in her naivety.’

‘Yes, he should
have. You should have told me, I could have come and supported
you.’

‘Thank you
honey, but it was something I had to get through on my own.
Anyway,’ she turned away from Michelle, ‘I’d better fix my makeup
before we go back out there.’ As Sally was fixing her smudged
makeup, Michelle asked about Ashraf. ‘Well, one night the Prince
had to attend a function, men only, no way I could go, so he asked
Ashraf to look after me. He was quite nice at first, then as the
night went on he started to get really sleazy, saying that the
Prince and him shared everything. They had slept with the same
women lots of times and they weren’t bothered about it and other
such things. When we were in the limo coming back from a party we
had been to, he tried to hit on me and he tried to hit on me
strongly. I swear if I hadn’t kneed him in the bollocks he would
have raped me!’

‘You kneed
him?!’

‘Yeah, he was
pissing me off. It was quite amusing watching him roll about on the
floor of the limo in the foetal position!’

‘I bet it
was!’

‘I didn’t see
him again after I had told the Prince. He was not amused.’

‘So you had no
idea he had a girlfriend?’

‘She wasn’t his
girlfriend. She was his betrothed.’

‘Oh my God!
What an absolute bastard!’

‘Yep. Right,
how do I look.’

‘As usual,
sickeningly perfect!’

Sally laughed
and took her friend by the hand, exiting the toilet and leading her
across the room in the Palace. As they walked towards the bar both
of the girls noticed that the Prince was now dancing quite
erotically with a woman who might as well not been wearing any
clothes for she was not leaving much to the imagination.

When they were
served at the bar, Michelle was surprised when Sally ordered a
glass of red wine, cheap red wine at that. ‘Red wine? We’re in a
palace in Monaco and you’re drinking red wine, cheap red
wine?!’

‘I have no
intention of drinking it Michelle. Order us two glasses of the best
champagne and I’ll be back in a moment,’ stated Sally who picked up
a glass of the wine.

As Sally tried
to walk away, Michelle grabbed her arm. ‘Sally, where are you
going?’

‘Stay here
darling; you don’t need to be a part of this.’

‘No, Sally
don’t, think about where we are, who is watching!’

With a smile
and a wicked glint in her eyes, Sally shrugged off Michelle’s hand
and walked towards the edge of the dance floor where she stood
waiting for the music to stop. The blood was racing through her
body, fuelled by adrenaline and she struggled to stop her hand from
shaking. As the music stopped, she stormed onto the dance floor,
speaking just below a shout. ‘Hi Mo. How’s your fiancée?’

With a flash of
anger across her face, the woman he had been dancing with turned to
confront him. ‘You’re engaged?!’ He did not reply.

‘Yes, he is.
This is for breaking my heart, and for all the other women you’ve
taken advantage of!’

With those
words, Sally threw the red wine into his face and watched with
pleasure as it drained down over his white jacket and shirt. She
jumped as the woman delivered a slap to his face and smiled as she
watched him wipe the wine out of his eyes.

With a flourish
she turned on her heels, and looked straight into her father’s eyes
who was stood next to Prince Albert. Her father did not look
shocked, he did not look surprised; his face was totally impassive.
With another smile, she winked at her father, did a quick curtsey
for the Prince, and walked off the dance floor towards where
Michelle was waiting. ‘And on that bombshell darling,’ she spoke
into Michelle’s ear as she linked arms with her and walked towards
the door, ‘I think it would be a good idea to leave!’

‘I think that
would indeed be a very good idea!’

*

The next
morning Sally was up early, just after dawn. She had not slept
well, not because she was upset, but because she could not get the
glorious image of a wine soaked Prince out of her mind. From her
bed, she watched the sun rise and with another smile she leapt out
of bed, put on her bikini and headed to the pool for a refreshing
swim.

Discreetly he
watched her from the bar as he sipped a fresh orange juice. He was
impressed with her technique and speed, and thought that she could
have made a good swimmer but persuading his daughter to get up at
five in the morning for swimming training would have been a futile
exercise.

Eventually she
stopped at the far end of the pool and spent some time looking out
to sea. As she turned a look of surprise flashed across her face as
she noticed her father sat at the bar. With a few powerful strokes
she powered to the other end of the pool and lifted herself out of
it, her shoulder and arm muscles flexing as she effortlessly left
the pool. With a couple of steps she was by his side and kissed him
lightly on his cheek. She then took the towel and wrapped it round
her body then sat next to him at the bar. For a few moments neither
of them said anything until he broke the silence. ‘Do you want to
talk about last night?’

She smiled at
him, and the early sun caught her red hair and lit up her green
eyes. For a moment, he thought he was speaking to his wife again,
young and beautiful, full of life. ‘Not really daddy, no.’

‘I suppose you
remember the status of the person whose face you threw wine into
last night?’

‘Of course I
do. We were in his country with him last year.’

‘And you begged
me to let you stay there for some retail therapy and an extended
holiday? You stayed in the Burj Al Arab hotel. I know you did
because I saw the bill. You stayed in a suite, for a month, at
about, if I remember rightly, three thousand five hundred pounds a
night.’

‘Before we go
on, ask yourself after what you saw last night whether you want to
know the real story?’

‘I don’t, but
I’m intrigued as to the reason why you threw red wine into the face
of a Prince, a Prince who is in control of numerous contracts that
we are bidding on and numerous contracts that are currently ongoing
which I’m now expecting to be cancelled.’

‘I stayed with
him at the palace for a month.’

‘He’s
engaged.’

‘Yeah, you
could have told me that before I stayed with him for a month!’

‘Well, if you
had told me the truth I would have told you!’

‘You probably
would have, and I would have been on the first flight back to
London.’

‘True. So what
happened? In fact, I take the question back. I can imagine what
happened. She found out?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you were
only in Dubai for a month. So where did you go afterwards? You told
me you were doing some volunteer work in Africa?’

‘Not exactly. I
was in Thailand on my own crying my eyes out.’

‘Oh Sally. I’m
sorry. I had no idea. What a slimeball taking advantage of my
daughter like that!’

‘We didn’t
sleep together daddy.’

‘I didn’t need
to know that, nor would I have asked. What an absolute… Well, I’m
not going to give him the chance to cancel the contracts. I’ll
cancel them all this very day!’

‘No daddy,
don’t. They’re worth a fortune to you!’

‘And you think
in a situation like this I care about the money?! To be perfectly
honest, I’m absolutely furious! He should know better than to have
done that!’

‘It is your
choice, but don’t think you have to do this for me.’

‘I’m doing it
because he is clearly an unethical idiot!’

‘Well, I can
confirm he’s an idiot.’

‘I’m going to
call James now to set the ball rolling. How dare he treat a member
of my family like that!’

Without saying
anything else, he stormed off into the yacht and Sally resigned
herself to the fact that she had probably just cost her father
about five hundred million pounds. With a sigh she walked over to
the Jacuzzi, picking up a copy of Vogue to read while she soaked in
the hot, bubbly bath. Soon Michelle joined her and they spent the
rest of the day relaxing by the pool until Mr. Gallagher told them
that the qualifying was about to start.

They watched
this from the comfort of the yacht, all of them cheering as they
saw one of the cars from the team he was sponsoring go flashing by
while sipping from a seemingly endless supply of fresh fruit
juices. After about an hour and a half Mr. Gallagher let out a loud
shout of joy as he saw on the big screen opposite the yacht that
both of the cars were on the front row of the grid. ‘Yes! Now that
makes the sponsorship worthwhile! Lots of television coverage, lots
of media coverage as a whole! I wish I had a bigger section of the
car now!’

‘Well done
daddy!’ Sally shouted, planting a kiss on his cheek.

For a few
moments they watched the replays on the screen and they all
celebrated again. Soon after this Mr. Gallagher was approached by a
member of the crew. ‘They’re ready for us on the track!’

‘That was
quick!’

‘Well, it’s not
just us who have this honour. Quickly! You’ve got five minutes
before the car leaves to takes us round!’

The young women
ran off to their cabins, both of them quickly getting ready. Within
the allotted five minutes they were back by his side and they all
scampered off the yacht to the waiting car. It took them slowly
around the track to the pits where they were greeted by a
professional driver who explained the plan for the next hour.

Mr. Gallagher
went first. The driver took him around the track three times before
pulling back into the pits and they switched places. With a roar
and a squeal of tyres the powerful Mercedes SLR supercar powered
down the pit lane. The girls stood on the pit wall screaming every
time there was a flash of silver whizzing past them and a roar of
the engine. After five laps he pulled back into the pit lane. The
girls ran over to the car and helped him out of the car. ‘Wow! That
was an experience!’

‘If I can have
Michelle next please,’ asked the driver.

‘Oh Sally, you
go next.’

‘No, it’s okay
darling. You go. Enjoy yourself.’

‘Are you
sure?’

‘Yes! I’ll
enjoy watching you. Go on!’

‘Okay!’

Michelle
climbed into the passenger seat of the car and again after a few
laps she swapped with the driver and she thoroughly enjoyed her
drive as she blasted round and one lap was even completed in a
faster time than Sally’s father. ‘Younger reactions is the only
reason you were quicker!’ Mr. Gallagher joked as Michelle learned
of her times.

‘I can’t
believe I went that quickly!’

‘You know,’
said the driver, ‘that’s actually a quite impressive time
considering that was done on only your fourth lap around here.’

‘Impressive or
lucky?!’ jokingly replied Michelle.

The driver
laughed and asked Sally whether she was ready. Sally nodded and
clambered into the car. Her three demonstration laps were quickly
over and she took the wheel of the six hundred horsepower, two
hundred and eight miles per hour supercar.

Sally safely
navigated the infamous Sainte Devote corner and blasted along
uphill through the kinks of the ‘straight line’, and round the
famous Casino corner. She quickly negotiated the Mirabeau Haute and
blasted round a few more corners to the slowest corner on the
circuit, the Grand Hotel Hairpin. After a couple more turns she
entered the tunnel section of the circuit and she loved the sound
and roar of the engine as it reverberated around the enclosed
track. Her speed increased rapidly as she accelerated ferociously
through the tunnel and then without warning the steering wheel
started to judder. As they exited the tunnel Sally was dazzled by
the sunlight and without warning the car broke right, clipping the
wall as it approached the Nouvelle Chicane.