Fast Friends (45 page)

‘Tell her to stop,’ said Camilla, and Mac threw her a
meaningful look, his dark eyes signalling despair.

‘
Since when did Loulou ever take notice of
anything I said?’
Seconds later they watched
once more as the wheel spun
with the ball.

When it stopped, Laszlo de Lazzari permitted himself a
small,
terrifyingly controlled smile.

‘
Well done,
my dear,’ he said to Loulou. ‘You are very lucky. Your precious money is safe.’

Camilla, feeling almost sick with
relief, turned hurriedly
away and headed for the toilets. By the time she returned,
hopefully, Laszlo de Lazzari would be gone and the party
could continue happily through the night without him.

When she emerged from her cubicle,
however, she found
Roz
re-doing her lipstick in the mirror which stretched across
the length of the four ivory-marbled basins. By the
dead-pan
expression in her eyes Camilla
realized that she had come
here
purely in order to speak to her. Her dark eyes reflected in
the mirror, Roz watched her without turning, then
slowly
recapped her lipstick and dropped it into the evening bag
which lay open beside her. Whenever she wished to
do so,
Roz had always been able to veil her true feelings behind an
inscrutable outer mask. Camilla, she thought with a
trace of
scorn, had never possessed
that facility; her thoughts and
emotions were
there,
plastered
all over her face, and Roz took
pleasure in
registering each one in turn. The initial shock –
almost fear – had already given way to uncertainty and this in
turn was now replaced by a wavering anxious smile,
the
overtures of a non-existent
friendship. Finally, as Roz watched
her
remembering the letter she had written a few weeks ago,
came the expected flicker of sympathy. Typical of
Camilla,
she thought, to have written
such a gushing, all-girls together
letter. And typical too, that she was
now moving towards her,
forgiving her for
the past in order to sympathize with her in
her present grief.

‘
Roz, how are you?’
Camilla said, and Roz registered that
the anxiety in her voice was due
to a mixture of genuine concern and uncertainty as to how she would react.

‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she replied evenly, and
watched Camilla hesitate.

‘
Did you get my letter?’

‘
I did.’ Lighting a cigarette, she blew a perfect smoke ring
and watched
it drift towards the door.

‘
I can’t tell you how I
felt when I heard about Nicolette. It
must
have been so terrible,’ continued Camilla, warming up.
‘Are you coping
all right? If there’s anything at all I can do, you know, of course, that you
only have to ask . . .’ Her voice trailed away beneath Roz’s blank stare and
the sympathy died from her eyes to be replaced by that scared-puppy expression
Roz remembered so well from school. Camilla might have changed, she thought
with cold triumph, but she hadn’t changed that much.

And it was both fascinating and reassuring to know that
she could still set her on the edge of that precipice of self-doubt and
inferiority.

‘
That’s very noble of
you,’ she said in a low, controlled
voice,
‘but all I ask is that you drop the pretence. It makes me
feel quite
sick.’

Camilla turned pale, stunned by the
words, and Roz felt a
surge of
power. She felt more alive, somehow; more enervated now that she was finally
ridding herself of that poisonous buildup of jealousy. Camilla had turned Nico
against her, had taken him from her, and it was only right that she should feel
pain in return.

‘You hate me for what I once did to you,’ Roz continued,
grinding her cigarette into the wash basin. ‘You never wanted to see me again,
and that certainly didn’t bother me. I went along
with that. But now, simply because my daughter is dead, you
think
that my loss gives you the right to sympathize with me, to
forgive me for what happened in the past. Well, it
doesn’t. I
have not become a
nice
person, I am exactly the same
as I was
before and we really both know that.
Pretending otherwise is
sheer
hypocrisy, so don’t even try it. So there’s no need to treat
me any differently because I neither need nor want
your
forgiveness. I’ll just carry on
sleeping with your ex-husband
and you
can carry on sleeping with Nico if you want. Let’s
leave it at that,
Camilla. OK?’

How could Roz be so vindictive,
Camilla wondered, as she
watched her
stalk out of the cloakroom with her spiky dark head held high. Stunned, she
sank into the only chair and tried to understand what she had done to deserve
such a bitter reaction.

Roz was
still distraught over Nicolette’s death, there wasthat; but was it the whole
reason, or simply an excuse?

And yes, it
was
an excuse. Roz’s final words had
given her
away, and that was something else
which hurt for a different
reason. Roz
knew about Nico and herself, which could only
mean that Nico had told her. Camilla felt betrayed. How could
he
have done that?

Minutes later, she left the cloakroom and made her way back
to the party, more determined than ever not to let Roz spoil her
evening. The two of them would never be friends.
She knew
that now.

She would just ignore her in future. One cautious overture
of friendship had been thrown back in her face. There would be no need for any
more.

What hurt most of all was the
discovery that Nico had
betrayed
her.

That hurt a
lot.

Seeking the reassurance of Matt’s
smile, his strong arm
around her
shoulder, Camilla made her way back to the party. Vampires was still crowded;
everyone was enjoying themselves immensely and the noise level had soared.

Christo Moran pressed a glass of champagne into Camilla’s
hand as she passed him at the bar, and gave her
fingers a
sympathetic squeeze. Dear Christo, she thought with a rush of
gratitude. He didn’t say much, but like the excellent barman he was, he missed
nothing.

‘
They’ve both left,’ he
said in an undertone which enhanced
his
smooth, southern Irish accent. ‘Don’t let the woman upset
you, darlin’. She simply can’t bear the fact that
you’re doing
better than she is.’

‘
Better?’ There was a
catch in Camilla’s voice. ‘What does
that mean?’

‘
Everyone likes you,’ Christo stage-whispered, a smile
curling at
the corners of his wide mouth. ‘You have real friends. That’s what really
counts and Roz Vallender’s only just begun to realize it.’

‘
Oh,’ she said,
surprised and cheered by his words. Impul
sively she kissed his pale,
freckled cheek. ‘What a nice thing to say. Thank you.’

‘
It’s the truth,’ said Christo simply. ‘Be
happy.’

Loulou was seated opposite Laszlo de Lazzari. They were
playing poker now. Mac, looking distinctly alarmed, whispered
to Camilla that in the ten minutes she had been absent, Loulou
had lost £150,000. Camilla stared at him in dis
belief.

‘Why?’ she
said at last, so horrified that it was the only word she could formulate.

‘She’s
flipped. That pirate’s wiping the floor with her. She hardly even knows how to
play
poker.’

‘Then stop
her!’

Mac looked grim, his dark brows drawing down into a
straight line. ‘I tried to. She said it was her money. Jesus . .
He broke
off, appalled, as Loulou threw down a pair of tens. De
Lazzari regarded her blankly for less than a second before
placing
his own cards face-up on the green baize. A royal flush.
Loulou smiled and shrugged, and watched him write
a new
figure on the pad beside him.

Camilla,
unable to simply stand by and watch, said: ‘Loulou, what the hell do you think
you’re doing?’

‘
Having fun,’ Loulou replied cheerfully. ‘Now don’t
nag,
Cami. I’m enjoying myself.’

‘What did I
tell you?’ murmured Mac through clenched teeth.He shook his head. ‘She’s
flipped. Gone mad. I can’t watch any more.’

As he
turned and made his way through the mass of people
behind him, Matt reappeared at Camilla’s side and trailed his
finger
down her bare back. Minutes before, she had yearned for
such a gesture to break the dark spell of Roz’s vindictiveness,
but that was forgotten now. She clung to his arm
and said
nothing, her gaze fixed unswervingly upon the cards which de
Lazzari was dealing out with long, expert fingers and a bleak, dangerously
intent smile.

At two o’clock exactly, the very last
rocket exploded overhead
into an
inky, starry sky and Loulou sat back in her chair with a sigh.

The game was over. At last. And any minute now, the game
would also be up.

‘
An exhilarating
evening,’ commented Laszlo de Lazzari,
his voice barely making itself
heard above the clamour of the crowd. Studying the writing pad with care, he
added, ‘You owe
me two million pounds. This
is, I believe, the current market
value of Vampires. I would, therefore,
be happy to accept this property in lieu of cash.’

‘Just as well, really,’ said Loulou, grinning across at
Camilla,
who felt sick. ‘And since it would
take far too long to sort out
all the legal work now, here are some
deeds which I had drawn up earlier.’

With due solemnity, Christo handed her the black briefcase
from which, recently, she had seldom been
parted. Adopting
the teasing air of a magician, Loulou slowly drew out a
sheaf of documents and laid them across the table. A dawning suspicion began to
uncurl in Camilla’s mind and when she glanced across
at Mac, who had been drawn helplessly back to the table to
watch
and had been chain smoking and drinking straight Scotch,
she saw her suspicions reflected in his own face.
Poppy, who
had been glued to the game
from the beginning, leant so far
over Loulou’s shoulder in order to see
the documents that her breasts came perilously close to escaping over the front
of her white sequinned dress.

‘His name’s already printed on the deeds,’ she squealed,
and
Loulou burst out laughing, holding her
swollen stomach with
both hands. A fresh buzz of noise broke out from
the people
clamouring around the table; some
began to laugh with her.
Laszlo de
Lazzari rose to his feet and raised one hand for silence.

‘
Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began as a flashbulb exploded. ‘I
arrived in England only a few months ago,
but it did not take
me long to realize
that the famous character of the English is
still very much alive. Loulou is by blood only half-English, but I think
that no-one will disagree with me when I say that’ she is
a lady of
true, and quite magical, character.’

Still not entirely sure what was happening, everyone
nevertheless cheered and applauded. Camilla, riveted by de Lazzari,
slowly began to realize that his former aloofness
had melted
like mist. His voice, too, was warm. And the terrifyingly
bleak smile had been replaced by an almost shy, natural one.

‘When she sold Vampires to me four days ago, it was on the
understanding that this little game should take
place tonight.
Both fascinated and bemused by such an unusual
stipulation, I was compelled to agree. It was to be good entertainment for her
guests, she explained, although I have to confess,’
he paused,
his good eye sweeping the
circle of faces around him, ‘that I
began
to be concerned for the health of some of you as the
game progressed.’

Matt laughed uproariously at this although Mac, Camilla
observed, was still looking concerned. But then he was also
digesting the news that Loulou had sold Vampires.
For the life
of her she couldn’t
imagine why Loulou should have taken
such
a drastic step; the famous wine bar and restaurant had
been her whole
life. And what on earth would she do with the money?