Prima Donna (40 page)

‘Look. I’ll tell you why I invited Harry down,’ she said quietly, keeping her eyes on the task in hand. ‘But then you have to promise to leave. Agreed?’

‘Fine,’ Tanner muttered, watching her absorb herself in her routine. It was the first time he’d noticed her grace. It was usually subordinated to her arrogance or anger. And
her arse . . . he always noticed that. He saw there was blood on the toes of her tights and her right foot looked swollen.

She began jabbing more vigorously. ‘I invited him not because I was hoping he’d make a beeline for Lulie.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I was hoping he’d make a beeline
for me.’

Tanner narrowed his eyes. He should have known she’d talk in riddles. ‘Why?’

Pia reached up and switched to the other shoe. ‘Because I thought that if he had me, Will wouldn’t want me.’ She swallowed hard and looked up at him, feeling as humiliated as
she had feared she would. ‘That’s the truth. It had nothing to do with him and Lulie.’ She put the shoes on the dressing table and stood up. ‘And now I’d
like—’

Tanner grabbed the crook of her elbow and spun her back round. ‘No. Wait a minute. That doesn’t make sense. Why would you do that? Why didn’t you want Will to have
you?’

Pia looked up at him. He was holding her arm tightly.

‘Tell me!’ he said, shaking her.

‘Because from the moment we met, he’s tried to buy me, to own me. Just look at tonight!’ she cried angrily. ‘It’s cost him a million pounds to put this on –
did you know that? So what if I’m terrified of jumping and getting back on my toes? The world’s watching, right? How can I possibly refuse anything he asks of me?’

‘So you were trying to sabotage your own relationship?’

‘Of course!
He
has to reject
me
! I thought hurting his pride would do it, and I . . . I thought I could rely on Harry to seduce me, for old time’s sake.’

Tanner shook his head in disbelief at her screwy morality, before realizing he was still holding her arm. He let it go and took a step back, confused. He’d naturally assumed she and Will
had been lovers from the start. He’d never thought for a moment that Silk had effectively held her hostage to his chivalry.

Tanner frowned. It didn’t ring true. ‘This doesn’t add up. Why’s Silk got you here if you’re not sleeping together?’

Pia glared at him. ‘Because he’s
waiting
for me.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Tanner snorted. ‘Silk’s no gentleman. He wouldn’t go to all this trouble if he wasn’t getting any action from you, sweetheart. He
must have had another reason for keeping you with him.’

‘Oh! Is it really so unbelievable that a man would choose to
wait
for me?’ she bridled, tossing her head back proudly and showing off her beautiful face and neck.

Tanner was unmoved. ‘Frankly? Yes.’

‘You just don’t know what it is to do the honourable thing,’ she hissed indignantly.

‘Oh really?’ Tanner replied archly. ‘And you’re basing that on what, exactly?’

‘Well, you always look for others to blame – what do you call them? Scapegoats.’

Tanner put his hands on his hips. He’d had enough of being tarred by her sweeping accusations. ‘Go on, then. Give me an example,’ he challenged her.

‘Okay. What about . . . what about that time you blamed him for what happened in St Moritz? He wasn’t even
there
when that girl took the drugs.’

‘He didn’t need to be,’ Tanner shot back. ‘He’d already given his orders.’

‘Orders? What orders?’

‘He wanted his star player off the scene so that his way was clear to some socialite’s bed. Will ordered him to seduce another girl instead. Alonso left drugs in the truck afterwards
and Jessy nearly died as a result. It’s a clear thread of culpability, and yes, I blamed him. Try again.’

But Pia had stopped listening.

Alonso? Sophie and Alonso? The fateful image of the two of them coming out of the trailer floated before her eyes, the one that had paralysed her and stopped her in her tracks in front of the
sleigh . . .

Oh God, poor Sophie! Alonso had seduced her on Will’s orders. Then, when Pia had woken up in the hospital after the accident, she hadn’t been able to bear what had happened and the
implications it had had for the rest of her life. She’d been frightened, and angry, and humiliated that her assistant and friend had won the man she’d desired . . . so she had struck
out by firing Sophie.

She closed her eyes in despair at her own appalling behaviour – then suddenly opened them in gratitude at Will’s! He had known that she was after Alonso – he’d even said
it to her ‘. . . You want to seduce him to spite me, don’t you? . . .’ She wasn’t blameless in her own tragedy by any means, but it had been
his
actions that had
set in motion the chain of events leading to her accident.

If there was anyone to blame, it was him, and everything he’d done since to save her had actually only cancelled out
his
debt. For three months she’d been physically
incapacitated and systematically stripped of all her defences – kept in one place for weeks on end and forced to accept kindness from strangers. But it was all over now. It was suddenly all
over. She owed him nothing. At last, she’d got what she’d craved. She had her freedom back.

The wardrobe mistress knocked on the door again. Please God, don’t let there be a wardrobe malfunction, she thought, squeezing her hands together in a little prayer as
she waited for it to open. She should have insisted on helping Pia into the costumes herself. They were impossibly tight.

She heard low voices behind her and turned around.

‘. . . This is probably the best time to catch her, now that she’ll have some of her confidence back. What a first act, Perry!’ Will was saying as he led a tall, grey-haired
man towards Pia’s trailer. ‘I think you’ll find she’s more—’ He saw the wardrobe mistress standing at the top of the steps. ‘Anything the matter, Mrs
Tufinell?’

The woman shrugged. ‘She’s not answering.’

‘Here, let me,’ Will said, stepping up and knocking briskly on the door. ‘Come on, Pia. The beeb’s on a tight programming schedule and I’ve got someone I want you
to meet.’

There was no reply. Will looked around. The audience was back in its seats and the orchestra was waiting to start. ‘Tch, women!’ he muttered, turning the handle and barging straight
in. ‘Never ready when . . .’

He saw the broken mirror and the empty dressing table first. Then the navy tutu puddled on the floor. ‘Pia?’ he asked, his voice climbing an octave.

But he already knew that she had gone.

Sophie tried to count the different shades of green as the coach trundled along the lanes: moss, emerald, sage, forest, bottle, grass, racing, lime, royal . . . uh, light,
dark, blackish . . .

She gave up and opened a bottle of water that she’d grabbed on her sprint through Chicago airport. She’d only just managed to secure a seat on the first flight out and had had to run
to make it.

She closed her eyes at the memory of last night. The show had been a sell-out. Not a single painting remained unsold and Miriam was pressing her to get to work on the next set; but, as she
looked out of the window, the thought of it made her feel sick – scrutinizing Adam’s hands on Ava’s waist, his hands on her thighs, their bodies twisted around each other in an
expression of the most sublime language the human form had to offer. Why would she put herself through the pain? She didn’t want to look at Ava; she didn’t want to set eyes on her ever
again. Not after what she’d done to her.

She’d been manipulated and played by too many people, for too long. It had been bad enough being tossed away by Pia like some disposable tissue –
she
hadn’t even had
the decency to tell her why. But now, for it to happen all over again with her replacement, to realize Ava had just used her . . . The friendship had been a lie. Sophie had been nothing more than a
patsy, something else for her to steal from Pia – because, as ever, it was always about her. Sophie had simply been a pawn in the middle of their battle for supremacy. It was clear now that
Ava was trying to take over everyone and everything in Pia’s life. Her own success wasn’t enough. She was a parasite, determined to strip Pia of her reputation, her contracts, her
dancing style, her repertoire, her partner, her assistant – even her assistant’s lover, just for the hell of it.

Pia had been right all along. Ava couldn’t be trusted at all.

Pia. Sophie stared back out of the window, wondering where she was. Her disappearance from the Royal Ballet’s production was front-page news. Will Silk had had to go on stage and make a
statement saying that she’d become ‘indisposed’. The audience had been in uproar, jeering and booing him, and the television companies had had to quickly fill the live coverage
with old footage. And within a matter of minutes the worldwide web was abuzz with rumour and conspiracy theories.

Baudrand’s fears about Pia eclipsing them from the other side of the Atlantic were on the money – and she’d managed it by not even being there, as the front pages ran
‘Where’s Pia?’ headlines.

The critics, bumped up to the third, fourth and fifth pages, waxed lyrical about the two divas’ interpretations and their rival productions. By the end of Pia’s first act, it was
looking too close to call. Yes, she’d been wary in parts, with a few winces as she landed from the bigger jumps and a slight tremor as she held her beautiful
arabesque effacé
,
but allowance had to be made for her very recent injury and everyone was expecting, no,
willing
, a more confident second act as she settled back into performing again.

So the news of her disappearance had been a bitter blow. Every critic, dancer and observer wanted a decisive finale to the Soto–Petrova rivalry but, in the absence of a full performance,
Ava was crowned the winner by default.

Everyone felt cheated but it was another point to Camp Petrova, Sophie thought glumly, sighing heavily and misting up her window.

She rubbed it clear and saw the landscape had become familiar again. The coach was entering her neighbouring village, and the houses and fields she’d played in all her early life unfolded
before her with comforting sameness. She wiped the window fully with her sleeve and followed the hedgerows with her eyes. She still remembered exactly which farmers they belonged to: O’Brian,
Murphy, Fitzgerald, Ryan . . .

Nothing much had really changed in her absence. There were a couple of small housing estates springing up on the outskirts of the villages and there were more road signs than she remembered, but
she could see old man Finlay was still dropping his hay all over the road as he took his tractor back from the field to the farm, and he still hadn’t got round to patching up the old barn,
which now looked like it should be condemned, not repaired.

The coach turned into her village, Fennor, and Sophie found herself suddenly alarmed to be back home. She didn’t know why it should startle her so much. After all, she’d taken an
eight-hour flight, another hour-long connecting flight and a three-hour coach ride to get here.

She watched as they passed the primary school with its slate peaked roof and all the children playing in the playground; the grocer’s with its vegetables stacked up in the same old wooden
barrows outside; the small square with its war memorial still decked with a few rain-sodden poppy wreaths.

The doors opened with a hiss and she stepped down, taking her bag from the hold underneath. It was fresher here than in the city and she pulled the gold cocoon coat tight, her bare legs already
beginning to goosebump in the spring breeze. She knew she looked bizarre standing in evening dress in this tiny Irish village, but she hadn’t wanted time to think, much less to change. She
had grabbed her passport and her dignity and got the hell out of there.

She let the coach leave, suddenly not so sure of the next step. The breeze picked up the satiny wisps at the front of her hair and blew them lightly across her face. She went to smooth them back
with her hand and found to her surprise that she was crying. She dropped her hand down, preferring to stay hidden away. She didn’t know what to do now.

Window-cleaners washing the front of the pharmacy stared at her in the plate-glass reflection; a couple of schoolgirls coming out of the sweet shop openly admired her extravagant coat. She felt
ridiculous.

A middle-aged woman with twins on bikes saw her, and came over. ‘Are y’all right, dear?’ she asked, rummaging in her bag for a tissue. ‘Are you lost? Dublin’s three
hours that way,’ she smiled, nodding her head back the way Sophie had come.

Sophie stared at the woman in amazement. She slowly pulled her hair away from her face.

‘No, I’m not lost, Mam,’ she hiccuped. ‘I’m home.’

Pia looked down from the Principe’s grand balcony and watched Milan move through its day in exquisite, controlled synchronicity. The chestnut trees stood rigid against
the soft breeze, shiny orange Lamborghinis double-parked around the Vespas, tiny women in huge sunglasses and chic skinny layers of taupe, olive, camel and cream criss-crossed between them,
swinging their wait-list bags, hair and hips.

Pia absent-mindedly bit her lip, wishing she could be so free. What it must be to just walk outside in the sun and eat ice creams and sip espressos in street-corner cafes. That was far more of a
luxury to her than the unlimited credit on her Amex Black. But she couldn’t take the risk of being seen. No one could know she was here.

She turned her back on the city and walked into the suite. She wished she’d chosen somewhere smaller, less ostentatious. The decorator’s rule of thumb had clearly been ‘if it
doesn’t move, gild it’. It was grand, yes, opulent and impressive. But it made her feel like a bird in a cage. She felt stifled, trapped. She’d been here for two days now and
hadn’t left the room once. She couldn’t. If the papers had been ecstatic about her return to the stage, they’d been doubly ecstatic about her disappearance again: they could
always rely on Pia Soto to make good copy. And it had been nothing short of an international manhunt to find her. Twitter and Facebook were full of supposed sightings, giving locations of where
she’d been seen and reports of what she’d been doing and with whom. They were all wide of the mark, of course, but that was okay, just so long as no one knew she was in Milan. She
couldn’t afford to be spotted and have the rumour mill swing into action before she’d signed on the dotted line.