Scandalous (17 page)

“Mindful.” Pretentious little turd. So because I’m on television, all of a sudden I’m not a “proper” scientist? Not “cutting edge” enough for your readership of losers and nerds, because my research has been published and feted around the world and theirs hasn’t?

Theo adored LA. He adored everything about working in television: the fame, the money, the travel, the hot girls falling over themselves to bed him. But it still irked him that his fellow physicists refused to take him seriously. As he’d told the interviewer from
Men’s Vogue
only this morning (right after stressing how important it was for men in the public eye to make brave fashion choices): the scientific community was deeply unforgiving of commercial success.

Theo was still moaning to Theresa as they pulled into valet parking. “I wonder what that up-himself editor would give to be attending an event like this? He’d probably have to hock his apartment just to buy a ticket. Twat.”

“Hmmm.” Theresa wasn’t really listening. She was watching all the size-zero twenty-two-year-olds unfurling themselves from the backs of limousines. Twenty minutes ago she’d felt beautiful, sexy, and on top of her game. Now she felt old and fat and…

“Theo! Darling! I didn’t know you were gonna be here. That’s so awesome.” A brunette in a gold Dolce & Gabanna micro-mini, whom Theresa had never seen before, jumped on Theo as he got out of the car, draping her arms around his neck and kissing him on the lips. Theresa looked at the girl’s pin-thin legs and thought,
My right breast weighs more than you
.

“Oh. Hi. You must be Theo’s…wife?” The girl looked at Theresa as one might look at a mangy dog, her face torn between pity and disgust.

“That’s right.”
And you must be…one of the sluts who work for him?
“And you are…?”

“Camille. Theo and I are colleagues. This is my boyfriend, David. He’s a producer.”

Theresa only just managed not to laugh. From behind the gazelle-like Camille, a fat dwarf of a man waddled over to shake hands. A foot shorter than his date, and a minimum of three decades older, David still managed to stick his chest out and preen as if he were Steven Tyler. Walking up the stone steps into the famously pink kitsch hotel, Theresa leaned into Theo and giggled. “Poor man! Talk about Beauty and the Beast. I suppose there’s no fool like an old fool.”

“David Weinberg is nobody’s fool,” said Theo pompously. “He’s one of the highest-paid TV producers in the world. He’s the brains behind
Teen Queen Wrestling
and
Celebrity Surgery Face-Off
. You shouldn’t be so quick to judge people by their looks, you know, T.”

“
Me?
” Theresa spluttered. But Theo was gone, air-kissing another gaggle of preposterously pretty girls as he worked his way through the crowd. Knowing no one and feeling homesick and depressed—she’d made a titanic effort to look her best tonight, but what was the point?—Theresa did what any sensible Irish girl would do. She headed to the bar.

“What can I get you? Watermelon vodka? Sour apple martini? Sex on the Beach?”

“Whisky. No ice, no water.”

She downed the first drink, then a second and third. Instantly the room became a little hazy, as if she were watching the party through a lens and someone had smeared it with Vaseline. So this was it, the long-awaited Make-A-Wish Ball.
I’m making a wish: I wish I were at home, listening to Classic FM on my computer. I wish I were thirty pounds lighter. I wish I could make Theo fall in love with me again.

“Would everybody please take your seats for dinner.”

Dinner was served in the hotel’s famous art deco Crystal Ballroom. Above Theresa’s head a lavish chandelier twinkled over the pink and white tables, where Hollywood’s elite sat sipping soda water and nibbling halfheartedly on plates of tuna tartare. “I feel like I’m at a Katy Perry show,” Theresa joked to Theo. “There are enough sequins in this room to make Liberace wince.” Once upon a time Theo had shared her irreverent sense of humor. No longer. Since moving to LA, he seemed to have had his appreciation of the absurd surgically removed.

“Don’t be facetious,” he hissed at her. “Who’s that on table nineteen? The woman everyone’s crowding around?”

Theresa looked. She didn’t recognize anybody.

“That’s Dita Andreas,” said the girl on Theo’s left. “Her new movie,
Heaven’s Gate
, just had the biggest September opening weekend on record.
Variety
’s calling her the new Angelina.”

It wasn’t a soubriquet that Theo would have picked. If anything, Dita Andreas looked more like an older, more womanly version of Scarlett Johansson, though she did share Angelina’s trademark full-lipped pout. Her simple, black L’Wren Scott sheath and Neil Lane diamond drop earrings contrasted dramatically with her pale coloring. Blonde and sultry, with unfashionably fair skin and bloodred lips, she was not the most
beautiful woman in the room. But she exuded sexuality like a cat in heat, and she had that
something
, charisma, star quality, whatever you wanted to call it, that eclipsed all the younger, taller, more regular-featured girls surrounding her.

“Is she married?” Theo asked bluntly.

“
Theo!
” Theresa blushed.

“Uh-huh. Newlywed,” said the girl on his left. “To Brett Graham, the director on
Heaven’s Gate
. He’s her fourth husband. Dita collects husbands the way Angelina collects orphans. Doesn’t keep ’em as long, though.” The girl laughed.

Theo stared across the room at Dita. He wasn’t alone. The entire party seemed to be fixated on her. But some sixth sense made Dita look up and notice him.

“Who is that man?” she asked her husband.

“Which man? The blond?” Brett Graham glared at Theo. “He’s nobody.”

“No, really. You don’t know him?”

“No, I don’t know him. Which means he isn’t in the film business. I know everybody in the film business.” Brett Graham was used to having girlfriends hang off his every word. With Dita Andreas, it was different. He was constantly having to prove himself, to try to impress her and keep her interested. Every day he spent with her he felt his heart growing tighter and his dick growing harder. It was torture.

“He’s a physicist,” the man opposite Dita interjected helpfully. “Theo Dexter. He has a TV show on NBC.”

“You see?” said Brett, smugly. “I told you. He’s in TV. He’s nobody.”

Dita smiled at Theo and turned away.

Not long after dinner ended, Theresa was back at the bar, alone again. Dita Andreas and her entourage had already left. No
doubt they had another, more important party to go to. Theresa had seen Theo talking to Dita earlier, introducing himself, but Dita’s husband had dragged her quickly away.
If only I could control Theo like that
, Theresa thought sadly. He was on the dance floor now with yet another young NBC staffer. Theresa watched the pair of them glide across the polished marble, their perfect bodies pressed close, feeling like Sandy watching Danny and Cha Cha win the dance-off in
Grease
. She downed another whisky.

“I’d go easy on that if I were you.” A distinguished-looking man in his early sixties appeared at Theresa’s side. “Take it from someone who knows. Drink isn’t the answer.”

Theresa looked up at him. He seemed kind. He was handsome too, for an old bloke. Like a tall Inspector Morse. Except that Inspector Morse would never have told anybody that drink wasn’t the answer. He would also never have come to a party full of posers at the Beverly Hills hotel.
What am I talking about? I must be drunker than I thought.

The man followed her gaze to where Theo was dancing. “He’ll grow out of it. Believe me. Hollywood, fame, all this, it’s dazzling at first. He just needs to realize what a great thing he’s got going at home. You’re gorgeous.”

It was such a kind thing to say, Theresa felt her eyes well up with tears.

“Oh, God, sorry. I don’t know why I’m sniveling. I think I’m a little drunk. Then again, I think you must be too. Either that or blind. I’m the fattest woman here by a million miles.”

The man looked at Theresa’s glorious figure poured into her slinky silver dress and laughed. “Nonsense. You’ve lost your confidence, that’s all. Trust me, most men aren’t attracted to anorexic airheads with two bags of silicone glued to their ribcage. Not for more than a few seconds anyway. Harry Meister.”

“Theresa Dexter.” Theresa shook his hand. Harry was a TV presenter, also at NBC. It turned out he knew Theo slightly through mutual colleagues.

“So what is the answer, Mr. Meister?” Theresa asked him. “If it’s not to be found at the bottom of a bottle of Famous Grouse?”

“My advice? Get pregnant. I’ve seen hundreds of guys like your husband, new in town and all starry-eyed. Give them a family and they soon settle down.”

He couldn’t have known it was exactly the wrong thing to say. Theresa barely managed to mumble a “nice to meet you” before she ran outside into the parking lot. Slumped against the service doors to the kitchens, she broke down in tears.

He’s right! The one thing that could save my marriage is the one thing Theo knows I’ll probably never be able to give him.

Alone beneath the stars, Theresa wondered how much longer she would be able to hold her marriage together. Years? Months? Weeks? She tried to think back to where it had all begun to go wrong. Immediately one single, unforgettable image loomed in her mind.

It was Sasha Miller’s face.

S
ITTING IN THE
front row at McCollum Hall, Harvard Business School’s newly renovated auditorium, Sasha Miller waited excitedly for her name to be read out. As the top graduate in her class, she would have a long wait. Her name, as was the tradition, would be called last, and would undoubtedly prompt a standing ovation from her classmates and professors. But that wasn’t why Sasha was excited.

She was excited because now, at last, she could take the first step toward fulfilling her destiny. The destiny that had brought her to Harvard in the first place. The destiny that had made her quit physics and take an MBA. The destiny that had brought her to America in the first place.

Now I can start to destroy Theo Dexter.