The Santiago Sisters (28 page)

2011–2014

Los Angeles

K
endra was the worst of them.

Scarlet Schuhausen sat among her so-called friends and concentrated on eating her tuna ceviche as unbiologically as she could, as if she weren’t a living mammal after all but a mannequin in a store window whose mouth was better designed for pouting than for accepting food. Yes, it was a dinner party—one of socialite Kendra King’s exclusive soirees—but it didn’t mean anyone ought to actually
eat
anything.

‘So, I said to Tim, the Bahamas? Seriously? I am
so
over it. What about Capri, or Monaco, somewhere more refined? Not to mention the fact that Danny took me there for
our
honeymoon—that soon got Tim changing his mind, let me tell you …’

The seven women gathered around Kendra’s table chimed obedient laughter. Kendra sat at the head like some terrible fur-drenched queen, her platinum hair scraped off a high, alabaster forehead, rather resembling Elizabeth I.

‘Kendra, you are awful!’ trilled Greta Sykes.

‘If only my Dougie were so obliging!’ sang Laura Sinclair-Beaumont.

‘The thing about husbands,’ Kendra went on, ‘is that you’ve
got to keep them on a tight leash. They have to know their place—or else they’ll run all over you.’

‘I quite agree,’ said Nancy Montefiore.

‘To the outside world it appears that they make the decisions.’ Kendra nodded, then added wickedly: ‘Let me tell you—behind closed doors that is
not
the case!’

The women giggled. Scarlet joined in, although she was already squirming in her seat.
Say something,
she frantically thought.
Before they single you out.

It was too late. Kendra’s eyes found hers like a cat peering in a mouse hole.

‘You’re very quiet down there, Scarlet. Do tell: how does Vittorio match up?’

Seven heads cocked to hear her response. Or, first, view it, for her cheeks were burning up like a furnace. Scarlet hated discussing her marriage with anyone, let alone these sniping, catty, competitive wives who would gossip and bitch about her as soon as her back was turned. How was she meant to tell the truth, when she couldn’t even admit it to herself? As always, she fibbed. She fibbed until her tongue hurt.

‘Vittorio and I have always had an equal partnership,’ she managed.

‘Equal?’ scoffed Kendra. ‘How so?’

‘He respects me.’

It was the most ludicrous thing she could have said. Intending to deny the truth, instead she had showcased it. Respect was the last thing Vittorio Da Strovisi had. He had been screwing around on his wife for years and all the ladies knew it.

‘Respect is a precious thing, isn’t it?’ mused Kendra. ‘It’s hard to get back once it’s lost. Tim respects me. Well, I don’t know if it’s respect or fear, but either one will do.’ The women
hummed their approval; there were a few fawning titters. ‘For instance, I know he’d never
dare
stray. I’d slice his balls off in his sleep!’

Scarlet blushed. She felt Kendra’s gaze bore into her. Times like this she
hated
Vittorio, really hated him.
How could you do this to me
? She had believed his gilded promises of love and security—how was she to know he couldn’t keep it in his pants?

She knew he had urges. She had tried to fulfil them. She’d played nurses, teachers, air stewards, bakers; she’d surprised him on work trips wearing nothing but a pair of sky-high Louboutins; she’d taken part in threesomes with other women.

Nothing was enough. She had even attempted to make him jealous—see how he liked being a victim of his own game—and slept with heavyweights like Steven Krakowski. Well, that had been without doubt the most uncomfortable night of her life. When she had confessed Steven’s travesties to Vittorio, fully expecting him to yell that if another man so much as glanced at her he would kill the motherfucker, he just nodded tolerantly and said, ‘Krakowski has eclectic tastes.’

Vittorio didn’t care what she did, or with whom. He had made a joke of her.

‘What would
you
do,’ taunted Kendra, ‘if you found out Vitto was playing around?’ She trailed her index finger around the rim of her glass.

Scarlet knew she would cry soon; she could feel it rising up from the point her feet met the marble-mosaic floor, and she stood and placed her napkin on the table.

‘Please excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m not feeling too well.’

For months, Kendra’s dinner party stayed in her mind.

What would you do? Come on, Scarlet, what would you do …
?

Her husband was away in New York. She hadn’t seen him in weeks. Mostly, when Vittorio went abroad, Scarlet sought refuge in distraction, tried her best not to think about the harem of women he was making love to. No matter how accustomed she had become to it, the pain never lessened. Vitto was a master between the sheets. But, this time, his absence felt different. It felt like an opportunity.

I have to act. I can’t carry on like this.

Vittorio knew he could get away with it—that was the problem. When they’d met, he had been a twenty-five-year-old entrepreneur with the world at his feet. She’d been nineteen, heir to Daddy’s millions, pretty, and utterly devoted to him. After learning of his affairs, for a while she had tried to get pregnant; thought that might encourage him to stay. It hadn’t worked. Vitto was militant about contraception, and though she tried to sabotage it, a pinprick here, a missed pill there, no baby arrived.

If Scarlet lost him, she didn’t know what she would do. Occasionally, there were moments of reassurance—Vitto would send her flowers, or a message telling her he loved her—but, most of the time, she was filled with a bleak sense of doom. It was only a matter of time before he left her for one of his lovers. If not now, then when he realised she was unable to produce the heir he would one day require.

She could not let that happen.

Wrong as it was, foolish as it was, Vittorio Da Strovisi was her life. She was nothing without him. Whatever it took, she could not let him go.

In the end, the call wasn’t as awkward as she’d feared. She had put it off long enough, praying as the weeks passed that her suspicions (who was she kidding, her certainties) might be mistaken. The only thing for it was to grab the phone one Friday morning and punch in the numbers before she could think twice about it. The man told her a place and a time to meet—of the utmost discretion, of course—and that was that.

The hook-up was beneath the railway arches. It was raining, and Scarlet hid beneath a wide, dark umbrella. The man approached, purposeful, striding, and smiled when he saw her. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting,’ he said.

‘Not at all.’

‘I thought this might be safer. You wouldn’t want to get photographed.’

‘No, absolutely.’ Just imagine what a field day Kendra and Nancy would have with that! SCARLET SCHUHAUSEN HIRES PRIVATE DETECTIVE.

‘Come inside.’ He took her coat, flapped off the wet and did the same with his own, before hanging both up. It was a cosy cabin, a wooden desk and two chairs, a lamp, and a stack of newspapers. ‘Please,’ he gestured, ‘make yourself comfortable.’

Scarlet sat. Henry Doric settled opposite her. He was a good-looking man, early thirties she supposed, with a crop of dishevelled brown hair.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he encouraged.

She cleared her throat, wrung her hands in her lap.

‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Henry asked kindly. When she shook her head, he said, ‘I know this is hard. No one finds it easy. Just take your time, explain it as best you can, and I promise I will do all I can to help you.’

Scarlet took a deep breath. When she exhaled, the words
came too. She explained everything in a long rush, from her marriage to Vitto right through the years of her torment. Unlike many of the people who came to see Henry, she had already resigned herself to her spouse doing the dirty. What she wanted was to find out
whom
he was screwing and how serious it was. Henry nodded and took copious notes.

‘I need to know if he intends to leave me,’ she concluded.

There followed a few moments’ silence. Scarlet wasn’t sure if she was meant to say more, but Henry continued writing and she continued sitting.

‘OK,’ he looked up and removed his glasses. ‘I have all I need.’

‘I bet you think I’m stupid, right?’

‘No.’

‘Still with a guy even though I know he cheats on me?’

‘Love makes us do strange things, Ms Schuhausen. I understand.’

He said it so genuinely that she managed a weak smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I have news.’

Henry Doric didn’t make her wait. Six days later, the envelope arrived, marked:

CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS—DO NOT BEND.

Scarlet ran a nail along the seal and opened it. A dozen black-and-white prints slipped out, and immediately she recognised her husband. The prints were glossy, as if they belonged in an art gallery. Hands shaking, she flicked through them. Vitto in a café, laughing down a side street, entering a hotel then exiting hours later; holding her hands, kissing her lips, his arms around her in the rain, her face in his collar …

At first, it was unbelievable. Then, it made sense.

Her.

The same woman in every photograph, a woman Scarlet recognised with bile in her throat and hate in her heart. The woman was vivid and dark—so different from her own regal fairness—and regarded Vittorio with unabashed adoration in every frame.

It was the same woman all the way through. Would have been better if there had been a selection, a few of her husband’s playthings, none that posed a real threat.

She had asked Henry to uncover any serious affair. Here was her answer.

The photographs were timed and dated. It seemed that Vitto had been busy in Italy, at the Tuscan house they’d bought together on their fifth wedding anniversary. He’d been there fucking this other woman. This
whore.

Scarlet’s tears began quietly then turned into howls. She howled her grief to the empty, loveless mansion of her hopeless marriage; she bunched the pictures in her fists and tore them into pieces and let them scatter around her like confetti. In one shard, like broken glass, she could still see the tramp’s face. The confession it wore.

Love.
And Vittorio loved the tramp right back.

It was over for Scarlet. There was only one thing she could do.

She stood, let herself stop crying, and then calmly mounted the stairs.

London

T
he headline ran in a blood-coloured banner across the foot of the news screen:

SOCIALITE IN SUICIDE SLASH! SCHUHAUSEN IN TRAGIC ATTEMPT!

Tess sat up in bed, alarmed. ‘Vitto?’ she called. Then, louder: ‘Vittorio?’

In the en suite bathroom of their lavish Park Street hotel room, the shower turned off. Tess called again and the door opened. Vittorio emerged, naked, his black hair dripping. He launched himself on to the bed but she pushed him away, stricken.

‘Look. Vitto. My God,
look.’

Vittorio turned to the TV and his face went the colour of egg whites. Tess tried to take his hand but he pulled away. A reporter was talking into camera:

‘Ms Schuhausen, wife of celebrated tycoon and CEO of Tekstar Corporations Vittorio Da Strovisi, was found unconscious at her home in Los Angeles early this morning. She was taken to the Willow Central Memorial, where she is said to be in a stable condition. Ms Schuhausen had been suffering
with depression and anxiety before her suicide attempt; our thoughts are with her friends and family at this time.
’

Vittorio stood from the bed.

‘Are you going out there?’ Tess asked.

‘No chance,’ he said, and began dressing. ‘I’m getting as far away from the city as I can. If the press catch sight of me, I’m a dead man. They’ll want to pin this on someone.’ An unpleasant snarl overtook his features. ‘Scarlet’s an attention seeker,’ he said. ‘She’s only done this to get me to come running. I won’t fall for it.’

Tess was confused. ‘I thought you’d told her about us. You said you had.’

He didn’t reply, just concentrated on knotting his tie.

‘Isn’t that where you were last week?’ Tess pulled the sheet up to cover herself. ‘Back at home, explaining everything to Scarlet? Leaving her?’

Next were his shoes, black and gleaming as a 1950s Cadillac.

‘Vitto?’ she said coldly. ‘That is where you were, isn’t it?’

He sat to tie his laces, his back to her. ‘I didn’t get round to it,’ he muttered.

The TV continued its grisly report. Tess didn’t know which was worse—the idea that this desperate, troubled woman should have made an attempt on her life as a result of Vittorio’s aborted confession, or that she had gone to such ends purely on the back of her misery at his affairs. Tess was part of it. She had caused it.

‘This is wrong,’ she said, and the wrongness of it fell around her like bricks.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I come up for air. Whenever the hell that is.’

‘I don’t mean that.’ For the first time since their affair began,
Tess saw the repercussions of her actions. Even if what Vittorio told her was true—that he and Scarlet had no feelings for each other any more—what she was doing was terrible.

‘You haven’t been honest with me,’ she said. ‘Or her.’

Vittorio turned at the door. ‘I never said I was honest,’ he replied.

‘The only reason you and Scarlet hit the rocks is your infidelity. You’re not estranged at all. Your wife isn’t desperate to leave you. You lied.’

He laughed, meanly. ‘Bit late for a conscience, Tess, isn’t it?’

‘I thought your marriage was as fake as mine.’

‘My marriage is nothing like yours. Your husband needs therapy—and fast.’

Tess blinked at him. ‘You know about Steven’s club?’

‘Of course I know about his club. I was invited to ride that fucked-up carousel once and I thought he was joking, laughed straight in his face. I wasn’t asked again.’

‘You got up to other kicks with him, though, right?’ Nausea washed through her. ‘Other women?’ Vittorio morphed right then in front of her eyes, no longer a hero but a cheat—a nasty, conniving, manipulative cheat. She had thought he was different. He was the one who had set her free. ‘I’m not the only one, am I?’

He met her gaze, then—for a long time, too long. ‘No. I’m afraid you’re not.’

‘How many?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Tess was ready to press but didn’t. He was right. It didn’t matter if it was one or one hundred: once a bullshitter, always a bullshitter. Alarm bells should have sounded long ago. If he was willing to do this to Scarlet, he was willing to do it to her.

How could I have been so gullible
?

She had made a point of becoming her own stronghold, surviving absolutely on her own and without support—for she could not rely on anyone or anything.
All men will let you down … no matter how much you think you can trust them.

‘Get out,’ she said. The words choked out of her like knots on a length of rope. Vittorio was no better than Steven. They were one and the same. They would probably laugh about this later. He’d never had any intention of helping her out of her marriage, of raising her profile, all the things he had promised.
‘Get out
!’

For a moment, she expected him to argue. Then he smiled in that way she had fallen prey to so many times. ‘With pleasure,’ he said, opening the door.

‘Don’t call me again. Call your wife. If you do one thing, call your wife.’

The door closed.

Tess sat with the silence, as she had when she was a fifteen-year-old orphan in Simone Geddes’ castle, cold and alone and longing to run but having no clue where.

April arrived and with it the fever of a Royal Wedding. All across England, crowds gathered to watch the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton. Patriotism coursed through town and country; bunting and flags were erected on every street.

Simone Geddes, newly freed from the tyrannical misery of her marriage to Brian Chilcott (for that was how the press, or rather Michelle Horner, had spun it), attended the ceremony. It was her first outing since the break-up. She couldn’t have chosen a more apt occasion—quintessentially British, just like
her, and reeking of more than high glamour: class, sophistication, breeding …
longevity.
Like the monarchy, Simone was an institution. Nothing was getting rid of The Ice Queen.

‘Simone, how are you?’ she was asked, addressed as carefully and tenderly as if she were a brittle china doll about to smash into a thousand pieces.

‘Oh, you know,’ she answered meekly. ‘Bearing up.’

‘You’re looking so well. It must have been rotten for you, poor thing.’

‘It was. Neglect is a terrible ordeal.’

Beneath the protective shield of her pearl birdcage fascinator, Simone made the perfect divorcee. At the end of the day, people
wanted
to like her more than they did Brian; they wanted to support her. After all, it had been she who had initiated the Tess adoption; she who had been chief breadwinner; she who attended industry engagements on her own because, as the press told it, her husband couldn’t be arsed.

‘I always thought you were too good for him,’ came the hushed platitudes. Lady Penelope Isley-Brackingford touched her arm and murmured through dog’s-bottom lips, ‘You did the right thing getting out, darling. You’re very brave …’

‘Thank you, Penelope,’ she said. ‘I can always rely on you.’

‘And you’re still with …?’

‘We’re taking it a day at a time.’

‘Of course, of course, I didn’t mean to pry …’

The seeds had been cleverly sown. Nowadays people were afraid to ask in case of upsetting her: after all, she was the wronged party. Amid the furore they’d created in bitching about poor Brian, Simone’s affair with Lysander had drifted to the backburner, no longer a raging boil but a gently agitated simmer. Only a fool would have paraded a new lover about
over the last eighteen months, especially one who was an ex-stepson. Instead, she had kept her fragile new relationship under wraps. Lysander lived at her Notting Hill bolthole, happy in rich anonymity and screwing her ragged whenever she dropped round. It was the ideal situation. Give it another year, Simone thought, and they could emerge as a pair. The Ice Queen and her toy boy …

Was she mad with Emily Chilcott for spilling the beans? At first, she’d been incensed—but not any more: Emily had been the push she’d needed, the dodgy prawn that brought the rest of it up. Simone pitied the girl—she saw her old self in that grasping, self-serving, miserable behaviour that suddenly became irrelevant when one found peace in one’s heart. Simone could not wait to cry her love for Lysander from the rooftops. The thought occurred that she might be ashamed, embarrassed somehow by her transgression—but she wasn’t. She was proud of the treasure she had found.

Only she could feel the thaw at her core, the cool finally melting. Unchained from her husband, she was emerging as a new woman. She wondered if she hadn’t always been this woman, hiding inside, barricading herself within blocks of frost to keep the memories at bay. Love had dissolved all that; she could feel it rushing away, like liquid. Love for Lysander, in whose hands she had softened.

Love for Tess, in whose eyes she saw her future; her immortality.

Simone did lament that Lysander and Brian were no longer talking—but what could she do? Brian was off licking his wounds in the Canadian Rockies. Knowing him, it wouldn’t be long before he came creeping back to make amends with his son.

Whenever she felt guilty, she remembered Brian’s lovemaking and instantly recovered. The thought of him with an Ottawan blonde caused her no trouble at all.

As Simone watched the highest echelons of British society swoon over each other’s frocks, epiphany struck. She would share her enlightenment with the world. Michelle was pushing for a magazine spread (Simone looked better than ever: there was nothing like a bit of post-divorce anxiety to shed those extra pounds) with XS, the hottest studio in New York. What if they got Tess on board, too? What if they angled the item towards new beginnings, positive change, looking to the future? It would coincide perfectly with Tess’s resurgence. Maximilian would be pleased.

In the meantime, Simone would enjoy this regal affair. She, the untoppleable queen, was resolute on her gilded throne. Let the minions come.