Diamonds Forever (16 page)

The eyeliner girl, Tiggy or whatever she was called, was bent over a footstool, fully naked, while some partygoer she didn't recognise thrust into her from behind.

This might not have been so surprising in itself, and she would have simply flustered an apology and rushed out again, were it not for a third player in the scene.

Lawrence leant against a dresser, his jeans around his ankles, feeding the length of his thick curving cock into Tiggy's eager mouth.

Kayley watched her jaw work while she was banged to and fro, seeing Lawrence's heavy balls bounce against her chin. Lawrence had a hand on her neck, keeping her from jerking about too much while she sucked him. He was the one whose voice Kayley had heard.

‘Greedy little bitch,' he said, apparently oblivious to Kayley's sudden appearance. ‘Take your medicine.'

Kayley backed out of the room, all thoughts of her bag forgotten. Finding Ross at the bottom of the stairs, she said, ‘Let's get out of here, now,' and marched him out of the front door, clinging to his elbow.

She lay in her bed that night seeing over and over again the silhouettes of the threesome against her tired eyelids. Some kind of bright red shawl had been tacked over the window in place of a curtain, and their outlines had been vivid in its foreground. The whole scene had been like some obscene version of an industrial revolution machine – pistons, wheels, the back and forth motion of it.

She saw the generous curve of Tiggy's bottom, lifted towards the unknown man, and her breasts swaying on the other side of the footstool. She saw the unknown man's cock, easing out then pushing back in to its sheath. And she saw Lawrence, his careless pose, his taut jaw, his hand on Tiggy's neck …

‘Manwhore,' she muttered, turning over in bed.

And that was a good phone she'd lost, too. God knew when she'd be able to afford a replacement.

Oh well. It had been an experience. She'd seen how the other half lived – and shagged – and now she could go back to real life.

Real life obstinately refused to comply, however. She was sitting in the coffee bar between lectures on the following Monday, frowning over her ring binder, when somebody she hadn't expected to see again plonked himself down opposite her and dumped a handbag on the table between them.

‘Yours, I believe,' he said.

‘Oh!' She couldn't help staring. He was every bit as good-looking as she remembered, and quite a good deal more suave too. But he had been a bit rumpled in that last haunting view she'd had of him, so it was hardly surprising. ‘You. You came here.'

‘Found this in my freezer last night,' said Lawrence, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I'm not sure the phone'll still work …'

‘God! The freezer? Must've been looking for ice cubes and …' She tailed off, biting her lip.

‘Yes, well, we were all a bit past the limits of common sense that night, I think,' said Lawrence.

Kayley felt the words as a brush-off, an excuse.

‘Yeah,' she said, looking swiftly away from him. ‘You're not wrong there.'

‘Best place to be,' he said with a grin. ‘I had a great night. You?'

‘Not bad,' she said.

‘So maybe we could do it again?'

She was genuinely astonished. Why on earth would this bloke, who seemed to have all those posh girls with the big hair literally at his feet, want to see her again?

‘What, do you mean that?' she blurted, wishing she could be smooth and hard-to-get. Fat chance.

‘Of course. Why wouldn't I? I like you, Kayley. You're … a breath of fresh air. I don't often meet girls like you.'

‘What, chavs, you mean?'

He looked wounded, cocking his head to one side.

‘No, I do not,' he said firmly. ‘I mean girls who aren't full of themselves and their airs and graces. You have an honesty about you that's really quite … intoxicating.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘And you know how to have a good time.' He winked, and she felt heat prickle through her. So he just wanted sex. So what? Why not?

She accepted his invitation to go round to the Hall after her last lecture, telling her dad she was going to the cinema with her mates. Roll on the day she could earn money and rent a flat with some friends, she thought, pounding the pavements on the way to Lawrence's place. Being skint all the time was a pain in the arse.

He got a takeaway and a DVD and they ate and watched in between sessions on the sofa bed in one of the vast, almost empty, downstairs rooms.

He was sweet to her, complimentary and gentle, in between bouts of rough, very ungentle sex. He made her laugh. He could be thoughtful. And he was very, very generous with his pills.

So generous, in fact, that her boundaries began to blur. As the weeks passed, she was meeting him two or three nights a week for sex and drugs. It never occurred to her that the time to pay for all the free treats might be coming.

One night, she turned up at the Hall to find a group of his friends there. Tiggy was one of them, though most of the others were men.

They all got off their faces and ended up all over each other. Kayley's memories of it all were pretty vague now, but she knew that at least three or four different men had done things to her. At one point she and Tiggy had put on a show for them, laughing and slurring and kissing all over the floor.

The next morning, she'd been horrified with herself and sworn never to touch another pill, but Lawrence always managed to talk her round and get her back in his clutches. In the end she was shagging random strangers most nights of the week, out of her mind on pills, doing whatever they wanted while the lines of her inhibitions were blurred into nothingness.

She couldn't remember most of it.

But Lawrence had the pictures.

She wished she could say it ended when she found a shred of self-respect and walked away. But in fact, it ended in a blaze of ugly jealousy, when she took her friend Mia to one of the parties and her pretty, extrovert friend proved to be more popular with Lawrence's crowd than she was.

What the hell had she been thinking? In what way was it a compliment that some arrogant dicks liked to gang-bang you? She could see now, with the benefit of long hindsight, that her self-esteem had been appalling, and so had Mia's, but nobody could have told her that at the time. She'd have said, ‘It's just a laugh,' and explained that Lawrence and his posse were her
friends
. Some friends.

Oh well. They – and Mia – had done her a favour in the end. She'd flounced off, nursing her hurt feelings, and vowed to avenge herself by getting her qualifications and living her own life her own way.

And she'd done it.

Until suddenly the whole nasty business had reared its head again.

She let her tears soak into the slippery nylon of the old-fashioned sleeping bag, feeling an enormous weariness weighing down her whole body, but especially her heart.

What did Lawrence Harville mean to do to her?

And would she even make it out of there alive?

‘
SHE'S STILL GOT
her phone switched off.'

Jason looked up from his easel and nodded tersely before getting back to work with his charcoals.

‘Well, maybe we should go up to her dad's after. Make sure she's OK,' he suggested, his focus intent on the paper clipped to the board.

‘OK.' Jenna twitched, feeling the onset of pins and needles in her left hand.

‘Keep still,' growled Jason.

‘I can't. My arm's starting to go to sleep.' She shook her hand vigorously and propped herself up on an elbow, giving Jason an accusing stare. ‘I wasn't born to be a life model. And I'm getting cold in this ridiculous rig-out.'

She was wearing Jason's favourite black underwear set with all the cut-outs, reclining on her reconditioned eighteenth-century chaise longue amidst a pile of marabou-trimmed cushions.

‘Five more minutes,' he said. ‘I'm almost done with this sketch, I promise. Now, lie back down and think of England, babe.'

Jenna, clenching and unclenching her hand to restore life to her fingers, grinned at him.

‘I didn't think that was the look you were aiming for,' she said. ‘Staunch and patriotic.'

‘No, that's true,' said Jason. ‘Don't think of England. Think of what my hands are going to be doing once they drop these charcoals and get hold of you.'

Jenna slid back into her reclining position with a happy sigh. Yes, that was worth thinking about. Never mind that her nipples were starting to throb in the draughty air of the morning room, or that the marabou cushions were slippery and about to fall off the chaise.

Never mind anything except that she was dressed and arranged for Jason's lustful gaze and he would soon be transferring all the fantasies she represented into reality.

‘Yeah, that look on your face, that's what I want,' he said approvingly. ‘Keep it just that way. Show me you want it.'

Immediately Jenna was overcome by self-consciousness. Was her expression so blatant? Did she look slutty? A silly question, perhaps, given what she was wearing, but she couldn't help thinking that these sketches might be viewed one day, many years in the future, by art students and people in galleries. What on earth would they think of her?

‘No, what's up?' Jason put down his charcoal in dismay. ‘You've gone all prim and proper.'

‘Sorry. I just had this vision of people in the future looking at this picture and thinking I'm a right old slapper.'

Jason made a noise of frustration, then came over to her, crouching in front of the chaise and looking sternly into her eyes.

‘First of all,' he said, ‘less of the old.'

‘I'm thirty-five. Practically middle-aged. This isn't exactly dignified for a woman of my age.'

‘For fuck's sake, Jen, thirty-five is
not
middle-aged.'

‘It is in Hollywood. Women my age are all over the Botox doctors and plastic surgeons, all looking for failsafe ways to defy gravity and time.'

‘Forget Hollywood. Forget having to be a teenage Barbie doll for your whole life. I wouldn't want that anyway. You're young, you're gorgeous and all those people in the future will have the hots for you, just like I have.'

‘But … don't you think they'll think I'm a bit …'

‘A bit what? Sexy? Hell, yes.'

‘No, not sexy. Trashy. Easy. Whatever.'

Jason's dark eyes widened and his face settled into what Jenna tended to think of as his ‘before the spanking' look.

‘Did you really mean to call my work trashy, babe?' he said.

‘No,' she said quickly, her heart beginning to race. ‘Not your work. Me. Lying here in this slutty underwear with a come-hither look in my eye. You couldn't really see the Queen posing like this, could you? Be honest.'

He spluttered into laughter.

‘I really, really don't want to,' he said. ‘But you've put that in my head now. Jesus, Jen. Thanks for that. But I've got a little bit of news for you. You're not the Queen.'

‘Well, I know that, but I'm a public figure. I have to take care of my image, just like she does.'

‘I've told you, nobody's going to see these until after we're dead, unless you want them to. Besides, what's wrong with the world knowing you love what I do to you? It's the truth, isn't it? Art and truth should go hand in hand.'

‘It's the truth,' she said softly. ‘But it's private too.'

He pursed his lips, and she could see that he was deep in thought.

‘Don't you think,' he said, taking her hand, ‘that there should be more love in the world?'

‘What?'

‘Don't you think it's good to give the world this … this passion of ours? As an example. So people long after us will see what it was … in case it, I don't know, dies out or something. In case the world changes into a place where there isn't any love. Don't you think it's important to keep a record of …?' He broke off, unable to find the words he was looking for.

Jenna reached out to touch his cheek.

‘Oh, Jason,' she said. ‘You make me see things differently. I could never be without you.'

‘So … did that make any sense? Do you see what I mean?'

‘You want the world to know that you loved, and to feel it the way you felt it?'

‘Yes. I can't keep quiet about it, Jen. It's too important to me. But if you really don't want to, then that's … I have to respect that. We have to both want it.'

She swallowed a lump in her throat.

‘I do want it,' she whispered. ‘I do.'

He kissed her hand, then her forehead.

‘And don't worry about looking slutty,' he said, into her ear. ‘Because that's the way I like you best.'

He growled and bit her earlobe before returning to his easel.

‘Besides,' he said, making delicate final touches with the charcoal, ‘what I really want is for people in the future to look at this and say, “Lucky bastard!” It's an ego trip, basically.'

But Jenna wasn't fooled. He liked to play the laddish rogue, but there was much, much more to Jason than met the eye.

She lay there for the final minutes of her modelling stint, seeing herself as those nebulous future viewers might see her. A woman adored, a goddess.

It was not an unpleasant feeling.

He put down his charcoal and threw back his head, taking a deep breath.

She watched him, fascinated by his post-creative behaviour. He was like a man who had just broken through the finish tape after a marathon. Less sweaty, but no less full of wonder at his own achievement.

He took a long look at the easel and then invited Jenna to come and see it.

She picked up her robe from the end of the chaise, but he abruptly told her to drop it, so she padded over naked to stand beside him.

He encircled her shoulders with an arm and pulled her into his side.