Divas (59 page)

‘Or do you not want me to strip any more?’ she said desperately, sensing that wasn’t enough. ‘I won’t, then! I won’t, if you don’t want me to! If
that’s what it takes to get you back!’

‘
Evie
, ’ Lawrence said, lowering her gently to the ground, her legs unwrapping from their lock on him, as weak as a newborn colt’s with fear. She clung to him as he
said:

‘Of course you can keep the apartment, and of course I’ll live there if you want. You know material surroundings don’t matter to me. I’ll go wherever you want, and live
wherever you choose. That’s not an issue.’

‘Then is it stripping?’

‘Evie, you know I believe that everyone has an absolute right to do as they choose with their own body—’ he started.

And then he sighed, and shook his head, his handsome face frowning, his eyes dark.

‘I’m a hypocrite, ’ he admitted sadly. ‘I must be a hypocrite. Because I say those words, and I mean them. But Evie—’

‘Yes?’ she said breathlessly, gripping onto the front of his sweater with both hands.

‘Dance all you want, with your clothes on or off or flying round your head for all I care, ’ Lawrence said very seriously. ‘But I want us to be exclusive. From the moment you
and I first made love, as long as we were together, I’ve never so much as laid a finger on another woman in that way. I fought the feeling that I wanted you to be the same. I knew you were in
a relationship with Benny—’

Evie snorted sarcastically.

‘OK, I knew you had an
arrangement
with Benny, ’ Lawrence corrected himself, ‘and I had to respect that for your sake. But Evie, I can’t do it again. If
we’re together from now on—’

‘We
are!
’ Evie insisted furiously. ‘We
are!
’

‘—then I need us to be exclusive, ’ Lawrence concluded. ‘No other men. No other women for me. No one else for either of us.’

‘That’s
it?
’ Evie burst out laughing. ‘That’s what you wanted to say?’

He nodded, his grey eyes searching her face.

‘Lawrence, you moron!’ she said through her laughter. ‘As if I could
look
at another man when I’ve got you! I want you to travel with me – when this
burlesque thing takes off, I’m going to be travelling
everywhere
, all over the world – they book you all over the place, you travel to parties and clubs in London and Paris and
Sydney and Tokyo and
Dubai
, where they pay
so much money
– anyway, will you come with me? Will you be my personal trainer and travel with me everywhere? Think of all the
different yoga classes you could take – all the other teachers you could meet—’

‘Evie!’ Lawrence was laughing too. ‘You don’t need to sell this like crazy! Of course I’ll come with you! I’d love to travel the world!’

‘Oh,
Lawrence
—’

‘But Evie—’ Lawrence unpeeled her hands from his sweater and took them in his – ‘you know I’ll never be rich, don’t you?’

He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them.

‘I’ll never be a millionaire, ’ he said seriously. ‘I’ll never make any money, by the standards that you want. I’ll never be anything but a yoga teacher and
personal trainer. I don’t want my own exercise DVDs or TV show or anything but what I have now. All I want is you.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Evie said happily. ‘I’ll make enough money for both of us! Look!’

She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a shining diamond pastie, flashing it triumphantly before Lawrence’s amazed face.

‘Isn’t that—’

‘Yes! That bitch stole it from me, but I got them back!’

‘
Them?
’

‘Both of them!’

She pulled out the other pastie, dangling them together, watching the sunlight refract off the stones.

‘Rico – that’s Carin’s bodyguard, the hulking one who was arrested with her – he helped her throw me out of the apartment – God, he’s a
pig
. He
cornered me in the hallway this afternoon and said that if I’d – uh, go into the men’s room with him, he’d give me one of them back, and then if I partied with him later,
he’d give me the other—’

Lawrence’s face was a picture of horror.

‘Lawrence! It’s OK! I know you’re saying to yourself, well, it’s Evie’s body, she can do what she wants with it, and we weren’t exclusive then—’
Evie said happily. ‘But I didn’t do it! I
did
go into the john with him, ’ she admitted. ‘I thought I could go through with it. But at the last minute, I
couldn’t.’

She shuddered.

‘It was so gross. So disgusting. I really did feel like a whore. And Lawrence – I promise this is true – I thought of you. I thought of you, waiting in the courtroom, and I
knew I couldn’t go back and sit down next to you and have you smile at me, with Rico’s—’

With the taste of Rico’s come in my mouth,
she thought, but didn’t say.

‘I couldn’t do it, ’ she said instead. ‘I jumped up and ran out of there with him bellowing all kinds of shit after me.’

Well, now Rico was under arrest and out of her life. Evie would never have to see him again, never have to hear him calling her foul names or leering at her. She grinned in triumph.

‘So how did you get those?’ Lawrence asked, hugely relieved, but now bewildered.

‘When they were arresting him, it was such a clusterfuck in there, I sneaked up to him and pulled them out of his trouser pockets!’ Evie crowed in triumph. ‘The cops were
hauling him around, they were so furious with him they didn’t even notice me, and he didn’t either – he’ll probably blame them and get into even worse shit as a result! I
could have made a good pickpocket, eh?’ She smiled demurely. ‘Lucky I’ve gone so respectable now – with a steady boyfriend and a proper career—’

‘You
stole
them from him?’

‘Lawrence,
they
stole them from
me
! I was just taking back my own property!’ Evie pointed out, pulling his head down to kiss him, the pasties still twined between her
fingers. ‘We’re rich! I have my apartment
and
my diamonds back! And
you
! Oh my God, this is the happiest day of my life!’

‘Evie, you’re a force of nature, ’ Lawrence said lovingly, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her back.

‘Right, ’ Evie said happily. ‘Oh! And I just had a really cool idea—’

She unpeeled herself reluctantly from Lawrence and tilted her head to look down the steps, where Simon Poluck was just finishing up his press conference.

‘Wait for me right here, OK?’ she said, planting a quick extra kiss on his lips. ‘I won’t be long—’

She pulled the elastic out of her ponytail, shaking her hair loose over her shoulders, dashed down the steps and wove her way through the mass of people to Simon Poluck’s side.

‘Hey!’ she said into the microphones. ‘My name’s Evie Lopez, but you all know me better as Diamond, the burlesque dancer. You know – Lola Fitzgerald and I had a
catfight onstage during my Mermaid routine?’

Gasps of excitement issued from the journalists as they jostled to get a good view of Evie, so small and pretty, her blonde hair tumbling around her heart-shaped face, her big dark eyes striking
against her pale golden skin.

‘Since then, Lola and I have become really good friends, ’ Evie continued, ‘and I wanted to say that no one’s more happy than me that the justice system has finally
realised that she’s totally innocent!’

She flashed a dazzling smile at the massed paparazzi, tossing back her hair, a phalanx of cameras going.

‘And Lola’s come to be such a huge fan of my act, ’ Evie continued, ‘that she’s going to finance me to take it to a whole new level! I’ll be continuing my
residency at Maud’s, but I’m working on a completely new act where I’m going to be
covered
in diamonds, and I’m going to take it on a world tour. With my signature
look – real diamond pasties!’

And, with a performer’s instinct for the killer theatrical moment, Evie whipped out the pasties and held them up so that every journalist and TV camera present could get a good look at
them.

‘They’re worth a hundred grand!’ she said recklessly. ‘And I’ll be wearing them at special performances!’

She beamed as the cameras whirred and clicked frantically, the journalists ecstatic at this extra twist to the biggest celebrity story of the year.

And if someone tries to mug me before I get these back to the safe in the Plaza,
she thought fervently, as the diamonds glittered blindingly in the sunlight,
I’ll rip their heart
out with my bare hands. I worked too damn hard to get these babies back to ever let someone take them away from me again!

E
verything in my life is changed,
Lola mused as she floated face down, naked, on a lilo drifting gently on the huge infinity pool of the
villa. Occasionally, the warm sea breeze would ripple over the bright blue water of the pool, nudging the lilo along till it bumped gently against one white stone edge, and then Lola would stretch
out with an infinitesimal movement of a French-manicured toe or finger and send the lilo out again into the centre of the pool. That was pretty much the entire extent of her exercise for the day,
apart from having energetic sex with Niels that morning. She smiled into the cushion of the lilo, remembering. And then they had wrapped themselves in robes and gone outside to sit on the white
stone terrace to feed each other fresh mango and papaya, so soft and sweet it had been like eating melting ice cream from fruit shells.

Everything in my life is upside down,
she reflected, turning her head to the other side, away from the rays of the sun.

Barely six weeks ago, I was on my hen night, and now I’m best friends with my ex-fiancé and his boyfriend.

Barely six weeks ago, I thought Madison and Devon and Georgia were my best friends, and India was just a sweet girl who tagged along with us. And now, I’ve dumped Madison and Devon and
Georgia for being traitorous cows, and India’s been a total rock of strength. None of my friends are who I thought they were.

Barely six weeks ago, I had no idea my father had a mistress, let alone one my age
. . .
ugh
. . .
And now I’m not only friends with her, I’m giving her a ton of
money to put together the most extravagant burlesque show ever
. . .
which I’m flying back to New York to see in a fortnight
. . .

Barely six weeks ago, my mother and I were hardly on speaking terms. And now we’re closer than we ever were.

Barely six weeks ago, my father was alive.

Lola lay there, the lilo revolving slowly in the soft sea air, letting memories of her father flood into her consciousness. It was one of the ways she had been spending most time here on the
island; it was lavishly stocked with books, plus the latest copy of every magazine and DVD they could conceivably want, but she had hardly even picked up a newspaper. Her head had been so full of
everything that had happened to her since her hen night – Jean-Marc’s hospitalisation – her father’s coma – that it felt as if she had no room to take anything else
in, not a single story, real or invented. She had spent the past week swimming, having massages in the open-air spa, with its covered gazebo trailing fragrant white jasmine and delicate yellow
ylang-ylang flowers, eating fresh fish, having phenomenal sex with Niels, but mostly just lying here by the pool, listening to the waves lapping the beach and the waterfall that cascaded into the
pool from a pond above, rich with floating pink and purple water lilies.

Lola was remembering Ben Fitzgerald, and though from time to time the memories made her cry, mostly she found herself smiling, full of the love that she would always feel for him, and the love
she knew that he had felt for her. She had even managed to be glad that he had found Evie, someone who had brought some happiness into his last few months.

And she kept telling herself consolingly that her father had known nothing about what Carin had done to him. At least the video proved that. He had been asleep when Carin injected him, and after
that had been in a coma, never aware of his wife’s treachery.

Niels had kept Lola, at her request, almost completely isolated from the outside world; but he was checking messages regularly, working on various projects, and reading all the main financial
papers, and Ranieri had rung him to tell him that Carin had been indicted for the murder of her husband. A plea deal was already being discussed. There was no way Carin was going to trial, not with
that damning video evidence to show the jury.

Lola still couldn’t believe how successful Niels’s efforts to save her had been.

‘Why didn’t you let me know you were trying to help me?’ she had blurted out as soon as Niels put her in the limo outside the courthouse.

Niels looked embarrassed.

‘I only tracked down the PI yesterday, ’ he said. ‘We were watching the video footage all night and into this morning . . . and then you were in court . . .’

‘No, I mean before!’ Lola said. ‘You just disappeared after we flew back from Italy—’ she went pink, thinking of what had happened on board the LearJet. ‘I
thought you didn’t want to be in contact with me any more. I mean, what was I supposed to think?’

Niels looked genuinely amazed.

‘But you must have known I wouldn’t leave you to be convicted!’ he said indignantly.

‘
No
, Niels, ’ Lola said patiently, realising that she was going to have to do a lot of training him in women’s thought processes. ‘How would I know that? You never
even rang to ask how I was doing! I’m not psychic.’

‘But—’ Niels ran a hand through his hair: ‘how could you think I would just walk away and not take care of things? I got a whole team of private investigators on the case
immediately!’

‘So why didn’t you let me know?’ Lola persisted.

‘Because—’Niels looked baffled. ‘Because I’m not used to having to tell anyone what I’m doing, I suppose. Not until something produces results. I’ve
never sent back bulletins on my progress . . .’

He looked at her warily, and Lola thought that he resembled nothing so much as a large jungle animal backed into a corner, being made to apologise for having gone off hunting without telling his
mate beforehand.