The Secret Heiress (29 page)

Angelo began feeding the videos into the player. After hours of watching them, broken up by time to eat together and discuss them, Ariadne was dumbfounded. While only a small record of her own life existed, her twin sister seemed to have had almost every hour documented. The sheer number of videos was dizzying.

Ariadne watched endless footage of Nikoletta at parties, fund-raisers, and sporting events. Winter bobsled runs and ski slaloms at fancy resorts, romps on water skis and Jet Skis in warm waters the world over, and horseback rides and sports car rallies—all of the videos reminded Ariadne that she had never participated in any of these activities, much less expertly as Nikoletta did. She watched hordes of friends and acquaintances as they greeted her sister, air-kissing, hugging, shaking hands, often using pet nicknames. Many of them were celebrities, even film stars, whom Angelo needlessly pointed out, giving the faces names. Ariadne had no problem learning who they all were, since she had seen so many of them on TV, in the movies, or in magazines or newspapers. She thought that she had even seen Nikoletta in magazines, but she couldn’t be certain. She’d never gotten the kind of magazines that featured pictures of celebrities, but she had the feeling that Nikoletta was familiar and not just because they were twins.

Oddly, no one had ever pointed out that she looked like Nikoletta, but Ariadne attributed that to several factors. For the first ten years of her life, she had lived in a very remote spot on a Greek island, a part of the island where tourists never ventured and there were no stores that sold magazines or tabloids. There was no village at all where her foster family lived, and even on the rare occasions when they went into the town on Hydra, she was still a child. No one would have thought to compare her to the daughter of very wealthy Greeks who lived primarily in Paris, London, and New York. At that time, Nikoletta, a child also, would seldom have appeared in magazines or newspapers.

When Ariadne was taken to Connecticut, she lived in a tiny hamlet with foster parents who never bought the kind of magazines and newspapers in which Nikoletta would have appeared. Even at boarding school, they were rarely if ever available. Besides, Ariadne reasoned, Nikoletta always wore a lot of makeup, her hair was styled and lightened, and she was never seen in anything but designer clothing, even if a bikini. Ariadne had hardly ever worn any makeup and had never even been in a beauty salon. Her foster mother cut her hair, and it had never been styled. As for clothes, jeans and hand-me-down sweaters and T-shirts and inexpensive sneakers had been her uniform. When she’d entered Williams College, she’d been able to buy some clothes, but they were primarily the gym clothes that nearly everyone wore on a daily basis. She did have a few nicer things now, but nothing that Nikoletta would be caught dead in.

The old expression “Clothes make the man” came to mind, and Ariadne thought that in this case it applied. Only here, it was the clothing and a whole lot more that made the
woman.
Nikoletta’s grooming, her daily use of makeup, and her expensive haircuts and styles, along with the costly designer clothing that made up her wardrobe, made her look very different from her twin. Strip all that away, Ariadne thought, and Nikoletta would look just like her. Performing the reverse procedure would turn Ariadne into Nikoletta, or one of the Nikolettas.

For what amazed Ariadne more than anything else was that there seemed to be many Nikolettas, all rolled up into one person: Nikoletta the party girl was joined by Nikoletta the fashion statement, the businesswoman, the philanthropist, the seductress, the publicity hound, the hostess, and the sportswoman. And Ariadne had a strong sense of Nikoletta the bitch, a presence that somehow seemed to pervade all the other images.

Ariadne felt like a voyeur watching the videos, but in a strange way, she felt that she was watching herself. No, not herself, she thought. Nikoletta was truly different in every way. She didn’t walk; she strutted as though she owned the world. She gestured extravagantly. She smoked on occasion, something Ariadne didn’t even want to try. She cursed like a sailor in a number of languages.

The longer Ariadne watched the videos, the heavier was the sinking feeling that came over her.
I was right,
she thought.
Pulling off this charade is impossible.

After hours of viewing Nikoletta, overload began to set in, and even after she turned the television set off, images of her twin sister swam in front of her eyes. During a lunch break, Ariadne and Angelo had lunch on trays.

Ariadne picked up her fork but put it back down.

“What’s wrong?” Angelo asked.

Ariadne shook her head. “I . . . I’m just not hungry,” she replied. The truth was, she thought food might make her sick.

“Are you beginning to panic?” Angelo asked.

“I do feel overwhelmed,” she replied. “I feel as if my entire life has been an awful joke based on lies, and it seems that’s what my future’s going to be, too.”

“I won’t try to humor you,” Angelo said. “This is going to be extremely tough. You can see now that your sister is a complicated and brilliant young woman. But you have what she has plus something else. Something she doesn’t have.”

Ariadne looked at him in amazement. “That person I’ve been watching could run circles around me. She is so accomplished and beautiful and savvy. I can’t even imagine being compared with her.”

“Ariadne, don’t forget that you’re twins. You, too, are beautiful, and you’re extremely bright. And you have heart, something your sister doesn’t have.” He touched her tenderly. “You can do this, Ariadne. I know you can. For yourself, for us, for my poor Bianca and the others who’ve suffered—and still are—because of her.”

She felt tears forming in her eyes. “I’ll try,” she promised.

“Now, pick up that fork, young lady,” he said. “You’re going to need energy.”

 

 

 

 

S
ummoned to Nikoletta’s shingled “cottage”—a sprawling estate with indoor and outdoor swimming pools and tennis courts—tucked behind the dunes by the ocean, Sugar arrived by helicopter from New York City as dusk was falling. As the helicopter neared the mansion, she could see that the circular driveway was lined with trucks and vans, and two huge party tents had been erected on the lawn, along with outdoor dance floors and a stage. Potted tropical trees and flowers and miles of strung lights were everywhere.

I wonder what the occasion is,
she thought. Nearly always apprised of Nikoletta’s big parties and often invited, she knew nothing about this one. As the helicopter began to descend to the helipad, she noticed that the vans and trucks were being loaded, and the party planner’s work was being dismantled.
Has there already been a party?
she wondered. That was unlikely because she would have read about it in the papers or already had a phone call from a friend.
What’s going on?

After the helicopter landed, she was immediately whisked to the house by one of the retinue of plainclothes security men who guarded Nikoletta and her various homes at all times. In the house, the servants were all virtually on tiptoe, and Sugar received a subdued reception.

“What’s going on?” she asked Percy, the requisite British butler.

“Madam is on a rampage,” he whispered.

“So what else is new?” Sugar responded.

Percy smirked and looked suspiciously around before speaking. “It’s Frans,” he whispered, a hand hiding his mouth as if someone who could read lips might be spying. “The young man. He refused to cooperate with her birthday party plans for him.”

“Oh, I see,” Sugar said sotto voce. “No wonder she’s furious.”

“She planned the ‘surprise’ for him anyway, but he still refused to make an appearance, so you can imagine. Invitations had gone out, guests RSVP’d, the orchestra was hired, the DJ. The caterers have been here all day—everything was set up!—and still Frans said no.”

“Small wonder she’s throwing a fit. She must be pulling her hair out.”

“Very good guess,” Percy intimated, rolling his eyes. “She said to send you straight up to her suite when you arrive. Shall I take you up?”

“I can handle this,” Sugar said, flapping a hand. “I’m used to her fits.”

“Good luck.”

Sugar hurried up the gracefully curving stairwell and down the hallway to Nikoletta’s suite. Knocking on the door, she took a deep breath to prepare herself for the unpleasant encounter.

The door was snapped open and thrown back, and Nikoletta in all her fury stood there prepared to screech at whoever was disturbing her. “What—?” she began, then saw that it was Sugar. “Where the hell have you been?” she said, her voice low and menacing. “I’ve had you called and called and left messages everywhere for you. Don’t you even answer your e-mail anymore?”

Sugar, an old hand at dealing with Nikoletta, smiled. “And a good evening to you, too,” she replied calmly. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

Nikoletta sullenly stepped back to allow her into the room.

“As for my whereabouts, I was at a spa.” She turned her face this way and that. “What do you think? Refreshed, no?”

“If you want to know the truth, I can’t tell a bit of difference,” Nikoletta said. “At least no positive improvement.”

Sugar shrugged, unfazed by her nasty, spoiled boss. She had developed a Teflon shield as far as the younger woman’s barbs were concerned, and even if she had been to a spa, she wouldn’t have expected a different answer.

“Although it
might
become a better evening if someone like you could talk some sense into Frans,” Nikoletta added hopefully.

“Me?”
Sugar pointed a beautifully manicured nail at her chest and suppressed a laugh. “What’s the problem, darling? And why do you think I could help solve it?” She didn’t want Nikoletta to know that Percy had told her anything.

“Don’t act like you don’t know a thing or two about men, Sugar,” Nikoletta said. “With all of your marriages and affairs, you must know something. You even have them chasing after you now. And at your
age
.” She said
age
as if it were the filthiest word in the English language.

Sugar patted her hair in a girlish manner. She enjoyed playing with this vicious beast sometimes, although she had to be very careful. She knew she could go only so far. “Well, maybe I have picked up a thing or two along the way,” she said. “That’s one advantage of age, Niki, darling. It gives you more time to play with more men.”

“Anyway, I’ve planned this big birthday party for Frans, and he refuses to cooperate. It’s like everything else I’ve tried to do for him. I’ve tried to introduce him to major producers and directors, but he won’t show up. He hasn’t even been modeling. And now with this party! He won’t even leave his room.”

“So he’s here?”

“Yes, I finally managed to coax him out from the city, but he didn’t know I was going to go ahead and have the party. When he got here and saw what was going on, he locked himself up and won’t speak to me, except to say no.”

“Oh, dear,” Sugar said in a semblance of empathy.

“He might listen to you,” Nikoletta said. “He’ll listen to anyone but me.”

The reason he might listen to me,
Sugar thought,
is because he knows I genuinely loved Bianca and have grieved for her. Unlike
you,
Nikoletta.

“And to think of all the trouble and expense I went through!” Nikoletta went on. “Jesus Christ, you’d think Bianca died only yesterday. And it’s been . . . what? Who remembers? Long enough.”

Perhaps for Frans it seems as if it were yesterday,
Sugar thought.
After all, he was in love with Bianca.
“We all grieve in different ways and for different lengths of time,” Sugar murmured. “I remember that when old Rosebury died it came as a real shock. It took me quite a while to get over it.”

“Well, Frans will be grieving, all right, when he runs out of money!” Nikoletta hissed. She flopped into a chair.

Sugar remained uncharacteristically silent, arming herself to listen to Nikoletta’s woes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nikoletta said. “Why don’t I just get over him? Just kick him out and be done with him.”

“I wasn’t actually,” Sugar said, “but—”

“Maybe you’d understand better if you saw the way he’s
hung
.”

“I’m sure I can use my imagination in that department,” Sugar said with a dry laugh.

“Like a
horse
!” Nikoletta said smugly.

Sugar cleared her throat. “That’s great, Niki, but it’s not everything. Maybe it would be better if Frans pushed off. He’s making you unhappy, and he’s certainly not happy, so what’s to be gained by pursuing him?”

“I just told you,” Nikoletta snapped.

“Oh, I forgot,” Sugar said blithely. “Of course.
That.
Well, boy toys aren’t always cooperative, I guess, so you’re going to have to decide whether or not to put up with it. If I were you, I’d just find myself a gigolo that’s hung like Frans and put him on the payroll. The world’s full of them. Ask any rich woman from Palm Beach to Portofino.”