Do Not Disturb (36 page)

To be honest he didn’t really know what he was saying. He simply wanted to lash out at Lucas. To pay him back for what he’d said, for trying to make him doubt the best thing that had happened to him since…well, ever, really.

“If you don’t believe me,” said Lucas angrily, “ask her yourself.” And with that he stalked off, but not before adding under his breath: “Of course, she’ll probably lie to you.” He knew he was being spiteful and childish. But Ben’s last comment had really ticked him off. Lost, indeed! He wasn’t
lost
. He knew exactly where he was going. Unlike some people he could mention.

Sian, meanwhile, was happily oblivious to the unfolding drama. Chasing Lola up and down the surf, she was hampered by her now completely drenched skirt, which clung to her legs like shrink-wrap as she tried to splash water over her friend’s way-too-perfectly blow-dried hair. She’d promised Ben to try to enjoy tonight, and it was a promise she meant to stick by.

“You look like a news anchor!” she yelled into the waves. “Come back here! You look like Diane freakin’ Sawyer! I’m trying to help you!”

Lola squealed and started running back toward the beach. Sian made an ill-timed lunge as she came past and lost her footing, collapsing into the water in fits of giggles.

Wiping the salt water from her eyes and pushing back her dripping hair, she looked up to find Ben standing over her. “Hey, babe. What’s going on?” she spluttered. “Are you having fun?”

His body loomed in front of the fading sun, so his features were mostly in shadow. It wasn’t until he spoke that she realized something was wrong.

“Not really,” he said. His voice sounded strangled.

Struggling unsteadily to her feet—her clothes weighed a ton and the sand beneath her was uneven in the current—Sian put one hand on his arm to steady herself.

“Ben? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Am I a bet?” he asked.

“What?” She looked genuinely baffled. “A bet? What are you talking about?”

“Did you make a bet with your friend before you came out here? About getting a rich guy to sleep with you?”

Sian felt her stomach drop to the floor and her heart start pounding. She’d murder Lola. “Who told you that?” she asked warily.

“Never mind who told me it!” Ben exploded.

Sian shrank back. She’d never seen him this mad. Never seen him mad at all, come to think of it.

“Jesus Christ.” Shaking his head angrily, he pushed away her hand. “It’s bloody true, isn’t it?”

“No!” said Sian. “Well, yes,
technically
it is true. But it’s not what you think. You seriously believe that’s what you and me have been about? That bet was a joke. It was nothing. Anyway, you’re not that rich, are you?” She tried to make a joke of it. “You’ve got holes in your socks and your business is something to do with hedges. That hardly makes you Bill Gates.”

But Ben wasn’t listening. He’d already turned away and started storming through the shallows back toward the beach and the rest of the party. Sian tried to run after him, but her skirt dragged her down into the water like concrete with every step.

“This is crazy!” she yelled after him. “For God’s sake, Ben. You asked
me
out, remember? It’s not like I made a play for you. Ben!”

Having made dry land, Ben ran up the beach, brushing past bewildered partygoers, staring into space and muttering like a crazy man.

“Hey.” Lucas grabbed his arm as he shot past. “Wanna talk about it?” He nodded toward Sian, who was scrambling inelegantly out of the water now, dripping and screaming like something out of a badly made horror film. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Fuck you,” said Ben. He looked so desolate in that moment, Lucas almost felt guilty. But it was better he find out now, before his heart got really trampled on. “Fuck you and fuck your stupid party.”

By the time Sian reached the spot where they’d been standing, Ben was gone.

“Where is he?” she panted, turning on Lucas. “What did you say to him?”

Lola, who’d just caught sight of the commotion, came over to join them. Sian spun around to face her, shaking her head in disbelief.

“You told Lucas about my bet with Taneesha,” she panted. “It was a
joke
, for God’s sake.”

“I know it was,” said Lola vehemently. Now both girls were glaring at Lucas. “I totally told him that. Why? What’s happened?”

“Your shit-stirring boyfriend here told Ben I was a gold digger,” said Sian. “That’s what happened.” For the first time, she began to feel the cold. Her whole body had started to shudder.

“Lucas?” Lola looked at him furiously. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.” He shrugged, not looking anything of the sort. “Ben’s a friend of mine. I don’t like seeing him being taken advantage of.”

“For God’s sake. Sian’s not taking advantage of him,” said Lola indignantly. But Sian waved for her to stop.

“Forget it,” she said. In the last two minutes she’d gone from shock to fear to nausea. But right now all she felt was anger. “If that’s what Ben chooses to think of me, he can shove this relationship up his ass.”

“But, sweetie, you can explain to him,” said Lola. “Tell him it’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“No,” said Sian firmly. “Why should I have to explain anything to him?”

She might not be as beautiful, or as smart or as rich as all the rest of them. But she had her pride. If Ben Slater was going to take the word of an asshole like Lucas over hers, he could take a running jump.

Peeling off her sodden skirt and T-shirt so she was down to her chocolate-brown string bikini, she bundled the wet clothes under her arm and stormed into the hotel in search of a towel. Lola was about to follow her, but Lucas held her back.

“Leave it,” he said. “It’s for the best.”

“The best?” she scowled at him. “How’d you figure that?”

Catching the flash of anger in her eyes, Lucas felt his dick start to harden. He wished she’d pluck up the courage to challenge him more often. It was no fun dominating someone who never fought back.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, pulling her tightly against his chest.

“What? No!” Lola squealed indignantly. “I don’t want to go to bed with you. You’re a horrible man. How could you do that to poor Sian?”

But a few seconds later she was melting into his kiss, just as Lucas knew she would—sisterhood was no match for raw desire.

“Come on,” he said, leading her by the hand. “If it’s meant to be, they’ll sort it out between them. Let’s not let it ruin our night.”

“Well,” said Lola, weakening as she followed him inside, “OK, but I’m not staying long. I have to go and find Sian and apologize. If I’d known you were gonna do something this dumb, I’d never have told you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Lucas, not listening. “Whatever.”

A
WEEK LATER
, strolling down Main Street with a spring in her step, Honor was lost in her own contented thoughts.

It was a Sunday morning, bright and clear but markedly cooler than the days preceding it. September seemed to have crept up on East Hampton and dealt a guillotine blow to summer. All at once, the most stressful and yet in many ways most rewarding summer of Honor’s life was over, blown away on the first of the cool fall winds. Tourists had begun oozing out of town like pus from a lanced boil, taking with them their frenetic New York energy, and once again the calmer daily rhythms of the full-time locals reasserted themselves, reclaiming the town along with a smattering of older, wiser vacationers who’d sensibly put off their holidays until after the high-season crush.

Palmers was still at 95 percent occupancy, a very respectable rate for the time of year, particularly given the effort certain people had gone to to drum them out of town altogether. Honor knew she couldn’t afford to rest on her laurels, but she did allow herself to savor the sensation of relief, and not a little pride, that she’d successfully sailed her tired, rickety ship through such stormy waters. It was a good feeling.

She hoped her dad was up there somewhere, watching. And that maybe, at long last, he was proud of her too.

The pressure was lifting in other parts of her life as well. Though she felt guilty admitting it, she was actually relieved to have an enforced break from Devon, who’d flown back to Boston with his family four days ago. They’d had an almighty fight a few weeks ago, after Honor had challenged him about whether or not he still slept with Karis.

“Of course not,” he’d replied, heartbeat-quick. “Why on earth would you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Honor bitterly, her fear and insecurity morphing into anger. “Because your daughter says you do? Because she’s been telling Lucas all about your fucking healthy marital sex life?”

Devon, who was also fearful—although in his case, it was a fear of being caught out—had fought fire with fire, yelling himself hoarse at Honor for being so “fucking naive” as to listen to Lucas’s poison. “You trust that little Spanish shit’s word over mine?” he roared. “How stupid are you?”

They’d made up, and afterward made love with more passion than they had in months. But an indefinable tension still hung in the air between them, and for once Honor had been glad to see him go. She still loved him, and of course she trusted him above Lucas; why wouldn’t she? But even so, the prospect of a couple of weeks of peace to sort out her own feelings was a welcome one.

Speaking of peace, the icing on the cake for Honor’s newfound sense of Zen had been Tina’s departure last night. Officially, she’d dragged her perfectly rounded ass back to LA for work, although in reality it was more a case of swapping one round of parties for another. The Hamptons was, to quote Tina, “dull as shit” in the fall. Having Palmers to herself again was nothing short of joyous for Honor. All she had to do now was steer clear of Lucas and finally get around to fixing those fucking electrics—thankfully, the surveyors’ dread prophecies had failed
to come to pass, and they’d gotten through the summer season without incident—and then life could settle back to something approaching normal.

“Morning, Nate!” Jogging past the pharmacy, she waved cheerily at the owner, whom she’d known since she was a kid. Oddly, he didn’t wave back but scurried inside his store without even acknowledging her.

Oh well. He must not have seen her. He was getting older, after all.

But as she made her way farther along Main Street, her sense of unease grew. At first she thought she was being paranoid. But no. People were definitely looking at her funny. When she stopped into the bakery to pick up her walnut loaf, a regular Sunday morning treat, she could actually hear the conversations shut down, replaced by a silence so thick you could eat it with a spoon.

Her last stop was the newsstand. Scooping up her usual Sunday paper from the pile on the floor, she smiled at the normally friendly woman at the counter. “Hey, Nancy,” she began. “I don’t mean to sound weird, but do I smell funny to you? Or have I got spinach stuck in my teeth? People keep staring at me like I just climbed out of a UFO or something.” The newsagent, a kind, motherly woman in her fifties with round cheeks like a chipmunk, blushed scarlet.

“You haven’t seen it, then?” she whispered.

“Seen what?” Honor looked blank.

“Oh, dear.” Looking dreadfully flustered, Nancy handed her a copy of
US Weekly
. “It’s pages six and seven.”

Honor flipped open the tabloid.

“Oh, God,” she said, feeling suddenly dizzy. “Dear God, no.”

The only fractional mercy was that the editor had deemed it inappropriate to show Tina fully naked and had strategically blacked out the most sexually graphic parts of each of the four pictures. Nevertheless, it was pretty clear what was happening
from the visuals alone—although anyone in any doubt could also refer to the text.

“Socialite Starlet in Coke-fueled Orgy,” proclaimed the headline.

Tina Palmer, aspiring actress and daughter of one of America’s most privileged families, was this morning revealed as a class-A drug abuser, willing to sell her depraved sexual services for money. Along with two other high-class prostitutes, our shocking pictures show the heiress:

• Engaging in intimate lesbian acts as part of her “performance”
  
• Videoing herself and others during a series of graphic sexual encounters
  
• Snorting cocaine herself, then offering it to
  ANOTHER
  woman.
  

Honor felt the bile rising up in her throat. The sex shots, weirdly, she could deal with. It was the pictures of her sister crouched over another girl’s naked body, snorting a long white line of coke off her back, that made her want to vomit. She knew that Tina liked to party and had seen her smoke the odd joint. But that was enough cocaine to stop a train. She’d truly had no idea her sister had a drug problem.

“I’m afraid there’s more,” said Nancy, not unkindly, bringing a chair around for Honor and helping her to sit down into it. “It’s in the
Post
.” Honor took the paper with her heart in her mouth. At first glance she couldn’t even tell what the piece was about. But then she noticed a small picture of herself and Devon standing together, raising champagne glasses. It could have been taken at any number of this summer’s parties and in and of itself
was hardly very incriminating. Unfortunately, the article that ran with it most certainly was.