Indiscretions (7 page)

“Does it worry you?”

She was listening intently, obviously deeply interested in what he had to say. It broke down any barriers between them, and Morgan suddenly found himself saying something he’d never admitted to any other woman before.

“Sometimes it does, yes. I’m not always sure that I’m going to be able to live up to his standards, his expectations of me.” Morgan was serious now. “It’s not always easy being the son of a famous and successful father.”

Vennie leaned back in her chair. His words had brought her back to her own dilemma. The questions reared themselves once more in the front of her mind. Her future. What was she going to do? What could she
do that could possibly succeed the way Jenny had done? There was just no way to make Jenny proud of her; she had no talents, no achievements, she was just an ordinary girl—with a famous mother.

“I know, Morgan,” she said in a small voice that was like a sigh. “I know just what you mean. You see, my mother is Jenny Haven.”

Lydia spoke across Morgan, who was sitting between them. “Venetia, I think we’ll have coffee in the drawing room and leave the men to their port.”

“Of course. I’ll get Marie-Thérèse to bring it in to us.” Coffee was, thank heavens, the one thing that Marie-Thérèse could be trusted to take care of alone, possibly because she drank gallons of the stuff herself. Venetia smiled her excuses to Morgan and the other male guests, and followed Lydia and the ladies from the room.

Morgan turned to watch her go. She was a slender, almost childlike figure in her layers of noncolor knits, stylish with that particularly English nonconformity. And she was lovely. He turned his back to the table, accepting the glass of amber port that Roger Lancaster offered. She was Jenny Haven’s daughter. Of course, that had been the resemblance that tantalized him. How odd. He’d always thought his father had been in love with Jenny Haven, although as far as he knew they had met only once. But there was no doubt Jenny Haven had been Fitz McBain’s idol in his lonely teenage years.

Morgan sipped his port appreciatively as Roger Lancaster began to outline some of the points he wanted him to make to Fitz when he saw him next.

Venetia chatted easily with Lydia’s guests, some of whom were mothers of her own friends, but it was as though she were in limbo, waiting for the dining-room door to open and Morgan McBain to reenter her world. Weren’t they taking an awfully long time tonight? She glanced at the original Cartier Santos watch that Jenny
had found for her when all she wanted in the world was something as simple and easy as a watch. It reminded her again of Jenny, and Venetia bit her lip worriedly. What was she going to do? She couldn’t bear to go back to Beverly Hills. Ah, thank goodness, the dining-room door had opened. She gazed expectantly toward the hall as Roger Lancaster shepherded his guests into the drawing room for coffee.

The sound of the phone shrilled through the house.

“Vennie darling, could you get it?” Lydia looked up from pouring the coffee.

“I’ll pick it up in the hall.” She sped across the room, making for the hall and the phone. Morgan McBain stood in the doorway and he moved aside to let her pass.

“I want to talk to you,” he murmured, catching her hand as she sped by.

He was still holding her hand as she picked up the phone to answer, and Vennie turned her head to smile at him.

“Miss Venetia Haven, please.”

“Yes, this is Venetia.”

“Hold the line please, Miss Haven, Los Angeles is calling you.”

Paris’s head rested in the crook of his left arm. Amadeo squinted at the thin gold watch that he wore with the dial turned inward on his left wrist. It was a present from his wife, not entirely to his taste, but he was happy to make the concession of wearing it and pretending his pleasure to please her. Nine forty-five. He was already late. He glanced at the crown of Paris’s head where the thick dark hair parted softly in a bluish line. She was a lovely girl. It was refreshing to make love to one like this with such youthful energy and drive, not to say single-minded ambition.
As soon as they had finished she had asked him again if he really knew how fabulous his fabrics would look in her designs. Of course he knew. A sack would look elegant in Vitrazzi silk. He could swear that she’d been turned on sexually by her excitement with her designs, her clothes, the fabric. He remembered her nipples beneath the gray silk and ran his hand once again across the perfect curve of her breast. Damn it, it was too late. There was no time for a repeat performance, though he was tempted. Removing his arm from her shoulders Amadeo swung his legs over the side of the sleigh bed.

Paris leaned on her elbow watching him with a puzzled frown as he walked across the room to where his clothes lay neatly folded over a chair. He was getting dressed. Of course, it was almost ten o’clock, he must be hungry. Come to think of it, she was starving herself.

“Caro,”
she called, using his own word of endearment, “there’s a marvelous little bistro around the corner on the Rue de Buci, it’s dark and it’s full of lovers and the food is sublime.…”

Full of lovers! Amadeo zipped up his pants firmly and thrust his feet into the glove-soft loafers made specially for him in London. What was all this talk of romantic restaurants and lovers? Didn’t she understand it was a thing of the moment, a small pleasure in his busy life? A girl like this could be dangerous to a man’s marriage if she were allowed to get too close. She was too intelligent, too clever.

“Sorry,
cara
, but I’m already late. I should have been at Olympe Avallon’s an hour ago. Of course I wouldn’t have arranged it had I known …” His smile was apologetic, but his eyes avoided hers.

Paris stared at him. Olympe Avallon was an ex-Dior model who had struck fame and success some years ago with her dancing, flirting strut on the catwalk, that had put more sex into clothes than was ever seen naked on
the stage of the Folies Bergère. She’d parlayed it into three consecutive rich husbands and had only recently divorced her third. Olympe was a legend among Paris models—she was still, at thirty-five, ravishingly beautiful and looked at least ten years younger than her age. Thanks to the generosity of the settlements of her ex-husbands she was also fabulously wealthy, and she was renowned for her amours. Of course, Paris remembered now. There were those pictures in the magazines of Olympe dressed in St. Laurent—or was it Lagerfeld?—on Amadeo’s arm at various social functions. Paris felt suddenly very second rate. She’d been the hors d’oeuvre to Olympe’s main course, the
amuse-gueule
for Amadeo Vitrazzi’s appetite. Pushing back her hair she dragged the velvet bedspread around her to cover her nakedness. At least she’d got her six months’ credit. It had been worth it, it must have been.

“Of course, Amadeo,” she agreed desperately, “it was silly of me to expect you to be free at such short notice. Perhaps later in the week we could discuss our business arrangements.”

Amadeo glanced impatiently at his watch once again. Didn’t this girl know anything? His eyes met hers and he felt suddenly depressed. He had a daughter this age.

“I’m leaving tomorrow for New York,
cara
,” he said briskly. “I won’t be back for at least a month. I’ll have my accounts department call you. Of course I myself have nothing to say in the matter of credit. These things are always up to the accountants.” His smile was dazzling as he walked across and kissed her. “Creative people like you and I know nothing of these things, do we,
cara?
But I’m sure if you give them the proper bank references, et cetera, it might possibly be worked out.
Ciao, cara
. It was lovely.” His kiss was light and his step hurried as he strode toward the steel door that Paris had painted black to match the beams. “Ciao, ciao.” A light
wave of the hand and he was gone. Amadeo Vitrazzi
never
mixed business with pleasure.

Paris was frozen in place, her mouth fixed into the thin smile that she had managed as he had said good-bye to her. He’d
promised
her! He’d loved her designs, he had said she had genius, a gold mine of talent. And in return she had given him herself. Her puzzled eyes shifted to the soft gray silk dress crumpled into a small heap on the floor where she had stepped out of it when Amadeo had undressed her. The mint-green satin knickers lay at her feet. Oh, God, she thought, beginning to cry, what have I done? The tears slid unheeded down her face as she remembered her decision, remembered thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad, that after all he was attractive. And then, goddamn it, she had even
enjoyed
it! She felt cheapened as she fought the despair, and then rage engulfed her. Rage with Amadeo, with herself, with haute couture and silk manufacturers and Jenny who never gave her any money because she maintained that if you were talented you could make it on your own.

Paris leapt to her feet and ran naked across to the drawing table.
“Merde!”
Her arm swept the table clean of the precious sketches. Another blow sent the lamp on its twisted umbilical cord crashing to the ground. “
Merde
to all that!”

She jumped up and down on the sketches, screaming out her anger. “Bastards!” she yelled, running to the shelves and flinging the meager bolts of fabric to the floor, and then, because that wasn’t enough to satisfy her rage, she pulled and tugged until the cloth spilled and unraveled in yards of color around her knees. “
Merde
on all fabric manufacturers,” she moaned, dashing across to the gray silk dress. One vicious wrench and it was split from top to bottom. “I hate silk, I hate all goddamn silk.…” She kicked at the remnants of the dress and her anger rose to a pitch. The lacquer tray stood where they
had left it with the unfinished glasses of whiskey and Campari, and Paris paused for a moment to catch her breath. She took a sip from her glass. It tasted as stale and bitter as she felt, and she flung it to the floor with a grimace of disgust. “Fuck you all,” she yelled, as she trailed across the room toward the bathroom. “Oh, fuck everything.” With a last surge of rage she kicked the bathroom door, remembering too late that she was barefoot. The stinging blow on her big toe brought her to her senses and she sank to the ground clutching her injured foot as the tears flowed anew.

“Paris Haven, you are a fool. You’re such a fool,” she moaned. She had thought she was so smart, that she was in control. Maybe if she hadn’t let him make love to her he would have given her the credit? The thought struck her with an impact equal to the bathroom door. “Yes,” she added bitterly, “you are a fool.”

The telephone began to ring and she leaned against the wall watching the black instrument without moving. Whoever it was, she was in no mood to talk. In a few minutes it would stop. She waited and waited. There, that was better.

She must take a shower; perhaps if she cleaned herself, washed Amadeo Vitrazzi from her, she might feel human. Oh, damn, there was the phone again! Why didn’t they just go away and leave her alone? She hesitated by the bathroom door. The phone shrilled persistently, endlessly. Goddamn it, what was wrong with them? Paris walked slowly toward the telephone. She wouldn’t hurry, and then maybe by the time she reached it whoever it was would have given up and stopped ringing. The sound was so shrill. Her hand hovered over the phone. “Yes?” Her voice was small in the sudden silence of the big attic.

“Mademoiselle Paris Haven?”

“
Qui, c’est
Mademoiselle Haven.
Qui est à l’appareil?
”

“
Ne quittez pas, mademoiselle
. Los Angeles
vous demande
.”

The villa on the Via Appia Antica was vast and decorated, of course, in Fabrizio’s faultless style. But despite its perfection India always felt that it lacked charm. It wasn’t Fabrizio’s fault; he’d provided the backdrop. What was lacking was the human element, the female touches of memorabilia, family snapshots of laughing children taken at the beach, a special satin pillow that had always pleased, a child’s nursery school drawing tacked to the kitchen wall, a bunch of flowers bought for their perfume or their riotous, joyful color, not just because they would tone with the decor. Sometimes, thought India guiltily, one could almost wish for a few sticky fingerprints along the pristine surfaces. It was a showroom. Only this time it was Marisa’s showroom, not Fabrizio’s. Every objet d’art, every painting, every casually placed book, was expensive, in good taste, and guaranteed to be coveted by her guests.

Only the children’s rooms were real, and Fabrizio was responsible for that. Marisa had wanted elaborate murals depicting scenes from fairy stories, knights on white chargers and babes in the woods, but Fabrizio had drawn the line. White walls that the children were not only permitted, but encouraged, to paint on, as often as and whenever they liked. Scarlet tubular bunk beds and matching red-and-white cabinets. Vast cupboards for toys and baskets to catch all the oddments that end up on a nursery floor at the end of the day. Climbing frames, a basketball hoop, roller skates. The children, he’d stated firmly, would be normal kids. None of Marisa’s “precious” fantasies of perfection here. And five-year-old Giorgio and six-year-old Fabiola loved it.

“India. You’re dreaming again.” Marisa’s voice was silken and soft. “Are you enjoying yourself? You look a little tired.”

India sighed. When Marisa said you looked tired it meant you looked a mess. The dinner had been long and India had been placed at the last of the round tables, the one nearest the door, with three men who discussed the car industry through all seven courses and two women who knew each other well, had many friends in common, and who, recognizing that India merely worked for Fabrizio, had contrived to ignore her for the entire evening. Aldo Montefiore’s pleadings had been of no avail; Marisa would not change her seating plan and he’d been forced to accept it. She’d watched Aldo chatting and smiling with a pretty girl sitting on his left, whom she knew was Marisa’s cousin, and a dazzling socialite on his right who, India had to admit, was stunning.