Where Beauty Lies (Sophia and Ava London) (26 page)

Hunter sneered at Sophia. “You hide it well but you have this real selfish streak.”

Ava guffawed. “You have got to be kidding.”

Sophia put up a hand to keep her out of it, subtly pointing to the door. Ava nodded, and Sophia returned her attention to Hunter. “Let’s talk about you, then. You were telling us about Xavier and how popular you were.”

“Because you were a loser,” Whitney said.

“Shut up!” Hunter yelled at her. Ava froze three feet from the doorknob as he started pacing the room again. “I’m not a loser. I lost. Those are not the same thing.” Whitney laughed mirthlessly but he ignored it, looking from Sophia to Ava and back again as if daring them to contradict him. “I needed money fast. So I stole the money from your precious little animal fund-raiser. Whitney helped me, she got me the photograph with your signature on it,” he said to Sophia, “and she planted the page of fake signatures to frame Dalton. It was even better because he’d just sold all his precious surfboards to pay his sister’s unsavory debts, but no one tracks surfboard sales so it was the easiest thing in the world to make it look like he’d come by all that honest money dishonestly.”

“Why did you want to frame him?” Ava asked.

“He’s a pain in the ass,” Hunter said with a shrug, as if that explained everything. “He blames me for his sister’s problems, says I’m a bad influence. But look at your sister.” He pointed to Sophia. “Her life has gotten nothing but better since she and I have been dating. And that’s all because of me.”

“I’d say that’s an exaggeration,” Ava told him.

“You smarmy little cretin,” he said to her, his face now inches from hers. He stared at her like that for a moment, then pulled away, relaxed again. “The pet-sanctuary money was okay for a while but it wasn’t infinite—you really could have worked harder and raised more—so I had another idea. I invested in you.” He used the pointer finger of each hand to point to Ava and Sophia. “The London sisters. After the crazy rich women you seem to attract like flies to a picnic, I am your biggest investor.”

Sophia’s head went to one side. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you realize how much you have to thank me for. I’m the only person on your team who was truly determined to do whatever it took to make you a success. Your PR people and your agent and the Contessa will all go so far. Only I would take it the extra mile.”

“By kidnapping our pets?” Ava demanded.

“Exactly,” he said earnestly. “Look how much publicity you’ve gotten from that. Free publicity. God, I set that up so beautifully. A bike messenger on the red carpet. The Red. Damn. Carpet. The whole spectacle. It looked great on TV by the way. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to watch any of your coverage.”

Ava shook her head slowly.

“But that’s just the most recent one. Lets talk about the theft from your fund-raiser. Can you honestly say that a single one of the opportunities you have right now would have come your way without that? You got your bedroom line because of it. And it was only because of the bedroom line that you started making clothes and”—he snapped his fingers—“presto!”

Sophia glanced at Ava, who was watching Hunter with morbid fascination. “You’re right,” she said. “When you put it that way, everything we have we owe to you.”

“And now your show. You would have been nothing, some average young designers lost in a sea of others in that big tent,” he said. “Everyone knew it, I was just the only one willing to do something about it.”

“By which you mean stealing our designs and giving them to Christopher Wildwood so that he’d call us out as frauds and get us kicked out of the main tent.”

“‘Give.’” Hunter scoffed. “Never give anything. People have no respect for things they don’t pay for. But yes. I got your designs into his hands, and then started the action against you. You can’t ask for better PR than a feud with an established designer like Chris. You went from being nobodies to prepping the most talked about show of Fashion Week. I’m—I’m actually very proud of you two. You took my groundwork and ran with it. This has turned out to be a great partnership.”

“But it’s your last one,” Whitney said.

Hunter’s face creased into a broad simile. “What can you possibly mean by that?”

Whitney sat up. “I’m ready to tell. Not just Ava and Sophia but everyone. The police, the district attorney. I’ll tell them everything you did, and everything you made me do for you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m tired of being afraid of you. You’ve had that—accident—hanging over me for four years and I’m tired of looking at it every time I close my eyes.”

“What accident?” Ava asked.

Whitney swallowed. “I made a mistake once, four years ago. I let someone record me while I was being intimate with someone else.”

Hunter cupped his hands around his mouth and boomed, “It’s called a sex tape. Whitney made a sex tape, and little Hunter found it and told her what to do.”

Whitney nodded but avoided Ava and Sophia’s eyes, as if she was embarrassed. “I know I have this persona,” she said, “but I come from a very conservative family and the thought of them—my mom or dad but especially my little brothers or sister—seeing it, ever.” She hugged herself. “It makes no sense, I know,” she said. “All the strangers in the world could look at it. But my little sister?” She swallowed hard and there were tears in her eyes.

“That doesn’t sound weird at all,” Sophia told her, but she was looking at Ava.

“You two are so open about your mistakes,” Whitney said.

“We have no choice with Hunter over here digging holes everywhere so we fall on our faces,” Ava pointed out.

“I was so worried about tarnishing what my siblings thought of me that I got obsessed with making sure they never saw the tape. I ended up doing things I’m far more ashamed of just so Hunter wouldn’t show it to anyone.” She looked at him. “I’m done with that now. I don’t care what you do with the tape. Sell it. Burn it. I’m done letting you use me. And you’re done destroying other people’s happiness and pretending you’re helping them.”

“I’m really sorry you feel that way,” Hunter said to Whitney and for a moment he looked normal again. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought you enjoyed what we did together. All I ever wanted with you and Sophia and Ava was to help.”

“That’s a lie,” Whitney said.

“Don’t call me a liar,” Hunter said in a tight, even voice.

“Why not?” Whitney taunted. “What are you going to do to me? You can threaten me but you have no power over me anymore. Because you’re a liar,” she jeered.

“SHUT UP!” Hunter roared, pulling a gun from the small of his back and holding it against Whitney’s head. “Now let’s all just take a minute and calm down,” he suggested. “No one is turning anyone in. No one is a liar. We’re all friends here. Look what I’ve done for all of you.” He was smiling but it looked strange, malformed. “Without me you’d all be nothing. Weeds. I’m the genius behind all of your success. Whitney’s just tired, she didn’t mean what she said.” He looked at her. She was shaking but the gun in his hand was completely stable. “Right? You didn’t mean a single thing you said.”

Whitney stared at him. “Go ahead and shoot me. I meant every word.”

His eyes got very strange, then he lifted the hand holding the gun and brought it down hard across Whitney’s head, knocking her out.

He stood looking down at her. From where she was standing Sophia saw a line of blood forming on Whitney’s forehead. And she saw Ava stretching toward the lock on the door.

Her fingers were millimeters from it when Hunter whirled around. He brought the gun up and pointed it at Ava’s forehead. “You’re not thinking of being crafty are you? Why don’t you come over here.” He nodded to a place by his side.

Sophia put herself in front of Ava. “You can’t have her. You can only have me.”

Sophia heard the click of Ava undoing the lock as Hunter said, “I don’t think you understand how guns work. I can have you. And then I can have her.” He stepped toward her and pressed the gun against her forehead. “Is it clearer now?”

The door to the room opened at that moment and a silver-haired footman in an impeccable gray suit stepped officiously in. Hunter’s back blocked his view of the gun so he gave a little bow, held open the door, and announced, “Il Conte di Bellevista.”

The count walked in, reeking of money and privilege in his beautifully tailored navy suit, took one look at the situation, picked up Whitney’s breakfast tray, and slammed it edge-first into Hunter’s head.

Hunter’s mouth made a sound like
ho!
and his eyes rolled back in his head. He dropped the gun and went sprawling into unconsciousness, ending half in and half out of the doorway.

Hospital personnel began to pour in through the open door. The count made a slight bow, and had started to say, “My apologies for intruding. My aunt ordered me to come here. I am il Conte di…” when his eyes registered whom he was talking to and he changed it to a breathless, “
Stella mia
? But what are you doing here?”

LonDOs

Footmen announcing your arrival

Men of action

Men in traction

Giovanni is a count???

Giovanni is the count

Getting your life back

Owning your mistakes

Owning your own vineyard

LonDON’Ts

Finding out that the big, elegant, impressive-at-a-hundred-paces object your (ex) boyfriend was shopping for was not a ring but a gun

Which he pointed at you

And your sister

Riding in a car with two people who are blissfully in love with each other and spend the entire time kissing and whispering too quietly for anyone else to know what they are saying

Even if that car is a Rolls-Royce limo

24

empire fate

The Contessa’s sled arrival was witnessed by the hundreds of people who had taken up positions along the fence that enclosed the boathouse lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the show from the outside. The line of people who actually had wristbands to enter snaked down the carriageway in the other direction. Harper and her team were carefully checking everyone against the guest list after they’d discovered a brisk market in counterfeit wristbands. Hunter might have been nuts but he was correct about one thing—the Londons’ show was definitely the show of the season.

Those lucky enough to get in were seated in rows that wound around an unusual catwalk, not a straight line but more like a curving river, to take advantage of the shape of the Boathouse and maximize the number of seats.

The beginning of the show was signaled by the room falling totally dark. Through the windows, the flicker of flashbulbs from the spectators around the lake looked like fireflies. Over the sound system, a girl’s voice said, “Once upon a time there were two sisters. They had a dream. It looked something like this—”

There were two beats of silence and then the deep, resonant tones of Big Ben struck six times. A female voice announced, “You’re now on London time,” and a spotlight appeared on three large beds done in fabrics and sheets from the Live Love London homeware line that had been the jumping-off place for their fashions. There were five girls lying “asleep” in each bed, and one by one they slid out, stopped in front of a mirror to pretend to check their makeup, and made their way down the catwalk. The way it was set up, it wound through the audience, as though they were as much a part of the show as the models. While the girls walked, their voices reading parts of the essays they’d submitted to be chosen were heard over the music, as a tribute to their individuality and uniqueness.

When all fifteen had walked from the bed the spotlight shifted to the other side of the room, which had been transformed into a picnic. The girls sat on blankets and pillows and lounge chairs covered with the Londons’ fabric with a big picnic hamper in front of them. This time when they walked the catwalk, their voices talking about which accessory they’d brought with them and what it meant to them played over the music.

The room went dark again when the picnic set was empty and the last girl had walked. The lights came up moments later and all the girls reappeared, now carrying butterfly nets. Holographic projections of butterflies flitted around the Boathouse, seeming to hover in midair. The girls’ voices saying, “I dream of…” were layered over the music, as though their dreams were filling the room. As they circled through the audience in a line, the layering of sound grew denser and the number of butterflies increased, until a brilliant cloud of them massed at the front of the room. The line of models seemed to march through it and then the cluster shimmered apart and Ava and Sophia were there in floor-length gowns they’d designed, glowing and resplendent.

“Once upon a time there were two sisters who had a dream. It looked something like this,” the voice said again, bringing the show full circle, and as Ava and Sophia walked the catwalk the room erupted into wave after wave of deafening applause.

The applause didn’t end with the show. Within an hour the reviews were up, and they were, as Lucille Rexford put it, “satisfactory.”

“I would like to propose the toast,” the Contessa said, clinking a glass as she rose to her feet. She was standing at the head of one of the three long tables loaded with silver and crystal that had been set up in the middle of the Boathouse after the show was over. “To,” she glanced at a paper in her hand and read, “a grand show in the style of the greats … A joyful spectacle that served as a true showcase for the amazing design … A collection that manages to combine the girly with glamour in the manner of Coco Chanel’s best early work … A tour de force that won’t soon be topped—from the makeup to the sets to the soundtrack and their decision to use their viewers as their models, the London sisters’ show was organic in the broad sense of the word, made from elements they cultivated and nurtured themselves. Every piece of it showed their talent, imagination, and heart … the first new designers in a long time to make this critic excited.” She looked up and raised a glass of golden champagne. “Congratulations, Ava and Sophia. I knew what you could do but now, now the whole world knows.”