Fame (42 page)

Since leaving Romania with Saskia and setting up home in LA (she’d rented a gorgeous, wisteria-clad English estate in Brentwood Park for six months, just to tide her over), Chrissie’s emotions had seesawed wildly. She’d arrived utterly consumed with anger and hell bent on divorce. On her attorney’s advice, she’d agreed to attend marriage-counselling sessions with Dorian – by phone, of course. Dorian was tied up in Romania editing the
Wuthering Heights
footage and couldn’t come to LA full time till Christmas. But Chrissie had no intention of taking him back. It was purely a tactical measure. Even if it hadn’t been, the therapy would have been counterproductive. Each phone call with Dorian and the intensely irritating therapist, Billy, who would
insist
on remaining neutral, despite the fact that Chrissie was quite plainly in the right and Dorian quite fully in the wrong, only served to deepen Chrissie’s resentment and resolve.

But since then a series of things had happened that had begun to eat at her certainty. Firstly, her social life dried up. After an exciting flurry of party, premiere and dinner invitations when she’d first arrived in town, her phone had suddenly stopped ringing and the glamorous dinners ground abruptly to a halt. It was a chilling wake-up call, and Chrissie had been around the block in Hollywood long enough to know what it meant.
As Dorian’s wife, I have an identity here. As his ex-wife, I’m nobody. I’m Kevin Federline. I’m Cris fucking Judd.

Secondly, there was Saskia. To Chrissie’s surprise, the little girl kept asking after her father: where was Daddy, when was Daddy coming back, why hadn’t Daddy come with them; and the questions had increased rather than lessened with time, becoming more and more charged with confusion and loss. Although self-centered and greedy, Chrissie was not entirely without human, maternal feeling. Saskia’s unhappiness troubled her. Because Dorian had always been such a crappy, absent father, she’d assumed that her daughter’s emotional ties to him would be weak and easily broken. Apparently, she was wrong.

And thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, there was the money. If Larry Harvey, and Dorian, were to be believed, Dorian’s net worth was a fraction of what Chrissie had imagined it to be. The money they’d made from selling their LA home had all gone towards paying off debts on the last two movies, or into the bottomless, money-eating pit that was the Transylvanian Schloss. Could it really be that after a decade-long career as one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood, Dorian had managed to wind up, if not broke, then at least no better off than an averagely successful dentist?
How could he have been so profligate?
Chrissie thought furiously, conveniently forgetting her own, Imelda Marcos-like retail habit.
Wasting all our money on uncommercial films and that damn stupid castle of his. Talk about throwing good money after bad!
The life of a rich divorcee was one thing. She could contemplate living without the attention and the glamorous friends if she could at least live out her days in luxury, fucking whomever she chose, shopping on Rodeo every day and lunching with the girls at The Ivy. But a poor divorcee? That had never been the plan.

All of a sudden, Dorian’s promise to be back in LA by Christmas, for face-to-face therapy and to try to make things work, started to look less like an approaching storm cloud and more like a slowly reopening door. After her grand, dramatic exit, she didn’t
want
to go back to him. But perhaps, if he grovelled enough … and in the absence of a better offer …

‘Christina.’

Chrissie spun around. A gleaming silver Rolls-Royce with blacked-out windows and polished chrome hubcaps had pulled alongside her. It was one of the most vulgar, ostentatious cars one could imagine, the sort of vehicle favoured by rap stars or newly signed NBA players. So she was doubly surprised when a familiar blond head poked out of the window, smiling broadly.

‘I heard you were in town. How incredible to run into you like this.’

‘Crazy,’ Chrissie agreed, smiling back.

Harry Greene looked as suavely handsome as Chrissie remembered him. Physically, he was the antithesis of Dorian: blond and slim and always immaculately dressed (today he wore a cream linen Armani shirt and matching jacket and classic vintage Ray-Bans) versus Dorian’s dark, heavy-set scruffiness. In his manner, too, he was everything that Dorian wasn’t: attentive, flirtatious, thoughtful. There was nothing wild about Harry Greene, nothing uncontrolled, yet he exuded power in a way that made Chrissie feel flattered, excited and nervous all at the same time whenever he looked at her.

‘Are you busy?’

Trick question
, thought Chrissie.
If I’m busy, that’s his cue to drive away. If I’m not busy, I look like a loser, like a spare part.
She glanced at her watch. ‘Not for an hour or so. My meeting finished early, and I’m not picking Saskia up from ballet class till three.’

‘Great,’ said Harry, jumping out and opening the passenger door of his pimpmobile. ‘Hop in. I got something I wanna show you.’

Chrissie looked hesitant.

‘Come on,’ insisted Harry, ‘It’ll be fun. I’ll get you to the ballet class on time, I promise. And on the way we can talk about how much we both despise your husband.’

Chrissie laughed. That
did
sound like fun. And God knew she had nothing else to do.

‘OK. I’m game. But I can’t be late for my daughter.’

Harry grinned, helping her into the car. ‘Trust me.’

What Harry Greene wanted to show her was a house.

‘House’ was the technical term for the building. ‘Single Occupancy Four Seasons Hotel’ would have more accurately described the property, set behind the enormous stone gates of Coldwater Canyon on a five-acre plot of flat land. At the top of a half-mile drive lined with perfectly symmetrical poplar trees stood a mock-Tudor pile of well over 30,000 square feet. There were formal gardens with peacocks strutting around the lawns, koi ponds, multiple swimming pools complete with waterfalls and rock pools, and even a quarter-size golf course. Most impressive of all, though, were the views. Stepping out of the car, Chrissie could see right across the city to the Pacific and Catalina Island beyond. She felt like a queen, surveying her kingdom.
Harry’s kingdom.

‘This is yours?’ she gasped, genuinely dazzled.

‘Not yet,’ said Harry. ‘It’s on the market for ninety million dollars. I’m thinking about it, but I need a second opinion. Shall we go inside?’

Inside, the house was a tasteless riot of conspicuous consumption, as impressive as it was vulgar. You couldn’t move for marble and gold, from the floors to the taps to the door handles. Ridiculously over-the-top chandeliers hung in every room, even the maids’ kitchen, and flat-screen televisions emerged from the most unexpected places – inside closets, descending out of ceilings, rising up from floors, appearing ghost-like from behind two-way glass mirrors. The bedrooms, all fifteen of them, were laid with cream shag carpeting so thick and soft that if you took your shoes off it felt as if you were walking through custard, and the beds had all been dressed in vivid silks – purple, pink, orange, like a Miami nightclub owner’s wet dream.

‘What do you think?’ Harry asked Chrissie, halfway through the tour. They were in the gym-and-pool complex, a gaudily mosaiced room that was evidently supposed to be Roman in theme, but which had nonetheless been plagued by the curse of the chandeliers.

‘Honestly?’ said Chrissie. ‘It looks like Liberace ate too many sequins and threw up. Impressive but vile. You couldn’t live here, not without redecorating the entire place.’

‘Couldn’t you?’ Harry raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘I don’t know,’ Chrissie blushed. ‘
I
couldn’t. I guess somebody must have liked it. Do you … is this to your … taste?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I have a taste, as such,’ he said honestly. ‘With my movies, I care, I pore over every frame. But a house is just a roof over my head.’

‘Pretty expensive roof,’ said Chrissie. ‘If
I
were paying ninety million bucks for a place, I’d want it to be perfect down to the very last lampshade.’ She glanced around at the enormous gym complex and sighed. ‘There’s
so
much I could do to this place.’

‘Great. Design it then.’

Chrissie looked at Harry. His face was impassive, unreadable. Was he serious?

‘Me?’

‘Why not?’ Harry shrugged. ‘You’re in LA now; you have some time on your hands. You know about interior design, spaces and what-not.’

‘Well, yes, but …’

‘I’ll knock ten million off my offer to pay for interiors, and I’ll pay you fifteen per cent commission.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Chrissie, hugely gratified that a man like Harry Greene would trust her taste to that degree, and with something as personal and intimate as his own home, too. ‘But I can’t possibly accept. I’m not even a professional interior designer. It’s just something I’ve done with my own homes, you know, for fun.’

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he whipped out a chequebook and a silver Montblanc pen and started writing. Ripping it off and folding it, he handed it to Chrissie. ‘You’re a professional now. Congratulations.’

He looked at her, his cold, grey eyes boring into hers, and Chrissie felt all the protestations die on her lips.
He’s like Rasputin
, she thought excitedly, aware of the pulse of desire building between her legs.
He’s so masterful, you can’t deny him anything.

‘In any case,’ Harry smiled, ‘I don’t think I would want to buy a house that
you
couldn’t live in. That sounds awfully limiting.’

Chrissie’s heart skipped a beat.
Is he suggesting what I think he’s suggesting?

‘Come on.’ Slipping a hand around the small of her back, Harry guided her back towards the stairs. ‘We can talk more about the house tomorrow. Right now we should get you to that ballet recital.’

It was only later, once Harry had gone and she was back in Brentwood with Saskia, that Chrissie unfolded the cheque.

It was for $1.5 million dollars.

She wasn’t sure what game Harry Greene was playing, exactly. But with this sort of prize money thrown in on day one, Chrissie Rasmirez was in. If it all came to nothing, she could always fall back on Dorian. For all that he’d insulted her and ignored her and rejected her sexually, she knew in her heart of hearts that Dorian still loved her. All she had to do was pull away, and he came running, like a little lost dog.

Yes, in an uncertain world, Dorian’s devotion was the one thing of which Chrissie was totally, unwaveringly certain.

Outside Cecconi’s on Doheny and Melrose, the usual gaggle of paparazzi gathered on the pavement, ready to snap celebrity diners on their way home. There were a number of starry restaurants on this side of town: Il Sole on Sunset, Jen Aniston’s favourite; Katsuya on La Cienega, where the Simpson sisters hung out. But Cecconi’s remained the undisputed number one, at least in terms of genuine A-list. Simon Cowell called the restaurant his ‘kitchen’. Tom and Katie were regulars, as were Posh and Becks, who’d both had their birthday parties at the unprepossessing corner building with its French bistro interiors, complete with tiled floors and vast ham hocks hanging behind the bar for charcuterie chic. Gwen Stefani, Jack Nicholson, LiLo and Sam Ronson, Kobe Bryant … the list of celebrity clients went on and on, so much so that it had been known for ordinary citizens to face waits of up to three
months
to get a dinner reservation that wasn’t at 5.30 p.m. or 11.15 p.m.

On a Tuesday in October, however, and early in the evening at that, none of the paps had expected much action. So when word spread that Viorel Hudson and Sabrina Leon had arrived for an early dinner, the excitement was palpable.

In the six weeks since they’d been ‘out’ publicly as a couple, Sabrina and Vio had quickly risen to become the tabloid editors’ most wanted. Their unexpected love affair, the most photogenic event since Brad and Angie got together, had transformed Sabrina’s media profile overnight from Wicked Witch of the West to America’s Unlikeliest Sweetheart, and raised Viorel’s to undisputed A-list status. Together, they were a gold mine.
US Weekly
readers couldn’t get enough of how the handsome Mr Hudson had ‘tamed’ wild child Sabrina Leon. In love, and visibly aglow with contentment, Sabrina had ditched her trademark miniskirts and black leather for a softer, more feminine look. The fashion editors adored it, and the tabloids gorged themselves on the ‘Bad Girl Made Good’ angle, until even Sabrina’s agent, Ed Steiner, started to worry that the exposure might be
too
much and start to detract from her profile as an actress.

‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ Sabrina told him, with a rare flash of her old arrogance. ‘Once
Wuthering Heights
comes out, they’ll start talking about my acting again. It’s the best work I’ve done, I’m sure of it.’

From the paps point of view, the problem was
getting
a shot of them together. Sabrina, once the ultimate party girl and as easy to find out on the scene on a Saturday night as a gay man at a Barbra Streisand concert, had suddenly turned all homebodyish and reclusive. She and Vio were rarely out, and never in the clubs or up at the Chateau, their usual haunts. Sabrina’s new-found shyness extended to interviews as well. Whereas before she would happily spout off, drunk, about her sex life to any reporter who asked her, now she refused to answer any ‘intimate’ questions about her and Viorel’s relationship. ‘All I will say is that we’re very happy’ was as far as she’d go, a mantra repeated endlessly to journalists and TV stations across the country with a sweet, guileless smile. And, of course, her reticence only whetted the public’s appetite further. Just looking at Sabrina and Vio together, observing the body language, the way they leaned into one another and touched constantly, you could see that their sex life must be explosive. The fans couldn’t get enough.