The Santiago Sisters (27 page)

New York

S
he should never have overheard the dialogue. Models gossiped—it was fuel for the dressing room, the make-up chair, often the only sustenance that kept them going—and nine times out of ten its content should be taken with a bucket of salt.

But on this occasion, she knew it was true. And that truth changed everything.

Wednesday evening and Calida had just wrapped a shoot with Samantha Pringle, renowned clotheshorse and ex-member of the world’s biggest girl band. Accustomed to posing in a five-piece line-up, Samantha had been uneasy in isolation, so Calida had sourced four other beauties to stand alongside her. Afterwards, their star made a swift and glamorous getaway, while the others mingled, unhurried, in states of semi-undress. Calida was passing the wardrobe when she heard her sister’s name.

‘I’ve heard he’s banging Tess Geddes …’

‘No,’ one of them gasped, ‘really?’

‘Really. They hooked up at some party. Stella says it’s serious.’

‘Stella talks bullshit.’

‘Of course you’d say that. What’s your problem with her?’

Calida stayed out of sight, her back against the wall. She held her breath.

‘What about Steven? I’d give half my ass to snag a husband like him.’

‘Only because your ass is insured for fifty thousand bucks.’

‘I’d sooner have Vittorio,’ put in the first.

‘Well, nobody else stands a chance if he’s sleeping with Tess.’

There was a snort of derision. ‘Tess Geddes isn’t
that
hot.’

‘You just keep kidding yourself.’

Calida’s heart thrummed. She could hear her breath, low and quick.

‘His wife’s not going to like it, that’s for sure,’ said a new voice.

‘She’ll never find out. She hasn’t so far.’

‘Yeah, but Tess is different. She’s a threat. Have you seen Scarlet lately? She’s like a shoelace. With eye bags.’

A mean titter, then: ‘You’re a bitch.’

‘Don’t I know it, honey.’

There followed a shuffle of bags being collected and jackets slipped on. Calida rounded the corner and watched as the models emerged. When the door swung shut behind them, her lungs expelled a whoosh of air and she sank down on to the floor.

You’ve been with him,
she thought.
You’ve been with Vittorio.

She felt as if she had been punched in the gut.

Tess and Vitto. Vitto and Tess. Rage boiled through her like flames devouring a building. She couldn’t see. Could hardly breathe. It was too much to take in.

Anger pealed out of her like clanging bells.

And then the idea occurred, with the same clear ring as a note being struck. Suppose Tess
knew
he was sleeping with Calida? It would be Daniel all over again. Unwilling to accept defeat a decade ago, her twin had to exact one-upmanship now.

You saw what I had—you knew what I had—and you took it.

Fury paralysed her. Everything she despised about Tess Geddes came rushing at her like thickening, blackening thunderclouds. Only, where Calida would once have backed off, content to let her beautiful sister claim what was hers, this time she would not. She could not. Vitto was the prize, and only one of them could have him.

You want a fight
? Calida thought, setting her jaw.
Fine. You’ve got one.

The City Costume Fashion Gala on Broadway was a raging success. Ryan Xiao was in his element, cosseted in the lap of the glitterati and busy showing off his second-in-command. After dinner, cocktails, and an eye-watering charity raffle (one winner bid $245,000 for a drink with Hollywood icon Cole Steel), Calida slipped out.

Vittorio was ready to pick her up. He was tucked in a quiet road behind the venue, his car purring and the headlamps dipped. They flashed her once; she opened the door and climbed inside. Instantly she was hit by the smell of perfume—musky and sensual, with a note of lavender.
Tess
? The thought made her stomach flip.

‘Drive,’ Vittorio instructed, as he sealed the privacy screen and placed a hand on her thigh. Calida knew this game. Her lover remained in profile—no need for conversation. His hand crept gradually higher until it found the heat between her
legs. As they whizzed through Manhattan, a palette of liquid streetlights, he moved two fingers against her. Calida spread her knees. When the car swung left and his fingers plunged into her, she thought he was going to show her mercy—but no, he kept his touch in place, refusing to move, while she worked with it as much as she could. Vittorio continued to look ahead, his expression still. Unable to bear it, Calida reached down. Vittorio caught her, gripping her fingers in his other hand.

‘Not yet,’ he told her.

Back in Greenwich Village, Vittorio threw her face-down on to the bed, hitched up her skirt, ripped down her panties, lifted her hips so she was on her knees, and slapped her hard on the ass. Calida bit the sheets, her cunt spread and wet.

‘You want me to fuck you like I’ve never fucked you before?’

Vittorio stood from the bed. He came to each side, taking one wrist then the other, and tying them to the bedposts with silk ropes. Calida groaned, her lips dry. He stripped and positioned himself behind her. First, she felt his tongue, direct in her opening, licking her, and she had never felt so exposed and turned on.

With exquisite cruelty, he pulled back. The urge subsided. Then he savoured her again, lost in her this time, and she could feel the coarse grain of his stubble against her backside. She ground against him and that irreversible tingling threatened to take her for the second time. He sensed it and stopped. ‘Not yet,’ he said again.

Next, his fingers entered her. Building a rhythm, he withdrew and worked the liquid up to her ass. Coaxing inside that virgin orifice, she felt her knees spasm. She pulled on the cords that bound her wrists, and flushed searing hot.

‘Oh!’ she breathed. ‘Oh, oh, oh …’

‘Do you like that?’ Vittorio rasped. This time he pushed further. His other hand cupped her pussy, locating her clit, and he massaged the two together.

‘Yes,’ she managed. ‘Vitto, please,’ she begged, ‘fuck me there.’

Her whole body yearned to accommodate him. Even so, she wasn’t prepared for the flash of blind-white pain that shot through her as he broke in.

‘Ah!’ she screamed—but it was short-lived. Pleasure took over instantly, his cock scorching inside her as he rocked back and forth, first slow then speeding, and this pleasure was no greater or lighter than the other pleasure, but totally unalike. She was plugged into a primitive, animal pleasure; a Freudian pleasure, one that rooted her to the solid, soiled earth. They climaxed together. Calida lost herself for those seconds, saw herself from above and below, and wasn’t in her mind but out of it.

Vittorio rolled off and lay next to her, panting. She collapsed, still bound, her elbows numb now that the storm had subsided. Her legs quivered, every muscle spent. She turned to face him, marvelling at his pristine looks; the almost cruel line to his mouth, his angular jaw and chin. How many other women had he done that to?

Had he done that to Tess Geddes?

‘Do it to me again,’ Calida said.

Vittorio shot her a grin. ‘What’s up with you tonight?’

‘Just do it. I want you to.’

He obeyed. This time she came more furiously than before. She wanted to go on all night, each orgasm claiming more of him, destroying another piece of her twin.

Every time Calida slept with Vittorio, it was a knife in her sister’s back.

You can’t deny me for ever,
she thought.
When I get you face to face you won’t be able to pretend I don’t exist. I’ll force you to admit it.

After all, I’m fucking your boyfriend. How’s
that for poetic justice?

‘Vitto,’ she asked starkly, ‘do you know Tess Geddes?’

Vittorio sighed. ‘I’ve met her once or twice. Why?’

‘Astrid Engberg mentioned it. I wondered.’

‘You’re not friends with her, are you?’ he asked quickly.

‘Astrid thought I might take her photograph. We asked but she declined.’

Vittorio pushed himself up on one elbow. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he mused. ‘I’ve heard she’s a stuck-up cow. Tess Geddes doesn’t mix with just anyone.’

‘Does she mix with you?’

He eyed her. ‘Am I detecting jealousy?’ he goaded.

‘Never.’

He grinned. ‘Good. I barely know Tess. All I know is she’s a suicidal maniac who put herself in hospital. I don’t want to know any more.’ Vittorio leaned in.

‘Now,’ he murmured. ‘Shall we untie you, or do you want to go again?’

Calida had always thought with her head—and this was no different.

She already had her shield in place, and the shield was that she didn’t love Vittorio. She never would. That territory was closed. She had been there, put her heart on the line, spilled inside out for the sake of another person and had wound up being rejected. It meant she could challenge her sister without
fear, without limits; it meant no weapon of Tess Geddes’ could penetrate her armour. She had nothing to lose.

As the days passed, the competition obsessed her.

Ryan asked why she was distracted. Lucy couldn’t understand when she cancelled plans last minute. Each time she made a date with Vittorio, it was one less date he was having with Tess. Every time his pager beeped or he told her he couldn’t make a secret rendezvous, she spent the night imagining him with her sister.

Weeks after the revelation, shock still didn’t do it justice. The fact that the twins had come so close, connected after all this time by the heat of another man’s body, their lives crossing over so close and yet so far, was both horrible and brilliant at the same time. Every moment was bringing them closer to a head-on collision.

Two cars hurtling towards each other in the dead of night.

Time passed and she and Lucy went their separate ways: Lucy moved up at MOMA and at the same time she moved in with her architect boyfriend. Calida bought a place on Upper East, with its own studio and dark room.

Then, out of nowhere, one frosty morning in the park, her phone rang. She reached into her bag to retrieve it.

‘Calida, it’s me.’

It took her time to place the voice—not because she didn’t recognise it but because it was the voice she had steeled herself never to hear again.

Daniel. Her cowboy. Her friend.

The only ‘me’ she would know besides her sister.

Hello, you.

She found her tongue. ‘Hi.’

Words were insufficient to bridge the divide of time and place and hurt. Calida thought of the night she had just spent
with Vittorio, and, replacing the triumph she had nursed since breakfast, a creeping uncertainty settled, something close to shame.

As if Daniel knew her better. She wasn’t that person, not really, in her heart. She was the girl on the
estancia,
thousands of miles away, looking out at the sunset.

‘You’re doing so well, Calida,’ came Daniel’s voice. ‘I’m proud of you.’

Unable to stop herself, Calida smiled into the phone; her eyes filled with tears. Then she imagined his wife in the background, maybe a couple of fair-haired children clinging at her skirts. The thought wounded her still-healing heart.

‘Can I help you with something?’ she asked formally.

‘Maybe,’ said Daniel. ‘If I came to town … could we meet?’

The question surprised her. Of all the things he might have said, that was the last she’d expected.
Yes
, she wanted to answer.
Yes, I want to. Yes, yes, yes …

But she stopped.

I’m too close now. I can’t let this go.

I won’t.

She had come so far. It had taken years to get within touching distance of Tess Geddes, and she was near enough now to reach out and …

‘I can’t,’ she said.

There was a long quiet. ‘Me and Clara didn’t work out,’ Daniel said at last. ‘We’ve separated. I wanted to tell you. I had to tell you.’

Calida absorbed this information. It didn’t gratify her like it might have. Instead, she worried that Daniel was hurt. Worried at what he’d been through.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘It was my fault. I didn’t love her in the way she needed. I couldn’t.’

Calida remembered how she had laid herself on the line that day in Buenos Aires, humiliated when she’d asked him if he loved his new wife and unwilling to hear the answer even when she did.
Sí.
Daniel had looked her in the face and said that.

Sí.
I love her.
I love her.

‘I’m with someone else now,’ she said.

Calida forced herself to say it—for her, for him, for them both. For the sake of the rivalry that drove her on every day, from the instant she woke to the moment she fell asleep. Sacrificing Vittorio would mean letting it go. All she had worked for; all she had earned. ‘I don’t want to see you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to hear from you. I’m sorry for your marriage but there’s nothing left for us—it’s too long ago. Too much has happened. Good luck in your life, Daniel. I wish you the best.
Adios.’

She ended the call, her hand shaking.

You’ve done the right thing.
The only thing.

Years had passed since their encounter in Buenos Aires but the scars were still visible. Calida knew where to find them. It was better this way. Life could be lived with minimal pain and upset, if love were removed from the equation.

Part of her expected, hoped, that Daniel would ring back.

He didn’t.

December 2014

Night

S
he must have passed out again, because the next time she woke she was sitting upright. The gag was back in, but a new one, starched and clean and reeking of disinfectant. The scent was dizzying and sickly, rising to her nostrils.

‘I’m sorry I had to do that,’ said her kidnapper. ‘I don’t want you talking. I want you to listen. Can you listen to me?’

Limply, she nodded. Her head was drooping, her neck a cracked stalk. Her left temple throbbed, as if a hard object had clubbed it.

‘I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a very sad story. I hope you won’t cry.
’

She tried to pull her wrists apart, but they were tied too tight. A memory surged back at her—of a man, a bedroom
—
wild and brutal, savagely out of context.

‘Once upon a time,’ the person paced in front of her, moving in and out of light in familiar and unfamiliar shapes, ‘I had a family. I believed in the goodness and decency of people. I thought I was secure. I was wrong.’

She shivered. The window was open; fresh air blew in.
Outside, the cold winter night sprayed snow from the sky. The moon peered in. She fought sleep.

I have to get out.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

‘I had it planned, from the moment of your betrayal. Because it was a betrayal, wasn’t it? Even you admit that
—
now, at the end of things.’

She whimpered. Tried to contain it, but it spilled out of her all the same.

‘I’m sorry I had to hurt you.’ The person knelt in front of her. ‘You understand that I had to, don’t you? I couldn’t let you get away. Not again.’

She waited, eyes stinging, lungs burning. In the dark, behind her back, she worked the binds together. It was no use. They were taut and she had no strength.

‘I thought I knew what love was then,’ her captor said. ‘Vital love, blood love, the love that lasts a lifetime—but I was fooling myself. You proved that. There were so many times I tried to reach you, tried to show you my face. But you didn’t see me. You refused. You were blind. All you cared about was yourself. You still do.’

She went to shake her head but found she couldn’t lift it.

‘Have you ever experienced that love?’ Her abductor’s head cocked, interested in her response. She was unable to give it, the gag resolutely in place.

Yes, she had. Yes, she still did. With all her might, she nodded. Her assailant leaned forward. For a crazy second, she thought she was about to be kissed.

A swift slap stung her cheek.

‘Liar! Don’t you dare say you have. You don’t know what the word means. You’re a loveless, heartless bitch!’

Her throat loaded with all the things she longed to voice
but couldn’t, and she wasn’t sure they would make a difference even if she were able.

Suddenly, a flick of silver flourished in the pitch. A knife blade glinted.

‘It’s
over.
’

The voice was close now, all around, inescapable.

‘Say good night, sister.’ The blade touched her neck. She thought of Christmas unfolding outside, of joy and laughter and lights. That was the last thought she had.

‘This is the end for you.’