Alex rested his chin on his hand so Grace caught sight of grimy shirtcuffs and nails bitten down to the quick. It almost made her feel sorry for him. ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it, Gracie? I offered six months ago.’
Grace remembered then that she hated him, which made it easier to summon up a cool smile and pour herself a glass of water. No more martinis because she needed to keep everything in check: every fleeting emotion that glanced across her face, every nuance and inflection in her voice - and she really needed to stop twisting her hands nervously in her lap. Alex was a predator and the moment he got the faintest whiff of blood, he’d move in for the kill.
‘I’m asking now and you know you can’t wait to tell me.’
‘And you promise you won’t shoot the messenger?’
There was a waiter hovering at Grace’s elbow. She turned to say that, no, they didn’t need any more olives or bread or anything else, but he took one look at the frigid expression on her face and backed away mouthing apologies. ‘Just tell me, Alex.’
‘Of course, I can only go back two years or so, but that should do for starters. Now, where to begin . . . With Natalia, I think.’
Natalia had been with Vaughn when Alex first launched himself on an unsuspecting art world. She was a Russian socialite fallen on hard times as Vaughn was buying up Early Soviet art. Then there’d been Nancy, an American ex-model, who’d been the wrong side of thirty when her husband had traded her in for an eighteen year old. It just so happened that she had a circle of divorcée friends all working in galleries while they scouted around for husband number two. After Nancy had come a Japanese graphic artist, but she’d only lasted a few weeks because the bottom had fallen out of the Japanese market. Finally there had been Alex’s particular chum, Lydia, the daughter of a painter who’d been the great white hope of the British art movement in the late sixties before he’d bought a farm in Wiltshire and hadn’t been heard from since. Fast forward to Vaughn mounting a retrospective featuring his work of the last forty years, which had all been sold to museums and private collectors before the exhibition had even opened. In between those four of Grace’s predecessors, there had been a number of perfectly groomed, perfectly coiffed thirty-somethings (‘usually blondes - old Vaughn does seem to like his blondes - love the new lighter hair, by the way, Gracie’) - but none of them had stuck around for longer than a month or so.
‘And then we come to you, Gracie,’ Alex said kindly. ‘Not his usual type. Much younger. Not so polished. Normally that would be a bit of a problem for Vaughn; doesn’t appreciate his ladies making social gaffes or fucking up the wine list, but it just so happens that he had a hunch about a new wave of Young British Artists.’
‘Shut up,’ Grace said through tightly clenched teeth. It was the first thing she’d said in half an hour.
‘You wanted to be told and I’m telling you,’ Alex snapped. ‘You should be taking notes, not shooting me filthy looks.’
‘Go on then,’ Grace said, like she was daring him not to.
‘As I was saying, Vaughn thought there was a new set of YBAs coming through, but none of them were that keen on corporate art raiders. He’s got quite a reputation. And so . . .’
And so when Vaughn couldn’t find a way in, he went looking for a new female friend to smooth his way, as he’d done so many times before. For a while he was hedging his bets and had been seen out with a woman starting up her own gallery on Hoxton Street and a semi-successful conceptual artist who rented space where Noah had his studio. Then he’d turned up at the party in Kensington with Grace.
Grace was only half-listening to Alex as she traced the pattern back like a trail of breadcrumbs and tried to remember the sequence of events leading up to that evening in Vaughn’s office when he’d put the proposition to her. What he’d said. How he’d said it. If he’d actually meant any of it.
‘I have to say, Gracie, none of the others managed to get so firmly entrenched. Moving in was a bold move and it’s been what - six months now?’
‘Seven,’ Grace said automatically, because she knew right down to the day, even the hour, if she stopped to think about it.
‘You’ve really lasted the course. Usually six months is Vaughn’s cut-off point. He has a very low boredom threshold, and by that time his women have served their purpose. Be interesting to see what happens when he realises that Noah’s not going to play. What are your plans?’
‘What?’ Grace blinked and the world swam back into focus and there was Alex sitting opposite her with a smile that wasn’t edged with as much cruelty as usual.
‘I mean, it was so obvious that Noah would fall for you. You’re much prettier than Lola and Noah’s always had a thing for small girls; makes him feel all big and manly,’ Alex drawled, like the ways of heterosexual men would always be a mystery to him. ‘How far were you prepared to go to bring Noah into the fold, or was that something Vaughn left up to you? Obviously, you chickened out because Noah would usually do anything for a blowjob and a bottle of vodka.’
‘What do you mean, Noah’s chickened out?’
‘Well, he said that Vaughn went round to his studio before he flew to New York and Noah told him to fuck off in no uncertain terms, but our Mr Skinner seems very bitter for a man who claimed that he wasn’t interested in being sponsored by a soul-sucking cunt. That’s his pet name for Vaughn,’ Alex confided. His eyes had lost a little of their morning-after glaze and were fairly sparkling with malice, though Grace couldn’t tell who it was directed at. ‘Reading between the lines, I’d say it was Vaughn who backed out. Noah’s never managed to recreate the glories of his graduate show. But it does rather beg the question of where that leaves you, Gracie?’
Grace knew exactly where it left her: on one month’s notice. She hadn’t been special - she’d been totally expendable. God, she was so fucking stupid.
‘Will you stop talking?’ Grace begged, and she knew that she should be playing it cooler than this in front of Alex. She signalled frantically for a waiter. One was at her side and scribbling down her order for a large vodka tonic in an instant.
Grace was sure that Alex had been planning to extract every single ounce of Schadenfreude he could, but she must have looked like a cartoon character after an anvil had been dropped on its head because now he was trying hard to backtrack.
‘Sweetie, it’s not all bad. Noah’s always speculating on what might have happened between you two if Vaughn hadn’t got there first, and I’m sure Vaughn thinks you’re a cracking girl. You’ve even been able to extract the stick from his arse, but please - tell me you’re not in love with him?’
‘No,’ Grace declared thunderously, snatching her drink out of the waiter’s hand before he could place it on the table. ‘I am not in love with him. We have an arrangement. Love has got fuck all to do with it.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Alex said. ‘Vaughn’s filed away all your rough edges, and when you two decide to call it quits, there’ll be plenty of other men lining up.’
It was a horrifying thought - making do with a succession of older, well-connected men who’d never love her but would line her bank account until her looks faded and her tits began to sag and she replaced gauche with jaded. Grace wasn’t doing this ever again - pretending she was Cinderella - because when the clock struck midnight, all you were left with was a pumpkin and no way to get back home, to get back to the person you used to be. She’d had a glimpse of this brilliant, glittering world and tried hard to be a brilliant, glittering girl to match, and now she might just as well move back to Worthing, get a job in the haberdashery department of Beales and adopt some cats. Resign herself to being a spinster of the parish and cut out twenty miserable years of tawdry affairs with men who had too many issues to have serious, committed relationships because all the presents and the pretty things weren’t worth the price you had to pay to get them.
Grace tried to tell herself that she should be relieved that, for once, the reasons for getting dumped had nothing do with her. It was
n’t about Grace and Vaughn - it was about Vaughn and Noah. She’d just been the third wheel. But there was no relief, only pain, because she’d started feeling all these things that she’d had no right to feel.
‘You’re looking at me like I’m a complete bastard, Gracie.’
‘What - and that’s a new experience for you, is it?’ Grace’s smile was so brittle that she thought it might snap. ‘If you breathe a word of this to anyone . . .’
Alex didn’t bother to deny it. ‘Haven’t we already established that everyone already knows?’
But they didn’t know about the car crash look on Grace’s face as Alex had hit her with the highlights. ‘If you have even a shred of decency I’d be grateful if you could keep your mouth shut about this.’ Grace stared at the greying edges of Alex’s cuffs and, with a sickening jolt of realisation, knew that they had more in common than she liked to think. ‘Don’t make me into some cautionary tale for any other wide-eyed little girls that come on to the scene.’
Draining the rest of her vodka tonic in one gulp, Grace crammed the three olives into her mouth and got up. Of course, it took her for ever to dig out her purse and throw a handful of ten-pound notes on the table while Alex stared studiously at his plate. Then she walked out without even a backward glance.
The depths of Grace’s humiliation were inestimable. It wasn’t just the thought of Noah and his friends laughing behind her back every time they’d seen her walk into a room, clutching on to Vaughn’s arm. Or the politer smiles of people who’d sat around the dinner-table with them.
No, the single most humiliating part of the whole fucking humiliating exercise in abject humiliation was that somewhere between then and now, Grace had actually thought Vaughn was a nice guy, once she’d got past his emotional issues and bullshit. But secretly he must have been laughing at her too; at how gullible she was, how pathetically grateful for all the favours he saw fit to bestow on her. Every smile had been a mask. Each one of the words he’d whispered to her in the dark had been a lie. Her grandmother was right: she was a lousy judge of character.
But if Vaughn thought that Grace was going to meekly serve out her month’s notice, then he was seriously deluded. That night when she got home, she even thought about sneaking away while Vaughn was still in New York, but that would involve a van and driver, a credit card that wasn’t in his name and more balls than she currently had or would ever have. Besides, Vaughn owed her one hell of an explanation and Grace was going to collect in full. The five stages of being dumped were exactly the same as the five stages of grieving, and Grace had got to the angry part and didn’t think she’d be leaving it any time soon.
But by Monday evening, she still hadn’t come up with a plan that didn’t involve detaching Vaughn’s head from his neck, when he walked into the upstairs den where she was sitting stiff-backed on the sofa waiting for him. She’d expected him back hours ago and so she’d had plenty of time to let her rage simmer to a slow boil.
‘There you are,’ he said evenly as Grace stood up. ‘Had a good weekend?’
For five seconds, Grace was shocked into speechlessness. Then, when Vaughn walked over and tried to kiss her cheek: ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve!’ she hissed, wrenching away. ‘Don’t touch me!’
Vaughn had started to unbutton his suit jacket as a prelude to throwing it on the back of the sofa, but he paused. ‘Well, no need to ask if you got the letter. I can tell you’re upset, but—’
‘Upset?’ She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him, because she wanted to claw deep gouges on Vaughn’s carefully contained face. Clenching her fists, she stared at her toes curling into the white wool rug.
‘Look, Grace, I’ve just got off a plane that was delayed for several hours. I don’t think this is the time or the place.’
It was typical of Vaughn to act as if Grace was having a snit for the sake of it. As though her emotions were clumsy, unseemly things and she should be able to control them. He was already halfway out of the room, mumbling something about needing a drink.
‘You bastard! Don’t you dare walk out on me!’ Her words hauled him back.
‘Don’t you think you’re overreacting slightly?’ Vaughn wasn’t giving her his poker face any more. He was pissed off now, but also a little wary as if, all of a sudden, Grace was an unknown quantity. ‘You knew what you were getting into, so it’s a little late to play the wronged woman.’
Grace tried to think of a plausible comeback that didn’t mainly consist of ‘You fucking wanker!’ screamed over and over again, until she realised that this was one of the rare occasions when she could go with the truth. The truth was actually her friend. ‘I had lunch with Alex,’ she flung at Vaughn triumphantly, and he froze. ‘Remember how I was absolutely forbidden from doing that? Well, now I know why. In fact, I know all sorts of things about you and the women you have your little agreements with.’
‘I was always honest with you about our arrangement and how it would work,’ Vaughn said icily, folding his arms. ‘And I fail to see how—’
‘Bullshit! You made out like you were doing me some gigantic favour, lifting me out of the fucking gutter where you’d found me - but you were just using me to get to Noah! I wasn’t even your first choice! And now you’re chucking me because Noah wants nothing to do with you. All this time, you were just pretending that you cared about me!’
Grace had started crying, though she’d sworn she wouldn’t. Vaughn looked like she’d coshed him on the head with the heavy glass paperweight on the coffee-table, and his hands hung limply at his sides. It gave her time to finish her speech which had been much more succinct and tear-free when she’d rehearsed it in her head. ‘I’m not going to wait around for a month when I can’t stand to be in the same room with you. I’m done. I’m finished. We’re over!’
‘I didn’t tell you about my other attachments . . .’
‘Mistresses!’ Grace screeched now because all her carefully rehearsed speeches had abandoned her and she was considering inflicting some physical damage if Vaughn continued to act like she was being completely unreasonable. ‘Call them what they were. Bangs for a fucking buck, and I bet what you paid them in allowances was a fraction of what you got in commission from the artists they threw at you.’
‘Do not scream at me, Grace,’ Vaughn suddenly snarled. ‘I’m not in the mood for your cheap theatrics. Stop it, now!’
It shocked Grace out of her cheap theatrics so effectively that she bit her tongue as she clamped her mouth shut.
‘I made you certain assurances about how our partnership would benefit you, which they have. My arrangements with previous partners really aren’t any of your business.’ Vaughn had the nerve to sigh in this long-suffering, put-upon way, like he couldn’t believe Grace’s temerity. ‘Really, you’ve never understood how this was meant to work. It was a very simple arrangement but you always make things more complicated than they need to be.’
‘It got complicated the first time we had sex,’ Grace gritted in frustration because Vaughn had reined himself back in, was as implacable as ever. ‘I remember all those assurances you made, and never once did you mention the fact that I was just there as bait. Noah didn’t want anything to do with you so you tried to throw me in to sweeten the deal. Why did you get so angry when you thought I’d fucked him? Wasn’t that part of your masterplan? Or was it some reverse psychology bullshit that I was just too stupid to—’
‘Grace, Grace . . .’ She was startled out of her rant, when Vaughn took her hands that had been flailing about wildly, so he could tug her towards the sofa. She didn’t want to sit down next to him, his fingers still entwined with hers, because she wanted to pace angrily and gesture with her hands, but she found herself sitting so close to Vaughn that their thighs touched and he could stroke the hair back from her hot, angry face.
‘I told you not to touch me!’ she choked, but Vaughn ignored her, his hand slipping around to the back of her neck so he could start kneading the truly humungous tensio
n knot for which he was solely responsible.
‘You’re very special to me,’ he said in such a quiet voice that Grace had no choice but to lean closer so she didn’t miss a word. ‘And that hasn’t changed. When I first saw you, I wasn’t thinking about how useful you could be to my Machiavellian plans to take over the art world. I just thought how pretty you were and how much I wanted to kiss you.’
‘Yeah, I bet you say this stuff to your other women,’ she said, wriggling her shoulders so she’d be free from Vaughn’s treacherous hands because art dealer was just a fancy word for salesman and Vaughn was a really good salesman. She was sitting in a £5 million house that was a testament to how gifted he was with the hard sell.
‘You’re nothing like my other women. That’s the whole point.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Maybe you should have stuck with your blonde thirty-somethings who knew how the game was played and when to keep their mouths shut. Sorry, Vaughn, you picked the wrong girl this time.’ Grace forced herself to slide away from Vaughn so she could glare at him from a safe distance of twenty centimetres.