Tilly Bagshawe
Fame

For Viorel Rezmives

and in loving memory of Abel Teglas.

Heathcliff shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart.

Fred Allen

Contents

Epigraph

Part One

Prologue

At the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the Eighty-Fifth Academy Awards…

Chapter One

‘I’m not asking you, Sabrina, I’m telling you. You have…

Chapter Two

‘Oh my God, Vio! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop. Oh…

Chapter Three

‘I hate you! I fucking HATE YOU, you selfish bastard,…

Chapter Four

As Dr Michel Henri lifted the child out of its crib…

Chapter Five

Striding past the waiting paparazzi, ignoring the catcalls and boos…

Chapter Six

‘Hey, Mum, guess what?’ It was the third time Abel…

Chapter Seven

Dorian Rasmirez’s production company, Dracula Pictures, had offices on the…

Chapter Eight

Tish Crewe gasped for breath as the cold water from…

Part Two

Chapter Nine

‘I’m not asking for directions again, OK? I am not…

Chapter Ten

Sabrina Leon adjusted her new Prada aviators and arranged her…

Chapter Eleven

Harry Greene lay back against his purple velvet pillows and…

Chapter Twelve

Sabrina awoke gripped with fear. A familiar fear: her bedroom…

Chapter Thirteen

Chrissie Rasmirez stretched out her lithe legs on the sun-lounger…

Chapter Fourteen

Two days after Chrissie Rasmirez’s arrival on the Wuthering Heights…

Chapter Fifteen

For the next three days, until Chrissie left for Romania,…

Chapter Sixteen

For the next ten days, Sabrina and Jago were inseparable.

Chapter Seventeen

‘Viorel, over here!’

Part Three

Chapter Eighteen

Chrissie Rasmirez arched her back and thrust her hips forward,…

Chapter Nineteen

Saskia Rasmirez rearranged the plastic Little Mermaid tea set on…

Chapter Twenty

Tish stood in the hallway at Loxley, not sure whether…

Chapter Twenty-One

The final weeks of shooting at Dorian Rasmirez’s Romanian Schloss…

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘No.’ Chrissie Rasmirez’s angular face hardened, her lips drew tighter…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dorian Rasmirez gazed sadly out of the restaurant window and…

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘We had a deal, Mike. You shook my hand, in…

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Give me twenty more bicycle crunches. Go!’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sabrina sat down at the corner table at Mastro’s, aware…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

St John’s Hospital on Santa Monica and Twentieth was comprised of…

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tish knelt down and held out her arms as the…

Chapter Twenty-Nine

For three hundred and sixty four days a year, the…

Chapter Thirty

Three thousand people gasped as one.

Chapter Thirty-One

All over Los Angeles, people were throwing lavish, glitzy parties…

Chapter Thirty-Two

Viorel stared out of the grimy taxi window at the…

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Tilly Bagshawe

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

At the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the Eighty-Fifth Academy Awards were about to get under way.

In the hushed luxury of the auditorium, opposite the vast, 130-foot stage, designed by David Rockwell especially with the Oscars in mind, two men took their seats. Tonight, their bitter feud would be settled for better or worse. It would be settled in front of their peers, the three thousand of Hollywood’s chosen sons and daughters who’d been invited to tonight’s ceremony. It would be settled in front of the estimated sixty million Americans expected to tune in to the broadcast at home, as well as the hundreds more millions who would catch the Oscars around the globe. For one of the men, tonight would be a victory so sweet he knew he would still be able to taste it on his deathbed. For the other, it would be a defeat so catastrophic, he would never recover.

As the ceremony dragged on interminably – Best Live Action Short; Best Sound Mixing; Did anybody in the universe care? – both men kept their eyes fixed straight ahead, ignoring the smiles of well-wishers as totally as they ignored the pruriently intrusive television cameras constantly scanning their features for a reaction.

Disappointment.

Hope.

Humour.

Despair.

The cameras got nothing. Neither of the two men had got to where they were today by giving away their emotions. Certainly not for free.

At last, after almost three long hours of torture, the moment arrived. Martin Scorsese was standing at the podium, a crisp white envelope in his hand. He gave a short, pre-prepared speech. Neither of the men heard a word of it. Behind his diminutive Italian frame, a montage of images flashed across an enormous screen, clips from the year’s most critically acclaimed pictures. To the two men, they were nothing but shapes and colours.

I hate you, thought one.

I hope you rot in hell, thought the other.

‘And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to …’

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’m not asking you, Sabrina, I’m telling you. You have to take this part.’

Sabrina Leon looked at her manager with queenly disdain. Ed Steiner was fat, balding and past his prime (if he’d ever had a prime). In cheap grey suit trousers and a white shirt with spreading sweat patches under each arm, he looked more like a used-car salesman than a Hollywood player. He also had an intensely irritating, domineering manner. Sabrina did not ‘have’ to take the part. She did not ‘have’ to do anything. I’m the fucking star here, she thought defiantly. I headlined in three Destroyers movies. Three! That’s Destroyers, the most successful action franchise of all time. You work for me, remember?

Ignoring Ed, Sabrina got to her feet and walked across the room to the French windows. Outside her room, a lush, private garden exploded with colour and scent. Bright orange, spiky ginger flowers fought for space with more traditional roses in white and yellow, and orange and lemon trees groaned with fruit beneath the perfectly blue, cloudless California sky. Then there were the views. The house was built at the top of a steep canyon, so even from the ground floor they were spectacular, across the rooftops of the exclusive Malibu Colony, home to some of Hollywood’s biggest, wealthiest stars, and beyond to the endless, shimmering blue of the Pacific Ocean. If it weren’t for the resolutely hospital-like furnishings in all the rooms – white metal beds, uncomfortable, hard-backed chairs – you could almost imagine you were in a junior suite at the Four Seasons, and not locked up like a prisoner at Revivals, the infamous $2,000-a-night rehab of choice for burned-out Young Hollywood.

It had been Ed Steiner who had forced Sabrina Leon to check herself into Revivals. Two weeks ago, Ed had driven round to his client’s mansion off Benedict Canyon at eight in the morning, packed an overnight bag while she watched, and frog-marched Sabrina into his shining new Mercedes E-Class convertible.

‘This is ridiculous, Ed,’ she’d protested. Still in her party clothes from the night before, a black leather Dolce & Gabbana minidress and sky-high Jonathan Kelsey stilettos, with heavy black eye make-up smudged around her eyes, Sabrina looked even more desirable and vixen-like than the tabloid caricatures that were wrecking her career. ‘I’m not an addict. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘Grow up, Sabrina,’ Ed Steiner snapped. ‘This is not about you. It’s about your career. Your image. Or at least what’s left of it. How many ratzies saw you staggering out of Bardot last night looking like that?’

‘Looking like what?’ Sabrina bristled, her sultry, almond-shaped eyes narrowing into slits, like a cat about to pounce. ‘Looking sexy, you mean? I thought looking sexy was part of my job.’

Ed fought back the urge to slap his truculent, twenty-two-year-old client across her spoiled, heartbreakingly sensual face. Sabrina knew full well she had no business being in that club last night, or any club for that matter. She could be foolish, and reckless, but she wasn’t stupid. He started the engine.

‘Right now your job is to look contrite,’ he said crossly. ‘You are deeply sorry for your behaviour, for what you said to Tarik Tyler, you are addressing your problems, you are asking for privacy while you heal during this difficult time, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill as well as I do, kid, so do us both a favour and quit playing dumb, OK?’ He glanced over to the passenger seat. ‘What the fuck is that?’

In the outside zip-up pocket of the overnight bag, a bottle top was clearly visible. Pulling it out, Ed Steiner found himself clutching a half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Sabrina was unapologetic. ‘Helps me sleep.’

‘You think this is funny?’

‘Oh, c’mon, Ed, give me a break. Rehab’s boring. I’m not gonna get through it without a drink.’

‘You think you’re Marianne Faithfull or something?´ To Sabrina’s consternation, Ed flung the bottle into the rosemary bushes that lined her driveway. ‘You think people are gonna forgive you this bullshit because it’s so rock ’n’ roll? Well, let me tell you something, Sabrina: they won’t. Not this time. You are this close to being finished in this town.’ He held up his thumb and forefinger, waving them inches from Sabrina’s face. ‘This close. Now put your fucking seatbelt on.’

Sabrina yawned defiantly, but she buckled up anyway, slipping on a pair of Oliver Peoples aviators to shield her eyes from the sun’s early morning glare. Outwardly, she continued to play the rebel – it was all she knew how to do. Inside, however, she felt her stomach flip over, a combination of last night’s excessive alcohol consumption on an empty stomach and visceral, gut-wrenching fear.

What if Ed was right?

What if she really could lose it all?

No. I can’t. I won’t let it happen. If I have to go back to my life before, I’ll kill myself.

The headlines of Sabrina Leon’s rags-to-riches, True Hollywood Story were familiar to everyone in America. Homeless kid from Fresno gets plucked from obscurity by big-shot Hollywood producer Tarik Tyler, becomes a mega-star thanks to her lead role in Tyler’s Destroyers movies, and slides spectacularly off the rails.

Snore.

No one was more bored by Sabrina’s past than Sabrina, as she’d made patently clear in Revivals’ group therapy sessions.

‘Hi, I’m Amy.’ A shy, middle-aged woman in a drab knitted cardigan introduced herself. ‘I’m here for alcoholism and crystal meth. I pledge confidentiality and respect to the group.’

‘I’m John, I’m here for cocaine. I pledge confidentiality and respect.’

‘Hi, I’m Lisa, I’m an alcoholic. I pledge respect to the group.’

It was Sabrina’s turn. ‘What?’ She looked around her accusingly. ‘Oh, come on. You all know who I am.’

‘Even so,’ said the therapist gently, ‘we’d like you to introduce yourself to the group. As a person.’

‘Oh, “as a person”,’ Sabrina mimicked sarcastically. ‘As opposed to what? A dog?’

No one laughed.

‘Jesus, OK, fine. I’m Sabrina. I’m here because my manager is an a-hole. Good enough?’

Things got worse when patients were asked to talk about their childhoods. Sabrina sighed petulantly. ‘Dad was a junkie, Mom was a whore, the children’s homes sucked. Next question.’

‘I’m sure there was more to it than that,’ prodded the therapist.

‘Oh, sure. There were the assholes who tried to rape me,’ said Sabrina. ‘From twelve to fifteen I was on the streets. Poor little me, right? Except that it wasn’t poor me, because I got into theatre, and I got out. I got out because I’m talented. Because I’m different. Because I’m better.’

It was the first time Sabrina had expressed any real emotion in session. The therapist seized on it gratefully. ‘Better than who?’ she asked.

‘Better than you, lady. And better than the rest of these junkie sad sacks. I can’t believe you guys actually signed up for this piece-of-shit programme out of your own free will.’

Everyone knew that Sabrina Leon was not at Revivals by choice. That her manager, Ed Steiner, had staged an intervention as a last-ditch attempt to salvage her career.

Stumbling out of a Hollywood nightclub a few weeks ago, with a visible dusting of white powder on the tip of her perfect nose, Sabrina had lashed out at Tarik Tyler, the producer who’d discovered her and made her a star, calling him a ‘slave driver’. Tarik, who was black and whose great-grandmother had been a slave, took offence, as did the rest of the industry, who demanded that Sabrina should apologize. Sabrina refused, and a scandal of Mel Gibson-esque proportions erupted, with outrage spewing like lava across the blogosphere. Access Hollywood ran Sabrina’s feud with Tyler as their lead story, devoting three-quarters of their nightly entertainment roundup to a vox-pop of ‘celebrity reactions’ to Sabrina’s ingratitude, all of them suitably disgusted and appalled. Even Harry Greene, the famously reclusive producer of the hugely successful Fraternity movies, emerged from his self-imposed house arrest to brand Sabrina Leon ‘a graceless, racist brat’. In one, single, ill-judged night, the tide of public affection and goodwill that had swept Sabrina Leon to unprecedented box-office success – America loved a good rags-to-riches story and Sabrina had been the ultimate poor girl made good – turned so suddenly, so violently and completely, it was as if her career had been swept away by a tsunami.

And when the tide finally receded, she’d washed up at Revivals.

‘There’s no need to be insulting,’ chided the therapist.

Isn’t there? thought Sabrina

She had to get out of this place.

Two weeks she’d been here now. It felt like two years, what with the early-morning starts, the gross, tasteless health food served at every meal, the boring, self-obsessed patients. All the faux emotion of the therapy sessions, the embarrassing over-sharing of feelings, the fucking hand-holding. It made Sabrina want to throw up. Rehab was such a cliché. And, according to Ed Steiner, she still had six weeks to go.

Now, turning back from the window, Sabrina glowered at her manager defiantly.

‘I’m not working for free, Ed,’ she announced bluntly. ‘Not in a million fucking years.’

Ed Steiner sighed. He was used to spoiled, ungrateful actresses, but Sabrina Leon really took the cake. She ought to be on her knees, kissing his hand in gratitude. Here he was offering her a life-line – not just a role, but the lead role in Dorian Rasmirez’s much-hyped remake of Wuthering Heights – at a time when she couldn’t get cast in a fucking Doritos commercial. And she was bitching because Rasmirez wasn’t going to pay her. Why the hell should he? Dorian Rasmirez doesn’t need you, you dumb bitch. You need him. Wake up and smell the coffee.

‘Yes you are,’ he said robustly. ‘I accepted on your behalf this morning.’

‘Well you can damn well un-accept!’ screamed Sabrina. ‘I decide what roles I take, Ed. It’s my life. I have control.’

‘Actually, according to the release you signed when you admitted yourself into the eight-week programme here, I have control. At least over your career and business decisions.’ He handed her a piece of paper. Sabrina glanced at it, balled it up in her fist and threw it to the ground.

‘And it’s a good job I do,’ said Ed, unfazed by this childish show of temper. ‘Let’s not go through this charade, OK, Sabrina? It’s boring, it’s bullshit, and you know I’m not buying it. You know as well as I do that you need this part. You need it. Right now no other director in Hollywood would piss on you if you were on fire. Sit down.’

Sabrina hesitated. In jeans and a long-sleeved navy-blue tee from Michael Stars, with no make-up on and her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked about a thousand times prettier than she had the last time Ed had seen her. Healthier too, less scrawny, and with the glow restored to her naturally tawny, olive skin. This place must be doing something right, he thought. All she needs is to lose the attitude.

‘Sit,’ he repeated.

Sabrina sat.

‘Dorian Rasmirez has had his issues,’ he went on, ‘but he’s still a big name, and this is gonna be a big movie.’

Sabrina softened slightly. ‘When does it start shooting?’

‘May probably. Or June. They’re still scouting for locations.’

‘Locations?’ Sabrina pouted petulantly. A location shoot meant months away from LA, from the clubs and parties and excitement that had become her drug of choice. ‘What’s wrong with the back lot at Universal?’

‘Nothing,’ said Ed sarcastically, ‘except the fact that it’s not a Universal Picture. And it’s Wuthering Heights.’

Sabrina looked blank. She’d never been big on literature.

‘Wuthering Heights? One of the greatest classic novels of all time? Cathy and Heathcliff? Set on wild, windswept moorland?’ Ed shook his head despairingly. ‘Never mind. The point is, it’ll do you good to get out of Los Angeles for a while. Out of the public eye altogether, in fact. We issued your apology statement the day after you came in here, which may have helped a little. We’ll probably do another one before you check out. But it’s still a shit-storm out there. You need to disappear and you need to work. Come back in a year, healthy and happy and with a hit movie under your belt—’

‘A year!’ Sabrina interrupted. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

Being away from the LA party scene was bad enough. But the thought of being out of the media glare for so long – of not having her picture taken or seeing her face in magazines – made Sabrina’s heart race with panic. You might as well tell her she couldn’t breathe, or eat. Without attention she would wither and die, like a sunflower locked in a cellar.

Ignoring her, Ed Steiner went on.

‘I know they’re filming some of it in Romania, at Dorian Rasmirez’s Schloss. I’m told that’s worth seeing,’ he added, trying to strike a more cheerful note. ‘Oh, and I didn’t tell you the best part. It’s not a hundred per cent confirmed yet, but it looks like Viorel Hudson’s signing on as Heathcliff.’

Sabrina rolled her eyes. That was the ‘best part’? What was the worst part? Were they filming it naked in Siberia? The one, the only, good thing about Dorian Rasmirez’s offer was that it would be a vehicle for re-launching Sabrina back into the box-office big league. If Viorel Hudson was involved, she’d have to fight for top billing, and probably for the dressing-room mirror as well. Rumoured to be unimaginably vain, Viorel Hudson was probably the one man in Hollywood whose sex appeal, and arrogance, rivalled Sabrina’s own. They had never met, but Sabrina knew instinctively that she would loathe Viorel Hudson.

Ed Steiner looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go. I have a meeting at The Roosevelt in an hour.’

Rub it in, why don’t you? thought Sabrina bitterly. I have a meeting with a bunch of whining alcoholics and a ‘speerchal’ healer from Topanga Canyon whose last brain cell died in 1972.

‘I’ll bike you over the script tomorrow. Give you something to do between sessions. How’s it going, by the way? This place helping you at all?’

Serena smiled sweetly. ‘Go fuck yourself, Ed.’

That night, staring at the ceiling in her hard, uncomfortable single bed, Sabrina hugged herself and said a silent prayer of thanks.

She’d played it cool with Ed, just as she played it cool with everyone. But she knew what a miracle Rasmirez’s offer was. Dorian Rasmirez was one of the most respected directors in Hollywood. He’d have had actresses lining up to play the part of Cathy. Actresses whom the world wasn’t unfairly branding a racist. But for some reason, Rasmirez had chosen her.

Fate, she thought. I was born to succeed. It’s my destiny.

All Sabrina had to do now was to give the performance of her life. And to make sure she out-dazzled the smug, self-satisfied Viorel Hudson. Still, she reassured herself, that shouldn’t be too hard. If all else failed, she could always seduce Hudson. Once Sabrina Leon slept with a man, her power over him was total.

Hollywood might have written her off. But Hollywood was wrong.

Sabrina Leon was on her way back.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Oh my God, Vio! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop. Oh … Jesus!’

Viorel Hudson had no intention of stopping. The girl lying spread-eagled beneath him on the soft-pink bed of the Chateau Marmont’s exclusive Bungalow 1 was Rose Da Luca, currently the highest-paid model in America and number one on most adult males’ ‘fantasy fuck’ lists. Unusually for such a stunning girl, Rose was also good in bed: coy on the surface, but wildly passionate and adventurous underneath. In fact, scratch adventurous, thought Viorel delightedly as he felt Rose’s index finger circling his asshole. She’s filthy. I think I might be in love.

Flipping Rose over onto her knees – much more of that finger and he was going to come on the spot – he entered her from behind, slowing his pace till he could feel her writhe in delicious, agonizing frustration. Looking down at her arched back, and that famous mane of red hair spread over the pillow like a halo, he felt a familiar rush of triumph. It was the same feeling he got whenever he bedded a woman he wanted, or landed a role that he knew countless other actors coveted. For Viorel, the pleasure of any experience was always enhanced by the sense of competition. Acting was fun. Sex was even better. But winning … that was the biggest thrill of all.

Nailing Rose Da Luca was actually the final triumph in what had been a uniquely triumphant day. Not only had Viorel signed on the dotted line to play Heathcliff in the remake of Wuthering Heights, which meant he would be working with one of his all-time idols, Dorian Rasmirez; but to his surprise (and his agent’s frank astonishment) Rasmirez had offered him five and a half million dollars for the privilege. Five million was the magic number in Hollywood, the number that separated successful film actors from bona fide movie stars. It was a rubicon that, once crossed, pretty much guaranteed you a place in the pantheon of the greats. Until your first big box-office flop, of course, at which point you could slide back down the snake into the twos, or sometimes even lower. For Viorel Hudson, however, it was a win–win situation. Despite his high public profile (last year he’d been named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine, an accolade that he claimed to be embarrassed by but secretly revelled in), Viorel had never earned more than a million dollars on a movie. That was because he’d carefully chosen projects with artistic merit over blockbusters with multimillion-dollar budgets. As a result he was revered by many of his peers as an actor with integrity, an actor’s actor: low-key, professional, devoted to his craft.

In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. While it was true that Vio preferred to work with good scripts than poor ones – who didn’t? – his apparently eclectic choice of movie roles was actually part of a diligently planned strategy, the purpose of which was to make Viorel Hudson as rich and as famous as possible as fast as possible. By carving out a niche and a name for himself on the indie circuit (he’d already starred in two Sundance winners and this year’s runner-up at Venice), while simultaneously using his publicist to push his image as a mainstream sex symbol, Viorel’s intention was always to make a sideways leap into big-league commercial movies, leapfrogging past his rivals faster than he could have hoped to had he taken a string of small parts in forgettable box-office hits. Even in his wildest fantasies, however, Vio had not imagined that he would sign a contract of this size for at least another three or four years. And to get it for a Rasmirez movie! – to be able to combine the pay-cheque he craved with the genuinely good-quality work he enjoyed – that was really the icing on the cake. He’d have accepted the part for a million, maybe even less. Rasmirez must have been dead set on casting him to have offered so much over the odds. Either that or he was secretly gay and hoping to get into Viorel’s boxer shorts; which, given that Dorian had a reputation as the most happily married man since Barack Obama, was probably unlikely.

Rose Da Luca’s perfect body shuddered as she finally climaxed, her taut muscles clenching and spasming gloriously around Viorel’s dick. ‘Oh Christ,’ he moaned, exploding inside her in what was undoubtedly the best, most satisfying orgasm he’d had all year. If only my bastard classmates from school could see me now, he thought joyously, savouring the moment, knowing in that instant that there wasn’t one of his childhood tormentors who would not have sold their souls to trade places with him.

Yes, today had made it official.

Viorel Hudson was a winner.

Shortly after midnight, Viorel was back behind the wheel of his Bugatti Veyron, driving west on Sunset Boulevard, when his mother called.

‘Darling. You rang.’

Martha Hudson’s clipped tones instantly made him feel tense. Incredible how in three short words, England’s most celebrated adoptive mother, MP for Tiverton and a saint in the eyes of much of the British public, could convey so much disappointment. Why the hell did I call her? thought Viorel angrily. He was angry because he already knew the answer. He’d called because deep down he still wanted Martha’s approval. And he wasn’t going to get it.

He tried to keep his tone casual. ‘Yes. I thought you and Johnny might like to know. I scored a huge part today. I’m playing Heathcliff in the new Rasmirez movie.’

Johnny Hudson, Martha’s much older husband, was Viorel’s legal father, but Viorel had never called him ‘Dad’, nor had Johnny ever asked him to. The two weren’t close.

‘Heathcliff?’ Martha Hudson MP sounded disapproving. ‘You mean somebody’s remaking Wuthering Heights?’

It was eight in the morning in England now. Viorel pictured the hallway of Martha’s Devon rectory – he’d never thought of it as home, just the house he came back to after boarding school: the faded Regency wallpaper, the neatly stacked pile of constituency post on the hall table next to the phone, and thought how far away it all was. Not just geographically, but emotionally. It was another world.

‘Yes, Mother,’ he said wearily. ‘Dorian Rasmirez is remaking it. He’s one of the—’

‘But why?’ Martha interrupted. ‘The original was a masterpiece. Let’s face it, my love, with the best will in the world, you’re hardly going to do a better job than Olivier. Are you?’

And there you had it. Just like that, Viorel’s mother had taken his triumph and squeezed all the joy out of it. Just like she always did.

The British public revered Martha Hudson for her heavily publicized fight to rescue Viorel as a baby from a horrific Romanian orphanage. Viorel’s earliest memories were of strangers coming up to him and telling him how lucky he was, and what a wonderful mother he had. In reality, however, his childhood had been horribly lonely. Though he didn’t want for material comforts, he knew that Martha never really loved him. It wasn’t personal. Martha Hudson had never really loved anyone except Martha Hudson. But it left Viorel feeling doubly rejected, not to mention permanently displaced.

His career had driven a further wedge between him and his mother. Martha Hudson had never wanted her son to become an actor. She wanted Viorel to be a doctor. In her fantasy, he would have gone back to Romania, the country of his birth, to help the poor, orphaned children still left there – ideally his return would be documented by photographers from the Daily Mail, which would inevitably remind readers of Martha’s own selflessness (for adopting him in the first place), and devotion to children’s causes everywhere.

But it hadn’t worked out that way. Viorel had selfishly decided to pursue fame and fortune instead. Martha could have forgiven him for trying. What galled her was that he had succeeded, to the point where he was now infinitely more famous than she would ever be.

‘I’ll be better paid than Olivier,’ said Viorel. ‘They’ve offered me five million dollars.’

Even Martha Hudson paused at this number. It was a pause-worthy number.

You’re impressed, you mean-spirited cow, thought Viorel. Just admit it.

But of course, Martha didn’t. ‘Oh well,’ she sniffed, ungraciously. ‘That’s all well and good, I suppose. But money isn’t everything you know, darling. Now look, I must run. I’ve got a select committee meeting this afternoon and I’m going to be late for my train.’

It was Terence Dee who had rescued Viorel from England and his mother’s stifling ambitions. Martha Hudson had only ever seen her son as a PR tool, an adorable, photogenic prop with which to bolster her image as the caring face of the Tory party. But Terence saw something else in Viorel: talent.

After Eton, Viorel dutifully followed his mother’s bidding and went up to Cambridge to read medicine at Peterhouse. But that was where Martha Hudson’s fairytale abruptly ended. After joining Footlights, Cambridge’s famous dramatic society Viorel was talent-spotted at the end of his first year by a London agent, and immediately cast in a British rom-com, Bottom’s Up. The movie went straight to video, but Viorel Hudson’s smouldering performance as a Casanova con man was good enough to get him noticed by Terence Dee, then the most powerful casting agent in Hollywood. In his mid-fifties, with a shaggy mop of dyed blond hair and a penchant for wearing pastel sweaters draped casually around his shoulders, Terence Dee was as flamboyantly gay as any Vegas drag queen, and it would be fair to say that his early interest in the edible young Englishman was not strictly professional. But clearly, Terence had no hard feelings over Viorel’s lack of hard feelings, for his own sex in general, and Terence in particular. He swiftly found the boy both a manager and an apartment in LA, on condition that Viorel drop out of university and pursue his acting career full time.

Viorel did not need to be asked twice. After a brief, frosty farewell with his mother over lunch in London (and a longer, warmer one with his girlfriend Lucinda, his co-star on Bottoms Up, and the woman who had finally relieved him of his virginity; despite his astonishing good looks, Viorel was a late bloomer), he boarded a flight to LAX and never looked back.

That was five years, six movies and countless hundreds of women ago, and in all that time Viorel had not returned to England once. Largely because of Martha, but also because he wanted to leave his shy, lonely childhood self behind. US audiences might idolize him for his Britishness: that clipped, Hugh Grant accent that for some unfathomable reason seemed to make American girls swoon, but Vio Hudson considered himself an Angelino through and through. From day one he had adored Los Angeles: the sunshine, the optimism, the gorgeous, liberated, oh-so-available women. Best of all, no one in LA had ever heard of Martha Hudson MP. And, though the US press had inevitably got hold of the story of Viorel’s childhood adoption, with the help of a first-class PR team, Vio had at last managed to shake off the image of victimhood that had haunted him all his life. Yes, he was adopted. Yes, his mother was a politician. So what? All that mattered now was that he was a star, a player, a winner. Hollywood had offered Viorel Hudson the second reinvention of his short life, and this time, it was on his own terms.

He’d made it. And he had no one to thank for his success but himself.

After hanging up on his mother, Viorel was home in ten minutes. He had left Rose Da Luca in bed at the Chateau (but not before paying the bill in full and ordering breakfast and roses for her the next morning – no need to be a dick about these things). As much as he loved bedding beautiful women – and Rose really had been beautiful, in a class of her own – Viorel was pathological in his need to wake up alone and, whenever possible, in his own bed. By using hotels for sex, he was able to satisfactorily compartmentalize his life and protect his privacy. His apartment, right on the sand at the end of Navy, a quiet, no-man’s-land between Santa Monica and Venice proper, was his sanctuary. Vio unashamedly adored the attention, glitz and glamour of Hollywood, but even he needed to know he could shut the door on the madness at the end of the day. Viorel Hudson the man was outgoing, sociable and charming. But the lonely, angry little boy he had once been still needed a fortress to retreat to.

Hidden from the street by a forbidding grey stone wall, into which was set a pair of prison-like, reinforced-steel security gates, Vio’s apartment was that fortress. Once inside, however, the feeling of space, light and openness was incredible. In the living room, floor-to-ceiling windows provided a jaw-dropping view of the ocean, shimmering grey-blue beyond the empty, white-sand beach. Give or take the occasional cyclist, no one came by this quiet stretch of coastline. Sipping his coffee on the balcony in the mornings, Vio often forgot he was in a city at all, with nothing but the distant caw of seagulls and soft crashing of waves to break the silence. The apartment wasn’t huge by movie-star standards: about two thousand square feet of lateral space. But Viorel had made it feel infinitely bigger with his simple, modern decor, the clean, geometric lines of his furniture and the calming palette of whites and greys that somehow managed to feel warm in winter and cool in summer. Had he not been an actor, he often thought he might have made a good designer, or perhaps even an architect. Every time he walked through his front door he felt a warm sense of pride, like a parent coming home to a beloved child. It was the first and only place he had ever felt completely at home, and he loved it.

Throwing his keys on the kitchen countertop, he kicked off his shoes and wandered back into the master bedroom. Dropping the rest of his clothes in a heap on the floor – Cecilia, his housekeeper, would clean up in the morning – he skipped the bathroom and crawled straight into the delicious comfort of his Frette sheets. His limbs throbbed with exhaustion, Rose had really put him through his paces, but he was too preoccupied to sleep.

Five and a half million dollars.

For five months’ work.

God bless Dorian Rasmirez!

Viorel had yet to meet the great director in person. Today’s deal had been entirely brokered through his agent. He wondered how soon he would be asked to come to a read-through, and when the locations would be finalized. Already, a bizarre aura of secrecy was growing up around the movie, with Rasmirez drip-feeding Vio’s agent information on a need-to-know-only basis. Then again, every director had their little quirks. And some things, presumably, could be taken as read. Because it was Wuthering Heights, an English classic, most of the film would have to be shot in England. In all other respects, getting the role of Heathcliff was a dream come true, but this was a homecoming that Viorel was not looking forward to. Worse still, according to his agent there were rumours swirling around that a lot of the interior scenes were to be shot at Rasmirez’s ancestral family castle in, of all places, Romania. It was an ironic twist of fate that both Viorel and his director should have been born in the same, distant, impoverished country. Although clearly, Rasmirez’s family must have come from the opposite end of the social scale to Viorel’s. My ancestors probably polished his ancestors’ silverware, thought Viorel wryly. If there was one country on earth that he felt less enthusiasm for than England, it was bloody Romania. He hoped the rumours were untrue.

What was true, confirmed a couple of days ago, was that Sabrina Leon had been definitively cast as Cathy Earnshaw, his leading lady. This also bothered Viorel. Sabrina might be the hottest thing on legs (or, in her case, on back) in Hollywood, but she was also a complete liability, the biggest Tinseltown train-wreck since Lindsay Lohan. Viorel couldn’t imagine what had possessed a seasoned pro like Rasmirez to hire her, especially with the flames from her most recent scandal still raging through the industry like a forest fire.

He must have got her on the cheap. Perhaps that’s how he can afford to flash so much cash at me.

He could have done without England, Romania and Sabrina Leon. But for five and a half million bucks, they were three crosses that Viorel Hudson was willing to bear.

Fuck you, Martha.

Switching off the light, he finally drifted into sleep, dreaming of England, Heathcliff and Rose Da Luca’s deliciously soft thighs.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I hate you! I fucking HATE YOU, you selfish bastard, I hate this house, I hate this country and I want a goddamn fucking DIVOOOOORCE!’

Dorian Rasmirez ducked as another priceless piece of Byzantine porcelain flew past within millimetres of his left ear before smashing spectacularly against the bedroom wall.

‘Jesus Christ, Christina!’ he yelled. ‘Calm down.’

‘Calm down?’ Stark naked, her small, hard apple breasts jutting towards her husband like weapons, and her cute, pixie-like features contorted into a puce mask of rage, Chrissie Rasmirez had no intention of calming down. ‘Fuck you, Dorian, you self-centred cunt! You think you have the right to tell me what to do?’ Scanning the room for her next missile, her eyes lit on the ornately framed oil painting above the bed.

‘No, Chrissie, don’t!’ pleaded Dorian. ‘Not the Velásquez!’

Like a panther, Chrissie turned and pounced, leaping towards the painting with her perfectly Pilates-toned arm outstretched. Acting on instinct – there was no time to think – Dorian jumped after her, rugby-tackling her down onto the bed. Dorian Rasmirez was a big man, six foot plus in his socks, and with the sturdy, solid build of a labourer. At two hundred pounds, he was also almost twice the weight of his petite, gym-bunny wife. Even so, he struggled to contain Chrissie as she writhed, bit and kicked furiously beneath him, spinning herself around to face him so that she could claw his arms and back with her newly manicured talons.

What the hell am I going to do with her? thought Dorian despairingly. Anyone watching them fight – or rather watching Chrissie fight, while Dorian struggled vainly to defend himself – would have assumed it was he who’d been caught cheating, and not Dorian who had walked in on Chrissie in soon-to-be flagrante with one of the estate carpenters. Dorian was leaving for Los Angeles today and had come home early from his little local office in Bihor to say goodbye to his wife and daughter and finish packing. Walking into the master bedroom, he’d discovered his wife already naked in their bed, and young Alexandru, a nineteen-year-old local joiner, hopelessly overexcited as he tried to free his rock-hard erection from his Abercrombie jeans. At least the boy had had the sense to make a swift exit, leaving his shirt and boots behind in his eagerness to get out of there. He was probably on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains by now. But, as always when she was in the wrong and cornered, Chrissie Rasmirez had come out fighting, hurling abuse at her husband as if he were the one who’d been caught with his pants round his ankles.

Was it any wonder she had to take lovers, when Dorian was never here?

What did he expect when he kept her locked up in this godforsaken castle like Cinder-fucking-rella, while he gallivanted off, living the good life in LA?

She hated it here. She was bored, she was trapped, she was stifled. She was practically a single mother to Saskia, their adorable blonde-headed three-year-old girl. And so it went on. Before he knew it, Dorian found himself on the back foot, apologizing, comforting, explaining. He would get her more help with Saskia. He would make sure he came home more often. The thought of his darling Chrissie being touched by that boy, that kid, made him want to rip the guy’s throat out. But, at the end of the day, he blamed himself. I’m the architect of my own destruction, he thought miserably. I’m driving away the one thing I love more than anything else in the world.

Eventually, too exhausted to struggle any more, Chrissie went limp. Overwhelmed with anger and wildly sexually frustrated – she’d been looking forward to bedding Alexandru for weeks – she burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed into Dorian’s blood-spattered shirt. ‘It’s just that … you never look at me like you used to. You don’t notice me any more.’

Dorian was aghast. ‘Don’t notice you? That’s not true! How can you say that? I adore you.’

‘It is true,’ wailed Chrissie. ‘You leave me here all alone, day after day, with no life, no career, no escape. As if taking care of Saskia is all I’m good for.’

Dorian did not point out that with three full-time nannies on twenty-four-hour call, it was debatable whether Chrissie did, in fact, take care of Saskia.

‘When Alexandru looks at me he sees a woman, not just a mom. He makes me feel alive, Dorian.’

Dorian winced. ‘Stop.’ He pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t ever mention that kid’s name to me again. Understand? Never.’ His eyes flashed with jealousy, the alpha male protecting his territory.

Chrissie responded instantly, her pupils dilating, her lips and thighs parting with naked, unconcealed lust. If she couldn’t have her teenage lover, her husband would have to do. ‘Show me you love me,’ she murmured.

At forty-four, Dorian Rasmirez might not have his nineteen-year-old rival’s Adonis-like body but, unlike Alexandru, he knew how to get his pants off in a hurry. Wriggling out of his jeans while Chrissie yanked his shirt off over his head, he was naked in seconds, thrusting himself inside her with the same passion, the same desperate, all-consuming longing he’d had for her since the first day they met. ‘You’re my woman,’ he moaned, running his hands proprietorially over every inch of her taut, boyish body. ‘I love you Chrissie. I fucking adore you.’

‘Show me,’ sighed Chrissie. She was already close to climax, eyes rolled back in her head, lost in some wild fantasy of her own. She’d been horny as hell for the hot little Romanian carpenter all morning. Being denied him, followed by the panic of discovery and the thrill of the fight with her husband (sparring with Dorian always turned her on) had propelled Chrissie’s already overworked libido into the stratosphere. Dorian always pulled out all the stops sexually when he was scared. When he wanted to, he could fuck like an Olympic champion, playing her body like Nigel Kennedy with a Stradivarius. Right now, stroking and teasing her, bringing her to the brink time and again and then pulling back, Chrissie knew she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted Alexandru, or any of her other lovers.

When he finally came, having brought her to orgasm twice, Dorian pulled her into his strong, bear-like arms and held her so tightly she could barely breathe.

‘I’ll do anything to keep you, Chrissie,’ he whispered. ‘Anything. You know that.’

‘Good,’ Chrissie purred, stroking his back. ‘Well, you can start by leaving me your Centurion card. I’ve decided to take a little trip to Paris while you’re away. Distract myself with a bit of culture. Lilly can take care of Saskia for a few days.’

Dorian’s heart sank. He fought back the urge to remind Chrissie that they lived surrounded by culture, and that she never showed the slightest interest in any of it. In this bedroom alone, apart from the Velásquez portrait above the bed and the exquisite Byzantine vase she’d just destroyed in a fit of temper, there were bookshelves stuffed with first-edition classics in English, Italian and French, a Dutch, hand-painted dresser that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette of France, and two framed folios of Handel’s Messiah, signed by the composer himself. The entire castle, this ‘prison’ that Dorian had ‘dragged’ Chrissie to, prising her away from her beloved LA, was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of treasures, with a collection of art and manuscripts to rival some of the greatest galleries and libraries in Europe. And it was all theirs. Not theirs to sell – the treasures could not legally leave Romania – but theirs to cherish, to appreciate, to pass down to the next generation. To Saskia, and perhaps one day – if Dorian could ever persuade Chrissie to try again – to a son, a little boy to carry on the family name.

The reality was that the only thing Chrissie Rasmirez was interested in in Paris were the overpriced clothes stores on the Avenue de Champs-Élysées. Last time she went to the flagship Louis Vuitton there she’d dropped over $100,000 in a single morning. If she tried that again this time, AmEx would demand Dorian’s cards back. But he was too scared to deny her, particularly after today’s close call.

‘Sure honey,’ he sighed, defeated. ‘I’ll leave the card. You go and enjoy yourself.’

Chrissie smiled triumphantly. ‘Don’t worry, darling. I intend to.’

Three hours later, as the Airbus A360 juddered and rattled its way up through the clouds, Dorian closed his eyes and tried to remember the relaxation techniques his therapist had taught him. Imagine yourself on a deserted, sandy beach. Waves are softly lapping at the shore. Listen to the rhythm of the tide. Let it soothe you. Feel the warm water caress your toes …

He opened his eyes. It wasn’t working. Reaching into his hand-luggage bag, he pulled out a Xanax and slipped it into his mouth, knocking it back with the dregs of his pre-takeoff champagne. The pill would take a while to kick in, but the alcohol was instantly soothing, as was the knowledge that he was leaving Chrissie and their problems behind him for five whole days. Not that this trip to LA was going to be some sort of vacation. On the contrary, the real battles would only start once he landed. But for the next ten hours at least, he had a chance to relax. If only he could remember how to do it.

A heavy-set man in his mid-forties, with dark hair greying at the temples and a warm, open face – not handsome exactly, but appealing in a rough-round-the-edges sort of way – Dorian Rasmirez was one of the most acclaimed film directors in the world. With his intelligent hazel eyes that narrowed into tiny slits when he laughed or got angry, his strong jaw and his off-kilter nose (he broke it in a football game in high school and had never got around to fixing it), Dorian was certainly no matinee idol. Yet there was something innately masculine about him that women found compelling – and had done long before he became successful.

Dorian had been born and raised in White Plains, New York, the only, much-beloved son of Romanian immigrant parents. Both his father, Radu Rasmirez, and his mother Anamarie had suffered unspeakable horrors under Ceausescu’s hardline communist dictatorship and had arrived in America with little more than the cash in their pockets. As members of two of Romania’s most prominent aristocratic families, the Rasmirezes and the Florescus, Radu and Anamarie had seen close family members arrested and shot. They had experienced first hand what it meant to lose everything: not just your wealth and privilege, but your home, your freedom, your right to live free from intimidation, imprisonment and torture. They came to America to escape the horrors of their pasts and to build a new life, and that’s exactly what they did.

Radu trained as a pharmacist, eventually opening a successful chain of small stores across Westchester County. His wife gave birth to their longed-for son, and devoted herself to the traditional role of homemaking, diving in to suburban American life with unexpected enthusiasm. It was largely thanks to Anamarie’s assimilation into New York culture and her love of all things American that Dorian grew up the way he did: preppy, hardworking, and blessed with a natural, quiet confidence that was the perfect complement to his impressive academic abilities. To any casual observer, Dorian Rasmirez came across as the epitome of American boyhood, from the tips of his loafers to the button-down collars of his Brooks Brothers shirts. He excelled at school, winning a place at Boston University where he majored in Dramatic Arts. By the time he graduated, he already knew he wanted to direct, and with his usual focus and determination, won a place at UCLA’s prestigious School of Theater, Film and Television. But beneath the glowing, all-American CV, Dorian was his father’s son as much as his mother’s. Radu Rasmirez had made a point of educating his son in their family history, painting a wildly romantic picture of their Transylvanian roots, and the fairytale castle that should by rights have been Dorian’s, if only the wicked communists hadn’t stolen it.

‘One day,’ Radu promised him, ‘the righteous will triumph in our homeland, and what is ours will be restored to us. When that day comes, Dorian, you will know what it is to live like a king. The honour and responsibility, the joy and the pain. We Rasmirezes will always owe a debt of gratitude to this country. But Romania remains forever in our hearts.’

Of course, to Dorian, ‘Romania’ was just a word, a mythical kingdom that his father had conjured up for him, from a past that the boy had never known and couldn’t understand. But he did understand how much their family heritage meant to Radu. In later years that sense of displacement, of homesickness and longing that he saw in his father, would heavily influence Dorian’s film-making.

There were other influences too. Most notably Chrissie Sanderson, the enigmatic, elfin actress whom Dorian met and fell in love with in his last year at UCLA, and whose mesmeric beauty (in Dorian’s eyes at least) had entranced him ever since. By Hollywood standards, the Rasmirez marriage was considered an epic achievement. Dorian and Chrissie had been together since before Dorian became famous – five whole years before the release of Love and Regrets, the searing emotional drama that was to catapult Dorian to global prominence as a director. In those early days, it had been Chrissie who was the star in the partnership, with a leading role as Ali, a kooky chef, in the popular network television sit-com Rumors. A natural actress with a wonderful sense of comic timing, by the age of twenty-three Chrissie Sanderson was recognized across America, with a loyal, at times even fanatical, teenage fan base. Before long she was earning serious money, fifty-grand-plus an episode: a fortune in those days. It was enough to buy her and Dorian a comfortable house in Beverly Hills as well as to fund some of his early movie projects. Chrissie revelled in the limelight but, spurred on by Dorian, she also yearned for more serious critical success. In the same year that the release of Love and Regrets changed Dorian’s life forever, Chrissie made her own debut on Broadway, as Sally Bowles in Jerry Zaks’s much-hyped revival of Chicago. It was a huge mistake. Nervous and under-rehearsed, she flubbed her opening night performance badly. If she’d expected her status as the nation’s TV sweetheart to protect her, she was rudely awakened by the next morning’s reviews. The critics did not so much pan her performance as eviscerate it.

‘Laughable,’ said the New York Times.

‘You didn’t know where to look,’ wrote The Post.

‘Embarrassingly wooden.’

‘About as much sex appeal as a cold bowl of soup.’

Dorian told her to forget it. ‘What do they know? So you made a couple of mistakes, flubbed a few lines. Big deal. They’re just jealous because you’re a huge TV star. You know how these critics get off on bringing people down.’

But Chrissie could not forget it. Mortified at such public humiliation, she lost her nerve completely, quitting the Broadway show as soon as her contract allowed, then promptly walking off the set of her NBC show as well. For months she holed up at home in LA, refusing to attend any auditions or give a single interview about her shock departure from Rumors. Meanwhile, of course, Dorian’s career was taking off in spectacular style, a success for which Chrissie could never quite forgive him.

After fifteen years, Dorian still spoke loyally in interviews about his ‘stunning, talented wife’, and was famously immune to the manifold temptations of Hollywood. His fidelity was considered all the more admirable in industry circles since for years it appeared that his wife refused to have his children. Most people viewed this as the height of selfishness on Chrissie’s part. In fact, her unwillingness to become a mother mirrored her refusal to go to auditions, or to take any of the leading roles that Dorian offered her gift-wrapped in all of his movies. She was afraid. Trapped by her own insecurities in the wildly luxurious life Dorian had built for her, she complained ceaselessly about LA, how shallow it was and how being a famous director’s wife made her feel empty and invisible.

Then, four years ago, three things happened. The first was that Dorian found out his wife was having an affair, with the leading man in one of his movies. The liaison was actually the latest in a string of extramarital adventures that Chrissie had used over the years to prop up her fragile self-esteem. But it was the first one that Dorian knew about, and he was utterly devastated by it. The second thing was that, at long last, Chrissie agreed to get pregnant and conceived Saskia, the Band-Aid baby that both she and Dorian hoped would repair their marriage. And the third thing was that the Romanian government contacted Dorian out of the blue, to tell him that they had begun the process of restoring pre-revolutionary property to its rightful owners. Would Dorian like to return ‘home’ to claim his inheritance, the Rasmirezes’ historic Transylvanian Schloss, complete with all its priceless treasures?

At the time, Romania had seemed like a lifeline, the fresh start that he and Chrissie so badly needed. Chrissie had cheated on him because she was unhappy in LA and felt like a failure there. Dorian believed in marriage. His parents had managed it for the better part of fifty years under far more difficult circumstances. He owed it to Chrissie and to himself to try to repair the damage. Here was a chance to take Chrissie and their newborn daughter as far from the Hollywood madness as it was possible to go. Dorian would sweep Chrissie up on his white charger and install her as queen in his fairytale castle. Little Saskia would grow up as a princess. And they would all live happily ever after.

Or not.

If he were completely honest with himself (not always Dorian’s strongest suit), becoming a father had not been the seismic, emotionally transformative event that he’d expected. The baby was sweet enough. But, after waiting so long for parenthood, Dorian began to realize that the idea of having a child was considerably more intoxicating than the exhausting, often deathly dull reality. He also realized, not without a sense of shame, that a part of him was disappointed that Saskia had not been born a boy.

For her part, Chrissie also revelled in the idea of motherhood or, more specifically, the idea of herself as the perfect mother: devoted, selfless, instinctively maternal. It was a self-image Chrissie clung to doggedly as Saskia grew older, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and one that she demanded her husband validate by praising her mothering skills at every possible opportunity. But the truth was that, like Dorian, Chrissie Rasmirez found young children boring and her own daughter was no exception. By now a semi-professional martyr in her marriage (Chrissie had long ago convinced herself she had sacrificed her career for Dorian, and not on an altar of her own fear), her new role as tireless carer to a demanding toddler added another arrow of resentment to her ever-growing armoury.

New parenthood wasn’t the Rasmirezes’ only problem. Despite yearning for a fresh start, Dorian had misgivings about the move back to his homeland. Romania had been his father’s dream, never his. And while he felt a sense of duty (and curiosity) about his ancestral home, unlike Chrissie, Dorian enjoyed his life in LA, and did not relish leaving it. If he was going to continue working, he’d have to get used to a gruelling transatlantic commute. The thought of having to spend time away from Chrissie made his chest tighten painfully with anxiety. But if it saved the marriage, it would all be worth it. He owed it to his father and Chrissie to go back.

Though she would rather die than admit it now, Chrissie had been very enthusiastic about the idea at first. Transylvania! Even the word sounded romantic. From what Dorian had told her, the house – castle! – was stuffed with wealth beyond even her wildest imagination: hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of antique crap. Apparently, the Romanian government had some ridiculous rules about all the treasures having to stay in the country, but a good American lawyer would find them a way around all that old-world baloney. If she could no longer enjoy fame in her own right, Chrissie could at least experience the thrill of being European royalty and joining the ranks of the super-rich. Plus, domestic help would be super-cheap over there, so she could have nannies and housekeepers up the wazoo. She would be Queen of the Castle, ordering around a fleet of servants, and go to bed at night draped in emeralds that had once belonged to Catherine the Great. Not bad for a little girl from the valley. Who knew, maybe she’d even think about trying for a second baby, and giving Dorian the son he so obviously still wanted.

Needless to say, it had not worked out like that. Almost from day one, Chrissie loathed Romania. The Schloss was as palatial as she could have wished it, the staff as slavishly obsequious, the emeralds as big and heavy as golf balls. But there was nothing to do. No one to see. Sure, the scenery was breathtaking, as lush and green and spectacular as a still from Shrek. Little Saskia was entranced by the Transylvanian landscape, with its wide, fast-flowing rivers, brooding pine forests and romantic, snow-topped mountains that ringed the castle like mythical, protective giants. ‘Polar Express!’ she would squeal excitedly every time they drove into town, pointing to the snow-tipped Carpathian Mountains with barely contained rapture. But her mother failed to share her enthusiasm. What use was it, ruling your own fantasy kingdom, if you couldn’t go out to Cecconi’s on a Friday night and boast about it to your friends?

Within weeks of their arrival, Chrissie’s boredom was fermenting into resentment. It was all Dorian’s fault, for dragging her here. He was punishing her for her affair by immuring her and Saskia in this gilded prison, while he jetted off to enjoy their old life back in LA, which from eight thousand miles away no longer seemed so terrible. She, Chrissie, had sacrificed her career for her husband, and what did she get in return? Neglect. Abandonment. Using the only weapon left available to her, she did a 180-degree about-face on a second baby, point-blank refusing to even contemplate another pregnancy until Dorian ‘sold this dump’ and moved them back home to spend the proceeds. No amount of explanation by Dorian would convince her that this was both a practical and legal impossibility; that the Schloss was theirs to enjoy, but not theirs to sell.

Moreover, unbeknownst to Chrissie, their finances back in the States were in fact in increasingly dire straits. Dorian’s last film, the exquisitely shot but hugely over-budget war movie, Sixteen Nights, had been a major critical success. But it was box-office receipts that paid the mortgage on Dorian and Chrissie’s Holmby Hills mansion and the upkeep on the Schloss, not to mention financed Chrissie’s couture habit, and those had been distinctly lacklustre. Two studios had offered to come on board with funding but, unable to bear the thought of ceding creative control, Dorian had turned them down, ploughing millions of dollars of his own money into the movie instead. He’d ended up massively in the red.

To make matters worse, since the news of Dorian’s inheritance, Chrissie’s spending had multiplied exponentially. Nothing could convince her that they were not now billionaires – they had Renoirs in their drawing room, for fuck’s sake! – and she laughed openly at Dorian’s claims that the castle’s upkeep was in fact bleeding them dry.

‘Don’t you see?’ he told her, exasperated. ‘That’s why the Romanian government were so keen to have us back here! They couldn’t afford to keep the place going themselves, and they figured we were rich enough to do it for them.’

Chrissie shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Well, we are.’

No we’re not! Dorian wanted to scream. But he was too frightened of Chrissie leaving him to force another confrontation, or to admit the full extent of their debts. He’d already seen her flirting with some of the younger, more attractive boys on their staff, and lived in constant dread of another affair. And Chrissie was right. He was the one who’d brought her here, brought them all here as a family. It was up to him to make it work, to dig them out of this financial hole he’d gotten them into, and to make her happy. Either that or give up the castle, which to Dorian would be tantamount to trampling on his dad’s grave.

‘More champagne, sir? Or something to eat, perhaps?’

The stewardess’s voice brought Dorian back to the present. They were at cruising altitude now, and his fellow passengers were reclining their flatbed seats or turning on their entertainment systems, scrolling down the list of movies. Dorian had already read the in-flight guide before takeoff. Three Harry Greene movies. None of his.

Dorian tried not to mind that Harry Greene’s truly terrible, derivative Fraternity franchise continued to go from strength to strength. But it was hard to be magnanimous when Greene seemed to have made it his life’s mission to destroy Dorian’s reputation, slagging him off not only in public, in the press, but also in private amongst Hollywood’s power brokers. Harry Greene was an immensely powerful man in Hollywood. He was also a recluse, prone to wild fits of paranoia, especially where women were concerned. Twice he had taken girls to court: having bedded them, in the morning he’d accused them of petty theft simply because he couldn’t remember where he’d left a certain coat, or a pair of cufflinks. Once he’d even tried to have his housekeeper arrested for attempted poisoning. A lamb stew had given him a stomach upset, apparently, and Harry was convinced the wholly innocent Mexican grandmother had laced the dish with arsenic.

His beef with Dorian had begun over a script. Harry had fallen out with a certain screenwriter, and the row had turned ugly. When the screenwriter came up with his next movie idea a few months later, he brought it to Dorian instead of Harry. The irony was, Dorian never came close to making the film. It was a bromance, commercial but far too vanilla for Dorian’s taste. Nonetheless, Harry Greene became convinced that Dorian and this screenwriter were ‘in league’ against him. Over time, thanks to some shift in Harry’s addled brain, the screenwriter faded from the picture, leaving Dorian as the sole target for his bizarre conspiracy theory.

It wasn’t long before his professional resentment began to turn personal. For all its international influence, Hollywood remained a small town at heart, and the paths of two major producer-directors like Dorian Rasmirez and Harry Greene were bound to cross socially. After the script incident, Dorian did his best to avoid Harry. But a few years ago, for reasons that to this day Dorian had never fully understood, Harry got the idea into his head that Dorian had badmouthed him to his then wife, Angelica. And that it was Dorian’s malicious intervention that had wrecked his (Harry’s) marriage.

In reality, Dorian barely knew Angelica Greene, then or now, and had said nothing to her about her husband’s womanizing, which was in any case an open secret in Hollywood. The only person responsible for the demise of Harry Greene’s marriage was Harry Greene. But, be that as it may, in the wake of his divorce, Harry gave numerous interviews blaming Dorian, and did his best to have him ostracized by Hollywood’s elite. As the Fraternity franchise went from strength to strength and Harry Greene’s influence grew, the more difficult Dorian’s life became.

He returned his attention to the stewardess, who was still hovering with her drinks tray.

‘No, thank you,’ he said politely. ‘I’m fine.’

‘OK. Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. I did just want to say, I really enjoyed Sixteen Nights. I love your work.’ The stewardess blushed.

‘Thank you,’ said Dorian. ‘You’re very kind.’

She was a pretty girl, he noticed, not hard and over-made-up like so many of her profession. You could still see her creamy, natural complexion, and the tops of her full breasts jiggled invitingly beneath the white blouse of her uniform. Sexy. But not a patch on my Christina. ‘I hope you’ll go and see my new movie when it comes out.’

‘Oh, I will,’ she gushed. ‘I certainly will. What is it?’

‘Actually it’s a remake,’ said Dorian. ‘Wuthering Heights.’

The stewardess gasped. ‘Oh my God, I love that book. Such a romantic story.’

Dorian smiled. ‘You know it?’

‘Of course,’ she laughed. ‘Doesn’t everyone? Heathcliff and Cathy. They’re like Romeo and Juliet in the rain.’

For the first time all day, Dorian felt a fraction of the tension ease out of his body. One of his concerns about his new project had been that the story might be considered too highbrow, too much of a classic for ordinary moviegoers to be interested in. Dorian had first read the book in high school and had been instantly captivated by the plot. Heathcliff, a mysterious orphan boy, is adopted by the kindly Mr Earnshaw and brought to live at Wuthering Heights, a grand but lonely house in the Yorkshire moors. Tragedy ensues when Heathcliff falls in love with Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine, who also loves him, but decides to make a more socially acceptable marriage to a neighbour. The ramifications of Cathy’s rejection of Heathcliff: her regret, his madness, and an ongoing saga of death and revenge, of innocent children being forced to pay for the sins of their parents, made for uniquely compelling drama, not to mention one of the most enduring love stories in English literature. But, cinematically, Wuthering Heights was a challenge. Whoever played Heathcliff would have to age convincingly, while remaining attractive enough to work as a romantic lead. Should original Cathy and young Cathy, her daughter, be played by two actresses, or one? How to deal with Nelly, the book’s nurse narrator? And then of course there was the issue of location. In a plot where the house was as much of a character as any of the protagonists, finding the right location would be key.

A couple of the big studios had tried to warn Dorian off, as had his agent and friend, Don Richards.

‘You can’t follow Olivier and Merle Oberon, man. That 1939 movie is one of the all-time greats.’

‘They only shot half the book,’ said Dorian. ‘It’s half a story.’

‘That’s because the whole story’s unfilmable. It’s a fucking miniseries.’ Don frowned. ‘Did you see the seventies version? It blew.’

‘I know,’ Dorian smiled. ‘That’s why I’m doing a remake.’

‘If you do it, you’re gonna need two big names in the lead roles,’ Don warned him. ‘And I mean real bankable stars, none of your “respected character actor” bullshit. Oh, and Cathy’s gotta get naked. A lot.’

‘I see,’ said Dorian wryly. ‘Young Cathy or Old Cathy?’

‘All the Cathys have to be young,’ said Don firmly. ‘And hot.’

‘Right. So all I need is to find a major movie star who’s prepared to work for peanuts and get her panties off for some gratuitous nudity.’

‘It wouldn’t be gratuitous.’ Don looked offended. ‘There’d be a very important point to it.’

‘Uh-huh. And what might that be?’

‘Ticket sales,’ said Don.

Dorian had the good grace to laugh. ‘OK. Well if anyone springs to mind, you be sure to let me know.’

‘Actually, someone does. How about Sabrina Leon?’

At first, Dorian had assumed his agent was joking. When he realized he wasn’t, he dismissed the idea out of hand. Sabrina was toxic right now, a Hollywood untouchable. Plus she was known to be a majorly disruptive influence on set: demanding, diva-ish, unpredictable. Just associating Sabrina’s name with a project could be enough to kill it before they shot a single take.

‘All true,’ agreed Don. ‘But she’s still a huge star.’

Dorian held firm. ‘No way.’

‘Plus, everyone’s watching to see what her next move will be.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Plus, she loves getting naked, on and off set. The kid’s allergic to clothes.’

‘I know Don, but c’mon. I need a serious actress.’

‘She’ll work for free.’

And that was it. Jerry McGuire had Dorothy Boyd at ‘hello’. Don Richards had Dorian Rasmirez at ‘free’.

Stretching his long legs out in front of him, Dorian at last began to relax. If American Airline stewardesses were fans of the story, it clearly couldn’t be that highbrow. It’s gonna be all right, he told himself. Sabrina Leon had signed on the dotted line. Of course, casting her as Cathy – both Cathys – remained a dangerous, double-edged sword. Dorian would have to keep a tight grip on her behaviour. But Don Richards had convinced him she was a risk worth taking. He’d just have to do the sell of his life to convince distributors that, by the time the movie was due for release, the furore over Sabrina’s Tarik Tyler comments would have died down.

‘Even if it hasn’t, people’ll still come and see the movie,’ said Don.

‘You reckon?’

‘Sure. They like watching her. It’s like slowing down on the freeway to gawk at a car crash.’

Dorian hoped he was right. Because, if he wasn’t, it would be Dorian’s career, life and marriage that would be the car crash. Almost certainly a fatal one.

For Dorian Rasmirez, everything depended on the success of this movie.

Everything.

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