Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin

She came powerfully as Jack exploded inside her, collapsing immediately on the warm metal of the bonnet as his hot juice trickled down the inside of her thigh. They said nothing. Jack rested his head on the mound of her breasts as she waited for the guilt to rush over her. It never came.

‘Bloody hell, you’re up early. It’s only half past seven,’ grumbled Cate, sloping into the kitchen with bed-head hair and a sleepy scowl. Serena was sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping a glass of grapefruit juice and nibbling on a toasted bagel slathered in honey. Dressed in tailored black Dolce trousers, a crisp white shirt and ballet flats, it was a look that Cate had rarely seen on Serena. Any traces of the soft side of Serena that she had seen last night were gone; now she looked as if she meant business. Serena fished around in her tan Birkin bag and pulled out a notebook in which she scribbled a series of numbers.

‘This is where I’ll be over the next few days,’ she said officiously. ‘The studio have got me booked in at the Du Cap but I’ll probably be at Michael’s villa. You can try both.’

She glanced at her watch and discarded the bagel. ‘Now my car ought to be here any moment,’ she said, wandering over to the window and peeking through the blinds. ‘Not sure where Farnborough Airfield is, but my friend Elmore said he’d give me a lift to Nice in his jet if I get to him by nine o’clock. He has a house out there.’

Cate poured herself a coffee from the cafetiere and rubbed her sleepy eyes.

‘I thought you weren’t due in Cannes until Wednesday?’

‘Silly,’ sighed Serena. ‘In case you’ve forgotten last night’s revelations, I have a few things to sort out. No point hanging around in London shopping.’

‘But what about your meetings …?’

‘Everything else can wait,’ she snapped with a brusque, ‘let’s-get-on-with-it’ efficiency that Cate didn’t recognize. ‘I’ll let you know how it goes.’

‘But Serena …’

‘Ah, the car’s here,’ she chirped, already at the door. ‘Now let’s go and sort out my life.’

Elmore Bryant, ageing rock star, screaming queen, and Serena’s New Best Friend after relations with Roman LeFey had soured, was humorous, distracting company for the eighty-minute journey to Nice. His in-flight menu was luxurious, but a hazard for a pregnant woman, thought Serena, declining the shrimp puffs and steady flow of Cosmopolitans from the beautiful, chiselled male steward. Besides, with the ripples of nausea she was feeling, particularly once they were airborne, the last thing she felt like was snacking.

Generous to a fault, Elmore had arranged for a white Bentley to pick her up from the runway and take her to wherever she wanted to go on the Côte d’Azur. Flipping down his diamond-encrusted sunglasses when they reached the terminal, Elmore gave her a penetrating look as he said his goodbyes.

‘Short but sweet, my love, but always a pleasure to see you. Now remember,’ he added ominously, ‘if anything happens and you need somewhere to stay while you’re out here … Someone to talk to?’

Serena wondered if telepathy was one of Elmore’s many talents. She kissed him on both cheeks and got in the car. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

The traffic was foul and they moved at a snail’s pace down the busy coastal road towards Cannes. Above her head, the helicopters doing the Nice – Cannes shuttle buzzed about like red wasps. She sank back in the cream leather seat and wondered how to break the news to Michael. There was no easy way to tell him; she just had to come straight out with it. To her surprise, she found her mind wandering to wedding dresses. Caroline Herrera could concoct something wonderful: elegant, timeless, beautiful. Then again, John Galliano had the magician’s touch. She wouldn’t have had the pink flourishes on the wedding gown he’d made for Gwen Stefani, but still, a wonderful Dior fantasy in tulle and duchess silk could be the dress of the decade …

Cannes was absolutely heaving, observed Serena, pressing her nose against the smoked glass of the window. Crash barriers lined the Croisette, nosy tourists poked their cameras at every crowd of people, and the entrances to all the major hotels – the Carlton, Majestic, Martinez – were guarded by burly security guards, their sole task to prevent the riffraff from infiltrating their glamorous lobbies. Thank God she was staying somewhere more civilized, thought Serena, giving her driver the directions to Michael’s villa.

The harbour, by Cannes Old Town, was also busier than she had ever seen it, packed with luxurious yachts, row after row of cream and walnut hulls glinting in the strong sun. Driving past, she wondered whether Michael would be on board his hundred-foot cruiser, Pandora. She checked the time: 11.45. No, too early. He usually made it on board around one-ish, to take lunch, have the odd business meeting and watch the Croisette circus from the safety of the sea. So the car wound up the steep hills that backed Cannes town, the streets getting quieter and quieter as they went.

For once the villa they were approaching wasn’t actually Michael’s: he was merely renting it for the season. The Sarkis real-estate empire hadn’t yet got as far as the Côte d’Azur, although that was one of the reasons he was having an extended stay in the area. Yes, Michael loved the glitz, glamour and parties of both the film festival and the grand prix meeting, due to take place the following weekend in Monaco, but Michael was really here on business. To make money. He had heard that a vast belle-époque villa belonging to some grand old dame was up for sale after her recent – and, it was whispered, suspicious – death, and Michael wanted it. He wanted a Côte d’Azur Sarkis hotel to rival the south of France legends the Du Cap and the Grand Cap Ferrat. And by the end of that fortnight, he had boasted to Serena, it was going to be his.

Big wrought-iron gates and a three-metre wall covered in climbing bougainvillea surrounded Michael’s temporary home. Serena had been given the security code, a gesture that Serena had been touched by, and she punched the number into the panel on the gate. Wanting to make an entrance, she waved off the Bentley and walked through the gates, past the line of palm trees and towards the house, admiring its huge sloping terracotta roof, pink Mediterranean brickwork and balconies filled with tubs of pretty flowers. She felt a small flurry of excitement. The front door was ajar. An old man with a weather-beaten face and messy grey hair was silently sweeping the entrance hall, brushing the dust out into the warm air. He glanced casually at Serena and carried on with his chores as if in a trance. Her heels tapped against the marble as she strode in, dropping her case on the floor with a thud. The whole house had the quiet, abandoned air of the morning after.

‘Michael! I’m here!’ she shouted up the stairs, unbuttoning her shirt and kicking off her shoes. Nothing. Just the hum of a Hoover somewhere at the back of the house. A maid popped her head over the banister and simply nodded, as if she was used to strange women wandering around Michael’s villa. ‘I – am – looking – for …’ spelt out Serena in slow, deliberate English, but the woman was gone.

Serena slowly climbed the stairs, craning her neck for any hint of life. She breathed in deeply and, despite the balmy, summer air, she was sure she could smell the pungent whiff of smoke and stale alcohol. Intuitively she felt something was wrong. She padded down one long corridor towards the back of the house and, hearing muffled noise coming from behind a large oak door, pushed it gently, craning her neck to see into the dark room.

It was a huge bedroom. Despite being midday, the long shutters were still closed, a narrow crack of sunlight cutting down the centre of the floor, but there was enough light to make Serena catch her breath. In front of her was a huge round bed with three bodies writhing around on the crumpled silk sheets.

Michael’s body was naked except for a thin sheen of sweat. His lips were clamped around the right nipple of a slim redhead, whose firm breasts were pushed into his face. Astride him, a curvy blonde bent over his cock, her mouth going down hungrily over his wide shaft while Michael’s fingers played with her clitoris. It was a tangle of limbs, a mass of tanned flesh, the moans were feverish and passionate – but Serena’s gasp was still audible. Suddenly the blonde sat up, her head spinning round with a swoosh of hair. Michael looked up and his mouth dropped open. There was a moment when his eyes locked with Serena’s across the walnut floor, before he began to smirk, instantly composed again.

She felt a thud of sickness, her brain light-headed. ‘You disgusting, you cheating …’ Serena’s voice was thick with rage as she took slow steps towards the bed.

Michael lay back on the stack of pillows, one leg flung over the chocolate silk sheets, his hairy brown hand still lazily stroking up and down the leg of the blonde. His face was now a mask of sheer arrogance.

‘Serena. Perfect timing. Why don’t you come and join us?’ he grinned.

The redhead, buck-naked except for a nipple ring, smiled seductively, stroking her own breasts as she beckoned Serena over. ‘Three’s company.’

‘And four’s an orgy,’ hissed Serena, her lips curling into a snarl. ‘Now, if you filthy sluts will get the hell out of my boyfriend’s bed …’

Michael was still casually reclined, as if this scene was routine to him.

‘Come on, darling. It’s Cannes. Party time.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘Well, why don’t you all carry on having a wonderful time then?’

She turned to the door, shooting Michael with a pitiful gaze as she went. He began to get off the bed, walking towards her with his still hard cock leading the way like a knight’s lance.

‘Serena, please. It’s just a bit of fun,’ he said, his hand stretching out in a placatory gesture.

She turned and pointed a finger at him viciously. ‘Save it for your whores!’ she spat.

And she slammed the door shut.

26 (#ulink_c61813ce-522c-500d-8722-fd4f6c1dfbcb)

‘Look at it this way,’ said Elmore Bryant, hoisting up his bottle-green Vilebrequin floral shorts and lowering himself into his pool. ‘It was only a threesome. Some of these really rich business types are into all sorts of kinky shit so it could have been worse. A lot worse.’

‘Elmore, you’re not helping,’ replied Serena, helping herself from the fruit bowl on the terrace of her friend’s Cap Ferrat mansion.

‘Of course, billionaires can’t keep their dicks in their pants, full stop,’ continued her friend, waving a bejewelled hand around in the air. ‘It surprises me, naturally; I’m sure they all have tiny ones. What do you think drives them to make so much money in the first place? Was it small?’ asked Elmore, starting to splash in the water. ‘Are we talking chipolata or acorn?’

Serena dug her French manicured nails into the peach she was holding, imagining for just one moment that it was Michael’s testicles as her nails pierced the flesh.

‘If you don’t mind, I would rather not talk about the size of Michael’s penis,’ said Serena indignantly.

‘As you wish,’ smiled Elmore playfully, beckoning over to the pool-boy. ‘Earl Grey?’

Serena stretched herself out on the sun-lounger facing south on the terrace of Elmore’s mansion. The house overlooked the bay of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and had one of the best views in the south of France.

‘I’d kill for something stronger,’ she sighed, adjusting the straps of her tiny turquoise bikini.

‘Well, not in your condition, young lady,’ said Elmore, nodding his head sagely so that the diamanté around his sunglasses winked in the late-afternoon sun.

Elmore, of course, knew everything. He knew that Serena had found Michael Sarkis having a threesome with two silicone-enhanced hookers. He knew that Serena had stormed out of Sarkis’s Cannes villa and that, as she’d left, she’d pushed a heavy terracotta plant pot from the balcony, smashing through the windscreen of her now ex-boyfriend’s flame-red Ferrari. He also knew that Serena was carrying Sarkis’s child.

She’d had no choice but to tell him. Turning up at Elmore’s villa only hours after she’d left him in such a buoyant mood at Cannes airport, Elmore had naturally insisted on knowing the source of her sudden hysteria. At first Serena hadn’t wanted to tell him anything, but she was feeling vulnerable, alone and emotional. As she had left Michael’s villa she had felt an overwhelming feeling of something she hadn’t felt in a long time: loneliness. She was a beautiful, famous woman, desired the world over, and she had literally nowhere to go.

She had immediately phoned her PA, Janey Norris, demanding she get her on a flight home as soon as possible. But it was the middle of the Cannes Film Festival, and not even Janey’s fearsome efficiency could get Serena out of there before nine that evening. She was also not going to use her reservation at the Du Cap – the place would be like a fishbowl – so Serena had called her nearest lifeline, the driver of Elmore Bryant’s Bentley. He had still been crawling through the traffic on La Croisette and rushed back to take her to the sanctuary of Elmore’s villa. In tears, she had been seated by Elmore under an elaborate pagoda overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and the words and secrets had spilled out.

Elmore was obviously delighted with the drama of it all but, while he was an inveterate gossip, he also had a heart as big as the moon. He had assured her she could stay with him as long as she wanted, shooing her to a guest suite overlooking the dazzling sweep of Cap Ferrat. The villa was a fabulous place in which to curl up and retreat from the world; somehow creeping between the crisp Irish linens on the huge Louis XV bed in the guestroom, her brain comfortably numb, Serena had felt just a little better. But now, almost twenty-four hours later, her shock and hysteria – and, if she was brutally honest with herself, hurt and betrayal – had now evolved into something more potent: rage. Just as she thought that things couldn’t get any worse, her publicist in New York, Muffy Beagle, called Serena to say that the Sun and Mirror tabloids were both planning to run stories about her the next morning. The Sun was going with an interview with the two French hookers who had mysteriously managed to employ the services of Charlie Nolan, the ruthless kiss-and-tell PR who had been brokering lurid tabloid tales of this kind for the last twenty years. And the Mirror had managed to find out about something even more damaging. Her pregnancy.