Anna-Lou Weatherley - Wicked Wives

Lindsay raised a sardonic eyebrow.

‘… More’s the pity really.’

‘So, does the paper drop a hint on who the culprit is?’ Ellie asked. Miranda’s story had been the source of much dinner-party debate during the past six months. Even Vinnie had shown an interest in it.

Lindsay thumbed her copy of the Daily Mail , ‘not exactly, though interestingly, there is a story right next to it about Doctor Ramone Hassan, you know, the celebrity surgeon who’s always on those before-and-after TV shows? It says here that he’s due to fly back to LA from his holiday in Santorini in a few days’ time, just as the trial begins …’ She widened her eyes, continuing to read aloud. ‘“Dr Ramone ‘Ramsey’ Hassan, one of the most successful and celebrated – not to mention richest – plastic surgeons on the planet, a man who has helped countless Hollywood actresses turn back the clock, seen here with his new wife, Lorena, looks relaxed as he holidays on the picturesque Greek Island of Santorini.”’

Ellie looked up from her plate.

‘Let me see that,’ she said, taking the paper from her PA’s grasp. She looked down at the grainy paparazzi shot of an older-looking, dark-skinned man standing on a boat, his unsightly paunch visible over the top of his tight Speedo briefs, but it was the woman next to him that caused her to drop her fork in alarm and her heartbeat to gallop like a racehorse inside her chest. Draped over a sun lounger with a champagne flute in one hand and a thin, white cigarette in the other, was a Dolce & Gabbana bikini-clad woman with pneumatic breasts that were struggling to free themselves from the miniscule triangles of fabric that strained to conceal them. Wearing a matching turban and blowing cigarette smoke from her enormous, plumped-up lips, it was unmistakably her . Loretta Fiorentino, or Hassan as she now was. The press might’ve misspelt her name, but it was her alright. Ellie would never forget those eyes; as dark and soulless as a shark about to attack.

‘Well, well, well. Loretta ,’ she murmured underneath her breath, transfixed by the surgically enhanced face of a woman she hadn’t seen in over two decades – and was all the better for it.

‘Ellie … Ell-liiee ,’ Lindsay’s voice cut through the fog of her thoughts with all the subtlety of a meat cleaver.

Ellie suddenly stood.

‘Actually, I’ve got to run, Linds,’ she said, snatching up her iPhone from the table. ‘I’ve got this appointment … and I promised Tess I’d see her before she flies off to Ibiza.’

‘OK, but before you go …’ Lindsay held up the mock invitations, head cocked to one side in apology. ‘What do you reckon; the red or the black?’

‘Black,’ Ellie said as she leaned in to kiss Lindsay on both cheeks, throwing her Chanel Caviar bag over her shoulder in a deft swoop. ‘Let’s play it safe.’

Ellie pasted on a smile as she left the café. The press clipping had thrown her. Loretta Fiorentino was someone she had hoped never to have to think about ever again. She was part of a past that Ellie had long ago buried and had no plans to resurrect; at least not in this lifetime. The news story had said that ‘Lorena’ and her husband were at the end of an extended honeymoon and were imminently due to head back to LA, potentially making a brief stop off in London first, ‘if the mood takes us.’ Ellie hoped it wouldn’t. In fact, she hoped they’d get on a one-way plane back to LA as soon as possible and stay there permanently, because if Eleanor Scott knew one thing, it was that wherever Loretta Fiorentino was, trouble was never far behind.

‘ Cazzo imbecilli !’ Loretta Hassan jabbed at the picture of herself in the paper with a long pointed red fingernail. ‘The press, they are fucking idiots!’ she screeched, incredulous, her Italian accent thick with protest. ‘I mean, for the love of God they are journalists! Journalists ! And they cannot even spell my name correctly!’ She slammed the offending paper down onto the silk Versace sheets, causing Bambino, her white teacup Chihuahua, to yelp in alarm. ‘The British press,’ she hissed, ‘they are the worst in the world – Lo-rena ,’ she elongated the name contemptuously from her collagen-filled lips, as though it were poisonous. ‘Who the fuck is Lo-rena ?’

‘My darling,’ Ramone ‘Ramsey’ Hassan, Loretta’s husband of two months, rolled off his wife’s naked body with a sigh. ‘You must not upset yourself,’ he said softly, patting her hand like a child. ‘You have not long recovered from your operation. It is not good to put your body through so much stress, not at your ag –’ Loretta shot him a fierce glare and he wisely refrained from finishing the sentence.

‘Do you not realise what this means, you stupid man?’ she snapped, snatching the offending newspaper up again and waving it in front of her husband’s weary face.

‘You see how they have positioned us next to the Muldavey story? This is not an accident, no?’ her eyes narrowed into menacing slits. ‘You must get onto the lawyers as soon as possible! We’ll sue their sorry asses to kingdom come!’

Furious, Loretta threw back the fine silk sheets. Swinging her short but slim coffee-coloured legs over the edge, she began to pace the room.

Ramsey, smarting a little from the ‘stupid man’ comment, watched her stalk the length of the palatial master suite, her delicate feet leaving imprints in the cream Persian rug.

‘Come back to bed, Loretta, darling,’ Ramsay sighed. He had neither the emotional strength nor the energy to calm her down today, especially after the aggressive sex session they’d just had. He was exhausted.

Though he was at great pains to disguise it from his new wife, Ramsey was feeling the pressure of his impeding trial. The super-injunction he’d managed to take out against the actress speaking out had afforded him a modicum of protection, for now at least, but such tremendous stress was beginning to take its toll on his health. In recent weeks his headaches had reached the point of being unbearable and the heart palpitations he was increasingly experiencing were giving him great cause for concern. He had never felt worse.

Ignoring him, an incensed Loretta, newspaper in hand, flounced out onto the enormous patio. The view was without doubt as arresting as any she’d seen before and for a moment it was all she could focus on.

Villa Adonia was situated on a sequestered and tranquil section of the western tip of the picturesque Greek island of Santorini. Perched on a cliff top with a horseshoe-shaped beach below, private and completely secluded, it enjoyed exceptional 360-degree views of the crystal clear Aegean sea and was by far the most exquisite hideaway on the entire island.

‘ Merda, fa caldo ! It’s hot!’ Loretta purred, allowing her Missoni kaftan to slide from her shoulders to the floor, exposing her naked, olive-skinned flesh. It had to be tipping one hundred degrees at least.

Loretta had turned heads from an early age. She possessed a magnetic beauty; all large brown eyes encased in dark lashes, luscious thick lips that seemed to part naturally in an overtly sexual pout, and an abundance of thick, jet black hair that tumbled down her back in corkscrew curls. But it was Loretta’s body that was her greatest asset. When, at the age of fourteen, it met with puberty, she became the talk of Naples.

The young Loretta spent her days behind the meat counter of her father’s store, dreaming of escaping the slums of Naples to Hollywood, where she would become a star of the silver screen, just like her idols, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, and Greta Garbo. After her father was tragically shot dead in a bungled robbery and her mother followed him to the grave less than two years later, there was nothing left to prevent her from pursuing her dreams. Loretta had quickly decided that the fastest, most effective way of getting to the top in Hollywood was to screw her way there, and as a result, it was not long before she got a break starring in a string of low-grade adult movies, ultimately going on to marry the director – a man she neither loved nor particularly liked – at just eighteen years old. Naïvely, Loretta saw her foray into the soft porn industry – and her marriage – as a stepping stone to achieving her lofty ambitions. But the union was a disaster, and just eighteen months later she was left penniless and pregnant. Disillusioned but still determined, Loretta had made the decision to abort her unborn child and vowed never again to fall foul of a man. The next time she married – and she had no doubt there would be a next time – she would make sure it was for the right reasons: money; bags of it.