Lauren Weisberger - Last Night at Chateau Marmont

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2010

Copyright © Lauren Weisberger 2010

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

Lauren Weisberger asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007311002

Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007365937

Version: 2016-04-27

For Dana, my sister and best friend forever

Contents

Cover

Title Page Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger

Copyright Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Copyright © Lauren Weisberger 2010 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013 Lauren Weisberger asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007311002 Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007365937 Version: 2016-04-27

Dedication For Dana, my sister and best friend forever

1. piano man

2. suffer one, suffer all

3. makes john mayer look like amateur hour

4. a toast to hot redheads

5. they’ll swoon for you

6. he could have been a doctah

7. betrayed by a bunch of tweens

8. my weak heart can’t handle another threesome

9. a bun in the oven and a drink in hand

10. boy-next-door dimples

11. knee-deep in tequila and eighteen-year-old girls

12. better or worse than the sienna pictures

13. gods and nurses don’t mix

14. the removal of clothes

15. not a shower sobber

16. boyfriend with a villa and a son

17. good old ed had a thing for prostitutes

18. we hit crazy at check-in

19. pity dance

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Lauren Weisberger

About the Publisher

When the subway finally screeched into the Franklin Street station, Brooke was nearly sick with anxiety. She checked her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes and tried to remind herself that it wasn’t the end of the world; her best friend, Nola, would forgive her, had to forgive her, even if she was inexcusably late. She pushed her way through the rush-hour throngs of commuters toward the door, instinctively holding her breath in the midst of so many bodies, and allowed herself to be pulled toward the stairwell. On autopilot now, Brooke and her fellow riders each pulled their cell phones from their purses and jacket pockets, filed silently into a straight line and, zombielike, marched like choreographed soldiers up the right side of the cement stairs while staring blankly at the tiny screensxs in their palms.

‘Shit!’ she heard an overweight woman up ahead call out, and in just a moment she knew why. The rain hit her forcefully and without warning the instant she emerged from the stairwell. What had been a chilly but decent enough March evening only twenty minutes earlier had deteriorated into a freezing, thundering misery, where the winds whipped the rain down with driving force and made it utterly impossible to stay dry.

‘Dammit!’ she added to the cacophony of expletives people were shouting all around her as they struggled to pull umbrellas from their briefcases or arrange newspapers over their heads. Since she’d run home to change after work, Brooke had nothing but a tiny (and admittedly cute) silver clutch to shield herself from the onslaught. Good-bye, hair, she thought as she began to sprint the three blocks to the restaurant. I’ll miss you, eye makeup . Nice knowing you, gorgeous new tall suede boots that ate up half my weekly salary .

Brooke was drenched by the time she reached Sotto, the tiny, unpretentious neighborhood joint where she and Nola met two or three times a month. The pasta wasn’t the best in the city – probably not even the best on the block – and the space wasn’t anything all that special, but Sotto had other charms, more important ones: reasonably priced wine by the full carafe, a killer tiramisu, and a downright hot Italian maître d’ who, simply because they’d been coming for so long, always saved Brooke and Nola the most private table in the back.

‘Hey, Luca.’ Brooke greeted the owner as she shrugged off her wool peacoat, trying not to shake water everywhere. ‘Is she here yet?’

Luca immediately put his hand over the phone receiver and pointed with a pencil over his shoulder. ‘The usual. What’s the occasion for the sexy dress, cara mia ? You want to dry off first?’

She smoothed her fitted, short-sleeved black jersey dress with both palms and prayed that Luca was right, that the dress was sexy and she looked okay. She’d come to think of that dress as her Gig Uniform; paired with either heels, sandals, or boots, depending on the weather, she wore it to nearly every one of Julian’s performances.

‘I’m so late already. Is she all whiny and mad?’ Brooke asked, scrunching handfuls of her hair in a desperate attempt to save it from the imminent frizz attack.

‘She’s a half carafe in and hasn’t put the mobile down yet. You better get back there.’

They exchanged a triple cheek-kiss – Brooke had protested the full three kisses in the beginning but Luca insisted – before Brooke took a deep breath and walked back to their table. Nola was tucked neatly into the banquette, her suit jacket flung across the back bench and her navy cashmere shell showing off tightly toned arms and contrasting nicely with her amazing olive skin. Her shoulder-length layered cut was stylish and sexy, her blonde highlights glowed under the restaurant’s soft lights, and her makeup looked dewy and fresh. No one would ever know from looking at her that Nola had just clocked in twelve hours on a trading desk screaming into a headset.