On the other side of the villa, Alex Jalid knew that the party was just getting started. Most of the people from the Le Soleil delegation had already gone back to the yacht, so now it was really time to have some fun. He had been eyed up all evening by an outrageously good-looking brunette who was now naked except for a slim-fitting pair of white trousers. When their eyes locked again, Alex realized it was a call to action. His senses blurred by alcohol, he knew there was no turning back as the stranger began to walk towards him smiling. It was now dark, and the mood of the party had changed; it was now prickling with sex and promise. The handsome stranger took hold of Alex’s hand and whispered into his ear. There was a discreet little club in a backstreet not too far away where they could really enjoy themselves. They took separate golf carts into town; you couldn’t be too careful and he was right. When they stumbled out of the club two hours later, his arms draped around his companion, he was too drunk to be cautious, too high to hear the gentle whir of a camera shutter. He was too driven by lust to notice anything else as he spent a sexually-charged ten minutes in a doorway saying a passionate goodnight to his new friend.
‘Good morning, Alex,’ said C
assandra, taking a small sip of freshly-pressed raspberry juice. ‘And where is the lovely Tania today?’
Alex slid into the booth opposite her and took a croissant off a bone-china plate. It was indeed a beautiful morning and the sun was already beating down on the deck canopy under which they were being served breakfast.
‘Still in bed, where I’ll be in about five minutes, but I’m starving so I had to surface for some food. I waited five minutes for room service and nothing happened. I wouldn’t get that back home.’
‘Well, it’s fortuitous that you’re here because I want to talk to you.’
‘Really?’ said Alex in a bored voice, pushing a pair of sunglasses down over his bleary eyes.
Cassandra took a moment to look at him. Alex was such a good-looking boy. Dark brown hair, strong elegant features and liquid chocolate eyes. His bare chest was tanned and toned, his six-pack rippling over the top of his surfer shorts.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ said Cassandra, briskly dabbing her mouth with a napkin.
‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he said petulantly, tearing his croissant in half.
‘Alex, I think you’ll find this is important,’ she replied, meeting his gaze.
Sighing, he pulled himself up and followed Cassandra down to her stateroom and flopped into a leather club chair in the corner.
‘So what is it?’ he asked impatiently.
‘As you might guess, as an editor-in-chief of a major magazine, I never switch off. My mobile is on 24/7. I check my emails every day even on holiday.’
Alex looked at her as if she were a halfwit.
‘And?’
What a pompous little prick, thought Cassandra.
‘And this morning a set of images was sent to me by my friend Gary. He owns a photographic agency which deals largely in red-carpet events, but occasionally freelance snappers approach Gary with more scurrilous stuff.’
‘If there’s a point, I hope we’re coming to it soon,’ said Alex, rolling his eyes.
‘It seems this trip has been targeted by various paparazzi,’ said Cassandra boldly. She took a brown A4 envelope from the dressing table and handed it to Alex. ‘There’s a few long-lens bits and pieces of Clover sunbathing on deck. Some of Serena and Tom when we went to Santorini and of me getting off Le Soleil last night. It’s all pretty harmless stuff except the pictures in that envelope.’
Alex opened the envelope, tipping the contents on his lap. There were a dozen 10 × 12 inch snaps that had been printed off in Le Soleil’s communications room, and as Alex shuffled through them, his face crumpled in shock and horror.
‘At first I wasn’t sure it was you,’ said Cassandra. ‘The quality could be better after all, but I think when you look at them from a certain angle it’s quite clear, don’t you? Not to mention the fact that that jacket you’re wearing – that you were wearing – is quite distinctive. Gary wanted me to tell him who the person in the photographs is. I suspect he already knows and simply wants me to confirm.’
Cassandra had the curious sensation of being able to read someone else’s thoughts simply from watching his face. First Alex had that look of someone being caught out, swiftly followed by a glistening sweat trickling down his brow. She could see every emotion, shame, fear and panic written across every inch of his handsome face.
She took the prints from him and looked at them as if she was considering them for the first time. In the first shot she could see Michaelis, the Greek rent boy she had hired to do the job, threading his arms around Alex’s waist as they came out of a discreet Mykonos Town gay bar. The next two pictures showed them kissing. In the fourth photograph Michaelis was on his knees in front of Alex. The grainy image was poor quality but the photograph could not disguise Alex’s face twisted with delight.
‘I don’t know who this is,’ said Alex finally putting the pictures calmly back in the envelope. Ah, now the denial phase, thought Cassandra and had to stop herself from grinning with glee. The photographer had produced better pictures than she could have hoped considering they were taken from a distance and as for Michaelis, he had worked wonders getting Alex so out of it that he’d made an intimate moment in a semi-public place possible. It had helped immeasurably that Tania had been taken out of the picture by the sheer fluke of Clover and Ste’s timely collapse.
‘Come now,’ said Cassandra firmly, ‘to anybody who knows you, who knew what you were wearing that night, it’s obvious it’s you.’
Alex sat silently on the chair, his face white.
Cassandra knew Michaelis wasn’t Alex’s first gay lover. Nick Bowen had uncovered a more long-standing relationship with a New York model-bartender called Bradley Mathis. Bradley and Alex had been together for six months before Alex had called it off at the beginning of summer, fearing his tony college friends might have got wind of it. Nick had shown him a photograph of Bradley; tall, dark and handsome. At least Cassandra had known his type.
‘What do you want me to tell Gary? You can see what sort of position this puts me in.’
‘It’s not me!’ said Alex, his voice raised.