h his weight, guiding her hand to his cock, tugging roughly at Molly’s panties.
‘Please, Gunter. I don’t want to. I’m with someone now and I have to get back to the yacht.’
Gunter was smiling malevolently now. He had pinned her to the seat and hissed in her ear, ‘Oh yes, you’re quick to take my hospitality, aren’t you, Molly? Quick to come and stay in my villas. Quick to get me to pay your bar bills, to accept the ride home in my car. But it’s not all “take, take, take” in this world, darling. Sometimes you have to give something back.’
He tore at her panties, and she heard them rip away. Molly knew it was no good trying to overpower him so she relaxed her body and forced a thin smile onto her lips.
‘Well, I don’t want to be seen as ungrateful,’ she whispered, twisting her hips towards him and spreading her thighs until she could see his eyes widen and glint with lust. Smiling like a little boy at Christmas, Gunter moved away from her to pull down his trousers properly. At that moment, Molly bent her legs and kicked against his chest as hard as she could.
‘You fucking bitch,’ snarled Gunter, slapping her hard across the face. Molly felt her head vibrate and her skin sting, but the anger numbed her pain. This bastard was getting between her and her prize. A desperate rage possessed her. She flung her body forward, and grabbed the handbrake of the car, clicking it off. The car jerked forward and began to roll.
‘You crazy whore!’ screamed Gunter, scrabbling desperately to untangle himself from his trousers and to find the brake before the car toppled off the cliff. Given a brief breathing space, Molly punched the car’s central locking button and yanked open the door. Gunter howled and grabbed at Molly’s legs, failing to prevent her escape, but flipping her out of the car, sending her spinning into the soil, dirt flying in her face. She rolled away from the door, one shoeless foot slipping on gravel, terrified that Gunter would follow her and continue his violence.
Her heart leapt again as she heard the car engine roar into life, and she flailed backwards, landing by the side of the road. She lay there, hoping she was hidden by the brush as the blinding headlights swung across her face. The car stopped and the window buzzed down. She looked up and could see the shadows of Gunter’s face in the light of the dashboard, his eyes angry, his lips in a snarl. ‘You pathetic fucking whore,’ he said, and flung her shoe out of the window. It landed just in front of Molly’s face, coughing up a little cloud of dirt.
Her heart was beating so fast that she had to shut her eyes and breathe deeply to calm herself down. As the rear lights of Gunter’s BMW faded into the night, Molly slowly, shakily pulled herself to her feet. Her throat was dry. She felt a tear sting at the back of her eye as she looked at her knees, grazed and bloody from being thrown on the ground. She bit her lip and shook away her emotion. At least he had paid for her bar bill, she thought defiantly. At least he had paid for the bar bill.
She was surrounded by complete darkness, but she could just make out the line of the road. The lights of Monte Carlo did not seem too far away. She took off her other shoe and started walking.
26
Overnight, Summer’s life had changed. The executive producer of ‘On Heat’ had been delighted with the segments Summer had shot in Monaco and now wanted her on board for every production meeting. Her arrival back from Monte Carlo also coincided with the appearance of the Karenza spring/summer advertising campaign. It was nothing short of sensational: Summer’s body, naked except for a tiny white thong, the sheen of Caribbean water on her skin sparkling like diamonds, her skin so tanned and polished it looked as if she’d been dipped in molten gold. Best of all, the ads were everywhere: Vogue, Harper’s, Elle, Marie Claire, even on selected crash-inducing billboards around London. AdWeek called it the sexiest campaign since Brooke Shields told the world what came between her and her Calvin’s, and the Advertising Standards Authority denounced it for its ‘gratuitous sexual content’. That was enough to turn a great ad campaign into a public event. The Daily Mail ran an angry editorial about the damage Summer’s body was doing to impressionable young minds, while the Sun ran a centre-spread image with a ‘Who’s That Girl?’ headline. Summer had arrived and she was on a high. Even Sarah Simpson had taken the news of her replacement by Summer surprisingly well. She’d met an Italian at the casino and she was considering relocating to Milan to be with him.
Molly, of course, was delighted, and decided to take her daughter’s success into her own hands. She fired La Mode agency and put in a call to IMP, who had taken Summer onto their books, immediately being snowed under with offers. The fashion industry were like sheep; if there was a hot girl in a hot campaign, then everybody wanted to use her. Molly’s interest in Summer’s career wasn’t entirely altruistic, however. Two days after Summer appeared in the Sun centre spread, Molly’s agent Eric Snowdon gave her a call for the first time in years. ‘Remember what Twiggy did for Marks and Spencer?’ he said. Apparently Playboy were also interested. The fee was huge but Molly reluctantly told Eric to turn them down. She gave him some faux-modest flannel about being too long in the tooth, but the truth was Molly was embarking on another career now. True, there were some men who liked seeing their girlfriends in Playboy. But not many. Not Marcus, not Adam, and certainly not Alex Delemere.
Molly was already at Le Caprice, flicking through a copy of Tatler, when Summer arrived to a flurry of platitudes from the maître d’. She put down the magazine to embrace her daughter and kiss her fondly.
‘It’s so nice being able to do lunch,’ gushed Molly as they sat down. ‘And table seven,’ she whispered, referring to the restaurant’s most sought-after spot.
‘Shall we get a bottle of wine?’
‘Actually yes,’ smiled Summer, who usually stuck to water at lunchtime. ‘We have something to celebrate.’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Molly, already speed-reading the list of champagnes. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking and I’ve decided to become your manager.’
Summer felt a blur of conflicting emotions all at once: flattered and excited that her mother thought that much of her, but insulted and mildly panicked that Molly would now be controlling her life even more than before. Summer didn’t need a shrink to tell her that the thing she had really enjoyed about the Karenza campaign was that she had done it all herself without any interference from her mother.
‘But I already have an agent,’ said Summer quietly.
‘Different things, darling. IMP are fabulous and you need them for shoots, but they’ve got hundreds of other great girls on their books who are essentially in competition with you. I, on the other hand, will proactively steer your career in the direction I think you should take.’
‘Which is what?’ said Summer suspiciously.
‘Darling, you could be the new Heidi Klum.’ She stabbed her fork into her tomato galette.
‘Heidi’s the cleverest model out there. She knows she’s not the most cutting-edge girl on the circuit, but does she go crying into a copy of Spoon magazine? No. She’s designing for Birkenstock and jewellery houses, making millions with Victoria’s Secret. And she still makes the cover of American Elle. Modelling’s not everything, darling. It’s just the start.’
Summer took a breath. ‘Thanks for the offer, Molly. But don’t you think you’re too busy with the job at Midas?’
Ignoring her, Molly pressed on. ‘I don’t know why you are bothering with this presenting business. It’s not really the right image.’
‘Heidi Klum does TV.’
‘She also gets to be executive producer,’ said Molly sagely.
Summer felt herself bristle. Filming in Monaco had been the most fun she’d ever had working. Already she had been to a production meeting at Silverland Media and had spent an hour bouncing ideas around, brainstorming episodes and even coming up with ideas for other shows she could be involved in. She had loved it and she was not going to let Molly sabotage it.
‘Mother, I’m not going to—’