The violinist had begun to play, the dinner guests had returned, and Mariella had gone to her suite to get changed into her specially commissioned outfit.
A posse of older men and their too-young arm candy were arriving, the girls all wearing similar teeny-weenie, heavily embroidered clinging dresses and tottering on too-high heels. They were all obviously bleached blondes. Carly suppressed a small sigh.
More guests were arriving, and Carly recognised amongst them some very A-list celebrities—a famous actress, the daughter of a pop icon, a couple of ex-models—all of them accompanied by good-looking men.
But Ricardo hadn’t arrived as yet. Not that she was looking for him!
‘I’d better go in and be on hand, just in case Mariella wants me for anything,’ Sarah whispered to her.
Nodding her head, Carly continued to keep a discreet watch on the arrivals.
‘We’re going to run short of cocktails any minute,’ the maître d’ muttered warningly.
It took over an hour for all the guests to arrive, by which time Carly was downstairs in the main salon, keeping an eye on the proceedings there and trying to avoid getting too close to Mariella—just in case she should object to Carly wearing her discarded outfit!
Drugs were being passed round openly, and the sound of laughter was growing louder as they began to take effect.
Already some of the guests had started to behave recklessly. A well-known media mogul had grabbed a girl almost in front of Carly and now proceeded to caress her intimately whilst the girl herself encouraged him.
This was just not a lifestyle with which she felt comfortable, Carly reflected with revulsion. She couldn’t understand how anyone could find any pleasure in something that ultimately was so very destructive. Drugs were anathema to her. Her eyes shadowed as she remembered how she had seen the misery that they could cause.
She felt a tug on her arm and turned to see one of the older men leering at her. She’d realised from overhearing them talking earlier that they were Russian.
‘You come with me,’ he demanded drunkenly.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not a guest. I’m working,’ Carly told him politely, trying to disengage herself.
‘Good, then you work for me…in bed,’ he responded coarsely. ‘I pay you good, eh?’
Carly felt nauseated. Was that how all men saw women—as someone, something they could buy? A commodity they could use? Or did she attract that type because somehow instinctively they could sense what she had come from?
Trash! She winced as though she had been knifed, hearing again the contemptuous word that had been thrown at her so often during her childhood.
‘You are trash, do you know that? Garbage. In fact, that’s where they found you—lying in the rubbish, unwanted—and that’s where you should have stayed.’
Abruptly she realised that she could feel the man’s hot breath on her bare skin.
She turned to demand that he release her, and then tensed. Ricardo was standing on the other side of the salon, watching her.
He knew what she was, Ricardo reminded himself savagely, so why did the sight of Carly allowing another man to hold her arm so intimately fill him with jealousy instead of contempt? And why the hell was he now pushing his way through the crowd milling through the salon, in the wake of the D’Argents, in order to get to her? After all, he had already seen the proprietorial way her male companion had reached for her. And what was driving him through the crowd certainly wasn’t rooted in some kind of male solidarity, or an altruistic desire to warn her latest victim of just what she was, was it? He derided himself cynically. The truth was, he preferred not to analyse just what the sight of another man holding on to her was doing to him—or why.
Instead he channelled his anger into deciding that her escort’s taste in clothes—for obviously he must have bought her the abomination she was wearing—was about as good as Carly’s was in men. The pair of them deserved one another, and Carly deserved everything she would get from selling herself to a man who might just as well have had what he was tattooed across his forehead.
But Carly wasn’t here to have a relationship with another man, and he intended to remind her in no uncertain terms that he was supposed to be her prime concern. How dared she reject him and then let that overweight, sweaty nobody put his greasy hands all over her? Where was her pride? Her self-respect? Didn’t it ever occur to her that she was intelligent enough to earn her own living and support herself, instead of debasing herself by offering herself to any man who would give her the price of a few designer rags?
‘You! Here!’
Carly stared at the man who had spoken to her so arrogantly as he approached, and then realised that he was with the man who was holding her.
‘How much do you want?’
He was already opening his wallet and starting to remove money from it.
Another man had joined the other two, taller and leaner, and with an unmistakable air of authority about him. He spoke sharply to them, and to Carly’s relief she was immediately released.
‘I apologise for my countrymen—I hope you will not condemn all Russian men as unmannerly oafs because of them?’
He was charming, and very good-looking, Carly acknowledged.
‘Of course not,’ she assured him.
‘You are here alone?’
Someone pushed past and he reached out a protective arm to shield her. Unexpectedly Carly suddenly felt very femininely weak and vulnerable. She wasn’t used to men behaving protectively towards her.
‘I’m with the event planning organisation,’ she explained.
‘Ah, so you are responsible for this magnificent party we are enjoying?’
He was flattering as well as charming, Carly recognised.
‘In part,’ she agreed.
‘And you are staying here, on board the yacht?’
‘No, I’m—’ Carly broke off as she saw both Sarah and the maître d’ edging towards her. ‘Please excuse me,’ she apologised to him. ‘But I must get back to work.’
‘Mmm, I see Igor was chatting you up. Mariella won’t like that,’ Sarah warned Carly, when she joined her, having dealt with the maître d’. ‘She’s already got him marked down as husband number four. Mind you, she’ll have her work cut out, because she certainly isn’t the only woman who’s hoping for a legal right to his billions. God, I hate these dos,’ Sarah complained. ‘Sometimes I wonder why the hell I don’t just give in my notice and go home.’
‘Why don’t you?’ Carly asked her
‘Let’s just say there’s a man there who I can’t have,’ Sarah told her bleakly. ‘I need another drink. I’ll be back in a minute…’
Carly was standing with her back to him, watching Sarah hurry away from her, when Ricardo finally managed to reach her.
‘Lost your new admirer?’
Carly stiffened, and then turned round reluctantly to face him.
Before she could defend herself, he continued savagely, ‘What the hell possessed you to let him buy you that? You look like a tart,’ he told her mercilessly. ‘Or was that the idea? It certainly looked as though he was doing a brisk business in selling you on to his friends.’
Carly’s face burned. ‘You are despicable,’ she told him. ‘And for your information—’
‘Ricardo, darling—there you are!’
Although she was delighted to have Ricardo’s attention removed from her, Carly couldn’t help wishing that the woman claiming it was not Mariella—especially when she saw the way Mariella was staring at her outfit.
Fortunately, though, before she could say anything Sarah returned. Equally fortunately, she immediately realised what was happening and adroitly came to Carly’s rescue, exclaiming, ‘Mariella! Carly hasn’t been able to stop singing your praises for being so kind to her and saving her so much embarrassment. I told her that it is typical of you to be so generous, and that you’d understand immediately how she felt about having her suitcase stolen. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I
let her borrow those old things you told me to put to one side for the charity shop. Remember? You said they were too big for you…’
Was it the weight of false sentiment and sugar in Sarah’s paean of praise that miraculously squashed the hostility in Mariella’s gaze? Carly wondered cynically. Suddenly she became all gracious smiles.
‘Of course. I love helping other people—everyone knows that. Although I must say you are rather too big to fit into my things, my dear. Of course I am very slim,’ she added smugly, before ignoring Carly to turn to Ricardo and say prettily, ‘Ricardo, why don’t I introduce you to a few more people…?’
As Mariella drew Ricardo away Sarah exhaled and apologised to Carly.