then?’
While Gemma headed for the bathroom, Max sat down at the small table and gazed across the harbour. A wooden water taxi struggled from one side to the other, dwarfed by the super yachts.
Gemma barely bothered to do up her dressing gown as she ambled towards him. Max thought about grabbing her and taking her back to bed, but his boiled eggs were getting cold. And they’d cut his toast soldiers half an inch wide, exactly as he liked them.
As she sat down, Gemma looked out of the window. Two women were power-walking down the Parcours Princesse Grace – followed discreetly by a bored minder. She wondered when they’d last had sex with their husbands.
Max leant over and kissed her. Then he set about his eggs.
‘Why did they do that?’ Max wondered aloud as he returned his attention to the window. ‘Why did they cover this place in higher and higher concrete boxes? Jesus, you’d be pissed off if they’d trashed your view with that monstrosity, wouldn’t you?’ he asked, pointing at a recent erection that had blocked the sea view – any view, in fact – from the equally offensive apartment blocks behind it.
‘Greed,’ suggested Gemma.
‘No one lives in them anyway,’ Max said as he decapitated one of his eggs. ‘They’re tax bolt-holes. As long as you get your cleaner to run the taps every day and turn on the lights, they can’t prove you’re not living here.’
‘Fine, I suppose, as long as you don’t have to live in this ghastly place.’
‘It’s not that bad. And of course you have to pay someone to drive your car around too. But it’s cheap living here, compared to paying tax anywhere else.’
‘Could you live here?’
‘Well, if you came to visit me every weekend, I might think about it.’
‘Really? Where would you put your other girlfriends at the weekend then?’
‘I’d send them back to Saint-Tropez, of course,’ Max replied without missing a beat.
He looked around the room. Everything was so perfect. The orchids proudly erect in their pot, the imposing gilded mirror frame that perfectly matched the candle holders and standard lamps. Even the rails holding the thick, white curtains were coordinated. And yet everything wasn’t perfect. It never was in Gemma’s life.
‘I get frightened sometimes, staying in places like this,’ she said pensively. ‘It reminds me, in a weird way, of what it’s like to have nothing. Look at those little pots of jam. We’re just going to send them back, even though we’ve paid for them. I didn’t have any fucking jam when I was a kid.’
Max stood up, put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She was haunted. He wished he could do something about that. But she’d chosen someone else.
As they stepped into the lift, Max pressed the first-floor button for the spa and the ground floor for himself. He held the leather document holder loosely in one hand, deliberately keeping his eyes off it.
‘Aren’t you a bit overdressed for a massage?’ he asked flippantly.
‘Very funny. Actually, I’ve ordered a male masseuse who’s going to strip me naked, cover me in chocolate and lick it off. It’s a hotel speciality. Then I’m going shopping. What time will you be back?’
‘Oh, I’d say about three o’clock. Then we can explore together.’
As the lift ground to a halt, Max kissed Gemma’s neck under her long auburn hair.
‘Stop it,’ she said, taking a step away, but giving in to a wide smile. ‘Or I’ll drag you back upstairs. And then you’ll be late for your mysterious meeting. Go on, tell me. What’s in your holder?’
‘You know I can’t. Or I’d have to kill you with my bare hands.’ With that he gave her neck a small bite.
‘Call me to say where you want to meet.’
She waved as she exited down the corridor.
Max watched Gemma walk away. He wondered whether she swung her arse in that rolling manner for him. She still took his breath away. Her long flowing hair falling down her back, her dress clinging to her body just enough to be tantalizingly sexy, and best of all those exquisite calf muscles.
She was such a confused soul. Spoilt and self-centred on the one hand, and yet generous and insecure on the other.
He wondered why she half turned and took her sunglasses off in that mock-coquettish manner. Maybe she wanted to be sure that he was still watching her.
Max marvelled at the main reception of the Hôtel de Paris as he walked across the multicoloured marble floor. It was twelve o’clock in London, according to one of the clocks above the concierge’s desk.
They built things beautifully in the eighteen hundreds. The high ceiling, the aged mirrors lining the walls and the glass atrium that flooded the whole area with natural light.
He looked at the old ladies sitting on the delicate Louis XV chairs and wondered what they did all day. They made him think about his mother. Was she sitting around in some hotel in Spain? Maybe she’d moved on? After all, she wouldn’t have bothered to let him know. As usual, he cast her from his thoughts as quickly as she’d invaded them.
Max stopped in front of the wooden revolving door to let a woman in an apron come past. She was carrying a huge bunch of red and yellow roses, all perfectly coming into flower. Some guy must have been caught swimming outside the ropes, he thought to himself.
As he waited, he admired the magnificent bronze of Louis XIV on horseback, waving his sword around with an air of imperious egotism. The French had probably been all right, Max mused, until they had a revolution and became ridiculous socialists. Since then, they’d been nothing but trouble.
Max nodded to the doorman, bid him ‘bonjour’ and stepped into the revolving door. It was a beautiful February day in the Casino Square, but the fresh, cold air made him reach for his coat buttons. He was a bit early and he knew he only had a couple of hundred metres to walk.
He had time to nip into the casino. Just to have a look around. No harm in that, although he knew he’d win if he had a crack. No one would know. It could pay for dinner. But a sign at the foot of the steps said: Ouvert tous les jours à partir de 14 h. Maybe that was a good thing.
Max’s mind flashed back to his last ‘gambling’ dressing-down on the Embankment in London from his then immediate superior Colin Corbett.
Max had been leaning on the black railings watching the seagulls, opposite Vauxhall Cross.
‘Do you have any idea why we’re having this conversation here, and not in that building?’ Corbett had asked, pointing across the river.
Max felt like saying, ‘The weather?’ but thought better of it.
‘Well, I’ll tell you why. We’re here because I have to decide whether we let you go, or stay with you. And I’ll be honest with you. Your file doesn’t make particularly good reading. So I didn’t want this conversation on the record. For your sake, Ward.’
Corbett was referring to the incident in Saudi Arabia that had led to Max being sent back to London in disgrace.
‘My file?’
‘Your file. History’s repeating itself, isn’t it?’
‘No. What are you talking about?’
A squat Filipino woman walking a Yorkshire terrier had shuffled slowly past them. Corbett had instinctively shut up until she was out of earshot.
‘Thrown out of Eton for gambling. Thrown out of Saudi for gambling. Any pattern revealing itself there?’
‘I was trying to make some contacts.’
‘We’re not idiots,