window. Crash barriers lined the Croisette, nosy tourists poked their cameras at every crowd of people, and the entrances to all the major hotels – the Carlton, Majestic, Martinez – were guarded by burly security guards, their sole task to prevent the riffraff from infiltrating their glamorous lobbies. Thank God she was staying somewhere more civilized, thought Serena, giving her driver the directions to Michael’s villa.
The harbour, by Cannes Old Town, was also busier than she had ever seen it, packed with luxurious yachts, row after row of cream and walnut hulls glinting in the strong sun. Driving past, she wondered whether Michael would be on board his hundred-foot cruiser, Pandora. She checked the time: 11.45. No, too early. He usually made it on board around one-ish, to take lunch, have the odd business meeting and watch the Croisette circus from the safety of the sea. So the car wound up the steep hills that backed Cannes town, the streets getting quieter and quieter as they went.
For once the villa they were approaching wasn’t actually Michael’s: he was merely renting it for the season. The Sarkis real-estate empire hadn’t yet got as far as the Côte d’Azur, although that was one of the reasons he was having an extended stay in the area. Yes, Michael loved the glitz, glamour and parties of both the film festival and the grand prix meeting, due to take place the following weekend in Monaco, but Michael was really here on business. To make money. He had heard that a vast belle-époque villa belonging to some grand old dame was up for sale after her recent – and, it was whispered, suspicious – death, and Michael wanted it. He wanted a Côte d’Azur Sarkis hotel to rival the south of France legends the Du Cap and the Grand Cap Ferrat. And by the end of that fortnight, he had boasted to Serena, it was going to be his.
Big wrought-iron gates and a three-metre wall covered in climbing bougainvillea surrounded Michael’s temporary home. Serena had been given the security code, a gesture that Serena had been touched by, and she punched the number into the panel on the gate. Wanting to make an entrance, she waved off the Bentley and walked through the gates, past the line of palm trees and towards the house, admiring its huge sloping terracotta roof, pink Mediterranean brickwork and balconies filled with tubs of pretty flowers. She felt a small flurry of excitement. The front door was ajar. An old man with a weather-beaten face and messy grey hair was silently sweeping the entrance hall, brushing the dust out into the warm air. He glanced casually at Serena and carried on with his chores as if in a trance. Her heels tapped against the marble as she strode in, dropping her case on the floor with a thud. The whole house had the quiet, abandoned air of the morning after.
‘Michael! I’m here!’ she shouted up the stairs, unbuttoning her shirt and kicking off her shoes. Nothing. Just the hum of a Hoover somewhere at the back of the house. A maid popped her head over the banister and simply nodded, as if she was used to strange women wandering around Michael’s villa. ‘I – am – looking – for …’ spelt out Serena in slow, deliberate English, but the woman was gone.
Serena slowly climbed the stairs, craning her neck for any hint of life. She breathed in deeply and, despite the balmy, summer air, she was sure she could smell the pungent whiff of smoke and stale alcohol. Intuitively she felt something was wrong. She padded down one long corridor towards the back of the house and, hearing muffled noise coming from behind a large oak door, pushed it gently, craning her neck to see into the dark room.
It was a huge bedroom. Despite being midday, the long shutters were still closed, a narrow crack of sunlight cutting down the centre of the floor, but there was enough light to make Serena catch her breath. In front of her was a huge round bed with three bodies writhing around on the crumpled silk sheets.
Michael’s body was naked except for a thin sheen of sweat. His lips were clamped around the right nipple of a slim redhead, whose firm breasts were pushed into his face. Astride him, a curvy blonde bent over his cock, her mouth going down hungrily over his wide shaft while Michael’s fingers played with her clitoris. It was a tangle of limbs, a mass of tanned flesh, the moans were feverish and passionate – but Serena’s gasp was still audible. Suddenly the blonde sat up, her head spinning round with a swoosh of hair. Michael looked up and his mouth dropped open. There was a moment when his eyes locked with Serena’s across the walnut floor, before he began to smirk, instantly composed again.
She felt a thud of sickness, her brain light-headed. ‘You disgusting, you cheating …’ Serena’s voice was thick with rage as she took slow steps towards the bed.
Michael lay back on the stack of pillows, one leg flung over the chocolate silk sheets, his hairy brown hand still lazily stroking up and down the leg of the blonde. His face was now a mask of sheer arrogance.
‘Serena. Perfect timing. Why don’t you come and join us?’ he grinned.
The redhead, buck-naked except for a nipple ring, smiled seductively, stroking her own breasts as she beckoned Serena over. ‘Three’s company.’
‘And four’s an orgy,’ hissed Serena, her lips curling into a snarl. ‘Now, if you filthy sluts will get the hell out of my boyfriend’s bed …’
Michael was still casually reclined, as if this scene was routine to him.
‘Come on, darling. It’s Cannes. Party time.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘Well, why don’t you all carry on having a wonderful time then?’
She turned to the door, shooting Michael with a pitiful gaze as she went. He began to get off the bed, walking towards her with his still hard cock leading the way like a knight’s lance.
‘Serena, please. It’s just a bit of fun,’ he said, his hand stretching out in a placatory gesture.
She turned and pointed a finger at him viciously. ‘Save it for your whores!’ she spat.
And she slammed the door shut.
‘Look at it this way,’ said Elmore Bryant, hoisting up his bottle-green Vilebrequin floral shorts and lowering himself into his pool. ‘It was only a threesome. Some of these really rich business types are into all sorts of kinky shit so it could have been worse. A lot worse.’
‘Elmore, you’re not helping,’ replied Serena, helping herself from the fruit bowl on the terrace of her friend’s Cap Ferrat mansion.
‘Of course, billionaires can’t keep their dicks in their pants, full stop,’ continued her friend, waving a bejewelled hand around in the air. ‘It surprises me, naturally; I’m sure they all have tiny ones. What do you think drives them to make so much money in the first place? Was it small?’ asked Elmore, starting to splash in the water. ‘Are we talking chipolata or acorn?’
Serena dug her French manicured nails into the peach she was holding, imagining for just one moment that it was Michael’s testicles as her nails pierced the flesh.
‘If you don’t mind, I would rather not talk about the size of Michael’s penis,’ said Serena indignantly.
‘As you wish,’ smiled Elmore playfully, beckoning over to the pool-boy. ‘Earl Grey?’
Serena stretched herself out on the sun-lounger facing south on the terrace of Elmore’s mansion. The house overlooked the bay of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and had one of the best views in the south of France.
‘I’d kill for something stronger,’ she sighed, adjusting the straps of her tiny turquoise bikini.
‘Well, not in your condition, young lady,’ said Elmore, nodding his head sagely so that the diamanté around his sunglasses winked in the late-afternoon sun.
Elmore, of course, knew everything. He knew that Serena had found Michael Sarkis having a threesome with two silicone-enhanced hookers. He knew that Serena had stormed out of Sarkis’s Cannes villa and that, as she’d left, she’d pushed a heavy terracotta plant pot from the balcony, smashing through the windscreen of her now ex-boyfriend’s flame-red Ferrari. He also knew that Serena was carrying Sarkis’s