and that famous mane of red hair spread over the pillow like a halo, he felt a familiar rush of triumph. It was the same feeling he got whenever he bedded a woman he wanted, or landed a role that he knew countless other actors coveted. For Viorel, the pleasure of any experience was always enhanced by the sense of competition. Acting was fun. Sex was even better. But winning … that was the biggest thrill of all.
Nailing Rose Da Luca was actually the final triumph in what had been a uniquely triumphant day. Not only had Viorel signed on the dotted line to play Heathcliff in the remake of Wuthering Heights, which meant he would be working with one of his all-time idols, Dorian Rasmirez; but to his surprise (and his agent’s frank astonishment) Rasmirez had offered him five and a half million dollars for the privilege. Five million was the magic number in Hollywood, the number that separated successful film actors from bona fide movie stars. It was a rubicon that, once crossed, pretty much guaranteed you a place in the pantheon of the greats. Until your first big box-office flop, of course, at which point you could slide back down the snake into the twos, or sometimes even lower. For Viorel Hudson, however, it was a win–win situation. Despite his high public profile (last year he’d been named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine, an accolade that he claimed to be embarrassed by but secretly revelled in), Viorel had never earned more than a million dollars on a movie. That was because he’d carefully chosen projects with artistic merit over blockbusters with multimillion-dollar budgets. As a result he was revered by many of his peers as an actor with integrity, an actor’s actor: low-key, professional, devoted to his craft.
In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. While it was true that Vio preferred to work with good scripts than poor ones – who didn’t? – his apparently eclectic choice of movie roles was actually part of a diligently planned strategy, the purpose of which was to make Viorel Hudson as rich and as famous as possible as fast as possible. By carving out a niche and a name for himself on the indie circuit (he’d already starred in two Sundance winners and this year’s runner-up at Venice), while simultaneously using his publicist to push his image as a mainstream sex symbol, Viorel’s intention was always to make a sideways leap into big-league commercial movies, leapfrogging past his rivals faster than he could have hoped to had he taken a string of small parts in forgettable box-office hits. Even in his wildest fantasies, however, Vio had not imagined that he would sign a contract of this size for at least another three or four years. And to get it for a Rasmirez movie! – to be able to combine the pay-cheque he craved with the genuinely good-quality work he enjoyed – that was really the icing on the cake. He’d have accepted the part for a million, maybe even less. Rasmirez must have been dead set on casting him to have offered so much over the odds. Either that or he was secretly gay and hoping to get into Viorel’s boxer shorts; which, given that Dorian had a reputation as the most happily married man since Barack Obama, was probably unlikely.
Rose Da Luca’s perfect body shuddered as she finally climaxed, her taut muscles clenching and spasming gloriously around Viorel’s dick. ‘Oh Christ,’ he moaned, exploding inside her in what was undoubtedly the best, most satisfying orgasm he’d had all year. If only my bastard classmates from school could see me now, he thought joyously, savouring the moment, knowing in that instant that there wasn’t one of his childhood tormentors who would not have sold their souls to trade places with him.
Yes, today had made it official.
Viorel Hudson was a winner.
Shortly after midnight, Viorel was back behind the wheel of his Bugatti Veyron, driving west on Sunset Boulevard, when his mother called.
‘Darling. You rang.’
Martha Hudson’s clipped tones instantly made him feel tense. Incredible how in three short words, England’s most celebrated adoptive mother, MP for Tiverton and a saint in the eyes of much of the British public, could convey so much disappointment. Why the hell did I call her? thought Viorel angrily. He was angry because he already knew the answer. He’d called because deep down he still wanted Martha’s approval. And he wasn’t going to get it.
He tried to keep his tone casual. ‘Yes. I thought you and Johnny might like to know. I scored a huge part today. I’m playing Heathcliff in the new Rasmirez movie.’
Johnny Hudson, Martha’s much older husband, was Viorel’s legal father, but Viorel had never called him ‘Dad’, nor had Johnny ever asked him to. The two weren’t close.
‘Heathcliff?’ Martha Hudson MP sounded disapproving. ‘You mean somebody’s remaking Wuthering Heights?’
It was eight in the morning in England now. Viorel pictured the hallway of Martha’s Devon rectory – he’d never thought of it as home, just the house he came back to after boarding school: the faded Regency wallpaper, the neatly stacked pile of constituency post on the hall table next to the phone, and thought how far away it all was. Not just geographically, but emotionally. It was another world.
‘Yes, Mother,’ he said wearily. ‘Dorian Rasmirez is remaking it. He’s one of the—’
‘But why?’ Martha interrupted. ‘The original was a masterpiece. Let’s face it, my love, with the best will in the world, you’re hardly going to do a better job than Olivier. Are you?’
And there you had it. Just like that, Viorel’s mother had taken his triumph and squeezed all the joy out of it. Just like she always did.
The British public revered Martha Hudson for her heavily publicized fight to rescue Viorel as a baby from a horrific Romanian orphanage. Viorel’s earliest memories were of strangers coming up to him and telling him how lucky he was, and what a wonderful mother he had. In reality, however, his childhood had been horribly lonely. Though he didn’t want for material comforts, he knew that Martha never really loved him. It wasn’t personal. Martha Hudson had never really loved anyone except Martha Hudson. But it left Viorel feeling doubly rejected, not to mention permanently displaced.
His career had driven a further wedge between him and his mother. Martha Hudson had never wanted her son to become an actor. She wanted Viorel to be a doctor. In her fantasy, he would have gone back to Romania, the country of his birth, to help the poor, orphaned children still left there – ideally his return would be documented by photographers from the Daily Mail, which would inevitably remind readers of Martha’s own selflessness (for adopting him in the first place), and devotion to children’s causes everywhere.
But it hadn’t worked out that way. Viorel had selfishly decided to pursue fame and fortune instead. Martha could have forgiven him for trying. What galled her was that he had succeeded, to the point where he was now infinitely more famous than she would ever be.
‘I’ll be better paid than Olivier,’ said Viorel. ‘They’ve offered me five million dollars.’
Even Martha Hudson paused at this number. It was a pause-worthy number.
You’re impressed, you mean-spirited cow, thought Viorel. Just admit it.
But of course, Martha didn’t. ‘Oh well,’ she sniffed, ungraciously. ‘That’s all well and good, I suppose. But money isn’t everything you know, darling. Now look, I must run. I’ve got a select committee meeting this afternoon and I’m going to be late for my train.’
It was Terence Dee who had rescued Viorel from England and his mother’s stifling ambitions. Martha Hudson had only ever seen her son as a PR tool, an adorable, photogenic prop with which to bolster her image as the caring face of the Tory party. But Terence saw something else in Viorel: talent.
After Eton, Viorel dutifully followed his mother’s bidding and went up to Cambridge to read medicine at Peterhouse. But that was where Martha Hudson’s fairytale abruptly ended. After joining Footlights, Cambridge’s famous dramatic society Viorel was talent-spotted at the end of his first year by a London agent, and immediately cast in a British rom-com, Bottom’s Up. The movie went straight to video, but Viorel Hudson’s smouldering performance as a Casanova con man was good enough to get him noticed by Terence Dee, then the most powerful casting agent in Hollywood. In his mid-fifties, with a shaggy mop of dyed blond hair and a penchant for wearing pastel sweaters draped casually around his shoulders,