Temptation Island. Victoria Fox

didn’t elaborate. Instead she continued to stare at Lori, so intently that after a while Lori began to feel uncomfortable. For something to say, she volunteered, ‘I’m vacationing with my grandmother. She lives out of town.’

      ‘But you’ll be going back? To LA, I mean.’

      ‘Yes.’ Her face must have betrayed regret because Desideria leaned forward.

      ‘What’s your name?’ she asked in Spanish.

      ‘Loriana Garcia Torres.’

      Desideria put her head to one side. ‘Lori Garcia. I can see it.’ She appraised her. ‘I work for La Lumière.’

      Lori waited.

      ‘Modelling agency? Best in the world?’ She flicked ash on to the ground, making Lori wonder why she’d wanted the ashtray in the first place. ‘Though, I suppose I would say that.’

      ‘That sounds fun.’

      Desideria grinned, as if she couldn’t quite work the younger woman out. ‘Would you be interested?’ she asked.

      ‘In what?’

      ‘Work.’

      Hope soared. ‘Yes, yes, I would,’ Lori began. ‘As it goes I have a job in a beauty salon already—nothing impressive, but I have a lot of skills, with hair, make-up and clothes as well as treatments. And I’m a very fast learner so anything you show me how to do, I’ll be quick to pick it up …’ She trailed off when Desideria started laughing.

      ‘I meant on our books.’ She sat back, her face moving in and out of shadow as lights from the carnival seeped over.

      ‘What books?’

      ‘As one of our models?’

      Lori was baffled. ‘Your models,’ she repeated blankly.

      ‘You’re very sweet,’ observed Desideria, nodding as though a previous notion had been confirmed. ‘Innocent.’

      ‘A model?’

      ‘But with a sexy edge.’

      Lori was embarrassed at the compliment.

      ‘It was a lie,’ said Desideria, ‘when I said I’d spotted you from the bar. The truth is I’ve been following you all evening. If you’re working behind a salon counter now, sweetheart, I can guarantee you won’t be for much longer. You’re gorgeous.’ She eyed her keenly, licked her bottom lip. ‘I mean,’ she said huskily, ‘I take it you’re straight?’

      ‘Yes.’ Lori wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

      ‘Do me a favour,’ said Desideria, reaching into her purse for a smart black card. On it, a stylish spotlight illuminated her name and number. ‘Soon as you’re back in LA, call me. We’ll bring you in for a shoot, see if the camera likes you, and, if it does, we’ll sign you up.’

      Lori was dumbfounded. She took the card.

      Again, Desideria laughed. ‘Promise me you will?’

      ‘I promise.’

      ‘Good.’ But Desideria insisted on scribbling Lori’s details down all the same. ‘I’m going to tell my boss about you.’ She looked up. ‘He’s a very big deal. If I don’t bring you back, Lori, he’ll never forgive me.’

       19 Aurora

      Pascale Devereux was something else. Within days the two girls were inseparable. Never had Aurora met such an impressive, strong-minded person, so different from her so-called friends back in LA who thought only about cars and clothes. Pascale was cultured, she had travelled; she was intelligent and interesting; she told Aurora things about the world and taught her what she didn’t know. She was clever and spirited and defiant in the face of the St Agnes teachers—she was also someone who, for whatever reason, the other girls, including Eugenie Beaufort, didn’t want to mess with. Pascale’s parents were Gisele and Arnaud Devereux, French politicians who held high positions in their country’s government. She was from powerful stock.

      At last, Aurora felt she had met her match.

      The girls did everything together—they sat in a disgruntled pair in lessons, they bunked off when they felt like it, they crept into each other’s dorms at night and lay in bed whispering secrets, they sneaked out of school after dark and smoked and drank miniatures that Pascale kept in a locked box under her bed. The nearest settlement was miles away, but somehow, with Pascale, it didn’t matter where they were. Aurora could talk to her new best friend for hours.