The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club by Joan Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

resumed his conversation after Fabrizio had strolled off. ‘Sì, sì, Contessa, what a pleasure to speak to you.’ He used his most honeyed tones. ‘When do you hope to come?’
    ‘Maybe early June would be good.’
    As Max listened to Carlotta’s hopes for a fun-filled life in Saint-Tropez, his mind started churning. If Fabrizio couldn’t get Lara to commit to marry him, maybe he would look more enthusiastically towards the far younger and far more attractive Carlotta. He cast his mind back, visualising the petite raven-haired girl with the gypsy curls and innocent eyes. It would be a perfect match and one that Fabrizio surely couldn’t resist. Besides, her net worth had to be larger than Lara’s, and she had no pesky ex-husband to contend with.
    Max chose his words carefully – he didn’t want to scare off the prey. ‘Now, there is just a tiny matter of my, eh, consideration?’
    ‘Of course I understand.’ Carlotta hadn’t been around the Buenos Aires business world without wising up to their cunning ways. Besides, she had more money than she could ever use, and if a little extra would buy her some fun – why not? ‘I will tell my secretary Amelia and she will take care of all your needs.’
    ‘It’s a pleasure, Contessa – an enormous pleasure. I promise I shall make your dreams come true. I am always at your service, and I shall take care of everything – absolutely everything!’
    ‘Amelia! Please give Monsieur Gobbi your email,’ Maximus heard her call. ‘Goodbye, Monsieur Gobbi – see you in Saint-Tropez. I shall send you my arrival dates.’
    ‘I shall meet you at Nice Airport,’ he said with a great big smile on his great big face. Maximus leaned back and smiled. This could be what his American friends called a ‘slam dunk’, and it had come not a moment too soon.

C HAPTER S IX

    Sénéquier Café and Bar, Saint-Tropez, May 2015
    ‘Maximus,
Maximus!
’ Lara Meyer blubbered down her cell phone. At eleven a.m. she was already on her third vodka-on-the-rocks with a slice of orange, telling anyone who asked that it was just water.
    ‘Lara,
cara
, calm down. I spoke to Fabrizio. He is in Paris for the next few days, taking singing lessons . . . ’
    ‘Singing lessons?
Singing lessons?
’ she shrieked into the receiver, making more than one head at the charming café turn. ‘
Who is she?
’
    ‘He
told
you he was in Paris, with me.’
    ‘Oh, yes . . . ’ A faint memory emerged from her alcoholic mist.
    ‘Go home now, Lara, get some rest. You need it.’
    ‘I just got up, idiot.’ Lara’s voice was suddenly cold as ice. ‘I’m not talking about his singing lessons, you moron. He’s with another girl, I can sense it – I can feel it. The slut is kissing him, I can feel it,’ she slurred, her fury subsiding as quickly as it rose. ‘Besides, he doesn’t want me, he only wants my money. I’m too . . . too . . .’ The word ‘old’ stuck in her throat, so she gulped another slug of Grey Goose and slid further down in her chair, revealing a beautifully manicured lady garden, thanks to the fact that she wore no underwear.
    Lara was perched under the shaded part of the terrace of the Sénéquier Café and Bar on the front of the bustling port of Saint-Tropez. It was a perfect early summer day; the big white yachts were still being hosed down by the good-looking young deck hands to prepare for their voyages, and sloppily dressed tourists wandered by drinking in all the glamour and hoping some of it would rub off on them. A few glanced at the red-headed woman, wearing a short, unsuitable floral play-dress and comedy earrings, sprawled in a chair. Black shades could not hide the classic Slavic cheekbones of a world-famous celebrity and the notorious ex-wife of the infamous tycoon Jonathan Meyer.
    Often known as the ‘Siberian siren’ (and, to some people, the ‘Slavic slut’), Lara’s glory days were far behind her. However, she still commanded attention in the Eurotrash set and