Romanian carpenter all morning. Being denied him, followed by the panic of discovery and the thrill of the fight with her husband (sparring with Dorian always turned her on) had propelled Chrissie’s already overworked libido into the stratosphere. Dorian always pulled out all the stops sexually when he was scared. When he wanted to, he could fuck like an Olympic champion, playing her body like Nigel Kennedy with a Stradivarius. Right now, stroking and teasing her, bringing her to the brink time and again and then pulling back, Chrissie knew she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted Alexandru, or any of her other lovers.
When he finally came, having brought her to orgasm twice, Dorian pulled her into his strong, bear-like arms and held her so tightly she could barely breathe.
‘I’ll do anything to keep you, Chrissie,’ he whispered. ‘Anything. You know that.’
‘Good,’ Chrissie purred, stroking his back. ‘Well, you can start by leaving me your Centurion card. I’ve decided to take a little trip to Paris while you’re away. Distract myself with a bit of culture. Lilly can take care of Saskia for a few days.’
Dorian’s heart sank. He fought back the urge to remind Chrissie that they lived surrounded by culture, and that she never showed the slightest interest in any of it. In this bedroom alone, apart from the Velásquez portrait above the bed and the exquisite Byzantine vase she’d just destroyed in a fit of temper, there were bookshelves stuffed with first-edition classics in English, Italian and French, a Dutch, hand-painted dresser that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette of France, and two framed folios of Handel’s Messiah, signed by the composer himself. The entire castle, this ‘prison’ that Dorian had ‘dragged’ Chrissie to, prising her away from her beloved LA, was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of treasures, with a collection of art and manuscripts to rival some of the greatest galleries and libraries in Europe. And it was all theirs. Not theirs to sell – the treasures could not legally leave Romania – but theirs to cherish, to appreciate, to pass down to the next generation. To Saskia, and perhaps one day – if Dorian could ever persuade Chrissie to try again – to a son, a little boy to carry on the family name.
The reality was that the only thing Chrissie Rasmirez was interested in in Paris were the overpriced clothes stores on the Avenue de Champs-Élysées. Last time she went to the flagship Louis Vuitton there she’d dropped over $100,000 in a single morning. If she tried that again this time, AmEx would demand Dorian’s cards back. But he was too scared to deny her, particularly after today’s close call.
‘Sure honey,’ he sighed, defeated. ‘I’ll leave the card. You go and enjoy yourself.’
Chrissie smiled triumphantly. ‘Don’t worry, darling. I intend to.’
Three hours later, as the Airbus A360 juddered and rattled its way up through the clouds, Dorian closed his eyes and tried to remember the relaxation techniques his therapist had taught him. Imagine yourself on a deserted, sandy beach. Waves are softly lapping at the shore. Listen to the rhythm of the tide. Let it soothe you. Feel the warm water caress your toes …
He opened his eyes. It wasn’t working. Reaching into his hand-luggage bag, he pulled out a Xanax and slipped it into his mouth, knocking it back with the dregs of his pre-takeoff champagne. The pill would take a while to kick in, but the alcohol was instantly soothing, as was the knowledge that he was leaving Chrissie and their problems behind him for five whole days. Not that this trip to LA was going to be some sort of vacation. On the contrary, the real battles would only start once he landed. But for the next ten hours at least, he had a chance to relax. If only he could remember how to do it.
A heavy-set man in his mid-forties, with dark hair greying at the temples and a warm, open face – not handsome exactly, but appealing in a rough-round-the-edges sort of way – Dorian Rasmirez was one of the most acclaimed film directors in the world. With his intelligent hazel eyes that narrowed into tiny slits when he laughed or got angry, his strong jaw and his off-kilter nose (he broke it in a football game in high school and had never got around to fixing it), Dorian was certainly no matinee idol. Yet there was something innately masculine about him that women found compelling – and had done long before he became successful.
Dorian had been born and raised in White Plains, New York, the only, much-beloved son of Romanian immigrant parents. Both his father, Radu Rasmirez, and his mother Anamarie had suffered unspeakable horrors under Ceausescu’s hardline communist dictatorship and had arrived in America with little more than the cash in their pockets. As members of two of Romania’s most prominent aristocratic families, the Rasmirezes and the Florescus, Radu and Anamarie had seen close family members arrested and shot. They had experienced first hand what it meant to lose everything: not just your wealth and privilege, but your home, your freedom, your right to live free from intimidation, imprisonment and torture. They came to America to escape the horrors of their pasts and to build a new life, and that’s exactly what they did.
Radu trained as a pharmacist, eventually opening a successful chain of small stores across Westchester County. His wife gave birth to their longed-for son, and devoted herself to the traditional role of homemaking, diving in to suburban American life with unexpected enthusiasm. It was largely thanks to Anamarie’s assimilation into New York culture and her love of all things American that Dorian grew up the way he did: preppy, hardworking, and blessed with a natural, quiet confidence that was the perfect complement to his impressive academic abilities. To any casual observer, Dorian Rasmirez came across as the epitome of American boyhood, from the tips of his loafers to the button-down collars of his Brooks Brothers shirts. He excelled at school, winning a place at Boston University where he majored in Dramatic Arts. By the time he graduated, he already knew he wanted to direct, and with his usual focus and determination, won a place at UCLA’s prestigious School of Theater, Film and Television. But beneath the glowing, all-American CV, Dorian was his father’s son as much as his mother’s. Radu Rasmirez had made a point of educating his son in their family history, painting a wildly romantic picture of their Transylvanian roots, and the fairytale castle that should by rights have been Dorian’s, if only the wicked communists hadn’t stolen it.
‘One day,’ Radu promised him, ‘the righteous will triumph in our homeland, and what is ours will be restored to us. When that day comes, Dorian, you will know what it is to live like a king. The honour and responsibility, the joy and the pain. We Rasmirezes will always owe a debt of gratitude to this country. But Romania remains forever in our hearts.’
Of course, to Dorian, ‘Romania’ was just a word, a mythical kingdom that his father had conjured up for him, from a past that the boy had never known and couldn’t understand. But he did understand how much their family heritage meant to Radu. In later years that sense of displacement, of homesickness and longing that he saw in his father, would heavily influence Dorian’s film-making.
There were other influences too. Most notably Chrissie Sanderson, the enigmatic, elfin actress whom Dorian met and fell in love with in his last year at UCLA, and whose mesmeric beauty (in Dorian’s eyes at least) had entranced him ever since. By Hollywood standards, the Rasmirez marriage was considered an epic achievement. Dorian and Chrissie had been together since before Dorian became famous – five whole years before the release of Love and Regrets, the searing emotional drama that was to catapult Dorian to global prominence as a director. In those early days, it had been Chrissie who was the star in the partnership, with a leading role as Ali, a kooky chef, in the popular network television sit-com Rumors. A natural actress with a wonderful sense of comic timing, by the age of twenty-three Chrissie Sanderson was recognized across America, with a loyal, at times even fanatical, teenage fan base. Before long she was earning serious money, fifty-grand-plus an episode: a fortune in those days. It was enough to buy her and Dorian a comfortable house in Beverly Hills as well as to fund some of his early movie projects. Chrissie revelled in the limelight but, spurred on by Dorian, she also yearned for more serious critical success. In the same year that the release of Love and Regrets changed Dorian’s life forever, Chrissie
