Page 4 of The Sisters


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Violetta had agreed, certainly if her parents’ marriage was anything to go by.

Violetta was so desperate to be part ofSocialites in the Citythat she had signed on the line, waiving her right to have the contract checked by a lawyer. With no career or well-chosen fiancé on the horizon, Violetta was at a loss as to what would give her the exposure she craved and the approval of her father. She had tried acting lessons but wasn’t talented, according to her teacher, and not beautiful enough, according to the agents she had seen. She had tried attending college but had lost interest in the fashion design course she had done. She could barely hold a tune, so a career in singing was out – even with auto tune, she sounded like a toddler in the demo she recorded a few years ago.

Instead, she decided to focus on her celebrity. The papers loved her, and why wouldn’t they? She was at every party, in her usual fabulous style, couture with a dash of high street chic. She had a torrid affair with a titled Euro playboy until she found out he was broke and after her trust fund, while also sleeping with one of her friends. There wasn’t much Violetta was good at, besides putting together an outfit that would land her in the pages ofVogueas the current ‘IT’ girl, smiling blissfully for the photographers.

Now she would show her father she could be something. She was going to be a star. She could see it all before her – perfumes, clothing lines, maybe even a movie. She would have it all and then some more and she would show Leon de Santoval she was worthy of his name.

Leon and Violetta hadn’t spoken in two years, after she approached him about joining Pajaro in the design team. She hadn’t asked to be a designer, and she was prepared to work from the ground up, but Leon had mocked her, dismissed her and told her to go shopping as that was all she was good for, not designing.

But Violetta was good at design, and she understood fashion. Just because she didn’t enjoy college and the theory of design, it didn’t mean she wasn’t interested, or intuitive. She had a natural flair for style that her sisters didn’t have, but Leon just told her that she looked like a slut when she went out. He’d told her she looked like a slut when she was fifteen, still a virgin. She heard the same again and again whenever she wore anything shorter than mid calf. Violetta became a slut, just to piss Leon off.

This TV series was destined to become the worst thing Violetta had ever done, as far as Leon was concerned, but she didn’t care. It was Birdie who held the purse strings as far as her daughters were concerned and there was no way she would cut Violetta off.

She opened her laptop while she spoke to Adam, checking her ranking on theDaily Socialitewebsite. Number 32. Not great, she thought, scrolling up the list and seeing the names of nine school friends above her on the list.

‘So Adam, what can I do for you?’ she purred. She was determined to get to the top of the rank by the end of the show and hopefully Adam would give her more screen time if she could convince him.

‘I need you to send over your schedule as soon as possible to Dawn, the producer. She’s doing the call sheets,’ barked Adam down the line.

Violetta banged her head with her hands. I forgot, she thought. Thinking swiftly, she said smoothly. ‘Yes, I have had a few last minute invitations I’m juggling, so I just wanted to wait to confirm.’

‘Great, great,’ said Adam.

She could hear traffic in the background. ‘Where are you?’ she asked, thinking of her ranking on the website.

‘Second Avenue.’

‘Right near me,’ said Violetta. ‘Come by and say hi if you like.’

When Violetta’s phone rang again, she let it ring out. There was no way she was moving while she was on top of her new executive producer after two racks of cocaine had been shared.

‘Shit Vi, you’re the best,’ he said as he came.

Violetta smiled to quickly cover her grimace. ‘Thanks, Ads, you’re the best too.’

‘Adam. I prefer Adam.’

‘Sure,’ said Violetta as she lay in bed, lighting a cigarette.

Adam wasn’t the worst sex but she didn’t come. Maybe she was tired, she thought. Or maybe it was the vision of her mother that kept entering her mind while she tried to be present with Adam.

Violetta had, what her sister called, ‘appalling taste in men’. She didn’t disagree, but it was hard to take seriously when her sister’s taste was no better, with her badly disguised affair with that gross politician. Besides, the men she saw weren’t really the ones a girl ended up being married to. There would be noNew York Timesmarriage announcement for her with the men she let into her bed.

Violetta rolled over and butted the cigarette out into the sand of the Zen garden her Feng Shui advisor said would add peace to her room and saw her phone flashing with a message from her mother again. Damn it, Birdie, when will you stay out of my life?

*

Carlotta felt sick. She hadn’t eaten all morning and had been up since four-thirty tending to her horse. The evening before with John Berconi hadn’t helped. Too much champagne and rich food at his rented house nearby.

She had only gone because of his promises to sponsor the Connecticut Equestrian Festival. Well, that and the fact that he was so handsome. Carlotta knew he was married but it had been a while between lovers and in the past six months she had been chasing him to get his company to sponsor the Horse Show she wanted to stage in Connecticut over the summer.

John Berconi was the head of Berconi Luxe, a corporation that bought and sold luxury fashion brands. He knew and hated her father, Leon, who headed up Pajaro, a brand that had still managed to stay private and keep away barracudas like John. Knowing that Leon hated John only made him more attractive to Carlotta and last night she had sealed the deal with John in every way. He agreed to sponsor the festival if she slept with him. So she took one for the team, she thought, as she sucked his cock. But after months of flirting and casual glances and John appearing with his spotty teenaged daughter at the stables, the sex wasn’t quite as outstanding as she had hoped for.

Carlotta had high expectations about sex. She preferred to be taken in hand, as she called it, and liked her lovers to take control. She spent her time managing highly strung horses, so it made sense to her that she needed someone who knew their way around a woman’s body, and how to allow her to be her best self in bed.

But John was lazy when it came to sex, as many rich men are. Carlotta had heard that large breasted women were lazy in bed, expecting their tits to do all the work. Now she knew the male equivalent was men who expected their cash, shares and property to take care of a woman’s orgasm.

Feeling her stomach rumble again, she wondered if she should venture up to her parents’ property and get Thea to cook her something. She checked her phone, three messages from Thea, her mother’s housekeeper. Probably Birdie getting Thea to run the menu past her for the lunch she was giving for the Equestrian Team. Carlotta suddenly remembered her father was down from New York; she had seen his Bentley when she was out riding. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with her overbearing father about the cost of her horses and equipment.