The Power Trip

It was enough knowledge to set Sergei on a vengeful path.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Sitting next to Aleksandr on his plane, Bianca regaled her boyfriend with tales of her commercial flight to Moscow and the many indignities she’d had to endure. ‘I should’ve stayed in Paris,’ she said with a rueful laugh. ‘’Cause here I am, twenty-four hours later, on my way back to the city I only just left! This is crazy time! And like I said — I flew commercial. What a nightmare! I don’t know how people do it. It’s so inconvenient.’

Aleksandr seemed preoccupied, and although she was making light of it, Bianca was not thrilled that she’d traipsed all the way to Moscow to find him being quite distant. He’d been immersed in business meetings and she’d hardly seen him. Now they were stopping off in Paris to pick up friends of his she’d never met. This wasn’t exactly how she’d expected her big birthday trip to start off.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked Aleksandr, leaning closer to him. ‘You seem like you’ve got something on your mind.’

‘Something on my mind,’ he repeated, turning and fixing her with a steady gaze.

‘That’s what I said.’

‘And how was your previous trip to Paris?’ he enquired. ‘Tell me more.’

‘I told you everything,’ she said, wondering why he was suddenly so interested. ‘Dinner with friends, all delightfully gay, so you would’ve hated it. We had a ton of laughs, and I missed you madly — I always do when we’re apart.’

‘My wife’s lawyer seems to be under a different impression,’ Aleksandr said evenly, tapping his fingers on the side of his seat.

‘Excuse me?’ Bianca said, frowning. ‘What’s your wife’s lawyer got to do with anything?’

‘He sent me over some very interesting print-outs from various Internet sites.’

‘What print-outs?’

Aleksandr picked up his briefcase, opened it and laid out various photos of Bianca dancing the night away, grinding on a stripper pole and — oh, the humiliation — crotch shots that clearly showed she was not wearing underwear.

‘Oh crap!’ she gasped, reviewing the photos. ‘I… I don’t get it.’

‘Neither do I,’ Aleksandr said, his face grave. ‘You surely understand that I am going through an extremely difficult divorce, and visitation rights with my daughters are of paramount importance to me. Now my wife is saying she will not allow our children to be around such a woman of low character.’

‘Low character!’ Bianca exclaimed, her humiliation turning to anger. ‘Low fucking character? How dare she! It wasn’t as if I was posing for those shots. Somebody took them without my knowledge.’

‘However, you were in a club,’ Aleksandr said accusingly. ‘You were dancing on a pole like a cheap stripper. And you were not wearing underwear.’

‘Something you’ve never complained about before.’

Aleksandr’s face darkened. ‘Do not forget that you are my woman, Bianca. Your behaviour reflects on me, and this kind of behaviour goes beyond disrespectful.’

‘Your woman!’ Bianca burst out, stunned that Aleksandr was carrying on as if she was his personal property. He was revealing a side of himself she’d never seen before, and she didn’t like it. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ she demanded, her temper rising. ‘An Arab with a fucking harem? ’Cause baby, I ain’t into that game.’

‘Bianca,’ Aleksandr said, fixing her with another steady gaze. ‘This is serious.’

‘Well fuck serious,’ she said, still full of anger. ‘Nobody tells me what I can and cannot do. I’m sorry I got photographed, but it comes with the fucking territory of being a star, you should know that.’

Their first fight. They glared at each other, neither prepared to back down.

‘I loathe it when you swear,’ Aleksandr said coldly. ‘It’s unfeminine. It does not become you.’

‘Really?’ Bianca retorted, furious at the way he was speaking to her.

‘It makes you sound common, the words of a streetwalker.’

‘And I bet you’ve had a few of those,’ Bianca snapped, unable to help herself.

‘Excuse me, Mr Kasianenko,’ Olga, his personal flight attendant, said, hovering because she really didn’t want to interrupt. ‘The pilot has asked that you fasten your seat belts in preparation for our landing.’

‘Thank you, Olga,’ Aleksandr said with a curt nod.

Bianca turned away from him and grappled with her seat belt. She was seething. This was some shitty start to what was supposed to be a memorable trip.

It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she was making a big mistake.

* * *

Flying commercial was not Ashley’s favourite thing to do. Going through Heathrow airport was inconvenient to say the least. Everyone wanted Taye’s autograph, and there was no escaping the hordes of paparazzi who trailed them all the way until they passed through security.

Some of the paparazzi shouted mean things at her. ‘Give us a smile, luv, you always look so bloody miserable.’ ‘Taye gettin’ a legover with any other bird?’ ‘C’mon, Ashley, try not to look as if you’re constipated!’

Rude bastards. She hated them all.

It wasn’t her fault that Taye always managed a big shit-eating grin. She simply couldn’t do it. He was Mister Personality. She was not. The truth was that she wasn’t miserable, merely cool. Better to look cool than to look like a fool.

Once through security things calmed down, although she wasn’t too happy about having to remove her shoes, her jacket and all her jewelry as they passed through the scanner. Damn, why didn’t Taye get priority treatment? He was a British football hero, a bona fide star, and stars weren’t meant to suffer the indignities of ordinary people.

Sometimes she wondered if it was because he was black that he didn’t get the Beckham treatment.

Hmm… food for thought.

Sitting in the VIP lounge, Taye chatted amiably with other passengers. Ashley settled herself at a table, sipping an early-morning coffee while leafing through a copy of Hello magazine, pausing to study a photo of herself at a fashion event in an extremely chic outfit. She was pleased with the image, pleased enough to tear the page out of the magazine and stash it in her Birkin handbag.

Taye was dragging over someone to introduce to her, which was annoying because she wasn’t in the mood for company. She soon perked up though when she realized it was the American movie star, Billy Melina, and he was smokin’ hot.

Ashley put on her animated face and began plying Billy with questions about his next movie and where he was flying to. Billy was totally charming in an all-American way, and when he left, Ashley fantasized about what it would be like to be married to an actual movie star. A handsome movie star who looked exactly like Billy Melina. So hot and sexy, and he’d just finished making a movie with Cliff Baxter — another of her crushes.

Idly she wondered what Billy was like in bed…

‘What you thinkin’, luv?’ Taye asked.

‘Oh,’ she said cheekily, ‘I was thinking about what you’re gonna do to me once you get me on that boat.’ Her husband was right, they hadn’t had sex in a while, and suddenly she was experiencing quite a tingle.

‘You were?’ Taye said, startled.

‘Boats are sexy, aren’t they?’ Ashley said, tugging on his arm.

Christ! Was his wife finally feeling horny?