The Mistress Read online

  Natasha had studied a considerable amount about art on her own, reading books and articles on the Internet, keeping abreast of news in the art world. She would have liked to take some classes at the Tate in London when they were there, or in Paris where they spent time as well, but she was never anywhere for long enough to enroll in courses, and Vladimir always wanted her with him. But in spite of a lack of formal education in a classroom, she had become impressively educated about art in recent years, and he liked discussing his new purchases with her, and the paintings he was planning to acquire. She would study extensively then about the artists he mentioned, and loved researching unusual facts about them, which fascinated him as well, and intrigued him. She had engaged in conversations with art experts at dinner parties they gave, and Vladimir was proud of her extensive knowledge.

  And since she had no friends to spend time with, she was used to shopping alone. He let her buy whatever she wanted and enjoyed giving her gifts, mostly jewelry he loved picking for her, and a vast number of alligator Hermès bags, in every imaginable color, most of them Birkins with diamond clasps, which cost a fortune. He begrudged her nothing, and loved selecting her clothes at the haute couture shows, like the Dior jumpsuit she had on. He liked spoiling her in ways he didn’t indulge himself. She was an advertisement for him. In contrast, he was always simply and conservatively dressed and had returned from London in jeans, a well-cut blazer and blue shirt, and brown suede shoes from Hermès. They made a handsome couple despite the difference in their ages. Occasionally, in a playful mood, he pointed out that he was old enough to be her father, with twenty-three years between them, although he didn’t look it.

  Although she had no life of her own, she wasn’t lonely. He rewarded her richly for monopolizing her, and she never complained. She was grateful to him, and he never tired of admiring her. In seven years, he had never met another woman he wanted more, or who would have suited him better. He only cheated on her when the men he did business with called in hookers for everyone in another city after an important meeting, and he didn’t want to appear uncooperative or unfriendly. The men had usually had a lot to drink by then, and he always slipped away early.

  The stars came out as they finished the champagne, and Vladimir said he wanted to go to their cabin to shower and put on something more casual for dinner, although he preferred seeing Natasha in the kind of clothes she was wearing. It still excited him to see how beautiful she was, and she followed him to their cabin, and lay down on their bed as he took off his clothes and walked into his dressing room, with the black marble bathroom. Her own dressing room and pink marble bathroom had been designed especially for her.

  Vladimir had flipped a switch as they walked into their cabin that turned on a light in the hall, indicating that they didn’t want to be disturbed. And Natasha put music on the sound system in their bedroom while she waited for him, and then turned in surprise as she saw him standing naked behind her, fresh from the shower, with wet hair, and smiling at her.

  “I missed you in London, Tasha. I don’t like traveling without you.” She knew it was true, but he hadn’t asked her to come with him, which meant he would be busy with meetings late into the night. She had no idea who he had met with or why he’d gone, and didn’t ask.

  “I missed you too,” she said softly, her feet bare as she lay in the white satin jumpsuit, her hair fanned out on the pillow, and he sat down on the bed next to her, slipped the straps of the jumpsuit off her shoulders, and then peeled it down her body, until she wore only a white satin thong that had been made to go with it.

  He was murmuring softly to her as he nuzzled her neck, and his body was powerful, as he let himself down slowly on top of her, pulled off the thong, and tossed it aside. He had waited all day to come back to her, and found comfort in the familiar meshing of their bodies. He always reminded her of a lion when he made love to her, and made a roaring sound of victory and release when he came. And afterward, she rested in his arms happily, and sighed as she smiled at him. They never disappointed each other, and found safety and peace in each other’s arms in his turbulent world.

  They showered together, and she wore a silky white caftan when they went upstairs to the outdoor dining room an hour later. They both looked relaxed as they sat down to dinner. It was after ten o’clock by then, and they both liked eating late, after his business calls had stopped, and his secretaries in London and Moscow had finished work and emailing him. The night was theirs, except when they entertained, which was almost always for business, with men he was doing deals with, or wanted something from.

  “Why don’t we go to dinner in St. Paul de Vence tomorrow night?” he asked her, as he lit a Cuban cigar, and she breathed the pungent smell that she loved too.

  “La Colombe d’Or?” she asked. They had been there many times for the delicious meals in the famous restaurant filled with the artwork of Picasso, Léger, Calder, and all the others who had dined there and paid their bar and restaurant bills with paintings they’d given to the owners in the early years. It was a feast for the eyes, to eat surrounded by the remarkable work of the artists who had congregated there long before they became famous.

  “I want to try that place we keep hearing about,” he said, relaxing with his cigar, as they looked out over the water and enjoyed the star-filled night together. “Da Lorenzo.” It was also a favorite haunt of art lovers, filled with the work of Lorenzo Luca, with only his art on display there. The restaurant had been established by his widow, almost as a shrine to him, in the home where they had lived, with the rooms above the restaurant available for famous art collectors, dealers, and museum curators. It was apparently a total immersion experience in the famous artist’s work, and Vladimir had wanted to visit it for years, but reservations for the restaurant were so hard to come by that they always wound up at La Colombe d’Or, which was fun too. “An art dealer in London told me we should call Madame Luca directly and use his name. My secretary tried it, and it worked. We got a reservation for tomorrow. I’m anxious to finally see it.” He looked pleased. The owners were notoriously independent about their bookings.

  “Me too. I love his work.” It was somewhat similar to Picasso’s, although it had his own very distinctive style.

  “There’s very little of it on the market. When he died, he left her most of his work, and she won’t sell it. She sells one at auction once in a while, but I’m told she’s very stubborn about it. And he wasn’t as prolific as Picasso, so there’s less of it around. He wasn’t successful until very late in his life, and the prices are sky-high now. Her refusal to sell has driven his prices through the roof, almost as high as Picasso’s. The last one that sold at Christie’s several years ago brought an incredible price.”

  “So we won’t be buying art at dinner,” she teased him, and he laughed. Or perhaps they would. Vladimir was unpredictable about where and when he bought art, and relentless in the pursuit of whatever he wanted.

  “Apparently, it’s like visiting a museum. And she keeps the best work in his studio. I wouldn’t mind a tour of that one day. Maybe we can charm her tomorrow,” Vladimir said, smiling at her. They were both looking forward to the adventure the next day.

  After dinner, they sat and talked for a while, as the bodyguards kept their distance, and the stewards and stewardesses served them. Natasha nursed a last glass of champagne, as they looked up at the stars and enjoyed the comforts of the boat. The sea was calm, and the night was peaceful, and it was well after midnight when they finally went downstairs, and Vladimir left her for a little while to answer some emails in his office. He was diligent about keeping abreast of business at all times. There was no hour of the day when he ignored his business dealings. It was always his first priority.

  There was a silent terror that fueled him, which Natasha understood well. It was one of the strongest bonds they shared, and never spoke of. Their origins in Russia were not so different. They had both come from the most abject poverty, which had driven him to his astou
nding success, and Natasha into his arms from the streets of Moscow in her teens.

  Born into unimaginable deprivation, Vladimir saw his father die of alcoholism when he was three, and his mother Marina from tuberculosis and malnutrition when he was fourteen. His sister died of pneumonia at seven. There was no money for medical care for any of them. Cast into the streets when his mother died, he lived by his wits, and vowed not to be poor when he grew up, whatever it took. He had become the runner and courier for some of the shadier characters in Moscow by the time he was fifteen, and something of a mascot. By seventeen and eighteen, he was a trusted underling who carried out sometimes questionable tasks for them but performed them bravely and efficiently. He was fearless and smart, and one of his employers had seen his potential and become his mentor. Vladimir had taken everything he had taught him to heart and added his own intelligence and knowledge to it. By twenty-one, he had made more money than he had ever hoped to, and he had a white-hot fire in his belly to go further and earn more. By twenty-five, he was a rich man by most standards, and had seized every opportunity that the new freedoms offered, and by thirty, he had made several million, and had made full use of his connections. Nineteen years later, nothing could stop him and he would do anything he had to, to anyone, never to be poor again. Many considered him ruthless, but Vladimir knew what it took to survive in a complicated world.

  —

  Natasha had the same terror of returning to poverty. Daughter of an unknown father and a prostitute who had abandoned her in a state orphanage at two, she had never been adopted and remained in the orphanage until she was sixteen. After that came three years of working in factories and living in unheated dormitories, with no prospects. She refused the advances of men wanting to pay to have sex with her. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, who records showed had died of alcoholism shortly after she abandoned Natasha.

  Vladimir had seen Natasha trudging through the snow in a thin coat when she was eighteen, and had been struck by her beauty. He offered her a ride in his car in the freezing cold and snow, and was stunned when she refused. He had haunted her for months at her state-run dormitory, sent her gifts of warm clothes and food, all of which she’d declined. And then finally, nearly a year after he’d first seen her, sick with a fever, she agreed to go home with him, where he had nursed her himself, while she nearly died of pneumonia. Something about her had reminded him of his mother. He saved her, rescued her from the factory and her abysmal life, although she was hesitant at first.

  They never talked about either of their histories, but her worst fear was to be that poor again one day, to have nothing and no one until she died just from being poor. She never ignored the fact that Vladimir had been her savior, and in her opinion continued to be every day. She still had nightmares about the orphanage, the factory, the dormitories, the women she had seen die in her old life. She never said it to anyone, but she would rather have died herself than go back.

  In many ways, they were a good match. They had come from similar backgrounds, and had achieved success differently, but they had a deep respect for each other and, although they would never have admitted it, a deep need for each other too.

  The past was never far from either of them. The poverty he had grown up with was the fear that had pursued Vladimir all his life, and by now he had outrun it. But he never stopped looking over his shoulder to make sure the specter of it wasn’t there. No matter how many billions he had made, it was never quite enough, and he was willing to do anything he had to, to keep the demon of poverty from seizing him again. Natasha’s escape had been easier, fortuitous, and more peaceful, but in seven years she had never forgotten where she came from, just how bad it had been, and who had saved her. And no matter how far they had come, or how safe they were, they both knew that their old terrors would always be a part of them. The ghosts that haunted them were still vivid.

  Natasha fell asleep waiting for him that night, as she often did. He woke her when he came to bed, and made love to her again. He was the savior who had rescued her from her own private hell, and dangerous as he might be to others, she knew she was safe with him.

  Chapter 2

  Maylis Luca was still an attractive woman at sixty-three. Her hair, which had gone prematurely white at twenty-five, was a snow-white mane she wore loose down her back in the daytime, or in a braid, or a bun at night, when she worked at the restaurant. She had cornflower-blue eyes, and the gently rounded figure that had made her appealing as an artist’s model when she came to St. Paul de Vence from Brittany for a summer at twenty, and stayed. She had fallen in with a group of artists who delighted her and had welcomed her warmly, much to her conservative family’s horror. She had abandoned her studies at the university, and stayed in St. Paul de Vence for the winter, and the first moment she laid eyes on him, she had fallen madly in love with Lorenzo Luca.

  A year later, at twenty-one, after modeling for several of the artists the previous winter, she became Lorenzo’s mistress. He was sixty at the time, and he called her his little spring flower. From then on, she modeled only for him, and many of his best works were of her. He had no money then, and Maylis’s family was devastated by the path she’d chosen, and mourned the life and opportunities she’d given up. They considered her lost on the road to perdition, as she starved happily with Lorenzo, living on bread and cheese and apples and wine in a small room over his studio with him, spending time with his friends, and watching Lorenzo for hours while he worked, or posing for him. She never regretted a moment of it, and had no illusions about marrying him. He had been honest with her from the first, and told her he had married a girl in Italy in his early twenties. He hadn’t seen her in nearly forty years by then, and they’d had no children. They had been together for less than a year, but he was still married to her, and considered it too complicated and costly to get divorced.

  By the time he met Maylis and fell in love with her, he had had four serious mistresses in the course of his lifetime, and seven children with them. He was fond of his children but was candid and unashamed that he lived for his work, and little else. He was a fiercely dedicated artist. He had privately acknowledged his children but never legitimized or helped to support them, and saw no reason to. He had never had money when they were young, and their mothers had never made demands of him, knowing he had nothing to give. All his children were grown by the time he met Maylis, and they visited him from time to time, and considered him more of a friend. None had become artists, nor had his talent, and they had little in common with him. Maylis was always kind to them when they came to visit, and all of them were older than she. Some were married and had children of their own.

  Maylis had no urge to have children with him. All she wanted was to be with him, and Lorenzo had no desire for marriage or children either. He treated Maylis like a child much of the time, and she was happy to learn about art from him, but the only work she really cared about was his. He was fascinated with her face and body and sketched her in a thousand poses in the early years of their relationship, and did some very handsome paintings of her.

  Lorenzo had been mercurial, alternately wonderful and difficult with her. He had the temperament of an artist, and of the genius she believed he was, and she was happy with him and carefree in her life in St. Paul de Vence, however shocked her family was by the existence she led and the partner she’d chosen, whom they considered unsuitable due to his lifestyle, career, and age. Lorenzo was respected as an enormous talent by his contemporaries, however unknown he was in the world, which he didn’t care about. He always managed to scrape up enough money for them to live on somehow, or borrowed from a friend, and Maylis worked as a waitress in a local restaurant a few nights a week when they were desperate for money. Money was never important to either of them, only his art, and the life they shared. He wasn’t easy—he was high-spirited, difficult, volatile, and temperamental. They had some fearsome arguments in their early years, which they resolved passionately in the bedroom upstairs. She
never doubted that he loved her, as much as she loved him. He was the love of her life, and he said she was the light of his.

  As Lorenzo got older, he got more cantankerous, and argued often with his friends, particularly if he thought they were selling out to the commercial world, and sacrificing their talent for money. He was just as happy giving away his work as selling it.

  He was hostile and suspicious when a young art dealer came to meet him from Paris. He came to St. Paul de Vence several times before Lorenzo would agree to see him. Gabriel Ferrand had seen some of Lorenzo’s work, and recognized genius when he saw it. He begged Lorenzo to let him represent him at his gallery in Paris, and Lorenzo refused. Some of his friends tried to convince him otherwise, since Ferrand had an excellent reputation, but Lorenzo said he had no interest in being represented by some “money-hungry crook of an art dealer in Paris.” It took Gabriel three years to convince Lorenzo to let him show one of his paintings in Paris, which Gabriel sold immediately for a very respectable amount of money, though Lorenzo insisted it meant nothing to him.

  It was Maylis who finally reasoned with Lorenzo to let Gabriel represent him, which proved increasingly lucrative while Lorenzo continued to call him a crook, much to Gabriel’s amusement. He had come to love the inordinately difficult genius he had discovered. Most of Gabriel’s communication with Lorenzo went through Maylis, and they became fast friends, conspiring with each other for Lorenzo’s benefit. By the time Maylis had been with him for ten years, and Lorenzo turned seventy, he had a very decent amount of money in the bank, which he claimed he didn’t want to know about. He insisted that he had no desire to “prostitute” his art, or be corrupted by Gabriel’s “venal intentions,” and he let Maylis and Gabriel handle his money. He wasn’t rich by any means, but he was no longer dirt poor. Nothing changed in their life, so as not to upset Lorenzo, and Maylis continued working as a waitress several times a week, and posing for him. He had declined to have a show of his work at Gabriel’s gallery in Paris, so Gabriel sold his work individually, as soon as buyers saw it. And at times, Lorenzo wouldn’t send him anything at all. It always depended on his mood, and he enjoyed his love/hate relationship with the young gallerist from Paris, whose only interest was in helping him achieve the recognition he deserved for his enormous talent. Maylis did her best to smooth the rocky road between them, without upsetting Lorenzo unduly. Most of the time, Lorenzo gave his paintings to Maylis, who had a huge collection of his work by then, but refused to sell any of the paintings he had given her, out of sentiment. Between the two of them, Gabriel had a hard time selling much of Lorenzo’s work, but he remained faithful to the cause, convinced that Lorenzo would be an artist of enormous stature one day, and he came to St. Paul de Vence to see them often, mostly for the pleasure of admiring Lorenzo’s new work, and of talking to Maylis, whom he adored. He thought she was the most remarkable woman he had ever met.