Trade-in

For a change, Dominic was anxious. 27 years old, single and a dotcom multi-millionaire, life so far had treated him tolerably well. The fact that his parents, who lived in a 6 bedroomed apartment on the Boulevard des Moulins in Monaco, had chosen to send him to Eton had helped him to get started but it was his own intelligence, imagination and, it has to be admitted, ruthlessness which made his rise in the world so rapid. He himself knew little of computer programming but by cultivating friends who did and creating a company image which married laconic sophistication with hard-wired technological dynamism, his initial investment of £500,000 had, at the moment we meet him, grown ten fold, and a soon-to-be-confirmed merger with a Californian company specialising in IT consultancy promised to accelerate that growth even further.

Nonetheless, as he sat in his penthouse in Knightsbridge, there was no concealing the fact that he wasn’t exhibiting the sardonic sang-froid that he usually affected. He had taken ages deciding which suit to wear, wandered about in the William Fioravanti for a while before throwing it off and choosing instead the less ostentatious dark blue cashmere handmade by Henry Poole of Savile Row. Then, as he was pouring his third martini, he caught sight of himself in the full length Venetian mirror beside the Maurice Adams cocktail cabinet and felt an indefinable uneasiness. It was too correct, too formal. No, it would have to be the Alexander Amosu vicuna/pashmina blend. As he slipped the jacket on over his two-tone Givenchy silk shirt, he remembered hearing an interview in which its maker spoke of its ‘uncompromising quality’ and revealed that it had taken more than 80 hours work to achieve the perfection it represented.
He checked himself again in the mirror and, with the pattern of gold threads in his Satya Paul Design Studio silk tie glowing discreetly and the Schneider of Clifford Street shoes completing the line of the trousers, he had to admit that he looked pretty good.

Surely she’d be impressed. She was a woman who saw through appearances, especially when there was anything cheap about them. When they’d met at the Breeders’ Cup in Santa Anita, it was the colour of the silks on his entry in the Classic that had attracted her. They had, she said, ‘the exquisite discretion of the post-impressionist palette’. He had no idea what she meant by that but he was impressed.

She’d actually approached him at the champagne reception on the evening of the race to ask about the younger horses in his string and whether he had any potential Derby entries. Her knowledge of British flat racing was comprehensive and, as they talked, the extent of her connections in the top stables became clear.

But it was in his hotel suite later that her real talents became evident. Dominic had had lots of women and was confident that he knew what they wanted, but her caresses, her inventions, the sensations she provoked, the long, slow, aching climbs to release were beyond anything he’d ever experienced. She’d left after breakfast to fly to Hong Kong, but he’d persuaded her to stop off in London on her way back to the USA.

He checked his Patek Philippe Aquanaut. 2 o’clock. Her flight was due in at 4.30 and his Learjet 70 was standing by to take them straight on to Geneva.

He was packing his Kenneth Cole Reaction overnight case when his Goldstriker iPhone 4G Diamond rang. He snatched it up quickly, nervous now because he didn’t want anything to get in the way of the afternoon’s plans. The caller’s ID didn’t show. When he answered, his voice was abrupt, dismissive.
‘Yes.’
Adrenaline surged when he heard the caller’s voice. It was her.
‘Listen, Dominic,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get the flight. Something came up here.’
‘Oh shit, what?’ he said, momentarily forgetting that cool ought to be his default status.
‘That guy from Dubai. You remember? The one we were talking about?’
‘What about him?’
‘He was asking about Tattersall’s this year. Looking to make a big investment.’
‘So?’
‘Well he wants some help. “Inside thinking” is how he put it.’
‘Right, and you’re his thinker, are you?’
‘Seems that way.’
There was a smile in her voice as she replied. It annoyed him.
‘So how long are you staying?’ he asked.
‘As long as it takes.’
He found the lightness of her tone insulting. It seemed in the end that she was like all the rest – shallow, selfish, careless of whether her choices hurt others.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Enjoy.’
He clicked the phone off and sent it skimming across the leather of the Italian sofa. This was an unfamiliar experience. No-one decided his agendas. He was the one who changed his routines, his choices, not some bloody hanger-on at racetracks.

He flopped onto the sofa, reached across to open his MacBook Pro and was soon scrolling through the pictures of his favourite escort agency. Some of the faces he recognised but he wanted something new now, something to help him unload the anger she’d created in him. As well as the Europeans, there were Filipinos, Vietnamese and other East Asian women, all beautiful, all capable of combining elegance with erotic extremes. In the end, having chosen a Japanese, it occurred to him that extremism might be on the agenda so he added a black woman. Each would cost him £10,000 for the night, but they would do what he wanted, what he needed. In fact, as he disconnected after his call to the agency he knew exactly how they could serve him, how he could use them to redress the balance. He smiled. He was back in charge.

Life wasn’t so bad, after all.

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