ANNA-LOU WEATHERLEY
Wicked Wives

For Mum and Pops. Respectively, of course.

‘I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.’

— Mae West

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Epilogue

Why Does It Feel So Good Being Bad?

Read an extract from Chelsea Wives

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Well, here it is, the difficult second novel all my fellow writers warned me about that (thankfully) turned out to be a complete joy to write, though it would be fair to say it would never have got off the ground without Sammia Rafique and Claire Bord at Avon (HarperCollins) – I can’t thank you enough for all your continued passion and support. Also, special thanks to Becke Parker and indeed all the Avon team for all their hard work and dedication. You’re the best!

I have the greatest agent ever, Madeleine Milburn, without whom I would not be writing these words. Maddy, your belief, support and advice has been essential in helping me get to this point. Thank you so much for all your faith and confidence – I look forward to our continuing journey together.

Thanks as always to my dearest friends (in no particular order), the amazing Laura Millar, darling Susie Ember (Rabbit), my girl Sarah Quefs (and the boys), Andie Redman, Michelle Langan and Nyree Boardman. Also, Maya, Christina, Karen and the lovely Limor Katz (you wanna come in my house?). You’re my inspiration and mean so much to me. Also a special mention to the Mykonos crew, LM, Daniel, Chris, Katrina and Pauline – happy memories guys!

I would also like to thank all the wonderful magazine girls who have supported me including Jane and Marianne at Grazia, Marina Gask, Wendy Rigg, Ally Oliver, Suzy Cox and Chantelle Horton – and anyone else I might have missed. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

As always, thanks to my lovely family, Mum, Pops and Sheila, Hannah and our kid, Marc – Vegas this year kiddo, woop woop!

A special mention to net-a-porter.com for fashion and outfit inspiration (and a wonderful, if expensive, distraction from writing), ditto matchesfashion.com. I would also like to thank the beautiful and stylish women of Italy – those girls really know how to work it!

And last but never least, my amazing boys, Louie, Felix and Alan for everything you do for me, for all the support, cuddles, encouragement and late night runs to the off-licence. I love you!

PROLOGUE

The view from the yacht was superlative. The ocean, a faultless shade of azure blue, stretched out as far as the eye could see, its perfect blue ubiquity broken only by the crystal-white shoreline of St John’s Bay. The sun had begun to set in the distance, a mix of blood-red orange and purples erupting seamlessly into a rich ombre pattern, painting the sky like an oil canvas.

Tom Black peered over the top of his mirrored Ray-Ban Aviators and rested his forearms lightly on the shiny chrome edge of the smart Sunseeker 75, appreciating the final rays of the Antiguan sun on his tanned skin. He took a cursory glance at the diamond-encrusted Rolex on his wrist – a welcome reminder of just how far he had come in recent months. It was 8.28 p.m.

Casting a critical eye around, he admired the shiny teak wooden deck and opulent white leather furnishings of the yacht with a fleeting sense of satisfaction. A huge, cocoon-shaped day bed took pride of place on the sun deck, affording its lucky recipients both seclusion and exposure to the best of the day’s rays as they relaxed – or otherwise – on the sumptuous white cushions. On one side of the bed a magnum of Dom Pérignon Vintage Rose 1959 was chilling to -25 degree perfection in a solid silver Tiffany champagne bucket. On the other, a matching bowl filled with the finest Beluga caviar and two silver spoons nestled on crushed ice. Tom silently congratulated himself. It was a miracle he’d made it here, all things considered; he knew he was on borrowed time, that it wouldn’t take long for them to find him, but he just needed tonight. Just one more night to make things right.

A light breeze caught the fine, silk curtains that draped provocatively from the vast dome-shaped bed, lifting them in a ghostly manner, and, finally satisfied that all was to his exacting standards, Tom made his way down to the master suite below and showered quickly but thoroughly in the lavish, marble and sandstone floored en-suite bathroom, anxious to admire himself in his new, custom-made Tom Ford suit. Only the best for his imminent guest.

Stepping into a fresh pair of white Calvin Klein briefs, he spritzed himself liberally with Grey Vetiver and slid into a crisp, white Richard James shirt that he’d picked up on Savile Row. Enjoying himself now, he slipped on a pair of flawless gold and diamond Cartier cufflinks, pulled on the midnight-blue trousers and single breasted jacket, and added a thin black silk tie. Alluring and glamorous, it was the perfect blend of American minimalism matched with Italian class. Seductively whispering (rather than screaming) wealth and sophistication, it suggested the wearer was a no-nonsense kind of guy who knew his way around the boardroom and the bedroom, the kind of suit that stopped women dead in their tracks. The kind of suit Tom Black liked.

Surveying his masculine, gym-honed reflection in the full length Venetian mirror, he resisted the urge to say aloud, ‘the name’s Bond … James Bond,’ grinning childishly as he ran his thumb and fingers across his well-defined jawline, forgetting himself. For a moment he felt a flutter of excitement, a brief transient state of happiness that was swiftly replaced with one of sharp guilt as he thought of Jack … of Loretta … of her.

Tom forced himself to smile at his reflection. How he would do it all so differently given the chance again. Introspection; waste of fucking time that was. He knew he was a prime candidate for therapy, a psychiatrist’s dream; but who needed a shrink to tell them what a fuck-up they were and pay for the privilege? Screw that. He adjusted the lapels on his five-hundred dollar shirt in the mirror; his thoughts had begun to coast towards the moribund and he distracted himself by examining his features. He might be what society deemed ‘middle aged’ – a term he despised – but he sure as shit didn’t want to look it. All that ageing gracefully bullshit was for people who couldn’t afford to look good, or worse, for those who’d already given up on life. He was neither. In a bid to bolster his withering ego, he told himself that after tonight, after he’d done what he knew he had to do, he would find another playground; start again while he still had the looks to get by. He’d go younger this time; the younger ones were so much easier. They were less demanding, more malleable, easier to please and deceive. They didn’t yet possess that haunted expression, one that spoke of broken hearts and shattered dreams, of wasted years and bitter disappointments. These days, when he looked into the eyes of women of a certain age he found himself having to look away. Sometimes it was too much like looking into a mirror.

Tom pulled a white-tipped Marlboro Light from a soft pack on the table and lit it with a vintage 1973 Cartier lighter, a little agitated. Inhaling deeply, he felt the knot of tension in his gut ease a little as the nicotine hit his system, caressing his blood vessels into submission. He’d kicked the weed years ago but tonight he needed something to take the edge off. She would be here soon.

Extinguishing his cigarette in a Lalique glass ashtray, he made his way to the lower deck to sluice with mouthwash and top up with Grey Vetiver. Pride; it always came before a fall. No wonder it was one of the seven deadly sins. It had prevented him from following the path of true happiness his entire life. Tonight though, he knew he would need to remove the mask once and for all, lay his soul bare, finally tell her what he should have told her all those years ago. Then it would be over.

The unmistakable sound of footsteps along the jetty caused Tom to look up, and with a rapid heartbeat, make his way back up to the top deck, conscious of each step his hand-stitched Italian loafers made.

As the figure came into view, Tom’s eye was immediately drawn to the outstretched hand and the .9 mm Glock it shakily held, the metal glinting malevolently in the last of the sun’s fading rays as it pointed directly at him. Registering surprise and confusion, his heart beating aggressively beneath his pristine suit, he felt a violent surge of adrenalin flush through his system, loosening his joints to the point of collapse.

‘Well, well,’ he heard himself say as the sharp cracking sound of the gun discharging split the balmy, almond-scented air; only it did not sound like his voice at all, it was the voice of a stranger, low and detached. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you …’

CHAPTER 1

‘Mmm, looks delicious,’ Ellie Scott murmured appreciatively as she looked down at the eggs Florentine that had just been placed in front of her by a smiling, if a little harried-looking waitress. Lindsay, her PA, sitting opposite her, nodded enthusiastically as she threw her copy of the Daily Mail down onto the table and carefully pulled out a large document from her new Chloe Marcie tote. Ellie’s dance school was due to open in less than two months and there was still so much to organise. Just looking at the to-do list brought her out in a cold sweat.

‘Any news on a venue yet?’ Lindsay tentatively asked, between mouthfuls of her eggs Benedict.

‘Linds, I’ve been on to every estate agent in London,’ Ellie gave a despairing sigh as she swished her long, honey-highlighted hair from her face, wondering if it was too early for a quinoa-vodka Bloody Mary; it was practically one of your five-a-day.

‘… And? Any luck?’

Ellie momentarily abandoned her knife and fork with a clatter. She felt like crying.

‘Something will come up,’ Lindsay reassured her boss brightly. After all, Ellie’s husband was synonymous with luxury estates all over the world. Surely if anyone could pull a few strings for his wife it was her billionaire business tycoon, a man who made Philip Green look like Del Boy Trotter from Only Fools and Horses.

Truth was though, Ellie hadn’t actually told Vinnie about the collapse of the venue, at least, not yet. This was exactly the kind of situation she had hoped to avoid; running to her husband at the first sign of trouble.

‘I’m viewing a place after lunch,’ Ellie lied in a bid to put an end to the conversation. ‘In the meantime, I think we should just carry on with the plans as discussed, get everything organised so that as soon as a new venue is found, it’s all systems go.’

It had taken the best part of eighteen months to source and secure the Soho venue that Ellie had planned to transform into her flagship dance studio, so it had been a bitter blow to have been gazumped at the last minute. Now she had less than eight weeks to find another venue and turn everything around or she stood to lose a lot of money, and more importantly, face. This dance school was her life’s dream. Her childhood ambition of becoming a professional ballerina had long since passed, fate had put paid to that some years ago, but this school was a chance to give something back; allowing other girls, talented girls like she’d once been, to achieve what she herself wished she could have, if only life had taken a different path.

‘And—’ Lindsay scanned her to-do list for the umpteenth time in case she’d missed anything important, ‘—while we’re still on the hunt for a new venue, we should think about drawing up a guest list for the opening night, and then there’s the …’ she had gone into full efficiency overdrive now, but Ellie had stopped listening. Her concentration had been broken by a commotion taking place at the front of the restaurant. A waiter was busy ushering a female wearing the darkest Dior shades and a vintage Pucci headscarf through the doors and away from a swarm of paparazzi that had gathered outside like locusts.

‘OMG! Don’t turn round, but you are never going to believe who’s just walked in …’ Lindsay’s jaw was practically swinging on its hinges, ‘only Miranda Muldavey.’

‘Nooo!’ Ellie hissed. ‘But she lives in LA.’

Lindsay tapped her copy of the Daily Mail with a chewed fingernail and gave a conspiratorial nod. ‘It says she’s back in London, come to see her family apparently, you know,’ she leaned in towards her boss, ‘before the trial starts.’

Miranda Muldavey was bona fide Hollywood royalty, a global icon who had regularly graced the covers of glossy magazines and newspapers the world over. Or at least she had been, until she had made an ill-fated decision to go under the knife and been left a butchered mess.

Miranda’s sensational story had brought Hollywood to a standstill. Overnight, one of the most celebrated actresses on the planet had been reduced to little more than a freak sideshow, a figure of ridicule and pity, her career – and face – in tatters.

Of course, the rumour-mill had practically spun into overdrive with such force that you could see smoke. This was the ‘handiwork’ of a cosmetic surgeon. But whose?

‘And she was so beautiful as well,’ Ellie sighed. ‘Just goes to show that you should never mess with what’s God given. But then again, I’m not an A-list Hollywood actress. All that pressure to look half your age and have the body of a teenager …’ Ellie glanced over at the lone, hunched figure, hiding behind her oversized shades as she perused the brunch menu. ‘To her credit, she’s remained very dignified about the whole thing – even if she’s a virtual recluse now.’

Lindsay raised a sardonic eyebrow.

‘… More’s the pity really.’

‘So, does the paper drop a hint on who the culprit is?’ Ellie asked. Miranda’s story had been the source of much dinner-party debate during the past six months. Even Vinnie had shown an interest in it.

Lindsay thumbed her copy of the Daily Mail, ‘not exactly, though interestingly, there is a story right next to it about Doctor Ramone Hassan, you know, the celebrity surgeon who’s always on those before-and-after TV shows? It says here that he’s due to fly back to LA from his holiday in Santorini in a few days’ time, just as the trial begins …’ She widened her eyes, continuing to read aloud. ‘“Dr Ramone ‘Ramsey’ Hassan, one of the most successful and celebrated – not to mention richest – plastic surgeons on the planet, a man who has helped countless Hollywood actresses turn back the clock, seen here with his new wife, Lorena, looks relaxed as he holidays on the picturesque Greek Island of Santorini.”’

Ellie looked up from her plate.

‘Let me see that,’ she said, taking the paper from her PA’s grasp. She looked down at the grainy paparazzi shot of an older-looking, dark-skinned man standing on a boat, his unsightly paunch visible over the top of his tight Speedo briefs, but it was the woman next to him that caused her to drop her fork in alarm and her heartbeat to gallop like a racehorse inside her chest. Draped over a sun lounger with a champagne flute in one hand and a thin, white cigarette in the other, was a Dolce & Gabbana bikini-clad woman with pneumatic breasts that were struggling to free themselves from the miniscule triangles of fabric that strained to conceal them. Wearing a matching turban and blowing cigarette smoke from her enormous, plumped-up lips, it was unmistakably her. Loretta Fiorentino, or Hassan as she now was. The press might’ve misspelt her name, but it was her alright. Ellie would never forget those eyes; as dark and soulless as a shark about to attack.

‘Well, well, well. Loretta,’ she murmured underneath her breath, transfixed by the surgically enhanced face of a woman she hadn’t seen in over two decades – and was all the better for it.

‘Ellie … Ell-liiee,’ Lindsay’s voice cut through the fog of her thoughts with all the subtlety of a meat cleaver.

Ellie suddenly stood.

‘Actually, I’ve got to run, Linds,’ she said, snatching up her iPhone from the table. ‘I’ve got this appointment … and I promised Tess I’d see her before she flies off to Ibiza.’

‘OK, but before you go …’ Lindsay held up the mock invitations, head cocked to one side in apology. ‘What do you reckon; the red or the black?’

‘Black,’ Ellie said as she leaned in to kiss Lindsay on both cheeks, throwing her Chanel Caviar bag over her shoulder in a deft swoop. ‘Let’s play it safe.’

Ellie pasted on a smile as she left the café. The press clipping had thrown her. Loretta Fiorentino was someone she had hoped never to have to think about ever again. She was part of a past that Ellie had long ago buried and had no plans to resurrect; at least not in this lifetime. The news story had said that ‘Lorena’ and her husband were at the end of an extended honeymoon and were imminently due to head back to LA, potentially making a brief stop off in London first, ‘if the mood takes us.’ Ellie hoped it wouldn’t. In fact, she hoped they’d get on a one-way plane back to LA as soon as possible and stay there permanently, because if Eleanor Scott knew one thing, it was that wherever Loretta Fiorentino was, trouble was never far behind.

CHAPTER 2

‘Cazzo imbecilli!’ Loretta Hassan jabbed at the picture of herself in the paper with a long pointed red fingernail. ‘The press, they are fucking idiots!’ she screeched, incredulous, her Italian accent thick with protest. ‘I mean, for the love of God they are journalists! Journalists! And they cannot even spell my name correctly!’ She slammed the offending paper down onto the silk Versace sheets, causing Bambino, her white teacup Chihuahua, to yelp in alarm. ‘The British press,’ she hissed, ‘they are the worst in the world – Lo-rena,’ she elongated the name contemptuously from her collagen-filled lips, as though it were poisonous. ‘Who the fuck is Lo-rena?’

‘My darling,’ Ramone ‘Ramsey’ Hassan, Loretta’s husband of two months, rolled off his wife’s naked body with a sigh. ‘You must not upset yourself,’ he said softly, patting her hand like a child. ‘You have not long recovered from your operation. It is not good to put your body through so much stress, not at your ag –’ Loretta shot him a fierce glare and he wisely refrained from finishing the sentence.

‘Do you not realise what this means, you stupid man?’ she snapped, snatching the offending newspaper up again and waving it in front of her husband’s weary face.

‘You see how they have positioned us next to the Muldavey story? This is not an accident, no?’ her eyes narrowed into menacing slits. ‘You must get onto the lawyers as soon as possible! We’ll sue their sorry asses to kingdom come!’

Furious, Loretta threw back the fine silk sheets. Swinging her short but slim coffee-coloured legs over the edge, she began to pace the room.

Ramsey, smarting a little from the ‘stupid man’ comment, watched her stalk the length of the palatial master suite, her delicate feet leaving imprints in the cream Persian rug.

‘Come back to bed, Loretta, darling,’ Ramsay sighed. He had neither the emotional strength nor the energy to calm her down today, especially after the aggressive sex session they’d just had. He was exhausted.

Though he was at great pains to disguise it from his new wife, Ramsey was feeling the pressure of his impeding trial. The super-injunction he’d managed to take out against the actress speaking out had afforded him a modicum of protection, for now at least, but such tremendous stress was beginning to take its toll on his health. In recent weeks his headaches had reached the point of being unbearable and the heart palpitations he was increasingly experiencing were giving him great cause for concern. He had never felt worse.

Ignoring him, an incensed Loretta, newspaper in hand, flounced out onto the enormous patio. The view was without doubt as arresting as any she’d seen before and for a moment it was all she could focus on.

Villa Adonia was situated on a sequestered and tranquil section of the western tip of the picturesque Greek island of Santorini. Perched on a cliff top with a horseshoe-shaped beach below, private and completely secluded, it enjoyed exceptional 360-degree views of the crystal clear Aegean sea and was by far the most exquisite hideaway on the entire island.

‘Merda, fa caldo! It’s hot!’ Loretta purred, allowing her Missoni kaftan to slide from her shoulders to the floor, exposing her naked, olive-skinned flesh. It had to be tipping one hundred degrees at least.

Loretta had turned heads from an early age. She possessed a magnetic beauty; all large brown eyes encased in dark lashes, luscious thick lips that seemed to part naturally in an overtly sexual pout, and an abundance of thick, jet black hair that tumbled down her back in corkscrew curls. But it was Loretta’s body that was her greatest asset. When, at the age of fourteen, it met with puberty, she became the talk of Naples.

The young Loretta spent her days behind the meat counter of her father’s store, dreaming of escaping the slums of Naples to Hollywood, where she would become a star of the silver screen, just like her idols, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, and Greta Garbo. After her father was tragically shot dead in a bungled robbery and her mother followed him to the grave less than two years later, there was nothing left to prevent her from pursuing her dreams. Loretta had quickly decided that the fastest, most effective way of getting to the top in Hollywood was to screw her way there, and as a result, it was not long before she got a break starring in a string of low-grade adult movies, ultimately going on to marry the director – a man she neither loved nor particularly liked – at just eighteen years old. Naïvely, Loretta saw her foray into the soft porn industry – and her marriage – as a stepping stone to achieving her lofty ambitions. But the union was a disaster, and just eighteen months later she was left penniless and pregnant. Disillusioned but still determined, Loretta had made the decision to abort her unborn child and vowed never again to fall foul of a man. The next time she married – and she had no doubt there would be a next time – she would make sure it was for the right reasons: money; bags of it.

Although it had been a strategic move on her part, seducing and marrying one of the richest plastic surgeons in Hollywood, Loretta did care about Ramsey in her own unique way. He was perfect husband material and she planned to stay with him for as long as it suited her, which she estimated to be somewhere around the five to seven year mark, give or take, figuring this would be long enough to entitle her to a generous slice of his substantial wealth; and possibly the Tuscan house, if the judge was having a good day. Love was not part of Loretta’s repertoire. As far as she was concerned, love was a losing game played by fools. And Loretta Fiorentino was nobody’s fool.

Leaning over the whitewashed wall, she looked out across the perfectly blue Aegean sea, watching as the sunlight glittered and danced across the ocean like God himself had scattered it with diamonds, and wondered if it was champagne o’clock yet. She needed a drink to help compress her thoughts. The paparazzi would be crawling all over them thanks to such a libellous piece of tabloid juxtaposition.

‘Merda,’ Loretta cursed under her breath. When she had called her husband ‘stupid’ she had meant it. Ramsey had royally fucked up; his would be the most precipitous fall from grace and now it looked as though they would both have to pay the price.

‘I did it for you my angel,’ he had pleaded when she had demanded to know the truth. ‘I know how you’ve always felt about Miranda Muldavey; how it should have been you who’d had her career, how unfair life has been to you … I made sure she’ll never set foot in front of a movie camera again.’ He had paused, pensive, staring up at her with impassioned dark brown puppy-dog eyes. ‘I thought you would be happy …’

Ramsey was a great surgeon, perhaps even the greatest of his time, with an unblemished reputation and a fiercely loyal clientele. Yet the afternoon Miranda Muldavey, arguably the most notorious face in Hollywood at the time, had walked into his surgery, Ramsey had seemingly abandoned all his senses and a lifetime of impeccable ethics and, blinded by obsession, committed an unspeakably diabolical act.

It made Loretta shudder to think of what her husband had done. It was true; she had always been insanely jealous of Miranda Muldavey and couldn’t help but compare herself to the beautiful actress. After all, they were of the same age, background, and they even bore similar physical attributes, yet one had gone on to achieve a level of success that the other could only dream of. Muldavey was famous for playing the romantic lead alongside some of Hollywood’s hottest men – she was revered and respected, while Loretta was notorious for her outlandish dress sense and being photographed bending over next to swimming pools – little more than a joke, fodder for third-rate gossip rags. But she had never wished the actress any real harm. Maiming her had been entirely Ramsey’s own twisted idea.

Loretta lit an L&M and forcefully blew smoke from her glossy pursed lips. Even with the best lawyers her husband’s money could buy, things were looking grim. If there was the slightest suggestion that this was something more sinister than simple negligence then it wouldn’t just be Ramsey’s livelihood and unblemished career on the line; it would be his liberty too.

Loretta looked down at the copy of the Daily Mail in her hand and felt her fury re-ignite like embers of a bonfire. If Ramsey lost everything, then what would be left for her when she came to divorce him? After all, everyone knew that half of nothing is nothing. ‘Whatever happens, we’ve still got each other,’ her adoring husband had said that morning as he had pumped away on top of her, with his usual lack of finesse.

Sighing heavily, Loretta looked out to sea. What she needed was a plan; one that would exonerate Ramsey and protect her investment. It struck her that maybe the two nurses who planned to give evidence at the trial could be bought off. After all, everyone had their price, as she herself knew only too well. And if that didn’t work then there was always blackmail. As well as a price, everyone had a past and she vowed to start digging into theirs to see if she couldn’t locate a few skeletons to use as leverage.

‘Dahling,’ Loretta strutted from the patio back into the bedroom with a renewed sense of purpose, her mood visibly buoyed. ‘Call the butler will you? Have him bring up some more vintage Krug. The ’92.’

Ramsey did not answer her.

Glancing over at her husband in bed, his large bulk buried beneath the Versace sheets, Loretta made her way towards the Moroccan-themed en-suite.

‘Did you hear me, dahling? I said I want champagne … and order some bellinis and beluga while you are at it. I’m a little, how do you say … peckish?’

Receiving no response, Loretta sighed a little irritably, making her way over to the bed where she gave her husband a less-than-subtle poke. He did not move.

Loretta felt the first icy flutters of fear settle upon her stomach like fresh snow on grass. ‘Ramsey dahling, are you ok?’

Peeling back the sheets, she audibly gasped, causing Bambino to give a skittish jump.

‘Cazzo merda! Fucking shit!’ she sprang back from the bed, her heart knocking painfully inside her chest as though it were made of brass. Ramsey’s lips were formed in a perfect ‘O’ shape; his eyes open wide in a ghoulish mask of surprise and despair. Paralysed to the spot, her heartbeat pulsing loudly in her ears, Loretta glanced at the telephone on the bedside table. With a shaking hand she went to pick it up but changed her mind, instead tentatively pressing a red manicured finger against her husband’s neck to check for a pulse. His skin still felt warm to the touch and although overcome with revulsion, she held it there for a few moments. Detecting nothing, she took his wrist between her thumb and forefinger; again, nothing.

He was dead.

Jesus. The poor bastard must’ve gone and had a heart attack. Lightheaded with adrenaline, Loretta looked down at her dead husband with a mix of shock, repulsion and pity. And then it struck her with all the force of a swinging axe; the trial! Even she knew that a dead man cannot be tried. And no trial meant no compensation to be paid, or no list to be struck off, or no reputation to be sullied. It also meant that as his wife, his next of kin, she stood to get the lot; the houses across the world stuffed with priceless furniture and antiques, fleets of luxury cars, a private jet, and enough diamonds to put Switzerland out of business … It would all be hers.

Snatching up Bambino from the bed with a squeal, Loretta dramatically threw herself down onto her husband’s lifeless body.

‘Oh my poor dahling,’ she said, covering Ramsey’s rapidly paling face in scattergun kisses as tears began to track her cheeks. She had been wrong to call him stupid earlier. The man was a fucking genius. In that moment, Loretta truly loved her husband for the first, and last, time. ‘Grazie tesoro bambino,’ she sobbed, as she finally reached for the phone. ‘Grazie …’

CHAPTER 3

Victoria Mayfield stared at her computer screen; it was as blank as her mind. She had been sitting at her antique shabby-chic Parisian desk inside her study for just over an hour now, her fingers hovering precariously above the keyboard.

She looked up to the ceiling, ran her hands through the top of her glossy chestnut hair and took an audible breath. Her agent would be expecting the first few chapters of her much-anticipated new novel by next week and she had not written so much as a line.

Following the success of her debut novel, Mirror, Mirror some ten years ago, and the equally lauded sequel, Broken Glass, the name Victoria Mayfield had become synonymous with young, hopeful and desperately romantic women the world over – and it had made her ridiculously rich and famous in the process. Such accolades meant nothing to Victoria now though. She would have traded it all in a nano-second to have her life back to how it had been a couple of years ago when CeCe was alive.

Abandoning her laptop, Victoria left the room and wandered out onto the landing of her four-storey Notting Hill mews house and found herself hovering outside CeCe’s bedroom, staring at the brightly coloured wooden letters that spelled out her daughter’s name: CECELIA.

Stealthily looking around as though someone were watching her, Victoria pushed open the white door and tentatively stepped inside. Her therapist had advised against spending time in the nursery, had even suggested that she might clear it out and re-decorate as ‘part of the healing process’ but she would not hear a word of it; these small things, they were all she had left.

Victoria inhaled the clean, baby-like scent of the room. Staring at the assortment of soft toys, she picked up CeCe’s favourite rabbit, clutching it to her chest. On the wall to her left, white wooden photo frames containing professional black and white shots of her daughter, her bright-eyed, tiny chubby face all gummy smiles, hung from the picture rail by pink silk ribbon.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ she spoke softly. She ran her finger over one of the pictures, stroking her daughter’s tiny face through the glass. She moved towards the beautiful antique white sleigh crib that CeCe had once slept in and smoothed over the soft patchwork quilt that she’d had made by French artisans in Paris and for a split second she felt as if everything was normal; a mother preparing her child’s bed for her mid-morning nap. The painfully fleeting feeling gave her such an intense rush of pleasure that she almost gasped out loud.

Picking up a blanket, a brightly coloured cashmere affair by Brora, Victoria held it up to her face and inhaled deeply. She was sure she could still smell the newness of her daughter on it and an involuntary cry of anguish rose up in her throat and escaped her lips in a low moan.

‘Why, God?’ She shook her fist up at the ceiling, choking back sobs. ‘Why did you take her?’

Victoria Mayfield was the kind of woman who had it all; good looks, talent and intelligence. A loving daughter, a giving friend and a loyal wife, she had always been aware of her privileged background (Daddy was a hedge-fund manager and Mummy, a well-respected stage actress), and had never taken any of it for granted. It wasn’t in her nature to be ostentatious. Daddy had said she was just like his own mother, Cecelia, a woman she had never met but sensed had had kindness running through her very core.

Victoria Sheldon (as she had been before marriage) had seemingly inherited all the good of her grandmother, as well as the aesthetically pleasing Sheldon genes. Hers was a natural beauty. Her face, perfectly symmetrical, was a compilation of both her stunningly attractive parents; she had her father’s intense, deep green eyes and large red lips, and thanks to her mother she had also inherited a mane of thick, glossy, chestnut hair – which she had only recently, at the age of thirty-seven, felt the need to maintain with a few highlights – and a small upturned nose that sat in perfect proportion to the rest of her slim, oval face.

Her eleven-year marriage to Lawrence Mayfield, a handsome, talented film director, had been, by and large, a blissfully happy one. Perfectly matched, they complimented one another perfectly; his natural vivacity offset by her quiet charm.

On the surface, to an outsider who happened to be looking in, Lawrence and Victoria Mayfield had the lot; an enviable marriage, success and acclaim in both their chosen professions, plus a personal fortune that ensured they had the very best of everything. There was just one blot on their sublime landscape: they could not conceive.

‘Give it time,’ others said when month after month, Victoria’s unwelcome period had arrived with all the regularity of a baddie in a fairy tale. Five years down the line however, with numerous failed IVF attempts behind them, it transpired that they had what a glut of specialist doctors referred to as, ‘Unexplained Infertility’. Devastated that they might not ever be able to consolidate their love for each other with a child of their own, they had made the painful decision to stop with the treatment and let fate dictate. And so it had. Less than a year later, Victoria had found herself expecting.

Victoria sat down in the large comfortable nursing chair, a chair she had sat in to cradle her daughter’s tiny body as she fed her, and looked down at the small, soft rabbit she held in her hand, its beady black eyes shining up at her. Every cell in her body wanted to scream with anguish. It was all so cruel and unjust. There was a world of unwanted and unloved children out there, neglected and abused by their parents, and yet God had not seen fit to take their children from them, had he? Deep down in Victoria’s shattered heart, she knew that God had had nothing to do with CeCe’s death; she just needed someone to blame, and He seemed as good as anyone.

It had been uncommonly cold that night of the 16th July. Victoria remembered this because she had felt the need to wear a pair of light cashmere pyjamas to bed – unusual for the time of year.

After giving five-month old CeCe her bedtime feed and placing her down into the beautiful crib, she had watched her tiny daughter kick her chubby baby legs and coo, happily fixated on the mobile of bees and butterflies that gently danced above her, lulling her to sleep. Victoria had felt an overwhelming rush of love for her daughter as she watched her drift off in her crib. She was so adorable! Her saucer eyes were sapphire blue and twinkly, fine platinum curls settled at the nape of her sweet-smelling neck and her rosebud lips were as pink as the flowers themselves. CeCe was her greatest achievement; a baby made all the more precious by coming into the world against the odds.

Lawrence had been in Guatemala the night of the 16th July. He had been filming a documentary on drug mules, a somewhat dangerous assignment, and one that had caused Victoria some consternation at the time. Still, she had slept soundly that evening, a fact she felt guilty about to this day.

CeCe looked peaceful when Victoria had approached her in her crib the following morning. She had slept seemingly soundly and Victoria marvelled at what a clever little girl her daughter was; she had never suffered the torture of sleep deprivation like so many of her fellow new mothers who bitterly complained, bleary-eyed and tetchy, over strong cups of espresso at NCT classes. It was only when she got closer to the crib that Victoria realised that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

CeCe’s perfect face was tinged blue and when Victoria snatched her up from the crib her body felt cold and rigid. The logical part of her brain immediately told her that her daughter was dead but her heart steadfastly refused to concede this fact, even for a second. And so she had run, clutching the child still wrapped in her soft cashmere blanket, down the stairs, her hysterical, bloodcurdling screams so desperate and piercing that they alerted her housekeeper way down in the basement of the house almost instantly.

‘Oh please, God,’ she had screamed. ‘No … nooooo.’

Marney O’Brien would never forget the look of pure despair etched on her employer’s face that morning. Her low primeval screams would haunt her till her death.

*

From that day onwards, inside her own mind Victoria Mayfield had never really stopped screaming. Even Lawrence struggled to reach her. Though Victoria still loved her husband, their union was now forever blighted, defined by heartache and loss. This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that the doctors had said they were ‘unlikely, if ever’ to conceive again. As if fate hadn’t bestowed them a cruel enough blow, Lawrence had suffered a crippling bout of mumps in the year that had followed little CeCe’s death, rendering his already dwindling sperm count virtually non-existent.

‘Perhaps you might consider adoption?’ the US specialist had gently suggested, his five-thousand-dollar-a-pop fee affording them the soft touch at least. It was an option Victoria had flatly ruled out. She had felt the feet and elbows of flesh and blood inside her belly; her creation, their creation, and knew there could be no substitute.

Two years had passed since CeCe’s death, and with still no baby, Victoria was getting desperate. She couldn’t afford to wait five years like she had done before; she wasn’t getting any younger. As far as she was concerned, a life without children would be no life at all.

From the comfortable confines of CeCe’s nursing chair, Victoria was dragged from her thoughts by the sound of her private phone ringing in her bedroom next door. She heard the incongruous sound of her own cheerful voice as the recorded message kicked in.

‘Tor! Hi! It’s Ellie. Fancy a little lunch this week, if you’re around? I was thinking Nobo perhaps? Or The Belvedere? Your call … I don’t know about you but I could do with the company – and a glass of something alcoholic! Actually, sod it, make it a bottle with the week I’ve had …’ Ellie laughed, though Victoria’s intuition detected an edge to her friend’s tone. ‘Anyway, if you’re about, give me a shout. Otherwise, catch up soon. Hope all’s well, darling. Call me …’

Victoria’s friendship with Ellie Scott was the best thing, the only good thing that had come out of all the wasted time they had spent at the fertility clinic. It had been comforting to meet like-minded people who understood the emotional ups and downs of endless fruitless IVF cycles and heartbreak, and through it the Mayfields and the Scotts had forged a strong bond.

Victoria made to pick up the phone but hesitated as the image of her daughter’s coffin bubbled up in her mind; a beautiful white solid oak casket adorned with a stunning array of pink flowers that spelled out the word ‘Angel’. It had looked so small as it disappeared through the burgundy velvet curtain of the crematorium that she had wanted to run after it, to rescue her daughter’s tiny body before she turned to dust, to hold her hand, be with her, like a mother should be. She had become hysterical at that point and a doctor had been called to give her a shot of something that had made her sleep, a sleep in which she prayed to a God she despised that she might never wake from.

Victoria abruptly stood. Kissing the rabbit on its soft fluffy face, she replaced it carefully onto the shelf and left the room, taking one sorrowful last look around before closing the door behind her.

Making her way into the vast walk-in wardrobe in her bedroom, she drew back the bespoke sliding doors and began to pull various dresses from their padded hangers, only to instantly discard them in a pile behind her.

Getting pregnant was no longer merely something she hoped for, but a base need within her that had to be filled, as essential as the very oxygen she breathed. Picking up the pile of dresses and throwing them onto the bed, Victoria knew what she had to do. She could no longer wait for fate to chance its arm any more than she could face another year of bitter childless disappointment. She could almost feel her eggs drying up with each second that passed, her empty womb growing less and less accommodating by the day. With all options exhausted, she had made the decision to take matters into her own hands. She would be pregnant by the end of the year and if the doctors and her husband couldn’t help her, well, then she would have no choice but to help herself.

CHAPTER 4

Driving through Sunset Strip in a shiny black Lamborghini Gallardo, Tom Black had the countenance of a man who’d lost a cent and found a dollar. It was a beautiful day; the sun shone high in a cloudless late May sky and the sidewalk was teeming with hot women, all dressed appropriately for the biting heat in Daisy Dukes and cute summer dresses that barely covered their tight little asses. It gave him a tangible buzz as they all looked up as he roared past, sound system up, soft top down, the Black Eyed Peas blasting out of the Bang & Olufsen stereo. Fuck, man, this was why he loved LA. The broad streets lined with palm trees, the cool bars and eternal sunshine where women strutted their stuff; fake tits and bikinis by the truckload. No one looked old here. It was like Peter fucking Pan’s playground and it was one of the main reasons he had decided to call it home. In reality however, LA couldn’t have been much more of a departure from the rough East London streets Tom had started out on. Back then, ‘home’ had been wherever his womanising drunk of a father’s heart – or dick – had been. Invariably this meant temporary accommodation at one of his many ‘auntie’s’ houses, as they were always referred to. Tom struggled to remember any of them; one was much like the other, a hazy blur of blonde hair, raucous laughter and lipstick. Until Charlene O’Connor that is. The O’Connors had changed everything …

The Lamborghini purred loudly as Tom pulled up at a set of lights and he smiled as a particularly arresting blonde with enormous shop-bought tits teetered along the crossing, her denim mini skirt leaving little to the imagination. He revved the engine almost subconsciously as she strutted past and looked up, flashing him a megawatt white smile in recognition of his appreciation.

‘Cool whip, dude,’ she said in a high-pitched Californian drawl, eyeing the Lamborghini with approval. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three and Tom could tell from the glint in her violet blue eyes that she was just his type: up for anything. He rested his elbow on the side of the car, peering at her eagerly from beneath his mirrored Ray-Bans, giving her a peek at his arresting dark brown eyes. She was sure she had seen this dude somewhere before, in one of the magazines she’d read during one of her more prolonged stays in hospital, or on TV perhaps? She looked him over with caution, though this was largely for effect. The car alone was worth more than her apartment and yearly salary combined.

The car, however, didn’t actually belong to Tom. It was on loan from a gambling pal he played poker with and he was damned sure he was going to make the most of it.

‘Wanna see what she can do?’

‘Sure,’ said the blonde after the briefest hesitation, ‘why not?’

Tom grinned as he leaned over to open the passenger door, moving the Louis Vuitton holdall to one side. Just as he’d thought; up for anything.

‘What’s in the bag?’ she enquired, curious as she effortlessly slid into the passenger seat, her mini skirt riding high up her lean, tanned thighs.

‘Ask no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,’ he replied, raising a provocative eyebrow as the lights turned to green and they roared off along the boulevard, the G-force of the powerful engine pulling her back into the cream leather seat. She squealed with delight. His accent told her he was British. And already she could tell this was going to be one hell of a ride.

‘Hey bud, your phone’s ringing.’ He saw the girl’s lips move as her platinum-blonde hair whipped about her face, sticking to her fruity lip gloss, but he hadn’t heard a word above Kanye West and the loud hum of the Lamborghini’s powerful engine. ‘Your phone,’ she mouthed in an exaggerated gesture, pointing to his Blackberry Bold which was buzzing angrily on the smart leather dashboard.

‘Well, answer it then,’ Tom replied, turning the stereo down a couple of notches. She shot him a quizzical look, but did as she was told.

‘Hi!’ she giggled into the receiver breathlessly.

‘Yeah, er … hello … who is this? Can I speak to Tom?’

‘Sure, I’ll just put him on,’ the girl purred in her best telephone voice. ‘Hey bud,’ she held out his cell. ‘Like, I think it might be for you.’

Tom laughed. He liked her. She had a sense of humour. Rarer than rocking-horse shit in LA.

‘Tom Black,’ he pressed the loudspeaker button, careful to keep his hands on the wheel of the ridiculously expensive car that he didn’t own.

‘Don’t tell me,’ the voice said, deadpan, ‘you got yourself another new PA?’

‘I found her on the sidewalk,’ Tom winked playfully at the girl and she collapsed into more giggles. She sensed they were gonna have some fun together. And having just been sacked from yet another dead-end waitressing job, fun was just what she was looking for.

‘Yeah? Guess it’s her lucky day,’ the deadpan voice retorted, breaking into a violent coughing fit. It was Jack, Tom’s oldest friend and business partner.

‘Jesus my friend, you sound like shit.’

‘Have you taken that dough to the bank yet?’ Jack immediately shot back, letting Tom instantly know that this wasn’t going to be a friendly, chew-the-fat kind of conversation. ‘I want that money safe, Tom. We need to make sure we got our shit in order if we’re gonna win that goddamn auction …’

‘Auction?’

‘Christ Tom, I told you, don’t you listen to a goddamn word I say?’ The irritation in his voice was clearly audible now, ‘that fucker Constantini is refusing to do a deal so we’re gonna have to take it to bids like everyone else, so unless we’ve got the cold hard cash we can forget about it. The dream will be over before it’s even begun.’ Jack was already beginning to regret entrusting Tom with such a large sum of money. He’d been laid up in bed for five days with some evil Asian flu bug thing and had become seriously twitchy about having that much green lying around in his apartment, which was why he’d instructed his oldest friend to do him a favour and take it straight to the bank that morning, all three million dollars of it.

‘Whatever the fuck you do, Tom,’ a red-eyed Jack had said with real gravitas, handing his friend the heavy Louis Vuitton holdall, ‘don’t lose it; everything I got is in that bag. So I want you to go straight to the bank, OK? No diversions, no detour via a casino … you got me?’

‘I’m on my way boss,’ Tom replied with such jovial nonchalance that it had caused Jack to see red, prompting a further, more violent coughing fit this time.

‘I’m fucking serious, Tom!’ he struggled to breathe. ‘If anything should happen to it …’

‘I’m almost at the bank right now,’ Tom replied breezily. He put his foot down harder on the accelerator and the girl squealed again. He imagined she was probably a screamer in the sack too. He looked forward to finding out.

‘Yeah, well hear me loud and clear, bro,’ Jack’s hacking cough sounded like machine gunfire, ‘I need to know all’s cool your end of the deal, that you’ll bank the cash and get your share of the green – we fly out to London in three weeks.’

Tom and Jack had been in the ‘entertainment’ business for the past fifteen years, with varying degrees of success. The story was usually the same; Jack would initially stump up the cash, generally prised from his exasperated but wealthy father, and together they would attempt to turn some rundown old gin joint on the wrong side of town into a hot, happening new hang-out for the young, beautiful and rich. And sometimes it had even worked; at least until either Jack lost interest or Tom gambled away the profits, both of which had been the case on more than one occasion. Now, however, it was time to get serious. This latest acquisition was to be their defining moment, a transitional leap from small fry to legitimate players, and having exhausted New York, Vegas and LA, from a business perspective at least, it was time to cast the net a little wider.

‘Jeez man, I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jack had responded to the lukewarm reception Tom had given him upon informing him about the ‘near-as-damnit perfect’ venue he’d found for them in the heart of London’s West End. With a dense population of young, affluent, and fashion-conscious prospective clientele, it seemed like an appealing prospect, especially for the particular concept they had in mind – a hybrid mix of a lavish premier super club and casino, combined with fine dining and themed table dancing. ‘London is the epicentre of cool right now, man. It’s hot to trot.’ Jack had insisted.

Tom had reluctantly acquiesced. London was his birthplace but it had long ago ceased to be his home. Besides, the city held bittersweet memories for him and he had made a promise never to return again. But then, Tom had never been much good at keeping promises …

Now all that was standing in the way of their dream was the auction for the rundown but ultimately perfect old warehouse in Soho; that, and the small matter of six million dollars, three of which were sitting in a Louis Vuitton case in the back seat of the Lamborghini.

‘No stress, bud,’ Tom smiled. ‘I got everything in hand on that front.’

There was a pause on the line as Jack digested this information, his chest wheezing like an old boiler on its last knockings. If this deal came off they’d make their money back ten-fold within twelve months. But they were still a little shy of three mill of the recommended auction price, which was where Tom came into the equation. Jack was relying on him to make up the shortfall, which was a little like relying on a politician to come good on his promises; hit and miss.

‘You’re telling me you already got your hand on three big ones? And you didn’t care to mention that small fact to me this morning?’

The girl’s ears pricked up. Three million bucks! Jeez!

‘Just trust me, OK?’ Tom winked at his passenger and she grinned in return, uncrossing her long, slim legs in a consciously provocative move.

‘Yeah right! Look what happened the last time I did that?’

Jack Goldstein was the closest thing Tom Black had left to family. They had been friends since his early Vegas days, bonding instantly by their shared interests of making money and chasing pussy. Ultimately though, ups and downs aside, theirs was a friendship that had been built on the essential elements of trust and respect, and as a result, it had stood the test of time.

‘Well then, just chill out. We’ll go to the auction; we’ll get our casino. We’ll make our millions. Simple.’

Jack sighed. Tom was being evasive.

‘I’m serious, Tom,’ he said earnestly, between short, violent bursts of deep chesty coughs that made him sound like a sea-lion attempting to mate. ‘I don’t plan to return back to the States without that venue.’

‘Jesus Jack, stop breaking my balls will you?’ Tom suddenly snapped, causing the girl to look over at him. ‘I’m pulling up outside the bank right now … and we’re gonna get our casino, OK?’

Jack was unfazed by his friend’s sharp outburst. He’d heard it all a million times over.

‘We’ve got a couple of weeks’ grace to get our shit sorted then it’s all systems go,’ he said, pausing to sneeze three times in succession.

‘Jeez bud, you need to get yourself to a doctor.’

‘Get that bread banked and I won’t need to,’ he snapped back, although he knew he was right; Jack couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt this goddamn awful and it was worrying him. But he hated quacks. Quacks were wack as far as he was concerned – messengers of doom. His late grandfather had been the same. First doctor he ever saw in almost seven decades told him he had less than six weeks left. Jeez. You were better off not knowing that kind of shit. ‘And don’t let me down, Tom,’ he added seriously, ‘I’m counting on you. Three million and counting …’ Jack said flatly, blowing his nose loudly before hanging up.

Turning his attentions briefly back to his passenger, momentarily distracted by her perfect form and abundant peroxide hair that couldn’t possibly be all her own, Tom’s mind began to click into overdrive as his forced smile faded faster than a fake clairvoyant’s apparition. Truth was, Jack had every reason to worry. There was no cash; Tom owned the princely sum of nothing. Somehow, he needed to find a shortfall of at least three million bucks in less than seven days if he wasn’t about to renege on his word and lose face.

A thought bubble appeared above Tom’s head and he grinned at his passenger again. He was under no illusion that to make that kind of money in such a short period of time he would need a spectacular show of luck …

‘You doing much this weekend …?’ he made to address the blonde, realising he didn’t even know her name.

‘… Candy,’ she prompted, returning his grin with a broad smile of her own, showcasing her ice-white veneers, de rigueur in Beverly Hills.

‘Of course,’ he gave a knowing nod. What else would she be called?

‘And yeah, I was kinda planning to hook up with some girlfriends, you know, hit the bars, a few jello shots …’ she’d added, not wanting to make it sound as if she was too available.

‘Well, Candy,’ Tom said, turning to her earnestly and fixing her with an intent gaze that immediately held her intrigue, ‘cancel your plans.’ He had a sixth sense about this one; she had fortune on her side, he was convinced of it.

‘And why would I wanna do that?’ She cocked her head to one side, her fake eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she blinked rapidly at him.

‘Because we’re going to Vegas, baby!’ he announced with a little whistle, the tyres of the Lamborghini screaming in objection as he accelerated around a corner.

After all, what did he have to lose?

CHAPTER 5

Ellie was finding it difficult to concentrate as her driver, Wesley, weaved through the Notting Hill traffic in her carbon-black Aston Martin V12 Vantage. She couldn’t get the earlier conversation she’d had with her wayward daughter out of her head.

‘Jesus, Mum, chill out already. I’m not a child anymore. I’m eighteen!’ Tess Scott had stood before Ellie with a defiant hand on her skinny jean-clad hip, rolling her eyes at her mother in over-exaggerated exasperation. ‘I’m pretty sure Allegra’s mum isn’t giving her the whole “make sure you use a condom” routine and banging on about ecstasy pills! It’s all so … embarrassing.’

‘Maybe that’s because Allegra’s mother doesn’t give a toss, Tess,’ Ellie had sharply replied. ‘I happen to care about what my daughter gets up to. I’ve been to Ibiza, remember …’

Tess rolled her eyes. Yeah, and no doubt her mother had sampled all that was on offer while she was there too. She was such a goddamn hypocrite sometimes it was unreal.

Ellie hadn’t wanted to fall out with Tess just before she left to catch a plane but her feisty daughter seemed to have a knack of rubbing her up the wrong way. ‘I’m only looking out for you,’ she’d said, her tone softening. ‘You’ll feel the same when you have your own kids one day.’ She had reached out and touched the tip of her daughter’s nose with an affectionate finger. ‘It’s just that you’re young and beautiful … I know what all the men out there will be after and I want you to be careful …’

Tess had thrown her limited-edition Mulberry Alexa onto the chrome and leather bar stool of their pristine designer kitchen with a loud exhalation. Frankly, she bloody well hoped that’s what they were after. It was partly the reason she was going, after all.

‘If I’m so beautiful, how come you’re so against me testing for that model agency I told you about?’ Tess had folded her arms and fixed her mother with a defiant stare.

‘Oh Tess, not this again, please,’ it had been Ellie’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘I’ve told you. That agency supplies glamour models and no daughter of mine is going to splash her half-naked body on billboards all over London. Not while she’s living under my roof. Can you imagine what your father would say?’ Ellie shook her head, dismissing the idea. ‘Once you’ve got a degree behind you, well, I can’t stop you if you want to pursue a career in modelling. But please, Tess, get your education first,’ she’d pleaded. ‘You’ve got a brain in that head of yours. I wish you would use it sometimes.’

Ellie stared out of the window as they turned out of Holland Park onto Abbotsbury Road where they immediately hit a slew of rush hour traffic and pulled her iPhone from her Miu Miu clutch.

Hey darling  Hope you’ve landed safely. Watch out for snakes in your boot!

She smiled as she sent the text. Tess would know what she meant. The Toy Story catchphrase was a code word they used when asking the other to tread carefully.

‘Shit.’ Ellie looked down at her platinum and diamond Chanel bracelet watch in irritation. She would be late to meet Vinnie now.

‘Wesley, would you mind turning the air con up?’ she asked politely. All this business with Tess had left her feeling hot and bothered.

Tess was a bright girl. Smart. She’d been described by the principal of her ridiculously expensive private school as ‘a naturally high achiever’, though she’d also added ‘diva’ and ‘troublemaker’ to that list too. Ellie knew her daughter had a bit of a wild reputation; she had seen how she acted up around her friends. Tess loved being the centre of attention, especially where the opposite sex was concerned. It worried Ellie that her daughter seemed naturally drawn towards drama and chaos, something she herself understood only too well. Men had always found the O’Connor women alluring and she knew that such a disposition invariably had the potential to bring trouble. Tess seemed to feed off male attention, soak it up like a sponge.

Ellie knew her daughter was no virgin but she didn’t like the idea of her being easy pickings either. Tess was more vulnerable than she thought she was; and certain men could smell vulnerability like a shark senses blood. Not that it was entirely Tess’s fault; she was the classic only child of exceedingly wealthy parents. Always the centre of attention, she had been sheltered from any kind of negative influence her entire life; beautiful, adored and spoilt rotten, that was Tess Scott. It was a bitter regret of Ellie’s that she had been unable to give her only daughter a brother or sister. More than anything, Ellie had hoped to give her husband another child. It was the least she could do after everything he had given her. But life had denied them, and Ellie secretly wondered if it had seen fit to punish them both for her sins. Sins that she and Vinnie never spoke of …

Ellie’s early life had been the antithesis of her daughter’s; all Tess had known was extreme wealth and the protective blanket that it afforded. She had had the very best of everything money could buy, and yet in an odd twist of fate, it wasn’t in spite of her mother’s impoverished provenance that she had all these things; it was because of it.

Ellie thought of her own mother and felt a terrible pang of sadness resound inside her chest. Charlene O’Connor had been beautiful once, with peroxide-blonde hair and emerald green eyes that sparkled when she smiled. Her aesthetically pleasing appearance was her greatest asset, and with bills to pay and mouths to feed she had put it to good use as an ‘exotic’ dancer in an East End gentleman’s club. Though frankly, that was a misnomer if ever there was one. ‘Never once seen a gentleman walk through those doors in all the years I’ve worked here!’ she would joke. Ellie could still remember it now. The low, amber lighting inside that dingy club; the omnipresent smell of cigarettes and cheap perfume in the air. It had been Charlene’s intention to make enough money to put her talented daughter through ballet school, give her the chances she’d never had to make something of herself. Her mother had always been so proud of her. ‘You were pirouetting before you learned to walk!’ she would say. ‘I knew the moment you were born that you had a special gift.’ It still pained Ellie to this day to know that she had ended up following in her mother’s footsteps into the clubs and dive bars of Las Vegas. Sure, she had become a dancer alright, only it wasn’t quite the kind her mother had hoped for. Nothing like keeping it in the family, eh Mom?

Ellie never knew her father and wondered if he was even aware of her existence. But Charlene had always had enough love to compensate for his absence; she had been an attentive mother once, caring and protective – and she had worked hard to pay to put her talented daughter through ballet school. And then she had met Ray Black, and everything changed. From the moment Ray Black had set foot inside ‘Dirty Harry’s’ spit ‘n’ sawdust club, all shiny flash suit and wide grin, Charlene O’Connor had been completely bowled over by his good looks and charm. It had raised more than a few eyebrows when she had agreed to up sticks and accompany the handsome stranger on his quest for the big time in Las Vegas with the young Ellie in tow. It was only a pity Ray had failed to mention his burgeoning gambling and alcohol addictions before they’d boarded the flight. And so Vegas had not quite turned out to be the fresh start Charlene O’Connor had hoped for. She soon found herself stuck in a cramped prefab on the wrong side of the Strip, working the dive bars, only for Ray to drink and gamble away her earnings. Life was no different from how it had been in London; in fact it was worse. And then of course there was Ray’s son, Ellie’s new surrogate step-brother. His name was Tom. Tom Black.

*

With the traffic finally dispersing, Ellie looked down at her YSL python hobo bag on the passenger seat and chewed her glossy lip tremulously. Unzipping the inside pocket, she glanced at the small newspaper cutting she had kept of Loretta and her surgeon husband, with mixed emotions. She was still debating whether or not to show Vin. She knew it would only resurrect terrible memories for both of them and she had no desire to spoil the evening they had planned. But she didn’t like to keep secrets from her husband. All those years ago, she had made a promise she intended to keep; one where she swore she would always tell the truth, no matter what. She owed him that much. Truth was, she owed him everything.

Pulling up outside the Michelin-starred L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon restaurant in Covent Garden, Wesley switched off the engine.

‘Mrs Scott,’ he gave an impeccably gracious nod as he opened the car door.

Ellie momentarily stared at the grainy image of Loretta Fiorentino – a woman who had inadvertently changed the course of her life – before screwing it up into a tiny ball and dropping it into the gutter as she stepped from the Bentley.

As far as she was concerned, it was the best place for it.

CHAPTER 6

Ibiza. A hedonist’s paradise; a twenty-four-seven party island where the young and beautiful flocked in search of sex, drugs and debauchery. The kind of decadent place where anything went. The kind of place Tess Scott had been looking for.

Tess grinned enthusiastically as she looked out into the busy crowd of party-goers; topless girls parading around in outrageous costumes that barely covered their modesty, half-naked bodies drenched in sweat writhing up against each other, painted faces gurning in time to the relentless beat …

‘Makes Boujis look like Sunday school,’ she remarked to Allegra, as a dancer wearing gold pasties on her nipples and an enormous feathered headdress shimmied past. Allegra raised an eyebrow and they both collapsed into a fit of giggles. Tess had heard that some pretty risqué stuff went down in Ibiza; live sex shows, boat parties that turned into all-night debauched drug orgies, and frankly she couldn’t wait to discover whether the rumours were true. She was so over the whole London Sloane scene; there had to be more to life than getting trashed on Treasure Chests in Mahiki on a Friday night. Besides, right now, the further she was away from London the better. Her parents were practically suffocating her, trying to run, and ultimately ruin, her life by insisting she finish her A-Levels before going off to university, Oxford ideally. Just the thought of it bummed her out big time. Fact was, she had absolutely no intention whatsoever of attending university, Oxford or otherwise. After all, her family were loaded, like, seriously stacked. It wasn’t as if she needed to work, at least, not right now. Right now, she just wanted to have fun while she was young and free of responsibilities. Ultimately she would eventually settle down and marry someone rich or famous anyway. Then she’d knock out a couple of sprogs and no doubt end up having to sacrifice whatever career she’d carved out for herself, rendering all those years of studying a complete and utter waste of time and effort. That’s not to say that she lacked ambition; quite the contrary, just not the kind her parents approved of. Being famous; that’s what Tess Scott aspired to. She was already fairly illustrious among the cliquey West London party set as it was, but now she wanted to cast the net a little wider, and the idea of having her every move documented by the likes of Heat and HELLO! magazine was the pinnacle of such aspirations.

‘Come on, babes,’ Tess grabbed Allegra’s arm, forcibly pulling her in the direction of the stage, where two go-go dancers were spinning tricks on the poles. ‘Let’s show these amateur bitches how it’s really done.’

The MTV party was in full swing now, sweat-drenched bodies bouncing and moving in unison as if they all shared the same heartbeat. Tess, looking every inch the rich, beautiful socialite that she was, jumped up onto the stage and started writhing provocatively around the pole to a pumping Rhianna and Drake remix. As she wrapped herself around the pole, indulging the rampant exhibitionist within her, she felt an intense pair of eyes upon her and was pleased to note that they belonged to an attractive looking dark-haired dude, standing left of the stage, sipping champagne. Conscious of his lingering eyes burning holes in her skin, she ramped up the raunch factor another notch, furiously snaking and gyrating her hips, shaking her tight little booty in an over-exaggerated manner that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a particularly salacious gangsta rapper’s promo.

Like what you see, huh babes? Well, get a load of this!

‘Shit, girl,’ Allegra said, wide-eyed, as Tess, pumped up on adrenaline, jumped off the stage, her curtain of lustrous honey-blonde hair swishing behind her. ‘When did you learn to pole dance?’

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, babes,’ Tess shot back cryptically.

‘Another mojito?’ Allegra shook her glass.

‘You really need to ask?’

Making her way to the bar, Allegra Kennedy-Ling attempted to suppress a slight pang of jealousy. Tess Scott was her best friend; she had known her since junior school and they had practically grown up together, but she was also an insufferable show-off, made worse by the fact that whatever she seemed to put her mind to she excelled at. Tess’s recent appearance in Tatler magazine had launched her already sizeable ego into a whole new stratosphere and had seen her swanning around London as if she were the Next Big Thing.

‘How come she gets her mugshot in Tats?’ Calista Clinton, a mutual ‘friend’ had remarked sourly, poring over Tess’s pictorial debut in the fashionable society glossy one afternoon over a skinny soya latte in Shoreditch House.

‘She probably blew the photographer,’ Poppy Fox had chipped in, somewhat uncharitably, given her own dubious reputation.

‘Who hasn’t she blown?’ Calista rolled her eyes, dunking her biscotti in her froth and simulating a blow job with it. They had all collapsed into fits of giggles, Allegra included, if a little sheepishly.

‘Pretty impressive stuff,’ the dark-haired guy approached Tess with a raised eyebrow and a smile, handing her a glass of champagne, which she took with a breathtaking sense of entitlement. She raised her glass, automatically slipping into flirt mode. The dude was older, but he was still pretty hot.

‘Where’d you learn to dance like that?’ he fixed her eyes with his own just long enough to build a flicker of tension between them.

Tess gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘It’s in the genes.’

She was pleased with this response; she thought it made her sound sexy and mysterious.

The stranger held his hand out. ‘Marco. Marco DiMari.’

‘Tess.’ She shook it vigorously. Daddy had once told her that a person’s handshake was indicative of their personality; Marco’s was hard and fast – promising. On closer inspection he didn’t disappoint either, even if Tess did suspect that he was the wrong side of thirty. Tall and dark, he had a well-defined jawline complete with designer five o’clock shadow and an ice-white smile that appeared almost luminous under the fluorescent lighting of the club. The shirt was expensive, definitely Prada, and the cufflinks real diamond. She had seen enough up close in her life to be able to tell the difference.

‘So, you’re Italian?’

‘Si,’ he grinned. ‘You like Italian men?’

‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ she replied, tartly.

Marco smirked.

‘You here with someone?’

‘A friend,’ Tess drained the champagne glass and handed it back to him.

‘A boyfriend?’

‘A girl friend, actually,’ she nodded in the direction of Allegra, who was making her way back towards them from the bar, fresh mojitos held like trophies in the air as she weaved through the bobbing masses, trying not to spill any of the precious liquid.

Marco surreptitiously surveyed his prey, enjoying the electricity that crackled and fizzed between them.

‘You and your girlfriend fancy coming to a pool party later? Me and some friends have got a villa just up near San Lorenzo.’

Tess nodded as if she knew where he was talking about, though really she didn’t have a clue.

‘Where are you girls staying?’

‘At the Ushuaia Beach Club,’ she replied coolly, adding for good measure, ‘the Presidential Suite.’

He looked impressed, just as she had anticipated.

‘So, how about it then, Tess?’ Marco said, eyeing her miniscule Pucci bikini top with expertly hidden lasciviousness. She had the most amazing set of tits he’d ever seen. Everything about her reeked of wealth; the glossy hair, the natural tan, the designer ensemble and expensive jewellery … he’d struck gold.

‘Here’s my number,’ Marco said, placing something in her hand with a sly wink. ‘Call me. We’ll have a car come pick you up.’ Tess gave a nonchalant nod, though privately she was ecstatic. There was something irresistible about the sexy-looking Italian, an air of danger that instantly intrigued her.

Having successfully navigated the crowds, Allegra approached, handing Tess a Mojito as she eyed the stranger a little cautiously.

‘We’ll see,’ Tess smiled coquettishly, lowering her eyes at him. She had every intention of calling him and suspected he knew as much.

‘Ladies,’ Marco dipped his head before disappearing back into the buzzing throng.

‘Who was that?’ Allegra asked.

‘Marco … Marco DiMari,’ Tess said looking down at his glossy, black and gold embossed business card. ‘Director of Photography by all accounts … Picasso Films.’ It was then that she noticed the little wrap of white paper behind it and felt a frisson of excitement ripple the length of her body. Was that what she thought it was?

‘He’s invited us to a pool party later,’ she added, quickly closing her hand lest Allegra see what was in it. A party girl she might be, but Tess had never been into drugs. Truth was, she’d always been scared of them.

‘We gonna go?’ Allegra asked tentatively. Hot or not, she sensed there was something seriously shady about that Marco character, something that had made her feel instantly uneasy.

‘Babes,’ Tess raised a finely arched tattooed brow as she surreptitiously slipped the small wrap of powder into her sparkly Mui Mui clutch. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

CHAPTER 7

‘Stand back! I said stand back!’ Loretta Hassan’s bodyguard snarled menacingly as he opened the door to the chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and attempted to navigate his client through the swarm of awaiting journalists and paparazzi that were buzzing like wasps around her, flashes popping like champagne corks.

‘Mrs Hassan!’ A bespectacled man pushed his way to the forefront of the gathering throng. ‘Peter Phillips, LA Daily. Is it true that your husband was responsible for Miranda Muldavey’s botched surgery? Was that why she turned up at his funeral?’

A TV camera zoomed in on Loretta’s face and she half-heartedly attempted to shoo it away.

‘I’m afraid I cannot possibly comment,’ she purred demurely in her thick Italian accent, turning away from the camera for dramatic effect. She couldn’t afford to let the grieving widow act slip. Not with the beady eyes of the nation’s press all over her.

Ramsey’s gloriously A-list funeral had taken place the previous week in Malibu and Loretta, dressed head to toe in black McQueen couture, her creamy breasts spilling out of her tight corseted dress like boiling milk, had made for a tabloid feeding frenzy. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve relished such excessive media attention, but on this occasion she had been seething by such intrusion; she had personally assured her husband’s celebrity mourners of a complete press blackout. After all, Hollywood was all smoke and mirrors. Everyone wanted to give the illusion that their youthful good looks were down to impressive genes alone and not the skilful handiwork of her husband.

However, the journalist had been misinformed: Miranda hadn’t shown up at the funeral. Not even a glimpse. Loretta had thought it odd that the actress had yet made no formal statement to the media. After all, now that Ramsey was in his box what was to stop her from naming and shaming him?

Loretta reached the top of the stone steps towards her attorney’s Bel Air office but just as she was about to disappear inside, her path was blocked by an attractive female journalist.

‘How concerned are you about Miranda Muldavey’s private lawsuit, Mrs Hassan?’ she inquired, displaying an all-American white smile.

Loretta felt her cheeks flush and her heart skip a beat. Lawsuit? What lawsuit?

The astute journalist’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! So, you didn’t know!’ Her glee was almost palpable.

‘That’s enough! Stand back, or one of yous is gonna get a serious clump,’ Loretta’s lump of a bodyguard’s patience had finally run out as he pushed his client through the revolving doors of the imposing gothic building.

*

Loretta threw her studded leather Valentino clutch onto Randy Mumford’s desk with such force that it bounced. ‘If this is a joke, Randy, it is not a very fucking funny one.’ She was incandescent; her cheeks flushed crimson, her ample chest heaving up and down with an influx of adrenalin.

‘Please, won’t you sit down?’ he gestured to the vintage leather Chesterfield opposite. ‘A brandy perhaps?’

‘I don’t want a fucking brandy, Randy,’ she snarled, though in all honesty she could murder a drink. In fact, she could commit murder, if what that bitch journalist had said was true. Randy fixed her one anyway. The word ‘no’ invariably meant ‘yes’ where women like Loretta Hassan were concerned. It was little wonder old Ramsey’s heart had given out in the end. Poor bugger.

As an attorney to some of the Platinum Triangle’s richest and most famous there was little he hadn’t seen and heard when it came to tales of excess and debauchery. In a few years’ time when he retired, Randy planned to write a tell-all book on his years of digging celebrities out of the murky holes they invariably dug for themselves; sell them all out for a fat publishing cheque and then fuck off to Thailand to see the rest of his days out in the sun getting pleasured by ladyboys.

Ramsey and Randy had been golfing buddies, and as genuinely remorseful as he was about his friend’s sudden demise, it had crossed his mind that with him out of the picture he might be in with a shot at this year’s club trophy and a chance to get to know his formidable wife. He wasn’t sure which idea appealed most.

‘You mustn’t let them get to you, Loretta,’ he instructed, pulling at the collar of the new Armani shirt he had worn especially for their meeting, wishing he’d gone up a size now. ‘Those hacks will say anything to get a rise out of you.’ Truth was, he had half hoped she would drop the whole grieving widow façade and they might crack open the bottle of Krug he had chilling on ice in advance of her arrival. He had even indulged in a little fantasy of fucking her over his desk. After all, Ramsey had managed it. And what had Ramsey done that he hadn’t, aside from a handicap of five and last year’s club trophy?

‘I want you to give it to me straight, Randy,’ Loretta demanded, chin raised in defiance.

Randy stifled a lascivious grin. Frankly, he’d like nothing more.

She lit a cigarette without permission.

‘Is it possible for Miranda Muldavey to come after me for compensation, even though my beloved Ramsey,’ she clutched her chest dramatically as smoke billowed from her plump lips, ‘is no longer with us?’

Randy sighed, his ridiculous notion of an afternoon of champagne and sex rapidly diminishing by the second.

‘Well, it’s possible,’ he shrugged, ‘but unlikely. She would need to prove your husband’s negligence beyond reasonable doubt and, as you know, a dead man cannot stand trial. I suppose she could take out a private lawsuit, come after you that way, but again, the chances of her succeeding, in my opinion you understand, would be pretty slim.’

‘Slim you say?’

Randy downed the remainder of his crystal tumbler and pulled his lips over his teeth, before fixing her with an earnest stare.

‘Lady, I’d say they were fucking anorexic.’

Loretta visibly relaxed. Randy was right. These journalists would say anything to provoke a reaction. A reaction made headlines. And headlines sold newspapers. But still, Muldavey’s silence niggled at her.

‘I’ve had my secretary prepare copies of all the documents,’ Randy said, sliding a brown envelope across the oxblood-leather covered desk. ‘And I have the originals here for you to sign.’ He held out a Mont Blanc ink pen, poised, ready for her to take it.

Loretta took the pen from him and began to sign in her florid handwriting.

‘Congratulations, Mrs Hassan,’ Randy said dryly, quickly adding, ‘if that’s the right word to use, given the circumstances.’

Loretta was cross that she didn’t feel as euphoric as she had imagined she would, inheriting a touch over 500 million dollars.

‘There will be nothing left to celebrate if that crazy bitch comes after my money,’ she thumped her ample chest with such a breathtaking sense of self-righteousness that even Randy was a little taken aback, and he’d certainly seen more than his fair share of avarice over the years. ‘You cannot let Muldavey take it away from me.’ Loretta held his gaze from across the desk as she expertly slipped back into her helpless little girl routine, the one men seemed to drink down like a particularly fine vintage Châteaux Margaux.

Randy cleared his throat and watched as Loretta crossed and uncrossed her slim, tanned legs in slow, deliberate movements. The woman was certainly no spring chicken, but then again, neither was he, and she was wearing incredibly well for her age, whatever that might be. It was difficult to tell, given all the work Ramsey had done on her.

‘Well,’ he said softly, enjoying the switch in her demeanour as it dawned upon him that this was probably a woman who would do anything to save her fortune. ‘I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. Let’s crack open that champagne,’ he grinned, the twitch inside his Armani slacks now a fully-fledged hard-on as he imagined her bent over his desk, skirt above her waist as he went at her like a jackhammer from behind.

Loretta smiled thinly as she surreptitiously opened the top button of her blouse.

‘You know, if you want my advice,’ Randy said, leaning back in his seat and trying to stop himself from imagining his bald head sandwiched between her impressive cleavage, ‘I would spend as much of that money as you possibly can, as quickly as you can. Invest in something; property, a legitimate business … the more you spend, the less there will be for her to take …’ Loretta pulled her chin into her chest, indignant.

‘Take? What do you mean, take?’

‘Not that this will happen, you understand …’ he added quickly, not wanting to spoil the upturn of her mood. ‘I’m just saying that if the worst did come to the worst, there are ways of protecting your assets.’

‘Go on …’ he had her interest now and this pleased him.

‘You could always transfer it all into someone else’s name. Someone you trusted, obviously, a family member, a lover perhaps … if it belonged to someone else, in name at least, then Muldavey could never make a claim on it.’ He paused for a moment to open the bottle of vintage Krug, decanting the amber bubbles into matching Tiffany flutes, adding, ‘I realise it’s far from ideal, but it would be one way of protecting your money.’

Loretta stifled a snort. The man was cazza loca. She would rather cut out her own eyes. Besides, she trusted no one. Sometimes not even herself.

She had made that mistake once before, trusting a man who had managed to peel back her tough outer layers and uncover a softness beneath she had never even known existed; a man who had gone on to shatter her heart and destroy her faith in everything good. A man named Tom Black.

‘If I were you,’ Randy continued, a look of self-serving cheer creeping across his booze-bloated face, ‘I would take myself off somewhere. You know, have a holiday – a long one; I’m sure you deserve it. Why not charter that new jet of yours? Start ridding yourself of some of that cumbersome cash,’ he smirked broadly, displaying a set of yellow teeth. ‘Let me deal with Miranda Muldavey this end.’

Loretta visibly recoiled. She could smell his fetid breath from where she sat; a revolting mix of halitosis and cognac.

‘Do you know, Randy, I think you might be right,’ she smiled, genuinely this time. Randy had just given her a fantastic idea, and in doing so unwittingly blown any chances of her dropping to her hands and knees and pleasuring him under the desk in the process. ‘I will fly off somewhere; somewhere no one will find me. At least not without looking …’

Randy came from behind his desk to join her and she stood. Vertically challenged and about forty pounds overweight, he looked as if his suit had shrunk in the wash and Loretta wondered, incredulously, how anyone could manage to make bespoke Armani look so disgustingly cheap. She lunged forward and kissed him then, caught him clean off-guard, and he struggled to regain his composure as her long hot tongue played with his short wet one. She felt for his erection, only to be met with more disappointment. Pulling away from him sharply, Loretta suddenly snatched up the signed documents from the desk and stuffed them inside her Valentino clutch.

Randy looked at her, crestfallen. ‘But I thought …’

‘You thought what, Randy?’ she raised a dark, arched eyebrow at him that was sharp as a poisonous arrow and made him instantly lose his erection. ‘I would rather join my husband in the grave,’ she hissed, disgust dripping from her lips. ‘If Ramsey could see you now,’ she shook her head, slowly tutting with disapproval as her eyes swept the length of him.

Suitably rejected, Randy bristled.

‘You can save all the grieving widow crap for someone who buys it, lady. I know what an ageing, gold-digging piece of trash you are underneath all the plastic surgery.’

‘Sticks and stones, Randy, as the English say,’ Loretta cackled, checking her lipstick in her diamond-encrusted Dior compact before turning sharply to leave. Though he was right about one thing; she did need a holiday. Somewhere hot, somewhere fabulous and fun, somewhere she could embark upon the most epic shopping spree of her life without the press tracking her every move. She knew just the place.

CHAPTER 8

‘Where are you taking me?’ Ellie giggled girlishly as Vinnie guided her precariously along the narrow Soho street, his hands covering her eyes.

‘Not far now,’ he promised, barely able to contain his own excitement. ‘And no peeking!’ He knew his wife only too well.

‘Have you seen these heels?’ she protested, referring to the six-inch Pierre Hardy sandals she was wearing, squeezing his arm tightly in a bid to steady herself against the cobbles that were proving tricky to navigate. Vinnie laughed. It had not escaped his watchful eye that his wife had seemed a touch subdued over dinner tonight; it was the first time he had seen her genuinely smile all evening.

‘So then, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?’ he’d eventually asked her, tentatively sipping a glass of the Chateau La Mondotte Saint-Emilion 1996 wine he’d just ordered and watching as she had unenthusiastically picked at her plate of caviar, crab meat and lobster jelly.

Ellie had given a small smile. Her husband was such an intuitive man; he’d always been able to see straight through her like a pane of glass.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she’d apologised. She hadn’t meant to be so sombre, especially not tonight; she had wanted to show him how glad she was to have him home. ‘Ignore me, it’s nothing … I’m just a little worried about Tess, that’s all.’ It wasn’t a lie exactly; Ellie had heard from her daughter just once since she’d landed in Ibiza and she’d had to physically stop herself from phoning every five minutes to check up on her. But since she’d seen that damned photograph of Loretta Fiorentino in the newspaper, and then of course there was the collapse of the business venue weighing heavy on her shoulders …

Vinnie had looked at his wife from across the table. She looked so beautiful tonight; her long hair hung in loose waves around her smooth, naked shoulders and the dress she was wearing, a strapless black Helmut Lang number, off-set the shamrock green of her eyes and caressed her delicate curves, modestly displaying the swell of her breasts and décolletage. Even after all the years that had passed Ellie could still manage to stop his heart in its tracks.

‘Tess will be just fine,’ he’d reassured her. ‘She can take care of herself; she’s her mother’s daughter, remember? And, well, you know, she’s not a kid anymore. In fact, if I remember rightly, Mrs Scott,’ he’d taken her hand in his, lightly played with her delicate fingers for a few moments, ‘you were just a year or so older than Tess yourself when we met.’

Ellie had narrowed her eyes at him playfully, taking another generous gulp of the expensive wine, though it wasn’t quite taking the edge off her mood as she’d hoped.

‘That was different,’ she’d objected.

Vinnie had given a knowing smile.

‘I was more …’ She’d thrown her husband a thoughtful look, trying to find the word she was searching for.

‘… Streetwise?’

‘Yes! Streetwise.’

‘I remember,’ he’d said, eyebrows arching provocatively.

She’d jokingly pushed his arm away. ‘Anyway, I’ll still never know why you picked me that night out of all those beautiful girls …’

‘There were other girls?’ Vinnie had clutched his chest in faux-shock as he’d held her gaze from across the table.

There had been a big buzz at the Venus Club that night twenty-one years ago as Vinnie and his entourage had strolled through the door, all sharp suits and expensive-smelling cologne.

‘I want first dibs on this one,’ Mercury, a tall, skinny black stripper from Des Moines had firmly stated, applying a thick coat of plum-red lipstick, her third since clocking on. ‘He’s got Big Tipper tattooed on his ass and this black ass wants to get me some of that.’ As the girls had begun to bicker amongst themselves, each vying for the handsome stranger’s attention in the hope of making a good earn, Ellie had continued to dance, lost in the moment, imagining she was performing on stage with the Royal Ballet, just as she had done as a child. It enabled her to block out the reality of what she was doing; displaying her goods to sleazy men in a tawdry strip joint for a few dollars.

Yet still he had asked for her out of all the others.

‘The name’s Angel,’ she’d told him with a fixed smile, slipping into the booth opposite him. He had a handsome face, the look of a young George Clooney about him and something had instantly told her that this was no ordinary punter.

‘You don’t say,’ he’d replied, with a smile. Only, it wasn’t the kind of smile she was used to; the kind that belied those base thoughts underneath. It was a smile that had reached his sparkling blue eyes.

That night Ellie O’Connor had felt unusually self-conscious as she had begun to peel the straps of her tiny dress from her smooth, slim shoulders. She had actually wanted to put on a good show for the man in the sharp suit, had wanted him to find her attractive.

‘I’d just like to talk,’ he’d said softly, holding his hand up to prevent her from going any further, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’ As powerful and ruthless in the boardroom as Vincent Scott was, and ultimately attractive to women as a result, he had never been one for strip clubs and had only attended that night out of courtesy for his hosts.

Ellie was dumbfounded. This was a first; no one had ever paid for her to keep her clothes on before.

‘Suit yourself,’ she’d shrugged, yanking her bra straps back up. ‘It’s your money.’

And so they had just talked, and Ellie had learned that at thirty-six years old, sixteen years her senior, Vincent Scott was the eldest of three siblings born to wealthy, upper-class parents and had been brought up on an affluent country estate in Wiltshire, England.

By all accounts, Vincent, or Vinnie as he had insisted she call him, had been close to his father, a kind and loving man who had taught his eldest son to hunt, shoot and fish. When he’d died, some five years previously, Vinnie had taken over at the helm of his father’s property development business, Great Scott Properties. He’d been modest about his accomplishments; crediting great timing and the property boom of the late eighties for his subsequent global success. But Ellie sensed that underneath his soft veneer lay a steely determination. Inherited money or no, a man didn’t become a successful billionaire without an iron will.

‘But enough about me,’ he’d said, modestly. ‘Tell me, how does a young woman such a long way from home come to be working in a place like this?’

He had listened attentively as Ellie had recounted the story of how she had been just seven years old when her mother had upped sticks from the East End and followed her heart to Las Vegas.

‘I still miss it,’ she’d smiled a little ruefully, ‘London, I mean. It’ll always be home to me.’

‘And your mother?’ he’d enquired, watching as a deep sadness had seemed to descend upon her, dulling the brightness of her eyes. Ellie had shook her head as she’d thought of Charlene; she had often wondered what might have been had her mother never met Ray Black, for she was in no doubt that it was their tempestuous and abusive relationship that had led to her subsequent demise. The real tragedy was that in spite of everything – the gambling, the womanising and the drinking – Charlene O’Connor had truly loved ‘her Ray’. But it had been the worst kind of love; the kind that tore right through you like a cyclone, destroying everything good in its wake, and it had left her mother an empty shell of a woman; hard-faced and bitter, dependent on alcohol just to make it through the day.

‘So I’ve had to put my dreams of becoming a professional ballerina on hold for a while. Just until I make enough money to put myself through dance school and make ends meet, you know how it is?’ she’d casually explained, realising that he probably didn’t have the first idea. ‘Now that Tom’s no longer on the scene, I’ve got to look after myself, hence the reason I’m here,’ she’d looked around the low-lit club filled with drunken leering men with a resigned sigh.

‘Tom?’ he had quizzed her.

Even now Vinnie could recall the pause she had given, that she had looked down at her cheap stiletto-clad feet as if she hadn’t quite known how best to answer the question.

‘… Tom’s my … step-brother.’

Vinnie had left the Venus Club that night on a high of the like he’d never experienced before. On the surface he was incredibly modest, unassuming even, but it belied the sharp business mind and hard-nosed determination that lay at his very core. He was certainly no pushover, as some had learnt to their detriment, and he wasn’t the type to lose his heart without careful consideration, especially to a young stripper from the wrong side of the tracks. And yet on the night of July 18th, almost twenty-one years ago to the day; call it fate, destiny, or whatever you liked, he had made the decision that he could not leave Las Vegas without her …

*

‘Oh Vin,’ Ellie looked across the table at her husband with a deep fondness. He was older now, in his mid-fifties, his salt and pepper hair now more salt than pepper, and the faint lines around his eyes had turned into deep creases; years of laughter etched on his face like a timeline. She knew how lucky she was; Vinnie had taught her everything she knew. They had never had a cross word their entire marriage, and yet deep down Ellie had an instinctive fearfulness of her husband. There was another side to his gentle, caring nature, one that he kept hidden from her at all costs, but that she knew existed all the same. Vinnie had given her wealth and status of the like she had only ever been able to imagine; the chance to be somebody and make something of herself. She felt forever indebted to him because of it, and yet she had come so close to nearly losing it all …

It had been a mutual decision not to reveal to anyone the truth about Ellie’s former occupation. Not that Vinnie was ashamed; quite the opposite in fact, he had been proud of the way his young girlfriend had dealt with the hand she’d been given in life, but he was nobody’s fool; he had known how it would look. Beautiful young stripper meets older, billionaire businessman. By burying Ellie’s past, Vinnie had only ever wanted to protect her. After all, when they had married in a lavish ceremony in the lush grounds of his family’s Wiltshire estate some thirteen months later, people had whispered about the union between him and his lowly, if beautiful, secretary. Ha! If only they had known the real truth!

‘Ta-da!’ Vinnie dropped his hands from her eyes and stood back to survey her reaction.

It was dark now and the narrow cobbled Soho street was lit only by the rich amber glow of a singular streetlamp. Ellie blinked up at the dark, boarded-up building in front of her that she assumed was some kind of disused warehouse and wondered what exactly it was she should be looking at. ‘Number twelve Starling Street, W1; your new dance school …’ he announced with a theatrical wave.

Instinctively Ellie put a manicured hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

‘Now, before you say anything I want you to listen. You have to understand that a man of my, how shall I say, standing in the property business, gets to hear things on the grapevine …’

Ellie’s heart thumped against her ribcage.

‘So you already know about me losing the venue then?’ she had looked at him with a mix of indignant relief, ‘about those bastards gazumping me at the last moment?’

He put a finger to her lips to prevent her from continuing and felt the softness of them against his skin. ‘Ah, now none of that matters now,’ he reassured her, ‘what does matter is that we find you another venue, a better one; this one.’ He pulled her close to him and felt the warmth of her skin against his own.

‘We’re going to bid for it at auction next week, and we’re going to win it. So tell me, Mrs Scott, what do you think?’

Ellie kissed him then, small scattergun kisses over his clean-shaven face and then deeply, her tongue exploring his.

‘I think, Vinnie Scott,’ she breathed, ‘that you are the most wonderful husband in the world.’

CHAPTER 9

As much as she didn’t care to admit it, Allegra was feeling out of her depth. The pool party resembled a scene from a bad porn movie. There were naked girls everywhere; tanned bodies draped like mercury over blue and white striped sunbeds and couples openly having sex in the pool and on the terracotta patio outside. To her left she noticed a tall, naked brunette with shiny fake tits and tattoos willingly administering a blow job to some greasy-looking long-haired guy as another guy pumped away at her from behind, grinning manically as he frenziedly grabbed at her breasts for purchase. Allegra turned away in disgust, glancing over at a group of people brazenly snorting cocaine from a glass coffee table, dancing to the deafening sound of David Guetta like demented maniacs as they swigged from champagne bottles.

She nervously scanned the room for Tess. That shady Marco character had sequestered her off somewhere inside the sprawling hilltop villa, leaving Allegra to her own devices.

‘Hey hunny, wanna hit?’ a sinewy-looking black girl with the longest weave she’d ever seen held out a joint as she shimmied over. She was naked, save for a tiny fluorescent pink Pucci G-string that barely covered what little modesty she had left, and a pair of transparent, ridiculously high platform sandals, the like of which you could only buy in sex shops.

Allegra shook her head nervously. ‘Suit yourself,’ the girl had shrugged, kissing her teeth as she sauntered off towards some guy, collapsing on top of him, brazenly sliding her hand inside his boxer shorts and getting to work.

Allegra self-consciously pulled at her tiny designer denim mini skirt and wished she had worn her maxi dress instead. This was a bona fide fucking sex and drugs orgy; a world away from the occasional flash of G-string she’d indulged in after one too many cocktails at Funky Buddha on a Friday night back home – and it was scaring the shit out of her. She anxiously checked her iPhone. She would kill Tess for abandoning her like this. So much for fucking friendship. She’d been on her own for the past hour and a half, nervously fending off the unwanted attention of various freaks. Bloody Tess Scott … why did she always have to play the wild card?

As she made her way up the stone steps, discarding her cumbersome pair of patent Louboutins in haste, Allegra fought back the urge to burst into tears. In a moment of rare clarity she suddenly felt exactly what she was; a little girl playing at being a grown up and she wanted her daddy.

‘I’m looking for a girl …’ she stammered in a small, nervous voice to a guy who was propped up against the wall in the hallway, audibly dragging on a suspicious-looking cigarette, ‘long, dark blonde hair … white hot pants … Gucci bikini …?’

The pockmark-faced guy grinned, a horrible self-satisfied smirk that only served to accelerate Allegra’s rapidly burgeoning sense of unease. He thumbed the door behind him.

Shaking as she pushed past him, Allegra opened the door to the bedroom and instinctively put both hands up to her mouth to stifle a shocked scream. It was dark inside, the unremarkable room lit only by a small undetectable light source but it was enough to see that Tess, who was sprawled out across the bed, was completely naked save for a bottle of tequila in her hand, which she was proudly holding up like an Olympic torch. There was a guy on top of her, also naked, while another was knelt behind her, his erect cock visible as she giggled with delight, tequila spilling from her glossy lips. There was a third guy too, Allegra recognised him as Marco from the club, who appeared to be filming it all. He was shouting out words of encouragement, ‘yeah baby, you look so hot baby, ooh yeah, show us what you got …’

Stunned into silence, Allegra watched in horror as one of the three men grabbed a giant, obscene-looking dildo from a repertoire of sex toys on the bedside table.

Tess began to moan in pain or ecstasy, Allegra couldn’t be sure which. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. Jesus, was she on drugs?

Suddenly alerted to Allegra’s presence, the guys in the room all looked over in her direction.

‘Hey sweetheart,’ Marco acknowledged her, his voice a forced saccharine sweet, ‘you come to join in the fun?’

Paralysed to the spot, Allegra vigorously shook her head in the negative. Tess, seemingly oblivious, didn’t even look up.

Marco watched Allegra for a long moment, momentarily allowing the camera to drop to his waist, his dark, beady eyes boring terrifying holes into her.

‘Well, close the door on your way out then if you’re not staying, yeah?’ he snapped coldly before turning his back on her towards the action. ‘Come on guys, I wanna get this all in one take.’

Tearing through the villa like her life depended on it, Allegra finally found herself outside on the dusty road track where she ran, barefoot, sandals in hand, in the opposite direction of the villa. As the noise gradually faded and, deciding she was probably no longer in any imminent danger, Allegra collapsed against a small stone wall and slumped to the ground. Her heart was beating a song inside her chest and she struggled to catch her breath; she thought she might pass out. What the fuck did Tess think she was playing at having a gangbang with all those guys? And filming it too! Tess had always been a bit crazy but this time she’d taken it way too far. Stupid, selfish bitch. Yet as angry as Allegra was, a small voice inside her said that there had been something horribly wrong about the scene she’d just witnessed; something dark and sinister. Still, if Tess had been stupid enough to put any of that shit up her nose then as far as Allegra was concerned she deserved all she got.

With her fear gradually subsiding, Allegra started to relax a little, her thoughts beginning to take a new turn. Wiping her nose with the back of her shaking hand, she reached inside her Mulberry clutch bag for her phone.

‘Daddy!’ she said, her voice cracking with emotion as she finally broke down in tears, sobbing like a little girl. ‘Can you send a plane for me? I want to come home.’

As far as Allegra Kennedy-Ling was concerned, Tess Scott was on her own.

CHAPTER 10

Tom had been right about Candy; she was definitely a screamer in the sack.

‘Ohh yeah, baby! I’m almost there! Keep going … like that, yeah! Oh … ooooh …’

They’d been going at it ever since they’d checked into the penthouse suite at The Player, and she’d been ‘there’ at least twice already.

Tom looked down at the young woman bucking and squirming underneath him as he ploughed himself into her in long, slow strokes; her long blonde hair fanning the pillow like a yellow blanket as she laid it on a bit heavy with the vocals. She was very young and extremely sexy, yet he felt absolutely nothing as he blithely pumped himself inside her, running his hand over her toned stomach and shiny, albeit impressive, fake tits. Candy Wilson could hardly believe her luck. What had commenced as one of the shittiest days on record, getting fired from her deadbeat job at the diner by her asshole of a boss – strike that, ex-boss – had ended up here; in a luxury penthouse suite of a hotel in Las Vegas, Las fucking Vegas, with vintage champagne on tap and a rich, good-looking dude who was hung like a fucking horse and gave great oral. Jesus, the man’s tongue should come with a ‘Parental Advisory’ sticker. What’s more, he had promised to take her shopping in a limo later, maybe catch one of them fancy shows after a lobster and champagne dinner somewhere really posh. It was like something straight out of a frickin’ Julia Roberts movie! Life had been pretty shitty lately, Candy thought, what with the court case and a spell in the hospital thanks to those bastards she called parents. It looked as if things were finally beginning to go her way.

Candy had already sussed out that Tom had to be something of a high roller, simply by the unorthodox reaction they’d received upon arrival. The hotel staff had practically fallen over themselves to accommodate them in the penthouse suite – the frickin’ penthouse suite – it was at least ten times the size of her poky studio apartment back in LA and the soft furnishings were like something from one of those glossy interior magazines her mom was always reading; all gilt baroque gold mirrors, sumptuous Persian rugs, tactile suede couches, and a huge, gothic-looking bed with a ceiling mirror above it. Hel-lo Sin City!

‘This place is awesome!’ she’d squealed, wide-eyed, suddenly seeming her age as she had thrown herself down onto the bed, the pure silk and goose eiderdown making a satisfactory whoosh as she impacted onto it. ‘You some kind of face around here?’ Candy had enquired, intrigued. ‘Seems like everyone can’t do enough for you …’

Tom had smiled with a hefty display of false modesty.

‘Welcome to my hometown, honey,’ he’d laughed, throwing himself down on top of her, pushing her legs apart as his hands began to explore her young, tight body. ‘Welcome to Vegas. Playground of the rich!’

Tom had always enjoyed the physical release he experienced during sex, the rush of endorphins as he came, flooding his body and brain with dopamine and other feel-good chemicals – in fact he was addicted to it, but as with any kind of addiction, it was always such a transient, fleeting state, void of any real depth, the ultimately short-lived high making way for the inevitable crashing low.

Tom had only ever felt that deeper level of connection with a woman once in his life before, the kind of connection that transforms sex into the act of making love; the kind that touches you deep inside, leaving you with the feeling of having grown closer to another human being. Although the intensity of it had frightened the crap out of him, he had never since been able to replicate such a feeling with anyone else, though it would be fair to say he had certainly given it his best shot over the years.

As Candy loudly came for the fourth time that afternoon, Tom kept one surreptitious eye on the Louis Vuitton holdall next to the bed. It wasn’t too late to do the right thing and bank it, his voice of reason told him as he threw her around the bed like a rag doll – this one liked it on the rough side. But the other voice inside his head, the one that always seemed to lure him into trouble, was already attempting to talk him out of it. It’s just a little game of cards, it whispered to him, seductively, one that would allow you to double your money and make good your end of the deal with Jack.

No one played Five Card Draw like Tom Black; he’d been notorious in his day, a charming trickster who’d outsmarted the pros, even with the worst hand imaginable. Hell, not even Lady Gaga could read his poker face.

The internal phone unexpectedly rang, causing a post-coital Candy to jump.

Tom rolled off her spent young body and picked it up. He was convinced this one was a lucky talisman. He could see it in her eyes. When he won big tonight he’d treat her to a little spree in Gucci and Victoria’s Secret. Give her something to really scream about.

‘Tom Black.’

‘Tom! Jesus buddy! It’s been a while … they told me you were in town! How the fuck are you …?’

It was Marvin Katz, manager of The Player. The pair went way back to when Tom was a ten-dollar slots guy and Marvin was making his name on the tables, something of a player himself, or at least he would have everyone believe.

‘Jesus, how are you Marv?’ Tom stood naked, placing the phone between his ear and shoulder as he began to pace the room. ‘I hear you’re the big cheese these days … good for you buddy,’ he said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. The Marvin Katz he’d known back in the day could only just about manage to string a coherent sentence together, let alone run a chic, quality establishment like The Player.

‘It’s good to hear you, Tom,’ Marvin said, in his nasal New York accent that hadn’t seemed to soften with the passing of time. ‘I hope the guys have been looking after you with the comps so far … listen, whatever you want Tom, champagne, a limo, hookers … you just let me know, OK?’

‘Thanks Marv,’ Tom glanced at Candy who was now busy helping herself to the contents of a deluxe heart-shaped box of Godiva chocolates. ‘I appreciate it,’ he said, wondering just how far his offer of such generosity might stretch. Like a few million dollars’ worth of generous.

‘The guys tell me you’re looking for a big game, Tom.’

‘That’s right, Marv. I’m hoping you can hook me up.’

‘We’ve missed you, Tom,’ Marvin said with a healthy dose of sycophantic smarm that Tom immediately saw straight through.

‘Hey! Have you seen this?’ Candy’s shrill LA accent cut through the conversation like a shard of glass as she held up the glossy, gold-embossed menu card, her eyes wide and her exposed tits standing to attention like torpedoes. ‘It says here we got our very own butler, 24/7, like, you gotta be shitting me?’

Tom heard Marvin guffaw.

‘I take it you won’t be needing any extra services tonight then?’

‘Oh I don’t know, Marv … the night’s young,’ Tom reposted.

‘Yeah, but not as young as the broad I’ll bet,’ Marvin shot back, and Tom forced himself to laugh. Marvin Katz wasn’t nearly as amusing as he thought he was, but if laughing at Marv’s lame attempts at humour meant he would look into sorting him a game, then he’d suck it up all day long.

‘You kill me, Marvin,’ Tom chuckled, rolling his eyes at Candy, who giggled as she popped a truffle between her glossy blow job lips. ‘Let’s have a drink together later, celebrate my big win.’

‘I like your confidence my friend,’ Marvin replied dryly, with forced good humour. Some things never changed. Tom Black had always been a cocky little English fucker; way too big for his size nines, that was his problem. Gamblers like Black might think they’re the shit, but the house always won at the end of the day; they were just too fucking arrogant to want to believe it.

‘Leave it with me, Tom. I’ll put the word out, see who’s in town.’

‘I appreciate it Marv … And make mine a Bourbon on the rocks … a large one yeah?’ he added before hanging up.

Tom felt the first trickles of adrenaline stirring inside his guts, the kindling of that euphoric rush he always got right before a game. He’d played for money in the past, big money too, but nothing in this league … it was a heck of a lot of green that wasn’t even his to gamble but as far as Tom was concerned, what choice did he have? He’d given Jack his word he would get his share of the money and Tom’s fierce pride meant that he’d rather skip town than lose face in front of his friend. Tonight there could be no room for error; it was shit or bust.

CHAPTER 11

Walking through Portobello Road on a beautiful summer’s afternoon, Ellie Scott struggled to think of another place in the world she would rather be. It was Friday, market day, and the whole place was alive with tourists and shoppers perusing the eclectic mix of antique shops whose contents spilled out onto the pavement like a giant treasure trove. She loved the paradox of Portobello, the glitz mixed with the grime; struggling artists and buskers sitting alongside media moguls, wealthy fashionistas and banker’s wives. There was something uniquely unpretentious about it and it reminded her of the streets she had grown up on as a child.

Hearing her iPhone beep inside her white Birkin, Ellie dipped a manicured hand inside, blindly searching as she became sidetracked by a vintage Vivienne Westwood corset dress in a boutique window. She hoped it was Tess; call it a mother’s instinct, but Ellie felt an unsettling sense of unease that her daughter might be in some kind of trouble. But it wasn’t Tess. It was Victoria messaging to say she was already on her way to the charity event at the Cobden Club where they were due to meet. It was to be the third social event she’d attended that week and Ellie wasn’t entirely enamoured by the thought of yet another afternoon of making polite small talk with vastly over-privileged women, who she suspected cared more about making their hair appointments than they did about the charity du jour. But this was her life now, and had been for the past two decades. The polo, Glorious Goodwood, Cannes, the Henley Royal Regatta, Ascot, Glyndbourne, not to mention all the hundreds of other global events and private charities Vince was a patron of – she accompanied him to all of them. Always impeccably dressed, always impeccably polite and if she was brutally honest, always impeccably bored shitless … sometimes her jaw physically ached from it all. But what could she do? Her husband topped the Forbes rich list every year, and with money and position like that came great responsibility.

Victoria Mayfield was already at the Cobden Club by the time Ellie arrived and had helped herself to a Kir Royale and a small plate of sushi before squirreling herself away at a small table at the back of the room. Looking around her, she surveyed the scene of gossiping, overly preened society women with a heavy heart. The last thing she felt like doing was socialising. That morning her period had arrived, regular as fucking clockwork, just as it did every goddamn month. Victoria greeted her monthly cycle like a personal affront; Mother Nature sniggering at her inability to do what came naturally to most women. It was all just so unfair; Lawrence, her husband, had been home more than usual this past month preparing for a big trip to South Africa where he was due to film a documentary and, ensuring the extra time they’d had together had not been wasted, she was convinced this month would be the month she’d finally see that line turn blue.

‘Jesus Tor, not again!’ Lawrence Mayfield had smiled wearily at his wife as she’d led him into the bedroom for the third time in less than forty-eight hours. ‘You’re wearing me out!’

‘And you’re complaining?’ she’d replied, giving him a mock-disdainful look as she tore off her Agent Provocateur underwear in haste, eager to get down to business. Lawrence Mayfield had inwardly sighed. He enjoyed nothing more than making love to his wife. After all, she was beautiful and he adored her, but not like this, not on demand; it was all way too forced and unspontaneous, not to mention deeply unromantic. His wife had become hell-bent on producing, to the point of obsession, and Lawrence was seriously beginning to doubt her mental state. There was a darkness to Tor now; places inside her mind he knew he could no longer reach. And the worst thing of all was that he had not a goddamn clue what to do about any of it.

Victoria threw back her Kir Royale and swiped another from an attractive waiter. He was young, twenty-one at most, and she found herself blushing as she imagined herself naked on top of him, riding him furiously. Would his sperm be better than her husband’s? Would it swim harder, faster stronger, towards her willing eggs?

‘Tor!’ Ellie Scott was making her way towards her, two Kir Royales in hand and a beaming smile on her radiant face. ‘Wow! Check you out! You look amazing!’ Ellie said, kissing her warmly on both cheeks and standing back to admire Victoria’s choice of attire, a colourful, eye-catching Mary Katrantzou body-con dress that displayed her slim, curvaceous figure to its finest. It was somewhat of a departure from her usual demure and understated look.

‘I reckon if I didn’t know you were a happily married woman, Tor Mayfield, I would think that you were on a cougar hunt!’ Victoria gave a hollow laugh. Her friend had no idea just how close to the truth she really was.

‘So, how’s the book going?’ Ellie took a seat opposite her friend and glanced around the room at the sea of designer outfits and expensive handbags. ‘Ah, the book!’ Tor replied, swiping a soft-boiled quails egg and Beluga caviar crostini from a passing waiter and slipping it between her glossy Chanel nude lips. ‘Well, let’s just say it’s not exactly writing itself.’

‘Oh?’ Ellie placed her white Birkin on the table for maximum exposure. She’d been on the waiting list for the much-coveted bag for almost six months and couldn’t resist showing it off. She knew it was childish – it was just a handbag at the end of the day – but sometimes it was difficult not to become embroiled in the one-upmanship that was so blatantly rife at these types of affairs.

‘My publishers are on my case about it, but this one’s going to have to wait,’ Tor announced stoically, glugging more Kir Royale. ‘After all, it’s not like I’ve not made them a fuck load of money, now is it?’

This didn’t sound like Tor at all. She’d always been so highly professional, so dedicated to her writing and the loyal legion of fans that ferociously devoured her books.

‘And Lawrence?’

Tor drained the remains of her champagne flute and began to eye the Grey Goose vodka cocktails that were doing the rounds.

‘He’s off to South Africa soon, for six weeks, possibly more. Filming bloody elephants …’ She paused for a moment and looked up at Ellie with a doleful expression, adding quietly, ‘… And I’m still not pregnant.’ For the briefest moment she wondered if she might confide everything in her friend, divulge the secret little plan she’d recently been cooking up in her head, but Tor knew that to say it out loud meant making it a reality and she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that yet.

Ellie slid her hand across the table and placed it on top of Tor’s.

‘Oh honey, I’m so sorry,’ she said with genuine regret.

Tor swallowed down a lump as sharp as glass. She knew that Ellie meant it, that she above all others most understood the pain and disappointment that had become a seemingly permanent fixture in her life these last couple of years. After all, they had spent a long time under the same fertility doctor, a man who had been hailed as a so-called miracle worker, yet so far had been unable to work his magic where she and Lawrence were concerned. Or the Scotts, for that matter.

‘Your husband’s sperm count is seriously diminished, Mrs Mayfield,’ Doctor Fouad had gently reminded her during her last, and final visit. ‘I’m not saying it’s impossible – I believe nothing is impossible – but I am saying that it is very unlikely that you’ll ever conceive with your husband again.’

With your husband. Those words had haunted Victoria ever since.

‘There’s still hope,’ Ellie said in a bid to pull her friend out of her obvious black mood. ‘You’ve got to keep trying, keep believing. You’re still young …’

Tor gave a derisive snort as she drained the remains of her fourth Kir Royale. All that sweet cassis was beginning to make her feel a bit nauseous now, but to hell with it. On the fertility drugs, she had never imbibed more than one glass of fizz on a special occasion; fat lot of good it had ever done her. She was sick of remaining positive and ‘turning the frown upside down’ as Lawrence was always reminding her; she wanted results, not kind words. You couldn’t love and feed and nurture kind words. ‘Anyway,’ Tor straightened herself out before she unravelled completely. ‘How’s the venue search going? Found anywhere suitable yet?’

Ellie welcomed the conversation’s change in direction.

‘Now that you come to mention it …’ she said, beginning to explain all about the amazing old warehouse in Soho that Vinnie had found. ‘… It’s completely perfect – everything I’ve been looking for.’

Tor forced a smile; it was the only way she knew how these days.

‘So it’s all systems go!’ she said, mustering up her best excited face.

‘Provided we win the auction,’ Ellie interjected.

‘Well, surely being married to a billionaire property developer must have its perks.’

Their giggles were interrupted by a horse-faced blonde woman wearing a Jil Sander paisley skirt suit that did absolutely nothing for her robust frame.

‘Ladies,’ it was Lady Davinia Sexton-Lloyd, one of today’s hostesses, and arguably one of the most prolific gossips this side of the Thames. She was married to Lord Sexton, a bloated old buffoon whose name suited him.

‘Lovely to see you, Davinia,’ Ellie stood to shake the woman’s diamond-encrusted hand. ‘I trust you’re well.’ It was all the opening Davinia needed as she plonked her cumbersome bulk down to join them.

‘Marvellous, darling,’ she replied, displaying a little red lipstick and canapé between her teeth as she smiled brightly. ‘You know how busy it is at these events; I think I need to clone myself.’ Ellie balked at the very idea. ‘—And this is …?’ she turned to Victoria, precariously placing her copy of HELLO! magazine on the glass table which had been lavishly decorated with scented Jo Malone tea lights and tiny Swarovski scatter crystals. No expense spared for the orphans of Uganda.

‘Victoria Mayfield – a very good friend of mine.’

‘The Victoria Mayfield?’ Davinia looked impressed. ‘Of Mirror, Mirror fame?’

‘The very same,’ Ellie sang, giving Tor a surreptitious wink.

‘Well, Victoria, this is a pleasure,’ she gushed, her gaudy Bvlgari jewellery rattling as she shook her hand vigorously. ‘I’m an avid reader of all your books. Took Mirror, Mirror with me to Courcheval last year, couldn’t put the bloody thing down.’ Tor thanked her politely, finally releasing her hand from the woman’s vice-like grip.

‘It’s been a week from hell, I tell you,’ Davinia placed a palm over her shiny botoxed forehead, ‘trying to organise this lunch on top of Seaton’s wedding. I ask you,’ she rolled her eyes in exaggerated exasperation, ‘I really should’ve gone into events management you know,’ she turned to Victoria. ‘Seaton’s my son,’ she explained as an afterthought.

Tor looked at Ellie with an expression that begged the question, Seaton Sexton? She called her son Seaton Sexton! ‘He’s getting married in Monaco next week and there are still a million and one things to organise. I mean, he’s left everything to me and his father – good job we’ve still got all our faculties!’

Debateable, Tor silently thought as she watched Lady Seaton throw her head back with a roaring laugh. ‘Kids eh? You know how it is?’

Victoria shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Actually, two years ago I found my baby girl dead in her crib and now my husband has crippled sperm so, no, actually I don’t know ‘how it is’ and probably never fucking will!

‘Tell me, are any of the glossies going to cover it?’ Ellie interjected, in a bid to steer the conversation back towards Lady Sexton’s favourite subject: herself. Davinia’s delight at the opportunity to brag was almost palpable.

‘Funny you should mention but yes! They’ve even given it a plug in this week’s issue of HELLO!,’ she said, the magazine miraculously falling open to the well-thumbed exact page in question. ‘‘An exclusive peek behind the scenes at Lord Seaton Sexton-Lloyd’s wedding to Florence Corbett-Wellesley!” It’s marvellous isn’t it?’ she gushed with such pride that Ellie thought the woman was about to explode.

‘I take it she won’t be using her full name,’ Tor smirked, the Kir Royales loosening her tongue. Lady Seaton shot her a sideways glance but Ellie missed it, her attention having been caught by the news story opposite. Loretta Fiorentino. Jesus, there she was again! And this time there was no mistaking her. The small photograph showed her standing outside a church dressed in a jet-black couture dress, unmistakably McQueen, her enormous comedy breasts spilling over the top like rising dough. She was holding a small Chihuahua underneath her arm as though it were a clutch bag, its tiny face peering out at the camera. The headline read: ‘Widow Grieves for Top Plastic Surgeon Husband as Muldavey Rumour Mill Continues …’ Ellie stared at the face of a woman she had once, a long time ago, thought of as a friend, and felt a tight knot of nausea form in the pit of her stomach.

‘Terrible business, that,’ Davinia remarked, having clocked Ellie’s interest in the story. ‘Poor Miranda. She’s an old friend of the family’s actually,’ she pulled her mouth into a thin line, pleased to be able to make such a topical namedrop. ‘Says there that she’s going after Hassan’s wife for a spot of compo for the disastrous mess he made of her face …’

‘Serves the old bitch right,’ Ellie shot back, forgetting herself. Just the sight of Loretta’s face seemed to rancour far more than she had expected. Davinia’s eyes widened, her gossip antennae twitching wildly.

‘Someone you know, darling?’ she carefully enquired.

Ellie quickly closed the magazine.

‘Oh no,’ she lied, watching the look on Davinia’s face slip with disappointment. ‘She just reminds me of someone I once knew. Someone a long, long time ago …’

CHAPTER 12

Tess woke with a heart-stopping start, and for the briefest moment felt a sense of relief as she realised she was alone. But it was a fleeting state, and was soon replaced by a rod of ice-cold fear as it rapidly dawned upon her that she was not in her own bed. Her head was audibly pounding, a sickening, resounding throb either side of her temporal lobes, causing her vision to blur and the nausea in her belly to instantly rise to her throat.

Disorientated, she made to stand. It was then she felt the searing pain shoot through her body, sharp as a splintered arrow. Groaning, her joints felt brittle as glass, like her bones were about to shatter with her weight upon them and the soreness she felt down there caused her to wince aloud in pain. She felt as if she’d been hit by a truck and dragged for ten miles. Tess sat back down onto the bed and it was only then she realised that she was completely naked. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was going on? Gripped by fear and panic, she hurriedly covered her modesty with a white bed sheet, her eyes darting around the room as she tried to piece her shot-to-shit memory back together again. The room was unrecognisable; rudimentary bare white walls and terracotta tiles, a double bed with a pair of small wooden tables either side of it, and a tiny shuttered window allowing only the thinnest sliver of sunlight to creep into the darkened room. She glanced at one of the tables in search of something to drink, her thirst was such now that she felt at the point of collapse, and was horrified to see that among the discarded empty bottles and wine glasses there was an assortment of sex toys; ugly, giant, life-like dildos staring back at her in an array of different shapes and sizes and colours. Rubbing her temples in angry frustration, she forced back tears as she desperately tried to locate her clothes, her bag, her phone, anything … And then she remembered; oh my God! Allegra! She was sure she had been with her friend the previous evening, but where the fuck was she now? And why was she here, in this room, naked and alone? It was as if someone had torn a page from her memory; it was all just a gaping black hole, and she had a gut-sickening feeling it wasn’t something she’d want to put on a postcard to her parents back home. Jesus, what the fuck had she done?

Burying her head despairingly in her hands, Tess heard voices approaching and instinctively threw herself back down onto the bed and feigned sleep.

‘Jesus, man,’ a male voice said. ‘She’s still sleeping … exactly how much of that shit did you give her last night?’

‘Too fucking much, probably,’ a gruff voice shot back. It sounded familiar, though she did not know why. ‘She’ll wake with one motherfucker of a headache, I can tell you that.’

‘And the rest …’

‘I told you I’d found us a wild one didn’t I?’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘They’re all the same those posh chicks … filthy little bitches, up for anything. All that dough corrupts them you know … turns them from convent schoolgirls into game little whores. I have to say though; this one gave a pretty special performance last night.’

The pair of them gave a chuckle that made Tess want to throw up. She could sense their presence from underneath the thin bed sheet and could hardly breathe through her terror.

Don’t panic. Stay calm.

‘You think we’ll make top dollar on that video then … I mean, everyone loves to watch a good roasting don’t they …?’

Tears were escaping the corners of Tess’s eyes now. They’ll be gone in a minute she reassured herself. Then you can get your stuff and get the fuck out of here, fly home and forget any of this shit ever happened, right? Only she didn’t need to forget because she couldn’t actually remember in the first place, and judging by what she was hearing, it was probably just as well.

‘Nah, I’ve got something better in mind for this one,’ the familiar voice said. ‘I did some research, found out who she is …’

‘What, is she, like, famous or something?’

‘Her pops is none other than Vincent Scott my friend …’ the voice sounded triumphant.

‘Vincent Scott?’

‘Fuck me, Fabrizio, anyone would think you lived in a fucking cave under the sea. Vincent Scott … of Great Scott Properties,’ Tess heard the antagonism in his voice and it scared her. They knew her father’s name … this was bad; really fucking bad.

There was a slight pause.

‘And?’

‘And you fucking prick, he’s a billionaire. One of the richest dudes in the whole of fucking Europe!’

The other voice began to laugh then, a horrible manic chuckle that suggested the owner was a little unhinged.

‘Bingo!’ it said.

‘Bingo indeed my brother; bingo in-fucking-deed.’

CHAPTER 13

The tension inside the private poker longue at The Player was thick enough to cloud judgement.

‘I’m out,’ the cowboy said, flatly. ‘I fold.’ He slammed his glass down onto the table, causing the ice inside to crack in objection. Howard Stanley shook his head and quickly followed suit, abandoning his cards with reluctance as he looked over at Tom Black and the two remaining players, Willy Grey and the Japanese businessman who, flanked by two burly minders, looked as if he had more money than sense and would probably need a generous slice of both before the night was over.

‘How about you, Willy?’ Tom remarked, deadpan, his poker face an expressionless blank as he made eye contact with the old man opposite.

Willy returned his stare, his left eye twitching.

He eventually nodded after a long moment’s pause. ‘And I’ll raise you another million,’ he casually added, pushing a pile of neatly stacked burgundy chips across the table towards the dealer.

‘That’s three million in the pot,’ the dealer announced without emotion, accustomed to hearing such high numbers; it was all in a day’s work for him.

Willy Grey carefully peeled back the corners of his cards, only briefly breaking eye contact with Tom. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than screwing Tom Black to the wall tonight.

Candy rubbed the inside of Tom’s thigh from underneath the table. At his insistence she had worn a long bubblegum pink sequinned Cavalli dress with a plunging neckline that stopped at the navel, displaying her enhanced young breasts like a pair of perfectly round globes. It had been a calculated choice of attire, aimed at distracting his fellow players, and one that seemed to be working its magic this evening to great effect.

She took a tentative sip of her Dirty Martini cocktail, her sixth and counting, and played with the diamonds around her neck seductively.

‘We win big tonight baby and you get to keep the lot,’ Tom had promised her as he’d fastened the delicate clasp of the Graff pink and yellow diamond waterfall necklace around her slim neck earlier that evening. ‘I want you to dazzle ’em tonight,’ he had instructed. ‘Smile and flirt, make like you’re available …’

‘Jeez, I ain’t no hooker …’ she’d pouted.

‘It’s just a game, baby,’ he’d reassured her, kissing the back of her creamy neck, giving her goose bumps. ‘It’s all about distraction … if those guys start thinking about their dicks, it means they ain’t thinking about the game, you get me?’

Candy had responded with a conspiratorial giggle. Frankly, she’d be prepared to do anything if it meant keeping hold of all this awesome bling.

Tom looked down at his cards as the tension in the room escalated.

‘I gotta go pee,’ Candy stated a little too loudly, her caustic LA twang breaking the tension.

‘I dunno why you bring broads to the table, Tom,’ Willy gave him a wry smile, once Candy was out of earshot. ‘You know what they say about women and poker …’

Tom raised an eyebrow.

‘Call,’ he said in response, stacking his burgundy chips in a tall pile and carefully placing two blue gaming cheques on the top ‘… and I’ll raise you another million …’ he paused, ‘no, you know, what?’ he signalled to the dealer, ‘make it two.’

The room fell silent but for the sound of the oscillating fan churning above them. Tom’s raise had just taken the game into new territory.

‘That should just about cover the girl’s agency fees for tonight, eh Tom?’ the sarcasm dripped from Willy Grey’s voice, his left eye twitching manically.

Tom remained silent. True to his name, Willy Grey was always trying to get a rise out of people.

‘Your old man was the same, Tom,’ Willy surmised, as his left eye went into some kind of spasm. It was an affliction he’d had since his teenage years and it still drove him fucking nuts. ‘He was a good hustler, all flash suits and Cartier cufflinks, much like yourself, but it was the pussy that ruined him in the end.’ The corners of Grey’s thin little mouth turned outwards, like he was imparting the gospel of the Lord himself.

Tom didn’t much care for the man’s overfamiliarity. He may have done the casinos with his old man once upon a time, but frankly who in Vegas hadn’t?

‘Yeah, pussy and bourbon eh, what a way to go?’ Tom replied tightly as he held his gaze, hoping it might throw the miserable, twitching prick off kilter.

Candy returned from the restroom, refreshed from a little line of coke from the wrap Tom had given her earlier and immediately felt the palpable pressure in the room, her initial stride reduced to a tentative tiptoe.

‘Something to keep your energy levels up,’ he’d said earlier as he’d handed her the small wrap of powder. ‘But don’t go overboard eh?’ Tom hated to see women strung out on coke, and Candy, with her Barbie doll looks and high-pitched voice, was sailing dangerously close to the edge.

‘Gentlemen,’ the dealer cleared his throat, ‘your hands please.’

Tom instinctively squeezed Candy’s thigh, convinced it would bring him extra luck. If the cards were on his side tonight all his worries would be over.

Candy held her breath in anticipation, her heart pumping rapidly from adrenalin mixed with grade-A cocaine.

As the Japanese businessman turned over his cards Tom took a silent intake of breath.

‘A flush,’ the dealer said, clinically, ‘two cards; king of spades and ten of spades.’

Willy Grey’s eye was flicking like a faulty light bulb. This was in the bag, he thought smugly as he flipped his cards.

‘High full house,’ the dealer announced evenly as Grey continued to study Tom’s expression. Gotcha!

Tom sat back into the comfort of the padded Louis antique gold chair and linked his fingers together, his knuckles cracking as he stretched them. He wanted Grey to see that he was worried. He wanted him to walk blindly into a false sense of security.

‘Your hand, sir,’ the dealer prompted Tom.

Sighing, Tom looked over at the Japanese businessman and then at Grey; the two men, so utterly physically opposite from each other, were now wearing the same pensive expression and could’ve been mistaken for brothers.

‘Do the honours Candy, will you?’ Tom nodded at the pair of playing cards lying face down on the table.

‘Me?’ she squeaked.

‘Yeah you,’ Tom winked at her and so, shrugging, she did as she was told and turned the cards over.

There were gasps and claps in the room. The Cowboy whistled.

‘The five of spades and seven of spades – that’s a straight flush my friend – highest cards.’

Willy Grey felt all the air leave his body as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. He was fucked; royally, regally fucked. In that split second he realised his life was over; finished, finito. His new wife, the greediest of the lot so far, would leave him after this and his business would be dead in the water. He’d lost everything.

‘OH. MY. FUCKING. GAAAAD!’ Candy Wilson leapt into the air like a rocket had gone off underneath her and threw her slim arms and legs around Tom’s body, attaching herself to him like a limpet.

‘You did it, baby!’ her voice was high and tight with euphoria. ‘You just won over ten … million … dollars,’ she said the words slowly, over and over again, like a child learning to speak. Laughing, Tom twirled her to the ground before draining the dregs of his Courvoisier. He nodded at the Japanese man, who graciously returned the gesture. Grey, however, looked like he’d been dead for a week and someone had just dug him up.

‘Willy,’ Tom proffered his hand; he could feel the old man’s hatred coming off him in waves. The prick had always been a bad loser.

Tipping the dealer twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of chips, Tom turned to Candy, her face lit up like a picture as she played with the Graff diamonds around her neck; her new necklace.

‘So then,’ Tom said, buzzing with adrenaline, a smile as wide as the Thames, ‘looks like the first round is on me.’

CHAPTER 14

Ellie Scott couldn’t sleep. She’d been tossing and turning for most of the night, drifting in and out of a shallow, fitful slumber.

She still hadn’t heard from Tess and her concern had now, in the grip of a sleepless night, escalated into full-blown paranoia. Her maternal instincts were screaming that her daughter was in some kind of trouble.

Slipping in and out of consciousness, Ellie restlessly rolled onto her side and wished that Vinnie were here and that she could shuffle into the familiar reassuring warmth of his body; her very own comfort blanket. But Vinnie was in the US on business and so once again she found herself alone with her thoughts, thoughts that had begun to coast towards the moribund.

As a shallow sleep eventually threatened to claim her, Ellie’s subconscious mind took her back to the summer of 1989. It had been the hottest summer on US record for over fifty years and she could still recall the stickiness of her skin against the thin, cheap polyester bed sheets that she’d slept in. She had been about to turn sixteen years old …

*

‘Stop it! You’re hurting me,’ Ellie yelped as Tom pulled her roughly down onto the bed and pinned her by her arms. ‘I told you,’ she said breathlessly, ‘not until my birthday, and that’s not until tomorrow in case you’ve forgotten.’

‘Bloody cock tease, that’s what you are.’ He pulled a face.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Tom,’ she pleaded, rolling into his back as he turned away from her, spooning him. He was naked from the waist up and his skin felt soft and smooth against her chest. ‘It’s just that I want it to be right, you know, proper.’

‘Whatever,’ he sulked. ‘But I might’ve found a replacement by the time you make up your mind.’

‘Big head,’ she said, giving him a playful slap on the back. But she knew he was right. Tom Black could have anyone he wanted. With his dark Latino complexion, hypnotic eyes, and cocksure smile, he was as close to perfection as a man could get. Or at least Ellie O’Connor had thought so. And it would be fair to say she wasn’t alone.

She stared at him, unblinking, and wondered what it was about him that made her love him so much. It wasn’t just his movie-star looks; she came alive whenever he was near her, but she knew him inside out. Tom Black had more front than Blackpool Pier, as her old Nan would’ve said. He could be cruel and dismissive but it was all just a ruse at the end of the day, an elaborate disguise to cover up the insecure little boy underneath, the one who just wanted to be loved.

‘I don’t see what difference a day makes anyway,’ Tom said, continuing to push. He wanted her; badly. Ever since he’d noticed the swelling beneath her t-shirt, how her hips had become rounder and smoother, he couldn’t get her out of his head. His little Eleanor had grown into a woman right before his eyes and he wanted to be the first to sample the goods. ‘It’s just a day; just another number,’ he gave a casual shrug. ‘You’ll not feel any different tomorrow, birthday or otherwise.’ He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back still towards her, and she noticed a freckle on his shoulder that she’d not seen before.

‘It makes a difference to me,’ she replied, sharply jabbing him in between the shoulder blades. ‘And that, Tom Black, is all you need to know.’

He was smiling, she sensed it.

‘Tomorrow you could get run over by a truck,’ he turned his body to face her then, grinning. ‘Then you’d be up there,’ he pointed to the ceiling, ‘kicking yourself in heaven, thinking “if only I’d done it with Tom!” You could die a virgin, Eleanor. Imagine that, going to your grave never having known the pleasures of the flesh.’

Ellie gave an uneasy laugh. He could love her and destroy her in the same breath.

‘Yeah, or I do it with you, get hit by a truck and end up down there,’ she pointed to the floor, ‘burning in hell for my sins!’

‘Hell sounds like my kinda place,’ Tom snapped the ring pull from a can of Colt 45, discarding it on the threadbare carpet with a sniff, ‘more fun.’ He got up from the bed and made his way over towards the stereo, stopping to open the small window a little wider, a wall of cloying Nevada heat smothering his face like a blanket.

‘Anyway, it’s hardly romantic is it?’ Ellie threw him a look, ‘what with your dad and my mum tearing lumps out of each other downstairs.’

The muffled voices from the room below, they had both noted, were getting progressively louder and Ellie knew it wouldn’t be long before it reached a messy, bloody crescendo. She knew the drill only too well.

‘They’ll kiss and make up in a minute, they always do,’ Tom said, sensing the despair in her voice and wanting to say something to make it better. He pressed a button on the stereo and Simply Red’s A New Flame began to play as he flopped back down on the bed next to her. She really was quite something to look at now, all bright green eyes that sparkled when the light hit them, pillow lips and long, honey-coloured hair that felt as soft as cashmere to stroke. He certainly wanted to fuck her, but it was more than that. They’d been thrown together through circumstance and it was something unspoken between them, a silent understanding.

Ellie was distracted by the almighty row taking place between their beloved ma and pa downstairs. She was sensitive underneath all the streetwise swagger and he knew the fighting really got to her. It got to him too, only he was much better at hiding it.

‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,’ he teased, wrapping his arm around her as the bloodcurdling screams downstairs reached new heights.

‘I have been kissed, I’ll have you know. Plenty of times, actually,’ she bristled.

Tom sighed as he stared up at the peeling artex ceiling above them; it was a depressing grey colour, matching the grubby net curtains that gently lifted from the sticky breeze outside.

‘I remember my sixteenth birthday,’ he said, a little wistfully. ‘I got drunk on 20/20 and screwed Chasey Grey in the parking lot behind the Walmart.’

‘Wow, a regular romantic.’

‘Well, she seemed to enjoy it,’ he retorted, placing his hand on her belly, the feel of her naked skin beneath her crop top giving him an instant hard-on inside his battered Levi 501s.

They were silent for a moment, the sound of their respective breathing barely audible above the music and muffled cries below.

‘I wanna get out of here, Tom,’ Ellie said suddenly, her voice cracking slightly. ‘I don’t just mean this shitty room, I mean this life. I feel like I’m dying a slow death here.’ She sat up with purpose, stretched her long, slim legs out in front of her. ‘I wanna do something with my life. My dance teacher thinks I’ve got what it takes to make it big, you know, the ballet, Broadway! Be someone.’

Tom watched her intently as she made her speech. He wanted so much to be able to say something to make it better but as always, something stopped him; at the end of the day, kindness felt just too much like weakness.

‘Face it, kiddo,’ he snorted, ‘this time next year you’ll be in the clubs shaking it for men like my dear old dad downstairs.’

Ellie pulled her knees into her chest and hugged them. She vehemently resented this remark, if only for the fact that she feared it might be true.

‘You know nothing, wanker!’ she spat back.

Tom laughed, amused by her outburst. He liked that she was feisty. They were similar that way. He pulled her back down onto the bed next to him. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I believe you’ll be someone, someday,’ he said, keen to get her back on side. ‘Though whether you’ll ever be as successful as me … now that’s debatable.’

‘Oh really?’ she raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

‘In ten years’ time I’ll be a multi-millionaire.’ He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her with an arrogance that she found irresistible. ‘The boats, the jets, the houses and cars, the jewellery …’ he raised his hands in demonstration. ‘The whole fucking enchilada … I’ll have it all. I’ll call them Black’s. Have hot girls dancing for me, on my payroll … king of the fucking clubs.’ He jabbed his chest with his thumb.

‘What, like your old man, you mean?’ She grinned facetiously.

‘Watch me, you’ll see. Actually, me and Jack are onto something as we speak,’ he tapped his nose with a conspiratorial finger. ‘I might even give you a job if you ask me nicely. Pay you to shake your little ass in my club.’

Ellie hit him with a pillow. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she made to turn away from him, but he was too quick for her and held her there, her strength no match for his.

‘So easy to wind up …’

Ellie had grown used to Tom’s unpredictability over the years they had lived together. In fact, as far as she was concerned, it was all part of his appeal. The proverbial sunshine and showers; that was Tom. You never knew what you were going to get.

A sickening thud from downstairs stopped their conversation mid-track and Ellie winced.

‘Sounds like they’re really going for it tonight,’ Tom remarked after a long moment.

He held her then and she felt a genuine tenderness in his touch.

‘I mean it, Tom,’ she said, fighting back tears as she buried her face into his warm chest. He smelt of cheap aftershave and fags. ‘I’m going to get out of here and make a good life for myself one day; be rich and successful; be happy …’

‘We’re gonna be winners. I know it.’

Ellie loved Tom when he said things like this. Things that gave her hope for the future, a future she could not envisage without him. ‘We’ll make it together. You’ll get out of this festering shit pit and make something of your life, fulfil your dreams, because that’s the kind of woman you are.’ He paused for a moment, allowing his carefully chosen words to resonate.

Ellie was floored. He had never referred to her as a ‘woman’ before.

‘I love you, Tom,’ she whispered the words just loud enough for him to hear them.

She would marry Tom Black and they would make a life together. Her, a famous ballerina, him a lauded entrepreneur, the kind of couple that women envied and men wanted to be. It was their destiny, she felt sure of it.

Tom’s hand moved gently upwards of her thigh, gently resting between her legs. This time Ellie did not move it. Maybe he was right after all; what difference did a day make?

*

Coming round from her shallow slumber, Ellie sat up in her bed and, rubbing her gritty eyes, brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, cursing herself. She felt the heat pulse between her legs, a dull ache for him. Even dreaming of Tom felt like a terrible betrayal of her husband and yet there were times when she could not prevent it; it was times like this, in the dark of a lonely night, that he dripped into her psyche, resurrecting feelings she had spent a lifetime trying to bury.

Though she attempted to deny it to herself, Ellie knew she had loved Tom Black with a deep, intense passion and burning lust that regrettably she had never mimicked with her husband. With Tom it had been instantaneous and all-consuming; she had wanted him with a base ferocity that had scared her, if only for the fact that deep down she suspected it would one day destroy her – a supposition that had nearly turned out to be correct in the end. It had always bothered Ellie that it had not been the same way with her husband. A husband who she knew would walk the world barefoot twice over to make her happy and give her what she wanted in life. She heard her mother’s familiar voice resounding inside her mind, ‘the heart wants what the heart wants, Eleanor,’ she would say as if to justify her own dubious choices. ‘You don’t choose love; it chooses you.’ And yet Tom had turned her over without a backwards glance the moment Loretta Fiorentino had strutted into the Venus Club, all tits and lips and cheap costume jewellery, seducing him with her exotic accent and talk of going places. Loretta had set her cap at Tom Black that night and had promised him the earth in a bid to lure him into her lair; money, clubs, contacts, ‘the whole enchilada’, as Tom had put it. Not that Tom had needed much persuading. He was going places, with or without Ellie in tow, and had abandoned her without a second’s thought; though some years later he would vehemently deny this betrayal, attempting to prove his love to her one final time …

It was no good. Ellie threw back the fine cream silk sheets and flung her long, slim dancer’s legs over the side of the intricately carved four-poster Fratelli Basile bed that in a twist of irony her husband had imported from Italy, her Agent Provocateur lace chemise sliding down her naked body as she stood. Making her way over to her dressing table, she sat down on the cushioned stool and blinked at her reflection; seeing herself as a stranger would. Ellie pulled at her skin absentmindedly, poking her tongue out before reaching for her Crème de la Mer serum. Eye bags she could cope with; she could have them removed tomorrow if the fancy took her, it was just her past that wasn’t so easily erased.

Ellie snapped herself out of her thoughts by applying a dollop of Laura Mercier Fig hand cream, inhaling the deep, earthy sweet scent as she rubbed it into her skin. She had to stop this; no good had ever come out of raking over the past.

It was that bloody bitch Loretta’s photograph that had triggered all of this. Ellie had spent decades repressing her past with an iron will that would’ve flawed a heavyweight champion, and so tonight felt like a defeat, though if she was honest, it had also been cathartic. Thinking of Tom had allowed her to remember the girl she had once been, someone she had denied for the past two decades. A girl that, in an odd way, she missed being.

Ellie’s iPhone suddenly beeped, and alarmed, she snatched it up from the bedside table.

‘Oh thank God,’ she breathed aloud as the message came into view.

Hi Mom, Dont worry bout me. Havin a GR8 time. B in touch soon. Tx

She stared at the text for a moment. Something was different somehow but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. The use of the word ‘Mom’ perhaps.

Ellie slid back into bed. She was just being paranoid. Tess was OK, and even though she could not quite shake the sense of unease that had stalked her these last few days, for now, it was one less thing to worry about.

CHAPTER 15

Marco DiMari discarded the phone onto the bed without so much as a second thought as he rifled through Tess’s belongings. There had to be a fair few grand’s worth of designer gear here he thought happily, as he inspected the contents of her Louis Vuitton holdall with gusto. The suitcase alone was worth a small fortune and he could just see himself passing through customs with it. He grinned at the thought.

Marco DiMari’s real name was Tarik Valmir and although he had people, women largely, believe that he was a real Italian stallion from Rome, he was in fact born in a small city called Lezhe in Albania and had grown up largely on the peripheries of East London, Bethnal Green, to be exact. The Italian thing was simply a ruse to entice women; it certainly got you into their knickers a lot quicker. Ever tenacious, he had even learnt to speak the language fluently, fooling Italian women themselves on occasion. Oh yes, Tarik liked his alias. He liked it a lot.

Hoping that he might’ve thrown Tess’s mother off the scent with his text message, Marco came across Tess’s passport.

‘Bingo,’ he said underneath his fetid alcoholic breath.

He was sure there was big money to be made from this one and he wasn’t about to let such an opportunity slip through his nimble fingers. He’d seen a new opportunity in Tess Scott, the billionaire’s fragrant daughter. One that was far too good to pass up.

Marco heard the pounding on the wall next door again. The girl had been going at it on and off all morning, hammering at the door and walls, crying and screaming like a banshee. He knew he would have to give her something to drink soon before she collapsed with dehydration. He didn’t want a stiff on his hands – she was worth far too much for that.

He heard Tess’s muffled cries through the wall.

‘That’s right love, you carry on. We’re halfway up a fucking mountain in Spain you dozy bitch, no one can hear you.’ He banged his fist against the wall in retaliation, laughing, ‘no one at all!’

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