Kitabı oxu: «Power Games»
Victoria Fox Praise for her novels
‘Always a fun read!’ —Jackie Collins
‘Quite simply the best “bonkbuster” you’ll read all year.’
—Daily Express
‘Must Read’
—Real People
‘Oozes glamour and revenge. The ultimate beach read’
—All About Soap
‘A proper guilty pleasure’
—Now
‘Fans of glamorous bonkbusters will enjoy’
—Heat
‘Victoria Fox’s glossy chick-lit novel gives Jackie Collins a run for her money.’
—Irish Tatler
‘It’s the best bonkbuster.’ —The Sun
‘Even we were shocked at the scale of scandal in this juicy tale! It’s 600 pages of sin!’
—Now
‘This debut novel is full of sex, glamour and divas!’ 4 stars
—Star
‘For a trip to ultimate escapism, take the Jackie Collins freeway, turn left at Sexy Street, right at Scandal Boulevard. Your destination is Victoria Fox’s Hollywood.’
—dailyrecord.co.uk
For Madeleine Milburn
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to Maddy, my agent and my friend, for more with every book.
To my brilliant editor, Sally Williamson, for drawing the best out of this novel, for her fabulous ideas, and for always pushing me to potential; and to the superb team at Harlequin UK: Mandy Ferguson, Tim Cooper, Nick Bates, Alison Lindsay, Donna Hillyer, Jenny Hutton, Ali Wilkinson, Elise Windmill and Helen Findlay.
To Cara Lee Simpson for her excellent notes on Power Games, and to Oliver Rhodes for his publishing prowess. To the guys at Cherish PR, especially Rebecca Oatley, Sam Allen and Shane Herrington: you make my dreams come true!
To Jo and Jeff Croot for helping straighten the plot; to Kim Young for Kevin and the Little Chasers; to Louis Boroditsky for his fantastic support; to Toria and Mark for going Bear Grylls; and to Rosie Walsh, Jenny Hayes, Vanessa Neuling and Kate Wilde for their friendship and writerly advice.
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
PART TWO
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
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69
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71
72
73
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79
80
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100
EPILOGUE
Endpage
Copyright
PROLOGUE I
Koloku Island, Southeast Asia, the Palaccas Archipelago
July 1, 2014
The jungle comes alive at night.
In the darkness strange shapes creep and fold. Liquid shadows are black as ink and the undergrowth moves. Things shift unseen, slipping beneath leaf-silk. The air quivers, hot and clenched. It smells of the colour green, fragrant and private; and the purple sky, glimpsed in diamonds through a trembling canopy, is bursting with stars.
There is no safe way to arrive on these shores. The water is shark-infested, the land crawls and seethes. It is a forbidden paradise set apart from the world, and it does not welcome visitors. Peril lurks in swamps. Cat snakes drip from trees. Leopards prowl with silent intent, eyes gleaming gold at the scent of the kill. On a far-off branch, the panicked screech of a proboscis monkey rips through the pregnant heat, high and taut and violent. Fruit bats clap leathery wings.
It is impossible to see in the depths of the rainforest. Dense threads thick as rope are damp and fat and scented like rot. Enquiringly they finger the skin, coiling around wrist, knee or ankle, tethering any who trespass into the sucking, clinging earth. This is no place for humans. The wilderness took over a long time ago.
Beyond a wall of jade, the beach is torn into view. Cliff shards soar, rugged and sheer, their lofty peaks silhouetted against star-crust, prehistoric and bone-sharp. Rivers thread vein-like into the slithering jungle and grottos are sliced out of the rock, interiors caked in salt. Palm trees rise like swords against the sky, a hundred feet up, maybe more. The indigo lagoon shimmers like silk, kissing the pink crust of the reef, beyond which spreads the wide, dark Aralanda Sea. Water whispers onto sand, sighing as satin over pale shoulders. It brings secrets from the far-off Pacific, drifting them onto the shore like shells, for nobody to hear and nobody to pick up.
Everything is still.
The jet appears at first like a silver comet. It is small, a moving star, but to blink will draw it into focus, its clean, light contours and the tipping line of its wings. It falls closer, glinting against the lilac clouds. Too quick it is eating up distance, eerily noiseless as it falls and falls over glittering black, reaching for the moonlit bay.
Smoke trails from the rear, dissolving into the indifferent dark. There is a flash of hot orange, close to the tail. The sky begins to growl.
With a crash the body plummets through the canopy. Profuse thickets resist its mighty onslaught, breaking the descent. Thunder blasts as the fuselage guillotines through trees. The forest shrieks. There is an explosion of birds’ wings.
The captain has a second to think before the windshield bursts and a jagged shaft breaks through, neat as a splinter, impaling him through his chest. His lungs are demolished; his breath is crushed. He is surprised. He wasn’t meant to die today. The last person he thinks of is the woman who sold him his coffee that morning in Jakarta, her light, smiling eyes and the sweetness of the liquid on his tongue. Blood spills from his mouth and he slumps forward, chin on chest, and stops living.
It is a peculiar quirk of fortune that prevents the jet from slamming into hard ground: later, those on board will realise that the forest saved their lives—and curse it for it. Instead, the stricken plane shudders through foliage, hell-bent on its manic detour, battered by rocks and the thump of knotted branch. Parts fall away. The mammoth trunk of a chengal tree severs one wing, flipping the missile. It breaks up, an eagle in the skies but down here little but haphazard pieces of fractured metal. In the cockpit the overhead panel collapses, knocking the first officer cold.
What is left carves a giant wound through the undergrowth. Despite the broken plunge, the impact is severe. The aircraft groans to an uncertain, injured rest, slashed with mud and green. The moon bathes it in light, like a pearl.
Of the seven passengers who boarded that morning, three are men and four are women. It is unclear who is left.
One is smeared with red, her face and neck sticky with salt and iron, though she cannot decipher through her terror if it is her blood or another’s.
One is trapped beneath something solid. He doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. He must be dead, he thinks, because everything is dark.
One is the first to move. She gropes into the black and detects the outline of her hand, tentative and ghostly, and knows in that moment she has made it.
Half a mile behind, the remainder of the cabin is suspended in a tree seventy metres from the ground. It hangs between moss-covered creepers and is tilted on one side, caught in a nest of fronds. The ribbons strain: they cannot hold it.
Inside, a woman opens her eyes. She can hear her breathing, fast and short, and the furious blood in her veins.
There is a final, desperate moment before somebody screams. The animal cry flies into the jungle like spitting fire, a red warning: there are survivors.
II
Szolsvár Castle, Gemenc Forest, Hungary
The same day
Nine thousand miles away, in an ancient fortress buried deep in the woodland, the telephone rings. Its chime echoes through sprawling gothic caverns, lonely and stark.
Billionaire Voldan Cane receives it.
Anticipation climbs in his throat. ‘Is it done?’ he rasps.
The voice makes him wait. Eventually, it comes.
‘Yes. It is done.’
Voldan exhales. A wheezing moan escapes where the skin between his top lip and his nose has ruptured. His bruised heart burns.
It is done.
The call is terminated. Voldan tries to smile but it is hard. The movement tugs at his ruined features, his sallow skin pitted as fruit peel. Normally he avoids his tortured image—mirrors have long been banished from these rooms—but here, in the high, arched windows of Szolsvár’s Great Hall, he catches a flash of the man he used to be: handsome, wealthy, coveted … happy.
One out of four isn’t bad.
The panes are faded and cobwebbed with age. Only Voldan’s eyes betray the depths of his satisfaction. It is done.
He backs away from his reflection and the shadows swallow him whole.
PART ONE
Six months earlier
1
New York
Angela Silvers was being fucked from here to infinity.
At least, that was how it looked. In the mirrored dressing room of Fit for NYC, the bijou latest addition to her chain of sought-after fashion boutiques, her image was fractured and repeated, chasing replicas of her naked body to vanishing point. Angela was flung against the sweat-slicked glass, her arms wide and her blood racing.
The man between her thighs was forbidden.
Noah Lawson.
Movie star, heart-throb, teenage crush—the man she wasn’t allowed to have.
Noah’s tongue circled with exquisite precision, tracing around, between and beneath, everywhere but the place she knew would ignite her like dynamite.
She grabbed his hair, tilting her hips, and gasped as fireflies swarmed in her belly, rising and rising until the world and everything in it diminished to the pure, clear pleasure of her approaching climax. Oh, how she had tried to forget him. Noah was her lover, her best friend and her constant: he was the magic in her heart.
She couldn’t help the rebellion. It had been in her since she was fifteen.
‘Keep going!’ she begged. ‘Don’t stop!’
Drawing her to him, Noah plunged deep, finally giving her what she wanted where she wanted it, and in a delicious, delirious flash she was there, slave to the surge, electric ripples tearing her apart. He kissed her lips, her neck, her collarbone, and whispered in her ear those three sweet words he saved just for her.
If only she believed them.
‘Ms Silvers?’ There was a knock at the door: a female voice, summoning her for the launch. ‘They’re ready for you. Is everything all right?’
Angela closed her eyes, throwing her head back to gasp her admission: ‘I’m coming!’
Fit for NYC was a walk-in wow-fest of everything retail could and should be.
The gallery was spectacular. Silhouetted mannequins were draped in lace and crepe. Champagne glittered on diamond plinths, embossed with the golden FNYC logo. The air was spritzed with an aroma of privacy, of secrecy, even of conspiracy. Couches sat plump as raspberries, their Milanese fabrics shimmering with hand-gilded leaf, and goblets of fizz drifted along with zingy morsels of antipasto: juicy baby figs, Parma ham as light as silk, salty pepperoncini and fleshy artichoke. The pieces were one-offs, painstakingly selected from the fiercest new collections; if not by Angela then by her trusted clique of buyers. Personal assistants were on hand to advise. Designers were commissioned for bespoke tailoring. Caskets housed the chicest of gems. Fit for NYC was set to become the shopping mecca of the super-rich.
Heads turned as Angela moved across the floor. Hers was a potent sensuality that combined feisty Italian beauty with the self-assurance and class of an elite Bostonian heritage. In a tailored trouser suit with deep V neckline and heels that put her at a fraction under six feet, Angela Silvers was bracingly attractive.
She smoothed her curls. Sex hair. Her cheeks were still flushed, her knees weak.
Already she ached for Noah, her skin dancing from his touch and his kiss still alive on her lips. Why did they have to hide? Why couldn’t he be here, at her side?
Some days Angela convinced herself to throw it all to hell and stand in defiance of her father; others, it was career suicide. Donald Silvers was a powerful, domineering man, and he would not be moved when it came to his precious only daughter: if he found out she and Noah were together, he would take from Angela the one thing she had always craved—that one day, the family business would be hers.
Her heart or her ambition … Why did she have to choose?
According to her father, despite Noah’s fame and riches, he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t from her stock. Girls in Angela’s position were expected to see and be seen with the right sort of man, to date wisely, to marry correctly.
She ignored the sliver of doubt that told her that wasn’t the only reason. Doubt that looped through a hole in her heart; a hole Noah himself had made years before.
The thing was, no one else matched up. No one looked at her in the way Noah did. No one listened, and cared, and made her laugh. No one held her hand and kissed her like it was the last kiss on earth. No one made love to her like he did.
‘I’ll call you,’ she had told him, as he’d slipped through the doors and into the night. His strong arms around her, his voice in her ear: ‘Not if I call you first …’
‘Where’ve you been?’
Orlando, the elder of her two brothers, swiped a chalice of Louis Roederer and drank lustily from it. At thirty Orlando was a polished, complacent kind of handsome, as if his looks and status were assets he had won on merit, not by chance.
‘Shouldn’t you slow down?’ Angela commented. Unable to resist stoking the fire of sibling rivalry, she added wickedly: ‘Anyone would think you were jealous.’
‘Jealous?’ He snorted. ‘Hardly.’
But she didn’t believe it. Orlando and Luca existed on the soft plush pillow of their father’s wealth like cats in the sun, safe in the assurance that they had to do very little to merit his attention. Angela, on the other hand, had had a fight on her hands since day one—and it had forced her to succeed. As the only girl and third in line to the Silvers throne, she was long accustomed to a role in the shadows. Why should a world-famous heiress to immeasurable fortune be getting involved in the tough stuff when there were more frivolous things to be doing, like getting her nails done, or partying, or visiting their private Hawaiian retreat for a week of sun and spa?
Angela didn’t give a shit about any of that. She had the balls and the brains of any man—bigger, better—and had demonstrated she could easily trounce her brothers when it came to business. Setting up Fit for NYC by herself was testament to that.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said, switching seamlessly to a smile for their guest of honour, supermodel of the moment Tawny Lascelles. Tawny was blonde, wide-eyed and sultry. She was four years younger than Angela but the gap felt wider—the way Tawny behaved in the press was naïve to say the least, snorting coke, flashing her knickers (or lack of them), creeping into cabs with married men … It hadn’t stopped her snagging contracts with Burberry, Mulberry and Chanel—and her attendance tonight was surely to make certain that Angela’s brainchild was next.
‘Tawny, how great to see you, thank you for coming …’
The model delivered a tight air-kiss, sniffed the air and moved on.
Orlando smirked. ‘Why are models always baked?’
‘Yeah, well, at least one of us is on top of our game.’
‘Which is why you’ve been AWOL for the past half hour?’
Angela conceded that her pre-party dalliance with Noah hadn’t exactly been the height of professionalism. She couldn’t help it. Snatched moments, hidden trysts, each second savoured to carry them to the next encounter, always an eternity away. Both public figures, a glimpse would be splashed across the web in a nanosecond—already rumours simmered dangerously. Noah had implored her, but still she said no.
Damn! She could not live beneath her father’s jurisdiction for ever.
‘Well?’ Orlando pressed. ‘Gonna let me in on your vanishing act?’
‘It’s none of your damn business.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Want me to tell Dad?’
‘Tell him what?’
‘You know what.’
‘I know you can fuck off.’
‘You’re a shitty liar, Angela.’
She wanted to hit him. ‘And what makes you such a saint?’
Orlando shrugged. ‘Nothing. Guess I’m better at hiding it than you.’
It had been too much to hope for her brother’s support. Only Noah had believed she could do this. Only he’d had faith. Despite the way her family had treated him in the past, Noah had been adamant that victory was in her blood—and if the men could do it, why couldn’t she? Ever since her great-grandfather had founded a modest Boston department store, through the decades growing it from strength to strength, winning had been the name of the game. On the crest of success her father had expanded into wider markets still: hotels, casinos, fashion labels; on to the Middle East, Tokyo and Singapore …
Today the Silvers brand was a worldwide lifestyle force. Angela was dead-set on running the ship one day. In the meantime, if her father wouldn’t stake her a role, she would simply go up against him. She had to prove herself one way or another.
Gianluca joined them. Together, the Silvers brothers reeked so strongly of a Harvard Business degree it settled like fog.
‘Dad’s got an announcement,’ said Luca, with his irritating I-know-something-you-don’t-know pout. Luca’s wide, thick-lashed eyes and high brushstroke cheekbones were trademarks of the family. Women went crazy for him.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Orlando took another drink. ‘He’s retiring—and you know what that means. Silvers is coming straight to me, baby.’
Luca arranged his jacket. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’m the eldest.’ He swigged. ‘But hey, don’t worry, I won’t fire you.’
Luca smirked. Then he said: ‘May the best man win.’
‘Or woman.’
‘Forget it,’ Luca dismissed, waving a hand about, ‘haven’t you already got this … sideline?’
‘Which is a damn sight more than you’ve got,’ Angela shot back.
A tinkling glass put paid to the dispute. Angela seized the platform, welcomed the sea of guests and press and recounted her journey, from a teenage summer in Paris that had ignited her passion for couture, to the first flame of her Fit for NYC idea; from the funding she’d secured—independently from her father—to the glory of this opening night. She imagined Noah next to her, encouraging her and urging her on.
When the applause died down, echoes of light still dancing from the raft of cameras, she invited her father, as arranged, to offer his congratulations.
As Donald Silvers approached, she fixed her determined gaze on his.
In spite of it all, Angela knew that he believed in her. She had never been the daughter he’d anticipated—she’d been more.
He shook her hand, equal to equal.
Now was her chance to prove it.
2
Los Angeles
Kevin Chase was watching his manager’s mouth. He noticed for the first time that it was a small mouth, the teeth crowded, and the jowly cheeks bolstering it brought to mind a yapping dog wedged between two cushions. The mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. In the years since becoming America’s biggest solo artist—scratch that, the world’s—and the definitive pin-up for a squillion screeching tweenies (when was his fan base going to grow?), Kevin had honed the art of appearing to concentrate while actually not listening to a single word.
‘Kevin, are you paying attention? C’mon, buddy, this is serious.’
‘Yeh.’
‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself?’
Kevin slumped further into the squishy leather couch in Sketch Falkner’s downtown office and grudgingly lifted his shoulders.
‘Dunno,’ he grumbled. ‘One of those things, I guess.’
Sketch contained his exasperation and came to the front of the desk. He had been in this game thirty years. He had seen it all. As the industry’s top talent spotter and head of the board here at Cut N Dry Records, he knew how to handle his clients.
‘What in hell were you thinking?’ he encouraged.
Kevin folded his arms, stared ahead and refused to reply. His gold FNYC cap was wedged on sideways. His slouch jeans were massive, gangsta style despite his suburban upbringing, and strapped partway down his ass. He wore a white vest adorned by hefty chains, and on his feet were his cherished purple SUPRAs, one of which was jiggling up and down as if he needed the bathroom. Several tattoos were splashed self-consciously across his upper arms, the biggest depicting his ex-girlfriend, pop princess Sandi—and, as if having Sandi’s image branded onto his skin for all eternity wasn’t bad enough, the artist had given her some weird-ass dangly skirt that made it look like Kevin had a thing for chicks with dicks. His frame was slight despite rigorous gym sessions, and the wisps around his chin refused to mature beyond fuzz. The overall impression was one of a junior who had raided his big brother’s closet, or else a snowman that had melted in the sun, leaving only a jumble of clothes behind.
Eventually he said: ‘I want another Coke.’
‘Please,’ put in his mother Joan, seated at his shoulder like a parrot.
‘Please,’ Kevin grunted.
The truth was that a kid in Kevin’s position didn’t need to pay attention. Not really. Kevin Chase had three platinum albums to his name. He was the most talked about performer of his generation. He had scooped a raft of awards: Best Artist, Best Male, Best Single, Best Pop Act, Best Dance Act, Best Video, even Best Hair, which was only right because he took fucking good care of his hair, damn it. He was the ultimate twenty-first-century poster boy. He had close to sixty million followers on Twitter. His adoring fans, referred to as the Little Chasers, treated him like the Second Coming of Jesus. He blew up the media. He played sell-out gigs across the globe. He had his own fashion line, his own fragrance and produced his own movies. He had waxworks of his image in five major cities. He owned a chopper and a mega-yacht and so many properties that half the time he didn’t even know what countries they were in. He was a phenomenon, a philosopher (who could forget the profound opener to ‘Touch My Kiss’? Girl, this life can get so serious) and a poet (You make me so delirious; I’m on this like mysterious). He owned a dachshund named Trey.
At nineteen, Kevin Chase was the biggest superstar on the planet. He couldn’t go for a dump without Security producing the toilet roll.
The Coke was brought over. ‘Thank you …’ prompted Joan.
‘Whatever.’
Sketch nodded towards the paused plasma screen mounted above his desk. On it, Kevin’s image was frozen onstage at the Chicago United Center, mic to his lips, hips strutting, his metallic suit and dark shades part of the Raunchy Robot theme. In the front ranks, a sea of eager Little Chasers grasped for their hero.
‘Joanie,’ tried Sketch, who knew that bringing in Kevin’s mom usually achieved the desired result, ‘what do you think?’
‘Well, I—’
‘I can answer for myself, can’t I?’ Kevin scowled. ‘It’s a fucking hand gesture, what’s the big fucking deal anyhow?’
‘Kevin!’ admonished Joan. ‘Language!’
‘You have to understand that this isn’t what the fans expect.’ Sketch laid it out. ‘Kevin Chase is boyfriend material, OK? He’s about puppy dogs and first dates. He’s about Valentine’s cards. He’s about cookies. He’s about … abstinence.’
Kevin gulped. Recently, he had run an interview with a British tabloid, in which he had happily blasted sex before marriage. Ha! That was some laugh. At this rate he wouldn’t be getting sex until … well that was the fucking funny bit because he couldn’t even think of when. Christ! It wasn’t as if he was short of offers. He was Kevin Chase, for God’s sake; by rights he should be nailing any girl he wanted.
Except he couldn’t … Physically.
That was why Sandi had called it off. The label had tried to salvage it, but Sandi had a fire in her knickers and Kevin’s hose was officially out of order.
Kevin started picking the skin around his thumb. Loneliness swept over him in a silent tsunami. His management had control over every other aspect of his life, so he sure wasn’t about to hit Sketch with a confessional on his sexual problems.
Sexual problems! Him! It was enough to make him throw up.
‘What Kevin Chase isn’t about is this.’ Sketch gestured once more at the still. ‘Pelvic thrusting. Cursing. Rubbing his crotch like a … I don’t know, like a dog with his balls in a knot. Telling girls he wants to,’ Sketch consulted his iPad and inhaled sharply, ‘grind you up against the wall where your mom and dad can’t see.’
‘That was part of the song.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘It should’ve been. It’s not my fault I’ve got to sing like a pussy. I told them I wanted the lyrics to reflect my personality.’
Sketch put down his pad. He assumed his I’m listening face, tempered by a twinge of fatherly concern. When all was said and done, he was the closest thing Kevin had to a father—hell, maybe that was where it had gone so wrong.
Abandonment issues: oldest fuck-up in the book.
Of course the record company was doing little to alleviate it.
Forget it. It’s for the kid’s own good.
Sketch contained a gruesome shiver. You just keep telling yourself that.
He straightened. ‘What would reflect your personality, Kevin? Tell me.’
But Kevin didn’t know, or else he couldn’t articulate it. He didn’t even know if he had a personality, outside of what everyone else told him it was. Lately he had started gazing in the mirror and not recognising the person looking back, half expecting the other Kevin to do something he hadn’t asked it to, like stick its tongue out, or burst out laughing at the punchline his life had become. He might laugh too, if he could remember the joke. Instead, every day was a circus of grabbing bankrollers, snatching and pawing at his fame like rabid dogs. He had no real friends.
He scratched at a mark on the knee of his jeans and tried not to cry.
‘Listen to Sketch, honey,’ Joan crooned, leaning forward in her chair. She wore ill-fitting Prada and too much make-up. ‘He knows what he’s talking about.’
‘Yeah right,’ mumbled Kevin. Sometimes he wanted to throttle his mom. She was happy to tag along for the ride but she didn’t appreciate how much work he had to put in, what this job took out of you, how much stress he was under. She should try being Kevin Chase for a day and see how she liked it!
‘Not good enough.’ Sketch ran a hand through his hair. ‘If this was an isolated incident, buddy, then maybe I’d buy it, but the fact is it’s not. You want me to lay it out for you? Turning up three hours late to the Seattle concert. Telling an audience of schoolkids that if they didn’t like it, they could bite me. Flicking the bird to that pap outside your crib. Rocking up drunk to that book signing and breathing vodka fumes in a nine-year-old’s face—it was a treat to see that splashed across USay the next morning, let me tell you. Trying to get that pregnant ape at the California Zoo Convention to drink a can of Kool beer. Forgetting what song you’re meant to be singing. Messing up your routines. Speeding. Swearing. Trashing hotel rooms … and don’t get me started on taking a leak in that plant pot at Il Cielo—’
‘All right, all right, I get it,’ Kevin supplied bitterly.
‘And what’s with the attitude? That dance troupe you worked with on the last video said you gave them hell. Cursing at reporters, telling press where to go, slamming out at that photographer in Berlin. I mean Jesus H., Kevin—’
‘I never trashed any hotel room. I told you. The sound system exploded.’
Sketch took a breath.
‘And I needed a leak! What do you want me to do, pee in my fucking pants?’
‘You could visit the toilet like everyone else.’
‘I’m not everyone else, though, am I?’
‘Think about it,’ Sketch said. ‘You’ve got a reputation to uphold.’
‘I’m sick of having a reputation.’
Joan put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Honey …’
He shrugged her off.
‘I’ve cancelled your commitments this afternoon,’ offered Sketch. ‘Go home, rest up, get looked after; watch some cartoons—’
‘Cartoons?’ Kevin flared. ‘What am I, five?’
‘Relax.’ Sketch put his hands out. ‘You’ve been under a lot of strain and it’s starting to show. My job is to look after you, and this is what I’m prescribing.’
Along with the rest.
Sketch swallowed his conscience like a bad oyster.
‘I’ll call you in the morning. Sound good, bud?’
Kevin allowed himself to be ushered through the door. Joan was fussing over him, picking threads from his back. ‘Ugh, Mom, piss off, will you?’
They took the elevator in silence. Kevin knew he was being an asshole. He wanted to say sorry but he didn’t know how. He just couldn’t help how angry he felt the whole time. That was the only word. He felt like a bomb about to blow off. The slightest word sent him plummeting into a rage. A throwaway comment made him fly off the handle. Right now he hated everyone and everything and he didn’t, for the life of him, know why. All he knew was that he couldn’t sustain it much longer.
Kevin was going to snap, and it was going to be soon. He couldn’t say what would happen when he did, but one thing was certain: it was going to be bad.
3
London
Regardless of how many celebrities she interviewed, Eve Harley would always be amazed at the scale of their egos. Supermodels were the worst.
‘I guess I kinda always knew I was beautiful,’ Tawny Lascelles was saying from her position in the make-up girl’s chair, angling her face as the blusher brush swept across a pair of immaculate cheekbones. Tawny had a lilting, Texan drawl, and a flush of softness to her voice that betrayed what Eve was beginning to suspect was a core of gritty ambition. She was the magazine favourite of the moment, sweet as candy but sharp enough to be interesting, with a well-publicised streak of rebellion.
‘Can you remember your first shoot?’ Eve asked, adjusting her position on the uncomfortable stool alongside Tawny’s cushioned throne. In the portrait awarded by the bulb-lined mirror she accepted the uncrossable distance between prettiness and beauty. Eve was attractive enough, with her neatly cut shoulder-length brown hair, green almond eyes and petite, bright features, but next to Tawny’s Cara Delevingne vibe anyone was going to look like a sack of potatoes.
‘Oh, yes,’ Tawny’s blue eyes widened, ‘a girl never forgets.’ She pouted to permit a rose-pink liner to caress the contours of her perfect, bee-stung lips. Ravishing wasn’t nearly enough for tonight’s parade: she had to be flawless. ‘I was so nervous. I mean, I’m actually totally uncomfortable with this whole “look at me” thing.’
I bet you are, thought Eve, tapping keynotes into her tablet.
‘So, lucky for me,’ Tawny went on, ‘it was on this paradise beach … and d’you know what the really weird thing was? Like, totally surreal?’
Eve took the question as rhetorical, but when Tawny’s sapphire eyes at last deigned to meet hers in their joint reflection, she shook her head.
‘I’d been there before! On vacation.’ The make-up girl tilted Tawny’s chin, lifting it like a petal so she could add a hint of gloss. ‘And as soon as I walked out on that sand,’ Tawny managed to keep her mouth totally still while she spoke, ‘I was, like, Whoa, this is cosmic, y’know? Like it was meant to happen that way. I was meant to do this. I was meant to be a model—and no one was going to stop me!’
Eve highlighted the section on her pad. She had it all on Dictaphone but, when it came to revisiting a piece, she liked to know which bits had jumped out at the time. This was one of them. Tawny’s tone had slipped. An edge of bitterness had crept in, of having earned her place in the celebrity tree through more than a few strokes of luck.
‘So you believe this is your calling?’
Tawny’s eyes were closed against the delicate application of mascara. ‘Oh, absolutely,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’
‘Don’t you think it’s an empty sort of profession?’
There was a pause. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, good as you might be at it, it’s not really changing the world.’
‘It depends which way you look at it.’
‘Which way do you look at it?’
‘I’m helping people feel better about themselves.’
‘How?’
‘Modelling gives regular people something to aim for.’
‘Even if it’s not attainable?’
Tawny’s eyes opened a fraction, snake-like. ‘What?’
‘The impossible dream, for most women: size 6 and wearing Karl Lagerfeld.’
Tawny batted the make-up girl off. ‘So I should leave them to stew in their fat, sad little lives watching re-runs of America’s Got Talent and stuffing potato chips in their pie-holes?’ Catching herself, she clarified somewhat more demurely, ‘What I mean is, I’m giving them something to aspire to. Beauty … Well, it inspires.’
‘Are you an inspiration?’
‘Yes. In a way.’
‘What way?’
‘Girls want to grow up to be just like me.’
‘Even if they can’t?’
‘Why can’t they?’
Eve thought it was a joke, but Tawny appeared serious.
‘Beauty is a construct,’ she pointed out, ‘right? It’s subjective, prone to change, evolution? In twenty years’ time, will girls want to look like someone else?’
Tawny’s expression was blank.
‘Do you see modelling as philanthropic?’
‘I’m sorry,’ answered Tawny, ‘I don’t know what that means.’
But Eve suspected she did. ‘To enhance the world, to make it a better place.’
‘Then, yes, I suppose I do.’
‘Why?’
Tawny’s eyes opened, flashing danger. The make-up girl’s brush stumbled. ‘Where exactly is this going?’ she demanded. ‘Why, why, why? How, how, how?’
‘It’s an interview.’
‘Well, it sucks.’ Tawny gestured for her assistant. ‘Jean-Paul! Here!’
‘You’ll admit not much is known about how you arrived on the circuit,’ Eve threw out. ‘Maybe something from your childhood made you feel this way?’
‘What, like making the world a better place?’
‘Allegedly you’ve said of your family that—’
‘I’ll stop you there,’ Jean-Paul intervened, ‘I think that’s time. Did you get everything you need?’ But he turned away, not bothering to hang around for an answer. Tawny’s hair crew were next to descend, rattling bottles of spray and cooing over their darling’s fragrant mane as if it were the last head of hair on earth.
‘Get me my grapes,’ came a bad-tempered bark from somewhere inside the melee. ‘I need sugar, JP. I’m dizzy.’
Jean-Paul scurried off to obey.
Eve Harley was frozen out. The interview was over.
The evening was a showcase of upcoming designers, each teamed with an established name in a kind of haute-glitz mentorship programme. Opposite Eve in the ranks sat a prim arrangement of fashionistas, editors, rock musicians and royalty, anyone whose image was regularly splashed across the London society pages—a colourful tableau of elaborate hairstyles, sharp suits and sleekly crossed legs, all with that slightly self-conscious way of sitting, as if these VIPs’ entire lives had become a public display and a lurking photographer could be about to jump out at any moment.
A new collection spilled onto the runway. Tawny Lascelles strutted down the walk, glossily gorgeous and all too aware of that fact, in a Japanese-flavoured drape dress courtesy of a breakthrough artist. But for someone who was all too happy to disclose the finer points of her colonic irrigation regime, or how many egg whites she consumed for breakfast, Tawny was ferociously private about her past.
Eve would get the story, no matter what it took. She always did. She would hunt down the facts and she would hunt them her way. She didn’t do failure and she didn’t do backing out. Her column in the UK’s biggest tabloid relied on it.
The show over, she made a swift exit. January in London was bracing and chill, shining red buses sliding past, their windows clouded with condensation. The River Thames glittered beneath a chain of bridges, snaking down to the golden crust of Westminster, whose peaks were obscured by shifting mist.
Eve checked her phone. It was the usual address, the one he used whenever he visited town. Hailing a taxi, she climbed in. The city rushed past, a blur of lights and sounds, and she spritzed perfume onto her wrists and between her legs.
She couldn’t suppress the wave of butterflies that came with the inevitability of their meeting. It wasn’t as if there were feelings involved—just sex, always sex—and the cold, efficient transaction of it somehow made it more of a thrill.
The cab dropped her at Marble Arch and she walked the rest of the way. Down a moon-frosted lane, away from the crowds, she arrived at his townhouse.
Tapping in the security code, the gates parted, a fairytale twist of black iron.
Orlando Silvers was already on the porch. The door was open, spilling yellow light.
They didn’t say a word. He drew her into the warm and pushed her against the kitchen counter. She went to speak and he crushed her with a kiss, hooking her knee and flipping her round, strong thumbs tearing down her knickers. She felt them rip and he spread her wide and in a second he was inside, hot and deep and thick, her face pressed against the cool steel surface as he pounded, his hand snaking beneath her blouse and freeing her tits.
Eve let him drive against her, her skirt up over her back, one shoe kicked off, her hair pulled and grabbed and her lipstick smudged, until the calm, composed journalist of thirty minutes ago was all but obliterated. Only when Orlando was ready to come did she ease off and draw him to the floor. He was flat on his back, his dick straining beneath the crisp white fabric of his shirt. Slowly she mounted him, unbuttoning her top with tantalising leisure, and he groaned and reached for her as she backed away, peeling off her bra and watching his eyes feast. Making him wait, she finally sank onto him, feeling him fill her up, easing him in and out, right to his tip and down to his base, wetter and wetter each time as his cock became stiffer.
She rode him hard. Only through sex could Eve feel this way—like all the anger and hurt was set free, existing in some separate universe, and all she had here, now, was the intensity and blaze of their combat.
She collapsed against him, their explosions colliding.
Afterwards, Orlando lit a cigarette. They spilled onto the couch, naked and spent. Eve leaned on his chest, running her fingers across his torso, the skin olive-brown and scattered with dark hair. Orlando was the opposite of what she normally went for, serious-faced journos who smoked roll-ups and read satire. He was a cocky Wall Street boy, a glossy Starbucks American—not to mention one of the richest men on the planet. She felt him inhale, heard the crackle of cigarette paper.
‘Is it true your father’s retiring?’ she asked.
Orlando laughed. ‘That was a record.’
‘What?’
‘Fifteen seconds before you went for the story.’
Playfully, she smacked him. He grabbed her, kissed her again.
He was right, though. Eve had worked in this business ten years, yet she never tired of the buzz; what it was to chase a scandal. Today, millions across the globe read her work. Her biting appraisals were infamous. She took no prisoners, she refused to sugarcoat and her allegiance couldn’t be bought—she wrote what she thought and she was faithful to her instinct, whether her subject liked it or not. Over the years she had gained a fearsome reputation. Eve wasn’t out to hurt these celebrities, or to sabotage them, but she believed that if you were going to put yourself up for scrutiny, to use the media to your own ends, then you had to be prepared for it to use you back. Stars who crowed on about privacy didn’t seem to mind so much when they were summoning paparazzi to the opening of their new perfume, or when they had a hot date on their arm or a radical new look to unveil.
Teen superstar Kevin Chase was a prime example. His success was so closely entwined with his courtship of the press that it was impossible to separate the two, yet when Eve had challenged him on the issue of sex (Kevin’s stance had, until recently, been emphatically chaste), he had fumbled his way through a confused, tetchy, half-baked response before barking at her to fuck off because it was none of her business.
None of her business … It was a red rag to a bull. Eve intended to make it her business, whatever it was, and she would stop at nothing until she got there.
‘So?’ she tried again.
Orlando ground out his smoke.
‘Don’t want to talk about it,’ he said. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘give me something.’
‘I’m forever giving you something.’
‘And I’m not?’ She raised herself up on one elbow. ‘What about that exclusive I kept back on the Mitzlar Brothers—?’
‘You were planning to hold fire anyway.’
‘I wasn’t. My editor would kill me if she knew—sex dens, strippers, a world-class banking family …’
‘We needed their sponsorship. This story would have ruined them.’
‘Exactly.’ Eve trailed her fingers down his stomach, felt him harden once more. ‘So what do I get in return? I did it because you asked me …’
‘You don’t do anything you’re asked.’
‘That depends who’s asking.’
He threw her off the scent. ‘Tawny Lascelles just signed for my sister’s label.’
Eve leaned over, reached into her bag and pulled out her pad. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘D’you know Tawny?’
‘She was at the launch a couple of weeks back.’
‘Yeah, I figured that part out. Who was she with?’
‘No one, I don’t think.’
‘Does Angela run checks on models before she employs them?’
‘Why?’ he scoffed.
‘Tawny’s press people are like Rottweilers, she’s giving nothing away—but I know, I just know there’s something there, if I could just …’
Orlando touched the end of her nose. ‘You never let up, do you?’
‘I came from the gala,’ she explained. ‘Tawny and I chatted.’
‘Why didn’t you ask her?’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
‘Don’t use long words.’
She stuck up her finger. ‘That short enough for you?’
‘Cute.’
Eve got up. She fixed herself a drink, raised the carafe in question. He nodded.
‘Come on,’ she said, leaning back against the mahogany dresser, ‘I already had it in the bag about Tawny and Fit for NYC. What else?’
Orlando narrowed his eyes. ‘What if I just wanted to see you?’
‘Crap. I know you see other women.’
‘Do you see other men?’
‘What’s it to you?’ But she didn’t see other men. She didn’t have time.
And I don’t want to.
He pulled her back to the couch.
‘For chasing other people’s secrets, Harley,’ he murmured, ‘you’ve sure got some mysteries of your own.’
Orlando held her down, his tongue tracing its practised route down her neck and across her breasts. She didn’t answer, but then he didn’t require it.
Suffice to say, there was a good reason why Eve did this job, and she wasn’t about to compromise for anyone. Not even for him.
4
Tawny Lascelles took the red-eye back to LA. She was tired and crabby, pissed off at that bitch reporter for sticking her fat beak in where it wasn’t wanted and then later at some piglet-faced model she had never worked with telling her she’d gone too fast down the catwalk. The nerve! Tawny wanted to slap her. The last thing she felt like doing now was getting stuck on an airplane for hours, but such was her schedule these days that she seemed to spend half her life zooming back and forth over the Atlantic.
Everything in the supermodel’s first-class cabin was as requested, which helped soften the blow. Tawny’s rider went everywhere with her—road, sea or air, she was never without her essentials: chamomile and echinacea tea, a cashmere blanket (silver, never grey), three bouquets of lightly scented peonies, a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle, her music station (Gaga for when she needed to hype up, Taylor for when she needed to wind down), and the only food she ate with any frequency, or indeed with any relish, a jumbo-sized bag of Haribo Sours.
Two thousand miles across the Atlantic, she stuck her arm above the parapet.
Immediately a glass of water was brought—carbonated but with just the right amount of fizz: Tawny hated to get burpy. She sipped carefully to avoid bloating, then without saying thank you settled back in her recliner booth and flipped open a magazine. A stinging flick brought the page open on a column by Eve Harley.
Prying tramp!
It was all Tawny could do not to rip the paper to shreds. She scowled at the reporter’s name and at what unsuspecting prey had been targeted this time.
Kevin Chase.
The article accompanied a picture on stage during his latest World Tour.
My opinion? Kevin Chase is an out-of-control teenage brat. So he’s young, so people make mistakes, so we should cut him some slack—but the fact is there are countless young kids out there with nothing, no money, no job, no support, no future, and still we’re supposed to feel sorry for this guy? A nineteen year old who set fire to a stack of hundred-dollar bills last week as a PR stunt? Give me a break …
It was a shame about Kevin, Tawny thought, assessing the superstar’s dwarfed yet rippling torso—it was like all the ingredients were there, like he had the potential to be hot, only everything about him was so … well, small. It was as if he had gone through a photocopier and been reduced by forty per cent.
Give him a few years, she decided. The handsome part wasn’t nearly as important anyway, since there was only room for one truly beautiful person in any relationship and Tawny would always win that crown. She had no interest in competing, even if there was competition to be had (which there wasn’t).
Tawny was the worshipped, never the worshipper. And oh! Imagine how Kevin would worship her. She was tempted to bag him, just for the fun. Tawny loved it when a man fell under her spell—there were at least six out there right now who would take a bullet for her if she flashed them her tits and offered a BJ. Ha!
She folded the mag, trying not to think about the lashing no doubt hurtling her way courtesy of that British cow. It wasn’t Tawny’s fault women got jealous. She was everything they wanted to be and they simply couldn’t handle it.
Eve Harley would never get the truth, anyhow. Tawny had buried her history so deep that she wasn’t even sure she knew where to find it. No way was she going back there, not ever, and she would happily top herself before anyone else did.
Her manager called.
‘Everything all right, my diamond girl?’ he crooned.
‘Fine.’
‘I’m in the mood to spoil my favourite client. Breakfast at Clementine’s?’
‘I’d sooner die. I’ve got a date with a spa, a hot masseur and my bed.’ Tawny paused, allowing herself a smirk. ‘Maybe his.’
‘Lunch, then.’
Tawny cringed. Food after sex always seemed a grim proposition. The idea of filling herself up on cock and then cramming in Eggs Benedict on top was disgusting.
‘I’ll call you later,’ she said.
‘Oh, and babe? Remember your slot on The Bianca Show tomorrow night.’
‘Ugh, hell, I forgot about that.’
She hung up.
There was never any reprieve, but in her heart Tawny loved the attention. Wasn’t this what she had prayed for, ever since she was a girl? To be admired, to be revered—above all, to be adored! She had been granted her wish.
Tawny smiled. Tucked into her Silvers tote was the other item she could never leave home without: the inscribed hair straighteners gifted to her by a legendary Italian designer at the beginning of her career, when she had been an upcoming starlet and named as his muse. The lemon-yellow tongs were her lucky charms: she insisted on using them for every shoot and every show, and they were emblazoned with the immortal line: ‘TO THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL, WITH LOVE & ADMIRATION’.
Tawny Lascelles really was the fairest of them all. She always would be.
She would rather die than have that crown taken.
Satisfied in that knowledge, she fell fast into a deep and dreamless sleep.
5
Boston
Angela Silvers hated to fly. She had always possessed an irrational fear of airplanes. She hated the roaring take-off, the jumps of turbulence and the way that every sound and shudder convinced her they were about to fall out of the sky.
She closed the blind, shutting out the sprawling blue and floozy clouds.
‘Excuse me?’ She smiled at a passing attendant.
‘Yes, Ms Silvers?’
‘Would I be able to get a drink, please? A martini?’
‘Coming right up.’
Noah would tease her. Angela had a fleet of jets at her beck and call—why not make the trip in luxury? But there was something ugly about jumping on a plane for one as easily as if you were hailing a cab. Besides, her father’s aircraft were way too light for her liking: at least on a 737 it felt as if there were something between her and the ground. Her drink arrived and she threw it back in one.
She hoped the liquor might knock her out, but while it took the edge off it wasn’t enough to relax her completely. The knack was to focus on something else, anything to detract from the fact they were 35,000 feet up in the air in a rattling tin can. Normally the promise of landing was enough to pull her through—thoughts of arriving at her hotel, taking a long soak in the tub, ordering room service, slipping into bed and Skyping Noah—but today, the flight was just the beginning.
Angela was heading to company HQ, the house in Boston where she had grown up. She intended to thrash it out with her father once and for all.
‘I’m taking this moment to announce my retirement,’ Donald had proclaimed at the FNYC launch. ‘As of tonight I plan to step back from the front line and apportion duty between my two gifted sons, Orlando and Gianluca …’
Two weeks after the event Angela still couldn’t believe it.
Never mind the fact that her father had stolen her thunder—this had been her night, her project, her triumph, and instead of crediting her as he should have done he had snatched the attention right back onto the boys—his words had shaken her to her core. The injustice was breathtaking.
My two gifted sons? It had to be a joke. But as Orlando and Luca had paced proudly up to claim the prize, the grim reality had become clear.
All the while Angela had worn a rigid smile of congratulations, bitten her way through countless toasts and declarations of, ‘Yes, they will be wonderful, won’t they?’ and crushed wave after wave of hot, irrepressible anger.
In the days that followed, Angela had turned Donald’s decision over in her mind. Forget about it being unfair, it was simply illogical to give the reins to her brothers. She had stepped up time and time again to work alongside her father, drawing up proposals, putting forward solutions, re-organising budgets, but none of it came to any use: she was, and always would be, at a disadvantage because of her sex.
She would stand for it no longer—and her father wouldn’t know what hit him.
The pilot’s voice came on the PA system. They had begun their descent.
She braced herself for impact.
Logan International was packed. Angela was escorted through Arrivals, her head bowed against the burst of attention her appearance sparked, and was relieved when they emerged into fresh air. Paparazzi surged as she approached the BMW. In black Ray-Bans, skinny jeans and a coral blazer, her spike heels punching the tarmac, it was clear this was no pleasure trip. Angela Silvers had landed on business.
Eternally the paps fished for a bout of reckless behaviour that would give them the money shot and cement her role as spoiled heiress—a bad attitude, a crabby pooch or, best of all, a wardrobe malfunction, anything to prove she had succumbed to type. But with Angela it never came. She understood her position and carried it with grace, stopping to sign autographs for fans, which she delivered with a flourish and a smile. If the press weren’t so desperate to capture the first fall—for surely at some point it would come, it did for the best of them—they would have given up long ago.
As her car joined the Mass Pike, she tried calling Noah. He was on location, shooting a romantic comedy whose script they had giggled over in bed.
‘Hey,’ he’d kissed her tenderly, ‘so when are you gonna be my leading lady?’
She wished it were that simple. Noah was Hollywood royalty, the industry’s most sought-after bachelor. Every project he took he was ambushed by female co-stars, and while it wasn’t Angela’s style to be jealous it couldn’t help but sting.
‘I only want you,’ he told her every time, and while she wanted to trust him, she was no idiot. Noah had been a player from the moment they’d met.
She was scared of getting hurt again. Giving herself to him totally, risking it all. At the same time, he wouldn’t wait for ever.
After her father’s revelation, she wondered why she bothered concealing it from him at all. Donald had no intention of empowering his daughter with muscle in the business, now or ever. What difference did it make who she dated?
But the itch remained : Tell him this and it’s over for good.
Donald hated Noah. He hated everything Noah stood for. He hated Noah’s past. He hated Noah’s family, where he had come from and where he had wound up. Countless times Angela had promised her father that the friendship was at an end.
To confess the betrayal would be kamikaze.
Noah’s cell went to his machine. She listened, just to hear him; her heart lifted at his voice but she decided against leaving a message. In any case, he’d advised her against the Boston trip—he himself never returned to their childhood ground, the place owed him nothing and the memories were raw—and would be frustrated that she’d come. Donald needed time, he had promised, to realise the mistake he’d made. Angela was amazed at Noah’s reluctance to take sides, at his fairness. After all Donald had thrown against him, still he didn’t resort to cheap shots.
‘I love you, and you love your father,’ he said. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
She ended the call as they pulled onto Bourton Avenue. Hers was a majestic neighbourhood, lined with giant Victorian brownstones, grand porticos and gated driveways. Sunshine glinted on the Charles River. There was the Amity Street Church where Angela had spent reluctant Sunday mornings as a child, the Preston Historical Institute where many a school trip had wound up, and the Clemency College of Dance, where she had made out once on the steps with Henry Lambert. So much was unchanged, yet Angela didn’t feel the same. Boston was her heritage, but now its magnificence seemed outlandish and silly. Coming in past the flagship Silvers Hotel, its peaks like turrets on a castle and its doormen tipping their caps, and the inaugural store her great-grandfather had founded, here, at least, they were royalty.
Commonwealth House was the most splendid on the street. The car eased through and Angela stepped out, thanking her chauffeur and breathing the old air.
She was home.
‘Hello?’
Inside, the hall was vast. Her enquiry echoed, bouncing off the marble chequered floor. A staircase that wouldn’t have been out of place in the world’s most celebrated museum divided beneath a portrait of her great-grandfather, stern in his suit, his black walking cane in one hand. Cabinets housed relics from their schooldays—sporting trophies, certificates and photographs. In one portrait, a teenage Orlando and Luca were suited for their aunt’s wedding. Angela stood between them, scowling because Orlando had told her she couldn’t come camping at the weekend. Another was a still from Angela’s tenth birthday party—she’d been a pain in the ass in those days. All the guests were in pink frilly frocks apart from the birthday girl, who wore a Back to the Future T-shirt and denim shorts, and was sticking her tongue out.
‘In here!’ Her mother’s voice drifted through from the kitchen.
Angela emerged into a bright, richly scented space. The kitchen faced out onto rolling lawn, at the foot of which shone a serene lake, a rowing boat tethered in the reeds. It smelled of warm bread and rosemary and the spice of a cooking oven. Isabella was prepping salads, joined at the counter by Angela’s nonna, and on the veranda a bunch of her extended family were drinking wine and mingling.
Angela kissed the women. ‘You know I’m not staying for dinner?’
‘Of course you are,’ said Isabella.
‘My return flight’s booked—it leaves at nine.’
‘And your father isn’t home until this evening, so you’ll have to cancel.’ Isabella slapped her hand away from the just-baked ciabatta. ‘Eh, smettila, Angela!’
‘Is Orlando here? Luca?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Isabella clicked her tongue. ‘I wish you three would not fight all the time.’
‘I wish for a lot of things, Mom.’
‘Life is too short to argue. Respect your father’s decision.’
‘I do respect him. If only he’d extend me the same courtesy.’
‘He loves you very much.’
‘That isn’t the same thing.’
Angela bit her tongue. Isabella didn’t understand her wish to take the spotlight. As far back as she could remember, whatever her fathers and brothers were doing had been infinitely more exhilarating—the closed doors, the hushed voices, the secret conversations, the covert business trips. Angela didn’t care about baking and flower-arranging and the correct way to iron a suit shirt, and while she adored her mother, as women they couldn’t be less alike.
Home wasn’t enough.
Angela wanted more.
She preferred the south steps to taking the main stairs. ‘Why?’ her girlfriends used to pout, as they flounced prettily down the banisters like Cinderellas at the ball. ‘It makes me feel like a princess!’ Which, Angela saw now, was precisely why.
Her old room was on the second floor. The bed, immaculately made with peach sheets and silky fat pillows, was against the window. A stack of plump, fresh towels was arranged at its foot. Angela pressed one to her face and inhaled.
She settled on the linen, listening to the delicate tick-tick of a carriage clock and the occasional flutter of birdsong. In her bedside drawer were a collection of journals (ANGELA’S DIARY: KEEP OUT!), trinkets, postcards and jewellery.
Inside one of the diaries was a photograph. Her fingers traced its familiar edges. Slowly, she drew it out. Noah.
Her favourite picture of him, on that first summer they spent together.
Scruffy blond hair, bronzed skin, mischievous blue eyes …
He’d been the neighbourhood bad boy: bad family, bad schooling, bad all over. They had come from different ends of the earth.
But Angela hadn’t cared. Not even then.
Everyone else had treated her like a queen—but not Noah. Noah had treated her like a friend. They had both been outsiders, in their way. He had been ostracised by the rich for failing to meet their standards, while Angela, wealthy beyond reason, harboured her own kind of leprosy: ordinary people were too afraid to touch.
She leaned on the windowsill, her chin resting in the heel of her hand, and looked out at leafy Bourton Avenue. She remembered waiting here on sultry nights, waiting for Noah to arrive on the steps so that they could exchange dreams with each other long into the dark. Outlawed by her father, they had held the secret of their friendship, and Angela had longed to be able to reach down and take his hand. Noah had written her poems, thrown the words up to the open window like whispered confetti.
She touched the silver band she wore on her first finger.
She knew what she had to do. She had to set the past to rest.
Noah, I’m yours. She would tell her father tonight.
Donald Silvers’ library was rich with leather and the scent of wood. Behind him, through the arched portico, Italianate lawns were aglow in the glare of the outdoor lamps, the fountains on, spraying the grass with diamond dewdrops. Their empire stretched as far as the eye could see: her father’s, Orlando’s, Luca’s … but not hers.
‘Skip the bullshit.’ Angela cut to the chase. ‘Why not me?’
‘The boys are ready.’ Donald eased back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘It’s time they stepped up to the plate.’
‘It’s time you credited me. I know why you did it. It’s because I’m a girl.’
‘It’s because you’re the youngest.’
‘Orlando, fine—but Luca? You saw what a mess he made of the hotels—’
‘Luca requires discipline. Management will give him that.’
‘So Luca fucks up and you reward him, is that how it works?’
‘I’m not discussing strategy with you, Angela.’
‘Maybe I should require discipline too; then I’d get a break. Or else it would give you an excuse to get rid of me altogether—’
‘Calm down.’
Nothing fucked her off more than being told to calm down. She met the wall of her father’s inscrutable glare and every frustration she’d ever had against him boiled over. ‘I’m through,’ she lashed. ‘I’ve done everything to earn my place. I’ve achieved twenty times what they have and if you’re too blind to see it, if you still make this decision, it isn’t my issue. I’m done.’
‘Good.’
‘That’s it? Good? After letting me lose sight of what’s important—my friendships, my relationships? Because there’s something you should know—’
‘Yes,’ Donald cut in, ‘you are through, Angela. And you are done.’
She fought to get her words in a line. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘You are ready. I’ve known it for a while.’
‘Then why—?’
‘What I want you to do for me is vital. It’s more important than anything Orlando or Luca could offer.’ He spoke slowly, each word measured. ‘They’re not capable of this, Angela. Only you are. You and I have serious business to share.’
She waited, sceptical and excited. Her father watched her, curiously, gently, and, in his eyes, she saw something that was new to her: a need, nascent and afraid.
‘I want you to listen very carefully,’ said Donald Silvers, ‘for if you choose to accept, our empire is yours. Everything. You take over. But be ready, Angela: because what I am about to propose will change your life for ever.’
6
In a hotel suite across town, Kevin Chase woke suddenly, his skin dripping with sweat and his heart hammering wildly. The room was pitch black. He had no idea where he was. His breath rasped dry and painful, as if he had swallowed razor blades. Groping in the dark, he fumbled towards a switch. When the room flooded with light, it was painfully bright. Images from the nightmare were still scorched on his mind: the red flames engulfing the jet, and the descent … the horrifying, inevitable descent towards death.
Briskly he patted around to make sure he hadn’t wet the sheets. Mortifyingly, it had happened in the past. Joan had even gone through a phase of laying diapers on top of the mattress, until one day Kevin had lost it, yelling at her so loud and for so long that she had whined about tinnitus for a week—and Joan knew how to whine.
Apart from a patch of hot perspiration, it was dry.
Trembling, he closed his eyes. It seemed important to pick out the details.
The nightmare had been real—real enough to touch, as if he had been there, as if it had happened! They said you couldn’t dream your own death; you woke before it ended that way—and Kevin was certain, certain, he had been about to die. Dark sky all around, thick black dark, and the ground rearing up to meet them—or rather the sand, for it had been a beach, yes, a beach, the contrast stark even in moonlight between the thick water and the alabaster shore. Kevin grasped at the people he had been with, for he had not been alone, but their outlines were dissolving, leaving only ghosts. All that was left were the screams of panic ringing between his ears.
Fear swamped him.
He was never setting foot on an airplane ever again.
But even as Kevin thought it, he knew it was an absurd notion. International commitments meant he got thrown about the globe like a coin in a pinball machine.
What choice did he have? What choice did he have about anything?
The phone rang. It was Sketch.
‘Ride’s outside, buddy.’ His manager’s voice was drizzled thinly over a nub of hysteria. ‘You’re behind time. Again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Everything OK?’
Shit. Kevin checked the time. Double shit. He had a show at the TD Garden in an hour. These days his power naps were turning into induced fucking comas.
‘Be right down,’ he snapped, hanging up.
A freezing cold shower slapped him to his senses. Afterwards, in the foggy mirror, Kevin grimaced at his reflection.
Come on. Why did he look so goddamn young?
Miserably he plucked at a single chest hair straining from his diaphragm. It was like a blade of grass in the middle of a barren desert. What the fuck? Where was his chest rug? Couldn’t he sprout just a few more?
He was nineteen, for crissakes, and yet he had the torso of a ten year old.
The grimace deepened. That wasn’t even the worst part.
Glancing down, Kevin loosened the towel around his waist. He assessed the feathery covering of pubic hair scarcely concealing his miniature prick, and howled.
It was a worm dangling between two berries. Shrivelled berries. The whole thing was shrivelled. Why wouldn’t it fucking well grow?
Was he balding? But how could he be balding if he’d never had hair there in the first place? Kevin howled some more, and the phone resumed its grisly summons.
Despite turning up ninety minutes late to the arena and enduring a cacophony of boos, the gig went down OK. Kevin knew how to charm his Little Chasers. Normally he refused to venture into the crowd—he didn’t want their sticky fingers pawing all over his designer outfits—but to appease the irate parents, and on Sketch’s counsel, tonight he made an exception. At one point, during a rendition of ‘Fast Girl’, he thought he was about to get torn limb from limb, his white suit strained into a crucifix by a pie-faced chick pulling him one way and a blubbing pre-teen the other.
The noise was thunderous—’Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!’—and the venue alight with the glitter of camera phones. When he crooned his mega hit ‘Adore You’, the sparkle swayed back and forth, arms in the air, kids at the front crying into their Kevin Chase T-shirts and gripping, white-knuckled, crudely assembled banners that bore confessions of their undying affection: KEVIN CHASE PLEASE BE MINE; SARA & KEVIN 4 EVER; I LOVE YOU KEVIN; I’M YOUR NO. 1 LITTLE CHASER …
After a hundred-minute set and two encores, he was beat.
Backstage, Sketch congratulated him with the unwelcome announcement that they were expected at a children’s charity gala downtown—there was a galaxy of names attending and it was a wise gig at which to be seen. Kevin wanted badly to creep into bed and had to suppress the familiar flare of upset at this fresh injustice.
He wished he had someone he could call, a buddy, a friend, anyone who’d listen and tell him it was OK, just to keep at it, all this was bullshit anyway and it didn’t really matter. He wished someone out there thought that he mattered—not his records or his hairstyle or the new mansion he was bought to live in like a fucking Ken Doll—just him, the real Kevin, the regular kid. But Kevin saw now that he would never be a regular kid, and he’d never have regular friends. What even was a regular friend? He’d watched movies about them, read about them as if they were exotic, elusive creatures prowling a distant landscape, but he’d never had one of his own. Kevin had the starring role in the movie of his life, and everyone was an actor.
In the beginning, it had been fun. Signing the contract in Sketch’s old office on Santa Monica, then in the weeks that followed, a storm of crazy parties, premieres and photo shoots—but nobody had told him then what was being sacrificed. No one had said, OK, Kevin, it’s this or it’s this: which life do you want?
He didn’t want this one.
‘They’re loving you on Twitter,’ reassured Sketch as Kevin changed out of his clothes. Sketch omitted to mention the burst of hostility that had accompanied the star’s fifth late arrival this season, trending worldwide as #KevinsLosingIt. Not ideal.
Outside, bodyguard Rusty was waiting with a yapping, wet-nosed Trey, cradling him because Kevin didn’t like Trey to have to sit on the ground. The dachshund was clad in a blazer, baseball cap and sneakers to match his owner’s—they’d had a whole wardrobe tailored bespoke. Snatching the pooch, Kevin was swallowed up by the car’s interior. He felt like a vampire, if not confined to the night then confined to the inside, skulking around behind closed blinds, hiding beyond a tinted window or crawling about in the endless dark. He held Trey’s fur to his mouth and quietly kissed his neck. You’re the only one who understands.
Kevin demanded to drive the Audi R8 and Sketch hadn’t the strength to refuse—after all, the kid had his licence, even if he did kangaroo-hop the vehicle into gear, the exhaust exploding behind them.
‘You take your vitamins today?’ asked Sketch as they whizzed through the city. He caught Rusty’s eye in the rearview mirror.
‘For fuck’s sake, course I did,’ Kevin lashed. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
They approached a red light and the brakes shrieked.
‘Sure I do, kiddo.’
‘I want a lion,’ said Kevin, out of nowhere.
‘What?’
‘Like that one we saw at the zoo. Get me one.’
Sketch chuckled. ‘It ain’t that easy, pal …’
‘I’m Kevin Chase, course it’s that fucking easy.’
‘Why a lion?’
‘Why not? They’re cool, aren’t they?’
‘They’re dangerous.’
‘Yeah, but they’re cool.’
‘You won’t be able to go anywhere near it.’
Kevin swigged from a can of energy drink. ‘Sure I will, if it’s tame.’
Sketch bit his tongue. What on earth was his client talking about?
‘Rusty,’ Kevin nodded into the back, ‘what do you think?’
‘Whatever you want, boss.’
The Audi took a corner at speed. ‘It’s king of the jungle, y’know?’ said Kevin. ‘Manly. Like, the ultimate manly animal. And hairy. Really hairy.’
‘You want a hairy animal I’ll get you a guinea pig.’
‘Now you’re taking the fucking piss.’
‘I’m trying to be practical.’
‘Well, don’t. There’s no point doing what I do unless I get what I want, got it? You’re supposed to be my manager—so manage stuff, dickwad.’
Sketch gritted his teeth. There was no point arguing. It was Joan’s fault. Anything Kevin wanted, Kevin got. Anything Kevin demanded was produced. Any word Kevin spoke was law. By the time Sketch had discovered him, at the tender age of twelve, Kevin had already been nurturing an impressive Napoleon Complex.
You haven’t helped. You’ve made him into the monster he is.
It was a relief when Kevin brought the car to a screeching halt outside the Guild Theatre. The entrance was a quarry of press. Stars drifted down the carpet, stopping to chat to camera, smiling and posing as they went. Hollywood king Noah Lawson, a coup for the event, was signing merch amid an adoring mass of women.
A band of Little Chasers had been tipped off about Kevin’s arrival and, as the teen heartthrob emerged, their squeals reached blistering crescendo.
‘ Kevin! OhmygodKevin! Kevin, I love you! Keviiiiiiiin! ’
Kevin waved, flashing his pristine teeth and criminally cute dimples. Sketch had to admit that despite Kevin’s disastrous moods and fatal tendency to strop, when it came to putting on a game face he was up there with the best. The kid was a pro.
Kevin, meanwhile, was hitting his stride.
It was a dream, he reassured himself as a sea of hands reached out to skim just a fibre on his blazer, only a dream. Nothing like that was ever going to happen. Plane crashes were the fate of old people, poor people, people who travelled on low-cost airlines in dirty foreign countries. No, a more likely end to Kevin Chase was total burnout, nervous breakdown: a meltdown to end all meltdowns …
Imagine if he did it now! Just stripped naked and barrelled up to the gleaming gala entrance, blathering and drooling, maybe he could even deliver a steaming turd to the carpet to make absolutely sure? Instead he twirled for the crowd, performing one of his hallmark 360-degree dance moves, a splash of MJ mixed with Ne-Yo polished off with Usher, shooting one arm in the air as he sprung up on his ankles and released a high-pitched cry. Across the gangway he met Sketch’s approving gaze.
Good little monkey, Kevin thought bitterly. Monkey did good.
At the end of the carpet, billionaire entrepreneur Jacob Lyle, one of the cooler guys on the scene, was draped around a gorgeous six-foot brunette.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
