by Victoria Fox
It was a reminder that had Gordon not stayed with him he wouldn’t be around to breathe at all. Leon had come so close to exacting revenge…and for what?
What did vengeance resolve?
Nothing. Ivy Sewell’s murderous rampage and eventual self-sacrifice was testament to that. In the payback game, no one came out on top. Everyone was destroyed. It offered no solutions; it came with no peace. True strength was in knowing how to let go.
‘You’re up early,’ came a voice.
He faced her. Robin looked sleepy in the mornings, her softest time of day. She was wrapped in a sheet and leaned against the frame, golden sunshine on her face.
‘There’s a lot to get up for,’ he replied.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Starting right here.’
Passionately, he kissed her, releasing the knot on the sheet so it dropped to the floor.
‘Leon, people can see!’
‘Forget them,’ he said, but he stepped in and pulled the shutters all the same.
‘You’re insatiable,’ she said as they fell giggling on to the bed.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Might be.’
‘Then you’d better get used to it. Because the thing is…’ Leon put his forehead to hers ‘…I’m completely and totally in love with you.’
Robin touched his chin, bringing his face to hers so she could see him properly.
‘Thing is,’ she whispered back, ‘I’m in love with you, too.’
Read on for an extract from Victoria’s debut novel
HOLLYWOOD SINNERS
available now
Venice
‘Lana, over here! Lana, Cole! How’s the marriage?’
Lana Falcon adjusted her pose for the cameras, hand on hip, shoulders back, and delivered her trademark megawatt smile. She held it in place and counted the seconds, careful not to let it drop. Against the red carpet her midnight-blue gown trailed like dark water.
She took pity on the reporter, who was slightly overweight and sported a beard that looked like he had drawn it on himself.
‘You’re half of America’s most famous couple,’ he gasped, scarcely believing his luck as Lana came to the side. ‘How does it feel?’ The film festival was a hive of energy: paparazzi and TV crews lined the carpet in thick numbers; fans with arms outstretched reached helplessly for their heroes–catching these two together was the biggest coup of his career.
On cue Lana felt an arm slide round her waist, smooth as a snake. She turned to the man next to her, caught the familiar line of his profile and the gleam of his teeth, the charcoal-grey of his immaculate hair. Cole Steel. Her husband.
Cameras flashed and sparked in throbs of light. He didn’t blink.
‘It feels great,’ she told the reporter with a friendly smile. ‘We’re very happy.’
Paparazzi jostled for the best shot. ‘Cole! Lana, Cole, let’s see you together!’
‘Any plans to add to the family?’ The reporter was sweating now.
‘Watch this space,’ said Cole, with a startlingly white grin. He planted a dry kiss on Lana’s neck, just below her ear. The photographers went wild.
‘Let’s move on,’ he instructed, just loud enough for her to hear.
Lana obliged. The smell of Cole’s skin lingered–sweet, slightly minty. When he took her hand it was cold.
‘Tell us about your new movie!’ the reporter babbled, craning the mike after her, knowing he’d already lost them. ‘Tell us about Eastern Sky!’
Lana moved into her customary position on the carpet, a little in front of Cole, his hands at her waist, steering her forward. At twenty-seven she was Hollywood’s most desirable young actress. Regularly voted one of the world’s most beautiful women, she was, with her burnt-chestnut hair, wide green eyes and warm smile, a killer combination of sex siren and girl-next-door. Women wanted to be her friend. Boys wanted to take her home to their mothers. Men jacked off over her, torn between fantasies of white cotton panties and crimson-red lingerie–the fascination was that Lana Falcon could pull off either. And, boy, did they dream she did.
‘Cole, Lana, this way!’
Cole guided his wife into a series of poses, his hands moving round her body with the precision and grace of a dancer.
‘Beautiful!’ came the approving clamour.
Somebody shouted, ‘Could we get a kiss?’
Cole laughed with the press like chums. Lana observed as he shot at them with pretend pistols, firing from the first two fingers of each hand.
Lana followed direction. Tilting her chin to meet his, she saw her surroundings–the deep reds and pure, billowing whites; the rich, syrupy gold of the event’s majestic lions–taper sharply into her husband’s approaching features until her view was suffocated entirely by his face, and the sad rub of his lips.
Cole Steel. Hollywood’s highest grossing actor and a giant of the American film industry. Cole Steel. At the top of his game after nearly thirty years and tipped here to take a Volpi Cup. Cole Steel. The husband with whom Lana Falcon lived, attended parties, posed for photographs, but had never, had never…
All around, bulbs popped and flared. As Lana pulled away she searched her husband’s eyes. As a good actor he could fill them with every emotion a role required–he was at his most convincing when assuming a character. As a man, as himself, he was blank. Cole’s eyes were like a shark’s: flat and empty. When she looked into them, Lana saw nothing.
‘Let’s get on the line,’ said Katharine Elliot, Lana’s publicist, discreetly ushering her client forward. ‘They’re queuing for a word.’
‘We’re not done here yet,’ snapped Cole through gritted teeth. His smile didn’t move.
Katharine stepped back. Cole was a man she did not want to piss off.
Together he and Lana refreshed their poses, the jewel in the crown of megastars gracing the Venice carpet, floating like creatures from another world, delighting with a look or a smile.
‘Assholes,’ muttered Cole, clapping eyes on a young, handsome actor and his Mother Earth wife. Cole claimed not to like the man because he’d beaten him to a part last year, though Lana suspected it was more because the couple paraded a soccer team of children, a brood to which they were still adding. It was something she and Cole could never achieve.
Beyond the press pit Lana caught sight of a young female fan, her desperate face streaked with tears as she was pushed and shoved amid the throng of people trying to catch a glimpse of the action. Lana took care to catch her eye, smiling warmly and giving her a wave.
Toughen up she thought, remembering herself at that age. It’s the only way to survive. Trust me. She blinked against the memories. Too often they kept her awake at night.
‘It’s time,’ Cole told her, placing a small, pale hand on her back. The cameras followed every move. Together, husband and wife were the ultimate American love story. He, one of the greatest actors of his generation; she, the girl who had come from nothing, from tragedy, to having it all.
Linking her arm with his, Lana walked alongside, nodding and smiling her way into the Palazzo del Cinema. She glanced at her wedding ring, a great cluster of diamonds that weighed heavy on her hand. In the frenzy of snapping bulbs it winked back, as if they shared a terrible secret.
Las Vegas
Elisabeth Sabell, legs wrapped tight round her fiancé’s waist, examined with satisfaction the ten-carat antique engagement ring on her third finger.
‘Fuck me!’ she gasped, clasping his muscular shoulders. ‘Fuck me fuck me fuck me!’ The ring caught the light as they moved together, the sheets of their mammoth four-poster bed damp with sweat. As he pounded deeper, his rhythm quickening, the marvellous jewel came towards Elisabeth’s enraptured face in shuddering frames, a glorious, insistent reminder that she would, before long, be Mrs St Louis.
‘Tell me what you want, baby.’ The man grabbed her ass, pulling himself in further. ‘Tell me what you want.’
‘I want you to fuck me hard, Ro
bert St Louis!’ she cried in abandon, raking livid-pink lines down his bronzed back, lifting her foot and trailing with her big toe the dip where his spine met his ass. ‘Fuck me like you’ve never fucked me before!’
In one deft movement he hooked an arm beneath her, flipping them round, holding on for the ride. Elisabeth, on top, ran her hands across his broad chest, wondering at the strength of his arms, the gentle slope of his biceps and the hard muscle of his stomach. Tightening her grip, she pinned him beneath her.
‘Strap in, baby,’ she told him, throwing her head back to gaze at the trompe l’oeil ceiling. ‘This is as close to heaven as it gets.’
Elisabeth began to rock, grabbing his hands, reaching higher, faster, like her life depended on it. Her golden mane fell in waves down her back, her pearl-white neck tilted to the ceiling. She could feel Robert’s hands on her tits, her waist, her thighs; on her throat, pressing those points beneath her ear lobes that made her knees go weak. She howled out, the pinnacle in sight.
With a final thrust they both climaxed, their bodies slick with release. Elisabeth rode the swelling tide, blinking back stars, her chest rising and falling, the pulse within her a steady, exquisite, delicious beat.
Robert St Louis moved on to his elbows and gave her a lopsided smile. He brought her face towards his and kissed her slowly, tasting her mouth.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her, planting a kiss on her chin, her nose, her forehead.
Elisabeth kissed him back. Together, she knew they made a staggering couple. Robert St Louis had been the most eligible bachelor in America. Now, two years on, he was hers. Billionaire owner of two of the city’s most infamous hotels, the Orient and the Desert Jewel, he was the most handsome, and the most powerful, man in Vegas. With his dark hair, almost-black eyes, warm as melting bitter chocolate, and wicked, honest grin, he was the most devastating man she had ever laid eyes on.
‘I know,’ she told him, peeling herself off the bed and heading for their palatial en suite.
He watched her go. ‘Your father called,’ he said.
‘Do you have to tell me that right after we’ve had sex?’
He laughed. ‘Sorry.’
‘And?’
‘Says he’s got some news–I’m gonna want to hear it, apparently.’
Elisabeth rolled her eyes. She turned the shower on. ‘I’ll bet he has,’ she muttered.
As Elisabeth stepped under the pounding water, she reflected it was a good job she loved Robert like she did–as daughter of the legendary Vegas hotelier Frank Bernstein, Elisabeth had her future in the city cut out from the start. She was destined to marry a businessman, someone of her father’s choosing. It had always been that way–Bernstein made the decisions and there was no argument. Elisabeth was thirty-two now, she had a residency on the Strip and a loving, committed relationship, but still he had the power to make her feel like a bullied little girl.
Robert called something from the bedroom.
‘What?’ Elisabeth yelled over the rush of water. She ran a gloop of shampoo through her blonde hair.
The door slid open. ‘I said: Any ideas?’ He stepped in behind her. ‘Bernstein couldn’t keep a secret from you if he tried.’
‘None whatsoever,’ Elisabeth said primly. ‘It’s probably another attempt to hurry the wedding along. I wish he’d butt out. Just because he introduced us doesn’t give him carte blanche to interfere in every aspect of our lives.’
Robert knew not to press his fiancée on the sensitive subject of her father.
‘Come on,’ he said instead, helping her rinse her hair, ‘or we’ll be late.’
The Orient Hotel, Robert St Louis’s multi-billion-dollar baby and the heart of his hotel empire, was a breathtaking project. He and Elisabeth arrived an hour later in a blacked-out car, the main attractions at tonight’s charity gala event.
Two soaring towers, each peak like a closed flower, flanked a colossal central pagoda. Little square windows lit with gold travelled up as far as the eye could see, thousands of feet into the sky, until they became stars themselves. Dragons crouched at the entrance, fire screaming from their open mouths. Sparking fountains and flaming torches circled the majestic structure.
Robert’s doorman greeted them like royalty. ‘Good evening, boss.’ He dipped his head, always nervous when the top gun was in the house. ‘Ms Sabell.’
Elisabeth nodded.
‘Evening, Daniel.’ Robert knew every last one of the Orient’s staff–he had hired them all personally, from pit boss to restroom cleaner. ‘How many for the gala?’
‘Six hundred. They’re waiting for you both in the Lantern Suite.’
Robert checked his watch. ‘Frank Bernstein here yet?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Make the most of it,’ Elisabeth muttered drily as they stepped into the foyer.
Robert chuckled. ‘Come on, he’s not so bad.’
Elisabeth loved the Orient. It was, in her opinion, the greatest hotel in the city. She’d grown up on the Strip, knew them all like the back of her hand, but the Orient was special, it was different. Huge china urns, big as cars, squatted in the five corners of the pentagonal lobby, overflowing with jade stalks and huge leaves sprayed in gold. Gilt-edged mirrors lined the walls beneath glowing red paper lamps. Below, the marble of the floor gleamed clear as water, like standing on the surface of a silver pool, so that your reflection made it difficult to tell which way was up and which was down. It thrilled Elisabeth to know that soon, once she and Robert were married, she would be its queen.
They swept past Reception to the waiting elevator. As they rose to the sixteenth floor, Robert took her hand.
‘I’m proud you’re on my arm,’ he told her.
‘You’re on mine, St Louis.’ She winked as they alighted.
At news of the couple’s arrival, a reverential hush fell over the assembled investors and Vegas notables. Jowly men with ruddy cheeks and fat wallets stood next to their glamorous wives, whose priceless gems dripped from their fragrant, powdered skin.
The women watched enviously as Elisabeth let the fur drop from her shoulders, revealing a glittering kingfisher-blue gown that matched her eyes. Every last one of them wanted Robert St Louis and, seeing Elisabeth now, understood why they never would.
Her fiancé took easily to the floor. ‘I’m pleased to see so many of you here,’ he said, clapping his hands together and approaching the waiting lectern. ‘It’s a special night. The Orient has been working closely with the causes here this evening…’
Elisabeth smiled, quietly greeting one of the wives with a brief air kiss.
As she watched Robert, she felt powerful. No longer was she merely Frank Bernstein’s daughter: she was part of a team that had nothing whatsoever to do with him, a team that would lay the foundations of a new Vegas dynasty. This was hers alone–she didn’t have to involve her father at all.
Nothing could come between her and Robert.
If ever it did, she would fight it to the death.
London
Chloe French held her expression as she reclined on the leopard-print chaise longue and followed the photographer’s instructions.
‘That’s gorgeous,’ he told her, clicking away. ‘Anyone ever told you you’ve got the face of an angel?’
They had, actually. At nineteen Chloe French was the sweetheart of London’s fashion circuit–a raw, unaffected beauty and a fledgling star on her way to the top. She was tall, nearly six feet, with a sheet of jet-black hair that fell to her waist and glittering slate-grey eyes.
A make-up girl wearing too-tight denim hot pants rushed over and reapplied pink lipgloss, fanning Chloe’s hair out around her and repositioning the vintage clutch.
‘Thanks,’ Chloe called when she scurried off.
‘Stop saying thanks,’ instructed the photographer, an Emo guy with thick Elvis-Costello-style glasses, ‘you’re disrupting the shot.’
‘Sorry,’ said Chloe, cringing. The camera popped as she pulle
d the face.
Chloe French had been spotted four years ago outside Topshop on Oxford Street, feeling rough amid a horrible winter cold and wearing an old hoody with a ketchup stain down the front. She’d been modelling ever since. Over that time she had worked with some of the biggest names in fashion, but she still couldn’t shake the little knots of self-consciousness that accompanied a shoot like this. There just seemed to be so much fuss.
Consulting his assistant on the stills, the photographer grinned. ‘That’s the one.’ Chloe’s slight awkwardness, so unlike the other models he was used to working with, came off brilliantly on camera as coy vulnerability.
‘Have you got what you need?’ she asked, sitting up. ‘I’m meeting Nate.’ She beamed at the mention of her rock-star boyfriend.
‘And all the world’s press?’ The photographer made a face, remembering the last time Nate Reid had come to the studio. He’d been trailed by a troop of devoted paparazzi, supposedly unintentionally, though nothing about Chloe’s boyfriend appeared to be without intention.
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Nate’s discreet.’
‘He is?’ The photographer raised an eyebrow. ‘I can’t open a London paper without seeing you two.’
Chloe shrugged. ‘For a musician.’
‘Yeah, the Pied fucking Piper,’ he muttered, remembering the cameras dancing at Nate’s heels.
On cue the studio door opened and a rakish figure appeared in the doorway, a wiry silhouette crowned with artfully tousled hair.
‘Nate!’ cried Chloe, jumping up and running over.
‘Great,’ the photographer said with a roll of his eyes, ‘just what we need.’
Nate Reid, frontman with The Hides, held out his arms to embrace her. Nate was the epitome of rock and roll–or at least he liked to think he was. As the hottest property in British music, he wasn’t conventionally good-looking, a little on the rangy side and quite short, but what he lacked in stature he made up for in charisma. With piercing green eyes, a fuck-you attitude and an anarchic reputation, he was, in Chloe’s eyes, everything that was wonderful in the world.