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Wicked Ambition
Victoria Fox


‘just too exciting to put down’ —Closer on Temptation IslandSome will do anything for fame.Others will do anything to bring the famous down.Three superstars. Three sensational secrets. Three deadly games.For Robin, Turquoise and Kristin, the spotlight shines brightly. But ambition always comes at a price…and the devil is waiting to claim his dues.Reality TV crowned Robin the people's queen, but a dangerous past lurks poisonously in the shadows… Only something truly sinful could shake child-star Kristin of her angelic reputation. Turqoise's mega-star façade masks a sordid secret - an exposé would blow the lid off Hollywood!Vengeance is waiting. The atmosphere is heady with sin. This year, fame is a murderous word.It's a long way to plummet from the glittering heights of stardom…Who will fall first?Praise for Victoria Fox‘Jackie Collins for the modern gal’ – Grazia‘The best bonkbuster of 2012’ —The Sun on Temptation Island‘Perfect for a summer hol . . . If you think the Made in Chelsea crew live a glitzy life, you ain’t seen nothing yet’ —Heat on Temptation Island‘Pour yourself a glass of Pimm’s because this summer bonkbuster is guaranteed to get you seriously hot’ —Cosmopolitan on Temptation Island ‘Even we were shocked at the scale of scandal in this juicy tale . . . It’s 619 pages of sin!’ —Now on Temptation Island










Praise for

Victoria Fox

‘Victoria Fox’s glossy chick-lit novel gives Jackie Collins a run for her money.’

Irish Tatler

‘It’s the best bonkbuster of 2012.’

The Sun

‘If you think the Made in Chelsea crew live a glitzy life, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

Heat

‘Just too exciting to put down’

Closer

‘Pour yourself a glass of Pimms because this summer’s bonkbuster is guaranteed to get you seriously hot.’

Cosmopolitan

‘Even we were shocked at the scale of scandal in this juicy tale! It’s 619 pages of sin!’

Now

‘If you’re a fan of Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper you’ll love the whirlwind of intrigue, mystery, sex and scandal…We couldn’t put it down!’

handbag.com

‘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




Wicked Ambition

Victoria Fox








For Chloe Setter




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Thank you to Madeleine Milburn, a diamond among agents, who championed these characters long before they arrived in this story. To my brilliant editors at MIRA, Jenny Hutton and Sally Williamson: I’m so grateful for your direction and support. Special thanks to Kim Young for her early feedback on this book and for everything she gave to the others. To Tara Benson and Claudia Symons for their passion, their ambition and for Gin School; and to the rest of the team at Harlequin UK, especially Mandy Ferguson, Jason Mackenzie, Nick Bates and Tim Cooper. To Rebecca Oatley, Pally Kaur and Lisa Wlodyka at Cherish PR—it’s going to be so much fun.

Shout-out to Bernie and Matthew Strachan for keeping the bonkbuster dream alive; to Chioma Okereke for her solidarity; to Jenny Dodd for wine and chats; to Ian and Katharine Stonex for their encouragement; and to Mark Oakley for everything in between.

Finally, thanks to Toria for knowing Jax and Leon from the beginning. They made it!




Prologue


Palisades Grand Arena, Los Angeles Summer 2013

IF NOT VICTORY, REVENGE!

It was printed in hot-pink marker on the back of the cubicle door, the lettering neat and precise. Ivy Sewell reached to touch it, her fingertips tentative, tender almost across its surface, as she might in another life have caressed a lover’s cheek.

Her hard blue stare locked on to the affirmation. Ivy’s was a malice years in the making, a shoot green in youth that had turned black through adolescence, insidious and strangling as a weed, so that tonight, here, at last, the instant of her retribution had arrived. In the wings, the truth gasped its final throttled breaths; the old order shrugged off a wilted coil. She was deadly. Lethal. Toxic. Poison. And the world prepared to feel her wrath.

There would be before tonight, and after tonight, and nothing would ever be the same again. In the eleventh-floor washroom of LA’s Palisades Grand Arena, on the most televised event in the entertainment world calendar, vengeance was their apocalypse.

Ivy carved a painted fingernail, danger red, into the print, gouging a nub of plaster.

IF NOT VICTORY, REVENGE!

Victory had never been hers. But revenge? Revenge was in her blood.

From inside the stadium she could hear the muted thrum of beats and the united roar of the fans. Ivy imagined the cries were for her, urging her on, baying for the carnage she was about to unleash. She released her breath, tasting salt and iron, her tongue flicking across the split in her lip where she had bitten too hard in anticipation.

Three women.

Each was here to claim the spotlight. Each was an international superstar, a glittering icon with the world at her feet. Robin Ryder, UK talent-show sensation, the rags-to-riches sweetheart rescued from oblivion. Kristin White, global pop phenomenon with the voice of an angel, who had ditched the princess act after tragedy struck. And Turquoise da Luca, America’s number one female vocal artist and now tantalising toast of Tinseltown.

One of them was going to perish.

At the mega-event better known as the ETV Platinum Awards, Ivy Sewell was concerned with one target and one alone: her twin. The hated sister, born identical and torn towards an opposite fate, who had claimed everything Ivy herself should have been, who had snatched it all from her grasp, who had turned her back and slipped so seamlessly into a life of opulence and glamour, forgetting where she had come from or what had gone before.

Ivy shoved the bag into the trashcan, forcing it down with her fists. Later, when it was discovered, they would know how clever she had been. In it lurked the disguise she’d worn, the orange T-shirt with its Burger Delite! logo emblazoned across the front…a whole person, just like that, folded away in a sack. She stared indifferently at the hands that would carry out this great execution. Wrists pale and brittle, like branches in winter; the fingers thin.

Only when the bullet entered would it be over. Only when that flawless skin was ruptured, that smile erased, that heartbeat frozen, one and the same as hers and yet a universe apart, would it be finished: one life in exchange for another.

A rapturous cry exploded. The show was beginning, the stage lit up to welcome the players, the kings and queens of twenty-first-century music, the alphas and the studs and the bitches and the beauties with their diamonds and their hundred-thousand-dollar gowns.

Ivy closed her eyes. The letters were emblazoned on her lids, bright as fire.

IF NOT VICTORY, REVENGE!

The curtain was up. And now it was show time.



PART 1 One year earlier




1


Robin Ryder was seeing stars, weightless and electrified as she flew towards the raging sun of her orgasm. Fuck the wardrobe her stylist had spent hours perfecting; fuck the producer’s countdown mere minutes away; fuck everything except this glorious, glittering fuck.

‘Does that feel good?’ the man breathed, gripping her waist and pulling in deeper. Robin, on top, ground against him; the slippery, yielding leather of the seat was soft and sticky beneath her knees, and she threw her head back to moan her reply.

Backstage in the VIP suite, ahead of a live Saturday night broadcast of The Launch, she was riding this guy like it was the last ride of her life. What she was doing was reckless, it was sinful, but Robin had never been able to play by the rules. She was a judge and he a contestant; it was all kinds of wrong and yet all kinds of right. RnB tunes filtered through the music system, and at the bar an empty magnum of Krug nestled on a bed of ice. As Robin held tight she decided she would definitely, oh definitely, be putting him through this week.

‘I’m there,’ she cried, ‘don’t stop, I’m there!’

‘Me too,’ the guy choked, driving in hard. ‘My God, you’re so fucking hot.’

The throne-like chair was a prop, used in the early audition stages: when a judge liked what they saw they hit a lever, prompting the seat to rush forward on a pair of rails. Thankfully for Robin the gimmick had been relegated backstage once the live nights began—she’d proved a hit during those first weeks where her inclination to back everybody had her getting motion sickness every ad break. After all, The Launch was where she herself had begun: now she was the nation’s darling, drawn from obscurity, a rough diamond polished through song. Robin had risen to fame through the very show she was tonight judging.

The public loved Robin’s voice, raw and sensuous, somewhere between pain and deliverance. They loved how she wore her heart on her sleeve. They loved her guts, and her honesty. They loved her story—loved that she’d been hurt and wanted to seize her dues. Over twelve months Robin had soared to a dizzying stratosphere, invited to every party, on to every red carpet, booked for every event. Her gift was undeniable and her smile lit up a room.

‘Do you want it?’ the contestant was panting, his sweat-slicked six-pack glistening in the half-glow. ‘Right there, do you want it?’ He was this year’s favourite, tough guy with the voice of an angel—and a heavenly body to match.

She came in a crash, a bursting galaxy of dazzling confetti as she writhed on the brink of paradise. Sex was Robin’s release. It enabled her to feel that warmth, that closeness, without risk of being wounded. You got what you came for and you left. She didn’t get why people wanted to stick around afterwards anyway; she had never understood this sleeping-in-each-other’s-arms thing. She’d got this far alone and she didn’t need anyone else.

‘That was amazing,’ he groaned, cradling her, kissing her over and over as she gasped through the aftermath of her climax.

She had barely had time to fling a shirt over her nakedness when the door opened. Robin didn’t know which happened first: the contestant’s face dropping as fast as his pants had ten minutes earlier; or her attempt to dismount disastrously striking the switch that jolted the chair meteorquick towards their visitor like some sort of warped sacrificial offering.

‘Oh,’ said their caller, as Robin scrambled to conceal herself. Instead of a mortified exit (which would have been the polite thing), he stood there, an infuriating grin on his face.

Light flooded the room. ‘Shit, man,’ gabbled the contestant helpfully. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

‘Do you mind?’ she raged, so mortified she couldn’t bear to turn round.

‘Sure.’ She could hear the smirk in his voice. ‘Guess I’ll come back later.’

It was a miracle she made it through the show without punching him.

Leon Sway, Olympic sprinter, was guesting on tonight’s panel. Since the summer Games had decreed him a World Personality, the athlete was hotly in demand for every broadcast going. Leon was mixed race, with close-cut black hair, strong cheekbones and an all-over movie-star look: it was little wonder he had been gracing billboards across the globe with a ream of sponsorships and modelling contracts; and now here he was making a star appearance on the adjudicating Launch line-up—what the hell did he know about music?

‘I’ve been a fan of yours from the start,’ Robin told a quivering choirgirl after an impressive rendition of Adele. ‘That was a brilliant performance; I really felt it. Well done.’

‘Sure that’s not all you felt?’ came the murmur from her neighbour, just loud enough for her to hear. She tried not to scowl—either that or turn to Leon and chuck her glass of water in his face. It wasn’t in Robin’s nature to wish for the ground to open up and swallow her whole, but tonight had to be the exception. As the acts ran through their numbers and the board delivered their verdicts, she tried not to dwell on what parts of her anatomy might have been unveiled before they’d even been introduced—not easy with Leon’s supercilious bulk to her left, interspersed with a hot flash of shame every time she recalled his untimely intrusion.

‘Do you think she can win?’ asked a producer mogul who had been tagged as her rival on the show. ‘With those nerves I can’t see her pulling off any live gigs.’

‘This is a live gig, isn’t it?’ Robin snapped. She could sense Leon watching her. Why did he have to be such a smug, full-of-himself…? Ugh, she couldn’t even think of the word.

‘Well, yes…’

‘I absolutely believe in her,’ commented Robin, battling through her disgrace. ‘This is where I got my break and it took me time to grow, of course it did. If she were cutthroat at this point you’d be tearing her apart for being difficult to work with. Which is it going to be?’

The arena shouted its approval. Robin’s image filled the screens on either side of the stage, the people’s champion: she was petite, her hair chopped short but with a trademark sweep still long enough to obscure her eyes, which were cat-like and aglow with dramatic make-up. Hers was a cautious demeanour that belied the tough, attitude-fuelled work that had made her name: Robin’s music spoke of more years lived and more experiences earned, and had consequently secured her the first ever talent-show-spawned album to be nominated for—and win—a Brit Select Award. The victory had made Robin Ryder, at just nineteen, the hottest thing on the UK scene. She believed in putting everything into her art, the offering up of her heart and her soul, because for a long time she had imagined that both those things were damaged beyond being any use to anyone.

When the time came for that contestant to take the spotlight, she grimaced. Leon couldn’t resist fixing her with a stare throughout the entire introductory VT.

‘It wasn’t for me,’ he judged afterwards. ‘It kinda felt like you were distracted.’

‘I disagree,’ put in Robin. ‘For me it was a very focused, determined performance.’

Leon turned to her. ‘Are you complimenting his performance?’

The blush threatened to engulf her. ‘Sure,’ she managed, the double entendre squatting resolutely between them. ‘I am.’

‘Focused and determined—that’s how you like it, then?’

She returned his glare. ‘Who doesn’t?’

The host, confused, went to ask another panellist their view.

‘It seemed like he had something else on his mind,’ Leon steamed on before he could, ‘something more interesting than being up on that stage. Don’t you feel that’s an issue?’

‘Whatever drives him is fine by me,’ she replied stiffly, knowing that every word she uttered was laced in innuendo. ‘After all, what would a sprinter know about vocals?’

It was a cheap shot, she ought to know better, but humiliation had forced her into a corner. A blood-hungry cheer erupted and she could all but hear the producers salivating.

‘Well, he is the bookies’ favourite,’ supplied the mogul.

‘Not just the bookies’…right, Robin?’ Leon joked, a crescent-moon dimple appearing on one side of his all too slappable face. His insinuation was obvious. There was a horrible silence. Robin’s cheeks flamed. She tried to think of something to say and nothing came. She was so angry she could scream. This was live TV!

‘Excuse me?’ she spluttered.

But the presenter moved on, instructed to sever it at the point of maximum speculation.

Afterwards, everyone assured her that it hadn’t sounded that bad. Robin wasn’t stupid. It would be all over the papers tomorrow thanks to that insufferable bastard Leon Sway! The contestant looked hopefully at her as she fled: that was the end of him.

Her car took her straight to Soho’s Hideaway Club, where she found scant solace in ordering the strongest concoction she could find. Her band met her there.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said, before Polly, her bassist, had a chance.

Polly was American with a peroxide-blonde beehive. ‘All right,’ she said as they settled in a booth. ‘But just to say—’

‘Don’t say anything.’

‘It could have been worse.’

‘Could it?’

‘Did you screw him?’

Robin was aghast. ‘Who, Leon?’ she demanded, outraged at the thought.

‘No!’ Polly named the contestant. ‘Although Mr Sway, well, you have to admit—’

‘I’m warning you: don’t even go there.’ She downed the drink. ‘Anyway, what difference does it make? Everyone thinks I did, so I did. Isn’t that how it goes?’

Within minutes a tower of frosted glasses was deposited in front of them, together with several giant bottles of part-frozen vodka. An accompanying note read:

Want a winner on your team?

Her manager Barney signalled across the space. ‘Hey, Robin, check out your secret admirers.’ Close to the neon-bulb-strewn bar, just decipherable through the low-lit shadows that gave way to pockets of absolute dark, Olympian Jax Jackson, officially the fastest man in the world, was partying with a harem of lovelies. Two Olympians in one day? Some luck that was. Jax raised a glass and Robin prayed he wouldn’t come over: thanks to Leon he probably thought it was a free-for-all.

‘If we accept these you don’t have to do anything in return, right?’ Matt, her drummer, was already pouring. He winked at Robin when she raised her middle finger. ‘What? Girls never buy me drinks; it’s not like I know the rules!’

Robin tossed back a syrupy shot, then a second, then a third. Polly threw her a glance and she matched it. What was wrong with having fun? She was young and free and famous, and didn’t need anyone to tell her she deserved a break.

‘What?’ she countered. ‘Aren’t we partying?’ Matt grabbed the second bottle and filled the glasses and everyone went in for a sticky collision before the liquid vanished.

‘Sure,’ said Polly, not sure at all. What Robin had gone through didn’t go away; you had to deal with it before you could move on, not get trashed till you forgot. ‘You earned it.’

‘Nah, we earned it,’ corrected Robin, putting one arm round Polly and one round her manager and pulling them close. ‘We’re family, aren’t we?’

Family.

Even as she said the word she could hear how hollow it sounded.




2


Five thousand miles away and several hundred feet above a Hollywood theatre, Kristin White and her boyfriend were making a surprise landing at the premiere of Lovestruck.

‘Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?’ Scotty panicked, clinging to the door of the chopper as it began its shaky descent. Kristin giggled and put a comforting hand on his knee. Out of the window they could see the red carpet splashed beneath them like a river of fire, the upturned faces of fans and paps dozens-deep, gazing awe-struck at the approaching marvel.

Scotty gripped her fingers, white-knuckled, and gulped.

‘Relax,’ she soothed, leaning over to kiss him.

‘I am relaxed,’ he warbled.

‘You’re James Bond,’ she calmed him, ‘remember?’

‘Yeah.’ Scotty closed his eyes, holding tighter. ‘I’m Bond. I’m James fucking Bond.’

When the helicopter touched ground, Scotty was so relieved he grabbed Kristin and embraced her passionately. ‘Wow,’ he raved, ‘that was totally wild!’

It wasn’t like Scotty to initiate a PDA and Kristin trembled with joy, filled with the brilliance of the moment. Here they were at the peak of their careers, crazy famous and crazy in love. Her tummy lurched at his kiss more than it had at any point over the last half an hour.

‘Check out the reception,’ Scotty rhapsodised. ‘This is sick!’ He took her hand with a reassuring squeeze and said, ‘You look really beautiful tonight…you know that?’

She glowed.

By the time the door opened Kristin could scarcely hear what her boyfriend was saying because the screams were so loud. Thunder rushed at them, crashing in waves, a wall of sound so solid and suffocating that the whole impression was one of being underwater.

‘Scotty, I love you! Scotty, marry me! Scotty, over here!’

Kristin took Scotty’s hand in hers and held firm as they posed and turned for the circus of cameras. The paparazzi lining the passage shouted their names, encouraging them to stand separately, together, to kiss, the latter of which sent the fans demented, crying out for Scotty once more and snapping him frenetically with their camera phones.

Dating the subject of a gazillion teenage fantasies was never going to be easy. Kristin tried not to get jealous. You’re my only girl, Scotty would promise. She trusted him.

A stylist was on hand to rearrange her dress, a pretty lilac fishtail with capped lace sleeves, offsetting to a T her tumbling flaxen waves and creamy porcelain skin.

‘Kristin, hi, this is some arrival!’ Entertainment Now! caught her for an interview. ‘Would you answer some questions for our viewers?’ Scotty was happily dragged off to sign autographs. A girl fainted and had to be removed from the throng.

‘You’ve written the soundtrack for this movie,’ the reporter enthused. ‘How has it been collaborating with the film industry? Are there any more projects in the pipeline?’

Kristin delivered the quarter-smile. One of the first things her mother had coached her in was that there was a complex spectrum of smiles and each one meant a different thing, and the quarter was coy, a little bashful, promising more than she was prepared to say. Her mom had worked hard to get Kristin to where she was today: pop princess, the angel every little girl dreamed she would one day grow up to become, strumming on a guitar or gliding across a piano and singing gentle songs about true love and knights in shining armour who whisked their beloveds from towers in the sky. Scotty Valentine as her steady completed the picture.

‘The movie’s fantastic,’ Kristin gushed. ‘It’s been a magical experience.’

‘You and Scotty look blissful. Has he been supportive through the process?’

Kristin stole a glance in her boyfriend’s direction. Scotty was talking into someone’s cell, now in his comfort zone and a pro at pleasing his crowd of devotees. She had to remind herself that he was her guest tonight, not the other way around. Kristin had her own following—her last four consecutive singles had shot straight to number one; her trio of albums had gone platinum, selling in excess of sixty million records; and she had claimed more than eighty awards—but Scotty Valentine, with his mop of blond hair and huge, puppy-like blue eyes, was that thing to which, when done right, there was and never would be an equivalent: lead vocalist in the most outrageously popular boy band in US history, a five-guy line-up with the slick tunes and the heartthrob status to take it all the way.

People had thought the boy band was dead…and then along came Fraternity.

‘He’s been great.’ Kristin expanded the smile, unable to help how elated the truth made her. ‘He’s absolutely, amazingly perfect.’

Scotty was her muse, her inspiration and her reason for everything. Everyone said they made a bankable duo as if in some way that took away from the genuine feeling they had for each other, but Kristin knew it was special. She had never been in love before. Scotty was her first. Being one of millions worldwide who felt the exact same way was just something she’d have to get used to. Couples in the fame game appeared and vanished quicker than a fast-food order, but what made their relationship different was that they had ridden the wave together—they had known each other since they were seven years old, novice entertainers on The Happy Hippo Club. Best friends first; it had made sense that once the innocence of childhood affection wore off they would upgrade to the next level. Kristin had liked Scotty for ages before it became official, admiring him from behind a line she could not cross, until a nudge from their management had finally sealed the deal. It was a true romance, like something from a fairy tale—and Scotty her treasured Prince Charming.

The golden couple was ushered off the carpet. Away from the cameras Scotty’s smile wavered. He still looked peaky from the helicopter.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, concerned.

‘Yeah. Feel a bit sick, that’s all, all the adrenalin…’

‘You poor thing.’

Scotty allowed himself to be comforted.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispered, inhaling his scent.

He took her arm. ‘Do we have to stay for the whole thing?’

‘Why?’ Kristin asked, disappointed. ‘Do you have someplace else to be?’

‘Of course not!’ It came out a touch sharply, before he corrected himself. ‘I mean, forget it, baby; it’s fine. It’s just that whole act out there, it’s kinda exhausting.’ He consulted his reflection in a gilded drinks font. ‘Do I look OK? Not too pale?’

‘We’re sitting in a theatre,’ Kristin teased, ‘in the dark. Does it matter?’

In the event Scotty fidgeted all the way through the boy-meets-girl romance to which Kristin had arranged the score: he never had possessed a long attention span. The movie starred two of Hollywood’s most coveted teen actors; the pretty-faced guy was plastered across every bedroom in Young America. Maybe that was why Scotty got jittery whenever the shot lingered on the actor’s face. He didn’t like it when a challenger arrived on the scene.

It didn’t matter. Kristin would never notice another guy while he was around.

The arrangement sounded good and she was pleased with how they had fed it into the final take. At the reception she was congratulated by a mob of industry players.

‘Talk about making an entrance!’ they flattered. The retelling of the helicopter story, from which he omitted the finer points of his anxiety, cheered Scotty. Kristin loved seeing him in his element, smiling and charming, her favourite boy in the world.

She was chatting with the director when Cosmo Angel, A-list action hero whose wife had taken the part of the young mom in the movie, collared her with an alligator smile.

‘You really write all those songs yourself?’ he leered.

‘I sure did.’

Cosmo was ridiculously hot but there was also something dangerous, almost unpleasant, about him. Some women liked that, but Kristin wasn’t so sure. Cosmo was of Greek descent, hairy like a wolf, with a full mouth, and thick, bristling eyebrows that met in the middle. His presence was massive, oppressive, looming. He looked as if he could hook an arm around your waist and crush you to death like a snake.

‘Well—’ Cosmo stepped closer and she noticed how musky and exotic he smelled, an aroma that matched his brooding looks, sort of smoky, not like Scotty, who was vanilla-clean like freshly washed laundry ‘—you know how I like to see young talent emerge…’

‘Thank you,’ she said carefully, ‘I appreciate that.’ She wasn’t about to tell him that twenty-two years felt like longer when every waking hour as far back as she could remember was spent in preparation for How To Be a Star. Hence learning to play three instruments by the time she was eight and taking her Grade 9 piano before any of the other kids in her class had learned their times table. No wonder The Happy Hippo Club had snapped her up.

Scotty joined them. He and Cosmo shook hands and Kristin watched them talk, for a second feeling dislocated from everything and everyone around her, as if she were a stranger to her own life and looking in through a window. Some days she felt fortunate. Others she didn’t know how she had ended up here or even if it had been her choice at all.

It was crazy, but this was her world. She had never known anything else.

Thank God for Scotty. So long as he was around she’d be just fine.




3


‘Baby, you know what I am; I’m a wild girl, wild girl…’

Turquoise da Luca, undisputed queen of the US charts and in possession of the goddess-like status that meant she was known only by her first name, ground to the pulse of her latest single. They were shooting the video for ‘Wild Girl’ in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, an army of hot male dancers mirroring Turquoise’s every move.

‘Honey, you can’t tame me, I’m a wild girl, wild girl…’

The wind machine picked up and Turquoise’s silky mane of ebony hair blew about her face, relinquishing flashes of the pale emerald eyes that had inspired her name. She could feel the energy of the troupe at her back, the force coming off each choreographed routine as the guys relied on her lead, surrendering to the next arrangement and powerless to stop the rush. Every movement was executed with the slickest measure, every twist and step in sync, and as Turquoise sang to the recorded track she counted the metre in her head like a dual heartbeat. When she fell into the final position she knew it was nailed.

‘That’s the one!’ The director incited a celebratory round of applause and Turquoise joined in, congratulating her team. Performing was her ultimate. When she was up onstage, in front of a camera, giving it her all, she was liberated. She was somebody else.

Shrugging on a robe, she disappeared into her dressing room. Several of the company gazed longingly after her, bathing in the residual mist of intoxicating perfume. Not only was Turquoise one of the most renowned chart-toppers in the world, she was also one of its most staggeringly gorgeous women: a vision of never-ending honey-tanned legs and a waterfall of liquid jet hair that descended to the impeccable swell of her ass. She attracted stares wherever she went. Of supermodel-height but with the curves of an exotic Amazonian princess, Turquoise wasn’t just beautiful; she was astonishing. Lithe and graceful, supple as a panther, she was that rare thing: more radiant in real life than she was on film.

She’d just had time to kick off her stilettos when there was a knock at the door.

‘Hey.’ Her visitor rested one arm against the frame. ‘I had to see you.’

It was Bronx, her principal dancer. Originally trained in ballet and tap, Bronx had a soaring frame that combined polish and poise with sheer brute strength. They had met on her first video, before she’d hit the big league, and after every encounter, even now, she berated herself. Turquoise knew she couldn’t give him anything more. If Bronx found out about her, if he knew what she’d done and who she really was, he would never want to see her again.

‘Aren’t you gonna invite me in?’

‘My schedule’s off the wall,’ she replied. It wasn’t a lie: she had a fashion gala still to make and an industry party in New York tonight; there was a flight to catch.

Bronx was undeterred. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but all that sweat and grease back there left me feeling kinda hot…’

‘We’ve talked about this,’ she told him. ‘It’s not going to—’

Bronx kissed her, finding her tongue with his and flattening his body against hers. His dick was rock-hard. For an instant she responded, unable to resist the promise of his body.

‘You’re gorgeous,’ he whispered, trailing his hands across her contours, from her shoulders to her breasts to the dip of her hips, ‘so damn gorgeous. I can’t help it, being with you all day like that and wanting you every second—’

‘Don’t.’ Turquoise pulled away.

‘When’re you gonna see you and me are made for each other,’ he murmured, ‘that it’s meant to be?’ She pushed against him but he didn’t stop.

‘I said, don’t!’ Turquoise bit down hard, tasting blood. It had been a dumb idea to fall into bed with one of her performers, indiscreet and unprofessional and not at all what she was about. Bronx was a good man, true and noble and sincere, and those were the precise reasons why there could never be a future between them. Everything he was, she wasn’t.

Secrets. They would be the death of her.

‘Jeez!’ Bronx pulled back, putting a hand to his mouth. Pain made him angry before he checked himself. He couldn’t understand it, had tried and failed and tried again and would never quit trying because he adored this woman, plain and simple. Fame and riches didn’t matter. If anything, he preferred it when they forgot all about Turquoise’s celebrity, just the two of them in bed, she in his arms, fast asleep, breathing gently. He loved the way her eyelashes rested on her cheeks, the softness of her skin, the bead of perspiration that gathered in her philtrum when they made love. Those nights when she would moan in her sleep, in the throes of a private torture, and would wake in the small hours and stand alone by the window, arms folded, head tilted against the wall, pale and silent and closed off in the moonlight.

Why wouldn’t she let him in? What was she hiding?

‘What’s up with you?’ he asked gently.

Turquoise was shaking. She hated how that happened, the trembling, but it did, every time she wasn’t in control. ‘Leave,’ she managed.

‘Can’t we talk about this—? When can I see you?’

‘I’m sorry.’ She closed the door on his objections, collapsing against it and sinking to the floor, her head in her hands and the thick threat of tears in her throat.

It was minutes until the shivering subsided. Dragging herself together, Turquoise began to remove her clothes and make-up, gesturing robotically, stripping herself bare.

Why couldn’t she let go? Why couldn’t she move on? Bronx had never hurt her; she knew he never would. Yet every time she wasn’t the instigator she felt pinioned, backed into a corner against her will, the rising panic, the gathering dread, and worst of all the dead certainty that she couldn’t get away…

It was over. It was done with. Nobody had to know.

Turquoise da Luca was a superstar now. What did she have to be frightened of?

After the commotion of the shoot, the quiet of her personal space was both necessary and frightening. When she was busy, her mind didn’t wander: she was Turquoise, A-list diva, shatterproof, a twenty-six-year-old woman grown out of that past. When she was by herself, she remembered. The last thing she wanted was to remember.

She steadied herself against the dresser, her knuckles white. And yet…

She saw too much of the devil responsible. Charming his fans on TV, amiably chatting in gossip columns, inciting adulation on a string of blog posts and starring in a catalogue of acclaimed movies, his pristine white grin gleaming like an infinite taunt…

Cosmo Angel.

Hollywood royalty. Twenty-first-century idol. Bastard. An actor so spectacularly handsome it seemed impossible he was made of flesh and bone.

She knew what he was made of. She knew what lay beneath.

Cosmo had ruined her. He was evil. As long as he was breathing she knew there was no escape. She could play pretend but it would always be there, prowling beneath the surface, a swamp-like creature scourging the depths, choking her, suffocating her, making her pay.

Turquoise confronted the mirror, its frame spotlit with glowing pearls, the array of war paint scattered at its base: the tools of her disguise.

She stared at her reflection for a long time, not moving, until she began to see someone familiar looking back. A young girl, fear in her eyes, too afraid to object and too timid to speak out, beseeching, Why didn’t you save me sooner?

I couldn’t. I didn’t. And I’m sorry.

There was a brief, sharp knock and her assistant came in, chattering about the car that had arrived for the gala. The spell was broken. Just like that, Turquoise was rescued.




4


A monumental cheer went up as Robin departed the couch on a weekend talk show. Since the wrap of The Launch, and in particular the hysterical rumours she had endured about a certain male contestant, she was frontline on every major TV channel.

‘How about that—Robin Ryder, ladies and gentlemen!’

She turned at the green room and waved. The slot had gone great, the funnyman host’s wisecracks matched evenly by her quick humour and steady banter. As usual she’d been asked about her unorthodox childhood, and was able by now to rely on the stock phrases settled upon by her management. At first it had been painful dredging all that up, it wasn’t as if she wanted to be reminded every day, but in surrendering those facts to the public, in sharing them, the shame had lessened and the impact was gradually relinquishing its hold.

In her dressing room she changed out of the gown her stylist had picked and swopped it for a bold-print playsuit and leggings, which she teamed with lace-up boots and a pink bolero. A slick of lipstick and she was set. It was eleven p.m. and the night was young. She was meeting her girlfriends at London nightspot Kiss-Kiss, and rumour had it that supergroup LA hip-hop crew Puff City would be there. Robin was a disciple of their work; it was brave and righteous and took no prisoners, everything she aspired to in her own music, and their main man Slink Bullion was a legendary producer and collaborator. She wanted to sound him out about a joint project. Her people had said they would speak to his, but nothing could convince Robin that there was a better way than talking face to face.

When she arrived, the club was hammering a dirty, sexy stream of beats, and was packed with grinding bodies. Robin was taken through a concealed entrance towards an alcove. Kiss-Kiss had been built on the relics of an old church. From vaulted ceilings dripped bruised candelabra, huge colour-stained windows depicted rock gods old and new, while a glittering altar boasted a fearsome set of decks from which bled the new religion: music.

Robin spotted Polly’s beehive right away and her friends Sammy and Belle. It had been difficult to form bonds with people in her old life, moved as she was from place to place, and it was only when she’d quit the system and gone it alone that she had been able to make her own choices. That had brought with it a whole heap of struggle but at least it had been a struggle she’d had a say in—and through it she’d met Sammy and Belle, people who knew her before all this took off. Sammy had been the one who had encouraged her to audition for The Launch in the first place.

‘Check out the bar,’ said Belle as she sat down. They already had a rainbow of free drinks on the go and Robin helped herself. ‘We’re in for a treat.’

‘What is it?’

‘Jax Jackson and Leon Sway.’

She couldn’t believe it. ‘You have to be kidding me.’

The last thing she wanted was to encounter that self-righteous idiot, and enduring the attentions of Jax Jackson wasn’t far behind. Jax might be an Olympian but he didn’t do it for her: he was a notorious womaniser and by all accounts a chauvinist. The fact he had the Hugh Hefner bunny tattooed on his bicep along with the strapline Come and Play said it all, really.

‘I thought those guys were sworn enemies,’ Robin observed. Leon was silver to Jax’s gold: the men were archrivals, on the track and off. Word was they couldn’t stand each other.

‘Maybe they called a truce,’ suggested Sammy.

Polly scoffed. ‘Gimme a break: you should see how much coverage they get in the States. It’s insane. They’re, like, hotter than Hollywood. For the first time Jax has got some stiff competition. Testosterone, girls: he’s freaking about the guy on his tail—’

‘Stiff competition? A guy on his tail?’ Robin prompted the others to giggle. ‘Now there’s a story I’d be interested in.’

‘Jax’d sooner die,’ commented Belle wryly. ‘Talk about macho alpha bollocks.’

The same went for Leon, evidently. Robin was filled with fury remembering his indiscretion. She tried to see through the wall of people. A cluster parted just long enough to award her a view of Leon on the periphery of the group. He was wearing a grey T-shirt beneath which she could detect the lines of his muscle, the hard strength of his stomach and the clean, swift strokes of his arms. His green eyes caught the light.

‘Pretty, isn’t he?’ said Belle.

‘If you like egotistical, tactless dickheads.’

Sammy grabbed her. ‘Let’s go say hello.’

‘Uh-uh, no way.’ Robin kicked back. It was tempting to stride over and explain to Leon exactly what she thought of him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.

Jax Jackson came into view, making a chump of himself as a Nicki Minaj track came on and drunkenly he toasted the air. Jax was a couple of inches shorter than Leon and more hulking. Not that she was making the comparison.

‘Why not?’ Polly teased. ‘Jax has already made it clear he’s a fan…’

‘He bought us a drink,’ she said, recalling his come-on at the Hideaway. ‘Big deal.’

‘Bet you’ll go over when you see who they’re with.’

‘Who?’

‘Puff City.’

Robin baulked. ‘No way.’

‘Yes way. Go ahead, check it out.’

Sure enough, at the bar with Jax was the inimitable Slink Bullion. He was wearing a baggy white sweater and reams of gold jewellery. The Puff City crew skulked behind. Robin recognised Principal 7, the esteemed white rapper filling Eminem’s shoes, and G-Money, who was cool in a preppy way and whose real name was Gordon or something.

Downing another shot, she stood and closed the gap between them.

‘Hi.’ She interrupted the exchange. Jax was momentarily irritated by the disruption before succumbing to a smile. Annoyingly Slink was dragged off by his girlfriend.

‘Hey, lady, it’s you.’

‘Yeah, it’s me. And it’s not lady, it’s Robin.’

‘Kinda thought you blew me off the other night, Robin.’

Jax towered over her. His frame was extraordinary, huge and light and built for speed. He was smirking in the way of a man who imagined every female to want to fall in a faint at his feet. She scouted for the rest of Puff City but they’d melted away.

‘I didn’t know the drinks came on condition,’ Robin retaliated.

‘They didn’t. But here’s another chance to give me your number.’

‘Thanks, that’s sweet.’

‘We’ve been hearin’ a lot about you.’ Jax grinned. ‘Seems like you’re the place to be right now, a hot little hotel in paradise. I wouldn’t mind a trip there myself.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

He held his hands up. ‘Just sayin’. And you should know I don’t mind a challenge. Hell, I like it. It don’t happen often but when it does, I’m there like a bitch in heat.’

‘I’m feeling better by the second.’

‘Back off, Jax, she’s not interested.’

Robin turned to find herself face to face with Leon Sway. The surprise of him at such close range tied her tongue in a knot. Before she could slam her brain into gear, Jax said:

‘What’s it t’do with you?’

‘You’re drunk. Step away.’

‘Nah, you step away.’ Jax pushed him. His fists on Leon’s chest elicited a thump, rock on rock. Leon squared up to him, spoiling for a fight.

So now he was playing the hero? If she weren’t so livid she’d have laughed.

‘Get used to it, man,’ taunted Jax. ‘You’re a second-rate citizen around here.’

‘Funny, I thought I almost beat you.’

‘In your dreams, punk—that ain’t never gonna happen. You hear me? Never.’

‘You keep telling yourself that.’

‘Don’t need to. Facts speak for themselves.’ Jax shoved him again. Leon returned it, harder. Jax lost his footing and flailed embarrassingly against the bar. Disgraced, he took a wild swing at his rival, swiping at air as Leon evaded the impact and delivered in return a clean punch on the jaw. Jax fell backwards into his assistant’s arms.

The assistant stooped to gather his ward, securing Jax under the armpits. Jax staggered upright and shrugged himself free, mouth curled, jabbing a finger in Leon’s direction. ‘I’ve got your number, asshole,’ he hissed, trembling with fury. ‘I’m comin’ for you. Know your place. The man Jackson don’t forget, you got that?’

Leon looked blank. ‘I’m terrified.’

‘You should be.’

‘Good of you to intervene,’ snapped Robin when Jax had been steered away, ‘but I was handling that myself.’

Leon drank from his bottle of beer. ‘Thought you could use a little help, that’s all.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

‘Then should I get you a drink?’

She laughed. ‘Good one.’

‘What’s funny?’

‘What’s funny,’ she explained, ‘is that your messed-up idea of a pick-up is running my name into the ground in front of the entire nation—on prime-time TV.’

He held his hands up. ‘I’m sorry about that. Really. I was just messing.’

‘Just messing?’ She couldn’t believe his audacity. ‘D’you know how much stick I got? And out of interest, what the hell has it got to do with you who I hook up with?’

Leon grinned. ‘I didn’t exactly ask to walk in on you…’

Embarrassment soaked her. ‘Yeah, well, try knocking next time.’

‘Sorry. I know I should have left it. It’s just it was kind of irresistible.’ There was that maddening smile again. ‘You’re kind of irresistible.’

She was momentarily thrown. ‘I bet you reckon anyone can jump on, right?’ she blustered. ‘Well if you think I’m going anywhere near you, you are seriously mistaken.’

Leon regarded her, amused by some hidden joke, in a way that might have been sexy were he not such a categorical prick. Leon Sway had one of those textbook-perfect faces, the nose straight, the green eyes sparkling; white teeth and smooth skin, the right angle square-sharp where his jaw met his neck. Clean-looking. Way too conventional and boring for her.

‘OK,’ he said eventually, ‘can we start again?’

‘Start what again?’

‘Whatever this is that’s going so spectacularly wrong.’

‘Let me give you a clue. This? It’s nothing. It’s less than nothing.’

‘Hey, cut me some slack. I haven’t had a lot of practice with this fame stuff.’

‘Really? Aren’t you meant to be Sexiest Man in the World or some such bollocks?’

As soon as Robin said it she regretted it. Leon had been awarded the title in a women’s magazine. Bringing it up made her sound as if she had a schoolgirl crush, which she most definitely and emphatically did not.

‘I’ll go for “some such bollocks”,’ he replied. ‘If you get over your problem with me.’

‘I don’t have a problem.’

‘You do, because everything I say you’re hating on. Why’re you so defensive?’

‘Don’t presume to know anything whatsoever about me.’

‘I might make less mistakes if you gave me an easier time.’

‘I’m not easy.’

‘I never said you were.’

‘You might as well have done.’

A muscle twitched by his eye. ‘Let me take you to dinner.’

‘Dream on.’

‘I’m not kidding. I want to make it up to you.’

Robin sighed. With his rumpled T-shirt and steady grin and boyish bravado, Leon was the kind of person she would never in a thousand years be able to relate to. He was probably from some over-achieving American family who baked cookies and sat around a campfire singing and played tennis on a private lawn in summer. He was rich, clearly, and her guess was he always had been. That upbringing, the kind of anchor she herself had always yearned for, was exactly why he was able to make her feel so small.

‘Don’t bother,’ she threw back, moving to go.

‘Look,’ Leon said, less patiently, ‘I’m trying, OK? I’m only being friendly here.’

‘Make friends with someone else,’ she said, and turned and walked away.




5


Kristin loved kissing her boyfriend. Scotty Valentine’s lips were pink as candyfloss and just as sweet, his tongue soft and hesitant as it explored her mouth. She could spend hours simply kissing, running her fingers through his caramel hair and staring into his Pacific Ocean eyes.

They were in her bedroom, making out to a Turquoise ballad. Kristin took Scotty’s hand and guided it to her breast—he never instigated it, he was too gentlemanly—and lifted to meet his touch. She peeled off her T-shirt and the lacy sweetheart bra beneath. Scotty had only seen her topless once before and looked as uncomfortable now as he had the first time.

‘It’s OK,’ she murmured, reaching into his jeans. ‘My mom’s out…’

Dutifully Scotty tended to her nipples, nuzzling and licking till she started to sigh, then he dropped a chain of kisses across her stomach and in doing so reversed his crotch out of reach. She drew his head back up to hers, looping one arm round his neck and the other between his legs. Nothing. That was why, then. She inhaled his scent. It didn’t matter.

‘Sorry,’ Scotty mumbled, sitting up. ‘Don’t know what’s wrong.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Kristin, covering herself because she still felt shy around him. She hoped it was fine. Last time Scotty had been unable to get a hard-on and while he assured her it had nothing to do with her and he thought she was gorgeous, it couldn’t help but sting.

‘Just tired,’ he informed her, zipping his flies.

‘We don’t have to have sex,’ she ventured. ‘I could, you know…’

‘What?’

‘Help you along?’ she muttered uncertainly. ‘And then…?’

He looked at her as if she’d just suggested defecating on the carpet.

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’ Awkwardly she fumbled into her T-shirt.

Scotty grimaced. ‘I feel like I’m being hassled all the damn time,’ he complained, ‘for sex. You want it every day! I’m not a machine, Kristin.’

She was confused. ‘But we haven’t even got that far…’

‘Don’t you think maybe if I could relax a little more I might find it easier?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘I thought you were relaxed.’

He pouted. ‘Having my nuts attacked every waking hour isn’t my idea of relaxation.’

She wondered if he found it weird, the whole ex-best-friends thing. She should try to be more sensitive. ‘OK. Let’s just chill, then. You don’t have to leave.’

‘I do,’ he said dejectedly, ‘I need some me time. Everyone wants a piece of Scotty Valentine, don’t they? Why can’t people just leave me alone?’

Kristin swallowed her dismay. It was the pressures of his work. Fraternity had been gigging flat out and Scotty was exhausted. So what if she was desperate to consummate their affair? Love was patience. Fifteen years they had known each other; what was a little longer?

‘D’you know what it’s like living my life?’ he bewailed. ‘All the expectation, it’s bringing me down. How am I supposed to meet it?’

‘You’re not.’ She touched his face, turning it towards her. He’d gone salmon-pink. Kristin understood he was ashamed and it was self-defence that made him lash out. When would he realise he didn’t need to pretend with her? She worshipped him no matter what; without the band, without the ten million Twitter followers, just Scotty, the boy she adored.

Tentatively she kissed him. Slowly but surely he started to return it, leaning her back on the bed with a refreshed energy. Abruptly he flipped her round so she was on her stomach, and fiercely tugged down her knickers. For several seconds Scotty kneaded her ass, the breath catching in his throat, before, with a blinding sense of relief, Kristin felt his erection charging against her, prodding for entry. She parted to receive him, telling herself to stop because he needed to use a condom, but before she could speak she realised he was going for something different. Too tight, too sore, giving way to a splinter of disabling pain. She gasped in shock.

‘Wait,’ she breathed, attempting to pull free and turn on her back. It was a tricky manoeuvre but with some fumbling she managed to hook her legs round his waist and guide him in…but the throb in his jeans had totally evaporated. Totally. Scotty collapsed on to her, deflated, and she stared at the ceiling, eyes wet with tears, tracing circles on his back.

‘I’ll call you later,’ he mumbled eventually, getting up and grabbing his things. Bewildered, Kristin hugged her knees to her chest.

‘Scott,’ she tried, ‘we can talk about this…’

But he was gone before she could say goodbye.

At lunch, unable to ease her mind, Kristin took a swim in the mansion pool. Was it such a big deal? she wondered as she ploughed through her twentieth length. Scotty wanted to give it to her another way. That way had got him hard. Plenty of girls did it. Just because she hadn’t, it didn’t make it wrong. If that was Scotty’s thing then perhaps she should give it a go…

Lemon sun bounced off the patio, hot and sweet, blazing down from a flawless blue sky and reflecting off the glinting rock lagoon and sharp green lawns. When Kristin had started raking in the big bucks, her mother Ramona had wasted no time in securing them a prime piece of real estate. The imposing mansion (referred to as The White House) was enormous, comprising fifteen bedrooms, twelve of which were never used, a rooftop gym and home movie theatre. Out front, Corinthian pillars bragged the remarkable entrance. Inside, photographs of Ramona as a young fashion model adorned the walls.

Kristin was desperate to move out. She wanted to live with Scotty, like a proper couple, and get engaged and get married and have kids. But she had made a promise to herself that she would stay until her little sister turned sixteen. United, she and Bunny were an allied force against their mother. Bunny couldn’t do it on her own; she needed her: without Kristin she would get extinguished like a beetle beneath Ramona’s Louboutin.

The main door slammed, followed by a flutter of animated chatter. Kristin dried herself off, wrapped a towel around her waist and crossed to the house.

Bunny was galloping out to meet her, dressed head to toe in sequins and a wig better suited to a forty-year-old transvestite. At thirteen she wore full make-up, her nails painted and her eyelashes huge, and was struggling to balance on the four-inch stilettos that were preferred by the pageant organisers. She was small for her age: apparently her petite stature was a hit with the judges. Bunny White was a teen beauty queen, the best known in the state.

‘We won!’ she squealed. ‘I did my hula dance and then I had to catwalk and then they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up! I said a singer, like you. Then they asked me who I loved best in the world and I told them Joey from Fraternity because all the girls said Scotty and I wanted to be different, and I couldn’t say him because he’s your boyfriend.’

‘Hey, slow down!’ Kristin embraced her. ‘That’s amazing, I’m so proud.’

‘It was me and Tracy-Ann in the final,’ Bunny rattled on. She smelled of perfume and the drench of hairspray clamping her style into place, and her skin was clammy with Bronze Baby fake bake. ‘Mom thought it was over when my wig fell off and I cried but she made me go back on and then Tracy-Ann fell over and that’s when Mom said she knew we’d won!’

On cue Ramona White emerged from the mansion, consummate mother and manager, stepping into the sunlight in her sharply tailored suit and enormous Prada shades. Her silhouette was twig-thin and her hair was pulled back in a savagely tight chignon.

‘Congratulations,’ said Kristin flatly.

‘Shouldn’t you be writing?’

‘Day off.’

‘Is Scotty here?’

Bunny suffered a chronic blush and Kristin stifled a laugh. She found her sister’s infatuation funny. Scotty had been part of the family for years. Ever since The Happy Hippo Club days he’d come round for dinner when Ramona was out, making the sisters laugh over pasta with his goofy impressions, or ride his bike over on a Sunday to watch TV and eat popcorn, or bake cookies with Bunny at Thanksgiving, or pumpkin pie at Halloween. When he’d become Kristin’s boyfriend her sister had nearly fainted.

‘He left.’

‘Why?’ Ramona enquired. ‘Did you fight?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve got to keep a man happy, Kristin. Otherwise they’ll walk.’

Like Dad did?

‘Bunny, get upstairs,’ their mother directed, ‘and start scrubbing that make-up off.’

‘Can’t I wear it a bit longer?’

Ramona slid her daughter a look. Bunny retreated without another word.

‘She gets to take a break now, right?’ Kristin asked.

Her mother lit a cigarette, scissoring her way to a lounger, where she elegantly collapsed, drawing sharply on it. ‘Do you think I get a break?’ she retorted. Ramona’s cat Betsy, a white fluffball with one of those squidged-up expressions that looks like it’s been hit in the face by a sledgehammer, leapt on to her mistress’s lap and licked its lips.

‘HAIRS!’ Ramona cried, outraged. Immediately the cat was tossed to the ground. ‘Betsy needs a trip to the beautician; this moulting’s going to be the death of me!’

‘Bunny’s a kid,’ Kristin persisted, as the white fluffball shot through the patio doors.

‘And so were you when you started on your journey.’

Kristin disliked how Ramona made out as if it were her journey, as if Kristin hadn’t had it shoved on her as the only way of life available. Some days she grudgingly admired her mother’s resolve: yes, they’d come from little, and now, thanks to her child star exploding, had more wealth than they knew what to do with. Most, she hated how she had never been allowed to grow into her own person before being told who she was expected to be. Their mother’s ambition was ruthless. She would stop at nothing to see her two girls succeed.

‘This is good for Bunny,’ pronounced Ramona in her don’t-you-dare-argue-with-me tone. ‘It’s character building. She’s got to get used to the pace.’

‘What if she doesn’t want to?’

The shades came down a fraction. A pair of glinting grey eyes narrowed over the top.

‘Why wouldn’t she?’

‘I don’t know. She might want to try something else? Being a teacher, say, or a vet?’

Ramona snorted, as though those professions were so far beneath her that she could scarcely deign to look; professions that actually mattered, because while Kristin’s music was enjoyed by many it didn’t contribute to the world, not in any practical way.

‘What my daughter wants is to be famous.’ Ramona slipped the shades back into place. ‘You heard her. She wants to be exactly like you.’

‘Wrong. That’s what you want.’

‘You’re giving me a migraine, Kristin. Haven’t you got an album to write?’

She didn’t need to be told twice. Storming indoors, Kristin struggled to control her temper. No one made her angry like her mom did.

She flipped open her cell. She longed to call Scotty; he’d make her feel better. But something told her no. After today, if Scotty needed space then that was what she would give him. She would give him anything, because without him she was lost.

Bunny White’s bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Fraternity.

Her infatuation covered every scrap. Fraternity pouting sincerely to camera; Fraternity leaping into the air, their matching grins sparkling like islands in the sun; Fraternity with their arms slung round each other’s shoulders; Fraternity in black and white with their tops off. Like every girl Bunny’s age the five-piece was the apex of teenage idolatry. They were cute, they were funny; they sang about love and cuddling and kittens and birthdays. Bunny adored them with every ounce of devotion her little heart could carry.

Scotty Valentine was her favourite. She could never tell Kristin how much it stung when she saw them together, and though she had tried not to care—really she had—she just couldn’t help it. Naively she had imagined that Scotty would one day turn into her boyfriend. He might have started out like a big brother but over the years her hazy worship had blossomed into a killer crush that was picking her apart day by day. Age gaps didn’t matter so much the older you got, and in a few years he might have started seeing her in a new way.

All her life Scotty had been there, perpetually out of reach, exotic and elusive, the boy against which all others were measured and could never hope to compare.

She pretended that Joey was her number one. Joey was the cute, mischievous member of the group, and she would say yes if Joey asked her on a date, like, obviously she would. But Scotty, with his perfect smile and dreamy eyes, was her ultimate. When she was alone she fantasised about Kristin being out when he came to the mansion, like he had in the olden days, and how they might hang like they’d used to, and he would remember what a cool girl she was and how grown-up she was now and then maybe when he left he’d lean in and…

Bunny had never kissed a boy before. The very thought of touching Scotty was enough to drive her crazy with cloudy, indistinct longing. It made her blood race and her head feel like it was about to explode. Would she ever experience it for herself?

She settled at her Pretty Princess table and began removing the grips that held her wig in place. Her mom had secured them viciously, jamming each one into her hairline till it made her scalp throb. Before long, if she kept on winning trophies, she would be just as rich and pretty as her sister and boys like Scotty would start to notice.

Her best picture of Scotty was a close-up headshot. It wasn’t very big and she kept it in her coral beauty drawer, right at the back where no one would see it. Bunny reached in now and extracted it, tracing her finger around his jaw and pressing the image to her face so she could kiss it. Scotty smiled back at her, a glint of promise in his twinkling blue eyes. He was at the beach in the photo and you could tell he was shirtless, even though it was severed at the neck. His collarbone was deeply tanned with the lightest smattering of freckles.

Bunny kissed the image one more time before replacing it. She could hear her mom and sister arguing downstairs and wished Scotty would come and take her away. Humming Fraternity’s number one smash ‘I Dig U’, she imagined him scooping her up in his strong arms and driving her off into the sunset. Maybe he’d come on a horse and where they would end up or what they would do she wasn’t entirely sure. All she knew was that she wanted Scotty Valentine. She wanted him so badly it hurt.

Soon she’d be vying for the coveted title of Mini Miss Marvellous. It was an international competition for which she and her mom had been preparing for months. Ramona promised it would be her launch, and the battle that propelled her to stardom.

Then, she’d be a woman. Fraternity—and Scotty, always Scotty, despite everything that told her it was impossible—would finally be within reach.




6


Turquoise da Luca had been to every major city on the globe, but New York remained her favourite. It made her feel plugged in and part of something crucial, an integral cog in a great and glorious machine. The party she had attended on Friday provided the perfect excuse to hang for a few days and tonight she was catching up with A-list actress Ava Bennett. The women had met at a film premiere two years ago and had swiftly become friends.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Ava told her as they were seated for dinner, tossing her sheet of shimmering platinum hair. Turquoise had chosen her usual spot in Giovanni’s, a cosy, family-run Italian on Waverly Place. ‘Who’re you fucking?’

Turquoise nearly spluttered out her martini. ‘Excuse me?’

‘That glow,’ Ava said, mercifully stalled while a deferential waiter came to take their order. Once he’d gone she elaborated, ‘It’s written all over your face. Who is he?’

‘There is no he,’ Turquoise lied, deciding that Bronx didn’t count. There was no relationship on the cards so why waste time talking about it?

‘You’re lying,’ observed Ava slyly, but Turquoise knew her friend wasn’t any the wiser. She was a good liar. The best.

‘Tell you what—’ Turquoise raised her glass and they clinked ‘—let’s talk about you.’ She loved hearing about Ava’s job and, no matter how famous she herself became, she would always attach a certain enchantment to the movies. ‘How’s work?’

‘Ah, you know.’ Ava waved a bejewelled hand. ‘Promotion for Lovestruck’s going through the roof.’ Ava was playing the young mother in a new teen romance. Songstress sweetheart Kristin White had penned the music and it was causing quite a stir. ‘Cosmo’s been insufferable about this script he’s writing, mind you. He’s being ever so secretive.’

Turquoise’s heart pounced. It was easy to forget that Ava was married to her nemesis.

When her friend and Cosmo Angel had first got together Turquoise had tried to cut contact, feigning illness whenever Ava wanted to meet or claiming her diary was against it. But Ava was a loyal companion and hadn’t given up, and short of explaining why she had embarked on the avoidance campaign there wasn’t a great deal she could do. It meant that on occasion she was forced to see Cosmo, to shake his hand and exchange empty pleasantries as though they were strangers. Never would she risk going closer. Never would she visit Ava’s house. Never would she spend any more time with the man than was absolutely necessary.

‘He’s writing a script?’ Turquoise ventured, relieved when their appetisers came and hoping that might change the subject. Her throat had closed. She couldn’t eat.

‘It’s a break from acting. He wants to give something back. You know, get creative.’

He sure knows how to do that.

‘What’s it about?’ The words were like glue on her tongue. Even as she asked she had the horrible sensation of already knowing the answer.

‘This is the thing,’ Ava exclaimed through a mouthful of basil gnocchi, ‘he refuses to say! It’s centred around a murder; that’s all he’ll give me.’

‘What kind of murder?’ Her voice was tiny.

‘Beats me.’ She laughed. ‘Ask him yourself.’

Turquoise averted her gaze. She scrambled for something to say. It was horrible deceiving Ava, they were close, but she had vowed to take the truth to her grave…the truth of what she’d done and where she’d come from…the truth of what happened.

Secrets she couldn’t tell a soul.

Especially when Ava was Cosmo’s wife.

Fortunately Ava changed tack for her. ‘You seen this?’ she asked, producing a paper from her purse and tapping its front page. On it was an image of Jax Jackson pumping iron.

The article was about the athlete landing yet another brand affiliation. Its headline read: JAX ‘THE BULLET’ JACKSON FIRES A WINNER.

‘Two words for you, honey,’ said Ava. ‘Hot. As.’

Turquoise disagreed. ‘I hung with him once. He’s not all that.’

‘Really? Where?’

She batted off the question. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Well, I’m sure getting an introduction. See if that drags Cosmo out his office!’

‘Jax is a fool.’

‘Imagine it, though.’ Ava leaned in, a wicked smile on her face. ‘He’s got to be an animal between the sheets, hasn’t he?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Not that I’m complaining. Cosmo’s a tiger.’

Turquoise excused herself to visit the bathroom. She almost tripped in her haste to reach it and only when she was alone could she steady her breathing and get a grip of the thumping in her chest. She closed her eyes, stars bursting in her vision, images from the past rushing back though she tried with all her might to stifle them.

Cosmo can’t hurt you now. You have to get a hold on this; otherwise it’ll kill you.

Maybe that was what she deserved. She deserved to die and if it weren’t by electric chair then it would be by her own conscience.

He made me. It wasn’t my fault.

Or was it? She had been seventeen, old enough to know her own mind.

Stop. STOP! She put her face in her hands, pressing her temples till they ached.

What if it came out? What if the facts escaped? Every hour of every day she lived in terror of that revelation and what it would mean. Armageddon: the end of her world.

It won’t. Cosmo has his own reputation to protect. He’s the only one who knows…

Turquoise drew air in and out, in and out, slowly, till her pulse regained its rhythm. Gradually light seeped through and her goals readjusted. The first was to get through dinner.

Cosmo Angel had known her a lifetime ago. He had known her when she was a girl, vulnerable, weak. When she was someone capable of…

He didn’t know her now.

She made her way back through the restaurant and greeted Ava with a smile.

Grace Turquoise da Luca was born in Hawaii in 1986, the only child of religious parents. When she was a baby her father took her mother for a drive in the country and they never came back. The car was found battered and burned at the foot of a ravine and despite efforts to ascertain the truth of what happened, no definitive clues were found. Some said her father had been cursed by debt and had decided to end it; others that it was an act of God for having birthed Grace two months before they were married.

Grace had no memory of them throughout her childhood, save for photographs and scraps people told her. Her mother had been a striking woman, very dark, and her father ‘a stubborn man’. That was all she knew. Her parents were strangers.

After their deaths she stayed with a village woman, a friend called Emaline, because it was believed further disruption would damage her beyond repair. There she passed a safe, happy few years; she went to school, she made friends and she listened to the records piled high at home. Wonderful old-world singers like Billie Holiday, Ella and Etta, as well as Emaline’s own voice as she sang softly with a guitar on the veranda, sipping lime cordial. For her eighth birthday Emaline gave her a guitar of her own. From an early age Grace Turquoise knew that music would be her life-long obsession.

On rainy nights they would sit side by side on the couch, the fire burning, a woollen rug across their knees and Emaline’s arms safe and warm as she pulled the child close to kiss the top of her head. They would watch black-and-white movies together, get lost in worlds of romance and betrayal, lovers and wars, glamour and fantasy. Emaline would whisper stories about when she was a girl, and how one summer she had run away from home and spent long hot weeks acting for a theatre until her father had found her and brought her home. Grace’s imagination had been filled with the glittering characters Emaline had played, the handsome leading men she had known, and how Emaline had dreamed of some day becoming a Hollywood actress. ‘Do you know what I believe?’ Emaline whispered into Grace’s hair one sunset. ‘I believe that’s going to be you one day. My little star.’

Soon after her eighth birthday Grace was sent to live with her uncle on a farm in Pennsylvania. Ivan Garrick hadn’t seen her mother in years but it turned out he was her only living relative. Grace didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave her friends or Emaline. She didn’t want to live with someone she had never met. But that was the law and she could do nothing to dispute it. When she turned up on Ivan’s doorstep she was frightened.

But Ivan was a kind man. He was fifty or thereabouts and admitted to having had a dispute with her mother, after which he had been cut out of her life. He had always longed to meet Grace and had petitioned long and hard for her custody. Like her he had no surviving family and so they had to stick together, he said. Blood was blood, he promised. Lots of things happened in life but that could never be changed.

If her parents had been devout then Ivan was in another league. Every day he spent hours at church, talking with the pastor and praying for his sins. Grace couldn’t understand. Ivan was a gentle, lonely man and she couldn’t imagine him sinning any more than she could Emaline refusing her a kind word. Bad people existed but Ivan wasn’t bad.

A short time later, they received word that Emaline had passed. Grace travelled alone to her funeral and cried as she had never cried before. Ivan organised her return ticket and was waiting at the station to meet her when she arrived. ‘You’re home now,’ he said.

Sometimes Ivan disappeared at night. She would wake to find the big house empty and pad through its dark chambers, calling his name. The next morning he’d stay asleep until the afternoon, and would emerge looking tired and haunted. Those days he prayed the most.

Grace settled into her new life and concentrated on her music. At ten years old she learned to read compositions; at twelve she was strumming on the guitar Emaline had given her and at fourteen she realised she had a voice to go with it. Ivan would ask her to sing and would sit and watch her, telling her how beautiful she sounded and what a lovely young woman she was becoming. Grace liked it when he said that. Not a girl any more but a woman. It made her feel grown-up, ready to embrace the exciting life ahead of her.

Soon after, she became a grown-up for real. Playing outside one day, she felt wetness in her skirt and when she went to the bathroom she found blood. Her first thought was thata monster had crawled inside her; the monsters Ivan talked about that he promised the Lord would protect them from. She shook in his arms, and Ivan had to explain as best he could that this wasn’t a disease but a natural progression—one he had, in fact, been counting on.

We’ve been waiting, he told her. Fear nothing, my angel. You’ve arrived.

It was six months before his meaning became clear. The last six months of innocence.

It happened on a Tuesday night. She would always remember the moon, crisp and white like a marble in the sky. Ivan crept to her bedroom and told her to come outside, there was something she needed to see; it was a present he’d bought for her. He was sweating and his fingers trembled, waxy in the dark, but she’d thought it was the puppy she’d longed for and so in her nightgown had descended the stairs and pushed open the door to the yard.

Outside was a circle of people, dressed in black robes and hoods that covered their faces. They were chanting. At the centre a fire sparked and burned, hot and red and orange, an angry fire that told her this was wrong. Something was wrong. They wanted to hurt her.

No, she wept, I don’t want to.

I don’t want to. It became her mantra for the years ahead. But nobody listened.

And they didn’t listen then. Grace struggled to break free but they pinned her down, tying her wrists above her head and looming like giants, the chant building and gathering pace, becoming frenzied and wild. Through the vestments she recognised the pastor’s eyes, flashing grey and watery with lust as he knelt between her legs…

Her agony shattered the night.

The next day, she ran. In a sense the ordeal was the anaesthetic she needed. All Grace could focus on was escape, numb to everything but the terror she had endured and the lone goal of freedom. Ivan was sloppy, a careless, cowardly man. He’d underestimated her spirit. She packed a small bag and left the next afternoon, walking the road out of town, walking and walking until she didn’t care any more if her legs gave in and she lay down and died. She thought of Emaline. It made her cry but it also made her strong. Emaline’s voice told her to keep going and not to give up. Songs she loved played in her head, all the women she’d grown up with walking alongside her, holding her upright and pushing her on.

Some time before dawn a car picked her up. ‘Hey, baby, you wanna ride?’

The guy in the driver’s seat was young. He had a nice smile.

Grace Turquoise pulled open the door. Sleep rushed at her like a tidal wave and she embraced it, secure in the knowledge that now she was saved. Now it was over.

But she was wrong. It was only just beginning.




7


Robin was wired when she came offstage. She had performed her breakout single ‘Lesson Learned’ at the annual Palace Variety to rapturous reception.

‘They’re loving you, babe,’ encouraged her manager Barney when she stepped into the wings. ‘Twitter’s going off the wall.’

‘One more time for Robin Ryder!’ The host’s voice boomed through the studio.

‘Wanna go out?’ Robin headed to her dressing room, Barney in close pursuit. ‘I’ve got an invite to Level 7, the new place off Poland Street. It’s worth checking out.’

‘Are we celebrating?’

‘We’re always celebrating.’

‘We will be when you hear who I’ve been talking to.’

She turned. ‘Who?’

‘I’ve just taken a call from Arcadia,’ announced Barney triumphantly. Arcadia was Puff City’s management. ‘They’re interested in a partnership, Robin. Slink Bullion likes what he sees. Your profile’s rocketed and they want a piece of it.’

She was elated. ‘That’s the best news I’ve had all week. Get us a meeting?’

‘You bet I will.’

Robin pushed open the door with her name on it. The first thing she noticed was the enormous bouquet of peonies and roses on her make-up table, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a purple ribbon. There was a card sticking out of the top.

‘What’s this?’

‘They got delivered to the office,’ said Barney. ‘I had a runner bring them down.’

‘Why?’

‘Some kid dropped them by. He said to make sure you received them, or the guy he worked for wouldn’t be happy.’

She turned the card over. It read:

But I want to be friends with you

Robin frowned. She pretended not to know who it was, but she knew straight away.

‘Who’re they from?’ asked Barney.

‘I have no idea. There’s no name.’

The last words she’d thrown Leon’s way. Make friends with someone else.

‘It’s a fan,’ she said dismissively. ‘And I’d rather this stuff got filtered.’

She had decided not to tell Barney about the creepy stuff she’d been receiving in the mail recently. Last week a weirdo scrapbook had arrived filled with cutouts of her image and inscribed with the note: I’m closer than you think. Before that a ream of paper, in which her name was reproduced over and over, line after line, page after page, like something from The Shining. She thought the handwriting was the same on both but couldn’t be certain.

It was freaky but there was no point mentioning it. Some fans were nuts; it went with the territory. She could take care of herself.

‘I thought you preferred to see everything?’ said Barney.

‘Not any more.’

Seizing Leon’s bouquet, she crossed to the wastebasket and dropped it in.

Barney was shocked. ‘Can’t you take them home? They’re hardly offensive. You never know, they might brighten up the place…’

Robin tried to imagine the arrangement in her flat. It didn’t work for a second. Her first-floor space in Camden was minimalist to the extreme, the walls blank, the bed unmade and the cupboards empty. All she had in the fridge was a half-drunk litre of Coke and some leftover Chinese noodles. A single coffee cup rattled round the kitchen.

‘I don’t like flowers,’ she said. ‘They’re sickly.’

‘I think they’re pretty.’

‘You would. And anyway, I don’t want a stranger’s shit in my space.’ Especially when she didn’t have her own shit in her space. Other people’s houses were stamped with their history, mementoes of a time gone by, but Robin’s displayed evidence of nothing but the necessities of here and now. It came from a life of being constantly uprooted, spat in and out of the system like an unwanted toy—and Robin had been unwanted, she was unwanted by definition. Why else would she have been given up? Her own mother hadn’t wanted her.

At four days old Robin had been left in a bin in an East London park, wrapped up in a plastic bag. She hadn’t been Robin Ryder then, she’d had another name, one the hospital had given her, but they had never found the woman responsible and Robin had long ago given up on dreams of reunions and forgotten sisters and brothers, replacing that need with the iron resolve that she would never rely on anybody ever again. When things got tough, people abandoned you. It was a fact of life. The only person you could trust was yourself.

So she didn’t need Leon Sway or his stupid dumb flowers.

‘Let’s go,’ said Robin, pulling on her jacket. ‘First round’s on me.’

‘Encore, encore, oui, oui, oui!’ The girl arched her back, craving his touch with animal reflex. She had never had a lover like Leon Sway. ‘Vous êtes magnifique!’

Leon hardened for what time he’d lost count, pulling the girl on top of him and kissing her fiercely. Their tongues entwined, hungry for more.

She gasped as he filled her. Strapping his powerful hands to her waist, the girl rocked back and forth, marvelling at Leon’s physique, the immaculate, glorious body of a world-class player. Every tendon and sinew was a model of perfection, the summit of strength and beauty; a machine shaped and honed for the sole purpose of winning. Her palms were spread across his pecs, dwarfed by the canvas of his chest, as she moved to his rhythm, quickening and quickening as their hips locked and Leon pulled the hair from her face as she sweated and pulsed on top of him, loving the muscle and the tenderness and how one was indistinguishable from the other, until, in a crescendo, they both reached their pinnacle.

At twenty-four, Leon was one of the greatest American athletes of all time.

Without contest he was the greatest lover.

‘That was amazing,’ she moaned, her accent thick. She collapsed on to him. Leon held her, trailing his fingertips down her arm and listening as her breathing slowed to sleep. It had been too long in the run-up to competition. All that effort and fury, all the passion and drive, had nowhere to go once the finish was crossed. Desire, the simmering volcano Leon had held at bay through months of training, of replacing his urges with the promise of victory and the unwavering commitment that required, fired his run from the splinter of the starting pistol. But now it was over? Another person’s skin; their warmth: the softness of a woman.

He closed his eyes, trying to picture anything else but what he always did:

Another man’s tread crashing over the line before his.

As the sun swam into the darkened room, Leon rolled over and checked his watch. Eight-thirty. He needed to be at the airport. He had been putting off returning home, knew he had his reasons but that didn’t make it right. Somehow there was always a TV appearance to be filmed, a gala to be attended, a photo shoot to make…Each day brought with it a fresh deluge of offers: luxury watch brands pursued him as the face of their sports range; global drinks manufacturers were desperate to secure his allegiance; designer labels coveted him to front their new campaign. Just yesterday he had been stripping off in a Paris studio, replacing a soccer legend as the face of an underwear giant. His almost naked pose, a vision in black-and-white of rippling torso and bulging crotch, had been blown up to the size of an airbus and would already be winging its way across the Atlantic for its debut in Times Square.

Quietly Leon extracted himself from the bed sheets and parted the blinds. The French capital was spread before him, the glossy River Seine and the glinting Eiffel Tower, in the bronzed early morning like a jewel city. Imposed against its skyline was his own reflection: dark hair, almond skin, green eyes that had stared down a legion of opponents…except one.

The tyrant he couldn’t defeat, the rival he hated: Jax ‘The Bullet’ Jackson.

Swiftly Leon showered and dressed. As far as he was concerned, Rio couldn’t come around soon enough. Bring on the competition—because next time, he would win.

He packed his belongings, checking his phone for a missed call or a voicemail. Nothing. Robin would have received the flowers by now: he had put his digits on the back of the card and wondered if she’d make the move. Leon couldn’t get her out of his head, ever since they’d met—since before they had met, if he were truthful, because he’d noticed her in the press, admired her from afar, and when he’d been offered the spot on The Launch he had taken it partly as a way to meet her. He could never have guessed that their first encounter would be quite so memorable.

Robin wasn’t his usual type, if he had one, but then she wasn’t his usual anything because she wasn’t at all…usual. He kept replaying that initial face-to-face (though he could think of other ways to describe it); the VIP room he’d been told was empty, the glimpse of Robin’s smooth back, the delicate, bare shoulder, and the curve of her waist beneath the hastily pulled-on shirt. She thought he’d seen more but he hadn’t—honestly he had been as embarrassed as she, and had tried to make light of it but instead it had backfired. How Leon wished he could go back to that night and play it differently. Robin was sexy and feisty and rude and wilful and she fascinated him. Was it the attitude that came off so brutal, yet in a dropped gaze betrayed her fragility? Was it the big fringe, beneath which shone those huge, careful eyes? Was it the way he had seen her laughing with her friends before she’d come over in the club, a generous smile that he suspected she saved for people she loved? He had to see her again. They had to start over.

‘Hey.’ Leon woke the girl, brushing her hairline with his thumb. ‘I gotta split.’

She smiled. ‘Is it too much to ask for a second date?’

‘Never say never.’

‘Last night was incroyable. So was this morning.’

He kissed her.

She tried to pull him back but he resisted. There were things he had to get home to; people who needed him. He made for the door.

This is a long game, his coach always said. Never lose focus.

Leon didn’t intend to. It was time.

Los Angeles: back to the streets where he grew up. Back to where it began.




8


Kristin flew with Fraternity to Tokyo. The boys were running a PR tour for their new album and that meant she and Scotty were being separated for long periods of time. She liked to come along where she could, and luckily the trip fell on an opening in her schedule.

Asian fans were like none other in the world. She knew this from her own forays into the East, but that was nothing compared with the frenzy that the boys incited. The instant they exited the jet a crush of groupies descended, brandishing their camera phones and howling their exaltations. A vast number were wearing Fraternity baseball caps, a different colour for each band member. There was red for Joey, the cute one; green for Doug, the indie one; purple for Luke, the one who could play guitar; yellow for Brett, the one with the best six-pack…and blue for blue-eyed Scotty. Most of the caps were blue.

As the band was ushered through Arrivals, Kristin saw this was only the start of the Fraternity merchandise. Scotty Valentine bum bags adorned the crowd. Scotty dolls were waved manically in the air. Scotty key rings hung from Scotty wallets as the writhing masses clamoured for autographs with Scotty pens. Faces were painted with love hearts accompanied by Scotty’s name. T-shirts with the band splashed across them were worn by every schoolgirl, some lifted and tied in a knot to show off a smooth pale belly, the navel pierced. There was enough Fraternity merchandise in Narita Airport alone to sink a tanker.

They were performing at the Tokyo Dome. Kristin was in the VIP section and looked on as the boys opened with ‘I Dig U’, sending the fans into paroxysms, especially when Scotty came forward to kneel to the crowd and croon the bridge: ‘Girl, I’ve been waiting my whole life to find you, now let me put my arms around you and hold you tight, oh, baby, right through the night…’ The fans were screaming so much that Kristin was surprised they could hear the music over the top. But the show was slickly rehearsed and she was impressed at the boys’ flawless dance moves and ability to harmonise while their heart rate had to be spinning through the roof. Towards the finale Brett and Doug took their tops off. This was impromptu and drove the arena wild, with one girl falling into a seizure and having to be lifted over the barriers to safety. Teenagers clasped each other, wailing and snotting and crying, reaching out desperately to touch their heroes. When the rest of the guys followed suit, Scotty included, revealing their chiselled pecs and golden tans (she suspected at least three of them waxed—Scotty did, at least), Kristin thought the crowd might evaporate in a puff of smoke. Fortunately the encore was forthcoming and minutes later they were whisked offstage.

‘Superstars, every last one of you!’

The man who had put Fraternity together was waiting with congratulations. Fenton Fear, the fabled label owner and moneymaker, had been responsible for a glut of staggeringly successful pop groups over the last twenty years, each one manufactured by his own fair hand. Tagged ‘King of the Charts’ for his seemingly failsafe formula for securing a hit, with Fraternity he had hit on his biggest jackpot yet.

Fenton embraced all his boys heartily and graciously kissed Kristin hello. At forty-something he was a good-looking older man with a thick head of sandy hair and a moustache that tickled Kristin’s cheek. She had always liked Fenton; he was a rock-solid businessman with a kind, receptive ear to his clients’ wants and needs. Moreover he seemed to genuinely care about the boys, especially Scotty, so they already had that in common.

‘I need a shag after that,’ pronounced Luke. ‘Someone sort me out?’

‘No such luck,’ answered Fenton disapprovingly. ‘Press conference downtown in half an hour, get showered and get going.’

‘Serious?’ There was a smatter of grumbling as the boys wiped their torsos down with a towel. Kristin went to cuddle Scotty and he gave her a brief, limp hug.

‘When aren’t I?’ challenged Fenton. ‘Let’s rock it.’

‘I might head back to the hotel…’ said Kristin, squeezing Scotty’s hand as the rest of the group trailed after Fenton. She waited for him to object.

‘Sure,’ said Scotty non-committedly, already chasing in their wake. ‘Later.’

Kristin took a car to the Mandarin Oriental. She felt uneasy about Scotty’s behaviour. Ever since that day he’d tried to have sex with her back in LA. Was he embarrassed? Had he gone off her? But he had to still be interested if he wanted to do that…didn’t he?

On the drive she received a message from Bunny. Her heart lifted. She’d been loath to leave her sister with Ramona—their mother’s pageant obsession was spiralling out of control—but had promised Bunny that when she and Scotty were back they’d take her out, anywhere she liked, to do things that normal thirteen-year-old girls did: not tottering about in high heels while a sweaty middle-aged man appraised her chest-to-leg ratio.

Can’t wait 4u to come home


Scotty OK?

She tapped back:

Guys fine. Big sell-out gig, you’d have loved.

Won’t be long now. C u soon


xx

Bunny was forever asking after Scotty. Kristin liked that her two favourite people got on so well. She remembered her own enchantments at thirteen—being so young you could never hope to disguise how you felt, no matter how many blushes you thought you hid.

Even so, Scotty had been alarmed when they had gone into Bunny’s room one day and he’d seen the pictures of him strewn from wall to wall. Kristin had been searching for a bracelet her sister had borrowed and he had followed her in.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he’d demanded, disturbed. ‘A fucking shrine or something?’ Scotty had never used to be so easily riled, or used such bad language. Since they’d got together he’d become so…ratty.

Kristin had found what she’d come looking for. ‘She’s only a kid, Scott,’ she’d told him, closing the door softly behind her. On it was a sign that read STRICTLY NO ENTRY!

‘Don’t you think it’s messed up?’

‘Not really. She’s one of about a trillion so you’d better get used to it.’

He’d shuddered. ‘Girls are weird.’

Kristin remembered his words as they pulled up outside the hotel. A doorman helped her with her bags and within minutes she was safely ensconced in her suite, where she ran hot water and salts into a roll-top bath. Sitting on its edge and guiding her hand through the steaming, fragrant water, she decided to try not to think about Scotty. Just for tonight.

When Scotty Valentine was a boy, he had never imagined he would be waking up at twenty-two with a multi-million-selling album to his name and more wealth and fame than he’d thought possible. Spending his formative years in The Happy Hippo Club had groomed him for a life of entertainment, but he couldn’t have expected anything remotely on this scale.

On his sixteenth birthday the record execs had come knocking. Kristin had already been signed to her label, so had a couple of the other guys, and the pressure was on to get selected. Producer Fenton Fear had been among them, casting through the assembled boys like an emperor through his minions. He had been assembling a band, already had four in the bag…but who would be his missing link? Scotty had auditioned on the spot, posing for a variety of modelling shots, in one of which he’d had to pout in a too-big tuxedo and clutch a bad-tempered rabbit that kept nipping his fingers. ‘Can you sing?’ Fenton had asked, with an expression that implied it didn’t matter if he could or not. But Scotty had surprised everyone: he possessed a rich if inconsistent tone that could be worked upon, and that same tone would soon overtake the other band members and cement his place as lead vocalist in Fraternity.

In a matter of hours Scotty had been settled on: the sublime addition that completed Fenton’s picture. ‘You’re it,’ Fenton had said, as Scotty basked in the sunshine of his praise, enjoying the lunches Fenton took him on to discuss their world domination plan, the lavish spa treatments whenever Scotty needed some down-time, the city breaks Fenton paid for when a change of scene was in order. ‘You’re the most perfect creature I’ve ever seen.’

Now, at a press conference at the Tokyo Grand Hyatt, only half listening as Luke took the first of the questions, Scotty felt insanely insecure. He craved those early days when he had been the apple of Fenton’s eye. Fenton had barely glanced at him all afternoon. On the flight from LA he had chatted with the others, ignoring him, and had barely caught him for a word even after the explosive success of their show. What had changed?

He knew what. It was that Kristin had insisted on tagging along. Scotty had told her no but she’d gone on and on, and in the end he had been forced to capitulate. How could he not? There was no way he could arouse suspicion, especially after the other week’s disastrous sexual episode. The fact was he didn’t want to make love with Kristin. He’d never wanted to make love with her. When he saw her body, he was cold—and she knew it. There was only so long he could stall the process before she started asking the questions that mattered.

Fenton needed time together; Scotty got that. He needed it, too. Tokyo had been the perfect opportunity to release their urges, and then Kristin had ruined it all.

‘Would you say that success has strengthened your friendships or challenged them?’ A journalist stood to deliver the question, holding out her Dictaphone.

‘Aw, we’re all buddies!’ Doug enthused. ‘It’s another family, we’re just like brothers, so, yeah, some days we fall out, but nothing serious…’ He jostled with the others. Scotty made a good fist of joining in but it took every ounce of will he had.

It was such a mess. The label was to blame, deciding that Scotty and Kristin would make the perfect couple, and who cared if Scotty actually wanted to or not? Kristin was like his sister, he felt nothing sexual for her whatsoever, and, while they had shared history and of course he was fond of the girl, that was strictly as far as it went.

Fenton had broken off their secret affair in accordance. If the matter were ever discovered there would be outrage, and four traumatised band members and an army of hysterical teenage girls would be the least of their worries…for Fenton had signed Scotty when he was sixteen, and the industry wasn’t to know that they hadn’t begun sleeping together until two years later. That spelled interference with a minor. But Scotty knew it was more than that. Fenton thought that Kristin would turn him, that after everything he’d wind up finding happiness with a woman. Scotty had asked himself the same. Who knew, maybe if he liked girls after all, wouldn’t that be so much easier? But he didn’t. He never would.

And he hadn’t got over Fenton. He would never get over Fenton. He was in love. The snatched nights they shared, so few and far between, were the hours he lived for. Several times Scotty had suggested they jack it in, Fraternity, their careers, and run away, but Fenton couldn’t. Scotty had his whole life ahead of him, he said: what was he doing anyway with a forty-three-year-old man with a gut and a reliance on hair plugs? Scotty was beautiful, Scotty was his angel, and sooner or later Scotty would wise up and move on. He knew that was how Fenton saw it, and however many times he reassured the man that it was him he wanted, hair plugs and all, insecurity and self-loathing eternally got in the way.

Worse was the fact that Fenton refused to let him split from Kristin. You need a girlfriend, Scotty. I don’t have a wife. Don’t get caught up in that rumour mill…

‘We’ll take a question from the back,’ directed Fenton from his chair at the side of the panel. ‘The woman in the grey jacket, please.’

‘Scotty, I’d love to know: is there a wedding on the cards for you and Kristin?’

Scotty was so deep into his thoughts about Fenton that the rehearsed response failed to trip off his tongue. ‘Er,’ he stalled. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

The woman seized on it. ‘Trouble in paradise?’

‘No, we’re very much together.’ Pull it back, Scotty, you’re good at this. ‘We’re both so busy at the moment, but that doesn’t change the fact we’re totally in love. Who knows, maybe some time next year.’ He flashed the Valentine grin. ‘If she’ll have me!’

Everyone laughed, and Scotty with them. Nobody saw the fleeting glance he threw Fenton’s way, so brief it was hardly there, a promise that he hadn’t meant it, that it was Fenton he adored and craved and it always would be. But Fenton didn’t look back.




9


Turquoise hit London for a charity gig. Hyde Park was teeming with crowds, the festival spirit so indigenous to this country, as girls in torn vests perched with sunburned shoulders on their boyfriends, waving plastic pints under a warm autumn sky. Balloons were released into the air along with the heady smell of pot. Nearer the front the fans were younger, bright-eyed and awestruck, holding aloft banners that rippled in the light breeze.

TURQUOISE IS MY IDOL. I HEART KATY. ROBIN RYDER ALWAYS.

Her set flew. New single ‘Wild Girl’ was an uncontested hit. Turquoise ran an extended version and by the end was throwing the mic to the audience, getting their arms in the air and waving along so the throng of gold shook before her like a field of corn. Cameras flashed as she powered to the bass, her silver catsuit teamed spectacularly with her whipping stream of hair and impressive five-inch heels that miraculously she managed to dance in.

One thing Turquoise had nailed beyond reproach was stage presence. It didn’t matter if her arena was a hundred or a hundred thousand, she unleashed fury and energy on her routines that was unrivalled by anyone else in the business. Undisputed mistress of bringing a crowd together, she infused every show with a sense of togetherness and shared purpose that had them rallying for more, but matched this with an illusion of intimacy, as if she were performing for each person individually and giving them their own experience to cherish.

Six sequences weren’t enough and so as encore she performed a ballad, her first number one on both sides of the Atlantic. It was called ‘The Best of Me’ and proved why Turquoise deserved every ounce of her mega celebrity. She wasn’t just a killer performer or someone who could hold a tune; she could sing, in a way that demanded quiet from her listeners, the same seductive still that settled every time it was just her and a microphone and a voice, no frills, no extras. She didn’t need it. To anyone who believed that commercial success couldn’t be married with honest, inherent talent, it was the only response she needed.

‘Nights I still think of the pain you put me through; never gonna know what it took to forget you…’ Turquoise would always be fond of the song, it had been her revolution and the birth of her star, but it was too close to home to ever be easy. Perhaps that was what had made it special. People recognised the sentiment and identified it with their own lives, taking it to their hearts and making it one of the biggest-selling singles of the noughties. She lived on the principle that it wasn’t possible to write a good song unless there was a piece of you in it, unless you had given something in exchange. But anger was a more straightforward emotion to represent—passion, rage, uprising; all the sentiments that powered her dance tracks.

Sadness, regret…guilt. Those were the hard ones to bear.

Afterwards, Robin Ryder took the stage. Turquoise liked Robin’s style; the girl had swagger and wasn’t afraid to use it. ‘Lesson Learned’ was a catchy, urban record overlaid with Ryder’s trademark London chorus. Turquoise felt fortunate to be working at a time when there was such exciting talent pushing through the industry.

‘You did a great job out there.’ She introduced herself once Robin’s set was done.

‘Thanks. Compared with you, it was average, I’m sure.’ With candour, Robin added: ‘I’m a bit star-struck.’ She smiled. ‘It was you and Slink Bullion that made me want to do this. You both got me through a tough time in my life.’

Turquoise was humbled. ‘You know Slink?’

‘No,’ Robin admitted, ‘but we’re in talks to team up.’

‘Between you and me, Puff City aren’t the easiest crew to work with.’

‘Oh?’

‘Can I grab you for a moment?’ Turquoise’s manager intervened.

‘Are you staying in town?’ asked Robin.

‘Just a flying visit.’

‘I’m in LA next month. Shall we make a date?’

‘I’d like that.’ They kissed on both cheeks before Turquoise was pulled away. ‘I’ll have my assistant get in touch.’

Turquoise’s manager was a woman called Donna Cameron. She was Australia-born but hadn’t been back in twenty years because when she did ‘life stood still’. Her books were notoriously sparse: she represented just a handful of clients, all of them major.

‘You hungry?’ Donna asked.

‘Not especially.’

‘OK. We’ll do drinks, then. Nobu?’

‘Who with?’ Turquoise was tired and had been looking forward to an early night. Her return flight to LA left at dawn.

Donna smiled with controlled pleasure. ‘Sam Lucas,’ she revealed, tagging the famous movie director. ‘He wants to cast you in his new project. He doesn’t care what it takes, he says, it has to be you. Turquoise, this is the golden opportunity.’

It was. They had been talking about a move to the big screen since last year. Turquoise had reached the pinnacle of success in her music and now there was nowhere to go but sideways, expanding her empire and building on the fan base she already had.

‘It’s the right project?’ Her heart ached with pride when she thought of Emaline, how they had watched their old movies in the fading afternoon and dreamed of Hollywood.

That’s going to be you one day. My little star…

‘Sam and his group are in London,’ said Donna. ‘He can give us the script tonight. From what I’ve been told, it’s tailor-made. This is a classic empowerment story and you’re the one to tell it. It’s going to appeal across the board. It’s a big budget production and they’ve got some huge names attached. Cosmo Angel, for one.’

Turquoise froze. Her mouth went dry.

‘Tell me about it,’ commented Donna. ‘If I wasn’t twice divorced I’d seriously consider marrying the guy. If he wasn’t with Ava, of course.’ She winked.

‘Cosmo’s in the movie?’ She could barely stand to say his name.

Donna shot her a quizzical look, perplexed that at her stage in the game Turquoise should get misty-eyed about even the biggest hitters on the A-list.

‘He’s your love interest.’

She couldn’t do it. There was no way.

‘It doesn’t sound like a role he’d want to sign.’ Turquoise tried to imagine Cosmo as a man subjugated by a woman, and couldn’t. He would always be the victor.

‘Is everything all right?’ Donna was concerned. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

Turquoise opened her mouth to respond. No words came. How could she begin to explain? Where would she start?

‘I don’t know if it’s the best thing for me right now,’ she offered weakly, thinking only, I have to get out of this; I have to get out of this.

‘But we’ve cleared it.’ Donna was trying to understand. ‘We’ve talked this through before, Turquoise. Hollywood has always been on the cards, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes. But…’

‘At least come meet Sam, see what they have to say?’ She gave Turquoise’s arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘I know you’re tired,’ she said kindly. ‘You’ve been working all hours; it’s no wonder you’re finding it tough to summon enthusiasm for a new project. Let’s ride out tonight. Once we have the facts we can make an informed call. Sound all right?’

Turquoise found herself nodding. There was nothing else she could do. ‘Fine.’

She would figure it out. She had to figure it out. Because one thing was certain: she was never going near Cosmo Angel again as long as she lived.

Grace Turquoise da Luca should never have said yes to the ride. If she hadn’t, she might have had a different fate. She might have perished on the road, just lain down and waited for dreams to take her, or surrendered to delirium and stumbled out in front of a truck. Or she might have made it to the next town and found help. She might have been rescued. She might have got into a car with anyone else but Denny Malone.

Denny was twenty-three and had a haggard, drug-addled face that made him look ten years older. His had been a tough life and he had the livid white scars on his arms to prove it.

They arrived in Denny’s home city early morning. Grace drifted in and out of sleep, startled awake then shivering back to oblivion. Denny had an apartment and he told her to shower. He didn’t offer her a phone call, but then whom would she have rung?

‘Can I have some clothes, please?’ she asked, trembling cold and wrapped in a towel.

‘Lemme get a look at you first.’ Denny was on the couch, smoking. He narrowed his eyes and flashed her that smile. ‘Drop it.’

Grace Turquoise wished she had never become a woman. She wished she had never found the blood in her knickers, because it meant she had to do things she didn’t want.

‘Bit thin,’ he diagnosed when she was stripped. ‘Good tits though.’ He told her to come over and roughly he claspedher ass, patting it when he was done like a piece of meat. ‘We’ll give you a couple of months then you’re ready to go.’

Ready to go where? She didn’t know. She was scared.

Six weeks later, she was getting sick. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Denny demanded. ‘You ain’t knocked up or something?’ He took her to a friend of his who worked out of a backstreet surgery. There, the man prodded her insides with coarse, long fingers that hurt when they went all the way up. She wept and bled, and bled and wept, and prayed a miracle would happen and Emaline would appear next to her, holding her hand and kissing her head like she used to do when there was a thunderstorm and she woke from a nightmare.

Now, there was no waking up.

The abortion set back Denny’s plan, but two months later, after her fifteenth birthday, Grace Turquoise was sent to her first client. He was a bald, overweight businessman with a lust for young girls, and as he ordered Grace to undress, drooling with anticipation and sucking wetly at her nipples, she closed her mind and body to everything except the house where she grew up, the rustling palms and the ocean breeze, Emaline and her lime cordial and all the songs they used to sing. When the man pummelled into her, just as the pastor had done that horrifying night, Grace accepted that this was the world. This was what men did.

Denny was pleased with the twenty dollars she produced. He kept it all and said that next time, if she did another good job, he’d let her take a piece.

Her next call-out was a young guy, in his twenties, who wanted to watch her play with herself. She hadn’t done that before and had to be shown how. Then he crouched over herand dangled his thing in her mouth. That was worse than the pummelling and cost him thirty dollars, which Denny kept all over again.

‘I don’t want to do it any more,’ she told him. ‘Please don’t make me.’

Denny was counting out a stack of cash. She’d seen other girls at the apartment, sent to do the same things. They were older than Grace and she didn’t want to end up like them. ‘You wanna hit the streets, go right ahead,’ he growled. ‘Ain’t no easy ride out there.’

One of the girls, Cookie—‘not my real name, honey, but then whose is?’—was sent out with her one night. A twitchy Vietnamese man met them at his hotel room and tugged his penis while he watched them make out. Cookie made her swallow two tiny pills that made everything fuzzy and not so bad, even when the man had sex with them both, one then the other then Grace again until he spurted all over her, and afterwards Cookie hugged her and told her to forget, not to worry, because it was just a job and you had to leave it at the door.

They were a popular duo. Denny was raking it in. He’d started giving Grace a percentage of her earnings, enough to buy food. Grace preferred doing things with Cookie because she was gentle, and sometimes when Cookie kissed her down there she got a tingle that made her lift her back and forget for a second that there was anyone else in the room.

‘Call this number,’ Cookie instructed her the day she turned seventeen. ‘They specialise in girls your age. Get shot of Denny, he’s a bad lot.’

Grace did as she was told. She spoke to Madam Babydollon Cookie’s phone, sent her photograph and a week later was packing her scant belongings and catching an overnight bus to Los Angeles. She felt nothing about leaving Denny. She hated him.

Madam Babydoll ran a different ship. She employed sixteen carefully selected girls and housed each in her mansion in the hills. Grace couldn’t take in the world she had entered. It was dazzling with sunshine and promise. This was where people went to make their dreams come true. Was she leaving her nightmare at last?

Not quite. Madam Babydoll provided under-eighteen girls to a moderate rank of Hollywood star. Lily Rose, a sugary-pretty Californian with a deep golden tan, explained to Grace how important it was to make a good impression, because you never knew who was going to strike it big one day. Grace couldn’t work out why Lily Rose was here because she had a family in LA and she dressed smart and spoke nice.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked her once. Lily Rose shrugged. She’d just returned from an encounter with an up-and-coming producer. ‘I could go home if I wanted,’ she mused, ‘but this is way more fun. Some day I’m gonna be an actress, just you watch. The way I see it, it’s an opportunity to get noticed. My clients never forget who I am.’

The clients were cleaner and richer than Denny’s, but they didn’t treat her with any more respect. She came to learn that actors were the worst. They were preoccupied with seeing themselves, whether it was having her against a mirror or recording an encounter to watch afterwards—Madam Babydoll permitted this only if her girl could verify its deletion—while Grace sucked and licked till they came. They wanted her to worship their bodies, and, while it was preferable to having her own attacked, the younger and more virile could take hours and she often left sore and stiff, forced to wait days before she could work again.

Others had perversions. The older ones, mostly, who were married or had kids and wanted her to dress as a schoolgirl; or who wanted to dress up themselves and be held. Some brought wives and she’d play with them both. But Madam Babydoll paid out sixty per cent of every cheque, and soon Grace Turquoise had several thousand in the bank—enough to quit, if she’d wanted, but she didn’t know what else she’d do. Over four years she had seen it all. She’d had sex with countless men and women and had learned to view the ordeal as simply her trade, her talent, the thing she had been trained to do. She hadn’t sung a note in years.

It was a Friday in June when Madam Babydoll told her she had a ‘very special’ client to visit. The girls were envious. Was it someone important, someone famous?

She was instructed to wear a black coat with nothing underneath except a lace thong. As Grace Turquoise headed to the rendezvous, hair immaculate and lips perfectly glossed, the professional that Denny Malone had groomed and Ivan Garrick before him, she could never have imagined who would be waiting for her, or what he would ask her to do.




10


Robin’s Beginnings tour was to be her first foray into America. She hadn’t realised the extent of what her team had planned until she sat in on a meeting at Barney’s Kensington office.

‘This is the stage set.’ A Perspex model was deposited on the table in front of her, over which the show’s art director peered for her reaction over steel-rimmed glasses.

‘Wow.’ It was the only word that sprang to mind. The stage backdrop was ink-black save for a white imprint of Robin’s face, just the silhouetted contours, the line of her brow, nose and lips—and of course the hallmark fringe. A glass birdcage hovered over winding silver steps. Metallic moving platforms extended to the audience. It was stylish to the max.

‘You like?’

‘I love.’

‘We open with “Told You So”,’ explained the director. ‘Spotlight, then bam! You’re up in the cage. Fade to black and in a blink you’re down on the boards, free as a bird. Magic.’

‘How do I get there?’

‘Let us worry about that.’ He gestured to the flanks of the model. ‘This is your series of pulleys and platforms; it’s the oldest trick there is. All you need to be is in the right place at the right time—oh, and be happy to get thrown about like a pinball.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

Drummer Matt leaned back and put his hands behind his head. ‘Seriously, you’re gonna recreate this at every single venue?’

‘Sure we are,’ said Barney. ‘All this, it’s the point of Robin’s show. The whole outlook: style, sex, a let’s-see-what-you’ve-got-then stance…’

The tour was to kick off at the start of next year. They were covering multiple sites across North America, major arenas she had never imagined filling but incredibly tickets were shifting and one had sold out in hours. Her success over the Atlantic had been thanks to a recent US version of The Launch, which had sparked interest in its British counterpart. Word of mouth had taken her the rest of the way; an underground rumble that began via YouTube and in an overnight surge had fans addicted to her tunes. Her album Beginnings had been released at a time when the Billboard 100 had been saturated with manufactured groups (boy band Fraternity had held the number one spot for eleven weeks) and had offered a welcome contrast. There was no one quite like Robin Ryder. She was quintessentially British but at the same time identifiable to and representative of females worldwide.

‘Did you hear about Puff City and the US track team?’ Polly asked when they were done. The women grabbed a coffee in the canteen.

‘No.’ In spite of herself Robin’s tummy flipped at the connection to Leon Sway. Why? He was nothing to her. ‘What about them?’

‘Jax Jackson wants to release a single.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘I know. My bet is he was laughed out of town before someone with half a brain realised they could make a charity gig out of it. Anyhow it’s going ahead.’

‘With Puff City?’ She was agape.

‘Yeah. You should ask them about it at your meet. Anti gun crime or something? Jax wanted to go it alone but he’s been forced to rope in the rest of the team.’ Polly rummaged in her purse for red lipstick. ‘I wish you could smoke in here.’

‘I’m surprised they said yes. Isn’t Jax a bit of a dick?’

‘He’s a lot of a dick,’ said Polly. ‘But, honey, Jax and the guys are in demand. And if they’ve got a cause attached to it then, well, who’s going to be able to say no?’

It would certainly give Leon the screw he was so obviously after, Robin thought. Not that he would be short of offers, sending bunches of hackneyed flowers all over town and relying on his looks to make up the rest. She had seen in the Metro that he’d returned to LA. He probably had seventeen girlfriends queuing up at home that he couldn’t wait to get back to, not to mention The Waltons family set-up.

‘D’you know what? I’d rather talk about the tour.’

Polly nodded. ‘Nervous?’

‘Nah.’ Robin grinned. ‘Not my style. Far as I’m concerned, they can bring it.’

Later that afternoon she returned to her flat, electing to walk because being cooped up in Barney’s HQ all day had made her feel foggy, and she had a song that had been niggling her for ages that she wanted to get on paper before sunset.

All the way back she had the sensation of being followed. It was hard to pinpoint, an instinct she would subsequently put down to imagination, or a weary mind playing tricks, but every corner Robin turned, every street she crossed, she was conscious of footsteps trailing behind. Normally she avoided taking a route through the super-busy heart of the borough, instead cutting across a quieter park, but not today. She moved swiftly through the hordes of people, anonymous in the swarming masses, and must have managed to lose her tracker—if they were even there in the first place—because by the time she arrived home, she was alone.




11


Leon landed at LAX to a feverish reception. Paparazzi were jostling over the barriers for a clean shot, lights flashing and cracking and his name repeated so many times it lost its beginning and end. ‘Leon! Leon! Leon!’ He had hoped to fly back quietly and avoid the uproar, but no such luck. Something told him he had better get used to it.

‘How is it being back in LA?’ reporters demanded. ‘What have you got to say to Jax Jackson? Can you defeat him at the 2013 Champs?’ Microphones lunged and he had to shield his eyes from the glare. A woman got past the rope and clung to his shoulders, and before he could do anything to stop it she planted a kiss on his mouth.

‘Step away, ma’am.’ Airport security dragged her off.

Leon had been thrust into the realms of the super-famous and now it seemed like everyone wanted a piece. Being on home ground meant the hype was ready to hit new heights, beginning with this hare-brained idea of Jax’s to record a single. Frankly Leon found it embarrassing. How could he say no when it was for charity? He couldn’t be the only one who turned his back, especially when it was supposedly making a stand against gun crime.

Jax wanted stardom, that was the distinction between them, and The Bullet didn’t care how he got it. For Leon, it was different. He trained, he ran and he focused. Yet his first steps back on American soil and he was being treated like a movie star. He’d never got into it for celebrity; he didn’t care about that. He ran to win.

‘Do you think you’ll ever beat him?’

Leon stopped. ‘Sure, I’ll beat him. This isn’t the final score.’

‘Is The Bullet impossible to outrun?’

‘Nothing’s impossible.’ An image of Jax’s trademark gold vest clouded Leon’s vision. Emblazoned on its back was the tip of a bullet in flight. ‘When you’re at the top, the only way is down. Jax is on borrowed time. I’m the one to watch.’

The Compton house where Leon grew up was like any other on the street, a grey one-storey villa protected behind a barred steel gate. Out front was a yard—his mom kept it nice as she could but the grass was tired and yellowing and a football lay part deflated by the trash. There was nothing remarkable about the place, nothing to suggest it had once been the scene of a brutal crime, but scratch the surface and the scars were there. They said that the years would heal, but each time Leon returned it ached as deeply as it had twelve years ago.

Paint was flaking off the gate, the catch stiff. If only they would let him buy them someplace else, his mom and sister, but they refused. Memories were all they had left.

A couple of kids rode past on their bikes. Leon turned, dipping his cap so he didn’t get recognised, but even so they circled a few times at the end of the street.

‘You’re Leon Sway, right?’ one of them asked. ‘No way, this is dope! My mom said you used to live round here!’

‘Tell your mom I said hi.’

‘No shit, I will. You hanging for a while?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You’re the coolest, man. How’d you get to be so fast?’

‘Practice. Discipline.’

‘Doesn’t it get boring?’

‘Never.’

‘If you raced a bike who’d win?’

‘Me.’

‘If you raced a car who’d win?’

‘Me.’

‘If you raced a lion who’d win?’

‘Me.’

The kid laughed uncertainly. ‘You’re funny.’

‘See you around.’

The boys rode off. The one who’d spoken did a wheelie and thumped the arm of the other kid, calling him a wuss for staying quiet.

Leon put his key in the lock, stopping to ready himself against the ghosts of the past. In another life Marlon would be on the other side, his arms wide open.

Hey, little bro. Want to shoot some hoops?

But it was this life that counted. And his brother wasn’t here any more.

Marlon Sway had been nineteen when he’d died. As one of the most promising athletes on the circuit, he had been destined for greatness, the Sydney Games locked in his sights. He’d been returning from the club one night when a street fight had broken out. Somehow he had got mixed up…a gang conflict spun out of control…a stray bullet…a wrong place, wrong time…Perhaps he had tried to intervene, ever the peacemaker, but wasn’t that worse? He had been caught in the crossfire. Marlon had staggered home with a punctured lung. Yards from his front door, he had collapsed on the road and his heart had stopped beating.

It had been twelve years and still Leon couldn’t pick at the scab, afraid it would bleed as easily as it had when the wound was first made.

He remembered it as if it were yesterday. A deafening sound that split the world in two; the unmistakeable crack of ammo tearing the sky. Instinct had compelled him to run from their home, out on to the street, a feeling in his gut that this was bad. He hadn’t known what it was to run until that moment. Time had fallen away quicker than water as his brother’s body, slumped and lifeless, had lurched closer. Be faster…be faster…

Each and every race he ran, in Tucson, in London, in Athens, in whatever competition and wherever it was, he was there, on that rainy night in Compton when his brother was lost. The splinter of the starting pistol was all he needed. Instead of the line, he’d see Marlon. He’d hear his mom screaming, a violent, feral sound. His brother’s eyes, empty. Marlon hadn’t looked asleep, he hadn’t looked peaceful; none of the things people said were true.

If I’d been quicker, I could have beaten this. I could have stopped it.

It was the need to always be faster, to make it in time that powered Leon’s sprint from that day and in all the days to come. For as long as he came in second, he wasn’t fast enough. He was too late. He was tormented by the idea that had he reached Marlon sooner there could have been a chance at life, a flickering ember he could have roused…

Or at least to have been there when his brother died, so that he hadn’t been alone.

Before he turned the key to his family home, Leon rested his forehead against the door. Twelve years, and it might as well be twelve days. Closing his eyes, he let the memory settle, waiting for it to scatter like light on water. He missed his brother so much.

Marlon was the reason he ran. For him he would run and run until he couldn’t run any more, he would run till his heart gave up and his strength gave in. That was his destiny.

If anyone stood in his way, they would be taken down. Jax Jackson included.

‘Leon, honey, is that you?’

The door clicked open and his mother emerged from the kitchen.

‘Hello, Ma,’ he said, squeezing her tight. ‘I’m home.’




12


‘Gorgeous.’ The photographer clicked away as a stylist rushed to adjust the hem of Kristin’s gown. ‘And lift your arms one more time? That’s it! Beautiful.’

She was shooting cover art for her new album, Heaven, which involved being suspended from the rafters of a studio warehouse with stirrups digging in under her arms. A shimmering halo was bolted to the back of her head and the robes had to be twenty feet long at least, pooling to the floor in swathes of frosted ivory that were meant to look celestially sylphlike but were in fact dragging her down like a lead anchor.

So this was what it felt like being an angel for the afternoon…uncomfortable.

‘Smile, then, Kristin!’ her mother barked from the floor.

‘I am.’

‘Not from where we’re sitting.’ Ramona White was cross-legged at the wardrobe girl’s table, busy applying lipstick. ‘Think of the fans. Do you think they want to see you looking miserable? You’re selling a lifestyle, remember, not just a handful of ditties.’

Kristin hated when her mother insisted on coming to shoots and interviews and anything else she was perfectly capable of handling alone. She’d been years in the industry now and didn’t need Ramona to hold her hand. It was humiliating; it undermined her reputation and made her appear weak and unable to make decisions, hauling Mommy along to look out for her. Doubly challenging when her mother insisted on criticising everything she did, which made Kristin invariably revert to the role of frustrated teenager storming off and slamming her bedroom door. For the sake of today, she bit her tongue.

‘Almost done,’ the photographer lied. Kristin knew it would be an hour at least before she could be brought back to earth and the stills hit the can. ‘Everything OK up there?’

She was determined to retain her professionalism despite her mother’s carping. ‘Fine.’

‘If we could have you gazing up, eyes nice and wide, that’s it…Let’s try one with hands together, in prayer…Loving it, sweetheart, that’s awesome…’

‘I don’t like it,’ snapped Ramona. ‘She looks too whimsical.’

‘That’s what we’re going for, Mrs White.’

‘It’s Mz.’

‘Sure.’

‘What about those poor kids, saving up their allowance to spend on this? They want to see friendly big-sister Kristin, don’t they? Not some scowling pre-Raphaelite.’

‘Kristin’s fan base is growing and we should grow with them.’

Ramona’s mouth set in a grim line. Kristin could practically hear the thoughts turning over in her head. I’ve been doing this since the beginning, you moronic upstart. I created Kristin White and everything she is, every dime she’s made and every record she’s sold. Your fucking paycheck today comes down to me! But her mother stayed quiet.

‘Kristin, what do you think?’ asked the photographer, attempting diplomacy.

‘I’m happy with this approach.’

‘Then look it!’ crowed Ramona. The camera popped as Kristin fired a scowl in her mother’s direction. She couldn’t win. It was about control and always had been: the outcome was less important than the means used to reach it, and as long as Ramona had the last word and the final approval, she was content to proceed. Bunny abided by the same rules. Her sister was currently curled on a beanbag by the props closet, tapping away on her cell phone. She had a competition tonight, the last before the Mini Miss Marvellous rounds began, and according to Ramona could risk nothing in the run-up to ‘the ultimate pageant of all time’. Kristin wished she could take Bunny to the movies, or bowling, or a trip to the mall where they could get milkshakes and whisper behind their hands about boys—normal things that normal sisters did. Bunny was fourteen in two weeks’ time and was being made to dress and act like a forty-year-old. When would Ramona let up? Never?

Kristin’s eyes brimmed with tears. As far back as she could think her life had been about pleasing Ramona, doing what Ramona wanted to do and when, and her opinion didn’t matter at all. Just like now.

‘I want her facing us,’ concluded Ramona, ‘with her arms stretched wide. It’s much more inclusive.’ She resumed attending to important business on her BlackBerry.

The photographer acquiesced. As Kristin’s manager, her mother’s word was law. He smiled at Kristin somewhat sympathetically, making her want to burst into tears even more.

‘OK,’ he resumed. ‘Let’s try that out.’

Ninety minutes later the shoot was over. Bunny had fallen asleep and had to be shaken awake by Ramona because the competition was across town and they were yet to get her through make-up. Kristin checked her cell for a message from Scotty and was disappointed not to find one. Since returning from Tokyo they hadn’t been able to see much of each other. She missed him. She couldn’t explain it, but he seemed to be growing distant.

Was there someone else? There couldn’t be: aside from anything else, where would Scotty find the time? Every waking hour he spent either with her or with Fenton and the boys.

‘Go get ‘em, kiddo.’ She managed to give Bunny a fleeting hug before Ramona yanked her youngest daughter out the door. At least this meant she wouldn’t be around to peruse the stills: perhaps they could salvage the earlier shots, after all.

‘Your mom sure knows her mind,’ the photographer commented after they’d left.

Kristin sighed. ‘Tell me about it.’

Bunny White coughed violently as her mother blasted yet another flare of hairspray.

‘Isn’t that enough?’ she enquired timidly, meeting her bronzed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life reflection in the mirror, and in the same flash catching Ramona’s icy glare.

‘I say when it’s enough.’

Bunny hurt. The sequins on her ball gown were sharp and uncomfortable, and when she touched her hair it felt like candyfloss, all sticky and fossilised.

‘Show me your smile.’

Bunny smiled.

‘More teeth.’

She smiled wider.

‘Good. Now hold it.’

She did as she was told, the muscles in her face aching despite their rigorous training. Her lipstick tasted horrible, like emulsion, and she was tired. For the last month she had been kept up each night practising her routines, and when that was done, her Q&As. Who was her role model? What was her favourite food? Where was her dream holiday? Which did she like best, strawberry or chocolate? All for the Mini Miss Marvellous showdown. Her mom wanted her to win as many titles as she could in the run-up to secure her position as the mightiest contender on the circuit. Intimidate the competition, she’d been instructed.

‘We’re ready for our princesses!’ A fat woman entered the girls’ dressing room, wibbling with excitement as she beckoned the entrants. ‘OK, everybody, file up onstage!’

A cacophony of squeals followed, the gaggle of baby beauty queens scrambling over each other with their stick-on hair and fake dangly earrings, desperate to reach the line first.

‘Elegance,’ snipped Ramona, holding Bunny’s shoulders in place with an iron grip. ‘A lady never rushes.’

Tonight’s head-to-head was freestyle dance. Ramona had chosen a medley of disco tunes to accompany her daughter’s sequence, and as ever their strongest challenger was Tracy-Ann Hamilton, who strutted her stuff like a dynamo. Partway through her routine Bunny started to flag, and it was only the steel-grey glower of her mother that compelled her to continue. As she turned and twisted, jumped and spun, executing the painstakingly choreographed steps with all the dedication she could muster, the circus of surrounding faces became a gawking, gruesome carousel of grasping would-be victors, she at its centre, floundering helplessly like an animal in the road about to be shot.

‘Adequate,’ appraised Ramona as she came off to thunderous applause. Bunny’s heart was pounding, her breath short, and she bent over to catch herself, thinking she might barf. ‘You mangled the jazz axles. Why? Didn’t we go through them enough times at home?’

She struggled to talk. ‘I thought my shoes were going to come off. They’re too big.’

‘Nonsense.’ Ramona knelt and roughly grabbed a stiletto, forcing Bunny to steady herself on her mother’s shoulder. ‘Stop leaning on me, Bunny, it’s amateur.’

‘Sorry.’

‘These are fine. Better too big than too small. If you weren’t complaining about this you’d be whining about blisters.’

‘And the winner of the Freestyle Miss Pretty California category is…’

‘Come on, you bitches!’ hissed Ramona.

‘Bunny White!’

‘YES!’ Ramona punched the air. Bunny looked up, waiting for congratulations but her mother was too busy accepting compliments from the envious parents around her. Seconds later she was being roughly pushed to the podium to collect the bouquet.

‘Curtsey! Curtsey!’ rasped Ramona from the side of the stage.

Bunny obliged, rictus smile in place. Fleetingly she wondered if Scotty would ever get to see her take the spotlight like this—maybe when she began to compete internationally, maybe then. Her heart leapt at the thought of his name alone. Where was he now? What was he thinking? All she wanted to do was curl up in bed and dream about him.

On the drive home she closed her eyes and tried to do just that. Not easy with Ramona grousing about how she could have been better, that with a little more work and taking things a little more seriously she could have been perfect, how nothing but perfection was good enough and how tonight they had been lucky…until she realised her daughter was asleep.

Before yielding to slumber, Bunny conjured Scotty’s face and imagined for the hundredth time kissing his lips. He hadn’t visited the house recently and this was a source of both relief and panic to Bunny: relief, because she didn’t have to see him vanishing into her sister’s room every day, tortured by what could be going on behind closed doors; and panic because if all that stopped then she might never ever see Scotty again as long as she lived.

Scotty was the only person in the world who could save her.

He was the only person she truly trusted.

He couldn’t be taken away from her. She’d die.




13


As it happened, Turquoise and Robin didn’t need to plan their hook-up in LA. Both stars had been booked on to America’s leading talk show Friday Later, and when they met in the green room they greeted each other like friends.

‘It’s good to see you,’ said Turquoise, giving her a hug. Robin made her feel like a protective older sister. Though the girl cultivated an air of invincibility, dressed in a tangerine T-shirt and skin-tight pants, her fringe falling over an extraordinary palette of make-up and a slash of flamingo-pink lipstick, Turquoise saw it for the mask it was. Robin acted as if she didn’t care: just her versus the world, a one-woman army. Why had she built so many walls?

‘Ditto.’ Robin beamed. ‘Hey, I heard you’ve got a movie coming up?’

Turquoise’s heart caught in her throat. She still hadn’t found a way to say no. Donna had insinuated that turning down the Cosmo Angel project would slam the door on future opportunities in Hollywood—major names were being attached and walking away could spell disaster. It was their only shot. The idea that Turquoise’s bête noir could not only rob her of her youth but of the dream she and Emaline had shared was an abomination.

She’d find a way out. She had to.

‘Possibly,’ she said vaguely. ‘It’s early days.’

‘Exciting, though, huh?’

She forced a smile. ‘Yeah.’

Cosmo kept a tight rein over his PR and news of his involvement couldn’t be broken yet: Donna had warned that tonight could bring up the proposed collaboration and had briefed her response. Their meeting in London with Sam Lucas had gone smoothly, and, as predicted, the part of Gloria, a rags-to-riches songbird, was the perfect role at the perfect time…What possible reason could she give Donna for her refusal? In the past she had made no bones about her desire to enter the movies. There was nothing whatsoever about the role—at least on paper—that she could feasibly take objection to.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Robin. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘On air in five!’ The producer passed through to check their mics. Turquoise could hear the audience being warmed up, laughter bleeding in from the studio.

‘Absolutely fine.’

Robin looked unconvinced and she teamed it with a decisive nod.

The style of Friday Later was to keep each guest on the sofa to join in conversation with the others, so, as the biggest star with the longest airtime, Turquoise was on first. Harry Dollar, the host, wasted no time in asking about her move into Hollywood.

‘I’d rather not jinx it,’ said Turquoise, with a coy expression that betrayed nothing of her ravaged nerves. ‘But it’s promising.’

‘Can you give us a clue?’ Harry appealed to the audience. ‘We want to know, don’t we?’ Turquoise re-crossed her legs, laughing along graciously. ‘I heard Sam Lucas’s name on the grapevine…?’

‘I couldn’t say, Harry. Really.’

‘But you can confirm we’ll be seeing you on the big screen very soon?’

The studio lights burned. The glare of the cameras swung round to capture her response, which for a second relinquished to a flicker. ‘Yes, you will.’

It was a relief when Robin was invited to join them. She talked fervently about her upcoming tour and the collaboration with Puff City.

‘I’m seeing them while I’m over,’ she enthused. ‘It’s a big deal for me—like, huge. These are the guys I had on my walls growing up. They’re legends.’

Last was a raconteur comedian, who steered them mercifully towards the end of the show. Afterwards Harry kissed Turquoise and told her she was ‘a woman of mystery’. If only he knew.

‘D’you want to hit the town?’ asked Robin.

‘Sure.’

They took a car to Chilean hangout Astro off Santa Monica. Robin had invited the comedian and his entourage and as they chatted carelessly on the way Turquoise wondered if she would ever reach a point in life where she could let go so easily. Would she ever enjoy a night without the hot breath of fear hovering at her shoulder? Would she ever meet new people and feel able to open up, to embrace their company without restraint? Would she ever escape the dread of having Cosmo Angel expose her, demolishing all she had strived for against inconceivable odds, in just a few poisonous words?

If Donna had her way, in a matter of days she would be shaking hands with her costar-to-be and signing the contract as easily as she signed away her fate.

Panic flooded over her. ‘Sorry…’ She fumbled to collect her purse. ‘I—I have to get out. Driver, pull over.’

Robin’s face was etched with worry. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t feel well. Please excuse me. I’ve got to go home.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No. Don’t. I’d rather you didn’t. It’s just a headache.’

‘Then let’s at least get hold of your car—’

‘I’m fine.’

The vehicle came to a stop. ‘I’ll call you,’ she said, before stepping out into the night, not caring if she was seen, hailing a cab like anyone ordinary and wishing with all her might she could be just a girl on the street, no one remarkable, invisible, untouchable, free.

Cosmo Angelopoulos liked to watch. Grace Turquoise got that pretty quick, the minute she turned up at the door to his Hollywood mansion and found a six-foot black girl waiting for her inside. The girl was drugged up to the eyeballs, reclining on a velvet sofa with her legs wide apart. Wordlessly Cosmo tore off Grace’s coat and pushed her to the floor.

‘Open your mouth, cunt,’ he directed. ‘And look like you’re enjoying it.’

She recognised Cosmo straight away. She had seen him in the papers, on TV, the twenty-something up-and-coming actor who was billed to take Hollywood by storm. Yes, he was staggeringly handsome. Yes, he resembled a young Marlon Brando with his brooding looks and muscular build. Yes, he had the face of a boy who would never say no to his mom. Who knew he was also a despicable pervert who liked to beat on women? But she was here to do a job, and as one of Madam Babydoll’s she couldn’t afford to disappoint.

Grace used her tongue in the way Cookie had shown her. The black girl’s thighs were strong and held her in place like a vice, hands snatching down to push her in deeper. It was salty and sweet and wet, and every time she broke for air Cosmo forced her back.

‘Keep goin’, bitch,’ he snarled, kneeling next to them for a front row seat. ‘You like that, don’t you, you greedy whore?’ Grace closed her eyes and concentrated on the task.

‘Oh, yeah…’ the girl moaned. ‘Yeah, baby, that feels so fine…’

Cosmo started to feel her up. He began by removing Grace’s thong, roughly dipping his fingers in, two or three at once, which made her gasp her discomfort. They were covered in a freezing cold gel that was meant to open her up but instead she contracted against. His thumb pushed violently into her ass, forcing her to cry out.

‘Get back to it, slut.’

The girl’s hips tilted to meet her and Grace forced herself to keep going, despite the pain. Cosmo freed his cock and slammed into her, grunting at her rear, snatching at her breasts and pushing in deeper and deeper till it felt like there was nothing left of her to give. With a gurglingwhimper he climaxed. She felt a jet of warm liquid spurt across her back.

If she’d thought that was it, she was mistaken. Cosmo could go all night.

‘Your turn, bitch.’ He slapped the black girl’s face, twisting her pair of dark, hard nipples to bring her out of rapture. An enormous dildo appeared, its tip glistening. Obligingly the girl attached it to her waist, an obscene rubber proboscis, huge and frightening as Grace was flipped over a chair and her legs brutally spread. The hurt was like nothing she had ever experienced, tearing her in two, but still there was no mercy. The girl pounded into her, delirious, deaf to her complaints. Cosmo paced, proudly stiff once more, pausing at intervals to refresh his viewpoint. Eventually he stopped at Grace’s head and drove his cock into her mouth. She could taste the remnants of his first ejaculation and gagged.

When it was over, she returned to Madam Babydoll’s with three thousand dollars in her pocket. It was the most she had ever been paid for a job but that made no difference.

‘He likes you,’ encouraged Madam Babydoll the following week. Grace had only just recovered from the ache Cosmo had inflicted on her—but she’d never recover from the humiliation. ‘You’re his favourite. He wants you again. He’s requested you personally.’

The other girls were jealous. Cosmo was the biggest catch on the books.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘It’s five grand this time, honey. You keep three and a half. It’s your call.’

The second occasion she went he’d hired a redhead withfreakishly large breasts. Grace took charge of the dildo and was instructed to nail Cosmo with it while the redhead sucked him off. The ordeal took hours because Cosmo was so high he couldn’t come. He made Grace call him a bad boy and tell him he needed his ass screwed to teach him a lesson. When finally he was done he was so exhausted that he had them run him a bath and put him in it, relaxing with a joint while he scoped them making out on the floor. Recovered, he took them in turn over the rim of the tub, so many times she lost count, and when Grace left the mansion at five a.m. she was sorer and more bruised than she’d ever been.

After that he asked for her every time. Madam Babydoll tried to switch her appointments to accommodate before realising that Cosmo would pay more and more for whatever it was he couldn’t have. Soon a night with Grace reached ten thousand dollars.

‘I said I was through with that,’ she told Madam Babydoll. But in truth she had almost enough saved to get her own place, try going it alone in LA and getting out of this sordid game once and for all. One last night with Cosmo Angelopoulos, that was it; she’d endured it before so she could endure it again, and after that she’d be made. How much worse could it get? The exchange was surely worth it. She’d never need to prostitute her body again. She could meet a guy, fall in love and do it like it was supposed to be done. No one had to ever know what she’d been through or how she’d lived. A fresh start…a clean slate.

Deciding to go to Cosmo’s that night was the worst decision she ever made.

The girl he’d got was young. Grace saw straight awaythat he’d plied her with drugs—blow, pills, weed, anything he had going—and, judging by the clothes strewn haphazardly across the floor, had already had sex with her. The girl’s eyes were glassy and stoned, she kept giggling and slurring and when Cosmo beckoned her over to attend to his burgeoning hard-on she weaved drunkenly before crashing to the ground.

‘I don’t think she’s well.’

‘Shut it, bitch. Take your clothes off.’

‘She needs a doctor. What have you given her?’

‘What she begged for: a big hard cock.’

‘She’s tripping. We should call someone.’

Brutally Cosmo slapped her. He grabbed her chin in his hand and squeezed. ‘I said, take your fucking clothes off. Now. Or I’m going to make you regret it.’

One night. As Grace removed her stockings she repeated the promise in her head.

One last night and then I’ll be free.

Kneeling, she fondled the girl’s breasts. The girl was out of it, slumped on the floor, her limbs shut down. When the girl arched her back, at first Grace thought it was with pleasure. It wasn’t. She’d started to spasm, her body jumping and seizing. Grace saw a pop of foam at her mouth, the eyes rolling back in her head until only the whites were visible.

‘What the fuck is this?’ Cosmo cried.

‘She’s fitting. Call an ambulance. Right now.’

Grace attempted to hold her down, tilting the girl’s head as best she could to prevent her choking on her tongue.

‘Like hell I am.’

‘Do it. She’s in danger.’

‘So am I if we get the fucking cops round!’

Grace pinned him with a hateful stare. ‘Do you want her to die?’

‘She’ll get over it. It’s a bad trip, that’s all.’

It wasn’t all. The girl’s body surrendered to a series of rapid tremors before suddenly, too quick, impossibly quick, it strained a final time before becoming still. Frantically Grace touched her pulse. Nothing. She felt her heart. Still. Dead still.

No. No, no, no, no, no…

Before she could think twice, Grace was resting the girl’s head back, opening her airways and breathing into her mouth. Cosmo was useless, hanging back and swearing, freaking about the mess on his luxury shag-pile carpet and how the fuck they were going to get out of this. She tried to remember what scant first aid she’d picked up off TV, medical dramas she’d half watched, and began to establish a rhythm. Two breaths, thirty chest compressions; she didn’t even know if that was right but she couldn’t stop. Two more, thirty more, two more, thirty more, two more, desperation building and panic surging and then…

Nothing.

‘Don’t die on me, sweetheart. Come on, not here, not now…’

She didn’t know how long she kept it up for, and only stopped when she saw the girl was grey in the face. She was dead. It was over.

Grace sat back on her knees. Cosmo was clothed, stalking the room. He tossed her belongings and numbly she dressed. ‘Get her the hell out of here,’ he ordered.

The word floated in Grace’s throat before she caught hold of it. ‘What?’

‘You whores stick together, don’t you? Get out and take her with you. Far as you’re concerned she never set foot in this place.’

‘You heartless bastard. I’m taking her nowhere.’

‘You’re in this too, cunt.’

‘I tried to save her.’

‘Or else you killed her. I bet you finished her off right there, thumping her chest like that without a clue what you were doing!’

Grace’s mouth was dry. She didn’t believe him, she couldn’t, but even as he uttered the words she knew they would haunt her as long as she lived.

They folded the body into the trunk of Cosmo’s car. He told her that if she breathed a word to anyone he would kill her, and it had been both their faults because if she’d given him time to think then they might have been able to save the bitch. Grace didn’t speak a word as they drove out to the desert. Cosmo flicked the radio on and smoked manically out of the window. All she would remember of that drive was Bruce Springsteen on the airwaves, ‘Born to Run’, and it seemed that her whole life had been spent doing exactly that.

She shivered in the cold night as Cosmo dug the hole. It took forever. A host of stars observed overhead as the body was thrown in, eliciting a sickening thump. Grace pleaded once more to go to the cops and he hit her so hard she was thrown across the hood of the car.

‘This goes nowhere,’ he told her on the ride back to town. ‘Do you understand? I give you your money; you crawl back to whatever hole you came from and I never want to see you again. That bitch is nothing to me, and neither areyou. You claim to know me and you’re a crazy-ass motherfucker off the goddamn street. You even think about telling anyone any of this and you’re more of a corpse than the girl I just buried. Got it? It’s your fingerprints all over her, too. Never forget that.’

Grace Turquoise quit Madam Babydoll’s the next morning. She didn’t leave a note, just the cut she owed. Downtown she rented an apartment and took a job in a bar. One night she was singing as she worked and invited to the stage, where as long-overdue luck would have it a visiting record producer encountered the most astonishing voice he’d ever heard.

A week later she was signed to her first label. Cosmo Angelopoulos soon became a horrifying memory, one that would wake her in the night, bathed in sweat and remembering his words. He couldn’t touch her now…could he?

She wasn’t to know that her flourishing stardom was going to lead her straight back into the ring. And that one day she would have to face her adversary—and then, only then, one of them would be made to pay.




14


Robin’s tour manager had arranged a dance audition in West Hollywood. They needed to select eight principal dancers and twenty backing, and with hundreds queueing round the block from six a.m., they knew they had their work cut out.

‘We’ll see you in groups of thirty, three rows of ten,’ Marc Delgado told them. ‘When I hold my hand up like this, front row goes to the back and the next comes forward. Clear?’

The studio was a kaleidoscopic jumble of leg warmers, slashed T-shirts and hairstyles that rivalled even her own. California-tanned bellies peeked out above hip-hugging slouch pants, and smooth, powerful limbs practised stretch warm-ups with ease. There couldn’t be more than an ounce of fat in the room. Robin didn’t think she’d ever seen so many gorgeous people in the same place: African, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, each was as cute as the next.

‘This is going to be tough,’ she said, grabbing a coffee and taking her place alongside Marc and Barney. Barney was flipping through the dancers’ profiles.

‘Jeez, where do we start?’

‘Stamina,’ Marc advised. ‘These guys need to be able to perform night after night and week after week. Today should give you an idea of how they keep pace. We’ll have the finalists moving for an hour or more, but any sign of flagging, breathlessness or ill-coordination and it’s a no as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Harsh!’ said Robin.

Marc shrugged. ‘But true.’

The routines fired up to Robin’s opening number ‘Told You So’ and an army of bodies slipped into the choreographed routine. Marc had arranged a killer string of steps, jagged one minute, supple the next, and the dancers adhered with poise and precision.

After the first round the panel conferred, starring the names of those they’d call back and striking through any who hadn’t made it. Marc explained it was a rigorous process and the dancers selected would be made to endure several gruelling cycles before decisions were made. He found Robin’s determination to employ a majority of women refreshing, and unlike most stars he’d worked with she was unthreatened by their beauty. ‘If you’re doing me a hot show, Marc, then I want the hottest girls there are.’

Take two surrendered some formidable talent. The competition was brutal. Several dancers quit, short of air or fumbling their steps, and once the momentum was broken it was hard to get back. Robin had taken basic training when her star began its ascent, in how to cover the stage, how to move while holding her voice and how to execute a basic catalogue of struts, but not nearly enough to compete with the professionals. To be dismissing them felt cruel, but as Marc kept pointing out they had to get the numbers down somehow.

It was a thrill to be amassing her troupe. They would be like one big crew on the road, and she wasn’t just picking a bunch of randoms to take the stage, she was picking people with whom she’d be content to spend time, people who might become friends.

‘Like them,’ Barney had counselled on the way over, ‘but trust them more.’

A runner put his head round the door. Marc went to shoo him off but he gestured at Robin with a tentative, ‘Sorry to disturb. Phone call for Ms Ryder.’

Robin looked up. ‘Who is it?’

‘The girl says it’s family. I wouldn’t have interrupted otherwise…’

Robin was puzzled. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘this won’t take long.’

Family?

Outside the corridor was deserted, quiet apart from the shouts of kids passing on the street several storeys below. There was a booth, the phone resting expectantly on a little plastic counter. Robin scooped it up. ‘Hello?’

Nothing.

‘Hello?’ she repeated.

She went to replace the receiver, thinking the line must have been cut off, when she began to detect a very faint breathing, so delicate it was hardly there.

‘Who is it?’ she demanded. ‘Who is this?’

The breathing was quickening, deepening, getting louder. Thickly she remembered the walker at her heels in London. The dodgy fan mail. And then three words, faint and rattling, so muffled that she couldn’t be at all sure but she thought a female voice rasped:

‘I’m watching you…’

Robin slammed the phone down. Her heart was in her throat and her fingers were trembling. I’m closer than you think…

It took minutes for her to gather herself. It’s nothing. It’s nobody. She was knackered, that was all; it was the jet lag. So what if some psycho got off on the sound of her voice? It was common enough in this industry.

Back in the audition, Barney mouthed, ‘Everything OK?’ and Robin nodded, smiling as brightly as she could. There was no point raising it; she’d only get told what she already knew. Besides, since when did she let herself get spooked?

She resolved to brush it off and focus on the job.

As she observed the next group fall into position, one particular dancer caught her eye. Robin checked his picture against the list. Farrell. Twenty-one years old. With his light chocolate skin and bright green eyes, he reminded her of someone.

Leon Sway.

Idiotically she had Googled him the previous night. She’d drunk too much champagne at a launch with Barney, and on returning to her hotel had heard him mentioned on the radio.

Countless sites had sprung up, led by an article beginning Leon Christopher Sway, born 1988 in East Compton, Los Angeles…which she’d meant to open but hadn’t. Instead she had been drawn to the line of thumbnail shots running below and had clicked on Image Results. Most of the snaps saw the Olympian breaking through the finish in London, face to the open sky, arms stretched wide—she could think what she liked of him, but that body…In others he was alongside Jax Jackson, head to head, neck and neck, the man he couldn’t beat, the photos mocked up to present the athletes locked in mortal combat. A glance showed there were hordes of blogs and fan sites devoted to him.

Sexiest man in the world. Ultimate boyfriend. Superhuman. The list went on.

One picture had jumped out. It was Leon with a woman, snapped at LAX. The woman was kissing him, her arms around his neck, and Leon was grinning dizzily through the adulation. Ridiculously, something in Robin had sunk. She’d snapped the laptop shut.

‘I don’t like him,’ she said to Marc now, nodding to Farrell as the routine struck up. ‘Front row, tall, grey sneakers. Let’s not see him again.’

The meet with Puff City took place the following afternoon at Slink Bullion’s mansion on Long Beach—he liked to keep things relaxed, apparently. As Robin’s car cruised through the sweltering grid of LA, reaching the ocean with its silver, glittering harbour and wide straight roads lined with majestic palms, she gathered her nerve. As a rule she didn’t let other people daunt her, but Puff City were a notorious crew. If they agreed on collaboration, not only would it be a personal triumph, it would seal her fate as the one to watch in America. With her Beginnings tour fast approaching, the game was on.

She pulled out her iPhone and checked her emails.

Wait till you see this place. B x

Barney had attended a lunch with record execs and had planned to meet her there, but, while normally she didn’t mind going places alone, on this occasion she was glad he’d made it first. She scrolled through several unread messages before deciding she was too anxious to absorb them properly. Before she closed the account her eye fell on Turquoise da Luca’s name. Robin had contacted her the morning after Friday Later: she’d been surprised at Turquoise’s sudden withdrawal and couldn’t forget the haunted look in her eyes. What was going on?

Sorry to split, Turquoise had mailed back. Run down, that’s all. Let’s do it next time.

The car changed lanes and peeled away from the beach, pulling up moments later at an awesome set of twisting gates. Robin’s driver spoke into the intercom and the entrance swung open, revealing a lush spread of verdant gardens, through the middle of which threaded their path. At its summit was the infamous mansion: it had appeared once on MTV Cribs, inciting alternate waves of marvel and disgust across media forums. Did anyone seriously need sixteen bedrooms and as many en suites? Were a private gym, games room and spa really necessary? Could both an indoor and outdoor Jacuzzi swimming pool be justified when there were people starving in the world? But Slink Bullion lived by his own rules. From the streets of Brooklyn to the castles of LA, Slink had strived for every cent and couldn’t care who knew it.

Seven (she had to count) vehicles were parked out front, ahead of a garage Robin suspected housed yet more: a burnished black Rolls-Royce Phantom; an ice-white Mercedes McLaren SLR with flashing alloys; a two-hundred-thousand-dollar Ferrari 458; a colossal red Hummer Pickup…and the rest. Each boasted a personalised licence plate, which put paid to any doubt that they all belonged to Slink. SL1NK A. SLNKWISE. 5LINKY.

A woman in hot pants and a sparkly bikini top met her at the door.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m Robin.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve got an appointment.’

The woman looked her up and down a tad bitchily: she was Shawnella, Slink’s live-in, long-suffering lover, a gorgeous black girl with legs that went on for miles.

‘Baby!’ she yelled into the hall. ‘You got a visitor.’ She blew a strawberry bubble in Robin’s face and fixed her with a stare.

‘What’s up, Robin Ryder?’ Slink came to greet her, a heavy black guy in a Red Sox sweatshirt, a baseball cap wedged over his cornrows. ‘Good t’ finally meet you.’

‘Likewise.’

‘Come on through.’ He patted Shawnella’s ass. Robin saw how she pouted at having to share his attention, and shot a dark grimace Robin’s way before disappearing inside.

Barney had been right. This was more a palace than a mansion. Slink’s dominion went on for miles. ‘This is my hall of fame right here,’ he informed her as they passed through a gallery covered wall to wall in awards and accolades, not a spare strip to be seen. ‘I should take y’all on a grand tour but y’all be here for a week.’

Eventually they arrived at the living room—one of them. Barney Grant was seated uncomfortably on a leather couch and clutching a fat cigar he didn’t want to smoke.

‘Y’know my main man G.’ Slink gestured to a guy in a checked shirt and cardigan, who grinned and held his hand out: G-Money, he had been part of the City since the start.

‘Hey,’ he said warmly, ‘how’s it going?’

‘An’ this here’s my brother Principal.’

Robin got a cooler vibe off Principal 7. He was a toughened-up white kid with something to prove, lifting his chin in grudging acknowledgement and regarding her with suspicious, mistrustful eyes. ‘Wassup?’ he muttered sullenly.

‘Y’all want somethin’ t’drink?’ asked Slink.

Robin clocked the fully stocked bar, next to which a second girl, this one with slightly more on but still in a state of partial undress, awaited instruction. ‘A beer would be good.’

The girl popped open a bottle of Corona Light and brought it over.

‘What did you think of the tracks?’ asked Barney.

Slink took a seat, ankle on knee, and smiled, exposing a glinting silver tooth. ‘You got it down, girl, an’ I ain’t even lyin’. So word up, we should make music together.’

‘Last record we dropped sold a million in seven days,’ put in G-Money, real name Gordon Rimeaux. Unlike the rest of the crew G-Money was clean-living, educated, had swept his act up after a difficult childhood: Robin respected him. ‘That’s one week, man, and that’s some crazy shit right there. It’s like even after all these years there’s love on the streets for the City.’

‘What’s she bringin’ to the party?’ Principal folded scrawny arms across his oversized T-shirt. ‘I say we stick to the script and no messin’.’

Robin was confused. ‘What script?’

‘There ain’t no script,’ said G-Money, ‘only my man Principal’s not wise enough in the ways of the world to have figured that shit out yet.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘If the City hadn’t taken you in, where’d you be? Slink took a chance, now it’s you who returns the favour. ’S all in the chain, man, you pass that vibe on.’

‘You wanna tell me how to live my life, asshole?’ Principal stepped forward, ready for battle.

‘Chill,’ warned Slink, and Robin got the impression he was used to dispelling friction. ‘We got a philosophy, you feel what I’m sayin’? We ride with the new school, the cool school, the anything that’s true school, and that’s about my girl Robin right here. G, get on down to the studio, dog, we’re gonna lay out some beats.’

Principal backed off. There was a sinister gleam in his eye. As the youngest member of the group he fronted with the best of them, fuelled by anger at the life that had done him wrong. Robin didn’t know his history but she guessed it made her own look like Little House on the Prairie. He’d take a while to warm up, but she was determined to get on his right side.

Slink’s studio was in his basement and rigged with mixing consoles, drum kits, monitors and mics. It was bigger and better equipped than the booth in which she’d recorded her album back in the UK, and as Slink eased into a chair and began wiring up the track she understood this was his empire and the home he’d always had.

‘Don’t worry about my brother upstairs,’ said G-Money. ‘He’s got beef with most people so don’t take it personal.’

‘I haven’t. But thanks.’

‘You just be doin’ your thing.’

Robin smiled at him. ‘Always do.’

‘It’s since hookin’ up with the track team boys, he ain’t too happy about that. Can’t say I am either, but you gotta give it up for a good cause, you feel me?’

‘Jax Jackson’s idea, right?’

‘Dude’s a clown.’

She couldn’t resist asking. ‘What about Leon Sway?’

G-Money’s countenance changed. It was like a cloud passing over the sun.

‘None of us ever met the guy,’ he said flatly. ‘Guess he’d have a reason to get involved with the anti-weapon stand, though, huh?’

Robin frowned. She thought Leon’s involvement with the charity venture was the stupidest, most hypocritical thing she’d ever heard. What would he know about the streets?

‘How do you mean?’

But G-Money was taking a seat alongside Slink at the workstation.

‘You wanna get in the live room?’ Slink suggested. Barney fired her a thumbs-up. ‘Drop some sounds, see what’s up?’

Robin put Leon Sway from her mind. She was playing with the bigger boys now.

‘You bet I do.’




15


Kristin’s home resembled one of her video sets. It was Friday evening, and in the vast mansion grounds an ivory marquee had been erected in the style of a Disney castle, its billowing fabrics and soaring turrets home to the most perfect princess in the land. On her fourteenth birthday, Bunny White was that princess. Bunny was the star of the show—and the show, it went without saying, had been orchestrated to a military agenda by their mother.

‘Those damn caterers, late as usual!’ bitched Ramona, rampaging through the mansion doors and slapping Kristin’s hand away from a platter of salmon tartare.

‘What? I’m hungry.’

‘Guests are arriving any second,’ she complained. ‘We’ve just this minute put the arrangements out and already you’re troughing. I thought you were dieting.’

‘I don’t need to diet.’ Kristin’s waist was miniature in a clinging peach Marchesa gown. Her face stung at the criticism.

‘Neither do I, but I do it all the same.’ Ramona lived like a bird, pecking on nuts and seeds. ‘It’s part of the job. Image, Kristin, you should know that. Bunny does.’

‘Bunny doesn’t need to lose weight, either.’

‘She will. Fourteen is the cut-off point for those puppy-fat excuses. It’s hard work from here on in. Alexis!’ The catering manager, no doubt hoping she could slip past unnoticed while Ramona was distracted, stilled in her tracks like a fox in the headlights.

‘Yes, Ms White?’

‘Where are the beignets?’

‘They went out with the buckwheat blinis.’

‘And have they been tasted?’

Alexis looked harassed. ‘One of my girls said she ran them past you—’

‘Well I’m not going to do it, am I? Please! If I’d sampled every single canapé from every single party I’ve ever thrown I’d be the size of this house!’ She clamped her hands to her hips, bone on bone. ‘And if you turned up on time to your engagements then we’d be able to avoid these eleventh-hour issues, wouldn’t we?’

‘There are no issues, Ms White,’ said Alexis coolly. Alexis was tempted to reiterate that they’d arrived less than five minutes behind schedule, and that had only been because the ETV Birthday Brilliant! van and all its equipment had been blocking up the drive. The popular channel had agreed to come film because of the Kristin connection—Bunny wasn’t yet prominent enough—and Ramona was determined to put on a spectacular.

Bunny appeared in the doorway. Ramona’s attention switched, as automatic and unthinking as a shark thrown fresh bait. Alexis scuttled off.

‘Why aren’t you wearing the wig?’ Ramona demanded. ‘We bought it specially.’

Bunny looked to the floor. ‘I didn’t want to.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s itchy.’

Ramona rolled her eyes, exasperated. Not once did she tell Bunny how lovely she looked in her fairy-tale coral dress with delicate sash bow.

‘Wow,’ said Kristin, making up for it. ‘You look so amazing, Bun. Really grown-up.’

Bunny smiled shyly.

‘Go and put the wig on,’ snapped Ramona.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘You don’t want to? What do you want, then? For everyone to think you look like a silly little infant? You’re a woman now, Bunny.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ countered Kristin, her anger bubbling over. ‘And I don’t think she should wear the wig either. It makes her look like a drag queen.’

Bunny giggled. Kristin joined in.

‘Stop it!’ shrieked Ramona, close to the edge. ‘Don’t you ever dare laugh at me!’

The camera crew entered, a bunch of girls in DMs and guys with shaggy hairstyles and lumberjack shirts. Ramona composed herself.

‘We’ve done the interior shots,’ said the girl in charge. ‘OK if we step outside?’

‘Of course,’ said Ramona, eager to please, and just a touch paranoid that they might have witnessed the tail end of her outburst.

‘We’ve got a team out front,’ the girl went on, ‘so we can catch the celebrities as they arrive. Did you say you had a carpet you wanted to lay out?’

‘Oh!’ Ramona’s bejewelled hands flew to her face. ‘What am I thinking? I completely forgot!’ She acted the loveable ditz but the oversight secretly slayed her.

Kristin wanted to strangle her mother. Why couldn’t Bunny hang with her own friends, have a barbecue in the sun? This party wasn’t for her at all; it was for Ramona. Their mother was obsessed with having the best set, the best coverage and the best guests—where ‘best’ stood for ‘expensive’ or ‘most bankable’. There had been tears when Bunny had asked to invite her own friends, a request that had been swiftly declined because Ramona already had a list in place. That list comprised industry notables—celebrities known to Kristin, mostly—and none of whom meant anything whatsoever to the birthday girl.

Except for Scotty.

At least he was coming, and he’d also drawn Joey and Luke into attending, which Bunny would be thrilled about. In a few years’ time Kristin hoped her sister would get with someone like Joey—a sweet, kind boy who would adore her, and who understood the pressures of the industry. It was why Scotty was such an ideal boyfriend. As well as being madly handsome and talented and sexy, he ‘got’ the craziness of both their lives. You couldn’t explain it to someone on the outside.

‘Are you excited?’ Kristin asked, in an attempt to rally spirits. Their mother had darted off and Bunny was looking crestfallen, patting her hair self-consciously.

‘Maybe I should wear the wig,’ she murmured, adolescent gaze brimming with uncertainty and a longing for approval. ‘Do you think I should? Mom says my hair’s limp…and I just want to look nice, you know?’ She bit her lip. ‘‘Specially if the boys are here…’

‘You’re beautiful as you are.’ Kristin pulled her close. ‘Enjoy it, don’t let her get to you.’ But Kristin suspected that she didn’t know the half of what Bunny had to endure over the beauty pageants. At least by the time Kristin was eight Ramona had spawned another child to focus on: poor Bunny had been in the firing line since the day she was born.

An hour later the party was in full swing. The marquee shone like a pearl in the fading light, bordered by the dark silhouettes of trees, bright as a unicorn coming to rest in a leafy glade. Twisting canopies strewn with fairy lights sparkled above the guests like stars, a fantasyland made real. Singers, actresses and TV stars sipped pink champagne and nibbled at miniature lobster wellingtons, while producers, moguls and managers smoked and drank brandy, posing for photographs with their rake-thin wives whose names no one remembered. The pool shone ultramarine, bordered by jasmine-scented flickering candles and next to which stood Ramona’s pièce de résistance: Bunny’s birthday cake. It was a fourteen-tiered monster, studded with gold flakes and silver orbs and capped with a life-size moulding of Bunny’s very own head, her golden icing ringlets tumbling down the flanks. The head was wearing a glistening crown, which read, a touch prematurely:

MINI MISS MARVELLOUS—WINNER!

‘Bitchin’, huh?’

Kristin turned. She was relieved to be extricated from a stilted conversation with a French rap star and even more relieved when she came face to face with Joey Lombardi.

‘Hey!’ She hugged him. Joey was Italian-American with black, curly hair and twinkling brown eyes. As one fifth of Fraternity, he was easily second favourite to Scotty; girls went crazy for him. Up close he smelled of lemon sherbet. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Better now I’ve seen that.’ Joey raised an eyebrow at the cake. ‘It’s truly a thing of wonder. Did your mother make it?’

Kristin grinned. One of the things she liked best about Joey was his sense of humour.

‘If it was Bunny’s actual head on top then I might consider that a serious question,’ she said.

He laughed.

‘Where’s Scotty?’ she asked, searching over his shoulder.

Joey ran a hand through his unruly hair. Kristin remembered when Scotty had wanted to leave his to its natural wave (he straightened it) and the label had told him he couldn’t because curls were ‘Joey’s thing’. ‘Beats me,’ said Joey. ‘I haven’t seen him.’

Kristin spied Luke talking to a circle of Hollywood socialites, her mother hovering on its periphery and plunging into their conversation every so often like a wasp on food, rooting about a bit before buzzing off. Wouldn’t the boys have arrived together?

She checked the time. ‘He said he’d be here by now. You haven’t heard from him?’

Joey shrugged. ‘Nah, sorry. Can I get you a drink?’

Kristin was worried. ‘What if something’s happened?’

‘Like what?’

‘Maybe he’s crashed the Lexus.’

Joey touched her arm. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Scott knows what he’s doing. He probably got held up someplace; it wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Oh?’ She was surprised. Scotty had always been punctual with her.

‘Sure,’ Joey replied easily. ‘He’s drifted behind schedule on a few things recently. Said he’s tired. It’s nothing to write home about.’

A vague sort of dread clutched Kristin’s heart.

‘I think I’ll call him,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

Inside, she closed the door to Ramona’s office and dialled Scotty. It rang and rang but there was no answer. She tried again, then once more. Nothing.

Kristin tapped the phone against her jaw. Scotty had said he’d be here, and he’d never let her or Bunny down. Something must have come up and he had forgotten to let her know, that was all, nothing to get alarmed over, just as Joey had said. And yet…

Emerging into the hall, she heard a ripple of giggles coming from the kitchen and instinctively backed up. Moments later, Luke came into frame and swaggered out on to the swarming patio, bottle of beer in hand, his hair dishevelled at the back. Kristin went to follow him out and almost ran straight into her mother.

‘Mom?’

Ramona’s lipstick was smudged. The top buttons of her silk blouse had been done up incorrectly. It took less than a second to work out what was going on.

‘Are you insane?’ Kristin cried, outraged. ‘He’s twenty!’

Ramona smirked. ‘So?’

‘He’s Scotty’s friend! He’s my friend!’

Ramona patted her chignon. ‘Well, then I suppose I’m his friend now, too.’

‘How long?’ Kristin whispered.

Her mother smiled coyly. Drunkenly she arched an eyebrow. ‘Long enough,’ she growled, and she actually put her tongue in her cheek. Ew! It was beyond gruesome!

‘I meant how long has it been going on?’

Ramona sighed with exasperation. ‘Oh, darling, relax!’ she sang, wafting out to play the hostess. ‘I am a hot-blooded woman, you know. What does it matter?’

Kristin was rigid with fury. It mattered a lot. Not because her mom was old and Luke was barely clear of being a teenager, not because her dislike for her mom sometimes bordered on hatred, but because Luke and Fraternity were her thing. She’d been made to share it all with her mother; from the earliest point, nothing had been hers, every move had been down to Ramona. Except for this. The boys were hers. How dare she steal this, as well?

‘I’m leaving.’ Kristin had to get away. She couldn’t stand this house any more. She couldn’t bear to look her mother in the eye. ‘Tell Bunny I’ll be back later.’

‘Where are you going?’ Ramona commanded. ‘We need you for the ETV shoot!’

‘Fuck the shoot.’ She hauled open the door. ‘Bunny doesn’t want to do it anyway.’

‘Kristin! You come back here this instant!’

The door slammed behind her. There was only one place she wanted to be, only one person who could make her feel better.

If Scotty wouldn’t come to her then she would go to him.




16


Scotty Valentine rolled over, straight into the loving arms of his manager, Fenton Fear. Fenton’s chest hair nuzzled his cheek and gently he kissed the older man’s collarbone.

Bliss. It was heaven to have Fenton in his apartment, his home…his bed. It had never happened before, Fenton was always terrified they would be seen, but on this occasion temptation had found a way. He’d only meant to drop by Scotty’s to discuss a forthcoming timetable, and within minutes the men were making up for the lost weeks since Tokyo.

‘You’re such a handsome boy.’ Fenton kissed his hair over and over. Scotty thought he would drown in happiness. ‘I’ve missed you more than you know.’

‘I do know,’ Scotty said as he sighed, ‘because I’ve felt the same.’ He reached under the covers for the other man’s hand, holding it tight. ‘Fenton, I have to tell you…’

He stalled, frightened that the words wouldn’t come back to him; that they’d just hang there, embarrassed in their solitude, and his declaration would ruin every thing.

‘Shh.’ Tenderly Fenton stroked his back. ‘You don’t need to.’

Scotty could hear his manager’s heartbeat beneath his cheek. When he was with Fenton it was as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. They could be anywhere so long as they were together; it was cliché, but true. In Fenton’s arms he was no longer Scotty Valentine, poster boy for teenage dreams and squeaky-clean advocate of healthy whole-bran pop; he was simply Scott, the man behind the media machine. He could let his guard down, be adored for the person he was, not the person he was imagined to be.

From beneath a heap of clothes on the floor, his cell buzzed for the eighth time that evening. It would be Kristin. He had promised her he would make Bunny’s party but it was almost ten and things would be wrapping up by now. He’d made all her other ones over the years: he deserved a break, didn’t he? Shit. Who’d have a girlfriend? Fenton never put demands on him—at least not any he wasn’t happy to meet…

‘Shouldn’t you get that?’ Fenton murmured. ‘It might be important.’

Scotty tilted his head to kiss him. ‘Let’s pretend a little while longer.’

‘Is it Kristin?’

‘Probably.’

Fenton winced. No matter how many times Scotty reassured him that he felt nothing for his girlfriend, her name still twisted like barb between them.

‘I don’t desire her,’ comforted Scotty. ‘You know that.’

‘How can you want me,’ Fenton replied. It wasn’t a question, merely an expression of how he felt. He wasn’t after reassurance because no matter how much of that Scotty gave him, he never took it in. Scotty’s affection for him was a miracle he couldn’t understand.

‘I’m old,’ he went on. ‘And I drink too much.’ Fenton motioned down to his belly, covered in a downy fuzz of hairs. ‘Then there’s you. Exquisite. Radiant. Adonis.’

‘Come here,’ Scotty choked, overawed with love. Why wouldn’t Fenton believe him?

The men lay together, bodies entwined, every so often sharing a sweet, fragile kiss, until Fenton’s attentions grew fiercer and his mouth moved lower. Scotty hardened, stiffer and stiffer till he thought he would burst. Fenton’s moustache grazed his balls, his tongue wrapped around Scotty’s length, teasing the tip of his erection and using his hands in a rhythm of almost unbearable intensity that sent ripple after ripple of unfettered pleasure chasing up Scotty’s spine. Delirious with yearning, Scotty groaned as his dick slid into paradise. His ardour, as always, was tinged with envy. How many other men had Fenton done this to? At his age he must have had countless boyfriends, and it tore Scotty apart to picture him for one second with anyone else. Fenton was the only man he’d been with.

‘I have to be inside you,’ croaked Scotty, extricating himself. Obligingly Fenton turned and Scotty set to work, dipping his fingers into his own mouth before using them on Fenton, and then, with a single, hard thrust, he entered, both of them crying out and plunging forward on the sweat-bathed sheets. Scotty gripped Fenton’s buttock with one hand, snaking the other round to grasp his manager’s hard-on, working it up and down as he built a rhythm, feeling his abdomen contract and the pleasure rushing through him like liquid flames…

He didn’t hear the door open.

But he saw. As Fenton bucked to ejaculation beneath him he saw the shape in the entrance. It was Kristin, a sharp blank look of shock slapped across her stricken face.

‘Fuck!’ Fenton cried in orgasmic frenzy.

‘Fuck,’ Scotty replied, frozen with horror. The blood drained entirely from his face and in that second he knew it was over. Everything. Over.




17


Turquoise regularly took on ten-thousand-strong audiences and thought nothing of it. She made TV appearances in front of millions and didn’t bat an eye. She’d addressed royalty, politicians and the world’s elite, holding her own against the most powerful on the planet.

But sitting through lunch with Cosmo Angel was a summit she could not climb.

‘I’m not feeling great,’ she told Donna Cameron that morning. ‘Can we postpone?’

‘Not really,’ came the curt reply. ‘This is the only opening you have.’

‘I think I’m contagious.’

There was a pause before Donna said, ‘Turquoise, what’s up? You’re never contagious. Come to think of it, you’re never ill. I can’t remember the last time you got sick. What’s going on? You’ve been lukewarm about this project since the start. Is it Cosmo?’

‘No,’ she cut in. ‘Of course not.’ She felt tangled in a web of lies. It was too late to back away; the decline would mean too much, the sacrifice of her future. My little star…

‘Then help me out.’

Every excuse was a weak one. She had changed her mind. She wanted to focus on her music a while longer. She didn’t feel ready, despite the role Sam Lucas described in London having her name written all over it. Only the truth could save her, and in the same blow spell total destruction. She had been abused and degraded and forced to endure untold suffering at the hands of Cosmo Angelopoulos, and it had all come to a shattering head when they had buried a young corpse in the desert one night…one dark, lonely, terrible night…

Now he had her trapped all over again.

‘It’s OK.’ The words took all her strength. ‘I’ll grab a coffee, see if that sorts me out.’

‘Good girl. Il Cielo, one o’clock.’ The line went dead.

His wife was with him. She hadn’t expected that.

When Turquoise entered the bustling restaurant it was with a mixture of distress and relief that she spotted Ava Bennett rising to meet her. Ava looked lovely in a pale shift dress, her silky white-blonde hair secured in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. It was impossible to imagine her in bed with Cosmo. Had he grown out of his perversions? He must have.

‘Hope you don’t mind me coming along.’ Ava grinned. ‘Only this is so exciting! When Cosmo told me you were on board I couldn’t believe it…’

‘Turquoise.’ Sam Lucas stood to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘Gorgeous, as always. Come and sit down. We’ve ordered champagne.’

Cosmo didn’t stand. She was aware of his dark, brooding presence and the conflict of wills she had known would take place. To anyone else just a few seconds; to her an unspoken stalemate. Cosmo still saw her as a seventeen-year-old whore getting screwed on all fours by anything he set her up against. It didn’t matter how famous she got. She was still that girl.

And he wouldn’t deign to speak to her first.

‘Cosmo, a pleasure to see you again,’ she said hollowly. He got to his feet, an amused smirk on his face, and leaned in to kiss her. His lips hit the skin by her ear lobe, sending a grisly chill racing down her spine.

‘You’re glowing.’ His black eyes flashed. ‘Who’s the lucky man?’

‘Exactly what I said!’ trilled Ava, but she waved him down all the same. ‘Come on, don’t embarrass her.’

‘I’m not embarrassing her. Am I?’

‘Never.’

‘Sam, did you bring a copy of the script?’ asked Donna, lifting her champagne for a toast. ‘To the best screenplay and the best cast we’ll see all year.’

‘Well, I’ve got a little news on that front.’ Sam shifted eagerly in his seat, like a boy on the cusp of revealing a secret he knew he shouldn’t. The celebrated director had recently made a controversial comeback with the release of Lana Falcon’s movie Eastern Sky, whose Vegas premiere had been overshadowed by scandal. Insider accounts suggested the ensuing publicity whirlwind had made Sam feel invincible, and his behaviour, at times, erratic.

Donna didn’t like surprises. ‘Oh?’

Turquoise liked them even less. Across the table, Cosmo slid her a smile. It was the same smile he had greeted her with all those years ago at the door to his home, whispering of all the wicked things he wanted to do to her…Her heart dropped to her toes.

‘Cosmo’s been working on a script,’ said Sam, barely able to contain his excitement.

‘Congratulations,’ said Donna politely. ‘What does that mean for us?’

Turquoise knew exactly what it meant. Ava caught her eye and winked. So this was the script she had told Turquoise about that time they met up in New York, the one Cosmo was keeping close to his chest. The one about the murder…

‘I read it at the weekend,’ enthused Sam, leaning back as a waiter came to refill their glasses, ‘and I gotta say it blew my socks off. This guy’s penned a masterpiece.’

Cosmo lifted his shoulders in mock humility and Ava rolled her eyes affectionately. ‘Wise up, baby,’ she crooned, ‘you know it’s good.’

‘We didn’t want to say anything before now because it wasn’t in the can,’ continued Sam. ‘But, if you’re game, we’d like you to take a look at this script instead.’

Donna frowned. ‘What about the movie you talked to us about? What about Gloria, the singer who gets her revenge? That’s what sold it to Turquoise.’

‘Cosmo wanted it to be a revelation. Right, buddy?’




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