Read the book: «Temptation Island»

Praise for

Victoria Fox and her debut book,Hollywood Sinners

‘This summer’s hottest novel. Hollywood Sinners … is giving Jackie Collins a run for her money.’ That’s Life!

‘Sure to be a huge hit and perfect for the beach’

Sun

‘We should’ve seen the twists in this sinful bonkbuster coming, but two of the surprises were so shocking that we ended up startling the other commuters on the bus!’

Now

‘The heady mix of corruption, glamour, lust and power is guaranteed to keep you up late into the night.Get your scandal fix here!’

Closer

‘This debut novel is full of sex, glamour and divas!’ 4 stars

Star

‘Scandalous. Glamorous. Sexy. Victoria Fox’s sassy, sparkling debut puts the bonk back into bonkbuster!’

Lovereading.co.uk

‘A juicy tale of glamour, corruption and ambition.

A cracking read’

Jo Rees, author of Platinum

‘A glorious, sexy story of high-octane Hollywood intrigue—I loved it.’

Lulu Taylor, author of Heiresses and Beautiful Creatures

‘Just what the devil ordered—salacious secrets, illicit sex and wicked deception’ J J Salem, author of The Strip and Tan Lines

‘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

Temptation
Island
Victoria Fox

For Mark

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to my editors Kim Young and Jenny Hutton, whose wisdom, guidance and commitment has meant the world to this book. To the whole team at HQ, especially Mandy Ferguson, Tim Cooper, Nick Bates, Oliver Rhodes, Claudia Symons, Elise Windmill, Jason Mackenzie, Clare Somerville, and Donna Esiri and Debbie Clements for the beautiful covers. To Madeleine Buston for being a phenomenal agent, and to Clare Wallace, Mary Darby and Rosanna Bellingham for their stellar work. I’m also grateful to Tory Lyne-Pirkis at Midas PR who is the best publicist I could wish for.

Special thanks to Victoria Stonex and the Consultancy for her ideas at the beginning and her insight at the end. Also to Kieran Lynch for an afternoon of plotting in a Lake District pub; to Jo and Jeff Croot for bringing tea in the morning and wine at night; to Seth Dawes for talking to me about New York; to Ross and Angie Freese for their friendship (and to Louis for when he’s older); to Kate Furnivall for her advice and encouragement; to Emily Plosker, Joe Martin, Matt Everitt and Ben Sanders. To Chloe, Sarah, Laura, Jimmy, Tay, Finny and everyone from school who remembers the LBM. To Mum and Dad. And to Mark Oakley for his patience, his imagination, and for believing that anything is possible.

Prologue I

Present Day

Island of Cacatra, Indian Ocean

Had it not been such a clear night, the moon so bright and the air so still, her body might not have been visible where it moved uncertainly, facedown, at the surface of the water. As it was, the pale skin of her shoulder glowed sickeningly in the silver light, one strap of her gown fallen and bound to her like seaweed, its jewels glinting bright as the stars that pierced the sky above.

In the distance, the low thump of music and faraway cries of merriment. The megayacht twinkled on the horizon, its outline lit gold against the black ocean, a winking diamond guillotining the depths. The grand vessel was scene to the birthday party of the year: a lavish, abundant celebration for which no expense had been spared. On board, a host of VIPs, from Hollywood stars to Olympic idols, from dazzling supermodels to the government’s elite, from singers, actresses and dancers—beautiful people the globe over—to the cream of the entrepreneurial world, partied as midnight came and went. All were oblivious to the quiet outside, around, below: unaware that, beneath their feet, a secret was drowned, soundless and stifled in the endless deep.

She had not been dead long, half an hour at most. The tide was strong, had rocked her body towards the shore, gently so as not to wake her, the water kissing her cold skin. Her arms were spread wide, her hair tangled like the ropes of a shipwreck, once bound to great beauty but now cut loose on the strange unknown. Her dress had been torn in the struggle, a red slit bleeding uselessly where the dagger had entered.

If she had been asleep, the coarse shingle would have woken her now. A scratch to the belly before, with a final, sad push, the water deposited her. Quiet as silk, it noiselessly retreated.

A little way down the beach, a small boy was hunting for sea turtles. His father had told him they came in to lay their eggs at night, leathery things whose shells shone white in troughs of sand. He wasn’t supposed to be here—Miss Jensen, the housekeeper, would murder him—but it was boring waiting inside the mansion. He squinted at the yacht, hundreds of miles away, it seemed, and wished he could be there instead of here. They told him that one day it would all be his: his great inheritance. Crouching at the water’s edge, the palm of one hand cradling his chin and the other blindly raking the beach, it was hard to believe. His knees were damp from where he’d been on them, combing the smooth, still-warm sand for that final, important discovery.

His fingers curled round it instinctively at first, like a baby’s around its mother’s thumb. It felt like net, the ones he caught crabs in, but it clung to him too unhappily for that, as if by holding on it could force him, maybe, to look.

When he did, he knew it was bad. His fist was buried in a knot of wet stuff, too sticky, too like cobweb, too … human. Strands of it across his skin, darkened by its journey over the water, a thickness so much like hair, and the solid bump of skull beneath; the yielding scalp.

The boy’s scream ruptured the quiet. It came from somewhere in him that until then he hadn’t known existed, somewhere basic and raw. The island gasped with the force of it, trembling in the vastness of its ocean pillow, and seemed to open one eye in recognition, as if it knew all along it was about to be discovered.

II

One day earlier

Twenty-four hours to departure

Reuben van der Meyde disembarked his yacht with the air and importance of a king. And he was a king, damn it—at least in this part of the world, where it was easy to forget that land and civilisation existed beyond the clean blue line of the horizon. The end of the earth, the van der Meyde sightline: as far as Reuben was concerned, Cacatra was it.

Despite the lightweight linen shirt he’d had his housekeeper leave out, Reuben was sweating buckets. He could feel it down his back, pooling in a horseshoe under his arms and sticking in the doughy folds he was trying halfheartedly to shift. Christ! When did he start perspiring out of his ears? Removing his baseball cap with an irritable swipe, he patted his head with a handkerchief and dug about a bit in his ear-holes. At last, satisfied, he strode purposefully off down the beach, thoughtfully scratching the ginger fuzz on his chin.

Preparations were in order: he had checked the boat, talked to the organisers, sorted the charity raffle … what next? In twenty-four hours everybody who was anybody would join him to celebrate his sixtieth birthday, a party in honour of, arguably (though Reuben saw no point in arguing an indisputable fact), the richest and most powerful man on the planet. Each guest had received their invite months previously, but it was hardly as if they could forget the only social event worth bothering about this year. All that time his people had been fielding calls from neglected stars—singers and models and actresses, politicians, art dealers, writers; names and faces who’d thought they were good acquaintances but clearly hadn’t made the cut. He’d had to slash a few loose. You didn’t get to where Reuben was without making a few sacrifices.

Initially he had purchased Cacatra as a business enterprise: an exclusive island getaway for the rich and famous, a destination for relaxation and rehabilitation, shelter from the glare of the spotlight. But these days he was living here more and more. The island’s lush vegetation, its azure water and golden sands, offered a man exiting middle age the kind of respite he needed. Cacatra was a safe place, a beautiful place. There weren’t enough of those left in the world.

Set back from the beach, up a series of winding stone steps, was the van der Meyde mansion. A white colossus overlooking the ocean, circled by glittering fountains and emerald palms, it had been built to a template of exacting standards and now, as voted for several years ago in a major US lifestyle publication, boasted the title of Most Desirable Residence in the World. It wasn’t sufficient. Reuben had plans to improve the place further, beginning with extending the already gargantuan swimming pool to a multi-tiered affair that fed directly into the ocean. It was his entrepreneurial spirit, exactly how he had made his fortune: he would think of the most outrageous idea he could and then test himself—dare himself—to go ahead and do it.

Not today. He had a party to get on with first.

Margaret Jensen, his housekeeper, was waiting at the main entrance. She was a small, birdlike Englishwoman in her forties with poker-straight mouse-brown hair that hung limply to her shoulders and quick, darting eyes. She moved swiftly, purposefully and with a touch of fuss, in the way efficient people sometimes do.

‘Is everything all right, Mr V?’ she enquired as he swept past, flip-flops slapping the polished floor. It was what he liked to be called. ‘The boat looks impressive.’

‘Fine.’ Reuben’s brutal Johannesburg accent pinched the word thin. He threw his cap on to a dark-wood chest, a grossly expensive African piece he’d had sourced at an auction in the spring. The slogan across the front of the cap read: DO IT BEFORE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND.

Reuben opened the door to his office, wishing that Miss Jensen could keep to the point and not feel it necessary to stick her beak in. He supposed she imagined she had the right.

Ill at the thought, he closed the door and strode over to his desk. Of course the yacht was impressive: that was the whole bloody point. Everything Reuben van der Meyde did was in pursuit of admiration. He was a god, and he expected his people to treat him as such.

He flicked on his Mac, wondering if he’d heard back about the Asian possibility. There was one unread message in his inbox, from a coded address he didn’t recognise, and he clicked on it lazily, easing himself back in his chair with a greasy squeak of leather. Behind him the panoramic ocean view stretched out.

I’m one of them.

Tomorrow the truth comes out.

Reuben watched the message for a moment. He leaned in. He frowned at it. Then he got up from his desk and pulled open the door.

‘Margaret.’

Instantly Miss Jensen appeared in the hall. ‘Yes, Mr V?’

‘Where is Jean-Baptiste?’

Margaret swallowed her nerve. JB was the man every woman wanted. It was wrong, because the things he did were terrible. She knew he was as cool and ruthless as her boss, and yet the Frenchman wore his secrets well. His were uncharted waters; she had always thought so. She would catch him, sometimes, deep in thought, and the way he was with the boy …

But Reuben only ever used the man’s full name when something was the matter.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said carefully. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

Reuben forgot his manners. ‘Do you really think an issue for which I require Jean-Baptiste could possibly be one you would be capable of handling?’

‘I’m sorry—’

Reuben slammed the door.

It was a hoax. But how had this person got into his private account? Only a small clique was permitted: Jean-Baptiste being one of them, and a handful of selected clients.

Pinching the material of his shirt between two fat fingers, Reuben fanned air on to his sweaty chest. Despite his self-assurances, his heart was throbbing against his rib cage.

Thump, thump, thump.

Fuck it. No one was more powerful than him. This party was going to go off without a hitch and then he’d trace whatever joker had dared stray into his personal business. For that was what it was: business. He was a businessman. The things he’d done … well, they were to make money. And make money they most certainly had. He wasn’t about to start unravelling a moral fibre he wasn’t even sure was there. Conscience was for pussies—not for him.

This time he buzzed for Margaret, couldn’t tolerate facing her scarcely concealed rapture at whatever drama had now been thrown his way.

‘Get me a girl,’ he instructed as soon as she came on the line. ‘And make it quick.’

There was only one thing he needed right now: a fucking blow job.

Book One

2008-9

1 Lori

Loriana Garcia Torres was reading a novel. It was a good one. The hero was about to enter, a brooding, misunderstood lover with vengeance in his heart.

Dark hair fell over her face and she pulled the wild curls back with one hand, gathering them at the base of her neck. The Tres Hermanas beauty salon, a dusty-walled, graffiti-plastered enterprise in LA’s Eastside was, as usual, empty.

Anita approached the counter. ‘Trash needs takin’ out,’ she sneered, her features contorted with their usual combination of spite and boredom. ‘Get to it.’

Lori tore herself away. At seventeen, with skin the colour of the desert at sunrise and wide, thick-lashed gold-black eyes, she was sexy, even though—perhaps because—she had never had sex. Hers was an irresistible age. On the cusp of womanhood, she still possessed a childlike innocence that rendered her very Spanish beauty incomparable. Her stepsisters, themselves a few years older and with none of Lori’s charm or kindness, hated her for it.

‘I’ve been here since six,’ she replied. ‘This is my first break.’

‘This is my first break,’ Anita mimicked as she chewed gum with an open mouth. It was obscene, the way she did it, because she was wearing so much lipgloss. The hand on her hip was crowned with curled fingernails, each one several inches in length, and heavy hoops pulled fatly at her earlobes. ‘Been busy readin’ that garbage?’ She snatched the book, regarding its pages with disdain. ‘There’s jobs gotta be done round here, quit makin’ excuses.’

‘I’m not. I haven’t stopped all day …’ Lori trailed off under the scorch of Anita’s glare.

‘And you won’t now.’ Anita smiled sweetly and turned up the Jay-Z track on the radio. ‘Or I’ll tell Mama and Tony about Rico. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?’ Rico was Lori’s boyfriend. The Garcias could never find out she was seeing him—they’d go crazy.

Lori’s gaze raked over Tres Hermanas: the cracked mirrors bolted to the walls; the sickly pink of the salon seats, damp and rubbery in the sticky summer heat, their mock leather peeling like sunburned skin; the stained porcelain bowls where she washed through all that tough hair; the acrid smell of ammonia. She hated it. Every second she was here she hated it.

Life hadn’t been easy since her mother had died, ten years ago now. Tony, her father, had swiftly remarried, acquiring a new family: Anita and Rosa, jealous of her beauty and dead-set on making her life a misery, and a stepmother, Angélica, whose mean stare and sideways looks gave Lori the impression she could well do without the nuisance of a ready-made daughter. Unable to abandon the hopes and dreams of her parents, Lori had left school and joined the business, working till her bones ached and her feet blistered. It wasn’t enough. Her sisters’ attitude had driven clients away and now the salon was spiralling rapidly into debt and disrepair.

Lori had no money and no prospects. The days were long and the pay virtually non-existent, and while Anita and Rosa wasted no time spending their share, on cheap clothes, cigarettes and men, Lori put hers straight back into the enterprise. She did it because she loved her father and she didn’t want him to suffer—not more than he already had.

It wasn’t a life. It was endurance.

Rosa emerged from the back, where she’d been smoking out in the yard. Rosa was the eldest and overweight. She sported a cap of slick dark hair, which she tweezed into little hook-like curls at the sides of her face.

‘Loriana thinks she’s done enough for one day,’ chirruped Anita. ‘Got better stuff to do.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Rosa shot Lori a scornful look. ‘Like what?’

Defeated, Lori rose from the counter. It was easier than arguing. Once upon a time she’d have stood up for herself, given as good as she got, but the reality was she was outnumbered. The only person on her side was Tony—or, he had been. These days he seemed to have given up, the endless loans and threats from the bank and demands for payment finally wearing him down. He’d become weak, let Angélica take over with her punishing schedules and harsh government, at least where Lori was concerned. No, she was by herself. That was all there was to it.

The salon door opened and Rosa’s only appointment of the afternoon wandered in, a mean-faced black girl with a tired weave. She slumped into one of the salmon-coloured chairs and threw a glance Lori’s way. ‘I want hair like hers,’ she declared. It wasn’t the first time a client had requested curls like Lori’s, something that was impossible to pull off. Rosa glowered.

Anita released a satisfied puff as Lori began mopping the floor. ‘You’re lucky to have a job here, y’know,’ she mused, leaning over the counter and lazily examining her nails. She’d always been a bully, was born with it in her character, intrinsic as genetics.

‘My family started this place,’ Lori fired back. ‘So don’t tell me I’m lucky to be here.’

It was a petty observation, but nevertheless the truth. Lori’s parents had been proud, God-fearing, hard-working people: they’d been dirt poor but they’d been happy, arriving in America with barely two cents to their name and taking out a loan to build their own business. Purchasing one of a chain of beat-up shopfronts in a down-and-out part of LA, over the years they had watched it grow into something about which they could be proud.

Then her mother had died. Too quick, too sudden, too horrible. Through a shroud of grief, Tony had allowed himself to be comforted by the first person who claimed they wanted to listen. Angélica had pounced on a vulnerable man and an exploitable business. In the weeks that followed, Pelobello had become Tres Hermanas, and from there it had begun its descent. Lori tried desperately to keep its head above water but she worked thankless, endless hours. After a while, it got to a person. It made them feel useless and hopeless. It made them feel broken.

Lori refused to accept this was her future. A light glimmered inside her. Some days she thought it was her mother, still with her; others, the glowing, insistent ember that kept her alive. Change would come. She’d know when it did.

‘I’m done,’ she said now, shoving the mop back in its corner. Anita’s horrified expression appeared in one of the salon mirrors.

‘Don’t you dare think about it!’ she crowed.

‘I’m not thinking about it.’ Lori grabbed her bag. She changed from the uncomfortable plastic heels made obligatory by Angélica into her favourite worn Converse. ‘I’m doing it.’

‘You can’t leave,’ Rosa bitched, jabbing a pair of styling scissors in Lori’s face. ‘You’ve got another hour and you’re workin’ every second of it!’

‘Or what?’ She scooped up a stack of battered paperbacks from under the counter.

‘You’d better not be meetin’ Rico!’ one of them screeched, but she couldn’t tell which. ‘You won’t get away with it!’

Lori pulled open the door, hearing the familiar, hated metallic buzz that announced her departure. She held the books tightly to her, remembering the worlds they kept inside: other worlds she dreamed of when she lay in bed staring into darkness, imagining what opportunity, what possibility, tasted like. Sweet, she decided, like honey.

Things would be different. It was only a matter of time.

I will get out of here, Lori Garcia vowed. One day. One day I’m going to be free.

2 Aurora

‘So, do you want to fuck?’

Mink Ray, sixty-something rock star fresh from a comeback tour with The Bad Brothers, put down his brush and gazed, stoned, at the canvas he’d been working on.

‘Looks like shit,’ he complained.

Aurora Nash ground out her half-smoked joint and sat up. She was naked. ‘I’m offended.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Let’s see.’ She peeled herself off the couch, one of several sunken offerings in Mink’s Hollywood apartment. Aurora was tall, about five-nine, with short ice-blonde hair and glacial blue-grey eyes. Her tits were small and high on her chest, the nipples dark and stiff. She hooked an arm round Mink’s waist. He was wearing his customary leather jacket and it felt weird, quite horny, against her skin. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she pouted, secretly thinking it was dire. She couldn’t work out if it was meant to be abstract or if Mink was just a crap artist.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed at a jagged torpedo thing in the middle of the picture.

‘Your tit,’ he commented lazily, sparking up a cigarette and ambling to the bar, where he poured them both drinks.

‘You promised me it would be tasteful,’ Aurora teased, not minding at all. How tasteful was it ever going to be? She was posing nude for her friend’s dad, rock star legend and now, apparently, frustrated artist.

‘It is,’ Mink said, chucking back the dark liquid and immediately filling another. ‘You couldn’t tell what it was, could you?’

Aurora faced him, unabashed. She put a hand on her hip and felt Mink’s gaze rake over her young body. Her skin was smooth, flawless, smelled fine … and she knew it. ‘My turn.’ She arched an eyebrow at his leather-clad crotch. ‘Let me draw you.’

Mink snorted by way of reply. He fingered the blinds on the window, allowing a sliver of mid-afternoon light to stream in. It illuminated the crags on his face, features addled by years of alcohol and drug abuse and who knew what else. Aurora found it sexy. When he let go, the apartment returned to its den-like state. Aurora joined him at the bar and slipped on to a stool, crossing her long legs and in doing so folding away the light triangle of butter-coloured hair between them. She caught Mink watching.

‘Wanna get bombed?’ he asked, squinting as she took a slug of her drink.

‘What are you offering?’ She trailed her pinkie around the rim of the glass.

Mink knew he should suggest she wear a robe. He didn’t.

‘How old are you anyway?’ he growled.

‘Old enough to fuck.’

‘Yeah, right, missy.’

‘I’ll be nineteen next year.’ Aurora was guessing this was an acceptable number to him. Mink must’ve done all sorts in his day.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘More like eighteen.’

‘Whatever.’ Finishing the drink, she pushed her glass out for a refill. Mink obliged. As she padded back to the couch she could feel Mink’s gaze fixed on her ass.

Actually, Aurora was fifteen, but she was old for her age. She knew loads of girls who said that, but in her case it was actually true. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept with someone older than her dad. Mink wanted her; she could tell it a mile off.

Settling on the couch, she tucked her knees up under her chin. Mink was getting an eyeful. Around her neck was a silver locket, from which she produced a vial of white powder. She tipped a small mound on to her little finger and expertly sniffed it up each nostril.

‘Hey, let me in on summa that.’ Mink swaggered over, glass in hand. He wore a lot of chunky rings with skulls and panthers on them and things like that, and his nails looked grubby. There was paint on his knuckles.

Aurora obliged and they both sat back. Whoa, that was good. She felt Mink’s hand on her leg, creeping higher.

‘I don’t fuck kids your age,’ he pronounced.

‘I don’t fuck men your age,’ she countered.

He regarded her out of the corner of his eye, the way her chest was rising and falling as she breathed, the peaks of her tits coming closer and then receding, tempting him, teasing the growing bulge in his pants. When was the last time that had happened? These days it took more than a nice rack to get him hard. This girl was hot, real hot.

‘Guess that makes us as bad as each other.’ Desire curdled his voice.

Aurora smiled. The light in the room was purplish, and she could see tiny dust motes floating close to the floor. ‘My parents wouldn’t approve,’ she said innocently, gazing up at him through pale lashes. She could see Mink struggle with the turn-on of her virgin-daddy’s-girl protest and the undeniable truth of it.

Aurora Nash was the daughter of Tom Nash and Sherilyn Rose, mega-selling country rock legends and all-round respectable American couple. Initially they’d had separate careers—Sherilyn the sweetheart of the country and western scene; Tom regarded far more seriously than Billy Ray Cyrus but still attracting the comparison, one that pissed him off no end—but when album sales tailed off in the nineties they had joined forces and become a formidable duo, singing songs about the great and good of America, the land of opportunity, all that stuff Aurora privately thought was horse shit. It sold, though—boy, did it sell. They’d made millions.

As her parents’ only daughter, Aurora had never wanted for anything. Every whim was indulged, every desire satisfied. The word ‘no’ didn’t feature in her vocabulary. She liked her life, it was fun—and it was fulfilling, even if recently she’d been jumping from project to project without feeling much about any of them. Everything got handed to her on a plate, and it wasn’t like she was complaining about it, it was just that she never, ever had to try. Then again, who wanted to try? Trying was boring. Succeeding was what it was about. In the last year alone Aurora had released her own teen-queen album, collaborated on a fashion range with a music icon, and launched a perfume called, fittingly, ‘All Mine’. And she wasn’t even sixteen yet.

‘Who says your old man has to know?’ Mink took her hand, guiding her towards the protuberance jutting tent-like from his pelvis.

He unzipped his fly and whipped his dick out. It was gigantic.

Aurora felt like laughing. But Mink was dead serious. ‘You gonna suck my cock like a good little girl?’ he breathed, the words catching at the back of his throat. One hand was absent-mindedly caressing the shaft, the other applying pressure to the back of Aurora’s head. She resisted against it and Mink pushed harder.

‘Wait your turn,’ she told him, manoeuvring her body round. She lay flat on her back and parted her legs. Mink’s mouth fell open, which was a good start. ‘Girls go first.’

3 Stevie

There was a certain romance to exiting a New York yellow cab. As Stephanie Speller slammed the door and hauled her bag out of the trunk, watching as the vehicle rejoined a blaring stream of downtown traffic, she gazed up at the surrounding skyscrapers and believed, for the first time in a while, she had arrived.

It was like stepping on to a movie set. Drivers hollered from car windows. Commuters rushed past brandishing steaming coffee, bursts of animated conversation reaching her from every angle in layers of astounding clarity and detail. The aroma of something sweet from busily toiling street vendors, pretzels or doughnuts, masked the sourer odour of trash sweating it out in the summer heat. Stevie had to put her head right back, looking up and up and up till her neck hurt, trying to see the tops of the buildings, and even then—

Someone slammed into her, the force of impact nearly sending her flying.

‘Hey, lady, get outta the street!’

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, blinking behind her glasses. She’d developed the habit a lot of English people have where they say sorry for something when it’s not really their fault.

She took refuge in a café with an Italian name, all red leather booths and an overhead ceiling fan, tickets being shouted for lattes and Americanos, and bustling, harassed baristas. After putting in her order and grabbing a folded copy of the New York Times, Stevie slid into one of the booths and took her phone out of her bag. She pushed the bridge of her glasses up on her nose, a nervous tendency she indulged in even when she wasn’t wearing them.

As often they were, her phone proved to be a useful distraction. A guy sitting in the adjacent booth was eyeing her keenly. She was surprised at his unabashed scrutiny: she’d never before considered that looking someone up and down actually meant looking someone up and down. He was wearing a suit—it being a little past seven a.m.—and, judging by the laptop and stack of paperwork in front of him, ought to be focusing on something other than her. He was short, at least his top half was, and bald, with a muscular neck and shoulders. Parts of his body appeared inflated, as if someone had put a bicycle pump up a vital orifice and filled him with air.

Stevie glanced away. Even if she had found the man attractive, and even if she had become accustomed to picking up strangers in cafés within hours of arriving in a new city, the attention made her uncomfortable. What gave him the right? Was it the suit, the expensive shoes, the bulging wallet? It was the last thing she needed or wanted. It was the reason she’d come here in the first place, why she’d boarded a plane back in London and vowed never to look back.

Her drink arrived and she thanked the waitress, her English accent piquing the guy’s interest. She focused on her phone, scrolling down the accommodation sites she’d had a brief trawl through before arriving. Any of her friends would have laughed at the idea that sensible Stevie would just turn up somewhere without a place to stay, but the decision had been so immediate that there’d been little opportunity for preparation. And anyway, they didn’t know the context. She’d spent her whole life planning and arranging and playing by the rules, and look where that had got her: to a reflection in the mirror she barely recognised.

At twenty-seven, towards the elder end of six siblings, Stevie had always been described as the quiet, studious one. With that big a family it was easy to blend into the background and be tagged with a character, as much a means of identification as anything else. But it wasn’t always possible to be how everyone else expected you to be, and, in any case, nobody was that clear-cut: nobody was immune to stepping out of themselves if the circumstances were right. Her behaviour over the past few months would stun them all.

She was tired after the flight and put more sugar than usual in her coffee. As she did so she made the mistake of briefly meeting her admirer’s eye. She imagined how he saw her. Shy, probably. Nervous. Maybe a bit geeky, certainly she had been at school, when she’d worn braces and been timid with boys and hadn’t grown into her face yet.

Stevie was petite, with dark, serious features and a precise, angular, pale-skinned beauty that had been described in the past as both ‘classical’ and ‘timeless’. She was never sure how to take this: it made her think of the marble busts at the British Museum with their Roman noses and blank, staring eyes like peeled boiled eggs. Her hair was very dark red like the skin on a cherry, and she wore it back, in a neat ponytail. She used mascara but no other make-up—one of the preferences she’d recently reclaimed, because he’d liked a woman to look a certain way, and that had meant shadows and powders and waxy lipsticks. Stevie didn’t need any of this. She was beautiful, in the way only someone without a scrap of vanity can be.

‘Excuse me?’

Would it be rude to ignore him? Yes.

Reluctantly, she looked up. The man had packed his stuff away and appeared to be heading out.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing you,’ he said. ‘Are you from London?’ Up close he had crescents of sweat under each eye. She didn’t think she’d ever seen someone sweat there before.

‘Yes,’ she replied, with a smile that was neither encouraging nor dismissive.

‘Great city,’ he enthused. ‘Is it your first time in New York?’

She nodded.

‘Need someone to show you around?’

Stevie thought how to articulate her response: he seemed friendly enough, but she had no intention of getting attached to someone this quickly. Besides, while she hadn’t been to New York before, she felt as if she knew it, however wrongly or remotely, from films she’d seen and friends who’d visited, and was confident she’d find her feet soon enough.

‘Thanks.’ She lifted her mobile to indicate she already had a network, and with it came the inspiration of a lie. ‘I’ve got family here.’

‘Sure, sure.’ He grinned. ‘But if you change your mind …?’ From his pocket he removed a business card and slid it on to the table. His hands were soft, the nails clean. She sensed he had a lot of money.

When the man had gone, she returned to the flat-sharing site. Nothing new had come up since she’d last checked, and tapping in revised criteria didn’t help.

The necessities of a flat and a job were about as far ahead as she could consider. When she’d made that snap decision only a few days ago, waking up one morning too many with the familiar hollow sickness, America had been the obvious place to go. Her father had originally been from Boston—he’d left when Stevie was a teenager, into the arms of another woman, and she had neither seen nor heard from him since: a while ago news came he’d died of a heart attack while skiing in Austria—and her American passport gave her a window to find work here and ascertain where she was heading … whether this really was a bolt hole or something more permanent. The way she felt right now, she never wanted to see London again.

She’d check into a hotel, at least for tonight. Tomorrow, she’d start her search in earnest.

Gathering up her things, save for the business card, Stevie downed the last of her coffee and rooted for some coins for a tip. She wasn’t sure it was the done thing, but following a gruesome waitressing stint in her teens she’d been a strict twelve-per-center.

It was only as she was leaving that she noticed the bit of paper stuck to the café window. There were other notes, too, pasted over each other, photos and contact details and petitions—for lost dogs, nanny work, Pilates classes—but it was this one that jumped out at her. She crossed to look at it. The advertisement was scrawled erratically in red pen, an address and a number and a lot of exclamation marks, concluding with: AND I PROMISE WE’LL HAVE AN ADVENTURE!!!!

Stevie tapped the digits into her phone. Without thinking too much about it, she stepped out on to the street and pressed the green call button. She held it to her ear and waited.

And that was how she found Bibi Reiner.

4 Lori

Enrique Marquez worked the boats at the harbour at San Pedro. Lori spotted him straight away, bent over the rigs on one of the bigger pleasure cruisers, his jet tattoo creeping like oil from where it began at his collarbone and travelled down one arm. He was bare-chested, his black hair tied in a short high ponytail, strands escaping. His jeans were low-slung on his waist and a white rag, covered in some kind of grease, was thrown over one shoulder.

‘Hello, stranger.’

He turned at the sound of her voice, a smile breaking out across his boyish face.

‘I nearly forgot how gorgeous you are,’ he said.

Lori waved away his compliment, but the fact of their time apart rang true. They hadn’t been able to see each other for days—it was hard to escape her responsibilities at Tres Hermanas and, once she got home, forget it. Her father would explode if he suspected she was seeing a Mexican boy. Worse, one from the notorious Marquez family.

‘Come here.’ Rico held out his hand.

Lori stepped off the pier and on to the yacht. The LA sun bounced off the sleek white surfaces and crisp flat sails. Rico’s strong grip encircled her waist and he drew her into a kiss. When the kiss became more fevered, Lori pulled away.

‘This one’s beautiful,’ she commented, scoping the length of the boat. ‘Whose is it?’

Rico shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Beats me,’ he said, ‘I’m just paid to make sure it goes.’ He grinned, showing his dimples. ‘Someday I’ll be the guy some kid’s sweating his balls off for. I’ll be the owner of a piece like this, you’ll see.’

‘And would you sail me a long way away?’

‘Wherever you wanted to go.’ He kissed her again, his hands running down her short dress and over her luscious hips. She felt him harden, his tongue slip into her mouth.

‘Not getting distracted, I hope?’ a voice admonished from behind. Lori turned her head to see a rotund man removing his shades and rubbing them on his shirt.

‘Almost done here, boss,’ said Rico, holding Lori firmly to him.

Rico’s supervisor frowned. He scanned Lori’s body, from her mane of wild hair to her bronzed calves and scuffed sneakers. ‘You know I don’t let girlfriends on the boats, Marquez.’

‘It won’t happen again.’ But still he didn’t release her.

The man watched them uncertainly before moving off down the boardwalk.

‘Can you let me go now?’ Lori teased.

‘Can we wait till I’m in a position to move?’ Rico laughed.

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, oh. You know what you do to me.’

Lori glanced away. It was unfair of her to hold out on Rico—she liked him; he was good, he was kind and he treated her right. Yet instinct kept telling her she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for: marriage, soul mates, a new life.? People talked about meeting The One, that single person you wait and hold out for because you love them more than anything else in the world and you’ll always be together, always always no matter what. but that was fantasy, a plot from one of her books. Stories, only stories. Real life didn’t work out that way.

Then why did it scare her that she didn’t feel those things with Rico? If they didn’t exist, why should it count?

But, it did. Somehow, it did.

They rode the freeway on Rico’s bike. Lori loved the feel of the wind in her hair, the way it whipped round her legs and filled her lungs with air. For those moments she could forget. She could be a new woman, whoever she wanted.

Rico lived in a beat-up apartment with his mother but she was out of it on drugs and didn’t hear them come in. His father wasn’t around, and his brother Diego, chief of El Peligro, the most feared gang in Santa Ana, hadn’t been home in a week. No one asked why.

‘We should leave,’ said Lori when they were in his room. ‘Just go.’

Rico put music on. ‘Where?’ He lit a cigarette.

Lori sat cross-legged on his bed. It was a mess, strewn with unwashed clothes, and Rico hauled his T-shirt over his head with one hand and tossed it on to the crumpled mound. She knew he had it worse than she did. Her family was poor, the women were unkind, but at least she knew when she got in at night that she wouldn’t find her father overdosed in a chair, vomit down his front and his tongue bit in half. The first time Rico had found his mom, he’d been only ten.

‘Anywhere,’ she said. ‘Anywhere’s better than here. I’m tired of LA.’

Rico inhaled smoke. ‘You’re tired of your end of it.’ He opened the window and leaned out. A group of boys were fighting in the dusty street and the sound of it washed in, a dry shower of curses and the exploratory flare of violence. ‘We just got the bad deal, didn’t we? Everything you dream about is right here, Lori, just around the corner. You’re on top of it. It’s that close.’

‘Hollywood?’

Rico lifted his shoulders. ‘Something like it. You’re pretty enough. Damn it, you’re beautiful.’ He set his jaw. ‘You can do anything you want.’

‘That’s not what they say.’

‘What do you care what your family thinks?’ Rico’s voice tightened. He knew the Garcias looked down on him. They and their stupid Spanish friends treated him like shit because he was poor, from a bad lot, and his parents had been first-generations. Hadn’t they all started out in the same place? Hadn’t they all crossed a border at some point? Just because the Garcias had been in this city longer they felt able to spit on him, judge him, dismiss him.

‘Move in with me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Forget them.’

‘You know it’s not that easy.’

Rico tossed his smoke out of the window and joined her on the bed. ‘I wish you knew how special you are,’ he said, gathering her into his arms. Perhaps Lori was right—they should pack up and leave, go somewhere no one could find them. But his mother needed him. He wasn’t going to quit on her as his father had.

Lori breathed in her boyfriend’s scent: salt and sweetness, heat and hard work. Was this love? It must be. She didn’t want to lose Rico; he was all she had. And yet, as she felt his hands begin to roam, she was already preparing how to turn him away. Was there something wrong with her? None of the girls she knew had a problem with sex.

‘You drive me crazy,’ murmured Rico. He trailed his fingers down the front of her dress and over her curves. Man, she was hot. He didn’t know how much longer he could wait. It would be her first time and she wanted it to be right, he got that, but this was sending him wild. He was far from inexperienced himself, but recently he’d forgotten what sex felt like.

Lori let herself be kissed and reclined uncomfortably, putting her head back when Rico buried his face in her neck. Every so often she experienced a brief, sharp dart of desire, but it fizzed and died like a match in water. Maybe she was incapable of it—some people were. Other girls talked about getting so turned on by their boyfriends they were prepared to do anything, anywhere, but, as always, the moment Rico’s attentions became too fervent, a sense of claustrophobia overcame her and she had to get away.

‘Rico, don’t …’

He was moving down her body now, his hands on her breasts, attempting to free them as he kissed and bit her skin.

She didn’t want to offend him, knew she kept leading him on only to let him down. What was he doing with her? ‘No, Rico.’

‘Relax,’ he responded, just a muffle, ‘I promise I won’t hurt you.’ She felt his touch trail the inside of her thigh and hook the elastic of her knickers.

Roughly she pushed at him. ‘I told you, I’m not ready.’ She sat up, pulling down the hem of her dress, her face flushed.

Rico bit back his frustration. Instead he put his arms around her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have …’ The early evening sun spilled in and drowned his golden chest with light, the pool of ink there blacker, more absolute, because of it. ‘You know I’ll wait however long it takes. I’d never force you. I promise.’

Lori felt guilty. She was being unfair. What was she holding out for? She had to do it eventually—and it might as well be with a man she knew adored her.

‘Do you trust me?’ Rico asked.

‘Of course.’

He nodded. ‘I love you.’

She met his eyes. ‘I love you, too,’ she said, but she didn’t know what the words meant.

5 Aurora

Aurora gunned the engine of her cherry-red Ferrari Spider. It purred beneath her as she waited at the lights. The sky was apricot and the air smelled sugary, the sun a melting orb that dipped hot below the horizon.

She and her girlfriends were on their way to Basement, their favourite Hollywood hangout. It was Friday night, which meant all the names that meant anything would be out and ready to party. Kids of famous parents, heiresses and socialites, child stars, models, they’d all be there: wholesome favourites with secret coke addictions, virgin starlets who’d spend the night promising a blow job to their managers, alpha-male young actors with an eye for the boys as well as the girls … Inside the car, a bottle of vodka was being passed round. Joints were being rolled. Lines being cut. They were totally baked and the night hadn’t even begun.

At a red light, Aurora caught sight of a super-hot Latino guy on a bike next to her. He had more than a passing resemblance to Rafael Nadal, who she had a major thing for. A pretty girl was clinging to his waist—she looked like a gypsy, with masses of black hair and long, tanned legs. For a fleeting moment Aurora imagined being in bed with both of them at the same time. Maybe she was a fucking nympho—the thought had occurred to her before.

The lights changed and the boy sped off. In his place, an open-top Jeep packed with surfers on their way back from the beach. They were shirtless, still wet, whooping at the girls to get their attention, their piercings glinting in the fading light. One of them made an obscene gesture at Aurora.

‘You strapped in?’ she asked the others. Farrah Michaels, her best friend and daughter of the head of a mega Hollywood production studio, sniffed and coughed. Her eyes were glassy.

‘Your dad’s gonna freak if you waste the car.’

Aurora revved the engine. Someone beeped. The driver of the Jeep winked. One of the guys stood up, pulled down his shorts and slapped his bare ass. The girls squealed. Jenna Reynolds, in the back, lifted her top and jiggled two enormous breasts in response.

‘Jerk-offs.’ Aurora floored it and the Ferrari roared to life, nought to sixty in a matter of seconds. The other car didn’t stand a chance. In the rear-view mirror Aurora saw the Jeep recede to a pinpoint before vanishing completely.

Jenna was thrown back against the seat. She struggled to get her top down. ‘Ow!’ she complained. ‘Fucking hell.’ Farrah was laughing.

Aurora took another swig from the bottle. She turned on to Sunset at speed. The Ferrari’s tyres squealed.

‘Uh, hello?’ complained Farrah, grappling to retrieve her smoking paraphernalia. ‘Some of us are trying to get high?’

Moments later they pulled up outside Basement. Aurora was striking in a clinging white minidress, killer heels and statement arm jewellery. Her pale blonde crop looked incredible against her bronzed skin. Her blue eyes were lined with kohl. The other girls, though each attractive in her own right, paled in comparison.

The paparazzi were out in force. They clamoured for Aurora the instant she exited the vehicle. ‘Aurora! This way! Look this way, Aurora! Aurora, over here!’

She chucked her keys at a waiting valet. He fumbled the catch and dived to the floor to retrieve them. Aurora led the way inside.

The club was pounding. She headed for the VIP area and proceeded to order them all shots. Farrah, a pretty redhead, scoped the place for the member of a teen boy-band sensation she’d heard would be making an appearance. To the public the band were all good innocent Christians, but rumour said different of at least one. Apparently he was into dildos.

Aurora was used to the looks she got. Everyone in this town knew who she was and who her parents were. A British DJ had remixed one of Sherilyn Rose’s songs and it was currently storming the download charts. No doubt they’d play it tonight in her honour. Secretly she found it embarrassing. She was tight with her dad but her mom was another matter. Maybe it was the same with all moms: they were a reminder of what you could look like in fifty years or whatever. OK, not fifty, but close. She shuddered.

Last week had been her parents’ anniversary. For some reason, every year, they celebrated it by buying her a gift, like she was the reason they were still together, or something. It was messed up. But she wasn’t about to say no to a two-hundred-thousand-dollar ride, was she? Hence the Ferrari. Farrah had been right: Tom would throw a shit fit if he knew she was using it to party, but, still, what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Aurora was his little girl and nothing she did could be anything short of wonderful. Did he even know where she was tonight? She couldn’t work out if he and Sherilyn genuinely had no idea about her lifestyle or if it suited them to be ignorant. She guessed they had enough else to think about without a tearaway daughter who was bedding everything in sight.

Aurora ended up on the lap of Olympic idol Jax Jackson, who had a cock that was allegedly so huge it had acquired a myth-like status. From where she was perched it didn’t feel like much. He had masses of bling around his neck and a solid-gold watch that probably cost more than the car. Across the bar she spotted Farrah pressed up against Boy-Band-Christian. Jenna, who’d starred in several kids’ adventures when she was seven but had never lost the puppy fat, was dancing in a circle of admiring males. Aurora felt bored.

‘Why’n’t we skip the bullshit,’ proposed Jax, ‘an’ you come home with me?’ He shifted on the banquette, pressing his growing erection into her backside. ‘Throw our own little party, whaddaya say?’

Aurora had never done it with a black guy; it’d make a change. But she was wasted, properly wasted. She felt kind of sick. Abruptly, she stood up. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Jeez.’ He slid his attentions to an adjacent blonde. ‘Suit yourself.’ It was an effort to get across the club. She managed to peel Farrah away from her boyfriend—’boy’ being the operative word—and shout in her ear that she was going.

‘Already?’ Farrah was shocked. ‘How’m I gonna get home?’

Aurora couldn’t be bothered to answer. That was Farrah’s problem. Either she was coming or she wasn’t.

‘I’m not coming,’ said Farrah. Boy-Band-Christian grabbed her chin and stuck his tongue in her mouth. Aurora saw it slide in like a horrible slug and she experienced an intense rush of disliking her best friend. This whole scene was tired out. She’d had enough of it. Every day the same: endless partying, endless guys, endless everything.

If Farrah was staying, she could sort Jenna out, too.

Outside, the cameras lunged at her. In seconds her car was brought round and she jumped in, switching the ignition. Fuck. She was out of her head, shouldn’t be driving, probably. But no one told her so. No one ever told her so.

She’d been on Sunset for a minute, maybe two, when she started feeling properly like shit. She’d done too much: her eyelids were heavy, her limbs shutting down.

I’m going to pass out, she thought. Car horns blared.

The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the wheel, hard, painfully. Then everything went black.

6 Stevie

Bibi Reiner was a firework. She was tiny, everything about her compact, with this amazing scrawl of frizzy auburn hair and huge, wide green eyes. Since welcoming Stevie at the door of her apartment over a month ago, she had barely stopped talking.

‘You and me are gonna have such a blast!’ she’d gabbled as she led Stevie through her place on West 54th, at once assuming their living together was a done deal, something Stevie found incredibly friendly. They were at the top of an impressive redbrick with views over Central Park, and inside were bright white walls, spotlights and parquet flooring. Stevie’s room was spacious, light and airy, with tons of storage and a luxurious king-size bed. Over the summer it had been occupied by Bibi’s brother, like her an aspiring actor, but he’d since relocated to LA, leaving the room free. Stevie had called at the right time. She couldn’t believe her luck.

‘How was your flight?’ Bibi had chattered. ‘What’s going on in London? I love London. What do you do? What do you eat? I’m a vegan, which means I don’t eat meat or dairy, but I will have a hot dog once a year because I love them. Also, I’m a Buddhist. I don’t drink alcohol but I do drink champagne. I have to get nine hours’ sleep every night otherwise I don’t function and my skin turns to crap. Your skin’s amazing, what do you use? You’re so pretty, far prettier than me. I’d love to have hair like yours; it’s so straight. Mine’s a total mess. Don’t you think? I’ve tried everything. Go on, be honest, it’s too much, isn’t it? I should dye it. Red? Or pink. I was thinking pink. And I want to get a tattoo on my back, here, of a butterfly.’ She’d reached awkwardly around, failing to get to the exact spot and laughing at herself. ‘Just a little one because they’re cute. But my agent says I’m limiting roles. I just wanna stand out, ya know?’

Bibi didn’t stop. But she was lovely, she was funny; she was sweet and she was kind. And for Stevie, who only talked when there was something to say, she was in many ways the ideal person to share with. The girls were different but they clicked instantly. Bibi thought Stevie was the most gorgeous creature she had ever seen because she had this air of calm and wisdom, something Bibi had always coveted in others because she herself was a ditz: things popped into her head and she just blurted them out, pouf!

Despite the fact that Stevie had moved in five weeks ago, she was still struggling to find work. Her rent was fair, in fact it was better than fair, but she was already scraping the barrel of her savings. It wasn’t for lack of trying—she’d walked the city till her feet gave in, leaving her CV anywhere that looked as if it might need staff—but in honesty her lack of progress was more down to the fact that Bibi was constantly suggesting lunches out, parties, shopping and coffee with her friends so Stevie could be introduced. She was infinitely generous, with everything.

It was a Thursday. Stevie was lying on her front on the bed, intermittently yawning, her chin resting in the cup of one hand while the other tapped aimlessly through job sites. She didn’t even know any longer what she was looking for. Every time she landed on one that seemed suitable, she’d spot that the closing date had already expired, or she had to be based in a different city, or it required a proven qualification she didn’t have.

Always academic at school, she’d opted out of university to the disappointment of her teachers. Her dad had walked when she was fifteen and there followed an awkward few years: she’d wanted to get out into the real world and earn a living, because he’d left them with next to nothing and she’d decided that never again would she be in a position of dependency. Well, that was the reason she gave herself. More likely was that her mum was trying to raise and provide for an army of kids and a slug of university fees was the last thing they could sustain.

Working life hadn’t been as glamorous or as productive as Stevie had imagined, however she’d found a niche that paid well and played to her skills. She’d been a PA now, in varying degrees of responsibility, for nearly ten years. She was efficient, organised and unflustered. Or, she had been, up until a year ago. But that depended on who you were working for.

There was a knock at the door. A beaming Bibi stuck her head round.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ Stevie smiled back. Her smile was one of the best things about her, the sort of smile she gave her whole face to. In repose she could appear quite solemn: it was more concentration than anything else, but all the same it made the contrast a dazzling surprise.

Bibi, dressed in faded dungarees and an eighties-style bandana, bustled in with two mugs of coffee. She laid them down and flopped backwards on to the bed.

‘I need a boyfriend!’ she announced dramatically.

Stevie snapped shut her laptop. ‘You don’t need a boyfriend; you want a boyfriend. There’s a difference.’

‘Are you a feminist?’

‘Aren’t you?’

Bibi shrugged and looked at the ceiling. She covered one eye, then the other, and did this a few times. ‘I can see better out my left.’

‘Maybe you need glasses.’

‘Maybe. Wanna go out?’

Stevie sat up. ‘I can’t afford it, B.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘I need to find a job.’

‘You need to?’

‘Yes. Otherwise what am I going to pay you with at the end of the month?’

‘Come on,’ said Bibi, not listening. She yawned in her usual theatrical way, stretching her arms wide. She’d assured Stevie that the apartment belonged to some distant aunt and she was getting a ‘ridiculously sweet’ deal, but Stevie saw no reason why she should take advantage of this, and anyway she disliked not having work, it made her feel like a waster.

‘Oh my God!’

Stevie was alarmed. ‘What?’

‘My friend’s having a party tonight!’ She sprang up. ‘I just remembered! We should go!’

Stevie stared balefully at her laptop.

‘Let’s go now!’ And she bounced off the bed.

‘It’s three o’clock.’

‘So? We’ll go shopping on the way.’ At Stevie’s expression, she added slyly, ‘There’ll be guys there. And you know what guys mean? Flirting. And you know what flirting means?’

‘Waking up in someone’s bed the next day without a clue what their name is?’

Bibi looked innocent. ‘I was going to say a bit of banter, but if you—’

Stevie threw a cushion at her.

‘Come on—’ Bibi checked her reflection in the mirror and adjusted the bandana above her ears ‘—they’re actors, it’ll be fun!’

This was a further disincentive. Stevie loved Bibi and had no doubt that one day she’d be a famous and very talented actress—it was all she had ever wanted to do, Bibi vowed, her whole entire life—but she had, apart from where Bibi was concerned, a slight phobia of that world. Take the Aurora Nash scandal, for instance. Stevie felt sorry for the girl, she was only fifteen or something, and her mug shot had been all over the papers. Last month she’d crashed the car Daddy had bought her and ended up getting arrested. She’d had enough drugs in her system to tranquillise a horse. In fact one of the drugs was for tranquillising horses. It was a spoiled, desperate scene. All that mindless excess, it wasn’t her thing.

Stevie’s last job had been working as PA to the director of a firm dealing in high-profile celebrity court cases: divorces, injunctions, political scandals, they’d handled it all. As part of that she’d been obliged to attend the occasional industry bash and had found each one unbearable. Cash made these people invincible, or so they thought. Stevie recalled him working flat out on a case shortly after she joined involving a married news anchor who’d been filmed dressing up four twenty-something Russian prostitutes as characters from The Wizard of Oz—it was their job to keep the press off the scent. She resisted the memory. That had been the case that started it. The late nights … the way he’d stand at the window loosening his tie, the spires of London behind, silhouetted in gold … the invitation of a drink, and then.

‘You do like men, don’t you?’ Bibi interrupted her train of thought. ‘Because this one time I kissed my best friend, who’s a girl, at holiday camp when I was, like, sixteen.’

Stevie shook her head. ‘So …?’

‘So are you gay?’

‘No.’

‘Just checking. Cos there are plenty of girls I could set you up with.’

‘Who says I want to get set up?’ Stevie removed her glasses and went to clean one of the lenses on her T-shirt. ‘Believe it or not, I like being by myself.’

Bibi bit her thumbnail. ‘Can you see without those on?’

‘Pretty much. I just can’t see things far away.’

‘You should get contacts.’

‘Hmm.’ She slipped them back on, returning to her computer.

‘You’re really not coming, then?’ Bibi folded her arms.

‘I’m really not coming.’

‘OK.’ One of the nice things about Bibi was that she’d try for her own way, but was quick to identify defeat and get over it without a struggle. ‘I guess you need to save yourself for Linus Posen’s party, anyway.’

‘Who?’

Bibi had made to leave, and turned now, feigning surprise. ‘Oh! Didn’t I mention it?’

Stevie raised an eyebrow. ‘No.’

‘You must have heard of Linus Posen.’

She hazarded a guess based on Bibi’s usual array of friends—and the more the name settled, the more she thought she recognised it. ‘Director? Producer?’

‘The first. My rep’s going, she’ll get us in. Honest, it’s the party of the season. And Linus is a very big deal.’ She clapped her hands together excitedly. ‘If I play this right, he could really make things happen! So you will come, won’t you? For moral support?’

Stevie cringed.

‘For me?’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘You’re in New York City, now, sugar, you’ve got to live a little.’ Bibi winked as she closed the door behind her. ‘Stick with me and you’ll be just fine.’

7 Lori

Tony Garcia folded his copy of La Opinión and slid it quietly on to the table. Lori noticed the stack of unopened envelopes gathered there, the red-stamped final warnings just visible in the windows. Dark circles shadowed her father’s eyes.

‘The shame!’ Angélica, at her husband’s wilted shoulder, had her thin arms folded and her black hair secured in a tight bun. Her lips were a bloody shade.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Lori replied coldly. She still had her bag slung over one shoulder, had scarcely returned from Tres Hermanas before Angélica embarked on her tirade. Anita and Rosa—those bitches, those putas—had grassed her up.

The tiny kitchen was the scene of their dispute. The house had barely been big enough for three when her mother was alive, but they had loved each other so it hadn’t mattered. Now, Lori felt the walls closing in on her, unbearably close. Dirty plates piled up in the sink, awaiting her attention; laundry heaped in a corner, a pair of Anita’s knickers thrown carelessly over the top; grime and squalor on every surface, tasks the women deemed beneath them.

‘Rico loves me,’ she attested, lifting her chin. ‘He takes care of me.’

‘Enrique Marquez is not one of us,’ spat Angélica, as if this closed the matter. ‘You are a disgrace to this family, Loriana.’

‘What family? You’re not my family. You’ll never be.’

Angélica’s eyes blazed. ‘Tony, tell your daughter to show me some respect!’

Tony was an echo. ‘You heard her, Lori. Show some respect.’

She wanted to hit him. Come on, she willed her father, stand up for yourself! Grief changed a man—but how much longer till she got him back?

‘His people are dangerous,’ blasted Angélica.

‘You know nothing about Rico and his family.’

‘I know about the dead baby!’ she rasped triumphantly. ‘Don’t think for a second we don’t know about her.’ Rico’s mother had given birth to a stillborn daughter the previous year: everyone knew it was the drugs.

‘His brother will go the same way, you can be sure of that,’ Angélica raged on. ‘They are dirty, Loriana. They are immigrants.’

‘And what does that make us?’

‘Tony!’ Angélica put a hand out to steady herself, appalled by the mere suggestion that she and her daughters should be classed in the same way.

Lori knew Anita and Rosa were behind her in the hallway, listening in. She pictured their rapt expressions and experienced a fresh surge of injustice. Nothing they did was ever wrong; everything she did was. She was an outcast in this house.

‘You want to complain about people who don’t work to support themselves? Fine. Ask your daughters. They’re lazy; they do nothing. Nada. The work falls to me—just as it does here.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Mama would be so disappointed.’

There was a flicker in Tony’s expression, but as soon as it appeared it was gone. Fury reignited Angélica, who was unable to tolerate reference to her predecessor.

‘You ungrateful puta!’ she spat. ‘Do you think you would fare better on your own? Go ahead, then—try! You’re living under our roof, remember—’

‘I don’t recall this house being yours,’ interrupted Lori. ‘And anyway, if you’d had your way I wouldn’t even be here, I’d never have been born. So why don’t you let me go out with a dangerous boy? See if I might wind up dead sometime. You never know, you might get lucky!’

‘Stop!’ At last, Tony snapped. The kitchen plunged into silence. Lori knew she had gone too far, but she had wanted a reaction, any reaction. Now she had got one.

But it wasn’t the one she expected.

‘If that is the way you feel,’ said Tony evenly, ‘then we will not stop you leaving. In fact, we will encourage it.’ He rubbed his eyes, and when they met hers, red-rimmed with fatigue, she saw they were empty as a well.

‘If you insist on seeing this boy, we will have no choice but to send you to Corazón.’

She was appalled. ‘In Spain?’ Corazón was Lori’s elderly grandmother on Tony’s side. The woman lived in the middle of nowhere in a remote mountainous part of the country.

Tony nodded. ‘Angélica and I believe it is for the best.’

It made sense. ‘That’s exactly the way you want it,’ she told her stepmother, almost admiring her nerve. ‘Get me out of the way, maybe I’ll never come back.’

‘We are giving you a choice,’ said Angélica, dripping mock-fairness. ‘If you continue to see Enrique Marquez, you will leave us with none.’

Lori pushed her way through to the hall. Anita and Rosa scurried out of sight; Rosa’s large behind waddling noisily up the stairs to the bedroom she shared with her sister.

She was blind with anger. It was unthinkable to split from Rico—he was her only refuge, the only thing in life that made her feel there was some escape, however, whenever. But equally she could not risk being sent to Spain. Her grandmother was about to die, she must be a hundred at least, and it would be like being sent to the graveyard herself.

‘Loriana, you come back here!’ screamed Angélica from inside the house, furious that she should be walked out on. ‘I haven’t finished with you!’

The beach drew her, the only place she could think of to go. She was desperate to call Rico but couldn’t bring herself to tell him what had been said. Angélica’s cruel words echoed, chaotic, in her memory, like a bird she had seen once, trapped in a room.

A truck horn sounded as she crossed Ocean Boulevard. A guy stuck his head out of the window and shouted something appreciative. In frayed denim shorts and a plain string vest, two thin hoops glinting in her wild black hair, Lori was a siren without a clue how to use her beauty—and that was the best use of all.

The ocean was still. It wasn’t yet dark. Lori removed her shoes and padded across the golden sand. At the water’s edge, she stopped.

So this was the choice: quit seeing Rico or go to Spain. The irony was that if it were anywhere else she would have jumped at the chance—wasn’t it the breakout she’d been wishing for?—but if she felt now like her life was moving nowhere, it would be nothing compared with the situation at Corazón’s. Lori recalled the house in Spain only distantly, in the mists of her childhood, but the fragments she assembled created an image of quiet and loneliness and loss. What could there possibly be for her there? More waiting … waiting for her life to pass her by.

Mierda! Frustration gave way to unhappiness. She refused to weep; she was stronger than that. Tears achieved nothing. She needed a plan.

In the distance, a boat edged slowly across the horizon. Lori closed her eyes. In the months following her mother’s death, she had pictured an island, somewhere remote and far away, the place she always went to when she needed to remember there was a wider world waiting to be found. She could picture it so clearly: its sweeping white shores and sparkling green waters, the chalky heat and the blazing sun. Now, at the ocean’s lip, sensing the great expanse at her feet, she could almost believe such a place existed. An island that was all hers, her fantasy alone, which nobody else could touch.

One day …

Hers was a different fate. Maybe she knew it because of her mother: she had to live a life that was big enough for two. Maybe it was because she spent too much time poring over romance novels, gateways to those other glittering treasure-filled worlds. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because she was right. Her heart believed it and she trusted her heart.

Lori breathed the salty air deep into her lungs. One day she would visit her island, see it made real. See the destiny that awaited her there.

It was obvious what had to happen.

She and Rico had talked about it. Now they just had to do it.

They were going to run away.