Double Lucky (109 page)

Ace had always been her rock, and she'd let him down, but as Lucky said—“We can't help who we fall for.”

*   *   *

After giving in to the L word, Denver and Bobby returned to L.A. and settled in to the new house Bobby purchased. “No huge megamansions,” Denver had warned him. “Something manageable, please. And not in any fancy area. I like normal.”

“Normal” turned out to be a one-story house in the Hollywood hills with three bedrooms and a panoramic view of the city. It had a reasonably sized garden and a simple lap pool. Amy Winehouse was in dog heaven!

Denver finally introduced Bobby to her family, not without a great deal of trepidation. Surprise, they all loved him. And as her mom said, “What's not to love? He's a great guy.”

Yes, Bobby was a great guy, and she was happy they'd moved in together. She was also happy with her new position in the drug unit. Working closely with Leon was a kick, and they had a lot going on. Leon had been tracking a Colombian drug lord, Pablo Diego, for months, and they were near to closing in on his U.S. connections. Pablo's son, Alejandro, was one of their main targets, along with all the dealers he supplied. A series of arrests was imminent.

Denver was well aware that one of their upcoming arrests would be Frankie Romano. Ethics prevented her from mentioning this to Bobby. What he didn't know, he couldn't do anything about, and even though Frankie was no longer his close friend, Bobby had an innate sense of loyalty, and could try to warn Frankie, enabling him to skip town.

This could not happen, so silence ruled.

Denver loved Bobby so much. She'd even attended a few of
his
family events, and managed to forge a warm relationship with Lucky—who was not as intimidating as she'd imagined. She also adored Lennie, who was so smart and acerbic in a delightfully clever way. And she and Max were warming up to each other slowly but surely.

All in all, Denver felt nothing but positive thoughts about her future with Bobby.

*   *   *

Things were going so well that Bobby had a plan. He'd pulled off buying a house and moving into it with Denver, and now he was thinking he wanted more. Denver was so damn special. Beautiful, smart, sexy, his best friend. What more could he look for in a woman?

He wanted to ask her to marry him, but instinctively he had a feeling she'd turn him down. It had taken him forever to get her to move into a house with him—marriage could send her running.

Or not.

He didn't know.

Help was needed, so he secretly met up with her best friend, Carolyn, who was now part of an extremely content lesbian couple, and asked her advice. Carolyn's advice was sound. “Do not rush her,” she said. “When the time is right for both of you, you'll know it.”

In the meantime, Bobby went to Tiffany's to purchase a seven-carat engagement ring, which Denver would probably think was way too flashy. But what the hell—it was his prerogative to spoil her.

He put the ring away, and waited patiently for the right time.

*   *   *

Lucky Santangelo Golden and Lennie Golden. True soul mates. Who said marriages in Hollywood didn't last?

They dealt with the Max/Billy situation in the only way they knew how, and that was with understanding, love, and a nonjudgmental attitude.

The South of France trip turned out to be exactly what everyone needed. They stayed with friends in a magnificent villa above Cannes, and Max hit it off with the son of the family, a twenty-two-year-old French aspiring screenwriter. Nothing serious, just fun. Lucky realized that was exactly what Max needed right now, some mindless fun.

Meanwhile, Lennie had plans of his own. “We're driving to Saint-Tropez for the day,” he informed his wife. “Just you and me.”

“Let's go,” Lucky said, for she knew exactly what he had in mind.

And so it was that they relived the first time they'd made love. They went to the same beach and swam out to the same raft. Making love on it was just as amazing—if not better—than the first time.

Lucky still reveled in Lennie's touch. The excitement between them was still as passionate and intense. But everything had to come to a crashing halt when a couple of kids swam toward the raft and hauled themselves aboard.

Giggling as if they were teenagers themselves, Lucky and Lennie took off, plunging in the sea and swimming back to shore, where they collapsed on the sand, still giggling hysterically.

“Love you,” Lennie muttered when they calmed down.

“I know,” Lucky replied, her black-as-night eyes gazing into his.

They were two people who had found each other, and nothing and no one would ever split them apart.

Two reckless, passionate people, filled with sensual zest and a hearty thirst for living that would take them wherever they wished to go.

Lucky and Lennie. Two of a kind.

 

Read on to find a sneak peek at extracts from

THE SANTANGELOS

Jackie Collins
's dynamic new novel in hardcover and eBook in June 2015 from St. Martin's Press

 

 

PROLOGUE

The King of Akramshar—a small but wealthy Middle Eastern country located between Syria and Lebanon—ruled his oil-rich country with an iron fist. King Emir Amin Mohamed Jordan embraced many old-fashioned values, traditions, and rules. He had countless wives and over thirty children. In his mind they were all useless. Women were only good for two things—giving birth and being at his sexual beck and call. As for his offspring—some of them grown men—they were all disappointments. The only son who'd given him any pleasure at all was his dear departed son, Armand—a worthy successor to the King's coveted crown. And Armand was gone. Murdered by the American infidels. A bullet to the head in a degenerate American city called Las Vegas.

The King's fury was boundless. How could this have happened? And why?

The King had given Armand a royal funeral fit for his favorite son. His people had lined the streets, heads bowed, showing their respect as they should. Several of his many sons carried the gold casket on their shoulders. Peggy, Armand's American mother, his widow, Soraya, and his four children walked behind. The women, including Peggy, wore traditional robes covering their entire bodies. The King rode on a white stallion, resplendent in a gold-trimmed uniform, waving to his people.

King Emir was a man who believed in revenge. And who exactly was to blame for the unfortunate demise of his favorite son, shot to death like a dog?

King Emir had his own ideas. Armand had been trying to buy the very hotel he was murdered in—The Keys—a hotel owned by a woman. That a woman could actually own a hotel was ridiculous, but even more ridiculous—according to Peggy—the woman had refused to sell her property to Armand, and on top of that she had insulted him to his face, and the King had no doubt that it was she who had arranged for Armand's brutal murder.

King Emir simmered with fury, while dark thoughts of revenge filled his head. Justice had to be done.

But how?

Kill the woman? Take her life exactly as she had taken Armand's?

No. That was not punishment enough. The woman had to suffer, her family had to suffer.

This was a given.

King Emir was busy putting plans in place—for his rage would rain down on the offensive American mongrels. And they too would feel the pain.

 

 

LUCKY

The Keys was Lucky Santangelo Golden's dream hotel, but sometimes one can dream bigger, and Lucky had decided that she should create something even more special. She was at a place in her life where she felt that it was time for a new challenge. Everything was running smoothly, her kids were all doing well. Bobby, with his chain of successful clubs. Max, busy making a name for herself in London as an up-and-coming model. Young Gino Junior and Leonardo (Lennie's son she'd adopted) were ensconced in summer camp. And her father, Gino, was happily living out his days in Palm Springs with his fourth wife, Paige.

So Lucky had decided it was time to shake things up, and she'd come up with the idea of building a hotel/casino/apartment complex plus a movie studio. This was something nobody had done before. And why not? It was a brilliant idea.

When she'd told her filmmaker husband, Lennie, he'd thought it was crazy but certainly doable. The movie community would love it. Everything in one place. And it wasn't as if Lucky were a newcomer to making movies; she'd owned and run Panther Studios for several years. She
was
the Lady Boss. Lucky Santangelo could do anything she chose to do.

Today she was lunching with a team of architects that she was considering hiring. One of her favorite moves was testing people, observing their strengths and weaknesses, deciding if working with them would be calm or stressful.

Danny, her trusty assistant, accompanied her on the way to The Asian, an elegant Chinese restaurant in her hotel.

Danny was one of the few privy to the fact that she was plotting and planning on building yet another fantastic Vegas complex. Danny got it; he understood that The Keys—a truly amazing combination of grand hotel, luxurious apartments, and one of the best casinos in Vegas—was simply not enough for her. As usual, his dynamic boss wanted more.

The moment Lucky entered the restaurant conversation stopped and people stared. They couldn't help themselves, Lucky had a magnetic, charismatic quality about her.

She radiated a presence full of beauty, power, passion, and strength. A lethal combination.

Danny relished every minute of the way people reacted when they saw Lucky. She deserved the attention. She was a true star, an incredibly smart businesswoman who could achieve anything she set her mind to. The thing about Lucky was that she needed to be collaborative, but she also needed to be in control. Nobody told Lucky Santangelo what to do. Her motto was: “If I'm going to fail, I'll fail on my own mistakes, not on someone else's.” Her other motto was: “Never fuck with a Santangelo.”

Danny had both mottos engraved on two coffee mugs that sat in the kitchen of his L.A. apartment along with his somewhat mangy cat, Ethel.

 

 

BOBBY

It pissed Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos off that his live-in girlfriend, Denver Jones, was never available to travel with him. Even with texting, sexting, and Skype, long separations were no damn good. Oh sure, he understood that Denver was fixated on her job as a high-powered assistant district attorney, but surely—just sometimes—she could put him first?

Lately she'd been so into the drug case she was working on that even when he was home at their house in L.A., he barely saw her. She was intent to prosecute, and he'd never seen her so determined.

This too shall pass
, he told himself.
And when it's over, I will finally give her the seven-carat Tiffany diamond engagement ring I purchased months ago, and ask her to marry me.

He had to tread carefully with Denver, she wasn't like the other girls he'd been with. She was exceptionally smart, beautiful, and a self-achiever. She didn't want anything from him other than his love, and that suited him just fine, because as the heir to a great shipping fortune, most women looked at him with dollar signs flashing in their eyes.

Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos, son of the infamous Lucky Santangelo and the late Greek shipping tycoon Dimitri Stanislopoulos. Drop-dead handsome with longish dark hair, intense eyes, and olive skin—all inherited from the Santangelo side of the family. Six feet three, with his father's strong features and steely business acumen, plus Lucky's street smarts. An interesting mix of skills.

Without touching his massive inheritance, Bobby had gone into business for himself. Along with his partner M.J., they'd opened a chain of highly successful nightclubs called Mood. From New York to Las Vegas Mood was the place to see and be seen.

Currently they were in the process of opening Mood in Chicago and later in the year, Miami, which meant Bobby had a full agenda.

Pacing up and down in his Chicago hotel room, he missed Denver, although at the same time he was also kind of mad at her. In the course of pursuing a notorious drug cartel, she'd been part of a sting operation that had ended with the arrest of Frankie Romano. Poor old Frankie—who happened to be a long-time pal of Bobby's. Unfortunately, Frankie had gotten himself caught up in the so-called glamor of the Hollywood high life. A druggie, who'd once been Annabelle Maestro's boyfriend, Frankie had ended up partnering in a sleazy Hollywood club with the son of a Colombian drug lord, then gotten himself taken down for illegally peddling drugs. The charges against him were distribution and possession—charges that could get him a twenty-year prison sentence. It seemed his operation was connected to a notorious Colombian drug cartel—and Denver was making it her business to find out exactly how. She was relentless in her pursuit.

 

 

MAX

“More?” Athena Hyton-Smythe inquired, leaning over to her friend, Max Golden Santangelo. Athena was tall and ultra-skinny—six feet
without
her five-inch Louboutins. She had flame-colored, frizzed-out hair, cut-glass cheekbones, cat-eyes, and a permanent but super-sexy scowl. At twenty Athena was the current “It” girl of the modeling world, and Max was her sidekick, and on the way to making a name for herself as well. The London gossip columns had nicknamed them “The Terrible Two.” They had a reputation for all-night partying and always being the leaders of the pack.

“More what?” Max replied, sucking a long, tall Mojito through a straw.

“Whatever turns you on,” Athena said with a casual shrug of her glistening bare shoulders randomly scattered with gold glitter. “Coke, grass, tequila shots, Molly, pills, you name it.” She indicated a heavyset man sitting in their booth downing shots of straight vodka. “This Russian dude is like a freakin' pharmacy. He's offering, so we should take advantage while we can. You know I don't get off on paying for my drugs.”