Killer Heels

Praise for Rebecca Chance:

 

Praise for
Divas:

 

‘A classic tale of bitchy women fighting their way to the top’
Daily Mirror

‘A bright new star in blockbusters, Rebecca Chance’s
Divas
sizzles with glamour, romance and revenge.
Unputdownable. A glittering page-turner, this debut
had me hooked from the first page’
LOUISE BAGSHAWE

‘I laughed, I cried, I very nearly choked. Just brilliant! This has
to be the holiday read of the year. Rebecca Chance’s debut
will bring colour to your cheeks even if the credit crunch
means you’re reading it in Bognor rather than the Balearics’
OLIVIA DARLING

Praise for
Bad Girls
:

 

‘Glitzy, hedonistic and scandalous, this compelling read
is a real page-turner’
Closer

 

‘A fun, frivolous read’
Sun

 

Praise for
Bad Sisters
:

‘I’d definitely recommend this book if you’re looking for
a sexy beach read this summer, or you just want to escape
into another world for a while – Chance certainly delivers

on all counts!’ ChickLitReviews.com

 

‘Blistering new bonkbuster’
Sun

 

‘A gripping and exciting novel’
Closer

 

‘An explosive read’
Star Magazine

 

221h Killer Heels.indd i
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Also by Rebecca Chance

Divas
Bad Girls
Bad Sisters

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25/04/2012 10:19:37
For everyone who can work the hell
out of a pair of six-inch heels.
221h Killer Heels.indd vv
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Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to:

At Simon and Schuster: Maxine Hitchcock, who edited this
book wonderfully, and improved it tremendously to the very last
line! I am really lucky to have her on my side. And to Georgina
Bouzova, Libby Yevtushenko, Clare Hey and Emma Lowth on
the editorial side, plus Sara-Jade Virtue and the amazing Marketing
team – Malinda Zerefos, Dawn Burnett, Ally Glynn and Alice
Murphy - who have done the most brilliant job of promoting and
marketing my books. I couldn’t be more grateful for all their hard
work and creativity. Plus, in London, the sales team of James
Horobin, Gill Richardson, Dominic Brendon and Rumana
Haider and in Sydney in Sales, Kate Cubitt, Sharon Bryant,
Lucy Barrett, Lou Johnson, Anabel Pandiella, Rose Harvey and
Melanie Barton who have all been absolutely amazing

At my agents: Anthony Goff, my wonderful agent, is, as
always, a rock and a star, which technically is impossible – and
yet he manages it. Marigold Atkey has been hugely helpful and
Ania Corless, Tine Nielsen, Chiara Natalucci and Stella
Giatrakou in foreign rights are always brilliant.

My darling webmistress, Beth Tindall, for whom nothing is
ever too much trouble.

 

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The beautiful, blonde and bubbly Katharine Walsh, PR
extraordinaire, probably the hardest-working and most glamorous woman in London, and the team at Brooklands, who
treated us so wonderfully when we stayed there.

The dapper Mr Kandee for letting us use his amazing shoes
for the covers and competitions – aren’t they gorgeous?
My New York party crew, Jamie Ranieri, the Fruit Fli
supreme, Marco de los Rios and Travis Pagel. They’re even
prettier and naughtier in person, believe it or not. And look up
the Fruit Fli parties if you want a gay old time of it the next
time you visit Manhattan.
All the really hardcore Rebecca Chance fans on Facebook
for making me laugh and keeping me sane: Angela Collings,
Dawn Hamblett,Tim Hughes, Jason Ellis, Tony Wood, Melanie
Hearse, Jen Sheehan, Helen Smith, Julian Corkle, Helen Smith,
Diane Jolly, Adam Pietrowski, John Soper, Gary Jordan, Travis
Pagel, Lisa Respers France, Stella Duffy, Shelley Silas, Serena
Mackesy, Alice Taylor, Marjorie Tucker, Teresa Wilson,
Margery Flax, Valerie Laws, Simon-Peter Trimarco, and Bryan
Quertermous, my lone straight male reader (bless). Plus Paul
Burston, the Brandon Flowers of Polari, and his loyal crew –
Alex Hopkins, Ange Chan, Sian Pepper, Enda Guinan, Belinda
Davies, John Southgate, Ian Sinclair Romanis and Jon Clarke.
If I’ve left anyone out, please, please, send me a furious message
and I will correct it in the next book!
Thanks for their lovely reviews to Nicola Atkinson, Zarina
de Ruiter, Georgina Scott, Laura Ford, Rose McClelland and
Rosemary Millburn van Eeden.
And to McKenna Jordan and John Kwiatkowski at Murder
by the Book, bringing Rebecca Chance filth to Texas readers
one book at a time!
And as always – thanks to the Board. They move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform.

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Prologue
Manhattan: Now
Coco
C

oco Raeburn stared down at the display on her bathroom
scales, excitement rising in her as she scanned the figures
on the screen. Actually, the chrome and glass device on which
she was standing was much more than a set of scales; it was a
body composition analyser, informing her not only of her weight
but also her body fat percentage, her total water content, and
her BMI. By now, Coco was so used to seeing her fat percentage
displayed that she didn’t bat an eyelid at the brutal truth; and
today it was a mere 8 per cent. Under 10 per cent body fat! That
was wonderful enough in itself, but the real prize was the main
display, the large figures in the centre of the screen.

There were only two of them. Two figures. She had done it;
she’d reached her goal, cracked the hundred.
Ninety-eight pounds. She could hardly believe it. In fact,
she stepped off the scales, let the screen clear, and then tapped
the base of the scales to restart them. Cautiously, almost tentatively, she set one bare foot, then the other, on the rubber
indents, watching, breath held in anticipation, as the monitor
scanned her once more and then spat out the figures that by
now – as far as she was concerned – defined Coco more
completely than anything else.
Ninety-eight pounds, again. Not only had she cracked the
hundred, but she had an extra pound to spare in case of any
slipbacks.
Well, there won’t be any of those, she told herself, determined. I’m staying at ninety-eight if it kills me.
Coco shivered in the air-conditioned bathroom; the trouble
with only having 8 per cent body fat was that you felt the cold
much more acutely. But she didn’t go into the hallway to
adjust the temperature on the built-in thermostat: she couldn’t
drag herself away from the sight of her thin, thin body in the
full-length mirror set into the wall. With approval, she noted
how much bone and muscle she could see. Her tummy had
sunk in below her ribcage, a tight concave band of muscle,firm
from all her Pilates classes and training sessions with Brad. She
pummelled it lightly with her fists: hard as a rock. She could
count every one of her ribs, the top ones slatted like a set of
Venetian blinds. People commented on those, and the protruding collarbones.
I need high-cut necklines to cover them
, she
thought.
Diane von Furstenberg’s doing some great blouses for
spring/summer. I’ll get someone to call them in.
Blouses with high necklines and long sleeves: those would
be ideal. Coco was dressing very differently than when she’d
been what she now considered
huge
– an English size 12–14.
Gigantic! She shuddered at the thought of how fat she’d been.
Then, she’d shown off her rounded shoulders, the boobs that
she’d now completely lost. Now, folds of fabric hung on her
skinny frame as if from a hanger, concealing not only the toovisible bones, but the bruises and chafe-marks that patterned
her pale skin.
At each hip, perfectly parallel, were five livid purple imprints
where a man’s hands had dug into her, held her down. Big
hands, which spanned half her body with ease, now that she
was so thin; the bruises were so clear that a police pathologist
could almost have taken fingerprints from them. On her stomach, a pattern of small red smudges bore witness to hot wax
that had been dripped on her, her abdomen so hollow now it
was like a shallow bowl he had taken pleasure in filling. As for
her wrists and ankles . . . well, Coco took it for granted these
days that she needed to cover them whenever she was out in
public. She worked out in leggings and slim, long-sleeved tops,
careful not to let the cuffs slide back and show the reddened
indentations on her skin. If they were planning a trip to St
Barts, to a beach where she would be on display, if there were
any chance that someone might see Coco’s body, he switched
to velvet-lined restraints well in advance, so that there would
be no telltale rope-marks on her.
Anyone entering the bathroom at that moment would have
gasped aloud in shock at the sight of Coco’s white, almost skeletal body, the visible vertebrae like a fragile tower of stones
reaching from nape to coccyx, the contusions on her almostflat buttocks, the welts around the wrists and ankles. They
would have rushed forward, reached for a towel or dressinggown to cover her vulnerable, bruised nakedness, asked what
had happened to her, if she had gone to the police.
But then they would have noticed the faraway, otherworldly
look in her eyes as she stared at herself, raising one hand to her
neck, where two thumbprints could just be made out, one
above each collarbone point. And they would have realised
that this was not a woman who had been subjected against her
will to a series of attacks which had left their livid evidence on
her body. Coco’s expression was dreamy, hypnotised; her gaze
passed right over all the marks, not even noticing them apart
from the faint, daily registering of what she needed to cover
up, protect from the critical attention of the outside world.
She was looking, instead, at her extreme weight-loss, and
feeling dizzyingly proud of herself.
Her elbow joints were almost wider than her forearms, her
kneecaps dwarfed her skinny legs. Her inner thighs didn’t
touch at all as she crossed the bathroom floor and almost
reluctantly drew on her Leigh Bantivoglio silk robe, wrapping
it around her waist, tying it with the matching sash that could
have gone round her twice. Briefly, Coco remembered the
days, back in London, when she wouldn’t ever belt a robe or
a coat, convinced it made her look like a potato on legs. She’d
never been able to tuck in a shirt, or wear a pair of jeans
without making sure that her top fell below the first few
inches of the waistband, concealing the area where the jeans
dug in, the button fastening them pulling at the buttonhole,
stretching it with tension, her soft flesh bulging gently over
the top.
Well, those days were long gone. She was what everyone in
fashion dreamed of being: size zero. The awareness was as
heady as a drug running through her veins. Coco reached down
and, through the silk of her robe, tried to pinch that place
above the hipbones, below the waist, where the last ounces of
fat always clung.
Nothing. Her fingers couldn’t get any purchase. Not a lump
or a bump. Nothing at all.
Heart beating fast with anticipation, she crossed the bathroom, passing the floor-to-ceiling glass window set into the
brushed-concrete wall, into the bedroom, which also had floorto-ceiling glass windows. This apartment building had been
thrown up just last year, and the developers knew exactly what
their hyper-rich, hyper-trendy customers wanted: cutting-edge
design that was as stripped-down and sleek as themselves, a
dazzling array of built-in gadgets and devices, and huge walls of
glass windows that were perfect for exhibitionists who worked
out every day of their lives, watched their weight like hawks,
and were more than happy to show off their slim, toned bodies
for the benefit of their neighbours across the narrow street –
who, of course, were doing exactly the same.
The Halston was in the hippest area of what insiders called
‘the city’ and outsiders called Manhattan. On the Bowery,
once a slum best-known for its drunks and dive bars, it was a
forty-storey glass and steel palace, towering over the wide
avenue, signalling clearly that the Bowery and the Lower East
Side were the latest destination for the torrent of gentrification
dollars that were flooding through the city, sweeping out the
crumbling buildings, filling up disused lots, throwing up fabulous edifices into which the next generation of Manhattanites
were ready to move. The starving artists, the performers, the
drag queens, had colonised this section of the city which once
had been full of sweatshops and cheap brothels: now they
were moving on, priced out of the city, crossing the bridges to
Brooklyn and Hoboken, washed away by the green river of
new money.
Coco’s bedroom floor was dark walnut, underfloor-heated
in winter, smooth and cool in summer. She dropped the robe
onto her wide, low bed and padded naked to the far wall,
which was entirely filled with fitted cupboards, discreet lighting snapping on as soon as she slid open the frosted glass doors.
Flicking through the carefully-curated racks of clothes, knowing how lucky she was to have this apartment, she still couldn’t
help a twinge of envy when she thought of her boss, Victoria,
who had an Upper East Side townhouse. It was large enough
for Victoria to have a whole room dedicated to her wardrobe,
the corridor which connected it to her bedroom lined with
shoe racks on one side and handbag shelves on the other, all
velvet-padded to protect her priceless accessories collection.
Very soon, Coco thought, ambition fizzing in her like
bubbles in carbonated water, very soon I’ll have everything
Victoria has – the job, the house, the no-limits expense account,
the status right at the top of the New York society pecking
order. Just as soon as I get married, I’ll have everything she has
– and more.
Coco reached for a padded hanger at the very end of the
cupboard, a black silk dress, fragile as a whisper of cloud, draping from it.
No hanger appeal
, said her razor-sharp fashion
editor’s brain, slicing through categories of clothes.
Has to be
seen in movement
. It was trimmed in charcoal lace, elaborate,
exquisite hand-made lace that was marginally heavier than the
silk to which it was appliquéd, a slip of a dress that billowed
around the shoulders and narrowed to a tiny, clinging skirt.
It was Chanel, of course. A present from her fiancé. Coco
had never been able to do up the zip before; now she stepped
into it, easing it up over her protruding hip-bones, slowly and
with great care to avoid snagging the delicate silk, slipping her
hands into the wide draped armholes, shrugging the dress over
her shoulders, settling it into place before she dared to reach
around behind her back – a gesture that made her collarbones
jut out as if they were about to break through the paper-thin
layer of skin that was their only covering – and start to raise the
tag of the concealed zip.
It kept sliding up. Past her almost non-existent buttocks,
past her waist, up each visible knob of her spine, right up to
her shoulderblades. One hand was pulling up the zip, the other
holding the dress up at the nape of her neck, almost unable to
breathe, sucking in everything she could as she went. Until the
zipper tag found no more teeth to slide up, until it snicked to
a halt at the very top . . .
Coco spun to look at herself in the mirror, letting out her
breath, her heart pounding. The dress was perfect, a sexy, flimsy
wisp of silk that ended high up on her slender thighs, managing
to be both seductive and elegant, its sleeves double-lined chiffon, gathered at the wrists to hide the reddened skin there.
Perfect with my new Balenciaga shoes, she thought instantly.
The shoes were high-cut, fastening around her ankles, concealing the restraint marks. She raised her hands to the nape of her
neck, lifting her beautifully-streaked light brown hair, handpainted by her colourist in artful shades of butterscotch, ash
and honey.
Definitely hair up and back to show off the neckline.
And those huge Lara Bohinc earrings I got in London, with the
crazy faux-pearls in rose gold
.
Oh God, he’s going to love me in this
.
She turned slowly, appreciating with a professional eye the
way the skirt clung to her bottom, making it seem positively
minuscule, the superbly cut float and drape of the silk over her
shoulders. You could always, instantly, spot couture. This dress
had been made specifically to her dimensions, but she had never
been able to wear it before, never been able to draw up the zip
with such effortless ease – because it had been tailored to the
measurements she would have when she was a perfect size zero.
After all this effort, all the extreme dieting and the exercise
and the ironclad self-denial, here she was, standing in her
perfect designer apartment, in her perfect designer dress, the
perfect designer size. This was it.
Coco Raeburn was finally perfect.
And as she looked at her image in the mirror, she had to
press her left hand against her bony chest to calm herself
down, reassure herself. On her fourth finger was her engagement ring, an enormous, two and a half-carat princess-cut
diamond in a simple platinum setting, so big it made her hand
look impossibly fragile, so big it looked as if it weighed almost
as much as she did. In America, the rule was that the fiancé
should spend two, possibly three months’ salary on an engagement ring. But Coco’s fiancé was so rich that, as her friend
Emily had commented in awe, she could never have, for daily
use, a ring that had cost him that much money; she’d have to
be shadowed by a pair of bodyguards wherever she went.
Size zero. She had reached her goal. Their goal. She was
beyond excited, into some realm of high altitude that made
her head spin with exhilaration and terror. Coco recognised
the sensation: it was the same light-headed dizziness she experienced when he fucked her, when he held her down, tied her
up, slid the ball gag between her lips, fastened the eye mask
over her face. Deprived her, utterly and completely, of any
freedom, any ability to move, to speak, to protest anything he
might choose to do to her.
Coco had given herself over to him completely. The gigantic
ring was a symbol of her dependency, just as much as the bruises
on her body and the chafe-marks on her limbs. She was too tiny
now, and the ring was too huge. Everything in her life was out of
proportion. She was caught now, carefully and skilfully brainwashed by him, pinned down in his net, starved to skin and
bone. Bucking under him as he dripped hot wax on her, her pain
and pleasure sensors so blurred together by everything he had
done to her in the last months that she could no longer have said
whether she would have screamed in ecstasy or distress, would
have pleaded for him to stop or go on, if she could have made
anything beyond a flicker of sound around the firm rubber
sphere of the ball gag fastened between her lips.
With him, she was wordless, sightless, but never deaf. He
wanted her to hear the sounds he was making, his grunts and
moans of pleasure, the snap of the match as it lit the candle
whose melting wax she was about to feel, the flick of the
rubber whip as he tested it against the post of the bed before
bringing it down on the backs of her thighs. He wanted to hear
her try to gasp in anticipation, to guess where she would feel
him next. To see if she would recoil at the unmistakable sound
of him returning from the bar in the living room, ice cubes
clinking in their metal container, knowing that he would be
merciless with them, would slide them over her body and trail
them, slowly, tantalisingly between her legs, making her jerk
and try, futilely, to escape their burning cold on the most sensitive areas of her body. Hoping that his hot mouth would follow
them, licking and biting her, sending her into spasms of orgasm
that seemed even more intense because she couldn’t see,
couldn’t speak, could do nothing but buck against her bonds,
coming over and over again, feeling him drive her beyond
anything she had thought she could take, over a dark precipice
where she nearly fainted with the intensity of one orgasm
thudding after another, all the while knowing that his teeth
and lips would leave her wincing and sore.