Wicked Ambition (56 page)

A fortnight later, the sun woke Leon as it streamed through the blinds of his and Robin’s Caribbean retreat. He turned to her, angelic in her sleep, her dark hair over her forehead, her lips slightly parted and her smooth back exposed by the fallen sheet at her waist. He traced his fingers across her shoulders, softly kissing her neck.

Contentedly, she moaned, and he climbed from the bed before she woke up. After the year she’d had, she needed to rest. St Barts was the vacation they needed.

Leon tied a towel around his waist and stepped on to the balcony. Sparkling ocean and gleaming sand stretched before him, the sunshine warm on his back. In the harbour, boats came in to dock, blue and red and bright, coarse ropes being thrown to land and tied with salty hands. There was so much life in the world, and now he was part of it.

Forgiveness had set him free. Forgiveness of Gordon and of Puff City, forgiveness of their crime and its concealment, acceptance of what had happened and a promise to move on—that was what had cut him as loose as the vessels bobbing on the water, wide green sea spread to a distant horizon, waiting to be crossed, an adventure at his fingertips.

Marlon had helped him that day. Leon was a level-headed guy, he didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or anything like that, but he did believe that he had not been alone on that run to the Palisades Grand; that something or someone had been driving him on.

He would never be so arrogant as to suggest he knew the answers. He didn’t. But Marlon had looked out for him in life, and so he had done the same in death. They were brothers. Death didn’t get in the way of that.

Leon inhaled the ocean air. His lungs contracted painfully; he hadn’t yet been able to return to training, and with Rio on the cards he had to get back on the circuit. Three years he had to keep widening that gap. The title he’d earned wasn’t one he was prepared to give up.

It was a reminder that had Gordon not stayed with him he wouldn’t be around to breathe at all. Leon had come so close to exacting revenge…and for what?

What did vengeance resolve?

Nothing. Ivy Sewell’s murderous rampage and eventual self-sacrifice was testament to that. In the payback game, no one came out on top. Everyone was destroyed. It offered no solutions; it came with no peace. True strength was in knowing how to let go.

‘You’re up early,’ came a voice.

He faced her. Robin looked sleepy in the mornings, her softest time of day. She was wrapped in a sheet and leaned against the frame, golden sunshine on her face.

‘There’s a lot to get up for,’ he replied.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Starting right here.’

Passionately, he kissed her, releasing the knot on the sheet so it dropped to the floor.

‘Leon, people can see!’

‘Forget them,’ he said, but he stepped in and pulled the shutters all the same.

‘You’re insatiable,’ she said as they fell giggling on to the bed.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Might be.’

‘Then you’d better get used to it. Because the thing is…’ Leon put his forehead to hers ‘…I’m completely and totally in love with you.’

Robin touched his chin, bringing his face to hers so she could see him properly.

‘Thing is,’ she whispered back, ‘I’m in love with you, too.’

Read on for an extract from Victoria’s debut novel

HOLLYWOOD SINNERS

available now

Venice

‘Lana, over here! Lana, Cole! How’s the marriage?’

Lana Falcon adjusted her pose for the cameras, hand on hip, shoulders back, and delivered her trademark megawatt smile. She held it in place and counted the seconds, careful not to let it drop. Against the red carpet her midnight-blue gown trailed like dark water.

She took pity on the reporter, who was slightly overweight and sported a beard that looked like he had drawn it on himself.

‘You’re half of America’s most famous couple,’ he gasped, scarcely believing his luck as Lana came to the side. ‘How does it feel?’ The film festival was a hive of energy: paparazzi and TV crews lined the carpet in thick numbers; fans with arms outstretched reached helplessly for their heroes–catching these two together was the biggest coup of his career.

On cue Lana felt an arm slide round her waist, smooth as a
snake. She turned to the man next to her, caught the familiar line of his profile and the gleam of his teeth, the charcoal-grey of his immaculate hair. Cole Steel. Her husband.

Cameras flashed and sparked in throbs of light. He didn’t blink.

‘It feels great,’ she told the reporter with a friendly smile. ‘We’re very happy.’

Paparazzi jostled for the best shot. ‘Cole! Lana, Cole, let’s see you together!’

‘Any plans to add to the family?’ The reporter was sweating now.

‘Watch this space,’ said Cole, with a startlingly white grin. He planted a dry kiss on Lana’s neck, just below her ear. The photographers went wild.

‘Let’s move on,’ he instructed, just loud enough for her to hear.

Lana obliged. The smell of Cole’s skin lingered–sweet, slightly minty. When he took her hand it was cold.

‘Tell us about your new movie!’ the reporter babbled, craning the mike after her, knowing he’d already lost them. ‘Tell us about
Eastern Sky
!’

Lana moved into her customary position on the carpet, a little in front of Cole, his hands at her waist, steering her forward. At twenty-seven she was Hollywood’s most desirable young actress. Regularly voted one of the world’s most beautiful women, she was, with her burnt-chestnut hair, wide green eyes and warm smile, a killer combination of sex siren and girl-next-door. Women wanted to be her friend. Boys wanted to take her home to their mothers. Men jacked off over her, torn between fantasies of white cotton panties and
crimson-red lingerie–the fascination was that Lana Falcon could pull off either. And, boy, did they dream she did.

‘Cole, Lana, this way!’

Cole guided his wife into a series of poses, his hands moving round her body with the precision and grace of a dancer.

‘Beautiful!’ came the approving clamour.

Somebody shouted, ‘Could we get a kiss?’

Cole laughed with the press like chums. Lana observed as he shot at them with pretend pistols, firing from the first two fingers of each hand.

Lana followed direction. Tilting her chin to meet his, she saw her surroundings–the deep reds and pure, billowing whites; the rich, syrupy gold of the event’s majestic lions–taper sharply into her husband’s approaching features until her view was suffocated entirely by his face, and the sad rub of his lips.

Cole Steel. Hollywood’s highest grossing actor and a giant of the American film industry. Cole Steel. At the top of his game after nearly thirty years and tipped here to take a Volpi Cup. Cole Steel. The husband with whom Lana Falcon lived, attended parties, posed for photographs, but had never, had never…

All around, bulbs popped and flared. As Lana pulled away she searched her husband’s eyes. As a good actor he could fill them with every emotion a role required–he was at his most convincing when assuming a character. As a man, as himself, he was blank. Cole’s eyes were like a shark’s: flat and empty. When she looked into them, Lana saw nothing.

‘Let’s get on the line,’ said Katharine Elliot, Lana’s publicist,
discreetly ushering her client forward. ‘They’re queuing for a word.’

‘We’re not done here yet,’ snapped Cole through gritted teeth. His smile didn’t move.

Katharine stepped back. Cole was a man she did not want to piss off.

Together he and Lana refreshed their poses, the jewel in the crown of megastars gracing the Venice carpet, floating like creatures from another world, delighting with a look or a smile.

‘Assholes,’ muttered Cole, clapping eyes on a young, handsome actor and his Mother Earth wife. Cole claimed not to like the man because he’d beaten him to a part last year, though Lana suspected it was more because the couple paraded a soccer team of children, a brood to which they were still adding. It was something she and Cole could never achieve.

Beyond the press pit Lana caught sight of a young female fan, her desperate face streaked with tears as she was pushed and shoved amid the throng of people trying to catch a glimpse of the action. Lana took care to catch her eye, smiling warmly and giving her a wave.

Toughen up
she thought, remembering herself at that age.
It’s the only way to survive. Trust me
. She blinked against the memories. Too often they kept her awake at night.

‘It’s time,’ Cole told her, placing a small, pale hand on her back. The cameras followed every move. Together, husband and wife were the ultimate American love story. He, one of the greatest actors of his generation; she, the girl who had come from nothing, from tragedy, to having it all.

Linking her arm with his, Lana walked alongside, nodding and smiling her way into the Palazzo del Cinema. She glanced at her wedding ring, a great cluster of diamonds that weighed heavy on her hand. In the frenzy of snapping bulbs it winked back, as if they shared a terrible secret.

Las Vegas

Elisabeth Sabell, legs wrapped tight round her fiancé’s waist, examined with satisfaction the ten-carat antique engagement ring on her third finger.

‘Fuck me!’ she gasped, clasping his muscular shoulders. ‘Fuck me fuck me fuck me!’ The ring caught the light as they moved together, the sheets of their mammoth four-poster bed damp with sweat. As he pounded deeper, his rhythm quickening, the marvellous jewel came towards Elisabeth’s enraptured face in shuddering frames, a glorious, insistent reminder that she would, before long, be Mrs St Louis.

‘Tell me what you want, baby.’ The man grabbed her ass, pulling himself in further. ‘Tell me what you want.’

‘I want you to fuck me hard, Robert St Louis!’ she cried in abandon, raking livid-pink lines down his bronzed back, lifting her foot and trailing with her big toe the dip where
his spine met his ass. ‘Fuck me like you’ve never fucked me before!’

In one deft movement he hooked an arm beneath her, flipping them round, holding on for the ride. Elisabeth, on top, ran her hands across his broad chest, wondering at the strength of his arms, the gentle slope of his biceps and the hard muscle of his stomach. Tightening her grip, she pinned him beneath her.

‘Strap in, baby,’ she told him, throwing her head back to gaze at the
trompe l’oeil
ceiling. ‘This is as close to heaven as it gets.’

Elisabeth began to rock, grabbing his hands, reaching higher, faster, like her life depended on it. Her golden mane fell in waves down her back, her pearl-white neck tilted to the ceiling. She could feel Robert’s hands on her tits, her waist, her thighs; on her throat, pressing those points beneath her ear lobes that made her knees go weak. She howled out, the pinnacle in sight.

With a final thrust they both climaxed, their bodies slick with release. Elisabeth rode the swelling tide, blinking back stars, her chest rising and falling, the pulse within her a steady, exquisite, delicious beat.

Robert St Louis moved on to his elbows and gave her a lopsided smile. He brought her face towards his and kissed her slowly, tasting her mouth.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her, planting a kiss on her chin, her nose, her forehead.

Elisabeth kissed him back. Together, she knew they made a staggering couple. Robert St Louis had been the most eligible bachelor in America. Now, two years on, he was hers.
Billionaire owner of two of the city’s most infamous hotels, the Orient and the Desert Jewel, he was the most handsome, and the most powerful, man in Vegas. With his dark hair, almost-black eyes, warm as melting bitter chocolate, and wicked, honest grin, he was the most devastating man she had ever laid eyes on.

‘I know,’ she told him, peeling herself off the bed and heading for their palatial en suite.

He watched her go. ‘Your father called,’ he said.

‘Do you have to tell me that right after we’ve had sex?’

He laughed. ‘Sorry.’

‘And?’

‘Says he’s got some news–I’m gonna want to hear it, apparently.’

Elisabeth rolled her eyes. She turned the shower on. ‘I’ll bet he has,’ she muttered.

As Elisabeth stepped under the pounding water, she reflected it was a good job she loved Robert like she did–as daughter of the legendary Vegas hotelier Frank Bernstein, Elisabeth had her future in the city cut out from the start. She was destined to marry a businessman, someone of her father’s choosing. It had always been that way–Bernstein made the decisions and there was no argument. Elisabeth was thirty-two now, she had a residency on the Strip and a loving, committed relationship, but still he had the power to make her feel like a bullied little girl.

Robert called something from the bedroom.

‘What?’ Elisabeth yelled over the rush of water. She ran a gloop of shampoo through her blonde hair.

The door slid open. ‘I said: Any ideas?’ He stepped in
behind her. ‘Bernstein couldn’t keep a secret from you if he tried.’

‘None whatsoever,’ Elisabeth said primly. ‘It’s probably another attempt to hurry the wedding along. I wish he’d butt out. Just because he introduced us doesn’t give him
carte blanche
to interfere in every aspect of our lives.’

Robert knew not to press his fiancée on the sensitive subject of her father.

‘Come on,’ he said instead, helping her rinse her hair, ‘or we’ll be late.’

The Orient Hotel, Robert St Louis’s multi-billion-dollar baby and the heart of his hotel empire, was a breathtaking project. He and Elisabeth arrived an hour later in a blacked-out car, the main attractions at tonight’s charity gala event.

Two soaring towers, each peak like a closed flower, flanked a colossal central pagoda. Little square windows lit with gold travelled up as far as the eye could see, thousands of feet into the sky, until they became stars themselves. Dragons crouched at the entrance, fire screaming from their open mouths. Sparking fountains and flaming torches circled the majestic structure.

Robert’s doorman greeted them like royalty. ‘Good evening, boss.’ He dipped his head, always nervous when the top gun was in the house. ‘Ms Sabell.’