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He was dead.
Jesus. The poor bastard must’ve gone and had a heart attack. Lightheaded with adrenaline, Loretta looked down at her dead husband with a mix of shock, repulsion and pity. And then it struck her with all the force of a swinging axe; the trial! Even she knew that a dead man cannot be tried. And no trial meant no compensation to be paid, or no list to be struck off, or no reputation to be sullied. It also meant that as his wife, his next of kin, she stood to get the lot; the houses across the world stuffed with priceless furniture and antiques, fleets of luxury cars, a private jet, and enough diamonds to put Switzerland out of business … It would all be hers.
Snatching up Bambino from the bed with a squeal, Loretta dramatically threw herself down onto her husband’s lifeless body.
‘Oh my poor dahling,’ she said, covering Ramsey’s rapidly paling face in scattergun kisses as tears began to track her cheeks. She had been wrong to call him stupid earlier. The man was a fucking genius. In that moment, Loretta truly loved her husband for the first, and last, time. ‘Grazie tesoro bambino,’ she sobbed, as she finally reached for the phone. ‘Grazie …’
CHAPTER 3
Victoria Mayfield stared at her computer screen; it was as blank as her mind. She had been sitting at her antique shabby-chic Parisian desk inside her study for just over an hour now, her fingers hovering precariously above the keyboard.
She looked up to the ceiling, ran her hands through the top of her glossy chestnut hair and took an audible breath. Her agent would be expecting the first few chapters of her much-anticipated new novel by next week and she had not written so much as a line.
Following the success of her debut novel, Mirror, Mirror some ten years ago, and the equally lauded sequel, Broken Glass, the name Victoria Mayfield had become synonymous with young, hopeful and desperately romantic women the world over – and it had made her ridiculously rich and famous in the process. Such accolades meant nothing to Victoria now though. She would have traded it all in a nano-second to have her life back to how it had been a couple of years ago when CeCe was alive.
Abandoning her laptop, Victoria left the room and wandered out onto the landing of her four-storey Notting Hill mews house and found herself hovering outside CeCe’s bedroom, staring at the brightly coloured wooden letters that spelled out her daughter’s name: CECELIA.
Stealthily looking around as though someone were watching her, Victoria pushed open the white door and tentatively stepped inside. Her therapist had advised against spending time in the nursery, had even suggested that she might clear it out and re-decorate as ‘part of the healing process’ but she would not hear a word of it; these small things, they were all she had left.
Victoria inhaled the clean, baby-like scent of the room. Staring at the assortment of soft toys, she picked up CeCe’s favourite rabbit, clutching it to her chest. On the wall to her left, white wooden photo frames containing professional black and white shots of her daughter, her bright-eyed, tiny chubby face all gummy smiles, hung from the picture rail by pink silk ribbon.
‘Hello sweetheart,’ she spoke softly. She ran her finger over one of the pictures, stroking her daughter’s tiny face through the glass. She moved towards the beautiful antique white sleigh crib that CeCe had once slept in and smoothed over the soft patchwork quilt that she’d had made by French artisans in Paris and for a split second she felt as if everything was normal; a mother preparing her child’s bed for her mid-morning nap. The painfully fleeting feeling gave her such an intense rush of pleasure that she almost gasped out loud.
Picking up a blanket, a brightly coloured cashmere affair by Brora, Victoria held it up to her face and inhaled deeply. She was sure she could still smell the newness of her daughter on it and an involuntary cry of anguish rose up in her throat and escaped her lips in a low moan.
‘Why, God?’ She shook her fist up at the ceiling, choking back sobs. ‘Why did you take her?’
Victoria Mayfield was the kind of woman who had it all; good looks, talent and intelligence. A loving daughter, a giving friend and a loyal wife, she had always been aware of her privileged background (Daddy was a hedge-fund manager and Mummy, a well-respected stage actress), and had never taken any of it for granted. It wasn’t in her nature to be ostentatious. Daddy had said she was just like his own mother, Cecelia, a woman she had never met but sensed had had kindness running through her very core.
Victoria Sheldon (as she had been before marriage) had seemingly inherited all the good of her grandmother, as well as the aesthetically pleasing Sheldon genes. Hers was a natural beauty. Her face, perfectly symmetrical, was a compilation of both her stunningly attractive parents; she had her father’s intense, deep green eyes and large red lips, and thanks to her mother she had also inherited a mane of thick, glossy, chestnut hair – which she had only recently, at the age of thirty-seven, felt the need to maintain with a few highlights – and a small upturned nose that sat in perfect proportion to the rest of her slim, oval face.
Her eleven-year marriage to Lawrence Mayfield, a handsome, talented film director, had been, by and large, a blissfully happy one. Perfectly matched, they complimented one another perfectly; his natural vivacity offset by her quiet charm.
On the surface, to an outsider who happened to be looking in, Lawrence and Victoria Mayfield had the lot; an enviable marriage, success and acclaim in both their chosen professions, plus a personal fortune that ensured they had the very best of everything. There was just one blot on their sublime landscape: they could not conceive.
‘Give it time,’ others said when month after month, Victoria’s unwelcome period had arrived with all the regularity of a baddie in a fairy tale. Five years down the line however, with numerous failed IVF attempts behind them, it transpired that they had what a glut of specialist doctors referred to as, ‘Unexplained Infertility’. Devastated that they might not ever be able to consolidate their love for each other with a child of their own, they had made the painful decision to stop with the treatment and let fate dictate. And so it had. Less than a year later, Victoria had found herself expecting.
Victoria sat down in the large comfortable nursing chair, a chair she had sat in to cradle her daughter’s tiny body as she fed her, and looked down at the small, soft rabbit she held in her hand, its beady black eyes shining up at her. Every cell in her body wanted to scream with anguish. It was all so cruel and unjust. There was a world of unwanted and unloved children out there, neglected and abused by their parents, and yet God had not seen fit to take their children from them, had he? Deep down in Victoria’s shattered heart, she knew that God had had nothing to do with CeCe’s death; she just needed someone to blame, and He seemed as good as anyone.
It had been uncommonly cold that night of the 16
July. Victoria remembered this because she had felt the need to wear a pair of light cashmere pyjamas to bed – unusual for the time of year.
After giving five-month old CeCe her bedtime feed and placing her down into the beautiful crib, she had watched her tiny daughter kick her chubby baby legs and coo, happily fixated on the mobile of bees and butterflies that gently danced above her, lulling her to sleep. Victoria had felt an overwhelming rush of love for her daughter as she watched her drift off in her crib. She was so adorable! Her saucer eyes were sapphire blue and twinkly, fine platinum curls settled at the nape of her sweet-smelling neck and her rosebud lips were as pink as the flowers themselves. CeCe was her greatest achievement; a baby made all the more precious by coming into the world against the odds.
Lawrence had been in Guatemala the night of the 16
July. He had been filming a documentary on drug mules, a somewhat dangerous assignment, and one that had caused Victoria some consternation at the time. Still, she had slept soundly that evening, a fact she felt guilty about to this day.
CeCe looked peaceful when Victoria had approached her in her crib the following morning. She had slept seemingly soundly and Victoria marvelled at what a clever little girl her daughter was; she had never suffered the torture of sleep deprivation like so many of her fellow new mothers who bitterly complained, bleary-eyed and tetchy, over strong cups of espresso at NCT classes. It was only when she got closer to the crib that Victoria realised that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
CeCe’s perfect face was tinged blue and when Victoria snatched her up from the crib her body felt cold and rigid. The logical part of her brain immediately told her that her daughter was dead but her heart steadfastly refused to concede this fact, even for a second. And so she had run, clutching the child still wrapped in her soft cashmere blanket, down the stairs, her hysterical, bloodcurdling screams so desperate and piercing that they alerted her housekeeper way down in the basement of the house almost instantly.
‘Oh please, God,’ she had screamed. ‘No … nooooo.’
Marney O’Brien would never forget the look of pure despair etched on her employer’s face that morning. Her low primeval screams would haunt her till her death.
*
From that day onwards, inside her own mind Victoria Mayfield had never really stopped screaming. Even Lawrence struggled to reach her. Though Victoria still loved her husband, their union was now forever blighted, defined by heartache and loss. This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that the doctors had said they were ‘unlikely, if ever’ to conceive again. As if fate hadn’t bestowed them a cruel enough blow, Lawrence had suffered a crippling bout of mumps in the year that had followed little CeCe’s death, rendering his already dwindling sperm count virtually non-existent.
‘Perhaps you might consider adoption?’ the US specialist had gently suggested, his five-thousand-dollar-a-pop fee affording them the soft touch at least. It was an option Victoria had flatly ruled out. She had felt the feet and elbows of flesh and blood inside her belly; her creation, their creation, and knew there could be no substitute.
Two years had passed since CeCe’s death, and with still no baby, Victoria was getting desperate. She couldn’t afford to wait five years like she had done before; she wasn’t getting any younger. As far as she was concerned, a life without children would be no life at all.
From the comfortable confines of CeCe’s nursing chair, Victoria was dragged from her thoughts by the sound of her private phone ringing in her bedroom next door. She heard the incongruous sound of her own cheerful voice as the recorded message kicked in.
‘Tor! Hi! It’s Ellie. Fancy a little lunch this week, if you’re around? I was thinking Nobo perhaps? Or The Belvedere? Your call … I don’t know about you but I could do with the company – and a glass of something alcoholic! Actually, sod it, make it a bottle with the week I’ve had …’ Ellie laughed, though Victoria’s intuition detected an edge to her friend’s tone. ‘Anyway, if you’re about, give me a shout. Otherwise, catch up soon. Hope all’s well, darling. Call me …’
Victoria’s friendship with Ellie Scott was the best thing, the only good thing that had come out of all the wasted time they had spent at the fertility clinic. It had been comforting to meet like-minded people who understood the emotional ups and downs of endless fruitless IVF cycles and heartbreak, and through it the Mayfields and the Scotts had forged a strong bond.
Victoria made to pick up the phone but hesitated as the image of her daughter’s coffin bubbled up in her mind; a beautiful white solid oak casket adorned with a stunning array of pink flowers that spelled out the word ‘Angel’. It had looked so small as it disappeared through the burgundy velvet curtain of the crematorium that she had wanted to run after it, to rescue her daughter’s tiny body before she turned to dust, to hold her hand, be with her, like a mother should be. She had become hysterical at that point and a doctor had been called to give her a shot of something that had made her sleep, a sleep in which she prayed to a God she despised that she might never wake from.
Victoria abruptly stood. Kissing the rabbit on its soft fluffy face, she replaced it carefully onto the shelf and left the room, taking one sorrowful last look around before closing the door behind her.
Making her way into the vast walk-in wardrobe in her bedroom, she drew back the bespoke sliding doors and began to pull various dresses from their padded hangers, only to instantly discard them in a pile behind her.
Getting pregnant was no longer merely something she hoped for, but a base need within her that had to be filled, as essential as the very oxygen she breathed. Picking up the pile of dresses and throwing them onto the bed, Victoria knew what she had to do. She could no longer wait for fate to chance its arm any more than she could face another year of bitter childless disappointment. She could almost feel her eggs drying up with each second that passed, her empty womb growing less and less accommodating by the day. With all options exhausted, she had made the decision to take matters into her own hands. She would be pregnant by the end of the year and if the doctors and her husband couldn’t help her, well, then she would have no choice but to help herself.
CHAPTER 4
Driving through Sunset Strip in a shiny black Lamborghini Gallardo, Tom Black had the countenance of a man who’d lost a cent and found a dollar. It was a beautiful day; the sun shone high in a cloudless late May sky and the sidewalk was teeming with hot women, all dressed appropriately for the biting heat in Daisy Dukes and cute summer dresses that barely covered their tight little asses. It gave him a tangible buzz as they all looked up as he roared past, sound system up, soft top down, the Black Eyed Peas blasting out of the Bang & Olufsen stereo. Fuck, man, this was why he loved LA. The broad streets lined with palm trees, the cool bars and eternal sunshine where women strutted their stuff; fake tits and bikinis by the truckload. No one looked old here. It was like Peter fucking Pan’s playground and it was one of the main reasons he had decided to call it home. In reality however, LA couldn’t have been much more of a departure from the rough East London streets Tom had started out on. Back then, ‘home’ had been wherever his womanising drunk of a father’s heart – or dick – had been. Invariably this meant temporary accommodation at one of his many ‘auntie’s’ houses, as they were always referred to. Tom struggled to remember any of them; one was much like the other, a hazy blur of blonde hair, raucous laughter and lipstick. Until Charlene O’Connor that is. The O’Connors had changed everything …
The Lamborghini purred loudly as Tom pulled up at a set of lights and he smiled as a particularly arresting blonde with enormous shop-bought tits teetered along the crossing, her denim mini skirt leaving little to the imagination. He revved the engine almost subconsciously as she strutted past and looked up, flashing him a megawatt white smile in recognition of his appreciation.
‘Cool whip, dude,’ she said in a high-pitched Californian drawl, eyeing the Lamborghini with approval. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three and Tom could tell from the glint in her violet blue eyes that she was just his type: up for anything. He rested his elbow on the side of the car, peering at her eagerly from beneath his mirrored Ray-Bans, giving her a peek at his arresting dark brown eyes. She was sure she had seen this dude somewhere before, in one of the magazines she’d read during one of her more prolonged stays in hospital, or on TV perhaps? She looked him over with caution, though this was largely for effect. The car alone was worth more than her apartment and yearly salary combined.
The car, however, didn’t actually belong to Tom. It was on loan from a gambling pal he played poker with and he was damned sure he was going to make the most of it.
‘Wanna see what she can do?’
‘Sure,’ said the blonde after the briefest hesitation, ‘why not?’
Tom grinned as he leaned over to open the passenger door, moving the Louis Vuitton holdall to one side. Just as he’d thought; up for anything.
‘What’s in the bag?’ she enquired, curious as she effortlessly slid into the passenger seat, her mini skirt riding high up her lean, tanned thighs.
‘Ask no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,’ he replied, raising a provocative eyebrow as the lights turned to green and they roared off along the boulevard, the G-force of the powerful engine pulling her back into the cream leather seat. She squealed with delight. His accent told her he was British. And already she could tell this was going to be one hell of a ride.
‘Hey bud, your phone’s ringing.’ He saw the girl’s lips move as her platinum-blonde hair whipped about her face, sticking to her fruity lip gloss, but he hadn’t heard a word above Kanye West and the loud hum of the Lamborghini’s powerful engine. ‘Your phone,’ she mouthed in an exaggerated gesture, pointing to his Blackberry Bold which was buzzing angrily on the smart leather dashboard.
‘Well, answer it then,’ Tom replied, turning the stereo down a couple of notches. She shot him a quizzical look, but did as she was told.
‘Hi!’ she giggled into the receiver breathlessly.
‘Yeah, er … hello … who is this? Can I speak to Tom?’
‘Sure, I’ll just put him on,’ the girl purred in her best telephone voice. ‘Hey bud,’ she held out his cell. ‘Like, I think it might be for you.’
Tom laughed. He liked her. She had a sense of humour. Rarer than rocking-horse shit in LA.
‘Tom Black,’ he pressed the loudspeaker button, careful to keep his hands on the wheel of the ridiculously expensive car that he didn’t own.
‘Don’t tell me,’ the voice said, deadpan, ‘you got yourself another new PA?’
‘I found her on the sidewalk,’ Tom winked playfully at the girl and she collapsed into more giggles. She sensed they were gonna have some fun together. And having just been sacked from yet another dead-end waitressing job, fun was just what she was looking for.
‘Yeah? Guess it’s her lucky day,’ the deadpan voice retorted, breaking into a violent coughing fit. It was Jack, Tom’s oldest friend and business partner.
‘Jesus my friend, you sound like shit.’
‘Have you taken that dough to the bank yet?’ Jack immediately shot back, letting Tom instantly know that this wasn’t going to be a friendly, chew-the-fat kind of conversation. ‘I want that money safe, Tom. We need to make sure we got our shit in order if we’re gonna win that goddamn auction …’
‘Auction?’
‘Christ Tom, I told you, don’t you listen to a goddamn word I say?’ The irritation in his voice was clearly audible now, ‘that fucker Constantini is refusing to do a deal so we’re gonna have to take it to bids like everyone else, so unless we’ve got the cold hard cash we can forget about it. The dream will be over before it’s even begun.’ Jack was already beginning to regret entrusting Tom with such a large sum of money. He’d been laid up in bed for five days with some evil Asian flu bug thing and had become seriously twitchy about having that much green lying around in his apartment, which was why he’d instructed his oldest friend to do him a favour and take it straight to the bank that morning, all three million dollars of it.
‘Whatever the fuck you do, Tom,’ a red-eyed Jack had said with real gravitas, handing his friend the heavy Louis Vuitton holdall, ‘don’t lose it; everything I got is in that bag. So I want you to go straight to the bank, OK? No diversions, no detour via a casino … you got me?’
‘I’m on my way boss,’ Tom replied with such jovial nonchalance that it had caused Jack to see red, prompting a further, more violent coughing fit this time.
‘I’m fucking serious, Tom!’ he struggled to breathe. ‘If anything should happen to it …’
‘I’m almost at the bank right now,’ Tom replied breezily. He put his foot down harder on the accelerator and the girl squealed again. He imagined she was probably a screamer in the sack too. He looked forward to finding out.
‘Yeah, well hear me loud and clear, bro,’ Jack’s hacking cough sounded like machine gunfire, ‘I need to know all’s cool your end of the deal, that you’ll bank the cash and get your share of the green – we fly out to London in three weeks.’
Tom and Jack had been in the ‘entertainment’ business for the past fifteen years, with varying degrees of success. The story was usually the same; Jack would initially stump up the cash, generally prised from his exasperated but wealthy father, and together they would attempt to turn some rundown old gin joint on the wrong side of town into a hot, happening new hang-out for the young, beautiful and rich. And sometimes it had even worked; at least until either Jack lost interest or Tom gambled away the profits, both of which had been the case on more than one occasion. Now, however, it was time to get serious. This latest acquisition was to be their defining moment, a transitional leap from small fry to legitimate players, and having exhausted New York, Vegas and LA, from a business perspective at least, it was time to cast the net a little wider.
‘Jeez man, I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jack had responded to the lukewarm reception Tom had given him upon informing him about the ‘near-as-damnit perfect’ venue he’d found for them in the heart of London’s West End. With a dense population of young, affluent, and fashion-conscious prospective clientele, it seemed like an appealing prospect, especially for the particular concept they had in mind – a hybrid mix of a lavish premier super club and casino, combined with fine dining and themed table dancing. ‘London is the epicentre of cool right now, man. It’s hot to trot.’ Jack had insisted.
Tom had reluctantly acquiesced. London was his birthplace but it had long ago ceased to be his home. Besides, the city held bittersweet memories for him and he had made a promise never to return again. But then, Tom had never been much good at keeping promises …
Now all that was standing in the way of their dream was the auction for the rundown but ultimately perfect old warehouse in Soho; that, and the small matter of six million dollars, three of which were sitting in a Louis Vuitton case in the back seat of the Lamborghini.
‘No stress, bud,’ Tom smiled. ‘I got everything in hand on that front.’
There was a pause on the line as Jack digested this information, his chest wheezing like an old boiler on its last knockings. If this deal came off they’d make their money back ten-fold within twelve months. But they were still a little shy of three mill of the recommended auction price, which was where Tom came into the equation. Jack was relying on him to make up the shortfall, which was a little like relying on a politician to come good on his promises; hit and miss.
‘You’re telling me you already got your hand on three big ones? And you didn’t care to mention that small fact to me this morning?’
The girl’s ears pricked up. Three million bucks! Jeez!
‘Just trust me, OK?’ Tom winked at his passenger and she grinned in return, uncrossing her long, slim legs in a consciously provocative move.
‘Yeah right! Look what happened the last time I did that?’
Jack Goldstein was the closest thing Tom Black had left to family. They had been friends since his early Vegas days, bonding instantly by their shared interests of making money and chasing pussy. Ultimately though, ups and downs aside, theirs was a friendship that had been built on the essential elements of trust and respect, and as a result, it had stood the test of time.
‘Well then, just chill out. We’ll go to the auction; we’ll get our casino. We’ll make our millions. Simple.’
Jack sighed. Tom was being evasive.
‘I’m serious, Tom,’ he said earnestly, between short, violent bursts of deep chesty coughs that made him sound like a sea-lion attempting to mate. ‘I don’t plan to return back to the States without that venue.’
‘Jesus Jack, stop breaking my balls will you?’ Tom suddenly snapped, causing the girl to look over at him. ‘I’m pulling up outside the bank right now … and we’re gonna get our casino, OK?’
Jack was unfazed by his friend’s sharp outburst. He’d heard it all a million times over.
‘We’ve got a couple of weeks’ grace to get our shit sorted then it’s all systems go,’ he said, pausing to sneeze three times in succession.
‘Jeez bud, you need to get yourself to a doctor.’
‘Get that bread banked and I won’t need to,’ he snapped back, although he knew he was right; Jack couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt this goddamn awful and it was worrying him. But he hated quacks. Quacks were wack as far as he was concerned – messengers of doom. His late grandfather had been the same. First doctor he ever saw in almost seven decades told him he had less than six weeks left. Jeez. You were better off not knowing that kind of shit. ‘And don’t let me down, Tom,’ he added seriously, ‘I’m counting on you. Three million and counting …’ Jack said flatly, blowing his nose loudly before hanging up.
Turning his attentions briefly back to his passenger, momentarily distracted by her perfect form and abundant peroxide hair that couldn’t possibly be all her own, Tom’s mind began to click into overdrive as his forced smile faded faster than a fake clairvoyant’s apparition. Truth was, Jack had every reason to worry. There was no cash; Tom owned the princely sum of nothing. Somehow, he needed to find a shortfall of at least three million bucks in less than seven days if he wasn’t about to renege on his word and lose face.
A thought bubble appeared above Tom’s head and he grinned at his passenger again. He was under no illusion that to make that kind of money in such a short period of time he would need a spectacular show of luck …
‘You doing much this weekend …?’ he made to address the blonde, realising he didn’t even know her name.
‘… Candy,’ she prompted, returning his grin with a broad smile of her own, showcasing her ice-white veneers, de rigueur in Beverly Hills.
‘Of course,’ he gave a knowing nod. What else would she be called?
‘And yeah, I was kinda planning to hook up with some girlfriends, you know, hit the bars, a few jello shots …’ she’d added, not wanting to make it sound as if she was too available.
‘Well, Candy,’ Tom said, turning to her earnestly and fixing her with an intent gaze that immediately held her intrigue, ‘cancel your plans.’ He had a sixth sense about this one; she had fortune on her side, he was convinced of it.
‘And why would I wanna do that?’ She cocked her head to one side, her fake eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she blinked rapidly at him.
‘Because we’re going to Vegas, baby!’ he announced with a little whistle, the tyres of the Lamborghini screaming in objection as he accelerated around a corner.
After all, what did he have to lose?
CHAPTER 5
Ellie was finding it difficult to concentrate as her driver, Wesley, weaved through the Notting Hill traffic in her carbon-black Aston Martin V12 Vantage. She couldn’t get the earlier conversation she’d had with her wayward daughter out of her head.
