The A-List Collection: Hollywood Sinners / Wicked Ambition / Temptation Island

When Kate raised a hand to her face in a moment of self-consciousness, the fashionista crowed, ‘Don’t be embarrassed!’ and inadvertently exposed a stain of red lipstick on one of her front teeth. She leaned in closer. ‘We do all we can, Kate.’

Kate made a polite noise about needing to check on the table and moved away. Secretly she was mortified that a woman in her fifties–however glamorous she might be–had lumped her in the same camp. Kate was forty-three. Forty-three! It was hardly old–didn’t everyone go on about it being the new twenty? Somebody ought to tell the casting agents she’d had look down their noses at her in recent weeks. Despite having a wealth of experience to her name, the work had steadily trickled off: as soon as they sniffed out the F word it was game over. Nobody wanted to see a sad pair of tits.

Avoiding the fashion editor’s eye, Kate spotted her ex-husband and gave him a polite wave. Cole Steel. Charming, handsome, dripping with success. It was a different story for men, wasn’t it? If anything, Cole had become more promotable with each year that passed. And of course it was acceptable for him to take a wife twenty years his junior, no one batted an eyelid at that–though she knew from experience that Lana Falcon wouldn’t be getting any. An Eskimo had warmer balls than Cole Steel. Seven years with him had almost broken her, but she had survived to tell the tale. Or not, as the case may be.

Kate approached them with her tight smile firmly in place. Hollywood’s number one A-list couple. A power set-up she had once been part of.

Cole was wearing sunglasses on his head, even though it was nine o’clock at night. She grudgingly admitted that Lana Falcon looked good in a dark green that set off her eyes to staggering effect.

Cole placed a palm on the small of his wife’s back in a show of solidarity. Kate recognised it as the show of possession it was.

‘Hello, Cole,’ said Kate coolly, leaning in to kiss him on both cheeks.

‘Good to see you, Kate.’ Then he asked, ‘How are the kids?’ Kate and Jimmy had two children aged three and five, though they were raised almost exclusively by their nanny.

Kate seemed surprised by the question. ‘Very well, thank you.’ She patted her hair. ‘And, Lana, my darling, don’t you look …’ The compliment caught. ‘Charming,’ she finished.

Lana smiled warmly. ‘I love this space,’ she said, looking around. ‘Did you design it yourself?’

What a sickly sweet bitch, thought Kate, hating how lovely the other woman looked. Just the sort of thing that got her bastard husband going.

‘As a matter of fact I did,’ said Kate. She’d picked out the colours, which was basically the same thing. ‘Please excuse me while I go and check on the food.’ Then she added in a quite hysterical way, ‘You know how these caterers can be!’

Turning back to the house, Kate quickly scanned the crowd for Jimmy. He was still nowhere to be seen.

Her husband might be a comedian but he wasn’t making a joke of her. If he was sticking it up some tart she didn’t know what she would do.

Jimmy Hart rolled the girl over on to her front and parted her legs.

‘Watch out, baby,’ he breathed, ‘Daddy’s coming to town.’

The girl, an aspiring actress-slash-model, gasped as his cock slid into her, driving back and forth. Fuck, this was a monster. She still couldn’t believe she’d got him into bed–and so easily, too! Jimmy Hart was a movie star, a comedy genius–just this afternoon she had served him coffee downtown and in minutes he had invited himself back to her apartment. They’d already been at it for hours and he showed no signs of letting up.

‘Fuck me, big boy!’ the girl moaned, throwing her head from side to side, raising her hips to allow him deeper access.

As Jimmy thrust on, his cock burning hot, he grabbed a handful of white-blonde hair. It was cropped short–he remembered how it had framed the girl’s face in the coffee shop, her eyes big and blue. ‘How old are you?’ he rasped now. ‘Tell me again how old you are!’

‘Eighteen.’ She eased off and turned round, wrapping her legs around his neck and guiding him back in. Actually she was twenty-one but she looked young, and she guessed it was what he wanted to hear. ‘Take me straight to heaven and back, baby.’

Jimmy resumed the task with renewed vigour, plunging into her, grabbing for her tits as he reached the summit. She wasn’t a virgin but he couldn’t afford to be picky–she had the face of an angel and skin like a peach: it was good enough for him.

He climaxed loudly and rolled off her.

‘That was amazing,’ the girl murmured, leaning over to run a pink tongue over his nipple. He was too thin and tall for her usual taste, but he was famous, so whatever.

Jimmy knew she hadn’t come and thought he should probably offer to go down on her, but time was running away. He caught sight of the alarm clock on the side table. Shit! He was late. Kate would be furious. She’d been going on about this goddamn soiree for weeks.

The thought of his wife had an instant effect and his hard-on shrank back like a frightened animal.

‘I’m taking a shower,’ he told the girl, knowing he wouldn’t see her again.

The girl pulled the crisp white sheet up to cover her breasts. ‘Hey, Jimmy?’ She opened her eyes wide as he hauled himself up and the scale of him came into full view. ‘Do you think I could be in one of your movies?’

As the guests took their seats for dinner, Lana searched the table for a friendly face. She thought she had seen Katherine Heigl at the drinks but could have been mistaken. Instead it was the usual array of get-aheads, with Lana positioned between Cole and a singer with a drug addiction.

Kate surveyed all regally from the top of the table, not a platinum-blonde hair out of place. She was quaffing wine and wore a slightly worried look, though it was difficult to be sure since she’d obviously gone for another lift, so taut was the skin around her eyes. Lana felt like a bitch for noticing.

‘And so I turned to this guy, never directed a movie in his life, and I just said, “So make me!"’ Cole was cruising through the evening, enchanting the company with anecdotes from his extensive on-set back catalogue. He sat back and roared with laughter at his own joke, and naturally everybody else followed suit. Lana had to admit he was good. The best.

The starter came and went, with Cole still holding fort. Felix Bentley, a cocky London music producer with an affected trans-Atlantic accent, kept trying to interject, but it was a losing battle. Lana tried to make conversation with the singer next to her but the girl kept leaving to visit the bathroom. Though she couldn’t be sure, Lana suspected she was throwing up.

‘Cole, tell us again how you and Lana met,’ said Harriet Foley, editor of fashion giant In. She was a formidable woman with a severe black bob and tortoiseshell glasses.

Cole savoured the moment. ‘I gotta tell you, Harriet,’ he said, looking adoringly at his wife, ‘it was love at first—’

The dining-room door slammed open. A tall, lanky figure bustled through, somewhat dishevelled in a dark suit. His hair was messy and his tie skewed.

Jimmy Hart. Lana thought he looked like a child’s drawing.

‘Apologies, everyone,’ he said with an easy grin. ‘Kate redecorates so often I can forget which part of the house I’m in!’

It was a pathetic excuse. Nevertheless everyone laughed politely, the reason for his lateness quietly dissolved. Kate looked flustered as she allowed herself to be chastely kissed then quickly motioned her husband to sit down. Lana noticed the stony glare that followed his back as he came to take a seat opposite her.

‘So I was saying …’ resumed Cole, who didn’t like to be disturbed.

Jimmy pulled back his chair with a shriek. Lana felt, rather than saw, Cole grit his teeth.

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Jimmy, sloshing wine into his glass.

Lana hid a smile. Despite his shameless behaviour, she liked Jimmy. There was something so brazen about him, a kind of unapologetic mischief. Though she had never told Cole, just last year they had been at a similar gathering during which Jimmy had tried to get her to touch his hard-on under the table, while maintaining a conversation with his wife about the versatility of cannellini beans. Lana had been shocked–not just at the advance but at how suddenly Jimmy’s cock had swollen to frankly unreal proportions. She was surprised he hadn’t pulled the tablecloth off with it.

‘Excuse me,’ she said quietly, pushing back her seat.

Cole broke off, drawing unnecessary attention. ‘What is it?’ he said, a slight snap to his voice. Nobody else would notice, just her.

‘Excuse me while I visit the bathroom,’ she clarified.

Relieved to get away, Lana made her way through the hall.

After washing her hands and re-applying some lipstick, she stood for a while at the mirror, trying to recognise the person looking back.

She wanted to spend the weekend by the ocean. No cameras, no contracts, no obligations–just the ocean … and the man she loved.

But that man wasn’t Cole Steel, her husband. And it wasn’t Parker Troy, her lover. It was Robbie Lewis, the boy from her childhood, now a multi-billionaire and the most handsome man in the world. The man who had saved her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the memory of the trailer park in Belleville, of the childhood that had been stolen from her. That awful night. The raging fire. The escape. And the beautiful boy she had left behind.

Robbie Lewis, my Robbie …