Hollywood Sinners

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.’

Elisabeth nodded.

‘Evening, Daniel.’ Robert knew every last one of the Orient’s staff–he had hired them all personally, from pit boss to restroom cleaner. ‘How many for the gala?’

‘Six hundred. They’re waiting for you both in the Lantern Suite.’

Robert checked his watch. ‘Frank Bernstein here yet?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Make the most of it,’ Elisabeth muttered drily as they stepped into the foyer.

Robert chuckled. ‘Come on, he’s not so bad.’

Elisabeth loved the Orient. It was, in her opinion, the greatest hotel in the city. She’d grown up on the Strip, knew them all like the back of her hand, but the Orient was special, it was different. Huge china urns, big as cars, squatted in the five corners of the pentagonal lobby, overflowing with jade stalks and huge leaves sprayed in gold. Gilt-edged mirrors lined the walls beneath glowing red paper lamps. Below, the marble of the floor gleamed clear as water, like standing on the surface of a silver pool, so that your reflection made it difficult to tell which way was up and which was down. It thrilled Elisabeth to know that soon, once she and Robert were married, she would be its queen.

They swept past Reception to the waiting elevator. As they rose to the sixteenth floor, Robert took her hand.

‘I’m proud you’re on my arm,’ he told her.

‘You’re on mine, St Louis.’ She winked as they alighted.

At news of the couple’s arrival, a reverential hush fell over the assembled investors and Vegas notables. Jowly men with ruddy cheeks and fat wallets stood next to their glamorous wives, whose priceless gems dripped from their fragrant, powdered skin.

The women watched enviously as Elisabeth let the fur drop from her shoulders, revealing a glittering kingfisher-blue gown that matched her eyes. Every last one of them wanted Robert St Louis and, seeing Elisabeth now, understood why they never would.

Her fiancé took easily to the floor. ‘I’m pleased to see so many of you here,’ he said, clapping his hands together and approaching the waiting lectern. ‘It’s a special night. The Orient has been working closely with the causes here this evening …’

Elisabeth smiled, quietly greeting one of the wives with a brief air kiss.

As she watched Robert, she felt powerful. No longer was she merely Frank Bernstein’s daughter: she was part of a team that had nothing whatsoever to do with him, a team that would lay the foundations of a new Vegas dynasty. This was hers alone–she didn’t have to involve her father at all.

Nothing could come between her and Robert.

If ever it did, she would fight it to the death.

3

London

Chloe French held her expression as she reclined on the leopard-print chaise longue and followed the photographer’s instructions.

‘That’s gorgeous,’ he told her, clicking away. ‘Anyone ever told you you’ve got the face of an angel?’

They had, actually. At nineteen Chloe French was the sweetheart of London’s fashion circuit–a raw, unaffected beauty and a fledgling star on her way to the top. She was tall, nearly six feet, with a sheet of jet-black hair that fell to her waist and glittering slate-grey eyes.

A make-up girl wearing too-tight denim hot pants rushed over and reapplied pink lipgloss, fanning Chloe’s hair out around her and repositioning the vintage clutch.

‘Thanks,’ Chloe called when she scurried off.

‘Stop saying thanks,’ instructed the photographer, an Emo guy with thick Elvis-Costello-style glasses, ‘you’re disrupting the shot.’

‘Sorry,’ said Chloe, cringing. The camera popped as she pulled the face.

Chloe French had been spotted four years ago outside Topshop on Oxford Street, feeling rough amid a horrible winter cold and wearing an old hoody with a ketchup stain down the front. She’d been modelling ever since. Over that time she had worked with some of the biggest names in fashion, but she still couldn’t shake the little knots of self-consciousness that accompanied a shoot like this. There just seemed to be so much fuss.

Consulting his assistant on the stills, the photographer grinned. ‘That’s the one.’ Chloe’s slight awkwardness, so unlike the other models he was used to working with, came off brilliantly on camera as coy vulnerability.

‘Have you got what you need?’ she asked, sitting up. ‘I’m meeting Nate.’ She beamed at the mention of her rock-star boyfriend.

‘And all the world’s press?’ The photographer made a face, remembering the last time Nate Reid had come to the studio. He’d been trailed by a troop of devoted paparazzi, supposedly unintentionally, though nothing about Chloe’s boyfriend appeared to be without intention.

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Nate’s discreet.’

‘He is?’ The photographer raised an eyebrow. ‘I can’t open a London paper without seeing you two.’

Chloe shrugged. ‘For a musician.’

‘Yeah, the Pied fucking Piper,’ he muttered, remembering the cameras dancing at Nate’s heels.

On cue the studio door opened and a rakish figure appeared in the doorway, a wiry silhouette crowned with artfully tousled hair.