Adored

by Tilly Bagshawe

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

To the outside world, Siena McMahon has a fairy-tale life. Born into a great Hollywood dynasty-granddaughter of movie legend Duke McMahon, daughter of billionaire producer Pete McMahon-she is blessed with beauty, brains, and wealth...a proverbial princess. Yet behind the wrought-iron gates of the sprawling McMahon mansion in Hancock Park, her life is far from idyllic. The McMahons are bound together not by love but by infighting and ambition. When a gold-digging English aristocrat, Caroline Berkeley, worms her way into their lives and their home, the family's potent mix of jealousy and wealth explodes. Packed off to school in England, Siena starts making plans to leave the moment she arrives. She is determined to become a Hollywood star in her own right-just as her grandfather had said she would be. And once back in L.A., the rejections, betrayals, and failures she'll face will only make her stronger and tougher than ever before. But at what price? In the utterly dysfunctional landscape of her life-among friends, lovers, and family-she must find the people who will help her survive, help her become the person she was meant to be, help her be truly Adored. Set in the most glamorous cities of the world-L.A., London, Paris, and New York-Tilly Bagshawe's debut novel is like the real-world Hollywood it mirrors: deliciously escapist, wickedly sexy, and always irresistibly compelling.

Release date: July 1, 2005

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 560

Sample

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks first and foremost to my family: my parents, for their bottomless love and support; my brother, James, and my sisters, Louise and Alice; my lovely husband, Robin; and last but not least, my beautiful daughter, Sefi. I am so proud of you, darling, my wonderful, wonderful girl.

Thanks to all the writers who helped and encouraged me, not only to start but to finish this book. Especially Louise, my sister; Fred—you can do it, Tills—Metcalf: I’m proud to be a mentee; Lydia Slater, who took a chance on a totally unknown writer at the Sunday Times and was the first person to pay actual money for something I wrote—thank you so much; and the uniquely gorgeous Chris Manby, my lifeboat in L.A.

Unfairly, for someone with the world’s best family, I also have the world’s best friends. I owe so much to all of you, but must especially mention a few: Zanna Hooper, the kindest woman in England, for her endless hospitality and for being a shoulder to cry on; also Soph, Scorbs, and all the Cambridge girls. Rupert Channing, my former partner in crime, for Pimm’s and champagne chasers in Boisdale and for making the city so much fun. Katrina Mayson, Claire Depke, and Belen Hormaeche, my fellow Wolditz survivors, I love you all. Christian Brun, Jamie Griffith, Rutts, Sparky, Mambly, and all the boys in my life. Special thanks also to Dominique Rawley, whose kindness and compassion through my annus horribilis will never be forgotten. You are a friend indeed.

Finally, many thanks to my editors, Kate Mills at Orion and Jamie Raab at Warner, for all your patience, help, and good advice, and to everyone at Janklow & Nesbit; especially Luke Janklow, who believed in me and this book from the beginning, and the lovely Christelle Chamouton.

But the last word must go to my incredible agent and very dear friend, Tif Loehnis, without whom this book would never have been written, let alone published. Who’d have thought, Tif, when I first saw you across second court all those years ago in your multicolored stripy jeans, that it would ever come to this? For once, words fail me. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you. For everything.

THE MAJOR PLAYERS

Duke McMahon: Legendary Hollywood movie star and Lothario. Autocratic patriarch of the McMahon dynasty.

Minnie McMahon: Duke’s long-suffering wife.

Pete McMahon: Their embittered son. A producer.

Claire McMahon: Pete’s quiet, academic wife. Mother of Siena.

Laurie McMahon: Duke and Minnie’s fat, useless daughter, Pete’s sister.

Tara: Pete’s spiteful PA.

Caroline Berkeley: Upper-class English gold digger, Duke’s long-term mistress and Hunter’s feckless mother.

George and William Berkeley: Caroline’s pompous, bigoted brothers.

Sebastian Berkeley: Caroline’s besotted, elderly father.

Hunter McMahon: Gorgeous, sweet-natured but neglected illegitimate son of Duke and Caroline.

Siena McMahon: Duke’s feisty granddaughter, the only child of Pete and Claire McMahon. A raving beauty.

Max De Seville: Childhood best friend of Hunter McMahon. Sexy, blond cad in the finest English tradition.

Henry Arkell: Max’s beloved half-brother, farmer, family man, and all-around good guy.

Muffy Arkell: His harassed but devoted, very pretty wife.

Bertie, Charlie, and Maddie Arkell: Their children.

Titus and Boris: Their dogs.

Tiffany Wedan: Hunter’s actress girlfriend. Like him, beautiful inside and out.

Lennox: A gay actor/waiter. Tiffany Wedan’s loyal best friend.

Jack and Marcie Wedan: Tiffany’s parents, simple folk from Colorado.

Randall Stein: Billionaire producer and biggest Hollywood player since Duke McMahon. A bastard.

Seamus: Duke’s old childhood friend, now his valet.

Gary Ellis: Unscrupulous cockney property developer.

Christopher Wellesley: Charming old gentleman farmer, owner of one of the most beautiful estates in the Cotswolds.

Marsha: Siena’s diminutive but powerful modeling agent. A drunken dynamo.

Ines Prieto Moreno: Flame-haired Spanish supermodel.

Dierk Muller: Charmless but talented German movie director.

Hugh Orchard: Highly respected, discreetly gay king of US network television. Writer and creator of a number of hit shows, including Counselor and UCLA.

Jamie Silfen: The most powerful casting agent in Hollywood.

Camille Andrews: Texan model/actress/whore. A Sky Bar bimbo on the make.

Miriam Stanley: L.A. starlet. Has slept with every successful producer in town.

PROLOGUE

ENGLAND, 1998

Siena was going back to Hollywood if it killed her.

“So you see, Sister Mark,” she continued, carefully composing her features into an expression she hoped looked both remorseful and resigned, “I do realize this is an expellable offense. And I just want you to know that I totally accept responsibility for my actions.”

God, she sounded almost tearful. But then she’d always known she was a terrific actress. The old witch might actually be falling for it.

“I just don’t know what made me do it”—she dropped her eyes shamefully to her lap; all nuns, she had learned, were suckers for a bit of humility—“but I quite understand that I have left you with no choice. I’ve let St. Xavier’s down.”

Fabulous. This was working like a charm. Mentally, Siena began calculating how long it would take her to clear out her poky little dorm room. She’d have to say goodbye to the girls, of course, but if she really got her skates on she might make the six o’clock flight to L.A. Or maybe there’d be formalities to go through? She’d have to see the head of governors, perhaps. Even so, an early-morning flight out would still get her there in time for a blow-dry at Zapata before she hit the bars on Melrose.

“Miss McMahon.” The headmistress’s softly lilting Irish voice belied a firmness of purpose that Siena recognized only too well. She had come to hate the way Sister Mark pronounced her name: “McMaaarn.” She seemed to stretch the word out, like torture. She wondered what sort of rambling lecture she was in for this time.

Looking around her, Siena took in the familiar surroundings of Sister Mark’s office for what she hoped would be the last time. It was simply furnished, as befitted a nun’s rooms, but not austere. A full but slightly overblown bunch of peach-colored roses dominated the desk, and their scent carried all the way to the window seat, which was lined with brightly colored cushions, the slightly threadbare handiwork of generations of budding seamstresses. An unobtrusive crucifix hung against one of the whitewashed walls, while the others were plastered with photographs of St. Xavier’s girls past and present, commemorating various sporting or dramatic achievements. Siena, who was not much of a team player, did not feature, other than on the giant white board displaying the detentions received by pupils, where her name made repeated appearances.

It was actually the third time this term that she had been summoned to the headmistress’s aerie of an office above the school chapel. In fact, in the seven years since Siena had first arrived at the school as a frightened ten-year-old, Sister Mark had lost count of the times she had peered across her desk at the beautiful, truculent, scowling little face of this most talented and yet most troublesome of pupils.

No matter how many times she looked at Siena, she never ceased to be struck by the uncanny resemblance: She really was the spitting image of her famous grandfather. As a young girl in Connemara, Sister Mark (or Eileen Dineen, as she was then) had always had a bit of a soft spot for Duke McMahon. Well, it was hard not to. Capri Sunset, which had been his first big film, with Maureen O’Hara. Eileen and her pals must have seen it, what, nine or ten times? That dark flowing hair, that deep, rich, almost smoldering voice. Oh yes, in his day old Duke’s romantic films had been quite an occasion of sin for half the teenage population of Ireland—not to mention the rest of the world. And now here she was, fifty years later, forty years a nun, wondering what in heaven’s name to do with his troublesome granddaughter.

Smoothing down her brown Viyella skirt—the nuns at St. Xavier’s no longer wore the habit, and the only thing that set them apart from the rest of the teaching staff was a plain silver cross worn at the neck—she moved her mahogany chair back a couple of inches and fixed her gaze once again on the enigma that was Siena McMahon.

For some reason, the child had never really settled in at St. Xavier’s. She was popular enough, that wasn’t the problem. There may have been a touch of the green-eyed monster going on with some of the other girls, but as a rule, they all wanted to be associated with Siena: Granddaughter of a Hollywood legend and daughter of one of the world’s most successful movie producers, she represented a glamour and excitement far beyond anything that these well-bred English gentlemen’s daughters had ever experienced.

Siena had other advantages as well. She was undoubtedly a beauty, and fifteen years of teaching in a girls’ boarding school had taught Sister Mark that this, sadly, was a surefire passport to popularity, with or without the McMahon name behind her. And despite her truly appalling lack of discipline and almost pathological aversion to hard work, Siena had sailed through her school career with straight A’s across the board. On the face of it, she had very little to complain about.

Even so, it didn’t take Einstein to work out that, for all her advantages and talents, the girl was deeply unhappy at school.

Her complaint had been the same since the first week she arrived, a belligerent, feisty little madam even then: She wanted to go home. It was this that Sister Mark found particularly odd, since it was obvious Siena profoundly disliked both her parents. Tragic really. Other than the yearly Prize Day, which they both religiously attended, Pete and Claire McMahon seemed to spend as little time with their only daughter as was humanly possible. Six weeks over the summer holidays were the only time they spent together at the family compound in Hollywood. Siena never flew home for half-terms or the shorter holidays, spending her breaks instead in the charge of a Spanish housekeeper at her parents’ Knightsbridge flat. To be sure, that was no life for a child. But it only seemed to make the girl more willful, more determined and desperate than ever to get back home.

Looking across at Siena, Sister Mark noticed she was biting her lower lip, a childish signal of nervousness that looked out of place on the womanly seventeen-year-old she had become. A previous generation would have described Siena as “buxom,” but nowadays the girls seemed to interpret that as “fat.” In fact, Siena had a small frame dominated by a very curvaceous bust, to which her blue uniform sweater clung almost obscenely. Her small rosebud mouth, pale skin, and thick cascade of dark curls all belonged to another, more sensuous and feminine era. Only her eyes—two dark blue flashes of ruthless determination—gave her otherwise angelic face its modern, edgy twist. Today they were narrowed in wary anticipation.

The headmistress sighed. She was almost as tired of this battle as Siena was. This time she had been caught red-handed, smoking marijuana in the prefects’ common room. Actually, “caught” was hardly the right word, as she had made no attempt whatsoever to conceal the offense. Under normal circumstances, she should, of course, be expelled. But A-levels were only a few months away, and Siena was predicted to do exceptionally well. Besides, after seven long years, Sister Mark was damned if she was going to send the little horror home now.

Reluctantly dragging her thoughts from the duty-free Burberry coats at Heathrow—or perhaps a bag, to pacify her mother?—Siena turned to face the elderly nun. Could she just get on with it for once and skip the damn lectures?

“Miss McMahon,” resumed Sister Mark, “as you rightly say, you have indeed let St. Xavier’s down.”

Thank God, thought Siena, she’s finally going to kick me out of this hellhole.

“However, I feel it would be”—a glancing smile flickered across the older woman’s lips—“precipitate. Or, shall we say, rash? to assume that you leave me with ‘no choice’ in terms of your punishment.”

Siena swallowed hard. Fuck. What was she going on about now? The spluttering roar of a broken exhaust pipe broke the silence for a moment, and Siena’s eyes were drawn to the rickety old minivan belching its way down the school drive, its chassis seeming to shiver and shake in the biting January wind. It was supposed to be white but was covered in a layer of grime so thick that it stood out as almost metallic gray against the backdrop of snowy lawns. Inside, giggling groups of girls huddled together on their way to some hockey match or other. They all looked so fucking happy, it made Siena want to throw up.

“It has not entirely escaped my notice, Siena,” continued Sister Mark as the noise of the failing engine faded into the distance, “that you harbor a strong desire to leave St. Xavier’s. Although I will confess I am not quite sure why this should be.”

Not sure why she would want to leave St. Xavier’s? Jesus Christ, surely the question was why the hell would anybody want to stay? Chapel at seven-thirty in the morning, lights out at ten-thirty P.M., more fucking meaningless rules than the Gestapo. And the worst thing was, most of the girls became totally brainwashed. They actually looked forward to coming back to sixth form because they got to have their own toaster in the common room! Toast Privilege, that’s what they called it. Was Siena the only one who wanted to scream out loud: EATING TOAST IS NOT A PRIVILEGE, IT’S A BASIC FUCKING HUMAN RIGHT! In L.A., seventeen-year-old girls had cars. They wore designer clothes, not some dykey old uniform. They went to parties. They got laid. They had lives, for Christ’s sake. St. Xavier’s—in fact, the whole of fucking England, gray, freezing, miserable England—was stuck in some kind of nightmare time warp.

“I am not prepared to be manipulated into expelling you when I know full well that this was the response you were hoping for,” announced Sister Mark. Siena glared at her openly now, all pretense at humility gone. The headmistress plowed on. “I have, instead, decided to revoke all your sixth-form privileges until the end of the year.”

Oh my God. Siena’s stricken face said it all. “Till the end of the year? You can’t do that!”

“Oh, I think you’ll find I can.” The nun smiled serenely. “Furthermore, you will be gated for the next four weeks. That means no Exeat weekends, no social events, no after-school activities. Other than Mass, of course.”

Oh, of course. Mass. Terrific.

“Siena. Listen to me.” Sister Mark’s tone had softened, but Siena was oblivious. If she wasn’t going home, then what was the point in listening? What else mattered? The nun reached across the desk for her hand and squeezed it with genuine kindness, ignoring the girl’s look of revulsion. “You are in the home stretch, my dear.”

Siena watched the sunlight glinting off Sister Mark’s crucifix and shielded her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this.

“It’s January now. By July, your A-levels will be over, and if you’d only start to apply yourself, well, you’ve every chance of a place at Oxford. Every chance.” The headmistress squeezed her hand again encouragingly, willing the child to look up.

But Siena had tuned out. Sister Mark didn’t understand. How could she? Withdrawing her hand, she gazed out the window, across the frosty convent lawns, to the frozen hills of the Gloucestershire landscape beyond. It was so cold that icicles still clung to the twigs of the sycamores, and she could see the frozen breath of the group of third-years chattering animatedly on their way to class, no doubt excited by the snow and the prospect of sledding at the end of the day.

Despite the beauty of the scene, Siena’s mind was six thousand miles away. Not in her parents’ home in the Hollywood Hills but at Grandpa Duke’s in Hancock Park, far back into her childhood. Suddenly she was eight years old again, bounding up the steps of the mansion and into his arms. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth and strength of that embrace as though it were yesterday. Sitting in the hard-backed mahogany chair in Sister Mark’s underheated study, she longed for that warmth with every breath in her body.

To her childish mind, it had all seemed so permanent. Grandpa Duke, the house, her happiness. But it had all melted away, all of it, like the Gloucestershire snow. And now here she was, as far from that happiness and comfort as it was possible to be.

CHAPTER ONE

HANCOCK PARK, LOS ANGELES, 1975

“Forty-eight, forty-nine . . . fifty! Nice job, Duke, you’re looking great.”

Duke McMahon lay back on his workout mat and looked up at his trainer. Jesus Christ, these young guys all looked like shit. Sideburns like a pair of hairy runways, a brown velour jogging suit, and more gold jewelry than the fucking Mafia. No wonder so much Hollywood pussy was out there looking for an older man.

Still, Mikey was right about one thing. Duke was looking great. He sat up and took a satisfied look at his reflection in one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that plastered the room. At sixty-four, he still had the body of a man twenty years younger, and he didn’t owe one inch of it to surgery. He hated working out with a passion, especially the goddamn sit-ups, but was infinitely vain. In his six years with Duke, Mikey had never known him to cancel a single session.

“You still need to do some more work on your abs, you know,” Mikey chided as he watched the old man untie his sneakers and head toward the shower.

“Yeah, and you still need to do some more work on your fucking wardrobe, man. Not to mention your hair.” Duke held up his hands in mock exasperation. “I’m telling you, buddy, you look like Cher with a three-day shadow. Get a fucking haircut!”

Mikey laughed and turned down the blare of Mick Jagger on the record player. Duke loved his Stones.

It was a long time since the trainer had seen him in such a chipper mood. Evidently the new girlfriend was working wonders. He knew he shouldn’t really like Duke, but he couldn’t help it. Sure, the old man was a bastard. An addictive womanizer, he treated his poor wife, Minnie, like dirt and was so right-wing—anti-gay, anti-women, anti-blacks, anti-taxes—it was totally outrageous. But he also had this incredible energy, a lust for life that seemed to draw people to him. Mikey had a lot of wealthy, famous clients—although none quite as wealthy or famous as Duke McMahon—and none of them could touch him for raw charisma.

Emerging dripping and naked from the shower, Duke strode over to the window and looked out at the California sunshine. He’d had the gym built on the first floor of his sprawling hacienda in Hancock Park, a pale pink Spanish architectural masterpiece known to the busloads of tourists who hung around outside the gates simply as the McMahon estate. Although the estate itself had been built in the twenties, when Hancock Park was first starting to become popular with the swelling ranks of movie actors and musicians who had moved west to find fame and fortune, the interior was a bizarre mélange of modern and traditional styles.

Minnie, Duke’s long-suffering wife, had impeccable if rather conservative taste, and many of the public rooms reflected her refined and understated influence. In striking contrast, Duke’s unashamed vulgarity and love affair with all things modern had led to some gruesome decor decisions, of which the gym was only one: The state-of-the-art music center, complete with eight-track tape deck and stereo speakers, was housed in an immense velvet-lined teak cabinet. A central workout square of polished wood was surrounded by a sea of cream shag carpeting, fitted wall to wall beneath the ubiquitous mirrors, and a disco ball hung in pride of place from the vaulted ceiling.

“For the love of God, Duke, would you put some clothes on?” Seamus, Duke’s oldest childhood friend and now his right-hand man—a sort of hybrid manservant, PA, and business manager—had stuck his flushed, permanently jovial face around the door, giving a brief nod of acknowledgment to the trainer. “You have a meeting at eleven, you know? I know the dress code is casual in Hollywood, but I’m sure John McGuire would appreciate a pair of underpants at least.”

Duke looked over his shoulder at his old pal and grinned. They were almost exact contemporaries, but Seamus looked nearly old enough to be his father. His hairline had receded so far that he appeared completely bald from the front, and a lifelong penchant for “the odd dram,” as he put it, had contributed to both his florid complexion and his spreading waistline. In anyone else Duke would have been scathing of such a lack of self-control, but he’d always considered Seamus a special case. Having battled his way through the vipers’ nest of scheming agents and unscrupulous studios in Hollywood, Duke knew just how rare loyalty and genuine friendship were. Seamus was a gem.

“Go fuck yourself, wouldya?” he replied good-naturedly, scratching his balls for added effect. “I’m trying to enjoy the view here.”

And quite a view it was. Immaculately manicured lawns rolled down the hill away from the house as far as the eye could see. An Olympic-size pool flashed and shimmered in the morning sunshine, surrounded by a haphazard collection of orange and lemon trees, all groaning with fruit. Tiny hummingbirds, their brilliant streaks of color clashing with the unbroken blue of the sky, flitted from flower to flower, enjoying the sunshine. It was hard to imagine that such a Garden of Eden could be completely man-made; that without ceaseless irrigation, planting, and tending, the whole of Hancock Park would have been nothing more than a lifeless desert. But then that was precisely what Duke loved about L.A. It was a place where you could turn a patch of dirt into paradise, if you worked hard and wanted it badly enough.

Any one of the legions of Mexican gardeners and handymen on the lawns below could have glanced up and seen the master of the house stark naked, surveying his kingdom from the window, as they had on so many mornings before. Duke didn’t care. It was his house. He had worked for every square inch of it, and he could shit on the fucking floor if he wanted to. Besides, he liked being naked in front of the staff, because it drove Minnie insane with embarrassment. Humiliating his wife was one of Duke’s greatest and most enduring pleasures.

“Eleven o’clock.” Seamus raised a reprimanding finger in the general direction of Duke’s naked rear view before scurrying off to prepare the paperwork for the day’s meetings.

“Look at that, man.” Duke made a sweeping gesture through the window for Mikey’s benefit, once Seamus had gone. “What a terrific day!”

“We’re in California, Duke. Every day’s a beautiful day.” The trainer zipped up his sports bag and leaned back against the mirrored wall. He wasn’t in any rush to leave. His next client was a hopelessly overweight Beverly Hills widow who couldn’t seem to get enough of his brown velour jogging suit and shoulder-length hair. Chewing the fat with Duke was a whole lot more fun. “So what’s put you in such a great mood all of a sudden? This wouldn’t have anything to do with . . . is it Catherine? What’s her name, your new girlfriend?”

“Mistress, my new mistress.” Duke grinned. “I’m a hell of a lot too old for a ‘girlfriend.’” To Mikey’s relief, he pulled on a pair of white linen golfing trousers and sat down on a bench, warming to his theme. “A girlfriend is someone you hold hands with, maybe go to the pictures. One day, if you find you really like her, then maybe you marry her and she becomes your wife. That’s a girlfriend. Now, a mistress—a mistress is something totally different.” He paused for dramatic effect, a slow smile spreading across his predatory hawklike features. “A mistress is basically pussy that you own.”

“Jesus Christ!” Mikey exploded into laughter, genuinely shocked. “You can’t say things like that! Nobody owns nobody else, Duke.”

“Ah, kid.” Duke shook his head. “How little you know.”

Standing up to admire his chosen outfit—white pants, white patent-leather shoes, and a tight chocolate-brown turtleneck that was far too warm for the California climate but that accentuated his chest and biceps—he put an affectionate, paternal arm around his trainer. How come he could never talk like this to his own son, Pete? The boy was always so fucking uptight, a stuck-up little prig like his mother. Duke used to say that Pete Jr. was a replica of Minnie, only with balls—but these days he wasn’t too sure whether his son even had that distinction.

“Anyway, in answer to your question, yes, my mood probably does owe just a little something to Caroline.”

“Sorry, yeah, Caroline, you told me.”

Duke was beaming like a drunk in a liquor store. This must be quite some girl. As if reading his mind, the old man continued. “Not only is she a world-class fuck”—Duke noticed Mikey fighting to stifle a blush—“seriously, man, you should see her, she is the sluttiest little whore but she speaks like the fucking queen. If you haven’t screwed an English girl, I’m telling you, you gotta try it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Mikey. “Thanks.”

“But the best part is,” Duke looked at him triumphantly, “she’s agreed to move in with me. Permanently. As of today.”

Had Mikey missed something here? “What do you mean she’s moving in with you?” He knew it was rude to piss on Duke’s picnic when he was so patently over the moon. But how could Caroline possibly be moving in? “What about Minnie? Did you guys, like, separate or get a divorce or something? How come I never heard about this?”

“Nope.” Duke cracked his knuckles and smiled broadly. He was evidently lapping up the younger man’s discomfiture. “No separation, no divorce. I just told her. This is my house, and I want Caroline to live here. Minnie’ll do what she’s told if she wants to remain a part of this family.”

Mikey winced. Duke’s brutality never ceased to shock him, especially where poor Mrs. McMahon was concerned. He couldn’t understand why on earth she tolerated it. Still, even by Duke’s standards, this was a bit extreme, moving the girlfriend into the estate right under her nose. He imagined Peter wasn’t going to be too pleased either.

“We’re having a welcome dinner tonight at eight,” continued Duke, unfazed. “It’s just family: Caroline and me, Laurie, Pete and his wife . . . and my wife, of course,” he sneered sadistically. “But you’re more than welcome to join us if you’d like. I’ll have Minnie set an extra place.”

Jesus Christ, so Minnie was expected to play hostess at this charade? Suddenly Mikey felt awkward, guilty. He didn’t want to be a party to any of this. “I can’t,” he said, blushing. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t.”

For all his charm, Duke obviously had a huge hole right where any sense of morality or basic human compassion should be. And when you looked right into that hole, it was black. Frankly, it scared the shit out of Mikey.

Sensing the old man’s disappointment, he shrugged apologetically, attempting to lighten the atmosphere. “Dinner with my girlfriend, you know?”

“Sure. Of course,” said Duke with a mirthless smile that reminded Mikey of the wolf grinning at Little Red Riding Hood. All of a sudden the room seemed to become terribly cold. “It’s not a problem, kid, really,” said Duke, heading for the door. “I understand.”

Sitting at her dressing table in the east wing of the house, Minnie fastened the clasp of her pearls with a steady hand. The sweet scent of the cyclamen creepers that grew around her dressing-room window never failed to relax her. She took a deep, calming gulp of the warm morning air and sighed.

Minnie adored her dressing room, her small, private sanctuary filled with the beloved and familiar reminders of a former life: Her father’s antique English writing table now served as her bureau, and the richly faded Persian rug on the floor had once been the nursery rug back home in Connecticut, on which she and her brother, Austin, had crawled and squabbled and built elaborate cities out of blocks. Lavish vases of flowers covered every available surface, and a slightly battered but charming old bookcase beside the door was filled with books, not only collected but read by generations of Millers. Some had belonged to her great-great-grandfather and Minnie loved simply to hold them, stroking the spines and thinking of all of her ancestors who had held them and read them before her.

Thirty years in Los Angeles had done nothing to diminish her homesickness for the East Coast. But through her flair for interior design—Minnie had that rare ability to turn a house into a home without diminishing its elegance, with a style that combined traditional conservatism with real warmth—she had created a miniature East Coast oasis inside the estate, which had become a huge comfort to her in her frequent times of trouble.

Having arranged her pearls carefully in the mirror, she picked up the silver-backed clothes brush on the dresser and swept a few stubborn strands of lint from her s