Hollywood Sinners. Victoria Fox

hair and a hook nose. The room stretched out behind him, fragments caught in diamond shapes like a kaleidoscope. He was watching her intently.

      ‘What’s this?’ she asked, reaching for a black velvet box with a little card from Robert tucked inside.

      ‘Never mind that,’ Alberto said, coming to her. He placed his dry hands on her bare shoulders and leaned down to whisper in her ear. ‘A star is born tonight.’

      Elisabeth rolled her eyes. It was no great secret that Alberto harboured a schoolboy crush–it’d been that way for ages. She and Robert laughed about it.

      ‘Oh, give it up,’ she told him, applying a flush of rouge. ‘I don’t need to sleep with you to keep this gig. You work for my fiancé, remember?’

      Alberto chuckled. ‘You are right, bellissima. When you do sleep with me, it will be of your own free will.’

      Elisabeth turned round. ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ she told him. ‘You’re an old horse, Bellini, it’d probably kill you.’

      ‘You kill me a little every time.’ He held his arms up and made a face like a sad clown.

      ‘I’m sure,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. She’d known Alberto since she was a little girl–he’d always been around when she’d been growing up–but she could never tell if he was being serious or not.

      ‘When is the wedding?’ he asked now, turning away, his hands linked behind his back. His distinguished frame was at ease in the opulent den of her dressing room. Modelled on the Egyptian pyramids, its gold fabrics swept grandly from a sphinx gargoyle in the middle of the ceiling. Baskets of fruit, olives and nuts were clustered in one corner, and a small fountain of mineral water stood proud at its centre.

      ‘Robert and I are yet to set a date.’ Elisabeth picked up the velvet box, extracted the note from her fiancé and smiled. Inside was a diamond necklace, an exquisite chain of gems, each one in the shape of a heart.

      Alberto did not turn to face her. ‘But you do want to marry him.’

      Elisabeth frowned. ‘Of course I want to marry him.’

      ‘It is what your father wants.’

      ‘I’m sure it is.’ Her voice tightened. She fastened the necklace and sat back to admire it.

      ‘It is what the city wants.’

      ‘I’m aware of that.’

      ‘It is not what I want.’

      Abruptly Elisabeth stood up. ‘I haven’t got time for this, Bellini. Is there anything else?’

      He came to her, his expression wistful. ‘I fear I should not tell you this,’ Alberto licked his lips, ‘but I cannot help myself.’ He took her hands. ‘You are so like your mother, Elisabeth. So headstrong, so forthright, so … beautiful.’

      Elisabeth was taken aback. Linda Sabell, one of the greatest singers of the seventies, had been killed in a plane crash when Elisabeth was only three. Her father never spoke her name; Bellini was the only one who seemed to recognise she’d gone.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, tears threatening. She cleared her throat, cross with herself for showing weakness.

      ‘When I look at you.’ Alberto searched her eyes, looking for what she couldn’t tell. ‘My darling, your mother lives again.’

      Elisabeth was transfixed a moment, before blinking and dropping his hands.

      ‘I am sorry. I have said too much.’

      She wrapped her arms round herself, turning away. ‘Please, go.’

      ‘I did not mean to upset you.’ His voice was gentle.

      Elisabeth shook her head, refusing to look at him. ‘I’m fine.’

      A moment later she heard the door shut quietly. She closed her eyes, dragging herself together. Linda was so seldom mentioned that each time it hurt like the first. The mother she had never known, the woman whose legacy she felt it her duty to maintain. Oh, to have had a female in her life when she’d been growing up, someone to be close to. Instead she had been raised almost exclusively by men. Bernstein, Bellini, her grandfather before he’d died–it had made her tough, sure, but what she wouldn’t give for five minutes with the woman she couldn’t even remember.

      Thank God for Robert St Louis. He cherished her independence, always said it was one of the things he loved best. Linda would have liked him.

      Elisabeth turned back to the mirror. She gave her reflection a reassuring nod. Once they were married, a new future would begin; one her mother would be proud of.

      7

       London

      Chloe French arrived home in Hampstead feeling tired and interrogated. She’d spent the afternoon at a photo shoot for a Sunday paper supplement–the sharp-featured woman interviewing her had insisted on asking all manner of difficult questions about her upbringing, rather than focusing on her modelling and her relationship with Nate Reid, either of which she would have preferred to talk about.

      Thank God for PR, thought Chloe, tossing her bag down in the empty hall.

      ‘Dad?’ she called out. Silence.

      She checked the time. Maybe he’d gone out.

      Padding into the kitchen, Chloe tried to remember a time when it hadn’t been like this–a house so quiet and still that it seemed to be in mourning for times gone by. Before the divorce her parents had thrown a party nearly every week: Chloe recalled sitting at the top of the stairs when she was little and meant to be in bed, listening to the grown-ups’ conversations; the tinny ring of wine glasses and the distant, merry laughter.

      The doorbell went. It was Nate.

      ‘Hey!’ she said, stepping out to kiss him. ‘How was the studio?’

      Nate pushed through. ‘Get me in, I’ve got a pap on my tail.’

      Chloe frowned, looking past him. ‘I can’t see anyone.’

      ‘Buggers don’t let up,’ he said, stalking past in his Jagger swagger.

      She followed him into the kitchen. He had his head in the fridge and was picking at an open packet of Parma ham.

      ‘They were shitty at the Bystander.‘ She pulled out a chair and flopped down.

      ‘Did they ask about me?’

      ‘Nah, it was all Mum and Dad.’ She bit her thumbnail. ‘I’m tired of talking about it–it’s like everyone has to have a sob story or something. What’s the big deal?’

      Nate snapped open a jar of pickles. ‘Our story’s better,’ he said insensitively, tossing in a gherkin. ‘You should have got them off the subject, started talking about me.’

      Chloe smiled faintly. He was only trying to take her mind off it.

      ‘They’re all over us, babe,’ he went on, popping the jar on the shelf and closing the door. ‘They love all that shit.’

      Nate was referring to the night he and Chloe had got together a couple of years before. Under any other circumstances, people might have baulked at the idea of them being an item–sweet, stunning Chloe French and a slightly grimy rock star with an alleged drug problem. But this was a modern-day fairy tale, or at least that was how the press saw it.

      It had all happened at a wild party in Shoreditch. Chloe didn’t remember much, just knew she’d had way too much to drink come midnight. She’d fallen seriously ill, spewing up all over the place and blacking out–later it transpired she’d had her drink spiked. Thankfully Nate Reid, supposedly the wildest child of them all, had intervened, got his head together and taken her to the nearest A&E. The following morning iconic images were splashed across the London papers: bad-boy Nate