The Santiago Sisters. Victoria Fox

was honey-blonde and waxed into a neat landing strip. Her arms were slender and sinewy.

      ‘Baby, you are so sexy …’ Brian echoed her thoughts. She watched his hands reach up to knead her tits, quickly followed by the back of his head, then the feel of his wet, insistent tongue lapping her nipples as she mused on how much hair he had lost from that area. It was turning into a veritable monk’s patch!

      ‘I’m ready, hot stuff,’ he murmured—what were they living in, the 1970s? ‘Can you feel me deep inside you? D’you want this cock to make you come?’

      Brian’s cock was mediocre. Simone would deal with it as one might a sticky gearbox, grinding it into position until finally she was cruising. She kept an eye on her own reflection as she hit orgasm, enjoying the pink flush that built and spread across her chest, and the way her breasts bounced and shook as she surrendered.

      Brian shot his load a second later. He did this disagreeable wiggly thing with his hips, like he was stirring the contents of a mixing bowl with a big wooden spoon.

      Efficiently, Simone dismounted. ‘Time to get ready,’ she ordered, stalking into the bathroom. Before entering, she called out, ‘Wear the Armani, would you? And the shirt. That shirt’s good. It’s slimming.’ She slammed the door.

      Ugh. Doubts over her marriage were at an all-time high. At first, she had been seduced by the muscle of a big-shot director—not that she wasn’t a big shot herself, but Brian Chilcott was one of the hottest names in British film and together they were dynamite. Of course she had hoped the sex might get better, but then, when it didn’t, she’d given up. Brian did nothing for her, erotically. She didn’t even fancy him. Had she ever? Or had she just been in love with his plethora of awards and the allure of being half of the UK’s reigning power couple? No wonder she took other lovers. Men who knew where a woman’s clitoris was located—who knew women had one, for a start—and would happily spend an hour down there sending her to the brink, until the marital sheets were crumpled and soaked. Vera, the Spanish maid, asked no questions. The day Vera did, Simone would fire her so fast her head would spin.

      Simone ran a scented bath and climbed in. The hot bubbles soothed her and she applied her cucumber facemask and closed her eyes. Brian’s latest movie was premiering tonight at Leicester Square and she had to look the part: they’d been married five years now and it was always around this time that the gossip columnists decided to speculate. A glowing joint appearance every couple of months normally did the trick. Just remember to smile! Simone told herself, attempting to practise underneath the mask, which had now set solid and cracked like cake icing.

      She was beginning to relax when a caterwaul sounded from the bedroom.

      ‘But Daaaaad!’

      Brian’s voice followed immediately: ‘I said no, darling.’

      ‘You are such a shit, Dad! All my friends are going. It’s only a fucking party—why do you have to be such a moron all the time?’

      ‘It’s only because I care—’

      ‘No, you fucking don’t. If you did, you’d fucking well let me go. It’s like I’m a fucking criminal—it’s like you’re keeping me fucking prisoner!’

      ‘Stop swearing.’

      ‘Like fuck I will.’

      That was enough! Simone rose from the bath and wrapped herself in a towel. Damn Emily Chilcott! The thirteen-year-old was the bane of Simone’s life—she and her elder brother, the awful Lysander. Who would have stepchildren? Soon after Simone had moved in, Lysander and his friends had ‘done a waffle’ in the first-floor wet room, which involved defecating into the shower grill and, well, she couldn’t bear to think of the rest. Vera the maid had been forced to clear it up. Simone had been appalled, but all Brian did was to roll his eyes and chuckle, ‘Boys will be boys.’

      Not on her watch, they wouldn’t. Emily and Lysander were begging for a smack of discipline; if they were her own, they wouldn’t get away with a second of it.

       But they’re not yours, are they?

       And now you’re a dried-up old husk. Barren. Shrivelled. Sterile.

      Simone swallowed hard. She put her hand on the bathroom doorknob and stopped, watching her hand, focusing on it, because when she thought of that time, of that secret, it stole her breath away and it was all she could do to keep standing.

       It wasn’t like that. I had no choice.

      Emily’s tirade shattered her thoughts. ‘I hate you!’

      Simone tore open the door. ‘What the hell is this?’ she demanded.

      ‘Oh, perfect,’ sang Emily, who privately loved Simone getting involved because that meant she could access her favoured armoury: the ‘you’re-not-my-mother’ diatribe. ‘Now your little bitch on the side is coming to tell me off.’

      ‘Emily, no!’ objected Brian, who was sweating. ‘You mustn’t say that!’

      ‘Bloody well let me go to the party, Dad, or I’ll say a lot worse.’

      For a pretty girl, Emily Chilcott made an ugly mess of herself. Her permanent scowl erased the loveliness of her blue eyes, and her filthy mouth better belonged on a black-toothed hooker than an heiress to London’s greatest film dynasty. She was attractive, but her attitude made her a grim proposition. The same went for Lysander. Since their mother had left Brian for a female German show jumper named Trudi (a well-publicised scandal ten years ago), it had all gone tits up: all four tits up, if you thought of it that way. Brian’s laissez-faire attitude was one big long apology, and the kids took every advantage of it. When would he grow a ball-sack, for heaven’s sake?

      Simone met Emily’s glare and raised it several notches. She would not lose.

      ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, madam.’

      ‘Screw you, Simone.’

      ‘You shut that mouth right now or I’ll shut it for you!’

      ‘Oh yeah?’

      ‘With pleasure.’

      Brian stepped in. ‘Now, now, ladies …’

      ‘Lysander’s allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants,’ raged Emily. ‘He’s in his room this minute getting high off his nuts and neither of you two gives a shit.’

      ‘He’s doing what?’ Simone stormed into the hallway. Behind, Brian crooned, ‘OK, let’s everyone take it easy …’

      Simone headed for Lysander’s room and threw open the door. But the sight that met her eyes wasn’t of Lysander—handsome, dark, rangy Lysander, with a curl to his spoiled, upper-class lip—skinning a joint or bent over one of his elaborate bongs; it was Lysander, butt-naked, reclining against his pillows and receiving a dedicated blow job from a redhead. Simone’s lips parted in shock. She didn’t know where to look. Lysander was coming hard. His eyes met hers as he ejaculated into the redhead’s mouth. In the corridor, Emily giggled. ‘Oops,’ she trilled, ‘my mistake!’

      Post-climax, Lysander was unfazed. ‘All right … Mummy?’

      Lysander’s accent was so sharp you could skewer cubes of meat on it.

      ‘What on earth is going on?’ Simone rasped. The redhead jerked up, clocked their audience and flung herself off the bed. She grappled for her clothes, her breasts jiggling as she tried and failed to cover her modesty. From the front Simone saw she was older than Lysander—quite a bit older, in fact. Lysander lit a cigarette.

      Simone fought to keep her eyes off Lysander’s dying erection. He made no attempt to conceal it. It was huge. Why couldn’t Brian share that family trait?

      ‘You’re disgusting!’ Mortified, Simone turned on her heel. ‘Do not touch me, Brian!’ She flapped him off. ‘Whatever you do,