the press pit Lana caught sight of a young female fan, her desperate face streaked with tears as she was pushed and shoved amid the throng of people trying to catch a glimpse of the action. Lana took care to catch her eye, smiling warmly and giving her a wave.
Toughen up she thought, remembering herself at that age. It’s the only way to survive. Trust me. She blinked against the memories. Too often they kept her awake at night.
‘It’s time,’ Cole told her, placing a small, pale hand on her back. The cameras followed every move. Together, husband and wife were the ultimate American love story. He, one of the greatest actors of his generation; she, the girl who had come from nothing, from tragedy, to having it all.
Linking her arm with his, Lana walked alongside, nodding and smiling her way into the Palazzo del Cinema. She glanced at her wedding ring, a great cluster of diamonds that weighed heavy on her hand. In the frenzy of snapping bulbs it winked back, as if they shared a terrible secret.
2
Las Vegas
Elisabeth Sabell, legs wrapped tight round her fiancé’S waist, examined with satisfaction the ten-carat antique engagement ring on her third finger.
‘Fuck me!’ she gasped, clasping his muscular shoulders. ‘Fuck me fuck me fuck me!’ The ring caught the light as they moved together, the sheets of their mammoth four-poster bed damp with sweat. As he pounded deeper, his rhythm quickening, the marvellous jewel came towards Elisabeth’s enraptured face in shuddering frames, a glorious, insistent reminder that she would, before long, be Mrs St Louis.
‘Tell me what you want, baby.’ The man grabbed her ass, pulling himself in further. ‘Tell me what you want.’
‘I want you to fuck me hard, Robert St Louis!’ she cried in abandon, raking livid-pink lines down his bronzed back, lifting her foot and trailing with her big toe the dip where his spine met his ass. ‘Fuck me like you’ve never fucked me before!’
In one deft movement he hooked an arm beneath her, flipping them round, holding on for the ride. Elisabeth, on top, ran her hands across his broad chest, wondering at the strength of his arms, the gentle slope of his biceps and the hard muscle of his stomach. Tightening her grip, she pinned him beneath her.
‘Strap in, baby,’ she told him, throwing her head back to gaze at the trompe l’oeil ceiling. ‘This is as close to heaven as it gets.’
Elisabeth began to rock, grabbing his hands, reaching higher, faster, like her life depended on it. Her golden mane fell in waves down her back, her pearl-white neck tilted to the ceiling. She could feel Robert’s hands on her tits, her waist, her thighs; on her throat, pressing those points beneath her ear lobes that made her knees go weak. She howled out, the pinnacle in sight.
With a final thrust they both climaxed, their bodies slick with release. Elisabeth rode the swelling tide, blinking back stars, her chest rising and falling, the pulse within her a steady, exquisite, delicious beat.
Robert St Louis moved on to his elbows and gave her a lopsided smile. He brought her face towards his and kissed her slowly, tasting her mouth.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her, planting a kiss on her chin, her nose, her forehead.
Elisabeth kissed him back. Together, she knew they made a staggering couple. Robert St Louis had been the most eligible bachelor in America. Now, two years on, he was hers.
Billionaire owner of two of the city’s most infamous hotels, the Orient and the Desert Jewel, he was the most handsome, and the most powerful, man in Vegas. With his dark hair, almost-black eyes, warm as melting bitter chocolate, and wicked, honest grin, he was the most devastating man she had ever laid eyes on.
‘I know,’ she told him, peeling herself off the bed and heading for their palatial en suite.
He watched her go. ‘Your father called,’ he said.
‘Do you have to tell me that right after we’ve had sex?’
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