Mistress of the Game - By Sidney Sheldon & Tilly Bagshawe Page 0,3

virtual recluse in her Manhattan penthouse, terrified of showing her monstrously scarred face to the world. Indeed, she had not been seen in public for two years. The last time was at her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party at Cedar Hill House, the Blackwell family’s private Camelot, just yards from where the old woman was now being laid to rest.

Kate Blackwell was the lucky one. She’d gone to join her beloved ghosts: Jamie, Margaret, Banda, David, the spirits of Kruger-Brent’s long and violent African past. But there was to be no such rest for Eve. With rumors already flying about her pregnancy—Eve and Alexandra Blackwell were both expecting, but the family had refused to confirm this to the press—Eve was well aware that the price on her head had doubled. There wasn’t a tabloid editor in America who wouldn’t sell his soul for a half-decent picture of the Beast of the Blackwells with child.

And to think, they call me a monster…

“Lord, hear Your people, who cry out to You in their need…”

Eve watched silently as Kate Blackwell’s coffin was lowered into the freshly dug grave. Brad Rogers, Kate’s number two at Kruger-Brent for three decades, stifled a sob. Now a very old man himself, his hair as white and thin as the dusting of February snow beneath his feet, Brad Rogers had been all but broken by Kate’s death. Secretly he had loved her for years. But it was a love she could never return.

How tiny she is! thought Eve in wonder as the pathetic wooden box disappeared into the bowels of the earth. Kate Blackwell, who had loomed so large in life, feted by presidents and kings. How insignificant she was, in the end.

Not much of a feast for the worms of your beloved Dark Harbor, are you, Granny?

For years, Kate Blackwell had been Eve’s nemesis. She’d done everything in her power to prevent her wicked granddaughter from achieving her life’s ambition—taking control of the family firm, the mighty Kruger-Brent.

But now Kate Blackwell was gone.

“Eternal rest grant to her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her.”

Good riddance, you vengeful old bitch. I hope you rot in hell.

“May she rest in peace.”

Danny Corretti looked miserably at the negatives in front of him. His back was still killing him after this morning, and now he felt a migraine coming on.

“You get anything?”

His friend tried to sound hopeful. But he already knew the answer.

None of them had gotten the two-hundred-thousand-dollar picture.

Eve Blackwell had outsmarted them all.

TWO

IN THE MATERNITY UNIT AT NEW YORK’S MOUNT SINAI Medical Center, Nurse Gaynor Matthews watched the handsome, middle-aged father take his newborn child in his arms for the first time.

He was gazing at the baby girl, oblivious to everything around him. Nurse Matthews thought: He’s thinking how beautiful she is.

Nurse Matthews was pleasantly plump, with a round, open face and a ready smile that accentuated the twin fans of lines around her eyes. A midwife for more than a decade, she’d seen this moment played out thousands of times—hundreds of them in this very room—but she never tired of it. Besotted dads, their eyes lighting up with love, the purest love they would ever know. Moments like these made midwifery worthwhile. Worth the grinding hours. Worth the crappy pay. Worth the patronizing male obstetricians who thought of themselves as gods just because they had a medical degree and a penis.

Worth the rare moments of tragedy.

The father gently caressed his baby’s cheek. He was a beautiful man, Nurse Matthews decided. Tall, dark, broad-shouldered, a classic jock. Just the way she liked them.

She blushed. What on earth was she doing? She had no right to think such things. Not at a time like this.

The father thought: Jesus Christ. She’s so like her mother.

It was true. The little girl’s skin was the same delicate, translucent peach as the girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Her big, inquisitive eyes were the same pale gray, like dawn mist rolling off the ocean. Even her dimpled chin was her mother in miniature. For a split second, the father’s heart leaped at the sight of her, an involuntary smile playing around his lips.

His daughter. Their daughter. So tiny. So perfect.

Then he looked down at the blood on his hands.

And screamed.

Alex had been so excited that morning when Peter drove her to the hospital.

“Can you believe that in a few short hours she’ll be here?”

She was still in her pajamas, her long blond hair tangled after a fitful night’s sleep,