Venus Club, all tits and lips and cheap costume jewellery, seducing him with her exotic accent and talk of going places. Loretta had set her cap at Tom Black that night and had promised him the earth in a bid to lure him into her lair; money, clubs, contacts, ‘the whole enchilada’, as Tom had put it. Not that Tom had needed much persuading. He was going places, with or without Ellie in tow, and had abandoned her without a second’s thought; though some years later he would vehemently deny this betrayal, attempting to prove his love to her one final time …
It was no good. Ellie threw back the fine cream silk sheets and flung her long, slim dancer’s legs over the side of the intricately carved four-poster Fratelli Basile bed that in a twist of irony her husband had imported from Italy, her Agent Provocateur lace chemise sliding down her naked body as she stood. Making her way over to her dressing table, she sat down on the cushioned stool and blinked at her reflection; seeing herself as a stranger would. Ellie pulled at her skin absentmindedly, poking her tongue out before reaching for her Crème de la Mer serum. Eye bags she could cope with; she could have them removed tomorrow if the fancy took her, it was just her past that wasn’t so easily erased.
Ellie snapped herself out of her thoughts by applying a dollop of Laura Mercier Fig hand cream, inhaling the deep, earthy sweet scent as she rubbed it into her skin. She had to stop this; no good had ever come out of raking over the past.
It was that bloody bitch Loretta’s photograph that had triggered all of this. Ellie had spent decades repressing her past with an iron will that would’ve flawed a heavyweight champion, and so tonight felt like a defeat, though if she was honest, it had also been cathartic. Thinking of Tom had allowed her to remember the girl she had once been, someone she had denied for the past two decades. A girl that, in an odd way, she missed being.
Ellie’s iPhone suddenly beeped, and alarmed, she snatched it up from the bedside table.
‘Oh thank God,’ she breathed aloud as the message came into view.
Hi Mom, Dont worry bout me. Havin a GR8 time. B in touch soon. Tx
She stared at the text for a moment. Something was different somehow but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. The use of the word ‘Mom’ perhaps.
Ellie slid back into bed. She was just being paranoid. Tess was OK, and even though she could not quite shake the sense of unease that had stalked her these last few days, for now, it was one less thing to worry about.
CHAPTER 15
Marco DiMari discarded the phone onto the bed without so much as a second thought as he rifled through Tess’s belongings. There had to be a fair few grand’s worth of designer gear here he thought happily, as he inspected the contents of her Louis Vuitton holdall with gusto. The suitcase alone was worth a small fortune and he could just see himself passing through customs with it. He grinned at the thought.
Marco DiMari’s real name was Tarik Valmir and although he had people, women largely, believe that he was a real Italian stallion from Rome, he was in fact born in a small city called Lezhe in Albania and had grown up largely on the peripheries of East London, Bethnal Green, to be exact. The Italian thing was simply a ruse to entice women; it certainly got you into their knickers a lot quicker. Ever tenacious, he had even learnt to speak the language fluently, fooling Italian women themselves on occasion. Oh yes, Tarik liked his alias. He liked it a lot.
Hoping that he might’ve thrown Tess’s mother off the scent with his text message, Marco came across Tess’s passport.
‘Bingo,’ he said underneath his fetid alcoholic breath.
He was sure there was big money to be made from this one and he wasn’t about to let such an opportunity slip through his nimble fingers. He’d seen a new opportunity in Tess Scott, the billionaire’s fragrant daughter. One that was far too good to pass up.
Marco heard the pounding on the wall next door again. The girl had been going at it on and off all morning, hammering at the door and walls, crying and screaming like a banshee. He knew he would have to give her something to drink soon before she collapsed with dehydration. He didn’t want a stiff on his hands – she was worth far too much for that.
He heard Tess’s muffled cries through the wall.
‘That’s right love, you carry on. We’re halfway up a fucking mountain in Spain you dozy bitch, no one can hear you.’ He banged his fist against the wall in retaliation, laughing, ‘no one at all!’
CHAPTER 16
Tom watched as Candy threw herself around the dance floor like an epileptic on acid.
‘Come on!’ she beckoned to him above the deafening sound of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve just won ten million bucks! If I were you, buddy, I’d be on the tables doing the frickin’ can-can.’ Tom raised a distracted smile. Truth was, Candy Wilson was beginning to grate on his nerves; it was coming up for three a.m. and, flying off her tits on coke, she was showing no sign of calling it a night.
Deep down Tom knew he should really get the fuck out of Vegas, pronto. Access to this amount of ready cash was way too much of a temptation for the likes of him. It was like putting a dope addict in a field full of poppies.
Agitated, he pulled at the collar of his bespoke white shirt. It was hot inside The Paradise Club, The Player’s resident hot spot which attracted the young, beautiful and rich from far and wide. He delicately sipped at a chilled glass of Cristal champagne from the magnum he’d bought earlier and took a pinch of coke from his snuff box in a bid to distract himself from the pull of the casino tables downstairs. Surely a little flutter on the roulette or the craps wouldn’t do any harm, the small voice inside his head whispered, besides, it would give him a breather from the coked-up Candy. He’d quite happily bung her a thousand bucks and her flight home if it meant getting shot of her. However, Tom had promised the girl a shopping spree with a champagne and lobster lunch thrown in and he was pretty sure hell would freeze over before she allowed him to renege on his word.
‘I’m going down to the casino for a bit,’ he shouted in Candy’s ear above the melodic voices of Pitbull and Ne-Yo. ‘You stay here, have some fun. Do some more coke.’ He handed her a fat bunch of hundred dollar bills and watched as her eyes lit up like diamonds. ‘I’ll meet you back at the suite – no rush, baby,’ he adding disingenuously, pressing his lips against hers and sliding his long tongue deep into her glossy, willing mouth.
‘Mmm,’ she made an appreciative noise as she merged back into the dancing throng. ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ she cooed, lowering her eyes seductively.
*
Throwing back a tumbler full of bourbon, Tom swallowed hard. He’d only been at the craps tables for an hour and was already $750,000 down. He was thoroughly pissed at himself.
‘Another bourbon, sir?’ the overly made-up waitress in the tiny dress enquired as she hovered over him.
‘Make it a double, sugar,’ he winked. Tom ran his fingers through his dark hair, fighting back his agitation. This was just a little blip on what had otherwise been a momentous occasion and he wasn’t about to let it unduly concern him.
‘I hear you’ve had a pretty good night tonight, my friend,’ Tom looked up to be greeted by Marvin Katz’s familiar grinning mug, ‘congratulations.’
Tom clapped Marvin’s shoulder with a victorious smile that made him look even more handsome than he was.
‘What can I say, Marv?’ he said with a hefty dose of false modesty, ‘you know how it goes; you win some you lose some.’
Marvin took a seat next to Tom at the craps table and the waitress reappeared with a bottle of Maker’s Mark and two fresh crystal tumblers.
‘Cheers,’ the men knocked glasses, ice chinking.
‘Indeed,’ Marvin replied, careful