Wicked Ambition (44 page)

‘Scott Valentine has ducked out of the limelight since an exposé destroyed squeaky-clean boy band Fraternity.’ People had long ago stopped calling him Scotty: he didn’t warrant the cute factor any more. ‘Here, at last, choosing
The State Show
to give his first candid conference, Scott answers those questions you’ve all been burning to ask. Please welcome him generously—’ the chair stood up and the cameras swung round ‘—it’s Scott Valentine!’

Scotty very nearly scrammed, and had to be manually shoved on to the stage by a producer. Instantly the lights were blinding and the audience’s yells rang hollow in his ears. Even if he freaked out, he figured, and buckled like a weirdo to the floor, there was no way his image could be any worse than it already was. The realisation was strangely freeing.

The chair didn’t take his hand; he embraced him, patting him solidly on the back. The audience continued to clap despite the cue telling them to stop. A cry rose up from the audience—’We love you, Scotty!’—followed by yet more whoops and yells.

He thought he might cry. Perhaps there was hope, after all.

Kristin sat back on her sister’s bed and tuned into
The State Show
, just in time to see Scotty take to the stage and face the performance of his life.

Her ex-boyfriend looked pale and fraught, but just on the right side of disagreeable to remain appealing, in the way that only the handsome sufferer can. Directly above the plasma screen was a torn poster of the man himself, pinned up lovingly by Bunny, bronze-skinned and smiling.
What a difference a year made. If her sister were here, what would she think?

Bunny’s room had been cleared. Many of her belongings had been sold and the proceeds given to an animal charity (Kristin’s suggestion), but her spirit remained and it was soothing to be in the space her sister had spent so much time in. Bunny’s more expensive possessions had stayed with Ramona, who was moving out of her mourning-mom phase in suspicious tandem with the wrap of the TV documentary. Her mother had jetted south to Hawaii, claiming she needed time out, but managing to tip off several contacts to ensure she was photographed on a beach reading a self-help book and looking gloriously thin in a bikini.

‘I can’t lie,’ Scotty was saying. ‘The facts speak for themselves. I should never have pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I accept responsibility.’

But had he been in love with Fenton? Had it been a fully-fledged relationship?

‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.’ Scotty was composed, his every utterance rehearsed and analysed by a military PR team. ‘Fenton and I grew close over a number of months and neither of us were thinking clearly. That’s all I can say.’

‘Fenton’s been arrested. Are you happy?’

‘I can’t talk about that, I’m sorry.’

‘Should he be in prison?’

‘Like I said, I can’t talk about that today.’

The panellists were doing their job but they would never get the juice no matter how hard they pressed. These were the lines Scotty had been given. Fenton was still languishing in jail, as much to pacify an army of irate moms across America who felt he somehow posed a menace to their misled,
heartbroken daughters (more to the point, their sons?) as on any criminal suspicion. It would buy Scotty time to get the public back on side and to weave whichever story he chose without fear of it being countered. The tack was to wheel out the same phrases, refuse to meet on the same points but to seem genuinely apologetic about doing so, and to appear frank and willing without actually giving much away.

‘Are you gay?’ the comedian asked, in trademark style tight to the point.

‘Yes.’ Scotty didn’t shy away from that question. ‘But that isn’t the mistake I made. Being gay is no mistake. The mistake I made was in lying to my fans. My fans are the most important people to me in the world. Without them, I’m nothing.’

‘Why did you conceal it?’

‘It was the hardest thing I ever did. When I decided to come on this show I promised myself I’d be me, not the idea of me or the boy-band fantasy or whoever that was, but just be me. So that’s what you get…just a guy. And I’m sitting here now telling you it was tough. I was dealing with a lot of confusion, a lot of feelings and stuff I didn’t know what to do with. Anyone who has struggled with his or her sexuality will identify. It can’t be suppressed, however much you try. And I tried.’ He ran a hand through his hair, still as beautiful as ever, and gave a wry laugh. ‘I had girlfriends and I figured I loved them but it never felt…I don’t know, it never felt
right
. Then the band got big, bigger than anyone expected, and the whole thing spun away. There was never going to be a right time to do what I needed to…Ever.’

For the first time since they’d split, Kristin felt a twinge
of sympathy, untainted by envy or resentment or bitterness, just a pure tug of understanding.

‘And Fenton made it easier?’ the chair pressed, sensing Scotty’s guard was down.

‘Obviously people are going to want to talk about Fenton,’ he replied, ‘but I can’t. I’m really not allowed to talk about him right now.’

‘He must have helped you, guided you…?’

‘I arrived at this decision by myself.’

‘And he helped with the loneliness?’

‘It
is
a lonely thing. Anyone who’s been through it will tell you. That’s why I want to speak out instead of hiding away. There’s a whole heap of expectation, from family, from friends, and in my case from the public as a whole. Holding your hands up and saying who you are takes a lot of guts and if I can do it then I hope to inspire others…’

Kristin killed the channel and the screen extinguished to black. She’d heard enough.

Swinging her legs off the bed, she unpinned the poster of Scotty tacked to the wall, folded it carefully and placed it in the trash. She closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose, believing against all reason that she could still detect Bunny’s fragrance and hairspray and all the sticky-sugar products that had defined her life: sickly, intoxicating, hated, adored, the bitter-sweetness that would always be associated with her sister.

Downstairs she took a couple of calls, one from her manager about her upcoming appearance at the ETV Platinum Awards—the ceremony was taking place in July at LA’s Palisades Grand Arena: as the music industry’s flagship, broadcast to millions across the globe, it was a coup to be
asked to take to the stage—and a second about her album design. The new material was a far cry from the whimsical naivety of her early efforts: this was harder, raw to the bone, a coming of age that for the first time expressed who Kristin really was. It had taken her through the Scotty break-up, through Bunny and her mother and the split with Jax, finally an expression of who she had become. She loved it.

She smiled when she thought of his name.
Jax Jackson
.

What a fool he was. Giving Turquoise Jax’s ultra-protected private address and accompanying her to see him had been a pleasure. In Italy Turquoise had given nothing away, but assured Kristin that she too had a cross to bear—and Jax owed her big style.

It was time Jax faced up to responsibility. And if he were put in a delicate position (though any more delicate than his sauna stunt was difficult to imagine) then the more the better. He was a cheat and a liar. Men like Jax warranted everything they had coming.

On cue a magazine cover, discarded on the kitchen counter by her mom, caught Kristin’s eye. Jax was topless, his tattoos a wreath around his neck, an undiluted challenge in his dead-straight gaze to the camera. The headline read: IS THIS MAN BULLETPROOF? She picked it up. Inside, a six-page spread dominated on Jax and his archrival Leon Sway: the athletes were gearing up to the summer Championships.

‘The Olympic sprinter is naturally aggressive,’
the article read.
‘He needs to be wild when he gets out on to the track, ready to kill if he needs to. Like an animal unleashed after months in a cage, it’s the force and the fury that will carry him to the finish; he’s got to be fired up, ready to burst with
pent-up frustration, so that by the day of the race he’s so pumped he’s ready to attack—and attack he will. That frustration can be attributed to one thing: testosterone. Athletes need the hormone in bucket-loads to perform, and months ahead of a major championship they’ll be sworn off sex until after the event—when they’ll really let go. There’s no telling what these guys are capable of when they’re preparing for the track. Jax Jackson, the fastest man ever to have lived, is no exception
.

Kristin closed the rag. Judging by the display she and Turquoise had witnessed, Jax was far from succeeding with the sex ban.

That was the problem, and precisely why his hours on the track were numbered.

Jax couldn’t resist, and that would surely be his downfall.

58

T
he penultimate leg of Robin’s tour took her to Las Vegas, where she was performing at the world-famous Orient Hotel. The hotel had been scene two years ago to the legendary
Eastern Sky
movie premiere, during which a stalker had broken security and gained access to its star Lana Falcon’s suite. Lana would have died were it not for the owner of the Orient, Robert St Louis, coming to her rescue. Today Lana and Robert were the sweethearts of Sin City. One look betrayed how happy they were: theirs was a true love story.

‘Feeling lucky?’ Matt asked after the show.

‘Is that a come-on?’ Robin opened the door to her dressing room. Blood was coursing through her, her legs like jelly and the crash of the crowd still echoing through her ears.

‘You wish.’

‘Always, Matt, always.’

‘C’mon, the others are up for it. This is Vegas, baby! You’ve got a responsibility.’

‘To what?’

‘Party. Aren’t you a rock star?’

‘My feet hurt.’

He cocked his head. ‘In ten?’

She sighed. ‘Fine, you win.’

‘Better believe it, I’m on fire when I get in a casino.’

‘On the 2p machines in Southend?’

‘That was one time and I was too pissed to go on anything else. Besides, it was 10p, not 2p. I won us a quid that night, remember?’

She grinned. ‘Go away, I need to get changed.’

Alone, Robin slipped into jeans, a vest and jacket, and removed the more outlandish aspects of her make-up. Satisfied she looked like herself again, she pulled together what she needed for the night and made for the door.

There was no reason it should have caught her eye…other than the handwriting.

No
, she begged, her throat constricting.
Not you. Please, not you
.

It was a photograph, upside down so that its white belly was turned to the ceiling, bearing only her name, which was scrawled in that familiar, creepy, childlike lettering:

ROBIN.

She gripped the dresser.

The picture showed a woman of about fifty sitting in an armchair and regarding whoever was taking the image through half closed, or else sneering, eyes. Her surroundings were gloomy, electric light rather than daylight. On the mantelpiece a clock stared pale-faced, its hands trapped at a quarter to three. There was a painting on the wall, dark and melancholy.

The room was bizarrely familiar, even though Robin had never been there before.

Fear filled her.
I’m closer than you think
.

The red-haired doppelganger from San Francisco flashed through Robin’s mind. She clung on before fading, like an imprint on wet sand.

Her stalker had found her. The grudge was back.

Robin shivered, screwing the photo up in her hand and slinging it in the bin.

The Desert Jewel casino was zinging with the clash of cash, drinks flowing and money rushing, the scent of changing fortunes ripe in the air. Robin and her crew were escorted to a private area where Barney hit the craps table at the same time as Matt hit on a blonde with insanely long legs. Polly had got there first and was already drunk on champagne, chatting up two German magician brothers whose world tour had taken them to the Strip.

‘Robin, meet Steffen!’ She was dragged into the fray. Steffen had statement hair, a number one on either side of a Mohawk-meets-metrosexual strip. His brother was too busy kissing Polly for her to tell what he looked like.

‘It’s an honour to meet you,’ Steffen said with a thick German lilt.

She clinked her glass with his before downing the alcohol. She craved oblivion. All she wanted was to get so drunk she could no longer think.

‘I’m surprised they let you in,’ she told him.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, couldn’t you fix the game or something?’

He was amused. ‘Let’s see.’

At the roulette he had an uncanny knack but she wasn’t convinced it was anything other than luck. The more vodka she had, the more attractive she found him. She didn’t want to be by herself tonight.

‘Let’s go to a club!’ screamed Polly.

Outside the stream of cars on the Strip rushed like coins through the slots, a streaky blur like an over-exposed photograph. They all piled into Steffen’s private vehicle and headed to ‘the sickest club in town’. Robin was so drunk she couldn’t even vouch for who said it. Each time the eerie photo reared its head she slammed it back down, willing herself to forget the gloomy image and the spooky writing that had etched out her name.

It’s nothing. Just scaremongering. These people never do anything; they’re cowards
.

On the back seat, packed in tight, Steffen took her hand. By the time they reached the VIP entrance of the club it had meandered up to her thigh.

In the bar, they got more and more drunk. The shots kept coming, lines being raked up in the loos and before she knew it she was kissing Steffen, she thought she kissed his brother at one point, maybe she was kissing Matt as well. It was ages since she had let go.
I need this
, she kept telling herself.
I deserve this
. The tour was almost over; she had just one more venue before her big appearance at the Platinum Awards took her back to LA.