It galled him that Madison had no clue about Michael’s other family. How come he’d been told the truth, and yet she’d led some kind of sheltered life believing she was an only child?
Well, she wasn’t. There was him and his younger sister, Sofia. And if Madison thought she was any better than them, she was very much mistaken.
“Oooh, stop!” Jenna squealed, smooth cheeks flushed as she playfully pushed Andy Dale away.
“What’s going on?” Vincent asked, keeping his slow-burning temper under control.
“Andy’s trying to see if I’m ticklish,” Jenna giggled.
“Bet you are!” Andy said, lunging once again, his groping hands brushing up against her perky breasts.
Vincent stood up. “Andy,” he said pleasantly. “Got something to show you.”
“What?” Andy questioned. He was young, famous and full of himself. He was a fucking movie star for crissakes. He could have anything or anyone he wanted.
“You’ll like it,” Vincent promised with a thin smile.
“Not,” Jolie murmured under her breath.
Andy stood up. He was five feet eight, thanks to cleverly concealed lifts in his custom-made shoes. Without them he barely grazed five-six. “Where we goin’?” he asked, following Michael out of the plush restaurant and into the packed casino.
“There’s something in my office that’ll interest you,” Vincent said evenly.
“If I can snort it or fuck it, I’m your man,” Andy chortled.
Cretin, Vincent thought. Two more movies and you're over.
THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2001, MARBELLA, SPAIN
Sofia Castle was a wild one. Tall, tanned, lean and street smart, she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. A school dropout at fifteen, she’d rejected the very thought of college, and for three years had backpacked around the world with two girlfriends and a gay guy. One by one they’d all gotten into trouble. First, one of her girlfriends was arrested in Thailand for smuggling drugs. A year later her other girlfriend ran off with a married surfer she’d known for only five days in Hawaii. And Jace, her gay friend, managed to get himself beaten up wherever they went.
“Like . . . what the hell do you do?” she’d demanded of him.
“Nothing,” he’d answered primly. “Except be myself.”
Which was too gay for most people.
So eventually, Sofia had ended up alone—apart from a series of transient boyfriends.
In spite of being by herself, Sofia had no desire to go home to Las Vegas, where her big brother, Vincent, bossed the crap out of her, and her Mom was always trying to tell her what to do. Yes, the gambling capital had lost its appeal long ago, so instead of heading home, she’d moved on to Marbella and landed a job as a roving photographer covering the nightclub scene during the tourist season.
At eighteen Sofia was a free spirit, and nobody could stop her. Not her mother—who God knew had tried. Nor Vincent—with whom she enjoyed a love/hate relationship. And certainly not her father, Michael—a man she resented big time because he’d never been around when she needed him.
Sofia was her own person. Only, tonight she wasn’t so sure. Tonight she was trapped in a penthouse apartment with two drugged out Spanish playboys who were old (at least forty) and very very horny.
Earlier she’d hooked up with a group of people at one of the clubs and thought they were fun. Never one to turn down free champagne and plenty of grass, she’d gone with the group to the penthouse, and suddenly everyone else seemed to have vanished, leaving her stuck with two horny old men.
“Gotta go,” she announced nonchalantly.
“No!” horny Spaniard number one said. His name was Paco and he had slit eyes and slicked back boot-polish-brown hair.
“You stay with us,” horny Spaniard number two said, making kissing noises with his lips. He was a thin man in an off-white seersucker suit and shiny two-tone patent-leather shoes. He smelled of lavender.
Stoned as she was, Sofia knew it was time to get out. She also suspected that they’d locked the front door, which was not a good sign.
“Sorry, guys,” she said, heading for the door and trying the handle. Yes, it was locked. Damn! “My old man’s a cop,” she said sharply, furious that she’d gotten caught in such a sucker situation. “So we don’t want any trouble, do we? You’d better let me out. And I do mean now.”
“No, no—you come here, caro,” Paco crooned, going after her and pawing her bare shoulder with his sweaty palm. “We show you sexy time.”
“No, thanks,” she said, twisting away from him. “And open this fucking door before I kick it out.”
The men exchanged conspiratorial looks, then Paco grabbed her, while the other man moved in.
Sofia experienced a shiver of fear for the first time in her young life.
She knew she was in trouble, and it wasn’t a feeling she appreciated.
THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2001, LAS VEGAS
My daughter is in trouble. The thought kept running through Dani Castle’s mind. She’d awoken that morning after experiencing a vivid nightmare about Sofia, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. Now it was nighttime, and she was having dinner with the man she should have married, but even so, she couldn’t concentrate—her mind was elsewhere.
Dean King, a distinguished-looking man in his late sixties, tall and barrel-chested, with a thick head of silver hair, had never failed her, never let her down. However, in spite of their long, largely unconsummated relationship, she still lived with the hope that one day Michael would marry her and legalize their union.
Michael Castelli. The love of her life. The father of her two children, Vincent and Sofia. The bastard who’d ruined her life.
And all because she’d made one small mistake, one very little slip.
But still she loved him. She always would.
Dani was, at fifty-three, a beautiful woman. Tall and naturally blond, with smooth skin, ocean blue eyes and a showgirl’s body. Once a headline performer in Vegas, she now organized the occasional P.R. event at her son’s hotel. She was very proud of Vincent—he’d done so well, with only a small amount of help from his dad.
Yes, Vincent could certainly take care of himself; it was Sofia she was worried about.
Both of her children bore a strong resemblance to Michael. They had inherited his deep olive skin and jet black hair. And Sofia had definitely inherited his wild streak. One memorable day, after a big fight with her dad, she’d dropped out of school and taken off, leaving only a short note.
Fifteen years old and she was gone. The only contact Dani had with her since then was the occasional phone call or postcard.
There was nothing she could do about it. Sofia possessed a will of steel, exactly like Michael, who had not seemed at all concerned by his daughter’s taking off. “The kid can look after herself,” he’d assured her. “You gotta stop worrying.”
Easy for him to say.
Sometimes Dani thought the only offspring he really cared about was Madison, his daughter from another woman.
“What are you thinking?” Dean asked, leaning across the table and attempting to take her hand.
She pulled back. Dean’s devotion was endless. Maybe rejection did make the heart grow fonder. It certainly did in his case.
Dean lived in Houston. He owned oil wells, and was extremely rich and quite powerful in his own way.
So why didn’t you marry him, Dani?
Because I never loved him.
“I’m thinking about Sofia,” she sighed, sipping her wine. “I worry about her so much. I wish I could see her.”
Dean studied her face. “Have you heard from her lately?” he asked.
“A few weeks ago. She’s in Spain somewhere—she never says exactly where.”
“I’ve told you many times,” he said. “If you want me to, I can hire people who’ll find her and bring her home.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Sofia will come back when she’s ready.
”
“Then you’ve got to stop worrying.”
God! He sounded like Michael!
“I have an early meeting,” she said, placing her napkin on the table and pushing her chair back.
“Does this mean dinner is over?” he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Would it matter if I did?” he said, thinking that this woman drove him insane—she always had. The problem was that he couldn’t stop being crazy about her. Two marriages along the way had done nothing to extinguish the flame.
“Of course it would,” she lied, trying to figure out why she kept Dean in the wings.
“Well . . .” he said hesitantly. “I can postpone leaving and stay another day.”
It won’t do you any good, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. Dean lived to please her, and she lived to please Michael, whom she hadn’t heard from in months. She wondered where he was and what he was doing.
She refused to call him. She had her pride.
Thirty-six years ago, at the age of seventeen, she’d given birth to his only son, and then, eighteen years later, a daughter. He’d never married her, and yet there was no way she could ever stop loving him.
Yes, it’s true, she thought ruefully, rejection does make the heart grow fonder.
THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2001, NEW YORK
I’m running, Michael Castelli thought. I’m running like a rat being chased through the sewers, and I hate myself for doing this.
But I have no choice.
I have no fucking choice.
His past had finally caught up with him, and it was either run and discover the truth, or rot in some lousy jail.
Michael knew that if he was ever incarcerated again, he would never survive.
And in Michael’s world, survival was the name of the game.
Jackie Collins is one of the world’s top-selling authors, with more than four hundred million copies of her books sold in more than forty countries. From her first sensational release, The World Is Full of Married Men, to her recent Poor Little Bitch Girl, from Hollywood Wives to Hollywood Divorces, Jackie Collins skewers the lives of the rich and famous with “devastating accuracy” (Los Angeles Times) in twenty-seven internationally bestselling novels. She lives in Beverly Hills, California.
Visit her website at www.jackiecollins.com.
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Hollywood Wives--The New Generation Page 45
