The Glitter Strip: Sex, drugs and billionaires

By Nikki McWatters

Move aside Jackie Collins!

An epic tale of fame and infamy, glamour and greed....and plenty of glitter. Catwalks in Paris, drug deals gone wrong and chart-topping hits.

Abbie Rodin escapes a council flat in London and a childhood riddled with domestic abuse to become one of the world’s most celebrated models only to lose it all after another man steps in to devastate her life. She turns to prostitution in Sydney to support the child she is raising on her own and becomes a paramour to one of the richest entrepreneurs on the planet.

Billionaire, Brian Adler, is staging the rock concert of the new millennium, at the tourist Mecca of Surfers Paradise, a beach resort town on the east coast of Australia.

American rock-star Matt Savage and his band are headlining, with Apollo Jones, the former English superstar, performing a comeback after years of drugs and depression saw him washed up and almost dead. Now clean and ready to rock the English singer is looking to even a score with the billionaire entrepreneur organising the show, his former father-in-law.

The show will be the highlight of a Grand Prix car meet. All the beautiful people will be there. Jack Gunn, a media mogul and the world’s most eligible bachelor, Megan Wilson, the movie star, dashing drivers and more.

Also making her debut at the concert, will be Kelly Martin, a girl from the suburbs who won the global talent audition that might just make her an international star.

But Matt Savage and the billionaire’s concubine, Abbie, have a childhood history on the Gold Coast and have come back to find some answers. The answers won’t be the ones they were hoping for.

The story spans the lifetimes of the key characters and is set on an international stage, from a wedding in Thailand to the slums of eastern London with a sprinkle of Hollywood for good measure.

With a psychotic religious cult, an all-female bikie gang led by Boadicea Steel, Christmas in New York thrown on top of ancient, simmering vengeance, you’ll find The Glitter Strip irresistible.

This is the book to bring the mega-blockbuster back onto the stage.

Pure escapist entertainment at its finest!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugenius Publishing
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311672377

Nikki McWatters

Nikki is an Australian-based writer who lives with her family north of Sydney, near the beach. She was shortlisted for a Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Emerging Writer in 2010.Her memoir, 'One Way or Another, the story of a girl who loved rock stars' was released by Black Inc in 2012.Her novel, Sex Crimes, loosely based on real events, was released in 2013. She has a young adult novel being published under a pseudonym in 2014.Nikki writes for the UK Huffington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald and online magazines such as The Hoopla, mamamia and ivillage and was selected to have her fiction piece 'James Franco's Smile' included in the prestigious annual fiction edition of The Big Issue.Nikki is a former actor who now writes full-time.

Book preview

PART ONE

1.

PRESENT DAY

It had been a long and sleepless night and Kelly Martin watched the sun streak fingers of light through her Venetian blinds to catch the dancing dust motes. The hum of cicadas serenaded the warm Spring morning and the young woman stretched out along the bed until her toes cracked and she let out a long sigh.

Today was the last Saturday of October and if it all played out the way she hoped, it was going to be a monumental turning point. Indeed, it would not be unfair to suggest that her entire life had been leading up to this day. Kelly watched a shiny, brown cockroach run hesitantly across the ceiling and she rolled up and off the bed before hurling a magazine at it. She missed and knocked the old crucifix off the wall, grimaced and hoped it wasn’t a divine sign.

Standing up had made her suddenly aware of how sleep-deprived she was and she sat back on the edge of the bed to ward off a dizzy spell. She knew she would need to force herself to eat something today, even though the bundle of nerves in her belly had shrivelled up any hint of an appetite for at least the last week. The nauseating apprehension had been good for her waist-line but she needed strength and sustenance to get through the next twenty-four hours.

Kelly looked across the room to her dressing table strewn with make-up palettes, stained tissues and her hotch-potch of collected perfume bottles. The mirror behind revealed a slightly puffy-eyed young woman with a dark burgundy bob of frizz haloing her pale face. A sprinkle of freckles decorated a small nose and while she was no great beauty, Kelly was aware that she was attractive enough to be called pretty. She was petite and well-formed, with nice curves and milky white skin.

‘Today, is your day,’ she said, aloud to herself into the mirror and smiled. ‘And you are going to rock it!’

It was just creeping toward six o’clock when Kelly stepped into the shower. She had sound-check at nine. The sting of cold water took her breath away and as she turned up the heat, she began to sing. Her voice was a deep rumble of power and passion. Smoky, gravel rich tones filled the cubicle and Kelly shut her eyes and moved in a slow dance as she sang. Her voice was like molten chocolate. Delicious. She ran her soapy hands over her body, tingling, lingering in dark crevasses. Singing was her rapture.

The only hands that had ever roamed that creamy, soft skin were her own. Kelly Martin was still a virgin. She wasn’t as religious as her mother but simply wanted to wait for someone special and to date, that man had not shown up. But one month ago a man had walked into her life and tipped it upside down. Kelly had an electric feeling that he might just be the one.

The young woman had the voice of a Siren and she cast a spell over anyone who heard her sing. Up until now, that had been precious few, but that was all about to change because the twenty two year old from the suburbs of the Gold Coast was about to make her debut in one of the most televised and media-covered concerts in history. She was the opening act for the Surfers Paradise Grand Prix, leading the show for the main headline acts – ‘Pharaoh’, a band who had almost outsold the Beatles and the legendary superstar, Apollo Jones who was performing in his much anticipated ‘comeback’ concert.

Kelly Martin still lived at home with her mother. She had three cats and a pathological obsession with shoes, although she steered away from high-heels. Sneakers, flats, sandals, boots. Green was her favourite colour. She was a vegetarian, volunteered at the local animal shelter and had a penchant for sappy chick flicks. And later that night she would sing for an estimated global audience of one hundred million and her debut album of original songs was scheduled for a midnight release.

If the record label hype was anything to go by, Ms Martin was about to become very, very famous. There had been some hype already but no-one in her everyday life had put two and two together. The Kel-M who was being touted as the ‘next big thing’ had a bright green beehive wig and eyelashes like funnel web spiders. The posters around town could not have looked less like the young woman who worked the check-out at a local department store and occasionally sang a solo hymn at her local church. It was killing her but it had to remain hush-hush until after the big concert.

‘What are you up to today, Bella?’ her mother asked over a breakfast of bruschetta and fruit. The smell of basil filled the small kitchen.

‘Not much,’ Kelly replied, poking a diced tomato about on her plate. ‘I’m going out tonight with a few friends and I’ll be staying at Saraya’s place.’

‘She’s not living in sin with that boy is she?’ Christina asked, taking off her apron to reveal a blue button-up uniform. ‘He’s a wild one and…’

‘Come on Mum, I’m nearly twenty-two. Cut it out, eh?’ Kelly moaned. ‘And Saraya’s not seeing anyone. She broke up with that jerk.’

‘I just worry about you, that’s all.’ The little woman looked at the kitchen clock. ‘Heavens. Look at the time. Are you going to that music concert? The one in all the papers?’

Kelly shrugged, finishing her breakfast.

‘I can’t afford a ticket.’ That was an evasive answer and not really a lie.

Her mother went to the back door and then turned around.

‘You look different Bella. You in love?’

‘No!’ Kelly protested but her cheeks reddened.

‘There’s something going on. A mother knows.’

‘Go. Go.’ Kelly waved her away and started over to the sink.

She breathed a sigh of relief as her mother’s car backed down the driveway.

****

It was a perfect day. The sun lay back basking over Surfers Paradise like a proud deity. Salty surfboards crested waves as they rolled to shore and bronzed women, smelling of coconut, stretched their bodies across beach towels, their hot skin and bare breasts with sun-wizened nipples worshipping the late Spring sunshine. It was a sexy time of year.

On the eighteenth floor of the Silver Breeze high-rise, Matt Savage woke with a blistering hangover. He wasn’t sure how much of the murderous headache was actually hangover and how much was jetlag after his fourteen hour flight from Los Angeles the previous day. He yawned, which only aggravated the dull thud in his brain and then looked across to the blonde in the bed beside him. Kirsty? Kristy? Her naked body glistened in the morning light and a small tattoo of an octopus graced her left hip just above a peachy soft fuzz of heart-shaped pubic hair. Without the night-club make-up and the wired look of a competitive groupie, she looked much younger. Seventeen. Eighteen max.

Matt sat up and gave a low groan as his skull seemed to crush down on his eyeballs. His long blonde hair fell over his face as he pushed himself up from the bed and crossed to take in the view. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, naked and stretched his heavily tattooed arms in the air, letting out a whoosh of breath.

‘Awesome,’ he said to himself, looking down to the strip of sand which ran like a golden hem along the azure ocean. A jet-ski bounced beyond the breakers and a helicopter whizzed by. Just looking at the crystalline water felt refreshing. Matt rubbed the stubble on his chin, fiddled with his earring and looked back at the naked girl in his bed. The band was meeting for rehearsal at eleven-thirty. He looked at his watch. There was still time to tumble with her one more time. She’d been a tasty little number. Young, eager and easy to manipulate. Some chicks just looked like tragic mistakes in the morning. This one, however, was definitely worth a morning rumble.

After a quick trip into the bathroom and a bottle of orange juice from the mini-bar, Matt crawled over the bed and woke the girl with a kiss to her tiny puckered navel. He looked up at her sleepy face and revelled in the thrill of seeing her sheer excitement at the memory that she had bagged one of the most famous rock-stars in the world last night. As her body stirred, he straddled her and let his hands roam over her small breasts, watching her pink nipples rear up to his touch.

‘Matt Savage,’ she whispered, as if still unable to believe her good fortune.

‘Savage by name and Savage by nature,’ he purred and then flipped her over and pinned her down, whispering into her ear. ‘Let’s rock and roll, baby!’

‘Are you putting me on the guest list, tonight?’ she rasped as he pounded into her body.

‘Hmmmm,’ he shut his eyes and stroked her long blonde hair as he came in an explosive rush. He was quick on purpose. Just wanting a therapeutic release. The best cure for a hangover.

As he lay, catching his breath beside her, his heart trying to recover, the alcohol and cocaine from last night still pumping through his veins, the young girl rested on an elbow and looked into his famous blue eyes, her finger tracing the myriad of ink artworks etched onto his muscled arms.

‘Could you put two of us on the list? Cos, I’ve got this friend and she really wants to meet your drummer…..’

He shut his eyes and vagued out. Groupies were fun while you were playing with them but they stopped being sexy as soon as they started making demands.

‘Call yourself a taxicab,’ he sighed as he decided that this young Australian fan had just exhausted her usefulness.

The Adler music extravaganza later that night would give Matt Savage the opportunity to pick from any number of hot, young women. The billionaire organising the show was renowned for lavishing the talent with willing bikini models and high-class hookers, not to mention sand dunes worth of cocaine. But to be honest, Matt was more than a little sick of the endless stream of attractive groupies. It was all so very shallow and soulless. He had never let himself truly fall for any girl because he was still carrying a torch for that first true love. A girl who had dissolved into a distant memory, fading away like a chalk drawing in the rain.

He looked across to the young girl in his bed. Kristy or Kirsty or whatever her name was, would just have to watch the show from front-of-stage like all the other punters. She’d used up her five minutes of fame.

Matt watched the girl leave, tottering out on impossibly high heels and a skirt that barely covered her butt. She looked less attractive in the vulture get-up. Tacky and cheap. Groupies were a lot more about feeding his ego than his libido.

The day was warming up into a scorcher and Matt shut his eyes to stop the thudding behind his eyeballs. It had been fourteen years since he was last on the Gold Coast. So much had changed since then. To the glitter strip and to him. The son of a preacher man had gone on to become a rock god. The little beach town had become a glitzy tourist Mecca. But the question burning into his brain was whether his angel, the first and only girl he’d ever loved, was still living locally.

Matt Savage had become one of the most recognized celebrity faces. He wondered whether Heidi Phillips had ever looked into those famous blue eyes staring out from some celebrity magazine and identified them as the same ones on that teenage boy who had once loved her so deeply. His name had changed but the handsome face was unmistakeable.

Matt was finally home and ready to track down the girl from long ago.

***

Abbie looked from the window of the plane to the jagged, castellated sprawl of tall buildings lining the famous beach resort town of Surfers Paradise. As the private plane leaned into a sweep over the wide, still ocean, she did a quick check of her make-up in a small silver compact mirror.

She hoped Brian Adler would not be there to meet the plane but chances were high that he would be. From the time she left Sydney to the time she returned, he owned her and would be making the most of it. He would be using up every last drop of her for the entire week-end. The thought of it was as nauseating as it was claustrophobic. In preparation for that greeting she dabbed a little more Hibiscus Red lipstick on her full lips, patted her nose with some mineral make-up and tucked her dark hair behind her ears.

The hostess cleared away the empty champagne glass and whispered.

‘The plane will be landing shortly at Coolangatta airport.’

The Gold Coast. For all its razzle-dazzle and tinsel, the place was just a seedy den of sex and crime. Abbie Rodin had about as much affection for the place as she did a used condom. For her, they usually equated to the same thing anyway. She’d once called the place home but it didn’t hold many happy memories and more than a few ghosts.

The young woman tightened the seat belt and sat back in the soft leather chair, shutting her eyes and taking shallow breaths. Abbie was a nervous flyer and despite the frequent flyer miles she’d put behind her over the past year, it didn’t get any easier. And of the fourteen flights, seven had been to Surfers Paradise and five of them had been to visit billionaire media magnate, Brian Adler.

Every time she was on the Glitter Strip she fought the urge to look up her brother. It was too risky. They were strangers now and it had to be that way. They lived polar opposite lives. She assumed he was still alive and well, but given the criminal company he kept, chances were that he might have been in jail or worse. Like father, like son.

She tried to keep a low profile whenever she was visiting the tourist city but this time things were different. Abbie had revenge on her mind and she needed Brian Adler to help her exact it. She had nurtured Adler for some time now, in the role of concubine. Giving him pleasure and warmth. He showered her with gifts and made sure she wanted for nothing. But it was time for Abbie to ask something in return from her client. Something monumental.

Her hardest memories were underlined by her desire for revenge and if the underground rumours were true then the billionaire, Brian Adler, would know how to turn that desire into bold italics. This weekend was the culmination of years of plotting and moving herself around the chess-board of life as an invisible, harmless pawn. But she was so very close and Adler would be the final move that would have her in ‘checkmate’. She was ready to complete her metamorphosis into the queen who was ready to take down a very dark king.

As the plane went into its final descent, Abbie’s ears popped and her perfectly manicured red fingernails dug into the armrests. She held her breath and her heart hammered beneath her black lace blouse as the plane gave a bounce and shudder against the tarmac, like a stumble over a hurdle and then sailed noisily down the runway until it ground to a slower crawl and turned toward the small domestic terminal.

She could see a black stretch limousine parked by the hangar at the far end of the airport. A chauffeur stood beside the car. He was dressed in a dark suit and gave the pilot a wave. As he strolled toward the parked plane, the engines dropped to a low hum and Abbie released her belt and strained to see if anyone else was in the car to greet her.

‘Mr Adler asked me to send his apologies,’ the crisply pressed chauffeur nodded sombrely as she alighted from the West-wind 2, with the eagle symbol of the Adler empire on its side. ‘He is tied up with preparations for the concert tonight and will send a car for you at twelve fifteen to meet him for lunch.’

Abbie breathed a silent sigh of relief. Every moment of this gig that she didn’t have to spend with Brian Adler was a paid holiday. And every minute spent in his company was hard labour and money well-earned. But she would play nice because this weekend her billionaire client was going to be worth more to her than just another fee.

For nearly seven years Abbie had skulked in the shadows, lying low and living even lower. She’d been hiding from one man, biding her time, waiting in the wings.

If all went according to plan, Abbie would finally be free of selling her body to the highest bidder. She would not miss the work or the clients. It was a chilling and cold profession devoid of passion for her. It had made her hard and remote but it had taught her a lot about power. Yes. She had learned some very, very powerful lessons.

***

Apollo Jones ran on the treadmill, staring out over the blue glass of the sea as he sweated into his stiff new Nike runners.

‘I’m gonna have a bloody heart attack here,’ he panted in a clipped English accent.

‘But those legs are looking good,’ Marcus smiled from the bathroom doorway. ‘Just another ten minutes and you can relax.’ His own brogue was rounded and smoothed off the end of every word like a chimneysweep.

Apollo rolled his eyes and kept up the pace. Plod. Plod. Plod. The pale skin on his cheeks bounced as he ran, his lips playing along. Beads of sweat flew from his perspiring neck onto the plush beige carpet. His long dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and he wore a sweat band around his head.

Apollo wasn’t Greek, despite the name. It was his showbiz moniker. He was just another scrawny lad from a ramshackle block in London who had grabbed rock and roll by the balls during adolescence and refused to let go. He’d reinvented himself, from Terry Wilcox, the slightly goofy-headed cockney geek, to the dyed black-haired, rock legend, Apollo Jones. He’d dressed in tight leather pants and open shirts, lots of camp jewellery and long tumbling locks. By the age of thirty, he had the world in his fist and was one of most successful recording artists in history.

But the first decade of the new millennium had been bad to him.

The most significant lows involved lots of drugs and prison. But life was looking up again for the singer. Apollo was thin but fit. Pushing into the middle hump of his forties, he still had a fluid sex appeal that was hard to deny. After being forcefully ejected from the closet, he now, arguably, had a whole new fan base. He was a gay icon to hundreds of thousands of men and boys but still appealed to women who fantasized about how they might ‘convert’ him. He was the archetypal glam rock God.

Marcus went to his suitcase which lay open on the metal rack and pulled out a pair of loud, floral swimming trunks.

‘You coming for a surf after that?’ he asked.

Apollo rolled his eyes and spoke in a raspy, staccato voice. His singing voice was raw and strong but his speaking voice was much more delicate.

‘You know the answer to that.’

Marcus slipped out of the soft white bath robe and into his shorts, shaking his head. His dark, hairless chest sported well-defined pectorals and tapered to a narrow waist. He looked at his partner of the last twelve years and sighed. The guy was impossible. Stubborn in the extreme.

‘You’ll be facing a crowd of human beings tonight, Polly. Thousands of them!’

Apollo slowed the pace of the machine to a gentle walk and took a few deep breaths before gulping from the plastic water bottle by his side. As the stair-master came to a stop, he stepped down onto the carpet and threw the empty water bottle onto the king sized bed in the middle of the room.

‘That’s different. On stage I’ll be Apollo Jones the superstar,’ he said wiping the sweat back from his freshly dyed hair. It was a darker shade than usual. ‘On the beach I’ll just be some ageing white fag with a hot, black lover.’ Apollo looked at his younger boy-friend and opened his hands towards him, continuing to complain. ‘Jesus, just look at you Marcus. You look like something I ordered from a catalogue. Put a shirt on, why don’t you?’ his quirky British voice teased.

Apollo peeled off his sweat-stained work-out gear and shuffled to the shower. Marcus followed. From behind, Apollo looked like a much younger man, his shoulders were broad and tapered down to a tiny waist, although his buttocks were all but flat and childlike and his skin was still a little loose after losing all the drug bloat. He was tall and lean and gorgeous. To Marcus’s eye, Apollo got better with age.

‘You’re looking good, Polly. Really.’ The stocky, Nigerian-born man leaned against the doorway as Apollo turned on the high-powered shower jets and stepped inside the cubicle. ‘You want me to wash your back? I’ll help you drop the soap.’

Apollo threw a mini-shampoo bottle at him and laughed, letting the water rinse over his body. He shook his head like a wet dog.

‘Nah. You go and frolic in the surf, love. I’ve got to be at sound-check at ten thirty. And then we have lunch with Brian Adler, remember?’ He rolled his eyes and gargled a mouthful of hot water.

Marcus stiffened at the name and his jaw became set like stone.

‘Adler is a well-moneyed bully. Explain to me again why you are doing this concert. For him?’ He spat out the last word as if he’d coughed up something awful. His nostrils flared and his bottom lip pressed out in a pout.

‘Three million reasons and we’ve been over this before,’ Apollo shrugged, poking his head from through a gap in the shower screen. ‘The timing is right. The location,’ Apollo spoke through a tooth-brush. ‘Brian’s not so bad and he hates his daughter as much as I do. He’s a media megastar…he offered me the vehicle…I accepted it. End of story.’ Apollo frowned and then spat out the toothpaste and grinned. ‘And in case you hadn’t forgotten, we approached everyone and he was the only one willing to give me a shot at doing this thing.’

‘Yeah, but why, Polly? And why did he offer you so much?’

‘Because he knows I’m good for it and that I’ll make oodles of money for him. He’s a business man.’

Marcus shrugged, looking at his partner’s slicked back, long hair and brown eyes, rimmed with enormous wet lashes. He was almost child-like in his naiveté. Marcus wished Apollo was less trusting.

‘I just hope that Chloe isn’t coming to lunch.’

‘From all accounts she’s in pretty bad shape these days. Killing herself with drugs and alcohol,’ Apollo said, cocooning himself back into the cubicle. His voice sailed up from the water and steam. ‘Gotta feel sorry for her, really.’

‘You are way too forgiving, Polly,’ Marcus smiled. ‘She’s a bitch of the highest order. The Queen bitch. It just seems so ironic that Chloe Adler was instrumental in your spectacularly scandalous fall from grace and now her father is staging and bank-rolling your professional comeback. It beggars belief.’

Apollo’s wet head appeared, as the shower door pushed open again.

‘I’m trying to have a shower, ‘ere, love. As I already said, Brian Adler is a business man. There is no conspiracy. I’m good for his business and his money is good enough for me. He is not his daughter. Granted – he probably ruined her by pandering to her every need – but he has no time for the little monster he created.’

Marcus pursed his lips but said nothing, as Apollo continued.

‘Hey, he came to our wedding, didn’t he love? That was the olive branch, you know? And for what it’s worth he told me he thought Chloe was evil incarnate…so…yes, I agree with you. I hope Chloe is not at lunch…but her father? Well, he’s alright by me, okay?’

‘I bet he didn’t use the words ‘evil incarnate’’, Marcus laughed.

‘No. I suspect it was a little more profane than that,’ Apollo raised an eyebrow. ‘But the man is helping to put my name back in lights and for that I am grateful.’

Once an international mega-star had tasted such a degree of fame, it was like an addiction. Apollo Jones had beaten the alcohol and cocaine that had almost taken his life, but fame, well that was something he clung to with both hands. Brian Adler had organised the concert of a lifetime and had the power and influence to get it televised around the globe. No-one could have given Apollo as a big a break and no-one else had offered despite the tour being touted as the auction of the century to a handful of entrepreneurs. Water under the bridge aside, Apollo wanted what Brian Adler could give him. A second chance at the big-time.

So much was riding on tonight’s comeback concert. Apollo Jones had a lot to prove to his faithful fans. Marcus smiled across to his partner as he handed him a plush white towel.

‘Your voice is still there and you’re fitter and cleaner than you’ve been since you were a teenager. My point Polly, is that you’re ready. Don’t be nervous.’

‘Nervous? Me? What you talkin’ about? It’s in the bag. I am the man!’

Apollo dropped his towel and stood arms outstretched and let out an operatic note that drifted up and out over the balcony.

‘Okay, you’re not nervous,’ Marcus smiled, shaking his head and left the room to catch some waves.

Apollo turned at the sound of the door closing and looked less confident and deflated.

‘That’s not really true,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I’m as nervous as Anne Boleyn before she got her bloody head cut off!’

***

Chloe Adler had just thrown almost every item of clothing from her expansive wardrobe onto the floor in disgust. She had nothing to wear. Not a fucking thing.

This wasn’t just any old night, this was a night on which she had to glisten like something from a fairytale. She was kicking herself that she hadn’t gotten one of the better fashion designers to make something especially for the occasion. Stella McCartney had even offered!

Chloe looked into her full length mirror. In her matching satin underwear with her hands on hips she looked like a spoiled child. Peering closer at the mirror she inspected the view. The Botox had settled nicely, smoothing that annoying frown line between her eyes. The whites of her eyes were streaked red but that was nothing a shot of eye-drops wouldn’t fix. Her top lip was still sensitive to the touch after a top-up of Juvaderm last week but it looked suitably plumped. Her hair had responded well to the caviar therapy. Chloe had been afraid it might smell like fish, but it had actually worked marvellously to thicken her blonde locks and add an extra shimmer of gloss.

Chloe ran her thin hands over her thin body. Not an ounce of fat. The only curves were the two hard round balls that masqueraded as breasts. If she was honest, they looked better poking out of the top of a lacy bra than bare. Despite all efforts by her surgeon, the tell-tale scars were still visible if you peered closely enough and they had lost a good deal of sensation. They throbbed sometimes and no man had ever been fooled that they were real. All in all a bit of a waste of time, although without them she ran the risk of looking like a boy or a supermodel. But for a woman recently turned forty, Chloe Adler looked pretty damn good if she didn’t say so herself. She conveniently ignored the tremors in her hands.

It was going to be the most spectacular event the Gold Coast had ever hosted and her father wanted it to go down as the most exciting date on the entire international social calendar for the year.

After a good amount of wheeling and dealing and sugar-coating council palms, he had managed to renovate the old V8 supercar Gold Coast 600 into the inaugural Surfers Paradise Grand Prix. He had the most exciting speed-stars of the Formula One circuit, A-list Hollywood stars on the guest list, one of the greatest line-ups of rock and roll to ever perform together and even some European royalty to add some extra glitz. If her father, Brian Adler, was the king of this party, then, she, Chloe, was the princess and by God she wanted to sparkle like one. But she didn’t have a fucking thing to wear. Not white. Too virginal. Not black. Too drab. Not too much colour or she’d look like a parrot. Gold. Yes. Gold. She wanted that handbag of an ex-husband of hers to see her and weep for what he had thrown away.

She would never forgive her father for choosing Apollo Jones to headline this concert. It was a joke. And she was determined to prove that to the world. Her old man had done it deliberately to shame her and Chloe was going to make sure that particular cream pie ricocheted back into his face. Chloe Adler would have the last word.

Her father was always telling her how very disappointed he was in the way she’d turned out. The way she’d turned out? Chloe checked her profile in the mirror again. Old fool. She’d turned out fine. Her father was the sorry sack who looked like a syphilitic King Henry the Eighth all bloated and swollen with filthy money and shifty deals. He’d turned into a complete toad of a man who had no emotional attachment to anyone, least of all his only daughter. While she had never directly accused him, she suspected that her own mother’s overdose some years earlier had been contrived. She certainly wouldn’t put it past him.

Chloe put on a tiny black and white dress and some black Jimmy Choo pumps. After putting on a splash of make-up, she sat on her bed and tipped out her purse.

There were only two credit cards that had not been maxed out and she fingered the light grey one. It had her name on it although it was linked to her father’s account. He had been careful to tell her that it was only ever to be used in the most dire of emergencies. Chloe turned it over in her hand. Being impressively decked out for her father’s night of nights was something of great importance. She’d be photographed on the red carpet and all the scathing women’s magazines would be lining up to slaughter the fashion victims. They were merciless. It was actually imperative that she look her absolute best. It was in her father’s best interests. And it was a Platinum Amex with no limit which was very much in Chloe’s interests.

With an image of a golden goddess in her head, Chloe strode through her Paradise Waters home, screeching for her personal assistant.

‘Cassie!Cassie??’

A small, dark-haired woman came ferreting out of the kitchen.

‘Miss Adler?’

‘We’re going shopping. Get the car,’ Chloe announced.

Cassie McDonald had worked for Chloe Adler for less than a year. A year was about the record for the personal assistant position. Despite being a long-suffering, tolerant, unruffled sort of woman, Cassie was already making discreet enquiries about jobs elsewhere. She was a striking woman but Chloe Adler insisted on her assistants foregoing makeup or flattering clothes. She liked the women around her to be as plain as possible so that she might shine all the brighter.

Cassie could see Chloe unravelling before her eyes. She had always been a spoilt little rich girl but the pathological narcissism was becoming intolerable and it was further compounded by her insatiable drug-taking and alcoholism. The woman was losing her grip on reality and the cracks were getting deeper. The last few months had been a rollercoaster downhill. Most mornings, Cassie expected to find her boss dead of an accidental overdose or alcoholic poisoning. She was almost certainly going to end up just like her late mother, who had been officially diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the rotten tree.

‘Your father asked if you would join him for lunch,’ Cassie ventured.

‘When I don’t show, I guess he’ll figure that was a ‘no’.’ Chloe smiled.

‘Where to?’ Cassie asked as she reversed the pale blue Aston Martin down the driveway and pulled out into Admiralty Drive.

‘Start at Marina Mirage,’ Chloe called from the back of the car as her phone began to ring.

She looked at the screen and gave a knowing smile.

‘Ahhh, Antonio,’ she purred. ‘Have you considered my offer?’

‘I would love to be of assistance, Chloe my dear,’ came that deliciously sexy Spanish accent. ‘I’m looking forward to it. I’ll see you later and we’ll discuss the details.’

Chloe looked out the window at the sparkling Broadwater bay and licked her slightly tender lips. When the cameras began to roll tonight at the concert, with the world holding its collective breath for Apollo Jones’ almighty comeback, both her father and her ex-husband would curse the day they’d hooked up together behind her back.

They were laughing at her. She just knew it. Together they thought they were going to make a small fortune. Chloe was not going to let that happen. Over her dead body.

***

The car squealed like a monstrous, giant blow-fly as it sped around the track, the stench of rubber wafting in its wake. Enrico Benvenga gripped the steering wheel and felt the power of the machine rumble around him. It was like holding the reins of a runaway steed. Beneath the helmet, his hair was slick with sweat despite the inbuilt cooling system. He took the curve and felt the bump of the rise as he straightened into the last lap. He’d made excellent time in this qualifier and looked set for an easy personal best. He’d scored pole position and that inaugural trophy was starting to look like it might have his name on it by the end of the weekend. Not to mention the two million dollars prize money. Most of that would probably be spent on the wedding.

As he swooped into the pits and ground to a halt, he wondered if Megan was watching from the stands or schmoozing in the bar. It was only the qualifier but it hurt when she used these meets to network and further her own career, instead of dutifully supporting him. Being a celebrity was a job, she would remind him, explaining that she was always working when she was in public. With her busy filming schedule, his global commitments and the associated publicity that went hand in hand with their professions, finding any private time was getting harder and harder.

Last year Enrico had bought a seventeen acre private island in Fiji as an engagement present to his beloved Megan Wilson