Imogen watched her husband carefully as he lifted his leg over his knee in a forced nonchalant gesture.
‘Why so much security? Is he under threat of assassination or something?’
It was a question he already knew the answer to.
Damien leaned in towards his friend conspiratorially, the buttons on his shirt straining open, exposing a little white flesh and wiry hair.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ Damien hissed.
‘Another?’ Sebastian said, filling his friend’s half full tumbler with more scotch.
Lambert took a generous slug and curled his lips over his teeth.
‘He’s bringing in a diamond.’
Sebastian feigned shock.
‘A diamond?’ His eyes were glowing now, as if lit by the very jewels themselves. Imogen watched Seb carefully.
‘Yes. The Bluebird. It’s a rare brilliant blue. Completely and utterly flawless, all 798.67 carats of it. It’s insured for over £500 million,’ Damien explained, ‘though that’s supposed to be a fraction of what it’s really worth. He’s scouting for suitable places to house it while he goes off on a round the world cruise or something. It’s far too much of a security risk to take it with him.’
Sebastian settled back in his chair and raised an eyebrow.
‘£500 million? That’s some stone, old boy.’
‘Indeed it is. He’s got the hots for this British actress totty, wants to impress her with it while he’s here.’
Sebastian nodded in understanding.
‘That’ll need some looking after,’ he said, his eyes widening.
‘The rock or the woman?’ Damien let out yet another booming roar and Sebastian surreptitiously rolled his eyes. The man was insufferable.
‘You say he’ll be here in a couple of weeks? That’s around the same time as the ball, isn’t it? I trust you and the lovely Mrs Lambert will be attending as a matter of tradition?’
‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep us away.’ Damien clapped his old friend’s arm. ‘I say wild horses …’
Forbes’s Annual Summer Ball was a lavish, no-expense-spared affair that had been running for decades. A date firmly imprinted on high society’s social calendar, it boasted a roll call that read like something from The Times Rich List.
‘Now you mention it, yes, it will be around the same time. ’
A light suddenly switched on inside Damien Lambert’s alcohol-addled brain.
‘Why don’t I bring him along to the ball!’ he bellowed, a little scotch sloshing over the edge of his tumbler with the momentum. ‘We’ll show those Ab-dabs how it’s really done, eh? He’ll bloody love it, rubbing shoulders with all the aristos. Maybe you can invite that actress sort he’s gone giddy over … Charlotte somebody. You’ll be doing me a favour, Forbsie.’
Damien Lambert patted his nose with his forefinger and winked. ‘Might even help with a wee bit o’ business.’
Imogen saw the look of satisfaction on her husband’s face.
‘Super idea, Lambers,’ he said, already picturing himself inside the Arab’s private jet, sipping champagne in the Jacuzzi and chewing the fat with his new Middle Eastern friend. ‘Bring the man along. I’ll get my PA to sort out an invitation right away.’
‘Thanks Forbsie, you’re a pal.’
‘Not at all, Lambers,’ Seb said, clinking his glass. ‘After all, what are friends for?’
CHAPTER 7
Marshall Jackson, or Mylo to his friends, let his head flop back onto his shoulders and wondered if he was just not the luckiest dude alive right now. With his arms outstretched either side of him, resting against the pool edge, he closed his eyes and allowed the unforgiving Nevada sun to warm his face while the rest of him kept cool in the Olympic-sized rooftop swimming pool.
‘You having fun, ladies?’ he asked from underneath his mirrored Ray-Bans. ‘’Cause I’m having the time of my frickin’ life.’
‘Sure, Mylo,’ Lindsay giggled, whipping off her small triangle bikini top and letting it float away. ‘But I need more champagne.’
‘Yeah, and Cheetos,’ piped up Britney. ‘We want champagne and Cheetos.’
Britney was already topless and Mylo surveyed her tits as they gently bobbed up and down in the water. Not bad for a chick with a couple of Rugrats, he reasoned.
‘Hey, honey,’ Mylo called out to a blonde pool hop who on closer inspection turned out to be Paris. She was wearing nothing but a small French Maid’s apron and a pair of killer thigh-high black patent leather boots; the rounded curves of her breasts peeping out from the barely-there straps of her pinafore.
‘A magnum of Krug, please.’
‘And Cheetos,’ Britney added. ‘Don’t forget the Cheetos.’
‘Anything you say, Mylo, baby.’ Paris flashed a megawatt smile, removing her tiny outfit to reveal her nakedness, save for the kinky boots. With a hard-on the size of Queens, Mylo found himself faced with a real dilemma: which of these chicks was he gonna give it to first?
‘Hey, Lindsay,’ he said, ‘you wanna be first to have some fun?’
‘You bet, baby,’ she grinned, thrilled. He pulled her closer to him, ripples of water sliding around their naked bodies like streams of silk ribbon. But just as he was about to give her the full Mylo experience, he was distracted by the distant trill of an alarm sounding …
‘Beep beep beep beep – beep beep beep beep.’
A car alarm? But there were no cars, man, not for miles. Mylo made to continue but it was getting louder now, the trills more shrill and urgent.
‘Beep beep beep beep – da-da – da da da-da da da daaaa.’
Shit. As the distracting noise grew closer, Mylo realised it wasn’t the sound of a car alarm at all; it was a ringtone. Somebody’s phone was ringing.
Fuck, man; it was his phone.
*
Mylo opened his eyes with a start and let out an involuntary groan. The stream of light that tore through the room from a crack in the curtain told him it was morning. Early morning. He sat up, disorientated, his brain slowly registering his surroundings. He was at home, in his studio apartment, a poky affair on 86th Street in Jackson Heights, NYC. He rubbed the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger; his mouth was as dry as the bottom of a budgie’s cage. Feeling through the dimness, his hands clumsy, he scrabbled for his cell on the small bedside table. It wasn’t there. Where the hell had he put the damn thing?
Tearing back the covers, Mylo swung his legs over the edge of the bed and only then noticed the naked girl next to him. She was lying face down, her straggly peroxide blonde hair fanning the pillow like straw. He had no idea who she was but he had a sneaky suspicion she wasn’t Britney.
It must’ve been some little party they’d had the night before though, he surmised, surveying the