Wicked Ambition (26 page)

Feverishly he came. Stunned, Kristin wiped her mouth.

‘How’d I do?’ she asked coyly.

Jax caught his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. He frowned at the digits.

‘Shit,’ he said after a moment, glancing down at her with
something akin to respect (which confused him, because she was female). ‘Ten seconds flat.’

‘Is that good?’ Her eyes widened.

Jax grinned. ‘Close enough.’

He threw her back on the floor and, contrary to his usual style, buried his head where she was desperate to receive him. It was all the answer she needed.

Kristin held tight to her boyfriend as they entered the Flower Girl party. Bunny’s people (i.e. their mother) had advised that she launch a fragrance, and Flower Girl was a sweetly scented bouquet of sugars and spice, perfect for pre-adolescents and conjured entirely by an expensive Hollywood creative team who lived in perpetual fear of Ramona’s next demand.

The terrace they’d hired was resplendent with crystal fountains and candyfloss wheels, pink petals strewn across the walkways and a twine of rose bushes in a canopy overhead, yielding white and yellow buds. Ramona had employed a troupe of eight-year-olds and had dressed them Anne Geddes–style with miniature cauliflower bonnets and dresses puffed up like dandelions.

‘Sheesh,’ commented Jax, het up in his suit. ‘Who’re all the midgets?’

‘We won’t stay long,’ Kristin murmured in response. She was keen to support Bunny and then scram. Even standing this close to Jax was bringing her out in a fever: she just couldn’t keep her hands off him. He made her feel liberated, sexy, like a real woman. Jax had shown her things and given her body pleasure she hadn’t known it was capable of. He was wild and exciting—whether it was grabbing her
in a toilet cubicle (last week at Basement, when they’d been partying with Puff City), or turning up unannounced at her apartment and shagging her senseless over the foot of the bed before he’d even uttered a word.

Scotty had been her forever and she had neither wanted nor imagined any other future. All her life she had assumed they would end up together, her happy ever after. But sleeping with Jax took her to new heights—he made her feel truly desired, after all that time with Scotty sensing he’d really prefer to keep his clothes on and play X-Box.

‘Damn right.’ Jax’s hand brushed across her ass, making her tingle. Scotty had never done that: a chaste peck had used to keep her going for a week.

‘Darling!’ Ramona sailed over, arms flung wide to embrace her eldest daughter. Clapping eyes on Jax, she played Textbook Mom and Kristin thought what a complete phoney she was. The last time they had spoken—or, rather, yelled—had been a slanging match in the aftermath of Ramona being fired as her manager. Clearly that was, for the time, being forgotten, lest Jax think any less of them. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

‘Mom, this is Jax,’ Kristin offered reluctantly. ‘Jax, meet Ramona White.’

‘A pleasure,’ crooned Ramona, batting her lashes. Kristin remembered the dalliance with Luke and fought the urge to push her mother into a mountain of cherry blancmange.

‘You got a john round here?’ replied Jax. ‘I need to take a dump.’

Ramona’s mouth fell open. It was a moment before she recovered herself. ‘Right this way,’ she said pleasantly, her
lips a pinched pout of dismay, and in that moment Kristin thought Jax was just about the best person she’d ever met.

‘Well,’ said Ramona coolly, when he’d gone, ‘what a
charming
man.’

‘Isn’t he?’

‘Come on, Kristin, what are you thinking? It’s hardly as if he’s right for the image!’ Swiftly Ramona glanced her up and down. ‘Though with this new
look
of yours I’m frankly at sea as to what that approach is meant to be.’

‘Why does there have to be an
approach
? There
is
no approach, this is just me.’

‘That’s precisely where you’re going wrong. What are all these appearances you’ve cancelled? The shoots you haven’t turned up for? I may not be looking after your interests any more, Kristin, but rest assured I keep well informed on the grapevine.’

‘You “keep informed”? Jeez, Mom, get a life.’

‘
You
should have stayed with Scott Valentine,’ Ramona snapped. ‘What on earth was going through your mind breaking up with him?’

Kristin’s face scorched.

‘You never deserved him anyway,’ Ramona finished. Satisfied, she folded her arms.

‘You know nothing about our relationship,’ she responded frigidly. ‘Nothing.’

‘I know a mental breakdown when I see one.’

‘Why, because
you’ve
had so many?’

Jax returned. Kristin leaned into the cologne she had become addicted to and saw her mother’s smile crack with spiteful jealousy.

‘Please excuse me,’ Ramona said tightly, moving on to her other guests.

Bunny was being trumpeted at the front with her sponsors, posing for photographs with an expression tinged with worry. Kristin gave her a wave and a reassuring thumbs-up and Bunny smiled back, frowning a fraction as she clocked Jax at her sister’s side.

‘You wanna see somethin’?’ Jax challenged, a mischievous glint in his eye. Kristin nodded, resolving to put her mother from her mind. She was shot of Ramona now and at last she was becoming her own person. Being with Jax had helped give her that.

Her lover led her through the crowd. Kristin saw how it parted for him—it literally did—and how Jax’s Fastest Man title made him godly, on a higher echelon than everyone else. His world was fascinating, alien, exotic. It turned her on to hear about the hundred per cent focus he needed to race, how it felt being at the centre of the world, in front of an audience of billions, able to outrun anyone. His devotion to the cause was second to none. Regularly he could be found fretting over his rival Leon Sway: each time the titans hit the training ground it seemed the gap was getting narrower.

‘How close was it?’
she’d ask, sensing he had something on his mind.

‘It don’t matter,’
Jax would flare,
‘the fact is
I always win
. The fact is
he always loses
. Who gives a rat’s ass about it being close? Not me. It’s first and it’s second, baby.’

‘You know you’re number one.’

‘Fuckin’ damn right I am.’

In confiding in her, Jax let her see that maybe, after all,
he wasn’t invincible. Kristin realised that she didn’t care if he was the record holder or not, because the feelings she was developing for him were stronger than that. So far it had been about parties and screwing, but possibly they were reaching the next stage…growing towards a relationship.

And then…

Jax would seize his watch, strap it to his wrist; his ultimate wind-down…

As Kristin weaved her way through the Flower Girl party, cordially greeting acquaintances, she shivered at the thrill of their special game. How she would be positioned beneath him, would widen her eyes as he set the time, the metal glinting…9.57, the one to beat. How Jax liked to pour champagne over his rigid cock and command,
‘This is the one, baby
.’ How she would part her lips, desperate to leap from the blocks…

It had only been a few weeks, but there was something special between them. Trust. Wasn’t it time she returned the sentiment?

‘Here.’ Jax pulled her to a stop behind a lofty pyramid of meringues. ‘Private.’ Hastily he attended to his trousers, a wicked smile pulling at his lips.

Kristin resisted. ‘Wait,’ she urged. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

‘You’re not pregnant?’ Jax spluttered, blanching.

Shocked, she laughed. ‘Of course not, silly.’ Her smile faded. ‘It’s about what happened between Scotty and me. I never told you, and the thing is I feel that I should…’

Jax reached for her. ‘Forget it. I’m not interested.’

‘Jax, this is serious.’ She kept him at bay. ‘This is something I haven’t told anybody, and now I’m choosing to tell
you. It’s driving me insane, I mean seriously, and I can’t say anything to Mom or Bunny or to any of my friends, and so I have to know that you’re going to hear me out.’ A beat. ‘Please.’

Jax tried his best not to grimace. Slumping on to a bench, he plucked a meringue from the display and tossed it into his mouth. ‘Shoot,’ he mumbled through shards of pink sugar.

Kristin sat down next to him. She took a deep breath and told him everything.

The following morning, Bunny woke early. She hadn’t gone to bed until late and wondered what had roused her. A quick check of her cell provided the answer.

A message from Scotty had come in at 07.58:

We need to talk.

Bunny loved it when, for a delicious millisecond, she could actually believe they were going out with each other. That was the sort of text a boyfriend sent, right? She clasped the cell to her heart and gazed up at the ceiling. Her skin still smelled of the Flower Girl scent and it wrapped her up in dreams of romance and rapture. She couldn’t wait to see him.

Springing from her bed, Bunny threw on her best new outfit: a baby-blue halterneck playsuit with daisies on the pockets, and wedge heels she found difficult to walk in but looked nice—and as her mom always said,
You have to suffer to be beautiful!

Downstairs, Ramona was preparing breakfast. Bunny
had hoped her mother wouldn’t be up yet and stopped in her tracks.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Ramona asked archly, pecking at a punnet of blueberries and sipping Echinacea tea. Betsy the cat patrolled the hall like a Rottweiler.

‘Just out.’

‘Out where?’

Bunny shrugged. She was terrible at lying. Her mother’s glare bored into her and she was acutely aware of the wedge heels, flashing like beacons of her illegal intentions.

‘Are you meeting a boyfriend?’ Ramona cried.

‘No.’

Her mother didn’t believe her. Ramona strode over, clipped one of Bunny’s ears between her fingers and yanked her painfully to the breakfast bar. With undue force she released her, sending her thumping on to a stool.

‘If you think for one second that I’m going to let you jeopardise your career for the sake of a boy then you are sorely mistaken,’ Ramona cawed. ‘I will not see you go the way of your sister, do you understand? I’ve invested my life in you, Bunny.
My life
.’

What about my life?
Bunny wanted to scream.

‘Eat,’ commanded Ramona, shoving a flaccid egg white under her nose. Softening a fraction, she put in, ‘We’ve got to keep your energy levels up for the competition.’

Bunny could hardly see her miserable breakfast through a haze of tears.

‘I don’t want to,’ she replied.

‘You don’t want to eat or you don’t want the Mini Miss trophy?’

‘I don’t know!’ Bunny howled. ‘Just please don’t make me!’

Ramona slammed her tea down. A wash of it spilled over the sides, trickling sadly down the counter and into Bunny’s lap, so that it looked like she’d wet herself.

‘What is the matter with you girls, hmm? Don’t you see how lucky you are? I
make
you because when you are made we achieve results! We earn money! We further ourselves! Are you so pathetic, Bunny, that the concept is beyond your grasp?’ She closed her eyes. ‘I should never have backed home schooling, clearly. Look what a dunce I wound up with!’

Bunny swallowed the lump in her throat. It tasted horrible. Sour.

Ramona faced the sink, shuddering as she bent over her drained teacup. Bunny watched her mother’s shoulders, like the bony contours of a prehistoric bird.

‘Eat your breakfast,’ said Ramona calmly, without turning round.

Bunny wiped her eyes. She withdrew her cell from her pocket and scoped it under the bar, tapping out a quick missive:

Can’t now. Will call you later xxx

She picked uninterestedly at her egg. Her phone vibrated.

K & J—WTF? Are they together?

Bunny, you have to come through for me. You’re my only hope.

And just like that, her own hope flared. She loved it when he said her name!

You’re my only hope…

Oh, Scotty was hers.
He was hers!
They felt the same.

Tucking her cell back into her pocket, Bunny steeled herself against her mother. So what if Ramona wanted to make her life hell? She had Scotty, and Scotty was her secret weapon. Kristin was with Jax now, and at last, at last, nothing stood in their way.

33

R
obin’s
Beginnings
tour opened at San Francisco’s Super-ship. The space was tremendous, shaped like a vast bowl, and at final rehearsal when she shouted into the empty seats her voice swung back at her with clarity from every angle. With the stylised domino stage fronting one end, a silver platform running out into the audience and the swinging glass birdcage glinting like a pendant, her art director’s vision had come spectacularly to life.

Outside, the crowd gathered and grew like an approaching storm. As she stood backstage amid the dark rigging and her posse of restless dancers it felt like the onset of gladiatorial battle. Robin prayed her audience wouldn’t be baying for blood tonight.

‘Are you ready for this?’ Barney took her shoulders, his brow sweating.

‘Course I am.’ Robin smiled as confidently as she could as a sound technician checked her mic and gave her a thumbs-up. ‘I’m on top of this, Barney. It’s going to fly.’

The birdcage was lowered for her to step into. She managed it with some difficulty and was afraid its delicate casing wouldn’t hold her though they had practised it a hundred times. Fanning from Robin’s back was a plume of resplendent feathers, oily and purple and green, intricately crafted and tricky to manoeuvre without tearing. On her feet a pair of pick-sharp buckled Louboutins dictated where precisely she had to stand in order not to slip through the heel-size grates.

‘You made it.’ Barney smiled as the door to the cage was closed. ‘This is your moment, babe. See you on the other side, yeah?’

Robin knew he wanted to say more. This was America: the Holy Grail. Barney put his fingers through the grill and clasped hers before slipping away.