Wicked Ambition (30 page)

The bed looked like the aftermath of a ten-year-old’s midnight feast. ‘Later.’ She tried to climb off but he caught her wrists. ‘How’d you find me anyway?’

‘Polly. And when’s later?’

‘I just got off the plane.’

‘So?’

‘So I feel rough. Now’s not a good time.’

Rufio snorted, tossing a glance at his surroundings. ‘Seems to me like it is.’ And that observation, the
tone
of it, made Robin’s heart sink. She had resisted the thought that he wasn’t here because he cared about her or wanted to be with her but because she was hot property now on this side of the Atlantic and he was languishing at home with a dubious press. Recent tabloid coverage she’d caught of East Beatz had been less than favourable.

‘If you’re staying you have to look after yourself,’ she told him, slicing open the balcony doors and letting the fresh air through. ‘You know I’m working, right?’

The phone rang and irritatingly Rufio reached it first, lifting it from the side table and reclining with his ankles crossed, a debonair smirk on his face.

‘Yars?’
he said in a faux-posh accent, ribbing her newfound status but underneath the sentiment was there and he meant it. ‘Robin Ryder’s room—er, I mean
suite
?’

She snatched it off him. ‘Barney? Hi.’

‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Barney.

‘What can I say? Rufio keeps me on my toes.’

Rufio seized the remote and started skipping channels,
settling on one of his own music videos during which the band dressed as trendy astronauts and colonised a planet.

‘I thought you broke up with him.’

‘What’s up, Barney?’

Minutes later she replaced the receiver. ‘I’m heading out.’ Barney had relayed that Puff City had landed early and wanted a sound check before a TV appearance this afternoon.

‘But you only just got here!’ Rufio complained. ‘What am I gonna do?’

‘It’s Seattle. You’ve got this whole amazing city at your feet. Think of something.’

Seattle was her biggest crowd to date. As anticipated, Puff City’s appearance on her encore sent the stadium through the roof, and as well as guesting on her own track they rocked an impromptu ‘Take It Down’. Given the number of people involved in the charity single it had seldom been performed live, so for the fans it was a major coup. Slink rapped over Jax’s slot (easily ten times better—the guy couldn’t sing to save his life) and G-Money took Leon’s line.

When the gig finished they were all on a high. Rufio showed up backstage, enveloping her in a beer-scented embrace, and when Slink suggested they check out a party pad belonging to a magnate friend of his who was out of town, Robin agreed.

The penthouse was in the Seattle Highlands, a super-exclusive gated community housing some of the most incredible properties she’d ever seen. Slink’s contact lived in a cream Georgian mansion, pretty as a dolls’ house and giant as a castle and surrounded by verdant lawns, stone fountains
and soaring, majestic yews. It boasted an Olympic-sized swimming pool whose tiles were purple, casting the water a deep lilac, spotlit from below. A rock waterfall cascaded at one end and a leafy platform overlooked the quiet Puget Sound, over which the moon cast iridescent light that rippled and danced in the fragrant night.

They had picked up the crew’s entourage as well as her own dance troupe, and once through security a gang stripped off and threw themselves into the pool in their underwear.

Matt was quick to follow, hauling off his T-shirt and joining them amid a splash of squeals and laughter. ‘Fucking awesome!’ he crowed on a dive bomb, making the girls screech with delight. Rufio was hot in pursuit and soon the pool was filled with a tangle of slick, golden bodies, emerging every so often in a spray of water.

Robin fetched a beer, content to absorb the outrageousness of her surroundings. If someone had told her two years ago that she’d be here, now, after a mega leg of her sell-out US tour, she’d have laughed. Perhaps it was fortune’s turn to pay her back.

She spotted Shawnella on a bench, scowling as she watched her boyfriend frolic. Robin made her way over. ‘Hey,’ she offered over the sound system, ‘OK if I join you?’

Shawnella folded her arms, the movement prompting a near-total spillage of her cleavage. She was wearing a pink bikini that barely covered her nipples and matching knickers that were so high on her hips it looked like she was being sawn in half. Massive jewellery adorned her wrists and ears, and a ruby bead glinted on the skin between her
top lip and her nose. Her hair was teased into dyed honey-blonde cornrows.

‘This is some place, right?’ began Robin. ‘You been before?’

Shawnella blew out disbelief. ‘Are you kidding?’ She was surveying Slink with the concentration of a hawk. Robin followed her gaze and saw two gamine blondes hanging off his neck. ‘He’s brought just about everyone else here—I guess I’m not good enough.’

Robin faced her. ‘I bet that isn’t true.’

‘Come
on
,’ drawled Shawnella, with a look in her eye that suggested she wasn’t the bimbo appendage so often dismissed at Slink’s side. ‘He’s got, like, twenty girlfriends. I’m aware of that; I’m not blind to the facts. This is where he takes them when he wants to impress. I’ve been around so long he doesn’t even bother.’

‘If you know he’s cheating, why stay? I’d never put up with that.’

Shawnella laughed with genuine amusement. Realising Robin hadn’t been joking, she asked, ‘You think I’m with him because I love him?’

Robin considered her reply. According to occasional mentions Shawnella received in the press, she was the ‘long haul’, the girl who’d been there since the start, who never quit, and, of course, like any woman dating a high-profile man, that naturally meant she was angling for a ring on her finger, if not for reasons of love then of sheer perseverance.

‘You might be.’

‘I’m not.’ Shawnella consulted her manicure. ‘See that display right there? He knows I’m seeing it, it turns him on and then later he’ll want to have a fight about it. That’s how
it goes with Slink. We’ll fight and then we’ll have sex. That’s how it works. He’d get bored otherwise. He’s not interested in it being just us—and I accepted that ages ago. What I’m interested in is what this situation’s going to do for me.’

‘How?’

She peered at Robin sideways. ‘When we first got together he said he’d bring me in on Puff City—like, the only female sort of thing. Look what Fergie did for the Peas. Same deal with me, except if Slink had kept his word we’d have beat them to it. Now that promise is starting to smell richly of bullshit.’

‘Why didn’t he go with it?’

‘Either the others didn’t like it or Slink changed his mind. I’m not sure which is worse. One makes him a pussy and the other makes him an asshole.’

Robin nodded to where G-Money was chilling by the pool hut, beer in hand. He didn’t look as relaxed as the rest. ‘I would’ve thought he’d have your back,’ she said.

‘Serious?’ Shawnella replied, bored. ‘G’s, like, my big brother. Nothing he says carries weight these days. Slink doesn’t listen to a word he says. Shit, Slink won’t listen to a word
anyone
says. It’s his rules or bye-bye-baby, and that’s where I am.’

Robin frowned. ‘G used to be wild, right?’ Before he’d worn cardigans G-Money had been one of the most notorious members of the City, in the nineties spending time in prison on charges of grand theft auto and possession of weapons—little wonder he’d been all over the charity gig; it was a chance to show how he’d cleaned up his act. But Robin couldn’t help being suspicious of someone who changed their ways overnight: reinvention didn’t come easy.

‘Sure did,’ said Shawnella. ‘The less said about that, the better.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Besides, he ain’t doin’ nothin’ for me.’ She applied gloss, pressing her lips together with a sealing
phut
that signalled the end of the conversation.

‘I’m heading in,’ said Robin. ‘Join me?’

‘No chance. I wouldn’t wanna miss the show.’

Across the lawns Robin located a Nantucket-style hut and claimed a bikini from a boxful marked OR GO WITHOUT?, which made her suspect that whoever lived here wasn’t averse to throwing the occasional pool party. The knickers were scant, flimsy things and she had to rifle through to find something that didn’t make her feel like she was perched on a cheese wire. A wet-from-the-pool Rufio grabbed her on the way back, hauling her shrieking over his shoulder and racing to the water, where he promptly threw her in, chasing with a flop that sent glitter dashing to the sky. Robin was immersed in an underwater lagoon and when she crashed through the surface she leapt at him, laughing and trying to push his head under.

When she began to feel cold she headed to the showers, a vast tiled space with benches running down one side. It took a while to work out how to turn the jets on. At last she located a sensor and, putting her hand before it, the sky opened up: the roof was covered in hundreds of tiny holes so that instead of bathing it was like standing in the warm rain.

Wrapping a towel around her and emerging on to the terrace, Robin spotted an open entrance to the house and decided to explore. The main wings were sealed off but the kitchen and ground floor were open and she perused photos
of Slink’s absent acquaintance, a portly producer she recognised from televised red-carpet events and who, judging by the array of beautiful women he’d been photographed next to, didn’t appear to be married. There was the British actress Stevie Speller, a recent snap with Turquoise da Luca and another with A-list titan Cole Steel. Unsurprising, then, that he was living this kind of life.

She was about to step outside when a couple of voices, engaged in heated debate, stopped her in her tracks. They were coming from the corridor and instinctively she padded towards them. She stopped at the wall, straining to hear.

‘I’m tellin’ you, he’s gotta let this go.’ The voice was harsh, skating on a high pitch, and she recognised it as Principal 7’s. ‘You gotta do somethin’, man, I ain’t messin’.’

‘Chill, dog.’ That was Slink. ‘It was a long time ago. You think if I went to bed with crap in my pants over every little thing I’d done wrong I’d ever sleep again?’

‘He’s gonna spill and it’s gonna be soon. I know it.’

‘An’ I know G. He’s cooler than that.’

‘Yeah? Sway’s got a hold on him. Jeez, he
likes
the guy. They’re friends. Big Nate clocked them hangin’ at the weekend.’

Robin frowned. Were they talking about Leon? She tried to make out the rest.

‘Way he sees it,’ Principal continued, ‘we’re the guys to blame.’

‘An’ he’s right, I ain’t arguin’ different. You gotta take responsibility but I’m tellin’ you, man, I’ve paid my dues. I’ve looked karma dead in the eye and I’m still cruising.’

‘G wants to fess. That means us, too.’

‘Relax.’ Somebody exhaled heavily. ‘Marlon Sway got
shot and that ain’t right, but bad shit happens, what else is there to say? Unlucky, he was someone’s brother and family counts, but it’s over.
Over
. You think I never lost someone close to me? That life works out roses and puppy dogs and piss smells like perfume? G knows the score.’

‘Maybe he needs reminding.’

‘You got your hand up?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’

‘Cool it, a’ight? Take your lead from me. No reason Sway’s gonna find out.’

Robin fought to understand. What were they saying? What did they mean? Someone had died, someone close to Leon…and Puff City was responsible?

She remembered what Leon had said to her that night.

We’re from the same neighbourhood…

Mean streets of Compton, baby…

Robin retreated towards the exit. She could hear no more. Outside, the party carried on, heedless and careless, empty fun she could no longer engage in.

One thing was clear: she had to find Leon and she had to warn him. She didn’t know how, but she had to. She owed him that.

38

P
acific Heights Village looked even better in the sunshine.

As Jax Jackson swung his lemon Lamborghini into the expansive drive, he took in, with some satisfaction, the place he called home. It was an imposing white building, sweltering under the heat of an azure-blue sky, the green line of the sea visible behind, glinting like a jewel. A chain of palm trees linked around the entrance, their fronds applauding in the warm breeze. He’d worked hard for all this, worked his body till it was beat. He deserved his life, goddammit. And now even nature worshipped at his altar.

Leon Sway could go screw himself.

Barely a hundredth in it, guys
, the coach had said after their latest
mano-a-mano
.

Fuck that shit.

Jax braked the car hard and jumped out. The fact remained that he had won. He always won. If the coach couldn’t see that, it wasn’t his damn problem. He ought to feel sorry for Leon, be the bigger man—Sway was too
young; he couldn’t handle defeat. Jax smirked to himself. He’d learned a long time ago how to cope with defeat: never let it happen.

Before making his way inside, Jax marvelled at the wheels. He’d cruise downtown in a couple hours and see if he could pick up a cute ass or two. Grudgingly he remembered Kristin. Keeping a girlfriend had its drawbacks. Who knew they took up so much time? Girlfriends were meant to be fun, weren’t they? Kristin was a hot broad in the sack, but that was where it ended. All this talk about feelings and ‘the future’ was
not
on his agenda.

The lobby was filled with a new delivery of fresh flowers.

‘What’s that fuckin’
stink
?’ said Jax, striding to the elevators. ‘Someone taken a dump in here or somethin’?’

‘Hello, Mr Jackson,’ the concierge said pleasantly, with a rigid smile. ‘You have a visitor.’ He gestured to the bank of leather futons.

A woman in a tight navy-blue skirt suit was flicking through a magazine, crisply crossing and uncrossing long, tanned legs. Her hair was blonde and coiffed into a chic but very rigid bob, as if it weren’t hair at all, but something hard, like plastic. A generous bust threatened to spill from the confines of her shirt.