Goddess of Vengeance
Read Goddess of Vengeance Online
Authors: Jackie Collins
Also by Jackie Collins
Married Lovers
Lovers & Players
Deadly Embrace
Hollywood Wives – The New Generation
Lethal Seduction
Thrill!
L.A. Connections – Power, Obsession, Murder, Revenge
Hollywood Kids
American Star
Rock Star
Hollywood Husbands
Lovers & Gamblers
Hollywood Wives
The World Is Full Of Divorced Women
The Love Killers
Sinners
The Bitch
The Stud
The World Is Full Of Married Men
Hollywood Divorces
THE SANTANGELO NOVELS
Poor Little Bitch Girl
Drop Dead Beautiful
Dangerous Kiss
Vendetta: Lucky’s Revenge
Lady Boss
Lucky
Chances
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2011
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Chances Inc., 2011
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Jackie Collins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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Simon & Schuster Australia
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A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84737-982-5
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84737-983-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84737-984-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD
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Contents
Chapter One
I
t was early evening and the garden restaurant was only half-full. The patrons were trying to play it cool, because after all, this was L.A. and stars abounded. However, most of them couldn’t resist an occasional surreptitious glance over at Venus, the platinum-blonde, world famous superstar, as she picked at a chopped vegetable salad.
Sitting at the table with her was Lucky Santangelo, a dark-haired beauty who’d experienced her own share of controversial headlines and scandals over the years. Lucky – the former owner and head of Panther Studios – was a businesswoman supreme, who currently owned the luxurious hotel, casino and apartment complex, The Keys, in Las Vegas.
The two of them made a formidable couple. In Hollywood, where looks were everything, Venus and Lucky ruled. Venus with her in-your-face blondeness, startling blue eyes and toned and muscled shape. And Lucky – a dangerously seductive woman with blacker-than-night eyes, deep olive skin, full sensuous lips, a tangle of long jet hair and a lithe body.
‘I’m beginning to think you’re a sex addict,’ Lucky said lightly, smiling at her close friend.
‘
Excuse
me?’ Venus retorted, raising a perfectly arched and pencilled eyebrow. ‘Last week you called me a Cougar, and
now
I’m a sex addict.
Seriously
, Lucky?’
Pushing back her mane of unruly curls, Lucky grinned. ‘Yeah. I’m so wrong,’ she drawled sarcastically. ‘It wasn’t
you
who slept with your twenty-two-year-old co-star last week, and it wasn’t
you
who screwed your sixty-year-old director two days later.’
‘Oh
please
,’ Venus said, dismissively waving her hand in the air. ‘I’m getting a divorce, what do you expect me to do? Join a convent?’
‘That might be a touch extreme.’ Lucky smiled as she thought about Venus wreaking havoc in a convent. ‘But anyway – I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’
‘You bet your fine ass I do,’ Venus answered vehemently. ‘Billy is all over the internet and the magazines with that juvenile skank he’s supposedly hooked up with. Just like Cooper.’ She paused for a long thoughtful moment. ‘Another cheating rat. I sure know how to pick ’em.’
‘You certainly do,’ Lucky agreed, thinking that Cooper Turner, Venus’s husband before Billy Melina, was a whole different ball game. Cooper was a much older movie star with a Warren Beatty-style track record, and everyone had known that Cooper would eventually cheat. Billy – not so much. Even though Billy was thirteen years younger than Venus, he’d seemed thrilled to be with her. And why not? Like Madonna, Venus was a true original with legions of worldwide fans.
‘I cannot believe Billy turned out to be such a loser,’ Venus said, determined to verbally trash her soon-to-be ex.
‘Hardly a loser,’ Lucky couldn’t help pointing out. ‘His current movie has grossed over a hundred million. Not too shabby.’
‘Yeah, yeah, rub it in,’ Venus snapped irritably. ‘Billy’s career is on fire, but as a man I can assure you he turned out to be a big waste of space.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘And what’s up with
you
today? Shouldn’t you be agreeing with me, not regaling me with his box office?’
‘Hey – don’t say I didn’t warn you about marrying a much younger man,’ Lucky responded.
‘Billy isn’t
that
much younger,’ Venus insisted. ‘Anyway, it’s sure working for Demi and Ashton. Besides, I thought you liked him.’
‘I did,’ Lucky said carefully. ‘I mean, I still do. Only marrying a younger guy . . . it’s kind of a given that they’re bound to cheat.’
‘Oh thanks!’ Venus said, frowning. ‘When did
you
turn into Miz Cynical and a half?’