Temptation Island (63 page)

Authors: Victoria Fox

Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #Fiction

‘It could have been worse.’

‘Could it?’

‘
Did
you screw him?’

Robin was aghast. ‘Who, Leon?’ she demanded, outraged at the thought.

‘No!’ Polly named the contestant. ‘Although Mr Sway, well, you have to admit—’

‘I’m warning you: don’t even go there.’ She downed the drink. ‘Anyway, what difference does it make? Everyone thinks I did, so I did. Isn’t that how it goes?’

Within minutes a tower of frosted glasses was deposited in front of them, together with several giant bottles of part-frozen vodka. An accompanying note read:

With compliments.

Her manager Barney signalled across the space. ‘Hey, Robin, check out your secret admirers.’ Close to the neon-bulb-strewn bar, just decipherable through the low-lit shadows that gave way to pockets of absolute dark, Olympian Jax Jackson, officially the fastest man in the world, was partying with a harem of lovelies. Jax raised a glass and Robin prayed he wouldn’t come over: thanks to Leon he probably thought it was a free for all.

‘If we accept these you don’t have to do anything in return, right?’ Matt, her drummer, was already pouring. He winked at Robin when she raised her middle finger. ‘What? Girls never buy me drinks; it’s not like I know the rules!’

Robin tossed back a syrupy shot, then a second, then a third. Polly threw her a glance and she matched it. What was wrong with having fun? She was young and free and famous, and didn’t need anyone to tell her she deserved a fucking break.

‘What?’ she countered. ‘Aren’t we partying?’ Matt grabbed the second bottle and filled the glasses and everyone went in for a sticky collision before the liquid vanished.

‘Sure,’ said Polly, not sure at all. What Robin had gone through didn’t go away; you had to deal with it before you could move on, not get trashed till you forgot. ‘You earned it.’

‘Nah,
we
earned it,’ corrected Robin, putting one arm round Polly and one around her manager and pulling them close. ‘We’re family, aren’t we?’

Family.

Even as she said the word she could hear how hollow it sounded.

Wicked Ambition
by Victoria Fox is
available for pre-order in eBook and paperback now

If you enjoyed your trip to

TEMPTATION ISLAND

then join

Victoria Fox

on some other mini-adventures in her

Short Tales of Temptation
Rivals
Pride
Ambition

Available in eBook
Visit www.victoriafoxwrites.co.uk

Read on for a sneak peek of
Rivals

Victoria Fox

RIVALS

‘It’s
unbearably
bloody hot. Can someone get me a drink before I burst into flames?’

Emily Windermere fanned herself with small, porcelain hands, gazing whimsically upon her beauty in the makeup girl’s mirror. Even when she was roasting beneath layers of net and taffeta, trussed up in a bodice and choked by a necklace of ribbons, her wide-eyed reflection—those pools of hazel bordered by delicate lashes, that thicket of copper framing a flawless, cream-skinned complexion—remained as serenely lovely as an English garden on the first day of spring.

It was the English summer that was the problem.

‘Ugh! Wasps!’ Irritably Emily batted her arms, causing the make-up girl’s brush to stab her in the eye. ‘My God, is it too much to hope I’m not blind by the end of this?’

‘Here you go, Ms Windermere.’ A nervous runner was proffering a glass of cloudy lemonade, one of the on-set requisites stipulated by her management.

‘That’ll explain why I’m getting mauled by insects,’ she complained, accepting it all the same. ‘Can’t we take care of this inside my trailer?’

‘I need the light, I’m afraid,’ said the make-up girl through gritted teeth.

It was Friday morning, a fortnight into filming, and, contrary to the studio’s concerns that a London June wouldn’t produce
enough
light, they now had rather too much of it. The city was enduring a heatwave that showed no signs of abating, golden sun blazing across Hampstead Heath from an unbroken swimming-pool sky. Cast were sweating through Victorian petticoats and frock coats, while crew chased to allay the disgruntled company, struggling under clipboards and sound equipment and taking occasional refuge for a cigarette in the shelter of a crisp white parasol.

‘They’re ready for you,’ prompted the runner, anxiously smiling as Emily rose with majesty from her seat, mustering her lacy skirts and, with a dainty finger, removing the spot of perspiration that had gathered in her philtrum.

She thought of Christopher Fenwick awaiting her in his breeches.

‘And I’m ready for them,’ she breathed.

Don’t miss what happens next in

Rivals

Emily Windermere, darling of British film, has a starring role in the summer’s hottest period drama—but it’s her scandalous affair off-screen that’s set to raise temperatures. Meanwhile Julia Chambers has been cast as the dowdy maid yet again; she’s lived her whole life in Emily’s shadow and when her rival moves to take the one thing Julia holds dear, she decides it’s payback time.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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Published in Great Britain 2012
MIRA Books, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR

ISBN 978-1-408-96988-5