Victoria Fox - Power Games

‘Always a fun read!’ — Jackie Collins

‘Quite simply the best “bonkbuster” you’ll read all year.’

—Daily Express

‘Must Read’

—Real People

‘Oozes glamour and revenge. The ultimate beach read’

—All About Soap

‘A proper guilty pleasure’

—Now

‘Fans of glamorous bonkbusters will enjoy’

—Heat

‘Victoria Fox’s glossy chick-lit novel gives Jackie Collins a run for her money.’

—Irish Tatler

‘It’s the best bonkbuster.’ —The Sun

‘Even we were shocked at the scale of scandal in this juicy tale! It’s 600 pages of sin!’

—Now

‘This debut novel is full of sex, glamour and divas!’ 4 stars

—Star

‘For a trip to ultimate escapism, take the Jackie Collins freeway, turn left at Sexy Street, right at Scandal Boulevard. Your destination is Victoria Fox’s Hollywood.’

—dailyrecord.co.uk

For Madeleine Milburn

Thank you to Maddy, my agent and my friend, for more with every book.

To my brilliant editor, Sally Williamson, for drawing the best out of this novel, for her fabulous ideas, and for always pushing me to potential; and to the superb team at Harlequin UK: Mandy Ferguson, Tim Cooper, Nick Bates, Alison Lindsay, Donna Hillyer, Jenny Hutton, Ali Wilkinson, Elise Windmill and Helen Findlay.

To Cara Lee Simpson for her excellent notes on Power Games , and to Oliver Rhodes for his publishing prowess. To the guys at Cherish PR, especially Rebecca Oatley, Sam Allen and Shane Herrington: you make my dreams come true!

To Jo and Jeff Croot for helping straighten the plot; to Kim Young for Kevin and the Little Chasers; to Louis Boroditsky for his fantastic support; to Toria and Mark for going Bear Grylls; and to Rosie Walsh, Jenny Hayes, Vanessa Neuling and Kate Wilde for their friendship and writerly advice.

Cover

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

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PART TWO

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EPILOGUE

Endpage

Copyright

Koloku Island, Southeast Asia, the Palaccas Archipelago

July 1, 2014

The jungle comes alive at night.

In the darkness strange shapes creep and fold. Liquid shadows are black as ink and the undergrowth moves. Things shift unseen, slipping beneath leaf-silk. The air quivers, hot and clenched. It smells of the colour green, fragrant and private; and the purple sky, glimpsed in diamonds through a trembling canopy, is bursting with stars.

There is no safe way to arrive on these shores. The water is shark-infested, the land crawls and seethes. It is a forbidden paradise set apart from the world, and it does not welcome visitors. Peril lurks in swamps. Cat snakes drip from trees. Leopards prowl with silent intent, eyes gleaming gold at the scent of the kill. On a far-off branch, the panicked screech of a proboscis monkey rips through the pregnant heat, high and taut and violent. Fruit bats clap leathery wings.

It is impossible to see in the depths of the rainforest. Dense threads thick as rope are damp and fat and scented like rot. Enquiringly they finger the skin, coiling around wrist, knee or ankle, tethering any who trespass into the sucking, clinging earth. This is no place for humans. The wilderness took over a long time ago.

Beyond a wall of jade, the beach is torn into view. Cliff shards soar, rugged and sheer, their lofty peaks silhouetted against star-crust, prehistoric and bone-sharp. Rivers thread vein-like into the slithering jungle and grottos are sliced out of the rock, interiors caked in salt. Palm trees rise like swords against the sky, a hundred feet up, maybe more. The indigo lagoon shimmers like silk, kissing the pink crust of the reef, beyond which spreads the wide, dark Aralanda Sea. Water whispers onto sand, sighing as satin over pale shoulders. It brings secrets from the far-off Pacific, drifting them onto the shore like shells, for nobody to hear and nobody to pick up.

Everything is still.

The jet appears at first like a silver comet. It is small, a moving star, but to blink will draw it into focus, its clean, light contours and the tipping line of its wings. It falls closer, glinting against the lilac clouds. Too quick it is eating up distance, eerily noiseless as it falls and falls over glittering black, reaching for the moonlit bay.

Smoke trails from the rear, dissolving into the indifferent dark. There is a flash of hot orange, close to the tail. The sky begins to growl.

With a crash the body plummets through the canopy. Profuse thickets resist its mighty onslaught, breaking the descent. Thunder blasts as the fuselage guillotines through trees. The forest shrieks. There is an explosion of birds’ wings.

The captain has a second to think before the windshield bursts and a jagged shaft breaks through, neat as a splinter, impaling him through his chest. His lungs are demolished; his breath is crushed. He is surprised. He wasn’t meant to die today. The last person he thinks of is the woman who sold him his coffee that morning in Jakarta, her light, smiling eyes and the sweetness of the liquid on his tongue. Blood spills from his mouth and he slumps forward, chin on chest, and stops living.

It is a peculiar quirk of fortune that prevents the jet from slamming into hard ground: later, those on board will realise that the forest saved their lives—and curse it for it. Instead, the stricken plane shudders through foliage, hell-bent on its manic detour, battered by rocks and the thump of knotted branch. Parts fall away. The mammoth trunk of a chengal tree severs one wing, flipping the missile. It breaks up, an eagle in the skies but down here little but haphazard pieces of fractured metal. In the cockpit the overhead panel collapses, knocking the first officer cold.

What is left carves a giant wound through the undergrowth. Despite the broken plunge, the impact is severe. The aircraft groans to an uncertain, injured rest, slashed with mud and green. The moon bathes it in light, like a pearl.

Of the seven passengers who boarded that morning, three are men and four are women. It is unclear who is left.

One is smeared with red, her face and neck sticky with salt and iron, though she cannot decipher through her terror if it is her blood or another’s.