An addictive, edge-of-your-seat thriller filled with the hallmark elements that made New York Times bestselling author Sidney Sheldon--"the master of the story-telling game" (People)--an international legend: shocking twists, money, power, and betrayal involving an influential family and the beautiful and formidable woman at its center whose dark secrets can destroy them all.
The conservative party's newest superstar, Alexia De Vere has worked hard to realize her political ambitions. The brilliant and ruthless wife of wealthy aristocrat Teddy De Vere, Alexia relishes her power and the control it gives her to shape and destroy lives.
Yet success has also demanded sacrifice. Her daughter, Roxie, a bitter young woman confined to a wheelchair after a failed suicide attempt, blames Alexia for ruining her life. Alexia's dashing son, Michael, is risking the family's good name to jump-start his entre-preneurial dreams. Thankfully, Alexia has Teddy, her devoted husband who will stop at nothing to protect her.
But beneath Alexia De Vere's gilded life and formidable facade lie secrets that are ugly, dirty, and deadly. When long-buried mistakes of her youth begin to resurface, old hatreds are rekindled and Alexia finds herself on the brink of losing everything--her power, her family, and even her own life. Now the woman who rose so high is on the brink of a perilous fall. For when the tides of memory rise, the only thing that might save her is the truth. . .
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
“Was
there anything else, Home Secretary?”
Alexia
De Vere smiled. Home
Secretary. Surely
the most beautiful two words in the English language. Except forPrime
Minister, of
course. The Tory party’s newest superstar laughed at herself. One
step at a time, Alexia.
“No
thank you Edward. I’ll call if I need you.”
Sir
Edward Manning nodded briefly and left the room. A senior civil
servant in his early sixties and bastion of the Westminster political
establishment, Sir Edward Manning was as tall and grey and rigid as a
matchstick. In the coming months, Sir Edward would be Alexia De
Vere’s constant companion: advising, cautioning, expertly guiding
her through the maze of Home Office politics. But right now, in these
first few hours in the job, Alexia De Vere wanted to be alone. She
wanted to savor the sweet taste of victory without an audience. To
sit back and revel in the profound thrill of power.
After
all, she’d earned it.
Getting
up from her desk, she paced around her new office, a vast eyrie of a
room perched high in one of the baroque towers of the Palace of
Westminster. The interior design was more functional than fabulous. A
matching pair of ugly brown sofas at one end (those
must go),
a simple desk and chair at the other, and a bookcase stuffed with
dusty, un-read tomes of political history. But none of that mattered
once you saw the view. Spectacular didn’t begin to cover it. Floor
to ceiling windows provided a panoramic vista of London, from the
towers of Canary Wharf in the east to the mansions of Chelsea in the
west. It was a view that said one thing and one thing only.
Power.
And
it was all hers.
I
am theHome Secretary of Great Britain. The second most important
member of Her Majesty’s Government.
How
had it happened? How had a junior prisons minister, and a deeply
unpopular one at that, leapfrogged so many other senior candidates to
land the big job? Poor Kevin Lomax over at Trade & Industry must
be spitting yellow, coffee-stained teeth. The thought made Alexia De
Vere feel warm inside. Patronizing
old fossil. He wrote me off years ago, but who’s laughing now?
Pilloried
in the press for being wealthy, aristocratic and out-of-touch with
ordinary voters, and dubbed the new Iron Lady by the tabloids, Alexia
De Vere’’s sentencing reform bill had been savaged by MPs on both
sides of the house for being ‘compassionless’ and ‘brutal.’
No parole sentences might work in America, a country so barbaric they
still had the death penalty. But they weren’t going to fly here, in
civilized Great Britain.
That’s
what theysaid.
But
when push came to shove, they’d all voted the bill through.
Cowards.
Cowards and hypocrites the lot of them.
Alexia
De Vere knew how unpopular the bill had made her, with colleagues,
with the media, with lower income voters. So she was as shocked as
everyone else when the Prime Minister, Henry Whitman, chose to
appoint her as his Home Secretary. But she didn’t dwell on it. The
fact was, Henry Whitmanhad
appointed her. At the end of the day that was all that mattered.
Reaching
into a box, Alexia pulled out some family photographs. She preferred
to keep her work and home lives separate, but these days everyone was
so touchy-feely, having pictures of one’s children on one’s desk
had become de rigeur.
There
was her daughter Roxie at eighteen, her blonde head thrown back,
laughing. How Alexia missed that laugh. Of course, the picture had
been taken before the accident.
The
accident Alexia
De Vere hated the euphemism for her daughter’s suicide attempt, a
three story leap that had left Roxie wheelchair bound for the rest of
her life. In Alexia’s view, one should call a spade a spade. But
Alexia’s husband, Teddy insisted on it. Dear
Teddy. He always was a soft touch.
Placing
her husband’s photograph next to their daughter’s, Alexia smiled.
An unprepossessing, paunchy middle aged man, with thinning hair and
permanently ruddy cheeks, Teddy De Vere beamed at the camera like a
lovable bear.
How
different my life would have been without him.
How much, how very much, I owe him.
Of
course, Teddy De Vere was not the only man to whom Alexia owed her
good fortune. There was Henry Whitman, the new Tory Prime Minister
and Alexia’s self-appointed political mentor. And somewhere, far,
far away from here, there was another man. A good man. A man who had
helped her.
But
she mustn’t think about that man. Not now. Not today.
Today
was a day of triumph and celebration. It was no time for regrets.
The
third picture was of Alexia’s son, Michael. What an insanely
beautiful boy he was, with his dark curls and slate-grey eyes and
that mischievous smile that melted female hearts from a thousand
paces. Sometimes Alexia thought that Michael was the only person on
earth she had ever loved unconditionally. Roxie ought to fall into
that category too, but after everything that had happened between
them, the bad blood had poisoned the relationship beyond repair
After
the photographs it was time for the congratulations cards, which had
been arriving in a steady stream since Alexia’s shock appointment
was announced two days earlier. Most of them were dull, corporate
affairs sent by lobbyists or constituency hangers-on. They had
pictures of popping champagne bottles or dreary floral still-lifes.
But one card in particular immediately caught Alexia’s eye. Against
a stars and stripes background, the words ‘YOU ROCK!” were
emblazoned in garish gold. The message inside read:
‘Congratulations,
darling Alexia! SO excited and SO proud of you. All my love, Lucy!!!!
xxx’
Alexia
De Vere grinned. She had very few female friends – very few friends
of any kind, in fact - but Lucy Meyer was the exception that proved
the rule. A neighbor from Martha’s Vineyard, where the De Veres
owned a summer home – Teddy had fallen in love with the island
whilst at Harvard Business School - , Lucy Meyer had become almost
like a sister. Lucy was a traditional home-maker, albeit of the
uber-wealthy variety, and as American as apple pie. Alternately
motherly and child-like, she was the sort of woman who used a lot of
exclamation points in emails and wrote her I’s with full circles
instead of dots on the top. To say that Lucy Meyer and Alexia De Vere
had little in common would be like saying that Israel and Palestine
didn’t always see exactly eye to eye. And yet the two women’s
friendship, forged over so many blissful summers on Martha’s
Vineyard, had survived all the ups and downs of Alexia’s crazy
political life.
Standing
by the window, Alexia gazed down at the Thames. From up here the
river looked benign and stately, a softly flowing ribbon of silver
snaking its silent way through the city. But down below, Alexia knew,
its currents could be deadly. Even now, at fifty nine years of age
and at the pinnacle of her career, Alexia De Vere couldn’t look at
water without feeling a shudder of foreboding. She twisted her
wedding ring nervously.
How
easily it can all be washed away! Power, happiness, even life itself.
It only takes an instant, a single unguarded instant. And it’s
gone.
Her
phone buzzed loudly.
“Sorry
to disturb you Home Secretary. But I have Ten Downing Street on line
one . I assume you’ll take the Prime Minister’s call?”
Alexia
De Vere shook her head, willing the ghosts of the past away.
“Of
course Edward. Put him through.”
South
of the river, less than a mile from Alexia De Vere’s opulent
Westminster office but a world apart, Gilbert Drake sat in Maggie’s
café, hunched over his egg and beans. A classic British ‘greasy
spoon’, complete with grime encrusted windows and a peeling
linoleum floor, Maggie’s was a popular haunt for cabbies and
builders on their way to work on the more affluent north side of the
river. Gilbert Drake was a regular. Most mornings he was chatty and
full of smiles. But not today. Staring at the picture in his
newspaper as if he’d seen a ghost, he pressed his hands to his
temples.
This
can’t be happening.
How
is this happening?
There
she was, that bitch Alexia De Vere, smiling for the camera as she
shook hands with the Prime Minister. Gilbert Drake would never forget
that face as long as he lived. The proud, jutting jaw, the disdainful
curl of the lips, the cold, steely glint of those blue eyes, as
pretty and empty and heartless as a doll’s. The caption beneath the
picture read ‘Britain’s
new Home Secretary starts work.’
Reading
the article was painful, like picking at a newly healed scab, but
Gilbert Drake forced himself to go on.
‘In
an appointment that surprised many at Westminster and wrong footed
both the media and the bookies, junior prisons minister Alexia De
Vere was named as the new Home Secretary yesterday. The Prime
Minister, Henry Whitman, has described Mrs De Vere as ‘a star’
and ‘a pivotal figure’ in his new look cabinet. Kevin Lomax, the
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who had been widely tipped
to replace Humphrey Crewe at the home office after his resignation in
March, told reporters he was ‘delighted’ to hear of Mrs De Vere’s
appointment and that he ‘hugely looked forward’ to working with
her.’
Gilbert
Drake closed his newspaper in disgust.
Gilbert’s
best friend Sanjay Patel was dead because of that bitch. Sanjay who
had protected Gilbert from the bullies at school and on their Peckham
public housing. Sanjay who’d worked hard all his life to put food
on his family’s table, and faced all life’s disappointments with
a smile. Sanjay who’d been imprisoned, wrongly imprisoned, set up
by the police, simply for trying to help a cousin to escape
persecution. Sanjay
was
dead. While that whore, that she-wolf Alexia De Vere, was riding
high, the toast of London.
It
was not to be borne. Gilbert Drake would not bear it.
The
righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their
feet in the blood of the wicked.
Maggie,
the café’s eponymous proprietress, refilled Gilbert’s mug of
tea. “Eat up, Gil. Your egg’s going cold.”
Gilbert
Drake didn’t hear her.
All
he heard were his friend Sanjay Patel’s voice begging for mercy.
Charlotte
Whitman, the Prime Minister’s wife, rolled over in bed and stroked
her husband’s chest. It was four in the morning and Henry was
awake, again, staring at the ceiling like a prisoner waiting for the
firing squad.
“What
is it Henry? What’s the matter?”
Henry
Whitman covered his wife’s hand with his.
“Nothing.
I’m not sleeping too well, that’s all. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You
would tell me if there were a problem, wouldn’t you?”
“Darling
Charlotte.” He pulled her close. “I’m the Prime Minister. My
life is nothing but problems as far as the eye can see.”
“You
know what I mean. I mean a real problem. Something you can’t
handle.”
“I’m
fine, darling, honestly. Try and go back to sleep.”
Soon
Charlotte Whitman was slumbering soundly. Henry watched her, her
words ringing in his ears.Something
you can’t handle…
Thanks
to him, Alexia De Vere’s face was on the front page of every
newspaper. Speculation about her appointment was rife, but no one
knew anything. No one except Henry Whitman. And he intended to take
the secret to his grave.
Was
Alexia De Vere a problem that he couldn’t handle? Henry Whitman
sincerely hoped not. Either way it was too late now. The appointment
was made. The deed was done.
Britain’s
new Prime Minister lay awake until dawn, just as he knew he would.
No
rest for the wicked.
