RICKI

The sex toy catalog was glossy, tasteful, full of subtle typefaces and swaths of cool, corporate gray. If you didn’t look closely you might think it was advertising office furniture, not vibrators and color-coordinated bondage accessories. I flipped it closed on the blotter of my desk and pushed it toward my sister, Gwen.

“Do we have it in the budget?” was my only question to her.

Gwen silently mouthed the word “Jaded!” at me, before actually speaking. “Seriously, Ricki? Could you stop thinking like an MBA for half a second? You didn’t even get past the dildos to the leather section. There’s a whole selection of handmade whips and floggers—”

“I don’t care if they’re made of organically sourced fair trade yak hide,” I said, waving my hand as if dispelling a cloud of smoke. “Sex toys are sex toys. Is it in the budget?”

“Yes, it’s in the budget,” she said sullenly, settling back in her chair. Her eyes darted around my office. I’d tried to neaten up the place since taking it over after my grandfather’s death, but two months later there were still vestiges of his eccentric taste. I hadn’t figured out what to do with the seven-foot-high carved wooden statue of an eagle, for example. And I’d kept his massive oak desk, as big as a dining table.

I liked the desk. I leaned back in my own chair, kicked off my heels, and put my stockinged feet up onto it. “Don’t sulk, Gwen.”

“You know it’s a good idea,” she said defensively. “Kresley Palmer’s daughter almost discovered his vibrator collection in the back of his car. Plus we’ll reduce liability by maintaining and cleaning them ourselves—”

“Didn’t you just say it was in the budget? Buy all the sex toys you want, Gwen. It’s a great idea. Maybe look into installing private lockers, too.” Providing our members with everything they needed on site so they didn’t have to transport incriminating implements made good sense.

What didn’t make as much sense, though I tried not to dwell on it, was the fact that the two twenty-something granddaughters of one of Hollywood’s richest moguls were running a secret sex dungeon in the family mansion. But our grandfather Raymond “Cy” Hamilton had left some very odd requirements in his will. Some I could almost understand, like the one that said if I wanted to work for the family corporation—the former Coast to Coast Pictures, now simply known as CTC—I had to work somewhere else for at least three years. I would even have understood if the will had said to destroy all evidence of the dungeon and never speak of it again. But no. The price of our inheritance: keep the tradition alive.

“Your mouth is saying yes but your attitude is no,” Gwen said, her slim blond eyebrows drawn together with concern. “You don’t look thrilled.”

“It’s not my job to be thrilled.” My feet ached and I pulled one toward me to rub it. “Honestly. What’s the point of running a secret BDSM club if I don’t have a slaveboy to give foot rubs?”

Gwen’s thin smile was sly. “That could be arranged, you know—”

“I was joking!” I put my feet down quickly. “Seriously, Gwen. Equipment, employee safety, that’s all you. Administration, membership, that’s me. You do the hands-on stuff; I do the back-office stuff. Isn’t that what we agreed?”

“Yes.” She sighed.

“So quit trying to get me to be more involved in your side of it. I’m not interested.”

“You just seem like you’re not having much fun,” she said.

I wasn’t sure why Gwen thought running a secret sex club should be fun. To me it was a sword hanging over our heads, a PR nightmare waiting to happen. If it was “fun,” Grandpa Cy wouldn’t have felt the need to include it as a requirement for our inheritance. Why should something that was founded to jazz up my grandparents’ marriage be relevant to my life? Our parents had even met at one of the club parties, when our mother had been an aspiring actress and our father had been bent on proving he was a chip off the old block. If only Dad had inherited Grandpa Cy’s business sense instead of his taste in sex.

I’m sure most people didn’t know as much about their parents’ sex lives as we did. Then again, most people’s family legacy wasn’t a secret dungeon in their mansion. Though I supposed in a way that wasn’t any worse than the legacy we already carried—of our mother’s death when we were young. I preferred not to think about that if I could help it.

“Look, Gwen. I have plenty of fun—” I started to assure her, but then the old intercom speaker on the desk buzzed and the voice of my assistant Paul cut me off.

“Grammy time, Ms. Hamilton. Five minutes until the stylist gets here,” he said. “Her car just cleared the main security gate. And Jamison says wardrobe is finished with your friend Sakura.”

I hopped to my feet with a frustrated groan. We’d spent so much time talking about sex toys that I hadn’t had a chance to bring up the issue I’d actually wanted to discuss with Gwen. The rest of the day and night was packed: first the Grammy Awards ceremony, maybe a quick stop at a party at Blue Star Entertainment, and then the after-party here at the mansion. Not that kind of party: a normal Hollywood glitterati affair. Maybe tonight I’d finally buttonhole David Meyers on that proposal about a new division of Blue Star. I wasn’t above waiting until my boss was full of champagne to approach him. Gwen and I would have to talk tomorrow after the staff had cleaned up and we had the house to ourselves again.

“See?” I said. “I get to have fun. Grammy Awards.”

Gwen gave me a skeptical look. “Yep. You look over the moon about it.” She swept up the catalog. “I’ll be watching on TV with a bowl of popcorn and get into my party dress later.”

Her plan sounded like more fun than mine, but I wasn’t about to admit that. The intercom speaker buzzed again.

“Um,” came Paul’s voice, somewhat tentative this time. “Code Blue.”

That was our warning that our father, the titular Hamilton patriarch, was on the premises. Why was everything in my life a ticking time bomb of a PR disaster? Which would be worse, I thought angrily, the press getting a hold of Dad on one of his drunken rants or them finding out about the bondage equipment filling the basement? Worst-case scenario: them finding out about the dungeon during one of his drunken rants … My head started to hurt as Gwen and I looked at each other in slight alarm. “I thought Dad was in St. Maarten.”

“So did I.”

She hopped to her feet. “You go get dressed. I’ll handle him.”

“Are you sure?”

She shooed me out of the office with brisk motions of her hands. “Go, go, go. He’s probably half-pickled already anyway. With any luck he’ll be unconscious before the first guest gets here. Don’t worry, Ricki.”

Don’t worry, don’t worry. Why were people always telling me not to worry? All it did was make me worry more. What were the chances Dad even realized it was Grammy night? The staff was adept at handling him. Gwen was right. They’d either find him a bottle or a woman to keep him busy—or both. That had been the usual state of affairs for most of our lives and was a large part of the reason Grandpa Cy had passed the managing of the estate directly into Gwen’s and my hands instead of our father’s. How many years would I have to walk this tightrope before I could start living the life I really wanted to, running a film division of CTC? Right then I wanted to go upstairs and curl up with a good book, but it was my job to go out and put on a good public face, to make myself into a player in this industry, so that when they looked at me they didn’t see poor Cy Hamilton’s half-orphaned granddaughter or the mistress of the most notorious kinky secret in Hollywood.

I’d have to worry about Dad later. Right now at the top of my to-do list was fitting into a designer ball gown. Deep breath, Ricki. You can do this.

AXEL

Grammy night. I suppose I should have paused to reflect what a significant moment in my career was happening, but I was too busy arguing with my manager. Nothing like having a snitty row with your manager while your stylist is trying to work on you. I put my phone on speaker and laid it down next to the huge, lit mirror facing me so that I wouldn’t be holding the thing to my ear while Tashonda worked on my hair.

“Christina,” I told her, “you’re on speaker phone now.”

“Axel, if you think that’s going to keep me from cursing in front of Tashonda you are so wrong.” Her voice was tinny but perfectly understandable. “Hey, Tashonda—how’s it going?”

“It’s going fine.” Tashonda worked the spray bottle and teased my hair with her fingers, trying to achieve the perfect “messily tousled” look. She had already streaked me with blond highlights. I sighed. I didn’t get into the rock-and-roll business because I liked to be primped and fussed over. “I’m thinking of putting rhinestones on the ends of his eyebrows, though; what do you think?”

“Fuck no,” I said, but Christina practically screamed, “Ah! That’s fantastic! Axel, you’ll have the diamond stud in your ear, right? And the cuff links?”

Ugh. These women. “Yes, ma’am,” I said in my best “good boy” voice. I already felt like a poodle in a rhinestone collar and I guess I was going to look like one, too. But as Christina had pointed out many times, my fans were women, the ones who bought the front row seats and the VIP packages and had made the album go platinum: women. And as she constantly reminded me: she was a woman and knew what women went crazy for. I was pretty sure I had a good handle on what drove women crazy myself, but, well, she hadn’t steered me wrong yet. “I’m not sure the diamonds say ‘edgy-sexy,’ you know.”

“But they do say posh. And I think we need more posh if we’re going to get that UK record company bidding on the rights to the next record. Tashonda, you’re making him look cream-in-your-pants stunning but just a touch disreputable, right? We’re so done with the ragamuffin look.”

“Yep. I’m cleaning him up nice—you’re going to love the blond—but I’m leaving a little beard stubble,” the stylist said. “That’s what you want, right? Your memo said to upscale his usual ‘bad boy’ look.”

Christina didn’t wait to hear any more before she barreled on. “Exactly. This is edgy-sexy phase two, from bad boy to playboy, okay? Back to what I was saying. Axel, I don’t like this date you’re bringing tonight. This is a big spotlight.”

“And I told you, it’s too late to change it. You know how fussy they are at these awards ceremonies? Security on Buckingham Palace isn’t half as tight. Plus I think Sakura spent her entire month’s income on a dress. Chris, I’m not jilting her even if you’ve got Scarlett Johansson lined up.”

“But Axel—”

“No buts, Chris. I know this is all about image—”

“It’s the Grammy Awards! There will be a billion photos of you and her! There are rumors about her, you know.”

I closed my eyes while Tashonda held her palm against my forehead and hairsprayed my forelock. I guess the “wet look” was back. When I could breathe again, I said, “Come on, Chris, those rumors should just go along with the whole edgy-sexy image to begin with, right?” If she only knew …

“Not that kind of bad, though! Are you paying her to go to this?”

“No, I’m not paying her! We’re friends, Chris. I’m allowed to have friends. And I’m allowed to choose my friends. The day I’m not is the day I’m walking away.” Right. Like I could walk away from a platinum-selling rock band and musical career. I was bluffing, but one had to draw the line somewhere.

Christina let loose a string of Catholic curses that showed her Filipino upbringing. I didn’t even know some of the saints she invoked to express herself. But she relented. “Don’t make me sorry about this.”

“I won’t. Besides, it’s a double date with Sakura’s former college roommate. Someone you might have heard of. Ricki Hamilton?”

“What? The Hamilton heiress?” Christina shrieked with glee. “She and her sister are worth billions! Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I just did.”

“And who’s her date—who who who?”

“I have no idea, Chris. The limo will be here in—?”

“Twenty minutes,” Tashonda said firmly. She looked at me critically with a rhinestone poised on the tip of her index finger.

I gave her a smoldering look and mouthed almost silently, so Christina couldn’t hear: “Bad boys don’t wear rhinestones. Come on.”

“Hm,” she said, tilting her face toward the phone. “Christina, not sure this rhinestone idea is going to work.”

“No? Are you sure?”

“Don’t want to overdo it, you know? With the close-ups on high-def TV, it might actually be too much sparkle. There will be glare.”

“Oh.” Christina sounded deflated. “Well, see you at the after-parties. Later, Axel.”

“Later, Christina.” I clicked off the phone and hopped out of the chair, catching Tashonda around the waist and twirling her as if we were on ice. Then I dipped her and planted a kiss right on her sternum where her shirt’s neckline plunged. “Thanks,” I said, as I righted her. “For everything.”

She said nothing but fanned herself with an open hand as I sauntered away.