Mistress-of-the-Game - By Tilly Bagshawe Sidney Sheldon Page 0,22

Mike in bed, she pulled on yesterday's clothes without even taking a shower and hurried across town. As she slipped her key into the front door, she heard a loud bang. Heart pounding, she followed the raised voices in the direction of the study. She burst in just in time to see her employer aiming a shiny black pistol directly at his four-year-old daughter's head.

Peter needed to think, but he couldn't. The whistling in his head was so loud he wanted to cry. Suddenly he was crying. He opened his eyes and looked at Lexi's face.

She's so like Alex.

A second shot rang out.

The whistling stopped.
Chapter Five

MAX WEBSTER TOOK THE SHINY RED PACKAGE FROM HIS mother and turned it over excitedly in his hands.

It was heavy. Something solid. He decided it was probably not a toy, despite the childish wrapping paper and jauntily scribbled HAPPY BIRTHDAY in gold glitter across the top.

"What is it?"

Eve Blackwell smiled at her son, her eyes dancing with anticipation.

"Open it and find out."

It was Max's eighth birthday. A striking child, with a predatory, aquiline nose, ink-black eyes to match his hair, and cheekbones most fashion models would have killed for, there was something both feminine and adult about him. Max had none of the fat-cheeked innocence of his friends. Max was knowing. He was lean. He was wild. If other little boys were puppies, Max Webster was a cougar in their midst, as dangerous as he was beautiful.

Less than an hour ago, the Fifth Avenue penthouse Max shared with his parents had been crammed to bursting with fat-cheeked, eight-year-old puppies, all eager to ingratiate themselves with their famous classmate. The party had been Max's father's idea.

Keith Webster said: "The boy needs friends, Eve. He needs to socialize. It's not normal for a kid his age to spend every minute of his free time with his mother."

Eve did not object. She simply retired to her bedroom for the duration, locking the door. The party went ahead, and Max was inundated with presents: Transformers and Skalectrix and Hornby train sets and Action Men galore. Everybody ate a lot of cake and s'mores and drank Coke till it came shooting out of their noses in frothy black torrents. Keith Webster took pictures.

Afterward Keith Webster asked his son: "So, sport, d'you have a good time?" His face beamed with love and pride.

Max nodded. Sure, Dad. It was great.

Max waited for Keith Webster to leave. Sunday night was Keith's regular softball game. He and some of the other surgeons from the hospital had gotten a team together to help relieve the stress of their life-and-death jobs. As soon as Max heard the click of the front door, he went in search of his mother.

"Are they gone?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"All of them?"

"Yes. It's just us now. I'm sorry it took so long."

Eve unlocked her bedroom door. Dressed in a chocolate silk kimono-style robe that fell open at the front to reveal matching lace underwear, she pulled her son close. At eight, Max was still a fairly short child. The top of his dark, gypsy head reached just above Eve's navel. Pressing his cheek against her smooth, flat stomach, she felt him inhaling her scent, a mixture of Eve's own feral smell and the Chanel perfume she had worn since girlhood.

All Max did was breathe. But Eve could feel the adoration in his small, compact body. A familiar rush of power made her flesh tingle.

"Come, sit down on Mommy's bed. You can have your special present now."

Max watched, delighted, as his mother retrieved the package from her glove drawer. This was what he'd been waiting for. Not some asinine party with a bunch of kids from school who'd only come over in the first place because they wanted to gawk at his mom. As if Max would ever let that happen!

He thought again about Keith Webster. His father. How he loathed him.

So, sport, d'you have fun?

Fun? With you?

Max longed for the day when Keith Webster would be gone. Then he would have his beautiful mommy all to himself. Then he could finally stop pretending.

With trembling hands, he tore at the wrapping paper. Inside he saw a glint of black metal. A train?

"Do you like it?"

Eve's voice was husky, barely a whisper. Max gazed at her face. With the outside world, his mother always went to great lengths to hide herself. But not with him. Max was special. He got to see the real Eve Blackwell, scars and all. He loved her so much it sometimes