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the group of third-years chattering animatedly on their way to class, no doubt excited by the snow and the prospect of sledding at the end of the day.
    Despite the beauty of the scene, Siena’s mind was six thousand miles away. Not in her parents’ home in the Hollywood Hills but at Grandpa Duke’s in Hancock Park, far back into her childhood. Suddenly she was eight years old again, bounding up the steps of the mansion and into his arms. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth and strength of that embrace as though it were yesterday. Sitting in the hard-backed mahogany chair in Sister Mark’s underheated study, she longed for that warmth with every breath in her body.
    To her childish mind, it had all seemed so permanent. Grandpa Duke, the house, her happiness. But it had all melted away, all of it, like the Gloucestershire snow. And now here she was, as far from that happiness and comfort as it was possible to be.

CHAPTER ONE
    HANCOCK PARK, LOS ANGELES, 1975
    “Forty-eight, forty-nine . . . fifty! Nice job, Duke, you’re looking great.”
    Duke McMahon lay back on his workout mat and looked up at his trainer. Jesus Christ, these young guys all looked like shit. Sideburns like a pair of hairy runways, a brown velour jogging suit, and more gold jewelry than the fucking Mafia. No wonder so much Hollywood pussy was out there looking for an older man.
    Still, Mikey was right about one thing. Duke was looking great. He sat up and took a satisfied look at his reflection in one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that plastered the room. At sixty-four, he still had the body of a man twenty years younger, and he didn’t owe one inch of it to surgery. He hated working out with a passion, especially the goddamn sit-ups, but was infinitely vain. In his six years with Duke, Mikey had never known him to cancel a single session.
    “You still need to do some more work on your abs, you know,” Mikey chided as he watched the old man untie his sneakers and head toward the shower.
    “Yeah, and you still need to do some more work on your fucking wardrobe, man. Not to mention your hair.” Duke held up his hands in mock exasperation. “I’m telling you, buddy, you look like Cher with a three-day shadow. Get a fucking haircut!”
    Mikey laughed and turned down the blare of Mick Jagger on the record player. Duke loved his Stones.
    It was a long time since the trainer had seen him in such a chipper mood. Evidently the new girlfriend was working wonders. He knew he shouldn’t really like Duke, but he couldn’t help it. Sure, the old man was a bastard. An addictive womanizer, he treated his poor wife, Minnie, like dirt and was so right-wing—anti-gay, anti-women, anti-blacks, anti-taxes—it was totally outrageous. But he also had this incredible energy, a lust for life that seemed to draw people to him. Mikey had a lot of wealthy, famous clients—although none quite as wealthy or famous as Duke McMahon—and none of them could touch him for raw charisma.
    Emerging dripping and naked from the shower, Duke strode over to the window and looked out at the California sunshine. He’d had the gym built on the first floor of his sprawling hacienda in Hancock Park, a pale pink Spanish architectural masterpiece known to the busloads of tourists who hung around outside the gates simply as the McMahon estate. Although the estate itself had been built in the twenties, when Hancock Park was first starting to become popular with the swelling ranks of movie actors and musicians who had moved west to find fame and fortune, the interior was a bizarre mélange of modern and traditional styles.
    Minnie, Duke’s long-suffering wife, had impeccable if rather conservative taste, and many of the public rooms reflected her refined and understated influence. In striking contrast, Duke’s unashamed vulgarity and love affair with all things modern had led to some gruesome decor decisions, of which the gym was only one: The state-of-the-art music