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Krug down the back of his blazer.
    ‘God, I feel nervous for Tiger. Make sure she comes out for the after party, I’d love to meet her again,’ she whispered loudly in his ear before settling back in her seat.
    Rex pictured Tiger waiting backstage right now, knowing how tense she would be, and he willed her to do well. If she pulled it off tonight and got the Vegas deal, that would mean everything to her. He crossed hisfingers out of sight and focused on the velvet curtain ahead.
    The heavy red swags parted. The first deafening brass stabs leapt from the twenty-piece big band arranged on stage. As the music swelled, the thousand-strong audience let out a huge appreciative gasp as a cascade of glittering showgirls poured from the wings, bobbing their way uniformly across the stage to the beat, led by their striking Viking-esque dance captain, Georgia. Each girl was poured into a 1950s-style gold lamé swimsuit with cutaways to show their glorious breasts, the ensemble topped off with a sparkling gold swimming cap. On stage, Barry, the first trumpet, could be seen cowering as the army of pneumatic, nipple-tasselled showgirls advanced on him with vigour.
    Underneath the stage, wedged uncomfortably in the elevator underneath the trap door, trussed up in her glamorous Hollywood bedtime attire, Tiger’s stomach churned. She hated this wait, she always felt she needed the bathroom right about … now.
    ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came the voice of God announcement, cutting through the excited gasps and rendering the audience rapt, ‘welcome to the Savoy Theatre! Without further ado, please welcome on stage the star of this evening’s show! She’s the ultimate bomb-shell! She’s our own national treasure! She’s the incomparable, the one and only … Tigerrrrrrr Starrrrrrr!’
    The last words were lost as the crowd erupted in to something like the cheer that went up when Arsenal had slaughtered Chelsea the previous week. As the platform slowly rose, bringing Tiger up onto the stage through a haze of dry ice, the heat from the spotlight hit her instantly like the comforting rays of the sun. She trembled
en pointe
like the wings of a majestic butterfly as she felt the vibrations from a thousand pairs of hands clapping and feet stamping the floor, whilst her chorus girls paraded round her glass-fronted slipper bath on the central plinth. Looking out from the stage, Tiger was blinded by the lights, her audience merely a smoky chasm of black beyond the first two rows. A hit of adrenalin coursed through her as she elegantly fluttered across the plinth before stretching her strong gleaming legs into a positively leisurely arabesque. Immediately drawing her audience in with her feline gaze, she playfully prepared to take her bath, twinkling on tippy toe as she teased off her diaphanous bathrobe and satin corset, before bending over in a most suggestively supple manner to loosen the silky ribbons of her ballet slippers and reveal her cute red-painted toes. She beamed into the crowd, inwardly thanking her stars that she couldn’t see the faces out there, especially tonight.
    Fourth row from the front, slouched deep in his velvet seat and sporting his usual pinstripes, black Brylcreemed hair and a stubbled jawline that was more accident than design, Tiger’s manager Lewis felt a tic start in his cheek,adding to his general air of a brooding Mafiosi. He kept one eye on the poker faces of the Luxuriana Grande scouts, hoping to detect a hint of a reaction. The deafening cheers of the glamorous crowds did little to sate him. Annoyingly, Lewis could hear Blue gushing on about the costumes right in the next seat, grating on him like a buzzing fly. Grabbing the nearest thing to hand, he jabbed his Mont Blanc pen violently into Blue’s side, silencing him swiftly.
    Flicking his attention to the stage Lewis watched Tiger carefully. He registered a spark of fire brimming in her eyes, detectable only to someone who had worked with her for a