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New York

Tawny Lascelles was partying in a club on Gansevoort Street, less with friends than with tolerable randoms who were out to get papped with anyone who was anyone and, better still, the most desirable supermodel on the scene. Who cared if the hangers-on were genuine, so long as they were the right level of attractive? Which basically meant attractive enough to act as a plumping cushion for Tawny’s irresistible jewel, but not so pretty as to rival her in any discernible way. Tawny did not like to be rivalled.

It was survive on your own in this industry, or don’t survive at all.

Tawny was fresh from this afternoon’s FNYC shoot, her first for Angela Silvers’ tag as it announced the launch of its hyped new range. Working with the upcoming label was her most envied gig to date. She treasured the bitten expressions on her fellow models’ faces as yet another deal went her way. Tawny snagged all the major names. Why? Because she was outrageously stunning, she chilled with the right people and she flirted on that line between innocence and danger that, for all the hard work in the world, models either possessed or they didn’t.

‘Everyone in here’s, like, staring at you,’ teased her wardrobe girl, Minty.

Tawny sighed, sipping vodka as her blue eyes scoped the room.

‘Check out Tess Barnes’ sherbet drainpipes!’ she purred. ‘So unflattering.’

‘I know, sack the stylist.’

‘I like her T-shirt though.’

‘Not as cute as yours.’

‘Serious?’

‘Sure. She’s too bony.’

‘Or I’m too fat?’ Tawny’s retort was quick as a whip.

‘Shit, no! God. You, fat? Come on, you’re the only model that exists right now, far as the bookings go. Tess Barnes is so yesterday. You, babe, are today.’

Minty’s deft brushwork, credited with awarding Tawny the most striking and replicated eyebrows of the decade, was almost as impressive as her charm offensive, which was subtle enough not to be noted by Tawny but sufficiently forceful as to make her utterly indispensable to her number-one client. Tawny, like most models, thrived on compliments. Minty was the best at giving them.

‘I’m bored,’ said Tawny, as Kevin Chase’s new record came on and everyone flocked to the dance floor. ‘Wanna get high?’

The girls vanished into the bathroom. Tawny took a compact from her purse. When she had first been snapped with halos of powder round her nostrils, her manager had freaked and several pussy brands had backed out of their contracts. Now, it was expected—even encouraged. She was a supermodel, not a role model.

Tawny clocked him as soon as they emerged.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘There’s that jerk-off I met in LA.’

‘Who?’

Tawny flicked her mane. ‘Jacob Lyle.’

‘Really? Where?’ Minty’s voice dropped. ‘Shit, he’s sexy, isn’t he?’

‘If you say so.’

‘Not for you?’

‘He’s so full of himself it’s coming out his ass.’

Minty giggled. ‘Should we go say hello?’ she asked.

‘No way—he’s a fucking perv.’

But Minty saw how Tawny narrowed her eyes, checking that if Jacob Lyle were indeed a perv, then he would be perving exclusively on her. It was the same story wherever they went: Tawny had to be the most attractive girl in the room and, eleven times out of ten, she was. What was it with models? They had been given exteriors most girls could only dream of, yet however gorgeous or successful they became, the jaws of insecurity went eternally snapping at their Louboutin heels. Tawny was legendary for her constant appraisal of other women. Despite being tagged the World’s Most Beautiful, the Sexiest American or the Most Significant Style Icon Since Marilyn Monroe, the supermodel existed in fear of her crown being snatched.

Other women were perpetual and dreadful threats. Minty recalled a gallery opening they had been invited to last year, from which Tawny had demanded to leave almost immediately. She never admitted it, but Minty knew. Another woman at the function had been enticing male attention: Celeste Cavalieri, the Italian jeweller. Celeste’s allure was at the other end of the spectrum from Tawny’s: she was thin and petite, with a pixie crop of sable hair and deerskin-brown eyes. Celeste’s beauty was quiet. It did not shout from the rooftops and it did not flaunt or strut. It did not even know itself.

Celeste hadn’t noticed the attention—let alone cared. Tawny couldn’t bear it.

‘Did Jacob come on to you?’ Minty asked now, keeping their exchange on safe ground.

‘Yeah.’ Tawny polished off the vodka. ‘Course.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I can’t remember.’

But that was a lie. Tawny remembered every word. Sometimes she replayed it in her mind and it turned her on so much that she had to vanish into the nearest toilet cubicle and plunge her fingers into her knickers until she came.

‘If you’re so hot on Mr Lyle,’ Tawny commented, ‘he’s all yours.’

It stank of bullshit. The thought of Minty Patrick receiving Jacob’s attentions was unthinkable. Jacob had been enamoured by her, by Tawny; his tongue had practically been hanging out of his mouth. Tawny knew he was a blatant, shameless womaniser, the kind of arrogant that, while you sussed it, was irritatingly appealing, and she recalled the flutter of interest when it emerged he’d once referred to university campuses (Jacob’s preferred haunts for checking out fresh talent, business or otherwise) as ‘cam-pussies’, for the sheer number of girls he bedded. This sort of thing ought to send women screaming for the hills, but somehow, with Jacob’s swag, had them screaming in their beds at night with a dildo vibrating between their legs.

Tawny was the fairest of them all—and she planned to make Jacob work for it.

‘We’re going.’ She grabbed her purse.

‘What? Already?’

‘Tell JP to send a car.’

After another toilet refreshment, the women took the elevator down to the street. It was a cold night and Tawny wrapped her fur tighter as they were ushered into a hovering car. Deliberately she faced away from the road opposite. The only downside to her beloved Tower Club was its neighbouring joint, the gritty, grimy Rams & Rude Girls Dancing Bar. As usual, the memories clung on, dripping poison.

Tawny had been a different girl when she had first arrived in New York.

Another life. One she could never, ever go back to.

She’d had nothing and no one. Running from Sunnydale, the hick town where she’d grown up, Tawny Linden had been an ugly duckling desperate to make something of her future. Maybe she would become an actress, or write a film script, or find a rich boyfriend. Instead, she had been picked up by Nathan, a man who made his living skulking the subway and collecting waifs and strays like old coins.

Beyond her lank hair, train-tracks and wide, trusting eyes, Nathan had seen Tawny’s potential. Bar work, he’d sold it as. Good pay. The start of a new chapter …

She should go with him, he said. He would look after her.

Nathan certainly did—and then some. He looked after her every morning. Every night. Every hour in between, until she was sore and ragged and weeping …

Tawny Linden had been powerless to leave. She could not go back. The Rams was the closest thing she had to a home and, over the coming months, as her beauty surfaced and her duckling became a swan, she began to bat for the big league.

That was when the competition really got going.

It was always a question of which Rams girls the punters wanted that night, who was prettiest and who they were prepared to pay most for. That was how the girls earned their keep. From the beginning Tawny understood she had to be the chosen girl, always, every time—she had to be the hottest, the most willing, the sexiest and the best—in case the Rams decided she wasn’t bagging the dollars and fired her ass out onto the street. She’d have ended up a hooker, just another sunken-eyed junkie begging for dimes. OK, the work wasn’t easy—the men she was forced to service, the things they had made her do—but it was a damn sight better than that.

Thank Christ she had gotten out when she did.

‘You OK?’ asked Minty. ‘You look like you saw a ghost.’

Manhattan rushed past. The Mercedes was warm, the seats plush. Tawny lit a cigarette and opened the window, flicking the butt with red-painted talons.

‘I’m better than OK,’ she said. ‘I’m Tawny Lascelles.’

Minty gave a nervous laugh.

‘No kidding,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you always been?’

But Tawny didn’t reply.