Fame

Part Three

Chapter Eighteen

Chrissie Rasmirez arched her back and thrust her hips forward,…

Chapter Nineteen

Saskia Rasmirez rearranged the plastic Little Mermaid tea set on…

Chapter Twenty

Tish stood in the hallway at Loxley, not sure whether…

Chapter Twenty-One

The final weeks of shooting at Dorian Rasmirez’s Romanian Schloss…

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘No.’ Chrissie Rasmirez’s angular face hardened, her lips drew tighter…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dorian Rasmirez gazed sadly out of the restaurant window and…

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘We had a deal, Mike. You shook my hand, in…

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Give me twenty more bicycle crunches. Go!’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sabrina sat down at the corner table at Mastro’s, aware…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

St John’s Hospital on Santa Monica and Twentieth was comprised of…

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tish knelt down and held out her arms as the…

Chapter Twenty-Nine

For three hundred and sixty four days a year, the…

Chapter Thirty

Three thousand people gasped as one.

Chapter Thirty-One

All over Los Angeles, people were throwing lavish, glitzy parties…

Chapter Thirty-Two

Viorel stared out of the grimy taxi window at the…

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Tilly Bagshawe

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

At the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the Eighty-Fifth Academy Awards were about to get under way.

In the hushed luxury of the auditorium, opposite the vast, 130-foot stage, designed by David Rockwell especially with the Oscars in mind, two men took their seats. Tonight, their bitter feud would be settled for better or worse. It would be settled in front of their peers, the three thousand of Hollywood’s chosen sons and daughters who’d been invited to tonight’s ceremony. It would be settled in front of the estimated sixty million Americans expected to tune in to the broadcast at home, as well as the hundreds more millions who would catch the Oscars around the globe. For one of the men, tonight would be a victory so sweet he knew he would still be able to taste it on his deathbed. For the other, it would be a defeat so catastrophic, he would never recover.

As the ceremony dragged on interminably – Best Live Action Short; Best Sound Mixing; Did anybody in the universe care? – both men kept their eyes fixed straight ahead, ignoring the smiles of well-wishers as totally as they ignored the pruriently intrusive television cameras constantly scanning their features for a reaction.

Disappointment.

Hope.

Humour.

Despair.

The cameras got nothing. Neither of the two men had got to where they were today by giving away their emotions. Certainly not for free.

At last, after almost three long hours of torture, the moment arrived. Martin Scorsese was standing at the podium, a crisp white envelope in his hand. He gave a short, pre-prepared speech. Neither of the men heard a word of it. Behind his diminutive Italian frame, a montage of images flashed across an enormous screen, clips from the year’s most critically acclaimed pictures. To the two men, they were nothing but shapes and colours.

I hate you, thought one.

I hope you rot in hell, thought the other.

‘And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to …’

CHAPTER ONE