Sidney Sheldon’s Mistress of the Game
The spellbinding sequel to Sidney Sheldon’s MASTER OF THE GAME, one of the most glamorous and suspenseful tales ever told…It began with Jamie MacGregor, stealing diamonds in Africa. It continued with his daughter, the powerful Kate Blackwell, who grew her father’s company into a world wide conglomerate. Now the story passes to the next generation.Spanning the decades and picking up exactly where Sidney Sheldon’s bestselling Master of the Game finished, Mistress of the Game follows the Blackwell family as they love, lose, scheme and murder through the 80s up until the present day.Heart–stopping and glamorous, tense and provocative, Mistress of the Game is the sequel that Sheldon fans have been waiting for…
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Sidney Sheldon’s
After the Darkness
TILLY BAGSHAWE
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Sheldon Family Limited Partnership 2009
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN 9780007304509
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2009 ISBN 9780007351626 Version 2015–01–08
For Alexandra Sheldon,with love and thanks.
Contents
Lexi Templeton’s hands trembled as she read the letter. Sitting on the bed in her wedding dress, in what had once been her great-grandmother’s bedroom, her quick mind began to race.
Think. You don’t have much time.
What would Kate Blackwell have done?
At forty-one, Lexi Templeton was still a beautiful woman. Her lustrous blonde hair was untouched by gray and her slim, petite figure showed no sign of her recent pregnancy. She’d been determined to get her killer body back before her wedding. She wanted to do justice to her vintage Monique Lhuillier gown, a clinging column of finest ivory-white lace. And she had.
Earlier, the hundred or so wedding guests gathered at Cedar Hill House, the Blackwell family’s legendary Maine estate, had gasped when Lexi Templeton appeared on the lawn arm in arm with her father. Talk about beauty and the beast. Peter Templeton, Lexi’s father, once an eminent psychiatrist and one of New York’s most eligible bachelors in his day, was now an old man. Frail, bent almost double with age and grief, Peter Templeton lead his beautiful daughter towards the rose-covered altar.
I can go now. I can go to join my darling Alexandra. Our little girl is happy at last, he thought to himself.
He was right. Lexi Templeton was happy. She knew she looked radiant. She was marrying the man she loved, surrounded by family and friends. Only one person was missing. That person would never witness another of Lexi’s triumphs. He would never delight in another of her failures. His life and Lexi’s had been intertwined since birth, like the tangled roots of a great tree. But now he was gone, never to return. Despite everything that had happened, Lexi missed him.
Can you see me, Max darling? Are you watching? Are you sorry now?
For a moment, Lexi Templeton felt a pang of loss. Then she laid eyes on her husband-to-be, and all her regrets evaporated. Today was going to be perfect. The cliché. The fairy tale. The happiest day of her life.
The President of the United States was unable to make the wedding. There was a small matter of a war in the Middle East. But he had sent a congratulatory telegram, which Lexi’s brother Robbie read aloud when the newlyweds cut the cake. And everybody else was there. Captains of industry, prime ministers, royalty, movie stars. As chairwoman of the mighty Kruger-Brent, Limited, Lexi Templeton was American royalty. She looked like a queen because she was one. She had it all: great beauty, immense wealth and power that stretched to the four corners of the globe. Now, thanks to her new husband, she had love, too.
But she also had enemies. Powerful enemies. One of whom was determined to destroy her, even from beyond the grave.
Lexi read the letter again.
I know what you’ve done. I know everything.
The net was closing in. Lexi felt the fear churn in her stomach like curdled milk.
There must be a way out of this. There’s always a way. I will not go to prison. I will not lose Kruger-Brent. I will not lose my family. Think!
A few hours earlier the Governor of Maine had made a speech about Lexi at the reception.
‘… a remarkable woman, from a remarkable family. Lexi Templeton’s personal courage and integrity are known to all of us. Her spirit, her determination, her business acumen, her honesty …’
