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six feet tall. Max was dark and brooding, Jett the quintessential bad boy with his dirty blond hair and intense blue eyes, while Chris had a look that was pure George Clooney in his E.R. days. Women fell for Chris’s self-deprecating sense of humour and dazzling smile. And his being a successful lawyer in a town turned on by success was an added attraction.
    Little did anyone know that, as successful as he was, his gambling debts were very worrisome.
    Putting down the magazine, he closed his eyes and attempted to clear his mind. He was hoping this trip might solve all his problems. Being summoned to New York by his billionaire father could definitely be a sign that things were about to get better.
    Before long he’d find out what Red wanted. The anticipation was a bitch.
     
     
    ‘Your father doesn’t mean it,’ Olivia would say in a soothing tone .
    Growing up, those were the words Chris heard his mother utter almost every day. Maybe she believed she was telling the truth, but from the moment he could understand what was going on, Chris knew that old Red Diamond meant everything he said and did. There were no second chances with Red .
    The trick was to stay out of his way, which wasn’t always possible, as Chris had discovered on more than one occasion .
    His father was into corporal punishment. If any of his sons did anything that Red considered wrong, then in his opinion they deserved a good beating. And it seemed that Red took a great deal of pleasure in administering the punishment personally .
    Once, when Chris was nine, he’d innocently scarfed down a box of chocolates he’d found next to Red’s bed. How was he to know they were gourmet chocolates, hand-made especially for his father by a master chocolate-maker in Belgium and couriered to America by private jet?
    Red was not happy when he discovered his chocolates were gone. His screams of fury could be heard throughout the house .
    ‘Who the fuck ate my chocolates?’ he yelled, while Olivia attempted to calm him, and Chris hovered nervously outside the bedroom door .
    Mae, the cook, came running out of the kitchen offering to make him some more .
    ‘Are you mad?’ Red yelled. ‘I’m talking hand-made chocolates, woman, not that shit you come up with.’
    Glaring at her boss, Mae retreated back to the kitchen, mumbling under her breath.
    ‘Where’s Chris?’ Red shouted. ‘Where’s that dumbass useless boy?’
    ‘I’m sure it wasn’t him,’ Olivia said, protecting her son as usual.
    ‘Oh, you’re sure it wasn’t him,’ Red said, mimicking her voice in a cruel fashion.
    ‘I’ll send for more chocolates,’ Olivia said. ‘I can—’
    Whack! Chris heard Red strike his mother and, without a second thought, he raced into the room and began pummelling his father.
    ‘Ha!’ Red yelled, fending his son off. ‘The kid’s got balls after all. What a surprise!’
    And for a split second Chris had felt a frisson of satisfaction. His father had actually praised him!
    After that it was all downhill. A beating twice as long as usual on his bare backside, a beating so bad it had drawn blood.
    He hadn’t been able to sit down for a week, but at least Red thought he had balls. And, young as he was, he knew that was a good thing.
    A year later his parents got divorced.

Chapter Three
     
    N ancy Scott-Simon was a major control freak. Everything for her only daughter Amy’s upcoming wedding had to be exactly right, and anyone who made a mistake better watch out.
    Nancy was a thin, brittle-looking woman, with sharp cheekbones and jet black hair pulled back in a tight chignon. She favoured Oscar de la Renta suits, Ferragamo handbags, Gucci shoes and Valentino ballgowns. She also favoured fine antique jewellery handed down from her mother, Amy’s grandmother, who was ninety years old and still as lively as a French poodle.
    Nancy ruled from her impeccably decorated townhouse off Park Avenue. Five floors. Eight bedrooms. Five live-in staff.
    Nancy’s