Free Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game by Sidney Sheldon, Tilly Bagshawe Page A

his small, compact body. A familiar rush of power made her flesh tingle.
    “Come, sit down on Mommy’s bed. You can have your special present now.”
    Max watched, delighted, as his mother retrieved the package from her glove drawer. This was what he’d been waiting for. Not some asinine party with a bunch of kids from school who’d only come over in the first place because they wanted to gawk at his mom. As if Max would ever let that happen!
    He thought again about Keith Webster. His father. How he loathed him.
    So, sport, d’you have fun?
    Fun? With you?

    Max longed for the day when Keith Webster would be gone. Then he would have his beautiful mommy all to himself. Then he could finally stop pretending.
    With trembling hands, he tore at the wrapping paper. Inside he saw a glint of black metal. A train?
    “Do you like it?”
    Eve’s voice was husky, barely a whisper. Max gazed at her face. With the outside world, his mother always went to great lengths to hide herself. But not with him. Max was special. He got to see the real Eve Blackwell, scars and all. He loved her so much it sometimes made him weep.
    “Mom!” He gasped. “Is it…real?”
    “Of course it’s real. And very old. It’s been in my family for a long, long time.”
    Lovingly, Max stroked the gun’s trigger, his childish fingers caressing, exploring. Such power. And it was all his.
    Eve said: “You’re almost a grown man now, Max. You’re too old for toys. Keith doesn’t understand that, but I do.”
    Eve Blackwell always referred to her husband by his Christian name in front of their son, never as Dad or Daddy. In the early days, Keith had complained about it.
    “I wish you’d drop the whole first-name thing. It’s creepy. Max doesn’t call you Eve.”
    But Keith’s sporadic efforts to introduce the d-word into his son’s vocabulary always petered out after a few weeks.
    Eve would insist: “It’s not me, darling, it’s Max. Besides, I don’t see that it’s such a big deal. It’s just one of his little quirks. The more you go on about it, the more he’ll dig his heels in. You know what children are like.”
    “Does Keith know you’ve given it to me?” Max asked, still mesmerized by the gun. It was perfect. Like his mother.
    Eve smiled. “No. It’s our secret. I’ll keep it in the safe for you so as not to arouse his suspicions. You may take it out whenever you wish. Just ask me and I’ll get it for you.”
    A shocking thought suddenly occurred to Max.
    “It isn’t Uncle Peter’s gun, is it? The one he…you know. When I was little?”
    Four years earlier, Max’s uncle, Dr. Peter Templeton, had almost shot his children in a drunken rage. No one was sure whether he’d intended to kill himself, or Lexi, or Robert. Peter himself was too drunkto remember. All anyone knew was that the housekeeper had arrived at the Templeton brownstone early one morning to the sound of shots, that she’d wrestled the gun from Uncle Peter’s hands, and that in the process she’d been shot in the arm.
    The woman had been paid off, of course. Max overheard Keith saying that the check was “in the millions,” but evidently the money had been well spent: the story never made its way into the press. From that day on, Max’s uncle Peter had not touched a drop of liquor. The gun he used had mysteriously disappeared.
    Eve shook her head.
    “No, darling. It’s not Uncle Peter’s gun. It’s far more special than that. This gun once belonged to my grandfather, David Blackwell. Your great-grandfather.”
    Max’s eight-year-old chest swelled with pride. He loved to hear his mother tell stories about her family. His family.
    Max’s earliest memories were of his mother’s deep, sensuous voice lulling him to sleep with tales of his great-great-grandfather Jamie McGregor and the thrilling empire that he founded. Max’s first word was mama , his second Kruger and his third Brent. While other boys dreamed about dinosaurs and Superman, Max’s