So she had a wild and crazy youth. So what? Who didn’t?

She can hear again and she’s back on her feet.

Lexi was a star, a fighter, a winner. She had reinvented herself once again. Once again, America was glued to the edge of its seat.

Paolo Cozmici needn’t have worried. The party was a terrific success, with just the right amount of scandal to satisfy Hollywood’s gossip fiends:

A famous music producer got locked in the bathroom with a beautiful singer who was not his wife.

The singer’s name was David.

A movie actress was so wasted climbing into the hot tub that she forgot about the hairpiece she wore to hide her bald spot. When her twenty-year-old boy glanced down and saw what he thought was a dead rat floating between his legs, he passed out. The poor kid nearly drowned.

Michael Schett, this year’s “Hollywood’s Hottest Hunk” according to People magazine, arrived with Playboy’s Miss September, but dumped her like a campaign promise when he laid eyes on Lexi. Unfortunately for Michael Schett, Lexi wasn’t interested.

Michael cornered Robbie Templeton by the bar. “You gotta help me. I’m crashing and burning here. You’re her brother. Tell me how to impress her.”

With his Cary Grant looks, legendary prowess in the sack, and a string of hit movies to his name, Michael Schett was not used to rejection. He hadn’t had a girl dismiss him like this since seventh grade.

Robbie grinned. “Lexi likes a challenge. You could always start making out with me. Maybe she’ll try to ‘turn’ you?”

Michael Schett roared with laughter. He’d known Robbie and Paolo for years.

“Nice try, Liberace. She’s cute, but no girl is that cute.”

“Hey, you know what they say, Michael. You’re not a man till you had a man and didn’t like it.”

In the wee small hours of the morning, once all the guests had gone, Paolo went to bed, leaving Robbie alone with Lexi.

“You know, Michael Schett is really into you.”

Lexi rolled her eyes.

“What? He’s a nice guy. Most women would bite his hand off. Christ, I’d sleep with him.”

“You would not. You and Paolo are fused at the hip and you know it.”

“Actually, we’re fused at the heart. But I know what you mean.”

Robbie was worried about Lexi. On the surface, she seemed to have pulled her life back from the brink. But her continued obsession with Kruger-Brent and their cousin wasn’t normal. As for her working hours, Lexi regularly clocked in days that would put most self-respecting Taiwanese sweatshop workers to shame.

“Work isn’t everything, you know, Lex. Don’t you ever think of settling down?”

Lexi laughed. “With Michael Schett? His movies last longer than his relationships!”

“Okay, fine, forget Michael. But everyone needs love in their life.”

“I have love in my life. I have you.”

“That’s not what I mean. Don’t you want to have children one day? A family of your own?”

“No. I don’t.”

Lexi sighed. How could she explain to Robbie that after Max, she would never love again? He had no idea about her affair with Max-no one did-still less that it was Max who had distributed the pictures that very nearly ruined her. But Lexi knew. She knew love was for fools. Love had blinded her. Because of love, she had lost Kruger-Brent. The only thing that mattered now was destroying Max and taking back her beloved company. As for children, Kruger-Brent was Lexi’s child. She had trusted in Max, and he had torn her child from her arms, ripped it from her breast and carried it off into the wilderness.

She had rebuilt her life and her reputation against the odds. Templeton Estates was a huge success. But inside, the longing for Kruger-Brent corroded Lexi’s life like acid leaking from a battery. It turned every triumph to ashes.

Seeing she was upset, Robbie changed the subject.

“You’re in Cape Town a lot these days. Have you come across a guy called Gabriel McGregor?”

Now he had her attention.

“I have. I’ve never met him. He co-owns a company called Phoenix. They’re competitors of ours.”

“Any good?”

“Very good, unfortunately,” Lexi admitted. “He’s a shrewd businessman.”

“But?”

She paused. “I don’t know. Like I say, we’ve never met. But there’s something about him I don’t entirely trust. You know he claims to be related to us? Says he’s a descendant of Jamie McGregor.”

“Isn’t he?”

“I have no idea. I suppose he could be. How do you know him?”

Walking over to his desk, Robbie pulled out a handwritten letter. He passed it to Lexi.

“He and his wife are heavily involved in AIDS relief over there. He wrote asking me if Paolo and I would be interested in working with his charity. I’m flying out to meet with him next week.”

Lexi read the letter, twice. It seemed genuine. But she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of foreboding. Who was Gabe McGregor, really? A lot of people wanted to claim a connection to her family. This man was too rich in his own right to be a fortune hunter. But even so…

She found herself saying: “I’m going out there on business next week, as it happens. I can go and meet him with you if you like?”

Robbie’s face lit up. He’d been trying for years to get Lexi interested in his charity work.

“That’d be great! I can book us on the same flight. It’ll be just like old times. Hey, you remember going to Africa with Dad when we were kids? Those boring old Kruger-Brent tours? Man, Dad never shut up: ‘Jamie McGregor had a diamond mine here, Kate Blackwell went to school here,’ blah blah blah blah blah.” He laughed.

“Of course I remember.”

Those tours with her father felt like yesterday.

Lexi had loved every second of them.

“Jamie! Take Thomas the Tank Engine out of your sister’s cereal right now or you’re going on the naughty step.”

Gabe McGregor fixed his four-year-old son with what he hoped was a stern stare.

Jamie said seriously: “I’m sorry, Daddy. I certainly can’t do that. Thomas has crashed and bust his buffers. Now he must wait for the breakdown train to rescue him.”

“Cheer-ohs! Cheeeeer oooooohs!” Collette, Jamie’s two-year-old sister, burst into ear-splitting wails. “Don’t wanna train! My Cheer-ohs!”

“Stop crying, Collette,” said Jamie angrily. “You’re giving Thomas a head-gate.”

“Jamie!” Gabe shouted.

Marching silently over to the breakfast table, Tara McGregor removed the offending train from Collette’s cereal bowl, dried it with a paper towel and handed it to her protesting son. “Any more moaning, Jamie and Thomas is in the trash. Finish your toast and you can have a chocolate milk.”

To Gabe’s astonishment, Jamie promptly forgot about his train and focused on stuffing peanut-butter toast into his mouth. Pretty soon his cheeks bulged like a hamster’s. “Finished.”

“Are you sure he won’t choke?” Gabe glanced worriedly at Tara. “He looks like a snake trying to swallow a rabbit.”

Tara didn’t look up. “He’ll be fine.”

As usual, Tara McGregor’s morning routine was a ridiculous juggling act: cooking breakfast, feeding and dressing the kids, refereeing World War III and helping Gabe remember where he’d put his socks/laptop/ phone/sanity.

Gabe watched his wife frying bacon for his sandwich with one hand while checking e-mails on her BlackBerry with the other. With her glossy red hair, slender waist and long, gazellelike legs, there was an old-fashioned sexiness about Tara that motherhood seemed only to have enhanced. From behind, she looked like Cyd Charisse. From the front, the impression was more innocent and wholesome. Rosie the Riveter meets Irish farmer’s daughter. Pale skin. Freckles. Large, womanly breasts. A smile so broad it had knocked Gabe off his feet the first time he saw it, and still made him want to take her upstairs and ravish her now, six years later.