Chapter 1
September 1938
Flynn Banks was bored.
It was not an affliction to which he was accustomed. He had what his supporters called “a lust for life” and what his detractors referred to as “an unseemly fondness for booze and women.” But never once had either of those things failed to hold his attention. Until now.
He sipped at the Treasure Trove Scotch in his glass. It was one of his favorites. Because if he was going to play a pirate and a scallywag on screen, he might as well drink something befitting his reputation. So, the Café Trocadero kept it on reserve for him. Usually, it came with a velvety tang that coated his mouth and slid down his throat, the liquid equivalent of a mother pulling a soft blanket over her child to tuck them in at night. But tonight, it tasted bitter. He choked down his sip and cast the glass aside in frustration. He needed to get his head on straight. He would start a new picture tomorrow, his first time with a new costar—some French ingenue whom Harry Evets was convinced was destined for greatness. But Flynn didn’t like unknowns on a set. At this point, each of his pictures was a well-oiled machine, and introducing a new cog was bound to complicate things.
The turtle amontillado soup he’d ordered had gone coldwithout his noticing, and he shoved the dainty china bowl away. He didn’t remember the last time he’d felt this level of ennui, and it was vexing. He’d built his life around two core principles: joy and pleasure. So far, that had never steered him wrong. So why did everything feel so…rudderless lately? He could blame it on the new picture, but this was more than first-day jitters.
He thought of the letter he’d crumpled and left in his study at home. A missive from his brother. At the sight of his brother’s handwriting on the outside of the envelope, he’d nearly cast the letter aside without bothering to open it. But something had possessed Flynn to read it. Mostly, he was intrigued because, until now, Edgar hadn’t deigned to write him in at least a half decade. The letter’s contents had been more disturbing than the usual scolding Flynn had expected. It seemed their father, the miserable bastard, was dying.
Not only that, but his “greatest wish,” as Edgar put it, was to see and speak with Flynn before he died to “clear the air and unclasp a secret that lay heavy on his heart.” Flynn’s stomach had turned at the notion. There was only one thing he was interested in unclasping. Besides, he didn’t need to bother making the long journey to Lord Banks’s deathbed. He already knew his father’s worst secret. It was all there in the incriminating letter he’d had tucked away in a drawer at home as insurance for years. Perhaps it was the thought of that putting Flynn off his liquor.
He’d barely scanned the rest of the letter. More of Edgar’s usual complaints about the estate’s finances, a request that Flynn share his “Hollywood fortune.” And his personal favorite—an insistence that Flynn think of the family name and become less of a rogue.
That was rich, considering their father was the one who’d stained the Banks legacy so completely that no amount of bleachwould soak it clean. But no one knew that. To the world, Viscount Banks was a magnanimous philanthropist, a man who helped orphans and war widows. It was only behind closed doors that their father unleashed the monster he truly was. Flynn winced, remembering the blows he’d taken at his father’s hands. The hypocrisy was disgusting.
Flynn needed to find a dame. Particularly one Edgar would deem utterly unsuitable. That would make him feel better. His favorite coat-check girl, Cherry, was working the desk tonight. He’d given her a roguish smile and a wink; she’d harrumphed and turned her back on him. Just what he’d done, he didn’t know. It could have been any number of things—forgetting to call her, leaving the club with another woman on his arm, or instigating some drunken antics he’d already forgotten. But Cherry was hardly the only girl at the Troc with a good pair of gams and eyes the size of saucers. There was nothing like a set of shapely legs to improve his mood.
He surveyed the smoke-filled dance floor of the Trocadero. A dozen couples swayed to the dulcet tones of Xavier Cugat and his band. At quick glance, Flynn had slept with at least half of the dames here. Ah well, best to leave them to their current dance partners.
He reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a well-worn, small black book. He wet the tip of his finger and began to page through it, trying to find a single woman who didn’t currently hate his guts and who didn’t bore him to tears.Dorothy Spots,he read. He racked his brain and a vision of an absolutely stunning dame flooded his memories.
But then he remembered the squeak of her voice. She’d talked about her collection of china dolls at a pitch he thought was likely to break glass for ten minutes straight.
He fished out a pencil to draw a stark black line through her name and sighed heavily, flipping to the next page. He had a detailed notation system of stars, hearts, and strike-throughs to help him decode his muddled love life. The gals with stars next to their names were social climbers, ones looking to break into Hollywood via the stepping stone of his four-poster bed. He didn’t like to see them too often, lest they get their hopes up.
Those with hearts were the ones he actually had a fondness for. Girls who were sensible and not interested in marriage or any of that starry-eyed, romantic fiddle-faddle. The strike-throughs… Well, they were best forgotten for one reason or another. Lately, he’d found more and more reasons to ink girls out of his book.
He pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he paged through a series of nothing but dark lines. Then, he found one. Lily Jones. She had a heart next to her name—a cigarette girl at the Cocoanut Grove who was as unsentimental as they came. He waved over the maître d’, Alain, and asked him to bring a phone to the table.
When it arrived, Flynn asked the operator to connect him to the number she’d left him. It rang twice before she picked up. “Hello.”
“Lily, it’s Flynn.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. He hated pauses. They usually came with regrets and recriminations. “Flynn, you’ve been a stranger lately.”
Maybe she needed her ego stroked a bit. He understood that. “Lily, doll, you know how it is—”
“No, I just mean a lot has happened.” She stopped and he heard a deep voice in the background. Lily must’ve put her hand over the receiver because her voice was muffled as she told whoever it was, “It’s just an old friend. I’ll only be a minute.”
“Flynn, are you still there?” she hissed into the phone. He confirmed he was. “Listen, I can’t talk long. But the long and short of it is: I’m engaged.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that nonsense,” he replied, laughing to cover his surprise.
“I didn’t, but then I met Glenn and… I don’t know, I changed my mind, I guess.”
“Well, that’s great, love, congratulations,” he told her with unreserved enthusiasm. Marriage was for the birds, but if other people wanted to entrap themselves, he wouldn’t dampen their happiness.
“Thank you,” she trilled. “But listen, you should probably lose my number.”
“I understand.” He paused, never quite knowing how to say goodbye to a dame. “But hey, kid, we had fun, didn’t we?”
Another pause. “Sure we did. But Flynn?”
“Yeah?”
