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Returning to his desk, he placed the papers in his out-tray. He would ask his secretary to courier them over to his lawyer that afternoon. His eyes shifted to the copy of Empire magazine he’d purchased from a newsstand the day before.

On the cover was a picture of the actress Shauna Jackson, her green eyes looking out coolly at him, her blonde highlighted hair hinting at a redness underneath.

He stared at the picture for a few moments, scrutinizing every detail of the beautiful face underneath the headline:

Shauna Jackson, Ireland’s Greatest Export – we join her on the set of her new movie

Demetrios folded his hands and rested his chin on them. How could he have been oblivious all these years? While it was true the only time he had for watching movies was on transatlantic flights, and even then he was liable to be distracted by paperwork or catching up on his sleep, he must have been walking around with blinkers on to have missed her.

Or could it be that he was mistaken? He looked again at the picture. No, it was definitely her. He’d been certain of it from the moment he almost caught her eye in Cannes last month. That had been the last time he and Sofía had gone anywhere together, and he’d only agreed to it because Ariana had seen the invitation sent to him by a new production company looking for investors and had pleaded to be allowed to attend. After the actress had passed them by, presumably with her husband, he had asked Ariana who she was. With a roll of her eyes, she’d told him, ‘Papa, have you been living under a rock? That’s Shauna Jackson, she’s an A-lister.’

Since then, he’d bought copies of every film and gossip magazine going, trying to find out more. All he’d learned so far was that both she and her director husband, Dan Jackson, zealously guarded their privacy; she was rarely photographed in LA and her background seemed to be a bit of a mystery. He’d tried to recall some of the detail of what his Shauna had told him about her background. He remembered it was somewhere in the west of Ireland, but where? What had it been called? He cursed himself, realizing how little he had known about the woman he had fallen in love with.

Those cool green eyes continued to regard him impassively from the cover of the magazine. Was it really his Shauna? His face twisted in a grimace as he reminded himself that she had ceased to be his Shauna … he had let her go and it was too late to make amends or rectify the situation.

He placed the magazine in the bin beside his desk. There was no point raking over the past after all these years.

Frankie Martinez tucked her son Alexander into his bed. Their small bedsit in Lincoln Heights was all she could afford. It was only six o’clock in the evening, but the nightly symphony of wailing sirens was already seeping through the open window as the cops rounded up teenage gang members after yet another drive-by shooting. The thought of her little boy growing up in this neighbourhood filled her with dread; she’d seen what it had done to her two brothers.

‘Mommy has to go out now, honey.’

‘Please don’t go, Mama,’ he pleaded, his eyes wide and anxious as he always was when he was left alone.

‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

‘You promised before and you didn’t come back for a long time.’ His brown eyes looked at her reproachfully.

‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.’

Frankie hoped it was true this time. She hated having to leave her young son on his own, but there was no alternative. Since last year he’d been enrolled in a state preschool that took kids from the age of three, which had allowed her to work a seven-hour shift in the local dime store, but her minimum-wage salary wouldn’t stretch to paying for additional childcare. Sometimes the old lady down the hall would help out by having Alex for a couple of hours, but she wasn’t home right now. If Frankie didn’t get to the hospital soon, visiting hours would be over and she wouldn’t be able to see her sister.

‘Remember what I told you to do to get to sleep?’

‘I have to think of all the llamas up on the mountains and count them jumping over the wall to get to the alfalfa plants.’

‘That’s right, sweetie. So hold on to Alfie the Alpaca, start counting, and you’ll fall asleep in no time.’

A large tear trickled down the boy’s face as he hugged his cuddly alpaca to him.

‘That’s right, sweetie, now be brave and settle down and I’ll be back soon, OK?’

He nodded and Frankie kissed him before slipping her bomber jacket over her black T-shirt and jeans. Then she slipped out of the apartment door, making sure that it was firmly locked. She ran down the dingy hallway, passing other shabby apartments on her way. She could hear the wailing of a baby and a couple arguing in one, and the theme tune of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? blaring from another.

The 251 bus that would take her to the general hospital was due any minute, so she raced down the street, arriving in the nick of time. She had barely a second to catch her breath before the familiar orange bus pulled up. After paying, she headed for the back, passing a homeless man fast asleep in layers of tatty clothing, and an old woman who sat muttering to herself. Once seated, Frankie tuned everything else out and stared out at the freeway, the cars whizzing past the bus as it trundled along the slow lane for the 25-minute journey to the hospital, her mind a jumble of thoughts and terrors as she thought about what lay ahead.

Frankie’s parents had been illegal immigrants from Mexico. She had never known her father; he’d walked out soon after she was born, leaving her mother to raise four children alone in a poor district of South Los Angeles. She had struggled to make ends meet with an endless succession of cleaning jobs that took her out of the house for much of the time. Though she’d done her best to instil good values in her children, she was no match for the twin evils of street gangs and the grinding poverty that the gangs exploited to expand their membership.

Disaster struck when her mother contracted an aggressive form of breast cancer. With no medical insurance or savings, her treatment options had been limited. She died, barely into her forties, leaving Frankie’s big sister, Isabelle, as head of the household. Though Isabelle had done her best to be sister and mother to them all, the boys were beyond saving. The younger boy was killed in a knife fight and the older was currently serving two consecutive life sentences in San Quentin jail.

Frankie had always been the dreamer of the family. As long as she could remember, she’d wanted to be an actress, but even though the Land of the Free promised riches to those who worked hard enough, success had eluded her. Before she’d had Alex, she’d worked the casting couch as hard as she could, but it had only resulted in bit parts in bad movies. All that seemed set to change when she landed a small speaking part in a film directed by Dan Jackson. As usual she’d played the part of a prostitute – she was invariably cast as a hooker or a waitress – but though she only appeared in a few scenes, in her short leather skirt and low-cut black lace top, she’d made an impact. Or so she thought, until the acting jobs dried up and Frankie had to take a job in a bar to help her sister pay the bills. Then one night, who should walk into the bar but Dan Jackson.

‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Jackson,’ she’d said to him as she handed him his neat Scotch.

‘Do I know you?’ His English accent sounded incongruous in those surroundings, drawing attention from the lowlifes who frequented the bar. ‘You’d better watch out; you might not get out of here with your wallet if you’re not careful,’ she’d warned him, but he’d paid no heed, steadily getting drunker as the night wore on, while she warded off any sharks who singled him out as easy prey by giving them the evil eye.

Frankie knew she turned heads with her black hair and black eyes, strawberry red lips and hourglass figure, but she was only interested in men who could give her a way out of poverty. She knew her only chance of a better life depended on putting those God-given gifts to good use.

‘Do I know you?’ Dan slurred, his eyes narrowing as he tried to place her through the fog of alcohol that was clouding his vision as well as his memory.