Daddy’s Girls Gold Diggers Original Sin

TASMINA PERRY

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Daddy’s Girls

Gold Diggers

Original Sin

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Tasmina Perry

Copyright

About the Publisher

Daddy’s Girls

TASMINA PERRY

Dedication

To John

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Part Two

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Christmas Day – the present

He was late. The tick – tock of the ornate grandfather clock reminded them how late. The Balcon sisters were never kept waiting for anything. They glanced independently at their watches – Cartier, Rolex, Patek Phillipe – wondering if their visitor was ever going to show. The four girls all had better things to be doing with their time. Their father was dead, there was a funeral to arrange and they had lives – busy, glamorous lives.

Cate Balcon stared out of the French windows of Huntsford Castle, watching as shadows fell into the dark study, snow settling on the sills. Outside, she saw two orbs of light moving up the long gravel drive.

‘I think he’s here.’

A few moments later, the heavy oak door to the drawing room creaked open, and David Loftus, a slim, wiry man, with eyes slightly too close together, walked in.

‘Mr Loftus,’ said Cate, rising to shake his hand. It was cold and dry, with the yellow-stained fingertips of a smoker. ‘This is David Loftus, the friend of Daddy’s,’ she said to the other women. ‘Mr Loftus is a writer. Just moved into the village, I believe. Please, David, take a seat.’

Ignoring her, Loftus moved to the huge open fire, rubbing his hands. ‘Stinking weather out there,’ he said, motioning his head towards the window. ‘The car could hardly get down the drive. Do you know there’s about a dozen photographers by the gates?’

Venetia Balcon nodded. ‘For some reason the press seems to think our father’s death constitutes news.’

‘And you’re surprised by that?’ replied Loftus with a sarcastic look. ‘You’re celebrities. Every hack in the land wants to be in this room today.’

His smile was crooked as he took in the grandeur of the room. The ancient Welsh slate fireplace, the walls lined with leather-bound books. His eyes moved up to the ceiling, all veined like a vintage cheese under the paintwork. Cracked under the magnificent surface. He smiled sourly: just like the Balcon family.

‘Well, now you’re here, what do you want?’ snapped Serena Balcon, who was feeling particularly impatient. Even for an actress, she’d had quite enough drama for one Christmas. She was the one who had found her father’s body in the castle’s moat the morning after the Christmas Eve party, mouth gaping open, skin frozen and spidered with purple veins. She shuddered at the memory as David Loftus watched her.

She was just as gorgeous in the flesh as on the screen, he thought. In fact, all four of Lord Oswald Balcon’s daughters were exactly as he’d imagined them to be. Blonde and beautiful, privilege clinging to them like expensive scent. And that haughty way they carried themselves: they thought they were so special. But now he was the one with the trump card and he was going to savour every sweet minute of it.

Without being asked, he poured himself a Scotch from a Murano glass decanter on the table and swirled it around the tumbler. As a barrister, Camilla Balcon recognized his technique. She’d used it in the courtroom a hundred times before: make your audience wait. Make them nervous.

‘I suppose the police have been round?’ Loftus asked, taking a swig of his drink.

‘And why is it any of your business?’ asked Camilla, her voice prickling with hostility.

‘Oswald was my friend,’ Loftus said. The whisky glistened on his upper lip.

‘Oswald was our father,’ replied Camilla firmly.

Loftus walked to the window, Huntsford’s grounds now just a series of shapes and shadows in the dark.

‘Accidental death? Is that what they’re saying?’

The girls looked at each other, unsure of how much to tell him. ‘Exactly,’ Cate said finally, staring into the fire. ‘He fell from the ramparts. He was watching the fireworks.’

‘Fell?’ said David, lifting one dark bushy eyebrow into a heavy arch.

Camilla flashed him a look. ‘And you are implying …’

Loftus cut Camilla short. ‘You do know that a lot of people wanted your father dead?’

‘He could be a bit difficult,’ responded Cate tartly. ‘But it’s hardly the same thing as being wanted dead.’

‘Difficult? Is that what you call it?’ he asked, tossing back the last of the whisky.

‘Your father was despised by half the people who knew him. No, I don’t think your father fell from the rooftop. I believe he was pushed. Deliberately.’ He paused. ‘I think your father was murdered.’

The fire was spitting and crackling in the background as the sisters looked at him, not daring to speak.

‘And I think that one of Daddy’s little girls killed him.’

PART ONE

1

Ten months earlier

The Honourable Serena Balcon lay back on the top deck of the Egyptian sailboat, La Mamounia, wriggled out of her pink Dior hot pants, and congratulated herself with a lazy swig of a Mojito. What a good decision, she thought smugly, looking up to watch the white sails of the boat fan out like two huge butterfly wings. Back home in London’s Chelsea, she hadn’t been sure whether to accept fashion designer Roman LeFey’s offer of a two-day cruise from Edfu to Luxor. As she received more than one hundred social invitations in the average week, she politely declined everything except the most public and most exclusive – or the odd charitable gesture. But this trip was looking very promising indeed. Only thirty of Roman’s most fabulous friends had been invited to the strictly A-list jaunt and, not only had Serena been invited, she’d been assigned La Mamounia’s Cleopatra Suite, a spacious, exotic cabin at the stern where you could open the shutters and enjoy the receding view from a claw-foot bath. She fished around for a phrase to describe the scene’s subtle grandeur. She smiled. It was appropriate.

‘How incredible is this?’ said Tom Archer, Serena’s boyfriend, leaning over the boat’s railing to get a 360-degree view. One of Britain’s most successful, not to mention fabulously handsome actors, the backdrop of the Nile suited him to a T.

‘Yes, you look very Agatha Christie, darling,’ said Serena with a hint of sarcasm, peering up from under the wide brim of her sunhat. ‘But don’t lean so far out. There could be piranhas or anything in that filthy water and I’m not jumping in to get you.’

Tom had conditioned himself not to listen to Serena’s sniping. Instead he carried on looking at a water buffalo grazing on the opposite bank, next to which an old woman was doing her washing in the tobacco-coloured waters. ‘Look at it,’ he smiled, ‘it still looks so biblical. I keep thinking we’re going to see Moses sitting on the bank.’

Serena glanced up casually. ‘I thought he was dead.’

‘Who?’

‘Moses.’

Tom rolled his eyes and Serena caught the gesture. ‘I saw that,’ she said sourly.

He turned to face her. ‘What?’

‘You just rolled your eyes at me as if I was stupid.’

‘Well, you were being stupid. Of course Moses is dead.’

‘I was joking,’ she snapped, hiding her face with a copy of Italian Vogue. ‘But yes, you’re right. It is rather special.’

Tom gave his girlfriend a wry smile, predicting the answer to his next question. ‘In that case, are you coming with me to Karnak after lunch? Biggest group of temples in the world, apparently. Roman was asking who was up for it. Doubt there’ll be a good turn out from this lot, though,’ he said, motioning towards the mezzanine deck where the rest of Roman’s guests were draining the bar.

‘Don’t be daft, darling. What do you want to go there for?’ asked Serena, dropping her magazine onto her bronzed knees. ‘It will be riddled with flies and tourists. And anyway,’ she sighed dramatically, ‘I’m too busy thinking about where we can have my birthday party. I mean – nowhere in London has a capacity of a thousand. It’s bloody ridiculous.’

‘A thousand people,’ said Tom, eyebrows raised. ‘Do we have that many friends?’

‘You don’t, no.’

Tom tutted.

‘You don’t have that many friends though, do you?’ she glared. ‘Then again, you don’t seem to like meeting people. You haven’t stopped complaining since you arrived and you haven’t made the slightest effort to talk to anyone, which is so rude because I could have invited dozens of friends in your place.’

‘Maybe you should have.’

‘Well, in future I will.’

‘Go on then.’

They glared at each other.

‘Look, just stop complaining and go and get me another drink from that turbanned chappie,’ said Serena finally. ‘I want Cristal. I’m parched.’

Tom strode over and snatched the magazine out of Serena’s hands. He brought his face down so she could see him under the brim of her hat. ‘Well there he is,’ he spat, pointing at a dark-skinned man with a tray of drinks. ‘Get off your backside and go ask him yourself.’

Serena Balcon and Tom Archer’s relationship was in the stage that most therapists refer to as terminal. Held together by familiarity and convenience, even the most innocent conversation quickly became a nettle patch of hostile banter. For Serena, the hostility was brought on by festering disappointment. Tom Archer had started off as a novelty boyfriend; he was cute and uncomplicated, and the complete opposite of the long procession of Serena’s former boyfriends – ex-Etonians, Hugh Grant-alikes and floppy-haired trust-fund banker boys. At first, it didn’t matter that Tom didn’t have pedigree – his mother worked in a factory, his father was a gardener: not a hint of good breeding anywhere in that family tree. But he was hot, the sexiest British film star since Jude Law, and he had increased Serena’s celebrity stock immeasurably.

Before she had met him on the set of a tiny British indie movie five years ago, Serena had been just a posh blonde who dabbled in modelling and importing pashminas. She was famous in the society pages for being one of the fabulous Balcon girls, but who wanted to be stuck in Tatler forever? She wanted a bigger stage, and at Tom’s side she got it. The media loved them – the unlikely but classy combination of Tom, the British-born movie star, and Serena, the sexy daughter of a baron, was potent and irresistible. Her impeccable sense of style wasn’t lost on the fashion press either. Within weeks of their party debut as a couple, she was US Vogue’s ‘Girl of the Month’ and within the year they were a huge Tom & Serena franchise that was like a golden VIP pass into the world of fame.

Five years later, it wasn’t enough. Yes, her family were titled, but much to Serena’s annoyance, the Balcons weren’t a grand English family like the Marlboroughs, the Wellingtons or the Balfours. Serena wanted a home to rival Blenheim, she wanted the tiny ducal crown on her headed notepaper and the state wedding with an engagement ring in the colours of her national flag, just like the one that Prince Rainier had once presented to Grace Kelly. And the fact that her bloody sister Venetia had managed to marry into semi-royalty tormented her even more. Put simply, Serena wanted more than Tom could give her.

She stretched out her long aristocratic legs on her sun-lounger and turned to look at Tom fuming at the rail on the far side of the deck. She smirked. It wasn’t all bad. There was no denying he was gorgeous. That square jaw, the cobalt blue eyes framed by jet black lashes, the mussed-up crop of dark hair and that incredible body peeking out from his open white Turnball & Asser shirt. Tom’s good looks could blend into any social situation. In a pub, he exuded a handsome-boy-next-door ordinariness. At a country house dinner with her father, Tom’s fine English features took on a rather noble, Brideshead Revisited quality. And put him on an LA film set and he glowed with that indefinable X-factor that agents the world over wished they could bottle.

Maybe he wasn’t so bad …

‘Sorry for being a bit cranky,’ she said softly, curving her pillow-soft lips into a pout. ‘Come here …’

Despite himself, Tom could not resist the sight of her stretched out suggestively in her Missoni string bikini. He moved sulkily to the sun-lounger. She straddled him, pulling off her bikini top and pressing her naked breasts against his chest. Tom groaned as she tightened her thighs against his.

‘How about we go back in the cabin and make up properly …?’ she purred in his ear.

‘Oh Serena,’ he said, struggling between two emotions – lust and anger.

‘Serena, Tom. Here you are, you lovebirds!’ Roman LeFey’s singsong voice pierced the silence. The biggest French designer since Yves Saint Laurent, he was a tall, black man with skin the colour of cocoa, his large belly hidden by a dark green kaftan. ‘What are you doing on the top deck in the mid-day sun? Mad cats and the English, hey?’

‘Mad cats exactly, Roman,’ said Tom, slightly abashed as Serena swung her feet onto the deck and slipped a tanned foot into a Manolo Blahnik flip-flop, tying up her bikini top without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

‘Roman, darling,’ she purred, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘I was just persuading Tom to be a bit more sociable.’

‘Looks like it,’ smiled Roman playfully. ‘Now lunch is about to be served, so stop hiding yourself and come downstairs,’ he said, leading them both towards the spiral stairs which snaked down to the boat’s mezzanine area.

‘Oh, I can’t go down in this tiny thing,’ moaned Serena. ‘I must go and change.’

She tip-toed across the top deck and slipped into her cabin, the welcome whirl of the ceiling fan cooling her skin and her mood. She threw open the wooden shutters of her closet and began flipping through a rack of chiffon, linen and silk clothes, thinking how exhausting it was to be known for your taste. An ill-considered outfit at even the most casual of gatherings – well, she shuddered to think about it.

Deciding on a tiny white Marni sundress, she stripped naked and pulled the thin fabric up over her long, lean, tanned body, accessorizing with a huge quartz ring and a copper bangle pushed high up her bronzed arm. She scooped her long layered honey-blonde hair up into a top-knot, patted her face with a towel and dabbed her cheekbones with a light, rose-coloured blush that accentuated her big aqua-marine eyes. At twenty-six she knew she was at the peak of her physical beauty: understated, stylish, stunning. Very Julie-Christie-on-holiday, she thought, looking at her reflection in the glass.

She fixed a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators over the bridge of her nose and walked to the mezzanine deck, taking slow, deliberate steps so that her entrance would be fully noted. She paused for a minute, taking in the scene. A crowd of people were drinking flutes of champagne and nibbling at canapés. The air smelt of cumin; a small band in fezzes played traditional Egyptian music by the bar. She moved through the crowd, away from where Tom was talking to a laughing crowd, and grabbed a martini.

‘What do you think of the dahabeah?’ asked Roman who had appeared by her side and taken her hand.

‘The what?’

‘My baby!’ he laughed. ‘A dahabeah is an Egyptian sailboat.’

‘It’s amazing,’ she said, giving him a playful kiss on the cheek and leaving a ring of pale pink gloss on his skin. ‘And I love our suite.’

‘I thought you’d like the Cleopatra Suite,’ he smiled knowingly, picking up a fig from an overloaded plate. ‘I should be in the studio finishing off the collection for Milan,’ he added, ‘but I can’t help being naughty.’

‘You’re so decadent, darling. That’s why I love you,’ sighed Serena generously, then instantly became businesslike. ‘Now tell me who’s here,’ she said, craning her long neck to survey the crowd. ‘I haven’t really been introduced to anyone yet.’

‘Well, let’s do that now,’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘Who would you like to meet?’

She scanned the deck, looking for familiar faces or interesting people with whom to network. Someone had told her Leo DiCaprio was coming but she couldn’t see him anywhere. Roman could be so random with his invitations, she thought. She spotted a photographer from US Vogue, a media mogul’s daughter, a Victoria’s Secret model. Perhaps it wasn’t as AAA-List as she’d been led to believe.

‘I don’t really recognize anyone,’ she smiled, trying to hide her disappointment.

Roman stepped up onto a little platform and looked across the deck, lifting a podgy little finger to identify his guests.

‘On this trip, I wanted to invite friends who would appreciate Egypt,’ said Roman seriously.

Serena smiled, trying to look grateful.

Roman went through his guests one by one, giving a potted history on each. The Russian princess, the gay interior designer, New York’s top session hairdresser, a society florist and a three-Michelin-starred chef from Barcelona. In the centre was Michael Sarkis, the billionaire hotelier. ‘Here with the girlfriend,’ whispered Roman.

Her interest was waning.

‘Now there is Rachel Barnaby,’ said Roman, clapping his hands together and pointing to a luscious-looking girl by the bar. ‘She’s going to be huge. Did you read the cover story in this month’s Vogue?’

Serena smiled. Of course she had. The dazzling Welsh girl with her long raven hair, alabaster skin and pillowy lips had been touted as the next big thing. Huge talent. Beyond glamorous. Her jaw stiffened just thinking about it.

‘Well, everybody’s the next big thing in Vogue, aren’t they,’ she replied archly. ‘So many people don’t quite make it though, do they?’

Roman tapped her on the bottom. ‘Don’t be unkind,’ he smiled. ‘You have nothing to fear. She hasn’t even got a proper publicist yet – I had to ring her mother to invite her on the cruise.’

Serena smiled broadly. Of course she had nothing to worry about from a pretty, bland teenager. So Rachel Barnaby had snagged a Vogue cover. Someone must have dropped out. Serena, on the other hand, had the front-row seat at the shows, the two-million-pound cosmetics contract. And OK, so she hadn’t quite scooped a big Hollywood role yet, but those kinky, overweight Hollywood producers preferred malleable trailer-park trash to someone with genuine class and manners. And anyway, she was Serena Balcon. Every move she and Tom made – the holiday frolic, the Ivy supper, the last-minute dash to Harrods for Christmas presents – all made front-page news. Beat that, you Welsh oik, she thought smugly.

Recovering her poise, Serena decided that Michael Sarkis was the best of numerous evils on La Mamounia. She didn’t know much about him, other than that he was born in Beirut – of an American mum and a Lebanese father, so she had once read – and raised in the Bronx. One of the world’s most successful hoteliers, he was a real rags-to-riches entrepreneur who had made a great deal of money peddling gaudy holidays to super-rich Arabs. His hotels were hallmarked by casinos in the lobby, shark tanks in the gardens and gold leaf everywhere; vulgar little places that Serena wouldn’t be seen dead in. But still … he was filthy rich and he was talking to Rachel Barnaby.

She walked over to where Michael was standing by a long table piled high with Egyptian delicacies. There were tiny honey-glazed baklava, twists of pistachio-infused pastries, piles of white peaches and bowls of flat bread cut into rough chunks. It looked like the Last Supper.

‘I hope you’re hungry,’ smiled Serena, popping a plump, dark-green olive into her mouth and unleashing her most dazzling smile on Michael.

‘I hope you’re thirsty,’ he replied, picking up a bottle of wine and pouring Serena a glass. ‘I’m Michael.’

‘Serena. Pleased to meet you.’

Michael put out a tanned hand to shake hers. As he gripped her fingers, she noticed what extraordinarily sexy hands they were. Big and tanned with an artisan’s squareness about them, the fingertips were smooth and manicured – and the chunky expensive gold watch on his wrist didn’t hurt either.

Michael seemed to notice Serena’s interest and allowed himself a smile. ‘Do you like the wine?’ he asked.

‘The wine?’ repeated Serena. ‘Gorgeous. Pétrus, the forty-seven, I think?’

Michael twisted the bottle to read its label. ‘You know your stuff.’

‘Well, the forty-seven was one of the best vintages of the century for the vineyard. It’s even better than the seventy, I think. Really rather wonderful.’ She turned to face Rachel Barnaby. ‘What do you think? The forty-seven or the seventy?’ she asked.

Rachel flushed. ‘I can only just about tell the difference between red and white, let alone anything else,’ she laughed politely.

‘How sweet,’ smiled Serena, flashing her a patronizing look. ‘Still, you’re an actress, not a sommelier.’

Rachel Barnaby suddenly needed the ladies’ room and Serena watched her go.

‘Nice girl,’ said Michael.

‘Very sweet and simple,’ smiled Serena.

Michael looked her up and down with a deep penetrating stare that unnerved her. Slowly running one finger up and down the stem of his glass, he gave her a slow, flirtatious smile. ‘So, how are you such an expert on wine?’ he asked, taking a sip of his drink.

‘My father’s a wine buff,’ said Serena, unconsciously tracing her lip with her finger.

‘Lord Balcon?’ asked Michael, lifting a bushy black eyebrow into a scruffy arch.

‘That’s right, do you know him?’

‘Not really,’ replied Michael, his brow furrowing. ‘He’s on the committee of a club in London that just turned me down.’

Serena watched a dark cloud cross his face and realized instantly that Michael Sarkis was a man not used to being turned down for anything. ‘Which one? White’s? Annabel’s?’

‘Hamilton’s, actually.’

She picked up a canapé and laughed out loud. ‘What do you want to go there for? Full of stiffs my father knows from school. I had you down as a Bungalow 8 or Billionaire kind of guy.’

‘I have my own clubs, too,’ he smiled, ‘but sometimes you want to try something new.’

He moved nearer to her and rested his hand on her hip. It was a sudden and intimate gesture that sparked a jolt of desire through her. Unsettled, she struggled to rationalize it. Wasn’t he too old? It was hard to place an age on the dark-haired man. He could be forty, maybe even fifty. She’d hardly call him good looking: the hooked nose was too long, the dark eyes narrow and beady, his head too small for his body; but like so many older, more powerful men she had met through her father, he oozed an arrogant, almost dangerous allure that was definitely sexy.

‘Where are you going after the cruise?’ he asked in a way that suggested an imminent offer.

‘It’s not as hectic as usual,’ she smiled coyly, trying to leave herself open. ‘Got to do some press for To Catch a Thief but, other than that, the world is my oyster.’

‘Oh, I heard you were doing that remake.’ He smiled appreciatively. ‘The Grace Kelly role, of course.’

‘Of course,’ smiled Serena, flattered that he knew about her work. ‘And David Clooney as Roby the handsome jewel thief. It’s a great cast.’

‘Where are the junkets?’

‘Oh, it’s tedious. London, New York, LA,’ she said, showing a fashionable lack of interest at being flown privately all around the world and having half the world’s press fawn at her feet.

‘When you’re in LA, give me a ring so we can hook up. Where do you live?’

Serena flushed slightly and pushed a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘Actually I live in London at the moment. But I’m thinking of getting a couple of other places: go bicoastal. In the meantime I’m staying at The Viceroy.’

She looked up at his face, which lay somewhere between disappointment and puzzlement.

‘What’s the matter?’

He smiled. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘No, what?’ she repeated almost petulantly.

‘I just wondered why you still live in London.’

‘What’s wrong with that? I live just off Cheyne Walk.’

His look bordered on bemusement. ‘I thought a woman like you would be thinking bigger.’

Her brow fell into a sharp crease. ‘I don’t quite understand.’

Michael paused. His head was bowed and he was smiling to himself, as if in an internal dialogue he was telling a joke.

‘I was at dinner last week in LA. My friend Lawrence owns Clerc, the jeweller’s. Do you know them?’

She nodded. They had lent her a pair of yellow diamond drop earrings for last year’s Oscars.

‘They’re looking for a “face”, a spokesperson, whatever you want to call it. They’re talking about the obvious names: Julia, Gwyneth, Catherine. Someone mentioned you and, having met you now, I would say you’d be the perfect choice.’ He stroked her cheek lightly. ‘You are incredibly beautiful.’

Serena looked away.

‘But … your name was dismissed for not having – ah, shall we say – international appeal.’

Her mouth immediately curled into a wounded, pained expression. ‘For your information I have a lot of visibility in the States,’ she retorted, straightening her back. ‘Vanity Fair are desperate to do a profile. I’d hardly say that was parochial.’

Michael spread his hands in a gesture of appeasement. ‘My mistake, I just thought you’d like to know.’

‘Well, thank you for your opinion,’ said Serena frostily. ‘Now, I think I’d better go and see Roman.’ She turned away, suddenly consumed with a fury about Tom’s irrational obsession: to stay living in London. And how dare she be overlooked for a major advertising campaign? She was a huge star. She had breeding – didn’t the Americans love all that ‘lady of the manor’ stuff?

A dark flicker of insecurity exploded in her consciousness.

Serena moved purposefully through the crowd, her mind already working on meetings with agents, real-estate buyers and publicists, her ambition to conquer Hollywood completely refuelled.

2

Three thousand miles away, a 747 touched down on the Heathrow tarmac, wobbling from side to side, its wheels screeching to the ground and forcing business-class passenger and nervous flyer Cate Balcon to reach out and squeeze the hand of her grateful neighbour.

‘Sorry,’ she smiled at the old man in a Harris tweed jacket, aware that it was the first contact she’d had with him during the entire trip. The man, who had recognized her from Richard Kay’s page in the Daily Mail as soon as he’d boarded, gave her fingers a little squeeze back. ‘Crosswinds,’ he smiled kindly, ‘nothing to worry about.’

Mildly embarrassed, Cate was on her feet as soon as the engines wound down. That’s the beauty of business class, she thought, slipping her Jimmy Choos back on: the quick getaway. She grabbed her leather holdall from the overhead compartment, peered through the window at the grey, drizzling London day and politely pushed her way to the front of the queue, looking at her watch anxiously. She hated the overnight red-eye flights from New York in the working week; they brought her back into London just too late to slip home for a quick sleep, yet too early to blow out the day’s work altogether. Still, she thought as she darted for the arrivals hall, if her PA had booked a car and it was waiting for her, she might just get back for the twelve noon production meeting.

‘Cate Balcon?’ asked a young, tanned driver as Cate charged through the automatic doors.

‘Yes. Let’s be quick,’ replied Cate officiously, handing him her black wheelie case and tying back her long, thick hair with a tortoiseshell clip as she went. ‘Alliance Magazines, just off Aldwych.’

As Cate settled back into the leather seats of the black Mercedes, the scenery slipping from airport to suburbs to city, she tried to make some use of the time. The New York shows had been particularly good this season, she thought, opening her notebook to look at her scribblings from the front row. The fashion crowd might coo over the Paris leg of the collections for the spectacular fashion theatrics of Dior and McQueen, but Cate loved New York for its elegant, wearable clothes, and for the ideas it gave her for the magazine. They could do an Edith Wharton-flavoured story spinning off the tweed at Ralph Lauren, a safari shoot based on the linen and leather she had seen at Michael Kors and a Great Gatsby-style feature based on the jewelled coloured tea-dresses at Zac Posen.

She pulled out her Mont Blanc pen and started jotting down more ideas, completely unaware that her handsome driver kept glancing in his rear-view mirror at the striking woman with the red-gold hair on his back seat. Cate was oblivious, immersed as always in her work. She told herself that she worked twice as hard as everybody else because everybody expected Cate Balcon ‘the baron’s daughter’ to be twice as idle.

Although it was true that Alliance Magazines recruited its staff from a shallow gene pool – it was an industry joke that you had to be posh and pretty to get past their human resources department – Cate’s appointment to editor of Class, the company’s upmarket fashion and lifestyle flagship publication, had still fired a vicious whispering campaign in the media industry. The tattlers were outraged. Sure, they argued, there was the odd minor aristocrat at Alliance: the social editor on Verve was a countess and there was a viscount’s daughter in Rive’s fashion cupboard, but no one seriously expected them to become editors. The rumour mill had gone into overdrive. How had Cate become editor at the tender age of thirty-one? Whom had she slept with? What strings had Daddy pulled? It added insult to injury that the photogenic Cate Balcon was famous. British editors weren’t supposed to become celebrities – only Anna Wintour had the right to that crown. Cate Balcon simply didn’t deserve it, said the gossipmongers. But then anyone who had ever worked with her knew differently.

‘Morning Sadie,’ she smiled at her curly-haired PA who was sorting through a big lever-arch file outside her office. She glanced around the room at the young attractive women on the phone, rummaging through rails of fabulous clothes or typing away at computers; all noticeably more absorbed in their work the moment Cate arrived.

‘Afternoon, Cate,’ smiled Sadie, looking up at the clock. ‘I think Nicole’s taken the liberty of taking the twelve o’clock meeting on your behalf.’

The two women rolled their eyes at each other. ‘Typical,’ said Cate quietly. ‘Better do me a big favour and make me a strong cup of coffee.’

‘Cate! You’re back,’ called Lucy Cavendish from the other end of the office. Lucy was Class’s senior fashion editor and the nearest thing Cate had to a friend in the office. The six-foot black girl strode over wearing a thigh-skimming miniskirt and over-the-knee Versace boots, looking every inch one of the supermodels she styled.

‘You’ll never guess,’ gushed Lucy. ‘François Nars has said yes to us doing a shoot at his house on Bora-Bora. If you tell me I can’t go, I will die.’

‘Before we arrange the funeral, let’s check the budget with Ciara and we’ll take it from there,’ said Cate, smiling, as she walked into her office.

Lucy followed her in to catch up on the Fashion Week gossip. ‘Did you go to the Zac Posen party? Sorry I missed it but I had to make yesterday’s flight.’

‘Yes, I went and yes, it was fun,’ Cate replied, smiling at the memory.

Lucy gave Cate a mischievous grin. ‘I detect gossip, chief … So who did you meet? What was he like?’

She motioned Lucy into her office, a corner space on the eighth floor, just high enough to have views over the London Eye and the river. Lucy sat down and Cate flopped into her toffee-coloured leather chair behind her desk, quickly beginning to open the huge pile of mail that had accumulated in her absence. She casually tossed each item in front of Lucy as they spoke. Acres of press releases, stiff white party invitations and parcels of gifts from grateful advertisers and retailers. A Jimmy Choo bag and a white designer scarf, a stiff cardboard bag full of beauty products that Cate doubted would even fit through the bathroom door in her tiny Notting Hill mews house. She pushed the bag towards Lucy. ‘Need any of these?’

‘I don’t need products, I want gossip,’ said Lucy. ‘Come on, spill.’

Knowing she was not going to get away with distracting her friend, Cate relented with a smile.

‘The party was excellent. In this huge, amazing loft in the Meatpacking district. And they gave a great goody-bag, you’ll be delighted to hear. A hundred-dollar voucher for some underwear and a bottle of perfume. I’ve got it in my bag somewhere if you want it.’

Lucy flew a dismissive hand across her face. ‘Goody-bags, schmoody-bags! Catherine Balcon, you met a guy, didn’t you? Praise Jesus, tell me you’ve found someone, even if he does live in Manhattan.’

Only Lucy could get away with being so brazen and cheeky. A wide smile spread across Cate’s face, her ripe cheeks rounding out like two Cox’s apples as she conceded defeat. It was so long since she had met anybody decent. Serena’s perma-tanned playboy friends held no interest for her, while straight, single men in London’s media world were as rare as hen’s teeth. She’d had sex with two men in the last two years and not had a proper relationship in – well, too long. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her she had intimacy problems, and the longer it went on, the harder it became. Serena was forever telling Cate that she made herself seem as available as Fort Knox. She was certainly right, except New York had been a bit more productive.

‘He was a photographer called Tim. He was nice. He won’t ring.’ Cate shook her head. ‘Satisfied?’

‘No. Not satisfied. Getting any personal detail out of you is like drilling for deep-sea oil! If I had met a gorgeous New York hunk, I’d …’

Lucy’s fantasies ground to a halt as a willowy, size zero blonde in a cream Chloé trouser suit waltzed into the office and sat proprietorially on the arm of the sofa, crossing her legs and dangling a Manolo off her foot. ‘So how was New York?’ asked Nicole Valentine, her voice hard and nasal.

Cate looked up at her deputy editor, annoyed that she had interrupted a rare moment of confession.

‘Hi Nicole, it was fine,’ she said. ‘Look, Nicole, we’re talking …’

Nicole ignored Cate and turned her attention to Lucy. ‘The fashion cupboard is a tip,’ she barked. ‘And why have we got racks of clothes in the meeting room? I need it cleaned, Lucy. Like, yesterday.’

Lucy flashed a look at Cate and left. Cate turned to her deputy. ‘Nicole. There is no need to talk to a senior member – any member – of staff like that.’

Nicole raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow at her boss. ‘As you wish,’ she replied defiantly. ‘However, we have more important things to worry about.’

‘Is that why you started the meeting without me?’

Nicole paused dramatically, playing smugly with the five-carat Asscher-cut engagement ring on her finger. ‘I started the meeting because we need to start getting things done. I spoke to Jennifer’s publicist last night and it looks like the April cover isn’t going to happen.’

Cate felt panic starting to flutter around her body. ‘What do you mean, isn’t going to happen? We’ve done the shoot. We’ve designed the cover. It looks great,’ she started, then rubbed her forehead. ‘Bloody hell. We go to press in a week. What went wrong?’

‘We said we’d give picture approval and when we sent the images over to her publicist – well, they don’t like the shoot.’ Nicole pursed her lips into a self-satisfied smile that said, ‘So, what are you going to do about that?’

Cate looked at Nicole and thought – not for the first time – how much the New Yorker unsettled her. Everything about her deputy, from the platinum-blonde highlights to her Manolo Blahnik heels was hard. Cate was a tough but fair boss: she gave respect and courtesy and received it in the same way from a grateful staff that, she was sure, had been enjoying life on the magazine since Cate became editor a year ago. But her relationship with Nicole was awkward and competitive and she regretted the day she’d hired her from W magazine in New York. Nicole was cold, efficient and ambitious, and it was that ambition that scared her, knowing how often it went hand in hand with deceit and disloyalty.

Sadie popped her curls round the door. She was holding a steaming china mug. ‘For my jet-lagged editor,’ she said, placing it on a flower-shaped coaster on the desk. ‘And William Walton has called three times this morning. He said could you pop up to see him as soon as you’ve settled in?’

In the six months since Walton’s appointment to the board of Alliance Magazines from a large advertising and marketing agency in Chicago, Cate had had very little to do with him. As his background wasn’t editorial, he showed no interest in Class, apart from the sales figures at the end of every month and any free tickets for the opera, Formula One or art-gallery openings that the features department could throw his way.

‘Really?’ said Cate, feeling a flutter of alarm. ‘What does he want?’

She caught the look on Nicole’s face, which was one of someone who’d just been given an early birthday present.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sadie with a sympathetic look, ‘but his secretary is starting to call every five minutes.’

All alone in the lift, Cate stared at the buttons and wondered what to say to Walton. Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, she knew she should feel confident: if the reaction she’d got in New York was anything to go by, both the readers and advertisers were finally getting it. She’d spent twelve months redesigning the magazine, and had by sheer strength of will changed Class from a dated, pompous society magazine to a glossy fashionable read for smart, successful women. The catwalk shows had been a wonderful vindication; a raft of prestige advertisers who so far had only ever appeared in Vogue in the UK had suggested that Class would be added to their advertising schedule in the fall. That should please Mr William Walton, thought Cate, as the bell pinged for the top floor.

She walked through the double doors and down the cream corridors lined with giant-sized magazine covers, until she reached an unsmiling redhead behind a computer.

‘Is he busy?’

‘Go straight in,’ replied the woman, not looking up from her computer screen.

William Walton’s office was unlike anything else Cate had seen in the Alliance building. Interior-designed at great expense, it was decked out in walnut wood and shades of taupe instead of the usual Formica and magnolia walls that everybody else had to put up with. The man himself was sitting behind a wraparound leather-top desk. His self-possessed presence filled the room. Powerfully built, with wiry black hair, Walton’s expensive bespoke clothes masked the fact that he had got to the top the hard way. The very hard way. When, twenty years ago, the young William had beaten thousands to win a scholarship to Yale, he had assumed it would pave the way to privilege. He was mistaken. The doors to American society’s elite were still very much closed to a boy from the southside of Chicago and, instead of spending his summers making contacts in Connecticut country clubs, he was forced to fight his way through the mailrooms of Grey’s and Ogilvy & Mather to achieve the status he craved. But he had made it. Power and privilege, he’d learned, were things to be won by hard work and cunning, not born or bought into. All of which explained precisely why William Walton was looking at Cate Balcon with such distaste.

‘I wanted to see you as soon as you got in,’ began Walton. ‘I hear we have a few problems.’ Walton paused, his dark, feral eyes sizing her up. He’d seen her before, of course, and read about her in the society pages she seemed to monopolize along with her sisters. But alone and face to face for the first time, Walton was impressed despite himself. She might not be a patch on that actress sister of hers, but Cate Balcon was still a knockout. The firm, slightly sulky rosebud mouth, the wavy, dark-golden hair flowing over that elegant neck. And then there was the curvy body, no doubt considered plump by the stick-thin Zone-dieted women he’d dated in Chicago, but when he imagined it naked and wet under his shower, her plump lips round his cock, swallowing him whole … He stopped himself and shifted in his seat, motioning her to sit in one of the hard black leather chairs in front of him.

‘As you know, Cate, magazines are a business,’ he began.

She nodded hesitantly. ‘Of course. I had lots of compliments in New York about how we’ve really improved the magazine. The advertising is looking very promising.’

William didn’t seem to notice what she was saying as he flicked through an issue of Class with what looked suspiciously like disdain.

‘Magazines are a business,’ he repeated. ‘And I was brought into Alliance to improve that business. They are not simply entertainment, they are a commodity, and to be honest with you, Cate, I don’t think the numbers Class is selling at the moment really warrants the investment.’

Cate immediately realized that this was not going to be a friendly, ‘How were the New York shows?’ catch-up. She needed to do some firefighting.

‘With respect, we’re showing a definite turnaround in circulation,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘If anything, William, since I arrived at Alliance, we’ve improved the Class business by at least fifteen per cent. We’ve stopped the circulation rot and improved advertising volume and yield.’

‘I wouldn’t call a hundred thousand sales a month show-stopping business,’ interrupted Walton tartly, throwing the magazine down on the desk.

‘Well, it’s not the News of the World, no. But it’s better than both Tatler and Harper’s,’ said Cate.

Walton steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and regarded her coolly. Cate Balcon was clearly no pushover. But then neither was he.

‘I suspect, however, that the magazines you mention all have a cover for their April issue.’

The hairs on Cate’s neck began to tingle. She could practically see Nicole Valentine’s smile as she whispered into Walton’s ear. She squeezed her nails into her palm and decided that she’d fire Nicole this afternoon and hang the consequences.

Cate took a deep breath. ‘So someone’s told you about Jennifer. I just heard about that this morning, too. It’s not ideal, but it happens. I’ve actually got something in reserve,’ she said, her cheeks flushing lightly at the deliberate lie. But Walton wasn’t watching. He’d got up from his seat and had turned his back on her to stare at the London skyline, absently rolling a golf ball around in his palm.

‘I am not interested in the micromanagement of your magazine, Cate,’ he replied flatly. ‘A picture of my grandmother could go on the cover if you could guarantee me sales. What I am interested in is revenue. I think Class should be a more mass-market, more profitable magazine. I don’t want to be outselling Tatler, I want to be outselling Glamour.’ He turned back towards Cate and banged the golf ball onto the desk. ‘I want to be outselling everyone.’

Cate was used to being bullied by her father – she’d put up with bullying then and would put up with it now.

‘A fine ambition, of course,’ she said evenly, carefully smoothing down her skirt. God, she was shaking, she thought, looking at her hands. She hated confrontation and tried to imagine what her sister Camilla would do in her shoes.

‘But you’ll be aware that Class magazine is not published on a mass-market model. We are advertising rather than circulation driven, and I think you’ll need a massive repositioning of the product to change that.’

He looked at her, smiling cruelly. ‘Exactly, Cate, exactly. So you’ll understand completely what I’m about to say.’

The bile was beginning to rise in Cate’s throat and she was finding it impossible to open her mouth to speak. ‘Which is what?’ she finally croaked.

Walton wasn’t to be hurried. He’d pictured scenes like this every time he’d been humiliated by a toffee-nosed Ivy-Leaguer in college, and he always enjoyed every second of revenge when it came. He walked around his huge desk, perched on the corner and looked down at Cate.

‘The Honourable Catherine Balcon,’ he said with a superior smirk, and Cate shivered, sensing that the fatal blow was about to be delivered. ‘While it’s obviously wonderful to have someone of your high profile editing one of our titles, I have to wonder what it really brings to the party. If Class is going to be more populist, more popular, I need someone at the helm more in touch with the Great British Public. Not someone whose daddy owns a castle.’

‘What a ridiculous thing to say,’ retorted Cate angrily. ‘My background has nothing to do with whether I can be a good, commercial editor or not. And anyway, if you got to know your employees better, you’d find out that I’m not the out-of-touch aristocrat you clearly think I am!’

Walton took in the long curvy legs hiding under the navy wool pencil skirt and actually began to regret the missed opportunity of getting to know Cate Balcon better. ‘You’re just not my person for the job, Cate,’ he said coldly. He stood up and briskly walked back to his seat. ‘I have immediate plans for Class magazine,’ he continued, already starting to flick through his mobile-phone menu for the number of his lunch date. ‘And I’m afraid that you’re not going to be part of them.’

Cate stared at him, her head starting to feel dizzy. It had all happened so fast. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘In plain Queen’s English, Miss Balcon, you’re fired. With immediate effect.’

Cate felt paralysed. She was unable to move from her chair.

‘On what grounds? That my DNA is wrong?’

Walton didn’t seem to hear. His attention had already wandered to something on his computer screen.

‘Fine,’ said Cate in a quiet, controlled voice, rising unsteadily and moving towards the door with dignity. ‘You will, of course, be hearing from my solicitors.’

William Walton glanced up and took one last look at the long legs exiting his office. ‘Get them to call my secretary.’

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