TASMINA PERRY

Gold Diggers

Copyright

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2007

Copyright © Tasmina Perry 2008

Tasmina Perry asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Source ISBN: 9780007262397

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007386376

Version: 2014-12-10

Dedication

To my parents

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

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21

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63

64

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66

67

68

69

70

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

About the Publisher

Prologue

The 175-foot superyacht Zeus bobbed silently in Turkbuku Bay, the recently anointed St Tropez of Turkey’s Turquoise Coast. The night sky seamlessly blended into the oily-black waters of the Aegean Sea, wrapping the spectacular yacht in a cloak of darkness. A ghostly hush had fallen on the decks. Everyone on board had gone to beach clubs after dinner several hours ago, with only the crew playing cards below decks and enjoying an evening off from their demanding guests. All the guests except one. Sebastian Edward Cavendish, Old Etonian, minor aristocrat and owner of Cavendish Gallery, the most prestigious photographic gallery in London, sat in the Zeus’s smartest stateroom feeling as if his whole life was unravelling. Not even the luxury of the cabin, with its walnut-panelled walls and huge picture window looking out onto the inky sea could diminish his sense of being trapped. Sebastian had returned from The Supper Club, the Bodrum Peninsula’s hottest nightspot, an hour earlier, drunk and angry. Unable to relax due to his escalating problems back home, his anxieties had bubbled over at the club and he’d had a furious argument with his wife, accusing her of flirting with their host. Tongue loosened by ouzo and goaded by his wife, he had blurted out that he’d slept with his new gallery assistant, a dazzling blonde recruited straight out of the Courtauld Institute. His wife had erupted like Mount St Helens, getting it into her stupid pampered head that it was some kind of ongoing affair and had threatened him with divorce. He had pleaded with her to come back to the yacht to discuss things away from the DJ and the cocktails and eavesdropping jet set, but she had turned on her spike heels and disappeared. Frustrated, seething, he had stormed back to the boat.

Now, staring out of the window of the cabin, he was feeling terrible, the alcohol buzzing round his bloodstream. He looked at his watch. Three a.m. and she still hadn’t returned to the yacht.

That bitch, he thought.

Sebastian stripped off his clothes, throwing them onto a leather club chair and chopped out a line of coke on the dressing table in the hope that it would make him feel better. As soon as the white powder hit the back of his throat he knew he had made a mistake. He felt even worse.

Pulling on a white towelling bathrobe, Sebastian padded out on deck to get a hit of cold, salty night sea air. He leant against the waist-high rail at the aft of the yacht and rubbed his eyes. The lights of Turkbuku twinkled in the distance like tiny flickering candles. Beyond that his eyes strained to make out the heavily wooded Turkish hillside, the tall spike of a mosque’s minaret. He wondered if this would be his last holiday on the big yacht with the glamorous friends. He snorted scornfully. They were friends now, but would they still want to know him when he was bankrupt? Like hell – and he was living on borrowed time. Despite the high-profile launch parties and exhibitions of some of the world’s finest fashion photographers, the Cavendish Gallery was failing, his gambling debts were mounting, and a particularly nasty North London family were chasing him for money he’d foolishly borrowed. He stood to lose everything. He had already put the Holland Park house, that stucco-fronted jewel, in his wife’s name where it would be out of reach, although after tonight he was beginning to doubt that was such a good idea. Christ, he hoped she had cooled down. Sebastian hated confrontation; that was the root of his trouble. In business, in life, in love.

He pushed himself upright and picked up a glass from the table beside him, pouring in a splash of ouzo. It was time to sort his life out, he thought, throwing the drink back. The yacht was due to sail to Istanbul in the morning, he reflected. They could get off at the port and enjoy a couple of days together strolling around the exotic bazaars, walking along the Bosphorus, and try and recapture that exquisite feeling of falling madly, addictively in love.

He listened for the hum of the tender again, but the yacht was silent, the only sound the black waves lapping against the hull; a hollow, hypnotic sound, matching his sense of hopelessness.

Suddenly he turned, convinced he had heard something – a soft flurry of footsteps on the deck, perhaps? No, just the same gentle slap of water against the boat. He was becoming paranoid. Even in London he was beginning to feel watched wherever he went. Defiantly he tossed his crystal tumbler overboard and leant right over the railings to hear the satisfying plop as the glass fell into the sea. He didn’t notice that his solid silver Asprey cigar cutter had slipped out of his pocket and landed on the deck with a quiet thud. He never would.

Early next morning, a Turkish fisherman, sailing in the bay on his small wooden gulet, discovered a white naked body, quite dead, floating in the water, and contacted the local police immediately. About the same time, the guests of Zeus, stirring from their party-sleep, were quizzing the captain about the whereabouts of one of their number. Sebastian Cavendish had rightly prophesied that it would be his last holiday on board the magnificent yacht. A Turkish inquest pronounced the incident death by accidental drowning. His wife, Karin, inherited the Holland Park mansion, a spectacular photographic collection and £5 million in life insurance.

1

Six months later

‘Doesn’t she look fabulous?’

‘And after everything she’s been through. Still a bit pale, though, don’t you think?’

‘No wonder. Apparently she stayed in Kensington for Christmas.’

‘London? I thought I saw her in St Barts?’

‘On a yacht? No way, not after the accident. I heard she never wants to set foot on a yacht ever again.’

Sipping from her flute of pink champagne, Karin Cavendish tried to ignore the whispers coming from every corner of Donna and Daniel Delemere’s Eton Square ballroom. A woman of impeccable manners, she was mortified that her presence at the christening had completely upstaged her new goddaughter’s big day. Her leave of absence from the social scene after the death of her husband Sebastian had only heightened Karin’s considerable allure, and in the last six months she had become the subject of gossip and fascinated speculation.

Still, nothing could detract from a party like this, thought Karin. It really was impressive. The one hundred guests who had attended St Peter’s Church an hour earlier for Evie’s baptism were now circulating around one of the most beautiful ballrooms in London. Forget power christening, thought Karin, popping a caviar blini on her tongue: this was more like a royal wedding. Waiters milled around with trays of bubbling Krug and delicate canapés. Filipino housekeepers were discreetly plumping up silk cushions and taking coats to the cloakroom. The net worth of the guests in this room alone must be over £10 billion, she calculated, looking at Ariel Levy, Martin Birtwell, and Evie’s grandfather, Lord Alexander Delemere. She had not seen such a fine gathering of billionaires since her own wedding to Sebastian six years earlier, at the Cavendish family seat of Hopton Castle. She thought for a moment how Sebastian would have loved it. He had been so handsome and well connected, she sighed.

Back-lit by a long, gilt-framed window, Karin’s elegant figure was attracting discreet admiring glances from the men in the room and she tried not to smile. It had been a difficult six months, during which time Karin had thrown herself into her work and seen only the closest of friends, but now she was back on the circuit, it seemed that her new status of widow was not without its advantages. It gave her a whiff of tragedy, a veneer of respect. It removed the suggestion of predatory desires that so often accompanied a glamorous divorcee or single woman. Suddenly she was available, romantic and loaded. Not a bad place to be, thought Karin, taking in the super-rich lifestyle in front of her. Not bad at all.

‘We can’t tell you how honoured we are that you agreed to be Evie’s godmother,’ said Donna Delemere, approaching Karin, clutching her three-month old daughter Evie.

Karin leant forward and gingerly pulled back the voluminous folds of the Brittany lace gown covering the child with an elegantly manicured finger.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Lovely ceremony. And how is my goddaughter?’

‘A darling,’ smiled Donna with pride. ‘Don’t you think she’s just so pretty? I want to put her in for modelling. I’m thinking Baby Dior; none of those vulgar nappy ads you see on TV. But I don’t think Daniel likes the idea. Says it’s too gosh.’

‘Gauche?’ asked Karin with a small smile.

‘That’s the one,’ she said flushing prettily. ‘Maybe he’s right. Anyway, let’s mingle.’

Karin followed Donna through the crowds, nodding at acquaintances, accepting compliments and flattering looks. While many of the rumours about Karin Cavendish were fanciful or downright scandalous, one thing they all agreed on was that Karin looked fabulous. At thirty-one, in a cherry-red jersey dress which seemed to slide off her slim curves, it would be easy to mistake her for a model. Her long tanned legs, full-lipped pout, and the glossy brown hair which bounced onto her shoulders, all gave her the striking appeal of a sultry yet aloof French actress. And currently there was extra sparkle in Karin’s wolf-green eyes. She had just sold her five-storey home in Holland Park for £12 million to a prominent Iranian businessman, downsized to a de-luxe Georgian townhouse in Kensington, and ploughed the profit into her company, Karenza, the sexiest, chicest swimwear company after Erès. Yes, there were prettier girls, there were richer girls but, looking around the party, where London’s entire beau monde were sipping Krug, she knew that nobody was quite the dynamic package she was.

Donna led her to a corner of the room where society giants Christina Levy and Diana Birtwell were huddled.

‘And is this the gorgeous godmother?’ laughed Christina, a stunning redhead wearing Lanvin, five hundred thousand pounds’ worth of emeralds and a cloud of bespoke scent. ‘Kay’s just the perfect choice for godmother, darling,’ she smirked to Donna. ‘She has a fabulous archive of Chanel, for which Evie will one day be very grateful. Although I hope you’re not seriously looking to her for Evie’s spiritual guidance.’

The wife of Ariel Levy, the biggest British retail tycoon since Philip Green, Christina had only just managed to squeeze the christening in between a post-Christmas stint at Amansala’s Bikini Boot Camp in Tulum and the haute-couture collections in Paris. Sitting next to Christina was Diana Birtwell, a decorous Paltrow blonde and wife of Martin Birtwell, the Internet gambling king. Together they were Karin’s closest female friends. The three woman had shared a house in Chelsea almost a decade earlier, when Christina, a former Californian beauty queen, had come over to London to score a record deal. She had run into Karin and Diana at Hobo’s nightclub, where the two school friends spent night after night drinking cocktails and chasing floppy-haired banking heirs. Hitting it off, the three of them had rented 23b College Mews, a tiny pink terrace in Chelsea, and had painted the international social scene red, white and blue, jetting around the globe at the expense of rich men. The three Mustique-ateers smiled Karin, that’s what they’d called themselves. They had promised lifetime loyalty to each other and swore they’d never be without De Beers diamonds.

Donna passed Evie to her Australian nanny and sat opposite Diana and Christina on a huge leather ottoman.

‘Who is that with Rula?’ asked Karin, discreetly pointing to a tall, slim porcelain-skinned woman with long, buttery-blonde hair. A reigning Miss Adriatic Coast, she was standing with her arm wrapped proprietorially around a stout man in his sixties, with a bald head and a white tuft of hair on the point of his chin. Rula’s four-inch Louboutin heels meant there was almost a foot height difference between the two of them.

‘That’s Conrad Pushkin,’ whispered Christina. ‘The novelist. Apparently they’ve got engaged but haven’t announced it yet. Not until she’s handed over the pageant crown.’

‘A novelist?’ said Diana with surprise. ‘What’s she thinking?’ Rula was one of their more beautiful acquaintances, which was a significant achievement considering their social group consisted of some of London’s most groomed and striking women. Rula was wearing a sable mink poncho and cream leather trousers that made her legs look endless. In the women’s opinion, Rula could have had anyone.

‘He has a Nobel prize, honey,’ said Christina, wide-eyed. ‘I have to hand it to her – it’s pure genius!’

‘What’s genius?’ asked Donna, taking a sip of champagne. She had stopped breast-feeding especially for the party.

‘Deferred gratification, darling,’ said Christina, as if it was obvious. Seeing Donna’s blank look, she patiently explained. ‘Rula’s decided not to go for the really big catch,’ replied Christina thoughtfully. ‘Not immediately, anyway. Conrad’s not good-looking, but he’s not exactly rich either, so all the decent men, and I’m talking top fifty on the Sunday Times Rich List here, they’ll see this gorgeous woman marrying an egghead and think, “Ah! Rula isn’t interested in money! She married him for love, the lucky dog.” So when she’s done with him, mark my words, that honey is going to be in hot demand. The world thinks she’s a beautiful woman not interested in money, but the kicker is that her ex-husband was a world-class brain. Rich men are desperate to feel clever. Marry Rula and they can bask in Conrad’s glory.’

Donna whistled, in awe of Christina’s wisdom.

‘Do you spend hours thinking about this stuff?’ asked Karin, taking a Parma-ham wrapped fig from a platter.

‘Darling, we all spend hours thinking about this stuff,’ smiled Christina with a wink.

‘Anyway, on to more serious matters … who did the catering, Donna honey?’ Christina continued. ‘I’m looking for someone to do Joshua’s birthday. We’re looking for something tasteful but simple.’

‘Like recreating Narnia?’ said Karin, recalling the last birthday party Christina had arranged for her nine-year-old stepson, Ariel’s child by his first wife. Their whole Mayfair mansion had been transformed into a C S Lewis novel complete with real snow, actors dressed as fauns and shoulder-high piles of Turkish delight.

‘We want Joshua to have the best of everything,’ said Christina knowingly.

‘Actually, it’s the chefs from the farm who have put this together,’ said Donna. ‘Everything being served here today you can buy in the farm shop.’

Donna had recently opened a spa and organic farm store on the Delemere family estate, a bucolic 2000-acre parcel of land in Oxfordshire. You couldn’t seem to move these days for socialites setting up children’s clothes shops or designing handbags, thought Karin wryly. Of course, she wouldn’t class herself with the bored lunching classes and their expensive hobbies. Karenza swimwear was becoming big business: turnover of £20 million a year, two more shop launches planned for the autumn and ideas for a lingerie line rolling out next year. Seb’s death had made her a rich woman, but within the next five years she was determined that the money she now had in her Coutt’s bank account would seem like pocket money.

‘You really should be thinking about promoting yourself as the Eco-Brit Martha Stewart,’ said Karin, looking at her slim, eager friend. ‘I know the farm shop is doing well, but you should start expanding the franchise as soon as possible. The possibilities of lifestyle brand extensions from Delemere are endless.’

‘Do you always have to talk business?’ grumbled Diana, draining her flute of champagne.

Karin smiled thinly. She felt sorry for women like Diana who had nothing to do except shop. After drifting into fashion PR, Diana had been working on a promotion for a Savile Row tailor. Dropping into the showroom one day, she had met Martin Birtwell, rising Internet gambling tycoon, coming out of the changing room. Diana was seduced by Martin’s drive and by his convertible Sports car; Martin was dazzled by the fashionable society world that Diana moved in. They instantly became one of London’s most attractive couples. But the second Diana had married him, in July the previous summer, she had given up work. She now filled her days with blow-dry appointments and baby showers. Karin pursed her lips just thinking about it. How silly, she thought. Karin wanted a man to enhance her position, not to depend on him for it. She looked around the room, sizing up all the fabulously wealthy men in front of her. It won’t be long, she thought. It won’t be long.

On the other side of the room, Molly Sinclair wasn’t sure what was making her feel more sick, the calorific cupcake she had just eaten, or sheer naked envy. Molly had just been treated to a tour of the house, which had brought home to her the extent of Donna Delemere’s good fortune. Evie’s nursery was bigger than Molly’s entire apartment, taking up a whole floor of the Georgian pile, complete with a nanny annexe and a Mark Wilkinson cot in the shape of Cinderella’s carriage. White French armoires were stuffed with Bonpoint clothes, while a huge photograph of Mummy and Daddy’s wedding hung over the fireplace like a gloating reminder of everything Molly didn’t have.

It didn’t seem two minutes ago since Donna Jones, as she was known back when Molly had first met her, was a bottle-blonde tramp looking for city boys at Legends nightclub. Now look at her, she thought bitterly, taking a long swig of vodka. Donna had swapped her Dolce & Gabbana hot pants for Brora cashmere twinsets the minute she had met Daniel Delemere, an art historian with a huge family fortune, at the Cartier polo three years earlier. But that had been just the start of her incredible transformation into society wife. Her hair was now a soft nutmeg brown, her wardrobe an elegant mixture of Marni and Jil Sander and, bearing the Delemere name, Donna now sat on the most important charity committees and holidayed for the entire summer in the best villas around the Med. Nobody seemed to mention that she had once been a mobile beautician from Hull.

Of course, Donna had only done what girls with humble backgrounds and explosive good looks had been doing for decades. What really needled Molly was that it hadn’t been her. It was an eternal mystery to Molly why she hadn’t managed to elevate herself into this strata of society. Acquiring a husband with an impressive surname and a gull’s-egg sized rock on her finger was something she had expected ever since her modelling career had taken off like a bottle-rocket in the 1980s. She had been voted one of the world’s most beautiful women four times, for Christ’s sake! Not quite in the Christy Turlington league, but Molly had certainly been on the next rung down in the supermodel pecking order. And Molly had weathered well. Even at forty-three, Molly could have passed for someone ten years younger, and the smouldering sex appeal that had made her famous had not been dimmed. Her hair was long and thick with glossy tawny highlights. Her cheekbones were high and noble and her tanned skin, regularly treated with cell-regeneration shots, from a distance looked fresh and young. Today she was wearing a winter-white cashmere sweater and cream trousers, and she looked as if she had stepped off a plane from St Barts that very morning, not out of her home in the slightly more ‘bohemian’ end of Notting Hill.

But no, the good marriage hadn’t happened. Bad luck, bad judgement, bad drugs – who knew? The bottom line was that her mid-forties were around the corner and Molly was still single. Even worse was that she was slowly being shut out from the most exclusive society events. Those girlfriends she had spent night after night with at L’Equipe Anglaise, Tramp and Annabel’s in the 1980s and 1990s had all disappeared to grand Scottish country estates, to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, or to mansion houses on Palm Beach. Every now and then she would receive a invitation to an event like today’s christening, but she was never invited to spend a week at the villas, or to intimate dinners with the prize husbands. It was obvious why. She was a single, beautiful woman and therefore a threat, plus Molly was part of their past, a past she knew they did not want to be reminded of.

She picked on a crab claw before throwing it into a plant pot behind her. She took a deep breath, assuring herself that the situation was purely temporary. She was Molly Sinclair, the supermodel. She had lived longer on her wits than any of these nobodies. She stalked off to the bathroom to take a line of cocaine. She’d show them. All of them.

Karin popped open her compact and checked her reflection. She had to be looking her best for a charm offensive. As godmother, Karin’s attendance at Evie’s christening had, of course, been de rigueur, but it was also an ideal opportunity to drum up business for the charity benefit gala dinner she had planned for the following month. With so many society players in the room in such a buoyant, benevolent mood, it would have been foolish to let the opportunity pass to sell tickets for her ‘Stop Global Warming’ benefit gala. Like many of the women in the room, Karin had dipped her toe in charity work before, but after Sebastian’s death she had needed a more substantial project to sink her teeth into, and an exclusive high-profile dinner for eight hundred was just the solution.

‘How are the auction prizes coming along?’ asked Christina, who had already donated a week on the Levys’ yacht the Big Blue as a lot.

‘Fine,’ replied Karin. ‘Except I had to fire the events assistant yesterday. You don’t know anyone suitable, do you? I need someone young, keen, presentable – someone with a brain.’

Christina shook her head blankly.

‘I can ask Martin if you like,’ said Diana. ‘I think his company use some agency.’

‘I’d be grateful,’ said Karin, in her usual cool, efficient manner. ‘They don’t have to be experienced, just keen. I’ll be handling the important matters like guest lists and table plans.’

‘Ahh, I see,’ smiled Diana, playing with a pebble-sized solitaire diamond dangling around her neck. ‘Now you’re single …’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Karin, waving a hand dismissively. ‘I’m only interested in raising as much money as possible. Do you know what’s happening to the icecaps?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Diana. ‘The snow was awful in Megève this year.’

‘Hey, why don’t we ask Molly Sinclair?’ said Donna, nodding towards the tall woman across the room. ‘She’s a consultant at Feldman Jones PR and Events. She must know someone suitable.’

‘If we must,’ said Karin coolly. Karin barely knew Molly, but knew of her; an eighties almost-supermodel, a coked-up has-been, still on the circuit peddling her overt sexuality, trying to bag whatever half-rich man would have her.

Donna waved her friend over.

‘Everyone here knows Molly, don’t they?’ said Donna, getting weak smiles from all three women. ‘Do you know of any good PAs or events assistants, Molly?’

‘What’s it for?’ purred Molly in her smouldering smoker’s voice.

‘Karin’s Stop Global Warming benefit. She’s trying to do it without a committee,’ said Christina sternly.

Karin smiled thinly. A committee was the last thing she needed. She was happy to let a handful of select, connected friends sell tickets on the fund’s behalf, but the controlling streak in Karin would not allow any meddling in her vision. She wanted the glory to be all hers.

‘Will you be coming, Molly?’ asked Diana, absently wondering how Molly managed to look so good. If she’d had a lift, it was amazing.

‘Tables are very expensive,’ said Karin quickly. ‘One thousand pounds a plate and selling out quickly.’

Molly shook her head, hair swooshing from side to side across her shoulders. ‘Can’t make the actual dinner, unfortunately. I have friends coming from the States that night,’ she said, accepting another glass of champagne from a waiter.

Inwardly, Molly was wincing at the ticket price. A thousand pounds! It was outrageous! Her coke allowance for a month. Six months’ gym membership. A good dress. She knew the event was a worthwhile investment, but she just didn’t have that much money sloshing around.

‘Speaking of friends, I tell you who you should invite,’ smiled Christina, taking a delicate sip of a white Russian. ‘Adam Gold.’

‘Who’s he?’ asked Karin.

‘Karin, darling, you’re slacking,’ smiled Christina through glossy lips. ‘New York real-estate and investment guy. He’s behind some of those fabulous new condo developments in Manhattan, Miami and Dallas. He’s also very sexy and very wealthy. Just made the Forbes list this year.’

Molly’s ears pricked up. Forbes list! That meant net worth a billion dollars minimum.

Karin gave Christina her best uninterested ice-queen expression. ‘Billionaire or not, he’s unlikely to come from New York for a party, even this one.’

‘Oh no, haven’t you heard?’ said Diana, widening her baby-blue eyes. ‘He’s just moved to London. Martin says he’s rolling out his property developing all over Europe, Moscow and Dubai and the Far East.’

‘We could do with a shot of new blood,’ said Christina, smiling. ‘Not that I want to touch, of course,’ she added, stealing a glance at her husband, who was smoking a Cohiba on the terrace, ‘but I do like to look.’

‘Darling, get him invited,’ smiled Christina, touching Karin’s knee meaningfully. ‘The tickets will fly out the door once word gets out that he’s coming.’

‘Well, I am in London that evening,’ said Molly slowly. ‘Perhaps I could pop by afterwards …?’

Karin and Molly’s eyes locked and they recognized in the other something they had encountered many times before. Rivalry.

‘I hate to disappoint you, sweetheart,’ said Karin coolly, ‘but there won’t be any after-dinner tickets for the benefit night. It’s just not that kind of event.’

Molly smiled. It was her sweetest, most earnest smile, a smile that had lit up a dozen magazine covers and persuaded many people, people much richer and more powerful than Karin, to do her bidding. Yes, thought Molly, Adam Gold sounded like just the sort of man to get her right back where she belonged, and she wasn’t going to let an uptight, jealous little control freak like Karin Cavendish stop her from getting him. And her smile grew just a little wider.

2

Cornwall in January is beautiful. Not the hazy beauty of midsummer, when the sea shines turquoise and the sun blurs distant hillsides into deep green smudges, but a bleak, eerie beauty so strong, crisp and immediate that it turns your cheeks pink and sends a shiver through your bones. Erin Devereux pulled her scarf a little higher around her chin, too wound up to appreciate the chilly splendour around her. My life is going nowhere, she thought grimly, thrusting her hands deeper into her pockets and marching on along the cliff top. Usually, whenever she felt uninspired, there was nothing like the granite rocks, crashing surf and the whiff of smugglers to get her creative juices flowing. But nowadays, more often than not, she found herself wondering what she was doing in the prime of her life – well, at twenty-four – living in a tiny village at the end of the earth, trying to write a book about … well, nothing very much at the moment. Erin felt so hemmed in by all this open space, she couldn’t get off the first page. She kicked at a pebble in frustration, missing by inches and stubbing her toe on a tree root. She howled in pain and irritation. Just then, as if someone had turned on a tap, it began to rain hard. Story of my life, thought Erin, and began to run for home.

‘These boots are going straight in the bin,’ declared Erin, pushing open the back door of Hawthorn Cottage and feeling the blast of warm, sweet air on her face. She flopped down on the nearest chair, pulled off her sheepskin boots and threw them in the corner.

‘Got writer’s block again?’ said the elderly woman standing in front of a scarlet Aga. Jilly Thomas, Erin’s grandmother, was as small as a mouse, with a shock of wiry grey hair and a proud, handsome face. There was a line of flour across her lined cheek and she was wearing a navy apron smeared with something white.

‘Yep, writer’s block, writer’s clog, writer’s jam, the lot,’ said Erin, pressing her cold toes against a lukewarm radiator.

‘Well, don’t you worry, lovey,’ said Jilly, ‘I’ve cooked you a nice chicken pie and some mash, too – just the ticket to warm you up.’

Erin smiled at her grandmother. No wonder she had put on seven pounds since she’d been back in Cornwall. But her tall frame could take a little extra weight, hidden most of the time in jeans and a thick sweater. Erin glanced in the mirror above the fireplace and saw a ruddy, pretty farm girl. Her lips were full and naturally pink and long russet curls fell down her back. She’d always envied redheads who had startling green eyes – the classic Irish colouring that gave them bold, cat-like strikingness, but Erin’s eyes were cognac brown and it softened the look. Although right now her cheeks had been stung pink by the sea air and ribbons of wind-lashed hair were still stuck to her face. The glamorous authoress, she thought. Erin wrapped her cold fingers around a steaming mug that Jilly had placed before her.

‘The problem is that there’s nothing to write about round here,’ she complained.

‘You make it sound like it’s Cornwall’s fault,’ said Jilly with a hint of a smile.

‘Well – it is!’ said Erin. ‘I’m not doing anything. I’m not experiencing anything. What am I supposed to write about? Seagulls?’

Erin saw a look of sadness pass over Jilly’s face and felt an immediate stab of guilt. She hadn’t meant to sound so critical of the warm, welcoming village she had called home for the last twenty years, nor did she want Jilly to feel in any way inadequate. She owed her grandmother everything. Erin’s father Phillip had committed suicide when she was five, and her mother Hillary had disappeared twelve months later. Erin had immediately moved in with Jilly Thomas, her maternal grandmother and had been brought up as her own daughter. And she had had an idyllic childhood in Port Merryn, running along the beaches, playing in the narrow, twisty streets. It had been like one long summer holiday; even the winters were cosy and warm in Jilly’s kitchen. But, like much of Cornwall, Port Merryn was a dying community. The Atlantic was all but fished out, removing the village’s traditional income, so the quaint stone fishermen’s cottages circling the harbour were being snapped up by rich Londoners as holiday homes. With property prices soaring and no prospect of work, the families had moved to the cities, leaving only a retired community and a handful of locals running tourist-trap cafés and fudge shops. It had been five years since you had been able to buy a pint of milk in Port Merryn, and in the dead of winter the village was like a ghost town.

‘I’m sorry, gran, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I wanted to leave …’

‘Now, now, lovey,’ said Jilly, wiping her hands on her apron and reaching over to touch Erin’s hand. ‘You’re only saying the truth. I know you love the village, but it’s no place for a young girl, not when you’ve seen what’s on the other side of the hill.’

Erin nodded with melancholy. It had seemed like a good idea to move back to Port Merryn after she had graduated from university six months ago. She could save on rent, and move to the city when she’d made a proper start on her writing career. At least, that had been the plan, but it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Raised on a diet of Daphne Du Maurier and John Fowles – Jilly had always made sure the house was full of books to enrich and inspire her granddaughter’s mind – Erin’s one ambition had been to write the Great British Novel, and had spent every spare moment of her time at uni crafting her debut book. By the end of the last term it had been ready: 120,000 words, double spaced and printed on one-sided white paper. She sent it to a dozen agencies and waited. She had almost given up hope when she had been summoned by Ed Davies, senior partner in Davies & Sisman Literary Agency, to his office in London. Almost numb with excitement, Erin had spent three days deciding what to wear in order to give the right balance of ‘literary genius’ and ‘commercial winner’ and had spent the whole journey there planning her Man Booker Prize acceptance speech. She had thus been badly deflated when Ed Davies had sat her down in his Holborn office and spent twenty minutes telling her why he thought her novel sucked. However, he had seen enough promise, he said, that he was prepared to represent her.

‘I’m taking a chance on you,’ the agent had told her, ‘and this book certainly isn’t going to be your debut novel. But if you can come up with the right premise and execute it as well as I think you can, then I want to be the one negotiating your first deal.’

Erin looked across at her battered old laptop sitting at the desk by the window, almost buried under a mound of papers and notebooks. The screen blinked at her, an open document white and empty. The novel, her great escape route from the village, just wouldn’t come, however hard she tried.

‘Someone called for you while you were out,’ said Jilly, waving an oven glove towards the phone. She was removing a thick crusted pie from the oven, which she placed on the gingham tablecloth.

‘Who was it?’ asked Erin, picking up a Post-it note scrawled with illegible writing. ‘Richard?’ Her relationship with her boyfriend at university was still limping along, even though Erin was now back in Cornwall and Richard was based in London.

‘No, lovey,’ smiled Jilly sympathetically. ‘Katherine someone from an agency, I think?’

Erin felt a rush of excitement. ‘The Deskhop Agency?’

‘That’s the one,’ nodded Jilly. ‘Who are they, then?’

‘It’s a secretarial agency in London,’ said Erin slowly.

‘Secretarial work?’ said Jilly, raising one eyebrow. ‘What about the book?’

‘Gran …’ she replied, hoping not to sound too exasperated, ‘the Deskhop Agency acts for all sorts of media and publishing companies. I thought I might be able to get in through the back door. But don’t worry, it probably won’t come to anything.’

Her grandmother smiled kindly and put her oven gloves down. ‘Erin, don’t you dare go worrying about me. You have a talent, and a talent should take you places, not leave you stranded in a cold little backwater with a pensioner and her stodgy cooking.’

‘But I love the village and I love your cooking!’ protested Erin.

‘I know you do, love,’ said Jilly, running her hand up and down Erin’s arm, ‘but you’re climbing the walls. It’s about time you got out and had some fun while you’re young.’

‘I don’t have enough money to move to London.’

‘You know you do,’ said Jilly.

‘But I can’t use that …’

Erin thought about the nest egg sitting in the bank. Her father had died almost bankrupt, but over the years he had squirrelled away money for his daughter, which had added up to a tidy sum. Erin had never touched it, keeping it for ‘something important’.

‘Maybe it’s time to use it, lovey. Your mum would have wanted you to.’

Erin looked at her grandmother’s deep blue eyes and knew she loved her more than ever. But she also knew she was right.

‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ said Erin, wondering how much of Jilly’s rice pudding she would have to eat before she could slip off and make the phone call.

‘Ah, Erin Devereux. Good of you to call back. I tried your mobile but I’m not sure it’s working.’ Catherine Weiner’s voice was brash and over-friendly. It had been so long since Erin had been up to London for her agency interview, but she remembered how scarily efficient the woman was.

‘Then I tried this number on your CV. Didn’t recognize the dialling code. Where are you? Surrey?’

‘Er, Cornwall,’ said Erin, putting on her best telephone manner.

‘Cornwall,’ replied Catherine, surprised. ‘You’ve not moved down there, have you?’

‘Just staying with friends while my new London flat completes,’ Erin quickly lied. ‘Solicitor tells me it’ll be Friday. Then I’m on the first train back to London.’

‘Well, that’s good news,’ said Catherine, briskly. ‘Because Cornwall is hardly commutable and I think I’ve got a job for you.’

Erin’s interest was piqued. ‘Oh yes?’

‘I see from the notes I took at your interview that you were looking for secretarial cover at a publishing company. Well, this is not that, but it should be lively work for a girl your age.’

‘So what is it?’

‘Events management. It’s a three-week job. The client, a very glamorous lady-about-town needs help staging a benefit dinner. Sending out tickets, lots of admin, lots of running around. She wanted someone bright, organized, presentable. Doesn’t need particularly sharp typing skills, which is why I thought of you. Starts ASAP, mind you. She wants to interview tomorrow. Lots of my girls are committed to long-term contracts, but I thought you might be free …’

Charming, thought Erin.

‘So I have to come up to London for an interview?’ said Erin, thinking about the cost of a train ticket.

‘Erin,’ said Catherine, her voice sharp and reprimanding. ‘This is what’s known as a very sexy gig. Now, are you in or out?’

Erin looked out of the window at the grey emptiness There was no denying it was beautiful here; it even smelt wonderful, with the tang of the sea air mingling with the scent of the wild flowers on the cliffs and the oily trawlers in the harbour. She knew that when she was her grandmother’s age there would be no better place in the world in which to live, but, right now, aged twenty-four, life seemed to be on pause. Cornwall was so cut-off, so disconnected from the rest of the world, she had to get to London to wake herself up. To connect with society. To connect with people.

‘Count me in. I’ll be on the first train tomorrow.’

3

‘Last shot and then that’s it for the day,’ shouted Sally Stevenson, art director of Your Wedding magazine, adjusting the tiara on Summer Sinclair’s head and smoothing down the undulating layers of the Vera Wang gown. Summer groaned with relief. She could see it was already pitch-black outside the French windows of the location house, and she was dying to get home and soak her feet. All day she had wriggled in and out of white meringues and slinky ivory columns, her hair had been pinned up and blow-dried down and she had run through every expression from poetic wistfulness to carefree laughter. In short, she’d spent the day being trussed up like a toilet doily and she was exhausted. Still, at least some of today had been fun, thought Summer, glancing at Charlie McDonald, the male model who had been playing the dashing groom to her blushing bride. Charlie had made her giggle all day long, doing impressions of Stefan the surly Swedish photographer, and chasing the three tiny bridesmaids around the studio creating pandemonium. He was good looking, too, in a preppy, Ralph Lauren kind of way, she thought. Although not my type at all, she corrected herself quickly. Summer tended to go for older men – rich, older men – something her mother had drilled into her since she was a girl.

‘He might be handsome,’ she could hear her mum saying, ‘but can a handsome man get you a private jet?’ No, Charlie was no more than her age, and the last time she had been out with a twenty-four-year-old she had been sixteen – and, even then, he’d been a banking heir.

‘Right now, I want something sexy, something romantic,’ said Stefan sternly. ‘Charlie, can you move to the side of the staircase?’ he directed. ‘And slip your arm around Summer’s waist.’

Charlie moved in close. Bloody hell, he was handsome. Narrow green eyes framed by sooty lashes, clear, lightly tanned skin, a mop of dark blond hair. Without the square jaw he would have been pretty, but the angles of his face toughened him up like a fifties film star. ‘Now, I want you to kiss her gently on the lips.’

Awkwardly, Summer turned her head, feeling her heart beat faster as his lips brushed hers. Charlie was so good looking it was hard to be completely professional, to dissociate desire like you were turning off a tap. It had been over a year since she’d had any sort of intimate contact: despite her looks, Summer rarely dated.

‘Come on, Summer. You’re supposed to have just married this guy!’ shouted Sally. ‘Don’t look at him as if you’re scared stiff.’

Summer forced a smile and moved closer to Charlie as Sally and her assistant began throwing silver and white balloons into the shot.

‘Come on, pretend that you love me,’ Charlie whispered with a soft smile. ‘Then we can all go home.’

The highly strung photographer threw his hands up in the air in frustration. ‘These British!’ he moaned. ‘They are so uptight!’

Sally Stevenson rushed in, clapping her hands. ‘Okay, thank you everyone, that was great,’ she said, lifting her hands above her head for the traditional end-of-shoot applause.

‘So, who wants to come for a drink?’ she asked, looking hopefully at Charlie, who she had booked specially because she fancied him.

‘Don’t mind if I do …’ he said, not taking his eyes off Summer as he spoke.

Summer went into the bathroom to take the thick foundation off her face. She scrambled out of the creamy meringue. Bloody wedding shoots, she thought, staring into the mirror. Then again, she wasn’t exactly Kate Moss, was she?

Come on, Summer, get real and stop grumbling, she chided herself. A fashion shoot for Your Wedding wasn’t the edgy, ground-breaking high-fashion editorial she had dreamt of doing when she had first started modelling; but at least it was work, something she hadn’t had a great deal of since Christmas. At twenty-four, Summer knew that her modelling shelf-life was running out.

Charlie McDonald was waiting for her in the marbled hall, swatting at the balloons as the bridesmaids were bundled into thick duffle coats by their beaming parents.

‘Are you coming for that drink?’ asked Charlie, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

‘Only if you’re buying,’ said Summer playfully.

‘So, how come I haven’t seen you in castings before?’ asked Charlie as they walked towards the door.

‘I’ve been out of the country for the last few years.’

‘Oh yeah? New York?’

‘Japan,’ said Summer, a little embarrassed. She knew Tokyo was considered rather down-market as far as modelling was concerned. The very top girls went to New York where they could make millions of dollars, while the tall, skinny girls went to Paris where they would make couture dresses look even more exclusive and luxurious. Toyko barely even made it onto the fashion map, but the commercial Japanese market had loved Summer’s glorious girl-next-door perfection, with her flawless, peachy complexion, rosy lips and watery, lavender-blue eyes that shined with such innocence that no one noticed that they were there to sell you overpriced cosmetics. She had been one of the top girls at her Tokyo agency, a big star in her tiny neon universe. It was four years of hard work, but it had boosted her confidence, given her plenty and, most importantly, it meant her mother’s seal of approval.

‘Wow, Tokyo? That’s fantastic!’ said Charlie, without any hint of snobbery. ‘I thought about going out there myself to make a bit of money. Apparently they don’t mind short-arses over there.’

Summer laughed. Charlie probably just scraped six foot, but she could sympathize. The lack of work in London for girls her height – five feet seven – was one of the reasons why she went to Japan in the first place.

‘You should go,’ said Summer, ‘it’s an amazing place. A little strange and fantastically polite, but amazing all the same.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘I have a band. The only reason I model is to pay for guitar strings.

‘Ah-ha!’ said Summer triumphantly, ‘I knew it! So you’re the next Noel Gallagher.’ She had always been jealous of male models. While they rarely got the big bucks that the top female models could command, most men she met on the circuit were using modelling as a stopgap or a passport to other things: students working off a bank loan, wannabe TV presenters getting visibility or actors making a quick buck.

‘Yeah, just like Noel Gallagher,’ smiled Charlie, ‘but with better teeth.’

They walked out onto the streets of Belgravia. With the tall white Georgian houses stretching up around them, her hair still in a bouffant, carriage streetlamps glowing like dandelion clocks, she felt like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Sally, Stefan and some of the crew were still huddled in the doorway of the house, sheltering from the spitting rain and debating where to go to drink.

‘What about the Blue Bar for a cocktail?’

‘I’m not paying a tenner for a drink,’ grumbled Charlie. ‘Aren’t there any pubs around here?’

‘Well, what about the Grenadier?’ said Sally looking directly at Charlie. ‘I saw Madonna in there once.’

‘No one famous is going to be out tonight,’ said Jenny the make-up artist, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. ‘It’s that big party in South London tonight, isn’t it?’

Summer felt a sudden sense of panic. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, and started looking up and down the street for a taxi.

‘What’s up?’ asked Charlie.

‘I promised my mum I’d go out with her,’ groaned Summer.

‘Hot date at the bingo?’

Summer laughed at the image. ‘My mum is probably more rock ’n’ roll than anyone you’ve ever met in the music industry.’

‘Excellent! Get her down to the Grenadier!’ said Charlie.

Summer doubted her mum had been to anywhere as down-market as a pub since the 1970s.

‘What are we waiting for over there?’ said Sally Stevenson irritably, unhappy that Summer was monopolizing Charlie.

A black cab pulled up to the kerb, and Summer quickly spoke to the driver. ‘I’d better go,’ said Summer apologetically, clunking the door open.

Charlie rifled around in his bag and pulled out a CD. ‘My band,’ he said, handing it to her with an endearingly nervous expression, like a twelve-year old schoolboy who’d just plucked up the courage to ask a girl out for the first time. ‘Give it a listen. If you like it, we’re playing at the Monarch a week on Thursday. You should come down and hear us.’

She felt a little spike of affection as he pulled a copy of NME out of his bag and held it over his hair as the rain got harder.

‘And if I hate it?’ she asked.

‘Come down anyway.’

As the cab began to turn back up the street, Summer pulled down the window to tell Charlie she would try to make it. As she passed the group, she could see Sally Stevenson sidle up to Charlie and say, ‘Funny fish, that one, isn’t she?’

She couldn’t hear Charlie’s reply.

4

Karin strode into the Great Hall of Strawberry Hill House to give it one final check before heading back to London to get a blow-dry. It was certainly a magnificent room and Karin had very, very high standards. The marble pillars had been wrapped in gold-tipped ivy matching the mansion’s incredible gilded ceilings. The ballroom was studded with bay trees sprayed white, and a long catwalk extended through the sea of tables – Karin had insisted that the vital ingredient of the night’s entertainment would be a showcase of the Karin Cavendish cruise collection. There were ice sculptures, huge vases of Calla lilies and a small stage festooned with waves of ivory voile on which Havana’s finest jazz band were due to play. She stood back and smiled. She knew she had got it just right.

Karin had spent three months deciding on this venue for the global warming benefit dinner because it had to be perfect. Central London was out; the venues which could accommodate big numbers for dinner and dancing were so over used and frankly, a little déclassé. No, Karin knew that if the Stop Global Warming benefit was going to make a splash, it would have to be somewhere elegant and original, and in Strawberry Hill House, a stunning Gothic mansion fifteen miles outside London, she knew she had found the place. Even being so bloody far from Chelsea had its benefits; at least thirty guests were arriving by helicopter, adding a further dash of exclusivity to the evening. The irony of using helicopters in place of cars or taxis to arrive an event aimed at highlighting the perils of global warming was not lost on Karin, but then her heart was in the party, and certainly not the cause. Global warming! Why on earth would she want to trade her BMW X5 for one of those ridiculous hybrid cars that looked as if they were used to transport OAPs? The way Karin looked at it, if she was raising a few million for the penguins and the polar bears, then they could turn a blind eye to a few teensy helicopters.

‘Hey, look lively, here comes the dragon,’ whispered one of the hand-picked models-cum-waiters who started polishing the crystal goblets frantically as Karin approached. Erin stifled a giggle before putting her head down to examine the table plan.

‘I said Verbena roses, not Iceberg roses,’ snapped Karin at Jamie Marshall. Jamie was one of the country’s premier florists, and was currently working like a camp demon on islands of roses for the table centrepieces.

‘But Karin, darling,’ he whined. ‘They are both white roses, who will notice the diff—’

‘Change them,’ said Karin emphatically, and moved on before he had time to object.

‘You!’ Karin had turned her attention to a waiter who was putting the menus on the crisp white tablecloths. ‘Get me some blueberries to nibble on. Organic … And you! Haven’t you been home to change?’

Erin winced, feeling for the poor waiter about to get a tongue-lashing.

‘Erin! I’m talking to you!’ Karin snapped.

‘Me? I … I thought …’ said Erin, flustered. ‘But I have changed.’ She looked down at her outfit, embarrassed. It was a knee-length black shift dress with a little diamanté buckle she had bought at the Next January sale to wear to Richard’s Law School Ball. It made her feel pretty, slim and demure.

She caught Karin rolling her eyes. Five minutes ago she had felt a little like Audrey Hepburn; now she felt hopelessly inadequate.

‘Oh well. At least it’s black,’ sighed Karin.

Since Erin’s first call from the Deskhop Agency, three weeks had passed in a blur. Erin had been surprised to have been offered the job on the spot by Karin Cavendish, especially as she had been so nervous in the interview after recognizing Karin from the society pages of the Mail. Karin had wanted her to start immediately, so Erin had been forced to make the awkward call to Richard asking if she could stay at his flat for a couple of weeks while she sorted herself out and decided whether her future was in London or Cornwall. From her first day at Karin Cavendish, it had been a trial by fire for Erin. Eighteen-hour days were commonplace and the attention to detail Karin demanded was phenomenal. Thankfully, Erin was not organizing the Stop Global Warming event by herself. Karin had recruited a production company to sort out everything from furniture to lighting and a PR company whose responsibility seemed to be keeping the press away from the event rather than persuading them to cover it. Even so, the volume of work required to coordinate everything made Erin’s head ache. It didn’t help that Karin was such a demanding taskmaster. Every bit as particular and exacting as she was glamorous, Karin was the ultimate perfectionist, insisting on signing off every last detail personally. She had spent days hand-picking the best-looking waiters from catering agencies all over London, and would spend hours agonizing over whether to have Tattinger or Perrier Jouet champagne at the reception. As far as Erin had been concerned, champagne was champagne before Karin had explained the difference. Just being in Karin’s company made Erin feel more chic and worldly.

‘I’m going to Charles Worthington in ten minutes,’ said Karin. ‘So we need to run through everything now.’ She held up a finger, then touched her earpiece. ‘Hi, darling. No, can’t talk now. See you tonight, yes? Ciao!’

She sat down at Erin’s table and fingered the cream floral centrepiece critically. ‘You understand that I won’t be anywhere near the door tonight?’ she asked Erin. ‘So I’m leaving that to you.’

It was the thing Erin was most excited about. She was to be in charge of the guest list and would be checking people in as they came through the velvet rope. There were plenty of celebrities on the VIP list: Robbie Williams, Yasmin Le Bon, even Hector Fox, one of Britain’s hottest new actors; Erin had recently seen him as a troubled hit man in an ITV drama and he had made her feel weak at the knees.

‘You have got to be beyond strict,’ continued Karin, snapping her fingers to summon a waiter and barking the word, ‘water.’

‘Remember, no ticket, no entry. And cross-reference with the guest list, I don’t want anyone slipping through. I’m diverting all calls to you from now; they’ll all be blaggers trying to get a last-minute ticket for after dinner; you’ll get loads of press too. Tell them this is a bloody charity night and let them buy a ten-thousand-pound table if they want to come. Anyway, Tatler has the exclusive.’

Karin ran through her list of strict rules and regulations. She wanted a car to be outside for her from 10.30 p.m. and to wait indefinitely until she was ready to go. Under no circumstances was either Erin or any of the PR girls allowed to smoke or drink.

‘Not even water, Erin,’ said Karin firmly. ‘People think it’s vodka tonic and it looks really, really unprofessional.’

Erin nodded solemnly at each instruction and, when Karin finally stalked off, she took a deep breath, part of her wanting to run all the way back to Cornwall, but another part of her more thrilled and excited than she had ever been in her life.

Summer’s taxi arrived outside her basement flat in a slightly scruffy house in W10, a shade after 8 p.m. She had promised the taxi driver a ten-pound tip if he could get her home in fifteen minutes and he had screeched into Basset Road with seconds to spare.

‘Here you go, love,’ he beamed, shoving the notes into his breast pocket. ‘Hope he’s worth it.’

As the cab pulled away, Summer turned and looked up at the tall thin terrace and sighed. It was home, she supposed, although living with her mother at twenty-four wasn’t exactly her ideal life plan. Molly had bought the building for a song fifteen years earlier when a boyfriend had convinced her that Ladbroke Grove would one day be the new Chelsea. Not that Molly had waited around for that to happen. Living for most of the nineties in various apartments paid for by lovers, by the time Molly moved back into the property after the demise of yet another relationship, Ladbroke Grove had gentrified sufficiently to be acceptably bohemian. Summer had moved into the basement flat directly under Molly’s house after her return from Japan. Theoretically that made her independent of Molly’s interference, but it seemed nobody had bothered to tell her mother. It was like being twelve years old again, only this time, she was expected to accompany her mother to parties instead of wait at home with the babysitter.

Summer closed the front door, then used another key to let herself into Molly’s apartment. Molly was sitting in the lounge in her bra and knickers, her hair set in a mountain of curlers, feet propped up on a desk as she painted her toenails scarlet. Summer thought she looked like an Ellen Von Unwerth photograph.

‘You’re about an hour late,’ said Molly tartly, putting the bottle of polish down on the table.

Summer noticed that the laptop Molly had open on the desk beside her was blinking on the eBay home page. It was her mother’s latest source of income, converting gifts from boyfriends into cash – a Hermès scarf here, a Tiffany cocktail ring there; in the last twelve months she had made at least £50,000, tax free.

‘What are you selling this time?’ asked Summer, trying to deflect her mother’s annoyance.

‘Suleiman gave me a Kelly bag,’ sighed Molly.

‘And you’re getting rid of it?’ asked Summer, surprised. She herself had always coveted the legendary Hermès bag, but had never been in the position to part with £3000.

‘You have a Kelly when you’re over fifty, a Birkin when you’re under fifty,’ said Molly patiently, looking at Summer as if she had suggested that the sky was green. ‘So, what kept you? I thought the shoot finished at six.’

Summer slipped off her coat and flopped onto the plump cream sofa. ‘It ran on a bit. The crew wanted to go for a drink. I got away as early as I could.’

‘You went for a drink when you could have been home getting ready to go out with me?’ snapped Molly. ‘I hope you weren’t wasting your time with any bloody photographers. Did he tell you he can get you in Vogue? Believe me, the only thing you get from a fashion photographer is an STD.’

‘I didn’t even go for the drink,’ said Summer tetchily. ‘Anyway, it’s only eight o’clock and we don’t have to be at the party till ten.’

‘Which would be fine if it wasn’t in Surrey. Honestly Summer, you drift back from Japan, I let you live downstairs paying half the rent I could be charging somebody else, and this is what I get: selfishness and inconsideration. Oh well,’ she huffed, ‘you might as well be useful and tell me which dress you prefer.’

Summer followed her mother upstairs into the bedroom feeling wretched. Molly knew exactly the right buttons to press to make her feel guilty and ungrateful. Not for the first time since she got back from Japan, Summer wondered why her mother actually wanted her in such close proximity, considering she spent so much time making her feel like an inconvenience. But then it was a familiar feeling; Summer had always felt as if she had personally held Molly back, both in her modelling career and her love life. Even though a string of cheap Swedish au pairs had been a fixture in the Sinclair household, it couldn’t have been easy for Molly to jet off on a modelling job to Manhattan or Marrakech with Summer weighing her down like a ball and chain. Worse than that, Summer felt she had scuppered Molly’s chances of finding love. Despite being one of the most fabulous women in the world, Molly had never married and it was obvious why – what man wanted a screaming brat in tow? So Summer had learnt not to complain when she constantly changed schools as Molly drifted from lover to lover, had never complained when Molly left her alone all night to romance the latest rich target, hoping that one of these ‘uncles’ would become a permanent fixture and rescue them from the nomadic lifestyle. If she was lonely and frightened, Summer would never show it, because she knew that her mother was trying to find a man to marry, to provide a better, safer, more stable existence for them both and she didn’t want to blow it.

‘Now, I do hope you’re going to be more sociable tonight,’ said Molly as they walked into Molly’s bedroom, which had dresses of every colour and size strewn over the floor, bed and chairs. ‘You can be so sullen when you want to be, and there’re going to be some very promising men at this benefit.’

‘Well, as long as you don’t abandon me with some fat seventy-year-old with wandering hands like you usually do,’ said Summer, moving a £2000 Dior gown from the corner of the bed so she could sit down.

‘Oh, don’t bring that up again,’ said Molly. ‘Sir Lawrence just happens to be a very tactile man. Anyway, you can hardly blame him, when you’re always playing this moody “hard to get” game with everyone I introduce you to. It’s almost as if you’ve got something against rich men.’

Well, maybe I have, thought Summer.

Two months after Summer’s fifteenth birthday, Molly came home terribly excited. She announced that she had met a man called Graham Daniels, an electronics tycoon who apparently ‘ticked all the right boxes’. Within a week, Molly and Summer had moved into ‘Tyndale’, Graham’s huge house in Ascot. Summer liked Graham. Unlike many of Molly’s other boyfriends, he didn’t treat her like an irritation. In fact he treated her as an adult, even letting her sit behind the wheel of his red Ferrari Testarossa and kangaroo-hop up and down the gravel drive in front of the house. Summer enrolled in the local private girls school, where she made lots of new friends, and was given her own pink bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and a balcony that overlooked acres of wooded grounds. Summer loved her pink bedroom until one night when Graham came to say goodnight. Summer could still hear the click of the door opening and see the white of Graham’s teeth smiling in the shadows. On that first night, Summer had felt fear as his hands moved under her nightgown. On the second night she had felt a terrible sense of shame for the unfamiliar but pleasurable feelings her young body had experienced. On the third night, Graham Daniels forgot to lock the door. He froze like a rabbit when the door creaked open and Molly’s silhouette loomed in the doorway. Summer had pulled her candy-striped duvet tightly around her body, waiting for the screams and anger to erupt. But none had come.

‘Get out,’ Molly had said quietly, as Graham scampered across the floor on all fours, then fixed her daughter with an icy stare. ‘Get dressed,’ she said, bundling Summer’s belongings into a rucksack. Molly did not stop to collect her own things or even to change out of the floor-length silk negligee before she grabbed her car keys and dragged Summer from the house, bare feet crunching across the gravel.

The next day, Summer enrolled back into her old comprehensive school in Ladbroke Grove. They never saw Graham Daniels or his magnificent Ascot mansion again.

‘So, which do you think?’ asked Molly, jolting Summer out of her thoughts by waving two silk Cavalli dresses in front of her face. Summer pointed to the scarlet red halter-neck with the dangerously low back.

‘It matches your toes.’

‘Good. That’s what I thought. I want everybody to see me coming tonight,’ she winked. ‘Did you want to borrow the other one?’ she continued, holding out the older, plainer black gown.

‘No. It’s okay. I’m just going to pop downstairs and have a quick shower.’

Molly nodded towards Summer’s hand. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

Summer was holding a CD box she had just pulled out of her bag.

‘This? Oh, one of the guys on the shoot gave it to me. It’s his band.’

‘Pass it here. I might as well entertain myself while you’re getting ready.’

‘Great,’ smiled Summer, pleased at Molly’s interest. ‘Charlie wants to know what I think of it.’

‘What? Charlie?’ said Molly distractedly as she fished around in her handbag and producing a wrap of cocaine. She put the CD case on the bed and tipped the cocaine onto it. ‘Did you want some?’

Summer felt a plunging sense of disappointment. She didn’t approve of her mother’s lifestyle, but Molly was her mother. Molly had made sacrifices and it was Summer’s duty to accept the choices she made. She’d never had the power to do anything else.

5

Sitting in the back of a midnight-blue Bentley, Karin tried not to smile as she felt the driver’s eyes on her in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t need the admiring glances of a chauffeur to know that she was looking sensational. Her glossy raven hair fell loosely onto her bronzed shoulders and her strapless jade organza gown floated around her body like a cloud. She had sourced the outfit at the LA vintage couture store, Lily et Cie; having tried on the best that Bond Street had to offer, she decided that she could simply not take the chance of another guest turning up in the same dress. Including flights, a three-day stay at the Beverly Hills hotel and the actual cost of the dress … well, it had cost her a fortune but, as her father had always told her, you have to speculate to accumulate. Daddy was always right, thought Karin.

‘We’re here, miss,’ said the driver, taking the opportunity to give Karin another long look. ‘Do you want to go to the front or in the back way?’

‘The front, of course,’ she replied aloofly.

She was not going to miss this for the world. The driveway of Strawberry Hill House was lit by a string of torches in a glorious ribbon of fire, while its spotlit Gothic frontage was pure Brothers Grimm fairy tale. She picked up the well-thumbed guest list and the paper crackled like crisp pound notes. There were well over 800 on the list, with 2000 more begging for tickets. Not even the £1000-a-plate price tag seemed to have presented any sort of obstacle. There was so much money in London right now, thought Karin, a thin smile growing on her highly glossed lips – bankers, Russians, footballers, actors, and powerful old-money families – and they were all on the list. The car crunched up to the house, the light from the windows illuminating Karin’s guest list just as her manicured fingertip rested on one final name – Adam Gold. Smiling, she pulled a fox fur around her tanned shoulders and stepped out of the car to the pop of paparazzi flashbulbs. It was going to be a good night, she could feel it. Her father would have been proud.

Karin’s father, Terence, was a good-looking East End boy with the gift of the gab who, during the jazz boom that hit Soho in the 1950s, had discovered a love of fashion. As the big bands and zoot suits gave way to bebop and modernists in the early 1960s, Karin’s father had spotted a trend and had made a killing supplying the young designers of Carnaby Street with fabric imported from Morocco and the Far East. His enemies called him ruthless and whispered of cut-throat business methods. His friends, who numbered many, called him a charming success story; the embodiment of Harold Wilson’s new Britain: dynamic, classless and very well dressed. When the heat of Swinging London finally cooled and SW3 was no longer the epicentre of the western world, Terence married Stephanie Garnett, a stunning Pan Am air hostess as socially ambitious as he was and moved to a mock-Tudor mansion in the Surrey countryside. By the time their first and only child Karin was born, Terence was a millionaire several times over, but he had moved among enough lords and earls to know that it would take more than a pile in the bank to remove the stain of his lowly background. So, from the age of three, Karin was packed off to ballet class, French tuition and the Pony Club – anything that might help her fit into the world of the upper classes. At thirteen, she was dispatched to Briarton, a liberal, cosmopolitan institution with a student register made up of rock-star offspring and pretty daughters of super-rich Greeks.

‘But I want to go to Downe House, Daddy,’ the young Karin had complained as she packed her shiny new monogrammed trunk ready for school. ‘That’s where Abby and Emma from Pony Club are going.’

But Terence didn’t want Karin mixing with daughters of stockbrokers and solicitors; he wanted her to befriend Euro-royalty and billion heirs. ‘You go to Briarton, my darling,’ he had said, ‘and you make friends with the richest, most connected girls that you can, and you keep them for life.’

‘How do I do that?’ Karin had asked, never wanting to disappoint her father.

‘Don’t you worry, baby, you are beautiful like your mother and strong like your father,’ Terence had told her, stroking her hair. ‘You will be popular. Trust me.’

It was Karin’s five-year stay at Briarton, tucked away in the Berkshire countryside, which was to shape her desires and ambitions for life. Karin was a bright girl and, by thirteen, already a beauty, with long chestnut hair, greeny-grey eyes and, thanks to her parents, a highly sophisticated dress-sense that got her noticed. While some of her classmates had closets full of couture, Karin experimented with cast-offs from her mother – Halston, Bob Mackie and Ossie Clark, mixed together with bargain finds from Chelsea Girl. A strikingly beautiful and offbeat character around the corridors of Briarton, her father was correct; she became popular with the richest girls in a very rich school. Rarely did a half-term break pass without a trip to one of her friend’s homes overseas. By the age of sixteen she had skied in Gstaad, sunbathed in Palm Beach and shopped in Hong Kong. She became an expert in excuses as to why her roster of glamorous friends should not be invited to her parents’ large home in Surrey which, in contrast to Fernanda Moritez’s cattle ranch in Brazil, Juliette Dupois’s chalet in St Moritz, and Athena Niarchios’s villa in Greece, seemed rather small and unremarkable indeed.

When she left Briarton at eighteen, Karin had a handful of GCSEs, a couple of middle-grade A levels and the steely glint of ambition in her eyes. Her school friends had given her a taste of a rich, jet-set lifestyle that she was unwilling to give up, so she sold her eighteenth birthday present, a cherry-red Alpha Romeo Spider, to fund a gap year of travel, during which she mined her school contacts ruthlessly. She spent winter in the attic of a beautiful townhouse on Paris’s Ile St-Louis, which belonged to the aunt of a French friend, Natalie. Aunt Cecile had divorced well and had impeccable manners, wore couture and had impressed upon Karin the importance of grooming and social ammunition.

‘Cherie, you are so beautiful,’ Aunt Cecile had told her, ‘but you must take care of yourself.’ She had then shown Karin her exquisite collection of jewellery, spread out on her Louis XV bed. ‘Remember this: men like to fix things. So when a man sees a pretty thing, they want to make it even prettier. You be as pretty as these jewels, cherie, and men will never stop giving them to you.’

So Karin was initiated into the habit of weekly facials at Carita, polished nails, waxing, and daily exercises to keep the neck firm and youthful. At chic Left Bank cocktail parties, she acquired the art of polite conversation and etiquette that would stay with her for life. She learnt to play bridge and baccarat and appreciate classical music and jazz.

The following summer, Karin moved to New York after her father, pulling strings in the industry, landed her an internship at Donna Karan. Her weekends were spent in The Hamptons, where she was surprised to find that friends’ ‘cottages’, in English-sounding places like Southampton, were actually vast coastal mansions straight out of The Great Gatsby, with shingle drives and white verandas that looked straight out onto the ocean.

She rarely saw her parents but they didn’t mind. They fully approved of Karin’s ‘grand tour’ and were glad their daughter was capitalizing on Terry’s success. In Karin’s absence, however, Terry’s fortunes were fading. He had sunk his money into a new venture manufacturing cheap jeans for the high street just as the designer denim market was exploding. Terry’s instincts had been correct, but the punters wanted branded jeans, not cheap imitations, and he had been forced to close his factories. Karin was oblivious to this until the day her mother called her in Palm Beach to say that her father had wrapped his Rolls Royce around a lamppost.

She had returned to Surrey immediately, but was an hour too late. She attended the funeral wearing Dior, sandwiched between her aunties and uncles in their East End market suits, and vowed that her destiny would be much bigger and better than this.

‘Darling! This place is just A-mazing,’ said Christina, kissing Karin on the cheek. ‘Ariel wants to know if it’s for sale.’

‘Actually, my wife is the one with the English country house obsession,’ corrected the chubby middle-aged man at Christina’s side.

‘Ariel, sweetie,’ said Karin, air-kissing him. ‘You already have an amazing English country house.’ The Levys had recently purchased a vast shooting estate in Yorkshire.

‘It’s too far and too draughty,’ said Christina, prompting her husband to turn purple. ‘But this is perfect. I could be in Harvey Nicks in thirty minutes and it’s got one of those Rapunzel towers. I wonder if there are bears in the grounds?’

‘Karin, can’t you do something about this bloody table plan?’ interrupted Martin Birtwell, Diana’s husband. Karin forced a smile. Of all her friends’ husbands, Martin was Karin’s least favourite. He was a loud, pompous, new-money bully: the complete opposite of elegant, refined Diana. When they had first married, their circle had considered it to be a good match. Diana was from a upper-crust family that had buckets of class but no money, while Martin had hustled his way onto the Rich List from an inner-city start. But Martin’s increasingly obvious drinking and Diana’s growing timidity made Karin suspect that, if not violent, Martin was certainly difficult to live with behind closed doors.

He sidled up to Karin and slid his hand around her waist. ‘Sort it out, sweetheart,’ he said, patting her on her bottom. ‘Pop us on the top table with you, eh? Our table is full of Diana’s New Age freaks from her colonics clinic. What if they want to examine our shit after the meal?’

‘I asked Martin to invite some of his friends, but I don’t think he was listening to me, as usual,’ said Diana.

Martin flashed her a threatening look and Karin was disturbed to see Diana flinch. It was such a shame she had picked so badly, she thought, because she looked so gorgeous in that white Grecian gown with an ivory mink stole across her shoulders.

‘But good luck with your table,’ whispered Diana with a knowing smile. ‘I’ve seen him, and he’s a dish.’

Karin smiled. ‘Talking of which, I really must fly.’

As the guests began to settle down into their seats, Karin moved regally through the sea of bodies, greeting as many people as she could, finally sitting down at a table at the end of the catwalk. She picked up a place setting between her manicured fingertip and turned to the gentleman on her left.

‘I believe I am next to you,’ she smiled.

Adam Gold turned and took Karin’s hand.

What a fox! she thought, slightly surprised. Short salt-and-pepper hair, a handsome, lightly tanned face with a firm jaw and a wide smiling mouth. His round, intelligent eyes were dark, like liquid chocolate, framed with thick black lashes.

How the hell has Adam Gold not been snapped up before now?

‘Great party,’ he smiled, eyes darting up and down her long jade gown.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Of course, you do know it’s all for you, don’t you?’ She instantly regretted her flirtation.

When Karin had telephoned Adam’s office to invite him personally to the party, she had only been able to get as far as his assistant. She had decided then and there that if Adam Gold did deign to attend, she was not going to treat him like anything special. Seeing how sexy he was, feeling his eyes undress her, she knew that was the correct approach. Men like Adam Gold would have had women flirting, simpering, flaunting themselves all their lives. It wouldn’t do any harm to make him work a bit.

Adam was laughing. ‘Well, thank you,’ he grinned. ‘But I’m sure you say that to all your guests.’

Karin smiled coolly. ‘Only the ones with the big cheque-books and a love of the environment.’

Adam laughed again. ‘Well, it’s good to know you’re not after me for my sparkling personality,’ he said. ‘Still, thanks for asking me. It’s been pretty crazy since I moved. There hasn’t been much time for socializing but apparently you’re the girl to know. Guess I got lucky sitting next to you.’

Luck didn’t have anything to do with it, thought Karin.

‘We’ll see, Mr Gold,’ she said. ‘The night is still young.’

The benefit was buzzing and so was Erin. She had spent the first half of the evening with her mouth hanging open as a throng of socialites and stars poured along the red carpet. She had met Daniel Craig and Ewan McGregor and felt woefully underdressed in her Next shift, surrounded as she was by the acres of silk and chiffon worn by all the glamorous female guests. She had been running on adrenaline since eight o’clock. As Karin had predicted, Erin had received literally hundreds of phone calls about everything from Strawberry Hill’s Ordnance Survey coordinates for a helicopter landing, to whether there was a fruitarian option on the menu. Talk about in at the deep end: three weeks ago the only event Erin had ever organized had been Richard’s twenty-first party in the upstairs of a pub in Exeter; now she was having to run a dinner for 800. She was exhausted, but it had barely got under way. The guests were tucking into their desserts – well, the men were, she smiled, watching the twiglet-slim wives play with the chocolate on their spoons. And if coffee was being served, that meant that the catwalk show was about to begin. At least that was one part of the night’s schedule that Erin didn’t have to worry about. Madeline Barker, Karin’s head of production, was in charge of supervising and coordinating the runway, so Erin knew she could take a five-minute breather.

She crept backstage which, in contrast to the sedate dining area, was a riot of bodies in motion. Tall, skinny models, pouring themselves into primary-coloured bikinis, dressers flapping around with tit-tape, high heels and jewellery. Hairdressers fussing with gels and clips and sprays, make-up artists in a cloud of bronzing powder, their fingers black with kohl. In the corner, seemingly oblivious to all this chaos, reading a dog-eared novel, was Alexia Dark, the supermodel Erin recognized from the cover of this month’s Vogue. In the centre of the action was Madeline Barker, wearing an expensive midnight-blue Lanvin dress. She pulled on her cigarette in between gesticulating wildly at the models.

‘Hi Maddie, how’s it going back here?’ asked Erin, clutching her clipboard to her chest and feeling about four stone too fat.

‘Oh, hi honey,’ said Madeline. ‘Chaos, chaos, chaos, as always.’ She broke off to grab a stunning redhead who was naked except for her tiny pair of white bikini bottoms. ‘Not that one, Jemma! You’re in the forest-green tankini, darling.’

Madeline dropped her cigarette into a half-full flute of champagne and turned back to Erin.

‘Have you seen Karin anywhere?’ she asked. ‘It’s not like her not to be taking total control. We’re on in five minutes and I want her to check she’s happy with everything.’

‘I passed her a couple of minutes ago,’ replied Erin. ‘She seems to be engrossed in conversation at her table.’

‘Engrossed in Adam Gold, more like,’ smiled Madeline.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Erin.

‘Ah, the latest victim,’ chuckled Madeline, then glared at another model. ‘No Alana! You’re behind Mischa, get in line. And what is that necklace supposed to be? A Hoover hose?’

Sensing she was getting in the way, Erin headed back into the main room and went to stand by the side of the stage where she was in shadow. From there she could stand and watch both the catwalk show and the glamorous guests in front of her. She felt like Alice in Wonderland, tiny and confused surrounded by beauty and colour in the magic garden.

Suddenly the lights came down and a loud disco beat started pulsating around the room. Everybody put down their coffee cups and looked intently at the stage, which had erupted in a sea of flashing bulbs and colour. The red-haired model in a deep green bikini strutted onto the catwalk, her hips swaying seductively in time with the music. She paused at the end of the runway, flashed a brilliant smile as the audience erupted in applause. Behind her another goddess emerged, her buttocks peeking cheekily out of a pair of metallic lamé boy-shorts, her breasts barely covered by a strip of mesh fabric. A lone wolf whistle from the crowd said what every man in the room was thinking. The music kept pounding, the girls kept coming. And then finally Alexia Dark stalked onto the catwalk, her black hair flying behind her like a banner, the shimmering lights bouncing off her jewelled bikini and showering her bronzed body in iridescent light. What a finale! thought Erin. What a party!

‘Oi!’ shouted a voice as Alexia Dark was making her final strut back to the stage. ‘Oi you!’

Erin located the voice. It was coming from table twelve, a collection of footballers and their wives ten feet away from where Erin was standing. A girl, no more than eighteen, in a plunging scarlet dress and elaborately coiffed blonde hairdo was waving at Erin and clicking her fingers in the air like a flamenco dancer. Erin recognized her as Natasha Berry, glamour-model girlfriend of Ian Adams, the new Manchester United striker.

‘You! I need a drink,’ slurred the girl, shaking an empty glass.

Erin left the comfort of her shadow and scuttled to the table in a crouch, not wanting to block anyone’s view of the catwalk show as the models all came down the catwalk one last time.

‘I’m not taking drinks orders, I’m afraid,’ yelled Erin over the music. ‘You’ll have to ask the waiter over there.’ She pointed to a handsome dark-haired boy who was distributing coffee and petits-fours on the next table.

‘I want a kir royale,’ said Natasha, who appeared not to have heard. Erin rolled her eyes, knowing it was pointless to argue, and went over to the waiter, a handsome student called Carlo she had met earlier.

‘Sorry Carlo, but I think the lady over there wants a cocktail. Can you get her a kir royale before she takes off with all that finger clicking?’ The waiter smiled and nodded, quickly turning in the direction of the bar. As he went, a shrewish-looking blonde from his table shouted, ‘Hey! You forgot my latte!’

‘Sorry madam,’ said Carlo, ‘I’ll bring you one straight away.’

The music was now reaching a crescendo and Karin Cavendish had risen from her chair to take a modest bow in the spotlight.

What happened next, Erin could see unfolding as if in slow motion. Carlo was making his way back through the sea of tables, his outstretched arm carrying a tray balanced with a flute of kir and a tall coffee, when a man pulled out his chair to stand just as Carlo was walking past. For a second Erin thought that Carlo might be able to sidestep the man, but he was concentrating so hard on keeping the hot coffee from falling that the glass of kir tipped over, falling in an arc onto the next table. Erin heard an enraged cry. An elegant blonde now had kir royale all the way down the front of her white dress, like some vast unsightly birthmark. She cursed and Erin immediately recognized the word – a Russian obscenity – and grimaced. It was Karin’s precious table of high-spending Russian wives. Karin hadn’t missed the commotion; she leapt from her chair and was racing over. Erin got there at the same time. The blonde was now speaking in a fast stream of angry Russian. Erin could understand every word, but it didn’t take a Russian degree to tell what was happening as she snatched up her jewel-encrusted clutch bag. She was about to leave and take all her friends with her. Karin put a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder, but she was clearly in no mood to be pacified by somebody she could not communicate with.

‘Let me speak to her,’ Erin whispered to Karin.

‘What?’ snapped Karin, glaring at her. ‘Speak to her? What do you mean …’

Karin tailed off in surprise as Erin started speaking in fluent Russian.

‘It would be such a shame if you have to leave now,’ she said quietly in the Russian’s ear. ‘You are the most important woman here; without you we really don’t have a party.’

The woman looked bemused, then pleased to hear one of the organizers speaking to her in her mother tongue.

‘Why don’t you come with me?’ coaxed Erin. ‘We have another outfit backstage and you will look fabulous. Look, nobody has seen what’s happened. Everybody is watching the show.’

She led the blonde, who had now introduced herself as Irina Engelov, backstage, leaving Karin looking completely dumbfounded.

Shit, shit shit, thought Erin, desperately looking round at the racks of bikinis. Of course there were no spare outfits – it was a bloody swimwear show! She could hardly send Irina back out in a hot pink swimsuit. She spotted Madeline talking to a group of models.

‘Quick, Maddie, you’ve got to take off your dress,’ said Erin urgently.

‘What?’ said Madeline. ‘I’m a bit busy at the moment, Erin. The show’s still on.’

‘Do as I say and I’ll explain later,’ pleaded Erin, handing Madeline a towelling robe.

Madeline looked at Erin, and, seeing the desperation in her eyes, quickly nodded.

‘Okay, but I’d better bloody see it again,’ she grumbled, wriggling out of the blue dress. ‘It’s Lanvin, you know.’

‘Maddie, you’ve just saved the day,’ said Erin, grabbing the dress.

She squirted it with some perfume she found on a dressing table and slipped it onto a coat hanger, then sprinted around to where Irina was waiting.

‘Size eight, this season, you’ll look amazing!’ said Erin in Russian, breathing a sigh of relief as Irina pulled on the dress. Irina looked down at herself, simply nodded and walked back to her table as if nothing had happened.

Erin grabbed a glass of champagne and drank it in one.

Molly had gate-crashing down to a fine art. She instructed their taxi driver to drop her and Summer behind a long row of Bentleys and Aston Martins a hundred metres away from the entrance of Strawberry Hill House, then let the car vanish into the cold night before they began to walk down the drive. Their breath made white clouds in the dark air, and Molly’s exposed skin prickled in goosebumps, but she had learned years ago to dispense with a coat for a night on the tiles; acres of visible flesh for popping paparazzi were worth far more than keeping warm. She glanced at Summer who looked like some sexed-up Little Red Riding Hood in a white woollen cape floating over a long, deep burgundy dress, her creamy round breasts spilling over its corset. For so many years, Summer had seemed like baggage. Having a daughter aged her, so from a young age Molly had urged her daughter to call her by her name rather than ‘mother’ so that people wouldn’t suspect she was her child. But ever since Summer had blossomed into such a gorgeous young woman, she had become a definite asset. She could take her daughter to any party in town and men would be buzzing around them like wasps at a picnic. But Summer was more than bait to attract the big fish. Since Japan, she had a new confidence, a new glow that could potentially catch her a really big prize, maybe even a prince – and if she did, that would open doors for Molly. Because where there’s a prince, there’s gotta be a king, she thought with a sly smile.

‘We do have tickets, don’t we?’ asked Summer, feeling nervous as she saw the two burly bouncers at the door.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ smiled Molly, adjusting her dress to show a little more cleavage. Not having a ticket had never presented a problem to Molly in twenty-five years of partying. A confident swagger and a generous flash of skin counted far more than any bit of embossed card.

‘Time to come back inside,’ smiled Molly to the older guard, stroking his lapel as if it was made out of the softest silk. ‘I just needed to step outside for a moment.’

And they were in, gliding across the threshold without so much as a grunt. Molly still frowned, however. She had been expecting to be met by a swell of people milling around the communal areas, but there was quiet all around the entrance hall, just a few black-tied waiters clearing glasses in the flickering candlelight.

‘Mum, I think people are still eating,’ hissed Summer. ‘What do we do now?’

A little annoyed at having misjudged the time that dinner was to finish, Molly grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled her towards the large French double doors that led to the main hall.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘we’ll slip in at the back and find a seat.’ Summer stood hovering at the door, cursing her mother for getting her into yet another embarrassing situation. She knew everyone at the dinner tables would be with their friends and that interlopers would be spotted immediately.

‘Come on, I think the auction is about to begin,’ hissed Molly, scanning the tables for empty spaces. They crept to the back of the room until they found two seats. Table eighty-three. The eight other faces at the table turned to look at them with quizzical expressions. Molly turned to the gentleman on her right. He was portly, around sixty with a ruddy complexion and a sweep of white hair pulled over like a 1940s comedian.

‘I hope you don’t mind us taking a pew for a moment,’ she said softly, flashing her cover-girl smile. ‘We’re with the charity. We’ve been rushed off our feet backstage and wanted to pop out and see the auction – do you mind?’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ the man blustered. ‘You must be parched,’ he added, reaching for a bottle of red.

Molly took a sip of the fruity wine and smirked at her daughter.

Summer looked up as applause rippled down the room. Tom Archer, Britain’s sexiest Oscar-winning actor, was walking to a podium that had been set up at the end of the catwalk.

‘The theme of tonight is compassion,’ said Tom, when the cheering had died down. ‘Not partying or dinner or catching up with old friends, or even the wine, although I must say it is rather splendid.’ The crowd chuckled appreciatively as he lifted his glass. Behind the actor, images of climate change flickered onto huge projection screens: melting glaciers, incinerated rainforest, chimneys pumping out black smoke. Molly used the moment to glance around the room. She recognized a least a quarter of the faces. There was the Cipriani crowd, the White Cube crowd, the San Lorenzo crowd, the Russians, the WAGS; it was an impressive turn-out – not even the Serpentine Gallery party had this sort of pull. How the hell had that cow Karin Cavendish managed it?

Tom Archer kicked off the auction with the first lot – a week on Necker Island, with the bids beginning at £25,000. It quickly climbed to £50,000, then £100,000.

‘Come on, ladies and gentlemen,’ shouted Tom Archer, his hands stretched into the air. ‘It’s gorgeous out there!’

Molly knew how gorgeous Necker Island was. She had been five years ago, in with a group of friends who were staying as guests of Gunter Strauss, a wealthy German industrialist she had met in Annabel’s. She had fucked him on a pedalo while his wife had been playing tennis. She remembered his greedy lips kissing her inner thigh as the Caribbean sun had burnt down on her bare breasts. He had told her she had the best body he had ever seen as his fingers touched every inch of her hot flesh. As she remembered, Molly’s hand stretched up unconsciously to stroke her neck. But that was fine for a bit of fun and a free holiday when you were young and carefree, she thought, looking around at the tables. But what happens when you get older?

She looked at all the men sitting at the tables with their wives – wives not mistresses. These were women who had passed the finishing line, women who had closed the deal. No wonder they all sat there with self-satisfied smiles as they sipped their wine, flaunted their diamonds and discussed which villa to visit that summer. The younger wives were the worst. The old birds might have more jewels, but the smiles on the young ones were brighter, smarter. They knew that the law was now on their side and if their husband fucked the secretary, they could slam him for half his assets and move on to the next poor sap while their breasts were still pert. Molly looked down and sighed. At forty-three, she was determined not to stay single for a moment longer, especially with men like Adam Gold in the room.

Tom Archer had now auctioned off a week in the Goldsmiths’ Mexican retreat, a fortnight at Michael Sarkis’s de luxe Mustique home and a weekend in Tuscany for a private yoga session with Sting.

‘Okay, now we’ve got rid of all you flash bastards who have just come to book another holiday,’ said Tom to laughter. ‘It’s time to dig deep for some real charity.’ A montage of medical equipment, ambulances and water pumps flashed up on the screen behind him, and the auction sprang to life. The bidding was so frantic, the room sounded like a trading floor on Wall Street. ‘I do prefer the charitable lots to those holidays in exotic places. Less vulgar,’ whispered an elderly neighbour who had been introduced to Molly as Judith Portman, wife of a retired Lazard’s banker.

‘Totally agree,’ smiled Molly. ‘Why buy a fortnight at Michael Sarkis’s house when, if you know him, you can go there for free?’

Summer saw the old lady’s face cloud and quickly jumped in. ‘She’s joking, of course. Obviously charity is our life – and those ambulances really do save lives.’

A loud cheer went up.

‘Two Red Cross ambulances sold to Adam Gold for a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds!’ said Tom, bringing down the gavel. ‘Thank you very, very much.’

Molly’s ears pricked up and she craned her neck to scan the crowd. There he was, sitting near the catwalk. Even from a distance, Molly could see the broad shoulders, his handsome square jaw dipped modestly as he accepted Tom Archer’s praise. Her gaze flicked to the woman besides him. Karin Cavendish. Damn her.

‘Next we have five hundred acres of rainforest in Mozambique,’ said Tom Archer.

‘Where shall we start …? Ah, our first bid of five thousand from our cautious hostess, Karin Cavendish. Any advance on five?’

‘Oh, I want this,’ said Judith, waving her pink hand in the air.

‘Do I see six thousand at the back?’ said Tom, ‘Yes, six it is!’

Adam Gold looked over and smiled at the old woman as Karin countered the bid. Just then, Molly’s finger soared skywards.

‘Molly! What the hell are you doing?’ hissed Summer, nudging her mother sharply.

‘Getting Adam Gold’s attention,’ whispered Molly.

‘Ah, and I see lovely Molly Sinclair has bid eight thousand pounds for this glorious stretch of rainforest. Well done, Molly!’ announced Tom, as the heads of the audience swivelled towards Molly, who quickly lowered a strap of her dress to show off a little more curve. For a second Molly bathed in the glory, knowing every man’s eyes were on her plunging neckline. Adam Gold smiled at Molly from across the ballroom and Molly’s eyes locked with Karin’s.

‘Any advance on eight thousand?’

To Summer’s relief, Judith Portman’s hand stretched in the air. ‘Nine thousand pounds from the lady next to Molly,’ said Tom. ‘I see we’ve got a little duel going over this fine lot. Excellent stuff, ladies.’

Suddenly, as if it had a life of its own, Molly’s hand jumped into the air again.

‘Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand from Molly!’ said Tom excitedly. ‘Any reply from your neighbour?’

Molly turned nervously to Judith.

‘No, no, you’ve worked so hard tonight, darling,’ said Judith, reaching over and patting Molly’s hand. ‘The rainforest is yours. I’ll make do with a couple of water pumps in Nepal.’

Molly’s hands felt clammy and her heart was racing.

‘I’m going to have to rush anyone else wanting the Mozambique rainforest …’ said Tom, waving his gavel in the air.

Karin looked over at Molly, a thin, triumphant smile on her lips. Molly felt her heart race, her mouth suddenly dry.

‘Judith, please, you have the rainforest,’ said Molly desperately.

‘Going … going … GONE!’

The gavel came crashing down. Molly smiled but her eyes weren’t laughing as her stomach felt as if it had plummeted to the floor.

‘I do hope you’ve enjoyed yourself,’ said Karin, turning to face Adam. Sticking to her game plan, Karin had managed to practically ignore Adam Gold all the way through dinner, allowing all the other female guests on their table to flirt outrageously with him. But now she had seen Molly Sinclair making her move – she didn’t remember seeing her name on the guest list – Karin decided that it was time to up the ante. While she had no intention of sleeping with him that evening, she wasn’t going to let him go home with anyone else either. Especially not Molly.

‘It’s been a triumph,’ said Adam, raising his glass of champagne towards her in salute. ‘Thanks for inviting me. Looks like the auction made around two million bucks as well.’

‘You’ve been counting?’ said Karin.

Adam smiled and his eyes twinkled. ‘I’m always counting,’ he said.

Karin looked away as the jazz band launched into a tune on the stage.

‘So did you find this place?’ asked Adam, his eyes drifting around the room and up to the gilded ceilings. Karin watched him discreetly. He had the casual confidence of someone completely assured of his position in life. ‘Buildings like this remind me why I’ve moved to London,’ he said. ‘Back in New York we throw a party at the Frick and think, “Man, this place is awesome!” But this place, it’s the real thing. Well, Gothic Revival, first time around, anyway.’

‘Mmm, you know your stuff,’ she said, nodding. ‘It belonged to the son of our first prime minister who went crazy adding turrets and extra wings, turning it into Sleeping Beauty’s castle.’

‘And you clearly know your stuff,’ he smiled back. ‘How about you give me the guided tour?’

Smiling inwardly, Karin allowed Adam to lead her out of the room, his warm hand pressing against her bare back until they had walked out of the rear of the house. Outside the sky was black and cold and there was an intimate stillness that made Karin feel slightly exposed.

‘So, why did you move to London?’ asked Karin, standing with her back to the house, knowing that with such a backdrop she must look like some splendid romantic heroine. ‘To turn all our listed buildings into apartment blocks?’

‘You are quite a minx,’ he said, smiling suggestively. Karin looked away.

‘Well, property developing only makes up about forty-five per cent of the business of the Midas Corporation. We have interests in investments, manufacturing, export/import …’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Don’t you want me here?’

‘I’m merely curious,’ she replied, her teeth chattering as she did.

Adam took off his jacket and placed it around her bare shoulders. Karin could smell expensive cologne and warm cigar smoke. ‘London is the new financial capital of the world,’ he said seriously, gently rubbing her cold arms through the jacket. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a more exciting place to do business right now. Plus, my company has interests in London, Moscow and Dubai. The East is the big emerging market and I want to build in India, China and Macao. London is at the heart of all of it.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she smiled, her eyes meeting his. ‘Admit it’s the tax breaks and not the time zones and I’ll buy you a beer. I read the business papers, Mr Gold. I know why London is flooded with men like you.’

‘And what’s a man like me?’

‘Successful, ruthless, arrogant,’ she said.

‘Don’t be mean to me, Karin Cavendish,’ he said softly. ‘After this evening, you’re probably the woman I know best in the whole city.’

‘I find that hard to believe,’ she replied, trying to sound more aloof than she felt. She could see the look in his eyes; the look of someone who wanted her. Well, you’re not going to have me, Adam Gold, she thought. Not tonight anyway. She had to make him wait. Make him long. A gust of wind whistled through the gardens and whipped her hair up around her face.

‘We’d better go back inside. The guests will be wondering where on earth I’ve gone.’

‘Okay,’ said Adam, ‘but can I make a request?’

‘What’s that?’

‘I sort of like it when you’re mean to me.’

Erin felt physically shattered. She’d been on her aching feet for fifteen hours, but the excitement and adrenaline were still coursing through her body like an electric current. Everything had seemed to go smoothly, the show was spectacular, even Irina had been happy; so happy, in fact, that she had ended up making a £400,000 bid for the diamond bikini.

‘It will be perfect for Nikki Beach next summer,’ she had purred to Erin on her way out, kissing her on both cheeks and saying goodnight in Russian.

She wondered anxiously what Karin had made of it all. The last three weeks she had been barked at, abused, pushed to the very limits of her ability. It had been twenty-one days of fetching, carrying, sorting, running – she had been little more than Karin’s slave. And for what? So 800 fabulously wealthy people could get pissed, flirt with their friends’ husbands and show off how rich they were by buying holidays that they would never go on or jewellery they would never wear. She wanted to hate this world but, realizing her time in it would soon be over, she felt a pang of regret. Karin’s universe was like a Scott Fitzgerald novel and she did not want to let it go, certainly not to return to Cornwall and unemployment. She allowed herself an illegal swig of Evian and went to find Karin; she had a message from Adam Gold’s helicopter pilot that the winds were getting up and that they needed to leave soon.

‘Erin, right? Karin’s PA?’ said a tall, dark-haired man collecting an overcoat from the cloakroom.

‘That’s right,’ she said distractedly. She was still scanning the room looking for Karin.

‘Adam Gold. I was on Karin’s table. I was just looking for her to say thank you and goodnight.’

Adam Gold! She looked up. Christ, he was handsome, she thought, unable to tear her eyes away from him. Businessmen weren’t her usual type and this guy must be at least forty, but still … his eyes had the sexiest glint she had ever seen.

‘Ah, um, Mr Gold. Actually I was looking for you,’ said Erin awkwardly, ‘I have a message from your pilot.’

He smiled so the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘Nice work with the Russians, by the way. I thought you handled it brilliantly.’

‘And to think I thought my Russian degree was wasted serving drinks,’ she smiled.

Adam paused for one moment, his eyes searching hers. Erin could feel her face begin to flush.

‘How do you like working for Karin?’ asked Adam.

‘It’s great,’ said Erin cautiously. ‘Was great. It was only a temporary gig. Tomorrow’s my last day really.’

Adam smiled that crinkle-eyed smile again, making Erin feel a little weak. ‘Oh, well, that’s convenient. I’d hate to poach anyone from the hostess.’

Erin took a breath, but nothing would come.

‘You speak languages?’ he asked her.

Erin nodded. ‘Russian, French, and a bit of Italian.’

‘Are you organized?’

Erin barked out a laugh and spread her hands to indicate the party. ‘After this week, I should hope so!’

‘Listen, Erin, I need a PA. Mine came over from New York with me but she’s missing her family and wants to go home. Goddamn lightweight,’ he grumbled.

Erin nodded in sympathy, which she immediately decided was a mistake.

‘So are you interested?’

‘But you don’t even know me,’ said Erin, totally gobsmacked.

‘How do you think I made the Forbes four hundred?’ he said bluntly.

‘Um, property?’ guessed Erin, wincing.

‘By trusting my instincts,’ he replied flatly.

‘So you’re offering me a job?’ she said, unable to stifle a small, incredulous laugh.

‘You’ve impressed me,’ he said, the eyes crinkling again.

‘I can’t type.’

‘I got that covered. You just have to do whatever I say,’ he said with a small smile. ‘Seriously, it’s running my diary, making travel arrangements, fielding calls. All sorts of shit I could be here all night describing. It’s long hours and hard work, but I pay well and you might see a little of the world.’

‘Pay?’ ventured Erin. She was the worst money negotiator ever, her boyfriend Richard always teased her about it.

‘How does seventy sound?’

‘A day?’ squeaked Erin weakly. It wasn’t that much more than she’d got behind the bar at the local pub in Exeter.

‘A year, Erin,’ said Adam. ‘Seventy thousand a year, plus my PAs usually get a car.’

Erin stood looking at him for a moment, feeling as if she was going to burst out singing.

‘When do I start?’

6

‘Oh God, oh God, you’re too sexy! I’m not sure I can make it to the bedroom,’ panted Harry Levin, his tongue licking Molly’s neck like a hungry wolf. They had only just burst in through the front door and already Harry’s hand had plunged down Molly’s halterneck to grab at her hard brown nipples. His free hand was undoing the belt of his trousers and he had slipped off his shoes, rendering him at least three inches shorter. Insoles, sighed Molly, trying not to flinch as his teeth bit the tips of her breasts like a randy teenager.

She had picked up her latest paramour – cosmetic surgeon to the stars, no less – at the end of the Stop Global Warming benefit, when it was so late that the waiters had begun stacking up tables. To Molly’s great annoyance, Adam Gold had left halfway through the jazz band’s set, before she had even had time to introduce herself. There hadn’t been a great number of other single men at the party, although she had counted four ex-lovers, all married, all with their wives and all who had chosen to ignore her. She didn’t want to waste the night, not when she looked so hot. Her Cavalli dress was cut so low at the back you could see the dark tip where her spine met her ass. So when Harry Levin was pointed out to her as Harley Street’s premier tit man, she knew that she’d go home with him.

‘Spank me,’ growled Harry, when they had made their way up his sweeping staircase, tearing at each other’s clothes as they reached his bedroom. Welcoming the opportunity to inspect his five-storey Hampstead home further, she let him bend over the mahogany sleigh bed, slapping his skinny white arse while she looked around the room.

‘You’ve been a very bad boy,’ she purred theatrically, noting the walnut-panelled walls and fifty-inch plasma television over the exquisite marble fireplace.

‘Harder!’ groaned Harry, clutching his dove-grey duvet in pleasure. Mmm, that bed linen was definitely Pratesi, noted Molly as she smacked him harder, observing the tell-tale scalloped edges of the pillowcase. She also spotted a Picasso sketch on the wall above the bed and the many silver-framed photographs of Harry: Harry skiing, Harry on a yacht, Harry looking tanned, happy and rich. This one was definitely promising.

He rolled over to face Molly, his dextrous fingers pulling down Molly’s tiny chiffon thong in one movement. His eyes widened when he saw her totally bald bush; Molly had waxed it off earlier that day after discovering some tufts of grey.

‘I fucking love that,’ he mumbled, sinking his face between her thighs. She got onto the bed, long hair splayed across the pillow, one leg artfully bent at the knee, her arms thrown back over her head as if she was posing for a Playboy spread. His hands were all over her, and after a couple of minutes of licking her nipples, leaving her breasts cold and wet, he fumbled around with a condom as he prepared to enter her. His cock was small, but he thrust himself in so hard it was like a bullet. She ran her long fingers down his back, but Harry was beyond subtleties: his ass was bobbing up and down like a cork at sea.

She shut her eyes and thought of Adam Gold, but not even that could make this sexual encounter more enjoyable. Christ, let’s get this over with, she thought, making a few half-hearted groans and digging her nails into his thrusting arse as she prepared to fake orgasm.

‘Now! Now!’ he shouted before collapsing onto her, his head on Molly’s chest.

‘Incredible,’ he whispered, ‘just fucking incredible.’

Molly lay motionless, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as she tried to work out whether it was a Lalique or a Murano light-fixture above the bed.

She stroked her hand across the top of his head, wondering if she could get Harry Levin to cough up for that five hundred acres of Mozambique rainforest she’d won at the auction and not yet paid for. At the very least, she was sure he would give her a good price for that tummy tuck she’d been meaning to get.

7

Erin had only had been at the Midas Corporation a matter of hours but already she felt lost. As Adam’s PA, she needed to know every aspect of his business, and she was quickly finding that the scale of his empire was vast. She knew that he was a property developer, and while real estate did appear the core of the business, that was only the beginning. The property portfolio alone was mind-boggling – from luxury residential developments in Manhattan and Macao to prestige office blocks in nearly all of the world’s financial centres – but on top of that, Midas owned a dozen hotels, a copper mine in Kazakhstan, a ski resort in Maine, two huge retail villages in Connecticut and Florida and a private jet company leasing out executive aircraft to the super-rich. And that was all she’d managed to find since she’d arrived at 7.30 a.m. It was now dark outside and she was still finding new files and reports. The intercom buzzed suddenly.

‘Erin. Can you come in please?’

As it was her first day at work, Erin had tried her damnedest from the moment she had got into the luxurious office block behind Piccadilly, but she still felt as if she was groping about in the dark. Adam already had an executive assistant, Eleanor Bradley, a fiercely efficient New Yorker who had worked with him for seven years and sat outside his door like a Rottweiler. Erin’s position seemed to be more like a social secretary: taking calls, making appointments, accepting or declining party invitations and arranging for errands that Eleanor was too busy and important to carry out. She had hardly seen Adam all day and had no idea if she had performed her duties to his satisfaction. Padding into his office from her desk as fast as her brand new three-inch heels would carry her, she smoothed down her long-sleeved cotton dress from Debenhams, feeling even more nervous than she had when she’d met Hector Fox at the benefit dinner. Adam’s large corner office was an overwhelming space. With its masculine grey walls, stark architectural photography and dark antique furniture, it reeked of power, money and testosterone.

‘Ah, take a seat, I have a question to ask you.’

She perched on the edge of a padded velvet and mahogany chair, clasping her clammy hands together and hoping she looked efficient.

‘Erin, why are you still here?’ Adam looked up at her from behind his wide wraparound mahogany desk with a straight expression.

Erin’s eyes lowered to the floor with embarrassment. She’d been told she had to be in work for 7.30 a.m., ready for Adam’s arrival at 8 a.m., but she had no idea how late she was expected to stay. For a £70,000 salary, she suspected it was probably a twenty-four-hour job, but when was she supposed to sleep?

‘I wasn’t aware that I should be somewhere else, Mr Gold,’ she stammered. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything in the diary for tonight.’

‘Precisely,’ he smiled, ‘which is exactly why you should go home.’

Erin felt her eyes linger a little too long on his strong tanned hands. She also noticed that his eyes were a rich, intoxicating brown. She wished she could think of something to say, but she found her brain fog and her throat clam up.

Adam let his smile linger, as if he was aware of his young PA watching him and was enjoying the moment. ‘So how was it?’ he asked. ‘I hope it wasn’t too painful a first day.’

Erin smiled. ‘I loved it. Everyone seems really nice.’ You seem really nice, she wanted to add. ‘Is there anything else you need me to do before I go?’ Please say yes.

Adam leant back in his black leather chair and folded his arms behind his head. ‘I don’t suppose you could dig me out Karin Cavendish’s phone number, could you?’

She thought she saw a flicker of pleasure stretch across his face as he noted her disappointment.

Erin nodded. ‘I’ll bring it through straight away,’ she said, rising.

What did you expect? she thought, scolding herself. Men like Adam Gold would only consider women like Karin Cavendish. He was hardly going to be interested in her, was he?

‘How was your first day, then?’

Richard Pendleton was already home by the time she got back to the flat, standing in the little kitchen cooking chilli con carne. Not for the first time she wondered why he was back so early. In the four weeks she’d been staying at his flat, Richard had never once worked late, let alone clocking up the two-in-the-morning marathon sessions he’d constantly complained about when she’d been down in Cornwall. Still, she shouldn’t grumble; this week he’d been the most attentive he’d ever been since they first got together eighteen months ago. Not that Richard had ever really been particularly devoted, especially since he had moved to London the previous autumn. He was always taking about ‘his own space’, even though they lived two hundred miles apart and he had almost blown a gasket when she had asked him if she could stay for a few weeks while she was working for Karin. Now those weeks had become a month, she had been expecting him to start making noises about how his Earl’s Court apartment was too small for two but, ever since she had landed the job at Midas, his mood seemed to have softened. Maybe he was getting used to her. The kitchen was a small gallery kitchen with smart wooden units and a little window that looked out onto a tiny manicured patch of lawn that the estate agents had dared to call a ‘delightful’ and ‘mature’ garden. She went to stand next to him by the oven and he spooned some sauce into her mouth.

‘Mmm, that’s actually edible!’ she teased. ‘Not bad for a pillar of the establishment.’

Richard was still in his pinstriped suit trousers and a white shirt, looking considerably older than his twenty-five years. Erin had noticed that, since he had begun work, he had adopted a rather superior expression, and the arrogant, offhand mannerisms of a man who believes himself to be a cut above. Leave him alone Erin, she thought, you’re just stressed and tired.

‘So come on,’ urged Richard, ‘what was Gold like?’

‘Oh Richard, I’m knackered,’ she replied, sinking onto a bar stool and kicking her heels off. ‘These early starts are going to kill me.’

‘Well, that’s international business, darling. The man works across several time zones. I bet he was still in the office when you left him, wasn’t he?’

‘How did you guess?’ she said flatly, pouring herself a glass of wine from the open bottle next to the cooker.

Richard ladled the chilli onto two plates and led the way into the main living area that had a couple of sofas at one end and a table and four chairs at the other. Erin had started eating when she looked up to see Richard was clearly still waiting for answers.

‘Why are you so interested, anyway?’ asked Erin, tearing off some pitta bread and dipping it in the sauce. ‘You’ve never shown this much interest in my writing.’

‘I’m hardly going to be interested in those silly fantasies, am I?’

She raised her eyebrows and Richard backtracked furiously. ‘Sorry, sorry. Out of order. I’m just excited for you now, that’s all. I mean, to be so close to such an important businessman. I bet you’re going to hear all sorts. Hey, maybe you could get us a few share tips,’ he winked.

‘That sounds illegal, Richard,’ she scolded. ‘I’m sure your senior partner won’t like you saying things like that.’ Richard’s cheeks flushed.

‘Actually, speaking of our senior partner, I was telling him today about your new job and he was very impressed indeed. He called Gold a genius. I mean how much do you know about the company?’ But, before Erin could reply, Richard ploughed on, keen to show his recently acquired knowledge.

‘Well, apparently the Midas Corporation isn’t just a property development company at all,’ he gushed, clearly pleased with his research. ‘In fact it’s a pyramid of companies.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Erin.

‘One small company at the top of the pyramid owns or has controlling stakes in a massive number of other companies, and whoever controls the parent company effectively controls everything beneath it. In this case, Adam Gold owns a hundred per cent of Midas Investment Group, the parent company, which makes him very rich and very, very powerful indeed.’

‘Well, I could have told you that without the economics lecture,’ said Erin.

‘Ah, but one of the guys at work was saying Gold’s got to be really, really fishy to be worth over a billion in such a short space of time …’

‘Maybe he just has the Midas touch,’ said Erin sarcastically, suddenly feeling a need to jump to Adam’s defence.

Richard shrugged. ‘Maybe. Anyway, the important thing is that Charles, our senior partner, was asking who does the Midas Corporation’s legals in London. I mean, White, Geary and Robinson offer a very comprehensive service across corporate, property, tax and litigation requirements, you know.’

‘Richard,’ said Erin crossly, putting down her fork. ‘You sound like a used-car salesman.’

Her boyfriend stiffened at the suggestion. ‘Come on, Erin, you know how much I want to be taken on in the CoCo department when I qualify. If I can bring in some of Adam’s Gold’s business, I’ll be home and dry.’

She looked at her boyfriend, really quite baby-faced underneath it all. A little boy dressed up as a City hotshot, wanting to please the big boys. She almost felt sorry for him. ‘Listen, Richard, I’ve only been there a day, but I’ll try and find out who the company uses and whether they’re happy with them. That’s all I can do.’

Richard pushed a kidney bean around his plate and looked a little sheepish. ‘Well … actually, there is one other thing you could do,’ he said, looking up at her with pleading eyes. ‘The firm are having an end-of-financial-year party in a few weeks and …’

‘What, Richard?’

‘Well, I told my boss that you’d bring Adam.’

8

‘Are you still in bed?’

Molly muttered a silent curse. She was indeed still in Harry’s emperor-sized bed and, lifting a corner of her black silk sleep mask, she saw it was 11 a.m. Reluctantly, she uncoiled herself and stretched. She knew the day was out there waiting, if only she could crawl from under this lovely cosy goose-down duvet. In fact, Molly had barely left Harry’s Hampstead home since the night of the benefit a week ago, only venturing into the outside world to pick up some essentials from her apartment – and for Harry to take her out to dinner every night. Naturally.

‘Oh darling, of course I’m not in bed,’ lied Molly, swinging out of the bed, her toes sinking into the thick double cream carpet. ‘Although I know you like to think of me in bed every minute of the day, don’t you lover?’

Harry gave a low chuckle down the phone. ‘Well, I was just calling to say that I’ve been invited to a very old friend’s party tonight,’ he said, ‘and I want you to come with me.’

‘How do you know I’ve got nothing better in my diary?’ teased Molly, standing in front of the full-length mirror and patting her pancake-flat stomach.

‘Well, how about I make it worth your while?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you go shopping this morning and pick out something nice to wear for the party? We can meet in Bond Street at one-ish to go and collect it.’

‘Dress, bag and shoes?’ smiled Molly.

‘I didn’t think you’d be a cheap date,’ he said, his tone playful.

Molly grinned. ‘I’ll be in Gucci.’

She showered quickly to shake off her grogginess, throwing on some jeans, a white shirt and her cowboy boots and pulling her hair back in a ponytail. She inspected herself in the mirror: pretty hot, even if she did say so herself, but still she didn’t feel quite ready for the hustle and bustle of spending someone else’s money. I wonder … she thought, and walked over to Harry’s walnut chest of drawers. Harry was super-neat, with everything in its own place. She rummaged around among his neatly rolled-up silk socks until she found what she was looking for: a small plastic bag containing about an ounce of cocaine. Molly’s eyes lit up. She pulled the seal open and dipped a long fingernail inside. The powder was fine and translucent like ground pearls; it looked as expensive as the rest of Harry’s possessions. Expertly, Molly tipped a small amount on the bedside table, lined it up with her credit card and snorted, feeling the crackle of coke taking hold. Oh yes, that was good. She pulled on her leather biker jacket, her body twinkling. Now she was ready to go shopping.

‘So who is this mysterious friend we’re meeting?’ asked Molly as they flew down Park Lane in Harry’s forest-green Ferrari. ‘I like to know whose party I’m going to before I get there.’

‘Marcus Blackwell, vice president of Midas,’ said Harry, gunning the engine and changing lanes to dodge a Bentley.

‘Midas? Adam Gold’s company?’ said Molly in surprise.

‘That’s right,’ said Harry smugly, ‘we were at university together. I was a med student, he was doing maths, if I remember rightly.’ He glanced sideways to drink in Molly’s figure, barely concealed by the tiny gold lamé shift dress he’d bought her earlier that afternoon.

‘I haven’t seen Marcus properly for years though,’ he continued. ‘He’s British, but he went to work on Wall Street fairly soon after he graduated. He hooked up with Gold and has been his right-hand man ever since. He’s done very well for himself.’

‘Hey, you didn’t do too badly either,’ smiled Molly, expertly massaging both his ego and his cock, her right hand stretched over the gearstick into Harry’s lap.

‘I guess not,’ gasped Harry, trying to keep the Ferrari on the road.

The Midas Corporation drinks party was to celebrate the launch of their flagship London development ‘Knightsbridge Heights’. Molly had read about the luxury apartments in the Evening Standard. Apparently, everyone from celebrities to oil sheiks had been clamouring to buy into one of the capital’s most desirable slices of real estate, and the party was being held in the building’s stunning black marble lobby. By the time Harry and Molly walked in through the black and gold revolving doors, it was already throbbing with the cream of society.

‘So how much does one of these apartments go for?’ asked Molly, looking around enviously. It was really a spectacular place in which to live. The centrepiece of the lobby was a vast black marble fountain that spewed out water as from a whale’s blowhole. The atrium stretched all the way to the glass ceiling hundreds of feet above. Along the back of the building was a bank of sliding doors that opened out onto a lush garden, stocked with exotic plants and lit for the evening with guttering torches.

‘I think they start about three million pounds and then go skywards,’ said Harry knowingly. ‘And I hear ninety-five per cent of them have been sold already. That’s the beauty of Midas’s residential business. They target the very top of the market. It’s pretty much recession-proof up there.’

They eventually found Marcus Blackwell at the entrance of the Winter Garden. He wasn’t a particularly good-looking man, thought Molly, his closely cropped dark hair had receded and his eyes, although brown and twinkly, were too close together, giving his face a pinched expression like a vole’s. That said, he was considerably more attractive than Harry, thought Molly. Considerably.

‘Harry,’ said Marcus, ‘how are you? It’s been too long.’

‘Ten years at least,’ grinned Harry. ‘But now you’re back in London maybe it won’t be another decade. What about lunch in the next couple of weeks?’ he added.

‘Sure, sure,’ nodded Marcus with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

‘Get your secretary to call mine and we’ll sort something out.’

‘Fantastic, I’ll do that.’

‘Marcus, this is my girlfriend, Molly Sinclair,’ Harry said.

Molly reached out to shake his hand, holding on to it just a little longer than necessary.

‘This place is amazing,’ she gushed. ‘You must introduce me to Adam. I’ve heard so many good things about him.’

‘Everyone seems to want to meet Adam tonight,’ replied Marcus. Molly thought she detected a grain of irritation behind the cordial smile. Interesting, she thought, filing it away for future use.

‘He’s just out here, showing one of our investors how many flowers half a million pounds can buy.’

Outside, in a courtyard surrounded by trees and flower-beds, there was a raised pond with another fountain cascading foaming water. Standing with his back to it was Adam Gold, surrounded by admirers, holding court. He was wearing a dark suit with a pale blue shirt – ordinary, conservative. But from her first glance, Molly knew he was the sexiest rich man she had ever seen – and she had seen many. She felt an immediate flutter of lust and excitement as they approached. She was wearing stilettos but he was still at least two inches taller than her; he possessed a natural confidence that matched her own and, although he didn’t have Molly’s cheekbones or poise, she knew instantly that they would make the most beautiful couple in town.

‘I think we were both at the Stop Global Warming benefit dinner the other night,’ said Molly, flashing her best cover-girl smile. She searched Adam’s face for a flicker of recognition as he moved forward to shake her hand. Surely he had noticed her?

‘I don’t think we met,’ said Adam in a polite but distracted manner that made her cheeks smart. He touched her arm to indicate that he had other people to talk to. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he smiled before leaving their group to go and air-kiss a glamorous blonde, leaving Molly’s mouth hanging open. The bastard.

Karin threaded her way through the lobby of Knightsbridge Heights with the confidence of someone who knew she looked fantastic. For a party this important, Karin had pulled out all the stops, paying a visit to Après Mode, her favourite boutique in Paris. Après Mode was a treasure-trove of 1960s Balenciaga, YSL and other classic labels and she had selected, with the help of the boutique’s owner Madam Vervier, a former couture directrice, a primrose-yellow Ossie Clark chiffon dress. But choosing a dress had only been a minor distraction; Karin’s life had gone into overdrive in the ten days following the benefit dinner. The papers had splashed the event’s red carpet pictures all over their front pages, her phone had rung off the hook with interview requests and the three Karenza stores had reported a fifteen per cent uplift in sales. Karin, however, had barely had time to breathe, let alone bathe in the glory. Instead she had dashed to Paris Fashion Week and a suite at the Plaza Athénée where she had shown her label’s autumn/winter collection to press and buyers. It had been a remarkable success. Even Anna Wintour, the singular editor of American Vogue, had come backstage to congratulate Karin. It was there she had taken the call from Erin Devereux, inviting her to a drinks launch at Knightsbridge Heights. She had snapped her mobile shut with a smile: finally, Adam was chasing.

‘Honey, you look drop-dead!’ oozed Diana, air-kissing her and handing her a drink. ‘Where did you get it? You must have spies in every boutique in the Western world. I’m so jealous, you must tell me.’

Karin just smiled mysteriously and linked her arm through Diana’s as they joined the main throng of the party.

‘So. Tell me all about Paris,’ said Diana.

‘I don’t think you want to talk about Paris, do you?’ said Karin knowingly.

‘Is it that obvious?’ replied Diana glumly, dropping her happy party girl demeanour. Her shimmering black Versace dress suddenly looked funereal.

‘Very obvious, darling. Very.’

Karin had invited Diana as her plus one because Diana was depressed. Her vulgar husband Martin had just disappeared to Aspen with his ex-wife Tracey and their seven-year-old twin girls Chloe and Emma. He hadn’t even bothered to telephone Diana in the last two days.

‘I shouldn’t have allowed him to go, should I?’ said Diana mournfully.

Karin turned to her friend, her face serious. ‘Of course you shouldn’t have allowed him to go,’ she said. ‘Divorced wives only have two settings: desperate and spiteful, often at the same time. If she was dumped, she’ll do anything – anything – to get him back. If she ended the relationship, she still wants to be number one and will play with him like a fish on a hook. Either way, she definitely wants to screw up your relationship with Martin.’ Diana looked stricken as she considered the implications of Karin’s words.

‘Well, Martin was the one who filed for divorce from Tracey … do you think that means that she’ll …? Oh God …’

Despite her outward dizziness, Diana was a realist at heart. She knew exactly what her husband was like and she had gone into the relationship with her eyes open. Theirs wasn’t so much a marriage as a merger. She was the class, he was the money, and men like that came with a price: infidelity. Diana had trained herself to imagine Martin with other women, so the pain would be less brutal when his adultery was unveiled. But this was worse, much worse. Now when she closed her eyes, Diana imagined him with Tracey, tucked up in the bar at The Little Nell, Aspen’s most glamorous hotel, drinking Bourbon, Tracey’s recently enhanced breasts bursting out of her Chanel ski-wear. Then they would retire to the penthouse for a night of energetic sex. But it wasn’t just sex with Tracey. They had history and they had the children to bond them back together. No, it wasn’t just sex – it was danger.

Karin could see the crushing look of insecurity on Diana’s face and felt a stab of guilt. ‘I’m sorry darling. I was too blunt. But I do worry that Tracey has never been off the scene since Hotbet.com floated.’

Diana nodded. ‘I know, but how can I say anything? She’s the mother of his children.’

‘But they’re not a family any more,’ replied Karin. She held Diana’s hand and looked into her welling eyes. ‘Look, honey, I’ve seen this happen with divorced friends a hundred times over. One minute mum and dad are playing happy families on the ski slopes pretending they don’t hate each other, the next minute they’re back together for the sake of the kids and his bank balance.’

Diana’s regal features twisted in confusion. ‘So what should I do?’ she pleaded.

Karin took a sip of her drink. ‘Remind Martin why he married you. Remind him that, without you, he is nothing. Look around you, at this place, at these people. Tracey might have his kids, but that little scrubber can’t give him this, can she?’

Karin took the glass of champagne out of Diana’s hand and swapped it for a glass of water. ‘Take this. You get so morose when you’re drunk. Don’t worry, honey, we simply need to show Martin just how valuable you can be to him.’

Karin looked across the crowded lobby and had an idea. ‘And I think I know just the man who can help us.’

Even though Summer Sinclair was twenty-four years old, she had never been to a rock concert. She had lived in London and Tokyo, moved among the rich and famous and felt at ease in some of the world’s most exclusive nightclubs and restaurants, but she had never once been to a live gig. Squeezing her way into the upstairs room at the Monarch, she began to understand why. It was horrible. Claustrophobic, head-splittingly loud and so hot that the air felt solid in her lungs. Summer had to literally force her way between lank-haired surly teenagers to get anywhere near the stage. Her carefully chosen Jimmy Choo ankle boots were getting scuffed on discarded plastic glasses and the soles were sticking to the floor. It was hideous; why did people come to these things willingly? But then the music started.

For a second Summer flinched as a wall of sound hit her. A swaggering rock god had walked onstage holding his guitar. A single distorted chord rang around the room and, when he was satisfied he’d got the crowd’s attention, he jumped into the air and The Riots blasted off. Summer could hardly believe it. Charlie was so unrecognizable from the handsome preppy boy at the shoot that she almost wondered if she’d got the right gig. But it was definitely him, his groomed hair replaced by a tousled surfer-boy look and a three-day stubble, the stuffy suits of the wedding shoot replaced jeans, T-shirt and a lorry-load of attitude. He was so sexy! The songs were amazing too – from shouty rock anthems to ballads that pulled at Summer’s heart strings. This was fantastic!

On stage, the drummer yelled at Charlie to slow down. But he wanted to finish and get offstage. Deep in the crowd, through the glaring lights and sea of faces, Summer Sinclair’s face shone out at him. He charged through The Riot’s set list and ran off backstage, ignoring the pretty girls begging the security guard to be let through.

Please don’t let her leave, he thought, rushing out into the crowd to find her.

‘Hey. You came.’

Summer was just zipping up her jacket ready to face the cold night outside. She turned and smiled.

‘Shouldn’t you be backstage taking coke and drinking whisky?’ she asked, her head cocked in mock innocence.

Charlie laughed. ‘Me? I’m really just a square middle-class boy, but don’t tell this lot that,’ he grinned.

They propped themselves up at the bar as Charlie ordered two lagers, at the same time accepting assorted back-slaps from excited fans.

‘I think they loved it,’ whispered Summer as one pimply youth told Charlie he was wicked.

‘But what did you think?’

Summer wanted to tell him that his sexual presence seemed to fill this stage, that his heartfelt lyrics of love and loss had made her want to cry. But she couldn’t. She just didn’t know how to be around Charlie.

‘You were brilliant,’ she said simply.

‘Yeah, well,’ he said, looking at the floor, ‘playing the Monarch is a big step up for us. It’s one of the best places to play in London for an unsigned band because there’s always A&R people hanging about. Plus it’s got this incredible history. Everyone’s played here. Oasis, Coldplay, Chilli Peppers. Playing here is either the beginning or the end of the road for The Riots.’

Summer was still staring at her lager.

‘Are you going to drink that or just look at it?’ smiled Charlie.

‘You’ll never believe this,’ she said, ‘but I’ve never had a pint before.’

‘Good God! Where’ve you’ve been living? Mars?’

Her cheeks flushed with awkwardness. ‘No, in my mother’s universe.’

Charlie nodded. ‘Ah yes, someone told me after the wedding shoot that your mum was Molly Sinclair. So what was it? Champagne in your baby bottle?’

‘Something like that.’

He took a long slurp of beer that left a white frothy moustache on his lip. ‘Fuck. What must that be like, to have a supermodel as a mother? I bet your dad loved it,’ he winked.

‘Actually, I don’t really know my father.’

Charlie bowed his head in embarrassment. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Summer, surprised at how easily she could talk to Charlie. ‘My mum lived in New York for a couple of years before I was born. She had an affair with this rich guy, Upper East side, rebel son from a good family, you know the sort. Anyway, she got pregnant and he dumped her. Seems like it wasn’t in his family’s masterplan for him to settle down with some crazy model. My mum came back to London and never heard from him again.’

‘Don’t you ever want to find him?’

Summer shook her head defiantly. ‘After he abandoned us? No way. Anyway, I guess you don’t miss what you’ve never had.’

By the time Summer had finished the pint of lager, she felt light-headed and happy, and found herself growing more and more attracted to Charlie. It crossed her mind what Molly would think of him; when he had bought their drinks, she had seen him anxiously rattle around a few pound coins in the palm of his hand. She snorted. Molly would go spare.

But she wasn’t here looking for romance, she told herself. She was happy to be chatting to him, enjoying his company; most of all, she wanted Charlie McDonald to be her friend. It embarrassed her to think how few of them she had. She blamed it on her four-year hiatus in Japan, but the truth was that her nomadic youth had left her with few school friends and she rarely met anyone beyond her mother’s party circuit.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’

Summer looked up, expecting to see some spotty youth hitting on her, but it was a forty-something-year-old man in an expensive-looking jacket and jeans and the question was directed to Charlie.

‘Rob Harper,’ said the man, offering his hand. ‘I manage bands.’

‘Oh, wow, Rob Harper,’ said Charlie, ‘good to meet you, man. Yeah, I’ll have a lager.’

Summer could tell from Charlie’s response that he had heard of him. What she did not know was that Rob was one of the most influential band managers in the country, looking after three or four platinum-selling artists.

‘So what did you think?’ asked Charlie, turning on the swagger.

‘I liked you,’ said Rob in a controlled voice. ‘In fact, we need to talk.’ Charlie flashed Summer a panicked expression and she immediately got the message.

‘I’m just off, Charlie,’ she said gently, throwing her bag over her shoulder. She didn’t want to leave but she certainly didn’t want to play groupie gooseberry.

Charlie touched her on the arm. ‘I can meet you in a minute?’

Summer shook her head. ‘Good luck,’ she mouthed.

Charlie took a beer mat off the bar, tore it in half and fished a pen out of his pocket.

‘Write your number on that,’ he said giving her half the mat. And she stepped out into the cold night, knowing he would call.

9

Karin stood by the fountain in the garden of Knightsbridge Heights waiting for Adam. The night had turned chilly and most of the guests were inside drinking and dancing. She knew he would seek her out eventually, quietly confident that she had made a lasting impression at Strawberry Hill House. Of course, Karin did not need to meet Adam Gold at the launch to get to know him better; she was a woman who liked to be prepared. No sooner had she received her invitation to the Knightsbridge launch than she was trawling the Internet for every story, interview and news piece on the Midas Corporation in Forbes, Fortune and the New York Times. Knowledge was a power that she was prepared to use every bit as ruthlessly as her sexuality.

The headlines she found spoke for themselves:

GOLD DEVELOPMENT THE BIGGEST IN SE ASIA

MIDAS SHARE RISE BREAKS HANG SENG RECORD

ADAM GOLD MAKES ANOTHER KILLING

The more she read about Adam, the more she felt they were kindred spirits. She recognized a drive, ambition and entrepreneurial spirit in Adam that she felt in herself. His background was one of wealth: his grandfather Aaron Grogovitz, a Hungarian emigrant who had settled in New Jersey in the 1930s and changed the family name to Gold, had made a fortune developing property in the post-war years. A devout Jew, the only thing he priced above family was his religion. So when his son David, a handsome college graduate on whose shoulders Aaron pinned the entire hopes of his empire, declared that he was to marry pretty classmate – and gentile – Julia Johnson, Aaron cut him off without a penny.

According to most accounts, David didn’t seem entirely distraught, happy to raise his family running a small real-estate agency in Yonkers. His son Adam, however, was a different animal altogether, having inherited every ounce of his grandfather’s drive and ambition, he won a full scholarship to Yale, but dropped out in the first year – why waste time in a library, he reasoned, when there were fortunes being made on Wall Street? Luther and Katz, Adam’s first employers, were a small New York investment house muscling in on the junk bond market championed by Michael Milken, and their traders were making a lot of money very, very quickly. After Milken’s arrest in 1987, Adam got out while the going was good, sinking his $10-million fortune into the business that was in his blood – real estate. He bought buildings in Tribeca for cash, converted them into designer lofts and sold them at a premium to wealthy traders. But his business really took off in 1992, when he bought landmark Manhattan buildings for peanuts out of the rubble of the property crash.

Suddenly Adam Gold was richer than the bankers, businessmen and celebrities to whom he sold £20-million apartments, richer than the CEOs who occupied his office blocks. His Manhattan home was one of the most talked-about townhouses in ‘The Grid’, the name given to the most exclusive blocks in the Upper East Side, as well as properties in Nassau, Lake Como and Dark Harbor in Maine. At forty-five, Adam Gold was eligible with a capital ‘E’ and speculating who would get him down the aisle had become a sport in the American society pages.

Karin was still lost in thought, turning all this information around in her head, when she heard a whisper in her ear.

‘Earth calling Karin …’

‘Adam,’ she smiled, turning to kiss him lightly on the cheek. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘Literally, I hear. I thought you were in Paris for the collections.’

She nodded. ‘For work not pleasure. My label shows there, plus I have to attend a trade fair to look at new fabrics for next season.’

‘Premiere Vision?’ asked Adam, gently taking her arm to steer her further down the garden.

‘You know it?’ asked Karin surprised. ‘I don’t meet many men who know so much about the fashion industry.’

‘I spend half my life with interior designers,’ he shrugged. ‘The gap between fashion and interiors is shrinking all the time.’

‘Umm, I guess we’re both selling a lifestyle to the same sort of people.’

Now he had led Karin to a quieter part of the Winter Garden where the background noise of the party had faded to a hum. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he sensing the same crackle of chemistry between them? Was he thinking about how long they could wait before they should end up in bed? She looked at him shrewdly. His face certainly wasn’t giving anything away; it was impassive and thoughtful, like a chess grand master waiting for her to make the next move.

‘Well, I think the apartments are incredible,’ said Karin quickly. ‘I heard a rumour that you’ve kept the best apartment for yourself.’

He nodded. ‘I could show you if you like, then you can make up your own mind.’

Karin felt as if they were in some elaborate Regency dance, both skirting around one another, slowly observing and sizing each other up, each trying to stay three moves ahead of the other.

‘I should really go and find my friend,’ said Karin with some reluctance. ‘She’s a little depressed and I’m worried she might throw herself into the fountain if I don’t stop her.’

Karin was scanning his face, willing him to look crestfallen at her refusal, but he merely nodded. ‘Maybe some other time, then.’

Karin returned the nod, determined not to show her own disappointment. Finally Adam smiled. ‘You know, you’re still the only woman I’ve had a decent conversation with in London,’ he said, as if it was a private joke between the two of them.

‘I didn’t know you were keeping count,’ smiled Karin, feeling a small flame of triumph.

‘So would you like to go for dinner?’ he asked.

It was Karin’s turn to make her chess move. ‘I’m very busy for the next week or two,’ she said.

‘Yes, so am I,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m in Venice for the carnival and Miami for business, but I’m sure we can find a window.’

‘How odd. I’m going to the carnival too,’ she replied as casually as she could.

‘Oh, that’s excellent. I was hoping you would give me the grand tour of London, but perhaps I can show you around Venice instead.’

‘Perhaps. I do know Venice very well,’ smiled Karin.

Adam was shaking his head and smiling. ‘Are you always this difficult?’

She grinned. ‘Only when I’m having fun.’

‘Molly Sinclair. You don’t look as if you’re having a good time.’ Molly turned round to see Marcus standing behind her. She had been leaning against the glass doors of the winter garden listening to a trickle of water falling into the circular pool. She was still fuming from her brief encounter with Adam Gold; that cocky shit had barely looked at her and he was constantly in an impenetrable throng of businessmen. To make matters worse, she’d spotted him cosying up to Karin Cavendish in the garden. She’d taken it out on Harry, ordering him to fetch her jacket from the Ferrari.

‘Well, I’m having a much better time now,’ she said, turning on the charm.

‘Where’s Harry?’ asked Marcus, looking around. ‘I’ve hardly had a chance to say a word to him all night.’

‘He’s off talking to people,’ she said with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘I’m sure he’s found someone more interesting to chat to.’

‘Well, I find that hard to believe,’ said Marcus. Molly examined his expression, trying to decide if his last comment was flirtatious or merely polite. Marcus Blackwell could be useful, she thought.

Marrying well was never just a case of two star-crossed lovers meeting by chance – not in the real world, anyway. It involved a lot of careful planning and manoeuvring. It was an art, thought Molly, an art she had studied for a long, long time.

‘You never did show me that apartment you promised,’ said Molly, touching Marcus’s arm.

‘It’s all locked up for the night.’

‘Oh, come on. You’re the boss around here. Surely you have a key?’

Marcus nodded and patted his pocket. ‘The reason I know the show apartment is locked is because I locked it myself.’

He put his hand lightly on her waist to steer her through the crowd to a private lift. Marcus slotted a card into the wall and the doors hissed open. They stood silently as the lift took them up to the fifteenth floor.

‘Wow,’ whistled Molly as she stepped out onto carpet so thick it almost covered her shoe. It was really was quite impressive what £10 million bought you in real estate.

Molly made her way slowly through the flat, Marcus silently following behind, lapping up her effusive compliments. And there was much to admire: floor-to-ceiling ‘his-and-hers’ plasma screens in the master bedroom, a walnut kitchen with white resin walls, climate-controlled closets and a polished bamboo floor in the bathroom. The look was cool minimalist with luxurious flourishes. Each apartment even came completely fitted out with bespoke cutting-edge Italian furniture. And then there was that view, high over Hyde Park.

‘You’ll see best from the balcony in the master bedroom,’ said Marcus slowly. Molly looked at him, then kicked off her heels and walked across to open the doors. She didn’t go out onto the balcony, just stood in the doorway, letting the cool night air ruffle her hair.

‘Is it embarrassing to admit I had your calendar on my wall at college?’ said Marcus behind her. Molly smiled; she knew she had him. Marcus was your typical Master of the Universe in the boardroom, but his devotion to work had starved him of passion. No regular girlfriend, possibly a few hookers. He was ripe for the picking.

‘Come over here,’ she said, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, ‘The breeze is lovely.’

Marcus walked over hesitantly. His eyes were hungry but nervous.

Molly gently took his hand and placed it on her breastbone, sliding it down her dress until his fingers brushed her hard, erect nipple. ‘Look what you did to me,’ she whispered, leaning so close that her bottom lip brushed his ear lobe.

‘Molly, Harry is my friend,’ said Marcus, the words catching in his throat.

‘I don’t want Harry,’ she purred, brushing her lips across his neck as she spoke. Her fingers traced down the line of his shirt buttons until she found his zip. ‘I want you,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve wanted you from the second I saw you.’

Suddenly their mouths were together, Marcus hurriedly undoing his trousers and pulling his boxer shorts off as they shuffled towards the bed. Pushing Molly back onto the expensive linen, Marcus hiked up her dress and roughly pulled down her panties, dipping two fingers into her wetness.

‘Now, don’t wait,’ she said, her voice shuddering. She wrapped her legs around him and guided him into her inch by inch, slowing him, taunting him, until he was fully inside her. Marcus was groaning in pleasure, reaching down to spread her legs wider, lifting her buttocks off the sheets so his cock could reach deeper and deeper.

‘Oh God, yes, harder,’ she begged, arching her back as Marcus thrust faster and faster into her, before he erupted, crying out, his face twisting, his nostrils flared.

He held on to her for one moment, then rolled to the side; they were both gasping.

‘Can I call you tomorrow?’ asked Marcus finally, as Molly sat up on the edge of the bed, pulling her panties back on.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said with a dirty smile, before smoothing down her short gold dress and moving towards the door. Three minutes later, she was back at the party, where Harry was frantically searching for her, clutching her jacket.

‘There you are darling,’ she said, kissing Harry on the lips. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

10

The weather in Venice was remarkably good for late winter. A strong sun dazzled the city, the colourful landscape of ice-cream coloured buildings and red-brick palazzos looking even more striking against a clear blue sky. Karin and her friend Ileana Totti, heiress to her family’s luxury goods company, were in the lobby of the Danieli Hotel catching up.

‘So you lied to Adam Gold that you were going to be in Venice for carnival?’ laughed Ileana, taking a sip of her Bellini. ‘I never knew you were so devious.’

‘It was a white lie,’ said Karin. ‘I am in Italy, aren’t I?’

She had spent the last two days visiting a fabric manufacturer in Bologna. ‘I mean, I didn’t honestly expect him to want to hook up in Venice. He said he was only coming for a couple of days. Now he wants me to come with him to some masked ball.’

‘What a drag,’ said Ileana, teasing Karin with a hint of sarcasm.

Karin chuckled. She had tried to sound disgruntled, but they both knew she had been delighted when Erin had called her two days after the Knightsbridge Heights launch to arrange a Venetian rendezvous with Adam.

‘So will you sleep with him tonight?’

‘Illy!’ said Karin, feigning shock. ‘He hasn’t even been in touch to say when or where we’re meeting. It might not even happen.’

‘Well, call him then!’

‘No.’

‘Mia cara,’ purred Ileana, playing with the large canary diamond on her finger, ‘you’ve just faked a trip to carnival. Now is not the time to play hard to get.’

‘You’re right,’ smiled Karin, imagining herself naked in bed with Adam. ‘I don’t need games – he’s already in the bag.’

‘I know he is, darling,’ smiled her friend, and they clinked glasses.

After she had said goodbye to Ileana, Karin took a shiny walnut and chrome motor launch over the Grand Canal to the Cipriani to check in. When there had been no message from Adam waiting for her on arrival, she had felt a slight rumble of anxiety. Don’t panic, she reassured herself, He’ll call. Why wouldn’t he? By 4 p.m., however, that confidence had evaporated, to be replaced by an unfamiliar sense of insecurity.

‘Sigñor, can you check again?’ asked Karin, calling down to reception.

‘Sigñora. I assure you il Sigñor Gold has not left a message. I will let you know if he does,’ was the polite but firm reply.

Karin paced around her suite, a sumptuous, spacious room where marble and velvet managed to feel modern rather than dowdy. She couldn’t settle, throwing down a book after just a few lines, flicking the TV on and off. Earlier that week she had requested a local costumier send over a selection of gowns for the party which had been laid out on the bed. She tried to distract herself by pulling them out of their heavy plastic wrappers. There were two glorious period dresses, one scarlet brocade, one a thick jade silk, both with low scooped neckline, a big bustle and layers of lace under a thickly gathered skirt. But even the beautiful clothes couldn’t distract her from Adam and she flung them back on the bed angrily.

Karin looked out of the window; the sky was beginning to darken, low clouds glowing rosy on the Venetian horizon. She would give Adam until 5 p.m., and then that was it. Or maybe 6 p.m.

She ran herself a hot bath, letting herself sink into the suds and willing her anxieties to melt away. Surely she hadn’t misread the situation so badly? After all, he had contacted her to meet in Venice, not the other way around. And yes, it was through his PA, but that was how rich men dated, just another window in a busy diary. Besides, if he wanted some bimbo model, he could have settled down years ago. And yet here she was, successful, sexy and clever, exactly the kind of woman Adam Gold needed – even if he didn’t know it yet. Ah, fuck him, she thought, jumping out of the bath and stomping back into the bedroom. I’ll meet up with Illy. She’ll be more fun, anyway.

She was just wrapping a bathrobe around her when the suite’s buzzer went. She opened the door to find a bellboy holding an envelope. ‘This have just arrived for you, signora,’ he said in broken English, trying hard not to look at Karin’s curvy wet body.

Back inside, she tore it open and a stiff white invitation peeked out from gold tissue paper.

You are invited to dinner, drinks and dancing at the Palazzo Sasso. 8 p.m. Dress: Masked ball.

She noticed some black inky squiggles on the back. See you later. Adam. Karin jumped on the bed and whooped.

Molly was meeting Marcus at the Ivy. The restaurant was one of Harry’s favourite places for supper and she was half hoping to bump into him, as she still hadn’t quite got round to breaking the news that it was over between them. The morning after the Knightsbridge Heights party, she had given him one last mercy fuck, cleared all his coke from his sock drawer and disappeared. But, instead of getting the hint, Harry had left a dozen increasingly soppy messages on her answerphone, his latest communication informing her that he had booked them into the Paris Ritz for that weekend. While she was tempted to make contact, if only to slip into the fluffy peach robes at her favourite French hotel, she exercised restraint. Overlapping lovers didn’t usually bother Molly; it wasn’t unusual for her to have two or three on the go if they were particularly generous or useful. But Harry and Marcus were friends. She had principles, for God’s sake!

The taxi waiting on the street tooted its horn once more. Molly tutted and painted on a final slash of lip gloss, then stood back to check the black Alaïa dress that clung to every curve in the mirror. Then she grabbed her bag and ran for the stairs. She was just closing the front door when she saw a scruffy young man standing at the bottom of the steps.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

‘I don’t want one, thank you,’ said Molly tartly, double-locking the door.

‘You don’t want what?’ asked the man.

‘A Big Issue,’ said Molly. ‘And this is a residential street, so I’d be grateful if you moved along.’

Molly had walked to her taxi but he was still standing there.

‘No, I just wanted to ask: is this where Summer Sinclair lives?’

‘And who is asking?’ asked Molly, rather perplexed.

‘Charlie McDonald. I’m a … a friend,’ he said cautiously.

Charlie? The name didn’t ring any immediate bells.

‘We arranged a date on Wednesday, but I lost her number,’ Charlie added. ‘I just remembered she said she lived on Basset Road. That lady with the dog thought she lived here,’ he said, pointing vaguely down the street.

Summer arranged a date? thought Molly, confused. Where was she on Wednesday? Then she recalled with a shudder something about a rock gig in Camden. Something to do with a male model from the bridal shoot. She gave him a second glance. Hmm, well, he was certainly good looking enough to model underneath that stubble and dirty leather, she thought. But even so! Had she not taught Summer anything over the years? It was rule number one: no creatives. Not unless you were talking musicians like Rod Stewart. Creative people just didn’t make money. It was so typical of sweet, simple Summer to let her head be turned by some long-haired poet with holes in his jeans.

‘I’m so sorry, Charlie, but you’ve had a wasted journey,’ said Molly sadly. ‘She lives here alright, but she’s hardly ever here. Spends most of the week at her boyfriend’s house in Mayfair.’ She smiled kindly. ‘But I’m her mother, Molly. I can pass a message on if you like.’

Charlie mouth was firm, but his eyes told of his disappointment.

‘It’s okay,’ he replied with a shrug, ‘I was just passing.’

She climbed in the taxi and pulled away. Molly looked through the rear window, watching Charlie McDonald get smaller and smaller until he had disappeared out of sight and out of Summer’s life forever.

The Palazzo Sasso was like some Shakespearian fantasy. An enormous labyrinth of rooms with high painted ceilings, arched windows and ornate plasterwork, all lit by enormous fat lamps hanging from the walls that sent a flickering yellow light around the ballroom. Entering the room alone, Karin was immediately glad Adam had chosen this place to meet. She had been to so many fantastic parties all over the world, but this room looked so sexy, mysterious and theatrical that it was impossible not to be impressed. There were fire-eaters, jugglers and a string quartet that could just be heard above the hum of the crowd, the whole atmosphere pulsing with decadence. All the guests were in full costume for Carnevale; there must have been enough velvet in the room to stretch from Venice to the moon. The men were either in black tie with capes or in authentic period dress of doublet and hose, the woman straining in fitted corsets and flowing skirts. Everybody’s faces were obscured by masks made from papier-mâché or thick brocade, making it impossible to spot Adam, but the sensation of being alone, hidden, was exciting, almost a sexual thrill for Karin. God, she had to find Adam – and quickly. She moved through the crowd, passing from the main ballroom into the tangle of anterooms, soaking up the delicious atmosphere, listening to the babble of different languages. Finally she came across a smaller room, filled with people, crackling with excitement. Walking closer, she understood why she had been given a handful of casino chips on entry; it was a roulette table. She found a place at the table, put all of her chips on red and held her breath as the ball bounced around the wheel.

‘Red, twelve,’ said the croupier and pushed over a pile of chips. With a growing confidence, she moved half of her stash onto zero.

‘No more bets,’ said the croupier as the ball began to rattle round the walnut wheel. Karin dropped her cool and clapped with excitement as the ball came to rest on zero. A respectful hum ran around the crowd.

‘Go for broke,’ said a man standing next to her. ‘After all, it’s not real money is it?’

Carried along by the moment, Karin moved all her chips onto number twenty-nine, watching, waiting her heart pounding as the white ball swirled, rattled and slowed.

‘Red, thirteen.’ There were hoots of excitement as the croupier scooped up all Karin’s chips with his rake and pushed them towards the end of the table. Karin looked down the table to see the victor. His eyes met hers and he smiled. He was wearing a gold mask with a long curved nose, but she could see the bottom half of his face and that square jaw was unmistakable. Adam. The bastard.

‘Thirteen. Lucky for some,’ laughed Adam, leading Karin back into the ballroom.

‘Lucky for you, you mean.’

‘Don’t be so competitive,’ smiled Adam. ‘Not when there are more important things at stake.’ They reached the edge of the dance floor just as the sound of Mozart soared into the air. With a curt nod of invitation, Adam took Karin in his arms to dance.

‘When you said we should see Venice, I didn’t think it would be from behind two papier-mâché slits,’ smiled Karin, enjoying the feeling of closeness as they whirled around the room.

‘I like the idea of masks, don’t you?’ said Adam. ‘The idea of being someone else for the night? It has so many possibilities. That’s why the Venetian lords threw big balls for carnival – they wanted to allow their guests to adopt a different party personality to the one they usually had.’

‘So who are you tonight?’ asked Karin playfully. ‘The King of Roulette?’

‘Casanova,’ he joked, leaning his mouth close to her ear.

‘I thought you said different personas.’

The air was thick with chemistry; a thick wall that both separated and pulled them together. Karin was enjoying putting Adam on the spot. She was naturally direct, challenging and cool. It worked in business and she also found it drove certain men crazy.

‘Don’t believe everything you read in the New York Post,’ scolded Adam.

‘You’re forty-something and unmarried – people draw conclusions.’

The music stopped and Adam took a flute of champagne.

‘I’ve never married because my parents had a wonderful marriage and I’ve spent my whole life comparing my relationships to theirs,’ he said more seriously.

‘Well, not everybody wants marriage,’ said Karin quietly.

‘You’ve never tried it?’ asked Adam.

‘My first, only, husband died last year in a boating accident,’ she said. She wasn’t sure if she had needed to tell him quite yet; but she knew he’d find out. And besides, it made her seem more sensitive, more mysterious and certainly less predatory than a single, unmarried woman in her thirties.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ he said softly, reaching up to touch her face. They both looked away, out onto the dance floor.

‘It’s quite incredible,’ she sighed. ‘So decadent.’

‘I love Venice. It reminds me of Manhattan.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘Seriously,’ said Adam. ‘They’re both islands built around commerce; Venice was once the wealthiest city in the world. There’s an old Venetian saying that a man without money is a corpse that walks.’

‘I’m sure thousands of New Yorkers think that every day,’ said Karin dryly.

He laughed. ‘Not just New Yorkers.’

They fell silent again, watching the masked dancers revolving around the floor.

‘Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Adam, still looking at the ballroom.

Karin felt a little leap of excitement in her belly.

‘It was something you said at the Knightsbridge party. That we both sell lifestyle statements,’ he continued. ‘I’ve been to your stores and I think your corporate identity is really strong.’

Karin felt the delicious bubble of anticipation pop. ‘I think your corporate identity is strong’? she thought furiously. Had he brought her all the way to Venice to talk business? Whatever happened to ‘I think you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen’ or ‘I think we could be great together.’ She’d even settle for I think you have great tits. She’d gone to enormous lengths to be here and that was the best he could do? Did he have any idea how difficult it was to get a room at the Cipriani during the carnival?

She took a deep breath: Calm down, Karin, she told herself. You’re a businesswoman, start behaving like one.

‘Well, thank you for the compliment, Adam,’ she said coolly. ‘So what did you want to talk about?’

‘I have a team of creative people advising the Midas Corporation,’ he said. ‘I would love you to do some consulting for the residential division. I think you could really add some class.’

But Karin was only half listening. A tall, slender man in black tie had caught her eye across the dance floor. His harlequin mask could not disguise his handsome features; a long straight nose, a wide mouth and a strong jaw. He boldly walked across to Karin and extended a hand. ‘May I have this dance?’ he said with a heavy Italian accent.

‘Eduardo Ribisi, is that you?’ she laughed.

‘Sì, Karin carissima, it is I!’ he said, whirling his cape dramatically.

Karin grinned. ‘I didn’t recognize you at first, although you can hardly blame me with that mask.’ She looked at Adam. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a few moments …?’

The music swelled as Eduardo took her in his arms and swung her across the dance floor with expert grace.

‘So who is he?’ whispered Eduardo playfully.

‘Someone who has just made me very cross,’ said Karin, unable to shake her annoyance.

‘Karin, darling, you come to Venice for passion and laughter, not for this sad little face,’ he said, touching his finger on her downturned lip.

Over Eduardo’s shoulder, she could see Adam still standing there, his eyes following them.

‘Do you want to go back?’ asked Eduardo.

‘Not yet. Just hold me.’

Adam was stony-faced by the time she returned. ‘Who was that?’ he said flatly, taking a canapé off a tray and biting into it rather harder than necessary.

‘Just an old friend. He’s from a very old Italian family. Practically royalty if Italy still had a monarch. Very charming. Now what were you saying about me consulting for Midas?’

‘Oh, we can discuss that in London,’ he replied dismissively. He fell quiet as they slowly walked around the palazzo to explore its dark corners, finally finding a quiet courtyard that opened onto a canal, the water lapping up against the marble floor.

‘Eerie, isn’t it?’ he whispered.

‘Have you ever seen Don’t Look Now?’

He laughed, moving closer to her so their fingers brushed.

‘Shall we go?’ he asked. She nodded and he led her out of the palazzo, down a tangle of narrow streets and into St Mark’s Square where the launch to the Cipriani was located up a little carpeted gangway.

‘You at the Cip too?’

‘Palazzo Vendramin, next door.’

No other guests boarded and they sat in silence at the uncovered rear of the boat, watching the green water of the Grand Canal splash and foam around them. The Venetian skyline never failed to make Karin smile, the tall tower of St Mark’s stretching up into a midnight-blue sky peppered with stars. Suddenly there was a whoosh and a spider’s web of colour lit up the sky. Carnival was famous for its firework displays and, for the rest of the journey across to Giudecca Island, the sky was studded with gold and crimson stardust. There would not be a more magical spot to be alone with Adam Gold for the first time, Karin thought to herself, letting her hand slip onto the seat next to his.

‘The view from my suite is just like this,’ said Adam quietly, touching her fingers with his. Karin offered up a prayer and made a mental note to call and thank Eduardo for his brilliant performance. The brother of an old school friend, she had known him since he was a teenager. Now twenty-nine, the gorgeous Venetian playboy was also still in the closet, too afraid of his staunch Catholic parents to tell them the truth about his sexuality. But he had been more than happy when Karin had phoned him earlier that day to play her suitor. ‘I’m going to that party anyway,’ he had giggled, ‘And it won’t be hard to pretend I am madly in love with you, carissima.’ He had played his part beautifully. The psychology of rich men was fairly easy to understand. They wouldn’t stand for something to be taken from their grasp.

The boat chugged to the dock at the Cipriani and the captain helped her onto dry land. Karin and Adam walked down the dark, leafy path into the hotel, where they could hear the tinkling of a piano and the good-humoured murmur of guests leaving the bar.

‘Could you handle another drink?’ asked Adam.

‘I could, but aren’t we going to frighten everyone in the bar?’ she smiled. They were still wearing their heavy cloaks with the elaborate Venetian masks pushed back off their faces.

‘My suite or yours then?’ smiled Adam. Karin’s stomach flip-flopped as she attempted to look nonchalant.

‘Yours, but just for a few minutes,’ she said, and they began to weave through the fragrant gardens of the Cipriani towards the exclusive quarters of the Palazzo Vendramin.

Adam unlocked the heavy mahogany door and let his guest into the suite, walking over to the long shutters and opening them without turning on the light. Karin followed him The view was every bit as impressive as Adam had promised, the milky glow of the moon adding to the magic. He moved behind her and his lips brushed her neck. She had hoped to deny him a little longer, to make him chase her, but it was impossible. The sexual charge between them was too strong. His fingers untied the ribbon of her cape, which fell to the floor, a pool of velvet.

He kissed her on the mouth, his warm hands cupping her face, moving down her back, quickly pulling at the zip. Her dress fell away from her in one movement and she stood there totally naked, save for the mask on the back of her head.

‘For someone who wants to start designing panties, I thought you might be wearing some,’ he said, his voice gravelly.

‘Do I have to practise everything I preach?’ she said softly, her hands moving inside his clothes. She began to undress him, but he gently held her hands still, reaching up to pull her carnival mask back down over her eyes. In the dark, the black mask obscured almost everything and her skin tingled with the thrill. She felt herself being lifted and lowered onto the bed, her groin aching, every nerve tingling with heightened sensualness. She groaned loudly as she felt her left nipple between Adam’s moist lips, then shuddered as two of his fingers pushed into her, sliding back and forth across her clitoris as she arched her back in pleasure. He withdrew and for a few moments she felt nothing but ripples of pleasure and the cool breeze breathing in through the window. Then he parted her thighs with his hands, still damp from her juices, lifting her knees to her chest so his thick cock could sink deep inside her. And, as they rocked together, their sweat-sheened bodies moving in perfect rhythm in the moonlight, she cried out with a sweet mixture of passion, pleasure and triumph.

11

‘I have to say, Erin, you’ve really pulled it out of the bag this time.’ Richard adjusted his bow tie in a self-satisfied manner and smiled over to his girlfriend. It was true that Erin was attracting a number of admiring glances from Richard’s colleagues at the White, Geary and Robinson annual dinner – not that there was a huge amount of competition, she thought. The Park Lane Hilton was awash with bottle-green taffeta, burgundy velvet and ill-fitting cummerbunds, so Erin’s silk peacock blue DKNY evening dress made her look like a supermodel.

‘Glad you like it,’ said Erin, stroking the fabric. ‘It cost six hundred quid. I don’t think I’ve spent more than that on anything except rent.’

‘Bloody hell!’ whistled Richard. ‘Have you won the lottery and not told me?’

Erin had received her first pay-packet earlier that week and, after nearly fainting at the size of it, had decided to go to Knightsbridge on a shopping spree. At first she couldn’t believe how much designer clothes cost. It was ridiculous! Still, she had to admit it was worth every penny: the blue was stunning against her alabaster skin and it clung to every new curve. She had lost eight pounds since she had left Cornwall; working for Adam meant there wasn’t time to eat. Richard disappeared to check the seating plan and returned with two flutes of champagne.

‘Fuck me!’ he whispered gleefully, ‘we’re only sitting on the managing partner’s table!’

‘I take it that’s a good thing,’ said Erin, laughing at his boyish enthusiasm.

‘Erin, Charles Sullivan is only one of the highest-earning lawyers in the City,’ he hissed, ‘bills millions for the firm. Millions!’

He was beginning to sound like David Attenborough describing some lesser-known species of the Amazon rainforest.

‘Well, I hope he’s a good laugh if we’re sitting with him for dinner.’

‘A good laugh?’ Richard spluttered. ‘Erin. We’re talking invaluable networking opportunities here. One good word from him and I can pick and choose which department I go to when I qualify. I tell you, it’s a job well done here, Erin. Thank you, Adam Gold. Speaking of which, where the bloody hell is he?’

As if hearing Richard’s words, Adam walked into the room. His presence was like a shock of sex appeal in the otherwise sober company of the lawyers and their partners. The cut of his dinner jacket seemed a little more sharp, his shirt more crisp, his tan glowing among the papery English complexions. All heads and eyes swivelled to look at him. Erin felt a bolt of pride as he came up to her and Richard.

‘Sorry I’m late. I was caught in the office. Had a few calls to make to New York. Shall we go in?’

‘Thanks for coming,’ whispered Erin as they strolled into the dining hall, ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘Well I hope he’s going to buy you something very nice for this,’ said Adam, nodding his head in the direction of Richard.

Adam was seated between Erin and Charles Sullivan. Charles was a powerfully built man with a shock of grey hair and a deep voice. In the legal world, he was something of an ageing matinée idol. Erin enjoyed watching the interplay between two successful businessmen. Charles Sullivan was clearly angling for work, gently promoting the firm at every opportunity, but he avoided anything direct, choosing safer subjects of conversation like shooting and golf. Richard, however, was less subtle, leaning over Erin and barging his way into the conversation wherever possible.

‘I assume you’ve moved to London because you intend to float the business on the stock exchange,’ asked Richard with an air of authority.

‘And why would you assume that?’ asked Adam, with just the hint of amusement in his voice.

‘Well, with the introduction of REITs, isn’t every property company to go public?’

‘What’s a REIT?’ asked Erin.

Richard rolled his eyes. ‘A Real Estate Investment Trust. Property companies convert to REIT status to become tax efficient.’

‘Well, thank you for the lesson, Richard,’ said Charles, his smile loaded with warning. ‘But I hardly suppose Adam is going to let us in on his plans for Midas, is he?’

‘It’s also a little more complicated than that,’ smiled Adam politely.

Erin could see that he was trying to stop the direction of the conversation without wanting to be rude. Richard, however, was like a small dog with a big bone, yapping and jumping, wanting everyone to see how clever he was. Erin looked at Richard with a sinking feeling of what? Disappointment? Embarrassment? When she had first got together with Richard, she had been in her final year of her degree and he was beginning the legal practice course in preparation for his traineeship. All her friends at Uni had considered him to be quite a catch, but at first she hadn’t really seen it. It wasn’t that he was particularly good-looking – there were certainly sexier men at college – but slowly she saw that Richard possessed a self-confidence, a worldliness and a purpose lacking in most of the men she met at the students’ union. Richard talked about the future and his place in it when most students mumbled about indie bands and scoring ‘a quarter’ and she quickly found his considered opinions on politics and economics incredibly attractive. He was a real man, not some lank-haired teenager. She was also seduced by his family, who owned a big red-brick rectory in Worcestershire. She loved the sense of having a big, close-knit family; there were his mother and father, Brian and Margaret, and three brothers, who all worked in the city. But at the same time, on her rare visits home with Richard, she had felt inadequate, as if Richard was out of her league. She’d asked him once what he had seen in her.

‘Fantastic knockers,’ he’d said with apparent sincerity. ‘Whatever happened to that tight black T-shirt you used to wear?’

She’d laughed it off at the time. But here and now, sitting next to Adam Gold, the scales were slowly falling from her eyes.

‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ she whispered as Richard swirled his teaspoon around in his coffee with the air of a prime minister listening to his cabinet.

‘Yeah, sure, honey,’ he said absently, waving his hand. ‘Take your time.’

The bathroom was quiet, with only a few cubicles occupied, so Erin had the mirror to herself as she dabbed some blusher on her cheeks. Then she noticed another woman standing a few feet away, just watching her. It unnerved Erin a little. The woman had a long, horsey face and the glassy look of someone who had drunk too much. Finally Erin nodded to her. ‘Hello,’ she said, wondering perhaps if she had met her before.

The blonde stepped towards Erin, a little unsteady on her feet. ‘Richard Pendleton’s girlfriend, yes?’ she said with an accent Erin could only describe as phoney-Sloaney. ‘It’s good to finally meet you.’

‘Really?’ Erin was surprised that Richard spoke about her with his workmates and she suddenly felt a little guilty about her uncharitable thoughts at the dinner table.

‘Well, never particularly wanted to meet you before, no,’ said the woman with a twisted smile. ‘But obviously now I’m curious.’

‘Curious about what?’ asked Erin, feeling a sudden fluttery sense of foreboding.

‘Why, curious about you,’ she laughed malevolently. ‘Richard’s little girlfriend tucked away in Cornwall.’

Erin didn’t want to be rude to any of Richard’s colleagues, but this woman was clearly hostile for some reason. ‘Is there a problem?’

The woman laughed. Erin noticed that her lips and teeth were stained purple from the wine. ‘No, no problem, not any more. Not now you have the ear of Adam Gold. This firm would kill to get a slice of the Midas legals and there’s no way they would have got Gold here tonight without you. So Richard is officially Charles Sullivan’s blue-eyed boy. No wonder he’s gone running back to you.’

‘Running back to me?’

The blonde’s sneer was slowly dissolving, her lip wobbling. ‘Last month he told me that he loved me,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘He said he loves me because we’re a good match. He said you live in Cornwall and that it wasn’t working and it was never serious. He told me himself.’

Erin felt her cheeks burn hot. ‘You’ve been seeing Richard?’ she said incredulously.

‘For six months. And then you deliver Adam Gold on a bloody platter and Richard decides to “give your relationship another go”.’ The woman’s words were dripping with spite and bitterness. Erin almost felt sorry for the silly, vengeful cow.

‘Don’t waste your tears on Richard Pendleton,’ said Erin, taking a deep breath to compose herself. ‘Because you know what? I won’t.’

She turned and walked into a cubicle and sat on the toilet seat, pressing her thumbs into her eyes and willing herself not to cry. For a moment, she actually thought she might laugh, but then the tears came, dropping onto her knees. What she had said to the blonde woman was true: it wasn’t Richard she was crying for; she could see now he was a self-seeking, pompous prick. But she still felt worthless. Gullible. A fool.

It had always been that way she thought sadly, remembering when she was fifteen and she had really fancied Michael McGavey from the next village. They had flirted for weeks in school, taken long walks on the cliffs and kicked pebbles into the sea with their shoes. When Becky Lewis announced her parents were away in Tenerife and she was going to have a sleepover party – boys and girls – Erin couldn’t believe her luck. She had gone into Newquay to buy a new dress and she and her friends had giggled with anticipation over what might happen over the course of the evening. Michael had been less friendly that night. Becky had smiled at him and plied him with her dad’s beers. When the games and the horror movies had finished, he’d gone into Becky’s bedroom while Erin had lain frozen in her red sleeping bag listening to the sounds of muffled first-time sex. Some girls didn’t care if you fancied a boy. Some girls thought that if they fancied that boy too, then it was all that mattered. Even if they were your friends, they would still have him. Because they were prettier and wittier and because they could.

Adam can’t see me like this, she thought stubbornly. If she could just reach the cloakroom without seeing anyone, she could slip away unnoticed.

‘There you are. I’ve been looking for you.’

Richard had taken his jacket off and his dicky bow was hanging around his neck. He looked bloated with self-satisfaction and more than a little drunk. He looked around the lobby smugly, where a few people were already beginning to collect their coats.

‘What a good night – and isn’t Adam great? I think I made an impression there. Do you think he’ll request me personally when he instructs us? Anyway, it looks as if Charles is going to swap my final seat from probate to tax. I mean, what good will fucking probate do me? And I’ll be sitting with one of the heavy-hitting partners too.’

Erin stared blankly at him. He had completely failed to register she was upset.

‘Well, you deserve it,’ she spat, ‘after you’ve been working so hard over the last few months.’

‘Ooh,’ he said sarcastically, ‘what’s got into you?’

‘I’ve just been speaking to some blonde in the toilets who was telling me exactly why you’ve been putting in such long hours at the office. You must have been exhausted, you poor thing.’

Despite Erin’s obvious sarcasm, Richard still hadn’t completely twigged her meaning. ‘Some blonde? Who?’

‘Long face, short skirt, says you’re great in bed apparently. I said we must have been talking about another Richard Pendleton.’

‘Bella?’ he croaked. ‘Oh, she’s just another trainee. Worked with her in the CoCo department – as you know the hours could be incredible sometimes, but …’

‘You bloody liar!’ she said, jabbing a finger into his chest.

Richard’s face whitened. ‘Look, what’s she been saying?’ he stammered, his earlier confident bluster now completely dissolved.

‘The real reason you didn’t want to come down to Cornwall or have me to stay at weekends. Quite a handy arrangement for you, wasn’t it? Her up here and me tucked away two hundred miles away.’

‘She’s making it up,’ he said, trying to sound indignant. ‘She’s a bit, you know, la-la,’ he said, twirling a finger at his temple.

‘Save it Richard,’ she spat, pulling her coat on. ‘I’m not interested any more.’

‘Look, okay,’ he said, grabbing Erin’s arm and lowering his voice, ‘so we had a little fling. You know how difficult the long-distance thing between us is. And, yes, Bella and I were both working long nights and one thing led to another. But it’s long over and she can’t accept it.’

He began shaking his head, his mouth twisting up sourly. ‘I can’t believe the little tart told you.’

‘But it didn’t stop long ago, did it, Richard?’ said Erin, shrugging off his hand. ‘It stopped the second I became useful to you.’

‘Erin, stop it,’ he hissed, noticing that people were beginning to look at them. ‘Let’s go home and talk about this.’

They both saw Adam Gold coming out of the ballroom at the same time. He was pulling on his cashmere overcoat when he saw them.

‘Erin, Richard. I have to go,’ he said, glancing at his gold Patek Philippe. ‘Thanks for a great evening.’

Richard, still pale, went to shake his hand. ‘It was an absolute pleasure, Adam. Thank you for coming.’

Adam smiled, although his brow furrowed. ‘Erin, can I grab you for one minute?’ he said, pointing towards the door.

She followed him, trying to compose herself, aware that her eyes were still stinging from crying.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely fine,’ she forced a smile. ‘Probably had a bit too much to drink.’

At that moment a rogue tear slipped down her cheek and she turned so that her back was to Richard, still hovering in the lobby.

‘Erin, what’s the matter? What’s happening?’ whispered Adam, shooting a ferocious glare in Richard’s direction.

‘It’s nothing Adam, honestly,’ replied Erin, struggling to suppress the sobs she felt welling up.

‘Tell me.’ It was an order.

‘Okay. My boyfriend is a liar and a cheat,’ she said as matter of factly as she could, gulping in air between the words. ‘While I was in Cornwall, he was cheating on me. All that time.’

Adam touched the sleeve of her coat gently and turned to look at Richard. Behind him, they could see Charles Sullivan waving a balloon of brandy in the air as he said goodbye to guests. He saw Adam and began to move over towards them.

‘Do you want to teach Richard a lesson?’ whispered Adam.

She blushed. ‘He deserves it,’ she said, laughing despite the tears. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Just watch.’

They walked towards Charles and Richard. Erin’s heart was beating so furiously she thought it might stop, and her mouth was dry with anticipation. She recognized the look on Adam’s face, the ‘smiling assassin’ expression he had when he was just about to close a good deal.

‘Adam! Not going already?’ said Charles, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Well, I have to say, it’s been a pleasure. Let’s stay in touch – you know what they say about your people phoning our people …?’ he said winking at Erin. ‘I gave you my card, didn’t I? It goes without saying that the firm would love to do some work with the Midas Group.’

Adam pulled the business card Charles had given him from his pocket and held it in the air. ‘Thanks, Charles. I have your details.’

The managing partner smiled, scenting big new business.

‘And as you know,’ continued Adam, ‘I am looking around for a new law firm for the Midas Group. We farm out a high volume of contract work,’ he said temptingly. ‘We spend a lot of money on our legals. A lot of money.’

Charles was beaming now.

‘Only there seems to be an issue of trust.’ Adam turned to look evenly at Richard whose face suddenly seemed frozen in fear. ‘You see, if my assistant can’t trust your trainee, I’m not sure I can trust White, Geary and Robinson.’

Charles Sullivan had gone a violent shade of pink and was looking at Richard as if he were about to throttle him. ‘But … Adam, Mr Gold, I’m sure I … that is we, can …’ spluttered Charles.

‘Oh, and Richard,’ added Adam in a low voice, ‘I hope you haven’t been billing all that late-night extracurricular work you’ve been doing to a client account? That would be fraud, and I believe that sort of thing is very frowned upon in the legal profession.’

There was a collective silence. Charles Sullivan now had purple spots on his cheeks and Richard looked as if he was about to cry.

As Adam turned and led a smiling Erin towards the revolving doors, he flipped up the collar on his coat and grinned. ‘I’ve got a feeling your ex-boyfriend is about to be debriefed.’

‘Erin, come home, this is ridiculous.’

Jilly Thomas was a placid woman most of the time, but when her granddaughter was in trouble, she was as fierce as a pit bull.

‘Gran, I’m not coming home,’ said Erin down the phone, ‘it’s just a setback.’

‘But where are you going to live?’ It’s just like that terrible Michael McGavey all over again, and look how long it took you to get over him.’

Erin sighed. ‘I’m a big girl now, gran,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be alright; I like it in London.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come home? We’re always here for you, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘I’m sure. And yes, I know that and it makes me very happy.’

Jilly was silent for a long time. ‘Well, you’re missing all the gossip. Did you know that Janet was pregnant? Same age as you and about to have a baby. Isn’t it lovely? Due just before Christmas.’

Erin smiled into the receiver. Suddenly she didn’t want to go home at all.

12

As the British Airways flight from Zurich landed at Heathrow Airport on a clear March Monday morning, Molly turned to Marcus, asleep next to her, and smiled contentedly. Right now, life felt good; really good. She had a rich, generous, well-connected man wrapped around her little finger. He was showering her with gifts and compliments but, more importantly, she felt sure he was going to lead her to the real prize: Adam Gold. Yes, her relationship with Marcus was progressing at speed, but she had never thought of Marcus as the goal; he was merely a stepping stone to the real money. Marcus was wealthy, but Molly’s standards were higher, much higher. In fact, Molly ranked men according to the kind of plane they owned. A Citation or a Challenger would do, but preferably a Learjet or a Gulfstream V or, at the very top of the tree, a custom-built Boeing 737. It was a long time since she had travelled by commercial airline on a romantic weekend, but Marcus was a useful pit stop and, she had been pleased to discover, he was actually quite good company. In the two weeks following the Knightsbridge drinks party there had been three Mr Chow suppers and as many all-night sex sessions at his pied-à-terre in Chelsea or his country house in Buckinghamshire. Finally, Marcus had invited her to St Moritz to ski. Not that they ever made it to the slopes; the closest they got to the snow was dislodging some powder from the roof as they had sex in the penthouse suite at Badrutt’s Palace.

She glanced at Marcus’s profile, dark against the morning light that was pouring through the aeroplane window. Square patrician forehead, nose, slightly broken, firm chin. Fucking him wasn’t hard work at all. Not like Momo, the overweight oilman from Brunei. Not like Giles, the peanut farmer’s son from Georgia, or Jeff, the gnome-faced Hollywood producer she had met at the BAFTA party who had wanted her to piss all over him. Or even Harry, poor tiny-cocked Harry, who was still calling despite the fact that Molly had not returned any of his phone calls. No, Marcus was definitely a find.

A Midas Corporation car picked them up at the airport and dropped Molly at home, where she deposited her bags and freshened up before she set off for work. Work! The very thought of going in to Feldman Jones Productions made her groan. Although she only went into the events planning company two days a week, they were the longest two days of the week by far. She really didn’t know why she bothered with it sometimes. But rent was expensive, coke was expensive and the prices of ‘it’ bags had shot through the roof. And in return for rolling into Feldman Jones Productions a couple of days a week, she had a ten per cent share in the company. Thank you and good night.

‘Where is everybody?’ Molly sauntered in and sat down at her desk, dropping her Bottega Veneta bag by her chair and rifling through a mountain of post had that accumulated since her last appearance in the office. It was 11.30 and Feldman Jones’ office – on the top floor of a pretty pale blue mews-house in Westbourne Grove – was empty except for a couple of work-experience girls manning the phones.

‘Becca and Jenna are at the venue for tonight’s party,’ said one nervously, ‘and Lindsey and Sophie went to a meeting in the City first thing this morning.’

Molly nodded, enjoying her moment in charge. ‘Great. Well can you get me a strong black coffee? And when you’ve done that, can you go through those files over there? I want you to dig out any pitch documents we’ve done for Filey Walker.’

Molly was surprised just how together and authoritative she sounded. She certainly didn’t feel it. She felt dead on her feet; not enough sleep by a long chalk. Just then, Sophie and Lindsey walked in; the moment they saw Molly their expressions clouded.

‘Ah, Molly, there you are.’ Despite her butter-wouldn’t-melt Home Counties accent, Sophie Edwards-Jones had a core of steel. Feldman Jones Productions was her life. She had grown it from a fax and phone in her kitchen to being one of the top events planners companies in the country.

‘Yes, here I am,’ said Molly brightly, pointedly ignoring the atmosphere. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late but the traffic from Heathrow was a bitch.’

‘So you’ve been away?’

‘Yes,’ said Molly, flicking a sheaf of hair over her shoulder. ‘Back to Badrutt’s Palace. Gorgeous as ever. Didn’t I tell you?’

‘No, you didn’t tell us actually,’ Lindsey Feldman’s voice was harsh. She was a five-foot-two-inch dynamo who didn’t take any shit and was the perfect foil to Sophie’s silver-spoon polish. ‘If you had told us, we might have had something to say about it, seeing as we had a pitch with a client this morning that we needed you to be at.’

Molly looked bemused. ‘We had a meeting? With who?’

‘Callanders, the stockbrokers, remember?’ said Lindsey with a hint of sarcasm. ‘Want us to do their Christmas corporate event? Two thousand guests? We did discuss this, Molly. It was rather embarrassing when you didn’t turn up.’

‘Callanders. Oh shit. Yes. I completely forgot. As I said, my flight didn’t get in until nine-thirty. Then I had to pop home to freshen up.’

Sophie stared at Molly for a long moment. ‘Can we just have a chat in the meeting room, Molly?’

Molly pushed her chair back and walked after the women, seething. How dare they talk to her like that in front of the workies? Making her feel as if she was a teenager caught smoking behind the bike sheds. The nerve! Molly sat down truculently and Lindsey got straight to the point.

‘This can’t go on, Molly,’ she snapped.

‘Jesus, Lindsey. I miss a meeting. I’m sorry,’ said Molly, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. ‘I can take the client out again if it means that much to you.’

‘It might well be too late for that.’

‘Oh don’t worry, we’ll get the pitch,’ said Molly. ‘We always get the pitch.’

‘If we do it will be no thanks to you, Molly,’ said Lindsey abruptly.

Sophie held up a hand, stopping the argument mid-flow. ‘Molly. We might as well cut to the chase,’ she said. ‘This arrangement just isn’t working. You’re hardly in the office, you don’t come to pitches, and when we hold an event you spend the whole time socializing.’

‘Socializing! Isn’t that what you want me to do?’

Sophie nodded. ‘It was what we wanted you to do when we started, but things have changed.’

It was true Molly Sinclair had been a definite asset when Feldman Jones had launched – she had high-class contacts and clients were flattered to see a supermodel at pitches. She certainly added an undeniable sheen of glamour to a party too. But she was simply not doing what they had brought her on to do – attend pitches, charm the CEOs, bring in new clients. Put simply, she was baggage.

‘Molly, we want you out of the partnership.’

Molly felt her blood run cold. She didn’t exactly enjoy working at Feldman Jones, but being a partner in a company gave her credibility. It also gave her a salary. Okay, it wasn’t much, but she relied on it. A woman like Molly could expect swish nights out and holidays to be paid for by some rich guy in return for a blowjob in the shower, but even she had overheads to pay. She hated to admit it, but she needed this job.

‘You can’t do that,’ said Molly, struggling to appear calm and confident, ‘I’m a director of this company.’

Sophie smiled. ‘Yes we can. We’ve already had a lawyer look into it. Don’t worry, you won’t be out of pocket, we’ll get a valuation and buy out your shareholding for a fair price.’

‘But you need me,’ said Molly, a waver of panic in her voice now. ‘You need me to bring in the business.’

Lindsey couldn’t suppress her smirk. ‘Molly, you haven’t brought in any business for over a year, and Feldman Jones Productions generates its own business now. We have a fantastic reputation and we need everyone to be pulling their weight.’

‘I do pull my bloody weight!’ said Molly indignantly.

Lindsey couldn’t resist a jibe. ‘The only thing you pull, Molly, is the clients.’

Molly jumped to her feet and strode to the door. ‘I will enjoy watching this tinpot company crash to its knees when word gets around that I have resigned,’ she said haughtily.

Sophie smiled. ‘I think we’ll manage,’ she said.

‘Oh and Molly?’ Lindsey called after her. ‘Could you clear out your desk? We don’t want the drug squad round again.’

13

‘Don’t we have any more girls to see?’ sighed Karin, snapping the portfolio shut and dismissing the fifteen-year-old Estonian blonde with a regal wave. As the skinny model shuffled out of the Karenza office, Karin looked at the pile of model cards in front of her and rubbed her eyes. Karin and her head of merchandise Kirsty Baker had been casting for the Karenza spring/summer advertising campaign all afternoon, and not one girl had been even remotely right.

‘What about Gisele?’ said Kirsty, flicking through a copy of American Elle.

‘Can’t afford her.’

‘Kate?’

‘She’s everywhere. Plus we can’t afford her.’

‘Daria?’

Karin threw down the pile of model cards in irritation. ‘We’re not fucking Gucci, Kirsty. The commercial rates for the very top girls are fifty grand plus a day. This is a three-day shoot, plus travel days, plus agency fees. Then you’ve got the photographer and crew, location costs, the advertising agency’s bill plus the cost of running the ads in the magazines. Christ, we’re talking upwards of a million pounds.’

In fact, Karin was beginning to think that was the only answer, although her instincts were totally against it. Despite the prohibitive costs, she was wary about using a well-known face for the first Karenza campaign. She wanted the ads to showcase the product, not the model. Yes, they needed a girl who oozed glamour and beauty, but they also needed the girl to make it seem as though it was the Karenza swimwear that was giving her those magical attributes, not the other way around. Put simply, they needed show-stopping cinematic visuals and an exotic siren smouldering on a Caribbean beach, not some emaciated teenager in a photographic studio in Hoxton.

Karin stood up and stalked around the office impatiently, twisting her spiked heels into the cream carpet. She had come a long way in seven years since she had started the company from her old Chelsea apartment, but she wanted more, much more. She didn’t want to own a tiny niche of the fashion world, she wanted the whole thing – and she had a plan. While all her friends from Briarton had gone to Florence to take art history courses to equip them for dinner party conversation, Karin had headed straight for the Polimoda, Italy’s famous fashion college. Karin had lapped up every lesson and had quickly formed a strategy. Her decision to go into swimwear had been considered and calculated. Womenswear was too competitive, too brutal, too much of an uphill struggle. Shoes were a closed shop with Blahnik, Choo and Louboutin dominating the top of the market, and accessories were the golden goose of fashion – the mark-up on a designer handbag was huge and more importantly one size fits all. No wonder accessories was where the luxury goods companies LVMH, Gucci group and Club21 made their mouth-watering profits. Instead, Karin had spotted a gap. Society was getting richer and people were getting more greedy. They didn’t just want luxury goods – the bags, the shoes, the cars – they wanted the full luxury lifestyle. Karin had watched as her friends took a dozen holidays a year in an ever-growing list of exotic locations but, despite the constant talk of holiday wardrobes in the glossy magazines, these women rarely dressed at all during the day, staying in a swimsuit from dawn till dusk. Swimwear was sexy, it was glamorous, it was her.

‘Dammit, why are all these silly little girls so skinny and pale?’ said Karin impatiently, flipping through the model cards once again. ‘They just look like children.’

‘That will be because they are children,’ said Kirsty with a smile. ‘Models start at twelve these days, you know.’

‘But we’re not selling clothes to children,’ snapped Karin. ‘Our customers are women, real-life women with hips and tits, not these broom-handle freaks!’

Karin knew what women wanted. They didn’t want revealing wisps of lycra, they wanted to feel like Ursula Andress emerging out of the sea in Dr No, they wanted to feel like Sophia Loren wearing a turban in Arabesque. Classy, sexy, in control. So she created a collection of classic pieces that made great bodies look even hotter. She then carefully drip-fed them into the market, only allowing Karenza to be stocked in exclusive corners of the market like Harrods and Harvey Nichols. She wooed important fashion editors, sending them top-of-the-range bikinis every season and was rewarded by flattering articles about the hot new jet-set swimwear label that everyone was wearing. But it was Sebastian who had encouraged Karin to open her first shop. She had met him two years after her first collection had debuted, and they were engaged six months later. She didn’t need anyone to help her think big, but Sebastian was supportive – and, more importantly, he was connected. A school friend of Seb’s from Eton had offered her the lease on a small shop on Walton Street and, not being able to afford an expensive interior designer, Karin copied the look of a pal’s Cape Cod beach house, all fabulously pared-down with white floorboards and white walls. It was low-key luxe for people who didn’t want to shout about their wealth. It was perfect. Now she had three shops and a £20-million-pound annual turnover and Karenza was Europe’s fastest-growing swimwear company, but for Karin’s fierce ambitions it was not growing fast enough. It needed more visibility as a major luxury. She needed a print campaign in the major glossy magazines. She smiled a small, sad smile. She knew Sebastian would have approved.

Kirsty was waving a black-and-white photograph of a skinny brunette with long legs in Karin’s face.

‘She’s hot. What about her?’

‘Too thin. Looks cocky,’ she said, tossing the photo on the pile dismissively.

‘Or her?’ asked Kirsty, pointing at a toothy blonde.

‘No way! Check out that mouth. She looks like a rabbit.’

‘She did do the Prada show last season,’ offered Kirsty weakly.

‘Kirsty! The girl fronting this campaign represents our brand,’ snapped Karin. ‘She is our face and body. I want our potential customers to look at our campaign and think, “I can be that sexy and chic and gorgeous”. Even if she’s fat, I still want her to think that three hundred pounds is money well spent if she can be magically transformed into the gorgeous creature in our campaign.’

‘I thought you didn’t want any fat and frumpy housewives wearing Karenza designs,’ said Kirsty sulkily.

‘That’s not the point,’ replied Karin briskly. ‘We need someone hot. Someone who can fill a bikini like she’s been poured into it, not some six-foot stringy teenager. We want a woman.’

She spun round her Eames chair so it faced the window overlooking the street. ‘She’s got to be out there somewhere.’

Dan Stevens, one of Europe’s hottest fashion designers, was crossing Regent Street when he saw her. He was already late for his next appointment – his last meeting at Vogue House had gone on forever – but something about this girl, standing on the other side of the road, made him stop and look. Even from fifty feet away he could see her right-angle cheekbones, her poker-straight pale blonde hair and her dancer’s posture. Dan frowned; why didn’t he know this girl? He worked with top models and actresses every day; he thought he knew all the beautiful women in London, but he had never seen this one before. Surely she must work in fashion? He thought, she was too stunning, too stylish to be a civilian. He quickened his pace to catch up with her and, drawing level, tapped her on the shoulder. She was dazzling. How many hours had he spent retouching photographs of stars with bad skin, all those smoker’s lines around the mouth, or the eyes deadened from drugs and parties. This girl, though: wow. Those enormous, slightly startled lavender-blue eyes, her incredible bone structure: she was a knockout. Not for the first time in his career, he wished he was single.

‘Hi! I, ah, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Dan Stevens, I’m a photographer. Are you a model by any chance?’

Dan Stevens. Holy shit! Summer’s mouth dropped open. She’d only come shopping to cheer herself up because she hadn’t had a go-see in a week and here she was being stopped by one of the world’s hottest photographers. You couldn’t open W or US Vogue these days without seeing his name on a cover story. Molly would be really impressed.

‘Oh, I know who you are,’ she smiled, butterflies fluttering round her tummy. ‘And yes, I’m a model, although you won’t have heard of me.’

‘Good,’ said Dan. ‘Are you busy for the next hour?’

‘Just spending money I haven’t got,’ smiled Summer.

‘In that case, could you come with me to my next meeting? There’s someone I really think you should meet.’

Dan Stevens walked through the door grinning from ear to ear. Karin, however, did not think he had much to smile about. He was two hours late for the casting – she couldn’t abide lateness – and she met his grin with a stony face. Dan knew he was getting off lightly: Karin Cavendish in hell-hath-no-fury mode was a fate you wouldn’t wish on an enemy. But she was in no position to make a point; she was very, very lucky to have secured Dan’s services for the campaign. If she hadn’t given Dan his first break, setting him up an appointment to see her fashion editor friend at Elle when he was a struggling nobody, she would never had the kudos to book him. But Karin’s irritation immediately melted away when she spotted the petite blonde girl trailing in nervously behind Dan. The girl was exquisite. Long pale blonde hair hung at either side of a perfectly oval face with a cute upturned nose, full lips and lovely almond-shaped eyes.

‘You’re a little late for the casting,’ said Karin, holding out a hand. ‘Can I see your card?’

Summer stood in the doorway, nervously playing with the strap of her handbag. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have one with me,’ Summer replied politely, a little intimidated to be face to face with Karin.

‘She wasn’t sent for the casting,’ said Dan quickly. ‘I found her shopping on Regent Street. I’ve taken some quick Polaroids and – here – I really think you should take a look.’

Karin quickly studied the Polaroids, a crucial tool for casting. Pictures in a model’s portfolio were so retouched that it was often impossible to tell whether she photographed well or not. But these Polaroids were amazing. She really was beautiful; in the flesh and on film.

‘How tall are you?’ asked Karin, still looking at the photographs.

‘Five eight,’ lied Summer.

‘Five seven,’ said Karin coolly, scribbling it on the bottom of the Polaroid.

She looked up at the girl again; she looked familiar but she couldn’t place where she had seen her before.

‘Have I met you before?’ she asked.

Summer felt uncomfortable. She didn’t want to mention her mother. It always sounded as if she was cashing in on Molly’s fame.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Suddenly the penny dropped: seeing that long hair swishing about was a dead giveaway. Now Karin saw it – the nose, that wide, luscious mouth, that long curtain of platinum hair. She felt herself stiffen with displeasure. The platinum hair suddenly looked a little too brassy, her generous breasts just a little too large.

‘You’re Molly Sinclair’s daughter, aren’t you? You came to my benefit dinner.’

‘Really?’ asked Dan, congratulating himself for spotting talent.

‘Really,’ smiled Summer, flushing.

‘Well, thanks for coming in. Goodbye,’ Karin said quickly, gesturing towards the door with her eyes.

Summer’s heart plummeted and she slowly turned and left. She was gutted: Dan Stevens hadn’t even spoken out for her.

‘Are you not even going to get her to try a swimsuit on?’ said Kirsty after Summer had left. ‘She was lovely.’

‘A pretty girl, yes,’ offered Karin brusquely. ‘But she’s too small and too curvy.’

‘Karin, she’s fantastic!’ laughed Dan incredulously.

‘She belongs on a Sports Illustrated cover!’ snapped Karin.

‘I thought you wanted the campaign to be sexy?’

‘If the girl is too obvious it’ll look tacky.’

‘Well I can’t believe she hasn’t fronted a big campaign before. The second I take to her into Vogue, every magazine and fashion company is going to want her. Her day rate will skyrocket.’

‘You’re going to take her to Vogue?’ asked Karin, her eyes narrowing.

‘US Vogue. I see them on Monday.’

Karin’s mind went into business mode, thinking three moves ahead.

‘What agency did she say she was with?’

‘La Mode agency,’ said Dan.

‘Never heard of them,’ sniffed Karin, but she was secretly pleased. A small, unknown agency would give her Summer for peanuts, just to ingratiate themselves with a fashion house. It could save Karin thousands and, if Dan was going to champion her as he was suggesting, this girl could be the next big face – and Karenza would have her first.

‘I wonder what she’d be like brunette?’

Karin snatched up her phone. ‘Jane? Can you send the model back up?’ she asked the receptionist. As they waited for Summer to come back up, Karin opened her desk drawer, removing a pair of scissors which she gave to Kirsty.

‘Can you just cut me some of your hair?’

‘What?’ replied Kirsty, startled.

‘Your hair. I need it,’ said Karin tartly, her eyes locking with Kirsty’s. ‘Come on, it’s important. Just two or three inches will be fine. It will grow back, for goodness’ sake.’

Kirsty gingerly snipped at the bottom of her brown bob and handed the segment of hair to Karin.

As Summer came back into the room, Karin walked purposefully towards her. ‘I want you to go to Joel at Real Hairdressing,’ said Karin, handing Summer the brunette locks. ‘Tell him I sent you and tell him to make your hair that colour. When he’s done it – and not before – come back here and maybe we can start trying on some swimsuits.’

Kirsty and Dan looked at each other and smiled.

14

Jilly was worried. After that snake Richard had gone off with the office floozie and Erin had moved out of his apartment, Jilly had fully expected her granddaughter to return to Cornwall immediately. After all, she had no home, no boyfriend, some job answering telephones twelve hours a day; what on earth could be keeping her in London?

‘I just don’t understand it, lovey,’ she said down the phone line. ‘London’s expensive, it’s lonely. Why don’t you come home?’

Erin had to admit Jilly had a point. She’d been in London six weeks and here she was, living in a single room in a Bayswater hotel costing her a hundred pounds a night. She hadn’t any friends to stay with after she’d left Richard’s – she could hardly have asked Adam to put her up for a few days while she found somewhere new to live – and working so hard at the Midas Corporation, there seemed neither the time nor the opportunity to make any new friends. It wasn’t quite the glamorous life either of them had imagined for her; then again, there was something about Midas that made her fizz with excitement, and it wasn’t just her £70,000 pay-packet. She wasn’t quite ready to leave just yet.

‘When you spent four years at university getting a Russian degree, it wasn’t to spend your life making somebody else’s travel arrangements, was it?’ said Jilly. ‘Come home. Finish your novel. That’s you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?’

Erin felt an enormous rush of guilt at the mention of her novel. Jilly could almost read her mind; Erin hadn’t written a word since she had been in London. But she’d started another career now and she couldn’t very well admit defeat so soon and go running home just because Richard was such a rat.

‘Let me give it a week,’ said Erin. ‘This hotel arrangement is purely temporary. If I haven’t got settled in a week, we can talk again.’ She put down the receiver and resolved that she had to find somewhere immediately, if not sooner.

‘Now the next property I’m going to show you is really special,’ said the estate agent with an encouraging smile. Erin groaned inwardly. It was the fourth flat in as many days that this estate agent had shown her. He had kept phoning her up at work, promising her he could find her something amazing, but everything he had shown her so far seemed decidedly overpriced or poky.

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