Original Sin
Tasmina Perry
Get inside the glamour with the Sunday Times bestselling author, Tasmina Perry…Stunning Brooke Asgill is about to marry into one of the richest and most powerful families in the Unites States, and matriarch Meredith Asgill is determined that her daughter will walk down the aisle at whatever cost.But the Asgill’s are not all they seem and their past is riddled with secrets, lies and tragedy. Enter Tess Garret, a renowned publicist hired to keep the Asgill family ghosts well and truly locked away, at least until the big day is over.From the couture ateliers of Paris to the colonial mansions of the Florida Keys, Original Sin is a sexy provocative tale of lies, secrets and the lengths some people will go to keep them…
TASMINA PERRY
Original Sin
Copyright (#ulink_5db686c0-6caf-55a7-8eff-59fb8cb9438b)
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Copyright © Tasmina Perry 2009
Tasmina Perry asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007265541
Ebook Edition © MAY 2009 ISBN: 9780007292967
Version: 2017-09-11
Dedication (#ulink_46694e00-4a7d-5986-aad5-006d05229afc)
In memory of W.E.P
Contents
Cover (#uea6d5974-9263-51e4-8679-f4b496cb2222)
Title Page (#uef7d0b89-61ab-558d-a982-e4835b677700)
Copyright (#u8333833c-ee5d-5e8c-b327-39d3f7bfc45a)
Dedication (#u21707d22-d729-5bdd-94f1-5ade66dda6a3)
Prologue (#u4bcc2f4f-bf2b-50d9-8918-833a64a90152)
Chapter 1 (#u531d86c6-413a-5645-8f7e-5d3581dfb566)
Chapter 2 (#uc6fc044f-1c26-51e0-ba41-b40b12b7ad4e)
Chapter 3 (#u8e55818c-5b44-5dab-aed8-99a91e6f92ba)
Chapter 4 (#u70a036af-1b6b-5f46-9e8a-b9e2ac310f59)
Chapter 5 (#ud3a95ff0-3de1-59c0-bfac-448c3660bf1e)
Chapter 6 (#u02a39bc7-d019-5eee-9508-55721a803cfe)
Chapter 7 (#u7e322718-490b-517a-b88b-24c7356355d3)
Chapter 8 (#u66cc1073-9f43-509d-a716-b8f66f69e6eb)
Chapter 9 (#u8f59d549-108d-508e-871d-bae02986b67b)
Chapter 10 (#u9df9308a-ed56-53fc-adc9-c52c1bd17bc2)
Chapter 11 (#u148332f3-2d19-5213-9b62-599da3f9d089)
Chapter 12 (#uc815afdc-df8a-51a4-8f50-d2c67c9fa5cb)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 63 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 64 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 65 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 66 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 67 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 68 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_842dfa52-cdc9-54fd-bc9f-76a8b08910f0)
Confidential magazine
September 18, 1964
Pill-popping starlet feared dead after wedding vanishing act
Friends of the Hollywood actress, Olivia Martin, who mysteriously disappeared after the Louisiana wedding of cosmetics mogul Howard Asgill at the family’s Riverview Estate, now fear she might have taken her own life by means of a fatal late-night walk into the Mississippi River after consuming a cocktail of barbiturates. Martin was last seen leaving the $50,000 nuptials of Asgill and New Orleans socialite Meredith Carter just before midnight last Saturday. When Mr Asgill noticed her absence at the lavish brunch the next day, the newlyweds assumed that Olivia, known for her colourful love life, had left the celebrations with another guest.
But when she had not appeared forty-eight hours later, Martin’s sister Valerie filed a missing persons report, and Louisiana police began their inquiries.
River of death
Friends of the After the Sunset actress began assuming the worst when Louisiana State Police found prescription drugs in the guest cottage where Miss Martin was staying on the Carter family estate. So far police have not trawled the Mississippi, which runs just one hundred feet past the guest cottage and is almost one mile wide at this point. If the theory of a death plunge is true, investigators fear the body of the actress might never be found.
Haunted by Hollywood rejection
Insiders say the twenty-seven-year-old redhead had been sliding into depression after her contract with MGM Studios was cancelled in 1961 and a highly anticipated television career flopped. However, last year Martin signed a five-figure contract to be the face of Asgill Long-last Lipstick. She had proved so successful for the brand that the company had her lips insured for $1 million. But her modelling success was no substitute for her acting career, and a slide into drink and prescription-drug addiction was well known to those around her.
Dark cloud over wedding
Although the search for Miss Martin continues, her disappearance has cast a dark cloud over one of the most stellar society events of the season. Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck and Anita Ekberg were just some of the guests at the Asgill wedding. The CEO of Asgill Cosmetics was the butcher’s son from Brooklyn who turned a homebrewed face cream into a multimillion-dollar cosmetics company. Meredith and Howard Asgill, currently on honeymoon in Capri, Italy, issued a statement yesterday expressing their concern. ‘Olivia is a dear friend and wonderful ambassador for Asgill Cosmetics. We pray for her swift and safe return home.’
1 (#ulink_3b0f87ed-87f1-5f65-9fe1-d22c1b33d52a)
Present day, London
‘Wake up. I’ve got something for you.’
Tess Garrett forced her eyes open and peered over the top of her duvet to see her flatmate Jemma Davies sitting on the bed.
‘You gave me a fright. What time is it?’ sighed Tess, casting her glance to the bedside clock next to her. Five thirty! As deputy editor of one of the UK’s Sunday tabloids she was used to early starts, but the birds weren’t even singing yet. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that her friend was dressed head to toe in black.
‘What are you wearing?’ asked Tess warily. ‘You look like a cat burglar.’
‘Come on, shake a leg,’ said Jemma, bouncing on the mattress impatiently, ‘this is important!’
‘So is my sleep,’ mumbled Tess, pulling the covers back over her head.
Seeing that Tess was going to take some shifting, Jemma stood up again.
‘Okay, I’ll go and make some tea. Then we can talk. Five minutes, okay?’
As soon as Jemma had left the bedroom, Tess heard a muffled groan coming from under the pillow next to her.
‘You know I can’t hear you through six inches of goose down,’ said Tess.
A hand flung back the pillow and the handsome face of her boyfriend Dom Barton popped up, squinting into the light.
‘I said, “Remind me when Jemma said she was moving out?”’
‘Shhh! Keep your voice down,’ said Tess, peering through the open bedroom door where she could see Jemma filling the kettle in the galley kitchen across the hall. ‘Cut her a bit of slack, eh? She’s been through a rough time.’
‘She finished with Chris three months ago, Tess,’ hissed Dom, leaning back on his elbows. ‘Plus, the flat is a tip, and how can I use the study to write my book when all of Jemma’s belongings are in it?’
Tess glanced around and had to admit that things were a tight squeeze in their two-bedroomed Battersea flat, but Jemma was her best friend’s sister, she had known her since school; and besides, Jemma’s line of work sometimes came in handy.
‘Honey, you are never going to write that novel, with or without anyone living in our spare room. You’ve been talking about it for as long as I’ve known you. Come on. It’s time to get up anyway. Your flight leaves at eight thirty – shouldn’t you be at Heathrow in an hour?’
Dom was the deputy travel editor of the broadsheet, the Sunday Chronicle, which meant he was on some exotic press trip at least once a month. Groaning, he slid out of bed, scratching his tousled hair. Tess rubbed her eyes as she watched his gym-honed bum cheeks vanish into their en-suite bathroom. Jemma returned with two mugs of tea and thrust one towards Tess.
‘So, what’s worth a five thirty summit meeting?’ Tess smiled.
Jemma took a slurp of tea. ‘I’ve been to a Venus party,’ she said with a grin.
Tess’s eyes opened wide and she sat cross-legged on the bed, feeling suddenly energized. Jemma was a paparazzo photographer who usually sold her work into one of the big picture agencies, but sometimes Tess asked her to work on solo projects for her. Tess had been hearing rumours of organized ‘membership only’ sex parties in London for years but, despite the best efforts of Fleet Street’s finest, no one had ever been able to track them down. She had begun to suspect they were one of those wishful-thinking urban myths, like Diana’s love child, but, around three months ago, Jemma had got the scent of a new underground scene called ‘Venus parties’ and the whisper was that they took decadence to a whole new level. Understandably, access to them was near impossible – entry was via personal recommendation and the vetting process rigorous – but the guest list was said to be dynamite: senior politicians, Hollywood stars and players, high-ranking police, Premiership footballers – and that was just for starters. Tess had put Jemma on a retainer to work on tracking them down.
‘There was a Venus party last night at a big house in Wycombe Square out in St John’s Wood,’ said Jemma gleefully. ‘I got in.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ said Tess, barely able to hide her excitement. ‘How on earth did you get past the checks?’
Jemma glanced behind her, making sure that Dom was still in the shower. Tess understood; Dom might have been her boyfriend, but he still worked for a rival publication.
‘I was a security guard,’ she whispered.
Tess laughed. ‘You? A bouncer?’
Although she was dressed completely in black, the pocket-sized busty blonde looked more like a glamour model than a security guard.
‘Don’t laugh,’ said Jemma huffily. ‘These parties need women at the door. Ironically they’re to frisk the female guests to make sure nobody’s taking in cameras. It took me two months to get the gig. I had to moonlight on the door of a club in Chelsea first.’
‘Was it worth it?’
Jemma smiled. ‘Oh yes.’
Tess was practically salivating; this would be an excellent story at any time, but Jemma’s timing was perfect. All week she had been acting editor of the Sunday Globe. Her boss Andy Davidson was on holiday and she had picked up the reins. This could be her big chance to make her mark.
‘So, come on,’ she said impatiently, ‘who was there?’
Jemma rattled off a list of household names. ‘There were a few Hollywood names as well. I had the misfortunate of seeing that foul producer Larry Goldman in the buff. He has man-breasts the size of space-hoppers.’
‘What about photos? We need photos.’
In her twelve years in newspapers, the unwritten law had always been ‘assume they won’t sue’, and Tess had always found that it was an accurate enough yardstick. She had a little black book of litigious stars and those who rarely took legal action, but when anybody did seek to challenge a story they had printed, the onus was on the newspaper to prove what they had written was true. That was why photographs were essential for a story like this.
‘The quality isn’t great,’ said Jemma, opening her laptop to flick through the digital images she had taken. ‘I used a spy camera that I’d hidden in the house during the afternoon.’
Tess leaned over her shoulder and pointed at an image of a flaxen-haired blonde. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked. The woman was wearing nothing but a strap-on and a Venetian mask and stood astride a naked fat man on his hands and knees.
‘That’s Larry.’
‘But who’s the woman?’ said Tess hopefully.
Jemma shrugged. ‘Some hooker, I think.’
Tess’s excitement was starting to wane. So far, this wasn’t the big-noise story she was hoping for. Ten years ago, a cheating MP had been front-page news; but today hookers and studio heads did not shift newspapers like footballers and soap stars.
‘Do we have anything clearer of a bigger name?’ she asked hopefully. ‘What about a soap actress?’
‘How about this?’ said Jemma, enlarging an image with a triumphant look.
The picture was grainy. The man in the shot was naked and bent over what appeared to be a line of cocaine. Tess frowned and squinted.
‘Don’t you recognize him?’
Tess shook her head. ‘Who is it?’
‘Well, maybe you’ll see better in this one.’
Jemma clicked onto an image of a black van. You could clearly make out that somebody was being carried into the back of it on a stretcher.
‘Shit,’ said Tess, her eyes widening. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘The same guy being stretchered into a private ambulance,’ said Jemma with a smile. ‘He’s at a private hospital in North London now.’
‘So who is it?’ asked Tess.
‘Sean Asgill.’
It took Tess a second to recognize the name. Sean Asgill was a New York playboy. Heir to a cosmetics family fortune. Handsome and wealthy, he was a fixture in the society pages with a string of model and actress girlfriends. It was a headline all right: ‘Tragedy at A-list Sex Party.’
‘Christ,’ said Tess. ‘Did he … die?’
Tess felt bad asking, but it was an occupational hazard for someone in her job, wishing the worst on people because it made a better headline.
‘I followed the ambulance on my scooter and I told the nurse I was family. She told me it was a suspected ketamine overdose. Asgill probably thought it was a line of coke. Apparently he’s in a coma. I hung around for a bit and, after half an hour, this guy of about fifty turned up. His dad maybe? I scarpered pretty quickly.’
Jemma looked at Tess hopefully. ‘So what do you think? Is it the splash?’
Tess shook her head. The irony was that, in the States, this would not only be front-page news, it would also lead the TV news and would probably even make waves in Washington. Sean Asgill’s sister had just become engaged to the son of one of America’s richest and most powerful men, which made her brother’s drugs overdose at a sex party very hot gossip indeed. But over here, Sean Asgill was virtually unknown outside society columns.
‘We’ll talk about this later,’ whispered Tess, snapping the laptop closed as Dom walked back into the room, naked except for a small towel wrapped around his waist, his tanned skin glistening with droplets of shower-water.
‘What are you two gossiping about?’ he smiled, clearly enjoying the two women’s eyes on him. ‘And where’s my tea?’
The Sunday Globe was a newspaper whose glory days were long gone. Tess sat back in her chair and looked at the chipped paintwork and tired carpet: the state of the office reflected the paper’s decline. After twenty years as a Daily Mail wannabe with a dwindling circulation, it had been bought by ruthless media mogul Matthew Jenkins, who had turned it into a red-top tabloid, but the change of direction had failed to boost sales; Jenkins had drastically cut costs and jobs to keep afloat. He certainly hadn’t spent any money on improving the working conditions, thought Tess, shutting down her temperamental and near-obsolete computer. When the Globe’s much-loved editor, the jolly, corpulent, fifty-something Derek Bradford had had a heart attack and died, Tess had been considered a shoo-in for the top job. Even though she was only twenty-nine, she had paid her dues: three years in local papers doing hard news, women’s editor at the Mirror, features editor at the Sunday Globe, and finally deputy editor. Quite a CV for someone her age. She’d been disappointed but not entirely surprised when, six weeks ago, the vacant editorship had been given to Andy Davidson, number three on the daily paper and Wentworth golfing buddy of the proprietor. Jenkins had long been labelled a misogynist; she’d even heard that he’d once laughed that, as far as the editorship of one of his flagship titles was concerned, he ‘wanted to fuck Tess Garrett, not give her the top job’. Well, he could go and fuck himself, thought Tess angrily, taking a quick swig of coffee. It was why she was determined to use this week in the editor’s chair to prove her boss had made the wrong decision.
Tess stood up, smoothed down her Armani skirt and slipped on her sharply tailored jacket; it was time to show them who was boss. Every morning at ten a.m. the Sunday Globe had a news conference for the editorial team and, as today was Friday, the urgent item on the agenda was the splash for the Sunday front page, the first edition of which was sent down to the printers at six p.m. on Saturday night. Friday was therefore the most hectic time of the week, with the staff often working right through the weekend until the early hours of Sunday morning, ready to change the splash if a better story came in. In newspapers, the front page was everything.
‘So. Nothing obvious for the splash yet,’ began news editor Ben Leith boldly, when the key editorial staff were gathered around the oval conference table. Tess narrowed her eyes. She knew Ben was after her job, but there was no need to blatantly undermine her at the first opportunity.
‘Well, what do you have?’ asked Tess pointedly. ‘Speaking as news editor.’
Leith sighed. ‘There’s still the air hostess/prostitutes story hanging around. But the lawyers think the airline might sue.’
Tess grimaced. That particular story had been filed three weeks earlier and so far Andy had passed it over, leaving it for a dire week when there was nothing to splash with. Tess certainly didn’t want to run the lame-duck story in her week as editor.
‘We have Serena Balcon’s hen-night shots,’ said Jon Green, the Globe’s photo director eagerly. ‘She’s in Miami topless.’
Tess shook her head. ‘Great for inside, Jon, but we can’t run a nipple shot on the cover.’
‘Yes, the nips are out in every shot,’ replied Jon, looking a little deflated. ‘Although we could always put globes over her tits for the cover-shot. Readers might think it’s funny,’ he said, gaining a few sniggers from the younger members of staff.
‘I think people want to see Serena’s nips,’ said Ben Leith, seizing another opportunity to put pressure on Tess. She reminded herself that the news editor was best friends with the editor, Andy, and would no doubt be reporting everything back to their boss.
‘Maybe we can run something next to the logo,’ said Tess, firmly, ‘but it’s not the big story.’
Leith looked sulky and muttered something about feminist bullshit under his breath, but Tess ignored him.
‘Let’s take a view at four o’clock conference. Ben, can we meet after lunch? I have a stringer working on a story which we might be able to turn into the splash.’
She stalked back to her office, sat in her chair, and swivelled it to stare out of the window. Her reflection stared back at her. Dark green eyes, a strong brow, creamy skin with good bone structure; a face to be reckoned with. A glamorous newspaper editor’s face, she smiled grimly. That meeting was exactly the reason she was struggling to enjoy this week as editor. There had been none of the empowering buzz she always thought she would feel in the editor’s chair, and she had been tense and crotchety all week. It was not that she didn’t think she was up to the job – she had spent her whole adult life wanting to be a newspaper editor, from the first time she’d seen The Front Page and His Girl Friday as a little girl, to the day when she had got her first paying job as news assistant at her local rag in Suffolk, where she’d covered village fetes and bicycle thefts, and she knew she could do it better than anyone. What bothered her was the acknowledgement that she was just wasting her time. That the new editor and the CEO were just biding their time until they could get rid of her in the most inexpensive way possible.
Just then, the phone rang. It was Andy’s assistant Tracey.
‘I have a Mark Wilson in reception for you.’
Tess didn’t recognize the name, but had an instant intuition that whatever Mark Wilson wanted it was going to be trouble.
‘He says he’s acting for the Asgills, if that makes any sense to you?’ said Tracey.
‘Oh shit,’ groaned Tess under her breath. This was exactly why she hadn’t broken the Asgill story in the meeting: she wanted to be sure of it; she didn’t want word to get back to Andy of the story that never was. She walked over to the small window of her office and snapped the blinds shut just as there was a sharp rap on her door.
Mark Wilson was in his mid-forties, dressed in a conservative tailored suit and carrying a silver briefcase. He held out a card, but Tess simply slipped it into her pocket. She didn’t need Mark Wilson to tell her he was an expensive lawyer, because he looked exactly like every other expensive lawyer she had ever met.
‘Tea? Coffee? Water?’ Tess asked, motioning towards a seat in front of her desk.
‘Straight to business I think, Ms Garrett,’ he said as he settled down. ‘Some illegal photographs were taken of my client at a party in St John’s Wood last night.’
‘I know,’ said Tess, refusing to be intimidated. ‘Sean Asgill was partying so hard he ended up in a high-dependency unit at a North London hospital.’
Wilson looked slightly taken aback by the blunt, attractive woman seated across from him, but quickly rallied.
‘Well, Ms Garrett, you’re an experienced journalist, one assumes,’ he said. ‘So I don’t need to remind you of the privacy laws at issue here. Sean Asgill was enjoying a night out in a private place and that privacy has been invaded. Run these pictures and the legal ramifications could be punitive for your newspaper.’
Tess looked at him, determined to stand her ground, particularly after Wilson’s snipe about her experience. In fact, Tess had been in this situation many times before. Andy Davidson didn’t do much hands-on editing and was more often to be found schmoozing politicians and publicists; he certainly never dealt with Rottweiler lawyers. It was Tess who was sent to deal with them, and, as barely a week went by without some celebrity publicist or media lawyer threatening the Globe with injunctions, Tess knew the law backwards.
‘I’m well aware of the law, Mr Wilson,’ said Tess, counting the points off on her slim fingers. ‘Number one, and correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this incident involve heavyweight drug usage? Heavyweight illegal drugs, I might add. Number two, it didn’t happen at Mr Asgill’s private residence; in fact it was at a public event, and a morally controversial public event at that.’
Wilson smiled thinly. ‘That’s rich. Your newspaper talking about morals.’
Tess took a sip from the glass of water in front of her. ‘This is a drug overdose at a sex party, Mr Wilson. It’s not as if we stormed into the Pope’s bedroom. You and I both know that no judge in England will grant an injunction on those photos based on privacy. Besides, as your client is very high profile, I believe we could argue public interest, given the circumstances.’
‘Please, this is a young, vulnerable man who ingested ketamine mistakenly,’ said Wilson in a more conciliatory voice.
‘Vulnerable?’ snorted Tess. ‘Well, I don’t know Sean Asgill, but from what I read he’s hardly Tiny Tim. He’s a playboy whose fast living has finally caught up with him.’
Mark Wilson’s face was impassive but Tess knew she had got him. He stared at her for a few moments, then shrugged slightly.
‘I take it you haven’t written your splash story yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Who owns the photographs?’
She paused for a moment. ‘We do,’ she said. Actually, this was technically true, even if the paper was unaware of it. Tess was paying cash-strapped Jemma a one-hundred-pounds-a-day freelancer rate and hiding the fee in her office expenses. That meant the Globe could claim copyright to Jemma’s photographs, although no one except Tess and Jemma – and Sean Asgill’s people – even knew of their existence. Mark Wilson nodded slowly.
‘Well, I’m sure we can work something out,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cheque, placing it carefully on the desk in front of Tess.
‘One hundred thousand pounds,’ he said simply. ‘It’s yours if you kill the story, give the photographs to us, and forget any of this ever happened.’
Tess stared down at the table, feeling her heartbeat increase. She knew deals like this had been done before: celebrities paying to have photographs taken off the market. Some of the most amazing, career-shaking exposés and inflammatory pap shots were fated to lie forever unseen, tightly locked in the vaults of newspapers. But this was different; this cheque was made out to her. None of her colleagues knew about the sex party photographs, no one knew that the paper technically owned the copyright, and Jemma had already been paid for a week’s work. Although her friend could potentially get tens of thousands for them if she realized the international impact this story could have, Tess knew she could fob Jemma off by saying there were legal problems with the story. But could she? Almost involuntarily, her hand moved forward, her fingertips resting on the cheque. What she could do with a hundred grand! Pay off the mortgage. Buy a sports car and a brand-new designer wardrobe. Go on a fantastic two-week break to somewhere incredible: Le Touessrok, the Amanpuri, somewhere hot and luxurious where she could have a beach butler and personal masseuse. Or she could simply refuse the bribe, run the story, and take the glory. What should she do? What would her father have told her to do? She tried to lift her fingers, but found her hand didn’t want to move. Finally, reluctantly, she breathed out.
‘I can’t help you,’ said Tess, pushing the cheque across the desk towards him.
Wilson raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
Tess nodded.
‘Then make sure your mobile is turned on over the weekend,’ he said briskly as he got up to leave. ‘And you’d better warn your lawyer.’
Tess walked home. It took over an hour to stroll from the Globe office, close to Lambeth Bridge, to Battersea, and on balmy summer nights she did it regularly. But tonight, feeling so unsettled, so confused, she just wanted to clear her head. She set off along the river, the cold wind pinching at her cheeks.
A hundred grand, she thought. Today I turned down a hundred grand. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself she had done the right thing, a small voice inside Tess’s head kept nagging away at her: ‘You bloody idiot! You coward! You just weren’t ruthless enough to take the bribe.’
An even more depressing thought had also occurred to her: what if Mark Wilson had some sort of sway with a judge and did manage to get his injunction to stop the photographs being published? Then there’d be no big fat cheque in her bank account, no story, and a humiliatingly blank front page on Sunday. Tess Garrett would have failed. She had brought herself up to be tough, spending her entire twenties surrounding herself with a hard protective shell, so that sentimentality would not get in the way of her ambition. But did she really have half the mettle she thought she had?
The worst thing was that she couldn’t even talk it through with anyone. She certainly couldn’t discuss it with Jemma, and Dom would have gone through the roof. For years, they had dreamed of buying a smart flat over the water in Chelsea, the sort of place Dom’s posy public-school friends were now living in. A hundred thousand pounds wouldn’t buy them that, of course, but paying off the mortgage and having full equity on their current home would put them in a strong position to finally trade up to the apartments that twinkled on the other side of the Thames.
Tess was now walking past the New Covent Garden Market where she loved buying armfuls of beautiful flowers on weekend mornings. Suddenly she could hear the soft purr of a car engine behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a shiny black car hugging the pavement. What the hell …? Tess began walking a little faster, her heart beating a little quicker than usual, but the car overtook her and stopped thirty yards ahead. Tess didn’t scare easily, but she was still unnerved. The street was dark and, on a cold night like this, she was the only person walking. As she drew level, the rear window of the Mercedes purred down.
‘Tess Garrett?’ called a voice.
Tess stopped and warily looked into the car. Leaning towards the window was an elegant sixty-something woman with fine-boned features and a cloud of champagne-blonde hair that fell to the sable mink collar of her coat. She looked familiar, but for the moment Tess could not place her.
‘Meredith Asgill,’ said the woman with a faint nod. ‘I’d very much like to talk to you. It’s a cold night, isn’t it? Perhaps you’d like to step inside the car.’
Tess exhaled, her breath making a small white cloud in the night air. Meredith Asgill, Mark Wilson’s employer; she didn’t know whether to be anxious or relieved. Before her was the matriarch of the Asgill family, head of the cosmetics dynasty and, of course, Sean Asgill’s mother. Tess opened the car door and stepped inside, sinking into the black leather seat as Meredith leant forward to instruct the driver to head for Mayfair.
‘I didn’t think I’d find you walking home,’ said Meredith with quiet amusement. ‘I thought British newspaper proprietors might provide drivers for senior members of staff, but when I called at your office your PA tipped me off that you were walking home this way.’
Tess smiled politely. ‘How can I help you, Mrs Asgill?’
Meredith nodded, as if to signify that she too preferred to get down to business. ‘Mark Wilson tells me you intend to run with the story in Sunday’s edition,’ she said, folding her hands on the lap of her blue silk dress.
‘No disrespect to you or your family, Mrs Asgill,’ said Tess, trying to keep her cool. ‘But I am simply doing my job. I’m the acting editor of the Sunday Globe and obviously I have to pick the best stories for our readers.’
‘Of course,’ said Meredith with a faint smile. ‘And of course it will be a boost to your career. I know you were passed over for the editor’s job. I know you have a point to prove with Mr Davidson being away; you want the most salacious stories for a big-selling issue.’
‘And is there anything wrong with that?’ asked Tess.
‘Not at all. It’s what I would expect from someone of your capabilities and ambition. In fact, I was not surprised at all that you turned down Mr Wilson’s generous offer. You have a reputation of making it on your own merits.’
Tess tried not to betray her surprise. It was unsettling how much this woman knew about her, but she supposed a quick Internet search and some join-the-dots suppositions would do the rest. Out of the window, Vauxhall came into view.
‘This is all very flattering, Mrs Asgill, but is there anything else I can help you with? You’ll appreciate this is a very busy time for me.’
Meredith paused, scanning Tess’s face. ‘Actually, the point of this conversation is how I can help you,’ she said.
Tess gave a quiet, low laugh.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Indeed. In fact, I like to think of the proposal I have as a win-win situation.’
Tess held her breath. Was she going to up the offer of a hundred grand? And more importantly, would she be able to turn it down? Meredith looked out of the window.
‘I expect you know a little about my family,’ she began. ‘I expect you know that last week my daughter Brooke became engaged to David Billington?’
‘Yes, “Manhattan’s new John Kennedy Junior”,’ nodded Tess. ‘I think that’s how People described him. And I assume that’s why you’ve been particularly keen to keep your son’s adventures out of the tabloids. I imagine sex scandals don’t go down too well with rich, powerful families like the Billingtons.’
Meredith nodded slightly. ‘David’s family is very rich, very powerful and, as you would expect of one of New York’s oldest families, very conservative. They are more established than the Kennedys, as rich as the Rockefellers. They are also very politically active. Over the last four generations, the Billingtons have provided America with two secretaries of state, four governors, a vice-president and half a dozen senators, but in David they see the potential to finally add a president to the tally.’
‘Really?’ said Tess, intrigued now. ‘I didn’t know David was in politics. Isn’t he a news reporter?’
Meredith laughed. ‘For the moment, yes. He’s due to run for Congress next year and, naturally, he will be elected.’
All at once, Tess felt the pieces fall into place. She looked across at this elegant woman and realized the look on Meredith Asgill’s face was not composure, but controlled fear. She knew that if Jemma’s photos were ever seen, the whole Asgill family would be damned and the Billingtons would not risk being tarred by the same brush. Given those circumstances, one hundred thousand pounds seemed a small sum to keep everyone’s reputations squeaky clean.
‘Mrs Asgill, I wish your daughter and David Billington well,’ said Tess carefully, ‘but it’s my professional responsibility to run the story on your son.’
Meredith looked at her. ‘Your responsibility as acting editor?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what if you weren’t acting editor of the Globe?’ asked Meredith.
Tess felt a flutter of panic. Even without the marriage to David Billington, the Asgills were a rich and powerful family in their own right, and Tess wondered how far Meredith’s influence reached. Cosmetics companies certainly had a lot of power in the publishing industry and, although the Globe didn’t run any beauty advertising, it was still very possible that Meredith had the connections to have Tess removed from her job.
‘Are you threatening to have me fired?’ asked Tess, her face flushing.
‘Fired?’ laughed Meredith, gently tapping Tess’s knee. ‘No, darling, I want to offer you a job.’
‘A job?’
Meredith leaned forward. ‘I want you to come and be my family’s personal publicist, to promote the Asgills’ image and to keep scandal – should there be any – out of the media.’
Tess gaped, completely taken by surprise. ‘But I’m a hack, not a flack,’ she stammered, using the industry slang expression for PR.
Meredith nodded. ‘And many top publicists are ex-journalists.’
Tess began to say something, then stopped. She didn’t really know what to say. She gazed out of the window, watching the lights of London, trying to think it through, surprised at her own interest in the idea.
‘But surely a New York journalist would suit you better?’ said Tess. ‘My contacts are largely UK-based.’
Meredith smiled. ‘You have friends working at the Post, the Times, and the Daily News.’
Tess conceded the point, again a little surprised by the depth of the woman’s knowledge of her.
‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘Of course,’ said Meredith. ‘We can offer a good six-figure salary, one I feel sure is more generous than the one you are currently on, plus a rent-free apartment in the West Village.’
‘I already have a well-paid job on one of the biggest papers in the country,’ said Tess, playing for time.
‘Yes, but you’re unhappy, unmotivated and …’ Meredith paused. ‘… You’re about to get the sack.’
‘I am not!’ said Tess indignantly. ‘What on earth—’
Meredith held up a dainty hand. ‘It’s a matter of public record that the Globe Group are streamlining, making redundancies, and pushing people out. I read the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, Miss Garrett. I also keep my ear to the ground, and I hear that your editor is bringing someone in to be co-deputy editor. I’m sorry, I don’t wish to be rude, but it does appear your days at the Globe are numbered.’
Tess could only stare in front of her. Meredith Asgill might have been playing hardball, but her words had the ring of truth to them. It stung her to hear them from a stranger.
‘I’ve got a good reputation,’ said Tess, with more bravado than she was feeling. ‘I don’t think I’ll have any problems walking into a new job.’
Meredith smiled politely. ‘I’m sure you’re correct,’ she said. ‘But please be aware that my offer comes with a bonus. A two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar bonus when the bride and groom marry.’
‘A quarter of a million dollars?’ said Tess slowly. She’d definitely be able to afford that Chelsea flat with that cash injection. Dom would do cartwheels. But Tess’s head was doing its own back flips – she too had heard rumours about the recruitment of a co-deputy editor being brought in to work beside her. More importantly, Tess had always wanted to work in New York, and this might be just the opportunity to get a visa, and look for a proper job at the New York Post or Daily News.
‘This is an opportunity to make some real money, Tess, not to mention contacts and friends at the highest level,’ said Meredith, seeming to have read her thoughts. ‘The secret of all successful people is an ability to think outside the box. Think of Howard Rubenstein or Max Clifford in London; they make far more than any newspaper editor and have far more real influence. Besides, PR is more civilized than tabloid journalism, don’t you think?’
‘This wedding has to happen, doesn’t it?’ said Tess, and again, behind the cool patrician façade, she saw a flutter of anxiety.
‘Yes. I will not let anything stop it,’ said Meredith firmly. ‘Now, have you eaten?’
Tess shook her head. Behind them, they could just hear Big Ben striking nine p.m.
‘How about you join me for a late supper? I’m at the Connaught. I can tell you all about Brooke’s fabulous engagement party that’s going to be held at the Billington compound. I assume you’ve never been?’
‘Not yet,’ smiled Tess.
‘Well, I think that you might like it there. In fact, it’s tomorrow night; you can hop on the jet with me back to New York. How’s that sound?’
2 (#ulink_01e4ed15-320c-5544-b480-ef46f65c8bcd)
‘Brooke? David’s here.’
The pretty Chinese girl squeezed into Brooke Asgill’s tiny, cluttered office and swiftly removed a cup of cold coffee from her superior’s desk. Brooke looked up and nodded. Strictly speaking, Kim Yi-Noon wasn’t Brooke’s assistant. As a lowly commissioning editor in the children’s division at the Yellow Door publishing house, Brooke wasn’t entitled to such privileges, but then lots of things had begun to change since her engagement to David Billington. Working conditions had mysteriously improved; she now had an office of her own – tiny though it was – for instance, and a star-struck intern willing to moonlight as her assistant. Then there was the unasked-for pay rise and the parking space she didn’t need. It was as if the management could smell power on the breeze.
‘Great, thanks Kim,’ said Brooke, smiling. ‘Send him up.’
‘I suggested that,’ said Kim apologetically. ‘But apparently the paparazzi are hanging around the office again. He thinks it’s better if he stays in the car.’
Brooke winced and glanced down at the manuscript in front of her. Every Friday afternoon she set aside an hour to read submissions from the ‘slush pile’. Most publishers didn’t bother, leaving unsolicited manuscripts to the most junior members of the publishing team, and Brooke had to admit that, most weeks, it was an hour wasted. Vanity projects, poor copies of whatever was hot last year; most of it was mediocre at best. But the book she had picked out today, well, this was something else: it had that indefinable something that made her want to keep reading.
Kim coughed politely. ‘Sorry, Brooke, but should you even be here?’ she asked. ‘It’s in my diary that you’ve booked half a day’s holiday today.’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Brooke, putting down her Montblanc pen. ‘We’ve got another wedding venue to see and we should have left two hours ago. Although I think the novelty of venue-hunting has worn off for David already. He goes pale every time I mention another one. Just wait till it’s your turn.’ Brooke stopped, realizing that might sound patronizing, especially since Kim could only be three or four years younger than she was. It was funny how dating David and mixing with his highbrow politico friends had made her feel much older, think much older. She wasn’t even married herself yet.
‘Brooke? Can I ask you a favour?’ said Kim slowly, a look of embarrassment on her face.
‘Shoot.’
‘Don’t take it the wrong way, but could you please not talk to me about this stuff?’
‘Oh,’ said Brooke, surprised. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …’ Brooke could feel her face flushing. She had always felt awkward even asking Kim to get her coffee; she certainly didn’t want to be one of those editors who treated her assistants like crap – she’d seen plenty of that. Even here in the children’s publishing division, generally considered a genteel working environment, they still had their fair share of bitches.
‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t like hearing about it,’ said Kim quickly. ‘It sounds lovely, all the wedding preparations and dates with David and such, but it’s just that some journalist called me up yesterday and offered me two thousand bucks if I would tell her where the wedding is. It’s sort of tempting when you’re on fifteen thousand dollars a year and most of that gets gobbled up by your rent.’
Brooke stared at the girl, open-mouthed. Of course, it made perfect sense, given the media furore over the wedding; she could almost admire the journalist’s initiative. She could also understand how tempting it would be for someone like Kim Yi-Noon. For her twenty-first birthday, Brooke had been given a fully furnished ‘classic six’ apartment on Sixty-Fifth Street. As a member of the Asgill family, she really had no idea what it was like to struggle to make rent. She had no idea what it was like to struggle for anything.
‘What did you say to him?’ asked Brooke finally.
‘I said I can’t tell them anything if I don’t know anything,’ shrugged Kim. ‘And if we can keep it that way, we won’t have a problem. Is that okay?’
‘Of course, of course. And I’m grateful, Kim. Thank you,’ said Brooke, making a mental note to try and get Kim a pay rise. Keen to change the subject, Brooke tapped the paper in front of her.
‘By the way, this is the covering letter from a slush-pile manuscript I’ve been reading. There’s only a few chapters of it, so can you phone the author for me and get her to send the rest if there is any more? If there is a completed manuscript, maybe we should suggest she gets an agent while she’s at it.’
Kim nodded in a brisk, efficient manner. ‘I’ll do it now.’
Glancing at her watch – David would definitely be getting cross now – Brooke stuffed the manuscript into her orange Goyard tote and pulled a compact out of her top drawer. Not bad, she thought, flipping open the mirror. The day had faded her make-up, but with her grape-green almond eyes and high cheekbones, Brooke Asgill was still one of the most beautiful girls in Manhattan. She swept some gloss over her lips, then suddenly felt guilty, recalling a snarky little news story in Star magazine about how ‘Brooke Asgill puts on a full face of make-up before she meets the paparazzi.’ It had annoyed Brooke more than it should, mainly because she knew the words one showbiz writer had tossed off in ten minutes would now pop into her head every time she looked in a mirror. The truth was that Brooke Asgill was not vain, if she put a spot of blush on her cheeks, or some gloss on her lips when she stepped outside, it was because she just figured that if people were determined to plaster her face all over every newspaper and magazine in America, she might as well try and look half decent.
She rode down in the lift and rushed through the Yellow Door lobby, bracing herself as she pushed through the doors onto East Forty-Second Street and heard the familiar click-whirr, click-whirr of the camera shutters. Since her engagement, that had been the soundtrack to her life. You should be used to this by now, she thought, unconsciously pulling her bag closer for protection. Brooke had always been a private person and she found the attention difficult to get used to; she’d actually had a panic attack the first time she had been followed.
‘Brooke! Brooke! Over here!’ called the voices, but she did her best to ignore them as her long legs carried her across the sidewalk to David’s waiting silver Lexus. Sitting on the back seat, tapping at his BlackBerry, was David Billington, the man formerly known as America’s Most Eligible Bachelor; until two weeks ago, when their engagement had been announced and thousands of hearts were broken. He looked so handsome, thought Brooke – some might say unfairly handsome for someone whose family was worth fifteen billion dollars. Even in just a pair of grey trousers, open-necked blue shirt and a Paul Smith pea coat, he still looked fantastic. His dark hair was slightly wavy, his eyes such a dark blue that they made his face look serious – until he unzipped his smile. He was confident, not aggressive, charming, not smarmy. People magazine regularly called him Mr Perfect. Sometimes Brooke thought they were right.
‘So, what have you been doing up there?’ asked David, finally pulling back from their embrace. ‘I thought we wanted to try and beat the traffic.’
‘I’ve just been reading a manuscript.’
‘Must have been good.’
‘You didn’t give me the chance to find out,’ she smiled, wanting to keep the excitement of her discovery under wraps at least until she had read more. ‘How was your day, anyway?’
‘Fifth consecutive day I’ve been studio-bound,’ sighed David. ‘I’m sure it must be some kind of record.’
David was a co-anchor for CTV’s World Today, a lunchtime news programme that broadcast from eleven a.m. to one p.m. each day, often broadcasting live from the scene of breaking news. In any given month he could be in Afghanistan or Somalia, Paris or Moscow.
‘Good news for the world, I suppose,’ she smiled. ‘No hurricanes, no coups d’états. And definitely good news for me.’ She squeezed his knee. Sometimes she enjoyed David’s busy schedule, but it was nice to have him home once in a while, especially now when there was so much to be done.
‘Not such good news for CTV, though,’ said David. ‘The ratings have been down and one of our big interviews fell through, went to Anderson Cooper.’
‘Ah honey, that’s a bummer,’ she said, genuinely disappointed for him.
‘But …’ He paused and looked at her. ‘… It looks like I’ve got twenty minutes with the Palestinian PM on Sunday.’
‘You’re going to Palestine?’
‘It’s gone crazy over there again.’
Brooke began to protest, then bit her tongue. She knew it was futile reminding David that they had three possible wedding venues to go look at in Connecticut and, anyway, she had to agree that the pressing details of their seating plan seemed slightly petty compared to discussing the finer points of the Middle East crisis with a world leader. Still, it was a blow. She had been looking forward to them spending a little time together for once, getting wrapped up in the romance and excitement of the wedding.
‘I guess I’ll go and look at those venues on my own then.’
‘Come on, honey,’ said David, stroking her cheek, ‘I thought girls loved this stuff. Don’t tell me your DNA skipped the bride gene?’
She laughed, despite herself.
‘Well, maybe you should take your mother?’ suggested David.
‘I’m not a masochist,’ she smiled. Ever since the engagement, they had quickly found that both sides of the family had very strong ideas about where and how they should be married. David’s mother, a grande dame of New York society, had very decided and conservative views about venues that were considered ‘proper’ by ‘the right people’. It needed to be large enough to host all her influential friends, and grand enough for her family. Only a church ceremony would be considered, preferably with a bishop – at the very least – presiding. Meredith, meanwhile, had vetoed every possible reception venue they had been able to find in New York. The Ritz Carlton was ‘too dingy’, the New York Library ‘too public’, and even the many gorgeous venues that Alessandro Franchetti, Manhattan’s premier wedding planner, had tracked down were similarly rejected. Brooke was beginning to think nothing would ever please her mother. It was a feeling she was familiar with.
‘Well, you never know,’ said David. ‘Alessandro might have come up trumps with the place we’re going to see today.’
Brooke gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t hold your breath; he did call it a “wild card”.’
‘We’re going all the way to Duchess County for a wild card?’ asked David, annoyance in his voice. ‘It’s a long way to travel to say no. Anyway, I thought we were picking him up?’
‘We are.’ She leaned forward and tapped Miguel, David’s driver, on the shoulder. ‘We have to detour to Sutton Place.’
David pulled a face. ‘Couldn’t we have met him there?’
Brooke laughed. ‘He’s not that bad.’
‘Oh he is,’ grinned David.
Outside a smart brownstone on Sutton Place South, a short, overly groomed man was standing on the roadside looking at his watch. Alessandro Franchetti was a former bit-part TV actor turned society wedding planner, who had recently made it onto New York magazine’s Hot 100 List. Although there were thirty couples in the city delighted to have Alessandro planning their nuptials at vast expense, the truth was that most of their weddings were arranged by Alessandro’s team. He took on only two weddings a year himself, and this was by far his biggest, possibly the biggest of his career. No wonder he was looking anxious. Brooke and David wanted an early fall wedding and they still didn’t have a venue. Screw this up and he’d never work in New York again.
‘Nice building,’ said David, peering through the car’s tinted windows.
‘The average New York bride spends one hundred thousand dollars on her wedding,’ smiled Brooke. ‘He has money.’
‘At last! My two favourite people in New York,’ gushed Alessandro as he clambered into the passenger seat next to the driver. ‘And I’m so glad to finally have you both together. There is such a lot to talk about.’
Snapping open his briefcase, Alessandro pulled out a spreadsheet and put on a pair of black horn-rim reading glasses. ‘I can only look at this for a second because reading and travelling makes me feel sick,’ he said in an aside.
David’s lips twitched with amusement.
‘I had an early start at the studio,’ he whispered to Brooke, settling back in his seat. ‘I might just grab a little shut-eye.’
Brooke jabbed him in the ribs. ‘No, you don’t!’
Alessandro looked up, oblivious to their whispering.
‘Now, I know everyone is keen to set a date as quickly as possible, but you’ve said no to The Pierre. No to the Four Seasons Pool Room. No to the Plaza, St Regis, the Yale Club and the Frick.’ He turned round and eyed Brooke and David carefully. ‘Do you know how many strings I had to pull to even put the Frick as an option?’
‘The problem is we all want somewhere new,’ said David, turning on the charm. ‘Somewhere we haven’t been before.’
Alessandro peered over the top of his glasses. ‘Between the two of you, you must have been to every wedding, funeral, benefit, and bar mitzvah in the Tri-State area. New is presenting something of a challenge.’ He sighed, pushing out his tanned cheeks.
‘Are you sure you don’t want it at Belcourt or Cliffpoint?’
Belcourt was the Billingtons’ magnificent family estate in Westchester County, and Cliffpoint was their forty-five-roomed summer house in Newport. There were, of course, other properties the family owned: a villa in Palm Beach, a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, and a palazzo in Venice, but the reason for not hosting the wedding at one of the Billington-owned properties was the same.
‘Ahem, how shall I put this?’ said Brooke. ‘It’s important to my mother to have the hosting responsibilities.’
‘And you’ve definitely ruled out Parklands?’
Parklands was the Asgill family home. Three years ago it had been the venue for a large and rather overblown wedding for her sister Liz, who was divorced from her husband twelve months later.
‘Mother doesn’t like the omens.’
Alessandro took off his glasses and sighed. ‘Lord save me from the mother of the bride. Well, never fear, Toots, I’ve got a good feeling about this one.’
The car slipped out of Manhattan, crossing the George Washington Bridge and heading up into New York State, the metropolis quickly thinning out into towns and then fields. Brooke was glad to escape the city. She had always loved New York, she was born and bred there, but lately the Big Apple had started to shrink. It wasn’t that she disliked the attention, but the constant intrusions – people she didn’t know calling out her name in the deli, teenage girls pointing and giggling; she’d even had a death threat – it was all starting to wear her down. It had been nine months to the day since she had met David Billington; despite also being a native of Manhattan, Brooke had had to go all the way to Europe to meet him. She had been in the Alsace region on a nostalgic trip to France to visit a family with whom she had done a summer exchange in her junior year at Spence. Three days into the trip, her host Mrs Dubois had discovered her husband was having an affair. Brooke supposed this might not be a problem for the chic Frenchwoman, but Mrs Dubois kicked him out. Politely withdrawing, Brooke hadn’t wanted to go home, so on a whim she’d headed down to Biarritz. A Park Avenue girl, she had always been athletic and outdoorsy, and she wanted to go surfing on the legendary beaches down there. When she first saw David, she was standing on the shore in her wet-suit.
He had come over to the shore to check she was okay; she remembered thinking he looked vaguely familiar, but she had not been expecting to meet New York’s most eligible bachelor in a wetsuit on a cloudy, blowy day on the Atlantic coast. The attraction between them was instant, although Brooke suspected that David’s interest in her went up a notch when he discovered she was also from a very wealthy New York family. If she was honest, some of that was true for her too. Like most little girls, growing up, Brooke had always dreamt of marrying a handsome prince, but in her case it had almost come true.
Not that it had been exactly a fairy tale; back in New York, the first three months of their relationship had been conducted in secret. Dates were either dinner at unfashionable restaurants in Brooklyn, or ridiculously luxurious hotels in remote locations like the Hudson Valley – sometimes it felt like having an affair with a rich married man. David didn’t explicitly say that he was testing her out before he went public with their relationship, but Brooke knew the rules of dating were just not the same for men like David Billington. Last month, on Valentine’s Day, he had whisked her off to Paris. Well, it wasn’t exactly the fourteenth of February. It had been ten days later, thanks to work commitments in Beirut and Uzbekistan, but it was wonderful nevertheless. The penthouse suite at the Bristol, shopping in St-Germain, where David had treated her to armfuls of gifts from Saint Laurent, then dinner at Le Voltaire. Back at the hotel, he had popped open vintage champagne on their terrace overlooking the city, which had been studded with hundreds of glowing tea-lights. Even so, Brooke hadn’t expected it when he had pulled a ring out of his pocket and dropped down on one knee. They’d been dating less than a year, but the night had been so perfect, it had been impossible to resist.
It was almost seven by the time they arrived in Duchess County. Light was falling out of the sky, the dipping sun casting an orange glow over the lake. Brooke had been there before to visit the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair for its lovely old chests and gilt mirrors, and loved the area’s raw natural beauty.
‘This place certainly smells good,’ laughed Brooke, breathing in a cool fresh scent of mist and freshly mown grass through the open window. They came off the road and through a pair of white gates, down a long gravel drive curling around the lake, framed by horse chestnut trees bursting with their long ivory flowers. At the end of the drive was a short pier where a small motor launch was moored.
‘Is it across the lake?’ asked Brooke, excitement in her voice. They all climbed out of the car and up onto the pier, David taking Brooke’s hand to help her on. It smelt of linseed oil. The boat took ten minutes to chug across the lake, finally turning into a bay dominated by a huge white colonial house. Brooke gasped.
‘Isn’t it spectacular?’ grinned Alessandro, spreading his arms dramatically. ‘Now, when we get there you’ll see it’s a little rundown, so I want you to use your imagination.’
‘I quite like the fact it’s not too perfect,’ said David as they swung into the dock.
Brooke gave a small laugh. ‘Is that how your mother will see it?’
‘She’ll like it if we do,’ he said, not sounding entirely convinced by his statement. ‘Anyway, I love the location. It’s private.’
Alessandro clapped his hands together. ‘My thoughts exactly, darling. The paparazzi are going to be all over this wedding, so we have to do what we can to keep everything secure. This is the ideal solution. I’ve even had a word with the local sheriff, who has kindly agreed to enforce a no-fly zone over the lake for the wedding, so paparazzi helicopters can forget it. Now, David, I know your mother wanted a church wedding …’
‘Cathedral,’ smiled Brooke.
‘But, I’ve already spoken to Reverend James, the pastor from your family’s local church. He baptized two generations of your family, I believe? Well, he’s happy to officiate here, which should please your mother.’
Alessandro turned to Brooke and touched her arm. ‘And you, my darling, I know you wanted something intimate, but—’
‘But it’s beautiful,’ interrupted Brooke. ‘Big, but beautiful.’
They walked up through the gardens from the jetty and into the house. The building was even more impressive close to, and the entrance hall was huge, with vaulted ceilings soaring forty feet above them.
‘Wow,’ said David simply.
Alessandro held Brooke’s shoulders and turned her around towards the lake. It was glowing a rippling orange as the sun sank.
‘Look over to the west side of the lake,’ said Alessandro, pointing to the lawns next to the formal gardens. ‘See how it slopes down? It’s a natural amphitheatre. I was thinking very simple cherry-wood pews, a carpet of petals as an aisle, and the vows being exchanged looking out over the water.’
Brooke was silent for a moment, picturing the scene.
‘What do you think, Brooke?’ asked David. When she turned towards him, there were tears in her eyes.
‘It’s just incredible.’
David pulled her close. ‘The bride gene surfaces,’ he whispered.
Alessandro walked a little way off, continuing his commentary like a tour guide. ‘The house used to belong to a very wealthy Manhattan family, in mining or something, I think. Now it belongs to an educational trust, but it’s been used for films in the past, one featuring Johnny Depp, can’t remember which. Anyway, don’t worry about the slightly tired exterior. My ex-boyfriend is a Hollywood set designer and we still speak. I think he can do something very special.’
David and Brooke exchanged a small smile at his rapid-fire monologue.
‘We don’t want to go too high concept, Alessandro,’ said Brooke. ‘No Gone with the Wind fantasy, okay?’
‘Well, if we’re thinking left-field with all this, I was wondering about a dusk wedding? We could line the path around the lake with torches and ferry you over to the ceremony in a little boat covered in iceberg rose petals.’
‘Alessandro,’ said Brooke, gently admonishing. ‘No drama, remember? Although, I do like the idea of getting married at this time of day. When is it available?’
‘Pretty much whenever,’ said Alessandro, flapping his hands vaguely. ‘A fall wedding would be magnificent. Can you imagine those trees over there glistening with scarlet leaves? Oh, but realistically a September wedding is way too tight. I mean, your dress is going to take three, four months minimum, more if we’re thinking lots of Lesage beading. I know one bride who had to put her wedding back because the embroidery was taking so long.’
‘Which leaves us with next spring or summer,’ said Brooke thoughtfully. ‘Winters will be vicious up here and I don’t want to make it too difficult for people to travel.’
‘We definitely wanted the wedding within the year,’ said David, looking at Brooke. ‘I don’t want this one to get away from me.’
Alessandro coughed politely. ‘Maybe I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes,’ he said.
‘So what do you think?’ asked Brooke when Alessandro was out of earshot.
‘I love it.’
‘Oh honey, I’m so glad you said that,’ she gushed, her face lit up like a little girl’s. ‘It’s the perfect spring venue, isn’t it? I mean, smell that air. New beginnings.’
She could see David stifle a wry smile. He was too polite to laugh. He wrapped his arms around Brooke’s waist. ‘It’s perfect.’
‘It’s big though, isn’t it?’ said Brooke, biting her lip. ‘All that talk about amphitheatres.’
‘We have a lot of guests.’
‘Your parents have got a lot of guests,’ she said.
Brooke was a Pisces, a romantic; perhaps that’s what drew her to books. In her mind her wedding would have all the trappings of the fairy tale – the beautiful white dress, the huge cake – but she’d always thought of it as a private ceremony, conducted in front of people she knew and loved. The last thing she wanted was a circus.
‘Should we run off to City Hall and just do it?’ said Brooke impulsively.
David shook his head slowly. ‘You know we can’t do that.’
She looked at him and saw sadness in his eyes; it was the weight of expectation, and most of the time he wore it well. David might be a television reporter right now, but that was not where his future lay. Already he was being touted in serious magazines as a White House hopeful, despite having not a jot of political experience to his name. Their wedding would be talked about and written about for years to come; in many ways, it needed to be a circus, even if it was not a three-ring circus.
‘Honey, are you sure you’re ready for this?’ he asked softly.
She looked at his dark-blue eyes and couldn’t believe that out of all the women in the world he had chosen her.
‘Do you mean have I passed the point of no return?’ she asked.
‘No, I mean are you ready to be a Billington wife?’
Brooke felt a shiver run through her and wondered if it was the chill in the air.
‘Is anyone ever ready to be a Billington wife?’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know if I am. Who could? But what I do know is that I’m ready to marry you.’
David’s face lit up in a broad grin.
‘That’s good enough for me,’ he laughed, and pulled her down into the grass.
3 (#ulink_d0397317-4f6d-59fd-9ba1-a1f6d71dfe16)
Standing inside the glass elevator that ran along the west-facing wall of midtown’s magnificent Somerset Tower, Liz Asgill pushed the brushed-chrome button labelled ‘penthouse’. She turned to Enrique Gelati, Manhattan’s most in-demand hair colourist, as the lift began its swift ascent.
‘It takes thirty seconds to go forty-three floors,’ she purred as night-time Manhattan disappeared beneath them, revealing the blackness of Central Park, the taxis buzzing around it like yellow wasps. ‘It’s the Ferrari of elevators, nought to sixty in two point five seconds.’
‘I hope the spa is also as good,’ said Enrique in a syrupy Spanish Cuban accent. ‘Asgill’s is not such a good name, no? Asgill’s is not La Prairie, I think.’
Liz turned and smiled thinly. Enrique had a reputation for being difficult, but he got away with it as he was regarded as a genius in his field. Great with brunettes, even better with blondes, half the Park Avenue Princesses owed their glorious honey-coloured manes to Enrique Gelati. Liz even knew of one household name who came to him to get her muff colour-corrected every six weeks. No wonder the waiting list at his Madison Avenue salon was three months long. As Allure magazine had said many times, ‘It’s easy to spot an Enrique Gelati blonde, but it’s impossible to get an appointment.’
‘I think you’ll be surprised at the spa,’ said Liz confidently. ‘The Skin Plus brand is a completely separate brand to Asgill’s. We’re just backed by the company money.’ She smiled warmly. Inside she was fuming, but she had to keep him on side. The Skin Plus Spa launch was only a month away and having Enrique as the salon’s creative director would be a huge coup.
Unlike many great businesses, Liz Asgill’s latest brainchild had not begun with a small idea but a very big, very ambitious one. She had decided to create Skin Plus as Asgill’s new up-market ‘cosmeceutical range’, a line as removed from the frumpy dead-duck family brand as a Rolls-Royce from a cart and horse. Liz’s plan was to start, not with the range of beauty products, but with a spa so sensational, so exclusive, it would have all of America talking. So far it was looking good. The spa’s interiors had been designed by Kelly Wearstler, she had poached spa therapists from Chiva-Som in Thailand, and colourists and cutters were decamping from John Barrett and Frédéric Fekkai to join her. There was just one problem. Liz needed a star, a big-name creative director for the hair salon, preferably someone who could bring a long list of celebrity clients with them. In this town, it was vital to have a name because New Yorkers were the most status-conscious women in the world. She could name a dozen Upper East Side socialites who had their hair cut by ninety-dollar local stylists but told their friends that their blonde buttery shags were the work of Sally Hershberger.
The lift door pinged open and they stepped out into the 25,000-square-foot space that occupied the top floor of Somerset Tower, a space that had taken Liz six months of ruthless negotiating to secure. Enrique’s eyes opened wide as he saw it and, although he was trying to play it cool, she could tell he was impressed.
‘Welcome to heaven,’ she said, sweeping an arm out.
They walked into a domed roof atrium of Venetian glass, with silver and ivory silk wallpaper and a long white leather reception desk. Liz led Enrique into a large room to the left.
‘This will be the waiting room for the salon,’ she explained. It had been repainted five times until Liz was satisfied with exactly the right shade of white.
‘The spa and hair salon areas are to your left and right. The organic restaurant is through there,’ she said, pointing down a long ivory corridor. There’s a champagne and juice bar and VIP spaces in all zones. The colour studio is over here,’ she continued, gesturing up to the glass ceiling. ‘Obviously in the daytime, it has fantastic light, which I think is crucial for you.’
Enrique nodded.
Liz felt a crackle of excitement as she showed off the rest of the premises to Enrique. For the first time in her career, she had been able to see an idea through from concept to launch, consuming so much of her time and energy over the past five years that it had cost Liz her marriage; but, as far as Liz was concerned, with success came sacrifice. She had a six per cent shareholding in Asgill Cosmetics, conservatively estimated at being worth about twenty million dollars, but it was a shareholding that was falling in value all the time. Since the death of her father, Asgill Cosmetics had been pitched into a downward spiral. Her brother William was now CEO, and nothing he did seemed to be able to stop the rot. Liz knew she was the only one who could save it, and this spa was the vehicle by which she would do it. She spun round on her five-inch heels to face Enrique. Before the guided tour, she had spent two hours buttering him up with pleasantries and compliments over dinner. Now it was time for business.
‘The deal is that I would like you to come and headline the salon, working three days a week here,’ she said.
Enrique pulled his long black ponytail out of its band and shook his hair onto his shoulders.
‘Liz, I tell you at dinner that I am very busy. As you can imagine, my phone is ringing all the time with proposals from people like you.’
Liz pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Well, that’s funny, because in the light of everything that’s going on at your salon, I think the offer I’m making is a very attractive one indeed. A lifeboat, as it were.’
Enrique frowned. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘I hear things aren’t too great with Gary,’ she said flatly. Gary Eisen was Enrique’s long-time business manager and backer.
‘He’s fine,’ said Enrique, tossing back his black hair. ‘He’s on the West Coast right now, checking out real estate for an LA salon.’
‘Really? I heard he was on the West Coast to check into Promises rehab clinic.’
‘Bullshit,’ he replied defensively, but his eyes betrayed his panic. Liz smiled, enjoying the moment: knowledge was power and she intended to use what she knew to her advantage. For the last month she’d had a corporate investigations team look into Enrique’s business and had found that, despite Enrique’s profile, his salon was being woefully mismanaged. Their plans to launch an Enrique hair-care range had not come off, and minuscule profits suggested that Gary was siphoning off money for his expensive coke habit and love of Brazilian rent boys.
‘Enrique,’ said Liz, ‘you need to face facts. You’re never going to make any serious money with just one salon, no matter how many celebrities you’ve got on your client list, especially when that salon is badly run. The money is in product ranges, selling twenty-dollar colour shampoo to secretaries in Cleveland. But …’ Liz took a deep breath. ‘… We both know that no one wants to work with you to produce those products because you and Gary are too unpredictable.’
‘Bitch. How dare you?’ he hissed. ‘It’s taken me fifteen years to have my own salon. I worked for everything I got. No rich daddy gave me mine.’
Little Latino prick trying to play hardball, she thought, but then Liz was not in the business of trading niceties. She was glad she towered above him in her Giuseppe Zanotti heels. Hands on hips, bright-red lips, complete intimidation.
‘Listen to me,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m trying to help you. Your business is going to go to the wall, no question. In two, three years’ time, you’ll be back in Miami, some colourist that once used to be big in New York, just another industry casualty. And then all that hard work will have been for nothing.’
For a few seconds he didn’t speak, clearly torn between rage at having been spoken to in such a way and needing Liz’s help. Finally he flapped his arms in surrender.
‘What do you suggest?’ he pouted.
‘My proposal is that I buy out Gary Eisen’s stake. You work two days at your salon, three days here at Skin Plus. Meanwhile, one of my team will manage the Enrique salon, increasing its profitability, and Asgill’s will license your name to produce an Enrique product range that we can get into drugstores by fall.’
Of course, that was only part of Liz’s plan. She was so proud of her full agenda that she almost wanted to blurt the rest out: that in twelve months’ time she would close down the Madison Avenue salon, integrating the entire Enrique salon into the Skin Plus Spa. She already had an idea who would buy the lease on the prime Madison Avenue real estate occupied by Enrique’s salon – and then she could screw him over the licensing deal and send the arrogant little jerk back to Miami with his balls in a sack.
‘I need to think about it,’ said Enrique, trying to hold his head high.
‘How about I give you till Monday?’
Down on the street, Liz watched Enrique disappear into a waiting car. She looked up to the top of Somerset Tower, a shard of illuminated glass stretching into the night sky. Adrenaline was still coursing through her blood; the thrill of a deal always did that to her; there was no way she could go home to sleep. She knew exactly what she needed.
She flagged down a yellow cab, its light spilling a glow onto the puddles on the road. Inside, she told the driver to take her to Clinton. Relaxing into the seat, she pulled a cosmetic wipe from her bag and carefully cleaned make-up from her face. She flipped open a compact and stared at the blank canvas of her features. Her blonde hair was cut into a short bob. Her eyes were small, her nose too narrow from bad rhinoplasty in the mid-Nineties, but she had a wide, sensual mouth and full lips and the overall picture was striking, handsome, and strong. People often compared Liz to her mother when she was younger, which Liz knew wasn’t exactly a compliment, especially as her father Howard was a ridiculously good-looking man. Meredith was several notches down the attractiveness scale, but her family had money. That was just the way it was in their world.
She took out a lipstick and painted a slash of deep maroon across her lips; instantly she looked different, more sexual. Liz smiled at the power of cosmetics to change your face, your identity. She pulled another pot out of her bag. Asgill’s hair wax, which she ran over her hands and through her hair, combing it down severely along the contours of her skull.
She glanced up and could see the taxi driver looking at her, his eyes opening wider at her transformation. In thirty seconds, the smart woman with the smoky eyes and glossed lips – the typical groomed Manhattan businesswoman – had morphed into a futuristic sex kitten. Arriving at her destination, she exited the cab and wordlessly handed the driver a twenty-dollar bill.
Liz stood on the sidewalk and smiled at the neon sign for the Red Legs bar. It really belonged in the old Clinton, she thought. For years Clinton had been one of New York’s most notorious areas: poor Irish gangs and white trash living in comparative squalor. Hell’s Kitchen: that’s what it had been called before Giuliani had cleaned up the city. Now it was becoming gentrified, but the musicians, artists, and students were taking their time moving on and, if you knew where to look, you could still find a taste of down-and-dirty New York, a city that never ceased to excite her. She had spent time in London and Paris for the company, but nowhere had her as entranced as her hometown.
The entrance to the club was a metal door. There were people outside smoking, a transvestite blowing smoke rings into the night air, a couple having an argument, all the usual sights and sounds of the Big Apple. Liz descended the stairway and put her coat in the cloakroom, pausing at the entrance to the main room to check her reflection and compose herself. She knew what to expect; she had been to the club a couple of months before. It was one of her golden rules not to frequent the same place regularly, but she liked this place. A doorman pulled open a soundproofed door and Liz was engulfed by sound. The club was one huge underground space, crammed with sweating, writhing bodies moving to the deafening music as spotlights criss-crossed and whirled. The room was bathed in deep red light and, with the pulsing and shaking of the walls, Liz felt as if she was walking inside a giant beast. Pushing her way through the crowd, she took a seat at the end of the black glass bar, sitting at right angles to the room, where she could observe the action without attracting attention. Nodding at the model-grade barman, she ordered a single-malt Scotch, wishing for the days when you could light up a cigarette.
She savoured the heat of the liquor in her throat and watched. She only vaguely listened to the music; that wasn’t why she was here. It was ten minutes before she saw him. Tall, handsome, a little dishevelled, a painter perhaps. But when their gaze met, he had a look in his eye that Liz recognized.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he said over the music.
She gave a small smile, shook her head. ‘I’m not staying.’
He took a seat next to her and propped his elbow on the bar, just looking at her. Liz didn’t mind such a brazen approach; in fact she enjoyed it. She uncoiled slowly, watching his reaction as she crossed her long legs. Liz might not be beautiful in the way her sister Brooke was, but she had always been sexy. Her hardness, her cleverness, her sexual experience – who knew what drew men towards her? But Liz had an aura, a scent that only the right – or the wrong – kind of man could pick up.
‘I’m Russ. Russ Ford.’
‘Hello Russ,’ she said, staring off across the room, feigning indifference, even mild irritation. It was all an act, a game. She knew men well; she had been in this situation many times before and experience had taught her that men as good-looking as Russ liked to be treated like this. She waited, savouring the moment. He will speak, she thought, any moment … now.
‘Are you ignoring me?’
Exactly, thought Liz.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, still not looking at him.
‘The cleft on your chin,’ said Russ, ‘I have one too. I wonder where they come from?’
‘It’s where the right and left side of your jawbone hasn’t fused completely. It’s a Mendelian trait.’ She took a drink and watched his reaction.
‘A what?’
Liz touched the small dimple at the base of her face. ‘Genetics. It’s a dominant gene. I was unlucky. My sister escaped it.’
‘Mendelian trait, you say?’ he laughed slowly. ‘You’re a smart girl.’
Choate Rosemary Hall. Princeton. Wharton Business School, thought Liz. He didn’t know the half of it.
‘Sorry, I missed your name,’ said Russ.
‘I didn’t tell you it.’
Now she turned the full power of her eyes on him, looking at his face in detail, feeling a growing dampness between her legs. He was good looking, really good looking, like a greeter at Abercrombie & Fitch. No more than twenty-five, twenty-six. Tanned skin, a smudge of stubble over his chin. He seemed self-assured, arrogant even. Keen to challenge her, banter with her. She knew she had chosen well; this was exactly the sort of man to respond to her.
‘So what should I call you?’
She paused, a hint of a smile. ‘Lisa.’
‘Okay, smart, lovely Lisa,’ he said. ‘Forgive the corny question, but what are you doing in a place like this?’
‘A place like this?’
‘A place full of hookers and transvestites?’
‘Is that right? And which category do you fall into?’
He chuckled.
‘Neither, I’m afraid,’ he smiled. ‘I live round the corner. It’s cheap and I’m broke. Bars like this suit me. What about you?’
‘I work nearby,’ she lied.
‘What do you do?’
She stifled a smile, wondering what he would say if she told him she had just come from the twenty-five-million-dollar spa she was about to launch; wondering whether it would make her more or less desirable to him.
‘Things I like to forget about by drinking Scotch.’
He laughed. ‘I like mysterious women. So can I buy you that drink now?’
What was the point of stringing this out any longer, thought Liz. More games, more Scotch? Why not move in for the kill?
She looked at him directly. ‘Only if you’ll fuck me.’
His eyes seemed to shine a little brighter in the dark redness, his face showed no surprise except for a slight pull of the right corner of his lip. Liz stood up and, as she moved, she ran the tip of her finger across his jeans. She simply turned and began to walk towards the exit. She didn’t need to turn round to know he was following her. Since her divorce from Walter Baker, a hotelier she had known since her teens, Liz found that she had no need for relationships. She had no interest in the complications, cluttering her life with thin emotion. But she wanted, she needed sex. It charged her.
He caught up with her as they left the booming main room of the club.
‘Keep walking,’ he whispered into her neck. ‘I know somewhere downstairs.’
He steered her into a corridor and down a short flight of steps ending in a door marked ‘Staff’. Inside was a dark six-foot-square room lined with black. In one corner was a Formica stall and a white ceramic sink. She heard the click of the door being locked behind her and then felt his hands snaking round her waist. His lips sinking into the warm skin of her neck. She spun around to face him and his lips brushed her ear lobes before they came crashing down on her mouth. His tongue slid into hers and she could taste her own lipstick. He was a fantastic kisser, his touch almost as expert as her own. He rucked up her dress and peeled down her hose and thong in one movement. His lips heavy and urgent on hers, he pushed Liz up against the edge of the sink, raising her feet off the floor, and then spread her thighs with his hands.
Liz groaned as she unzipped his jeans. He pushed his hand under her top and bra until her breast sprang free. Desperate, Liz pulled the fabric over her head. Russ had unhooked her bra so it fell to her waist. He circled one breast in his hand and lowered his lips onto her brown nipple, which grew bigger and harder in his mouth. After pulling a condom out of his pocket, he pushed his own jeans down to the floor, as if they were white-hot against his skin.
Wrapping his hands under her buttocks he pulled her closer. She could feel the roughness of his fingertips on her skin. Blue-collar hands she had felt many times before. She moaned as she felt his thick hard cock enter her, his hands holding her steady as he deepened his quick thrusts.
Biting into his shoulder, she responded by pulling her knee up and back so he completely filled her.
She cried out, barely registering that his urgent hands had turned on the taps behind her. Feeling the water pouring on her back, she reached behind her to grab at the cold liquid. She stroked the water across his face, letting him suck her fingers.
‘Faster,’ she groaned, tipping her head back until it knocked against the mirror. Her breathing quickened as she was about to come. As she grabbed his thick, coarse hair she felt spasms swell from her core to every nerve ending in her body.
‘Shit,’ he winced, his body shivering as he exploded inside her.
As he slid slowly out of her, Liz inhaled deeply to regulate her breathing. She shut her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his thickness retreating, until the tip of his cock just tickled out of her cunt.
Slipping off the vanity unit, she picked up her discarded tights and thong and slipped on her shoes. She looked at him, all excitement gone, like air from a deflated balloon, the electricity in the room unplugged. All that was left was a panting twenty-something with his pants down and a rolled condom still on his cock. She almost laughed. So he was good-looking. Usually it didn’t matter. She wasn’t after someone she had to look at for the rest of her life.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, rolling down her dress.
He touched her arm as she tried to walk past. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘But, but where do you live?’ he asked. ‘Let me come with you.’
She smiled slowly and shook her head. As she opened the door she turned to look at him one last time. Her third nameless, faceless fuck this month. He had been good, very good. What a shame she would never see him again.
4 (#ulink_b3e2f2e5-51f1-5a7e-af9e-430ff66e166a)
Paula Asgill smiled to herself as she lay back in the soapy water, gazing through the open bathroom doorway at the luxurious guest cottage on the Billingtons’ exquisite country estate, Belcourt. At first she had been disappointed not to be staying in the main house, which she could just glimpse in the distance through the cottage’s pretty leaded windows, but now she was here, she knew she’d hit social gold. For years she’d been forced to listen to her connected Upper East Side friends boast about the legendary parties they’d attended at Belcourt: how they’d marvelled at the seventeenth-century chandelier in the ballroom, swayed on the polished dance floor suspended over the Olympic-sized swimming pool, or visited the 50,000-bottle wine cellar, from which endless glasses of Château Pétrus, Mouton Rothschild or d’Yquem flowed. For years, she’d had to stand there and take it, but now it was time for revenge.
Paula stepped out of the roll top bath and wrapped a fluffy white towel around her pale, lithe body. Tomorrow she could talk about all those things and more. Yes, her friends were familiar with Belcourt’s interiors and furnishings, but how many of them were au fait with the grand estate’s guest cottages, the twelve sumptuous mini-mansions dotted around the thousand-acre grounds, all exclusively reserved for Billington family members. How many of her tormentors could describe the exquisite Stubbs paintings over the fireplaces? The Cornish pottery in the petite, handmade French kitchen, the lavender-scented Porthault linens on the sleigh beds or the view of the cherry-blossom trees from the east window? Not one. It was priceless social ammunition, and Paula could barely wait to use it back in New York. She would almost pass up tonight’s party to see their faces. Almost.
Walking into the pastel-peach bedroom she let the towel drop to the floor and slid into her black lace Dior lingerie and silk robe, then reclined on the crisp sheets, luxuriating in her good fortune. It was very nearly a perfect moment; the only niggling annoyance was a small fly buzzing around the room. She flapped her hands at it and shuddered. The thought of insects or germs of any kind made Paula feel physically sick. She pulled her robe around her tightly and hurried to open the window, but recoiled when she touched the metal handle. What was that? Rust? Not wanting to take a risk, she ran to the dresser and pulled a bottle of hand-sanitizer from her wash bag, scrubbing her hands thoroughly. By now the fly was gone, but it had ruined her mood.
Walking back to the living room, she took a sip of camomile tea to settle herself, wondering why she felt so jumpy at the moment, so nervous. It couldn’t just be the prospect of Brooke and David’s engagement party tonight; after all, it was only a night out, wasn’t it? At least she had the dress, the killer dress, she smiled, glancing back at the long pale-violet gown hanging by the door. The moment the Belcourt party had been announced, Paula had dispatched her personal shoppers at Bendel’s and Bergdorf Goodman to find something wonderful, something elegant, something absolutely nobody else was going to be wearing. It was Cheryl, a friend from her modelling days who had reinvented herself as a celebrity stylist, who had finally come up trumps with a McQueen sample that had not gone into production. Cheryl had warned her that violet was a difficult shade to wear, making brunettes look too sallow and blondes too garish. But against the alabaster paleness of Paula’s skin and the rich red of her long, straight hair, it looked magnificent. A small size eight, Paula was slim enough to squeeze into the sample size, although the cut made no concessions for bumps of any kind. Paula had therefore spent the past week on a rigorous diet and had let nothing but the tea past her lips in the last twenty-four hours.
Looking good meant hard work, thought Paula, but converting those looks into success was even harder. She had learnt that hard lesson from her mother, Helena. A sunny blonde with perfect features, Paula’s mother had once been an incredible Southern beauty, but she had sold herself short by falling head over heels in love with Samuel, a trucker and dedicated alcoholic who had been killed drink-driving on a long-distance job when Paula was nine. With a grieving heart and a young daughter to support, Helena had taken on three jobs, in a launderette, the general store, and the local bar to pay the bills. She had been trying to break up a brawl at the bar one night when an enraged hooker had smashed her glass into Helena’s face. With an ugly six-inch scar across her cheek, all work except the launderette shift had quickly dried up. It had broken Helena. She worked hard, and where had it got her? When the MS had kicked in, it had ravaged Helena’s body quickly; she simply seemed unwilling to fight it. By the time Paula was nineteen, her mother was dead, but she hadn’t missed the point of the life lesson.
Paula worked damn hard to make her own beauty count. When she moved to New York to model, she was not the most beautiful or even the most interesting girl on the circuit; otherworldly-looking girls like Karen Elson and Erin O’Connor were making their mark. But Paula was not disheartened, even when a booker at Ford had told Paula that Julianne Moore had cornered the market in pale, interesting redheads. Paula simply put in twice as much effort. She never arrived late for a job, never had sex with a photographer or a client, never took drugs or drank too much. Instead of partying, she perfected a regal bearing that made her stand out in a city awash with young exotic beauties. Even so, Paula was never quite flavour of the month, but shoots for St John and Escada kept her in work until she met William when she was twenty-three. That was when all the hard work had paid off.
Just then, husband William walked in and dropped his overnight bag on the floor with a grunt. A tall, athletic-looking man with a full head of sandy hair and an open face, he looked tired and slightly world-weary; inevitable, thought Paula, considering his job as CEO of Asgill Cosmetics. It seemed a thankless task.
William moved behind her and nuzzled his lips into her neck. She giggled, genuinely pleased to have him there, holding her. It was getting dark and it felt a little isolating to be on her own on the estate.
‘What kept you?’ she asked, turning to kiss him.
William sighed. ‘I would have been here an hour ago, but I was waiting for Liz. Then she decided she was going to make her own way here.’
‘Typical Liz,’ snorted Paula; her sister-in-law’s selfishness was one of those things that made William’s job that much more difficult than it had to be.
‘Well, David’s mother called two hours ago wanting to know if we want to take a couple of horses out,’ she continued, gesturing towards the window. ‘Apparently from the ridge over there you can see the whole Manhattan skyline. Do you think it’s too late?’
‘We can go tomorrow morning,’ smiled William in his easygoing, almost placid way. ‘Besides, I think it would be wise to check with security. There were already extra guards on the gates when I came through, and I’ve heard a couple of choppers already. I’m not sure whether it’s paparazzi or party guests arriving.’
Paula sat down in front of an antique dressing table and began to pad the underside of her eyes with foundation. She had always been skilled with cosmetics; she could do it better than any makeup artist.
‘Great place, isn’t it?’ said William appreciatively as he looked around the cottage. ‘We should do this more often: get away for the night without the twins.’
Paula shook her head. ‘I hate leaving them,’ she sighed.
‘Honey, it’s just for the night.’
She gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
‘I think it would do wonders for the twins if we had a place in the country. Somewhere with stables where they could keep their own ponies,’ she said finally.
‘We’ve got our own place,’ said William, referring to Parklands, the Asgills’ country place in Bedford, New York.
‘Oh, that doesn’t count,’ she pouted. ‘Parklands is your mother’s.’
William stood behind her, gently running his fingers though her hair. Irritated at the way he had ducked the issue of the country retreat once again, she pulled away.
‘Please, honey. It was blow-dried this morning.’
William held up his hands. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I like my wife’s hair. Sue me.’
She pulled her stool forwards. ‘Can you just pass me my bristle brush? It’s in the cream suitcase. No, not the paddle brush. The round one.’
As she watched him in reflection, she felt a little pang of affection. For all his faults – I mean, how many CEOs with a multimillion-dollar shareholding would think twice about buying a weekendretreat? – William Asgill was loving, loyal, and decent, all of which were rare attributes this high up in society and, for Paula, they were the glue that held their marriage together. It was, however, an unfashionable point of view among Paula’s circle of friends, most of whom had one eye on their current marriage and another eye on someone else’s more successful husband. Five years ago, such trading up had been rampant. In fact, it had been one such adventuress named Lynette who had married and divorced William when he was in his early twenties. His first wife now lived in Scotland, the consort of a handsome fifty-something duke.
However, the world had changed rapidly since then. With the implosion of the hedge funds, there was a comparative paucity of genuinely wealthy men in New York, whereas each passing day seemed to unleash more and more beautiful girls into fashionable Manhattan; the competition had become cut-throat. These gold-diggers were no longer just the usual Park Avenue Princesses, but models, celebrities, and ambitious suburbanites seeking their fortune in the Big Apple. This was all very bad news for Paula’s friends, meaning slim pickings on the next rung of the ladder and danger from below. After all, any self-respecting thirty- or forty-something Wall Street player would be looking to upgrade too, and those buxom, smooth-skinned, pre-child bitches would look mighty appealing.
For herself, Paula had always been pragmatic about her love life; if relationships were a game of poker, she was not going to cash in her chips now when there was a strong chance of losing everything. So William and Paula’s sex life limped along, getting the odd boost when her diets allowed her to feel good enough about herself to put on the Dior lingerie, and their relationship chugged along in what could be best described as remote companionship. However, Paula did not fear the predatory females she knew William encountered in the city; she knew he wouldn’t stray. Perhaps it was the sting from his first marriage that had made him less demanding, much happier with his lot. In her gut, Paula felt that their marriage was not a question of resignation but expectation: expectation that the other would not stray. It was why she trusted her husband to be faithful and stand by her side. She walked over to the door and unwrapped her dress, slipping it over her lithe body. She didn’t need to look in the mirror; she could tell she looked stunning from the expression on William’s face.
‘I think we have some time to kill before the party starts,’ he smiled, nodding towards the antique sleigh bed. For all her affectionate thoughts about William and their marriage, Paula still felt her stomach clench.
‘Honey, no,’ she said, ‘I’ve just showered.’
‘And I thought the idea of conceiving at Belcourt might appeal to you,’ he laughed, stroking her neck with his fingertips.
She reached up and held his hand.
‘Don’t bring this up again. Not tonight.’
William frowned. ‘Bring what up?’
‘Darling, I’m not a baby machine,’ she said, turning away and scooping her hair into a chignon.
William gave a hollow laugh. ‘We’ve got two kids, Paula, not ten.’
And that’s enough, she thought as she busied herself pinning up her hair. Unlike William, who had declared a desire to produce ‘a brood’, Paula had no intention of having any more children. On the surface she was elegant and confident, but underneath she was anxious and prone to depression. Something to do with her upbringing, perhaps, but, whatever the reason, pregnancy was certainly not a condition that suited her. Two years into their marriage she had conceived while on the pill, only to miscarry ten weeks later. William had been wonderful throughout the entire ordeal, sending her to recuperate at his uncle’s waterside house in the Florida Keys, but he was obviously devastated by the tragedy. Paula was more sanguine.
‘Something was wrong with our baby,’ she had told him matter-of factly. ‘The miscarriage was a sign. A gift.’
William had hugged her and told her that she was in shock or post-traumatic stress and that she would feel better about it very soon. Paula knew that he was wrong. Two years later, under pressure from William, they had actively tried to get pregnant again, and to Paula’s relief it had been swift. The twins were born healthy and pretty and she felt she could now relax, having paid her dues.
‘Paula. The twins are nearly six,’ said William. ‘You’re thirty-two now, but you know how difficult things get after thirty-five.’
‘I know the biology,’ she said with a little more force than she’d intended.
‘Hey now, don’t be like that,’ he whispered, pulling her towards the bed. ‘You never know, it might be fun.’
As he kissed her bare shoulder beyond the strap of her dress, she smiled. If William thought the smile was in anticipation of the patter of tiny feet, he was dead wrong. Paula adored her children, and she had to admit that the idea of conceiving a child at Belcourt did appeal to her. But she was not going through the ordeal of pregnancy again under any circumstances. Her wolfish grin covered the thought that if they had sex tonight, she could forget about it for another month at least. As for the contraceptive injections that she had administered by a discreet gynaecologist on a regular basis, well, that would remain her little secret. In the meantime, it was back to her wifely duty. And, as he said, it might even be fun.
‘Are you ready yet?’
Tess tapped her nails impatiently on the doorframe of the bathroom. Brooke Asgill’s engagement party was beginning at seven-thirty p.m. It was now six forty-five and the venue was over an hour away. It was somewhere upstate – ‘Belcourt, Westchester’, it stated simply on the stiff white invitation, as if everybody was expected to know where it was – and Tess was anxious enough about going without her appearance-conscious boyfriend making them late too.
Dom was standing by the sink, rummaging through the complimentary toiletries.
‘They haven’t got shoeshine,’ he grumbled, flinging a shower cap back in the basket.
‘Since when do you ever use shoeshine?’ asked Tess with surprise.
‘They have shoeshine at the Plaza.’
Tess took a deep breath and counted to ten. They were staying in a luxurious suite at The Pierre, one of, if not the most fabulous and luxurious hotels in New York and therefore the world, and here he was bitching about the tiniest detail. It was especially annoying as this beautiful room had been booked and paid for by Meredith Asgill. Tess turned him round and began to fasten the black silk bow tie hanging around his neck.
‘Just chill out,’ she said as calmly as she could. Her nerves were frayed. She was excited about the party but edgy over what was expected of her, not to mention tired from the flight, even if they had flown on a Lear Jet into a convenient private airport in New Jersey.
‘Come on, honey, we are in New York at a fabulous hotel and about to go to an even more fabulous party. And, let’s face it, you look fabulous too.’
Dom looked at his reflection in the mirror and tugged at his shirt cuffs, adjusting the jacket of his smart one-button suit and smoothing out his bow tie. Finally he grunted with satisfaction.
‘Exactly how posh do you think it’s going to be tonight?’
‘Posh enough for a shoeshine,’ she smiled. Seeing his anxious face she squeezed his arm reassuringly. ‘Hey, I’m joking. I really don’t know how posh it’s going to be, but I do know you’ll fit in fine.’
She glanced at her own reflection behind him and thought how great they looked together. So rarely did they have an opportunity to dress up like this, and she had made a special effort to look as sensational as possible. Her shoulder-length black hair was too short to do anything exotic with, but she had swept it up, framing her strong face. A dash of bronzer sharpened her cheekbones and her green eyes dazzled with the help of pearlized cream over her lids. In her favourite cocktail dress, a cream Ossie Clark shift that made her look and feel like a glamorous Twenties flapper girl, she had to admit she felt wonderful. Now if she could just resist the urge to chew her nails …
‘I also know that Belcourt is supposed to be one of the finest private residences in North America,’ she continued. ‘I mean, the Billingtons are worth fifteen billion dollars. They can afford to throw a good party.’
‘Which is why I’m a bit concerned,’ said Dom as she walked back into the bedroom to pick up her clutch bag. ‘Isn’t this job offer for the Asgill family and not the Billingtons?’
‘Yes. What? I don’t follow.’
Dom opened the minibar and took a swig from a miniature vodka bottle.
‘I mean that if this job was for the Billingtons, I’d say fine, fantastic. They’re rich, connected, politically influential, useful. But who are the Asgills? They’ve got some mid-market cosmetics company and they aren’t even on the Forbes List. That private jet we flew over on was all well and nice, although I bet it’s not theirs, and here we are in a junior suite. I thought they were trying to impress you.’
‘I think that’s a little ungrateful.’
‘I’m just not sure this is the best career move for us, Tess,’ said Dom, draining the rest of the vodka. ‘Granted, the money is fantastic, but whatever happened to “I want to be editor of the Sun”? Who wants to be some nouveau-riche nobody’s hired help?’
She looked at him, wondering if he had noticed how unhappy she had been at the Globe over the past two months, her ability constantly questioned by her new boss. Perhaps it didn’t matter to Dom, so long as her salary meant they could live life high on the hog.
‘This isn’t about how rich this family is,’ said Tess firmly. ‘And it’s certainly not about how big our suite is. The point is that Meredith Asgill might be right, and in a month’s time I might not even have a job at the Globe. We both know how tough it is on the papers at the moment. Who’s to say I’m going to get another job any time soon? And after the week I had last week, I’m not entirely sure I want to be an editor any more.’
He blinked at her, clearly taken aback by her response. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he said sulkily.
‘Think of the money with this Asgill offer, Dom. Think of that two hundred and fifty thousand dollar bonus,’ she said, her eyes glittering. ‘Plus it’s New York, rent-free. I’ve always wanted to work here.’
‘But what about me?’ he asked, his lips in a thin, unhappy line.
‘I know this transatlantic thing is going to be hard,’ she said, stroking his cheek. ‘But if you come out to New York once a month and I come to London once a month, we’ll see each other every two weeks. It’s probably more than we see each other at the moment.’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration …’
‘Okay, a little. But remember that it will be temporary – it’s a fixed-term contract until the wedding, then we’ll play it by ear.’
‘At which point they’d get me a visa?’
She looked away, feeling a pang of guilt. Only last week Dom had told her how his old friend Mungo had bagged some fancy editorial position on the Wall Street Journal. His handsome face had been etched with envy. At twenty-one Dom had been part of an elite band of graduates destined for the very top of the newspaper tree, starting his career on The Times training scheme. Although his peer group was only just touching thirty, they had begun to start scoring columns with The Spectator, jobs in Manhattan or senior positions on the big, prestigious broadsheets, making Dom’s deputy travel editor’s job seem not as impressive as he’d once thought. Perhaps Dom was unlucky; perhaps he was too fond of press trips and free lunches – Tess knew he was rarely in the office these days – but, either way, no fancy New York job offers had come his way and she knew how desperately he wanted the status he thought he deserved, especially when Tess’s own career, the recent wobble notwithstanding, had taken off like a rocket.
‘Well, we didn’t get round to the small print,’ Tess said cautiously. ‘But Meredith did invite you to the party this weekend, so she obviously wants to seduce you with New York too.’
‘That’s not the same as getting me a visa,’ grumbled Dom.
‘Well, if you want a visa that badly –’ she began, running her fingers across his crotch and being gratified by an instant response – ‘then I guess you’re just going to have to marry me,’ she smiled mischievously.
He pulled her in close and grinned. ‘If I thought for one second that either of us was the marrying kind, I might just do that.’
Tess smiled back. It was one of their shared jokes, a pact almost. After nine years together they had no intention of taking the plunge. It wasn’t that they disagreed with marriage; they just wondered what was the point? Marriage was, after all, just a piece of paper, a shackle that made a break-up, should it ever happen, more difficult and expensive. Tess had seen her own parents’ marriage dissolve with such animosity and rancour that she had not spoken to her mother since she was nineteen. Besides, she had seen too many friends disappear into marriage, children, and that whole cloying suburban routine. She had no desire to follow them.
‘How do I look?’ asked Dom, taking one last glance in the mirror.
‘Like James Bond,’ she said, ushering him towards the door.
‘Now come on, the car is waiting. We’ve got the world’s greatest party to get to.’
When Brooke had first agreed to the idea of an engagement party, she had assumed that it would be a small affair for friends and family. Looking down into the crowded, buzzing entrance hall of Belcourt, she almost laughed at her naivety. From her vantage point on the mezzanine terrace, it was obvious that tonight’s party would be more lavish than a state dinner. There were huge arrangements of rare orchids on every surface, silk draped everywhere, and a medieval feast was being arranged in the Great Hall. Such excess was inevitable, really, since they had left the arrangements to David’s mother Rose, but it was incredible what she’d been able to pull together in two weeks. I mean, where did you get so many orchids at this time of year? Waiters in white tails milled around in almost choreographed movement, their trays piled high with canapés. Vintage champagne was served in Baccarat crystal and the flowers perfumed the air like bespoke scent. Couture-clad women danced with captains of industry to the sounds of a big band jazz orchestra led, she could have sworn, by Harry Connick Jr on the grand piano.
There were hundreds, no, maybe even a thousand people here at Belcourt tonight, and they were all here for her. How ironic she didn’t even know most of them! Brooke’s first hour of the party was spent in a whirl, being introduced to scores of people she had never even heard of, let alone met, in nine months of dating David Billington. There were David’s Yale friends, CTV newsroom friends, Andover friends, celebrity friends (yes, that was George Clooney at the bar!). Friends from the think-tanks he belonged to, friends from across the political divide. David, it seemed, had friends everywhere. By contrast, when David’s mother Rose had her assistant call her future daughter-in-law for her list of invitees, Brooke had provided her with sixty or so names.
‘What are you doing hiding away up there?’
David met Brooke at the bottom of the steps and took her hand. Dressed in a midnight-blue suit that complemented the darkness of his hair and the pale olive of his skin, he looked devastatingly handsome.
‘I’m not hiding,’ she said, tapping him playfully. ‘Just taking a little time-out. I’m still in a state of shock that George Clooney is at my engagement party. If he’s at the wedding, I might pass out at the altar.’
‘I’d better hope he’s filming then,’ grinned David, handing her a stemmed glass.
‘Try that. My mom’s butler has come out of retirement just for tonight to mix his special martinis. They’ll keep you awake until sunrise.’
Brooke gaped as Colin Powell walked past and clapped David on the arm in a familiar way.
‘Are all these people coming to the wedding?’ she asked.
David laughed. ‘My mother maintains this is a gathering of close friends.’
‘Meaning they’ll be more people on the wedding guest list?’ she said.
‘The venue can handle it,’ he said obliquely. ‘Besides, it’s good for the charities. We don’t need gifts, do we? So we’ll get the guests to give donations to charity. The more people, the more money we can raise.’
He took her hand and led her through the room. ‘Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘Not another friend of the family?’ she said suspiciously.
He laughed. ‘Not this time. My cousin Lily, she lives in London so you haven’t met her before.’
‘Nice of her to come all this way.’
‘In her own words, she’s come to audition.’
Brooke looked at him. ‘Audition. What for?’
For a second, David’s confident demeanour deserted him. ‘To be a bridesmaid,’ he said, pulling an embarrassed face.
She laughed at the idea. ‘Really? You’re serious?’
‘It’s one of those family things, honey. Twenty-something years ago I was a pageboy at Lily’s eldest sister’s wedding. My mother wants to return the favour.’
‘Wasn’t it enough that you were an angelic ring-bearer?’
‘Let’s call it a family tradition. It would mean a lot to my parents.’
Brooke had tried to avoid thinking about the issue of her bridesmaids because frankly, none of her friends was suitable. Her good friends from Spence and Brown had split off into two increasingly distant groups: career girls and socialites. Predictably, she rarely saw the career girls as they were far too busy moving and shaking in finance, media, and PR, while the friends who had married into money or spent their lives on the party and charity circuit, well, she found them a little too … shallow? Competitive? She had never been able to put her finger on it, but these days she enjoyed their company less and less. A few years ago Brooke had embraced that whole Park Avenue Princess scene – being rich and beautiful it was almost expected – but she had found it exhausting. As legendary socialite Nan Kempner had once said, you had to ‘entertain constantly’, you were constantly locked in a battle of one-upmanship, jockeying for position on the most prestigious junior committees, making sure you were dressed head to toe in the hottest designs.
In some ways it had been fun, especially the big events such as the Costume Institute Gala and the summer parties in the Hamptons, but the constant pressure to get a manicure and blow-dry every time she set foot out of the house quickly became tedious. Slowly Brooke realized she preferred to socialize in a more low-key way: dinner at her favourite restaurants Sfoglia or Raoul’s with friends, for example, or old movies in little art-house theatres downtown. Such individuality was not something that was approved of in the socialite clique, and Brooke had found them drifting away. It had frankly been a relief, when she had started seeing David, that she could step away from all that endless competition, but it did rather leave her without a natural choice for a bridesmaid. The irony of course was that as soon as the engagement was announced, she was swamped with invitations to lunch and parties from the in-crowd; any one of them would have given their entire Manolo collection to be Brooke’s bridesmaid now. So this might actually be the ideal solution: a sweet little cousin might be a way to avoid snubbing her old circle.
‘I quite like the idea of having a pretty little flower girl,’ said Brooke, thinking it over. ‘How old is she?’
‘Not sure. Twenty-nine, thirty, I think.’
‘Thirty? You’re kidding!’ said Brooke.
David shrugged. ‘Come on, baby, you haven’t exactly asked anyone else, have you?’
She looked at him in shock. ‘That’s hardly the point, honey. I’m not going around suggesting a best man for you.’
‘It’s Robert, it was always going to be my brother, it’s tradition in our family,’ he sighed. ‘Come on, honey, it’s no big deal …’
‘It’s a very big deal,’ said Brooke, her face flushing. ‘For a family so fixed on observing all the correct traditions, you’re very quick to ignore them when it comes to me. I suppose you’re going to choose the dress for me next.’
David put his hands on her shoulders and gave her his best smile. ‘Don’t get so worked up,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to say yes, just come and meet her.’
Brooke took a deep breath. This was all meant to be fun.
‘Why is she so desperate to be a bridesmaid anyway?’
‘Nice dress, great party, eligible best man …’
Brooke smiled a little. ‘There’s a very cynical side to you, David Billington.’
In the flesh, Lily Salter couldn’t have been further from Brooke’s idea of a ‘sweet little cousin’. She was tall and pretty, with long dark bouncy hair and beautiful posture, although her eyes looked a little glassy from too many late nights. Lily had gone to London to work in the Marc Jacobs London press office, and now had her own up-market PR agency. She was a mainstay on the Notting Hill American ex-pat party circuit, and it showed.
‘Brooke,’ said Lily as David introduced her. ‘You look amazing. Very Helen of Troy.’
Brooke smiled, grateful for the compliment. Brooke had always loved clothes; she enjoyed putting outfits together, playing with styles, but in the days since her relationship with David had gone public, she had lost a bit of confidence in her own dress sense. Every time she left the house she was scrutinized by the press; every dress and shoe examined, her outfits declared ‘Hit’ or ‘Miss’ in the weekly tabloid rags. Before David, a night like tonight would have been great fun, playfully imagining herself as Lauren Hutton at Studio 54, Mia Farrow’s Daisy in The Great Gatsby, or Veronica Lake in some Forties film noir. The endless public scrutiny crushed that pleasure and ate away at her faith in her own judgement. Tonight, however, had been different. Tonight Brooke felt beautiful in a putty grey Grecian gown that fell in gentle waves to the floor; comfortable because of the relaxed structure, yet sexy as the fine silk brushed against her skin. It had a sweeping neck that showed off a rose-gold choker – an engagement present from David – and a low back perfect for showing off her buttery blonde hair.
‘Thank you,’ said Brooke, flushing slightly. ‘David bought it for me for the party.’
He grinned. ‘I’ve been assured there are only two in existence. Apparently Kate Moss has the other one. I’m sure Brooke wears it even better than she does.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Lily appreciatively. ‘Who styles you?’
‘My fiancé,’ laughed Brooke.
David gave Brooke’s arm a squeeze. ‘I’ll leave you two girls to it,’ he smiled.
‘Do you ever wake up and pinch yourself?’ said Lily, as she watched David move through the crowd shaking hands and exchanging jokes.
‘Pinch myself? About the engagement?’
Lily nodded. ‘About David. Every girlfriend of mine has been in love with him since school. I know he’s my cousin and everything, but I do think he’s sexy – is that wrong?’ she giggled. ‘Anyway, I’m so happy for you. Tell me about the proposal, I bet it was romantic.’
‘We were standing on a terrace overlooking Paris and when we looked up we saw a shooting star sweep across the sky. How could I say no with an omen like that?’
Lily’s mouth formed an ‘O’.
‘And where’s the wedding going to be?’
Brooke pulled a face. ‘We’re keeping it under wraps for the moment.’
‘Well, let me know the second you want me to do something. I know it’s a bit trickier with me in London, but we can work all that out. It’s totally an honour to be invited to be your bridesmaid.’
Brooke looked at her, puzzled. ‘I’m sorry?’
Lily just laughed. ‘Oh, I know it’s silly, but you know how everyone says David is going to be president one day? I have this little fantasy where sometime in the future everyone is going to be interested in every detail of this wedding; the dress, the venue, even the bridesmaids,’ she giggled. ‘There might even be a little guided tour where the guide says, “… and this is where Lily Salter caught the bouquet”.’
Brooke didn’t know whether to be furious or grateful that at least the bridesmaid issue was settled – even if she hadn’t actually made the decision herself. Had Lily somehow got the wrong end of the stick, she wondered, or had Rose, David’s mother, simply offered her the job? Worse still, had David gone ahead and recruited her without asking? He had looked rather shamefaced when he mentioned the ‘family tradition’. Whatever the source of this mix-up, Brooke began to feel a worrying loss of control. If she didn’t have a free choice of her bridesmaids, then what else could she rely on?
Oblivious to Brooke’s discomfort, Lily hooked her arm through Brooke’s and took another glass of champagne from a waiter.
‘Rose thought it would be a good idea if we fixed up a lunch before I went back to London, what do you think?’ she gushed. ‘There’s so much to talk about, isn’t there? I mean, is it going to be a church ceremony? If it is, I think bare shoulders might upset some of the older family, but if it’s not, I was thinking strapless, cut away low at the back. Backs are so important. After all, that’s what the congregation are going to be looking at …’
Tess and Dom had spent the first hour of the party wandering around Belcourt, their mouths open. Away from the Grand Ballroom, where hundreds of glamorous people laughed and danced, the house was even more impressive, corridor upon corridor lined with fine art and tapestries.
‘It’s like visiting the Louvre at night,’ whispered Dom.
‘It’s amazing. But a bit eerie. It really would be like living in a museum.’
‘So you’re telling me you wouldn’t like to live here.’
‘I never said that at all,’ she said with a little hiccup.
Tess was a little worried that she had drunk too much. Belcourt had been so intimidating she’d needed a couple of martinis just to loosen up. Dom’s negativity at the hotel hadn’t helped, although his mood had improved considerably since the town car had swung into the tree-fringed driveway and they’d got their first glimpse of the house. It was magnificent. The drive was lined with flickering torches, while Klieg lights turned the limestone façade of the house a blinding white. In the fading light, Tess could see that Belcourt’s grounds were as magnificent as Richmond Park, Tess’s favourite spot in London, but it was the interior that really dazzled. It was wall-to-wall marble, with huge gilt mirrors and polished oak panelling, but it wasn’t only the decor they were looking at. If Tess hadn’t known how influential the hosts were, she might have believed her eyes were playing tricks on her. After all, how many ‘intimate gatherings’ could get die-hard Democrat George Clooney and Republican ex-president George W. Bush in the same place at the same time? She had honestly never seen so many famous faces in one place before. For a second, Tess considered phoning through the story to the Globe offices, before remembering that her loyalties might soon lie elsewhere.
In an attempt to get a grip on herself, Tess found a quiet spot in the conservatory at the side of the house and sent Dom to the bar to see if they could rustle up some coffee.
Outside in the blackness, a fountain sprayed silver ribbons into the sky; as she stared at it, Tess reflected that she really hadn’t been prepared for this trip. She wasn’t at all sure what she had expected, but Belcourt was certainly more grand and imposing than she had imagined. She supposed the trouble was that she wasn’t particularly experienced in society parties. She had been to a few swish press launches in her time, she had even been to 10 Downing Street for a briefing on women’s issues, but the only real party of this calibre she had attended was when she had browbeaten the Globe’s showbiz desk into getting her an invitation to Elton’s White Tie and Tiara ball.
Pull yourself together, Tess, she scolded herself. They’re only human. It really wasn’t like her to be so nervous in a social situation. Newspaper reporting didn’t allow for such delicate personalities. Doorstepping enraged politicians, interviewing bereaved families, witnessing murder scenes and accident sites; it all toughened you up. But this was something else. Inside this house, she had felt invisible.
‘Ossie Clark Nineteen Sixty-three,’ said an upper-class English voice behind her. ‘Which means you are British, making me wonder why we haven’t ever met before. I thought I knew all the interesting English people in New York.’
Tess turned to see a slim man of around seventy regarding her with amusement. His voice and appearance were in perfect harmony; he sounded like a Raj-era colonial viceroy and was dressed accordingly in a cream three-piece suit with a scarlet spotted cravat. He had two-tone spectator shoes on his feet and a gold pocket watch sticking out of his waistcoat. To complete the look, he carried an ivory-handled cane hooked over his arm.
‘Wow, yes. This is Ossie Clark,’ said Tess, smoothing down her dress. ‘How on earth did you know?’
‘The designer of your dress or that you’re a Brit?’ he asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Both,’ smiled Tess.
‘The former because I knew Ossie and Celia intimately. The latter because New York girls generally don’t do vintage. Certainly not so tastefully if they do.’
‘Well, not all of us can afford couture,’ said Tess, blushing slightly.
‘No one with your legs needs couture, my dear.’
Tess knew she had only just met this man, but she liked him immediately. He was charming, open, and a little mischievous, a combination of qualities she felt was in short supply in New York society. More than that, with her journalist instincts, Tess immediately sized him up as being someone worth knowing.
‘Sorry, I’m Charles Devine.’ He extended a frail hand. ‘Interior designer. An old friend of the Billingtons, the Asgills, and well, everyone worth knowing.’
Tess shook his hand warmly. ‘Tess Garrett. Journalist. Friend of nobody in this room.’
‘Good Lord, a journalist?’ cried Charles with mock alarm. ‘Are you a gate-crasher? I thought the security was as tight as Fort Knox out there.’
Tess laughed and shook her head. ‘More of a last-minute invitee. I only arrived in New York this morning.’
‘How extraordinary,’ said Charles appreciatively. ‘I can see we’re going to be friends. It takes some people a lifetime of social mountaineering to score an invite to Belcourt, and here you are, straight off the boat. Now, you simply must let me show you around.’ He offered Tess his arm and led her back into the main house where the party was in full swing.
‘It is a fantastic party, isn’t it?’ said Tess, still wide-eyed at the spectacle.
‘Indeed,’ nodded Charles. ‘One of the best I’ve ever been to – and let me tell you, my dear, I have been to a lot of parties. In fact this one might even make my memoirs. I’m only sketching them out at this stage, of course; the problem is not what to put in but what to leave out.’
Tess was intrigued. Charles Devine was clearly a character; perhaps he could give her more insight into the family. She had a hunch that if Charles didn’t know about it, it wasn’t worth knowing. They sat down on two Louis XV chairs facing each other.
‘Brooke and David are a lovely couple, aren’t they?’ said Tess, fishing for gossip.
‘Indeed,’ he smiled. ‘Everyone has very high hopes for them, although personally I’d prefer New York’s premier power couple to be a little more interesting.’
‘Oh dear. So what’s David like?’
Charles laughed playfully. ‘Too good-looking to be dull, too ambitious to be fun.’
‘And what about her?’
‘She’s sweet. So sweet I wonder if she can handle all this attention,’ said Charles. ‘Fair enough if she’s in it for the money, but one suspects Brooke is marrying America’s most eligible bachelor because she is in love with America’s most eligible bachelor. I’m always a little suspicious about those sorts of girls.’
‘I got the impression that Meredith is the ambitious one.’
Charles smiled coyly. ‘Darling, I’d love to give you more information, but first you must give me a little juice in return. Do tell: how did a journalist manage to get under the wire? I doubt it’s simply beginner’s luck.’
‘Actually, I’m being wooed for a job with the Asgills.’
He raised his eyebrows again. ‘As …?’
‘I’m not sure I can say any more,’ smiled Tess playfully, knowing it would be unbearable for him not to know.
‘Darling, just tell me. I’ll find out somehow.’
She shrugged. ‘They want me to be the family’s publicist.’
Charles laughed, a delighted, tinkling laugh. ‘Well, I suppose everyone in Manhattan has their own publicist now, don’t they – present company excluded, of course – I’ve really never felt the need given the reliability of the grapevine … I’m only surprised it’s taken the Asgills so long.’
‘I think it’s pragmatism in this case,’ smiled Tess. ‘They can’t have Brooke involved in any scandal that would stop them marrying into all this.’
‘Yes, I can see that …’ said Charles thoughtfully. ‘The hypocrisy of the rich at work once again, of course.’
Tess frowned, sensing a story. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, of course you’re right; David has a big political future and so Brooke won’t be able to put a foot wrong – that’s why they need someone like you. But it’s a little rich to say it’s all about Brooke’s behaviour. David dated someone five, six years ago, you see. Actress, beautiful girl. Photographed taking cocaine in some nightclub in LA. Terrible business. Six weeks later she moved to France to film some “art-house movie”.’ Charles framed the phrase in quotation marks. ‘She was never heard of in this country again. Then of course there’s Wendell,’ he said, pointing the handle of his cane in the direction of an older man with pewter hair, brushed white at the temples. Tess recognized him as Wendell Billington, David’s father, who had been pointed out to her earlier.
‘In my direct line of vision I see at least four women Wendell has had sex with, one a long-term mistress. Can’t keep his regal cock in his trousers, but of course that’s fine. Joe Kennedy was a terrible philanderer and it didn’t hurt his son’s presidential ambitions one jot. It’s a question of class, you see. The Billingtons are in a different class to the Asgills. They are more … how shall I put it? More bullet-proof.’
‘Class?’ said Tess. ‘I didn’t think that existed in America.’
Charles chuckled. He swept his hand across the room dramatically, only pausing to take a glass of champagne from a passing waiter in one fluid movement.
‘This city is full of money, but what everyone wants is class. Obviously you can acquire class much quicker over here; you only have to look at the Lauders to see that. Old Estée Lauder was a Hungarian immigrant, but she builds a cosmetics dynasty and now they are one of the grand families of New York. But no, the Asgills aren’t the Lauders: they’re not rich enough and their business is not as prestigious. In fact, people still refer to Howard, Meredith’s late husband, as ‘the butcher’s son’. And then there was all that business at his wedding,’ he added, leaning in and dropping his voice. ‘The missing actress,’ he whispered.
‘What missing actress?’
Charles smiled a wicked smile. ‘Oh my dear, I thought you were their publicist? Surely a keeper of secrets has to know what they are.’
‘Hey, I haven’t taken the job yet, remember,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe you can persuade me.’
Charles stood up and gestured for Tess to follow. Glancing around like a stage villain, he led her into a quiet alcove and they sat down in a window seat upholstered in purple velvet.
‘Howard and Meredith got married at Meredith’s parents’ home in Louisiana,’ began Charles with relish. ‘In 1964, I think. Her family had money – new money, mind you. Father had bought one of those antebellum plantation houses from an old sugar-caning family that had lost everything, and that was where they got married. Think Gone with the Wind, only right down by the river. Anyway, on the night of the nuptials, one of their wedding guests went missing. An actress called Olivia Martin. A beautiful, vivacious girl. The best ankles in Hollywood,’ he added without a hint of irony.
‘How awful,’ said Tess.
‘It certainly was for poor Meredith and her lovely new husband, Howard, especially with all the allegations that were flying about.’
‘What allegations?’ asked Tess, hoping desperately that Dom would stay searching for coffee. She didn’t want anything to interrupt this story.
‘Olivia was last seen at the party after the ceremony. She was staying in a guest cottage on the estate. When they realized she was missing, the police were called and her cottage was found unlocked and empty.’
‘What do they suppose happened to her?’
Charles shrugged. ‘Suicide, perhaps. She was addicted to dolls, what we called barbiturates in those days. Every starlet was on dolls; it was part of the scene. And she was known to be depressed about something. Theory was she walked into the Mississippi – it was yards from the cottage.’
‘That’s horrible, but it’s hardly a scandal, is it?’ said Tess. ‘I mean, no one could blame the Asgills, could they?’
Charles smiled knowingly.
‘There were whispers – and they were only whispers once people had been paid off – that Olivia was murdered, and some people were pointing the finger at Howard Asgill. Apparently he and Olivia had been having an affair.’
‘From what you were saying about Wendell, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Tess, feeling a sense of intrigue. ‘But it doesn’t mean to say he killed her, does it?’
Charles shook his head. ‘Of course not, and that was why the story went away. There was no body, no proof. No evidence of any kind, in fact. Stories appeared everywhere about the extent of Olivia’s drink and drug problem and how depressed she was. People believed that she had wanted to die.’
Tess let out a long breath. ‘Well, I had no idea.’
‘No, most people haven’t,’ said Charles. ‘After all, it was decades ago. Forgotten. But, bringing us back to the present day and to you, my dear … one dead starlet is enough scandal for the Asgills for one lifetime, especially when their daughter is marrying America’s bright new political hope. No wonder Meredith wants to hire a troubleshooter.’
‘Nothing to do with my abilities, of course,’ smiled Tess.
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll do a marvellous job,’ said Charles thoughtfully. ‘Trouble is, the appointment might well be forty years too late.’
‘Darling, how are you enjoying yourself?’
Brooke turned to her mother and embraced her. She smiled, knowing that Meredith had spent the evening having the time of her life, mingling like a statesperson. Brooke had to admit she looked the part too. Her hair was styled back into a champagne bun. She had on a long blue dress that Brooke recognized from the cowl neck as Oscar de la Renta and a large sapphire sat regally on a string of fat pearls around her neck.
‘It’s been a lovely night,’ said Brooke, ‘despite the fact it’s full of “close friends” I’ve never seen before in my life,’ she added playfully. ‘So who was that I saw you talking to earlier? The pretty girl in the sparkly dress? Good-looking man with her.’
Meredith looked over to the other side of the ballroom where she could see Tess sipping coffee while her boyfriend drank his champagne rather too quickly.
‘That’s Tess Garrett. She may be doing some public relations for the family in the run-up to the wedding. I must introduce you.’
‘Oh, Mom! What do we need a publicist for? I’ve told you, I want to keep things as normal as possible. For my sanity, please?’
‘Did I hear the words “public relations”?’ said a deep voice behind them. ‘Do you really think this lovely young lady needs any more publicity?’ laughed Wendell Billington, putting his arms around the two women. David’s father was an impressive-looking man, with dark, narrow eyes and a strong chin. He wasn’t tall, but he had a presence that seemed to overfill his space. ‘You needn’t worry, my dear,’ he continued in his gravelly baritone. ‘My office will be overseeing the communications side of the wedding, keeping a lid on it all. I’m sure we’ve all started thinking about the guest list, and there will obviously be security issues with some of the people attending.’
‘Of course, Wendell,’ smiled Meredith, putting a hand on his forearm. ‘We were just talking about someone working for the Asgill group. Hello, is that Alessandro Franchetti?’ she said suddenly, looking over Wendell’s shoulder. ‘Where on earth has he been all evening? I thought he might be a bit more noticeable, the amount we’re paying him.’
As Alessandro approached, Brooke kissed him lightly on both cheeks, but his expression remained grim.
‘I haven’t seen you all evening,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I haven’t been here all evening,’ he hissed back, leading her away from Meredith and Wendell. ‘I’ve been firefighting.’
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
‘Everything’s the matter,’ said Alessandro. ‘This afternoon I phoned the owner of the Hudson Lodge in Duchess County to tell him we definitely wanted it for the wedding. He said I should contact someone else about it – someone in Dubai.’
‘Dubai?’ said Brooke, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
‘Last week he agreed to sell it to some sheikh.’
‘Then why did we drive seventy miles to look at it yesterday?’ said Brooke, her cheeks burning and tears welling in her eyes. Alessandro looked at the floor.
‘I’d been dealing with his sister,’ he said. ‘She obviously wasn’t in the loop.’
‘Darling, what’s the matter?’ said Meredith, seeing Brooke’s distress.
‘There’s a problem with Hudson Lodge,’ said Alessandro. ‘The good news is that the new owner wants to renovate it to the standard of The Point in the Adirondacks.’
‘And the bad news …?’ asked Meredith.
‘Work on it won’t be starting for three months and renovation will take over a year. That means we’re looking at next fall at the earliest.’
Brooke took a deep breath through her nose and willed herself not to get upset. It’s only a venue, she reminded herself. It doesn’t mean anything. But suddenly she thought of the shooting star in Paris, only this time the glittering orb was obscured by a big grey cloud.
Wendell took a step forward and rubbed Brooke’s arm kindly. ‘Perhaps you should reconsider our place in Newport?’ he said.
Brooke had a sudden flutter of panic, feeling the wedding getting further and further from the vision she had always had of her perfect day: a relaxed, happy, perfect occasion with the barefoot bride saying her vows next to lapping water. Yes, Cliffpoint, the Billingtons’ summer ‘cottage’, as David liked to call it, was majestic, but it was like a museum, so manicured and painstakingly tended. Brooke wanted wildness, rawness, the romance of nature. She didn’t want Cliffpoint, or Lily Salter as her bridesmaid. Wasn’t planning your wedding supposed to be fun?
‘Surely Cliffpoint would be perfect for a spring wedding, don’t you agree, Meredith?’ continued Wendell. ‘We have to make sure we’re sending out the right signals. Family values are important to us.’
Meredith looked conflicted, although she was disguising it well.
‘Thank you for your suggestion, Wendell,’ said a deep voice, ‘but it’s all under control.’
Just then Brooke felt two warm hands on her shoulders and turned to see a handsome older man smiling down at her. It was her Uncle Leonard. Leonard was Meredith’s brother, younger by a couple of years, and he had taken on a fatherly role since the death of Brooke’s own father. Brooke smiled back at him gratefully; his was just the friendly face she needed when she was feeling under such pressure.
‘I’ve offered Brooke and David Jewel Cay,’ said Leonard smoothly. ‘We think it will be perfect. Keeps it in the family too. Didn’t you tell them Brooke? David and I have just been discussing it.’
Brooke caught Leonard’s lightning-fast wink, then took a slow, deliberate sip of champagne to cover her grin. David walked over and gave her a reassuring nod.
‘Jewel Cay? What’s that?’ said Alessandro, clearly searching his mental database for a mention of the venue.
‘It’s my house in the Florida Keys,’ replied Leonard. ‘I didn’t want to offer it before; didn’t want to butt in on the bride’s big day.’
‘Oh but it’s gorgeous,’ gushed Brooke, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘It’s a beautiful big white conch house on its own little island, a few miles from Islamorada. We used to go every winter. It would be ideal, Uncle Leonard!’
David nodded. ‘And the weather is perfect from late November,’ he said, smiling at Brooke’s delight. ‘The hurricane season will be over. It won’t be too hot.’
‘A winter wedding,’ smiled Brooke, grabbing David’s arm and squeezing.
‘What about New Year’s Eve?’ he asked.
Alessandro raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the party. ‘Impossible. Half this crowd will be in St Barts or Palm Beach.’
‘Well, if they’ve got better things to do, then we’ll uninvite them,’ said Brooke happily.
‘Thinking about security,’ said Wendell, stroking his chin, ‘it might be a good thing if the world thinks it’s going to be at Hudson Lodge sometime next summer. I’ll speak to my contacts in Dubai. Get in touch with the new owner. See if they’ll be in on it.’
‘It couldn’t have worked out better,’ said Brooke, throwing her arms around Leonard’s neck. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’
Leonard picked her up and laughed. ‘I take it that’s a yes, then?’
All her life, Tess had wanted money. Not in the way Dom liked money: to keep up with or show off to his coterie of privileged public-school friends. Tess wanted money because she had never had it growing up. The bankruptcy of her father’s business had not only destroyed the family, it had destroyed his self-worth because the bank – and your fellow men – judged you on your ability to pay your bills. Her father had died unhappy because he felt he had failed his family, failed as a man. Tess never wanted anybody to make her feel inferior, and it had fed her ambition like petrol on a bonfire. The red soles on her Louboutin shoes were a statement that she could afford nice things, but also that she could take care of herself. She loved ticking the ‘Over seventy-five thousand pounds’ income bracket on magazine questionnaires, and was one of the few people who actually enjoyed getting accosted by the charity muggers on the high street, as when she signed the direct debit form, she felt she was in control. So, if she was honest, when Meredith Asgill had offered her the job of family publicist, the only thing that had really stopped Tess taking the job immediately was that niggling feeling that the job was a mirage. After all, this was a clever, influential family who had no qualms about offering Tess a large bribe to make a story disappear. QED, there was a strong chance that the high-paying job in New York – a city that every ambitious twenty-something wanted to work in – was simply a more acceptable bribe.
During dinner at the Connaught the previous evening, Meredith had certainly spun some wonderful tales about life in Manhattan that were clearly designed to whet a young girl’s appetite for the glamorous excesses of living in New York. But Tess was still concerned that the ‘job’ was the equivalent of the ‘project development’ room at the Globe, the sideways promotion given to troublesome or failing executives. It was not a proper job, just a well-paid purgatory to keep the marked person busy until the CEO and their team of lawyers had worked out an inexpensive way to fire them.
But now, after Charles Devine’s revelations, it looked as if Tess had been mistaken about Meredith’s offer. There really was a job to be done protecting the Asgills. There were secrets. Plenty of secrets. And Tess’s gut feeling – a reliable instinct honed on the tabloid frontlines – was that there were plenty more skeletons still rattling away in the cupboard.
Tess looked out over the crowd and spotted Meredith on the other side of the ballroom. Catching her eye, Meredith began to walk across the dance floor towards her, gliding like a peacock, her chin lifted, her back straight, the silk skirt of her gown rustling as she walked. She looked like a czarina, the most refined sixty-something Tess had ever seen.
‘Tess. Are you having a good time?’
Meredith looked composed as she played with the stem of her martini glass, but her eyes had the jubilant look of a lottery winner.
‘Incredible party,’ nodded Tess. ‘I heard someone say that David’s mum pulled this all together in a fortnight?’
‘She’s very experienced at get-togethers,’ said Meredith gracefully. ‘I only wish she could have persuaded David to say a few words. He’s such a wonderful speaker. But the pair of them wanted to keep things as informal as possible.’
Tess smiled crookedly. ‘If they wanted informal, they shouldn’t have had it at Belcourt. Buckingham Palace would have been more low-key.’
Meredith just nodded.
‘So is Sean here?’ asked Tess.
‘He’s in Minnesota,’ said Meredith evenly, holding Tess’s gaze. ‘Rehabilitating.’
‘Good. I’m glad to hear he’s getting better.’
Meredith nodded over towards Dom, who was laughing with a group of young girls and waving a bottle of champagne about in illustration of some story he was telling. ‘Is your boyfriend enjoying himself?’
‘He likes it here,’ said Tess, carefully covering her annoyance at the jibe. ‘He was wondering – if I took the job – whether a visa could be sorted out for him too?’
‘It’s not impossible,’ said Meredith. ‘If you took the job. If things work out.’ She straightened the pearls around her neck. ‘But I can’t hold the job offer open indefinitely.’
‘Well, on that subject, I’ve just had an interesting insight into the family. It’s given me a greater idea of the challenges of the role.’
‘Really? Who from?’
‘Charles Devine.’
Meredith laughed gaily. ‘Dear old Charles. How on earth did he get an invitation? He’s not terribly fashionable these days, contrary to what he thinks. What nonsense has he been telling you?’
‘He told me about Olivia Martin,’ said Tess, looking straight at Meredith.
There was a minute’s pause as Meredith blinked and swallowed.
‘What about her?’ she asked.
‘About her death.’
Meredith’s expression clouded over.
‘Charles Devine is just a silly busybody,’ she said with force. ‘He’s Manhattan’s biggest gossip. Half of what he says is a figment of his imagination. He …’
Then Meredith seemed to stop herself, closing her eyes in an effort of self-control.
‘Whatever he has said to you …’
‘I have to know everything, Meredith,’ interrupted Tess. ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything. And I mean everything.’
Meredith took a sip of corner, and touched her arm to escort her into a quiet corner. ‘Forgive me, but I was not keen to tell you about private matters affecting my family when you haven’t even taken the job,’ she said, looking around to make sure no one was listening.
‘Why were there rumours about Olivia and Howard?’
Meredith laughed coldly. ‘When a beautiful starlet and a rich businessman are friends, there will always be rumours.’
‘And what do you think happened the night of your wedding?’ Tess felt stronger now she was on familiar ground – probing, getting to the bottom of the story. She was even beginning to enjoy herself.
Meredith looked at her and saw she wouldn’t let it drop. She sighed.
‘I honestly don’t know what happened. I believe that Olivia was depressed, but I barely knew her; I had only met her a couple of times before the wedding. She was only there because she was an ambassador of the Asgill lipstick range. If she is dead – and that was never proved – of course it’s a tragedy. It was certainly a black cloud over our entire wedding, so you can understand me wanting Brooke’s big day to be perfect.’
Tess looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I thought this job was just to get me off the Globe and out of London,’ she said honestly.
‘No, I can see why you might think that, but there is a job to be done here, Tess. My family needs protecting and I think you could be good at it.’
She looked across the crowd. Brooke and David were standing on the staircase, having their picture taken and laughing.
‘Look at how happy Brooke and David are. A perfect president and first lady, don’t you think? That’s what’s at stake here, Tess, not just the reputation of the family. It’s bigger than that.’
Tess took a sip of champagne and carefully plated the flute on the table beside her. Dom was nowhere to be seen. Not that he would affect her decision anyway.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said simply.
Meredith’s face broke into a warm smile. She took Tess’s hand in both of hers.
‘I knew you’d come to the right decision,’ she said. ‘Resign from the Globe on Monday and you can start as soon as you can get here. There’s plenty of work to be done. And Tess? Welcome to the family.’
5 (#ulink_897dffae-b147-5831-8218-70bd52c76803)
The Asgill Cosmetics conference room was an impressive place. The silk wallpaper, the shelves full of industry awards, and the Chippendale chairs lined up along the long walnut table all reeked of corporate success. Should anyone be in any doubt as to the company’s place in the world, the floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the bustle of Manhattan, a city full of grateful customers. But, despite the grandeur of the surroundings, anyone attending an actual meeting in the conference room could detect that all was not well. Only a decade ago, Asgill’s had been one of the top ten cosmetics companies in America. Not as big as the giants such as L’Oréal or Maybelline, but within striking distance of Max Factor and Cover Girl. Today, though, Asgill Cosmetics was in trouble, a situation that had developed not suddenly but over a protracted period of time; a state of affairs that at least one member of the board found totally unacceptable. Liz Asgill was already seated at the far end of the table as the rest of the executive board filed into the room, and she watched the general managers of the individual brands shuffle to their seats with barely concealed contempt. From their grey faces and dour expressions, Liz felt sure that their reports would be filled with nothing but bad news.
‘Perhaps we should make a start,’ said Liz officiously, once everyone was in the room.
William, nominally the head of the company, seemed distracted, fiddling with his laptop at the head of the table, the prestigious slot that Meredith – as company chairman – had occupied during board meetings until about six months ago. Now she sat to his right, Liz opposite her. Finally William looked up and nodded deferentially to Liz before addressing the room.
‘I know you’ve all prepared your report for the individual divisions,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I think today we just need to concentrate on the first quarter’s results and look at where we’re heading in the light of those.’
There were unsettled grumblings around the room as William introduced Quentin, their chief financial officer, and asked him to run through the figures. Liz could tell within a minute that they were the worst results the company had ever posted.
Liz watched William closely, waiting to see what spin her brother would attempt to put on the latest downwards turn, which had been caused by the recent launch of Vital Radiance, a low-priced organics range that – in theory – dispensed fresh beauty products from pumps placed in stores.
‘As you can see, we’re quite a way off where we’d like to be at this point,’ said William. ‘The launch costs of Natural Glow have obviously been fairly heavy, ditto the forthcoming Skin Plus.’
‘Presumably we’re going to have to reforecast the end-of-year results?’ asked Meredith. William shook his head.
‘We should wait until the second quarter for that. Obviously we’re all hoping that Natural Glow is going to be a big hit.’
Liz watched as the rest of the board followed William’s cue and started smiling and nodding at this slim chance of rescue. Clearly nobody else had detected the slight waver in her brother’s voice that betrayed panic.
‘Quentin, have we got a breakdown of the Natural Glow sales figures?’ she asked, interrupting William’s flow. Quentin nodded and handed out his First Quarter Financial Report. Liz didn’t miss the uncomfortable glance he directed at Eleanor Cohen, general manager of the Natural Glow line, as he passed her a copy. Eleanor was an experienced cosmetics industry executive who’d been recently drafted in for her knowledge of marketing in department stores.
‘The first few weeks after the November launch were admittedly slow,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘But retail conditions for everyone this Christmas were difficult.’
‘Not for everyone,’ said Liz.
Eleanor tried to avoid Liz’s stare, instead directing her comments to William and Meredith.
‘However, the press coverage we’ve had is excellent. Allure gave us half a page for the avocado cleansing oil, which is showing all the signs of becoming a cult classic.’
Liz almost laughed. Already there had been rumours that the drugstores were going to cut back on the retail space they had allocated for Natural Glow because of poor initial sales. If that happened, it was a certain death warrant for the brand.
‘Eleanor, let’s face facts,’ said Liz irritably. ‘We are dead in the water if we don’t do something radical immediately to start shifting units.’
‘Liz, now is not the time for scaremongering,’ said Eleanor.
‘Scaremongering? Natural Glow is haemorrhaging money. It won’t last until fall at this rate.’
Liz looked over at her brother. Only eighteen months older than her, William looked at least a decade her senior: old and tired, worn out by the responsibility. He had none of Liz’s flair and none of the natural authority of their father; he was just a worker bee, a drone reluctantly forced into the queen’s seat. Liz, on the other hand, had been profiled in the Wall Street Journal as ‘that rare executive, one who combines creative brilliance with astute business sense’. They both knew who should be sitting in William’s chair.
William cleared his throat. ‘Let’s not forget that the product we have here is good.’
Liz laughed. ‘Of course it’s good.’
Before Eleanor Cohen had been brought in to launch Natural Glow, the product had been Liz’s baby. The fresh organics concept had been her idea, and she had spent fifteen hours a day working with industrial designers to perfect the dispensing pumps that mixed the fresh ingredients in-store.
‘The problem is not the product,’ said Liz, looking pointedly at Eleanor, ‘the problem is the marketing.’
‘Well, it would have been nice to have received this insight before we launched,’ replied Eleanor tartly.
‘I assumed marketing was your area of expertise,’ retorted Liz. ‘Wasn’t that why we hired you?’
‘Okay, everyone, let’s keep things constructive,’ said William. ‘Liz, you clearly have some ideas.’
A faint smile played on Liz’s lips. She had been anticipating another difficult board meeting and relished the opportunity to place herself in the sun.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘First of all, we’re not using our core brand effectively. Nobody knows that Natural Glow is part of the Asgill brand.’
‘You are quite happy for Skin Plus not to have brand association to the company,’ scoffed Eleanor.
Liz shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s different. Skin Plus is being positioned as a premium, luxury product, so we need to distance ourselves from Asgill’s. Natural Glow, on the other hand, is very mass market. When you’ve only got fifty dollars disposable income a week and you’re spending a chunk of that on a face cream, the customers want the reassurance that it’s good. They like the validation that a major cosmetics player is behind it, so we should have branded it Natural Glow by Asgill on all the retail units.’
‘I disagree—’ said Eleanor, before Liz cut her off mid-sentence.
‘Point two. We’ve created these fantastic pumps that allow us to deliver fresh product, with fresh ingredients blended and dispensed in front of them, but does the consumer really understand that? Have they been told about the benefits of this unique product? I don’t think so.’
‘We had the idea of putting the star bursts on the retail units,’ offered Caroline Peterson, the marketing director.
‘Nice idea, shame it didn’t happen,’ said Liz witheringly. At this point, Liz reached behind her and picked up a Natural Glow advertising board.
‘Three,’ continued Liz, now in full flow. ‘Advertising.’
The image she held up was of a sliced avocado sitting next to a tumbler of water, a drip of water on the rim of the glass. It was an image that made Liz angry just to look at it, an affront to all the hard work she had put into research and development to bring the product to life.
‘Look at it,’ she said, tapping the board. ‘How is an avocado going to make Natural Glow the market leader in mass-market skincare?’
Caroline Peterson looked embarrassed as she opened her mouth to speak.
‘We worked with O&M for twelve months on this campaign. We felt that the avocado summed up in one image everything that the brand stood for. Exotic yet accessible. Fresh and natural. The soft lime green of the fruit … it says healthy and aspirational.’
Liz rolled her eyes. ‘This line is aimed at the under-thirty-fives. They don’t respond to a fucking avocado.’
Now she pulled out another board with a pasted-up image torn from magazines. It was a photograph of a beautiful woman running along a beach.
‘This is what they respond to. Straightforward, aspirational lifestyle images. They want to be fit and beautiful, and this product will give them that.’
‘Are you now proposing we ditch an advertising campaign that has been running for less than ten weeks?’ asked Eleanor with alarm.
Liz nodded. ‘Absolutely. I also propose that we recall our retail units to rebrand them “Natural Glow by Asgill”. I also think we need a celebrity face, shot in a lifestyle context rather than in the bland studio shoot everybody else does. In fact, I was thinking we could use Brooke.’
There was another murmur from the board, this time one of approval and interest. Liz knew she had their attention.
‘Brooke?’ asked Meredith cautiously. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Remember Aerin Lauder fronting Lauder’s Private Collection fragrances? Everyone thought it was the perfect fit. I think this will be a perfect fit too. Who better represents what the young woman of today wants than Brooke Asgill?’
Liz held up her photo of the girl on the beach. ‘Imagine this girl is Brooke. Now, imagine the headline: “Fresh, fun, fabulous - Natural Glow by Asgill”. In fact, having Brooke as our front woman might even save us rebranding the in-store pumps. After all, everyone in the country knows who she is.’
William shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘These are great ideas, Liz, but it would be such an embarrassing U-turn in the industry.’
Liz spun to face him, anger prickling her cheeks. ‘Either we save face and we discontinue the line, or we take decisive action now,’ she said fiercely, her frustration at William’s ineffectual leadership spilling over.
Things had been so different since her father died. Howard and Liz would have huge debates in board meetings, constantly challenging each other, bouncing ideas off each other, so that they produced better results than anyone had originally hoped. Liz and Howard had been so similar, so close. Liz knew he had wanted her to be CEO of the company when he stepped down, but his death from a stroke four years previously had been swift, and formal provision for Liz had never been made. Meredith inherited Howard’s shareholding and she had allowed William to take over the company.
Still, she had some allies. Leonard Carter was nodding his head. Younger than Meredith but still in his sixties, he too no longer worked five days a week, but he was still a respected member of the board. After all, he’d spent twenty years as vice president in charge of international development.
‘We could certainly use Liz’s ideas to roll out the Natural Glow launch in Europe. We’re only just liaising with the media planners now. The avocados were going to be the global brand image, but we could change that.’
‘Hmm, I’m not sure the Billingtons will approve of this,’ said Meredith thoughtfully.
William pointedly ignored Liz’s glare and glanced down at his watch.
‘We should push on. Let’s save this for the Natural Glow brand meeting.’
Meredith had a glorious corner office from which she could see the Empire State Building. She mixed herself a drink from the cabinet by the window, watching the yellow cabs and pedestrians below. Moving behind her desk, she picked up Quentin’s financial report and began to read. It didn’t look good, not at all. They needed this wedding more than ever, it seemed. Just then there was a crash, and Meredith looked up in alarm as Liz strode in, and slammed the door.
‘Liz, what on earth is the matter?’
‘We need to talk, Mother,’ said Liz, leaning on the desk.
‘Yes we do, Liz,’ replied Meredith, taking her glasses off. ‘You are senior management. Management,’ she emphasized. ‘You cannot behave as you just did in there. The way just talked to Eleanor, I’d be surprised if we didn’t have her resignation letter on my desk by tomorrow morning.’
‘Well, that would be a start,’ said Liz, more coolly, sitting down in the Eames chair in front of Meredith’s desk, crossing her long legs. ‘Mother, this company is about to go under and you seem content to let that happen.’
Liz studied Meredith’s reaction carefully. For all her skill at reading people, Liz was never entirely sure where her mother’s loyalties lay. Clearly Meredith did not share Liz’s vision for the business, but she wasn’t sure whether that was a head-in-the-sand refusal to acknowledge the decline of Asgill’s, or whether she was simply so blind to William’s shortcomings that she was prepared to let the company suffer under his weak direction.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth,’ snapped Meredith. ‘No one wants to see this company in difficulties, least of all me.’
‘So are you happy about what you’ve just heard in there?’
‘Everyone is disappointed by the figures,’ said Meredith patiently. ‘But you know as well as I do that the industry is facing some tough challenges. Need I remind you that we are still an independent, family-owned company, and not under the wings of a multinational? In hard times, it’s harder for the little guy.’
Liz shook her head in disagreement. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous, Mother. So what if we’re not in the L’Oréal stable? Smaller companies can still thrive in the beauty industry if they innovate and market themselves properly, but there’s no margin for error. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes.’
Liz took a deep breath, knowing that, for once, she had to be completely honest. She had never been convinced by her brother’s leadership but had stopped short of saying so to her mother because Meredith had the power to appoint his successor.
‘The weak link is William,’ said Liz, pressing on. ‘We know it, the industry knows it, but we can still restore confidence if we remove him.’
Meredith looked unmoved. She sat silently, regarding her daughter.
‘The key attribute for running a company successfully is not necessarily the ability to shout the loudest, Liz,’ she said finally.
‘Perhaps not, but I always assumed an ability to turn a profit might also be required.’
Meredith shook her head. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, Liz. When William took over as CEO, we all agreed that we needed to innovate more. He’s doing that.’
‘He’s doing that?’ laughed Liz. ‘When has William ever done anything innovative? Natural Glow was green-lighted in Dad’s time. All William feels comfortable doing is cost-cutting.’
‘He’s overseen two major launches, Liz: Glow and Skin Plus. Not to mention the successful re-launch of The Balm.’
Liz shrugged. She had to concede that one: a simple repackaging of the cleansing pomade that had made her father’s name when he had launched the company in the late 1950s. They’d replaced The Balm’s dated black plastic pot with a sleek brushed-glass one and increased sales by twenty per cent.
‘That was three years ago,’ said Liz, shaking her head.
‘Well, I believe in your brother,’ said Meredith and, with those words, Liz knew she was wasting her breath; she knew her mother would never hear her objections. Not for the first time, Liz felt a sinking sense of disappointment and rejection. Why do I even bother trying? she thought miserably. Yes, she had been born into wealth and privilege, but Liz had never taken it for granted, working twice as hard as anyone else. But what good was all that effort? All those summers she had spent in the Research and Development lab as a student when all her college friends were having fun in Mexico, Australia, or the South of France, or the MBA she had earned at Wharton in order to understand the business side better. It was all a waste as far as her mother was concerned. Meredith’s attitude seemed to be ‘keep quiet, the boys know best’. The problem was, Liz had been born first and she had been born a girl.
Liz stood up and silently walked out of the room. She was sick of her brother, sick of her mother. She was sick of trying to save the company with her creativity and the hard work she got no credit for. Screw them, she thought to herself as she quietly closed the door behind her. Screw them all. It was time to look after herself.
6 (#ulink_66584a84-e2c5-54a7-812c-c860006dd6f9)
‘Welcome to Asgill’s,’ beamed a tanned blonde as Tess walked nervously into the company’s reception area. If she hadn’t already been anxious on this, her first visit to the offices on the thirty-second floor of a midtown skyscraper, the receptionist was enough to unnerve her. She looked like a super-charged Cosmopolitan cover girl; all bouncy, tawny hair, perfect skin and feline eyes. Tess wondered how anyone could look so perfect and perky at seven o’clock in the morning. Then again, all of New York seemed to bristle with an energy she had never witnessed in London, certainly not this early. For her first day at work she had wanted to be the first in, but it seemed as if the rest of Manhattan had had the same idea. The streets below her were already full of people, cars, and noise, and Starbucks had been so busy she had walked straight past it – no one needed a latte that much.
‘I’m Sally,’ said the blonde, handing Tess a security pass and leading her down a long cream corridor. ‘When did you get into town?’
‘Last night,’ replied Tess. Everything had happened so quickly that it was easy to forget she was in a completely new city on a new continent. The Asgill offices seemed like a different world, too, especially compared to life at the Globe, which had been one huge airless room full of ringing phones, old Formica desks, and the smell of stale tea. Here, on the thirty-second floor, everything was tasteful and calm, with pale-ivory walls, chrome cantilever furniture and huge photographs of the company’s advertising campaigns. It even smelt delicious, thanks to vast arrangements of fresh lilies everywhere. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto, she thought as she tried to keep up with Sally’s brisk pace.
‘Office hours are eight to five, although some of us get in earlier, others a little later,’ said Sally, nodding over to some smaller offices off the main open-plan block.
‘Mrs Asgill has the corner office and she gets in at nine a.m. She’ll drop by and see you this morning. In the meantime, Patty Shackleton, our legal counsel is going to show you around and get you up to speed.’
Sally stopped outside a small, sunny office and motioned for Tess to step inside.
‘Home,’ she said with a grin.
When Sally had gone, Tess took her jacket off and hung it on the coat stand next to the door, then went to sit behind the glass desk, closing her eyes for a moment as she felt the morning sun pour through the windows and warm her back. My new life, she thought, feeling excited, on edge, and just a little bit sad about how easy it had been to leave London, the city she had called home for almost ten years. She had flown back to England the day after Brooke Asgill’s engagement party and given her notice letter to a smug, suntanned Andy Davidson first thing on the Monday morning. Unsurprisingly, he’d been more than happy to accept her resignation. ‘Leave at the end of the week, yeah?’ he had said. ‘No sense hanging about, is there?’
Tess was inclined to agree, and her plane ticket to JFK was booked for the day after that. Her farewell drinks in the upstairs of the pub next to the Globe offices prompted a good turnout, but only confirmed to Tess that she was making the right move. There were so many new faces in the crowd. Tess knew she was part of the old guard at the Globe, and that wasn’t a good place to be at twenty-nine. Even when her girlfriends turned up to say goodbye, Tess realized how infrequently she saw them, and how distant they had grown. Seeing them once or twice every six months: no wonder all they had to talk about was celebrity gossip and memories of nights out that had happened years ago. Tess knew she had fallen into a rut; it was time to get new stories and have new adventures. That’s what Dom had told her on the drive to Heathrow, and it was what she had kept telling herself as she walked through Departures, willing herself not to get upset. After all, it wasn’t as if she was emigrating, it was more like a very long press trip from which she would return richer, hipper, and infinitely more connected than if she had stayed in London.
Just as she was firing up the computer in front of her, she heard someone enter the room. Looking up, she saw a tall black woman wearing an expensive trouser suit, her hair worn like the singer Sade’s, scraped back off her head.
‘Patty Shackleton,’ the woman said, briskly offering a long, manicured hand.
Hell, even the lawyers look like models here, thought Tess, rising out of her seat to introduce herself.
‘Pleased to meet you, Patty, I’m Tess,’ she said, smiling.
Patty didn’t move, her face wearing a taut, concerned expression. ‘Have you read Danny Krantz?’ she asked quickly, pulling out a paper from under her arm and opening it with a rustle.
Tess felt a flutter of panic as she instantly fell onto the back foot on her first day, feeling both incompetent and unprofessional. Danny Krantz penned the gossip column in New York’s Daily Oracle. Together with Page Six in the New York Post and Rush and Molloy in the Daily News it was one of the juiciest, best-read newspaper columns in the country.
Shit, she silently cursed herself, of course she should have read all the papers, but there seemed to have been so many other things to do that morning.
‘Not yet,’ she replied quickly. ‘I’ve organized for all the papers to be delivered to my apartment, but that won’t happen until tomorrow,’ she said, blushing.
‘It came online at five a.m.’ Patty did not say it in an unkind or accusatory way; it was a simple relaying of fact. She tapped the page. ‘Read that.’
Tess took a swig of coffee as she read the story, wincing both at the strength of the coffee and the gossip item.
Brooke Asgill, fiancée of New York’s most eligible man, David Billington, may look like perfect wife material, but this morning news emerged that Brooke is a home-wrecker.
Tess glanced up at Patty, her expression grave.
Brown University professor Dr Jeff Daniels left his wife of ten years to be with Brooke Asgill when she was a student at the institution. Although the relationship between Daniels and Asgill didn’t last …’ Tess quickly skimmed the rest of the story, reading the last line out loud.
‘Old flame Matthew Palmer, now a doctor at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center says: “Brooke was always hot. I’d be surprised if any man could resist her.”’
Tess shook her head, then looked at Patty. ‘I guess this means our guided tour is off?’
‘I guess so,’ smiled Patty. ‘Instead you’ve got a baptism of fire. Nothing we can’t handle, though.’
Tess didn’t doubt it. She had done all her homework on her contacts at Asgill’s and she could still recall Patty’s impressive CV: Duke University, Harvard Law School, five years at a Wall Street commercial firm, three years here at Asgill’s. She was exactly the sort of person you’d want on your side in a crisis. Tess was glad someone knew what they were doing.
She looked back at the newspaper in front of her and began to feel her old journalistic curiosity creeping back. Interesting, she thought. So Brooke Asgill does have a dark side after all. She almost smiled, before remembering which side of the fence she was on now. At the Globe it was all about exposing people’s misdemeanours; now she was being paid a great deal of money to cover them up.
‘Have you contacted the paper?’ she asked.
Patty shook her head. ‘I called Brooke as soon as I read it. She’s denying it all, of course, but I wanted to get the full facts from her in person. She’s due in the office any minute. In the meantime the story has run too late for the other papers to pick up until tomorrow, although I guess some could go online with it.’
‘Can we get an injunction? Stop it from appearing anywhere else?’ asked Tess, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. Her knowledge of American law was sketchy at best. At work she was used to feeling in control, but here, with efficient Patty in this clean, sweet-smelling office, she felt displaced, out of her depth, and unsure of herself. She didn’t like the feeling, not one bit. Patty was thoughtful for a moment.
‘Well, it’s certainly more difficult for celebrities to sue the media than it is in London,’ she replied. ‘The beauty of the First Amendment,’ she smiled, her icy demeanour softening.
They both heard Brooke before they saw her: a click-clack of heels followed by a sniffle and a sob in the corridor before she appeared in the doorway. Even though she was wearing wide black sunglasses, you could tell she’d been crying from the puffiness of her cheeks.
‘Hi Brooke,’ said Patty, her head cocked sympathetically. ‘I don’t know if you’ve met Tess Garrett before?’
Brooke nodded as she sat down. ‘Briefly, at my party. Sorry about the sunglasses. I look like Gollum this morning.’
Yeah, right, thought Tess. With her long butter-blonde hair, quivering lip, and Tom Ford shades, she looked like a young Jane Birkin on holiday.
‘So. Is any of it true?’ Patty asked earnestly.
Brooke looked desperately miserable and fragile as she looked down at her hands.
‘Yes and no. Jeff Daniels and I dated for about six months when I was twenty-one. Yes, he was one of my tutors at Brown, but we didn’t start dating until a few months after I’d left college and by then he was separated.’
‘Or he told you he was separated,’ said Tess.
Brooke looked up, her green eyes flashing.
‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ she said firmly. ‘He had been separated from his wife for about twelve months before we went on our first date and his divorce came through a couple of months later. There was no overlap at all, none. I’m not a home-wrecker.’
Brooke rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘David’s family are going to go crazy,’ she whispered.
Patty and Tess exchanged a look. They couldn’t really deny it.
‘What’s David got to say about it?’ asked Tess. ‘He’s the important one.’
‘He’s not very happy, as you can imagine,’ said Brooke, wiping her nose. ‘But he says he believes me.’
‘And have you heard from the Billingtons?’ asked Patty.
Brooke shrugged. ‘My phone is probably jammed with messages, but I haven’t been able to face it.’ She turned to Tess, her eyes pleading.
‘How did this happen? I thought the Billingtons were like the CIA; how come they didn’t stop it?’
Tess shook her head. ‘The first they will have heard about it was when someone read a first-edition paper this morning. I suppose you have to know about something to stop it.’
Tess squirmed, hoping that would not seem like a dig. It was obvious Brooke was suffering enough over this without Tess reading her the riot act about keeping her past to herself.
Patty glanced at her watch and then rose to her feet. ‘I want to talk to Meredith and then I’d better go and make some calls.’
At the mention of her mother, Brooke’s face paled. Tess could sympathize; she barely knew Meredith Asgill, but she didn’t imagine this would play out well with her either. There was of course a chance Meredith would try to blame this on Tess, although – according to Sally the receptionist – office hours were eight until five, so strictly speaking Tess hadn’t even started work when the Oracle website ran the story.
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Tess.
Patty folded her arms in front of her. ‘I can get it taken down from the website but it’s obviously too late for the paper. Good news is that the Oracle publishes a European edition, so I can threaten to sue them in the British courts. That should be enough leverage to make them print a retraction in tomorrow’s paper.’
She looked at Tess meaningfully. ‘Then I’m afraid it’s up to you to do the damage control.’
She spun around on her high heels and walked out of the room. When Tess looked back, she saw that Brooke had picked up the paper and was reading the story again.
‘I can’t believe Jeff would do this,’ she said dejectedly. ‘I guess he needed the money.’
‘Why do you think it was Jeff who went to the papers?’ asked Tess.
Brooke looked up sharply. ‘It must be Jeff,’ she said, her eyes widening. ‘They’ve run pictures of his wife and kids. How else did the paper get hold of those?’
‘Newspapers have their ways,’ said Tess, feeling a slight sense of guilt for having committed similar crimes at the Globe. It was different when you were on the other side of the fence.
She examined Brooke carefully. Tess’s last week at the Globe had been spent using its substantial resources to dig up everything she could about the girl she had been hired to protect. In fact, Brooke had led a very low-key life for a girl from such a wealthy background, which was no doubt part of her appeal for a politically ambitious family like the Billingtons. The big surprise for Tess was that Brooke Asgill appeared to be everything she was supposed to be: beautiful, clean-cut, honest. Certainly, none of the features or photographs did justice to Brooke’s natural beauty and grace. From her years in the media, Tess knew that average people with good PR and clever marketing could become household names, but with Brooke’s raw material – her looks, marriage, and sweetness, she really could become more iconic than Jackie O. More importantly, if Tess succeeded in helping her do that, it would put her in a very strong position indeed. If the rumours about David’s political future were true, she could even follow Brooke to the White House.
Tess smiled to herself. Before she could start indulging in any fantasies as a glamorous Chanel-clad aide climbing aboard Air Force One, she had to deal with the matter in hand. Scandal might do a B-list soap actress some good, but to establishment families it was dangerous, even fatal. Society could forgive anything except embarrassment.
‘And who is this Matthew Palmer?’ said Tess, rereading Danny Krantz’s column more carefully.
‘An old friend,’ said Brooke, looking irritated once more.
‘Says old flame here.’
‘Another lie!’ said Brooke, her voice raised and trembling.
Tess raised an eyebrow.
‘Honestly,’ repeated Brooke. ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to Matt since I left Brown. I’ve no idea why he’d say such a thing.’
Tess snorted. ‘I’ll give you two good reasons. Money and fame. Brooke, I worked at a national tabloid and, trust me, there’s always someone you think is on your side who is really selling stories. In London there was one star, part of a very fashionable London clique, who sold stories about her famous friends to fuel a drug habit. But it could just as easily be a hairdresser, a stylist, a cleaner, even a relative. There’s always someone wanting to make a quick buck. Which is why I’d love to know who leaked this story. This is going to happen again if you don’t find out who it is.’
‘And how do we let people know I’m not a home-wrecker?’
‘Well, if Patty can swing an apology in tomorrow’s paper that will be a start, but it won’t be big or prominent so we need to set up an interview with you, somewhere like the New York Times ‘Style’ supplement … I’m also going to sort you out some media training.’
Brooke looked up. ‘Which is what exactly?’
‘The art of being vague and uncontroversial,’ smiled Tess.
‘And to think I told my mom I didn’t need you,’ said Brooke sheepishly.
Tess reached out and touched Brooke’s arm. ‘People are snakes Brooke,’ she said kindly. ‘The second you have something that everybody else wants, people will be out to get you. You are going to be the target for stings, whispering campaigns, and jealous and disgruntled people who just want to mouth off about you. You’re going to have to be on guard twenty-four/seven and you’re going to have to develop a thick skin. Added to which, you’ll have to think about everything you do and perhaps modify your behaviour.’
‘My behaviour?’
‘For example, you’ll have to be generous and kind to everyone. I’m sure you are that way naturally, but now being a stingy tipper or walking past a beggar is a news story. From now on you have to be a saint.’
‘A saint?’ said Brooke sceptically.
‘I think you’ll do fine,’ smiled Tess as Brooke stood up.
‘Thank you, Tess,’ said Brooke, offering a slim hand. ‘I’m glad you’re on my side.’
‘Think of it as a penance for past crimes,’ said Tess. ‘I’ve been a bit of a bitch to people like you in my past life, but at least you know you’ve got a bitch in your corner.’
As Brooke left the office and closed the door, Tess let out a long breath.
To do this job, I’m going to have to be the biggest bitch New York has ever seen.
7 (#ulink_864c2e86-e119-5603-86be-f5096fb02da9)
‘So, how was everyone’s weekend?’
At table seven in La Revue restaurant, Paula Asgill unfolded her starched white napkin, stabbed her fork into her thirty-dollar Caesar salad and flashed her friends an uncommonly full smile. Twice a month, Paula, Gigi Miller, and Samantha Donahue gathered in whichever restaurant was currently white-hot for the Upper East Side’s ladies-who-lunch crowd. This month it was La Revue. The East Sixty-First street eaterie had mediocre food and appalling service, but it was irresistible to the fashionable lunch crowd due to its unpublished impossible-to-get-hold-of reservations hotline.
Eating here was just one of the reasons Paula was feeling particularly buoyant. In her myriad of acquaintances in the city, Gigi and Sam were the nearest thing she had to close friends, all having children in the same class at prestigious coed prep, the Eton Manor School. Sam was a nice middle-class girl from Oregon with an art major college degree who had married well and liked pretty dresses. Her husband, Gregor, was a fallen Lehman’s high-flyer who had downgraded to a smaller bank but still commanded a low seven-figure salary that allowed the Donahues a small household staff and a summer Hamptons rental in one of the less prestigious streets in Quogue. Gigi, a former modern-ballet dancer who now populated the party pages of W magazine and Style.com (http://Style.com), was married to Bruce, another investment banker. Bruce was often found at the Beatrice Inn, invariably the oldest man at the fashionable downtown nightspot, and had once suggested to Paula that they ‘fuck sometime’ while standing in line at the Lincoln Center coat check. Paula had been uncomfortable going to their house for supper ever since.
Gigi was currently distracted, watching as Wendi Murdoch and Nicole Kidman were seated at table number eight, the most coveted spot in the restaurant. Paula silently cursed. She had only ever scored table eight once, and that had been one Monday lunch last August when half of Manhattan were at the beach. She’d hoped, after news leaked out about Brooke’s engagement, that she would be promoted to table eight, but no. Perhaps Nicole had got in first, she thought.
Sideshow over, Gigi signalled to the wine waiter to bring more San Pellegrino and turned her attention back to Paula. ‘Oh, not much this weekend,’ she said, tossing back her bouncy, blow-dried hair. ‘We went to Jenny Groves’s daughter’s christening.’
‘Was it nice?’ asked Sam, absently playing with the silk bow tie on her Chloe shirt. ‘Greg’s in Europe so we didn’t go.’
‘Oh honey, you missed all the drama.’
Paula listened with interest. Jenny Groves and her husband Oliver had kept a low profile on the social scene in the last year; the official word was that Oliver had temporarily relocated to Chicago on business and Jenny had gone out to be with him. But everyone knew the truth. Jenny had used a surrogate mother in Florida to have the baby and had kept out of sight to pretend she had carried the baby herself.
‘You’ll never believe this,’ continued Gigi with relish, ‘Sienna Spencer was godmother and got too near one of the candles at the pulpit. Her hair was set on fire.’
‘Ohmigosh!’ said Paula and Sam in unison. Sienna was a well-known Upper East Side handbag designer, married to one of the wealthiest hedge-funders around.
‘I know!’ cackled Gigi. ‘Two thousand dollars’ worth of John Barrett extensions ruined!’
‘Was she okay?’ asked Sam.
‘Sienna was. Jenny’s nanny, the Australian girl? She was standing close by, tried to smother the flames and her nail extensions caught fire. She had to be rushed to Cedar Sinai.’
Gigi pushed a lonely lima bean around her plate. ‘It’s all very inconvenient,’ she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘The nanny’s out of action for six weeks with burnt fingers. Jenny and Oliver are thinking of suing the church, but it’s such a good social scene down there that Jenny didn’t want to make a fuss.’
All three women nodded in agreement.
‘So how was Belcourt?’ said Sam finally.
Paula smiled sweetly. How typical of them to wait so long to ask. She had been in such a good mood when she had arrived at lunch, but now she felt irritated at their feigned lack of interest in the party of the year. Of course they had both hoped Paula would be able to wangle them an invitation, but Paula had claimed the guest list was strictly restricted to close friends and family. The truth was that Paula simply hadn’t wanted them there diluting her moment of high social exclusivity.
‘Oh, it was good fun,’ said Paula casually, stirring a straw around in her mineral water. ‘Although I almost sliced my finger off on a window in the guest cottage. I couldn’t say anything, though. After all, the Billingtons are family now.’
Gigi’s smile was fixed like plaster. ‘Well, I wouldn’t speak too soon. Did you read that Oracle home-wrecker story the other day? That can’t have gone down too well with David’s family. Anyway, have you heard? Princess Katrina has just enrolled her daughter into Eton Manor.’
Paula bit her tongue, furious at not being given the opportunity to elaborate on the grandeur of Belcourt, yet secretly satisfied at the speed with which Gigi had steered the conversation back into her comfort zone. She knew she had scored a direct hit with the guest cottage detail.
‘Princess Katrina?’ said Sam. Paula could tell she had no idea who Princess Katrina was, but was afraid to say the words out loud for fear of committing a social faux pas.
‘She’s just fabulous, isn’t she?’ declared Gigi, flapping a hand. ‘She’s Italy’s Marie-Chantal. Her husband’s family would be Italian royalty if they hadn’t been deposed.’
‘Legendary wardrobe,’ nodded Sam. ‘She has a Birkin for every day of the year.’
‘And she’s enrolled her child at Eton?’ asked Paula.
‘Carlotta, a five year old, the same as our babies,’ said Gigi, using her fork to draw patterns with the drizzle of balsamic vinegar on her plate.
It was Paula’s turn to pretend a lack of interest. ‘Do we know which class she’s going in?’
All their girls were in Transition class, but there was another class of twenty-two pupils for children of their age, which made only a fifty/fifty chance that Carlotta would be in their class.
‘Not yet. A girl in Bruce’s office knows the sister of the admissions’ secretary. All we know is that she’s been accepted by Eton Manor, and starts after the Easter break.’
‘Well, those parents’ coffee mornings need some fresh blood.’
Gigi looked at Paula, each knowing what the other was thinking – what they were all thinking. The parents of Eton Manor pupils were some of Manhattan’s most wealthy, successful people, and consequently the school’s packed events calendar was one of the best networking opportunities in the city. Deals were quietly brokered on the father-son camp-out, lucrative friendship bonds nurtured at the Christmas fair. This, however, was on a different level. Princess Katrina would be new to the city and looking for social contacts. This was a solid-gold opportunity to make a new friend who moved in the very highest circles.
Paula dabbed her glossed lips with her napkin and felt a charge of determination surge through her. Attending Brooke and David’s engagement party had stirred conflicting emotions. The exhilaration she’d felt when she had first arrived at Belcourt had been quickly replaced with an unsettling sense of dissatisfaction with her own life. Okay, so she had been granted entry to an even more exclusive circle of Manhattan society, but it was one in which she felt uncomfortably small and insignificant. Belcourt’s ballroom had crackled with star quality that night; every single guest seemed to radiate some potent force that had made Paula seem to wither. But Paula was a fighter. Every setback was an opportunity. She knew she needed to improve her position. When she had first met William, Asgill’s was talked about in the same breath as Revlon, and everyone expected it to be snapped up in a billion-dollar take-over. But it hadn’t happened, and Paula knew from William’s moods after a day at the office that business wasn’t good. She couldn’t rely on him to improve their lot. But she had two things on her side. New social leverage thanks to Brooke’s engagement, and steely practicality that had brought her from Greenboro, North Carolina to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a force which she knew could propel her to even greater heights.
Her eyes flickered over to table eight, where Nicole and Wendi giggled over their poached pears. It was a snapshot of everything she had ever wanted: wealth, celebrity and power. It will be envied and admired. To get the best table in the house, no matter who else was in the room. Then her gaze trailed back to Gigi and Sam. They were nice girls, of course. Fun and harmless. But Paula was beginning to feel as if she had outgrown them. It was time to move up a gear. And she already had a few ideas about how she was going to do it.
8 (#ulink_738b771e-76c3-520f-b961-a288f7c2ab34)
Patty Shackleton had worked her legal magic. The Oracle agreed to print a retraction on their website and an apology in the main paper the following day, but Tess wasn’t taking any chances. She knew that newspapers didn’t take too kindly to being pushed around by lawyers, and the last thing she wanted to do was spark a tabloid vendetta against the Asgills. A charm offensive was called for, so two days later she had arranged to meet Rebecca Sharp from the Oracle for lunch. Sitting under the yellow awning outside Da Silvano, watching the traffic thunder down Seventh Avenue, Tess smiled broadly as she watched her old friend climb from a taxi and glide over to her table.
‘You look fantastic,’ said Tess, quite taken aback at her glamour. Becky had been at the Colchester Observer with Tess over a decade earlier, and they had moved to London at around the same time, Tess on the women’s pages of the Daily Mirror, Becky on the Bizarre showbiz desk of the Sun. Back then she was known as Bonkers Becks, tall and chunky, a great laugh, obsessed with music, and for the first year in the Big Smoke they had cut quite a swathe around town, going to any premiere, party, or gig to which Becky could get a plus one.
Tess had not seen Becks since her transfer to the New York Oracle’s entertainment and celebrity news desk three years earlier, and her transformation was incredible. Her long hair, once the colour of marmalade, was now a honey blonde, falling in soft curls onto her tanned shoulders. She had lost at least three stone and her Amazonian physique had become slender and graceful in her thin cashmere vest and skinny jeans.
‘I cannot believe you’re finally here,’ squealed Becky, causing a couple on the next table to look at them with alarm. ‘And as a publicist of all things! How’s it going on the dark side?’
Becky’s accent had picked up a transatlantic burr and she had always been loud, but her time in the Big Apple seemed to have increased the volume another 10 per cent.
Tess laughed. ‘My first day at work I got into the office at seven a.m. and I was almost the last person to arrive. How do you fit sleep in here?’
Becky waved her hand casually in front of her. ‘Sleep’s for wimps, darling. The second everyone heard how Anna Wintour gets up at five for a game of tennis and a blow-dry, everyone wanted to be in the office before dawn. You’ll soon learn that in Manhattan: it’s all about competition.’
‘So where are you living?’
‘Brooklyn,’ said Becky, pulling a face. ‘Mind you, everyone is there right now, the rental on a shoebox on the island is insane. How about you?’
‘Just a few minutes away actually,’ said Tess casually. ‘On Perry Street in the Village.’
Becky almost choked on her Perrier. ‘You bitch!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you! Someone’s paying you far too much money. Shit, I dream of the West Village, that’s why I love coming here for lunch, so I can play “Let’s pretend”.’
‘Let’s pretend?’ asked Tess.
‘Pretend that I’m someone like that,’ she whispered, nodding towards a super-glamorous blonde at a nearby table. The woman was stunning, with a flawless up-do and two-thousand-dollar dress that Tess recognized as Marni. She was sitting opposite a forty-something man wearing chinos, a navy sweater, and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He was overweight and, frankly, ugly.
‘You want to be a woman like that?’
Becky looked surprised. ‘Who doesn’t?’
‘But have you seen who she’s with? He’s wearing a pashmina!’
‘Darling, every woman in this city wants to land a rich husband. Some women, most of my friends in fact, devote their whole life to finding one. And these days you can’t be too picky.’ Becky let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Ah, the joy of not having to work.’
Tess smiled. ‘You love work.’
‘Completely beside the point,’ said Becky flatly. ‘It’s the option of not having to work.’
She leant forward conspiratorially.
‘Speaking of women with very rich men, how’s your new friend Brooke Asgill? You are going to get me an interview with her, aren’t you?’
Tess pulled a mock-outraged face. ‘After the stunt your newspaper has just pulled?’ she cried. ‘Seriously though, you do realize you have royally pissed off two of the most influential families in New York – and what for? A two-column pot-shot story that has to run an apology the next day?’
‘Actually, my editor loved the story,’ said Becky. ‘Anything to do with the Billingtons is big news, and David and Brooke are the sexiest New York couple since JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. It’s not like a tabloid is going to be best friends with them anyway.’
The waiter arrived with their ravioli and the girls started eating.
‘I need a favour,’ said Tess. ‘Two actually.’
Becky looked up. ‘Shoot.’
‘I need an introduction to all the media high-rollers you know. Newspaper editors, society column writers, editors-in-chief, and features editors on all the big glossies. I know a few people out here but I need to know everyone worth knowing very quickly.’
‘No offence, but I was surprised when I heard the Asgills had got you in. PR gigs are all about contacts, aren’t they?’
Tess pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’
‘What else did you want?’
‘Tell me who gave you the story about Brooke.’
Becky gave a long slow laugh and wagged her finger. ‘Come on, Tess. You worked in papers; you know we never reveal a source. We have journalists on the paper who have been to jail rather than give up the name of their contact.’
‘Since when did you become Miss Integrity!’ laughed Tess. ‘I clearly remember you giving endless column inches to no-hoper bands on your music page in the Sun in return for a press trip – or even a glass of Cava!’
Becky smiled at the memory of their shared time on the loose in London.
‘So what can you do for me?’ she asked.
So much for friendship, smiled Tess. Becky hadn’t got this far simply by being a good laugh. Beneath the fluffy, party-girl exterior she was as hard as nails.
‘Help me now and I’ll see if I can get you a story exclusive on Brooke and David’s wedding.’
‘Honeymoon shots?’
Tess shook her head. ‘Can’t promise that, but certainly something exclusive, something that will earn you big brownie points.’
Becky took a big orange leather diary from her expensive-looking tote and began flicking through its pages. She scribbled down an address on a fluorescent pink Post-it note and handed it to Tess.
‘There’s a bunch of us going down to Soho House tonight. There’s a Cinema Society screening of the new Coen Brothers’ film. Very cool crowd,’ she said. ‘Everyone from Glenda Bailey to Col Allen should be there, and there will be drinks afterwards. That should start you off.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Tess, folding up the paper. ‘Now what about the source?’
Becky laughed. ‘Tess, you’re like a dog with a bone!’
‘Tell me,’ said Tess, but Becky held up her hands.
‘I don’t know, honestly. It wasn’t my story.’
‘Come on, Becks, you know everything.’
Becky looked at Tess for a long moment, then leant forward. ‘I think it was an ex-girlfriend of David’s,’ she said. ‘You know what they say about a woman scorned? Well, in New York, that fury is multiplied. Never underestimate the damage a vengeful social climber can cause.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ grinned Tess.
Becky put her hand on Tess’s. ‘Honey, it’s so good to have you over here. Honestly.’
‘It’s good to see you too. Especially as you’re doing so well. I mean, just look at you. Where did Bonkers Becks go?’
Becky laughed out loud, again causing heads to turn. ‘You know, I used to think that New Yorkers have no time for love because they throw themselves into their careers,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Now I think it’s the other way around – they become workaholics because it’s so hard to find love.’
‘So I take it you haven’t found your pashmina-wearing Prince Charming yet?’ smiled Tess.
She laughed again, casting a glance towards the couple at the next table. ‘No. The problem is, I think those banker types are pricks,’ she whispered.
Tess giggled.
‘Not that I’ve given up, of course. I even went to this “Fashion and Finance” speed-dating thing the other week,’ continued Becky. ‘Very popular right now, full of pretty girls and rich guys all looking for love, but I have to say I was absolutely bored to tears. I ended up going home with a woman.’
Tess’s eyes opened like saucers.
‘Her name was Dita,’ smiled Becky. ‘A freelance fashion PR. We had much more in common than any of those boring farts in their sensible shoes.’
‘Wow,’ gasped Tess. ‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing,’ laughed Becky. ‘Mother Nature kicked in; I couldn’t do it. But that’s New York, baby. That’s how desperate it is out there. I think it was God’s way of telling me I am destined to be alone. Anyway, how’s the very sexy Dom?’ she asked, sipping her water. ‘I think he always wanted to work in New York more than both of us.’
Tess’s smile faded at the mention of her boyfriend. ‘Dom’s still in London.’
‘You guys haven’t finished, have you?’ said Becky, her expression softening.
‘No, no, nothing like that. He hasn’t got a visa, so we’re having a transatlantic affair.’
‘Very chic,’ said Becky. ‘Are you missing him?’
‘Working fourteen-hour days I’ve not had a chance to miss him.’
‘Hmm. Or maybe you just don’t,’ said Becky, raising a brow.
Tess looked thoughtful. ‘No, I think it’s more that I had to come here to get out of my comfort zone.’
Becky laughed. ‘You two are hardly in a rut, are you? Whenever I hear from you, you’re always flying off to some exotic location.’
‘Maybe not, but we’ve been together for nearly nine years. Sometimes distance can bring you closer together.’
Becky hesitated, playing with her fork.
‘Do you trust him, Tess?’ she asked softly. ‘No disrespect to Dom, but I don’t think I would leave a man that fine alone two minutes in big, bad London. More to the point, do you trust yourself to be let loose in this big city?’
‘The answer is yes,’ said Tess firmly. ‘Yes and yes.’
Although she couldn’t help thinking back to the one time she’d been unfaithful. It had been eighteen months into their relationship when she began struggling with the idea of commitment. She was only halfway though being twenty. Should she not be young, free, and single, and enjoying all London had to offer? One weekend, Dom had been away on a snowboarding trip with his friends, and Tess had been invited to a party by an associate editor on the Globe. It had been at a big Victorian villa in Barnes, stuffed to the gills with media types she recognized from the TV or from their photo by-lines in the papers. The moment she saw Charlie, she knew something was going to happen. He was thirty, an advertising director and the son of the old chief executive of the Globe group. He was also engaged, but that hadn’t stopped him stroking Tess’s neck. She’d been flattered by the attention of someone five years older and infinitely more successful, so they’d gone back to her flat in Clapham and the sex had been explosive. Charlie had left at seven the next morning, but not before telling her about a features editor position he knew was coming up at the Globe. ‘Keep what happened last night between us,’ he’d told her and she had kept her word. Three months later she was the youngest senior journalist at the Globe.
She looked up and had the uncomfortable feeling that Becky had been reading her thoughts.
‘Don’t get too comfortable without him, honey,’ she said seriously. ‘Let Dom go and you might be single for the next five years. Some people call New York a jungle. Well, let me tell you, when it comes to love, it’s a fricking desert.’
9 (#ulink_f2355b35-cb24-5b7d-a528-a8641eb1dc93)
David grabbed Brooke’s hand and led her past the doorman into the lobby of 740 Park Avenue, one of Manhattan’s most prestigious apartment blocks.
‘It’s going to be fine,’ he whispered, his voice almost lost against the tip-tapping of Brooke’s heels on the black-and-white chequered marble.
Brooke smiled weakly, feeling her anxiety grow. The last thing she felt was fine. She had spent the last three days torturing herself over the revelations in the Oracle about her relationship with Jeff Daniels, swinging back and forth between disgust, disappointment, and anger. Her first instinct was to run away and hide, but she knew deep down that the only thing to do was put on a brave face and ‘step up to the plate’ – wasn’t that what they said? She had been able to keep up a façade of calm at work, where she knew and trusted most of her colleagues, but it was quite another thing to face people on David’s extensive social circuit. Brooke didn’t understand David’s insistence about coming tonight – Graydon and Estella Winston were not particularly good friends of his – but she had not felt in a strong enough position to argue. David had been a rock since the scandal had broken. He’d been in Boston on a CTV conference and had rushed back to Brooke’s apartment to be with her. Although Brooke was sure he’d had to endure a severe tongue-lashing from his father, David had been calm and relaxed, running her a bath and giving her a heavenly foot massage while he had said lots of reassuring things about how none of it mattered and how much he trusted her.
Brooke pressed the button for the elevator and turned to her fiancé. ‘If people are whispering about me, we’re staying twenty minutes and then we’re going home.’
David chuckled. ‘Honey, these people are not Oracle or Page Six readers – most of them consider the Wall Street Journal light reading. Anyway, they fancy themselves as having more important things to talk about than your college adventures.’
Just then the lift doors pinged open and a smartly dressed couple stepped out. They walked past, and Brooke heard the woman give a low laugh that echoed around the lobby.
David read her thoughts and shot her a crooked smile. ‘Don’t be paranoid, darling,’ he said. Brooke knew he was right, but this crisis had only confirmed Brooke’s love-hate relationship with the Upper East Side. She had called this, the wealthiest pocket of Manhattan, home for over twenty years, and in many ways it felt safe and familiar, but it could be a cold place, its inhabitants mocking and judgemental. The truth was, whether David’s friends were Page Six readers or not, they thrived on gossip as much as any celeb-obsessed housewife. Gossip was the lifeblood of polite society.
The elevator doors slid open and the sounds of smooth jazz and lively conversation met them from the open door of Graydon and Estella Winston’s sixth-floor apartment. There were already about fifty people in the room as a waiter took their coats; most were in their thirties and forties, although their conservative clothes and stiff bearing made them seem about ten years older. Women were in trouser suits or little black dresses, sporting short, serious haircuts and few accessories except for the aura of self-confidence. Graydon was the editor of a glossy political magazine; his wife the daughter of one of New York’s biggest Republican donors. According to David, the rest of the guests were a mix of media players, academics, and politicos.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered as she accepted a flute of champagne with a smile.
Before he had time to reply, a slim man in a black polo-neck jumper and grey sports coat came over to shake David’s hand. She recognized him as Niall Donald, a right-wing columnist, TV commentator and author of Power and Prestige: America’s political future on the world stage.
‘David, Brooke. How are you both? You look lovely, Brooke,’ he smiled, although Brooke noticed how he had directed all of his pleasantries to David, never even glancing at her.
‘We enjoyed your report on China the other week,’ said Niall, taking a thoughtful sip of Krug: Brooke had been dismissed. Niall Donald was the sort of society bigwig that Brooke loathed most of all. Pompous, smug, arrogant. She remembered another interminable dinner party when she had been forced to listen to Niall boast that he had not only attended Harvard, but had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, then later had heard him quip how David had only ‘scraped’ into Yale. Brooke wanted to hit him.
Instead she touched David on the arm and whispered, ‘Excuse me.’ She drifted off, looking for sanctuary. She’d been to dozens of parties with David, and while most of them were fun, she found these gatherings of New York’s intelligentsia self-important and boring.
But while she didn’t enjoy them, she at least learned how to survive them. Small talk with the host about bland, uncontroversial topics, letting other people ramble on about themselves (there was nothing a New Yorker liked better than talking about themselves), or spending long periods ‘touching up her make-up’ in the powder room, Brooke was an expert at making herself invisible.
But one thing she always loved was having a discreet snoop around other people’s homes, and Graydon and Estella’s duplex was a spectacular space. Lofty ceilings, virgin cream carpet, original art – including, she recognized, Dufy and Chagall – sleek, expensive, bespoke furniture. It was the sort of place that demanded you wear something beautiful to complement its sophistication, but Brooke was glad she had dressed down in a black sleeveless Alice Roi dress worn with a simple gold choker. She had even dispensed with her favourite black Louboutin heels, fearing them a little too racy; she knew how suspiciously she would be viewed tonight. New York society women were notoriously icy at the best of times, but encountering someone with a newly minted reputation as a home-wrecker might drive them to freeze her on sight.
‘What’s your view on the trade deficit?’ asked a smooth female voice behind her.
Brooke’s throat felt thick with anxiety. She felt as if she was about to go into an exam.
She turned to face an elegant brunette in a wasp-waisted dress that was the reddy-gold colour of a Japanese maple leaf. She had an outrageously pretty face, and she was not much older than Brooke.
‘Yes, er, the trade deficit …’ stuttered Brooke, before the woman’s wide mouth broke out into a smile. Brooke laughed.
‘Sorry,’ whispered the woman. ‘It can get a little tedious at these things, so I like to have a little joke.’
Brooke smiled, grateful that she had found at least one kindred spirit.
‘I thought the whole point of a party was to enjoy yourself,’ agreed Brooke. ‘Although no one exactly looks as if they’re having a good time tonight.’
‘Well, parties like this are all about alignment. David always used to say, “We can’t socialize with who we want to all of the time.” He’s right, of course. The people in that room will be advising government in five years’ time. Some already are.’
She took a sip of champagne and held out a pale hand. ‘Alicia Wintrop,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the engagement party. I hear it was fantastic.’
It took a second for Brooke to make the connection, then her heart lurched. David had once dated a girl called Ally Wintrop.
‘You’re Ally Wintrop?’
Alicia laughed. ‘Oh I know, old names die hard, don’t they? David and I dated when we were kids. Our families had cottages in Newport just by one another. Everyone knew me as Ally back then.’
‘Oh, I thought you dated more recently than that,’ said Brooke as casually as she could.
Alicia nodded. ‘I worked in Rome after college … I was at Brown two or three years ahead of you, I think.
‘You were at Brown?’ replied Brooke curiously.
She nodded. ‘Anyway, David and I started dating again when I came back to New York, but when David got the foreign news job at CTV I just couldn’t handle all that travel. It felt like I was dating a nomad. I think we were just both too busy to be together.’
‘Oh really. Too busy?’ said Brooke with as much politeness as she could muster.
‘Um-hmm,’ said Alicia. ‘I curate a gallery downtown. The Halcyon on Spring Street. Fabulous exhibition on at the moment of Masai warrior painters. They paint with spears; it’s so conceptual. You must come down. I do some art consulting too, in Europe. I spend an awful lot of Russian money.’
Brooke started planning her escape strategy. She knew, of course, that David had a past with plenty of ex-girlfriends, but she didn’t particularly want to stand there talking to one. She realized that she was squeezing her champagne flute a little too tightly.
‘I’m sorry about that business with the Oracle,’ said Alicia. She sounded sympathetic, but Brooke wasn’t convinced.
Brooke shrugged. ‘I guess it goes with the turf.’
‘Luckily I didn’t have it so much,’ said Alicia lightly. ‘Perhaps it would have been different if we had become engaged. Or perhaps we were too obvious a couple to be interesting.’
Brooke smiled thinly. Before she could feign a headache to get away, David came over and handed her a glass of champagne. He looked buoyed up and happy.
‘So you too have finally met?’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not telling her any of our secrets,’ said Alicia, nudging David playfully, tilting her face up to smile at him.
‘I don’t want to know,’ said Brooke, forcing a smile.
‘Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it,’ said Alicia. ‘I simply must go and compliment Graydon and Estella on their new Lucian Freud.’
As they spent the next half-hour drifting from group to group, Brooke floated at the fringes, keeping a close eye on both David and Alicia. David’s ex had now returned to the man she had come with, a sombre-looking man in a dark suit and heavy-framed glasses – an architect, according to David. To a disinterested observer, Brooke was simply standing by the window, enjoying the view, soaking up the rarefied atmosphere, whereas in actual fact she was looking for any telltale signs that David was still interested in Alicia – a sly glance or an ever-so-casual touch, perhaps. There was nothing; they barely even spoke. Slowly Brooke’s irritation at having been ambushed by David’s ex turned to fascination as she watched them both expertly working the room. David was magnetic, and not just because of the good looks she had fallen in love with; he had a natural composure and a good-natured confidence. He spoke with conviction and authority and he had an indefinable presence that seemed to fill the space he was in. Alicia had another tactic entirely. When Brooke was close to her, she eavesdropped on Alicia’s conversation, and it was soon clear that she had nothing particularly clever or interesting to say, but she had something more powerful than intelligence or wit. Alicia was a world-class flirt. She flirted not with sexual invitation, but in a way that the person she was talking to felt like the most important person in the room. Consequently, they responded to her as if she were spouting Descartes.
Brooke glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven.
‘I know that look,’ whispered David into her ear. ‘You want to go, don’t you?’
She smiled at him gratefully. ‘Is it that obvious?’
They had only been at the party two hours, but to Brooke it had felt like an eternity. She didn’t miss all the surreptitious glances sent her way, or the whispered comments when she was just out of range. Her mouth was aching from the permanent smile etched on it. She felt like the village idiot.
They rode down in the elevator and, when they stepped outside onto Fifth Avenue, Brooke felt her shoulders relax. A cone of moonlight shone down on them and he turned to her and kissed her, his tongue licking the inside of her mouth. It was delicious and quite unexpected – spontaneous kisses, especially those in public places, were becoming thinner on the ground as they were constantly watched. His driver was parked across on the far corner and they walked to the car with his arm around her shoulders.
‘I’m sorry we were there so long,’ he said, opening the door of the Lexus for her. ‘But it wasn’t that bad, was it?’
‘Oh honey it was,’ she laughed.
‘I didn’t hear one person mention Jeff Daniels.’
‘They would hardly discuss the ins and outs of some scurrilous tabloid story with you,’ she said. ‘But believe me, they all knew the details.’
He was silent for a moment as the car engine started. ‘You seemed to be getting on well with Ally.’
‘She’s nice …’ said Brooke obtusely.
‘You’re not jealous?’ he said, laughing softly.
‘I don’t trust her,’ she blurted out.
‘Trust her? What do you mean?’
‘Call me crazy,’ said Brooke, ‘but I’ve just got this feeling.’
‘A feeling about what?’ asked David. His words were measured, clipped. She could tell he was annoyed at the ‘trust’ jibe. Brooke supposed he had a point, considering how understanding he’d been about the Jeff Daniels accusations.
‘I just wondered if it was Alicia who leaked the Oracle gossip story,’ said Brooke.
‘What?’
‘Look, I spoke to Tess Garrett today and she said the story came from one of your ex-girlfriends.’
‘It sounds to me as if Tess Garrett is trying to justify her existence.’
‘She sounded pretty sure.’
‘On what basis?’
‘A source at the Oracle.’
He pursed his lips together.
Brooke paused before saying anything more. She never liked bringing up the subject of past girlfriends. In her experience it only made you look jealous or needy or both.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she asked.
‘How am I supposed to react?’ he said, anger in his voice.
‘Well, don’t you think it was Alicia? It had to come from somewhere.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘Well, she did go to Brown …’
‘Brooke, you’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I?’ she said, challenging him.
David was a serial monogamist: through his twenties there had been at least five girlfriends who had all lasted between six months and two years, and the Jeff Daniels leak could have come from any of them. They all had the same potential motivations: sour grapes, mean-spiritedness; some sense of thwarted entitlement, perhaps.
But it had been Alicia’s bright-eyed friendliness and a feeling of gleeful pleasure when she mentioned the Oracle story: it all made her suspicious of Alicia. Call it female intuition, but she was sure she was behind it.
‘Yes you are being ridiculous! After all, it was your friend, that Matt Palmer, who was quoted.’
She frowned. ‘It wasn’t him. I told you what he said. A journalist tracked him down and misquoted him.’
‘And you believe that?’ he asked.
‘Yes I do. He’s got less motivation for doing it than Alicia.’
He turned on the seat to face her.
‘Alicia’s parents and my parents have known each other forever,’ said David tightly. ‘She is a lot of things, but she is not deliberately evil.’
‘It sounds to me like you’re defending her.’
David rarely sounded angry. He always dealt with problems in his usual cool, composed way, but now his voice was raised. ‘I am not defending her. I just wonder what motivation she’d have for doing something like that.’
‘Oh, grow up, David,’ shouted Brooke. ‘Maybe, just maybe, she still loves you, did you ever think of that? Maybe she’ll do anything to stop you from being happy with anyone else.’
David turned to look at her. His face was stony.
‘Brooke, she finished our relationship.’
It stung Brooke like a slap in the face. She had always had the romantic notion of David Billington, America’s most eligible bachelor, rejecting each of his previous girlfriends because he was still searching, like Prince Charming, for the one girl who was perfect in every way. Childishly, she had allowed herself to believe that she had been that girl, that she was his one true love. Not for moment did she imagine she was second choice, that all along he had been pining for the one he could not have. She wondered momentarily if David and Alicia would still be together if Alicia had not called it a day, and the image of David and Alicia glad-handing the party in natural symmetry jumped into her head. But she knew she was right about Alicia, she just knew it.
‘Just because she finished with you doesn’t mean she wants anyone else to have you, David,’ she said. ‘It’s naive to think Alicia is somehow incapable of being spiteful and underhand just because you were once in love with her.’
‘Well thanks for the vote of confidence.’
It did not escape Brooke’s notice that he had failed to deny he had been in love with Alicia, but despite her hurt and anger she still felt a pang of protectiveness. She hadn’t been striking out, she had been telling the truth: David was strong in so many ways, but he had one Achilles heel. He always saw the best in people. There was nothing naturally suspicious or cynical in his make-up, and she knew that if he were one day to run for office, it could be a fatal flaw. Her voice softened and she put a hand on his arm.
‘Oh honey, let’s not fight about this,’ she said softly. ‘You know I’m only saying it for your own good.’
‘No, you’re saying it because you’re pissed,’ he replied flatly. ‘You’ve had a crappy night and you’re feeling sorry for yourself. I’d just cool it, if I were you, Brooke. Okay, so you had one lapse of judgement with that Jeff Daniels character, but that doesn’t mean you have to assassinate everyone else’s character. It’s not very attractive.’
His words scalded her. ‘A lapse of judgement? So all that stuff about how you believed my story and how you trusted me was just crap, was it? Do you even care about how I felt back there tonight?’ She felt hot tears pricking at the back of her eyes.
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Of course I care,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It’s just that if you’re going to be my wife, you’re going to have to get used to these parties, these people. It’s my life, Brooke.’
They were just a couple of minutes away from her apartment and she couldn’t think of anywhere she would rather be. She tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Miguel, can you drop me home please?’
David tutted loudly. ‘Honey, don’t overreact.’
‘I’m not overreacting. I just want to go home,’ she said quietly.
David nodded at Miguel. ‘Take her home.’
10 (#ulink_845b7255-111a-5e90-bad0-3d757c66f006)
‘We have a major problem,’ announced Mimi Hall, publisher of Yellow Door’s children’s division. They were only two minutes into the weekly executive editorial meeting and already Brooke was on edge. Mimi Hall could be a very frightening woman, particularly when there were problems, when she always seemed to cleverly shift the blame onto other people. Brooke’s privilege and celebrity were no protection here; in fact it was something that seemed to annoy Mimi Hall. Everyone in the room knew Mimi did not belong in the gentle, good-natured world of children’s publishing, Five years earlier she had been a hotshot in the adult fiction division at Doubleday, but a string of high-profile flops and their consequent financial losses had got her fired. She’d taken the publisher’s job at Yellow Door, not because she thought a move into children’s publishing was exciting – far from it, Mimi Hall didn’t even like children. But it was a job, and sitting out her purgatory, awaiting a plum MD job somewhere, Mimi Hall seemed hellbent on taking out her professional frustrations on everyone else. Particularly Brooke.
‘This morning I had a long conversation with Jennifer Kelly and at this point it seems unlikely that she’s going to deliver in time for an October launch.’
She delivered the news casually but, sitting next to her, Edward Walker, the division’s affable English-born managing director, went pale. Jennifer was currently Yellow Door’s biggest author. Rumour had it she accounted for 15 per cent of the company’s annual profits with her whimsical love stories based in rural Ireland. A huge hit with Midwest teenagers, her first three books had topped the New York Times best-seller list for weeks. She had been one of Mimi’s discoveries; she’d bought world rights for a five-book deal for fifty thousand dollars, which was precisely why her present reign of fear was tolerated.
‘But, Mimi, a couple of weeks ago you told me she had delivered,’ spluttered Edward. ‘It’s April, Mimi. April! The book should be in.’ Even from the other end of the table, Brooke could see the panic in his eyes. Mimi turned her head and looked at Edward contemptuously. It was no secret that Mimi was waiting for Edward to retire, move on, or be moved on.
‘You clearly misunderstood me, Edward. I said Jennifer was about to deliver, but unfortunately she’s pregnant and so she can’t meet the deadline.’
‘She’s pregnant?’ said Edward disbelievingly. ‘When I last met a pregnant woman I think she was still capable of sitting at her laptop.’ Edward was by nature a polite and calm man, and this was the first time that Brooke had ever seen him rattled. ‘And if she was about to deliver, then she can’t be that far off finishing the manuscript.’
‘I need not remind you that we have to keep her on side,’ said Mimi, still casual. ‘Once Jennifer delivers this book, she’s out of contract. We both know that every publishing company in town has got their chequebook out ready to win her over. Even though she owes her entire career to me, loyalty means crap in this town. In other words, the kid gloves have to go on whether we like it or not.’
Everyone around the table knew what was really going on with Jennifer Kelly. Her latest book, Chocolate Kisses, was only one hundred and fifty pages long – and what there was of it was bloated and poorly written. It had still sold to the loyal fans, but it was obvious that their star writer’s heart wasn’t in it any more. She had earned millions of dollars in royalties from the books alone, and last Christmas the Disney adaptation of her second book, Butterfly Heart, had broken all box-office records. Just thirty years old, she had a villa in Provence, an apartment in Manhattan, and a small manor house in Ireland. The truth was, Jennifer just couldn’t be bothered. ‘Can’t we get a ghost to churn something out?’ asked commissioning editor Debs Asquith, Brooke’s best friend at Yellow Door and one of the few people with enough balls to speak out in front of Mimi.
‘We don’t churn out any books on my list,’ said Mimi witheringly. ‘But yes, I have gently discussed the possibility of Jennifer working with a ghostwriter to get it done, but – understandably – she was a little upset. And anyway, the trade press would have a field day if they found out. Jennifer is a big star. We want to keep her that way, not jeopardize her career and reputation.’
Edward raised a hand.
‘Mimi. We can take up this issue separately. In the meantime, I don’t need to tell anyone that Jennifer’s potential failure to deliver leaves a gaping hole in the October schedule, one that might well be financially punitive for the company,’ he added, looking directly at Mimi. ‘So. Has anyone got any ideas about how we can fill it? Joel, how about getting Pete Coles to write something?’
Joel Hamilton was a well-regarded publishing director who edited Pete Coles, a former US Army Marine who wrote Bourne Identity-style thrillers aimed at teenage boys.
Joel pulled a face. ‘Sorry, no. He’s training for a North Pole expedition and doesn’t think he has to deliver anything until Christmas. Anyway, it’s April, so we can forget about anything that isn’t completely done. It would be touch and go even to turn a re-release around at the moment. For an October launch we should really have sold into the retailers already.’
‘Debs?’ said Edward hopefully. ‘You were out with William Morris and Trident last week. Anyone got anything interesting?’
Debs shook her head sadly, her long red curls swishing behind her. ‘Nothing guaranteed to fill a two-million-dollar hole in the P&L, boss.’
‘Brooke,’ said Mimi, smiling thinly. ‘You must have a young celebrity girlfriend we can work with. Miley Cyrus? What about that Bush twin who teaches kindergarten?’
‘I don’t know Miley actually,’ said Brooke, feeling her cheeks flush. Brooke knew she had the most unimpressive roster of authors of anyone in the room, certainly in terms of financial return. Brooke’s speciality was commissioning beautifully illustrated books and sweet stories aimed at the 7–11 age group. To even her own surprise, one of her books had just won the Carnegie Medal at the Bologna Fair, but, in terms of sales, which was all that counted in this cut-throat climate, they were all strictly mid-list. The really big hitters of children’s publishing – J. K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer – were the ones that had crossover appeal with the adult market.
Then suddenly Brooke thought of a female magician. Of course – the amazing manuscript she had rescued from the slush pile. She had taken what she had Belcourt and read it on the afternoon of the party to distract herself from the circus that was going on around her. It had been even better than she had hoped.
‘Actually,’ she said, tapping her pencil against her lip, ‘I have seen a manuscript that I think has real potential.’
‘Really?’ said Mimi sarcastically. It was no secret that Mimi didn’t think Brooke should be attending these meetings. ‘So give me the elevator pitch.’
Brooke always felt as if she was being interviewed whenever she spoke to Mimi. ‘It’s about a teenage female magician.’
‘Uggh,’ groaned Mimi, rolling her eyes. ‘Not another Harry Potter wannabe.’
‘Not at all,’ replied Brooke. ‘It’s more of a mystery novel. She solves an assortment of crimes over a trilogy of books.’
‘Who’s the author?’ asked Edward more graciously.
‘Eileen Dunne.’
‘Never heard of her,’ snapped Mimi.
‘No, she’s a first-time author,’ said Brooke hesitantly.
‘So who’s representing her?’
‘No one yet. Actually, it’s a slush-pile script.’
‘Enough said,’ said Mimi, holding up one manicured hand. ‘Now has anybody got anything else that might be of genuine interest?’
You are such an old witch, thought Brooke, feeling suddenly protective of the magician book.
‘It’s actually really very good,’ she said, interrupting Mimi. ‘Dark and funny, a young adult book that adults will buy as well.’
She turned and met Mimi’s glare. ‘I think we should give it a chance. The manuscript is completed; even better, it’s a trilogy, and the author has the second book almost finished too.’
‘We like trilogies,’ smiled Edward. He turned to his left. ‘Mimi, I think you should take a look at it.’
Her sigh was audible.
‘Very well. I suppose if it’s bearable we can pick it up for peanuts. She’ll think all her Christmases have come at once.’
Let’s hope mine have too, thought Brooke.
11 (#ulink_8a8ced1a-6fc1-58ef-8fef-6f7e34e3f3b2)
The Eton Manor School, on a quiet corner of East Ninety-Third Street, was a beautiful mansion with a quaint courtyard and functioning bell tower that had once been a Greek Orthodox church. Although the school was only twenty-five years, old, it had quietly become one of the most exclusive schools in Manhattan, challenging the old guard like Brearley, Chapin and Collegiate. Eton Manor did not pretend to have links to the great British boarding school, but with an austere British head teacher, it was the school of choice for the rich and fashionable who wanted a coed school where they could channel their inner Englishness.
As Paula pulled up in her Porsche, it was exactly eight fifteen a.m., right in the middle of the prime fifteen-minute window for the school drop-off. Paula ignored the bickering in the back seat of her two children, Casey and Amelia, for a moment, pausing to scout out the area, checking for anyone else in the school zone. Across the street she recognized the black Escalade belonging to Nicole Nixon, the wife of one of New York’s most successful record producers. A plume of exhaust fumes showed its engine was still running, and three giggling children were ejected onto the pavement. Noticing it was the Nixons’ nanny, not Nicole Nixon herself driving, Paula’s gaze moved on. Just to the side, Robyn Steel, who had a son in Casey and Amelia’s class, was parking her convertible Mercedes, the boy squashed in the back, her miniature schnauzer on the front seat, but otherwise it was fairly uneventful people-watching. It seemed today, more than ever, was a day for nannies to do the drop-offs: a harassed-looking Australian, English, and Filipino girls pushing Silver Cross buggies. Paula unloaded the children from the car and strode into the school’s courtyard, clutching the girls’ hands tightly.
‘It’s so great you’re taking us to school today, Mummy,’ said Casey, her eldest twin, looking up at her mother and smiling.
‘You know how busy Mummy gets in the morning,’ she said, squeezing her daughter’s fingers.
‘Why are you going to see Miss Beaumont?’ asked Amelia, always the more suspicious, guarded child. ‘Are you sure we’re not in trouble?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ smiled Paula.
Paula paused in the courtyard, positioning herself just below the head teacher’s office window so that anyone inside could see. Then she crouched down eye to eye with her girls and embraced them tightly. She watched them go, their blonde ponytails swinging from side to side under their felt berets, then straightened her Chanel jacket. She was ready to go to war.
‘Mrs Asgill, so good to see you again.’
Miss Fenella Beaumont, Eton Manor’s headmistress, extended a plump hand across the large walnut desk that dominated her office and settled back into her chair, smoothing down the heavy black robe she always wore over her blouse and skirt. She was a formidable-looking woman: tall with ash-blonde hair set on her head like a helmet, and a powerful speaking voice honed at the Oxford Union, Miss Beaumont having studied Classics at the university in the early 1970s. Paula was well aware that the school’s pupils and many of their parents wilted under her fierce gaze, but she had no intention of letting a pompous English spinster get in her way.
‘Thank you for making the time to see me,’ said Paula, giving the headmistress her sweetest smile. She was careful to conceal her true feelings here, but Paula had been absolutely furious when it had taken her a week to get an appointment with Miss Beaumont. They were paying ten thousand dollars a term each Casey and Amelia to attend Eton Manor. That was sixty thousand dollars a year, not including the hiked-up lunch fees, ballet classes, French tutorials, music lessons, and sundry ‘donations’ they paid on top. For that money, Paula had expected to see Miss Beaumont immediately. The teacher nodded graciously.
‘What can I do for you today?’ she asked.
‘It’s the girls,’ said Paula plainly, waving away the offer of tea.
Miss Beaumont glanced down at a sheet of paper in front of them.
‘I understand Casey and Amelia are both doing quite well.’
Paula did her best to look troubled.
‘Yes, that’s true, but … it’s not easy being a twin.’
Miss Beaumont’s forehead creased slightly, perhaps perceiving a slight against the school.
‘Generally speaking, of course, my husband and I are very happy with the school,’ continued Paula carefully. ‘But lately we are getting a little concerned that your teachers seem to be – how shall I put this?–seeing the girls as one.’
Miss Beaumont poured milk into her tea from a tiny china jug and nodded thoughtfully. ‘Please. Expand.’
‘Well, the girls say their teachers have addressed them both by the wrong names on numerous occasions. Casey, Amelia. Amelia, Casey. Amelia particularly has been getting very upset about it, as she is the more sensitive of the girls, as I’m sure you know. I could almost understand it if they were identical twins, but, well, that’s not the case.’
Miss Beaumont was not a woman to get flustered by fussy parents. She fixed Paula with a baleful gaze. ‘Well, naturally I’m sorry for any distress,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to all the teachers concerned.’
Paula released a disappointed sigh. She had been rehearsing the sigh for two days.
‘Well, that would certainly be a start,’ she said. ‘But, really, I fear this is impacting on the girls’ personal development. My husband and I would be much more reassured if we could work out a way to try and stop this happening again.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
Paula took a breath. ‘Casey and Amelia should be separated, put in different classes,’ she said. ‘As soon as possible.’
Miss Beaumont’s brow creased. ‘Really? I understood that you wanted them to be together in class?’
Paula met her gaze without flinching. This was actually true. William had made a big deal about it when they had originally been accepted for the kindergarten class eighteen months earlier.
‘Secondly, I’m generally against moving a pupil into another class away from the friends she’s cultivated over the last year. Especially mid-way through the academic year.’
Paula examined Miss Beaumont’s face, looking for any trace of suspicion. Had any other parents heard of Princess Katrina’s arrival at the school and tried to get their child in the same class? But no, that was impossible. Word might have got out on the grapevine of Carlotta’s enrolment, but not even the admissions secretary’s sister knew which of the two Transition classes the royal child was going to be in. The beauty of twins, thought Paula with the smallest of smiles. With one of her beautiful daughters in each class, she would have all bases covered. Play-dates at the Princess’s palatial Seventy-Second Street town house were surely just a matter of weeks away.
‘Are you saying you can’t help us, Miss Beaumont?’ said Paula, introducing a note of challenge.
The headmistress shook her head.
‘Not at all, I’m simply saying I should talk to the teachers concerned and review the situation in a few weeks.’
She was as tough as old boots, thought Paula grimly. Fenella Beaumont had the inscrutable earnestness of someone that could not be bought; rather foolish of her, given the position of power she was in, thought Paula. Still, she had an ace up her sleeve.
‘A few weeks?’ she cried, adding a quaver of hysteria for effect. ‘Who knows what psychological problems might have set in by then? These are sensitive girls at a critical juncture in their development.’
Paula had, of course, anticipated Miss Beaumont’s objections and had spent many hours thinking of a way to combat them. She had thought of reporting that Amelia, the younger, quieter twin was being bullied, but that would involve accusation, names, and Paula had no intention of making unnecessary enemies of influential parents.
‘Miss Beaumont,’ she said, adopting the intonation of a political chat-show host, ‘you should know that we have already seen a child psychotherapist about these identity issues.’
She’d practised saying the words so many times that she now almost believed that Casey and Amelia had been to see a shrink. ‘Dr Hill is worried, very worried. In his professional opinion, the girls being in the same class, the name mix-ups; it’s all causing damage.’
She emphasized the word ‘damage’ and the implication was not lost on the headmistress. She might be British, but she still understood the litigious culture of America.
Fenella Beaumont exhaled slightly, her plump cheeks expanding like a goldfish’s.
She flipped open a class register and seemed thoughtful for a moment.
‘We do have one new pupil joining Transition B next term, but that’s cancelling out Lucy Kwong’s departure from the school.’ She looked up quickly. ‘Her father has been posted to Dubai.’
‘Well, if someone new is starting, perhaps another new pupil joining the class would make it easier for both of them,’ said Paula.
Miss Beaumont nodded. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’
She snapped the register shut and stood up, her gown billowing behind her as she rose. ‘I will see what I can do. For the welfare of the girls, you understand,’ she added with emphasis.
‘Thank you, Miss Beaumont. We believe Casey should be the one to move into Transition B,’ added Paula casually. ‘More buoyant, more confident. I think she will adapt to new classmates quicker than Amelia would.’
‘Yes, quite,’ said Miss Beaumont. ‘I certainly agree.’
Paula smiled. Beautiful, popular Casey. Her golden girl. The sort of child that everyone would want to befriend. Yes, she thought, with a soaring sense of triumph. Casey would be her entrée into the very highest society.
12 (#ulink_0141fec3-03db-50fe-8dad-5274aafe323e)
Brooke Asgill snatched up the phone and speed-dialled Kim Yi-Noon’s extension.
‘Kim, can you come through? We’ve got a crisis.’
It was eight thirty in the morning. Brooke hadn’t even taken her jacket off when she noticed the manuscript of her magical slush-pile discovery Portico sitting in the middle of her desk. It had a coffee ring on the cover plus a bright yellow Post-it that read: ‘Buy this. Cheap. Mimi.’
Kim came running into Brooke’s office. Ever since the editorial meeting, Brooke had been trying, unsuccessfully, to reach Eileen Dunne, Portico’s author. She seemed to have disappeared in a puff of green smoke.
‘Hi Kim, where are we on tracking down Eileen Dunne?’ She waved the Post-it at her assistant. ‘Just got this from Mimi; looks like it’s getting serious all of a sudden.’
Kim nodded. ‘Yes, I was trying the author all last night and this morning, but I finally spoke to her a few minutes ago. She’s been out of town. Seems very nice.’
‘Especially since we probably got her out of bed,’ smiled Brooke, plumping up the vase of roses that David had sent her the day before to finally put Saturday night’s spat behind them. Neither Alicia nor Matthew had been mentioned since and she thought it best to keep it that way.
‘Well, that’s good news, can you get her on the phone for me …’ she began, but the look on Kim’s face made her stop.
‘Oh,’ said Kim, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘Eileen told me she’s being represented by Vanessa Friedmann, so it’s probably best if you speak to her in the first instance.’
The news was like a body blow to Brooke. The smile dropped off her face and she sat down in her chair.
‘Vanessa Friedmann,’ she gasped. ‘How? When did that happen?’ Her eyes strayed back to Mimi’s note and a feeling of panic rose in her stomach.
Kim flipped open the diary she had tucked under her arm. ‘On Friday the fifteenth you asked me to phone Eileen and suggest she get an agent. I recommended Vanessa, Jane Grubman at IAA and Larry at Authors Inc.’
Brooke stared at Kim, hoping it was a nasty joke. ‘Ohmigod. You recommended three of the toughest negotiators in New York?’
Kim nodded earnestly. ‘You said Eileen needed an agent, so I thought it would be better for you if your authors had prestigious ones.’
Brooke took a deep breath. Kim was efficient and super-keen, but she had an awful lot to learn about the publishing business. She wanted to shout at her, but Brooke knew that Kim had no idea what she had just done.
‘We’ll talk later,’ she mumbled, shooing Kim out of the office and putting her head in her hands. Vanessa Friedmann was fierce, the master of the deal. She took on very few clients and was famous for getting six-figure deals for all of them. Breathe, breathe, she willed herself. She flicked through her Rolodex and dialled Vanessa’s number with a sense of dread. This was the part of her job that she hated.
‘Vanessa, hi. It’s Brooke Asgill. How are you?’
‘Brooke Asgill,’ said Vanessa. ‘This is a nice surprise. Didn’t think you’d still be working.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Brooke, you are America’s most famous bride-to-be. That sounds like a full-time job in itself.’
‘Well, remind me to take a long holiday when it’s all over.’
Vanessa laughed a little too enthusiastically. ‘Well, congratulations on your wedding. I hope your favourite agent is going to get an invite, and if you ever want to publish your memoirs, I’d be happy for us to talk.’
‘Actually, that’s why I’m calling.’
‘Fantastic!’ said Vanessa, her enthusiasm real this time.
‘No, not about me. About a slush-pile script that came into me a couple of weeks ago. I believe you’re looking after the author.’
There was a pause and a rustling of papers.
‘Ah yes, Eileen Dunne. I was going to call you this week. Incredible book, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read it. In my thirty years in the business that hasn’t happened very often but with Portico – phew! This is the real deal.’
Brooke was experienced enough to know she was being set up. It was just agent’s hyperbole; in fact Brooke seriously doubted that Vanessa had read more than the first few pages. Eileen Dunne already had serious interest from a publisher; for an agent it was a no-brainer. Who cared what the book was like?
‘When a book is this good, obviously I want to go straight to auction with it,’ continued Vanessa briskly. ‘But the author insisted I give you first look.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Brooke, trying to sound bright although her heart was pounding. ‘I did rescue it from Yellow Door’s slush pile after all. And I think one of our assistants recommended you to Eileen.’
There was a long pause which suggested that what she had just said cut no ice.
‘So you are interested?’ said Vanessa finally.
‘Well, I’ve only seen the first few chapters. I also gave it to Mimi Hall who liked it as well,’ Brooke replied, trying to keep her voice casual. It was a game: agent bigging up the manuscript as if it was literary gold, editor down-playing their excitement. It was like a lover’s dance.
‘How about I give you twenty-four hours to come up with a pre-empt?’ said Vanessa smoothly.
‘Did you have a figure in mind?’ asked Brooke, the words sticking in her throat.
She was not a tough negotiator like Mimi, who could eat even the fiercest agent alive. For someone who had been brought up in a very wealthy family, she was uncomfortable talking about money, and haggling over advances with agents actually made her feel physically ill. It was certainly not what she’d signed up for when she first started at Yellow Door as an editorial assistant with the dreamy notion that life in a publishing house would be spent leisurely reading books. Vanessa gave a low laugh down the phone.
‘It’s a trilogy with enormous crossover appeal. If it went to auction it could go to seven figures for a three-book deal.’
Seven figures. A million dollars, minimum. Brooke swallowed as quietly as she could.
‘I’ll need to talk to Mimi about this one.’
‘Fine. How about we put in a call for five p.m.? I want to drop the manuscript to other editors by tomorrow lunchtime.’
Brooke put the phone gently back into its cradle. She felt nauseous. She was not confrontational by nature and wondered what would happen if she offered Vanessa the maximum advance she could. Seventy-five thousand was her limit as a commissioning editor. Vanessa would probably break a rib laughing. Steeling herself, she picked up the manuscript and walked down the hall to Mimi’s office. The corner room was by far the best office on the floor. Bright morning sun was streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, along with the unmistakable sounds of a normal New York morning: road-drills, beeping taxi-cab horns. The bustle and energy of the city served as a welcome juxtaposition to the hush of the Yellow Door workplace.
‘Come in,’ said Mimi at Brooke’s timid knock on her open door. For a moment, Mimi didn’t even look up from her notebook. She tucked her dyed black bob behind her ears and placed both palms on the table before she favoured Brooke with eye contact.
‘Brooke. Good,’ she said. ‘Have you spoken to the Dunne woman yet?’
Brooke held the manuscript in front of her like a shield. ‘I’ve just spoken to her agent.’
‘Agent?’ said Mimi, looking up with alarm. ‘I thought you said this one was slush.’
‘It was, but it looks like she’s got an agent in the meantime.’
‘That’s unlucky,’ snapped Mimi, her voice accusatory. ‘Who is it?’
‘Vanessa Friedmann.’
‘Fuck,’ said Mimi, her expression concerned. ‘So how much is that bitch trying to squeeze out of us?’
‘She’s putting it out to auction tomorrow, but we have first refusal.’
‘What did you say? You do know we can’t go any higher than forty thousand dollars?’
‘Each?’ asked Brooke hopefully.
Mimi looked at the ceiling. ‘For the whole trilogy,’ she snapped.
‘Well, it seems that Vanessa is looking at something considerably higher. She mentioned seven figures.’
‘What?’
Mimi stood up and started pacing behind her desk. Against the bright light she looked silhouetted.
‘If you’d acted as soon as I said I was interested in the fucking script, we wouldn’t be in this position,’ she muttered. Brooke could read between the lines of Mimi’s angry frustration; she had seen this before. Mimi believed in the book, she could see its potential, but she didn’t want to pay a penny more than she had to for it.
‘Did you call Vanessa?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Call the author, ask if she’s signed a contract with the Friedmann Agency. If she hasn’t, make her an offer directly.’
Brooke shook her head. It was hugely unethical to say the least, possibly even actionable should Vanessa choose to claim – not unreasonably – that she had already begun negotiations on the deal.
‘We can’t do that,’ protested Brooke.
‘Oh yes you can,’ said Mimi brusquely. ‘Do it now and let’s get this wrapped up by the end of the day.’
When Brooke left the office, her heart was thumping. To stitch Vanessa up would blacken her name with one of the most respected agents in New York. Mimi might have the arrogance to do it, but could she? And anyway, it wasn’t Mimi who had to suffer the consequences. Sitting back down behind her desk she took a few moments to do some breathing she had learnt at yoga class. It did nothing to calm her down. She was trapped. If she defied Mimi, she risked being frozen out in the department, and if she went straight to the author, Vanessa Friedmann might well use her influence to put an end to her career in publishing. She longed to phone David to ask his advice, but he was on his way to Darfur to film a documentary for the network. Feeling the beginnings of tension headache, she tapped out an email to Edward Walker.
Hi Edward,
Mimi and I both love the slush-pile manuscript. Remember we discussed it – New Harry Potter? Author now with Vanessa Friedmann so advance may go high. Authorization to pay up to four hundred thousand dollars?’
She pressed send and took a long swig of water from the bottle on her table, her hands trembling as she twisted the top off. She hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Perhaps never.
She jolted when she heard the ping of her message inbox.
If you think it’s that good, yes. Edward.
She snatched up the phone. ‘Vanessa, it’s Brooke.’
‘Glad you don’t hang about. What’s your offer?’
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’ Brooke pressed her hand onto the table as she said it. As she lifted it up she could see an imprint of her fingers.
Vanessa snorted. ‘Come on, Brooke, don’t insult me. You know what I said earlier.’
‘Two hundred and fifty in today’s climate is a great offer, Vanessa. You know how difficult young adult books are to call. For every J. K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer there’s a thousand others in the remainder bin.’
‘I have my client to think about.’
What would Tess Garrett do? thought Brooke, picturing her steely, slightly frightening new publicist.
Brooke cleared her throat. ‘Your client sent her manuscript to Yellow Door and we’d already made contact, in fact we were going to make an offer directly to Eileen today. Unless you have actually signed a contract with Eileen, I think our lawyers can argue that we have precedent. You don’t want to lose your commission, do you? Fifteen per cent of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, Vanessa.’
There was a long pause, so long that Brooke was beginning to think Vanessa had already hung up.
‘I can’t consider anything below four hundred thousand dollars,’ she said finally. Brooke could imagine her sitting in her midtown office in her Armani trouser suit, her mouth pursed into nothingness.
‘Three hundred thousand,’ said Brooke. ‘We’ll allocate a six-figure marketing spend to make sure it hits retail with a splash.’
‘And three hundred thousand would just be US rights?’
Brooke wondered how far she could push it. ‘Three hundred thousand. Three-book deal. US rights only,’ she said firmly.
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