Guilty Pleasures

by Tasmina Perry

  Cassandra’s face coloured ever so slightly.

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘Seeing as you ask,’ continued Emma politely, ‘everything is going better than we could have possibly expected. The revamped store opens next month just in time for delivery of the new stock. It’s a soft launch – we’re having a bigger opening party in September. I’m not sure whether Rive have shot the Milford 100 Bag for their September issue but don’t worry. Everyone else has. Vogue, Elle, Harpers, they’re all doing something substantial.’

  She felt a little swell of triumph as she said the words.

  The mouse that roared, thought Cassandra, smarting. Of course, she had heard from her mother about Emma’s little successes at Milford and she had to admit that the shoot with Clover Connor had been quite a coup – she’d had serious words with Clover’s agent about that one. The family appeared to have been placated a little for the moment but Cassandra knew that they could easily be swayed the other way in a heartbeat. All it would take was the right pressure.

  ‘I could lie to you, Emma,’ said Cassandra quietly. ‘I could say that we haven’t featured Milford in Rive because everyone knows my connection to the company and I don’t want accusations of nepotism.’

  Cassandra turned her head and looked directly in front of her where Rob Holland was clambering off the bucking bronco to rousing applause.

  ‘The truth is that Rive’s seal of approval is a very potent sales force indeed. I vet every single word, picture and product in my magazine and the reason your 100 Bag won’t be featured is because I don’t believe in either you or the company.’

  ‘You have absolutely no justification for that,’ said Emma, determined not to wilt under the force of Cassandra’s confidence.

  ‘Don’t I?’ she said cruelly, turning to glare at her cousin. ‘Oh, I think I do. You’ve taken the company so far upmarket you’re trespassing in a world you neither know nor understand. You’re in my world now, sweetheart.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Emma.

  ‘I think not. Deep down, you know you’re the little trier who never really could. We all know why you’re here. You never got your partnership, your boyfriend in Boston dumped you and you’re running away and hiding, playing at being the boss of a company you know you don’t deserve.’

  Emma glared at her, wondering how she knew about Mark, about the job. She had only told her mother.

  ‘And now you dare to criticize me for questioning your judgement and not blindly supporting you?’

  Emma just looked at her; her delivery had been brutal. She felt mauled, a kitten face to face with a vicious alley cat.

  ‘Ah, Miss Bailey,’ said a voice to Emma’s left. She turned to see a small wiry man wearing red moleskin chaps and a leather vest. ‘I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘Larson Quinn. I’m coming to Milford on Tuesday for the interview for the Tribune.’

  Emma smiled, trying to blink back a tear. ‘Oh. How nice. And what a coincidence.’

  Larson looked at Cassandra, waiting for an introduction.

  ‘Larson. Cassandra Grand, my cousin.’

  Cassandra smiled thinly. She was vaguely aware of the man. A regular on the party circuit, a vicious little queen who took lovers of both sexes – whoever could be the most useful to him – she thought he had just been made redundant after the closure of Men’s Style Monthly.

  ‘Your cousin? Really, how interesting,’ said Larson, sensing the tension between them. ‘You must have had such fun in the dressing-up box together.’

  ‘Hey, Em, what did you think?’ said Rob, grinning from ear to ear as he emerged from the bronco pen. ‘Three minutes and still sitting pretty,’ he said, slapping his thigh and giving a cowboy yelp.

  ‘Yes, well done,’ said Cassandra smiling warmly as she held out a hand to him. ‘You’re the star of the show.’

  ‘You’re Cassandra, aren’t you?’ said Rob, shaking her hand enthusiastically. ‘There’s a few photos of you at Winterfold.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in Chilcot some time,’ she replied.

  ‘That would be great,’ grinned Rob.

  Cassandra turned to Emma and gave a small triumphant smile.

  ‘Come on. We’re going,’ said Emma, grabbing Rob’s arm and pulling him away.

  ‘Hey! What’s got into you?’ he hissed as she dragged him across the lawn, leaving Cassandra and Larson behind.

  Emma tutted, shaking her head vigorously.

  ‘You! Simpering in front of Cassandra, flirting like a schoolboy, thinking with your sex rather than your brain as usual.’

  ‘My sex?’ he laughed. ‘You can say the word “cock” in front of me,’ he whispered dramatically.

  Emma flushed slightly but she was angry and wanted to lash out.

  ‘Cassandra is a complete bitch,’ she ranted. ‘She uses people, manipulates them, treats people like dirt just because they don’t throw out last season’s designer wardrobe when it’s not in fashion. Which, incidentally, is what will happen to you if you even think about getting involved with her.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’ asked Rob, completely taken aback by Emma’s outburst.

  ‘Cassandra. She’s spiteful, hurtful and evil. I knew I should have gone back to Chilcot when you told me who the bride was. But no, I listened to you.’

  A tear slipped down her cheek but Rob didn’t seem to notice it.

  ‘I don’t want to accuse you of overreacting, but that’s awfully what it sounds like from where I’m standing,’ said Rob, as he walked towards the bar. ‘Everyone I’ve spoken to who knows her says she’s really charming. In fact she seemed perfectly OK just then.’

  ‘Who’s everyone?’ snapped Emma unable to stop herself. ‘Your media crowd? I’m sure they are great judges of character.’

  Rob spun round towards her, flapped his arms helplessly.

  ‘You can be really dismissive, you know that?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she replied getting increasingly upset.

  ‘You are so fast to judge people who are not as quick as you, as sharp as you or as moral as you. Cassandra is a bitch, Trudy is a bimbo. My friends are shallow. You can’t go through life having such contempt for other people just because they don’t match up to what you think and believe.’

  Emma felt bewildered and off-balance. She had expected Rob to be supportive, to notice she was upset at the very least, but instead he was attacking her.

  ‘Forgive me if I think Cassandra is trouble,’ she said trying to keep her voice measured. ‘Forgive me if I think you sell yourself short with women. I’m sure Trudy is a very nice girl but I just wonder what a successful, intelligent guy like you has in common with a topless model?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t stay in doing the crossword, did we?’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Didn’t?’ asked Emma quickly. ‘Oh, it’s past tense now. So Trudy’s past her sell-by date already? Roll on the next simpering beauty who’ll massage your ego. Cassandra’s single but I dare say she bites.’

  ‘Well, remind me not to come knocking on your door.’

  ‘If you thought I found you remotely attractive, I’m sure you would.’

  Rob glared at her.

  ‘I think the pressure is getting to you. Look, the rifle range is over there. I suggest you go and shoot some ducks and get whatever this is out of your system before you say something we both might regret.’

  Rob thumped his cider tankard down on a table and stalked off into the dark.

  ‘So what do you make of your cousin’s revamp of Milford?’ asked Larson Quinn casually sipping his champagne, determined to make his few minutes’ audience with Cassandra Grand count. ‘I hear the reaction after the press shows was fantastic’

  ‘Was it really?’ said Cassandra with a small laugh. ‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to.’

  ‘So what do you think honestly?’ he replied. ‘Hit or miss?’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh darling, it breaks my heart to say it, but it’s just not going to work. To be in charge of a luxury brand, you have to understand what the fashion brands represent and you have to know how to service your audience. With the new ultra-premium price tag Milford are aiming at the couture customer, women who fly private and take eight dresses for two nights of parties. You’ve seen Emma Bailey: does she look like she represents that sort of brand?’

  Larson’s eyes were sparkling as she spoke; he sensed he was getting an exclusive here. Word on the fashion grapevine was that Emma and Cassandra didn’t get on because Cassandra had wanted the company for herself.

  ‘Can I quote you on that?’ asked Larson, ‘it would be great for my piece.’

  ‘Not if you ever want to work for Rive,’ replied Cassandra with a hint of menace in her voice, before turning the mega-watt smile back on.

  ‘As I matter of fact I’ve sent you my CV a few times,’ he said obsequiously. ‘You really do have the most special magazine.’

  ‘Well, it just so happens that I have a fashion features writer vacancy. Why should I recruit you?’

  ‘Because I’m good,’ he said simply.

  ‘Well, that remains to be seen,’ she purred, accepting a glass of champagne from a waiter. ‘Why don’t you send me your Emma Bailey interview when you’ve done it. Let me see if you have the Rive perspective on the industry.’

  Cassandra smiled as Larson nodded. He clearly understood what she was asking him to do. If he pleased her, he might stand a chance of getting the job on Rive. In reality, she had no intention of ever doing any such thing. But he didn’t need to know that quite yet.

  Rob couldn’t find Emma anywhere. Why the hell do I even want to? he thought angrily, downing his glass of champagne in one. He’d met some pretty high-maintenance women in his time, but Emma Bailey took the biscuit. The real kicker was that he had foolishly thought she was different. When she wasn’t fretting about work or her jogging times, Emma was sweet and funny, her fierce intelligence offset by an endearing naivety that made him somehow want to protect her. But tonight – tonight she had shown another side and had turned on him liked a caged tiger. He was angry because she had disappointed him. Angry because her words, however unreasonable they might have sounded at the time, had more than a ring of truth about them. Rob knew he was used to women who hung on his every word, women who treated him like a king. It was exactly what his therapist had told him in the years after his brother Sam had died; his therapist had put it down to Rob’s family; Sam had taken all the attention and affection from his parents, so Rob sought the adoration he craved elsewhere. And as a child of ultra-rich parents, used to getting whatever material things he wanted, Rob had a sense of expectation that meant he believed no woman would ever turn him down.

  If you thought I found you remotely attractive …

  The words had stung and he wasn’t even sure why. Emma wasn’t even that hot. Not like her cousin Cassandra who he certainly wouldn’t mind getting to know better. Ah, maybe it was just a bruised ego, he reasoned. All men wanted to be desired and a rebuff by anybody, well it was gonna hurt. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. As he wandered around the grounds looking for Emma, he kept stumbling across the teepees that had been used earlier in the day for ‘Indian Head massages’, whatever they were. Now in the darkness, they seemed to have been transformed into tiny dens of naughtiness, where the faster ends of Laura’s fashion crowd and Max’s banker friends had retreated to be out of the disapproving gaze of the Welsh aristocracy. There were giggles and clinking glasses coming from some, strange aromas and moaning from others. Rob doubted that Emma would be inside any of the tents, but he had looked everywhere else and he was starting to become a little anxious. He had invited her here and as such he felt a sense of responsibility. Rob bent down to the tent furthest from the bonfire and peeked inside. There, to his surprise, he saw a beautiful redhead sitting on a cowskin rug smoking a joint.

  ‘Hello there, what brings you out this far?’ she said with a flirtatious smile.

  ‘Same thing as you,’ he said smiling. ‘Avoiding the cowboys and the blue-bloods.’

  ‘Well, in that case come and join me. My name’s Jessica, by the way. ‘Want some?’ she asked, holding up the joint. Rob watched a thin spaghetti strap fall off one bare shoulder and smiled to himself. Yes, Emma probably needed some more time to cool off. In the meantime, he was going to stay here and have some fun.

  Emma had spent the last forty-five minutes looking for Rob. What a bitch she’d been! Rob had only ever been generous to her and how had she repaid him? By being a cow. So he had terrible taste in women, but when had that ever been a crime? Why had she been so mean to him? She ran their conversation over and over again in her mind wondering how she could have been so volatile and rude. Cassandra, that’s how, she thought grimly. Her high and mighty cousin had wound her up so tightly that she had taken it out on the first person she had seen. Rob didn’t know the things Cassandra had said and done against the company, so no wonder he thought Emma was being overly hostile to her.

  Emma’s mind was a whirl, trying to work out her feelings, his feelings, overanalysing every angle. Was Rob right when she said the pressure was getting to her? What about her mother’s theory that she needed a boyfriend as another layer to herself? Was she just fooling herself when she thought she could do it all alone? Emma had gone through life convincing herself that she didn’t need anyone, but her experience at Milford suggested quite the opposite: without the help and support of Ruan, Stella and Rob, she would have ground to a halt months ago. And this is how I treat my friends! she thought miserably.

  Emma had now walked in a huge circle right around the party looking for Rob and there was nobody else here she knew. She had had a brief conversation with Giles – was that his name? – Cassandra’s colleague she had met in Paris and while he was charming and pleasant he was much less friendly than the first time they’d met. Obviously Cassandra had got to him too. Feeling thoroughly wretched, she just wanted to find Rob to apologize. The only place she hadn’t checked was inside Hildon Castle itself, which seemed to be out of bounds, and a group of wigwams on the perimeter of the party. She poked her head inside the first one she came to and was hit by the smell of alcohol and marijuana. A man and a woman were sitting on a rug, laughing, their hands inches apart on the ground. Emma pulled back, feeling as if she had intruded on something intimate, before she realized the man was Rob.

  ‘Em! I was looking for you!’ he cried, jumping to his feet.

  ‘Sorry for disturbing you,’ she stuttered, dimly aware of how oddly formal she sounded.

  ‘Nonsense, come and sit down. There’s a warm glass of some potent brew if you want it. This is Jessica, by the way. She’s a stylist, lots of celebrity clients. Maybe you two should talk about Milford.’

  ‘I don’t think tonight’s the night for business,’ she smiled, trying to stop the tremor in her voice. ‘I just wanted to say that I was thinking about going. Apparently there’s a coach going back to the hotel in about ten minutes.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’ll come then,’ said Rob. Emma was quick enough to catch the glance between Rob and Jessica that made it clear neither wanted the party to end.

  ‘No, no, you stay,’ said Emma. ‘It’s not even midnight, you don’t want to miss a quarter of a million pounds worth of pyrotechnics.’

  ‘There is another bus at one,’ said Jessica helpfully, touching Rob softly on the leg. Rob and Emma looked at each other, the second’s silent pause seeming to drag on and on, before Emma conceded she had no claim over Rob that evening – or any evening.

  ‘You stay and have fun,’ said Emma, forcing an encouraging smile. She turned and walked away from the scene as quickly as possible, hoping and praying that she would hear Rob’s footsteps behind her. But they never came and two minutes later she was sitting at the back of the bus, completely alone.

  Cassandra stood in the shadows watching the country and western hoedown with
amused disdain. She wasn’t sure whose idea a Wild West party had been, especially as all Laura’s friends came from the super-poised fashion set, but at least the macho banker crowd seemed to be having a good time whooping and swinging their partners.

  ‘Not joining in?’

  She looked up to see Max holding two glasses of wine, his handsome, craggy features accentuated by the dim tawny light from the bonfire. She had known he would come. When they had sat next to one another at lunch, the chemistry between them had been instant although she hoped not obvious; it wasn’t exactly good form to be seen openly flirting with the groom-to-be. However, she had taken particular attention with her appearance at the party and studiously avoided Max to see if he would come and look for her. Some men are so predictable, she thought, smiling to herself.

  ‘I don’t dance,’ said Cassandra.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you do,’ smiled Max. ‘Although I suspect the do-si-do isn’t quite your thing.’

  ‘Not yours either?’ she said, looking into his deep blue eyes.

  ‘Hey, I’m only the groom,’ he said. ‘I don’t have anything to do with actually planning the wedding, all I have to do is turn up.’

  ‘Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be with your fiancée?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ he said with a small smile. ‘In fact I’m not supposed to see her at all.’

  ‘Ah yes, that’s right. Whatever happened to having the stag do the night before the wedding?’

  Max laughed. It was throaty and deep and Cassandra felt it in her stomach.

  ‘It’s a safety net, isn’t it? Now if your bollocks get shaved, you have time to grow them back again in time for your wedding night. We went to a gun club in Prague, firing ex-Commie Kalashnikovs: every young boy’s dream.’

  Cassandra shivered. There was a rough edge to him; he hid it well underneath the Savile Row suits, but there was something raw about Max Carlton, something that had her off-balance. Cassandra was used to going home with the most powerful or the most handsome in the room. In a party full of multi-millionaires, landed gentry and male models, Max Carlton was neither. And yet, she had a desire for him she hadn’t felt in years.