Guilty Pleasures

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘The Christmas book of this year, I don’t doubt it.’

  She grabbed a canapé and popped it in her mouth, leaving a few flakes of crostini on her top lip. ‘Now, I know this was a one-book deal, I know you’re incredibly busy doing other things but we see you as a very important author for Leighton Best. Jenny Bond said you’ve got a number of ideas up your sleeve. What was this idea she said you had about Christian Dior?’

  Cassandra waved a manicured hand dismissively in the air.

  ‘Let’s not talk about work tonight.’

  ‘Quel dommage,’ she smiled. ‘Fabulous venue, by the way. I wish all our authors could pull strings like you can. Anyway, mustn’t keep you from all your friends,’ she said with a wink, moving off again.

  Cassandra turned to find Max gone. Instead, Giles was standing there looking at her, stony-faced.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The Christian Dior idea your publisher just mentioned,’ he said quietly. ‘Is that the one I’m writing?’

  He had such a stiff upper lip. God bless the civilized English thought Cassandra, knowing he was unlikely to make any sort of fuss.

  ‘Yes, a Christian Dior biography was something I mentioned to her,’ she said briskly. ‘They were pushing me for suggestions for book two. Anyway, it’s hardly the most original idea in the world, is it?’

  ‘So you think you will do it?’

  Her eyes challenged him. Warned him.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Giles simply nodded and she smiled. He knew that to do or say anything further was futile. He was one of the few anointed members of her court, but that status could be revoked at any given time. In time he would see that what was best for her, was best for both of them. She looked around for Max; he was a few yards away chatting distractedly to Alison Edmonds. While she helped herself to another canapé, he gave her a small smile and motioned gently with his head towards the stairs. Noticing that Laura was now deep in conversation with Giles, she slowly followed. There was a long corridor at the top and only one door was ajar. Looking both ways to check she hadn’t been seen, Cassandra pushed the handle. Max was standing just inside and he grabbed her, forcing his lips down on hers, his hands caressing her bare back, his fingers slipping inside down the curve of her ass.

  ‘Max, please,’ she moaned, not wanting him to stop.

  ‘Laura is going to some other party,’ he whispered. ‘I said I’d see her back at the house.’

  She looked up, their faces inches apart, sharing the same air.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she murmured.

  He smiled wolfishly. ‘I think you know. When do you think you can get away from here?’

  ‘Max. It’s my party. Plus Ruby is here.’

  ‘It’s nine-thirty, the party is almost over. Can’t Ruby go home with your driver?’

  He rubbed the palm of his hand across her breast, feeling her nipple harden at his touch.

  Suddenly nothing seemed as important as her own longing, ripping at every nerve ending.

  ‘Where shall we meet?’

  ‘I’ve booked a room at the Cadogan Hotel.’

  ‘Sorry, darling, but I have to go and do some more work,’ said Cassandra, slipping an arm around Ruby’s shoulders and brushing aside a pang of guilt at the deliberate lie to her daughter. ‘Andrew will take you back to the house. What’s happening to Pandora and Amaryllis? Are their parents in London?’

  ‘Yes and Amaryllis has just invited me to sleep over. Apparently their house is amazing.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ smiled Cassandra.

  ‘So I can go?’

  ‘Where’s their house?’

  ‘In Regents Park. Andrew could drop us off there instead.’

  Amaryllis stepped forward and handed Cassandra a card. ‘That’s our address. Someone will bring Ruby back home tomorrow or she can come to Battersea heliport with us. Daddy’s helicopter is taking us back to school.’

  ‘Well, I think that all sounds in order,’ said Cassandra briskly. She made a quick call to Andrew confirming the arrangements, requesting that he take her to the Cadogan Hotel first before he returned to collect the girls. Kissing her mother goodbye, Ruby headed to the bathroom with Pandora and Amaryllis, all of them giggling.

  ‘Do you think she’ll find out?’ said Ruby, looking up into the wide mirror as Amaryllis applied a slick of red lip-gloss.

  ‘Find out what? You are staying at our house. We’re just going clubbing first,’ smiled her friend.

  ‘Are you sure we’ll get in?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Amaryllis, taking her eye-liner and applying a generous amount to the top of Ruby’s eyelid. ‘We’re on the guest list and our parents won’t be back until after midnight. No one is going to know any different.’

  35

  Cassandra sat at her suite in the Milan’s Hotel Principe di Savoie reading a card from Donatella Versace. It was the start of Milan Fashion Week and she was surrounded by extravagant floral arrangements traditionally sent by fashion houses to welcome the editors to the collections.

  There was a knock at the door and Francesca, Rive’s fashion director entered, looking fabulous in black tailored pants, white shirt, a long string of pearls and a sable mink shrug. She was, as she had told Cassandra earlier in the week, currently channelling Babe Paley and in Cassandra’s opinion she looked even better than the Fifties society beauty herself.

  ‘Have you got a moment?’

  ‘Literally a moment,’ said Cassandra glancing up from the pile of correspondence. ‘The car is downstairs ready to take us to the Missoni dinner.’

  Francesca took a seat in a pale blue wing-back chair. She was a self-assured woman but in Cassandra’s company she seemed on edge.

  ‘What is it?’ said Cassandra briskly.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about Laura.’

  Cassandra propped Donatella’s card back against the vast spray of black orchids that had accompanied it.

  ‘What about her?’ she said, picking up the stiff white invitation from the writing desk and putting it in her clutch bag.

  ‘It’s about the number of overseas shoots she’s doing. She’s never in the office.’

  Francesca paused for a moment as if she was summoning up courage.

  ‘You’re the fashion director. Sort it out,’ said Cassandra simply.

  ‘But you’ve specifically requested that she do them. The rest of the team are getting very upset about it and to be honest, when I’m the one commissioning the stories and then you go over my head, I feel it’s undermining my position in the department.’

  Cassandra looked at her critically, surprised that her fashion director had had the balls to speak up. Then again Francesca was one of her most impressive and committed members of staff. Unmarried and ambitious, Francesca Adams devoted her life to fashion and to the magazine. Rive’s most stylish ambassador, next to Cassandra herself, Francesca understood that fashion was about sacrifice; whether it was spending her entire life hungry so that she could be a perfect size eight, or clocking up big debts to look and act the part of a top fashion director. So extensive and deluxe was Francesca’s wardrobe that Cassandra had always assumed that she was independently wealthy. But the one time she had dropped in on Francesca’s Chelsea apartment she’d had a big surprise. It had the right SW3 address; but it was the smallest studio Cassandra had ever seen. No light-shade hung from the solitary light bulb. Two huge wardrobes, spilling out with this season’s designer clothes, meant there was no room for any other furniture except a sofa bed that doubled up as somewhere to sit and sleep.

  Cassandra admired Francesca’s commitment to the fashionable cause. It was why she had turned a blind eye to Francesca taking garments from other editors’ rails when they were preparing for shoots. She had known about it for months; Laura and other editors had complained incessantly about it. But Cassandra understood Francesca’s desire to be and look the best. Francesca had passion. The same passion she had herself.
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  ‘Oh, come on Francesca, you’re all griping because you want to do the shoots yourself,’ said Cassandra pulling on her Prada fur.

  ‘That’s not true,’ replied Francesca, fiercely defending her position. ‘It’s because Laura’s shoots are very one note – she’s our least creative editor and if she carries on doing so much location stuff the entire fashion section is going to start looking samey.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake. We have almost a hundred pages of fashion stories in Rive per issue. Laura’s one twelve-pager is hardly going to spoil the mix.’

  She found herself pausing for a moment, knowing in her heart that Francesca was right. She was sending Laura away so much because she wanted time with Max. She would never let anything compromise the quality of the magazine, but he was like a drug and she would do anything just to be with him.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Francesca narrowing her eyes like a cat, ‘I also think she is moonlighting on the side for other magazines.’

  ‘Laura would never do that. It’s a dismissible offence. Besides, she hasn’t got the gall.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s doing a shoot that isn’t on any of the flat-plans,’ added Francesca. ‘There’s a rack of clothes at the back of the fashion cupboard. White coloured gowns. Really top-of-the-range stuff. Some couture pieces. We have never talked about doing that story.’

  Cassandra tried to disguise her annoyance. Alex Jalid had been good as his word, and had greased the Sulka Royal Palace wheels to make sure a shoot with Georgia Kennedy was going to happen. There were conditions attached; Rive were to shoot in the family’s summer lodge not the main palace and Georgia would only talk about her charity work, although Cassandra was confident they could extract some more personal stuff.

  The Georgia Kennedy shoot was top secret. It had to be. If the Americans got wind of it they would try to muscle in and claim it as their own. There had been at least three instances Cassandra could recall when her entertainment editor Deborah had secured a celebrity for a shoot, only for the star to pull out and turn up in the US issue a couple of months later. So for the Georgia Kennedy shoot only Giles, Laura and the art director knew what was happening and it needed to stay that way.

  ‘Really,’ said Cassandra rubbing her bottom lips thoughtfully. ‘I did ask her to call me in a gown for a benefit dinner in New York. Let me look into it. And Francesca. Thanks for telling me. I’m sure it’s entirely harmless but if Laura has been freelancing for other magazines she’ll be feeling my wrath.’

  Cassandra nodded at Francesca, her cue for her to leave, and she vowed the next day, Laura was going to be in serious trouble for her indiscretion.

  36

  ‘This is one fucking-awesome party,’ said Tom, taking a vodka shot from a passing tray and knocking it back. It was Sunday afternoon and in front of his eyes two hundred of Ibiza’s most beautiful people were partying around a huge, turquoise, infinity pool, as if it was their last day on earth. In Tom’s direct line of vision were two world-famous music producers, a hip Hollywood actress, and a smattering of West London socialites in various stages of undress. Roland Gonzalez, the white-hot techno DJ was at the decks watching as Alexia Dark, the supermodel, was thrown into the pool by an Eighties rock star whose face was so rigid with cocaine, he couldn’t even laugh.

  The party was being held at the sumptuous villa belonging to Miguel Cruz, one of the richest men on the island. He was the owner of both the Desire nightclub and Sugar, the small Ibiza Town bar that Tom, Jamie and their other business partner Piers had commandeered for the summer.

  ‘Of course it’s awesome. It’s the last weekend of the season,’ replied Jamie distractedly, smiling over at a six-foot pneumatic blonde wearing a feathered head-dress and a tiny, gold, sequinned tunic. ‘Shit, check her out, Tommy. I think she wants me.’

  ‘Uh, I think she is a he,’ laughed Tom, trying to keep himself alert with another vodka shot. He couldn’t believe that he was going back to England at the end of the week. It had been a glorious, fun-filled summer; his bar had closed the night before and what a send-off it had been. Tom and sixty of his new best friends had drunk the bar practically dry and he’d celebrated by spending the night with Peaches, the Sugar Bar’s stunning promotions girl, resulting in only two hours sleep before coming to this party. Piers, the third partner in Sugar and Spice Productions came striding around the pool. Dressed in long white Bermuda shorts and a stripey Hackett T-shirt that did little to disguise his girth, he was fiddling anxiously with the signet ring on his little finger.

  ‘Whatsup?’ asked Jamie tipping his sunglasses onto the back of his head.

  ‘Miguel wants to see us in his office,’ said Piers, frowning.

  ‘Fine. Sure. Right,’ said Jamie. Curious, Tom studied his face and was concerned to detect the same level of apprehension in Jamie’s manner.

  ‘What’s going on, guys?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Nothing, it’s fine,’ said Jamie, ‘Completely fine. Miguel probably just wants to sign some paperwork or something.’

  But Tom caught the look that passed between Jamie and Piers and it did nothing to reassure him that Miguel wanted to clear up some admin. They looked scared.

  They were led away from the pool and into the house by a besuited bald-headed man and through to an expensively furnished study, with long shutters opening onto a terrace on the other side of the house. Miguel Cruz, an impressive-looking man with a hooked nose and wiry grey hair, remained seated sat behind his desk when they entered the room, while the bald guy waited silently by the window, his hands folded in front of him. Tom felt as if he had been hauled in front of the headmaster. Miguel picked up a document from his leather-topped desk and considered it for a few moments.

  ‘I have in front of me the accounts for the Sugar bar and the Spice nightclub,’ he said finally, looking at each of them in turn.

  Not one for small talk then, thought Tom, feeling hot in spite of the cool mountain breeze blowing in through the shutters.

  ‘I see Sugar and Spice Productions has made a a340,000 loss.’

  ‘What? How can that be?’ asked Tom, completely floored by the news. He took a step forward to try and peep at the papers in front of Miguel. ‘But I did a bloody booming trade all summer!’

  Jamie pulled him back and Tom saw the look of fear on his friend’s face. Jamie and Piers were responsible for the accounting. Tom had given the books only the vaguest look. His administrative responsibilities had amounted to no more than cashing up at the end of the week and banking the proceeds. He knew that the Spice club hadn’t been delivering the sorts of crowds that Jamie and Piers wanted, but a340,000 in debt! – they must have been haemorrhaging money. Where had it all gone?

  ‘We’ve a heavy outlay to get established,’ explained Piers nervously. ‘Publicity, alcohol, venue refurb and so on.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ smiled Miguel, ‘Many clubs have the same problem in the first season. I’m sure it will be better next year. However, it is in the terms of the contract that you must settle the balance within 28 days,’ Miguel added coolly.

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Jamie confidently. ‘Perhaps we can talk again later in the week?’

  ‘No need,’ said Miguel taking a sip from his crystal tumbler of water. ‘Deal with my business affairs manager Carlos as you have already been doing.’

  He stood up and walked to the shutters. ‘Now I suspect young men like yourselves would rather be out by the pool rather than in here with me.’

  The three men stepped outside and into the strong September sun. They were all subdued; Miguel’s calm acceptance of their explanation had been far more unnerving than if he’d shouted and made threats. When he was sure they were out of earshot of the office, Tom turned on his friends.

  ‘Three hundred and forty thousand? Where the hell’s all that gone?’ he hissed angrily.

  ‘You heard Piers,’ said Jamie. ‘It cost a fortune to refurb the club, I mean the barstools alone! Ostrich doesn’t come cheap you kno
w.’

  ‘But that much? Miguel must have been screwing us on the booze. I knew we shouldn’t have let him supply us.’

  ‘You were the one who signed for most of the drink,’ replied Piers tartly.

  ‘That’s because I was the only one who sold any!’

  ‘Don’t be a cock, Tom,’ said Jamie, ‘I was there when you took that delivery, remember? Do you have any idea what they were loading into your cellar? Did you check the paperwork? No – you were too busy sniffing around the tart in the mini-skirt!’

  ‘Sod off, Jamie! I worked my arse off…’

  ‘Chaps! Come on!’ shouted Piers. ‘This is getting us nowhere. The truth is we didn’t make any money and now we owe serious money to some rather unpleasant people.’

  ‘What do you mean, “unpleasant”?’ asked Tom.

  Jamie and Piers exchanged a look.

  ‘Our friend Miguel has something of a reputation, shall we say?’ said Piers. ‘He doesn’t like people who owe him money. He can get quite nasty.’

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ whispered Tom.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Tom thought for a moment.

  ‘Can you really get a340,000 just like that?’ asked Tom remembering Jamie’s confidence in the study.

  ‘I have a couple of trust funds that I’d rather not use,’ shrugged Jamie. ‘Otherwise I might be able to tap my father for a hundred gees.’

  Tom gaped at him. Jamie was talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds as if it was pocket money. He looked at his friend in a new light.

  ‘Well, a hundred grand isn’t going to cover it,’ said Tom sitting on a chair under a parasol. Jamie and Piers sat opposite him and took two drinks from a waitress.

  ‘Three hundred and forty thousand euros is about two hundred and fifty thousand quid,’ said Piers. ‘It’s less than ninety grand each. Personally I think it could have been a lot worse.’

  ‘Ninety grand each?’ hissed Tom. ‘And I’m supposed to chip that in too, am I?’

  ‘Of course you fucking are, you twat,’ replied Jamie.