‘Get your coat. We’re going straight out.’
Julian Sewell had appeared at Erin’s front door at twelve on an early summer afternoon, then whisked her away on a magical mystery tour in his open-topped car. Erin felt as if she had stepped into a Cary Grant movie, which was quite an improvement considering she had never expected the date to happen. True, they’d had a good time that night in the Piccadilly wine bar. Julian’s friend hadn’t turned up, and Candy had slipped off when Erin wasn’t looking, so Erin and Julian had sat at the bar talking and laughing and getting increasingly drunk until it was gone midnight and the barman had told them it was time to close. She’d desperately wanted him to invite her home, but he hadn’t. He said he’d call, but that was what men said, wasn’t it? Until that very moment, when he was standing in front of her in blue jeans, a white short-sleeved shirt and
that
smile, Erin hadn’t really expected to see him again.
‘Are you coming, or am I going to have to come and give you a fireman’s lift down to the car?’ shouted Julian as Erin rushed around finding her shoes and bag and keys. Erin still couldn’t quite believe he had called; men like
Julian Sewell, – handsome, successful, sexy men who probably had model girlfriends tucked away in their designer lofts – weren’t interested in her. If they chatted you up it was because they were drunk. If they took you to bed, they didn’t remember your name the next morning. But here he was, as large as life and so handsome that she almost burst out laughing.
‘But where are we going?’ asked Erin as she ran down the steps.
He handed her an
A – Z
as they walked towards a soft-top vintage Mercedes SL.
‘An alfresco lunch.’
‘Where?’
‘Open the page, any page and decide where,’ he smiled, lighting a cigarette and wedging it between his lips.
Erin closed her eyes, flipped open the
A – Z
and pointed. Dulwich village.
Julian drove them all the way into southeast London with the roof of the car down, so the sun warmed their faces and the breeze ruffled their hair. They parked the car in the village and walked into the park with a creaky wicker hamper Julian had produced from the boot. They found a spot on the grass, laid out a blanket and spread the picnic out; there were two types of carved ham, three types of pickle, a ludicrously comprehensive selection of cheese, along with crusty bread, ripe strawberries and a bottle of chilled Veuve Clicquot.
‘Sorry, I forgot to bring any glasses,’ said Julian as he popped the cork. ‘D’you mind using straws?’
Erin laughed, feeling more happy than she could remember. ‘Oh, I always use a straw,’ she said, ‘it’s the only way to drink champagne.’
Erin lay back on the rug and looked up at Julian. She wanted to know everything about him: what his favourite
music was, who he’d like to be stranded on a desert island with, how many girlfriends he’d had. Particularly the last one. She already knew a lot about him from their night at the bar. He was thirty, which she used to consider old, but working with oldies like Adam, Julian just seemed mature, experienced. A graduate of Manchester University, just like Norman Foster (‘my absolute hero’). Julian had told her, without a hint of irony, that architecture was his life.
‘So is that what you want to be, then: a starchitect?’ she asked, biting into a strawberry.
‘I guess,’ he smiled, breaking off a piece of bread. ‘I mean, it would be amazing to be like Frank Gehry. He turns his hand to everything from jewellery to concert halls, and the really cool thing is, whether it’s a bracelet or a suspension bridge, you can tell it’s his.’
Erin smiled; he had the same passion for his job that she saw in Adam. He had the same magnetism, too, but Julian’s was a different kind of sex appeal – softer, more obtainable perhaps. Julian was definitely more classically handsome. Definitely. In fact, it was all she could do to prevent herself from reaching out to touch him, to run her fingers over the hint of pale brown stubble on his chin, to feel his tanned skin and those long lashes that framed his eyes. She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘… But even if I stay working at our practice forever, I’ll be happy,’ he went on. ‘I just want to design. Both my parents are architects, so I guess I’m doing what I know best.’ Julian plucked a long stem of grass and began to play with it. ‘What do your parents do?’ he asked suddenly.
Erin licked the strawberry juice from her lips and rolled over to look at him, propping herself up on her elbow. She
rarely discussed her parents with anyone. She’d barely even told Chris the story, and he was her closest friend in London. But there was something about Julian that made her want to open up to him, mentally and physically. She wanted him to know everything.
‘My dad was in the fashion business, but nothing very glamorous like a designer. His company actually made jeans,’ she said, looking a little embarrassed. ‘My mum worked for him sometimes, doing the books and things, but mainly she was a housewife. Anyway, my dad’s dead. I went to live with my gran when I was six.’
Julian looked confused. ‘Why didn’t you live with your mum?’
‘Because she’s missing.’ She paused, knowing it was a first date and it all seemed completely inappropriate to discuss, but he had put his hand on her head, stroking her hair with his fingertip, and she knew it was okay to talk.
‘Missing?’ asked Julian quietly.
‘My dad committed suicide after his business went under. My mum had always been a bit of a depressive and it just got worse after he’d gone.’
Julian nodded, encouraging her to go on.
‘We lived in London then, but spent a lot of time at my gran’s in Cornwall. One day, the summer after my dad’s death, we were in Port Merryn and my mum said she had to pop back to London for the night. She never came back. Police found her car a week later near Beachy Head but they never found her body.’
She glanced at Julian, wishing she hadn’t told him, but at the same time glad she had.
‘Do you think she’s still alive?’ asked Julian.
Erin shook her head. ‘She’s dead,’ she said categorically. ‘I know it sounds weird but, even before her car was found, I just couldn’t feel her around any more. Anyway,
I know if she was alive that she would have come back for me.’
She fell silent for a moment. ‘I know that might make me sound like a bad person. Believing she’s dead, I mean. My gran’s the opposite, she won’t accept that she’s gone. She still keeps a light on in my mum’s old bedroom at night, so she can find her way home, I guess.’
She scrunched up her eyes in the sun and a tear ran down the crease.
‘You have to believe what is right for you,’ said Julian slowly, reaching out to touch her hand.
‘Well, it definitely worked out for the best, me getting a job in London. I had to leave Cornwall to escape the limbo,’ she said softly. ‘Every night I’d see the light and it would make me feel bad.’
Julian began to pack away the hamper and took her hand. ‘Come on. We’re going to cheer you up. Let’s go and hire some bikes from that place by the gate.’
‘Good idea,’ smiled Erin, rubbing her face. ‘Because I want to show you something.’
They put the hamper back in the car and cycled out of the park, out of Dulwich and up the hill towards Crystal Palace. Puffing and grinning, they finally made it to one of the highest points in London and looked down at the sprawling capital spread out like their picnic blanket. Erin could see Canary Wharf and the Swiss Re gherkin, thinking with a sense of pride that two more landmark buildings, currently being built by the Midas Corporation, would soon be rising out of the city’s skyline.
‘Bloody hell, Erin, what have we come all the way up here for?’ asked Julian, braking to take a breather.
‘Come on lazy,’ she laughed, ‘I want to see what you think of a building. A professional opinion, if you like.’
They wheeled the bikes along the pavement for a few
minutes, then Erin turned into a leafy side street and stopped at an old white Georgian building set back from the road.
‘This old thing? What about it?’ asked Julian, shielding his eyes from the sun as he gazed up at it.
‘It’s mine,’ said Erin softly. ‘I just bought it.’
Julian looked at Erin, then back at the house. ‘You’re kidding.’
Erin shook her head. ‘It’s one residence now, but I want to convert it into apartments,’ she said eagerly. ‘I’m on a very tight budget, but I think there’s a real opportunity here. The building is pretty, the area is up and coming. The smart estate agents and the gastro-pubs are moving in, prices are rising.’ She spread her arms. ‘It’s all here.’
‘Wow. Get you; you’re a real little Adam Gold prodigy, aren’t you?’
Julian leant his bike up against the wall and walked up to the house, running his hands over the brickwork like a sculptor feeling clay.
‘I realize it’s a bit shabby now, but I just know I can make this work,’ said Erin, trying to sound more confident than she felt. Ever since she had completed on the property purchase she’d been wondering whether she’d been too rash. ‘But I have a massive mortgage, so I need to get planning permission straight away. I can’t afford for it to be unoccupied for too long. And I have to get an architect to draw up plans before I can apply for planning permission.’
‘Well, if it’s an architect you need,’ he said, standing back and peering up at the roof, ‘I know a pretty good one.’
‘So do I,’ laughed Erin,’ but I bet he’s expensive.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can come to some agreement,’ he replied.
He moved closer towards her and put his hands on hers, moving his face in close. ‘Shall we start talking terms and conditions?’ he whispered as sunlight poured through the trees around the house and dappled them with light.
‘Well, I think this is a very good start,’ she smiled, as he moved his lips towards her for the sweetest, most sensual kiss.
Erin pulled away, her head feeling light and dizzy. She looked at the house, then at Julian. ‘Consider yourself hired,’ she said.
Molly had just grabbed her jacket from the back of her office chair and was dashing for the lift when her phone rang. It was Adam. ‘Molly, can I just have a word with you upstairs for a minute?’ he asked.
‘Oh Adam,’ she breathed, ‘I have a meeting Mayfair in half an hour, is there any chance it can wait until tomorrow?’ She was due to meet Alex for their fortnightly rendezvous and she knew Lord Delemere well enough by now to know he hated her being late.
‘Now, Molly,’ replied Adam, and the phone clicked dead.
Cursing, Molly slicked some gloss over her lips, undid a button on her blouse and went upstairs. She entered Adam’s office and sat down in the black leather swivel chair opposite him, crossing her legs and giving him a lazy smile.
‘I won’t keep you long,’ said Adam flatly. His stiff back and sober expression immediately put her on her guard.
‘Well, the Christmas party is already looking fantastic,’ said Molly, trying to fill the silence. ‘I’ve had a great quote from a company who want to do something really special. I’m thinking a Bollywood banquet; snake charmers, real elephants, a whole sensuous bazaar feel. We’re just getting
some spread sheets and visuals together and, if you approve them, then we can get the ball rolling.’
‘Fine. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Adam abruptly.
Molly raised her eyebrows quizzically. Adam looked down at his desk.
‘Molly, something has come to my attention that could be incredibly awkward for a number of people, not least myself.’
Molly shifted in her chair. She had a feeling that the late-night cognac and indecent proposal she had envisioned weren’t on the cards tonight.
‘Something happened in the office on Friday night which was – is – quite frankly unacceptable.’
Friday? What happened on Friday? Oh God!
Molly had a flashback to her boardroom tryst with Jasper, remembering his hands, his mouth, the pure sensual pleasure … but there was no way Adam could know about it – was there?
She looked at him and Adam met her gaze, his expression steely, his jaw locked and impassive.
‘Molly you know what I’m talking about,’ he said slowly.
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ she said lifting her chin defiantly, ‘you’re going to have to illuminate me.’
‘If that’s how you want to play it,’ said Adam, reaching for a remote control and pointing it at a television at the side of his desk.
The picture flicked onto a grainy black-and-white image. Molly’s face was immediately recognizable, thrown back in pleasure as she lay on the boardroom table, her skirt up around her hips, her legs splayed like the arms of a clock, a man’s head between them. Adam kept the television on a moment longer than was necessary, then snapped it off.
Molly could hear the sound of her own quickened
breathing filling the silence.
How could she have been so stupid?
She had been in that boardroom a hundred times and never noticed CCTV. She tried quickly to think of something to say, an excuse, a denial. But it was useless. She had been caught red-handed.
‘Molly, we just can’t have that sort of thing going on in the office.’
She nodded solemnly and Adam paused.
‘I take it Marcus doesn’t know?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ she said, the words coming out like a croak. ‘It was a one-off. I was so stupid, so fucking stupid,’ she said, biting her lips in anger.
‘I think this Friday should be your last day in the office,’ he said flatly.
‘What?’ she gasped. ‘You’re joking!’
‘Why should I be joking?’ asked Adam angrily. ‘My events coordinator fucks someone who isn’t her boyfriend, my vice president – my friend – on my boardroom table. Why should I be joking?’
She could feel her heart pounding so loudly she was sure Adam could hear it. Right now Adam Gold had the power to destroy her whole life, to wipe out the entire existence she had become so comfortable with. The Standlings, the parties, the Maserati. Everything.
‘But I thought I was doing a good job, I thought …’
She looked up at Adam, her eyes pleading. ‘You’re not going to tell Marcus, are you? Please Adam, I beg you.’ Her voice was beginning to crack and real tears spilled down her cheeks.
Adam glanced away for a moment, shaking his head. ‘I won’t. For now.’
Molly breathed a sigh of relief.
‘But my loyalties are to him, Molly,’ continued Adam. ‘And if I get even a whiff that you’ve screwed around on
him again, not only will I tell Marcus about your little extracurricular activity, I’ll get you blackballed from so many companies in London, you won’t be able to get a job in this town shovelling shit.’
‘Thank you, Adam, it will never happen again, I promise you.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ said Adam, looking at Molly with disgust. ‘Just get out.’
‘What do you mean, you haven’t told Marcus?’
Karin was furious. How could he not tell him? Men could be such
idiots
. She and Adam were sitting at the best table in a fabulous new chic French restaurant in Chelsea, and he’d made her evening by telling her he had just fired Molly, but then gone and spoiled the whole thing with some sort of weird twisted male logic.
‘But what would it solve, honey?’ said Adam, filling her glass with water which she drained almost immediately. ‘If she’s telling the truth and it’s a one-off, then there’s no point telling him. Marcus has had a run of bad luck with women, but he seems to really like Molly. If she’s a serial cheat, well then he’ll find out soon enough, but I’d rather it didn’t come from me.’
Karin couldn’t believe it; how had Molly been able to secure Adam’s silence?
With sex
? No, he wouldn’t do that – would he? She tried to put that thought out of her mind. What irked Karin the most was that it had taken such a huge amount of planning. Molly was such a slacker, Karin knew that she wouldn’t bother to fact-check or take references on anything. If she had, Molly would soon have discovered that HangDog Productions didn’t actually exist and that Jasper Goodman, the man she’d fucked on the boardroom table, wasn’t a gung-ho party planner with an impressive CV and a Rolodex of society contacts. He was
Jonathan Gooding, an out-of-work actor and sometime escort who would do anything for money and who had deceived Molly Sinclair beautifully.
Damn it! If only Adam had told Marcus.
After Molly’s conniving in Monaco, there was nothing Karin would like better than to see the dreadful woman out of the picture. Well, almost nothing.
‘Don’t let Molly Sinclair put you in such a bad mood. She always seems to rile you,’ said Adam as the waiter placed their food in front of them.
‘I just have a lot on my mind,’ said Karin truthfully.
‘I hope this isn’t still to do with me not coming to St Tropez, is it?’ asked Adam, raising a crystal wine goblet to his lips. ‘Karin, this refinancing is crucial. It was the only time I could get all the guys from the bank together.’
She shrugged, smiling. ‘You know I’m not one of those demanding women who insists their boyfriend be there for every minor life triumph.’
‘Hardly minor. Karenza is now an international brand.’
‘Not before time,’ she said, raising her glass to his.
She swilled the contents of her glass around before she put it back on the table and looked at Adam intently. ‘I met Victor Chen in St Tropez. He wants to buy the company.’
Adam put his knife and fork down. ‘A serious offer?’
‘As serious as these things are. He wants to take the company mass prestige, move production out to the Far East, bring down prices, increase stock. Basically he’s proposing to have Karenza in every department store from Manchester to Manila.’
‘Well, that’s one business model for the company,’ replied Adam.
‘Although I suspect you may have other ideas?’
A waiter came to fuss around them, refilling Adam’s glass with the restaurant cellar’s best white wine, and filling Karin’s with still water.
Karin paused again. ‘He also tried to sleep with me,’ she said.
‘What?’ snapped Adam, prompting a nearby waiter to lift his head to see what was going on. ‘Where? At the shop?’
‘No. He invited me to his villa for dinner.’
Adam glared at Karin, his face a mixture of anger and jealousy, which was exactly the response Karin had been hoping for.
‘And you
went
? I turn my back for a moment and you’re running off to some guy’s fucking villa to
talk
.’
‘Adam. It was to talk business. You know how it works.’
‘Of course I know how it works,’ he spat. ‘He wanted to screw you and he tried to seduce you with promises of a global business.’
Karin flashed him a wry smile. ‘And you know how it works so well because …?’
Adam looked at her, fuming. Then he shook his head and snorted with laughter. ‘Touché, Karin Cavendish,’ he said.
Karin leaned over and touched his sleeve. ‘Adam, I didn’t sleep with him. And I don’t want him to buy the business. But what I do want is fast expansion: roll out the lingerie, add another dozen shops within two years. I want to keep the company high-end, but sell on a much larger scale – do that and the private equity companies will be falling over each other for a buyout.’
Adam was mulling this all over quietly. ‘You’ll need external investment,’ he said.
Karin nodded. ‘But I’d rather not go back to Victor Chen.’
Adam looked at her critically. ‘I’ve offered once. I believe the response was that you wanted complete control.’
‘I still do,’ said Karin honestly.
‘Honey, that’s not the way it works,’ he said, trying hard not to sound patronizing.
‘Look, Adam, Victor was good for one thing,’ said Karin, ignoring his curtness. ‘He’s made me think about cutting my costs.’
Adam smiled. ‘Ah, I sense a plan coming on.’
Karin leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘As you know, the lingerie range launches before Christmas. The designs are done, but they haven’t gone into production.’
‘You’re thinking about moving it out to the Far East, aren’t you?’ nodded Adam.
Karin shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve been too much of a snob.’
Adam repressed a snort and Karin smiled at him. ‘I’ve been looking at samples and there really is very little difference between product made in Italy and China. Knickers are made to come off, so does anybody really care where they come from? I’m going to cancel the order with the Italian factory and go elsewhere.’
‘I thought you said provenance was everything.’
‘Let’s just say I won’t be compromising our reputation.’
Adam met her gaze. ‘What do you want, Karin? My investment? You know Midas is about to float. I’m not sure now is the right time for me.’
‘This is pocket money for you, Adam,’ she said flatly. ‘I want to issue non-voting B shares in the company in return for a five-million-pound cash injection.’
‘Non-voting?’ queried Adam.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she replied, her voice steely. ‘Do you want to make money or not? In two years’ time, you’ll be bought out for ninety million dollars minimum.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Karin Cavendish,’ smiled Adam, his eyes pooling with lust.
‘It’s what you love about me,’ she smiled, running the tip of her toe up his leg.
‘Just promise me you didn’t fuck Chen,’ he said, motioning the waiter for the bill.
‘I didn’t have sex with him,’ Karin whispered in the quiet, rarefied atmosphere of the restaurant.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of here,’ she smiled wolfishly, as they both got up from the table. ‘There’s something we should do.’