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Copyright
First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2011
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
HarperCollinsPublishers reserves the right to be identified as the author of the work.
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Source ISBN: 9780007364787
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007364794
Version: 2018-08-06
Dedication
To all you fashion-loving badasses out there.
– Megan Cole
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thrity
Epilogue
Credits
Previously by Megan Cole
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It was the dead of night at St Winifred’s School for Girls in the Argentinean capital. The sprawling grounds lay in darkness, the historic buildings silent. On the tennis courts a lone leaf skittered along in a gentle breeze: scrape, scrape, scrape. In the skies high above, a transatlantic jet hummed quietly.
At the far side of the site, by the polo pitch that had been built especially to give the young students a taste of the country’s national sport, there was a sudden movement. A stray dog, making its escape with scraps from the kitchen bins, stopped and watched as a shadowy figure appeared on the other side of the boundary fence. They stared each other out for a moment, both unwelcome presences. The human hissed at the dog and it flattened its tail whimpering, before taking off back into the night.
The shadow put a hand on the fence and jumped over. There had been no problem sneaking past the fat guard on the gate - asleep as usual with his mouth open and a cheesy chat show blaring out of the TV in the background. The shadow curled its lips into a smile. St Winifred’s really should invest in better security. Parents spent all this money to send their little darlings here thinking they were safe, all tucked up in their dormitories. But anyone could get in here.
It really wasn’t safe.
Picking up a big black bag, the shadow started to run across the lawn. It had nearly reached the main building when suddenly the place was flooded with security lights. ‘Celine Van Der Berg!’ boomed a furious voice. ‘Stop this INSTANT!’
Celine cursed and came to a grinding halt. Her dragon of a housemistress was standing at a first floor window, her huge bulk almost filling it. Celine did a double-take - was the old bat holding a loudhailer?
‘Stay right there!’ Mrs Gonzales boomed. ‘Don’t move an inch!’
Celine rolled her eyes. So much for her quiet return. One by one lights started to flicker on and a minute later the front door to the boarding house burst open.
Mrs Gonzales bustled out, looking like a big pink tank in her hideous dressing gown. ‘What do you think you’re doing? It’s three o’clock in the morning!’ Her fury abated for a second to take in the asymmetric mini dress Celine was wearing - PVC, black and artfully cut off one shoulder. Most definitely not the regulation sludge brown of St Winifred’s. ‘And what on earth are you wearing?’ she gasped.
Celine did a little turn, perfectly copied from the catwalk. ‘Nice, huh? I made it myself.’
‘You look like a slut!’ Mrs Gonzales’s nostrils flared. ‘How dare you sneak off school premises? You’re in big trouble, young lady.’
Celine yawned. ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’
The housemistress grabbed her arm. ‘Headmistress’s office, now. I’ve informed Miss Ramone and she is most displeased.’ She smiled nastily. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she expels you this time, Van Der Berg.’
Ten minutes later Celine was in the secretary’s office, waiting for her showdown. She could see the outline of Mrs Gonzales through the frosted glass door, standing there like a sentry. The old bag must be thrilled with her prize catch; Celine was surprised she hadn’t used a net.
Celine swung her long legs up on the desk, feet black from dancing barefoot all night. Bored, she got out her iPhone and looked at the new screensaver of her and Eduardo again. They’d met earlier at Fiesta and totally hit it off. Pity Eduardo had a girlfriend - sloppy seconds wasn’t Celine’s style. He’d already friend-requested her on Facebook though, so she’d just have to keep an eye on his relationship status.
Celine sank back in the chair and stared up at the large crack in the ceiling. Her head was definitely still spinning from that last round of Flaming Sambucas. Despite the trouble she was about to be in, it had still been worth it. Celine snuck out at least twice a week to hit the clubs: see friends, meet boys, party. It was pathetic that they were kept locked up here; she was an adult for God’s sake.
With her tall, lithe figure and white-blonde hair, Celine Van Der Berg stood out like a sore thumb at the super-strict St Winifred’s. The teachers had nearly had a fit when she’d sauntered into assembly the previous week with a new pixie hair cut, shaved up one side. That had earned her another detention, but Celine didn’t care. It was nearly the end of the final term. In three weeks, she’d be out of this place forever.
See you, losers.
Getting up, she wandered round the room, looking at the school photos that had adorned the walls over the years. Rows after rows of blank smiling faces, all brainwashed by rules and regulations. Sheep. How she’d lasted in this place without topping herself, Celine would never know.
She examined a black-painted nail. Miss Ramone was probably trying to call her parents right now. Luckily they were out of the country on another archaeological dig, but Celine hadn’t bothered to mention that. Tibet, Celine thought it was. They went on so many. She hadn’t really been paying attention when her mum had told her.
Celine loved her parents and tried to share their enthusiasm, but digging old pots out of the ground? Really? Even her older sister had followed them into it, just like she and her mother had been to St Winifred’s before Celine. Her family were short on fun, big on tradition.
The school had fallen over itself to take Celine at first. Everyone knew the Van Der Bergs. Descendents of Dutch settlers, they were the equivalent of Argentinian aristocracy. It helped matters that her mum and dad were famous archaeologists, and were constantly appearing on television and stuff. The geeks in her history class practically wet themselves whenever her parents’, name was mentioned. ‘Ooh, Celine! Bet you can’t wait to carry on the family tradition!’
Actually, Celine couldn’t think of anything worse. Her interest was in the modern world, not people who died, like, a billion years ago. A brilliant linguist, she was fluent in her native Spanish, as well as English, Italian, French, Arabic and German. Since St Winifred’s didn’t have Japanese on the curriculum she was teaching herself, just for fun.
Language was Celine’s pass to the outside world. Her dream was to work in the fashion industry. Size 8, with endless Bambi legs, she was always being approached by model scouts when she went out in Buenos Aires, but Celine wasn’t interested in that side of things. What she really wanted to be was a designer. She was constantly being told off in classes for drawing, but it was like a drug to her. Making clothes was all she’d ever wanted to do. She wanted to study at the prestigious Instituto Marangoni in Paris and then start her own label, VDB. McQueen meets Westwood, with Celine’s own style stamped all over it. The new enfant terrible of cutting-edge fashion.
Unfortunately, her parents had other ideas.
As far as they were concerned, their daughter’s obsession with clothes was just like any teenager’s. There was no way she could make a serious career out of it. So Celine had gone along with it and passed what she had to in order to progress through school, all the time inside screaming: this isn’t me! Her grades had been the only thing that had stopped her being kicked out, and now she’d just been accepted on an archaeology course at a prestigious university in New York. Her parents were thrilled, her sister was thrilled, the teachers were ecstatic to be getting rid of her at last. Everyone was happy except Celine.
Eighteen years old and trapped, she thought. How the hell did that happen?
A door slammed and Celine heard the sound of footsteps clumping down the hallway. She’d know the sound of those lesbian shoes anywhere. Here we go. The headmistress was so strict she made Mrs Gonzales look like a pot-smoking hippy.
‘There you are, Celine.’ Even though it was the middle of the night, Miss Ramone was in her usual frumpy tweed skirt and blouse, horn-rimmed spectacles on the chain around her neck. She probably slept with them on. She gave Celine a severe look.
‘Come this way.’
Celine put her chic-slut spiked stilettos back on and got up. The headmistress was very calm, which was always a bad sign. Celine followed her into the office next door. Miss Ramone went round the big wooden desk and sat down.
‘Take a seat.’
Celine crossed her legs, noticing she’d dragged a cigarette butt in on the bottom of her shoe. Another ten points from Gryffindor. In the eyes of St Winifred’s, smoking was up there with terrorism and nuclear war.
But instead of giving her a dressing-down, the head-teacher looked at her in a weird way. ‘How are you, dear?’
Miss Ramone was asking after her wellbeing? Celine frowned. ‘Hasn’t Mrs Gonzales been to see you?’
The head teacher blinked. ‘Oh, that. Yes, well, under the circumstances, I will forgive you.’
Sneaking out after school hours was major. Something was definitely up.
Miss Ramone clasped her hands and undid them again. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
That was a bit dramatic. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Your mother and father, they’ve gone missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘No one has been able to get hold of them for the past twenty-four hours,’ Miss Ramone said.
Was this what all the worry was about? ‘Of course no one’s been able to get hold of them,’ Celine said. ‘Reception isn’t that great when you’re halfway up a mountain.’ At the same time a little warning bell went off in her head. Why were people trying to get hold of her parents?
Miss Ramone sighed. ‘There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to come right out with it. Celine, I’ve just received a call from the Argentinian embassy in Delhi. Your parents have been taken hostage by rebels on the Indian border.’
The headmistress may as well have said they were break-dancing on the moon. ‘Run that past me again,’ Celine said slowly. Eduardo hadn’t slipped something in her drink, had he?
Miss Ramone repeated herself. Celine shook her head. ‘Sorry, not possible. My parents are in Tibet.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Celine said, getting annoyed. ‘I know where my own parents are…’ She trailed off.
Had they said Tibet?
‘The police will be here soon,’ Miss Ramone said gently. ‘They will be able to tell you more. In the meantime, I think you should see something.’ She gestured to the computer on her desk. Certain this was some kind of sick punishment for sneaking out, Celine went round and stood behind Miss Ramone’s chair. She’d never been this close to the old bat before. She noticed a warty hair sticking out on the back of the headmistress’s neck.
Ewww.
Celine looked at the computer, hoping Miss Ramone couldn’t smell the alcohol on her breath. There was a BBC news website up on screen. Celine never went on things like this - she was all about fashion apps and blogs. The main headline was something random about nuclear tests. Miss Ramone wasn’t going to start testing her on world affairs, was she?
‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ she asked. Someone needed to sort the design out on this; it was seriously boring. The cursor moved down the page and Miss Ramone clicked on something. A headline flashed up.
‘VAN DER BERGS FEARED DEAD.’
And in smaller print underneath:
Argentinean archaeologists missing after ambush on Kashmir border.
At that point Celine’s world shifted on its axis. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter Two
Mumbai, India.
‘You’re a skank, you know that?’
Eighteen-year-old Jhumpa Mukherjee looked up from her iPhone and gave a death stare. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me!’ Katrina Kapoor, the biggest slut in Mumbai, stood there, hands on skinny hips. Jhumpa wanted to laugh in her face. If anyone knew about being a skank, it was Katrina.
‘What’s so funny?’ Katrina demanded.
‘You,’ drawled Jhumpa. ‘If you weren’t so tragic. Was there anything in particular?’
‘Don’t act Little Miss Innocent! My man has just tagged you in some photos on Facebook and you’re all over him.’
The music was pounding through hot new members club Eden. The beautiful crowd stood round sucking on lurid coloured drinks, six massive TV screens over the bar beaming down MTV. Jhumpa tossed her curtain of silky black hair over her shoulders, the very same hair that had won her the star role in the new L’Oreal India advert. ‘Your man?’ she enquired, looking Katrina up and down. ‘And who might that be?’
‘You know! Bhanu.’
‘Bhanu? Bhanu Mallik?’ Jhumpa snorted derisively. ‘As if.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Katrina demanded. Her badly applied eyeliner made her look like a rabid baby panda. ‘You totally know I’m seeing him.’
Jhumpa raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow. ‘As amazing as it might seem, keeping up with your sad little love life isn’t one of my priorities.’ She looked round the bar and saw Katrina’s equally ugly friends giving her death stares. ‘You know, if he is your man I would have words after the things he was saying to me.’
Katrina’s expression faltered. ‘Like what?’
Jhumpa went back to her text message. ‘He’s your boyfriend, darling, why don’t you ask him?’
The phone was ripped out of her hands. Jhumpa narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve got precisely five seconds to give that back or I’ll have you thrown out.’
Katrina hung on to the phone, then thought better of it and slapped it back into Jhumpa’s hand. ‘You think you’re big time now, because of one lousy L’Oreal advert,’ she hissed. ‘I heard you practically begged them to let you do it for, like, free.’
Jhumpa considered her words for a moment and smiled. ‘You know Katrina, you’re completely right.’
She watched Katrina’s stupid mouth hang open with surprise. ‘I am?’
‘It was only the million dollars,’ Jhumpa said casually. ‘As you say, practically nothing. I’ll have to get my agent to negotiate harder next time.’
As Katrina’s face filled with jealous rage, an advert suddenly flashed up on the televisions behind the bar. It was Jhumpa’s new L’Oreal commercial, her walking along a beach looking stunning in a full-length dress. As she watched herself stop and smile effortlessly into the camera, Jhumpa turned back to Katrina and gave her the same smile, live and direct.
‘Come and talk to me when you’re up on that screen, hey?’ Grabbing her Hermes clutch bag off the bar, she sashayed out.
Strictly speaking her contract wasn’t a million dollars. It was more like $1,100,060 US dollars.
Give or take.
Not that she felt the need to show off to stringy-haired types like Katrina Kapoor. Jhumpa knew the precise amount because she’d done the deal herself. Her agent Bez got her the gigs, but he was hopeless with money (she thought so anyway), and Jhumpa always did the negotiating side of things. She’d already invested most of the L’Oreal money into stocks and shares and some canny real estate, including her luxury apartment in the fashionable suburb of Bandra West.
It was in the luxury apartment that Jhumpa was getting ready the next morning. The orange wraparound Donna Karan dress she’d worn last night was already hanging neatly in the wardrobe again. Jhumpa couldn’t stand mess: a slobby house meant a slobby mind. Every item of her clothing was colour coordinated, down to the nail polish, handbag and matching jewellery.
Jhumpa scrutinised herself in the full-length mirror. Glossy skin, almond-shaped eyes and audacious curves, she caused a traffic pile up every time she stepped outside. No wonder L’Oreal had chosen her over the hundreds of others. She had charisma. Star quality. This wasn’t just Jhumpa blowing her own trumpet (although she wasn’t averse to that) - enough people had told her, so she knew it was true.
Her hair was extra shiny today, which was a good omen. The commercial was great exposure and set her up financially, but today was The Big One. She was this close to breaking Bollywood. That afternoon she was down to the final three for the part of Serving Girl 2 in the new Bollywood film Emerald Summer. OK, so it was only a few lines but it was her big break. In just a few weeks time she would be starring opposite the Brad Pitt of India, Imran Khalili. Who knew where that would lead? OMG!
It didn’t even occur to Jhumpa she wouldn’t get the part. She’d been paying for her own acting lessons since she was sixteen, and it was just a natural progression of her talents. She was more than a pretty face. There wasn’t a thing the teachers at her old school could teach her about maths or logic. She’d even been offered a scholarship to study advanced physics at the prestigious MIT university in America. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, her father kept telling her, something she couldn’t possibility turn down.
Pity Jhumpa found it all so boring.
It wasn’t using her brain that bothered her: Jhumpa could sail through advanced maths challenges with all the ease of reading a restaurant menu. She’d done the MIT entrance exam while trading stocks and shares on her iPhone under the table. She liked numbers, but the ones she liked were the ones you used in the real world, the ones that got you something: money. Not just things you learned in a stuffy classroom. It was only her head for financial dealings that had persuaded her dad to let her move out of home and into the apartment in the first place.
Jhumpa loved her dad, but he just didn’t get her. Her mum had died when she was four and he didn’t seem to know what to do with this precocious little girl who loved singing and dancing. For as long as she could remember, Jhumpa had been entranced by the glamour and excitement of the film industry. In India, Bollywood stars were treated like royalty: a role Jhumpa could see herself in very well. Famous actress and president of her multi-million dollar company, Jhumpa Inc.
It was all planned out.
With happy visions of worldwide domination, Jhumpa started to get dressed. As usual, she had meticulously planned her outfit. Black J Brand jeans - tight enough without being slutty - a crisp white shirt and her black Louboutins. Taking one last satisfied look in the mirror, Jhumpa picked up her (black) Chanel handbag and left.
As she stepped into the marbled lift, she realised she hadn’t called her father back. Professor of Early Indian History at the university in Mumbai, he was on some dull field trip in Bhutan. She’d had a missed call from him in the bar last night. He probably wanted her to go round and water his plants or something. She’d call him back later; she was too busy now. Wait until he heard she’d got the part!
Sliding on her Dior sunglasses, Jhumpa walked out into the dry Mumbai heat. Not yet 11 a.m. and it was already scorching hot, the sun a bright yellow ball overhead. Sprinklers were watering the emerald-coloured lawns as a team of gardeners worked the immaculate flowerbeds. Jhumpa noticed the youngest one stop and watch as she walked past. Lifting the Diors, she gave him her best film star look and was pleased to see him blush. She’d have to use that one in the audition later. Her iPhone beeped: the driver was waiting right outside for her. Pushing open the security gate, Jhumpa stepped into another world.
The dusty streets were manic. Rickety old buses fought for space with gleaming 4x4s, a whole family wobbled by, piled precariously on the back of a scooter. Car horns blared, stray dogs sniffed piles of rubbish and a lone cow nearly caused a major pile up by meandering down the middle of the road. In the middle of the mayhem, women of all ages walked like butterflies in their rainbow-bright saris. It was hot, smelly, overwhelming and hectic, and Jhumpa absolutely loved it. There was a buzz about this city like nowhere else on earth. Where else could you have designer shops on one street with their fleets of luxury cars and the colourful squalor of the slums on the next? Her father had been raised in one of those corrugated iron shacks and had worked hard to get out. Her dad might annoy her most of the time, but Jhumpa majorly respected him for that.
Across the road was a huge billboard advertising the new Aishwarya Rai film. The hottest actress in India right now. As Jhumpa stared up at it, she felt a thrill of excitement. That will be me next.
Her waiting carriage, a gleaming black Mercedes with its own chauffeur, was already attracting quite a lot of attention from bystanders. Jhumpa had one more thing to do. The usual line of stalls stood down the street, selling hot takeaway snacks. Jhumpa went to the best one - third on the right and run by the old man with the hennaed hair - and got her rupees out. She came back a few moments later. There was a beggar sitting propped up against the wall. With bandaged stumps for legs, and filthy rags for clothes, even the rest of the down-and-outs would give him a wide berth, but Jhumpa went straight up with her biggest smile.