Guilty Pleasures

Sabine saw Tom looking and smiled. ‘She fell from the window there onto the street. She survived so we call her Lucky.’

He liked this one too.

‘Er. Who is she?’ he asked, turning to Sophie. ‘Your flatmate?’ It was, however, a one-bedroom apartment.

‘My girlfriend,’ she said casually putting the GHB into a small tumbler of water and handing it to him before lying naked across the bed.

Blimey, thought Tom, I can’t remember getting a hard on again so quickly.

Sabine put the cat on the floor and kicked off her shoes before joining them on the bed, reaching over to kiss Sophie gently on the lips.

‘What time did you say it was again?’ said Tom, in no rush to leave.

Sabine looked at her watch. ‘9.15.’

The Marais was only ten minutes away Tom thought to himself as he moved forward to lie beside Sophie. She reached towards him and curled her black-tipped fingers around his hand and Tom knew that, for a short while at least, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Giles Banks, Rive magazine’s editor-at-large, stepped from the limousine outside the gorgeous Parisian hôtel particulier and offered a hand to the woman still in the car. As one pale caramel Manolo heel hit the pavement, even Giles, who had no interest in the opposite sex, recognized that she was a magnetic beauty. Dozens of flashbulbs went off like firecrackers. He stepped back out of the line of the cameras, knowing that nobody wanted a picture of him. This was Cassandra’s night. The final part of a quartet of big nights held during the international collections that had seen her host parties in New York, London, Milan and Paris to celebrate Rive’s tenth anniversary. Sure, Giles himself had been the one she had entrusted to organize the parties and it had been a mammoth operation pulling in every contact to make sure every A-list star in town was going to be there, but tonight it would still be Cassandra at the centre of everyone’s attention. So far the parties had all been enormous successes. The supper in New York, in a yet-to-be-opened restaurant in the Meatpacking District. In Milan, Cassandra’s good friends, the Count and Contessa of Benari, had lent her their pocket-sized palazzo on the shores of Lake Como, while in London she had taken over Spitalfields Market for the night, draping the vast Victorian warehouse with white silk. They had all been very, very exclusive with invitations strictly specifying ‘No plus ones’ and they had all been a triumph. His efforts had been worth it.

Giles was aware that his boss had a difficult reputation; she was the most demanding and particular woman he had ever met, but she was also brilliant and had been good to him: very good. He had learnt so much from her, been given so many opportunities and in helping transform UK Rive he now had an international reputation as one of the most talented fashion journalists in the world.

He watched Cassandra’s face break into a small composed and elegant smile as they walked through the doors of the beautiful hôtel. Its grand atrium was twinkling in the glow of a thousand tea-lights. Huge glass vases were filled with scarlet and gold pomegranate halves and the perfumed air smelt like spiced nectar, sweet, rich and heady.

Giles could see Cassandra’s eyes scan the crowd, looking for names. There were plenty to choose from. Françoise Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek. Sonia Rykiel, perched on a hot-pink sofa laughing with a friend. Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH and his beautiful daughter Delphine were talking to John Galliano whose elaborate plumed hat set him apart from the crowd – as usual.

Everyone knew the importance of tonight’s party. Paris was fashion. All its main players were here. Nothing could go wrong.

‘Oh, darling. Everybody’s here.’

Cassandra kissed him on the cheek.

‘You’ve outdone yourself,’ she purred, swinging her dark hair over her shoulders. ‘Although didn’t Muffy Dayton have pomegranate vases at her divorce shower?’

Giles flushed a little. ‘Did she?’

Still looking nervous, Giles’s eyes darted behind her.

‘Look out. Toxic is coming this way,’ he said quickly.

Cassandra had just accepted a flute of pink champagne from a waiter when her publishing director Jason Tostvig, also known as ‘Toxic’ due to his unpopularity with the editorial team, appeared at her side.

He kissed Cassandra on the cheek and shook Giles’s hand awkwardly. Despite – or perhaps because of – his job, Jason was not a man completely comfortable in the world of fashion. He’d been drafted over from newspapers, was resolutely heterosexual, bullishly macho and seemed to think that even talking to somebody openly homosexual would somehow impact on his own masculinity.

‘Quite impressive,’ he smiled thinly looking around the room before raking his eyes over her dress. ‘How much is this shindig costing me?’

‘Whatever the invoice says, it’s worth it,’ smiled Cassandra, still glancing around the room. ‘Throwing parties is a branding exercise.’

‘Yes, but did we need four of them in as many weeks?’

‘Perhaps you don’t want to send the message that Rive is rich, exclusive and international. Perhaps I’ll bring that up with Isaac Grey next time I see him,’ she said, namechecking the CEO of their company.

Jason narrowed his dark eyes. Traditionally publishers and editors were mortal enemies, regarding each other as tight-fisted Neanderthals and irresponsible decadents, respectively. But Cassandra had a particular loathing for Jason. Not only did she think he was mediocre at his job, he had no handle on the fashion world beyond his cack-handed attempts at picking up models.

‘Is that a threat?’ he hissed.

‘Merely an observation that you and I might have different agendas,’ said Cassandra coolly. ‘Personally I don’t think you can put a price on goodwill.’

Jason puffed out his chest and popped a canapé into his mouth.

‘Well, I hope some of that ‘goodwill’ is directed at Oscar Braun,’ he said, nodding his head over at the CEO of the Austrian fashion house Forden. ‘They’re threatening to pull £250,000 worth of advertising over the next two quarters. Perhaps you’d like to tell Isaac Grey that the next time you see him.’

Cassandra chuckled.

‘Oscar is always saying that,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he’d help his own cause if he started showing decent collections. I have to put the fashion team in a headlock to get Forden’s revolting things in the magazine.’

‘I think we managed to get the mint bouclé jacket into the March issue,’ said Giles helpfully.

‘This time I think he’s serious,’ said Jason with a hint of relish. ‘You’d better do some serious schmoozing because if his ad revenue gets pulled we’re going to have to start looking at cutting editorial budget.’

Finally Cassandra turned to look at him.

‘Leave the editorial out of this,’ she snapped.

‘Speaking of which,’ said Jason looking up at the giant Phoebe Fenton cover. ‘Has anybody actually read that interview yet?’

‘It’s embargoed till Monday,’ said Cassandra quickly.

‘Funny, I thought the plan was to give the issue out to guests after the party.’

‘We never agreed that.’

‘Well, I read the issue on the Eurostar and you gave poor Phoebe a right old kicking, didn’t you? I was just thinking that perhaps you might be nervous about all these actors and models and socialites reading about their friend and what a coke-snorting whore she is, when you’re right there to take the flak? I mean, Phoebe might be down, but she’s not out. There’s still a lot of “goodwill” around for her.’

Cassandra flashed him a furious look, then took a breath to compose herself. What did Toxic care about ‘poor’ Phoebe Fenton? More likely he wanted there to be an uproar. He wanted trouble from the Fenton camp and wanted Cassandra to be held accountable. She was convinced he didn’t like the fact that she was the star of the Rive operation while not one celebrity or CEO in this room would even know his name. He was a snake. She knew she was going to have to get rid of him at some point but Cassandra always thought tactically. While Tostvig was ambitious and spiteful, he wasn’t the brightest candle on the cake and she’d rather be up against someone toxic and foolish than someone ruthless and clever.

‘Cassandra, could I have a word?’

‘What’s wrong?’ she said impatiently, turning see Sadie her junior assistant holding out a mobile phone. Jason looked over, his lips curling gleefully as he smelled trouble. Satisfied that Cassandra’s perfectly-groomed feathers had been ruffled, he took a flute from a waiter and headed off to try and chat up Naomi Campbell.

‘It’s your brother,’ whispered Sadie when he had gone.

‘What on earth is the problem? Why is he on the mobile? Shouldn’t he be here?’

She glanced at the DJ booth where a man with long dreadlocks appeared to be packing up his records.

‘That DJ finishes in ten minutes,’ explained Sadie. ‘Your brother is on until twelve and Jeremy Healy has only just got off the Eurostar and won’t be here for at least another forty-five minutes.’

‘Well, get that man to stay,’ she snapped, pointing up to the DJ booth.

Sadie had a look of sheer panic on her face.

‘I’ve tried that! He’s playing at Les Bains Douche in half an hour. His car is already outside waiting to take him there.’

Sadie thrust the phone towards Cassandra again. ‘Do you want to speak to Tom? He says he’s stuck in traffic near Galeries Lafayette.’

Cassandra shut her eyes momentarily, willing herself to be calm but feeling such a sense of fury and betrayal that she felt her cheeks begin to sting hot. He was her brother. How could he let her down so badly yet again?

‘Tell him that if he’s not here in five minutes not only will Rive refuse to pay his expenses at the Hôtel Costes but that I, personally, will make sure that everyone even remotely connected to the music industry knows what a irresponsible moron he is. He won’t be able to get a job sweeping the floor of a rat’s cage by the time I’ve finished with him.’

‘You want me to say all that to your brother?’

‘If you don’t, you can join him in the cage.’

Giles was already making calls on his mobile.

‘I’ve just called Queen,’ he said, covering the mouthpiece. ‘They’re sending one of their DJ’s over immediately. He only lives on the Rue des Rosiers, so we should be OK.’

Cassandra grabbed Giles’s hand and mouthed ‘Thank you’. Then, in the blink of an eye, her legendary poise was back and she was gliding away smiling and waving at people in the crowd, as if nothing had taken place.

‘Marvellous party, Cassandra. I don’t think there is anybody more beautiful at the party.’

Cassandra turned to see Jean-Paul Benoit, chief executive of the Pellemont luxury goods house. Major advertiser. Major sleazeball.

‘Jean-Paul!’ she cooed, ‘I was just telling Giles how we need to get fashion’s most glamorous tycoon inside the pages of Rive magazine.’ She took his arm and steered him away from Sadie. ‘How would you feel about doing an “At Home”? You do still have your adorable house in Ile de Re? It’s one of my favourite places in the world. I’ve found this new photographer. I think he could be the new Testino. Someone like that could really do it justice.’

‘Will you be coming along in person?’ asked Jean-Paul, a wolfish grin on his face.

Cassandra smiled sweetly.

‘I’m sure something could be arranged …’

Am I mad? thought Emma as she stepped out of the taxi. Paris; the city of lovers. It had magic. She and Mark had talked about coming together at New Year. That seemed so long ago now and here she was outside a glittering party alone. She looked at the paparazzi crowding around the entrance, their flashbulbs lighting up the red carpet leading into the Rive party and thought that the gates of hell themselves might not be quite so intimidating. In front of her, a long queue snaked down the street while two girls with stern expressions and clipboards either waved people through or condemned them to ridicule. She shivered. What had made her come without a ticket? Desperation, she thought, moving towards the entrance, holding her clutch bag in front of her like a shield. Emma was in trouble with Milford already. After a long and heated meeting with Roger she had agreed to create the new position of Director of Bespoke Services for him. If she’d truly had it her way, she’d have dispensed with him entirely but as she’d definitely rocked the boat enough since her arrival, she’d decided that a sideways move for Roger was the best solution in the short term. That left the glaring vacancy of head designer to re-vamp the collection and if she’d thought it would be an easy appointment she was very much mistaken. In the last week, she’d make clumsy attempts at poaching big design names from other fashion houses, but despite hitting the phones for hours on end, she’d rarely made it past the company switchboards. At the factory, staff morale was low and the atmosphere around the village wasn’t just icy, it was glacial. Only yesterday she had driven up to the Milford factory gates to see that someone had spray-painted ‘Bailey out’ on the wall outside. Emma knew she needed to make changes fast if she was to head off a meltdown within the company, but she seemed to be banging her head against a brick wall: Milford’s image as a luxury brand was far worse than she had ever imagined. But there was one person she knew who could penetrate fashion’s inner circle: Cassandra. But even she had proved elusive. Every phone call to her cousin’s office was politely but firmly rebuffed. Cassandra was unavailable. Thinking laterally, Emma had contacted her aunt, Julia, but she had merely sent a message that Cassandra was in Paris for the week and would contact her on her return. Emma didn’t have a week. Production of samples for the Autumn/Winter line had been halted and could not begin until a new designer was in place. With a press show scheduled for six weeks’ time, they’d have to show Roger’s designs if she didn’t take action immediately – and she didn’t think the company would survive that. So when Ruan heard through the grapevine there was a Rive party in Paris she had booked her Eurostar ticket at once, telling herself she would sort out the details when she got there.

Well, now I’m here, she thought. Emma took a deep breath and walked as confidently as she could up to the clipboard desk.

‘Emma Bailey,’ she said, smiling.

‘Sorry. No,’ said the girl, dismissing Emma instantly and looking down the line to the next poor sap.

‘But I’m Cassandra …’ began Emma, then stopped herself, immediately realizing that ‘I’m Cassandra Grand’s cousin’ sounded like the whine of a gate-crasher – they’d probably already had a dozen people claiming to be relatives tonight.

‘Can you look again?’ said Emma politely, reaching into her clutch bag and placing her freshly-printed Chief Executive business card on the clipboard.

‘Perhaps it’s under Milford Luxury Goods,’ said Emma with an air of authority. ‘I might be on the advertisers’ guest list.’

The girl looked at Emma for the first time and she saw a cloud of doubt cross her face.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Bailey,’ she said, lifting the velvet rope. ‘Enjoy the party.’

Emma felt a little thrill of triumph. Maybe I can pull this off after all, she thought.

She walked into the impressive atrium mentally running through the questions she needed to ask Cassandra. Emma had even mulled over the idea of Cassandra joining the board as a non-executive director, although she had a nagging reservation. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to invite a fox into her henhouse.

Emma had never been to a fashion party before. She was surprised to see food. Waiters drifted by with trays laden with delicate bites: savoury tartlets, crab claws and mini Fauchon éclairs, although for the most part the guests waved them away, as if taking a single one would show weakness. Emma felt as if she had crossed into another world.

It’s only a party. They’re only human, she said to herself, but it was hard to believe. Everywhere she looked there were impenetrable cliques of beautiful and powerful-looking people, talking, laughing and drinking champagne. Had Emma a better grasp of pop culture, she would have recognized that she was surrounded by actresses, models and big-name designers. Up close, many of them weren’t actually beautiful, she thought with detached interest. But they had something, a worldliness and polish, a superiority. These people had ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was. And Emma most certainly did not. She felt a sudden sense of inadequacy she hadn’t felt since boarding school when she was known as Cassandra Grand’s geeky little cousin, a bookworm with mousy hair and clumpy shoes. That bookworm, of course, went on to get an MBA and work alongside the CEOs of multinational blue-chip companies. In Boston Emma had felt on a level pegging with even the most impressive businessmen because she knew her intellect and business skills matched theirs. But here! For a second, Emma felt so far out of her depth, she should just turn round and go back to America. ‘Bailey Out’ – that said it all. But she was not a quitter. She grabbed a flute of champagne from a waiter and took a longer gulp than was polite. From a distance she could see Cassandra receiving guests like the Sun King granting an audience with the peasants.

‘You look a little lost, can I help you?’

Emma turned to see a tall man in a lavender woollen suit. He extended a hand with a genuine smile.

‘Oh, I hope so,’ said Emma, taking his hand gratefully.

‘Giles Banks. How nice to meet you.’

She smiled at his eccentric formality and relaxed. ‘Emma Bailey – very nice to meet you too. I was beginning to feel invisible.’

‘Oh, don’t worry!’ laughed Giles, leaning in as if to impart a secret, ‘I felt like that for years at fashion parties, then I realized that almost everyone feels the same way. They spend their whole time looking around for someone more important or famous than them, worried that everyone else is looking more fabulous or having a brilliant conversation with someone amazing on the other side of the room. No one ever is, they’re all talking about who else is here and who they’re talking to.’

‘So why does anyone come?’ asked Emma, fascinated.

‘Because you have to darling! This is the hottest party in town, if not the whole planet! Who wouldn’t want to be here?’

‘So it gets better?’

‘When you have the right friends. I’m a colleague of Cassandra Grand’s and she’s introduced me to everyone. Now I know who’s going to be fun and who’s going to be a crashing bore. Anyway, I always seem to find the most interesting person in the room.’

‘Cassandra’s my cousin.’

Giles raised his eyebrows.

‘How extraordinary. Are you that cousin?’

‘Which cousin?’ asked Emma suspiciously.

‘Oh, come now, Emma Bailey, don’t be coy. The new CEO of Milford?’

‘Did Cassandra tell you?’

Giles clapped his hands in delight. ‘You are that cousin, how wonderful!’ he cried. ‘No, Cassandra’s been very tight-lipped on the whole business, but fashion is a very small world, word gets around,’ he said with a small smile. ‘See? I’ve done it again.’

‘Done what?’ asked Emma.

‘Found the most interesting person in the room.’

What is she doing here? thought Cassandra, seeing Emma’s pale face move through the crowd towards her. And what’s she doing with Giles? She instantly felt furious with Giles, then checked herself when she remembered she hadn’t actually told him about Milford, Saul and Emma. Giles was a close friend and trusted confidant, but there were limits. To Cassandra, self-publicity was everything. She had to maintain an air of superconfidence and invulnerability at all times, even when she was cut up inside, even in front of friends. She certainly couldn’t admit that she’d been passed over in favour of the geek who knew nothing about fashion. That would have been the ultimate humiliation.

Cassandra took a breath to compose herself. Ever since her mother had told her about the events of the Milford board meeting held earlier that week, how Emma had installed herself as CEO and deposed Roger in the process, Cassandra had been calculating her next step. She knew Emma had to be disposed of – and quickly-but she hadn’t imagined a confrontation with her cousin would come so soon. Nor did she welcome the distraction on such an important night.

‘Look who I found!’ smiled Giles, pushing Emma forward, then darting to the right and embracing Sonia Rykiel who treated him like a long-lost friend.

‘Emma. What a surprise.’

‘I’m a gate-crasher I’m afraid, before you ask, I’m sorry, but I needed to speak to you,’ garbled Emma, almost tripping over her words. There was something about Cassandra that had always unnerved Emma, though she had never been able to put her finger on it. The effect was magnified tonight: Cassandra was looking so otherworldly and glamorous in her amazing gown and everyone in the room was craning their necks just to look at her.

‘Listen, Cassandra, I won’t stay long,’ she continued quickly, ‘but there was something urgent I needed to ask you.’

‘Nothing serious I hope?’

‘It’s the company.’

‘Ah. Well, congratulations, if that’s appropriate. I was surprised to hear you’d given up that job in Boston. It’s one thing to be given a majority shareholding in a company; it’s quite another to give up your life to become its CEO.’

Cassandra began walking out towards the hotel’s courtyard. She didn’t know why Emma was here, but she had no intention of any of the industry overhearing it.

‘Yes, I surprised even myself. I never really saw myself being the sort to be in the fashion business,’ said Emma, trying to smile. ‘I’ve never really been bothered about clothes.’

Cassandra gave a hard, brittle laugh as they stopped in front of an ornate fountain.

‘Clothes?’ she said loftily. ‘This business isn’t about clothes, Emma. Clothes are just something to keep you warm. This business is about fashion, and fashion is a language, a lifestyle, a huge, billion-pound global phenomenon.’

She turned and pointed at a woman on the far side of the courtyard who was wearing a pair of high-waisted trousers. ‘Fashion is the genius of that Balenciaga tailoring. Fashion is the feeling it gives her when she dresses and the sense of taste and sophistication other people see in her when they watch her float by.’ Cassandra reached down and pulled up a piece of her gown. ‘Fashion is this dress, a dress that will be first seen commercially on a catwalk tomorrow and whose photograph will be seen on front pages around the world. This dress won’t even be in the stores until September and the copies of it won’t filter down into the high street until weeks, maybe months later. But this one dress will generate thousands, perhaps millions of pounds in revenue and in its watered-down version, it will change the lives of thousands of women. It will get them laid, make men propose, it will make them miss lunch for a month just so they can afford it. This dress will transform them, make them feel wonderful, take them to a different place. Fashion has that power – it is magic’

Cassandra took a breath, surprised by the passion of her speech, knowing that it would serve no purpose to vent the force of her anger on Emma. Not yet anyway.

‘Although, strictly speaking, Milford isn’t about fashion. It’s about luxury leather goods,’ stuttered Emma feeling completely out of her depth. ‘It only really makes handbags.’

Cassandra nearly laughed out loud. What did Emma Bailey know about any of this? Look at her in those navy trousers and sensible shoes! This was the most glamorous party being held in Paris over Fashion Week and she looked like an estate agent.

Cassandra gave a little superior laugh.