Playing Her Cards Right

New year. New love. Fresh start.

Newly minted career girl Magenta Bright reluctantly finds herself growing up – she’s now a live-in girlfriend, a successful business owner, and an obsessive desirer of classic leather handbags.

But, fuelled by her creative talent, Magenta doesn’t seem to know when to stop. Between designing and launching a new range of bags, planning her parents’ second wedding, and whisky binges with scary international model and best friend Anya, something’s got to give, and it’s not long before her relationship with shy artist Anthony is in the firing line.

Will handbags lead to heartbreak for the unstoppable Magenta Bright?

Also by Rosa Temple:

Magenta Bright Series

Playing by the Rules

Playing Her Cards Right

Rosa Temple

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Endpages

Copyright

ROSA TEMPLE

is the pseudonym of writer Fran Clark. A ghostwriter of romance novels, Fran was awarded a Distinction in her Creative Writing MA from Brunel University in 2014. To date, Fran has penned five publications as Rosa Temple: Sleeping With Your Best Friend, Natalie’s Getting Married, Single by Christmas, Playing by the Rules, and Playing Her Cards Right. A mother of two, Fran is married to a musician and lives in London. She spends her days creating characters and story lines while drinking herbal tea and eating chocolate biscuits.

Acknowledgements

A few years ago, when I was dreaming up the character of Magenta Bright, I must have bored quite a few of my friends and family senseless about her. I rambled and sounded off several ideas before I was able to launch into her story. Thank you for your patience and for not glazing over.

I’d especially like to thank my family for the time and space they gave me as I delved into Magenta’s second adventure. My husband has always been my number one fan, and not in a Misery kind of way. Thank you for your continued support and faith in this nervous wreck of a writer.

In particular, I’d like to thank Hannah Smith and the wonderful team at HQ for taking a chance on me and the wonderful support and advice you gave.

Dedication

I’d love to dedicate this book to my sister, Josie Bannis. An inspirationally phenomenal woman who juggles several balls in the air with one hand while spinning plates with the other, but always manages to play her cards right.

Chapter 1

The Mantra

You can do this.

You can.

All you have to do is keep smiling and you’ll be fine.

So, there I was, lying in my king-size bed in the hotel room, the view of a cloudless sky from the window, the sound of waves drifting in and out on the white sandy beach below, and all I wanted to do was roll over and cry.

But it was Friday morning, the third day of a short stay on the glorious Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, and it was my parents’ wedding day – not the time to be a crumbling mess. I had to put on a brave face.

I’d spent months planning this wedding since my parents, five years divorced, had announced that they were getting back together. I practically forced the beach wedding on them, thinking that some sand and a platinum ring would keep them married this time (I wasn’t leaving anything to chance). They would have been happy just to live together but in the end I’d convinced everyone that this was going to be great. The wedding to end all weddings and a great excuse for a family getaway. We hadn’t been together for a celebration like that in absolute ages.

Yes, you can do this, Magenta.

Throw off the covers and just go for it!

The scent of bougainvillea was beckoning from the open window but the only thing more noticeable than the sound of the ocean waves was how lonely a king-size bed could be. I looked over at the vacant spot beside me and blinked rapidly to chase those prickly tears away. I made up my mind. I wasn’t going to cry. I had a wedding to organize for goodness’ sake.

At the foot of the bed little Tallulah lay fast asleep in her cot bed. Her black hair plastered to her head in the heat, cheeks warm and chubby. Anthony always said her eyes were just like mine and we shared a similar disposition. If you picked up a baby picture of me, you could easily mistake it for Tallulah. It was the sand-coloured skin and the black curls that did it.

She’d become very clingy since we’d arrived on the island but I didn’t mind one bit. I loved to cuddle Tallulah. And with my emotions flying here, there, and everywhere she was the constant that kept me sane.

To the rest of the family I’d made a billion and one excuses for Anthony not having made the flight out – none of them true. No one knew that it was all over between us, that I’d asked him to be out of the house on my return. I’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that I never wanted to see him again. And before you go assuming that this was just one in a list of Magenta Bright dramas (well okay the break-up was pretty dramatic) a break-up was inevitable and unavoidable.

The relationship I’d craved to have with the man I’d fallen in love with almost on sight was over. When Anthony and I first met, he was my boss and I was his PA but we couldn’t be together for a whole year because we’d each been involved with other people. We finally got together and the magic almost lasted. It hurt to admit that Anthony was not going to be at my parents’ wedding, by my side, holding my hand and … well, just being Anthony.

We’d moved in together almost immediately after our first date. Some might say that it was a bit too soon. Some being my best friend: Anya. She had secretly been rooting for me to choose Hugo over Anthony during that traumatic year. But the kiss Anthony and I shared after his first art exhibition in London had sealed it for me. I chose Anthony, the whimsical artist in geeky glasses, the reluctant CEO of a failing leather goods company with dark tousled hair and chocolate-brown eyes.

I sighed and rolled away from the still-plump pillow beside mine and turned back to look at the beautiful sky. I heard Tallulah stir and I knew I should get up and start getting on top of my parents’ big day. But there was a second silent heartache I had to endure. As if breaking up with Anthony wasn’t enough, I’d fallen out, big time, with Anya.

Unlike Anthony, Anya would be at the wedding. She was like a fifth daughter to Mother who had practically adopted her as one of her own several years ago. Anya, an international supermodel who had recently acted in her second film role, had her business manager clear her diary for the wedding: no photo shoots, fashion shows, television appearances or interviews.

She and I had been faking smiles at each other since she landed.

No one knew that I’d royally ruined our friendship and no one knew that the break-up with Anthony, the biggest tragedy of my life, had happened just before the wedding. And Anya, the one person I could have confided in, hated my guts.

I’d gone over and over the decline of my two most valued relationships and I’d decided that if anything was to blame it was the levels of stress I was under. Planning weddings, moving home, and falling pregnant are major mind blowers in themselves. So when I tell you that I’d bought and was running my own business, you’ll understand what kind of stress I was under.

Since buying the leather goods company from Anthony’s family and turning it into a successful manufacturer of leather man bags, my feet hadn’t touched the ground.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I thrived on the buzz and activity of running my own business, and the desire to make Shearman a company that succeeded had never been stronger. I’d dropped the mantel of hedonistic socialite who relied on her parents’ wealth to keep her in flashy clothes, London apartments, and expensive booze. I’d grown up and I was working hard. At the same time Anthony was fulfilling his dream of selling the family business and returning to his passion of making and selling art. He was doing well, too. He was as busy as I had been.

I finally got up out of bed and went to stand on the balcony. I took several deep breaths, blowing each one out slowly with a sigh. Any minute I’d get a call from Mother asking when I was going to come to her suite on the top floor.

You can do this, Magenta.

The staff had begun moving tables and chairs around on the patio garden, getting ready for the wedding. One last sigh and I headed for the bathroom before Tallulah woke up. I looked in the mirror. My skin had been kissed by the sun. Like Tallulah, I’d assumed a honey glow but my hair wasn’t behaving itself. The humidity had caused my already big curls to expand and it would probably take more time to control my hair than it would getting Mother ready for the ceremony.

I stood in the shower, underneath the stream of warm water, and thought about Anthony. Again I wondered what he was doing. Was he missing me?

I had to get out of the shower. Tallulah would wake up and start crying for her mummy.

You can do this, Magenta.

You can.

Chapter 2

The Saturdays

Anthony and I lived together for well over a year before the real problems started.

It was a time of love, laughter, discovery, and a massive challenge for me. Who would have thought it? Magenta Bright, owner of a business, living in Chelsea with the love of my life and practically teetotal compared to my former life. Yes, the partying and jetting round the globe with my supermodel friend had stopped but I never missed that life, not once, because in the beginning, I thought Anthony and I were unbreakable.

After our first proper date, towards the end of a hot and dramatic summer, we wanted to live together straight away. But Anthony had just undertaken a three-month art commission in Italy and had to move out there, and I was finding my feet as the new owner of Shearman. So he’d take short breaks from his commission, flying back to London to see me and helping me look for a place for us to live.

Initially he’d suggested Clapham. I didn’t want to move there because that was where Anthony and his ex-fiancée, Inez, had shared a flat. I didn’t want to be living in her shadow.

Equally, Anthony coming back to my Holland Park flat evoked too many memories of the times I spent there with my ex, Hugo. We were having dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the King’s Road when our number one topic, the house hunt, came up again.

‘Why not find a place around here?’ I asked Anthony. ‘It’s pretty cool in this area and I think we could just about afford somewhere nice.’

And just like that we decided – south-west London it was.

As I said, Anthony popped back to London from Italy whenever he could while working on the commission: a series of landscapes in his signature bold colours for a filthy-rich, Italian film producer. I missed Anthony like mad when he was out of the country but I had a lot to keep me occupied at home.

Once or twice I managed a trip to Italy and whenever we were together we couldn’t get enough of each other. It was like a first date every time I saw Anthony. We had non-stop sex. I mean non-stop to the point of needing a vagina transplant kind of sex. I can’t tell you the number of times Anthony almost missed his flight back to Italy.

But, as luck would have it, we found the perfect place for us. Our two-bedroom house in Chelsea, whose outer walls were painted dusky pink, sat halfway up a lazy, terraced mews. We woke to the sound of traffic on the busy King’s Road, even though the mews itself was extremely quiet and two streets away from the main road. Each cottage-style house in the mews was painted in a dusky shade of blue, yellow, pink, or red. It was like moving into a posh rainbow.

Despite a bid to shake off our past, as in our exes, there was one thing I brought with me when I moved out of my Holland Park flat – my gorgeous red sofa. I couldn’t imagine life without it. I had once pledged to wear it into the ground. Anthony was happy for it to move in, too. My one regret about the new house was not having a walk-in wardrobe any more. But there were two bedrooms in the new place. All I needed to do was get some clothes rails and, voilà, a walk-in wardrobe was born.

‘What if we have a guest?’ Anthony asked.

‘Well they either sleep hanging from a clothes rail or we pay for their taxi home.’

‘So no guests, then?’ he said. I didn’t answer; at the time I was too busy staring into my new wardrobe and marvelling at how much more space there was, thinking: Maybe I could put up a hat shelf. There was certainly room for a few more than I already had.

It was almost winter once we’d settled into our new house.

One Saturday, with an icy breeze that had turned the tips of our noses pink, Anthony and I insisted on a long, early morning walk to take in the area. We set out in thick jackets and beanie hats. I had my arm wrapped around Anthony’s waist and his hugged my shoulder.

‘This looks like a nice place.’

‘Looks good to me,’ Anthony said. ‘And I’m starving.’

We were on the King’s Road – a few streets away from the house – and the café bar we’d stumbled across was called Rhythm ’n’ Brews. There were oversized vinyl records in the window, the exterior was painted dark green, and a smart-looking crowd was occupying the tables in what looked like a pretty casual and relaxing place.

The smell of coffee was more than welcome and so was the music. Jazz and breakfast. A great combination in my opinion. I’d grown up listening to my father’s soul and jazz collection so walking into Rhythm ’n’ Brews felt like walking into the massive kitchen diner of my childhood home.

Anthony and I sat at a table by the window and started salivating over the endless menu.

‘What should we have?’ I said. ‘A Bird in the Bap? A Thelonious Hunk of Oatmeal? A Chet Baked Bagel?’

We thought it was so genius to name the whole menu after jazz and R&B heroes that we decided to work our way through the entire list of breakfast and brunch goodies on a weekly basis. It became our Saturday ritual.

Whereas I used to spend Saturday mornings with my personal trainer, running laps of Holland Park, once we’d discovered this divine little café on a corner of the King’s Road, Anthony and I would sit and stuff our faces there Saturday after Saturday, reading a newspaper or book and catching up on everything we didn’t manage to say to each other during the week.

When the nice weather came back around there were tables and chairs outside. But during the cold transition from autumn to winter in those early months of moving to Chelsea we’d huddle around a little table by the window, always the same one if we could, hands around a hot cup of coffee to keep them warm.

Back then I’d noticed, on the corner opposite Rhythm ’n’ Brews, a shoe shop, which also sold handbags and leather gloves, called Veronique’s. I wasn’t sure if that was the owner’s name but the delicate woman with black hair and white streaks like a zebra looked like a Veronique. Veronique’s was sophisticated: a made to measure type of place. Very few people went there and the styles were quite classic, nothing trendy but stylish and extremely top end.

I loved looking at the wooden exterior of Veronique’s from our table at Rhythm ’n’ Brews. There was something quaint about it. A little bell above the door would alert the owner who appeared as if from nowhere to greet her customers.

‘What are you staring at?’ Anthony asked me once. ‘You’re not after more shoes are you?’

I laughed. I had a healthy appetite for clothes and shoe shopping but I hadn’t had much time for it with work and everything.

‘No, I just love the look of that shop,’ I said. ‘The brickwork on that part of the street is different. I don’t know – there’s just something about it. I was just admiring the handbags. I think when I’m older, and hopefully more sophisticated, I’ll shop in there.’

‘Do you think it will last?’ asked Anthony. ‘Shops like that tend to be the first to close. It reminds me of the shop my dad had when Shearman used to be A Shearman Leather Designs. That had to close down in the recession.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But sometimes a business like that can be lucky. I hope she is.’

Veronique, as I chose to call the owner, was always dusting the shelves and she fell over herself if any sophisticated ladies happened to walk in.

‘Maybe what she needs,’ said Anthony, touching my hand and stirring me from my reverie, ‘is a bright and breezy, business-minded person with an eye for leather goods to infuse some new ideas into it.’

‘No, I hope she lasts just the way she is,’ I said, resting my chin on my hand. ‘What do you think of the idea of me diversifying and selling handbags along with the man bags at Shearman?’

‘What – and blow Veronique out of the water?’

‘No, I’d be after a different target group so I wouldn’t be direct competition – not really. The man bags are doing great and Harrods have given me more shelf space so … I don’t know, maybe expanding isn’t the best idea.’ I shook my head and giggled. ‘But you know how I love my handbags.’

‘Any more “must haves” and we’ll need a third bedroom.’

We left shortly after, arm in arm as usual. I crossed over to Veronique’s and peered into the window. I stopped there often on my way back from work just to see how Veronique had arranged the shop but this time I dragged Anthony along. He was all fidgety and wanted to go home but just then I noticed the handbag of my dreams. Anthony noticed me notice it, too.

‘No you don’t,’ he said, pulling me off towards our mews. ‘You told me to stop you spending on clothes and accessories until we could afford to have the downstairs redecorated.’

‘I’ll paint the downstairs myself. I must have that bag.’ I tried to drag him back to the window but Anthony scooped me up in a fireman’s lift and carried me towards home.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said, feeling my Ella Fitzburger brunch threatening to resurface. ‘I think you made your point. But the offer of me painting the downstairs is still on the table.’ Anthony gently set me back on my feet.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the handbag in Veronique’s window and the prospect of Shearman selling handbags that no woman could resist.

A week after sighting the gorgeous bag my twenty-ninth birthday came around. Anthony surprised me with the handbag from Veronique’s.

‘My very first grown-up bag,’ I said. I held the bag on my knee as we sat on the sofa. I ran my fingers over the smooth, midnight-blue leather, opened and closed the gold clasp, inhaled the interior, and stroked the short straps. ‘It’s perfect, Anthony.’ I grinned up at him, wondering if Veronique did matching shoes. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

Anthony, looking slightly worried about my handbag obsession, took the bag off my lap and placed it to one side. He kissed me.

‘Well maybe there is a way I can show you how thankful I am,’ I said. I wrapped my arms around Anthony and pulled him into a kiss.

Anthony and I were made for each other; I was convinced of that. I never saw a break-up coming. Not then, not when we had our Saturdays.

Chapter 3

The Assistant

I started making a slight diversion to and from work each day just so I could walk past Veronique’s. The idea of manufacturing women’s handbags never left my mind. I had to bide my time, though, and really think it through because keeping on top of the man bag market was not exactly a walk in the park. But once a very successful first year in business was under my belt I began acting on the idea of diversifying. I wanted the new range for women to be in keeping with the man bags: varying in price, style, and use but with a signature look that made them say Shearman.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Shearman was already a European market leader in man bags but the market for women’s bags was flooded with competition. I needed handbag designs that would wow every woman who saw them but none of the designers I approached or who approached me had anything new to add to the market. The process proved more difficult than I’d first thought.

I decided to cast my net wider than the UK when it came to designers. I’d started making inquiries in Europe. My search led me to track down three very promising contacts, all in Paris, and I planned a trip to meet with the designers in person.

A few days before the business trip, Riley, my dizzy secretary come receptionist and personal assistant in training, burst into my office.

‘You asked me to keep your caffeine levels up,’ she said. ‘This ought to do the trick.’

Riley was in her early twenties, very petite, completely lovable, and extremely naive. She had the willingness of a puppy, up on hind legs waiting for a ball to be tossed across the grass for her to fetch.

In many respects Riley was another of my challenges. Maybe I’d hired her as some sort of test for myself. You see I could tell she was neither a competent secretary, a useful receptionist, nor a potential PA at the interview. But then, neither had I been when I first started at Shearman as a PA.

I wanted to give Riley the benefit of the doubt; I really liked her a lot. Even though she turned up at work on her first day, half an hour late, with a goldfish in a bowl, which she plonked on her desk, splashing fish water everywhere, I still thought I could make something of her.

After her initial three-month trial everyone asked why I didn’t just sack her. I’d obviously made an awful mistake. She’d made blunder after blunder and I’d taken care of her mess-ups each time. She double-booked appointments, sent emails and letters to the wrong person, and ordered a taxi to take me to Harwich Harbour when I’d told her I needed to get to an interview at Harper’s Bazaar. But I knew, or at least I hoped I was right to assume, that somewhere deep down, beneath the charity shop chic and Doctor Marten boots, there was an amazing PA just waiting to emerge.

Riley was carrying two cups of caffè macchiato. She’d gone all the way to the place near the tube station for them. Not only because we both loved their macchiatos but because Riley had been blown away (her words) by the owner. Admittedly, he was gorgeous, if you went for the unshaven, Ryan Gosling type.