Gerald touched her on the arm fondly. ‘If your dance card isn’t full, would you do your old dad the honour after I’ve taken your mother for a spin?’
‘How could I refuse Esher’s answer to Fred Astaire?’
She watched as her father took his wife’s hand and proudly led her on to the dance floor. Her mother’s dress was coral silk, well-tailored, expensive, probably Escada or even Oscar de la Renta. She guessed that that one dress had hit her father’s chequebook harder than the hire cost of the Orchid Suite. Then again, in her mother’s mind, she was not in the Hinchley Wood golf club, but in the ballroom of the Dorchester.
Carefully placing the Lalique on the table next to all the other presents, Sasha sauntered over to the buffet table.
‘Sasha! How lovely to see you.’
A plump young woman in a tartan dress was smiling at her. For a second, she struggled to place her, until she realised it was Jessica Bird – her father’s best friend’s daughter. They had been in the same class at prep school, parting ways at eleven when Jessica had scraped into Guildford High while Sasha had gone off to Wycombe Abbey.
‘Jessica!’ she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘So what brings you here?’
‘Whole family was invited,’ she said, stuffing a cocktail sausage into her mouth. ‘Of course, I’m just round the corner from my mum and dad now. I finished my teacher training last year and started at St Vincent’s Primary in Woking.’
‘Wow, that’s great,’ said Sasha, wondering if the bar had any real champagne. She could see she was going to need it. A tiny diamond ring winked on Jessica’s left hand.‘And engaged already?’ she asked.
Jessica smiled, glowing from within. ‘A bit soon, I know, but I’ve been with Dan since sixth form, so why waste time?’
Dan from the sixth form, thought Sasha, trying to imagine living in a world of such poor choices, but then she remembered the time she had been desperate for Miles Ashford to propose. At eighteen! Thank God that didn’t happen. Men were trouble, whether they came from Esher or Angel Cay.
Jessica leant forward, her boozy breath clouding into Sasha’s personal space. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your dad,’ she said, putting a sympathetic hand on her arm.
‘What about my dad?’ Sasha frowned.
‘You know, losing his job.’
Sasha felt suddenly cold. Looking across the dance floor, she could see her father was holding Carole in his arms. He’d lost his job? It was the first Sasha had heard of this, and she was angry they’d let some silly cow in plaid tell her first. Yes, she had been busy, out of the country half the time, but even so.
‘He told my dad about it on the train to Waterloo a few days after it happened.’
‘When was this exactly?’
‘It must have been about a month ago now. Of course you know he was still catching the train into the city every day to pretend to your mum that he was still working, which I think was so sweet. He just wants to protect her from the world, doesn’t he? I know my Dan is the same. Still, things can’t be too bad, can they? They’re still having the party and I’m sure your dad has got a lot tucked away.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ said Sasha, making her excuses and heading to the bar, where she got a glass of cava and drank it quickly.
Did he have anything ‘tucked away’? Sasha wasn’t at all sure, not with the way her mother spent money, using Harrods as her own private boutique. They had not financially supported her for some time, of course, but she was still worried what it meant. They might have to sell the house, she thought, suddenly realising how much she was attached to that stupid mock-Tudor semi. She had spent so many years feeling embarrassed by her home and her family, but she still hated the idea of her childhood home not being there to go back to. And would the house be the only casualty? Picking the icing off a thin slice of anniversary cake, she looked at her parents on the dance floor, wondering about the chances of them reaching their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Slim to none, she suspected, when her father could no longer keep Carole in Oscar de la Renta dresses.
‘You poor bugger,’ she whispered to herself, sitting down at an empty table and filling her glass from a half-empty bottle. Over the years Sasha had experienced many emotions about her father: pity, resentment, frustration at his lack of ambition, talent and sophistication, certainly compared to the Robert Ashfords of this world. But in spite of it all, she loved him and privately acknowledged that she owed him a great deal. Growing up, it had been her mother who had encouraged her to take riding lessons, tap, ballet, flute; self-improvement is key, she had always said. But it was her dad who had made it happen. The thought suddenly struck her that he must have been taking time off work to make sure she got to her classes, to ferry her back and forth. No wonder he hadn’t progressed in business.
God, I need a drink, she thought, reaching out for the wine. Just as she touched the neck, the bottle was snatched away.
‘Hey!’ she protested, looking up at a sharp-suited man standing by the table.
‘Sorry,’ he said, holding up his hand with a half-grin. ‘I was just minesweeping.’
‘Minesweeping?’
‘Leftovers.’
‘This isn’t the student union, you know,’ said Sasha sourly.
‘Well, how about we share it?’ he said, nodding to the spare chair next to her.
The bottle thief was handsome. Not Alex Doyle handsome, she thought, recalling a magazine feature she had seen about that smug bastard recently. No, this man had that sporty, public boy polish and a gym-toned physique evident beneath his tailored suit. Slightly square, of course, but then this was Hinchley Wood. She held out her glass and shrugged. ‘If you must.’
‘So who do you know here?’ asked the man, topping up his own glass.
‘That’s my dad,’ she said, nodding over in the direction of Gerald Sinclair. ‘Poor bastard,’ she said despite herself.
‘Ah. I heard about his redundancy,’ he said.
‘Seems like everyone here knows about it,’ she said tartly. ‘I was just thinking about suing the firm.’
‘Which firm?’
‘Lewis Bettany, the company where he worked. They gave him redundancy three years short of retirement, presumably to avoid paying his pension. I’m having a friend check out the legality of it all first thing on Monday.’
‘Actually I heard they gave him a very generous settlement. Several times their legal obligation, I understand.’
‘Which my mother will go through like a plague of locusts.’ She sighed, her wine already finished. She held up her glass to him. ‘I’m Sasha Sinclair, by the way.’
‘I gathered,’ he said with a cheeky smile. ‘I’m Phil.’ He paused. ‘Philip Bettany.’
Sasha narrowed her eyes as she examined him.‘Tell me the name’s just a horrible coincidence,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ said Philip. ‘My dad is the MD.’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘Well you’ve got a bloody cheek coming here,’ she huffed.
‘We’re invited. My mum, dad, brothers, the whole family.’
‘That’s so typical of my father,’ she said wearily, looking over at Gerald. ‘Nice guys come last. I learnt that lesson in kindergarten.’
‘Look, Sasha, I don’t know the details,’ said Philip. ‘My dad says it’s a decent pay-off and that they held on to him as long as they could. We’ve all been suffering from the after-effects of the recession. ’
‘How thoughtful.’
She shot a sideways glance at him. Actually, he was better-looking than she had first thought. Wide, pale grey eyes with thick lashes. If she had seen him at some party in London, she would have thought he was gorgeous.
‘So was it you who swung the axe, you arsehole?’
He snorted his wine down his nose. ‘Hey, don’t hold back.’ He laughed. ‘Say what you really mean. No, I don’t even work for Bettany’s. I work at Schroder’s, the investment bank.’
Sasha pulled a bored face, but her interest in him rose a notch as her anger softened.
‘It’s OK, pays the rent,’ he said, catching her look. ‘But you’re right, it’s not exactly my childhood dream.’
‘Which was what?’
‘International-level rugby.’ He grinned.
‘You’re too pretty for rugby. And too thin.’
‘Fly-half. I played for Harlequins reserves until I ripped the cartilage in my knee. My career was over before it began really.’
He topped up their glasses. ‘So what do you do, Sasha? Model?’
This time she gave him a withering look. ‘That’s a corny line, even for Hinchley Wood.’
‘It’s not a line,’ he protested. ‘I actually heard you were a model.’
‘Ex-model. I’m a stylist.’
‘Well, that’s certainly a great dress,’ he said, looking her up and down approvingly.
‘I know. I want to buy the company.’
The words came out of her mouth without thinking. She had wanted to tell somebody about her plans to take over Ben Rivera for months, but the world she operated in was so gossipy and tight-knit and she wanted to be absolutely sure she could make it happen. She supposed it was easier to say it out loud to a complete stranger. Ever since that first meeting with the designer in his tiny Battersea workshop, she knew his designs were good enough to become a huge luxury brand – and quickly too. After all, Dolce and Gabbana were the stars of Milan fashion week after less than a decade in business. Giorgio Armani was a global success story, but had only started in the seventies. Society was increasingly design-conscious and label-aware, and Sasha predicted that by the turn of the millennium everyone would be eager for a slice of luxury label validation via designer underwear, scent, T-shirts, even jeans. It was happening already. Calvin Klein had built a billion-dollar empire by expanding into perfume and diffusion lines, making his chic minimalist aesthetic available to the masses and the elite.
‘Interesting,’ said Philip. ‘Tell me more.’
She wasn’t sure why she wanted to tell him, but she did. Perhaps it was being here, faced with a glimpse of her possible future if she failed to make her mark, that gave her the boldness to share her dreams.
‘I work with an incredibly talented designer,’ she said. ‘He has a clear aesthetic and a loyal client base; he could be huge but he doesn’t have the commercial sense to realise his potential. It would be so easy to spin the company out into handbags, scent, shoes . . .’ She stopped herself, searching Philip’s face. He was smiling, but he didn’t laugh at her.
‘Interesting sector, luxury fashion,’ he said in an even, considered voice. ‘But what management experience do you bring to the table? I thought you were a stylist.’
‘I might not have been to business school, but I know what women want and I know how to make them beautiful. Plus I’ve got my own contacts – rich women, celebrities – who I can use as free publicity. I’ve got a feeling that celebrity is going to be vital to selling fashion in the next few years.’
Philip looked thoughtful. ‘And does this designer want to sell?’
She’d had this conversation with Ben recently when she had taken him for cocktails at the Ritz, a celebration for getting one of his dresses on to Whitney Devine, a stunning American Grammy winner who was being photographed for a six-page Vogue story. In reality, she’d wanted to sound Ben out before everyone was after a piece of him. He had been disappointingly vague and elusive when she had suggested expanding the business – he didn’t seem to have any commercial ambition at all. For him, it was all about the creation of beauty. And there was no money in art. Well, unless you were Andy Warhol.
‘Everyone has a price,’ she said. ‘Besides, it’s a tiny operation. He works out of a stable in Battersea. He can’t ask much for it, can he?’
Philip shrugged. ‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘The starting point is to fix how much the company is worth, which you can do from a series of multiples and calculating from turnover, operating profits, that sort of thing.’
He took a pen out of his pocket and began scribbling some figures on a napkin, his brows knotting in concentration as he explained the principles of a corporate sale.
‘There are other factors as well. Does anyone else want to buy the company? How much potential does it have? I’m assuming you can finance the deal.’
He didn’t say it unkindly, but there was an implied scepticism that someone like Sasha would have any grasp of the problems of high finance. It only made her more determined.
‘Of course I can raise the money. Unless you can tell me a more clever way to do it.’ She smiled coquettishly. She hadn’t come to her parents’ wedding anniversary party to score with a man, but she needed information, and in her experience, dangling sex in front of them often had a loosening effect on their tongues.
‘Assuming you’re not bringing much capital to the table yourself, ’ said Philip, ‘you’re probably looking at private equity rather than a bank, but the fashion sector is still seen as high risk. I mean, the guy specialises in cocktail dresses. If it was jeans or something at the mass-market end it might be more attractive—’
‘But if people just see him as the cocktail dress man,’ interrupted Sasha, ‘then there will be less competition and we have more chance of paying less for the company.’
Philip smiled, clearly pleased at Sasha’s quick grasp of the situation. ‘I notice you’re using the collective term “we”.’ He laughed.
‘If I decide you’re the right man for the job,’ she said with a little more innuendo than was required.
‘Look,’ he said more seriously, ‘assuming this company is little more than a cottage industry, you could probably buy a controlling interest for tens of thousands, not hundreds. But then what? If the man really is working out of a stable, then it’s going to need a major capital injection to move the business forward. We’re talking factory production, large-scale distribution, advertising and marketing. Getting the company is just the start.’
Sasha nodded. He was definitely handsome. Didn’t rugby players have cauliflower ears and broken noses? He probably had a strong back and legs built for stamina too. She shook off the image; this was business and only business.
‘Can’t you ask around? You must know lots of money men.’
‘I will, but I’m not sure anyone will have the appetite for it.’
‘Please. Try.’
Philip grinned and filled her glass again. ‘In which case can I take you for dinner to talk about it further?’
‘But you’re the enemy, Phil Bettany,’ she said with a hint of mischief.
‘An enemy seeking forgiveness.’
‘Well, you might have to work hard for that.’
‘I’m willing to beg.’
Sasha laughed. She had no intention of sleeping with him, but he was a banker, a banker with contacts. He could be useful, very useful.
‘OK, dinner it is,’ she smiled. ‘I hope you can stretch to a full bottle of wine.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.
I certainly hope you do, she thought.
23
Sitting in his room in Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, Miles looked down at the Coutts bank statement in his hand and reread the figure in the ‘total’ box. It was still there, all six noughts. He looked out of the window, over the Chao Phraya river, a smile spreading across his face. Finally, he was free. Free from his father, free from the golden yoke of being Robert Ashford’s son, free to make his own choices, his own mistakes.
Miles had finally turned twenty-one and that meant that his trust funds had finally kicked in. Now he was really rich. In the month leading up to his birthday, he had been worried that his father might somehow manage to stop them. Both Connie and Robert had taken a very dim view of his departure from Oriel. He had hoped that when he went home to announce it, his father might have understood; after all, it had all happened in the n
ame of entrepreneurialism. Instead, his mother had burst into tears, while Robert had mumbled that both his children had let him down before retreating silently to his study.
Miles folded the bank statement and put it away. At least that was the last time he’d have to face his parents’ small-minded disapproval. He was his own man now – and his first decision as master of his destiny was to go out and celebrate.
He left the hotel and got in a cab to explore Bangkok. He was in Thailand as part of his own personal ‘grand tour’ which had begun within days of his dismissal from Oxford. He went to Rio for Carnival, LA for Easter, Greece for summer, then zig-zagged back to New York, then Cape Town and Goa before heading to Thailand. The world was one long party if you knew where to look and Miles’ entire address book was a roll-call of socialites, party animals and playboys desperate for the next thrill.
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