by Karen Swan
He shook his head and stared at her. ‘But if this was really about justice, you’d have gone to the police by now. Which tells me all you’re really interested in is the money.’
‘You’re wrong,’ she protested, but there was a slight quiver in her voice. A momentary weakness.
Harry exploited it.
‘No. I’m not. And you know what’s so bloody ridiculous? You could have had all this anyway. I wasn’t the one who broke it off – who left without trace. I mean – look what I risked to be with you – my job, my reputation, my livelihood. Everything!’
She snorted.
‘Clearly, it was a risk worth taking. You haven’t done too badly out of your new career.’
He sighed, the poor little rich boy.
‘Don’t be fooled. That’s brought its own problems,’ he said. ‘All the women I meet now are after my money or my fame. I can’t trust anybody. You knew me when I was nothing – a geography teacher in a minor public school. You’re one of the only people who’s wanted me for me. I thought I could trust you. I couldn’t believe it when I got your email.’ He shook his head, betrayal etched all over his face. ‘I always thought that if I ever saw you again – if I ever brought you back here – it would be as my woman. Not this.’ His voice had dropped.
He let his arrows land. He could see from the tiny way she’d arched her back and lengthened her neck – just so – that she had absorbed their point. Feeling desirable, powerful and as if she was where she belonged, she turned her back to the view, resting her elbows on the glass veranda and tipping her head back to let the breeze brush her hair, her nipples hard beneath the flimsy silk.
Bravo Hunter! he thought to himself. What woman could resist that little titbit? That she could have more than a million – she could have all of it. He knew the combination of the fortune, the fizz and his hungry eyes made for a heady mix.
She turned to look at him. ‘Really? You remembered me?’
Harry faced her, sensing his moment. ‘Remembered you? The memory of you tormented me. I was desperate to forget you. I was sure you’d moved on to bigger and better.’
‘They don’t come much bigger or better than you, Harry.’ A strap had slipped off her shoulder, and the sun gleamed on her skin. He stepped towards her and slowly, teasingly, pushed the other strap off too. The sunny yellow dress fluttered to the floor, and she stood before him, in just baby blue cotton bikini pants.
Harry switched from hangdog to horny in an instant. He stared at her, openly raking his eyes all over her, taking his time, letting her wait.
When it came, it wasn’t what she expected.
‘Oh God! The coq!’ he said, startled.
‘What?’ she cried, looking down at his crotch.
‘The coq au vin,’ he laughed. ‘You always did have a dirty mind.’ He winked, and, leaving her blushing and untouched on the terrace, went to take dinner out of the oven, pressing a little red button on the video recorder next to the sliding doors as he did so.
Her pert bottom was facing him as he came back out, and she was sipping her champagne, leaning on the veranda. He could hear the cheers of a crew from a passing boat as they looked up and saw her near-naked and splendid at the penthouse. She seemed to like it.
‘Now where were we?’ he said, sweeping her hair over her shoulder and trailing a lazy finger down her spine, over her hip bones and into her knickers. ‘Oh yes. About to be deliciously legal.’
It was 8.05 a.m. when the phone rang. Kate picked it up on the second ring. She’d been at her desk for forty minutes – Monty was in Tokyo, and Camilla wouldn’t be in till nearer nine, so it was a chance to catch up on some paperwork.
‘Kate Marfleet.’
‘Kate, it’s Hunter,’ whispered the voice at the other end of the line.
‘Good God! I didn’t know you did this time of day. Oh – don’t tell me. You haven’t been to bed yet.’
‘Umm, strictly speaking – no.’ He’d had Emily in the hot tub, the bath tub, on the island unit and the daybed. But no, he hadn’t taken her to bed, yet.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Never mind.’ He knew better than to elaborate. ‘Suffice to say, Emily has been – diffused.’
Kate paused. Odd choice of words. She could tell he was hiding something from her.
‘Did you use the Dictaphone?’
‘No, even better.’
‘What?’ She was instantly suspicious.
‘Video camera.’
‘What the hell did you use that for?’ she cried. ‘What have you got – her sitting down in an interview room saying, “Yes, I’m blackmailing you?”’
‘Not exactly.’
There was a brief pause.
‘Oh God! You slept with her, didn’t you?’
‘No! I most certainly did n––’ he protested feebly.
‘Don’t bullshit me!’ Kate interrupted. ‘Why did you do it? We talked about this. We agreed on the tactics to make this work. She could get you sent away, Hunter. You think that’s funny?’
‘No, of course I don’t. But – you know – she offered herself on a plate. I could hardly turn her down. Pissing her off would hardly help. Anyway, she looked good. And it had been a while since . . .’
‘Since what? Thursday? Two days ago?’
‘Huh? How’d you know about that?’
‘Because I’m on the News of the World’s speed dial, that’s how. Any time you’re pictured with some dollybird, I get called up about it.’
‘Hmm, well, that’s good. They never used to do that with my old briefs. You must have them running scared.’
‘Hardly,’ Kate spat. ‘They’re ringing to know if I know their names.’
Harry chuckled, endlessly amused at getting Kate so worked up.
‘So, you videoed her having sex with you. You’ve made a sex tape. And how exactly do you think we can use that for evidence? Unless you actually want people to see?’
She instantly regretted the remark. ‘Oh, what am I saying? You probably do.’
She dropped her head in her hands.
‘Look, just relax,’ Harry soothed, hearing Emily coming back. ‘It’s all taken care of. She’ll never want to go to court now. Job done – she’s no longer a threat.’ She heard him smirk down the line. ‘You can go back to bitch-slapping the Sun.’
He burst out laughing as she spluttered various obscenities at him before hanging up. He tossed the phone on the floor, still chuckling, as Emily sashayed back into the bedroom, with a rapacious look in her eyes. Power – or the illusion of it – was a potent aphrodisiac.
As she straddled him, her pert breasts bouncing jauntily up and down, Harry closed his eyes with triumphant satisfaction. No, Emily Brookner had never been a threat. He’d known all along how to play her. He didn’t need Kate Marfleet for sorting out a silly little tart like her. But he did need Kate Marfleet very much indeed.
And as Emily brought him off, the image of Kate’s tigress eyes and pillowy lips swimming before him, he knew he needed her in more ways than one.
Chapter Eighteen
Cress’s hands shook as she read the last line of the manuscript. It was sublime. Poetic, haunting, perfectly pitched. Harriet, her most trusted editor, was right. This had the legs to go all the way – to the top of the best-seller lists, and on the big award shortlists. Detectives weren’t the only people who relied on hunches.
Cress hadn’t been able to put it down. She’d had Rosie, her assistant, hold her calls all afternoon, and she’d switched off her mobile. She wanted to read it in peace.
She looked back at the accompanying author notes. It was entitled The Wrong Prince. Cress nodded her head. She liked it. But it was an anonymous pitch. There was no agent, telephone number or email address. Just a PO box number. Cress huffed impatiently. She wondered how long this had been sitting in the slush pile. A fortnight? Maybe more? She wanted to get to this writer before anyone else, but it looked like she’d have to do it the slow way.
She wrote a letter, saying she wanted to make an offer for the book, and asked the writer to come to the offices to discuss terms. She added her home and mobile numbers as well. She didn’t want this one to get away.
There was no doubt Harry’s signing to Sapphire had boosted their profile enormously. In the past few months, their daily mail bag had quadrupled, they were being wined and dined by the big agents, and now manuscripts of this calibre were landing in their laps. She couldn’t believe her luck.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
It was Harriet. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, biting her lip.
Cress nodded solemnly, and then broke into a huge grin. ‘Congratulations, Hattie. You’ve just found us Harry’s successor.’
Harriet beamed, clasping her hands together. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased! Although, who’d have ever thought we even needed one?’
‘Absolutely. That man is like our own personal mint. Have you seen his latest figures?’ Cress pushed a spreadsheet towards her. ‘His sales are spiking again. I swear he could fill Wembley just reading the first five chapters of the new book. Pre-orders for that have already broken records. Are we still on course for a February launch?’
Harriet nodded, both as a yes to her boss’s question and in appreciation of the sales numbers. They had to be good news for her bonus.
‘But we’ve got to keep moving forwards, Hattie. There’s always someone brighter and fresher coming along. And you and I both know, although we’d never publicly admit it . . .’ Cress’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘that he’s been riding the momentum from Scion for too long. It’s carried him for the last two titles, but if he’s going to stay number one in the world, he really needs to score an ace with the new one. And we need to have a Plan B for if he doesn’t.’
‘This,’ Cress said, holding the Wrong Prince manuscript, and slipping it into her bag for some more bedtime reading, ‘is Plan B. Let’s just hope this guy looks like a movie star, as well as writing like a poet. We’ll start work on it tomorrow. Ask everyone to convene here at nine a.m. for the action plan.’
Harriet nodded, and Cress took the acceptance letter to the postbag herself, kissing it lightly for luck before letting it fall into the bundle of mail.
She wanted a fast turnaround on this. Tomorrow she would put Harriet on to editing the text and getting this book ready for publication. Why wait? Where were they now? July. If they could get it on the bookshelves in the next three months, there’d be time for it to hit the best-seller lists before the Christmas peak and drive up sales. There was no point holding back just to wait for the formalities to be completed. This author had come to her. So long as hers was the first publisher’s acceptance letter he got, she could close the deal and start to spread the power base on her author lists – because for as long as she relied solely on Harry Hunter for profile and profits, she couldn’t shake the niggling fear that Sapphire’s success was built on a house of cards.
It was just after 10 p.m. when Cress pulled into the driveway, and nearly dark. She frowned to see the Golf – Greta’s runabout – parked askance, and blocking the access to the front door. Rolling her eyes impatiently as she skirted round it, her Missoni dress caught on one of the giant topiaried box balls and a thread pulled.
‘Shit,’ she said crossly, stopping to untangle herself before the stitches unravelled. She heard laughter coming from the house and looked up.
The lights were on in the drawing room. Inside, she could see silhouettes and movement, and music was playing. Mark must have got the boys over for a game of poker, she thought, rifling around for her keys.
Unlocking the door, she dumped her bag on the mushroom velvet corner chair and was just kicking off her shoes when Greta walked through the hall, carrying a crystal decanter and wearing . . . Cress couldn’t believe it! She was wearing Cress’s brand-spanking-new black chiffon Alberta Ferretti dress. The halter neck revealed Greta’s waifish slender arms (not a hint of bingo wings) and vanilla skin that you wanted to stroke and sniff. And though the wispy Chantilly lace hem came to Cress’s knees, on Greta – whose lofty five foot nine height was mainly in her legs – it flirted around her mid-thighs tantalizingly. Her baby-blonde hair was bundled into a messy French pleat, with occasional wisps escaping, but somehow it was the precise lack of grooming that made her look all the more enticing.
Red mist descended.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing wearing my clothes and entertaining your friends?’ Cress bellowed, completely unbothered about waking the kids. ‘This is my house.’
Greta stood, agog.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Pelling, I tried to . . .’
‘I don’t give a shit what you tried to do. I don’t want to hear it. How dare you walk through my house in my clothes, carrying my wine. You have ideas well and truly above your station if you think you’re entitled to use this house as your own. You are an employee here! Do you hear me? You are here to work, not to play.’
‘But Mrs Pelling . . .’
‘I have had enough, do you hear me? I’m on to you, young lady. How dare you!’ Cress hissed.
‘Mr Pelling . . .’
‘Oooooh, no! No, no, no!’ Cress shouted. ‘You think you can bat your baby blues and twist him around your little finger? Let me tell you something. My husband’s got far more substance than to fall for a vacuous airhead like you. You’ve got nothing to offer a man like him – not conversation, not brains, not power. You are a complete nonentity, here to change nappies and cook sau––’
‘I think that’s enough, Cressida,’ Mark said sternly.
Cress looked over. He’d come out of the drawing room and was standing in the doorway, holding a glass of wine.
‘Mark!’
Cress didn’t understand. What was he doing here? With Greta? Was he entertaining her? Cress’s hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh my God!’ she shrieked. ‘You are fucking her!’
Mark marched across the hall and grabbed her roughly by the arm.
‘No!’ he hissed furiously. ‘I am not fucking her. She was doing what you should have been doing.’
Cress looked at him blankly.
‘The Bastides? The Lathams? For dinner? Ringing any bells?’
Cress felt the blood pool in her feet. Dinner with Mark’s boss! How could she have forgotten?
‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day! Why’s your phone been switched off?’ he demanded.
‘I, uh, I was reading. I was, uh . . . Are they . . . ?’ she whispered, nodding towards the drawing room.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘They’re all in there. And yes, they’ve heard every word you said.’
Cress felt completely, utterly and totally mortified. She stood in silence for a moment, wondering how to turn this around. ‘Foot in mouth’ disease strikes again, she thought wryly, knowing there was nothing else for it. She knew she had to face the music.
‘OK,’ she said, taking a deep breath, as she smoothed her dress and quickly patted her hair. ‘I can sort this out.’
‘Hang on a second,’ Mark said. ‘Isn’t there something else you need to do first?’
Cress looked at him quizzically.
‘You owe Greta an apology,’ he prompted.
She gasped. She’d choke on the words first. There was no way she was going to apologize to her. Every word she’d said was true and both women knew it.
Greta was still standing in the hall, holding the decanter, her bottom lip trembling as she looked at the floor.
Cress didn’t buy it for a second.
‘Mark, I really don’t . . .’
‘If you can’t apologize for the scene you’ve just made, and the utter slander you’ve just thrown at Greta, then I don’t think you should come in, Cress,’ Mark said, exasperated. ‘Greta’s been wonderful in your absence. She made a fantastic Chateaubriand with just an hour’s notice and she’s done you proud, getting the kids to bed, putting the house t
o rights and looking after our guests. I said she could pick something from your wardrobe as she was wearing a track-suit and until such time as the hostess deigned to arrive, it was only right that she should be appropriately dressed. You are in her debt.’
Cress felt herself shrink. He was adamant – and right. She closed her eyes, smarting against the shame for a moment, then crossed the hall to Greta and put a hand on her arm.
‘Mark’s right,’ Cress said stoically. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job, and I’ve been a complete harpie. It’s been a . . . bad day and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.’
‘Good girls,’ Mark said, pleased to see harmony – and manners – restored. ‘Come along then and say hallo to our guests, Cress. Greta, if you could just finish up in the kitchen, then you’re clear for the night. And thank you,’ he smiled, as she turned to go. ‘You’ve been marvellous. I couldn’t have managed without you.’
A look of undisguised delight crossed Greta’s face, before she smiled shyly in return.
Mark walked back into the drawing room to their guests, shoulders shrugged up around his ears, his arms outstretched in embarrassed appeasement. Cress looked back at Greta, who was pulling the slide from her hair and letting it fall sexily on to her shoulders. Her shy look was now sly, and as a ripple of mirth skittered out of the drawing room a moment later – clearly at her expense – Cress saw a flash of glib satisfaction in her eyes at this latest in the line of small victories. They stared at each other in cold silence. In recognition. They both knew the gloves were off.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate held her breath as the caterer ran the palette knife around the rim of the mould, and the five-tiered rainbow jelly dropped on to the plate with a satisfying plop. Tentatively – now would not be the time to trip – Kate carried the wobbling tower through to the French grey dining room and positioned it in the middle of the table. Stepping back with relief that she had fulfilled her task without major mishap, she couldn’t help but admire the party spread: iced fairy cakes were decorated with angel wings spun from a fine caramel thread; jam sandwiches had been pummelled and rolled into tiny swirls like savoury swiss rolls; cocktail sausages had been dipped in honey for a golden glaze, and a chocolate fountain was arranged with marshmallows and strawberries on the side.