The Glamour Collection E-Book

Aita Ighodaro

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 896

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Now together in a deliciously fun collection, Sin Tropez and All That Glitters. Sin Tropez For best friends Tara and Abena, an invitation to stay on a luxury yacht in St Tropez is a chance to enjoy riotous hedonism and reckless adventure. For Latvian model Natalya, it is a long-awaited opportunity. She wants to find an oligarch who can fund her future - and help her forget her past. But as Abena becomes embroiled in a dangerous affair, Tara's partying spirals out of control and Natalya discovers the dark consequences of getting what you wish for, the jet-set lifestyle starts to look a lot less glamorous... All That Glitters Isabel Suarez-Octavio is beautiful, intelligent and fiercely ambitious. She uses her time at Oxford University to attend the wildest parties, join the right societies and involve herself with the power brokers of tomorrow. Before long, Isabel is prowling the corridors of Westminster by day and partying in Miami by night. But when Isabel joins a yacht trip along Italy's glamorous Amalfi Coast her glittering life quickly unravels. Suddenly, Isabel is in the frame for murder. To win her freedom, she must take on some of the world's most powerful men - and finally confront the dark secrets of her past.

Leseprobe

Contents

Sin Tropez

Part One

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

Part Two

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

All that Glitters

Prologue

Part One

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

Part Two

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Part Three

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Part Four

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Epilogue

For my sisters, Enida and Natasha, with love

Part One

Chapter 1

RE: St Tropez!

Please email me all your details and a picture if possible as we are starting to arrange our summer in the sun. Let me know what passport you have and if you need a visa for France. Yeah, yeah, yeah, summer is on its way!

Tara Wittstanley read the message aloud to her best friend, Abena Ankrah.

‘Ah donnt belive eet!’ Abena thundered with a wildly exaggerated Ghanaian accent – a departure from what was actually her cut-glass English one, which always cracked Tara up. ‘A picture?’

‘Sweetheart,’ Tara replied, ‘this is Reza we’re talking about. Absolutely nothing would surprise me. I’m just astounded his assistant hasn’t asked for our cup sizes and sexual preferences too. This, darling, is what you’d call a mind-bogglingly rich, spoilt and depraved little man.’ But her eyes were flashing fire and her heart was beating hard and fast.

Tara had been introduced to Reza months earlier through the gorgeous Domenico, who she’d met in Milan during fashion week. In order to get the time off university so close to her final examinations, she’d told her old tutor at Oxford that she was having ‘Women’s Problems’. Those two simple words were enough to put terror into his bespectacled eyes and, rather than have to delve any deeper into the nature of said ‘Problems’, he advised her to take a week off her studies with immediate effect. And so Tara spent her entire student loan that term on a trip to Milan for a week of fashion parties and hobnobbing with editors, designers, models and photographers. She went mainly because she felt like it, but also with a vague secondary interest in securing contacts for a job in fashion after she graduated. That hadn’t worked, but she had met Domenico.

Domenico was well dressed, in that flamboyant way she pretended to hate, incredibly good looking and, at just twenty-seven, was already running an unusually successful men’s clothing retail company. The ‘Women’s Problems’ quickly developed into a full-on ‘Woman’s Crisis’ and the pair embarked on a passionate but doomed fling. They spent Tara’s second week off uni at Domenico’s spanking new penthouse on the seafront in Monte Carlo, where Tara fell completely, unashamedly and far too quickly for everything she’d always felt was so wrong with the Riviera. She was seduced by the way he deftly handled his red Lamborghini while stroking her thigh, which glistened in the Mediterranean heat. She was seduced by the feel of the wind blowing through her long, sun-bleached hair and floaty cotton dress (worn without undies) as she thought to herself how glamorous they must look, speeding down the empty road in their open-topped love machine.

On their first evening in Monaco he took her to Jimmy’z nightclub, where even a glass of water cost more than her budget airline flight to Milan. They danced all night on tables outside, relishing the fresh sea air, the starlit sky and the music that blared so cockily loudly. Like they owned the whole world and didn’t care who heard. They had no plan whatsoever, only to dance and dance and dance. With the wild, frenzied movements of their long limbs they kept knocking over full bottles of expensive champagne. But it didn’t matter because there was always more. There, dancing on a table under the stars with this man, nothing mattered. She was far away from her parents and Willowborough Hall, with all its history and unspoken demands and expectations, far from the relentless social whirl of London and far, far away from her dreary Oxford don. She knew it was love.

Domenico declared he couldn’t live without her, so they rushed back to his apartment and in a state of post-coital and drunken euphoria logged on to the internet where Domenico booked a flight to London for the first weekend after Tara’s finals and then every weekend for the rest of the summer. He wanted to book in every weekend for the rest of his life but Tara stopped him, saying she’d come and visit him in Italy and Monte Carlo too.

On her flight home she was called aside by immigration officers and questioned as to why her passport had been defaced with hearts and kisses and possibly, therefore, invalidated. She had talked her way out of that one, luckily – if the situation had escalated she’d have had trouble convincing everyone at Oxford that a trip to Monaco was the best cure for Women’s Problems. All awkward questions deflected, she sent word to Domenico that she was safely back home. He kept his promise and flew to London weeks later, and that’s when she first met Reza.

It turned out Domenico knew a lot of people in London already. He invited Tara along as his date to a series of lavish parties hosted by his profligate friends, where the finest wines, champagnes and available girls flowed in abundance. Once there, however, he all but ignored Tara, making constant suggestive comments to other women and basically enjoying catching up with people she neither knew nor particularly liked, and many of whom she found trashy.

The parties culminated in the much older Reza’s fiftieth birthday extravaganza. This began with various dinners and luncheons held at Nobu Berkeley and the original Nobu, and at China Tang and Cipriani. Restaurants where babies are conceived in cupboards, where all the American Express cards are black and unlimited, and all the women eye-wateringly hot. To crown the celebrations, Reza hosted a party for four hundred guests at his Mayfair mansion. For the occasion Reza had commissioned a life-sized sculpture of himself and had it positioned in the triple-height hallway on the spot where a replica of Michelangelo’s David usually stood. On arrival, all guests were given an iPod packaged in an ornate platinum case. It came ready loaded with pictures of Reza throughout his fifty years, many of which Tara suspected had undergone a healthy amount of Photoshopping. Reza’s favourite music was also on there, along with a tribute song recorded by a variety of well known personalities, including someone who sounded suspiciously like the Pope.

Tara was astounded when the smooth black floor of one of the five main reception areas suddenly turned transparent, revealing the indoor pool below. A troupe of topless female swimmers in diamond- and ruby-encrusted thongs began performing a synchronized routine to a recording by the recently deceased musical genius Cantonelli. Reza caught and enjoyed her gasp of surprise and strutted over, running a deeply tanned hand over his thinning hair, dyed brown to disguise the grey. Without bothering to introduce himself to Tara or ask her name, he stood beside her and gazed down through the glass at one of the swimmers below. She was face down in the rippled water and her muscled legs were now parted in a rather undignified split. It looked painful, and even more so with a row of priceless gems wedged between her buttocks.

‘Infuriating that Cantonelli died just days before he could perform here. I had him scheduled to play in person. I would have been the very first person to have Cantonelli perform at home. If he’d only died just a week later, I’d have been the only man ever.’

Tara didn’t quite know what to say to that so Reza continued talking, eyes still glued to the girl in the pool. He licked his lips. Tara thought he was sweating a little. He hadn’t looked at her once since he’d come over and that in itself was annoying her. She was in her purple velvet off-the-shoulder vintage mini-dress, which revealed acres of leg. Her grandmother’s diamond-and-pearl earrings shimmered at her earlobes and her newest sample-sale find – super-high, nude patent ankle boots from Christian Louboutin – finished off the outfit. She had teamed this with minimal makeup and artfully messed-up hair falling out of a loose knot on top of her head. Was Reza ever going to tear his pervy eyes from that girl’s bum?

‘I’m getting nervous about those gems,’ Reza declared. ‘But at least I’ve had my team of specialists develop special chemicals to make sure the water doesn’t diminish their sparkle. Of course the chemicals are not great for the girls, but …’ With that he finally looked up and met her eye. In heels she was far taller than him and had a clear view of the bald patch he’d attempted to cover up. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I, er, well, I came with your friend, my boyfriend Domenico.’ Tara was taken aback by the abruptness of Reza’s question and looked around anxiously for Domenico. She needed him to come and bridge the gap between them. Where on earth was he?

Suddenly Reza turned purple with fury. ‘Domenico you great big Italian idiot, get the hell out of my pool!’ Tara looked down and was crushed to find a drunken Domenico flailing around in the pool, looking like a mischievous child caught with his hand in the candy jar.

That was the end of their summer affair. Having had the opportunity to scrutinize Domenico away from the slyly deceiving Riviera sun, Tara came to see him as the sleaze that he really was and found she didn’t miss him. She was, however, intrigued by the crazy opulence of his set. She was used to moving among the fashionable and the Old Money of English society – she’d grown up with many of them – but very few had the show-stopping wealth of the international super-rich. Wealth that ran into the billions, not millions; that could commission whole teams of scientists to design its own chemicals just so that a girl could wear diamonds underwater. So when she bumped into Reza again weeks later, at a showbiz restaurant opening to which she and Abena had both wangled an invitation, she was secretly delighted that he recognized her.

He asked for her and Abena’s numbers so that he could invite them to what he called a ‘humble gathering’ he was planning for the New Year. This turned out to be a spectacular concert at the Royal Albert Hall, which he’d hired out for the evening, followed by a huge firework display in Hyde Park. With the world’s most eminent classical performers assembled in one room, Reza’s guests listened, enraptured, for the first twenty minutes. Then they gossiped, flirted, competed, and scoffed handmade chocolate truffles and champagne for the remaining hour. The gathering was about as humble as the Palace of Versailles, and immense fun. With so much going on and so many people around, Tara and Abena barely needed to speak to Reza at all and had themselves a great time instead.

Fast-forward a few months and his assistant was including the young girlfriends on Reza’s summer guest list.

In their flat in a dodgy street in Ladbroke Grove, conveniently close to the more upmarket areas of Notting Hill, Abena and Tara were preparing for a browse around the vintage shops and boutiques of Portobello Market. Abena picked up her keys, her head still shaking with amusement at the cheekiness of hideous Reza’s requesting a photograph, as though choosing an escort from a website, and asked Tara whether she was ready to go. She dropped her keys into her roomy, soft, brown leather tote, newly purchased online at a discount. They were immediately lost among the mess of make-up, fashion magazines, her digital camera, a dog-eared copy of Wordsworth’s poems and several men’s business cards. Really, she seemed to collect these cards in the most random of places and could never remember who anyone was. Once she’d got so confused that she called up a homosexual masseur, Sam T, to arrange a hot date, thinking he was Sam C who she’d met at a party. She thought it was odd that he worked at a spa but had just assumed he was on the business side there. Meanwhile a dribbling medic who’d told her she looked like Naomi Campbell’s petite younger sister and whose card she’d only taken out of politeness thought Christmas had come early when she asked him, instead of Sam T, over to hers for a full-body massage. Well, she was in a hurry and the damned card said something about chiropractic!

Moments later, the young women were strutting side by side through the stalls of Portobello, watching all the fashionable girls pick up edgy trinkets and garments, and secretly enjoying, but pretending not to notice, the admiring glances of all the boys. Even among the experimental fashionistas at the market the pair stood out. Abena wore a retro blazer over an ex-boyfriend’s oversized wife-beater vest knotted at the hip. Skinny blue jeans and towering wedge heels gave her some much appreciated extra inches. Tara had dressed quickly in a black corset which, in her own inimitable way she had thrown on top of a thin silk Meadham Kirchhoff blouse. She too wore jeans but hers were ripped and wonderfully ancient and were tucked into flat, slouchy, even more ancient fringed boots.

‘Hon, this would look incredible on you,’ Abena commented as she pulled out a fuchsia silk dress and held it up in front of her friend.

‘Mmmn, that’s stunning,’ Tara agreed, stroking the silky lining before casually checking the price tag. Her face reddened. ‘It is a bit mumsy though,’ she muttered in a change of heart, and placed it reluctantly back on the rack.

Tara wasn’t conventionally beautiful. She was bony and pale, with bad skin, thin and lifeless blonde hair and a smallish mouth so crammed with large teeth that she’d been described as ‘horsey’ in the past. Yet there was something about her. She knew how to turn her tall, pale skinniness into a fashion statement that people aspired to, and her skin problems she covered expertly with high-end concealers and foundations. The lankness of her light blonde hair fitted with the slightly grungy look championed by Kate, Agyness and the other top British models – ultra-groomed, big, bouffant hair was for pop star wannabes and footballers’ wives.

They continued to browse the various collectors’ stands, quietly despairing at some of the prices, until Tara stopped suddenly and turned. Mischief danced in her wide blue eyes.

‘Abbi, we deserve a break! Why don’t we take Reza up on his offer and go with them to St Tropez? You know what he’s like; it’s all for show. When has he ever seriously tried anything on? I mean, I’d be surprised if he can actually get his feeble little dick up any more … And if by some sick twist it turns out that he can, well, I’m sure one of the ‘models’ will be more than happy to oblige. Come on, a smart holiday – what’s the worst that could happen?’

Abena contemplated this for a moment and hooted with laughter. The way Tara had put it made it seem downright silly to turn the invitation down. She was single, apparently attractive, twenty-two, and this was her time. She had sailed through school and secured a good degree at Oxford, despite her incessant partying. Now she needed to make a life for herself and fulfil the potential she knew she had – that everybody has, even if some people are lazy about jumping on opportunities. Why not enjoy a break in the sun with her girlfriend? Who knew, she might meet the love of her life there. She’d set her sights considerably higher than the chinless types of Notting Hill. Neither were the faux bohemians any better – no matter how grubby your clothes look, or however many hours of alternative yoga you do, if you can afford the rents in Notting Hill then you ain’t the bohemian free-spirit you fancy yourself to be.

Abena was becoming dismally disillusioned by a seemingly endless string of disastrous dates and disappointing boyfriends. Sod any misgivings. Why not see what was out there? Give herself up entirely to whatever the summer might bring.

She so desperately wanted to fall in love.

‘OK, let’s do it.’ The pair exchanged guilty grins. ‘Reza and his crew know that neither you nor I are “that sort” anyway.’

‘Exactly,’ Tara affirmed, a touch more strongly than was necessary.

‘Shall we ask a couple of the others – safety in numbers? Perhaps Sarah will want to come along too?’ Abena added as an afterthought.

‘He said WHAT?’ exclaimed Sarah on the phone, wrinkling up her button nose. ‘That is obscene!’ The wholesome, jolly-hockey-sticks side to Sarah left her unamused by the invitation. ‘There is absolutely no way I am letting a fifty-something Syrian Lothario fly me out to the South of France and put me up on his yacht for the weekend, and definitely not on the basis of a photograph!’

‘Darling, relax,’ soothed Abena, ‘you’re making me feel seedy.’ Then she saw Tara yawning dramatically at Sarah’s response and, stifling a giggle, felt better.

Although Abena was immensely fond of her friend Sarah, Tara had always thought her terribly bourgeois and so was not at all surprised to see her putting on a show of middle-class righteousness at the mere idea of decadence and glamour.

‘God, hon,’ Tara wailed, ‘purlease let Sarah stay at home with her miserable excuse of a boyfriend and her earnest endeavours at the local paper. You and I’ll have much more fun on the trip as a double act and anyway you’ve never been to the French Riviera have you? Peasant! We can lose Reza and his lot and get into all sorts of compromising scrapes with rock stars and eccentric aristos,’ she laughed.

‘Yeah, well then they’d better be of the moneyed kind, not the impoverished stock you’re from,’ Abena hit back. ‘Little Miss Worldly, one of my exes has an apartment in Monaco. It might do you good to remember that while you were pissing around with Domenico, I was even further away, having a wild time in Lagos watching Kunle play polo for his father’s team. Harrumph.’ Abena grinned.

‘True,’ Tara replied. ‘Sadly neither of us was back at Oxford where we should have been.’

‘Well, all’s well that ends well – we got our degrees didn’t we? And the real fun starts here.’ Abena bopped up and down on the spot then planted a big kiss on Tara’s cheek. This was going to be one hell of a holiday.

****

The biggest bruise stretched across her ribs, forming an ugly red blotch under her heart.

Natalya stood naked in front of the mirror and surveyed the damage before turning and climbing into the marble bath. She lay back, closed her eyes, and let Mozart transport her to a kinder world. She lay dreaming for some time while the water soothed her young body, still aching from the previous night. Had the beeping of her mobile not jolted her back to reality, she would have lain longer, enjoying its gentleness. Drying herself with a fluffy white towel and wandering through to the bedroom, she reached for her BlackBerry. The message made her gasp:

RE: St Tropez!

Please email me all your details and a picture if possible as we are starting to arrange our summer in the sun. Let me know what passport you have and if you need a visa for France. Yeah, yeah, yeah, summer is on its way!

Natalya trembled. Though it was only April, Reza was already thinking about jetting out to St Tropez, and this breezy message from his young assistant, Henry – permanently bronzed and waxed like Reza himself, except that Henry was blond and gay and Reza was dark and very straight – confirmed what Natalya had been hoping for. That she would be accompanying Reza and his set on some of their weekend jaunts to the French Riviera. She would be flown from one glamorous location to another in Reza’s private plane. She would stay on the 120-foot yacht, moored far enough from the shore to distance the privileged party from any less fortunate onlookers, but certainly close enough to ensure that all could admire the splendour and opulence of the vessel, and the glamour and beauty of the girls aboard it. She might get a shopping trip thrown in – a new Cartier watch, perhaps. Most importantly, though, here was a chance to escape Gregory’s brutal and unsophisticated clutches and seek out a gentler, more malleable man. Perhaps he’d be even older; less libidinous, more giving … appreciative of the beauty of youth.

Natalya skipped across the room to her walk-in wardrobe. Pushing aside rack after rack of designer gowns, jeans and fitted sweatshirts, she burrowed her way to the summer section at the back and emerged with an armful of cut-out swimsuits, bikini briefs and tops. Starting with the bejewelled two-piece, she worked her way carefully through each bikini outfit – adding a beach skirt here or a kaftan there – until she’d tried on her entire collection. At long last she studied her reflection for the final time. Standing hand on hip in a pink tasselled Dior two-piece, a wide-brimmed straw hat, giant dark shades and five-inch Cavalli heels, she groaned before throwing herself back on to the magnificent four-poster bed. No, she decided, I look hot as hell and I know where that always gets me.

What she needed was a change of strategy. No more nubile and eager Riviera dolly – that made her far too desirable to men, which, ultimately, would work against her. Men, the simple creatures, could never reconcile themselves to the fact that a girl can be both sensationally sexy and devoted and homely at the same time. If she was to snare the oligarch she wanted for good – and not just for good times – it was essential that she dress the part. Out with the ostentatious tasselled Dior and in with the subtle sexiness of a white Chanel one-piece, set off against her cocoa tan and freshly highlighted choppy layers. To that she would add a couple of flirty dresses in pastel shades, but nothing too clingy. Only elegant or cutesy would achieve the desired effect. She’d make men fall off their yachts in their haste to protect her and keep her in the lifestyle she so desperately wanted in these uncertain times.

Natalya had intended to avoid Gregory for a while after his especially rough handling last night, but she needed to be taken shopping. And since her last modelling job had been another ‘hugely prestigious editorial’, which would secure her great exposure but no pay cheque, she was left with no other choice than to make amends. Reluctantly, she picked up her mobile and dialled Gregory’s number. He answered immediately, his heavy breathing perceptible even before the phone had reached his mistress’s ear.

‘Baby is that you? Why didn’t you return my calls? Did you get my messages?’

She rolled her eyes. As she purred into the phone, a sexy Latvian twang could be detected in her accent. ‘I hef been missing you bébé …’ she breathed. ‘Come over to Knightsbridge. I want cock.’

Chapter 2

In a tiny, run-down flat on the outskirts of Latvia’s capital city, Daina’s weary face cracked into a smile of motherly pride. She ran a bony finger across the page ripped from the latest edition of Harper’s Bazaar. Natalya’s chiselled features, golden hair and smooth, honey skin seemed to jump out at her like a ray of light in the darkness of her surroundings. Her brave darling must be doing so very well now, she prayed.

Natalya was the eldest of her six children. Six years ago she’d been spotted by a scout from London’s Moda Nova Models while the family were in St Petersburg, on a rare trip across the border. Ever since, Daina had spent many hours anguishing that she had been wrong to let Natalya go and live abroad at just fifteen years of age. The world of modelling seemed a weird world indeed. Such strange people and strange practices and strange preoccupations. Would they take advantage of her child? Would she earn enough to survive? London sounded unbelievably expensive. She hoped Natalya had finally found somewhere, in amongst all the Japanese fish and French cuisine she wrote home about, to buy good, simple Latvian rye bread. She didn’t seem to eat much bread at all nowadays, no wonder she was still so thin! Oh how she missed making Natalya’s favourite pîrâgi with her, like they’d used to as a special treat when they’d saved enough for meat. She closed her eyes and pictured them sitting together and watching the soft buns rising around the crispy bacon, filling the place with warmth and delicious smells. She could almost taste the buns now. Their family was poor and she had had to juggle three jobs to feed her brood, but at least they’d had each other, and that must surely count for something.

Shuddering, she let her mind flick briefly back to when she herself had been just fifteen. A sheltered fifteen-year-old who, until that horrific year, had known nothing of the deviousness of the male psyche. Over the years, Daina had learnt not to think about what he had done to her. She had learnt not to let her thoughts revisit that painful period because she needed to be strong. For her children. Especially Natalya. She needed to forget, or at least not think about her hatred any more, because she did not want to hate the father of her firstborn. She owed it to Natalya.

And she owed it to Natalya to protect her. Yet she had let her go. Just like that. Look what good her own ‘protected’ upbringing had done anyway! But Daina had tried to protect her baby daughter, all those years ago. If Natalya could have known the whole truth about the Englishman. About Stan. Well, this was the life that God intended for her. There must be a reason for her suffering and, in Natalya, Daina knew that the purpose of all her pain was being realized.

As Daina always knew she would, Natalya had become a huge success in London and made a good living for herself. She must now be very wealthy indeed, Daina mused once more. After all, she had been working non-stop since the very beginning, and now, at the age of twenty-one, she had a luxurious apartment in one of London’s best neighbourhoods. For three years she had been sending her mother money and prints from fashion shoots. Although it saddened Daina that her daughter was seldom able to return home and visit her, she had been putting the extra money to good use and all five remaining children could now be clothed, fed and sent to decent local schools.

The children’s education was the most important thing for Daina, as it had been for Janis, her late husband and the father of her five youngest offspring. Despite their poverty, the children had led culturally rich lives from the moment they were born, and that very trip to St Petersburg, during which Natalya had been scouted, had been the result of years of saving. Seeing the Philharmonic Orchestra perform there at the splendid Mussorgsky Opera House had been a more magical experience for them than any fairy tale. All six children were bright, and for Daina the choice between spending Natalya’s contributions on more pleasant surroundings and living conditions or educating the children as richly as she could was an easy one to make. But, looking at yet another captivating set of pictures of her little light, perhaps she would soon be able to move to a flat closer to central Riga, one with another room, so that they would not all need to share.

What Daina did not know was that, despite being represented by one of London’s top agencies, Natalya was yet to make any real money. Natalya had indeed been enjoying a comfortable lifestyle, but the price of this was greater than her beloved mother needed to know.

****

The Hon. Tara Wittstanley had more in common with girls like Natalya than she cared to acknowledge. Both girls had what could be described as regal looks, and though in Tara’s case her fine patrician features clearly did reflect a noble ancestry, her family’s current situation was far from financially secure. No longer able to compete in this era of industrial tycoons, global speculators and City high-rollers, Tara’s family were on a downwardly mobile track to refined poverty. Tara wished desperately to reverse this trend and, like Natalya, she wanted more than she had.

The family did at least still own Willowborough Hall, a Regency pile in Gloucestershire with six hundred acres of land. Like generations of Wittstanleys before her, Tara had grown up there. Unlike most of her ancestors, though, Tara didn’t have a trust fund to see her through adulthood. An artistic and whimsical family, the Wittstanleys had not made the most of their considerable acres and over the years had squandered substantial wealth through ill-fated investments and unwise marriages. By the time Tara’s father, Hugo, had been born, all that was left was the family home and the right to the title Lord Bridges, of Bridges in Gloucestershire.

When the time came for Hugo and his two younger brothers to make their final career choices – a day job outside the running of the estate now being, irritatingly for them, a necessity – his brothers swallowed their pride and jumped head first into the world of commerce and City banking. Hugo, however, stubbornly decided to pursue his artistic leanings and attempt to make a living by dealing antiques and doing equestrian paintings for friends. He travelled the world in search of sights and horses to paint, visiting some of the former colonies in Africa and Asia and, with some help from high-powered friends in the government, even venturing into hostile territories such as the closed USSR. Life had been exciting but not lucrative, and he had failed to make good money from his art and antiques.

Tara often found herself musing over how her family had evolved over the years. If only they hadn’t been such suckers for aesthetics. Maybe then her father would have made a more sensible career choice. Perhaps there would have been some sensible marriages. A strategic coupling with a rich heiress would have restored the wealth her grandfather had gambled away. Instead, both her grandfather and her father had married ambitious young beauties with no wealth or name to speak of.

Her own dear mother, Tina, was in fact often a source of embarrassment to Tara. Twenty years younger than Hugo, Tina had met and seduced him on a flight to India on which she’d been working as an air-hostess.

In those days hostesses were employed above all for their alluring looks. For Tina, who was eighteen at the time and had never left Liverpool, the job was a dream come true. She enjoyed the travelling and loved meeting the smartly dressed, upscale passengers even more. She was awed by the women in their elegant twin-sets, with their well-behaved children who didn’t trouble her. And the men were all so dapper, never without blazers. She liked to study the passenger list before they arrived and was excited to see that there was a lord on her first ever flight to India. ‘Can I offer you a drink, my Lord?’ she asked him when he embarked looking bored, tired and unremarkable. She wondered whether she ought to curtsey. She poured him a Martini at his seat and then turned to offer a drink to the gentleman on the other side of the aisle. She leaned over so that her round little bottom pushed against the taut material of her navy-blue pencil skirt. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw his lordship lean forward as if to get up.

‘Oh, toilets at the rear,’ giggled Tina.

‘The only rear I’m interested in is this one,’ his lordship murmured, letting his signet-ringed hand slide across her buttock as he glided ever so slowly past her. ‘Splendid little filly aren’t you,’ he whispered in her ear. His breath was hot on the side of her face, the faint aroma of alcohol filling her nose with its intoxicating promise of champagne, ponies and high tea with the Queen. Men were expected to be chauvinists and molesters in those days, but women were certainly not allowed to show it when they enjoyed it.

‘Oh, my Lord!’ she tittered, feigning shocked offence.

But she still took her time demonstrating the safety procedures in front of him, lingering over the one about the overhead luggage compartments as she knew that with her arms up above her head her breasts were at their most uplifted and must look fantastic straining against her tight shirt.

She was sad when the flight landed in Bombay. ‘Can I do anything else for you my Lord, you know, to ease your trip?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Come with me.’ So she followed him to his hotel in India and cleverly remained chaste during their stay, although she relented a little when he asked her to put her uniform back on and point out the emergency exits for him while he pleasured himself. Then, at the moment of climax he liked her to assume the brace position.

Afterwards they returned to Willowborough Hall, where he painted her on horseback. That painting remains, to this day, Lord Bridges’ most well-received piece. Critics hail the extraordinary look on the rider’s face as an artistic coup: she appears unsure yet deliriously happy, beautiful but wretched; with an impenetrable smile like that of the Mona Lisa.

With her family’s approval Hugo asked for Tina’s hand in marriage. Despite their backgrounds being worlds apart, Tina was so impressed by his title, confidence and family home that she ignored his paunch, his condescension and his drinking habits and jumped at the chance. Likewise he, hopelessly excited by her young and nubile body and her naive devotion to him, did his best to forget that she’d had a strong Liverpudlian accent when they met, had not been educated at a ‘decent’ school, and could not tell the difference between a Mondrian and a Modigliani. In this way the couple had limped along for twenty-three years. But for some time now, the cracks had been beginning to show.

Luckily, given the Wittstanleys’ financial situation, Tara had managed to secure scholarships to her expensive boarding schools, where she excelled effortlessly. Her haughty looks and her witty, if also bitchy, tongue ensured that the other girls admired her; a few also feared her. In her adolescence she grew prone to extremes of feeling and behaviour. Or, as her detractors put it, she could be a complete drama queen. By the age of twenty-two she had already checked herself in and out of different rehabilitation centres and a psychiatric hospital for a range of modern conditions from exhaustion to body dysmorphic disorder. At heart, though, she was a kind person whose prickliness masked a deep-rooted feeling of unlovableness and inadequacy, brought about by her overbearing yet needy, neglectful and self-absorbed parents. To the few people Tara deemed interesting and glamorous enough, she was a loyal friend. One of those was her dear friend Abena, whom she’d met at Oxford.

Initially Tara had had no interest in getting to know other girls and concentrated on stalking the Bullingdon boys in search of a privileged sponsor for her rampant partying. The Bullingdon was the university’s most exclusive gentlemen’s drinking society, whose members rollicked around Oxfordshire starting food fights and smashing up smart establishments so that they would have something to spend their inheritances on when the repair bill arrived. It seemed this was excellent training for going on to run the country. But, having slept her way through almost the entire society, Tara came to the sorry conclusion that the Bullingdon boys were pitifully overrated in virtually every way imaginable. Disillusioned with anything the students had to offer, she turned to the celebrity speakers who regularly descend on Oxford to address the Union, the university’s historic debating society.

One evening, determined to leave with the handsome deputy prime minister of a small Balkan state, Tara had dressed up in her best ‘political wife’ outfit of a plain and decent-length fitted black dress, a cashmere cardigan and a string of fake pearls. Sitting primly in the front row of the Union’s grand main hall, she gazed up at her target just as Abena’s dark, feline eyes bore down on the speaker from the balcony above. At the end of the discourse, the room emptied until the only participants left were Abena, Tara, the dashing speaker himself, and Giles, the gangling Oxford Union president who slept with a postcard of William Hague under his pillow to inspire him to greater heights. Tara could see it was going to be tough to shake off the other two. Giles grandly led the way into the Union bar and the speaker turned to insist that she and Abena join them to further discuss the ‘exciting’ political issues he’d been talking about. Abena, with her sexily slanting eyes, unnaturally long, wavy black hair, perfectly smooth dark skin and full seductive mouth was starting to irritate Tara. As was her toned and tiny five-foot-three frame, which, from the look on the speaker and the Union president’s faces, rendered her irresistibly cutesy and adorable to boys – something that Tara, in all her elegant cool, had never managed.

Abena winked at Tara and ordered a magnum of Moët from the bar. She then made a point of continuously filling the glass of the Union president, who didn’t notice how fast he was drinking, being so engrossed in his own rants about cash for peerages in the Labour party, and ‘sexing-up’ various political dossiers that were not sexy and never would be. Because drinking was fairly new to him, his stringy body was unable to take the quantities Abena smilingly pressed upon him and he was soon face down on the bar muttering something incoherent about poll tax.

With Giles out of the picture, it was a stand-off between the two girls. Tara peeled off her demure cardigan to expose the exceptionally low front of her dress, while Abena leaned forward and, pressing the deputy prime minister’s leg, gently asked how it felt to be one of the most powerful men in the world. The politician, growing increasingly excitable with the abundance of champagne and gorgeous young flesh beside him, seemed at a genuine loss as to whether he was more turned on by the Western threat, baring its breast in front of him, or by the dark and mysterious excitement of Africa to his left.

And so it was that the two girls spent their first drunken evening together. As it progressed into the early hours of the morning, each recognized in the other a far more feisty and fun proposition than the deputy prime minister, who was now dribbling in the corner of his chauffeur-driven limousine. It was unclear whose idea it had been to risk scuppering the poor man’s chances of ever making it to the Top Job, but in the morning he was found by his concerned driver, slumped in the corner of the vehicle and dressed in nothing but his socks, with his navy tie tied neatly around his cock. Neither girl was anywhere to be seen.

Three years later, Tara and Abena, now relocated to the bright lights of London and determined to make their mark on the city, were the best of friends and still as mischievous as ever.

****

Having accepted the invitation to the South of France, Abena and Tara were growing more and more excited about the impending excess that awaited them there. Finally, at the start of the first May bank holiday, it was time to set off. Scrambling into the black chauffeur-driven Mercedes that Reza had sent to the apartment, Abena asked for her Nikki Beach CD to be pumped up as they headed off to Farnborough, the private airport where Reza’s plane awaited them.

Pulling up at Farnborough, she tried not to gawp at the scene unfolding before them. Stepping out of an assortment of vehicles, each of which alone might have cost more than her rented apartment, was an array of some of the most breathtaking beauties she had ever seen. She glanced at Tara, who was looking stonily ahead at the surreal sight. They had both been among the bigger fish in the small ponds of school and even university, but this was a different league altogether. These girls were supermodel standard. Moreover, observed Abena, one or two of them actually were bona-fide supermodels. She watched a six-foot Slavic blonde she recognized from the pages of Vogue wait in a shimmering black Ferrari with alligator-skin seats until its driver had raced around to her side and opened the door for her. Nervous excitement and exhilaration swelled in the pit of her stomach. She looked at Tara again, wanting her to share in her thrill but her face was set in a rigid expression Abena knew all too well.

Nobody liked being outshone or made to feel insignificant, but Abena knew that unless she could shake Tara out of this mood, she’d be haughty, rude and unsociable to cover her insecurity. Or worse, she’d make a beeline for the nearest narcotic and get absolutely off her head, leaving her vulnerable to the wolfish men who were surveying the women appreciatively.

These men were themselves outdone by some even more predatory females, who matched their looks fiercely, eating them greedily with hungry eyes framed by painstakingly threaded arched eyebrows, some concealed under big dark glasses. Their figures were gym honed and Atkins dieted to an alien-like perfection. Clothes were smart-casual but perilously body conscious and very, very expensive. Abena noticed lots of cashmere that didn’t really know what to do with itself. There was a sweater vying for attention but it couldn’t possibly be worn because, well, why cover up such a generous bosom? So instead it was draped over a pair of lean shoulders clad in a skimpy, low-cut, crocheted white vest top. The cashmere sweater offender was a smiley brunette and was also in tight white jeans, a Fendi belt and high-heeled Jimmy Choo sandals. She was apparently called Tatiana and had a gorgeous face. Her eyes were wonderful and shockingly bright, and her blow-dry was so voluminous that her hair was big and silky, almost reaching the small of her back. It was ever so seductive, the perfect digestif to wash down an immense visual feast.

‘She’s just got too much of everything hasn’t she?’ Abena quipped. ‘It’s like God got a bit sleepy creating her and forgot that he’d already done her boobs and eyes and hair and ended up giving her a double portion of it all. Do you think the breasts are natural?’

Tara snorted. ‘She looks like she’s just stepped out of a budget issue of Nuts magazine. And tight white on tight white? That combination should be made illegal outside of Essex. Sweater on shoulders? Should be banned full stop.’

‘I’m sure I’ve seen you pulling a white on white before – I certainly have, not to mention double denim, a sequin catsuit and loads of leopardskin.’

‘Yeah, but hon, when we do it, we do it with integrity, you know, fashion integrity … aware of the context and the surrounds in which we’re inflicting a certain look on the world.’ Tara broke off with a grin when she realized how ridiculous she sounded. ‘But OK, OK, the girl she’s talking to, even I can’t deny that she is truly breathtaking – but then you can tell she’s a complete bitch.’

‘Takes one to know one it seems.’ Abena tickled Tara’s bare underarm and was pleased to see her crack another smile then give a throaty laugh before scrabbling in her bag and adding a shiny slick of lip gloss. Good. Tara was back in the game.

As Abena and Tara gossiped, Natalya made half-hearted small talk with Tatiana but she wasn’t really listening. She ran her eyes across the selection of men. Who would be her oligarch? Sure as hell not the one in the pale blue silk shirt, currently undressing her with his eyes. Despite his mahogany tan – a useful factor in calculating a man’s net worth – he had only undone two of the top buttons on his shirt, not the three that would indicate he was a true member of the exclusive club known as the super-rich, membership of which she’d long been angling for. She checked his watch, which only confirmed her prior observation. His Patek was last year’s model. She’d wager he was worth something pretty pitiful, twenty mill, perhaps, on a good day. In the current climate, Forbes would halve that. Not that he’d come anywhere near making their list. The next man’s customized new Rolex had the opposite problem – so big and flash on his wrist, Natalya wondered how he could even fit his hand into his pocket to reach for his wallet. It was too … obvious; he was clearly trying too hard, a pretender. Even Gregory could buy his overweight arse, so that ruled him out. She turned to the guy he was chatting to and perked up – a hundred mill at a guess and he’s just bought himself a new watch, a new car and a new woman (the supermodel waiting by his black Ferrari had been dating an actor last month) so must have had a good year; his stock was on the up. Finally she spotted Reza. Two billion and rising.

Unlike Heathrow, at Farnborough one only needed to arrive fifteen minutes before take-off, which cut short the girls’ sizing up of the men and each other. Before Abena and Tara had a chance to panic, or change their minds altogether, they were swooped upon by a grinning Reza in his customary leisure ensemble of blue jeans, brown loafers, crocodile-skin belt, and tight white shirt stretched over his hairless orangey-brown chest. He made a big show of kissing each one of them on both corners of the mouth, which, he seemed to feel, counted legitimately as part of the cheek. Then, taking both girls’ hands in his, he lifted them high above his head so that their short summer dresses rose up dangerously, and proceeded to do a peculiar jig. Gyrating his pelvis from side to side as his surprisingly pert bottom strained against the scant material of his jeans, he threw his triumphant face upward towards the heavens and roared ‘Where the fuck is St Tropez? Come on baby – all aboard the jet.’

Seconds later Reza’s assistant, Henry, whom both girls had come to adore, shimmied over with his boyfriend, Anders, a young Dutch singer with a new rock-band. Abena ran to hug him as he led them to the aircraft. The plane was streamlined and compact, in dark teal with a red-and-white stripe across its side. From the outside it was surprisingly understated and quite beautiful. ‘Not as flamboyant as you’d expect from the big man is it? But then my boss is shrewd enough not to let pleasure get in the way of business. He parties like there’s no tomorrow but he also needs to be taken seriously when doing deals and if he happens to want investment from an abstaining tycoon whose wife wears a burqa, then it doesn’t look great to have a crystal replica of a naked woman embellishing the wing of his PJ,’ explained Henry, ushering them in after Reza. Abena was surprised at how few seats there were, each surrounded by acres of space.

‘Oh, so sad,’ whispered Tara, ‘there’ll be no room on the PJ for Ms Vogue and the rest of her posse.’ Henry, having followed her envious gaze towards the other girls, confirmed that they’d be flying with Eric, the tall Swedish financier she’d glimpsed earlier. The two groups would reconvene once they reached France.

Just as she thought they were in the clear and that there were to be no models joining them, Tara saw with irritation that the very slender, young-looking blonde with choppy layers and an angelic face was tottering towards the plane. Doubtless an evil old witch, she thought bitchily. ‘Here comes Slutlana,’ she muttered to herself.

‘Aah Natalya, how are you sweetheart, meet Abena and Tara,’ said Henry, introducing the girls to each other. Directed to a seat beside the newcomer, Abena was unsure which was lovelier to look at: Natalya herself or the sleek, beige and dark brown interior of the plane. The leather upholstered chairs were vast and butter-soft and could be reclined right back to become a bed. Each place was ready stocked with a selection of current newspapers and magazines, and there were bottles of Evian and tall crystal glasses by the arm rests. Reza hadn’t been able to resist a little personalization here, so there was a gold company crest embedded in each glass. The uniformed captain introduced himself, pointing out the fully stocked mini-bar and the freshly baked cakes, snacks and savoury treats ranging from cucumber sandwiches to sushi and caviar, which Reza always had specially sourced.

Tara had been staring surreptitiously at Natalya, who was, in turn, staring out of the window looking bored. ‘Abbi,’ she whispered, ‘look at her neck.’

‘Oh my God!’ Abena gasped. A patch of skin on the side of Natalya’s neck that should have been covered by her hair was exposed with the twist of her head to reveal an angry red welt.

A few more people filed into the aircraft and eventually the last arrival was seated. The male passengers were mostly either employed by Reza or were potential business clients. As well as Henry and Anders there was a silver-haired Englishman called Piers and Reza’s two right-hand men, Darren and Fadi. Burly Darren was his minder and Fadi was the money man, which meant that he literally followed Reza around with a fortified briefcase filled with the £50 notes that Reza needed to pay for things on a day-to-day basis. The female passengers were all attractive. Besides Tara, Abena and Natalya there were two Italian girls who appeared to be about seventeen and barely spoke English, and two older, ultra-groomed brunettes in daringly, if not commendably, skimpy outfits who looked with disapproval at the ‘mere children’ around them.

‘Mutton-dressed-as lamb alert,’ Tara whispered. ‘Next thing you know my mother will be out here.’

Abena digested the first woman’s look: a small Prada bra top with high-waisted short-shorts – ropey enough on the anorexic-looking teenagers who exhibited it on the runway, let alone unleashed here. The second woman was also falling out of one of those looks that should never, ever be allowed to leave the catwalk. ‘Hmmn, certainly a clever time-saving trick – put your beachwear on before you reach your holiday destination. I’m quite tickled by it,’ she murmured.

Reza looked over the inhabitants of his shiny teal toy as a king might survey his kingdom. He thought of his childhood, of growing up with his Syrian father and Belgian mother, living first in Syria and then in different Middle Eastern countries, so that he and his brother were constantly being dragged around and pulled out of new schools. Somehow his brother had always managed to adjust. He’d done well and been happy everywhere, while he, Reza, had been the misfit. But that was then. He leaned back, letting his lips curl into an awful smile. If the kids who’d picked on him at school could only see him now. But then, they could, couldn’t they, he smirked, glancing at his picture in the business pages of The Times.

Reza recalled the strange dream he’d had the previous night, still mildly aroused by it. He’d dreamt he lived in a mythical land where he had the gift of unlimited ejaculations. But as he came, all his produce morphed into a torrent of £50 notes so profuse that he filled entire seas with money. And then the girls appeared like mermaids, bikini-clad and swimming around in the notes in ecstasy. Mmmn, marvellous young girls. There was Lilith, who he’d asked out as a spotty adolescent and who’d laughed cruelly in his face. Well she wasn’t laughing here. Then Farah appeared. She’d agreed to one date with him because his mother had paid her – and then nipped to the loo during lunch and never returned. All the young beauties he’d ever wanted, who he still seethed at now for spurning him, were present, thrashing around in his seas of passion. They chased after the notes and whenever they got hold of one were amazed to find that it was no longer Her Majesty the Queen’s face emblazoned upon it, but Reza’s own, complete with dazzling tan and glinting white teeth.

Now, as his plane roared down the runway and sailed into the sky, a frisson of excitement rippled through the cabin. Reza reached into the mini-bar by his seat and pulled out a bottle of champagne. ‘Dooooooooom,’ he chanted at Fadi, Henry and Darren, who immediately sang back in unison ‘Pé, Pé, Pérignooooooon.’ Then he shook the bottle hard, popped the cork and unleashed his fizz all over the shrieking passengers, spraying them and the immaculate interior.

‘Open up, Ciara,’ he ordered, leaning forward to pour the champagne directly into the pretty teenager’s ready and willing mouth as she thrust out her chest and threw her head back, damp hair falling wantonly everywhere.

Henry opened another bottle and poured Reza a glass before helping him off with his loafers.

‘It’s showtime!’ Reza roared.

Chapter 3

With the plane a few hundred feet in the air, its passengers could glance down and smile a satisfied goodbye to southern England, now just a series of concrete clusters divided by swathes of green fields. Hidden somewhere among the buildings of central London stood the office blocks where both Abena and Tara worked, and the girls considered their careers from this new vantage point.

Tara had been employed for only three weeks the previous month. She’d fallen into temping after leaving university because she was reluctant to commit to any of the careers on offer. She’d rather wander homeless through the streets of London than confine her lifestyle to a rigid and mundane routine. Not for her the daily grind of taking a ghastly bus to a drab office every morning, then sitting in front of a computer with a bunch of people she would never normally have chosen as her friends, before trudging home with just enough time for some supper before bed. She knew that somewhere there was a more glamorous life waiting for her. In the meantime she would temp, accepting only the bare minimum of work. This usually meant three weeks of secretarial work a month in order to cover her half of the rent.

She found it wasn’t necessary to spend much to maintain a hectic social life, having discovered soon after her move to London that if one is invited to the right parties, a diet consisting almost solely of canapés is more than substantial. Besides, she was regularly invited on dinner dates, where, despite being a modern woman, she never had any intention, or need, to open her ostrich-skin purse when the bill came. Cars to ferry her around from restaurant to bar to nightclub or party were normally taken care of by either the date for that evening or a friend, be it the owner of the restaurant or the PR person for the venue. Tara had soon learnt that being fashionable and connected is not just agreeable, it’s lucrative.

The only thing she sometimes felt she ought to accept more work for was high-end clothing. A connoisseur of fashion, Tara flatly refused to buy clothing on the High Street. Instead, she made do with a wardrobe of beautifully cut vintage hand-me-downs from her grandmother, mixed with goodie-bag freebies from the shows in Paris and London, sample-sale finds, and a considerable collection of designer gifts from wealthier friends and a couple of ex-boyfriends. This arrangement would have to suffice until she found herself an eligible man because the only occupations that could possibly hold her attention were in fashion PR and fashion journalism, neither of which would enable her to afford a cutting-edge Preen wardrobe.

Abena, too, was struggling to achieve job satisfaction. Hugely ambitious, she was determined to make something of her sharp mind and friendly nature. Exotic good looks inherited from her Ghanaian parents might have helped her charm her way through life, but she wanted to use her ‘interpersonal skills’ to get ahead. She enjoyed surprising people, whether with her cut-glass English accent or Oxford degree, and what could be better than a career in the media, where she could surprise people by engaging them in issues they might not have been interested in. She wanted to show disillusioned young people that the world doesn’t have to be a closed place and that they can carve out their own path. She wanted to tell tales of far away, and show people new places. And so it was with the zeal of a romantic youth who has sailed through life that Abena had pressed the ‘send’ button on her job application to Mallinder Films five months earlier.

Mallinder Films turned out to be a bitter disappointment. She loathed the tedium of her office routine. Plonked in the accounts department on her first day, she had soon become aware of some irksome facts about business. Firstly, that even if the product to be sold is an electrifying film, the accounts still need to be tracked daily on a spreadsheet; and Mallinder Films was fond of spreadsheets. It was fond of targets. And it absolutely loved ‘performance indicators’ for all of its employees. Tracking the number of calls that the tubby head of sales had made last Tuesday was about as far removed from Abena’s vision of inspirational creativity as a position stacking shelves at Somerfield.