A Wild Affair (5 page)

He grabbed my hand and the next thing I knew he was patting me on the back, too. “Is he?” he demanded. “Is he looking after you?”

I grinned back, weakly. “Oh, yes, you don't have to worry about me.”

“Well, that's good,” Chester said seriously. “That's very good to hear.”

The truth was that Chester had been a bit confused when Max had explained to him a few months before that I wasn't marrying Anthony after all, that Anthony had, in fact, decided
to go on a jaunt around the world and that Max had bought him out so he was now in charge of the firm and was planning to marry me, too. We joked to each other that Chester probably thought it was some kind of package deal, a perk of the job, a strange kind of British custom that the new managing director inherits not just his predecessor's office and desk but his fiancée. But we'd done our best to explain it, between us, and it seemed to have worked. Which was a relief, because Chester was pretty important to Milton Advertising. Winning his pitch had been my best career moment ever—actually, one of my best moments period. It had been the moment I'd started to believe in myself.

“Now,” Chester continued. “I'm sorry I'm here early, but I've got one hell of a day ahead of me. Max, I was hoping we might catch up before the Project Handbag meeting instead of after, if that suits you?”

“Suits me perfectly,” Max said. “Come to my office?”

“I'd be delighted. And Jess, I'll catch you later, okay? Can't wait to hear what you're planning for us.”

“Great!” I said, watching the two of them disappear into Max's office before wandering over to my desk to turn on my computer.

Funnily enough, while he had taken Anthony's fiancée (kind of—I mean, I feel I have to point out at this point that I was not some fifteenth-century damsel waiting to be swept off my feet or anything; Anthony was a mistake and I liked Max all along), Max hadn't taken over Anthony's larger room; he'd turned that into a meeting room and kept his own, small office for himself. He said he didn't need a big room, but I think actually it was that he wanted to do things his own way from the office that had always said “Max Wainright” rather than the one that had always said, and always would say, “Anthony Milton.”

That's what I loved about Max; he did things his own way. Well, it was one of the things I loved, anyway. Frankly, there were lots of them. Frankly, I loved everything about him.

Well, nearly everything. Everything that didn't involve any women was fine by me. No, not all women. Just
that
woman. Whoever she was. Other than her, Max and I were great together. We were unbreakable. We were …

“Jess?” Caroline, my account executive, was looking at me from her desk with a worried expression. “Jess, are you all right?”

I looked up, startled. “Me? Fine. Yes. Why?”

“You've been staring at your screen for, like, five minutes without even blinking. I thought you might have gotten some bad news.”

Caroline was what's known in London as a nu-sloane. Not an old sloane, because she said “yeah” rather than “yah.” But the rest was true blue. She had partied with Prince Harry on several occasions, went skiing five times a year, and had long blond hair which she seemed unable to do anything with other than toss it from side to side. She was also one of the sweetest people I'd ever met in my whole life. I mean, when she'd come in for the interview, I have to confess I'd mentally struck her off my list the moment she opened her mouth. But then she was so earnest, so impossibly desperate to please, that I couldn't help deciding she was perfect, even though she had absolutely no experience whatsoever.

So I'd offered the job to Caroline and she'd immediately burst into tears. Which made me nearly burst into tears, too, because I remembered how grateful I'd been for the chance to work in advertising, and it made me feel really great knowing I was giving the same chance to someone else.

“I'm, like, sooo happy,” Caroline had sobbed. “Because, like, everyone is finally going to take me seeeeriously. I've got, like, a
job. A proper job. And I'm going to make you so pleased you hired me. I'm going to work harder than anyone else in the whole wide world.”

I mean how could you not like someone like that? Sure, I'd had to cover for her a few times, but that was just because I hadn't explained exactly what I wanted her to do—like the time I asked her to address some envelopes for a mass mailing and instead of printing out address labels she'd written them out by hand, all one thousand two hundred and fifty of them. But the funny thing was, that mailing was our most successful ever. Handwriting them had been a touch of genius, even if Caroline hadn't realized it.

So there she was, a month later, looking at me with concern. “No, no bad news,” I reassured her. “Just thinking. You know.”

Caroline nodded. Seconds later she pulled out a notebook and started furtively scribbling in it.

“You're writing down that I'm thinking, aren't you?” I asked her, smiling. She'd brought that notebook in on her first day and wrote in it constantly. All part of her learning, she'd told me seriously—she didn't want to miss a thing.

She looked up, slightly red. “Is that okay? It's just that I think I need to remind myself that thinking time is, like, really important.”

“No, that's fine,” I said. “So, do you have everything ready for the Project Handbag meeting?”

Her eyes lit up. “Absolutely. I took your presentation and like, totally designed it, with handbags and bows and stuff.” She handed me a printout and I cringed inwardly—it looked like it had been prepared for a five-year-old's birthday party. But I didn't want to dishearten her, so I managed a big smile.

“And potential clients?” I asked. “You remember I wanted you to call some publicists and see if we could get some high-profile
women to align themselves with the fund and to carry the handbag around with them?”

She nodded sheepishly and my heart sank. Getting celebs on board was my big sell for this meeting. If we didn't have any names to drop, the presentation was going to fall flat on its face. “No success?” I asked, trying not to sound too disappointed.

“I …,” Caroline said, but she was interrupted by her phone ringing. Shooting me an apologetic look, she picked up. “Hi!” she said, her voice high-pitched. “Yeah, no, it was like totally wild … Jamie? Yeah, I think so!” She giggled, then caught my eye. “Look, got to go, actually … No, really … Shoe shopping? What now? No … No look, I'm like working, so … Yeah. Okay, bye.” She put her phone down and turned her doe eyes on me.

“Oh God, look, Jess. I tried calling publicists but no one would talk to me and it was like, so awful and depressing.”

She looked devastated. “Oh well, not to worry,” I said, as brightly as I could.

“So I reaaaaally hope you don't mind but I called a couple of friends and they said they'd like looove to help. You know, if it's okay.”

“Your friends,” I said uncertainly. “Well, that's really great, but you know that we've made the bags with Mulberry? I mean, they're really expensive and we don't have that many of them, so …”

“Right. Yeah, no I totally understand,” Caroline said, nodding fiercely. “I'll tell Beatrice it's a no-go.”

She picked up the phone and I went back to my computer. But something whirred in my head and I couldn't concentrate. And then I realized what it was.

“You don't mean Beatrice as in Princess Beatrice?” I asked lightly.

Caroline nodded earnestly. “She's not answering,” she said. “But as soon as I get through …”

“Fergie's daughter. Tenth in line to the throne or something?”

Caroline nodded again. “I shouldn't have asked him, should I?” she said worriedly.

I cleared my throat. “Caroline, who else did you ask?”

She was reddening now. “Um, well, Eugenie, but only because she was like, there. And Peaches Geldof because we were at this party and … well it doesn't matter. Then my mum was at this thing with Elle MacPherson and she thought the bag idea was totally cool …”

I gulped. “Two princesses, a Geldof, and Elle MacPherson.”

“Oh God. Have I totally messed up?” She shot me a helpless look. “I have, haven't I? I've totally messed everything up.”

I stood up, my legs shaky, and walked around to Caroline's desk. And then I gave her a huge hug. “You did not mess up,” I said, firmly. “You did the opposite. You are a total star.”

I released her and saw her wide eyes looking up at me, dumbstruck, a huge goofy smile on her lips. “Oh wow. Oh that's so cool. Really? So they can be Handbag girls?”

“They can be Handbag girls,” I confirmed, walking back to my desk and picking up the presentation slides again. Suddenly the bows were starting to look quite cute. “And you should come to the presentation,” I said suddenly, remembering how frustrated I used to get when I was an account executive and Marcia, the account director, never invited me to anything.

“Me? No. Oh no way. Too scary. Way too scary,” Caroline said, shaking her head vehemently. “But thanks.” She grinned at me, then picked up her notebook and started to scrawl. Then she looked up again. “Oh, and your friend Helen left a message for you. She wanted to remind you about the appointment at the Wedding Dress Shop at lunchtime.”

“Lunchtime?” I'd forgotten all about it.

“You want me to move your twelve o'clock with the creatives?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Caroline. And you're sure you won't come to the meeting? Chester's really nice once you get to know him.”

Caroline shuddered. “No thanks,” she said.

“Okay.” I met her eyes, then I grinned. “You want to call your friend back and tell her you can go shopping after all?”

“What like now?” Her eyes lit up. “Like, really?”

“If you want.” I smiled. “Consider it a prize for doing so well with the Handbag girls.”

“Cool,” Caroline beamed. “You're like the best boss ever.”

“ELLE MACPHERSON IS GOING TO BE one of your Handbag girls?” Helen was staring at me in disbelief. I'd just told her the whole story—how Caroline had just come out with all these serious celeb friends, how Chester had looked at me in utter amazement when I'd told him, how Max had grinned at me proudly, how I was actually—well, probably going to meet Elle and Beatrice and Eugenie in the flesh. Or at the very least talk to them on the phone.

Not that I was impressed by celebs or anything. And I pretended that it pained me that Helen was. “You're meant to be looking at the dress,” I pointed out. I was, after all, standing on a small podium surrounded by mirrors wearing the most fabulous wedding dress in the whole world. And a tiara.

“I am. And it's lovely. But Elle MacPherson? I thought Project Handbag was all about some boring finance fund. I didn't know it was going to involve real handbags. And Elle bloody MacPherson.”

I giggled. “I know. It's pretty amazing, isn't it?”

“Unbelievable, more like,” Helen confirmed. She started to scrutinize the dress. I'd fallen in love with it the last time I'd been getting married, only that time I'd rejected it in favor of a less beautiful, rather more scratchy dress. Back then scratchy seemed
the right way to go. Back then I didn't feel like I deserved to wear this little beauty. “It's really nice,” Helen added. “I mean, it just makes your face glow.”

“I know,” I said excitedly. “It really does. And what do you think of the tiara?”

Helen wrinkled her nose thoughtfully, then nodded. “I think it works,” she said seriously. “I really think it does.”

“Giles is coming here in a bit so he can see it, too,” I said happily, turning to stare at myself again. “He wants it to be the inspiration for the whole thing.” Giles had started out as my florist, but he'd somehow managed to morph into a wedding planner, even though I'd assured him that I didn't need one.

“I wonder what Ivana'll think,” Helen mused. I raised an eyebrow.

“Ivana?” Ivana was a … a … I'm trying to think of the politest way to say this. She wasn't exactly a prostitute. Not really. More of … an escort. Yes, that's what she was. She was Russian, she was scary, she was married to the most unlikely man called Sean, and she had single-handedly taught me all I needed to know about seduction when all that stood between me and Grace's inheritance was a marriage proposal from Anthony Milton. “She's not coming here, is she?”

Helen smiled brightly. “You like Ivana. Anyway, she called saying she wanted to see you about something. And she's doing my show, after all. So I thought I'd invite her along.”

“She's doing your show?” I asked dubiously.

“She trains people on the art of seduction,” Helen nodded.

I digested this for a few moments. Helen's “show” was a reality television program that followed people as they turned their love lives around, aided by a makeover and lessons in flirtation. I had been her inspiration, apparently; she had tried her hardest to get me to agree to do it all again so that I could be her first subject followed relentlessly by television cameras, but I'd politely declined.

“And Ivana offers advice on television? Really?” I asked. This was the woman who believed that good cleavage was all you really needed to get a man.