Kiss Heaven Goodbye (63 page)

‘Have you seen your mother anywhere?’

‘Talking to Alex Doyle last time I saw her. As always,’ she said mischievously.

Julian smiled. Olivia had noticed he had a dirty, sexy smile, as if he was always thinking about something naughty.

‘I mean, don’t you get embarrassed how they’re always off whispering in corners? People wondering, you know, if there’s something going on?’

Julian laughed softly. ‘I don’t think your mother is the type to have an affair,’ he said.

Olivia blew a smoke ring. ‘A lot of people think that about their spouses. Until they get presented with an opportunity.’ She was pleased to see a cloud of concern pass over his face.

‘Can I have a pull on that thing?’ he asked. He took the cigarette from her fingers and drew it to his mouth.

Through the smoke she looked at his face, lined and worn from experience, fun, life, excitement, success. Julian was not a particularly good-looking man but there was something about it that made him incredibly attractive. Certainly her friends from London were terribly excited to meet him. Art was the new rock and roll these days, or so she’d read in some glossy magazine. She had no idea what he saw in such a square and earnest woman as her mother.

‘I got a car from Uncle Miles, the trust fund from the family, the watch from Mum,’ said Olivia. ‘What am I getting from you?’

‘What do you want?’

‘A picture.’

He smiled. ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult to sort out.’

‘No, I want a picture of me. Come on, draw me.’

‘What, now?’

‘Of course. Every girl wants to be an artist’s muse.’

She could see desire spark into his eyes and she knew he wanted her – but then she’d known that for a while now. Last summer, when she’d been sunbathing alone by the stream running through the grounds, he’d come down and asked her if she fancied a swim, his eyes lingering over her tiny Eres bikini.

It felt good being desired by a man like Julian. Anyone could get a red-blooded, constantly horny eighteen-year-old interested in them. Boys were easy prey. Real men, now they were more of a challenge.

She walked up close to him.

‘Come to my room in five minutes,’ she whispered, stamping her cigarette out under her heel and disappearing back into the house.

Ten minutes later there was a polite knock at her bedroom door.

‘Lock it,’ she said. He did as she instructed and she knew he was putty in her hands.

‘So what does a muse do now?’ she said, tipping her head to one side.

He stood a foot away from her and folded his arms across his chest.

‘Let me look at you,’ he said, a quiver in his voice.

‘OK,’ she said, unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the floor. She’d removed her panties before he’d got there and stood naked in front of him except for her red-soled Louboutins.

‘Come closer,’ she said, enjoying the sense of power she had over him. She hadn’t felt this aroused, this in control, since she had fucked Mr Browning, her English teacher, twelve months ago. He’d been a terrible shag, but at least he had let her coast through his A level class ever since.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

‘I know.’

‘I want you.’

‘I know.’

He put his hand out, tracing around her dark beige aureole with the tip of his finger. His skin felt grooved and rough like an emery board, and as he moved his fingers down her long, lithe body she groaned, desperate to feel him inside her.

‘Touch me,’ she said, parting her legs, feeling his hand moving between her thighs. She gasped as he dipped two fingers into her warmth, then circled her hips, clenching around him.

‘Happy birthday,’ he whispered, pulling out of her to unfasten his trousers.

She felt a glow of pleasure and accomplishment. ‘Make sure you make it one to remember.’

Connie Ashford was a careful woman. Over the years, she’d had to learn to be. She did not like to think ill of the dead, but life had certainly not been easy with Robert Ashford. She’d known that her husband had been having affairs since soon after their children had been born, and she knew it went with the turf when you were married to a rich and successful man. But having made the decision to stay married to him, she had spent over two decades on red alert, safeguarding her position, ensuring none of his mistresses got too serious, and with the exception of Sasha Sinclair, she had been expert at detecting when women were closing in for the kill on her husband.

So when she’d seen her granddaughter and Julian talking, flirting in the courtyard, sharing a cigarette, she had been suspicious. She had never liked Julian, whom she considered too cocky and self-important by half, and Olivia had always been so precocious, rebellious and selfish. It was not surprising that she might be flattered by her mother’s glamorous boyfriend, but she couldn’t know what he had in mind, what foul idea was growing in his head. Age might have dulled Connie’s senses, but life experience had sharpened her instincts. So she watched and waited.

The whole of the south wing had been closed off to the party and the corridors were dark. Approaching Olivia’s bedroom, she could see that the door was closed, but she could hear noises coming from inside. Horrible, horrible noises. The guttural groans of frantic, passionate sex.

How could he?
She was just a child! It was tantamount to incest. Connie’s anger rose: she couldn’t have this, she wouldn’t allow it. Through Robert’s selfishness she had been robbed of seeing her own children grow up, and she was fiercely protective of her granddaughter.

‘Stop this!’ she shouted, banging her hand on the door. ‘Stop it at once!’

She listened: frantic whispers, then footsteps. The door flew open and Julian was standing there naked, his face flushed, his penis still erect. Behind him she could see Olivia sitting on the bed, her knees pulled up, clutching her dress to herself, her expression shocked and guilt-stricken.

‘Connie!’ gasped Julian. ‘I can explain; it’s not what you think . . .’

She slapped him hard and he stumbled backwards.

‘I’m going to tell your mother,’ she hissed at Olivia. ‘I’m going to tell her right this second.’

She turned and hurried back down the corridor, heels tapping the granite floor, eyes glazing over with tears.

It was dark. Connie was unfamiliar with the house and did not know where the light switch was. She was confused. Anxious. Maybe she should tell Alex or Sarah Brayfield first. This would just destroy her daughter.

She reached the top of a small flight of stairs that led back to the main wing of the house.

She began to descend the steps, but her shoe slipped on the polished stone, turning her ankle over. Her thin hand grabbed the banister, but she was moving too fast: the momentum carried her forward, pitching her over, crashing down, down, hitting her head against the stone. Seeing flashing light, momentary pain. And then she felt nothing.

64

From the comfort of her business-class seat on a BA flight from Salzburg to London, Sasha read the news item in that morning’s paper with wide eyes. She couldn’t believe Connie Ashford was dead. The brief story on page nine reported that the sixty-five-year-old wife of the late billionaire businessman Robert Ashford had been killed in a tragic fall at the eighteenth birthday party of her grandchildren Olivia and Joseph Hernandez. For years Sasha had resented her former lover’s wife, but reading about Connie’s demise was sad and uncomfortable, bringing to the surface all the guilt she had long tried to ignore.

Don’t dwell on it
, she told herself. There were more important things to think about. The launch of Rivera Chinawear range at Selfridges on Tuesday. An interview with the
Evening Standard
, then three days in New York to meet executives at Saks, Henri Bendels and Bloomingdales about expanding their floor space in the city’s most prestigious department stores. Oh, and there was a board meeting at eleven o’clock this morning and it was already gone ten thirty. Sasha felt a vague sense of guilt, as Steven Ellis, the Rivera CEO, had been making a big fuss about her being there. It wasn’t as if they could start without her, she smiled to herself. She was the president of Rivera, in charge, in control. Everyone made time for Sasha Sinclair.

Take the past weekend, for example. She had been staying at a fabulous schloss just outside the Austrian capital to attend the wedding of Princess Marie Louise of Hamburg. Marie Louise had not married in Rivera – not through lack of trying on Sasha’s part – but Sasha had still accepted the bride’s invitation to the nuptials, knowing the event would be bristling with the high-profile Euro-rich.And everyone had wanted to talk to her: oligarchs, billionaires, princes, wives of princes. Most exciting of all had been George Liu, the Hong Kong retail magnate, who had sounded her out about a consultant’s position with his company. She had stayed up late into the night discussing the proposition with him, missing her lift back to London on a friend’s private jet. Which was why – she glanced at her watch – she was going to be a few hours late for that bloody board meeting. They would wait for her. They always did.

‘Where is everyone?’ snapped Sasha, running into Rivera’s Chelsea headquarters.

Harriet, Steven’s PA, looked apologetic. ‘In the board meeting.’

‘They’ve started without me?’ she said incredulously. ‘Why did no one contact me?’

‘We knew you were flying. Steven said not to bother you.’

‘Did he now?’ she said, striding up the stairs to the second-floor boardroom. If Steven thought he could do anything without consulting her first, he had another think coming, she fumed as her heels click-clacked up the steps. She stopped suddenly at the top. The boardroom door was open and they were all filing out. Sasha walked straight up to Steven.

‘You’ve finished?’ she said, fist on hip.

‘We waited until eleven thirty, Sasha,’ said Steven, glancing about nervously. ‘Randall couldn’t wait. He has to be in Geneva this afternoon. ’

‘Randall was here? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Sasha was even more furious she had missed Randall Kane, chairman of Duo Capital, who owned the majority shareholding of the company. And she was sure Steven would have given her absence his own particular twist.

‘Can we just have a quick chat back in the boardroom, Sasha?’ he said, pointing behind him.

She smarted at the tone of his voice. How dare he make her feel as if she was a teenager caught smoking behind the bike sheds? His beady eyes and weak chin added to the image of an ineffectual head teacher. She followed him in, crossing her arms.

‘What?’ she said.

‘AF Holdings have gone into administration,’ he said simply.

AF Holdings were an Italian licensing and production company that manufactured the Rivera diffusion line.

Sasha shrugged. ‘Well, we find someone else.’

‘This is serious, Sasha,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to cancel the show.’ The Rivera Sport fashion show was due to be staged in Paris in ten days’ time.

‘How ridiculous. We show the collection and then get someone else to manufacture the line. It’s inconvenient, yes, but hardly a disaster. To be frank, Steven, this is exactly the problem with the Rivera management at the moment: too much flapping, not enough doing.’

Sasha watched with satisfaction as Steven jerked back in his chair. That one had hit home, she thought.

‘Well if that’s how you feel, perhaps you could have made your feelings known at the meeting instead of gallivanting around Europe.’

‘
Gallivanting?
I was up until four o’clock this morning being the face of this company at one of the most high-profile society events of the year. As I do almost every night of the week. My networking is worth millions of pounds of marketing to this company.’

‘So you keep telling me,’ said Steven, a sour look on his face. ‘But forgive me for questioning what this company has to sacrifice in order for you to do it. You’re barely in the office these days. There’s always a lunch or interview or party. Perhaps you’d like to come in and tell us how to magically sort out the company’s problems.’

‘I am the president of this company, Steven!’ she said. ‘I should not have to be sorting out problems for you. The Rivera staff are handsomely paid to handle any blip like this.’

Steven stared at her. She could tell he was just as angry as she was, but his bland expression gave nothing away. They had rarely seen eye to eye over the running of the company, but Sasha could do little about it. Steven had been appointed by Duo Capital, the private equity house that currently owned the majority share in Rivera, so she would be unable to manoeuvre him out.

‘I’m glad you brought up the subject of money,’ he said. ‘Your so-called marketing initiative of going to parties does have a monetary cost. Last year, five hundred thousand pounds went on your clothing allowance and fifty thousand on your driver alone. That’s without adding in the cost of international travel and hotels, et cetera.’

‘Do you expect me to catch the bus to go and meet the editor of
Vogue
? Besides, those were the terms of my contract at the last buy-out. ’

Sasha closed her eyes tight. She refused to let Steven’s jealousy get to her. She had worked ferociously for Rivera for well over a decade, built it up into a prestigious luxury brand, extending their range from clothing to accessories to scent and homeware, with thirty stores worldwide and a flourishing wholesale business, supplying to all the major stores in the world. She wasn’t going to let some stick-in-the-mud jobsworth dictate to her.

‘What’s the real problem, Steven?’ she said. She thought she knew exactly what it was. In the New Year’s Honours list she had been granted an MBE for services to fashion, and Steven had almost blown his top at the news. ‘It’s my gong, isn’t it?’ she said triumphantly. ‘People know my name, not yours, and you hate it.’

His expression soured. ‘This is business, Sasha, not a popularity contest.’

‘We are in the business of popularity, Steven,’ she snapped.‘That’s why I work so hard getting the right people into our clothes, getting them seen in the right places. Rivera is a fashion brand. The moment we cease to be fashionable, we are dead.’