Czytaj książkę: «The Accidental Mistress»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS one of those crisp clear late summer mornings that said autumn was coming. Isabel Dare, doing her stretches just inside the park gates, drew deep, luxuriating breaths. Peace, she thought.

Alone. Room to breathe. Silence to think, except for the birds twittering in the trees. For the first time in weeks, months, there was no one walking her off the pavement as if she didn’t exist. No stifling underground train with a stranger’s elbow in her side and her nose pressed into someone else’s back. No beep announcing the next text message.

Just not a natural London person, I guess, she told herself wryly.

The next text message would be, like all the others, from Adam. She knew what it would say. ‘Date 3 whn?’

The problem was, she didn’t know the answer.

‘Third date coming up, huh?’ Jemima had said last night, just before she dropped her overnight flight bag and crashed. ‘Hope he has more luck than the last five. I like Adam.’

Well, Izzy liked him, too. She just wasn’t sure she wanted him to move in any closer. And the third date was—well, big.

Bigger even than she’d realised, thought Izzy wryly now. She and Jemima called it the Sex Date. They always had; it was a sister thing. So Izzy was taken aback to find that everyone else seemed to be calling it the Sex Date, too. Including Adam Sadler.

He was getting increasingly impatient, too. To be honest, Izzy couldn’t blame him. The trouble was, it wasn’t just London that was getting her down. Adam—and the five guys before him—were a big part of it, too. She enjoyed dating; she liked having a good time. But she didn’t want to go through the third date barrier with any of them. Not any more.

She took herself to task. Well, maybe make that not with anyone yet. Things could change. Meanwhile—

Izzy shook her head. ‘Hard-Hearted Hannah,’ she said with a grin. ‘They’ll just have to live with it.’

She began to jog quietly along the grass beside the Tarmac path. It was only just six-thirty, but already the sky was hazy with the promise of heat. It would be a perfect day for walking in the woods. Or canoeing. Or just lazing by the river under the shade of a willow, watching the insects hover and thinking of nothing. Alone.

‘Not an option,’ she said aloud, squashing regret.

Today was her cousin Pepper’s big day. Today saw the opening of Out of the Attic, Pepper’s new retail concept. Pepper had put her heart and soul into this, her breakout venture on her own, and Izzy had worked with her on it for months. This was a day of presentations and schmoozing and parties. No time for willows.

Izzy sighed—but she laughed as well.

The trouble was, she thought, Pepper really cared about shopping. Whereas Izzy didn’t, not if she were honest. Still, that didn’t matter. Pepper had given her a job when she’d been so badly shaken she’d thought that she was unemployable and always would be.

Not that Pepper knew that. Nobody did. Izzy had taken good care of that. Izzy fought her demons in private. Always had.

She increased her pace.

The low morning sun struck rainbows off of the dew-wet leaves. Birds sang. A heron cruised idly over the mill-pond surface of the lake. It was not really hunting, just checking out the scene, she thought with a grin.

The exercise was beginning to take effect. Izzy’s blood pumped and her skin tingled. Oh, this felt good. This would make up for the hours to come. Hours of monitoring what she said to make sure she stayed on message; of circulating in air thick with warring perfumes; of feeling that she was drowning in people.

When she’d first moved to London she’d run in the park every day. Always early, very early, when it was virtually deserted.

‘But isn’t that terribly dangerous?’ New Yorker Pepper had said, blenching, the first time she met Izzy in the hallway in her shorts and running shoes.

Izzy laughed. ‘I run fast and I kick hard.’

‘She does,’ agreed Jemima with a grin. Jemima had been there all the time then. Hadn’t got her big job; wasn’t travelling twenty-four days a month; still listened.

But Pepper was unconvinced. ‘But what if a man came at you with a gun?’

Inwardly Izzy tensed. But outwardly she stayed unconcerned. She shrugged. ‘Run if you can. If you can’t—negotiate!’

Jemima, still in silky kimono with a coffee in her hand, shook her head at her cousin.

‘That’s what she always says, Pepper. Izzy has been all round the world you know. Every time she comes back without a scratch. So she must be right.’

Pepper was unconvinced. ‘But the risk!’

Izzy was unlacing her shoes, but at that she turned her head and said with quite unnecessary force, ‘Life is all about risks.’ She eased the shoes off, sat on the polished parquet and looked up at the other two. ‘Run away from one and you just rush slap into another. So you can either sit in a locked room and shiver. Or take the risks. And learn to deal with the consequences.’ Her voice was hard.

Pepper, who was in the middle of the biggest risk of her life, blinked. Then she laughed and flung up her hands. ‘When you put it like that, I can’t argue.’

So today Izzy ran in the empty park; revelled in the physical stretching of her capacities; savoured the diamond-bright dew and the lazy heron—and stayed on the alert.

Pepper did not need to warn her about the dangers of men with guns. Izzy had first-hand experience to draw on. Though that, too, was part of her secret. Nobody knew it. Not even Jemima.

Maybe one day I’ll tell them, she thought. Pepper and Jemima—even Adam.

But the thought of handsome Adam Sadler made her shake her head. No, it was impossible to tell him. Adam was a banker. He thought the most dangerous thing that could happen was the US economy going into recession. Whereas Izzy knew that danger came at you in combat gear with crazy eyes and—

She swallowed. It all seemed so far away from London and her busy life these days. Sometimes it even felt as if it had happened to someone else—a story she’d read in one of the Sunday magazines. Or as if she had split into two people on that bus on the jungle track. One Izzy had come home and flung herself into the family enterprise and was doing just fine.

Only the other Izzy was still lost. And Adam Sadler, with his Lotus and his Rolex and his membership of a ferociously expensive City gym, was not the man to help her find herself. Even if she wanted him to.

Well, she’d better stay lost today, thought Izzy, revving up for the final push. Today there were more important things to think about. Today was going to take a lot of handling. Today was serious.

And there were definitely problems on the horizon. Last night Pepper had been showing signs of climbing the walls. And Jemima was jet-lagged out of her brains. But somehow or other they had to pull it all together for the launch. Because today was crunch time.

Izzy flung back her head, the loose red hair flying. ‘And the crunch is what I do,’ she said firmly. ‘Crisis a speciality. The others can freak all they want. I’ll bring home the bacon.’

And she lengthened her stride, put her head down, and went through the pain barrier.

When she got back to the apartment Pepper was sitting huddled over the kitchen table surrounded by three cups of barely touched coffee and clutching a sheet of paper covered with sticky notes. She looked up when Izzy came in. But she did not really see her, thought Izzy. Her cousin’s eyes were wild.

‘“A whole new experience”,’ she was muttering. “‘A whole new experience”. Hello, Izzy. “A whole new shopping experience”.’

‘Stop it,’ said Izzy, taking the sheet of paper away from her. ‘We went through all this last night.’

Until two in the morning, actually. The woman could hardly have slept at all.

Pepper’s smile was perfunctory. ‘But I had this idea in bed…’

‘Sleep would have been better,’ said Izzy. She took the coffee cups away, too, and threw their congealing contents down the sink.

‘No. Listen. The statistics—’

Izzy looked round from the sink in disbelief. ‘You aren’t going to hit a bunch of fashion journalists with statistics?’

‘They’re significant,’ said Pepper earnestly.

Izzy shook her head. ‘You’re on a caffeine burn,’ she said kindly. ‘Cogs not engaging. Statistics are strictly for back-up stuff in the press pack. You have to keep your speech short and intriguing.’

‘But—’

‘I’m going to make you some toast,’ announced Izzy. ‘And eggs. With warm milk. Or hot chocolate. Or champagne. You will have something to eat and drink that isn’t caffeine. And you will please stop gibbering. Out of the Attic is a fantastic idea and this launch is going to be awesome. Right?’

Pepper gave her a better smile this time. ‘You’re very good to me, Izzy. I’m glad I’ve got a cousin like you.’

Izzy grinned at her. ‘Likewise, oh retail genius. Now, go and have your shower while I rout Jemima out of her pit.’

Jemima had swirled the duvet round her like a Swiss roll and was about as welcoming as a grizzly disturbed in its winter quarters.

‘Go ‘way.’

‘Nope.’

‘You’re a nightmare. Push off, Nightmare.’

Ruthlessly Izzy flung open the curtains. Golden sun blazed in. Jemima screamed and pulled the pillow over her face.

‘I hate you,’ she said, muffled but passionate. She was clearly a lot more awake than she wanted to be.

‘Sure you do,’ said Izzy with a grin. ‘Get up.’

‘I only just got to sleep.’

‘Tough. You have work to do.’

Jemima let out a wail. ‘Tell me something new.’

‘And a cousin to support.’

There was a pause. Then the pillow was pushed aside a fraction. One eye and a lot of tousled hair appeared.

‘Izzy?’ said Jemima, as she’d used to do when Izzy woke her on school days.

‘That’s the one,’ said Izzy cheerfully. She added cunningly, ‘If you get up now, I’ll do eggy bread for breakfast.’

There was a moment’s complete silence. Then Jemima groaned and heaved the pillow aside. She sat up.

‘Okay. It’s not a nightmare,’ she said, resigned. ‘You’re here and you won’t go away until I do what you want. What do you want?’

Izzy brought a list out of her pocket and handed it to her.

Jemima stared at it, then looked up at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Starting,’ said Izzy, preparing to leave, ‘with Pepper’s make-up. She’ll be ready for you in about ten minutes.’

‘Oh.’ Jemima sagged back among the remaining pillows. ‘All right.’ Her voice began to slur again. ‘I’ll be out in ten minutes.’

‘Sure you will,’ said Izzy sweetly. And took the duvet with her.

She ignored the roar of outrage that followed her into the corridor. And sure enough, heavy-eyed and spitting, Jemima was in the kitchen with full make-up kit and a hugely magnifying mirror inside five minutes. She spurned the eggy bread with dignity, but she swallowed two cups of coffee and then peered at herself in the mirror.

‘Eye bags,’ she said, like a surgeon giving a diagnosis. She snapped her fingers. ‘Ice.’

Izzy got a bag of ice cubes from the freezer and watched, fascinated, as Jemima applied them to her puffy eyes.

‘Old model-girl trick,’ she said between her teeth. ‘Being the face of Belinda has taught me a lot of those.’

She did not sound as if it was a lesson she was entirely happy about. Izzy was whipping eggs for Pepper’s breakfast, but at that she looked up sharply. Jemima had not only stopped listening, she realised with a pang, she had stopped confiding, too.

‘Everything okay, Jay Jay?’

‘Just great. I live in five-star hotels and when I wake up in the morning I don’t know which continent I’m in.’

Izzy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is that good or bad?’

‘It’s a living,’ said Jemima without expression.

Izzy was beginning to get worried. When Jemima had been selected by cosmetics house Belinda to be the face of their new campaign, all the papers had said this put her in the superstar league. It was the height of every model’s ambition, they’d said. But this did not sound like a woman enjoying well-deserved success. This sounded like a woman with problems.

But now was not the time to talk about it.

‘Let’s go for a pizza this evening, when the razzmatazz is all over,’ Izzy said.

Jemima gave a harsh laugh. ‘Who has time for pizza? I go straight from the presentation to the airport.’

‘You mean you won’t even be coming back here to pick up a bag?’ Izzy was shocked.

Jemima shook her head.

Izzy was filled with compunction. ‘I’m sorry I took the duvet off you this morning.’

‘If you hadn’t, I’d have slept for a week,’ said Jemima. ‘You don’t want to know how mad my life is.’

But before she could say any more Pepper emerged in a bathrobe. She had another sheaf of printed tables in her hand.

‘Jemima, Izzy—what do you think? I could just run through…’

More pressing concerns took over.

‘No statistics,’ they yelled in unison.

‘You,’ said the woman from the PR agency, ‘are a genius. I didn’t think it could be done.’ She had spiky, lurid green hair and a clipboard and she was terrifyingly professional.

Izzy was on a roll. She was good at crisis management, and this morning she was getting plenty of opportunity. Now she stopped tacking a piece of chintz across a nook full of wires and looked up. She tucked a stray lock of red hair back under her gypsy headscarf. ‘What?’

‘Getting the Beast of Belinda here before ten o’clock in the morning. She looks like a dream, all right. But that woman bites.’

Izzy was affronted. ‘I’m sorry?’

But the clipboard had already zipped to the other side of the big glass-walled reception room.

The in-house cameraman stopped adjusting his focus on the small stage and looked down at Izzy. ‘Molly means thank you for keeping Jemima sweet. She hasn’t actually sunk her teeth into anyone yet.’

Izzy blinked. ‘Beast of Belinda?’ she echoed.

He pulled a wry face. ‘Jemima Dare. Face of Belinda Cosmetics. Newest of the supermodels. And doesn’t she know it!’

And my sister, thought Izzy. Probably not a good moment to mention it, though. Normally she would go to war with her sister’s enemies at the drop of a hat. But twelve minutes before they opened the door on the launch of Out of the Attic was bad timing by anyone’s standards.

She flicked the chintz into expert folds and stapled it in place. ‘You know Jemima Dare?’ she said with deceptive mildness.

‘I’ve worked with her.’

‘Phew, yes,’ said the cameraman’s assistant, with feeling. ‘Serious pain in the ass, that one.’

Izzy held onto her temper with an effort. ‘How interesting,’ she said between her teeth.

She hammered an errant nail into place with force, flicked a dustsheet over the whole construction and stood up.

‘Done?’ said the woman with the clipboard, zipping back as if she were on rollerblades. ‘Can we let the punters in yet?’

Izzy cast a narrow-eyed look round the big reception room. It did not look like the launch of anything. It looked as if it was in the throes of refurbishment. Pots of paint stood around, amid step ladders and mysterious outcrops of furniture under dust sheets. The pictures on the walls were draped in sheeting and the big central chandelier was at the end of the room, leaning drunkenly against a trestle table. The carpet had gone. The London fashion crowd were in for a shock.

‘Yup. Ready to rock.’

The green-haired woman grinned. ‘I was right. Genius. Culp and Christopher would be a happy agency if all our clients were practical like you.’

‘Practical is what I do,’ agreed Izzy.

‘Sure is.’ The woman consulted her clipboard. ‘I’ve got the girls in position to hand out the goody bags. So we’ll open up the moment you give me the sign.’

She powered over to the big doors to the conference hall.

Izzy nodded and checked that her earpiece was in place. Then she pressed the connect button and spoke into her collar mike. ‘Testing. Testing. The partygoers are at the gates. Are we ready? Speak to me, people…Tony? Geoff?’

They were there. She ran through the roll call of her other helpers one by one. All in place, raring to go. Then at last she came to her cousin Pepper.

She was not worried about her décor, or the timing of her effects, but she was worried about Pepper. Should you be that nervous before the launch of a ground-breaking new business?

‘Pepper? How’s it going?’

There was an audible gulp. ‘Fine,’ quavered Pepper.

Izzy turned to face the wall, so that there was no chance of a passer by hearing her. She switched to one-to-one transmission and said into her mike, very softly, ‘Come on Big Shot. Entrepreneurs don’t panic. You can do this thing.’

There was a slightly watery chuckle. ‘You got evidence of that?’

‘You blagged the money men. After that, how hard can a bunch of journalists be?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘What’s more,’ interrupted Izzy ruthlessly, ‘you convinced me and you convinced Jemima. She knows all about clothes and I hate the things. So there you are. Every sector covered.’

This time the chuckle was a lot more robust. ‘So it is. Thanks, Izzy.’

‘My pleasure.’ She switched back to broadcast. ‘Okay, everyone. Showtime!’

She gave the thumbs-up to the woman with the clipboard. The tall doors were flung back. The waiting audience clattered in—and stopped dead at the decorators’ disarray.

Izzy could have danced with glee. Great! This was a launch they wouldn’t forget.

She said into the mike, ‘Geoff, city sounds please.’

At once a tape full of combustion engines and sirens and voices filled the room. The audience, London sophisticates to a woman, were even more intrigued. They began to move round the room, looking at the shrouded shapes questioningly.