Page 101 of Guilty Pleasures

‘Not exactly,’ said Bowen with a crooked smile, placing a brown envelope on the table. He pulled out a large black and white photograph of a handsome young man. ‘Sayed has a daughter and a younger son from his first marriage. This is Alex Jalid, the son. He’s 20, an English student at Brown University. A good scholar, but lazy, bit of a party boy. And very extravagant, he flies student friends to New York on nights out in his father’s private jet.’

He put another photograph on the table in front of Cassandra. It was a girl with exquisite features and a long tumble of pale hair.

‘This is Tania, Alex’s girlfriend. She’s a model in New York with a small agency called Mode.’

Cassandra tutted suggesting her patience was wearing thin. ‘A playboy prince with a model? That’s hardly the most scandalous story I’ve ever heard of.’

Bower smiled slowly. He took another photograph out of his briefcase and put it on the table.

‘And who’s this?’ asked Cassandra curiously.

‘This,’ replied Nick Bowen, ‘is where it starts to get interesting.’

She smiled as he began explaining the photograph’s significance to her.

‘I’m sorry that’s all I could get in two weeks,’ he said, after he’d finished, looking at her face for approval.

Cassandra touched his calf with her bare foot under the table, smiling as she saw his eyes widen.

‘It’s enough, Nicholas. It’s more than enough,’ she said with a surge of excitement. Her plan was about to come together.

It was the hottest summer in a decade and with the heat came a wave of positivity at Milford. The company’s advertising campaign was everywhere and Clover Connor was papped carrying a 100 Bag in Ibiza. The refurbishment of the Bond Street store finished on time, a crack sales team was headhunted from other designer stores and the Milford Autumn/Winter line was delivered. It looked fantastic.

For Stella that meant twice the pleasure. Satisfaction of a job well done and the opportunity to start the creative process all over again, dreaming up new designs that women would be clamouring to buy in six months’ time. Of course, her earlier designs would live on; Emma wanted the 100 Bag and the Milford clutch as perennial pieces to be repeated in each collection in new leather and colourways. However each season there were to be six new designs to underline Milford as a fashion house and to increase profit potential as women wanted to add to their collection of bags.

That summer Stella had found the perfect place to dream up new ideas: the roof terrace at Byron House. Strictly speaking, it was just a flat expanse of roof reached by a fire exit door that led off from her studio, but it was a sun-trap, a perfect place to take vintage magazines, source books and a cold lemonade to enjoy the weather, especially when Emma wasn’t due in the office all week.

Lying out on a towel she had found in a store cupboard, Stella was enjoying the uninterrupted quiet and sun on her face when she heard Emma’s voice echo round the studio.

‘Stella?’

‘Out here,’ she called, surprised.

Emma poked her head out onto the roof.

‘Can I have a word?’

‘Sure.’

‘Inside,’ said Emma. ‘It’s a deathtrap out there.’

Stella climbed back into the studio and joined Emma at a round table in front of Stella’s mood board, an enormous expanse of cork tiles onto which she had pinned magazine tears, postcards of old films, photographs and swatches of fabric.

‘I thought you were supposed to be in Costa Rica this week,’ said Stella, dabbing at her forehead with her towel.

‘Cancelled. But I’ve been in London all morning.’

‘Hardly Central America,’ grinned Emma.

‘I’ve been down to the store,’ said Emma, frowning.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing. In fact, quite the opposite.’

Emma took a spreadsheet from her briefcase and handed it to Stella.

‘Sales from the Bond Street store in one week.’