Page 114 of Guilty Pleasures

‘Don’t worry,’ said Amaryllis, taking her eye-liner and applying a generous amount to the top of Ruby’s eyelid. ‘We’re on the guest list and our parents won’t be back until after midnight. No one is going to know any different.’

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Cassandra sat at her suite in the Milan’s Hotel Principe di Savoie reading a card from Donatella Versace. It was the start of Milan Fashion Week and she was surrounded by extravagant floral arrangements traditionally sent by fashion houses to welcome the editors to the collections.

There was a knock at the door and Francesca, Rive’s fashion director entered, looking fabulous in black tailored pants, white shirt, a long string of pearls and a sable mink shrug. She was, as she had told Cassandra earlier in the week, currently channelling Babe Paley and in Cassandra’s opinion she looked even better than the Fifties society beauty herself.

‘Have you got a moment?’

‘Literally a moment,’ said Cassandra glancing up from the pile of correspondence. ‘The car is downstairs ready to take us to the Missoni dinner.’

Francesca took a seat in a pale blue wing-back chair. She was a self-assured woman but in Cassandra’s company she seemed on edge.

‘What is it?’ said Cassandra briskly.

‘I wanted to talk to you about Laura.’

Cassandra propped Donatella’s card back against the vast spray of black orchids that had accompanied it.

‘What about her?’ she said, picking up the stiff white invitation from the writing desk and putting it in her clutch bag.

‘It’s about the number of overseas shoots she’s doing. She’s never in the office.’

Francesca paused for a moment as if she was summoning up courage.

‘You’re the fashion director. Sort it out,’ said Cassandra simply.

‘But you’ve specifically requested that she do them. The rest of the team are getting very upset about it and to be honest, when I’m the one commissioning the stories and then you go over my head, I feel it’s undermining my position in the department.’

Cassandra looked at her critically, surprised that her fashion director had had the balls to speak up. Then again Francesca was one of her most impressive and committed members of staff. Unmarried and ambitious, Francesca Adams devoted her life to fashion and to the magazine. Rive’s most stylish ambassador, next to Cassandra herself, Francesca understood that fashion was about sacrifice; whether it was spending her entire life hungry so that she could be a perfect size eight, or clocking up big debts to look and act the part of a top fashion director. So extensive and deluxe was Francesca’s wardrobe that Cassandra had always assumed that she was independently wealthy. But the one time she had dropped in on Francesca’s Chelsea apartment she’d had a big surprise. It had the right SW3 address; but it was the smallest studio Cassandra had ever seen. No light-shade hung from the solitary light bulb. Two huge wardrobes, spilling out with this season’s designer clothes, meant there was no room for any other furniture except a sofa bed that doubled up as somewhere to sit and sleep.

Cassandra admired Francesca’s commitment to the fashionable cause. It was why she had turned a blind eye to Francesca taking garments from other editors’ rails when they were preparing for shoots. She had known about it for months; Laura and other editors had complained incessantly about it. But Cassandra understood Francesca’s desire to be and look the best. Francesca had passion. The same passion she had herself.

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‘Oh, come on Francesca, you’re all griping because you want to do the shoots yourself,’ said Cassandra pulling on her Prada fur.

‘That’s not true,’ replied Francesca, fiercely defending her position. ‘It’s because Laura’s shoots are very one note – she’s our least creative editor and if she carries on doing so much location stuff the entire fashion section is going to start looking samey.’

‘For goodness’ sake. We have almost a hundred pages of fashion stories in Rive per issue. Laura’s one twelve-pager is hardly going to spoil the mix.’

She found herself pausing for a moment, knowing in her heart that Francesca was right. She was sending Laura away so much because she wanted time with Max. She would never let anything compromise the quality of the magazine, but he was like a drug and she would do anything just to be with him.

‘Anyway,’ said Francesca narrowing her eyes like a cat, ‘I also think she is moonlighting on the side for other magazines.’

‘Laura would never do that. It’s a dismissible offence. Besides, she hasn’t got the gall.’

‘I’m sure she’s doing a shoot that isn’t on any of the flat-plans,’ added Francesca. ‘There’s a rack of clothes at the back of the fashion cupboard. White coloured gowns. Really top-of-the-range stuff. Some couture pieces. We have never talked about doing that story.’

Cassandra tried to disguise her annoyance. Alex Jalid had been good as his word, and had greased the Sulka Royal Palace wheels to make sure a shoot with Georgia Kennedy was going to happen. There were conditions attached; Rive were to shoot in the family’s summer lodge not the main palace and Georgia would only talk about her charity work, although Cassandra was confident they could extract some more personal stuff.

The Georgia Kennedy shoot was top secret. It had to be. If the Americans got wind of it they would try to muscle in and claim it as their own. There had been at least three instances Cassandra could recall when her entertainment editor Deborah had secured a celebrity for a shoot, only for the star to pull out and turn up in the US issue a couple of months later. So for the Georgia Kennedy shoot only Giles, Laura and the art director knew what was happening and it needed to stay that way.

‘Really,’ said Cassandra rubbing her bottom lips thoughtfully. ‘I did ask her to call me in a gown for a benefit dinner in New York. Let me look into it. And Francesca. Thanks for telling me. I’m sure it’s entirely harmless but if Laura has been freelancing for other magazines she’ll be feeling my wrath.’

Cassandra nodded at Francesca, her cue for her to leave, and she vowed the next day, Laura was going to be in serious trouble for her indiscretion.

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