Page 174 of Guilty Pleasures

Roger rounded on his wife angrily – how dare she question his judgement?

‘Darling, I’m doing this for us! Don’t start fighting me!’

‘All I’m saying is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing to keep hold of the Milford shareholding. For now at least. You never know, this thing might make us rich after all.’

‘Not as rich as her,’ said Roger, looking over at Emma, hate blazing from his eyes.

‘Well, I guess we’d better make the best of it. She’s not going to go away, is she?’

Roger threw back his bourbon, still looking at Emma.

‘No, I suppose not.’

Cassandra had been in the Orangery overlooking the courtyard when Emma and Rob were talking. She had watched their interaction with interest and had been genuinely shocked when she had seen them kiss. It had made her want to retch. As if she wasn’t miserable enough without having to watch the charmed life of Emma Bailey being played out before her in glorious Technicolor. That bitch had stolen her life and her glory – and now she even had a relationship. It was as if she were deliberately rubbing her face it in. Cassandra tightened her fingers into a fist, pushing her nails into her palm. She was going to get even with Emma, whatever it took.

Right now, however, all she wanted to do was go home. Despite her recent emotional wobbles, Cassandra still had a thicker skin than most and when she’d arrived at the party she’d held her head up high. But soon the whispers of the party-goers-of the fashion executives, the PRs and journalists – soon, they became deafening. Even worse were the looks on the faces of the few who did come over to speak to her; people who’d once fawned at her every word now viewed her with pity when they all asked ‘so what are you doing next?’ Alone and drained by the emotional toll of the past two weeks, she had felt something unfamiliar at the party, something unpleasant. She felt like an outsider.

Cassandra drained the last of her champagne and it made her reel. She’d eaten nothing in the past thirty-six hours in order to fit into her sample-size Dior cocktail dress and to make matters worse, she’d accepted a fat line of cocaine from Astrid. Her friend had assured her it would make her feel better. It hadn’t.

She grabbed on to a table to steady herself, then sat down heavily on a marble stool. Her head was whirling, her senses suddenly overloaded. The smell of the frangipani and the warm, humid atmosphere of the Orangery made her feel even more nauseous.

‘Cassandra? Is that you?’

She looked up and saw Emma.

‘Ah, the hostess. Let me congratulate you,’ she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. ‘You never struck me as a style maven but this party is exceptional.’

‘Thank you, I think people are enjoying themselves. Listen, I was sorry to hear about Rive.’

‘No you’re not,’ said Cassandra, slurring her words slightly. ‘No one’s sorry. Everybody loves hearing about other people’s misfortune, because it makes them feel better about their own sad little lives.’

‘I’d say that was a little cynical.’

‘Well of course you would – from your gilded perch.’

‘Cassandra, please. There’s no need to be like that.’

Emma sat down on a bench opposite her.

‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you since Gstaad,’ she said.

‘Hmm, Gstaad,’ smiled Cassandra, more than a flicker of malice showing as she remembered Emma’s accident. ‘Well, you seem to have recovered.’

‘More or less,’ said Emma.

Cassandra twirled a hand indicating that she wanted Emma to get to the point.

‘So what is this thing you want to tell me?’

‘My dad was not having an affair with your mum,’ said Emma.

Cassandra laughed.

‘Emma, I saw them together. Don’t you believe me?’

‘Yes I do. But it wasn’t an affair, it was a fling.’

‘Oh grow up! What’s the difference?’