Page 32 of Guilty Pleasures

It’s only a party. They’re only human, she said to herself, but it was hard to believe. Everywhere she looked there were impenetrable cliques of beautiful and powerful-looking people, talking, laughing and drinking champagne. Had Emma a better grasp of pop culture, she would have recognized that she was surrounded by actresses, models and big-name designers. Up close, many of them weren’t actually beautiful, she thought with detached interest. But they had something, a worldliness and polish, a superiority. These people had ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was. And Emma most certainly did not. She felt a sudden sense of inadequacy she hadn’t felt since boarding school when she was known as Cassandra Grand’s geeky little cousin, a bookworm with mousy hair and clumpy shoes. That bookworm, of course, went on to get an MBA and work alongside the CEOs of multinational blue-chip companies. In Boston Emma had felt on a level pegging with even the most impressive businessmen because she knew her intellect and business skills matched theirs. But here! For a second, Emma felt so far out of her depth, she should just turn round and go back to America. ‘Bailey Out’ – that said it all. But she was not a quitter. She grabbed a flute of champagne from a waiter and took a longer gulp than was polite. From a distance she could see Cassandra receiving guests like the Sun King granting an audience with the peasants.

‘You look a little lost, can I help you?’

Emma turned to see a tall man in a lavender woollen suit. He extended a hand with a genuine smile.

‘Oh, I hope so,’ said Emma, taking his hand gratefully.

‘Giles Banks. How nice to meet you.’

She smiled at his eccentric formality and relaxed. ‘Emma Bailey – very nice to meet you too. I was beginning to feel invisible.’

‘Oh, don’t worry!’ laughed Giles, leaning in as if to impart a secret, ‘I felt like that for years at fashion parties, then I realized that almost everyone feels the same way. They spend their whole time looking around for someone more important or famous than them, worried that everyone else is looking more fabulous or having a brilliant conversation with someone amazing on the other side of the room. No one ever is, they’re all talking about who else is here and who they’re talking to.’

‘So why does anyone come?’ asked Emma, fascinated.

‘Because you have to darling! This is the hottest party in town, if not the whole planet! Who wouldn’t want to be here?’

‘So it gets better?’

‘When you have the right friends. I’m a colleague of Cassandra Grand’s and she’s introduced me to everyone. Now I know who’s going to be fun and who’s going to be a crashing bore. Anyway, I always seem to find the most interesting person in the room.’

‘Cassandra’s my cousin.’

Giles raised his eyebrows.

‘How extraordinary. Are you that cousin?’

‘Which cousin?’ asked Emma suspiciously.

‘Oh, come now, Emma Bailey, don’t be coy. The new CEO of Milford?’

‘Did Cassandra tell you?’

Giles clapped his hands in delight. ‘You are that cousin, how wonderful!’ he cried. ‘No, Cassandra’s been very tight-lipped on the whole business, but fashion is a very small world, word gets around,’ he said with a small smile. ‘See? I’ve done it again.’

‘Done what?’ asked Emma.

‘Found the most interesting person in the room.’

What is she doing here? thought Cassandra, seeing Emma’s pale face move through the crowd towards her. And what’s she doing with Giles? She instantly felt furious with Giles, then checked herself when she remembered she hadn’t actually told him about Milford, Saul and Emma. Giles was a close friend and trusted confidant, but there were limits. To Cassandra, self-publicity was everything. She had to maintain an air of superconfidence and invulnerability at all times, even when she was cut up inside, even in front of friends. She certainly couldn’t admit that she’d been passed over in favour of the geek who knew nothing about fashion. That would have been the ultimate humiliation.

Cassandra took a breath to compose herself. Ever since her mother had told her about the events of the Milford board meeting held earlier that week, how Emma had installed herself as CEO and deposed Roger in the process, Cassandra had been calculating her next step. She knew Emma had to be disposed of – and quickly-but she hadn’t imagined a confrontation with her cousin would come so soon. Nor did she welcome the distraction on such an important night.

‘Look who I found!’ smiled Giles, pushing Emma forward, then darting to the right and embracing Sonia Rykiel who treated him like a long-lost friend.

‘Emma. What a surprise.’

‘I’m a gate-crasher I’m afraid, before you ask, I’m sorry, but I needed to speak to you,’ garbled Emma, almost tripping over her words. There was something about Cassandra that had always unnerved Emma, though she had never been able to put her finger on it. The effect was magnified tonight: Cassandra was looking so otherworldly and glamorous in her amazing gown and everyone in the room was craning their necks just to look at her.

‘Listen, Cassandra, I won’t stay long,’ she continued quickly, ‘but there was something urgent I needed to ask you.’

‘Nothing serious I hope?’

‘It’s the company.’

‘Ah. Well, congratulations, if that’s appropriate. I was surprised to hear you’d given up that job in Boston. It’s one thing to be given a majority shareholding in a company; it’s quite another to give up your life to become its CEO.’

Cassandra began walking out towards the hotel’s courtyard. She didn’t know why Emma was here, but she had no intention of any of the industry overhearing it.