Page 8 of Guilty Pleasures

Emma laughed nervously. ‘I’m not sure everyone’s in the mood to party,’ she said quietly. She looked down and saw her hands were trembling.

‘So?’ Emma looked up to see Roger had moved over to her. He was a big man and his physical presence would have been enough to intimidate most people on a good day, but today he was bristling with barely-checked emotion, a little boy who has not been given the train set he had been promised. When she had been a little girl, Emma had always seen her Uncle Roger as a grown-up, as a rather strict figure of authority. But she was not a little girl now. Over the last few years, Emma had faced some of the world’s most powerful men, telling them in so many words why their companies were failing, listing their shortcomings and weaknesses. She was not easily scared.

‘Roger, please,’ she said, ‘I am as surprised as you. I can tell you that this certainly was not in my five-year plan.’

‘So you’re not interested in the shareholding?’

She bristled. Did he expect her to give it to him?

‘Not in so much that I have time to run the company,’ she said diplomatically, not denying to herself the prickle of excitement. ‘I have my life in Boston, as you know.’

‘So how much is it going to cost us?’ chimed Rebecca, attempting a smile, but baring her teeth instead.

Emma shook her head and put her hands out in front of her.

‘Roger, Rebecca. This is all a bit much for me to take in at the moment.’

‘But you can’t just sit there and …’ began Rebecca, before being cut off by Tom.

‘Exactly how much is “in remainder”?’ he asked Collins.

The solicitor suppressed a smile. He could always predict the questions and from whom they would come; funny how the feckless son should be asking how much his doting mother would be getting. He sighed. There was nothing like money to break up even the most harmonious families.

‘The remainder is what’s left of the estate,’ he said patiently. ‘It will take some time to quantify, of course. Obviously death duties and fees and so on have to be paid.’

‘What about the art at the Milford offices? There’s a couple of Matisse sketches, a small Miro …’ Julia added hopefully, looking up at a colourful abstract above the fireplace.

‘I suspect they are Saul’s own, in which case they pass to Emma.’

Julia’s face said it all: ashen and tight-lipped. She had always coveted the eclectic art in Saul’s home and had assumed he would send it her way, but not even the pieces in his office were destined to be hers. She looked as if she had been slapped. Cassandra, meanwhile, was sitting silently in the corner. Her face was expressionless. But she did not seem to be rejoicing in the gift of the villa in Provence.

Emma turned to see her mother. ‘You can’t possibly be thinking of keeping the shares,’ said Virginia slowly. ‘Roger has been Milford’s creative director for over twenty years.’

Emma gaped at her. She had never been very supportive as a mother, but this seemed a low blow even for Virginia. Saul’s bequest had – presumably – made Emma a rich woman, but even now she could not be happy for her, in fact she was thinking of her brother and his position.

‘I haven’t made any decisions about anything, Mother,’ said Emma shortly. ‘But when I do, you and Roger will be the first to know.’

She moved away and walked up to Cassandra, who was looking ready to leave.

‘You’ve got Les Fleurs,’ said Emma softly. ‘How wonderful!’

Cassandra smiled thinly. ‘I couldn’t have asked for better, could I?’ she said. Emma noticed that her eyes were not shining. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make an urgent call to the office.’

Emma flinched as Roger put his hand on her shoulder.

‘To the victor the spoils, eh?’ he said, with a forced jovial manner. ‘I know you have business experience, so I know you’ll weigh up the options and do what’s right for Milford. I know you’ll make the right decision. You take your time.’

He squeezed her shoulder and walked towards the door, leading Rebecca who was shooting daggers.

But Emma did not need to take her time. If Saul’s will had just made her a rich woman, then that was something to be thankful for. But had Saul expected her to come back to Milford and run the company? The whole afternoon had been ghastly and she could only imagine what a lifetime back here would be like. She wanted to go back to Boston, to Mark and her own life as quickly as she could.

3

Cassandra Grand had a dream, a dream that she had been nurturing since the age of thirteen. She wanted to be the greatest fashion legend since Coco Chanel, a style maven whose name was a billion dollar brand. She wanted to be fashion’s Martha Stewart, a female Tom Ford. She wanted it all and she wasn’t going to let anyone stand in her way. Magazines were just the very start for Cassandra; she was already recognized as one of the top editors in the world and now she was ready to expand her empire. Some of the top luxury brands in the world had already come knocking, begging her to take on a consultation role, while her talent as a stylist meant she was still greatly in demand to style the hottest fashion advertising campaigns in the world. But there was one fly in the ointment: Emma Bailey. That bitch. Taking control of Milford had been a major part of Cassandra’s carefully laid plans. She’d known for years that the company was ripe for re-invention and had planned to rebrand it Cassandra Grand by Milford. Obviously, after a few years she would drop the fusty Milford label entirely, but by then, Cassandra Grand would be the hottest name in fashion. But of course, it hadn’t happened that way. Silly, foolish Saul had put a stop to that and it made her almost physically sick with fury; all the time, energy and expense she had wasted playing the dutiful niece! All those lunches at Claridge’s, the gifts on birthdays and at Christmas, the bottle of Petrus she had been sent by a French importer which had gone directly to Saul. And those dull family Christmas days spent with the family at Saul’s chalet in Gstaad when she could have been on a lover’s yacht in St Barts or at a friend’s villa in Mustique.

And hadn’t Saul promised the company to her? She remembered his words vividly.

‘One day, all this will be yours.’