Page 10 of Original Sin

‘Pretty much whenever,’ said Alessandro, flapping his hands vaguely. ‘A fall wedding would be magnificent. Can you imagine those trees over there glistening with scarlet leaves? Oh, but realistically a September wedding is way too tight. I mean, your dress is going to take three, four months minimum, more if we’re thinking lots of Lesage beading. I know one bride who had to put her wedding back because the embroidery was taking so long.’

‘Which leaves us with next spring or summer,’ said Brooke thoughtfully. ‘Winters will be vicious up here and I don’t want to make it too difficult for people to travel.’

‘We definitely wanted the wedding within the year,’ said David, looking at Brooke. ‘I don’t want this one to get away from me.’

Alessandro coughed politely. ‘Maybe I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes,’ he said.

‘So what do you think?’ asked Brooke when Alessandro was out of earshot.

‘I love it.’

‘Oh honey, I’m so glad you said that,’ she gushed, her face lit up like a little girl’s. ‘It’s the perfect spring venue, isn’t it? I mean, smell that air. New beginnings.’

She could see David stifle a wry smile. He was too polite to laugh. He wrapped his arms around Brooke’s waist. ‘It’s perfect.’

‘It’s big though, isn’t it?’ said Brooke, biting her lip. ‘All that talk about amphitheatres.’

‘We have a lot of guests.’

‘Your parents have got a lot of guests,’ she said.

Brooke was a Pisces, a romantic; perhaps that’s what drew her to books. In her mind her wedding would have all the trappings of the fairy tale – the beautiful white dress, the huge cake – but she’d always thought of it as a private ceremony, conducted in front of people she knew and loved. The last thing she wanted was a circus.

‘Should we just run off to City Hall and just do it?’ said Brooke impulsively.

David shook his head slowly. ‘You know we can’t do that.’

She looked at him and saw sadness in his eyes; it was the weight of expectation, and most of the time he wore it well. David might be a television reporter right now, but that was not where his future lay. Already he was being touted in serious magazines as a White House hopeful, despite having not a jot of political experience to his name. Their wedding would be talked about and written about for years to come; in many ways, it needed to be a circus, even if it not a three–ring circus.

‘Honey, are you sure you’re ready for this?’ he asked softly.

She looked at his dark blue eyes and couldn’t believe that out of all the women in the world he had chosen her.

‘Do you mean have I passed the point of no return?’ she asked.

‘No, I mean are you ready to be a Billington wife?’

Brooke felt a shiver run through her and wondered if it was the chill in the air.

‘Is anyone ever ready to be a Billington wife?’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know if I am. Who could? But what I do know is that I’m ready to marry you.’

David’s face lit up in a broad grin.

‘That’s good enough for me,’ he laughed, and pulled her down into the grass.

CHAPTER THREE

Standing inside the glass elevator that ran along the west–facing wall of midtown’s magnificent Somerset Tower, Liz Asgill pushed the brushed chrome button labelled ‘penthouse’. She turned to Enrique Gelati, Manhattan’s most in–demand hair colourist, as the lift began its swift ascent.

‘It takes thirty seconds to go forty–three floors,’ she purred as night–time Manhattan disappeared beneath them, revealing the blackness of Central Park, the taxis

buzzing around it like yellow wasps. ‘It’s the Ferrari of elevators, nought to sixty in two point five seconds.’

‘I hope the spa is also as good,’ said Enrique in a syrupy Spanish Cuban accent. ‘Asgill’s is not such a good name, no? Asgill’s is not La Prairie, I think.’

Liz turned and smiled thinly. Enrique had a reputation as being difficult, but he got away with it as he was regarded as a genius in his field. Great with brunettes, even better with blondes, half the Park Avenue Princesses owed their glorious honey–coloured manes to Enrique Gelati. Liz even knew of one household name who came to him to get her muff colour–corrected every six weeks. No wonder the waiting list at his Madison Avenue salon was three months long. As Allure magazine had said many times, ‘It’s easy to spot an Enrique Gelati blonde, but it’s impossible to get an appointment.’

‘I think you’ll be surprised at the spa,’ said Liz confidently. ‘The Spa Plus brand is a completely separate brand to Asgill’s. We’re just backed by the company money.’ She smiled warmly. Inside she was fuming, but she had to keep him on side. The Skin Plus Spa launch was only a month away and having Enrique as the salon’s creative director would be a huge coup.