Page 125 of Original Sin

‘Brooke–’

‘So where did you meet her?’

‘At a party. She’s the friend of a friend.’

Brooke was suddenly aware that Matt had a life that she knew nothing about. Somehow she had this romantic notion of him toiling in ER for twenty hours at a time, then returning home only to sleep and eat pizza before doing it all again, but clearly he was out at parties with attractive bohemian aromatherapists.

‘So when am I going to meet her?’ asked Brooke.

‘Well, that’s why I’m calling. I was going to invite you to supper. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d better do the decent thing and celebrate.’

‘Great. I’ll bring David. My publicist has been telling me forever that you two should meet … ’ She paused, realizing that sounded wrong somehow. ‘Well, you know, just in case anyone thinks there might be something funny going on between us. Stupid I know, but you know how people talk.’

‘No, no, she’s right,’ said Matt. ‘That’s a good idea.’

There was another long pause.

‘Well, I’ll text you the details of the meal when I’ve decided what to cook.’

‘Fine. Great. See you then.’

She snapped her mobile shut and marched straight over to the towering pile of guest books, taking them down and examining them with total concentration. Suddenly choosing between the blue book and the taupe one was the most important decision in the world.

CHAPTER FORTY–ONE

Tess never wanted to see another envelope in her entire life. Her desk and floor were covered with a rainbow of different coloured paper, along with endless Jiffy bags and packages. She had just spent the last hour laboriously going through them and her fingers – not to mention her head – were starting to ache. It was one of the chores she hated. Every morning she received an enormous volume of post that took hours to sift through, so she invariably left it until last thing. The vast majority of the envelopes contained party invitations for Brooke, everything from red–carpet events to fundraisers to shop openings. Brooke had to be seen at some of them, of course, the ones Tess would cherry–pick as the most high profile or ‘on brand’, but the majority went straight into the oversized recycling bin.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have other things to do. As September slipped into October, media speculation about Brooke and David’s wedding had already cranked up several notches, meaning that Tess was constantly fielding phone calls and emails from press and television stations wanting everything from confirmation of location and dates to actual access to the wedding.

Today had been a particularly arduous day, and Tess was looking forward to going home. She had just pulled her coat off the back of her chair when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside her door.

‘Meredith,’ said Tess looking up. ‘I didn’t think you were in today.’

‘My secretary called me so I’ve just dropped by.’

‘Well, that’s good luck, because I wanted to speak to you. Could you come in? Sorry about the mess.’

Meredith walked into the room and took the seat opposite Tess, folding her pale, stocking–clad legs elegantly under the chair as she waited for Tess to continue.

‘I want to take a holiday,’ said Tess, trying keep her voice even. She was unsure why she thought the request might be interpreted as unreasonable – perhaps because of the ‘in at six, home at ten’ mentality of the New York worker; perhaps because they were getting closer to the ‘big day’; but either way she had been delaying asking Meredith. In the event she merely nodded.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘When were you thinking, and for how long?’

‘This weekend actually. I’m sorry for the late notice but I’ve only just found out about the trip. It’s just a Friday night until Tuesday trip, so it would involve very little time out of the office and I would have my BlackBerry on all the time … ’

Meredith was already shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid it’s not convenient.’

Tess felt a sinking disappointment, but knew she couldn’t object. Her job came first – it had to, the amount they were paying her – but when Jemma had told her about a trip she was taking to Lake Tahoe with some new friends, Tess had been keen to go along. She barely knew Jemma’s new social circle, but to Tess that was a bonus. What she really wanted to do was interact with people who weren’t anything to do with work. A look in the mirror told her she was tired. The nagging pains between her shoulder blades said she was stressed. She just wanted to have some fun.

‘Really?’ she said, flipping a few pages of her diary with a frown. She couldn’t see any pressing events written there. ‘Anything I should know about?’

‘Every year we have a Miss Asgill Hawaiian Glo pageant in Hawaii,’ said Meredith. She was trying to be matter of fact, but she clearly found the idea a little distasteful. Didn’t fit in with her new vision of Asgill’s as a luxury brand, perhaps, thought Tess.

‘We usually have a representative from the company on the judging panel. This year I was keen for Leonard to go along, but he’s had to schedule a hospital appointment.’

Tess nodded sympathetically, recalling that she hadn’t seen Leonard around the office all week.

‘As is happens, Sean is in New York this week,’ continued Meredith. ‘He heard that Leonard can’t make the pageant and suggested he should attend in his place.’