Chapter One Hugh Summershill knew better than to try to discern or understand the subtle rivalries that women engage in, but he did know that Julia McIntyre was the type of woman his wife, Tor, sniffed at. She’d think Julia had ‘let herself go’ (even though she was only a size fourteen – he’d checked in her labels one languorous afternoon, wanting to go back to La Perla and get that lacy all-in-one thing he’d seen in the window). Her hair wasn’t poker straight, but bouncy with a soft curl which she just left to dry naturally, and she had milky skin with rosebud-pink nipples that had clearly never seen the sun. She wasn’t polished, sophisticated, thin or fashionable. In fact, she wasn’t any of the things that Tor prized – she wouldn’t even have seen her as a competitor – and he’d often wondered whether, subconsciously, this was why he’d gone with her: a random act of spite to his wife, whose perfectionism was alienating and aloof. He lay back, enjoying the feeling of her breath on his stomach, the spring breeze whispering over him and making him shiver as they lay naked and entwined on the daybed on her veranda. The background rumble of buses and steady drone of rush hour traffic kept his senses rudely aware that this was Battersea, not Bermuda. ‘Hmmm, you like that?’ she smiled, blowing air rings on his hips. She shifted position, placing herself between his legs, inching downwards, her hair fanning silkily across him as she traced wide meandering S-shapes over his torso with her breath. She felt him stir and looked up at him, pulling herself forwards, grazing her curves against him, giving him some of what he wanted, but not enough. Nowhere near enough. He grabbed her, ready again, and she giggled at his lusty appetite. Poor Hugh, he’d clearly been starved for years. ‘You know,’ she said provocatively as she straddled him, not remotely done with him yet, ‘this could be how we spend every afternoon. Can’t you just imagine it, darling? You and me and this?’ Her hands fluttered behind her, cupping his balls, and she began grinding with intent. ‘What . . . do you . . . mean?’ he groaned. The late afternoon sunlight caught her hair, drenching her in apricot light. He didn’t know whether to fuck her or eat her. ‘I mean I don’t want to share you any more, lover,’ she purred, leaning over him and biting his lip. ‘Let’s make this real, once and for all. I want you to move in.’ At the exact moment her husband was ravishing his mistress, Tor Summershill was also reclining in splendour. The sun was low in the sky, ready to drop like a fat peach from the tree, and Tor was stretched out on a teak steamer, eyeing the honeyed glow on the children’s naked bodies that made them appear even more luscious than usual. Their busy baby chatter as they tucked into their lawn picnic was nothing more than a tranquil buzz, and Tor made a mental note to get some more of those diddy organic cocktail sausages – so much easier for little fingers and milk teeth. Mmmm, bliss, she sighed. Still, having a garden bigger than a bikini helped. There weren’t many places in southwest London where you could stick the kids out of earshot in an orchard. One hundred and thirty feet of London lawn came with too many zeros for most people. God, Cress was lucky. She sighed deeply, breathing in the first delicate scent of the night-flowering honeysuckle, and stretched out further. Where the hell was she anyway? She’d been gone ages. A distant crash and flurry of expletives answered her question and she shaded her eyes to search for her friend, just as the french windows burst open and Cress’s slight, angry silhouette stomped down the lawn to the summerhouse. Oh God, what? What? WHAT? Tor frantically scanned over the list of possible disaster scenarios that might explain Cress’s crossness – a leaky nappy on the Aubusson? Some broken antique blue and white porcelain? Felt tips on the Frette bedspreads? Cress set down the tray of freshly-made lemonade with a clatter, and abruptly presented Tor with a glossy red sword. ‘Uh, thank you,’ Tor faltered. ‘What’s it for – besides battle, I mean?’ ‘Can you believe it?’ Cress muttered. ‘Rumbled already. And it’s only bloody May. Bloody kids.’ ‘What’s rumbled?’ ‘Christmas!’ sighed Cress. ‘That sword was part of my Santa stash. One of the kids has found it. God knows which one. It was lying on the stairs.’ She stood there, hands on hips. ‘If I put it in their stockings now, the game is up. They’ll know Father Christmas is a myth, I’ll be exposed as a liar – because it will of course be my fault that he doesn’t exist – and that’ll be it, end of their childhood; next stop, smoking and snogging behind the scooters . . .’ ‘Jago’s at a boys’ school,’ Tor interrupted. ‘Precisely!’ Cress exclaimed triumphantly. Tor grinned and took a sip of lemonade. ‘Did you make this?’ ‘Yes. Why, is it disgusting?’ Tor laughed. Cress was many things – mother of four, business dynamo, social butterfly and intoxicating to her husband – but domestic goddess? Not a chance. Every dinner party was spooned from a caterer’s Le Creuset, and when she stopped breastfeeding after three weeks, she joked it was because her milk was off. ‘No, it’s great,’ she lied. She took another slug of lemonade to prove her point, and tried not to shiver. ‘Well, that’s it. Big Yellow Storage for me,’ Cress continued, settling herself noisily on her steamer. ‘The kids get into everything now and there just isn’t the storage space in these houses.’ Tor looked up at the detached seven-bedroom pile and weighed in sarcastically. ‘Yes, you’re right. Five thousand square feet and not a cupboard in sight. It’s pitiful. I don’t know how you’ve put up with it for so long.’ Cress idled a hand in the grass, brushing it casually. ‘Hey, why don’t you get one too? Our spaces could be neighbours.’ ‘Thanks, Cress, but I really don’t need to pay for any more square footage. Our mortgage payments are crippling enough. And anyway you know I’ll just want to decorate it. Think about it – no natural light, low ceilings, no original features. My basic nightmare.’ Cress laughed, and they both tried not to drink the lemonade. Tor squinted over at the toddlers now running amok around the crab-apple and plum trees. Marney and Millie were four and three respectively, but they still shared the padded thighs, bare pudgy bottoms and high, rounded tummies of their eighteen-month-old brother, and she felt brimful of love as they staggered shrieking through the sprinklers. She felt tempted to jump up and join them. But only momentarily. Lying back doing nothing, for once, felt so good too. And anyway, Cress’s stunning Swedish nanny, Greta, had emerged from an hour-long phone call to her boyfriend back home and was herding the children into fluffy towels. Tor noticed that Cress kept squinting at her mobile on the table and checking the signal. ‘So, what’s happening at work?’ she asked. ‘You’ve been travelling a lot recently.’ ‘Tchyuh, don’t I know it. The air hostesses miss me more between flights than the kids.’ ‘Mmmm.’ Tor squinted at her in the sunlight. Cress’s emotional isolation from her children – which she buffered with a stream of nannies – was scarcely acknowledged and certainly never discussed. Cress was all about achievement, control and perfection, and Tor understood her friend well enough to know she needed to keep this ‘blemish’ below radar until she figured out how to nix it. To look at her, nothing – apart from the red sword – was out of place in Cress’s world. Not her career, not her house, not her marriage, not even her hair. Cress’s bob – tinted a shade too blonde – was so sharply styled it looked like it had been cut with lasers. The style was perfect for framing her small heart-shaped face and offset her steely blue eyes, but Tor was always on at her to let it grow out a bit more, get it to look ‘a little more relaxed, more natural’. But then nothing about Cress was relaxed or natural – why should her hair be any different? She was a mini dynamo, a five-foot-two vortex of energy – running between deadlines and flight schedules and spinning classes and bedtime stories. That hair had to toe the line. Cress raised her face to the sky and shielded her eyes. ‘But yuh. I guess you could say work’s going . . . well.’ Something in her voice caught Tor’s attention. Tor looked back at her friend. Wearing giant shades and a tiny green towelling beach dress that showed off a figure few thirty-three-year-old mothers of four could boast without drastic plastic surgery, Cress was brushing the grass casually in a bucolic manner. She looked uncharacteristically relaxed. Tor was instantly suspicious. ‘Cress, what is it?’ ‘Hmm?’ ‘You’re trying to tell me something.’ ‘No, I’m not.’ ‘Yes, you are.’ Tor looked at her, suspiciously. There was a long pause. ‘You want me to beat it out of you.’ Cress giggled. ‘I do not.’ She began humming lightly. Tor’s flecked hazel eyes narrowed further. The women’s friendship spanned fifteen years – formed over a mutual ex who had two-timed them at Bristol University – and there was precious little they didn’t know about each other. She sank back into her chair, then suddenly gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God – you’re having an affair!’ ‘Sssssht! Tell the neighbours, why don’t you!’ Cress looked annoyed. ‘Actually, no. I’m not having an affair – and I’m shocked that you think I would.’ ‘Then good God, woman – what is it?’ ‘I’m considering having an affair.’ ‘No!’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No! Who with?’ ‘With whom,’ Cress corrected. ‘With Harry Hunter.’ ‘Nooo!’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Nooo!’ ‘No, you’re right. I’m not really.’ ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Tor, deflated, sank back into the chair and absent-mindedly took another sip of the rancid lemonade. Dammit. ‘But he is completely delicious, isn’t he?’ Cress asked rhetorically. ‘And who could blame me, now that I’ll be working so closely with him. I mean, I do think Mark would actually understa—’ ‘What?’ Tor shrieked. ‘What do you mean, working so closely?’ ‘Well, he’s signing with me on Monday – that’s what all the travelling’s been about.’ She smiled impishly and threw her arms around herself in a hug. ‘Oh yes. That man is mine, all mine. I’m pinning him down to a five-book deal. Plus backlist.’ Tor couldn’t take it in. Harry Hunter? She couldn’t believe she was only one degree removed from him. Oh please, please, let her meet him. Harry Hunter’s face was more familiar to her these days than her own husband’s. But then, Hugh was never anywhere to be seen and Harry Hunter was everywhere you looked – bearing down from bus billboards, beaming out from the society pages, falling out of nightclubs in the gossip columns, and flirting up a storm on the telly chat-show circuit. You’d have had to be living in Neverland not to know who Harry Hunter was. He was the publishing world’s latest sensation, his books selling by the millions, topping best-seller lists simultaneously all round the world. He’d been translated into thirty-eight different languages and now Hollywood was adapting the books into blockbusters. His breakthrough book, Scion, had been a sleeper hit which had swept the nation, and then the rest of the world, only five years ago. He’d quickly followed it up with The Snow Leopard and The Ruby Route, which were critically mauled but still sold in their millions because of his name. But it wasn’t so much his sales as his torrid, tempestuous nine-month marriage to Lila Briggs – the chart-topping, multi-platinum-selling, stadium-filling singer – which was played out through the tabloids, that ensured that the former housemaster’s name had stayed in the headlines ever since. Six foot three, with a curly mop of buttery blond hair, flashing green eyes and rugby-muscled shoulders, he was now a rampant lady-killer, rarely seen without his signature cashmere tweed jacket on his back and some society darling on his arm. ‘God, I’d leave Hugh in an instant if Harry Hunter even so much as looked my way.’ She stretched dreamily at the thought and Cress enviously noted her muscle tone. Tor had danced her way through her teens and twenties, and although at fifteen and five foot eight she had recognized that she was too tall and not quite good enough to make the corps in a professional dance company, her recompense was an easily toned, low-maintenance figure that made Cress – who fasted for one day every week – want to weep. In fact, much about Tor’s effortless elegance made Cress well up with envy. Her unbleached, rich caramel hair – blonde around her face – that fell in sheets to her shoulder blades; her distinctive almond-shaped hazel eyes that didn’t need mascara; and those faint freckles – which opened up in the sun like daisies – covering her cheeks and nose, which kept her forever looking no older than twelve. ‘Well, I’m glad you feel that way because, to celebrate, I’m throwing a welcome party for him next week, and you’re invited – naturally.’ Tor’s jaw dropped. ‘No!’ She was struck by panic and took all her wishes back. ‘There’s no way I can party with Harry Hunter. I mean, you know I’ll get drunk after half a glass and start to stutter and suffer stress incontinence . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she clocked Cress’s bemusement. ‘Well, what’s the dress code? You know I’ve got nothing to wear.’ ‘Cocktail,’ Cress said, crunching hard on a clutch of ice. ‘And I know precisely the opposite.’ Pre-babies, Tor had slowly but surely scaled the heights of fashion retail. It hadn’t been a meteoric rise, owing to a sensational lack of ambition, but the design houses’ sales teams admired her easy chic and instinctive eye. She could put together a rail that even they hadn’t considered, and more often than not she left them with more tips for the forthcoming season than the other way round. She was always invited to the first round of buying appointments, sat in the front row at the shows, and by the time she fell pregnant with Marney she was chief buyer at Browns in South Molton Street. It was a nomadic life, though, regularly flying to Milan, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, and not one she’d wanted to continue once the children were born. She wanted to be a hands-on, stay-at-home mother, and although she increasingly found herself drawn to interior design these days, she still had a wardrobe of eveningwear that Cress lusted after like a little sister. ‘Well, I’ll still need something new. This is no time for hand-me-downs,’ Tor muttered, trying to work out how much weight she could shed in a week and whether she’d be able to get Fabien for a blow-dry at such short notice. Did Hugh have anything in his diary? Talking of which, how had they left it for Kate and Monty’s tonight? Was he going straight from the office? She tried his mobile but it was switched off. Tor checked her watch and started gathering the children’s beakers, swim nappies and discarded clothes. ‘Millie, Marney, Oscar,’ she called to her waddling, toddling brood. ‘Over here, please. Let’s get you dressed.’ The sun had plopped from the sky now and her legs goose-bumped in the dusk. She shivered and shrugged on her pale grey cashmere jumper (M&S, machine washable, but with the label cut out, who knew?). There were only two hours till dinner at Kate’s, and with three kids under five and still bath and bedtime to get through, it was a tight schedule. Time to get a shift on. Cress waved and smiled cheerily as Tor reversed out of the drive. She closed the front door slowly and leant against it, deliberating whether to make the phone call, or go and bath the children. She could hear their shrieks and splashes three floors away – God only knew the amount of water there must be on the floor. She checked her watch. He hadn’t rung – but then she’d known he wouldn’t. The New York flight was due to leave in twenty minutes. She pressed her fists against her eyes as she faced up to the fact she was out of choices. If she was going to stop him getting on that plane, she was going to have to play her hand. Navigating her way past the abandoned toys and strewn clothes – Greta could pick them up – she marched past the children’s bathroom, just as Felicity, her youngest and barely three, clambered over the side of the bath. ‘Mummy!’ she yelled. Darting past the towel Greta was holding wide like a windbreaker and throwing her arms around Cress’s legs – her long, wet hair slapping Cress’s thighs – she rugby-tackled her to a halt. Cress wobbled and fell forwards on to her hands in a rather ungainly downward dog position. ‘Oh Flick, get off!’ Cress said crossly, trying to push Felicity off her legs. ‘You’re getting me soaked.’ ‘But you’re already wearing a towel, Mummy.’ ‘No. It’s Juicy Couture and it’s dry clean only,’ she said huffily. ‘Now you know that’s not true,’ said an amused voice. Cress tried to look back over her shoulder, but being still a dog that was downwards and not suitably warmed up, she couldn’t. She peered through her legs instead. ‘What are you doing home so early?’ she cried. Mark was standing at the top of the stairs, pulling off his tie. ‘Meeting ended early,’ he grinned, faint laughter lines tucking in around his clear blue eyes. He oozed mischief and looked considerably younger than his thirty-nine years. Even the sprinkling of salt in his pepper-black hair seemed to twinkle. ‘And clearly you were thinking what I was thinking.’ He walked up to her and planted a kiss on her butt cheek. Even after nine years of marriage, the chemistry between them was as strong as it had been the night they first met, when she had been embroiled in an affair with his married boss and he’d had to smuggle her out of the bank’s summer party after his boss’s wife made a surprise entrance. Felicity extricated herself from her mother’s heap and – along with Orlando, four, Jago, six, and Lucy, seven – threw herself at her father instead. Mark disappeared under a wriggling mass of pink limbs and downy hair. ‘Come on, you lot. Bedtime story,’ he said, giving Flick a piggyback up to the nursery rooms on the top floor. ‘I’ll be back for you in a few minutes,’ he winked to Cress. Cress winked back, and blew goodnight kisses to the children, who didn’t notice. She blanched at their unintentional slights but decided to put that one down to the excitement of the moment. Anyway, she had other things on her mind. She didn’t notice Greta standing in the bathroom, holding the damp towel across her chest and listening to every intimate word between husband and wife. Cress stalked across the landing to the master bedroom, her perfectly pedicured feet sinking into the plush cream carpet, and shut the door behind her. Picking up the red leather Smythson diary she’d left on the bedside table, she flicked through the pages until she found the number she was looking for. She stared at it. Her destiny lay in those digits. Everything she had ever worked for, striven for – hell, neglected her family for – came down to this. It was do or die. Her company, Sapphire Books, had risen to spectacular heights in eight short years, presciently foreseeing the blogging phenomenon as a kissing cousin to the publishing industry. While the naysayers decried these web books as the Napsters of the publishing industry, she saw beyond the initial drift. Though the most successful blogs boasted millions-strong readerships, they appealed mainly to the computer-nerds. Cress knew most people preferred to read from a physical page. They liked the feel of a book in their hands when they were in bed, on the bus or at the poolside. And she knew that her precision editing and slick polish could package the same material to an even broader audience. Her first six blog-books had gone straight into the top ten of the Times best-seller lists, but sales on titles since had cooled and she needed to look beyond diarists and virtual lives. She couldn’t afford to stay so niche. The blogging trend was peaking and Sapphire Books needed to break into the mainstream. As usual, luck had been on her side. Her first foray into fiction had been picked by Richard and Judy’s all-powerful book club and sales were now nudging a million copies. But she had nothing with which to follow it up. So when that innocuous brown envelope had landed on her desk, handing the biggest name in publishing to her on a plate, it had seemed too good to be true. Clearly, it wasn’t something she could show to her legal team. She had to do this alone. It was dodgy ground. Oh, who was she kidding? It was criminal, face it. She’d tried doing it straight, meeting him socially at various parties in London, New York and Boston, letting the acquaintance bud until she felt she could table a meeting with him. They’d met up at the Portobello Hotel – small, intimate and off the corporate track, like Sapphire – and she’d delivered a sensational pitch, boasting of Sapphire’s impressive profitability and its reputation as the fastest-growing, most dynamic publishing company around. They were the mavericks, just like him. The chemistry between Harry Hunter and Sapphire – between him and her – was sizzling, and Harry had been surprisingly impressed. He’d only agreed to the meeting, intending to get to the pink and black lace balconette bra she was wearing beneath her grey georgette blouse. But her impressive engagement ring had winked at him like a jealous child on a single mother’s first date – no woman kept her ring freshly polished after nine years of marriage unless she was still in love with her husband – and when he’d suggested finishing the meeting ‘somewhere more private’, they had stalled. He liked a challenge, but he didn’t have the time he’d usually devote to breaking and bedding her. Manhattan was waiting, and she wasn’t even in the same ball-park when it came down to money. Reluctantly, he’d had to let her go for the time being but, not wanting to burn his bridges – knowing they’d bump into each other again on the publishing circuit – he’d left it that he’d ‘consider’ her proposal. The minutes had ticked by all week and she’d barely slept. She’d fingered the brown envelope constantly, like a worry bead. Did she dare cross the line? Now, she couldn’t put it off any longer. Time, tide and air traffic controllers wait for no man. She had to do it. The phone rang five times before he picked up. ‘Cressida,’ he smiled, though there was a faint note of impatience in his voice, now that she was no longer an imminent prospect. ‘I’m sorry. I meant to get back to you. It’s been a crazy week.’ Cress had seen the pictures of him in the Mirror, tumbling out of Whisky Mist with a blonde on each arm. ‘I know. I won’t keep you,’ she said levelly. ‘I just wanted to check you weren’t getting on the plane.’ ‘What?’ he said, alarmed. ‘Has something happened? Is there a security alert?’ Cress could hear a rumble of commotion around him. ‘No. No security alert. Nothing like that.’ Cress heard him break off to reassure the passengers around him. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to panic you,’ he was saying, with what she could well imagine was a boyish grin. There was another pause. ‘Yeah, sure. Who should I make it out to?’ He came back on the line. ‘Sorry. Autographs,’ he said, clearly cradling the phone on his shoulder. Cress visualized him scribbling on various people’s magazines, cheque-book stubs, arms – breasts, no doubt. She waited. His voice was distracted. ‘So are you ringing to tell me there’s something new you can do for me?’ ‘In a way, yes.’ She paused, letting his frustration mount. ‘Which is?’ ‘Well . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘I can agree not to tell the world about Brendan Hillier.’