A Kept Woman (35 page)

I’m back! Diana thought.

Ernie scanned the figures laid out in front of him and did some quick calculations in his head. If the top-secret sales projections for their software - his marketing whizzes had come up with the name Education Station - were on target, he would bring Blakely’s quarterly profits Up another z per cent by the next report. And with his profit-share agreement, that could mean a bonus of anything up to two million.

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Not to mention the c[elicious fact that he would shaft

that little Yank bastard again at the same time. ‘Yeah, I like it,’ Ernie told Peter Davits.

The Russian grinned back. ‘I thought you might, Mr Foxton.’

Their design boys had been up all night for over a week, running off covers, packaging and text that looked and sounded just like Imperial’s snazzy product. Better, he could offer the market what Cicero could not - the gaming resources of Signor Bertaloni’s company and instant distribution power in Toys ‘5t’ Us and K-Mart. Just to hammer the final nail in the coffin, he was going for what Michael could never afford - TV spots. Commercials would run coast to coast, from the Cartoon Network to the chat shows that stay-home moms loved to watch. Soon Education Station would be the only name worth having in the house.

Lee Tatton, his marketing vice-president, chimed in. ‘Just think, sir. Once our line is known, kids will think everything else is a cheap rip-off. Research shows how brand loyal they are. There are lots of better-made dolls than Barbie, but any kid will tell you what she wants. It has to be right.’

‘And if Education Station gets known first, Imperial

will look like a cheap imitator,’ Davits said.

‘Too right.’ Ernie smirked.

‘But I have to warn you, television is not cheap. The campaign will cost us, of that there is no doubt.’

‘I don’t give a luck what it costs.’ Imperial was barely weeks away from a launch. ‘You get those spots on the air. Find an agency that can pull it together fast. I want to launch and I want to launch now.’

It barely took two weeks.

Diana smiled when she thought about it. She had blazed back on to the social scene like a comet, her sparks and glow trailing right behind the conflagration of Elspeth Merriman’s prestige. Duing the day, she went over the careful planning of the IPO with Michael, keeping a cool professional distance and never allowing herself to dwell on the way he still made her ache, late at night, when the last kiss had been planted into the air beside her cheek, and the last glass of champagne drained to the bottom. Only in those moments, when she lay tucked up and alone on her Pratesi sheets, looking out through her window, at the night glitter of Manhattan’s skyline, did she really let herself feel the hole he created when he left. OK, technically she had left, but he had forced her into it.

Diana shook her head and picked up her new diamond earrings to distract her. She’d said she wasn’t going to think about him. It was annoying the way she couldn’t control her thoughts sometimes. The business was cracking along, and she basked in Michael’s reflected glory. The world was waking up to Irriperial. This morning there had been half a paragraph, buried deep inside the Wall Street Journal. Goldman Sachs thought that interest in the IPO would be substantial. She had been a part of it. Even though Diana knew nothing about computer programming, she certainly knew about gossip. People gossiped in every circle in life, not just Hollywood and

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the social-register crowds. Net geeks and comic-book freaks gossiped just as much as anyone else. Her ability to tap that rich stream to find the best, most committed people had made her Michael’s best headhunter.

And she couldn’t fault him on the business front. He’d given her a chance when nobody else wanted to know her. Now he gave her credit, and not only that but pay and a title to go with it. In his personal relationships Michael was a sexist, domineering bastard - don’t go there again, Diana - but as far as the company went, he was fair. A slave driver, sure. A stern boss - absolutely. But you prospered at Imperial if you did good work. Black, white, pink with green spots, he didn’t give a fuck. He promoted men and women according to just one thing - how good they were.

Last week Michael had hired Jim East, a legendary marketing man who hadn’t worked in twenty years. He was excellent at what he did. He was also seventy-eight. The fact that he shared an office with Opie said a lot about Michael’s blinkers. He just didn’t see anything strange in that.

Outside the office, though, Diana wasn’t going to worry about what her boss thought.

Elspeth had been busy. A cocktail party here, a dinner there, mixed doubles at her country club, and suddenly Diana found herself back. It was fun to be worrying again about what dress to wear next, to play with her make-up and be torn between Prada and Lulu Guinness as far as the bags went. She varied what she wore and the tabloids picked up on her style. Women’s Wear Daily loved her mix of Stella McCartney, Chanel and Richard Tyler when the whole world seemed to be beige and conservative - nothing but Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, the Gwyneth Paltrow clones who swarmed everywhere. She met and was sweet to Natasha Zuckerman, and everybody strained to hear what was said. Felicity

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Metson was supposedly furious. Diana tried to tell herself she was above petty things like what Felicity thought. But secretly she loved it. It was too much fun.

She selected a pink dress by Ghost, a wisp of nothing that clung to her curves and swept to the floor, and matched it with a rose silk Hermes scarf. The diamond drops in her ears were decoration enough. A quick spritz of the wild rose and lavender scent she had blended for her in Paris, a tug on of her latest Manolos, and Diana was ready to go.

Her phone buzzed. It was the doorman. Her car had arrived.

‘I’ll be right down,’ Diana said.

She picked up her tiny Gucci clutch handbag and made for the elevator. It was a bore that Claire could not be with her tonight, but her fianc had taken her off for a romantic weekend at his country house upstate. At any rate, with Elspeth behind her, Diana felt confident enough to mingle on her own. New York loves a go getter, she thought, examining her silken, scented reflection in the glass doors of the elevator as it arrived. There was absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t give them what they wanted.

Diana arrived at the Victrix Hotel at quarter to nine. The chauffeur held the door open, and she emerged into a small blast of popping flashlights, the cameras exploding around her. She wasn’t famous, but she was becoming a minor celebrity, like Aerin Lauder, or Marie-Chantal of Greece. She smiled and waved and headed inside. They might remark on the fact that she had come alone; they’d probably love it. You had to be pretty secure not to bother scouring the city for an escort.

I’m young, free and single, Diana thought. Why not enjoy it? Tonight was one of the more vital moments on the

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social calendar. A fund-raiser for the new Republican mayoral candidate. Diana wasn’t a voter, but that didn’t matter; half the people here were registered Democrats. The point was that the place was full of celebrities and power brokers, New York’s television and media elite. Donald Trump was flying in from Atlantic City; Si Newhouse, Tina Brown, Barry Diller, the usual suspects were all expected. Hip young movie stars mixed with record moguls and starving artists, who had the thousand-dollars-a-plate tickets courtesy of their patrons in real estate or investment banking. Designers and mafia dons, who these days preferred Wall Street to the fish markets, plastic surgeons and minor princes would all rub shoulders here - and then again at the fund-raiser for the Democrats’ candidate two months later.

Diana would be sitting next to Elspeth. Shaking hands, smiling at people she knew - as well as people she didn’t, you had to be nice, who knew when it might bite you in the ass? - she made her way through the ballroom to find her table. The Victrix was the most exclusive hotel in the city. It made the Plaza look like a YMCA hostel on a bad day. The parties were usually themed; tonight it was vaguely Republican. Torches that blazed with red, white and blue flames were propped in crystal sconces along the walls, and huge floral pillars fifteen feet high were covered in roses, poppies, hyacinths, arum lilies, any flowers that might contribute to the theme. Diana’s eyes widened a little. She was getting rather jaded with American opulence, but - wasn’t that an actual, incredibly rare, white Thai elephant in the centre of the room, with a keeper dressed all in gold mounted upon him? She blinked. It was, definitely. You didn’t know whether to look at the decor or the guests first. The stars with glasses in their hands were illuminated by chandeliers in the shape of stars and glass bubbles, strategically placed along barely there wires, that made you feel as though

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ou were inside a glass of champagne. A waiter, dressed in a dark-blue suit - his colleagues were in reds and whites, too, of course - bowed and asked if madame preferred Cristal, vintage Krug, or perhaps Veuve Cliquot ros?

Slightly dazzled, Diana accepted the ros& She liked Veuve Cliquot and, after all, the bubbly would now coordinate with her dress. She started to repent of having gone for something simple. There were women here in ball gowns. After the austerity of the nineties, it seemed that full-out glamour was making a bit of a comeback. But it was too late now. She took a slow, fortifying sip of the champagne, letting the bubbles sparkle over her tongue. There were table plans written out in beautiful calligraphy all over the room, She found one, and tried to ferret out her own name from the hundreds in front of her by the blood-red glow of one of the lamps. She couldn’t see Elspeth’s name either, but they were bound

to be next to each other

‘Having trouble?’

Diana looked round. The voice, just behind her, was warm and friendly, definitely unusual for a party like this, where the guests would kiss each other all night long then go home and bitch afterwards. It was also male. It belonged to a tall man, with what looked like light brown hair, though the lamp made it hard to see. He had clean-cut features, sparkling eyes, white teeth and, she noted, a marvellous white-tie suit. Many of the male guests had ignored the invitation and turned up in tuxedos. Not this one.

‘Slightly,’ she admitted. ‘My eyesight isn’t bad, but the light—’

‘Do allow me.’ He offered her a firm handshake. ‘My name’s Brad Bailey.’

‘And mine’s Diana Verity,’ she said. He was confident, and she liked that. He had an open smile and an easy

y

manner. And he was at least four inches taller than Michael, not that she was going to think about Michael.

‘I know.’ Brad grinned at. her. ‘I’ve seen your picture

around. And that accent is beautiful.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of introducing myself. I just remembered that joke in Ten Little Indians, ever seen that movie?’

She shook her head instead of saying no so that her diamond earrings caught the light. It was easy to like this

man.

‘You should, it’s real funny. Anyway, this |rish guy

says he’d heard two Englishman were stranded on a desert island for five years and never said a word to each

other because they hadn’t been introduced.’

Diana laughed.

What a stone-cold fox, Bailey thought, with a body

that could make a dead man rise and do the mambo. He loved her dress, her loose, long, brown hair, the delicate scent of flowers that hung about her. And the way she talked. Those English broads just exuded cool. Look at Princess Diana. The woman actually had a nose like Concorde, but she had borne herself with such confidence and classy style that she had been thought the most beautiful woman in the world. This girl was the same way. Brad indulged in a little fantasy of Diana in tennis whites, sipping a lemonade on the court of his country club.

‘I’m afraid we can come across as rather stuffy, but on

the other hand, we produced the Beatles and the Stones.

So you work it out.’

‘I’d love to,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘But I think I

might need some time to do it. Say, dinner?’

‘Maybe,’ Diana said, surprising herself. ‘First I have to

find my place at this dinner.’

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‘Excuse me for just a second,’ he said, bowing slightly and moving away.

Diana’s eyebrow lifted. He was chatting her up and then excused himself? So be it. After Ernie, she was in no mood to play games. Seething, she bent closer to the table plan and found her name. Table eighty-nine. Now she had to look on the floor plan and see if she could find table eighty-nine, wherever it was. There were enough tables in the ballroom to stock a branch of Ikea, except that these particular tables would not be found there. Solid mahogany and gold accents weren’t their style. She scanned the picture, ignoring the flautists and girls in robes with miniature harps who .strolled behind her. Eighty-nine… but Elspeth wasn’t there. She must be ill. Diana frowned lightly. She would have to make conversation on her own, and—

‘I’m back.’ Brad Bailey tapped her on the arm.

‘So you are,’ Diana said evenly.

He admired her. Damn, she was cool. An American girl would have harangued him, or batted her eyelids in the face of his money and pretended not to care.

‘Please excuse my abandoning you,’ he said. ‘I had to speak to Fred Layton, he’s organising stuff here. I promised him an extra donation if he would alter the seating plan a little.’ He leant forward and struck through her name on table eighty-nine. ‘You are here now on table three. With me.’

Diana’s delicate eyebrow lifted. ‘You got the seats rearranged? I’m sure I’m not worth such trouble.’

‘It would have been worth a good deal more than that,’ Brad told her, thinking of the eight grand he’d had to promise to compensate for the last-minute chaos, the hasty apologies made to the wealthy dowager who was being ejected from her prime seat next to him. He crooked his arm and hoped an English gentleman would have done it in the same fashion. ‘Shall we go to dinner?’