Original Sin (60 page)

‘Brooke calm down … ’

She looked at him, feeling her bottom lip tremble.

‘I have a career, David,’ she said. ‘I have a book at number seven of the
New York Times’
best–sellers list, destined for number one. Do you know how rare that is for a children’s author? Do you know how good that made me feel?’

She shook her head at his silence. ‘You know my achievements to date have been unremarkable. People thought I was another rich girl playing at a career until I got married off. Sure, I’m the company golden girl, but not because they take me seriously. Because I’m Brooke Asgill, engaged to David Billington, not because I’m Brooke Asgill, talented commissioning editor. Until today, that is. Today, I published a great book, a fantastic book that everyone is talking about – everyone is reading all over the country. That’s why I couldn’t “easily do something else”, because – and I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient for you – I think I’ve found something I’m good at.’

She looked at his face. He was looking down, his eyes seemingly focused on a small point on the expensive walnut floors.

‘A marriage is about two people, Brooke.’

‘Exactly,’ she said bitterly, and suddenly she realized what Washington represented to her: second place. If they went there now, she would be a TV host’s wife. In a few years, a congressman’s wife; somewhere down the line, maybe even First Lady. And that was the irony of it: there was nothing
first
about life with a man like David Billington. She was always expected to come second.

‘You sound resentful,’ said David quietly, his eyes still on the floor.

‘Do you blame me?’

‘Brooke, my career is the most important thing in my family’s life.’

‘Of course,’ she said tartly. ‘Your family. Not me, not even you. Your family.’

‘But you knew–’

‘Yes, I knew that was the deal when I agreed to marry you,’ said Brooke. ‘I’ve always known the deal.’

Finally he looked up. His eyes were sad.

‘Sounds like you don’t want the deal, any more.’

Brooke didn’t say anything. She blinked as fat tears began to roll down her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry, baby,’ said David. ‘I want this opportunity. I really want to do it.’ She could see how much this meant to him and it broke her heart.

‘I thought you wanted Congress,’ she said. ‘The Connecticut seat.’

His handsome face looked awkward, confused. ‘I’m thinking I could do this and then go straight for Senate, or maybe a governorship somewhere.’

Brooke bit her lip until she tasted blood. She could barely believe that only an hour ago, she had been thinking this was the happiest day of her life. She covered her face and gulped at the air.

Slowly, she realized that David’s arms were around her.

‘I want to take this job, but I
do
want you to be happy too,’ he said urgently into her ear. ‘If it means that much to you, I can turn it down. I
will
turn it down.’

Gently, she pulled away from him. ‘I never said I wanted you to do that,’ she said softly, wiping her face.

The agent knocked on the door and entered cautiously.

‘So what do you think?’ she smiled.

‘I think we’ve got a lot of thinking to do,’ said David, looking at Brooke.

Brooke nodded. ‘Yes, we have.’

CHAPTER FORTY–SEVEN

‘I thought you were supposed to be on holiday.’

Tess closed her eyes and cursed. She had been trying to sneak past Patty Shackleton’s door unnoticed. Most mornings it was her first port of call on her way to her own office, but today she didn’t feel like seeing anyone, least of all shrewd, intuitive Patty, who had an uncanny ability to read people’s moods.

‘Sorry, Pats,’ said Tess, standing in the doorway awkwardly. ‘Just in a bit of a rush. I’ve got a few urgent calls coming in–’

‘So how was the trip?’ interrupted Patty.

‘Great. Nice. Not much of a holiday, really.’ She thumbed towards the door. ‘I’d better get on.’

‘So everything went okay with Sean?’ said Patty, not letting her go. ‘He didn’t screw the new Miss Asgill Hawaiian Glo?’

‘Yes, everything went well. No, he didn’t have sex with Candy Cooper.’

Patty lowered her chin and raised her brow. ‘Tess? I know that expression.’

‘What expression?’ said Tess, feeling her cheeks prickle.
Don’t blush
, she scolded herself,
don’t blush
.

Patty pointed at Tess’s face. ‘That expression. In the legal profession, we call it guilt.’

Flustered now, Tess touched her face, as if she could feel her own expression.

Patty’s eyes opened wide. ‘Shit, Tess, no!’ she gasped. ‘Tell me nothing happened.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Tess, stepping into Patty’s office and casually shutting the door.

‘You and Sean Asgill, in Hawaii.’

Tess frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, trying to bluff it out. ‘The man’s an ape. An under–evolved, cocksure, brain–dead primate.’

Patty clapped her hands together gleefully. ‘You dark horse. You had sex with him!’ Patty broke down into helpless giggles.

‘As
if!
’ snorted Tess. ‘My opinion of him as a self–centred prick has not changed since before the trip,’ she said. ‘Anyway. Did you want something?’

Patty covered her mouth to stifle her sniggers.

‘What I wanted to discuss before this revelation,’ she said, once she had regained control, ‘is the
great
news about Kevin and Jack.’

‘What news?’ asked Tess eagerly, taking a seat opposite her.

‘I take it you haven’t spoken to Jemma? I know she tried to call you in Hawaii.’

Ah, those must have been the missed calls she had seen on the phone when Meredith called in Hana, thought Tess, suddenly furious that Sean bloody Asgill’s seduction had got in the way of something this important. Tess hadn’t had time to speak to her flatmate yet, having only got back to New York late the night before.

‘Well, Jemma took a trip up to Greenwich and did some digging around,’ said Patty, a pleased look on her face. ‘She followed Jack’s mum, Melissa, to some swanky dinner party and crawled around the back with her long lens. She got some lovely shots of Melissa taking cocaine through the conservatory window. Turns out Mel and Steven the boyfriend have a real taste for the white stuff.’

‘
What?
’ said Tess, with amazement. ‘That’s incredible.’

Patty was nodding. ‘When Jemma couldn’t get hold of you, she called me. I faxed the photographs over to Melissa’s house, then called her up and asked her what Steven’s very conservative bank would think of his coke habit.’

‘What did she say?’ asked Tess, thinking that Patty would have made a very good tabloid journalist.

‘She slammed the phone down,’ smiled Patty. ‘But she obviously called her own lawyer soon afterwards, because, a few hours later, she was back on the phone, and suddenly they are happy with the existing custody arrangement.’

‘So Jack stays with Kevin?’

‘Yes!’ squealed Patty, drumming her hands on the table, her usual cool, composed façade completely gone.

‘Kevin must be overjoyed,’ said Tess.

‘I’ve never seen a man down a bottle of champagne so quickly.’

‘You had champagne?’ She didn’t want her voice to come out all brittle, but it did. Her first rush of happiness was now replaced by a hollow sense of somehow missing out.

‘We just had a little celebratory supper at Ryan’s on Bleeker Street,’ replied Patty.

‘The four of you? Kevin, Jem, and Jack.’

Patty looked embarrassed. ‘Jack was staying at a friend’s and Jemma was working. I think Kevin just wanted someone to celebrate with.’

‘Of course,’ said Tess. ‘I’ll call him right now. It’s brilliant news.’

Her secretary Annie popped her head around the door.

‘Sean Asgill is on the line for you.’

‘I’m busy,’ said Tess, not looking up.

‘He says it’s important.’

Patty had a playful smile on her lips. ‘So take the call … ’

‘I’m busy,’ said Tess firmly. She had no desire to speak to Sean Asgill ever again if she could help it.

‘Well, I’ve got some emails to send,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Thanks so much for everything with Kevin and Jack, Patty. It’s way beyond the call of duty.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Patty, and Tess knew she meant it.

Back in her office, she sank back into her chair and switched on her computer.

There were dozens of emails since she’d last checked her BlackBerry.

Distractedly, she clicked on the most recent. With a lurch, she spotted the address it had come from: [email protected]. She sat up and quickly read it.

It’s not that complicated. Let’s at least talk about it. Call me.

Tess angrily clicked the ‘delete’ button. ‘In your dreams,’ she whispered.

‘What dreams would these be?’ said a voice.

She looked up and saw Meredith standing there.

‘Meredith,’ said Tess, a little flustered, wondering how long she had been there. It was a company joke that Meredith was so thin and dainty she could enter the room like a ghost.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, her eyes searching Tess’s.

‘Of course,’ said Tess, thinking that, when her son was involved, nothing was ever all right.

‘In which case,’ said Meredith smoothly, ‘can we talk?’ She closed the door and moved across to sit elegantly on the chair opposite Tess’s desk. She opened her handbag and pulled out a blue letter.

‘Because I’ve just received another one of these.’

CHAPTER FORTY–EIGHT

The Sundowner Hotel in Charleston was the sort of plantation house that was once exceptionally grand, a proud symbol of the wealth and power generated by cotton in the eighteenth century before the Civil War. Now the Sundowner seemed to live up to its name, having become part of a big mid–market corporate hotel chain, and seemed to have lost a little of its charisma and charm in doing so. But the location of the hotel, in the historic district of the city, more than made up for it, thought Tess. The pastel–coloured town houses, gas–lamp streetlights, and grand clapboard houses with Juliet balconies and shutters – they all had a romance and a certain faux–English grace that was somehow appropriate for a city named after King Charles II.

The air–con hit Tess as she walked into the Sundowner’s grand but slightly peeling lobby and she was glad of the cool. The weather was beginning to turn towards the fall in New York, so the balmy warmth of South Carolina had been most welcome,
but a Southern lady never perspires
, she thought with an inward smile. In these surroundings, Tess could actually imagine herself as a character in
Gone with the Wind
, especially when the concierge with a thick Deep South accent directed her to the Mistral Bar; this was the fictitious home town of Rhett Butler, after all.

Her good mood evaporated as she spotted the man she was meeting. Ted Kressler was in his late fifties, with a grey moustache. He was dressed in dark trousers and an open–necked blue shirt. A crumpled jacket hung over the back of his chair. He didn’t rise when he saw her, simply put down his paper, and nodded.

‘I thought I’d get a table by the window,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll be in town long, but you can see everything worth seeing from this spot right here.’

‘How kind,’ said Tess thinly, taking a seat opposite him and holding his gaze.

‘What do you want, Mr Kressler?’

When Meredith had given her the blue letter three days earlier, Tess had been surprised that the anonymous sender had decided to reveal himself, signing off his simple message with a scrawled telephone number. Tess had wasted no time in arranging a meeting; there were only six weeks to go until the wedding and she wanted nothing and no one to spoil her clean slate and jeopardize her bonus. Ted Kressler had to be dealt with as swiftly and ruthlessly as possible.

‘Can’t we start with a little old–fashioned Southern hospitality?’ He called over a white–coated waiter and ordered two bourbons.

‘I wish I had the time,’ said Tess coolly, shaking her head at the waiter. ‘As I said, what do you want? I feel certain you do want something.’

She pulled out the first letter Ted had sent and put it on the table.

Your family has a secret
, it had said
. Which secret, exactly?
wondered Tess.
They’ve got plenty.

The bourbon arrived on a silver platter and Ted took it, settling back in his chair, a smug expression on his face.

‘How about I tell you a little story?’ he smiled.