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Coreen bent forward as Alice twisted her foot to give her a better look. ‘Lucite. It’s a type of perspex. Really fashionable in the fifties—and not just for shoes. I think I might have a pair of gold-coloured Lucite earrings in my treasure trove.’ She indicated the glass-topped wooden display box full of costume jewellery on the other end of the stall. ‘But the things to look out for are the handbags.’
‘Handbags?’ Alice looked shocked. ‘Made out of this stuff?’
Coreen nodded. ‘Cute little boxy things with hinged handles. They come in all shapes and colours and they are really collectible—mainly because a lot of them haven’t survived undamaged. In good condition, they can go for hundreds of pounds.’
‘Wow!’
‘Yes, so keep your eyes peeled.’
Coreen went back to setting up the stall, and Alice looked down at her feet and twisted her ankles this way and that. She wasn’t a girly girl, and she didn’t normally get excited about something as frivolous as shoes, but it was almost a wrench to slip her feet out of the sandals and return them to her hiking socks and trainers.
‘That settles it, then,’ Coreen said, bustling Alice to her feet and snatching the shoes away so she could pack them up in a box. ‘They’re yours.’
Cameron Hunter stood facing the plate glass window that filled one side of his office. From seven hundred feet above sea level, this was one of the most spectacular views in London. It was as if the whole city had prostrated itself at his feet.
Although the day had started crisp and bright, pollution had turned the autumn sky hazy, and now the cityscape below was all pale colours, smudged greys and browns. He stared at the silvery water glinting in the docks below.
He should feel like a king.
Most days he did. Head of his own software company before the age of thirty-five. A company he’d started with nothing but a loan he couldn’t afford and an idea that had woken him up in the middle of the night.
And now look at him. This building in the heart of Canary Wharf—and his office within it—could be seen all over London. Further, even. Now every day in the south London suburb where he’d grown up the boys who’d bullied him, the ones who’d taunted him mercilessly, could see the proof of how spectacularly they’d been wrong about him when they walked down the street.
Even better, when they got to work and switched on their computers, it was probably his innovative software they were running. Not that he’d leased these offices because of that—it had just been a pleasing perk. When Orion Solutions had first moved in here he’d smiled every time he’d glanced out of the window.
But now…Sometimes he felt…
He shook his head. This was nonsense.
The intercom on his desk crackled.
‘Mr Hunter?’
He didn’t move, not even to twist in the direction of the speaker. His eyes were fixed on a blue patch of sky on the horizon.
‘Yes?’ He didn’t speak loudly. He never spoke loudly. Somehow there was something in the timbre of his voice that just carried. He had no doubt that Stephanie heard every syllable.
‘I know you asked not to be disturbed, Mr Hunter, but something urgent has come up.’
Now he turned and stared at the speaker. ‘Come and fill me in.’
He stayed where he was and transferred his gaze to the door. He was not a man accustomed to being kept waiting. Not that he was impatient—far from it—but when you were Cameron Hunter people tended to ask how high it would be convenient for them to jump before he’d even thought of demanding anything of the sort.
There was a timid knock at the door and Stephanie peered round it. He motioned for her to come inside, and she stopped as close to the threshold as she could without actually being outside the room. He’d been having trouble finding a new PA since Aimee had left to have babies and devote herself to full-time mothering. He’d offered to double Aimee’s salary if she’d stay. He needed her organisational skills here at Orion. But she’d turned him down, damn her.
Aimee wouldn’t have crept into the office as if she was scared of him. But Stephanie, just like her three predecessors, jumped every time he spoke. He didn’t mind the fact that his staff respected him—were in awe of him, even. In fact it had been something he’d cultivated when his business had grown beyond a handful of employees. It didn’t bother him that people thought him remote. He wasn’t the kind of boss who chatted about pets and children, and people didn’t expect that of him. They expected him to be in charge, to keep their wages and bonuses coming. His staff knew he was dedicated to them and the company, that he was hard-working and that he rewarded loyalty richly. That should be enough. His personal life was out of bounds. He respected his staff enough not to pry into their business, and they in turn afforded him the same courtesy.
Stephanie clasped her hands together in front of her, looking as if she’d really like to bolt but was attempting to anchor herself. Cameron sighed inwardly.
‘The Japanese party have rung ahead to say they’ve been delayed at the airport. They’ve asked if we could push the meeting back to three o’clock.’
He nodded. ‘Fine. Make the arrangements, would you?’
She gave a hasty nod and sidled round the half-open door.
He walked back to his desk. Before he sat down, he ran his fingertips over the flat, square and now empty jewellery box sitting next to the phone. Until very recently there’d been at least one woman in his life who hadn’t quivered with fear when he’d walked into the room. Far from it.
Jessica Fernly-Jones. High society darling and professional butterfly.
She was the woman every red-blooded male in London was dying to have on his arm. And for a while she’d been his. His triumph, his coup.
She’d made him dance through hoops before she’d consented to date him regularly. Not that he’d cared. It had all been part of the game—part of the sacrifice to win the prize. And there was always a sacrifice if something was worth having. When she’d finally relented and agreed to go out to dinner with him, he’d relished the looks of envy and awe on other men’s faces as he’d walked through the restaurant with her. It had been even better than when he’d dated a supermodel.
But after two months the hoop-jumping and game-playing hadn’t relented, as he’d expected. And he’d started to wonder whether one woman really was worth all the aggravation.
His answer had come the night he’d given her the jewellery box. Lesser women would have squealed and gone all dewy-eyed when they saw the logo of a rather exclusive jewellers on the box. But, give Jessica credit, she’d merely raised an eyebrow and given him a sexy smile. A smile that said she’d knew she’d deserved it, that she was worth every carat the box contained—probably more.
She’d prised open the lid and her eyes had roved the contents of the box.
It had been a diamond pendant. Simple. Elegant. Outrageously expensive.
A small pout had squeezed Jessica’s lips together. ‘It’s lovely, Cameron,’ she’d said. ‘But don’t you remember? It was the pink diamond I wanted—not a boring old white one. You will be a darling about this, won’t you?’
At that moment Cameron had known suddenly and unequivocally that he wouldn’t be a darling about anything for Jessica any more. Still, there had been no need to make a scene. They’d gone out to dinner, and he’d explained it all quite carefully before Jessica had flounced off.
Now he had his own little empire he supposed he would need a woman to stand by his side, someone to share all this bounty with. On the climb up he’d always imagined she’d be someone exactly like Jessica. Now, though…
Instead of sitting down he turned round and walked back to the window.
The view was starting to bore him. Just as well he’d be changing it soon.
‘Alice? Alice Morton?’
Alice’s hand closed around a pound coin in her money belt. She hadn’t heard that voice in years. She looked up to find a stylishly dressed woman with a wavy blonde bob smiling at her.
‘Jennie? I can’t believe it!’
It looked as if Jennie’s trademark stripy legwarmers of a decade ago had finally been declared a fashion no-no, because the woman in front of her oozed sophistication. However, there was no mistaking Jennie’s bright smile and the aura of excitement she carried with her wherever she went. In a flash Alice had scooted round the velvetdraped stall and the two women launched themselves into a rib-crushing hug.
A polite cough from Alice’s left reminded her of what she’d been doing just seconds before Jennie had arrived. She handed the customer she’d been serving her change.
‘I’m so sorry! Here you go.’
The woman shrugged and wandered off, with a genuine ‘Choose Life’ T-shirt in her shopping bag.
Coreen braced her hands on the stall and leaned forward, her eyes practically out on stalks. ‘Who’s this? Long-lost sister?’
‘Almost,’ Jennie said, as she and Alice smiled at each other. ‘I was engaged to Alice’s brother for a couple of years. The fact I didn’t get to be Alice’s sister-in-law was the thing that made me the saddest when we broke up,’ she said.
‘Anyway, what are you doing selling vintage lace and platform shoes? The last I heard your IT consultancy was just getting off the ground.’
‘Oh, I’m still doing that. It helps pay the bills. In fact, that’s how I met Coreen…’ She paused briefly to introduce the two women properly. ‘When Coreen started selling her stock online a few years ago, she decided to upgrade her system. I sorted her out with what she needed.’
‘That doesn’t explain how you’ve ended up selling Wham! T-shirts on a chilly Thursday morning rather than hooking up cables to PCs,’ Jennie said to Alice.
Just at that moment another customer walked up and asked Coreen something in-depth about alligator handbags. As she talked to the woman, Coreen made shooing motions with her hands. Bless Coreen! Alice mouthed her a silent thankyou and guided Jennie away from the stall, so they could walk and talk, browsing the clothing and arts and crafts stalls and catching up on over ten years’ worth of gossip. She filled Jennie in on what the family were doing now, and she seemed genuinely interested in what Alice had been up to since she’d known her as a shy sixth-former. Alice gave her a potted history—there really wasn’t that much to tell—and finished up with how she’d fallen in love with vintage clothes herself after getting friendly with Coreen.
‘We’re saving hard so we can open up our own vintage clothes boutique,’ she said as she finished off.
Jennie smiled at her. ‘That’ll be just fabulous,’ she said, nodding her head, and then she pressed her lips together and looked skywards. ‘Tell you what, when you finally open your shop give me a call—I’ll organise a launch party that will put you firmly on the map.’
‘A party?’
Jennie reached into a soft leather handbag the colour of clotted cream—the stitching on it was fantastic, and screamed quality. She pulled out an elegant business card and handed it to Alice.
‘You’re an event planner?’
Alice couldn’t have thought up a better job for Jennie if she’d tried.
Jennie nodded. ‘Isn’t it a scream? I get paid to have fun!’ She sighed. ‘Actually, sometimes the “planning” bit of event planning is a bit of a drag. That’s why I’m down here at the market this morning—hunting for inspiration.’ She gazed at a stall filled with home-knitted baby cardigans. ‘Did you ever meet my stepbrother?’
Alice blinked. Okay—swift change of subject, but she could keep up. She’d heard a lot about the stepbrother during the years Jennie had gone out with Patrick, but he’d been away at university for much of the time they’d been together.
‘Tall?’ She resisted adding skinny, mainly because she hated being described that way herself. ‘With glasses?’
Jennie laughed. ‘Yes! That was Cam back then. He hasn’t shrunk any, but he’s lost the specs.’
A flood of memories entered Alice’s head and she smiled gently. She’d met Cam—Cameron—just once or twice, the most memorable occasion being at a Christmas do at Jennie’s parents’ house. She’d been living in fear that she’d get picked next for charades, and had sneaked into Jennie’s father’s study to hide. She’d almost jumped out of her skin when she’d found a tall, lanky young man sitting in an armchair with a book. He hadn’t said anything—just raised an eyebrow and nodded at the other chair.
They’d spent a couple of hours like that, reading quietly, chatting occasionally, until Jennie had discovered them and dragged them out again to join the ‘fun’. They’d both pulled a face at the same time. Then he’d smiled at her, and she’d smiled back, and just like that they’d become co-conspirators.
The details of their conversation that evening were fuzzy in her memory, but she hadn’t forgotten his smile—or his eyes. Dark brown, streaked with warm toffee, like the tiger’s eye stones in a bracelet she’d inherited from her grandmother. What a pity those eyes, with all that warmth and intelligence, had been hidden behind a pair of rather thick, ugly glasses.
‘I remember him,’ she said quietly. ‘He was nice.’
More than nice. But he’d been older. And she’d been sixteen, and still a little terrified of boys she wasn’t best buddies with. But that hadn’t stopped her wishing it had been New Year’s Eve instead of Christmas Eve, just in case he’d been in need of an available pair of lips when midnight struck.
‘Well, he’s driving me nuts at the moment, because his company is doing up some old building and he wants—and I quote—a “different” opening bash. Something distinctive, he says.’ Jennie gave a little huff, as if she were offended that anyone would think she would do anything less.
They’d come full circle, and were now standing next to Coreen’s stall again. Jennie reached out and lightly touched the bow on the front of the sixties cocktail dress. ‘This really is exquisite,’ she murmured.
‘Try it on,’ Coreen said brightly. ‘I’ve got a deal going with Annabel, who runs the posh children’s clothes shop over there. She lets me send customers across to use her changing cubicles as long as I give her first dibs on any gold lamé that comes in.’
Jennie bit her lip.
‘Go on—you know you want to,’ Alice said. ‘The dress is lovely, but you need to see if it works for you. Things that look great on the hanger can suddenly look all wrong once you get them on.’
‘And sometimes,’ butted in Coreen, ‘you find something that’s—oh, I don’t know—more than the sum of its parts. Like somehow you and the dress combine through some kind of synergy to create…well, a vision…’
Alice smiled, glad to see that Coreen wasn’t as oblivious to the magic of her stock as she claimed to be. Jennie disappeared with the dress into the ultra-white, minimalist decor of Annabel’s emporium.
‘Just you wait!’ Coreen punched Alice lightly on the arm. ‘One day you’ll put a dress on and it will happen to you. You’ll see!’
Alice imitated one of Coreen’s little snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Like that’s ever going to happen.’
Coreen shook her head. ‘You’ll see…’
There was only one way to deal with Coreen when she got like this: agree, in a roundabout way, and then change the subject quickly. Alice started off gently. ‘You’re right about some dresses looking magical…’
Pretty soon she’d managed to steer the conversation on to the fashion shows the vintage clothessellers staged each year, to advertise their spring and autumn ‘collections’. They were always a huge success, and Coreen had heaps of tales about amateur models, slippery-soled shoes and fragile vintage stitching. It wasn’t long before they were giggling away like a pair of schoolgirls.
All laughter stopped when they realised Jennie had emerged from Annabel’s shop and was staring at herself in the full-length mirror Coreen always placed next to her stall.
‘Wow!’ both Alice and Coreen said in unison.
It was stunning. The pale colour complemented Jennie’s skin tone perfectly, and the skilful tailoring accentuated all her curves. Somehow the dress made her look positively translucent.
An elbow made contact with Alice’s ribs. ‘Told you,’ Coreen said. ‘That’s her dress.’
Okay, perhaps Coreen had a point. But it wasn’t hard to look fabulous if you had a figure like Jennie’s. She was tall and slim, and she swelled and curved in all the right places. Finding a dress that did that for someone who had more angles than curves, and no chest to speak of at all, would be nothing short of a miracle.
Jennie twirled in front of the mirror. ‘I don’t care how much it is,’ she said, striking pose after pose and never once taking her eyes off her reflection. ‘I have to have it.’
Coreen grinned and high-fived Alice as Jennie glided away to get changed. When she arrived back at the stall she had a thoughtful look on her face. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying earlier—about the fashion shows, that is.’ She looked from Alice to Coreen and back again. ‘I’ve got a proposition for the both of you. And, if I am right about this, this idea could put you well on the way to owning that shop you’re after.’
CHAPTER TWO
ALICE sat on the edge of her bed and gazed at the one good photo she had of her and Paul together. One word echoed round her head.
Why?
Why hadn’t she been good enough for him? Why had he gone back to Felicity when by all accounts the old trout had made his life a misery by being the ultimate high-maintenance girlfriend?
‘Alice,’ he’d said, ‘you’re such a relief after her.’
Relief.
At the time she’d been too caught up in the first flush of a new relationship to be anything but flattered. Now his words just stung.
Her nose was running badly enough for her to give in and sniff. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry any more. She was made of sterner stuff than that.
A phone started to ring. Probably the one in the hall. It rang on.
Alice blew her nose.
It still rang.
‘Al-lice!’ It was one of her housemates. She shared a house with the two biggest geeks on the planet. The untidiest geeks too. Roy and Matthew were no doubt on their brand new games console, occupied with slaying aliens and zombies and saving the universe. There was no way they would shift themselves unless their thumbs had locked up and they’d gone cross-eyed. She swiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, then ran down the stairs into the hall and grabbed at the phone before this very persistent person hung up.
