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Yasmin eventually broke it.
‘I’m getting used to all this magazine lark,’ she sighed, glancing at Imogen, ‘what with the Hello! shoot and everything.’ It was a crass attempt at bringing the subject round to her recent and vastly extravagant nuptials, which had commanded no less than eight pages in the weekly glossy.
‘Yes, I think I saw that,’ Imogen smiled, sipping her champagne. ‘A castle in Capri, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ Yasmin said, not realising quite how smug she sounded.
The union of one Lord Jeremy Belmont and Miss Yasmin Jones had been dubbed the wedding of the season among the society press. It hadn’t been difficult to see why: thanks to his shady playboy past, royal connections (which he never failed to exploit at any given opportunity), two highly publicised failed marriages and a penchant for courting conjecture, the Eton-educated lord was a society journo’s wet dream. And Yasmin was the ultimate trophy wife.
‘Anyway, I’m thrilled Calvary invited me along today,’ Yasmin said, changing tack and smiling forcibly at Imogen. Much as she hated socialising with all these stuck-up, rich bitches, it was a necessary evil if she was to be Lady Belmont-Jones. Ha! The absurdity of it made her want to laugh out loud. Her! With a title! Yasmin straightened her thoughts. She mustn’t let her guard slip. Not now that she was so close to achieving her ultimate goal.
‘It’s such a beautiful house,’ Yasmin gushed, her eyes wandering around the room. ‘Pierre Yves Rochon, of course,’ she added, with a knowing smile. ‘I brought him in to do a complete redesign when I moved in with my husband.’ Imogen smiled and raised an eyebrow. ‘Had to really, the place looked like something out of Grey Gardens,’ Yasmin cackled.
‘Will you excuse me?’ she said suddenly. She was growing a little bored of the conversation and wanted to scrape a final line from the reserve wrap of coke she had stashed in the secret compartment of her Fendi bag for a quick livener. ‘I need the little girl’s room.’ As she turned to leave she knew what Imogen was thinking: the same as everyone else in the room was thinking. That she was nothing but a gold-digger, a disingenuous nobody who had married that old soak Belmont for his money and title.
And they were half right.
Calvary returned from the kitchen and sidled up to Imogen.
‘So, what do you think?’
‘About what?’ Imogen’s mind had been elsewhere since her earlier unexpected call from Cressida. Just hearing the woman’s voice after all this time had stirred up so many memories for her. Memories of him …
‘About my new friend, Lady Belmont-Jones, silly. Rumour has it she is doing her damnedest to make a dent in Jeremy’s inheritance fund,’ Calvary remarked from the side of her mouth, placing a tray of canapés down onto the vast oak sideboard and taking one for herself.
‘Some might say it serves him right,’ Imogen retorted, her thoughts returning to the present.
‘I’d heard she’d ripped up all the original antique flooring in the house and replaced it with Versace carpet. Can you imagine! Versace!’ Calvary looked appalled.
‘I’m not sure what to make of her,’ Imogen shrugged.
‘Do you think she knows about the scandal? Moreover, do you think she cares?’ Calvary raised an eyebrow.
‘Who knows?’ Imogen sighed. ‘Though it’s hardly a secret. Anyway, perhaps it’s genuine and they really do love each other,’ she remarked, flashing her friend a playful smile.
‘Hmm,’ Calvary mused. ‘So, Miss Jones, what first attracted you to the multi-millionaire property tycoon Lord Belmont, then?’ They both giggled into their champagne flutes conspiratorially.
‘Have you seen him lately?’ Calvary shuddered. ‘Overweight with a comb-over that makes Donald Trump look positively hirsute. You’ve got to hand it to her: she must have the stomach of an ox getting into bed with that every night.’
Imogen pulled a face. ‘You’re putting me off the canapés.’
‘Well, darling, if you ask me,’ Calvary stooped to whisper, ‘there’s more to Lady Belmont than meets the eye …’
‘Ready when you are!’ The make-up artist popped her head around the door and gave Imogen a friendly smile.
‘Much more,’ Calvary surmised, watching as Yasmin’s D&G clad behind swished provocatively from the room.
CHAPTER 3
Standing in front of the well-lit mirror in the ladies’ room at Daphne’s, Cressida Lucas saw the reflection of a woman for whom youth was now a distant memory. Though her recent appointment with the surgeon’s knife had undeniably worked miracles it was safe to say that, physically speaking, her best days were behind her.
How beauty is wasted on the young, she thought, eyeing the two attractive twenty-somethings who were fixing their lip gloss in the mirror and spritzing themselves with Coco Mademoiselle. Before they know it, they’ll wake up to fifty with their tits round their waists wondering what the hell had happened to their lives, she thought bitterly.
Cressida slunk into a cubicle, pulled out a snuff box filled with cocaine from her quilted Chanel handbag and heaped some of the fine white powder onto the tiny silver spoon that was inside. Once she was convinced she was alone, she took a deep sniff, waiting a few seconds to allow the familiar warm rush to hit her bloodstream.
Despite her full and varied life, not having had enough sex in her twenties was one of the things Cressida regretted most. Back then, when she’d been beautiful and smooth-skinned with no cellulite and thread veins to think of, she’d been too bloody preoccupied with proving herself in a man’s world to waste time on sex – far too distracting. Besides, she didn’t need to suck some executive’s dick to claw her way to the top. Now however, Cressida was beginning to wonder just how much more fun it would have been if she had.
Leaning back against the cubicle wall, she let out a small sigh and, impervious to the blatant ‘NO SMOKING’ sign, lit a pink Sobranie cocktail cigarette and inhaled deeply. Hers had been a life of such extremes; incredible highs and soul-destroying lows. She had achieved more in her fifty years on the planet than ten women her age had put together. But lately, Cressida had caught herself wondering what life might’ve been like if she’d never possessed such single-minded ambition and drive; what it would’ve been like to have a family, to be a wife and mother. And these were not the only thoughts keeping her awake at night. With her divorce settlement funds dwindling, the equity on her various properties ploughed into her ailing business, not to mention a wildly extravagant lifestyle to support, Cressida found herself in dire financial straits and once again needed a miracle (or a rich man) to get her out of it.
Spooning a little more powder up her left nostril, she knew she would have to play this one very carefully indeed if she was to get the result she needed. It would require delicacy and tact; there could be no room for error. With her momentary lapse of confidence masked by the cocaine rush, she exited the cubicle, smoothed down her Chanel pencil skirt, and took a deep breath. It was show time.
*
‘Darling …’ Cressida stood up from the table with her arms outstretched. She hugged Imogen tightly, air-kissing both cheeks. ‘Let me look at you,’ she gushed, grasping both her hands and standing back to survey her. ‘You’re just as beautiful as I remember.’
Imogen gave her old friend a warm smile. ‘You look wonderful too, Cress,’ she said, getting a waft of Cressida’s signature scent as she released herself from her grip. She had certainly not lost any of her inimitable presence, even if she had maintained a distinct 80s whiff about her.
‘So, what have you been doing in the last fifteen or so years?’ Imogen said with a friendly dose of irony as she pulled the shabby chic rattan chair from the table and slipped into it.
‘Love the Zagliani, darls,’ Cressida gasped, eyeing the oversized purple python bag Imogen was carrying with approval.
‘Thanks,’ Imogen smiled, giving it a little squeeze. ‘It’s been treated with Botox, can you believe it?’
‘Who hasn’t, darling?’ Cressida threw her head back and let out her familiar throaty laugh.
She took a sip of her San Pellegrino, watching Imogen from over the rim of her glass. She had hardly changed in fifteen years, she thought. Her complexion remained untarnished by age, her hair still thick and lustrous, though much longer than the short, androgynous elfin crop that had made all the fashion editors quiver back in the day. Her lips were still full and fleshy, her smile dazzling and infectious. Of course, she had aged a little in that indefinable way people do, but at thirty-six years old she had maintained an air of youth about her that most women would sell a kidney for.
A waiter approached the table.
‘Give us five, Marcello, there’s a poppet,’ Cressida cooed, watching his tight arse as it wiggled off to the next table. She turned her attentions back to Imogen.
‘So, darling, I want to know everything. Work, life, love … the whole shebang.’ She was disappointed to note that the plain platinum wedding band was still very much on Imogen’s finger. ‘How’s Sebastian?’ she asked tightly.
Sebastian Forbes the man who had killed her protégée’s career stone dead with his controlling demands and ultimatums, forcing Imogen to choose between motherhood and marriage and modelling, cutting short her meteoric rise to stardom and taking her biggest cash cow with him.
If only Imogen and Sebastian had never met, thought Cressida bitterly. She could have been the most successful, fabulous model that had ever lived; forget your Twiggys and your Shrimptons, your Campbells and your Mosses, Imogen Lennard (as she was then) could’ve cleaned up, and moreover, so could she.
‘Seb’s … well, Seb’s still Seb,’ Imogen shrugged almost apologetically. Cressida had never made her dislike for her husband a secret. ‘Bryony is thirteen now,’ she said, deliberately changing the subject. ‘She’s so grown up, Cress, you wouldn’t recognise her.’
Bryony Forbes attended the highly respected Mont-Fleuri Swiss boarding school in Montreux and it had been eight weeks, though it felt like eight months, since Imogen had last seen her daughter, something that caused a lump as hard as granite to form in her throat whenever she thought of it. She hated being apart from her beautiful, sweetly shy Bryony who was so much like she had been at that age; gangly and awkward, yet to grow into her own skin, but Seb had insisted she must receive the best education money could buy, even if that education happened to be hundreds of miles away from her family.
‘If she’s inherited your looks darling, I’ll get her signed on the spot,’ Cressida said in all seriousness.
‘As if Seb would ever allow it! Anyway, she’s far too busy trying to save the planet and the plight of the African elephant at the moment.’
‘Ah, beauty with a conscience, a devastating combination,’ Cressida smiled. ‘Listen, darling,’ she began, feeling the sudden need to get to the point, ‘the reason I’ve asked you here … well, it was for business reasons as well as pleasure.’
Imogen clutched her chest, mock wounded.
‘And there I was thinking you just missed me after all this time.’
Cressida smiled. She was glad to see that being married to such a controlling dullard all these years hadn’t completely robbed Imogen of her sense of humour.
‘It’s L’Orelie,’ she said, suddenly leaning in closer. ‘They’re looking for someone to become the face of their fab new make-up range for the forty-plus market. It’s top secret though, poppet – you know what a competitive business the beauty industry is. It’s an absolutely fucking huge contract. We’re talking national and international campaigns, billboards, TV ads, the whole goddamn enchilada.’
Imogen placed her starchy white napkin over her lap and tried not to look as excited as she suddenly felt.
‘I’m not entirely sure how your name was thrown into the ring,’ Cressida tore up a bread roll and continued, ‘but out of the blue I get a call from Lorraine Harlech, the CEO, asking if I still had contact with you and if you’d be interested in testing for the campaign. Apparently she was flicking through an old copy of Vogue, saw you and wondered what had happened to such a beautiful rising star after all these years. She asked me to track you down and sound you out. That’s about the size of it, really,’ Cressida concluded. ‘Oh, that and you stand to make yourself a very rich woman in your own right, if you agree that is,’ she added poignantly. ‘So, darling,’ she drew breath and looked at Imogen expectantly, ‘tell Mummy what you’re thinking.’
Stunned, Imogen took a swig of water, wishing she had ordered something stronger.
‘Well, I, me … modelling again. I don’t know, Cress. I’m thirty-six now and …’
‘Thirties are the new twenties!’ Cressida interjected, sensing her reticence. ‘Everyone wants the thirty-somethings nowadays. It’s the market with the most cash to spend.’
Imogen shook her head.
‘I’m not even sure I’ve got what it takes anymore.’ She felt her heart pounding loudly inside her chest and hoped that Cressida could not hear it.
‘Nonsense,’ Cressida snapped dismissively. ‘Darling, listen to me. You were the best back in the day, a born natural in front of the camera. You owned it. I know as well as you do that you weren’t ready to leave the modelling world when you did and this is your chance at another shot. Oh, come on, Ims, offers like this hardly come by every day as well you know. What do you say?’ She cocked her head to one side and held her breath.
Imogen looked up from the table.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Cress,’ she eventually said. ‘I’m different now. I’m not that girl you found at the train station. My life’s changed. I’ve changed.’
Cressida felt the first flutters of panic settle on her intestines. She knew that if she could just get Imogen to test she would win the job hands down, just like she always used to, and then all her problems would be solved. She had to get her to agree.
‘If this is about Seb …’
‘No, no,’ Imogen shook her head. ‘It’s not Seb.’
But it was Seb, partly at least. Imogen knew he would unequivocally hate the idea, that he would forbid her to do it and she was not sure she had the strength for another war between them.
‘Then what is it?’ Cressida asked, the softness in her voice masking desperation. ‘This is a golden opportunity, darling, the sort the likes of Cindy Crawford would cut her mole off for.’
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how flattered I am to be asked but I just don’t think I can do it. I’m not a model anymore. Those days are gone, Cress. I’m sorry.’
Cressida placed her glass down carefully. It was not something she had wanted to do but backed into a corner like this, she was left with little choice. It was time to revert to Plan B.
‘It’s OK, darling, I understand.’ Cressida slid her hand across the table and placed it on Imogen’s. ‘I’m disappointed, naturally. After all, you were my first big star. I had hoped you might be my last and that I might go out on a high note.’
‘Go out on a high note? Don’t tell me you’re planning to retire?’
Cressida lowered her eyes dramatically.
‘Something like that.’
Now it was Imogen’s turn to feel a flutter of panic.
‘Listen, darling,’ Cressida said, fixing her with an earnest stare. ‘What I’m about to say, well, I don’t want any fuss or tears, promise me now.’ Imogen’s mouth suddenly felt dry.
‘You’re scaring me,’ Imogen said, taking a sip of her San Pellegrino.
Cressida met her eyes with a doleful expression.
‘Well, it’s my doctor,’ she began, her voice a crackling whisper. ‘Gorgeous thing he is, young Asian chap with lovely teeth,’ she said, twisting her napkin nervously. ‘He says I’ve got the big C …’
Imogen felt her heart miss a beat.
‘The big C?’
‘Yes, darling, you know, cancer. Apparently, I’m riddled with the damn stuff. I’m afraid there’s nothing they can do.’
Imogen gasped. They may have been estranged for some years, but this made the news no less shocking.
‘Please don’t cry, darling, you’ll set me off,’ Cressida said, reaching her hand across the table and welling up herself. It was easy to cry. All she need do was think about the imminent repossession of her Mayfair pied-à-terre.
‘Oh God, cancer.’ Imogen fought back tears. ‘How long have you known?’
‘About two months,’ Cressida said gently. ‘Since then I’ve been trying to live life to the full, darling. You know the usual clichés, travel a bit, see a few sights, achieve some goals before it’s a wrap and I head to the giant Prada store in the sky.’ Cressida let out a bitter laugh.
‘Don’t joke,’ Imogen said, shaking her head. She couldn’t bear it.
Cressida sighed deeply.
‘The fact is, my name’s down on heaven’s guest list and I’m going in. That’s all there is to it.’
Cressida watched as a lone grey tear ran the length of her former protégée’s beautiful face and thought how she would burn on a pyre for this one.
‘How long?’ Imogen asked, her voice cracking like glass.
‘They can’t say exactly,’ Cressida replied, dabbing at Imogen’s tears with her napkin in motherly concern. ‘A few months maybe … who knows?’
Imogen almost knocked her bread plate from the table.
‘Oh no, Cressie, no!’ She began to sob into the white linen napkin. ‘But treatment … there must be something … anything they can do!’
‘Come on now, darling, it’s OK, it’s OK,’ Cressida soothed. ‘Look, I’m so sorry to have sprung it on you like this, but when the call from L’Orelie came I thought, well, this is it, one last chance for us to work our magic together.’ She paused for effect. ‘But I appreciate your life has moved on. They say it’s never a good idea to go backwards anyway, darling. Who needs a reminder of their past when they have a future? If they’re lucky enough to have a future, that is.’ Cressida added, wondering if she was beginning to lay it on a little too thick.
She glanced at Imogen who looked to be in thought from across the table.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘I’ll test for the L’Orelie campaign. You’ve been like a second mother to me in the past and, well, it’s the least I can do.’
Cressida felt her batteries recharging.
‘I prefer sister,’ Cressida bristled good-humouredly. ‘But what about Seb?’ she enquired, careful to mask her sense of relief.
Imogen shrugged. ‘Screw Seb. Seb can deal with it. I owe you, Cress.’
