felt so jumpy at the moment, so nervous. It couldn’t just be the prospect of Brooke and David’s engagement party tonight; after all, it was only a night out, wasn’t it? At least she had the dress, the killer dress, she smiled, glancing back at the long pale-violet gown hanging by the door. The moment the Belcourt party had been announced, Paula had dispatched her personal shoppers at Bendel’s and Bergdorf Goodman to find something wonderful, something elegant, something absolutely nobody else was going to be wearing. It was Cheryl, a friend from her modelling days who had reinvented herself as a celebrity stylist, who had finally come up trumps with a McQueen sample that had not gone into production. Cheryl had warned her that violet was a difficult shade to wear, making brunettes look too sallow and blondes too garish. But against the alabaster paleness of Paula’s skin and the rich red of her long, straight hair, it looked magnificent. A small size eight, Paula was slim enough to squeeze into the sample size, although the cut made no concessions for bumps of any kind. Paula had therefore spent the past week on a rigorous diet and had let nothing but the tea past her lips in the last twenty-four hours.
Looking good meant hard work, thought Paula, but converting those looks into success was even harder. She had learnt that hard lesson from her mother, Helena. A sunny blonde with perfect features, Paula’s mother had once been an incredible Southern beauty, but she had sold herself short by falling head over heels in love with Samuel, a trucker and dedicated alcoholic who had been killed drink-driving on a long-distance job when Paula was nine. With a grieving heart and a young daughter to support, Helena had taken on three jobs, in a launderette, the general store, and the local bar to pay the bills. She had been trying to break up a brawl at the bar one night when an enraged hooker had smashed her glass into Helena’s face. With an ugly six-inch scar across her cheek, all work except the launderette shift had quickly dried up. It had broken Helena. She worked hard, and where had it got her? When the MS had kicked in, it had ravaged Helena’s body quickly; she simply seemed unwilling to fight it. By the time Paula was nineteen, her mother was dead, but she hadn’t missed the point of the life lesson.
Paula worked damn hard to make her own beauty count. When she moved to New York to model, she was not the most beautiful or even the most interesting girl on the circuit; otherworldly-looking girls like Karen Elson and Erin O’Connor were making their mark. But Paula was not disheartened, even when a booker at Ford had told Paula that Julianne Moore had cornered the market in pale, interesting redheads. Paula simply put in twice as much effort. She never arrived late for a job, never had sex with a photographer or a client, never took drugs or drank too much. Instead of partying, she perfected a regal bearing that made her stand out in a city awash with young exotic beauties. Even so, Paula was never quite flavour of the month, but shoots for St John and Escada kept her in work until she met William when she was twenty-three. That was when all the hard work had paid off.
Just then, husband William walked in and dropped his overnight bag on the floor with a grunt. A tall, athletic-looking man with a full head of sandy hair and an open face, he looked tired and slightly world-weary; inevitable, thought Paula, considering his job as CEO of Asgill Cosmetics. It seemed a thankless task.
William moved behind her and nuzzled his lips into her neck. She giggled, genuinely pleased to have him there, holding her. It was getting dark and it felt a little isolating to be on her own on the estate.
‘What kept you?’ she asked, turning to kiss him.
William sighed. ‘I would have been here an hour ago, but I was waiting for Liz. Then she decided she was going to make her own way here.’
‘Typical Liz,’ snorted Paula; her sister-in-law’s selfishness was one of those things that made William’s job that much more difficult than it had to be.
‘Well, David’s mother called two hours ago wanting to know if we want to take a couple of horses out,’ she continued, gesturing towards the window. ‘Apparently from the ridge over there you can see the whole Manhattan skyline. Do you think it’s too late?’
‘We can go tomorrow morning,’ smiled William in his easygoing, almost placid way. ‘Besides, I think it would be wise to check with security. There were already extra guards on the gates when I came through, and I’ve heard a couple of choppers already. I’m not sure whether it’s paparazzi or party guests arriving.’
Paula sat down in front of an antique dressing table and began to pad the underside of her eyes with foundation. She had always been skilled with cosmetics; she could do it better than any makeup artist.
‘Great place, isn’t it?’ said William appreciatively as he looked around the cottage. ‘We should do this more often: get away for the night without the twins.’
Paula shook her head. ‘I hate leaving them,’ she sighed.
‘Honey, it’s just for the night.’
She gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
‘I think it would do wonders for the twins if we had a place in the country. Somewhere with stables where they could keep their own ponies,’ she said finally.
‘We’ve got our own place,’ said William, referring to Parklands, the Asgills’ country place in Bedford, New York.
‘Oh, that doesn’t count,’ she pouted. ‘Parklands is your mother’s.’
William stood behind her, gently running his fingers though her hair. Irritated at the way he had ducked the issue of the country retreat once again, she pulled away.
‘Please, honey. It was blow-dried this morning.’
William held up his hands. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I like my wife’s hair. Sue me.’
She pulled her stool forwards. ‘Can you just pass me my bristle brush? It’s in the cream suitcase. No, not the paddle brush. The round one.’
As she watched him in reflection, she felt a little pang of affection. For all his faults – I mean, how many CEOs with a multimillion-dollar shareholding would think twice about buying a weekend retreat? – William Asgill was loving, loyal, and decent, all of which were rare attributes this high up in society and, for Paula, they were the glue that held their marriage together. It was, however, an unfashionable point of view among Paula’s circle of friends, most of whom had one eye on their current marriage and another eye on someone else’s more successful husband. Five years ago, such trading up had been rampant. In fact, it had been one such adventuress named Lynette who had married and divorced William when he was in his early twenties. His first wife now lived in Scotland, the consort of a handsome fifty-something duke.
However, the world had changed rapidly since then. With the implosion of the hedge funds, there was a comparative paucity of genuinely wealthy men in New York, whereas each passing day seemed to unleash more and more beautiful girls into fashionable Manhattan; the competition had become cut-throat. These gold-diggers were no longer just the usual Park Avenue Princesses, but models, celebrities, and ambitious suburbanites seeking their fortune in the Big Apple. This was all very bad news for Paula’s friends, meaning slim pickings on the next rung of the ladder and danger from below. After all, any self-respecting thirty- or forty-something Wall Street player would be looking to upgrade too, and those buxom, smooth-skinned, pre-child bitches would look mighty appealing.
For herself, Paula had always been pragmatic about her love life; if relationships were a game of poker, she was not going to cash in her chips now when there was a strong chance of losing everything. So William and Paula’s sex life limped along, getting the odd boost when her diets allowed her to feel good enough about herself to put on the Dior lingerie, and their relationship chugged along in what could be best described as remote companionship. However,
