‘And then I dropped a full bottle of Cristal on his balls.’
‘Oh!’
‘It wasn’t funny, Jules,’ she protested, when her friend started to laugh. ‘I love Lucy to bits and most of the time I’m grateful to her for including me in her plans—like when she decided to set up this business. But when it comes to events like last night’s…’
‘It was one of Nick’s, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Carly agreed tersely.
‘And the weekend—did you manage to get time to see…them?’
Carly frowned. The three of them were so close that there were no secrets between them, but even so the habit of loyalty was ingrained deeply within her.
Jules—or the Honourable Julia Fellowes, to give her her correct title—touched her gently on the arm, and Carly shook away her own reticence.
‘It was dreadful,’ she told her simply. ‘Even now I don’t think they’ve really taken it in. I felt so so sorry for them. They’ve lost so much—the estate and everything that went with it—and the prestige living there gave them was very important to them. And now this.’
‘Well, at least thanks to you they’ve got a roof over their heads.’
‘The Dower House.’ Carly pulled a face. ‘They hate living there.’
‘What? When I think of how you’ve beggared yourself to get a mortgage and buy it from the estate for them—oh, honestly, Carly.’
‘I might not be able to afford a designer lifestyle, but I’ve hardly beggared myself. Thanks to you I’m living rent-free in one of the poshest parts of London. I’ve got a job I love, all the travel I could possibly want…’
She had balked initially at Jules’s generous offer that the three of them should share her flat—the three of them being Jules, Carly, and Jules’s notorious ‘I’m having a bad day and I need to shop’ habit. Other people ate chocolate, or rowed with their mother; Jules bought shoes.
But who was she to mock other people’s security blanket habits? Ever since she could remember she had saved: pennies, and then her allowance…comfort money. Not that it was bringing her much comfort now. Thanks to the needs of her adopted parents, her bank account was permanently empty.
‘…and a weight round your neck that no one should have,’ she heard Jules telling her protectively.
Ignoring her comment, Carly said, ‘I wish I could have stayed for a bit longer. I felt guilty leaving them.’
‘You felt guilty? That’s crazy. Carly, you don’t owe them anything. When I think of what they did to you!’
‘You mean like giving me a first-class education?’ Carly offered her quietly.
It was at times like this that she recognised the huge gap that existed between herself and the other two. Despite their shared education, they had been born worlds apart.
‘You’ve had to pay for it,’ Julia told her protectively.
Carly made no response. After all it was true—but not in the way that Julia had meant. The payment she found unbearable was the knowledge that she was destined always to be an outsider, someone who did not quite fit in—anywhere.
Julia gave her another hug.
Pretty, brunette Julia, and gentle, tender-hearted blonde Lucy—Carly had envied them both, just as she had envied all the other girls at school: girls who knew beyond any kind of doubt that they were taking their rightful place in their own world. Unlike her. She had known she had no right to be there in that alien, wealthy environment. Everything about her had screamed out that she did not and could not fit in. She had felt so out of place—a fraud, a pauper, a charity case, someone whose life had been bought! And, of course, very quickly everyone had known just why she had come to be there.
‘Sometimes I wonder what on earth I’m doing in this business.’ Lucy exhaled as she came to join them.
‘Only sometimes?’ Carly teased her.
Lucy grinned.
‘We’ve got a major client scenario about to take place. Nick is on his way over with him right now.’
Carly looked away discreetly as she saw a small shadow touch Julia’s eyes. It had been Julia who had introduced Nick to Lucy, and sometimes Carly wondered if Nick, with his flashy pseudo-charm which she found so unappealing, hadn’t perhaps made Julia as vulnerable to him as Lucy had been. Was she being overly cynical in worrying that Nick had married Lucy more for her trust fund and her family’s social position and wealth than because he had genuinely fallen in love with her? For Lucy’s sake she hoped it was the latter, but it had all happened so quickly—too quickly, Carly felt. And now here was Nick, a man she didn’t like or trust, taking a very prominent role in the business.
‘How major?’ Carly asked.
‘Jules, call over one of the girls, will you?’ Lucy begged. ‘I’m dying for an espresso! Absolutely huge. Apparently he knows Marcus—and you can imagine how I feel about that!’
Marcus Canning was Lucy’s bête noir: a family friend who was also one of her trustees and who, against Lucy’s wishes, had insisted on being kept fully informed of every aspect of the business before he would agree to Lucy investing her trust fund money in it. Personally, Carly thought that Marcus Canning, with his well-known reputation for astute financial dealings, was a good person for them to have on board, and she had felt both proud and pleased when he had praised her at their last financial meeting for the way she was running the administrative and financial side of the business.
‘And, of course, if he does commission us then we’re going to make a bomb!’ she heard Lucy announcing enthusiastically.
‘Who is he, and what does he want?’ Julia chimed in.
‘He’s Ricardo Salvatore. He’s mega-wealthy, and his story is real rags to riches stuff. There was an article in one of the Sunday supplements about him a couple of months ago. He grew up in Naples and he was orphaned very young. But he ran away from the orphanage when he was ten years old and ran wild with a group of children who existed by stealing and begging, generally blagging a living. He’s a billionaire now, and he owns—amongst other things—three top-of-the-market exclusive luxury cruise liners. What he wants is for us to organise private parties and that kind of thing for people on these cruises at several villa venues throughout the world. He also owns the villas—and in one case the island it’s on.
‘He rang earlier, at a very bad moment. In fact, while we were still in bed at home.’ She pulled a face and then giggled. ‘Poor Nick was…well…Anyway, Nick’s just phoned to warn me that they’re on their way over here. Ricardo’s told him that before he makes a decision he wants to observe a variety of our already planned events, as a sort of unofficial extra guest.’
‘What? You’re going to let him gatecrash other people’s parties?’ Carly demanded, shocked. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘I can’t imagine many of our clients would refuse to have a billionaire as an extra guest!’ Lucy told her defensively. ‘Anyway, Nick has already told him it’s okay, and the thing is, Carly, it makes sense if you are the one to accompany him.’
‘Me?’
‘One of us has to go with him,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘And besides…’ She bit her lip. ‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’d have more in common with him than either of us, and he’ll feel more comfortable with you…’
It took Carly several seconds to catch on, and when she did she her face burned.
‘I see.’ She knew her voice was tense and edgy but she couldn’t help herself. ‘So what you’re saying is that he’s a self-made man, not out of the