Blackmailing the Society Bride

Mr McVicar watched her sympathetically. He knew perfectly well of the tension and ill feeling that existed between his client and the formidably wealthy banker her late great-uncle had appointed as trustee for the money he had left her.

That money had nearly all gone now—swallowed up by the greed and fraudulent actions of Lucy’s ex-husband and the failure of her once-successful small business.

But in his view there was still no one better placed to help her in her present difficult situation than Marcus, whose business savvy was both awesome and legendary. Mr McVicar himself had urged her not to agree to her bank’s request that she secure Prêt a Party’s finances by pledging her inheritance, but she had refused to listen to him. Morally Lucy was beyond reproach, but unfortunately she had been too gullible for her own good, and she was paying the price for that now.

He returned to the problem at hand. ‘If you could attract a wealthy business partner who would be prepared to put money into the business, then—’

‘Actually, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.’

As soon as the words had left her mouth Lucy wondered what on earth she was doing. Was it Mr McVicar’s reference to Marcus that had prompted her into lying to him and creating a fictional potential backer? Lucy closed her eyes in helpless acknowledgement of her own vulnerability. Somehow just hearing Marcus’s name was enough to goad her into a fury of defensiveness.

Mr McVicar looked both relieved and surprised.

‘Well, that is really excellent news, Lucy. It puts a different complexion on matters entirely,’ he told her enthusiastically, looking so pleased that her guilt increased uncomfortably. ‘The very best outcome one could have hoped for, in fact. But obviously it is something we shall need to discuss. I think we should set up a meeting with your proposed partner and his or her legal advisers just as soon as we can. Oh, and of course we must let your bank know what is in the wind. I am sure that they will be inclined to be far more flexible once they know that fresh capital will be injected into Prêt a Party. I also think it would be a good idea to go public, even perhaps take a half-page announcement in those papers most frequently read by your clients stating once again that your ex-husband now has no access to or involvement with any aspect of Prêt a Party’s business, and that moreover you now have a new partner. That should do a tremendous amount to offset the upsetting effect Nick’s fraudulent behaviour has had on the business.’

Lucy felt as though she were trapped in ever-deepening mud of a particularly sticky and clinging consistency. Why on earth had she let the thought of Marcus’s disapproval propel her into such stupidity? What on earth had she done? How could she admit now to Mr McVicar that she had lied—and why?

‘Er, I can’t tell you who he is at the moment, Mr McVicar,’ Lucy began uncomfortably. ‘It’s all very much a secret. Negotiations are…um…well, you know how it is…’

‘Of course. But I must urge you to remember, Lucy, that time is very much of the essence here.’

Nodding her head, Lucy made her escape as quickly as she could. How could she have lied like that? It went against everything she believed in. Now she felt sickeningly guilty and ashamed of herself, and she had to blink away her self-pitying tears as she stood outside her solicitor’s Mayfair office in the bright autumn sunshine.

What on earth was she going to do? It would take a miracle to save her now. Automatically, she turned the corner and hurried into Bond Street, not bothering to glance into the windows of the expensive shops lining the street. Designer label clothes were not really her thing. She liked vintage clothes, salvaged from street markets and family attics. Their fabrics were so lush, the feel of them against her skin something she treasured and loved: real silk and satin cashmere; sturdy wool; cool cotton and linen. Man-made fibres might be more practical for modern-day city living, but in many ways she was an old-fashioned girl who craved a return to a quieter, more gentle way of life.

The truth was that secretly she would have loved nothing more than to marry and produce a large brood of much-loved children whom she and her husband would raise in an equally large and loved country house. She envied her two best friends their happy marriages and new young families more than they or anyone else knew—after all, she had her pride, just like anyone else. It was that pride that had led her into setting up Prêt a Party in the first place. The very same pride that had just led her into telling that stupid, stupid lie, she reminded herself miserably.

The magazines on a nearby newsstand caught her eye, and she stopped to study them. To the forefront, as always, was A-List Life. Lucy started to smile.

Its eccentric owner and editor Dorland Chesterfield had been such a good friend to her, using Prêt a Party to organise several of the events he had hosted—events attended by the world’s top celebrities. She might even have considered turning to him for help to get her out of the mess Nick had left her in were it not for the fact that she knew if there was anything guaranteed to overwhelm his genuine kind-heartedness it was his love of passing on gossip. The last thing she needed right now was to have the story of her downfall spread over the pages of A-List Life.

Of course both her friends—now ex-partners in Prêt a Party—had extremely wealthy husbands, and both of them had in turn come to see her and gently offered financial help, but Lucy could not accept it. For one thing there was that wretched pride of hers, and for another it was not just money she needed, but someone to work in the business with her. Being given money to clear Prêt a Party’s debts was a kind gesture, but she wanted—needed, in fact—to prove that she was not the silly fool everyone obviously thought her, and that she could make a success of her business.

Yes, marrying Nick had been a mistake, and, yes, she had—as Marcus had unmercifully pointed out to her—rushed into the marriage, but she’d had her own reasons for doing that. Reasons she could never, ever allow Marcus to discover.

She picked up a copy of A-List Life and handed over some coins, giving a reciprocal smile to the newsstand vendor before turning to cross the road. The sunlight glinting on her shoulder-length naturally blonde hair caused the driver of a large, highly polished, diplomat-plated Mercedes to slow down and study her appreciatively.

As she regained the pavement Lucy flipped open the magazine and quickly checked the contents—more out of habit than anything else. It was over three months now since Prêt a Party had managed a large event of any kind, never mind one glitzy enough to merit page-space in Dorland’s magazine, but to her astonishment she suddenly saw Prêt a Party’s name beneath the words: A-List Life’s Favourite Party of All Time.’

Bemused, she turned the pages, her eyes widening as she recognised the photographs covering the entire midsection of the magazine. They were from the huge summer party Prêt a Party had organised for A-List Life the previous year.

Tears stung her eyes. It was so typical of Dorland to do something so generous—and it was generous of him to republish those photographs, even if at the same time it was also a way of blowing his own trumpet.

Although at the time she had refused to admit it to anyone, she had known then that her marriage had been a mistake, and she had known, too, that Nick was being unfaithful. She had known that Nick was cheating on her, yes, but she had not known that he was also defrauding her business and her customers—even if her two best friends Carly and Julia had suspected what was happening.

Out of concern for her they had kept their suspicions to themselves. Not so Marcus. Lucy knew that she would never be able to forget the searing humiliation of having to stand in front of Marcus whilst he listed with cold fury the fraudulent activities Nick had been engaged in whilst in charge of finances in Prêt a Party.

‘Why the hell did you marry him in the first place?’ he had demanded savagely, before adding, ‘No, don’t bother to tell me. I already know the answer. Did it never occur to you that you could have sex with him without marrying him?’

Lucy’s face burned hotly now, just remembering how Marcus had looked at her.

‘Perhaps I wanted more than sex,’ she had countered. She had wanted more, certainly, but she had not received it. But then, neither had she given Nick more. And as for the sex…Her face burned again, but for a different reason.

The Nick who had spoken so urgently and flatteringly of his desire for her before their marriage had very quickly turned into a Nick who derided and taunted her for her lack of sexual expertise and desirability after it. And who could blame him? The effort of maintaining the fantasy of hot, urgent longing for him with which she had thrown herself into their relationship had proved too much for her to sustain once they were married. Nick had taunted her for her sexual inexperience, claiming that she was frigid and she turned him off, and she had been in too much torment, compounded by her guilt and self-loathing, to protest.

‘More than sex? Really? And you actually thought you would get more from someone like him?’ he had demanded sarcastically.

‘It’s all very well for you to stand there and—and cri-ticise me,’ Lucy had told him wildly. ‘But I don’t see that you are exactly having any success with a long-term relationship!’

‘Maybe that’s because I haven’t chosen to commit to one. I can certainly assure you that when I do my commitment to it and my conviction about it will be properly thought out and permanent. My decision won’t be made off the back of imagining myself in love following an alfresco holiday shag.’

Lucy’s hands tightened into impotent fists now, just remembering those contemptuous words, and the manner in which they had been delivered, with Marcus looking at her with that arrogant, obnoxious, Marcus look of his.

She had tried to defend herself, of course. ‘That was not—I was not—’she had begun, but typically Marcus had refused to allow her to continue. ‘Oh, come off it, Lucy,’ he’d said harshly, ‘we all know what happened. After all, the photographs were plastered all over the celebrity gossip rags. You, minus bikini top, draped all over Blayne, saying that you were up for a good time and looking for everything that went with that.’

‘Goodness,’ she had retaliated, in a brittle voice, ‘you’ve actually remembered the caption word for word. Did you have to practise repeating it for very long to do that, Marcus?’

Of course she had regretted the idiotic quote recorded in the magazine. But when you were jet lagged, and you’d packed in such a rush that you’d omitted to pack matching bikini tops and bottoms, and you got caught out and papped by some prowling paparazzi with nothing better to do and no one better to photograph, you naturally did your best to make a joke of your plight—especially when those same paparazzi could sometimes be so important to the success of your business.

Not all celebrities, no matter what they might choose to say in public, genuinely wanted to avoid those camera lenses. Many actively sought out the events and parties where they would be spotted and photographed. Thus, Lucy had felt she could not afford to offend the guy who had snapped her, no matter what her own personal feelings.

If he’d seen her twenty-four hours later, then the photograph he would have taken would have been a very different one. Then, after a decent night’s sleep and with the loan of a bikini from Jules, she would probably have been in control enough to tell him truthfully that she was simply taking a much-needed holiday from the mounting stress of running a successful business.

Unfortunately the photographer had taken it into his head that her life was far more interesting than it actually was, and from then on neither he nor his camera had been very far from her side.

Nick had revelled in the attention. At the time she had taken that as a sign that, unlike the other men she had dated, he would be able to cope with her work and its effect on their personal life. She hadn’t realised that for Nick everything had its price—including photographs of them together, if not actually having sex in a variety of exotic locations then as close to it as was possible, given that she was wearing bikini bottoms and he was wearing swimming shorts.

She had had no idea that she was being set up with a view to them being taken until it was too late and they had been published. And by then she and Nick were married—

Naturally in public she’d had to shrug off her real feelings and pretend that she welcomed her new image as a randy, anything-goes, up-for-it and eager for sex party girl, only too delighted to let the whole world see how much she wanted her new husband. Even if by then that same new husband had been privately calling her frigid and useless in bed, and spending more nights out of their marriage bed than he was spending in it with her.

She looked at her watch a little bit anxiously. She had spent rather longer with her solicitor than she had expected, and she was due to put in an appearance at her great-aunt Alice’s ninetieth birthday party this afternoon.

Great-Aunt Alice lived in Knightsbridge, in a huge old-fashioned apartment that was always freezing cold because, despite her wealth, she refused to have the central heating on.

No one in the family ever wanted to visit her in winter, and even in summer the wise visited equipped with extra layers in the form of cardigans, pashminas and the like, to ward off the icy blasts which Great-Aunt Alice insisted were necessary for good health and were the reason she was still hale and hearty at ninety.

‘Balls,’ Lucy’s younger cousin Johnny had always claimed. ‘The reason she’s still alive is because she’s too bloody mean to die. God knows, I could do with my share of her millions.’

‘What makes you think you’ll get a share?’ Lucy’s brother Piers had asked wryly.

‘I’m bound to,’ Johnny had replied smugly. ‘I’m her favourite.’

‘Yah? Well, you certainly work hard enough at it,’ Piers had mocked him.

Nineteen-year-old Johnny, with his slightly louche lifestyle, permanent lack of money and winning ways, had a reputation within the family of being someone who was constantly wheeling and dealing. Lucy suspected that Marcus probably disapproved of Johnny almost as much as he did her.

Marcus! But she didn’t disapprove of him, did she? And that was the cause of, if not all, then surely most of the problems in her life. It had, after all, been to escape from loving Marcus and the knowledge that that love would never be returned that she had thrown herself into Nick’s arms. And it was because she still loved Marcus now, despite all her attempts to stop doing so, that she treated him with hostility and resentment. That was her shield, her only protection against the potential humiliation of Marcus—or anyone else—ever discovering how she felt about him.