Gold Diggers (30 page)

He saw her crestfallen look and backtracked hastily. ‘Sorry Erin, uncalled for. I’ve just been in a bad mood all week after the London Gallery fiasco.’

‘Well, that’s why I’m here,’ said Erin, her voice wavering. She had his full attention now.

‘Go on,’ he said.

She put a copy of the magazine in front of him, the page of the story folded back.

‘Fucking hell,’ he said softly after he’d read it. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s happened, does it?’ He looked up and gave Erin a cold stare. ‘What did you tell him?’

Any trace of a smile had gone from his face and the tone of his voice made Erin shiver. It would have been safer to have kept quiet.

‘Honestly Adam, absolutely nothing,’ she said, ‘I promise. I swear on my life, I haven’t told him anything about any of the projects the company is involved in.’

‘Well, he’s fucking found out something, hasn’t he?’ said Adam, getting up from behind his desk and walking to the window, rolling the magazine up in his hands.

‘I told him nothing,’ begged Erin. ‘He’s never been in the office unattended. All I can think is that …’ she paused, feeling her cheeks flush. ‘He’s stayed at my flat a few times. Maybe he’s accessed my Blackberry or my laptop.’

Adam turned and threw the magazine across the room, its pages fluttering. ‘Do you have any idea how valuable this contract was to the company?’ he yelled.

Erin nodded, unable to stop a tear sliding down her face.

‘I should fucking fire you.’

That was it. All it took to make Erin crumble. She bent forward, sobs jerking from her mouth like machine-gun fire. She was going to lose everything. Julian, her job, Adam. Even Belvedere Road. Everything.

‘Alright, alright, just stop it okay?’ said Adam, his voice calmer. ‘You, my dear, have been well and truly played.’

‘He’s a bloody shit,’ said Erin, wiping her eyes with the corner of her sleeve.

‘I won’t argue with you there. That “bloody shit” has cost me a fortune in architect fees alone.’

‘That’s only the half of it.’

‘If it’s a broken heart, sugar, you’ll get over it,’ replied Adam curtly.

She took a deep breath and began to tell him about Belvedere Road and her dream of turning it into flats. How Julian had offered to do the drawings and put in the paperwork to secure planning permission. How he was now refusing to contact her and the clock was ticking for her to begin the conversion of the building while every month she was paying mortgage repayments through the nose.

‘You’re developing eight apartments?’ said Adam, beginning to show the hint of a smile.

‘With every penny I own,’ she whispered.

‘Initiative. I like that,’ he mused, the smile growing on his face. ‘That’s the reason why I hired you.’

Erin wondered momentarily if Adam would be so encouraging if he knew she had exploited her position at Midas to buy Belvedere Road and tried to shake away the thought immediately. She was in enough trouble as it was.

‘Will you at least give me a reference?’ she said, biting her lip, trying to salvage something from the rubble. ‘I’ll find it hard to get another job otherwise and I have mortgage
payments of over two thousand pounds a month. If I don’t pay I’ll lose the building. Lose my deposit. It was an inheritance from my dad.’ At the thought of her family, Erin felt a little flutter of pride and resilience. She wouldn’t let that bastard Julian Sewell ruin everything.

Adam was rubbing his mouth with his hand. Finally he puffed his cheeks and sighed. ‘I’m not going to give you a reference,’ he said slowly as Erin’s heart plummeted. ‘Because I want you to stay working for me.’

She stared at him, genuinely stunned. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Let’s go talk to a few people in the residential department and see if we can find you an architect who can whip you up some drawings. I’m sure we must know somebody in the planning department too who can give us some advice. Where did you say it was?’

Suddenly, the departure of Julian Sewell from her life didn’t seem quite so terrible. She looked at Adam Gold and laughed at his sudden enthusiasm for her project.

‘Thanks Adam,’ she sniffed.

‘Okay. Enough of the pity already. Now, have you thought about how you’re going to market the property …?’

Erin was carried along by Adam’s energy as he swept her out of the office, a wide grin on her face. She felt grateful, flabbergasted and more happy than she could have hoped only minutes ago. Turning to take a quick peep at Adam, she felt a warm, fuzzy feeling rear up in her tummy that she didn’t want to go away.

Having spent three hours in a bar in Old Street, Julian Sewell was too drunk to notice he was being followed home. Even if he had been sober on the walk back to his flat in Hoxton, he would not have heard the purr of the prestige vehicle
following two hundred feet behind him. Julian’s mind was too full of other things. He was still celebrating his new position at Dreamscape Construction. He had the world at his feet and the phone numbers of two pretty girls in his pockets. He had no intention of calling either of them, even though he had accepted the offer of oral sex in the toilet. He had no intention of bringing her home. He didn’t like women coming back to his flat. It was too intrusive, personal. He had allowed it once with Erin, but that was necessary. Ah, Erin. She had been a pretty good shag, he thought with a smirk. No, that little project hadn’t been at all unpleasant. Almost a shame when she had to go.

The quickest journey back to his flat off Hoxton Square was to nip up the dark, deserted backstreets that ran north from Old Street itself. For one of the most fashionable areas of London, he thought, some of these alleyways wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Jack the Ripper movie; you could almost smell the fog. There were a few spots of rain and Julian tutted as the droplets of water stained his tan leather jacket. He was still brushing at the drops when the footsteps caught up with him. Quickly, silently, an arm fastened itself around his neck, while a heavy boot kicked away his knees. Lying on the floor, the boot slammed into his face, again and again and again. The new vice president of Dreamscape Construction drifted out of consciousness, a trickle of blood oozing from his head onto the damp street. Quietly a Midas Corporation vehicle drove down the side street, turned into traffic and disappeared.

Karin loved her trips to Florence to visit the swimwear factories, especially in summer. Back in the office, she liked to pretend that her monthly trips to Italy were a chore that needed to be suffered but, as she drove through the lush green Italian countryside, how could she complain? Her routine was hardly backbreaking; she would check into her favourite room at the Lungarno Suites with its Tiffany blue walls and sun-dusted window, from which she could see the Duomo and taste the flower-fragranced air. She would then take the forty-five-minute drive out to the two factories, where she could cast over her perfectionist eyes over the manufacturing. After lunch with the factory manager, she would talk to the pattern cutters and the House models would try on her early prototypes, to which Karin would make the minor, crucial adjustments. Back in the city at night, she had a coterie of friends she loved seeing. The Italians had such a love of life, of food and, crucially, of gossip. They always had hilarious anecdotes about the backstabbing world of fashion.

Karin was particularly excited about this visit, as she put her foot down on the autostrada heading out east of the
city, her radio tuned into cheesy Euro-pop. Today, she was due to see samples of the Cruise collection, which were due to be shown at the Miami Swim Show trade fair later that month. Business was booming: after Cameron Diaz had been photographed in a black Karenza bikini on holiday in Hawaii, there had been another surge in orders from Fred Segal, Barneys and Neiman Marcus. But she couldn’t rest on her laurels; she had to keep the brand moving forward.

Karin pulled into the car park of an anonymous-looking building in a small town in the Florentine countryside. It was usually packed full of Fiats, but today there was an eerie quiet about the place.

She walked to the main entrance and it appeared locked.

What the hell is going on?
she thought, pulling out her mobile phone.

A small, thin-faced man in a pair of navy coveralls emerged from a side door.

‘Where is everyone?’ she asked in perfect Italian.

‘Where eez everyone?’ the man repeated back to her in English and threw his hands in the air. ‘At home,
mia cara
, today it is, a, a … how you say stop work?’ he asked.

‘A strike!’ She grimaced. She knew the Italians liked nothing better than a good strike, especially in summer or when there was an important football match on, but in five years of visiting Florence she had never been caught up in one.

‘Where is Giovanni?’ she asked.

‘He not contact you?’ asked the man. ‘The strike is today and tomorrow. We see you Monday, perhaps?’

There was no point in arguing or demanding to see Giovanni, who’d probably headed to his villa on the coast. She got back in the car, but felt anxious, drumming her fingers on the wheel. Much as she loved the laid-back Italian attitude, she just couldn’t adjust. Karin always wanted to be
doing something. She ran through her schedule. She wasn’t due in Capri until Saturday morning, so she could get an afternoon flight back to London but, what the hell, seeing as she was in Italy, she might as well enjoy its sunshine and its splendour. She knew that Adam’s yacht was sailing down from Portofino where her boyfriend was buttering up some Italian investors on a corporate jolly. She could easily drive down to one of the ports along the way and join him. Or she could fly down to Naples and check into the Capri Palace Hotel for a couple of days; their famous leg treatments at the hotel spa were legendary all over Europe for keeping cellulite at bay. She picked up her phone.

‘Adam. It’s me.’

‘Hi, honey. How’s Florence? Another fabulous collection on your hands?’

‘I’d only know that if I could see it,’ she sighed. ‘There’s only a bloody strike. The factory is closed until Monday.’

Adam started to laugh. ‘I can see the fumes coming out of your ears from here.’

‘Where are you, anyway?’ asked Karin, wedging the mobile under her chin as she rejoined the traffic on the autostrada.

‘Still in Portofino. Just had some lunch at the Splendido. I can’t wait to see you.’

Karin could almost see his sexy smile beaming down the receiver. ‘Well, that’s why I’m ringing,’ said Karin. ‘It seems a waste to fly back to London when you’re here in Italy.’

‘What are you suggesting, Kay?’ She wasn’t sure but he suddenly sounded distracted.

‘That I join you on
The Pledge
.’

There was a pause and Karin felt a stab of annoyance.

‘Honey, this is business. It’s a bunch of dull investors, we’ll be talking shop. You’ll hate it.’

‘Don’t talk to me like some bloody bimbo,’ she sighed,
veering suddenly away from the hard shoulder. ‘The boat’s big enough that I can keep out of your way.’

‘Kay. I’m not joking. Stay in Florence, go shopping, charge it to me. And I’ll see you on Saturday as planned.’

‘Fine.’ She tossed the phone on the passenger seat and pressed her foot to the floor of the car so it shot off like a rocket back towards Florence. There was something about his tone which worried her. ‘Charge it to me,’ he’d said.
Well if he didn’t want her in on
The Pledge,
it was going to cost him.

Adam snapped the phone shut and turned over to face Summer, who was reclining on the top deck of
The Pledge
in a gold bikini that left very little to the imagination.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked. She knew better than to pry but, hearing his lies on the telephone, she knew he must have been talking to Karin.

‘Fine,’ he replied, reaching over to rub his hand on her flat brown tummy.

Behind her shades, she squeezed her eyes shut to push any thoughts of Karin from her mind. It was Summer and Adam’s first weekend away and she wanted it to be perfect – so far it had been. She had boarded
The Pledge
the night before at Porto Ercole. She and Adam had had supper at Il Pellicano, the de-luxe retreat hanging on the hillside just outside the port, laughing and kissing and enjoying the sunset like any other couple.

The next morning, the captain had sailed to Giglio, a small island off the coast, where he had dropped anchor in a quiet cove and they had dived naked into the cool water.

Now it was lunchtime. There was an ice box full of beer and white wine, cheese, olives, bread and cold langoustines the size of bananas. The walnut deck of
The Pledge
glinted in the sun, the water wrapped around it like jade shantung
silk shot through with silver. The coast rose out of the sea, all granite cliffs, lapping caves and hillsides of scrub. Despite being the height of season, they were almost alone bobbing on the water – there was only the tiny white hull of one other yacht far away on the horizon.

Summer took a sip of Peroni, removed her bikini top and lay back on a towel in just a white thong, her sun-streaked honey-blonde hair that had been dyed back to its natural colour days earlier, fanning out around her head.

‘Mmm … Are you deliberately trying to tempt me away from lunch?’ asked Adam, crawling over on his hands and knees and rolling on top of Summer, taking one nipple between his lips.

‘Adam Gold!’ scolded Summer, widening her legs and then wrapping them around his body. ‘Luigi is just over there,’ she giggled.

‘I pay him firstly to be a good skipper and secondly to be discreet,’ smiled Adam lazily. ‘Besides, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.’

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Adam knew he’d made a blunder. Summer sat up and swung her legs away from him, pulling the towel over her breasts. She felt so stupid;
of course he did this all the time
. She had allowed herself to believe that the trip to Italy was a real step forward for their relationship. It was one thing meeting for afternoon sex in discreet boutique hotels around London; it was another spending two days together on Adam’s yacht. She had taken it as a sign of growing commitment, even daring to hope he might end his relationship with Karin so that the two of them could be together properly. But ‘nothing he hasn’t seen before’? She accepted that Karin would probably have frolicked on the same deck she was sitting on now – but were there others?

The sea was calm, just the gentle flutter of a breeze.

‘Are there others?’ she asked finally. Adam propped himself up on one elbow and fiddled with his sunglasses.

‘Summer, I thought we weren’t going to talk about things like this,’ he said, trying to touch her arm.

‘Is that what we said?’ she snapped, pulling her arm away.

He pulled a face and shrugged.

‘I guess what you’re telling me is that, if I ask you difficult questions, I’m likely to hear things I don’t want to hear?’ said Summer slowly. ‘I’m not stupid.’

‘No, you’re not,’ said Adam quietly.

There was a long pause as Summer stared up at the cliffs, watching the birds wheel round and round above them.

‘So how about you move out of your mother’s flat?’ said Adam.

Summer sat up with a start, her pert, sun-bronzed breasts jiggling.

‘What? What’s brought this on?’

‘Well, you can’t think it’s a good idea still to live downstairs from your mother.’

Summer frowned. ‘Adam, what are you saying?’

He brushed his hand down her thigh. ‘You don’t want to become her, do you?’

Summer drew herself up on her knees so she was towering above him. ‘I’m not sure I like the implication of this,’ she said. ‘Molly may have her faults, but she’s my mother, Adam.’

‘Summer, you’re smart and beautiful and good. You don’t name-drop endlessly. You don’t do drugs. You don’t want to spend my money …’ He smiled wryly. He had taken her shopping the weekend before in Prada. As a VVIP he had half the shop closed off so they could shop in complete privacy. But if the store had been anticipating a big spender like Karin Cavendish who would spend £50,000 on his credit card without even blinking, they were disappointed by Adam
Gold’s new girlfriend. Summer had only been interested in a small leather tote.

‘What are you saying about my mother?’ repeated Summer. But she knew what Adam was saying. Molly was a party girl, a gold-digger, a single-minded bitch when the mood took her. And he was right, she didn’t want to end up like her mother; not far off forty-five, unmarried, flogging gifts on eBay.

‘Honey, I’m not saying anything,’ replied Adam. ‘She’s with Marcus. So she’s my friend.’

‘Exactly. And she likes Marcus very much,’ Summer added, not terribly convincingly. ‘So please, whatever you’re trying to suggest, don’t.’

Adam pulled himself to his feet, facing her. ‘Listen, there’s a company flat we’re having renovated. It’s in one of the best squares in Notting Hill, a fantastic lateral conversation with solid oak floors and …’

Summer felt herself switch off. She enjoyed listening to Adam, learning from him, talking about books and movies and faraway places. But when it came to business she could feel herself cloud over.

‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Adam.

‘Eh? Of what?’ replied Summer.

‘Of living there. It won’t be for six weeks or so. But I think you need some independence and it’d be nice if we could have a little more privacy, wouldn’t it?’ he added, slipping his hand inside her bikini bottoms.

‘Really? You’re kidding?’

Adam shook his head. ‘Now don’t get too excited. I’ll get a proper contract drawn up, naming you as my tenant.’

Summer could feel her pulse race with excitement. She would love to get out from under her mother’s shadow and it would be heaven to have Adam coming around for long Sunday breakfasts, but still … There was a slight taste of
something, well,
very Molly
about what he was saying. For all of Adam’s philanthropic comments – did he really think she needed saving from her mother? – the setup had the distinct whiff of mistress. She didn’t even know if it was possible to be elevated to mistress status when Adam wasn’t even married. But when she looked into his dark brown eyes, all her misgivings melted away and she felt a stir in her groin. When she was with Adam she felt desired, protected. She also felt something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. She felt in love.

‘Are you at least going to think about it?’ asked Adam, putting his hands around her waist.

‘I don’t want to live there for free. I won’t like how that feels.’

Adam nodded. ‘I’ll get a lease drawn up and we can fix a rent. Although I think you can rest assured it’ll be very reasonable.’

He slipped the palms of his hands under the sides of her bikini bottoms and began to peel them down.

‘And to answer your question,’ his words became muffled as his mouth journeyed south. ‘No, there aren’t any others.’