Guilty Pleasures (17 page)

‘Thanks for the CDs by the way,’ said Emma. ‘It’s going to be an education.’

‘Well, no slacking off and listening to Chopin or something, because I’m going to test you next time I see you.’

She paused, wondering if she was about to do the right thing, nervous at the spontaneity of her decision to call him.

‘I’ve been thinking about our conversation about Winterfold.’

‘I was hoping you would.’

‘Is that why you sent me the CDs? Is it a bribe?’

‘No, I sent them because I wanted you to have them.’

She took a sip of coffee, stalling for time before she continued.

‘Thing is, I’m thinking of moving out. Before I instruct an estate agent to look for a tenant I wanted to know if you were still interested.’

‘So it
is
too big for you,’ he laughed.

‘The rental will be valuable income for the company,’ she said seriously.

‘So you don’t want to sell it?’

‘No,’ replied Emma quickly. As Winterfold was a company asset and she was the controlling shareholder, she could order its disposal if she wanted to. But it was too raw a move, especially bearing Virginia’s warning in mind. Winterfold was the heart of the family
and it had too much of Saul in it. Emma could never bring herself to sell it. Not yet anyway.

‘How much do you want for a twelve-month lease?’

Emma took a deep breath and named a six-figure sum. Not enough to save the business but enough to give everyone in the company a very tiny pay rise.

He laughed. ‘Emma! That’s daylight robbery.’

‘Rob, you know as well as I do that bog-standard houses in good parts of London rent for far more than that. Winterfold is a special place; beautiful, full of character and close to London. I can name five wealthy Russians who would offer me double the price I’ve just mentioned.’

‘Well, why don’t you ask them?’ replied Rob with mock-petulance.

Emma giggled.

‘Because they haven’t given me a hundred CDs to listen to before I die.’

There was a pause as Rob seemed to think about it.

‘OK, how about I come over on Saturday to have a look around? Maybe we could go for a run afterwards.’

‘I run alone. Just come round to the house. Ten-thirty. I’ll see you then.’

She hung up smiling.

Giles Banks loved fashion. He loved it with a passion stronger than anything he had ever known. Clothes were his obsession and for the last two decades, they had been his life. Giles spoke five languages, had a first-class degree from Cambridge and had won a number of prestigious awards for his journalism; he really didn’t need to spend his days debating ballet flats versus kitten heels. But Giles knew he had been blessed; unlike many people, he got to spend ever hour, every second of his day doing something he loved. Giles was also aware that his fervour was surprisingly rare in the industry. Fashion was populated by poor little rich girls and poisonous queens; the currency of the catwalk was gossip, the more toxic the better. To them, the clothes were just something else to laugh at. However much they air-kissed and declared things to be ‘fabulous’, more than anything, the fashion community loved to bitch. And Giles knew that they bitched about him. They called him the ‘Cashmere Walker’ because of his fondness for soft pastel jumpers and his constant presence by Cassandra Grand’s side. Giles didn’t mind; there were worse things to be called and worse people to spend time with. He adored Cassandra and loved working with her almost as much as he loved fashion. It was an unrequited love, of course, as Cassandra’s drive and ambition meant that everyone and everything was dispensable.

Today Giles was escorting Cassandra to an appointment at Dior’s office above their Sloane Street store. Although Cassandra respected Giles’s fashion eye implicitly, she really didn’t need him there. In fact, she didn’t really need to see the Dior Autumn/Winter collection at all. She had already seen the catwalk show in Paris, followed
by a private viewing at their headquarters on Avenue Montaigne, but Dior were one of
Rive’s
most important advertisers and etiquette dictated they see it again in London. Giles, however, never tired of visits to the fashion house: seeing the collection lined up on hangers and on mannequins, running his fingers over the exquisite fabrics, inspecting the workmanship, marvelling at the detail. Cassandra, meanwhile, spent their allotted thirty minutes being rather more aloof, regally accepting a little Nobu sushi from a very handsome waiter while politely viewing the collection and making assurances to prominently feature Dior’s bag of the season in the September issue.

‘I have a proposition for you, darling,’ said Cassandra, holding onto Giles’s arm as they descended the stairway onto the street. Outside, the sky was bright blue showing the first signs of spring, but it was still cold.

‘What proposition? Where’s the car?’ asked Giles distractedly.

‘I told Andrew to come back in thirty minutes,’ said Cassandra, steering Giles down the road. ‘Let’s get a drink at the Mandarin Oriental, there’s something I want to discuss with you.’

Giles felt a flicker of anxiety as they walked into the hotel. Cassandra ordered a coffee and an Earl Grey in the Mandarin bar and they took a seat.

‘So, what is it?’ asked Giles.

‘Don’t be so jumpy,’ she smiled, ‘It’s nothing bad. In fact I think you’ll find it rather good.’

Giles was instantly suspicious. Whenever Cassandra phrased anything like this, it was invariably good for Cassandra but not necessarily good for anybody else.

‘As you know I’ve been commissioned by the publishers Leighton Best to write
Cassandra Grand: On Style,
but they’ve just sprung the most ridiculously short deadline on me. There’s just no way I can do it justice as well as editing one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Giles, taking a sip of his tea.

She gave him one of her rare broad smiles, usually reserved for celebrities or chief executives.

‘I thought maybe I could get someone I trust to help me.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you,’ she said touching him lightly on the hand. ‘You are
the only person who can do this Giles. You’re the only person who knows how I think and the only person with the knowledge and style to make it work.’

‘Cassandra, your greatest talent is making a chore sound like the chance of a lifetime,’ said Giles playfully.

‘Chore? I thought you always wanted to write a book,’ she said. ‘What was it again?’

‘The History of Dior.
’

Cassandra pushed a manicured fingertip across the surface of the table.

‘Strictly speaking Giles,
Rive
owns the copyright to everything you do, which
could
make writing books a little complicated. But once we get
On Style
out of the way, I’m sure we can look at your contract and iron that out. Plus, I can introduce you to the people at Leighton Best and get the Dior thing moving.’

Her implication was clear. If he didn’t write
Cassandra Grand: On Style,
he could forget writing his own book while he was still on the staff.

Giles thought for a moment.

‘Will I get a credit?’

‘Somewhere in the book, yes,’ she said, waving a hand vaguely. ‘But you have to understand that
On Style
is being sold on my persona in the industry.’

She reached into her Bottega Veneta tote and pulled out an envelope which she put on the table.

‘Of course I will pay you a fee,’ she said tapping the envelope. ‘And you can take the rest of the week off to make a start.’

Giles looked at the envelope wondering how much was inside. Whatever it was, it was probably a drop in the ocean compared to the advance Cassandra had received. Still, she had him over a barrel, and a drop in the ocean was better than nothing. He looked at the envelope without saying anything and finally picked it up.

‘Good,’ smiled Cassandra. ‘I knew you’d see what a wonderful opportunity it is for you. Now I’ve just made a few notes; Leighton Best keep phoning me demanding to see some copy so it would be great if we could get something to them pretty quickly …’

She reached into her bag again, pulled out a Dictaphone and a sheaf of papers and handed them to him.

‘I’ve dictated some notes and done a chapter outline.’

She glanced at her watch and stood up without having touched
her coffee. ‘I think Andrew will be outside. Come on, let’s go,’ she said, the discussion over.

Giles stood slowly and followed behind her, feeling rather as if he’d been ambushed. He watched Cassandra stride towards the street, thinking how unsettling it was having a friendship that was underpinned by fear.

Across town, Emma and Stella were sitting in the reception area of Sheldon Saks, a small American lending bank with their UK headquarters on Threadneedle Street in the heart of the City. Emma idly picked up a copy of the
Economist
and leafed through it, trying to compose herself. Sheldon Saks were, quite frankly, her last chance and she was desperate not to show it. It had been a demoralizing week for Emma; bank after bank had refused her application for corporate finance. Of course, she could still go to the investment banks; through her time with Price Donahue she had good contacts there, but that was a road she really didn’t want to go down. Investment banks meant giving away a slice of your business and once they’d got hold of that, it was usually the beginning of the end; either you did a good job and they forced you to sell for a profit or you did a bad job and they fired you and took all of your assets. Emma hadn’t come this far to give up on the dream just yet.

‘This really isn’t what I had in mind for my second day of work,’ said Stella, fiddling with the cuffs of her one smart black dress. ‘I have to say I feel a bit more comfortable behind my drawing board.’

Emma looked at Stella with sympathy. She wished she didn’t have to put her through this, but Sheldon Saks had asked to meet Milford’s new head designer and besides, Emma wanted to show her off. She didn’t have much to show for her time as CEO of Milford, but Stella was one of the things she was definitely proud of. Of course, Emma had tried to hide the desperation of the financing situation from Stella – how would
that
look when she had moved her life halfway around the world to join a new company – but Stella still looked nervous. Emma hoped she wouldn’t crack under interrogation. Banks were intimidating places at the best of time.

‘Listen, you’ll be brilliant, just be yourself,’ whispered Emma as they were called into the office. ‘Remember, this is where the Milford renaissance begins!’

Ralph Wintour was around fifty, with a standard-issue navy banker’s suit that seemed at odds with his American Deep South accent. If Wintour was surprised to see two such young and attractive women in front of him to present their vision for a luxury goods company then he did not show it.

‘Ms Bailey, good to meet you,’ he said, shaking Emma’s hand firmly. ‘And Ms Chase? Please do have a seat and let me know how I can help you.’

Emma had prepared a document which she placed on the desk in front of him. It detailed Milford’s stores and concessions worldwide, the company assets and debts with sales performance charts showing profits, both current and projected. There was an overview of the multi-billion-pound luxury goods market which explained how accessories accounted for up to 80 per cent of the sales for some of fashion’s biggest household names. She included her own CV as well as those of Stella and Ruan and outlined the additions she would make to the team once additional financing was in place: an experienced marketing director, a full-time PR firm.

‘Milford is a sleeping giant,’ said Emma, meeting Wintour’s gaze when he looked up from the document. ‘Everybody thinks of Louis Vuitton as this ancient colossus of the fashion industry, but until the late 1970s it was just a small family luggage company with a couple of shops. A decade later and with good management, they had increased profits so much, they could afford to buy out two champagne houses and so created one of the world’s most prestigious luxury goods companies.’

‘And you believe you can do that with Milford?’ said Ralph Wintour, his eyebrows raised.

‘I believe there is a great deal of money still to be made in the luxury sector, yes. The short-term goal is to quadruple profits and then roll out the brand globally in the medium term…’ To her surprise, Emma found herself confidently talking about the luxury goods market as if she had been working in the sector for decades. She told how Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli had transformed Prada from a twenty-five-million-dollar business to a three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar business in just six years. She explained how Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole had rescued Gucci from the verge of bankruptcy to become
the
fashion brand of the Nineties. She felt good, she felt confident.
She had to; there was nowhere else to go.

Ralph Wintour sat back in his seat and regarded Emma and Stella silently.

‘Well, I should tell you that I’ve had one of our luxury retail analysts look at Milford and their report back is good,’ he said. ‘Milford is underperforming considerably, but he believes with the right management team, it could be turned around quickly.’

‘I think my professional credentials speak for themselves, Mr Wintour. I have just promoted Ruan McCormack to be my number two and he has fifteen years experience of working for Milford. Stella here was one of the top young designers in America before I approached her to make the move to us.’

‘With your commercial background, Ms Bailey, I’m sure you know how nervous everyone is becoming of debt financing, especially in the current climate. Milford is already running at a loss so some banks would consider lending to you as highly risky without wanting a stake in the company and representation on the board.’

‘We are running at a very small loss,’ corrected Emma. ‘But we also have considerable assets such as Winterfold and Byron House.’

‘And would you be prepared to raise a mortgage on them?’

‘Yes,’ replied Emma coolly. Inside, however, her heart was pounding.

‘Now Ms Chase?’ said Wintour, taking a cursory glance at Stella’s CV. ‘I don’t see any formal fashion training from this information? Why should Sheldon Saks risk their money on an untrained design director?’

Stella felt her cheeks warm under Ralph Wintour’s gaze. She knew from the worn look on Emma’s face that this appointment with Sheldon Saks was life or death, in fact she had suspected the company’s finances were shaky when she had accepted the job. But she reasoned that if Emma was prepared to believe in her, she was prepared to return the favour. For once, Stella felt part of a team and she liked it. Besides this man was trying to frighten her, bully her into backing down. Well, what had her mother always told her to do in that situation? Fight back. Don’t be intimidated and use words as a weapon.

‘It’s true, I studied sculpture at the Slade,’ said Stella evenly. ‘But then Tom Ford studied architecture. He wasn’t a big-name designer before he got his chance at Gucci, but his designs transformed the company. Similarly, Miuccia Prada was a mime student before she inherited her family’s luggage company. You’ll also see from my
CV that I have three years of experience building up a company from nothing into an award-winning multi-million dollar business.’

Wintour made a note in a leather-bound book and Stella resisted the urge to wipe the palms of her hands on her dress. Emma looked over at Stella and smiled, but she felt exhausted and her hands were trembling. She carefully folded them into her lap.

‘You’ll be aware that we always do our homework at the bank before we lend large sums of money,’ said Wintour. ‘And I was most interested to read that you’d worked at Price Donahue. They have quite a reputation in the States.’

Emma felt a tightness in her throat. Who had he been speaking to? Daniel Davies?
Mark?

‘Turns out you actually met my brother Kevin a few weeks ago,’ said Wintour, the hint of a smile on his lips. ‘He’s the CFO for Frost Industries. I hear PJ threw one of his legendary business brunches?’

Emma’s heart flipped over, suddenly remembering Mark’s story about her bursting into song. He
was
joking –
wasn’t he?

‘Kevin said you impressed those old buzzards in Vermont, said you had one hell of a business brain. And d’you know? He actually bet me ten dollars that you’d have paid off the loan in full in three years.’