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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘More wine?’

Sasha looked across the table at the man sitting opposite her. In the soft glow of the candlelight he looked even better than he had in the gym last week, when he’d asked her out after spinning class. Tall, athletic, faintly rugged in a hotplumber-from-Desperate-Housewives sort of way.

Positives: He’s seen me at my worst, hyperventilating and dripping with sweat, and he still fancies me.

He’s handsome, charming and a good conversationalist.

He hasn’t tried to grope me or stick his tongue down my throat … yet.

Negatives: His name is Grover.

Grover! What possessed people to do that to a perfectly innocent little baby? Sasha tried to imagine herself screaming it out in the throes of passion. ‘Oh, Grover, that’s so good! Don’t stop, Grover!’

‘You’re laughing. What, do I have spaghetti sauce on my chin?’

‘Oh, no!’ Sasha blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I was, er … I was thinking about something else. Please, go on.’

‘Go on with what?’ Grover cocked his handsome head to one side, puzzled.

‘With what you were saying.’

‘I wasn’t saying anything. I was offering to refill your glass, but maybe you’ve had enough? Is everything OK, Sasha?’

Oh God, thought Sasha. I mustn’t sabotage this. I mustn’t. OK, so his name was Grover. And he did over-use the word ‘awesome’. And vote Republican. But really, he was a decent, solvent, straight and apparently kind man, and he’d asked her out on a date, and for once she’d actually gone because if she didn’t have sex again soon she was pretty sure some weird biological process would start to kick in and she wouldn’t be able to do it …

‘Sasha?’

‘I’m fine, thanks. Just a lot going on at work, you know. It’s hard to switch off.’

It was ironic. In her professional life, Sasha was completely together and successful and brilliant. For the last year, she’d specialized exclusively in retail development, and had become one of Wrexall Dupree’s biggest producers. In business meetings Sasha had no trouble conquering her inner-geek, the social awkwardness that had dogged her since childhood. She was charming, funny, professional, a natural sales-woman. But put her in a purely social situation – like a date with hot gym guy for example – and she flailed around helplessly like a fish out of water.

Theo Dexter still her haunted her dreams at night. She was still no nearer exacting her revenge. With every passing season Theo seemed to become more famous, more successful, more happy with his film-star girlfriend and more out of Sasha’s reach. But by day it was Jackson Dupree who consumed all her mental energy. The rivalry between Wrexall’s future chairman and Sasha Miller, the firm’s undisputed star, was an open secret on Wall Street. Within Wrexall itself, the sparring between Jackson and his one-time protégée acted as a sort of atomic generator at the heart of the company, spewing out energy and igniting a feverish fireball of deal-making that had catapulted them to the top of the market. Jackson’s ‘team’ were the hotel and residential divisions. The relationship between his executives and Sasha’s retail group was akin to gang warfare, with both sides vying daily and hourly to out-perform the other. At first, the rest of the board was wary of the open hostility that blazed between Jackson and Sasha. But as the results rolled in and the stock price continued to rise, they backed off. A controlled nuclear explosion was clearly exactly what Wrexall Dupree needed.

Between fighting with Jackson, building her business and obsessing about Theo Dexter, Sasha had had neither the time nor the energy for a personal life. But it was January, and her New Year’s resolution was to stop turning down flat every male who approached her and to force herself to go on at least three dates a month.

The first one had been a disaster: a lawyer called Simon Tooley who had been on the other side of one of Sasha’s M&A deals. At work he’d seemed completely normal, blond, clean cut, perhaps even a little preppy. But over a four-hundred-dollar dinner at Masa, a pretentious Japanese restaurant with no menu in the Time Warner Center, he waxed suicidal over the edamame about his broken marriage, drank his bodyweight in sake, then collapsed in tears, confessing to Sasha that he was a life-long cross dresser and how would she feel about maybe letting him wear her panties later? When Sasha politely declined, he took umbrage and stung her for half the bill.

Grover Hammond was a lot better, not that that was hard. He was thirty-five, worked in publishing, had never been married and (at least by the time dessert arrived) had not asked to borrow any of Sasha’s clothing, not even her outerwear.

Grover had just started telling her a funny story about one of his authors’ diva-fits when the door to the restaurant opened and a mind-blowingly attractive redhead sashayed in. Close to six feet tall and pin thin, she was obviously a model. Even dressed down in Hudson jeans and an Abercrombie polo neck sweater, with no visible make-up, she was the sort of beauty people couldn’t help but stare at. Every man, woman and child turned to look at her, including Sasha.

‘Wow,’ she said admiringly. Sasha wasn’t given to envy. ‘I think that may be the best-looking human being in the universe.’ But her smile faded when she saw the redhead’s date walk in behind her, and wrap a possessive arm around her waist.

‘We’d like your best table.’ Jackson’s arrogant voice jarred on Sasha’s nerves like nails on a blackboard.

‘I’m sorry, sir. There’s nothing available at the moment. As you can see, we’re fully booked. Did you have a reservation?’

‘I don’t make reservations. Tell Marcel I’m here, he’ll make room. And you can bring us two glasses of Cristal while we wait.’ Pulling the redhead closer, Jackson turned around to survey the room, smiling proudly, like a tribal king showing off his latest bride to his adoring subjects. His eyes soon fell on one less-than-adoring subject, however, and the smile vanished. He walked over to Sasha’s table.

‘Sasha.’

‘Jackson.’

‘I’m surprised to see you out and about so late. Surely you should be hanging upside down in a cave somewhere by now? Or home polishing your cauldron?’

In vintage Levi’s and a thick, blue cashmere Ralph Lauren sweater, with snowflakes still clinging to his wild black hair, Jackson looked as effortlessly desirable as the stunner he’d walked in with. Unlike the girl though, who seemed sweet if a little bit vacant, Jackson knew it. He positively radiated vanity.

‘Waiting on a table for three, are you, Jackson? Just you, your lady friend and your ego. How romantic.’ Sasha turned back to Grover. To his surprise, she took his hand. ‘Jackson, this is Grover Hammond, a friend of mine. Grover’s a publisher.’

Jackson nodded a curt acknowledgement.

‘Grover, this is Jackson Dupree, a work colleague. Jackson’s a penis.’

It was so unexpected, and so totally rude, Grover burst out laughing. Jackson glanced over his shoulder to see if the redhead had heard, but she was engrossed in her BlackBerry. At that moment Marcel, the restaurant owner, rushed over and began fawning over Jackson, clapping his fat little hands excitedly as a new table and linens were carried out from the kitchens. Jackson contemplated firing a shot back at Sasha. If she wanted to embarrass him in front of his date, two could play that game. But the moment had passed. Besides, he’d look a lot cooler to Leilani, the redhead, if he laughed it off and didn’t stoop to Sasha’s level.

Once Jackson and Leilani were seated, at the opposite end of the room, Grover asked Sasha, ‘What was that about? You just blew that guy out of the water. Is he an ex or something?’

‘An ex?’ Sasha looked disgusted. ‘Eeeugh. I wouldn’t date Jackson Dupree if the survival of the human race depended on it. No, I told you. He’s a colleague. And he’s a penis. That’s the kindest word I can use to describe him.’

‘He’s famous, right?’

‘In his own mind,’ Sasha scoffed.

‘No, really. I’m sure I’ve heard of him.’

‘You might have. When you get home tomorrow, google “ world’s biggest penis ” and see if his face pops up. I’m just going to run to the ladies. Should we get the bill first?’

Now it was Grover’s turn to look disgusted. ‘Please. I’ll get the check. I may not be as rich as your buddy Jackson Dupree, but if I take a girl out for dinner, I pay.’

Sasha smiled. Maybe dating wasn’t going to be such an ordeal after all?

A few minutes after Sasha and Grover left, laughing, into the night, Jackson was about to order appetizers when Leilani suddenly stood up.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You look pale. Is everything OK?’

‘Yeah. Sure. Look, I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, OK? Really. But I can’t help you. No one can.’ She started putting on her scarf.

Jackson looked blank. ‘What?’

Leilani squeezed his hand sympathetically. ‘Being gay. It’s not something you can be cured of. It’s genetic. I have two gay brothers, I know what I’m talking about.’

‘Well that makes one of us. What on earth makes you think I’m gay?’

‘Look, it’s OK, truly. Your friend told me everything, in the ladies’ room. I know you’re really super Christian, and you probably think you’re trying to do the right thing by fucking it out of your system. But if it’s Brian you love …’

‘Brian? Who the fuck is Brian? If I were going to be gay, you think I’d date someone called Brian?’

‘You need to start loving yourself for who you are,’ Leilani said earnestly. ‘And I need to do the same.’

Jackson sat and watched as she walked out into the street. Slowly, he felt his anger start to rise, like a building wave about to break.

OK, so it probably wouldn’t have worked out with Leilani anyway. Yes, she was a knockout, but she had the IQ of a small piece of cheese, not to mention that gentle, save-the-whales vibe about her that, in Jackson’s experience, invariably translated to being shit in bed. But even so. That little bitch Sasha Miller had successfully sabotaged his evening. He pictured Sasha in a cab right now, laughing at him in between getting down and dirty with Elmo or whatever the fuck the guy’s name was.

Fine, sweetheart. You want this to get personal?

Just you watch how personal I can be.

Two weeks later, a package arrived on Sasha’s desk. It was beautifully wrapped in expensive, silver paper with an oversized red silk bow on the top.

‘Where did this come from?’

Jeanne, her secretary, shrugged. A middle-aged matron from New Jersey with a sharp eye for detail and an even sharper tongue, Jeanne Grogan was Sasha’s right-hand woman. Other than Lottie Grainger, who wouldn’t have hurt a fly if it were injecting her with malaria, Jeanne was the only person at Wrexall whom Sasha totally trusted.

‘I have no idea. I was picking up a fax from the machine and when I got back to my desk, there it was. It’s not ticking, is it?’

Sasha held it up to her ear. ‘I don’t think so. Should I open it?’

‘No. You should marinade it in chilli sauce and slow roast it for six hours. Of course you should open it! What else are you gonna do?’

The wrapping was so perfect, Sasha almost felt guilty tearing into it. For a moment she was transported back to childhood Christmases in Frant, and her mother carefully saving the nicest wrapping paper, smoothing it out under the encyclopaedia to be used again another year. These days Sasha was comfortably earning seven figures a year. If I ever have children, they won’t need to save wrapping paper, she thought idly. For some reason the thought made her sad.

‘What is it?’ Jeanne’s harsh, nasal tones brought her back to reality.

‘It’s DVDs.’ Sasha sounded nonplussed. ‘A box set.’ Turning them over in her hands, she saw that she had in fact been given a ‘Best of Dita Andreas Limited Edition Holiday Collection’. She blushed.

‘Who sent me this?’

‘I told you already. I have no idea. Who knows you’re a Dita Andreas fan?’

No one. No one would have any reason to link me with Dita Andreas. Other than maybe my parents and a few old friends from Cambridge. But a friend wouldn’t send me this. Besides, there’s no postmark. It was hand delivered.

Oh shit. Her heart sank as the obvious truth dawned. Two minutes later she barged into Jackson’s office, slamming the door shut behind her.

‘Is this meant to be a joke?’ She waved the DVDs in his face. ‘Because it’s not funny.’

Jackson leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about these.’ She handed him the case. ‘I know it was you who sent them.’

Jackson read the blurb on the back. ‘Midnight’s Children. Now that was a good movie. One of her best. If you haven’t seen Dita Andreas’s shower scene with Leo DiCaprio, you haven’t lived.’

‘It won’t work, you know,’ said Sasha furiously, snatching back the case. ‘These childish little mind games of yours. They won’t get to me.’

Jackson laughed. ‘Really? I’d say they already have. You know what your problem is, Sasha? You can give it, but you can’t take it.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s fine for you to tell girls I’m seeing that I’m gay.’ Sasha at least had the decency to blush. ‘But when the joke’s on you, that’s childish. I must say, I couldn’t believe it when I found out. After the way you’ve looked down at me from your moral high horse these past two years, like I’m the evil, selfish playboy and you’re the perfect little saint. When the truth is you had an affair with a married man, then tried to claim his work as your own. I may be a playboy, Sasha. But I’m not a thief.’

‘Neither am I!’ Sasha was close to tears. When she moved to America five years ago, she’d tried hard to leave her past, or that chapter in it, behind. Until now, she’d succeeded. No one at Harvard Business School knew about the scandal that had ended her career as a physicist, and nor did anyone at Wrexall. In the States, the Cambridge court case was a footnote in Theo Dexter’s history, nothing more. Or so Sasha had thought. ‘Everything I accused Theo Dexter of was true. It was my theory. He’s the thief, not me. He’s made a fortune off an idea that doesn’t belong to him.’

‘Sasha, Sasha, Sasha.’ Jackson shook his head, like a disappointed parent. ‘You can’t let it go, even now, can you? So sad. I guess it’s true what they say. Hell hath no fury …’

Sasha stormed out, marching back down the corridor to her own office with Jackson’s laughter echoing off the walls behind her. If there was one person in the entire universe she would have wanted not to know about her past with Theo Dexter, it was Jackson Dupree. She might as well take out a full-page ad in the New York Times.

This is going to be bad. Jackson’s going to crucify me.

She wasn’t wrong. Over the course of the next few months, the story of her scandalous past spread not just through Wrexall Dupree, but throughout the entire real estate industry. Jackson’s taunting was relentless. Sasha would turn on her PC at work to find Theo Dexter’s face loaded as her screensaver. Amazon delivered books to both her home and office: How to Move On, The Married Man Addiction, Astrophysics for Beginners and the newly published coffee table photo book by Mario Testino, Dita Andreas: A Love Story, in which Theo featured heavily looking brooding and intellectual – as intellectual as anyone could look with their top off and wearing only tight white boxer shorts that left little to the imagination. Most irritating of all, though, was Jackson’s habit of humming the theme tune to Dexter’s Universe under his breath every time he passed Sasha in the halls. It was so childish, Sasha knew she ought to have been able to laugh at it. But sometimes the urge to physically attack Jackson was so strong she had to lock herself in the ladies and deep breathe until she got it under control.

The office that had long been Sasha’s sanctuary now became a torture chamber. As a result, she began doing more and more work from home, often poring over spreadsheets and making calls late into the night. With no time for dinner, still less wild nights of sex, her relationship with Grover Hammond soon fizzled.

The only chink of light in the gloom of Sasha’s life that winter was the McKinley deal. Haverstock McKinley was the largest, most profitable construction firm in the United States. Jackson’s father, Walker Dupree, had first flirted with McKinley over two decades ago, to try to develop a nationwide chain of discount shopping malls. That deal had come to nothing, as had numerous other proposals for possible joint ventures since. But Sasha had come up with a new model, to build cheap, prefab strip malls on Indian reservations. They would start in the desert states, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and eventually roll the programme out nationwide. If the deal came off – a big if – it would be the largest in Wrexall’s history. With her new compensation deal (Sasha had taken a huge cut in base salary and foregone her bonus in exchange for a flat five per cent share in her revenues) it would also make Sasha personally an extremely wealthy woman.

Jackson knew about the McKinley negotiations, of course. Everybody did. Publicly, he shared the firm-wide excitement. But privately he was nervous about the degree of autonomy it gave Sasha’s division.

‘I know you think it’s personal. But you’re wrong,’ Jackson told Lucius Monroe over a discreet lunch at the Harvard Club.

Lucius raised a wiry eyebrow. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes. I’m not going to deny the woman gets under my skin. But this goes way beyond our personal animosity. She’s running that retail group like a private fiefdom.’

‘A very successful fiefdom,’ Lucius reminded him. ‘One that we all profit from.’

‘Yes. For now. But giving any one individual total control over a business area is dangerous. Our clients and our shareholders need to have faith in Wrexall Dupree. Not just Sasha Miller. She could leave us at any time, Lucius, and then where would that business be?’

Lucius Monroe sipped contemplatively at his martini. ‘I take the point, Jackson. But these are good problems to have, don’t you think? Employees who are too successful? Besides, Sasha’s not going anywhere. Why would she? No other firm on the street would offer her what we do, a straight percentage cut. Sasha’s very talented, but she has the Wrexall business card and the might of our balance sheet and reputation behind her. Without that, she’d be nothing.’

Jackson tried to feel reassured.

Lottie Grainger burst into the coffee shop, hopping from foot to foot with excitement.

‘What’s happened?’ laughed Sasha. ‘You look like you just won the lottery. Either that or there’s a wasp up your shirt.’

The girls had agreed to meet at Bepe’s, a hole-in-the-wall Italian espresso joint a block from the Wrexall building. At six o’clock on a Friday night the place was almost empty.

‘Jackson just texted me. I’m going to Park City! He wants me to pack a bag and meet him at JFK in …’ she looked at her watch, ‘… about three hours. Can you believe it?’

Sasha hesitated, not sure how to react. On the one hand it was obvious Lottie wanted her to share in her excitement. Jackson had a big series of meetings in Utah over the long weekend. Wrexall was involved in developing a new luxury ski resort to rival Deer Valley, and he was flying up to finalize the deal. On the other hand, Sasha knew better than anyone what a thumping great crush Lottie had on Jackson. She doubted very much it was the business opportunity that had put that shit-eating grin on her friend’s face.

‘That’s great, Lots. Just be careful, OK?’

‘Careful of what?’ Lottie twirled around, a human spinning top of delight. Nothing would spoil her happiness today. ‘Careful of looking so utterly ravishing at all times that he won’t be able to help but fall madly in love with me? Or careful not to clinch the deal with my awesome marketing insight?’

Sasha laughed. It was impossible not to. Lottie’s joy was infectious.

‘Just be careful. And pack a lot of scarves. It’s colder than a witch’s tit up there.’

‘And what will you be doing this weekend, my miserable, workaholic friend?’ Lottie teased. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have anything actually fun planned?’

‘That depends on what you mean by fun,’ said Sasha. ‘This McKinley thing could easily close on Monday. So yes, I will be working. As will you, remember? He asked you on a business trip, Lots, not a date.’

Lottie raised an eyebrow knowingly. ‘We’ll see. See if you can squeeze some hat shopping into your busy schedule. It’s going to be a very formal wedding.’

Sasha watched her float out of Bepe’s on a cloud, not sure why she felt so down. Was it because she was worried about Lottie, and the thought of Jackson breaking her heart? Or was it because her own life was so utterly devoid of passion and excitement? She downed another shot of espresso and pulled herself together. Focus. Lottie’s a grownup. She can take care of herself.

And you have work to do.