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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jackson Dupree stood at the altar, staring down at his shoes on the polished parquet floor.

‘You OK?’ James Dermott, Jackson’s second cousin and longest-standing childhood friend, nudged him in the ribs. ‘Not thinking of doing a runner, are you?’

Jackson turned around. Behind him, over two hundred guests crammed into the pews of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, overdressed in garish hats and feathers and finery. More hovered at the back and in the side chapels, straining to catch a glimpse of the bride who had bagged herself the most eligible catch in Martha’s Vineyard, and quite possibly the whole of America.

‘I’d never make it out of here alive,’ he joked. ‘I’m trapped.’

Turning back to face the front, he started fiddling with his tie. The stiff collar of his formal shirt made him feel as if he was suffocating. At least, he chose to blame it on the collar.

‘She’ll be here in a minute,’ said James. ‘Do some deep breathing. Think of your happy place.’

My happy place, thought Jackson. Isn’t that supposed to be here? On my wedding day? The happiest day of my life?

A collective gasp from the crowd indicated that the bride had arrived. Seconds later, the string quartet that Jackson’s mother had hired from the Boston Philharmonic struck up the opening bars of the wedding march. This is it.

The last five years had been five of the most magical, and traumatic, of Jackson Dupree’s gilded young life. When Sasha Miller spun off Wrexall Dupree’s retail division to form Ceres, the company she walked out on was changed instantly and irrevocably. As Jackson predicted, the market soon forgot about the McKinley deal and the millions of dollars of revenue it had brought them. Instead investors and pundits alike watched with interest to see just how the new, slimmed-down Wrexall would compete; what their next move would be; and whether they would, as Jackson Dupree had famously and publicly threatened, ‘go after’ Ceres with all the fury of a lover scorned. Market-watchers hovered over Wrexall, not like an anxious parent concerned with its offspring’s progress, but like a pack of vultures circling above their prey until they were quite sure it was dead.

In the first six months, the vultures almost got their way. While Ceres clocked up deal after deal, the seemingly unstoppable new kid on the block, Wrexall struggled to rebuild in retail real estate. First, their attempt to hire the CEO of Cityfleet.com, the online commercial real estate giant, backfired spectacularly and publicly when an overenthusiastic headhunter leaked information about his proposed multi-million-dollar compensation package to the press. Next they made the mistake of going head to head with Ceres over a transaction with Westfield, the Australian shopping mall giant, for a new mall outside Los Angeles.

‘I don’t understand,’ Bob Massey complained to the head of Westfield’s West Coast operations when he called to tell him Wrexall’s pitch had been unsuccessful. ‘That was a strong pitch. You’ve been partners with us for over eight years, David.’

‘Yeah. And everyone I dealt with at Wrexall for the last four of those years is now at Ceres. I’m sorry, Bob. It’s nothing personal. But Sasha Miller really understands our goals.’

It was after Westfield fell through that the decline in Wrexall’s stock price began in earnest. By that time they had belatedly rebuilt a retail division, hiring from all their key competitors (other than Ceres) and even bringing in fresh blood from other sectors, investment bankers and private equity guys. But it was too little, too late. If it hadn’t been for Jackson’s thriving hotels division and the gains they’d made in the residential sector, things might have got very bad indeed. As it was, they survived the year, bruised but still fighting and, at least in Jackson Dupree’s case, determined to bring Ceres down.

‘You know, they say the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference,’ said Lottie over dinner with Jackson one evening. They’d been dating for a year by this point, and give or take a few slip-ups in the first few weeks, Jackson had been faithful, a personal best that those who knew him well viewed as little short of miraculous.

‘You’re maturing,’ James Dermott told him.

‘Bullshit. I’ve always been mature. I just never had a reason to stay faithful before. Now I do.’

This was partly true. Lottie had certainly played her cards well, firstly by refusing to move in with Jackson and secondly by quitting Wrexall Dupree and finding herself a new, highly paid job at a chic uptown art gallery. ‘We can’t sleep together and work together,’ she told Jackson, presenting her resignation as a fait accompli.

‘What do you mean? Of course we can. We’ve been doing it for six months, haven’t we? It’s been working out fine.’

‘Not for me it hasn’t,’ said Lottie. ‘You’re my boyfriend, not my boss. I’m my boss.’ Jackson pretended to be pissed off for a week, but Lottie completely ignored his cold shoulder so in the end he gave up. Besides, deep down he loved the fact that she was independent, that she challenged him. Deep down, he still occasionally worried that there was something missing between them. Sex was fine. It was regular and enjoyable, if a little on the straight side, at least in comparison to Jackson’s prior tastes. But it lacked the spark, the passion, the addictive adrenaline rush he’d spent most of his adult life pursuing.

That’s why this relationship is working, Jackson told himself firmly. You like Lottie. You respect her. She’s the best friend you always wanted, the sister you never had, the business partner you always needed … AND she’s hot. Stop analyzing it to death and get on with it.

Tonight, he’d taken Lottie out to Nobu in Tribeca to try to take his mind off of Ceres’s latest triumph – their quarterly results, published today, had hugely outperformed even the most bullish analysts’ estimates, and Sasha was once again riding high. As usual, Lottie did her best to calm him down.

‘Have you ever thought the best revenge you could hope to have on Sasha would be to ignore her? Indifference, that’s the key. Forget about Ceres. Focus on Wrexall, focus on your own business.’

Jackson speared a California roll morosely with his chopstick, wantonly destroying the sushi chef’s work of art.

‘The more energy you waste on hating Sasha …’ Lottie continued

‘I don’t hate Sasha.’

Lottie raised an eyebrow, as if to say not much. ‘Then why are you going after Raj Patel?’

Raj Patel, once Sasha’s direct line manager at Wrexall, now worked for her as a key member of her senior management team at Ceres. Indian, Oxford educated, and devastatingly handsome in a softly spoken, intellectual Imran Khan sort of way, Raj had become almost as much the ‘face’ of Ceres as Sasha herself. The two of them were often photographed together, Sasha creamy skinned and seductive beneath her sleek black bob, and Raj dark and regal, his fine bone structure and strong aquiline nose belying his upper-class Indian heritage. If they ever got together sexually they’d make the world’s most beautiful kids.

‘That’s business,’ said Jackson. ‘At Ceres, Raj will always play second fiddle to Sasha. Back with us he could run his own show.’

It sounded plausible. But Lottie didn’t buy it. Out of loyalty to Jackson, she’d quietly dropped her own friendship with Sasha. There was no big bust up, no announcement. Both women understood implicitly that, after all that had happened, it was the way it had to be. Ironically, it was Jackson who kept Sasha’s memory alive, to the point where Lottie sometimes felt, like Princess Diana, that there were three people in her relationship. Jackson hadn’t seen Sasha in person for a year, but he carried her with him everywhere, lodged in his chest like a tumour. His attempts to poach back Raj Patel was just the latest in a long line of stunts aimed at hurting Sasha, humiliating her the way that she had humiliated him. Lottie prayed it wouldn’t backfire as badly as all the others.

‘About Raj,’ said Jackson. ‘I’m thinking of flying out to Barcelona next week.’

Lottie’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not serious?’ Forbes had reported only last week that Ceres was holding its first global off site at the Hotel Majestic in Barcelona, Spain. Sasha Miller was to be the keynote speaker at a real estate conference that would be attended by the biggest names in the industry. ‘You can’t hijack Raj there, it’s far too high profile. Remember what happened with Mr Cityfleet? If Raj doesn’t come back to Wrexall, you’ll end up with very public egg on your face. You’re supposed to be being discreet.’

‘I will be discreet,’ said Jackson, knocking back the last of his sake and ordering another. ‘I’ll discreetly get him to sign his offer in Barcelona. Then I’ll discreetly hold a press conference about it the morning of Sasha’s speech and pull the rug out from under her Manolos.’

Lottie sighed. There was no reasoning with him in this mood: drunk and determined. She wished she could love away all the stress and anger Jackson seemed to carry around with him, like a backpack full of cement. Like him, in her darkest moments, she feared that there was something missing between them. There had to be, or he would have let go by now, given himself to her completely. But like him, Lottie put her fears aside. I love him, she thought. He’s already changed so much, come so far from the old playboy Jackson. This vendetta with Sasha is the last piece of the puzzle. He’ll figure it out eventually, I just have to be patient.

Sasha stepped out onto her balcony into the warm, Spanish night air and sighed a deep sigh of contentment. Barcelona had been one of her favourite cities since she came here as a teenager, on a school trip with St Agnes’s. She remembered the wonder she’d felt back then, at the spectacular Gaudí architecture and the Plaça de Catalunya, not to mention the natural beauty of the ocean. There was a palpable sense of vibrancy in Barcelona, a feeling of life and youth and art that seemed to shimmer in the warm air along with the scent of jasmine and the mixed, mouthwatering smells of garlic and chorizo floating up from the tapas kitchens. As a school-girl, she and her friends from St Agnes’s had stayed in a grotty little youth hostel, but Sasha had still adored the city. Now, returning not just as an adult but as a millionairess, a success beyond her or anyone’s wildest dreams, she was staying in the most expensive suite at the Hotel Majestic, a neoclassical gem on Passeig de Gràcia that lit up at night like Harrods at Christmas time. Wealthy and famous visitors flocked to the Majestic to sample the Michelin-starred cuisine at the hotel’s famed Drolma restaurant, widely considered one of the finest in Spain, and to enjoy its dated grandeur and old-world luxury. Sasha chose it because she remembered walking past it as a kid and wondering what the views must be like from the penthouse.

Now she knew. They were spectacular.

Tomorrow she had a full schedule of team-building events with her staff at Ceres. It was hard to believe that the company was only a year old. Already they had blazed a trail through the industry so bright that competitors twice their size and with ten times their experience had been left blinded on the sidelines, wondering what the hell just happened as Ceres won contract after contract, deal after deal. The media gave Sasha full credit for their successes, hailing her as America’s new business genius, a female role model to rival Oprah or Martha Stewart. No one seemed to remember, or care, that she was, in fact, English. Not when she looked so ridiculously photogenic, standing arm in arm with her right-hand man, Raj Patel. A young woman and an Indian man; it was so politically correct, so perfect, it was as if Ceres had been dreamt up by someone at Central Casting. While the trade press salivated over Ceres’s profits and Sasha’s business acumen, the fashion magazines pored over her wardrobe choices, and the gossip rags speculated endlessly about her love life, or rather her mysterious lack thereof. A few months ago, someone had leaked the story of Sasha’s scandalous past, and her connection to Theo Dexter, to one of the tabloids. Sasha suspected Jackson Dupree. True to his word, Jackson had pulled every stunt in the book to try to undermine her, personally and professionally, since she left Wrexall, but so far Sasha had managed to stay one step ahead. The stolen-theory story could have been a serious blow to her reputation and credibility. But with the help of a woman named Gemma Driscoll, a senior partner at the PR giant Fleishman-Hillard (and as far as Sasha was concerned, a genius) the mountain had morphed back into a molehill, ‘Neutralized,’ as Gemma put it.

‘The trick is never to try to cover up a story,’ Gemma told Sasha. ‘If a dog’s got a juicy bone in its jaws and you start pulling, all he’s going to do is clamp down harder.’

‘So what do you do?’

Gemma smiled. ‘Toss him a juicier bone.’

This she did by the simple but devastatingly effective means of falsely linking Sasha romantically with a string of eligible, newsworthy men. First there was the senator whose house Sasha went to once for dinner.

‘I play tennis with his wife!’ she insisted. ‘He wasn’t even home.’

‘Ah, yes, but he might have been,’ said Gemma.

Then there was the pop star, the Broadway producer, the Italian prince and the twenty-one-year-old heartthrob from NBC’s new prime-time soap opera, Brooklyn Heights. Of course, there wasn’t a thread of truth to any of the rumours. Sasha slept alone, with only her BlackBerry for company. But the stories served their purpose of distracting tabloid attention. Gemma finished the job with a series of ‘teasers’ about Sasha and Raj Patel, photo opportunities and interviews that suggested they might be a couple. That was the most ridiculous one of all. But as Gemma pointed out, ‘The beauty of it is that it can run and run. You’ll continue to be seen together. People will keep guessing. You’re a public figure now, Sasha. You have to think of your life as a sort of reality show.’

‘Reality?’ Sasha laughed out loud. ‘But everything you’re doing is made up!’

‘Exactly. Like I said. A reality show. I write the scripts.’

It was new world for Sasha, and one that, though she loathed to admit it, she found she rather enjoyed. She’d started Ceres for the same reason she joined Wrexall, the same reason she transferred to business school and moved to America: to become rich and powerful enough to destroy Theo Dexter. But as the years wore on, particularly with Ceres succeeding so spectacularly right out of the gate, she found the business becoming more and more of an end in itself.

Then, of course, there was Jackson. Every time Sasha got close to a deal, every time she made a hire or sniffed around some land, there he would be, bribing, badmouthing, conniving, doing everything he could do scupper her chances. Ceres was on a high right now, but Sasha had no illusions. At some point their new-kid-on-the-block sheen would wear off. Wrexall had multiples of their balance sheet. There would be instances, many instances, where Jackson would be able to outgun her. The fact that it hadn’t happened yet only heightened the anxiety she felt daily, squatting in her chest like a loathsome toad, still and cold and heavy but always ready to pounce.

‘Beautiful evening.’

Sasha spun around so fast she almost jumped out of her skin. There, standing on the adjacent balcony, looking lean and tanned in an immaculately cut Spurr suit and Harvard tie, stood Jackson Dupree. It’s like I jinxed myself. I thought about him and made him appear. Like summoning an evil genie.

‘It was,’ she said coldly. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Stalking me?’

‘Hardly.’ Jackson smiled. Suddenly Sasha felt like Little Red Riding Hood. If he could he’d leap over here and eat me. ‘I have business here. A new hotel. Right opposite La Sagrada Família.’

‘You’ll never get permissions,’ said Sasha. He’s cut his hair! I don’t believe it. That’s like Samson cutting his hair. Or Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.

‘Already got ‘em.’

‘Land’ll be overpriced.’ It suits him though. I wonder if Lottie made him do it?

‘It’s a luxury hotel.’

‘Location’s far too tacky for a high-end hotel. La Sagrada’s the number-one attraction in the city. Fat kids in backpacks hanging around outside day and night, dropping chewing gum and crisp packets. It’s like building a Ritz Carlton in Trafalgar Square.’

‘Thanks for the advice,’ said Jackson smoothly. ‘It’s been a while, Sasha.’

Sasha glared at him. ‘Not long enough.’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. I was fine. Goodnight, Jackson.’ Turning on her heel, Sasha walked back into her suite, slamming the balcony doors behind her.

Arsehole. Luxury hotel, my arse. If he’s here on Wrexall business, I’m Mahatma Gandhi. He’s up to something.

She ordered room service and tried to settle down to the mountainous pile of work she had to get through before tomorrow. But knowing Jackson was in the suite next door made it impossible to concentrate. He looked so damn smug. What does he have to look smug about? At one point she was sure she heard his shower turn on. As hard as she tried, it was impossible not to picture him naked, lathering shampoo onto his newly short, preppy haircut. He looked different to how she remembered him. The suit, the hair, the manner. He’s less of a boy and more of a man. Sasha wondered whether that was Lottie’s influence, and felt a pang of something painful. She hoped that it was her missing Lottie’s friendship, but feared it might be something much more ugly: jealousy. Not that she was jealous of Lottie having Jackson. I wouldn’t want Jackson Dupree if he were the last man on the face of the earth. It can’t be that. Maybe I’m jealous of other people having love in their life. Of other people being happy.

On an impulse, she called Raj’s room, but there was no answer. Disappointed, and irritated with herself, she put the work aside, popped a sleeping pill and defiantly turned out the lights. It was only 8.30 p.m., but she had a big day tomorrow. Barcelona was her city, this was her off site, her conference, her time to shine. Jackson could try his childish mind games until he was blue in the face. But he wouldn’t ruin Barcelona for her. She wouldn’t let him.

Raj Patel sat at an outdoor table at a quiet coffee shop on Barcelona beach, wondering if he needed to get his ears syringed.

‘I’m sorry, Jackson. I think I must have misheard you. Did you just say fifteen million dollars? Fifteen as in one-five? Million as in million?’ Raj’s clipped British accent cut through the early-morning air like a scimitar.

Jackson sipped his espresso. ‘It’s a three-year package.’

‘Guaranteed?’

‘Of course. Guaranteed. Remember, you’d be running retail for us, lock stock and barrel. Given where we are today, and where I know we could be with you at the helm, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t out earn those numbers.’

Fifteen million dollars. Fifteen million, guaranteed. I could fuck up as much as I like, make every wrong decision in the book, and I’d still get paid. Raj had always thought of himself as a risk taker. No, to hell with that, he was a risk taker. He’d taken a huge chance, tying his star to Sasha’s and jumping to Ceres on nothing more than a wing and a prayer. That risk had paid off, in spades. Not only had it catapulted his career into the big leagues, but it had been a wild exhilarating ride, and Raj had loved every minute of it, the deals, the press attention, the camaraderie. Sasha Miller was a machine when it came to work – she never stopped – but somehow she still managed to make the atmosphere at Ceres fun. They were a young company, and a crazily young management team. No one missed the stuffiness at Wrexall, nor the bullying from the ageing, greedy board. Least of all Raj. There was more to life than money.

On the other hand …

‘You’re getting married, aren’t you?’ Jackson leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs languidly like the king that he was.

‘How’d you know that?’

‘A little bird. How does your fiancée feel about all the brouhaha in the papers about you and Sasha?’

Raj stiffened. ‘She couldn’t care less. She knows it’s all rubbish.’

‘Really?’ Jackson raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes, really. We’re colleagues, that’s all.’

For some reason, Jackson felt relieved. That’ll make it easier to land Raj, he told himself. If they really were lovers, no amount of money would shift him.

‘Talk to your fiancée about the offer,’ said Jackson. ‘See what she thinks you should do.’

Raj laughed. ‘Oh, I get it. “ Honey, should I accept a cheque for fifteen million dollars no questions asked, or keep working on commission for a beautiful woman that half of America thinks I’m boning? ” That’s what you want me to ask her, right?’

Jackson laughed back. He genuinely liked Raj. Talking to him this morning, he realized how much he missed having him at Wrexall. With Sasha and Lottie both gone too, all the excitement had been sucked out of the place. ‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘It’s the truth isn’t it? They tell me all the best marriages are based on trust.’

Raj’s face fell. ‘I’m tempted. Of course I am. But what about Sasha? She trusts me.’

Jackson put down his coffee and leaned across the table, like a chess grand master moving in for checkmate. ‘Sasha is a businesswoman. At least, that’s what she told me when she ripped the fucking guts out of my company, the company that gave her a start, the company that made her.’ Raj was silent. Jackson had a right to be angry, but even so, seeing his rage in action was frightening. It was like a living thing, a being in its own right, hovering in the air between them like some malevolent moth. ‘You’re a young guy, Raj.’

‘Young-ish. I’m thirty-three.’

‘You’re about to start a family and you have your own life to think about, your own career. Ceres has had an amazing start. You were a big part of that. But it will always be Sasha Miller’s baby, and you know it. I’m offering you a chance to be master of your own destiny, at a firm with a century-old brand behind it. All the autonomy, all the financial upside and none of the risk. Sasha, of all people, understands what it is to be made an offer you can’t refuse. This is it, my friend. This is it.’

He was right. Of course he was right. When Raj left Wrexall he was on nine hundred grand a year. That was less than fourteen months ago. He stared into the dregs of his coffee cup. ‘I just don’t know how I’m going to tell Sasha …’

‘You aren’t,’ said Jackson firmly. ‘I can have the contracts with you in an hour, but they’re contingent on complete confidentiality. You say nothing. I’ll handle Sasha.’

Back at the Majestic, Sasha was having a thoroughly enjoyable day with the Ceres staff, going over the past year’s highlights and brainstorming their plans for the future. Raj had mysteriously disappeared, going for a run before breakfast and conspicuously failing to return. But Sasha was on too much of a high to care. Besides, Raj had earned the break. A large portion of her speech to the conference tomorrow would be dedicated to thanking him personally for his incredible contribution to Ceres’s early success. Without Raj there she was free to ask the rest of the team for suggestions, little jokes and anecdotes that might help spice up her address. Though she wouldn’t have admitted it publicly, Sasha had a fear of public speaking that bordered on the pathological. It was one of the reasons – one of the many – that she could have done without Jackson Dupree’s presence. As if she weren’t nervous enough already, without having to see his spiteful face in the crowd, willing her to trip up or say something foolish.

She’d half expected to see Jackson this morning at breakfast, and had made sure she looked immaculate just in case, washing and blow drying her hair and putting on her sexiest Myla underwear, a feminine touch that always made her feel powerful and in control. Nothing says world domination like a matching bra and knickers, she thought to herself, laughing because of course it was ridiculous, but then wasn’t everything about her life these days? When she walked into the breakfast buffet at eight thirty in a simple but sexy L’Wren Scott sheath dress, every male head turned to stare at her. But Jackson’s wasn’t one of them. After going to so much trouble, she felt oddly disappointed. Perhaps he really did have some hotel deal in the works, and had simply chosen to stay at the Majestic to irritate her? Who cares what his motives are? Forget about him.

She decided she would have dinner alone that night. Most of the Ceres crowd were heading into the old city for a night of drinking and dancing, but none of them had to give a speech tomorrow. Besides, Sasha had grown used to her own company over the years. She looked forward to eating alone, discovering new restaurants in exciting foreign cities, the way that other women might look forward to a romantic meal with a new boyfriend. Armed with a book or occasionally, as a guilty pleasure, a furtive copy of the New Scientist or Physics Today, she would settle down with a glass of Rioja and a plate of serrano ham and watch the world go by. Bliss.

After showering and changing into a simple, pretty floral sundress and sandals, she came down into the lobby, sticking her head round the door at the last minute on the off chance of catching the elusive Raj. Instead she saw Jackson, leaning against the bar in jeans and a faded grey t-shirt. He was saying goodbye to an older man, a Spaniard. Sasha was just about to creep away when Jackson glanced up and saw her.

‘Sasha. Come on in. Can I offer you a drink?’

All this faux niceness was disarming. If she refused, she would look churlish. If she accepted, he’d probably lace whatever she asked for with strychnine.

‘This is Manuel Hormaeche. He’s with Encerro, the company that sold us the land for that hotel I mentioned.’

So there is a hotel.

The Spaniard took Sasha’s hand and kissed it. From an American or a Brit the gesture would have seemed forward, even creepy, but the Spanish seemed to do these things with such elegance. ‘I look forward very much to your speech tomorrow, Miss Miller.’ He pronounced it ‘Mealer’. ‘You ’ave done miraculous things with Ceres.’

‘Thank you.’ Sasha blushed. Jackson watched her as she chatted politely to Sr Hormaeche, exchanging business cards before the older man left. She looked different tonight. Perhaps it was the girlish dress? That and the lack of makeup, the flat shoes, the sweet, almost shy way she accepted the Spaniard’s compliments. He had rarely seen this side to Sasha, the vulnerable, feminine side. It disturbed him.

‘Two glasses of champagne please,’ he heard himself saying. For some reason, he didn’t want Sasha to leave.

‘What are we celebrating?’ Warily, she sat down beside him. ‘Did you two finalize the deal?’

Jackson’s stomach lurched. For one, mad moment he thought she was talking about Raj Patel. Then he realized she couldn’t be. She must mean Hormaeche and the La Sagrada hotel. ‘Not yet. But we will do.’ The drinks arrived. He handed an ice-cold flute to Sasha. ‘Manuel knows it’s the best offer he’d going to get for that land. He’s playing hard to get, but he’ll give in eventually.’

Their eyes met. Sasha looked away first.

Since the night Sasha left Wrexall – the night Jackson had kissed her and she’d pulled away; the same night he’d got together with Lottie – Jackson had worked hard to stifle his desire for her. From that night onwards, he’d grown up. It was really very simple: Lottie was good for him; Sasha was bad. Lottie was loyal and supportive and loving; Sasha was a snake, a backstabber, a dangerous competitor who needed to be destroyed. Channelling all his sexual frustration into his efforts to undermine Ceres and rebuild Wrexall, he’d convinced himself that Sasha Miller no longer meant anything to him personally. But watching Hormaeche flirt with her before, he’d suddenly felt like a sixteen-year-old again. It was all he could do not to get up and punch the guy.

You need to beat her, that’s all. Then she’ll be out of your system.

Raj Patel’s defection would devastate Sasha. Springing it on her here, tomorrow, in front of the entire industry, would ensure that the blow had maximum impact. It was the revenge Jackson had been waiting for, planning and fantasizing about for twelve long months. So why did he suddenly feel as if all the pleasure had been sucked out of it?

Sasha sipped at her champagne, cursing herself for feeling so awkward and praying that Jackson couldn’t tell. Not knowing what else to say, she asked after Lottie.

‘How is she? I hear she’s running an art gallery now.’

Instantly Jackson’s face clouded over. ‘She’s fine. She’s well.’

‘And the two of you?’

‘We’re good.’

Conversation closed.

For a full minute, neither of them said anything. At last Sasha drained her glass and got down from her bar stool. ‘Thank you for the drink. Good luck with your deal.’ She started to walk away.

Jackson called after her, ‘Thanks. Good luck with your speech tomorrow, if I don’t see you.’

Something about his tone of voice made Sasha uneasy. She looked at him, but his face was as blankly handsome as ever and gave nothing away. You’re imagining things, she told herself. He’ll probably be gone by morning.

Sasha woke at 3 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., tormented by disturbing dreams in which she appeared on the podium naked, while Jackson Dupree pointed and laughed at her from the front row. At 5.15 a.m., unable to get back to sleep, she put on her running shoes and went out for a jog through Barcelona’s deserted streets. The city looked totally different at this time, its cobbled alleys bathed in soft dawn light. The smells were different too, delicious aromas of baking bread and coffee combined with the rancid smell of fish from the restaurant rubbish bins, wheeled out for the early-morning garbage collectors. Sasha ran until her limbs ached and her mind was blank. Coming back into the hotel, she bumped into Raj Patel walking out.

‘Hey, stranger,’ she joked. ‘What happened to you yesterday? I was starting to worry you’d been abducted by aliens.’

‘Sorry,’ Raj mumbled. ‘I … something came up. Something personal. I got caught up.’

He looked away when he spoke to her, as if he were embarrassed, or even afraid. Sasha had never seen him look so awkward. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Of course. Everything’s fine. It’s just … like I said, it’s personal.’

‘You’ll be at the conference this afternoon, though, right?’ asked Sasha. ‘I could really use the support. You know public speaking scares the shit out of me.’ During her sleepless night, she’d mentally rewritten the whole middle section of her speech into what she hoped would be a funny but inspiring little homily about teamwork. Half way through she was going to haul poor Raj up out of the audience like a magician’s volunteer. Without him, the whole thing would fall flat.

‘Sure,’ said Raj. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Seriously,’ Sasha smiled. ‘I need you. Don’t let me down.’

Raj walked away, wondering if it were too late to have Wrexall change the terms of his new contract to include a bonus of thirty pieces of silver.

The conference room at the Hotel Majestic was a grand former ballroom, high ceilinged and ornate with gilt inlaid panelling and a dais flanked by sumptuous, deep-red velvet curtains. By 2 p.m. the floor was packed with delegates, the most important seated at the front at round tables sponsored by their various companies, and the less well known fighting over the rows of plush cushioned chairs lining the middle and back of the room. Behind the dais, a large white screen had been erected to project a magnified image of each speaker’s face to the more remote members of the audience.

Lunch had been served at 1 p.m., to the chagrin of the locals who viewed this as breakfast time, and a couple of dull speeches had been delivered while everybody ate paella and, in the case of the British and French delegates, got heavily stuck into the free-flowing Chablis. Waiting in the wings in a dark blue Balenciaga trouser suit, nervously scanning her speech cards for the hundredth time, Sasha could have murdered a stiff drink herself. It was only the thought of slurring her words in front of Jackson Dupree that made her hold back. Afterwards, she promised herself. As soon as I step off that podium, I’ll order a scotch. Only a couple of minutes to go now.

Carlos Gallo, the dapper CEO of the Spanish real estate giant Explorador and the master of ceremonies at today’s event, tapped Sasha on the shoulder.

‘Change of plan, cariña. We ’ave one other speaker now before you.’

Sasha felt sick. ‘But I … I’m ready now. What other speaker? Can’t they go later?’

‘Unfortunately not. Mr Dupree ‘as a plane to catch in a couple of hours. I know a lot of our attendees would want to hear Wrexall Dupree’s take on the European market. Mr Dupree was kind enough to offer to say a few words and then introduce you.’

Peering through the throng of faces, Sasha saw Jackson a few rows back. He was chatting and laughing with a sycophantic huddle of Eurotrash as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Some sixth sense made him look up and catch her staring. He flashed her a maddening smile.

Before she had time to protest any further, Carlos Gallo was gone. She felt her sleeve being tugged. Someone was pulling her further back into the shadows, away from the stage. Turning around, she saw it was Raj.

‘I don’t believe it.’ Sasha was shaking, close to tears. ‘That bastard Jackson’s asked to speak, now. He knows how hard I find this. He’s done it deliberately! He’s trying to throw me off.’

‘I’m afraid it’s worse than that,’ said Raj grimly. ‘Listen, Sash, there’s something I’ve got to tell you …’

Two hours later and Jackson Dupree’s roar could be heard through the floors of his eighth-floor suite, shaking light fixtures in the rooms below.

‘You fucker!’ he bellowed. ‘You swore to me you wouldn’t say anything! I hope you realize that your contract’s now null and void? I’m not hiring you and I’m not paying you a damned penny. FUCK!’ He banged his fist on the antique writing desk so hard it cracked like a stick of kindling. Raj, as ever, kept his cool. Jackson might want to throw his toys out of the cot because he’d failed to publicly derail Sasha, but Raj doubted the rest of the Wrexall board would back him.

‘Don’t be so childish, Jackson. You know I’m the best man for Wrexall. That’s why you made me the offer in the first place. Clearly the board agrees or they’d never have signed off on the package.’

‘I trusted you,’ Jackson fumed. ‘You warned her. You fucking warned her!’

‘Yes, I warned her. She’s my friend, and what you were trying to pull was just a shitty thing to do. You might not care whether the world thinks you’re a card-carrying wanker, but I do. You were right, me leaving Ceres for Wrexall was a business decision. And I don’t regret it. But throwing Sasha to the wolves like that? That’s not business. That’s spite. You know speaking in public terrifies her. It’s that kind of shit that made us all leave Wrexall in the first place.’

‘GET OUT!’ Jackson yelled at him. ‘Get the hell out of my sight!’

‘Fine,’ said Raj, unruffled. ‘But you’d better get your shit together, Jackson. Or, money or no money, I will walk away. I will stay at Ceres – and don’t kid yourself Sasha wouldn’t have me back in a heartbeat – and I’ll make sure the world, and the Wrexall board, knows why.’

He walked out, shutting the door behind him firmly but gently. In Jackson’s current mood, even that felt like an affront. Why can’t he lose his cool like a normal fucking human being? Why can’t he slam the door, or yell back. Why do I have to be the only jerk around here? He kicked the leg of the desk he’d just broken and winced at the pain in his shin. He knew Raj was right. He was being childish. And spiteful. And ridiculous. But he didn’t care.

Jackson had taken the podium earlier full of confidence, praising Ceres for their innovative business philosophy while simultaneously undermining them brilliantly, constantly stressing their youth and inexperience versus Wrexall’s maturity, longevity and rock-solid financial pedigree. Unlike Sasha, Jackson was an inspired speaker. Had he not gone into the family business he’d have made a terrific politician, masterfully shredding his opponents without landing any obvious or overt blows. In this case, however, after a carefully crafted speech that successfully belittled Sasha’s achievements, he launched a full-frontal nuclear strike in the form of Raj Patel, whom he invited onstage, introducing him to a shocked audience and industry press as Wrexall’s latest star hire.

Stepping down to gasps and thunderous applause, Jackson had taken his seat in the front row like a Roman emperor, waiting to watch Sasha being thrown to the lions. But instead of stammering confusion, he found himself watching a poised, thoughtful and above all gracious Sasha, deliver a speech that ultimately won her a six-minute standing ovation. Discarding everything she’d prepared, she spoke from the heart. About how much she owed Raj Patel, and how much she owed Wrexall Dupree. About how, as a young, experimental company, Ceres always pushed its people to accept new challenges, to move forward and be all that they could be. She joked about the tabloids painting her and Raj as a couple, pondering aloud whom she might be linked with next. ‘I hear Rafael Nadal’s single again,’ she quipped, to ecstatic applause (the home-grown Spanish tennis champ had won the US Open two days before). ‘Maybe I should stay in Spain for a while and work on my backhand?’

Seething with fury in the front row, the tennis analogy stuck in Jackson’s throat. He’d just served Sasha what ought to have been a sure-fire ace. But here she was, lobbing it back to him with the effortless grace of a champion. So much for the element of surprise.

Up in his suite, the phone rang. Jackson answered with a snarl. ‘Fuck off, I’m busy.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Lucius Monroe’s reedy, elderly voice had lost none of its dry, sardonic humour. He didn’t miss a beat. ‘I was calling to congratulate you on landing Raj Patel. That’s a great hire for us.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jackson grudgingly.

‘You don’t sound very happy about it, dear boy.’

‘Sorry, Lucius. It’s been a long day.’

‘Well, go out and celebrate. Better yet, get Patel to pick up the tab. He can afford it on what we’re about to pay him.’

Jackson hung up. Raj was a great hire. He knew he should be pleased, and focused on the bigger picture. But all he could think about was Sasha and the way this afternoon’s conference crowd had lapped her up. Raj’s defection should have been, at the very least, a PR nightmare for Ceres. But once again, Sasha had managed to turn things around.

The phone rang again. If one more person calls to congratulate me, I’m pulling the cord out of the wall. ‘Yes?’

‘You cunt.’ Sasha’s voice was quiet, but Jackson could feel the rage quivering in every breath. ‘It wasn’t enough for you to go after Raj. You had to try to humiliate me too, as publicly and painfully as possible. You knew how much I was dreading that speech!’

‘Yes, well, thanks to Mr Patel’s bleeding heart I never got the chance, did I? So I don’t know what you’re bitching about.’

‘Don’t know what I’m bitching about?’ Sasha sounded as if she was about to erupt. ‘Get over here.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said get over here! Walk next door to my room and tell me to my face that you don’t know what I’m bitching about. You’re a fucking coward, Jackson.’ She hung up.

Six seconds later, Jackson was pounding at the door of her suite. Coward, indeed. She thinks I’m afraid to face her? I’ll face her. I’ll tell her exactly what I think of her, right to her face.

‘I’m not here to apologize,’ he announced defiantly. ‘So if that’s what you’re hoping for you can kiss my ass.’ Sasha had opened the door in a hotel bathrobe with a towel tied turban-style on top of her head. Clearly fresh out of the shower, she had no make-up on and looked more like an incensed fourteen-year-old who’s just had her pocket money stopped than a beleaguered CEO. Jackson was just thinking how strangely sweet she looked when a sharp slap across the face sent him reeling. ‘What the fuck?’ He clasped his stinging cheek. ‘You hit me!’

Sasha didn’t answer, but let out a shriek that sounded like some sort of Maori war cry and flung herself at Jackson, punching, biting, kicking, flailing at him with her nails like a wildcat. ‘You arsehole! You fucking arsehole!’ It was so unexpected that at first Jackson barely reacted. In those few, precious moments of confusion, Sasha scratched at his face like a lunatic and landed one agonizing kick to his groin.

Jesus, he thought. She’s trying to kill me.

By the time he regained strength and composure enough to overpower her, his face was covered in welts and the beginnings of a plum-coloured bruise was already forming on his forearm. Pinning her arms behind her back, he picked her up, legs still thrashing wildly, and put her on the bed face down, straddling her and holding her in place like a wrestler.

‘Enough,’ he panted. He released his grip a little and Sasha immediately spun around and bit him hard on the wrist. It was agony. ‘Jesus!’ Jackson screamed, restraining her again, harder this time with his knee in the small of her back. ‘Stop it, Sasha. This is ridiculous. It’s completely fucking ridiculous.’ Beneath him he could feel her breathing slow and her muscles start to release. If he was exhausted, she must be about to pass out. Tentatively, he let go again and this time she made no attempt to relaunch the attack. Instead she turned and looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. Jackson was shocked. She’d never shown so much as one ounce of vulnerability in front of him before and now here she was crying. Because of me?

His voice softened. ‘Hey, don’t. Please. Look, I’m sorry, OK? Maybe I went too far.’

Sasha shook her head, too choked up to speak. Jackson didn’t understand. How could he? What if losing Raj Patel was the turning point, the jinx, the beginning of the end for Ceres, or at least the end of their incredible beginning? For Jackson, business was a game. It was all about ego. Not for Sasha. All the adulation, the money, the fame, they meant nothing in themselves. They were a means to an end, an end that she already felt slipping from her grasp – getting her revenge on Theo Dexter. Somehow, in ways she couldn’t explain, Jackson had come between her and Theo. Between her and her destiny, her purpose, her reason for existing. She wasn’t crying about Raj Patel or even some stupid speech. She was crying because she didn’t know who she was any more.

‘I wanted to beat you.’ Jackson’s voice broke her train of thought. He sounded embarrassed. ‘Just once. I wanted to beat you completely.’

‘You did beat me,’ muttered Sasha. ‘You got Raj. Wasn’t that enough?’

‘No. It wasn’t. I wanted to make you look a fool, the way you made me look a fool last year; in front of the entire industry. I wanted …’ He looked her in the eye, and she knew he was telling her the truth. ‘I wanted you to suffer because of me. The same way I suffer because of you.’

Sasha’s tears stopped. She looked back at him. Still kneeling over her on the bed, she could feel the pressure of his legs against hers, his body warm from the exertion of fighting her off. Her eyes were drawn up, over his lean, suited torso to his face, the strong outline of his jaw jutting out like a ledge at the top of a cliff.

‘I make you suffer?’ she asked.

His hands stroked her tear-stained cheeks. ‘Every day.’

Afterwards, both of them would try to remember how it had happened: who kissed who first? Did Sasha slip out of her robe or did Jackson undress her? But it was impossible to tell, like trying to untangle the roots of a single tree. All Sasha could remember was that, without time seeming to have passed at all, they were both naked.

Tentatively, she traced a finger down Jackson’s bare back, wondering at the smooth tautness of his skin. He leaped at her touch as if he’d been scalded. Sasha drew back.

‘Are you OK?’

Jackson nodded. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this, that’s all.’

Sasha laughed. Not as long as me, she thought, mentally trying to calculate exactly how many years it was since she had last had sex. Jackson probably logged his encounters by the week, if not the day.

As if reading her mind, Jackson said quietly, ‘This is different.’

Gently, with a tenderness Sasha was surprised to find he was capable of, Jackson slipped a hand beneath the small of her back and pulled her down the bed until her hips were level with his own. She felt his erection nudging against her belly. All of a sudden, like being swept up in a storm utterly beyond her control, she found herself reaching for him, her legs opening wider, her hands grabbing his buttocks and pulling him greedily inside her. She’d expected Jackson’s love-making to be polished and practised, an all-star performance from a seasoned lothario. Instead, he moved inside her with a wild need that she had not expected, grabbing at her hair, her back, her breasts. He fucked as if his life depended on it, like a thirst-crazed nomad stumbling upon an oasis. And Sasha responded in kind, wrapping her legs around him and arching her back with a hunger she could neither contain nor conceal.

‘I love you,’ Jackson moaned. He was on his back now, with Sasha above him, his hands on her hips as she rocked gently back and forth, utterly lost in her own pleasure.

I love you too, said Sasha. Except it didn’t come out as words, but more of a sigh, a deep exhalation of all the frustration and longing and need she’d been carrying with her for years, since the day they met. Through the wall, she could hear a phone ringing from Jackson’s room. ‘Someone wants you,’ she murmured.

Jackson thrust deeper inside her. ‘I want you, Sasha. You’re all I want.’ He came then, his whole body shaking, as if in the throes of some delicious electric shock. Sasha bent low and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth. Neither of them wanted to move, both afraid to let the moment end, to break the spell. But a few seconds later, it was broken for them by Jackson’s cellphone, trilling loudly and insistently from the pocket of his pants, now lying in a tangled heap on the floor. He reached down and picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Darling, it’s me.’

Lottie’s voice was like a glass of cold water in the face. Jackson pictured her at home in their apartment, loving him, trusting him, eager for him to come back to her. He winced. ‘Hey. How are you? I was going to call …’

‘Jackson, something’s happened,’ she interrupted him. For the first time he heard the trepidation in her voice. Some mad impulse made him wonder whether perhaps she’d been unfaithful? Then he wouldn’t have to feel so bad. If she’d fallen for somebody else, someone decent and kind, someone infinitely better and more worthy of her than he was …

‘It’s your father.’

‘My father?’ Jackson frowned. ‘What about him?’ Ever since Walker Dupree had sided with Sasha and the Wrexall board over the Ceres deal, Jackson had barely spoken to the old man. Their relationship, strained at the best of times, had deteriorated to terse, business-related messages, usually delivered second hand via Jackson’s mother, Mitzi.

On the other end of the line, Jackson heard Lottie’s deep intake of breath. ‘Jackson, honey, I’m so sorry. He died. About an hour ago. We’ve been trying to get through to you …’

Lottie was still talking but Jackson didn’t hear her. He hung up and looked at Sasha. His face was blank, and when he spoke his voice was robotic and dull. ‘My dad’s dead. That was Lottie. I have to go home.’

Back in St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, four years later, Jackson was dimly aware of his best man shaking him by the shoulder.

‘Jackson. JACKSON! Are you with us, dude?’

‘Hmmm?’ Jackson opened his eyes. Church. Martha’s Vineyard. My wedding day. The Barcelona hotel room and Sasha’s stricken face faded from mental view. That night had been the last time he’d seen her in person. Four years ago! Why the hell am I thinking about that now?

‘Your mum got held up at the house.’ James Dermott’s voice sounded unreal. ‘Something about flower arrangements. Lottie’s car’s gonna go round the block till she shows up. Ten more minutes, OK?’

‘Ten minutes? Sure.’

It was after he flew back from Spain, after his father’s funeral, that he’d proposed to Lottie. Ridden with guilt about sleeping with Sasha – not so much the act itself, though that was bad enough, but what it had meant to him, what he had felt – Jackson threw himself back into his relationship with Lottie with renewed determination. It was no longer a choice between two women. It was a choice between two versions of himself. There was the good Jackson, mature, responsible, kind, content, the Jackson that he was when he was around Lottie. And there was the bad Jackson, impetuous, restless, spiteful and passionate, the Jackson that Sasha Miller seemed to bring out merely by breathing. It’s not Sasha’s fault. It’s mine. We’re bad for each other. Bad chemistry. Put us in a room together and we explode.

Barcelona changed things. Jackson dropped his vendetta against Ceres. Raj Patel came back to Wrexall and had since done a stellar job, reinvigorating the business in ways that not even Jackson had imagined possible. When Jackson heard that Sasha had done a deal with Manuel Hormaeche behind his back (so much for La Sagrada being the wrong location!) he found himself chuckling at her chutzpah. A year earlier he’d probably have been hiring a hit man or boning up on the internet about how to firebomb Ceres’s offices. And yet, on a personal level, both Sasha and Jackson behaved as if nothing had happened that day. Sasha sent flowers to Walker Dupree’s funeral. Jackson thanked her. That was the last contact they’d had. Jackson didn’t invite her to the wedding, and Sasha had not expected him to. Whatever had once been between them was in the past now, buried. Jackson felt relieved.

‘Here she is.’

Jackson turned. His mother, Mitzi, took her seat, and as soon as she did so the entire congregation stood up. Lottie, smiling shyly like an angel on her father’s arm, made her way up the aisle towards him. In a demure, handmade white lace gown with a full-length antique veil, she reminded Jackson of a nun taking orders: serene, certain, lovely. As usual she wore next to no make-up, and her jewellery, a simple Solange Azagury-Partridge cross set with a smattering of tiny emeralds, was as delicate and understated as only Lottie could be. As soon as he saw her, Jackson felt the tension ease, and the anxiety flood out of his body.

She’s beautiful, he thought. She’s what I need.

The wedding march was playing. His new life was about to begin.