Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals. Tilly Bagshawe

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      ‘Theresa’s right,’ said JP, scraping the last scraps of perfectly cooked entrecote onto his fork. ‘This is a line it is best nevair to cross. Especially when one ‘as ambitions.’ He raised an eyebrow cryptically.

      ‘Eh?’ said Jenny

      ‘What ambitions?’ said Theresa. ‘You make it sound like I’m running for office.’

      Jean Paul reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a newspaper clipping from the latest Varsity. ‘Per’aps you should be. Take a look at this.’

      Theresa read the clipping. ‘It’s about St Michael’s. Anthony Greville’s finally stepping down as Master next year. I can’t believe that old goat’s still going. He was about a hundred years old back in Theo’s day.’

      ‘The college is inviting applications for the Mastership.’

      ‘Yes, I know.’

      ‘You should apply.’

      Theresa laughed so hard she almost choked on her foie gras toast. ‘Me?’

      ‘Why not you?’ asked Jenny.

      ‘Why not me? Why not the dustman? Why not my mother? Why not Lysander, for God’s sake! I’m far too junior. I don’t have nearly enough experience.’

      ‘Sure you do,’ said JP. ‘Graham North’s put himself forward. He’s in my department, engineering. I wouldn’t hire Graham to unblock a drain, never mind run a college. The rest of the list are older but distinctly uninspiring: Andrew Gray. He’s been at St Michael’s so long they’re about to name a library after him. Hugh Mullaney-Stoop from Robinson, which isn’t even a real college.’

      ‘Old Mulligatawny Soup’s put his name in the hat, has he?’ laughed Jenny. ‘He’s the dullest man in Cambridge. You’d be miles better than him, Theresa.’

      Theresa laughed too. Some PA to the gods had obviously sent a celestial memo round that today was her day to be flattered. ‘Thanks, guys. I appreciate the vote of confidence. But I am much too young, much too insignificant and, last but not least, much too female to stand a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming Master of St Mike’s. Now, who’s for pudding? The hazelnut soufflé’s supposed to be out of this world.’

      * * *

      Later that night, in bed in Willow Tree Cottage with the wind rattling the ancient leaded windows, Theresa lay under a mountain of blankets, thinking about the day. She’d managed to get through the rest of the supervision with Horatio Hollander, largely by avoiding eye contact as much as possible, but the poor boy’s embarrassment was contagious. Afterwards she’d wondered guiltily if perhaps she’d somehow given him any encouragement – unconsciously, of course. The truth was she did enjoy his company. Theresa had come to look on her supervisions with Horatio as one of the highlights of her week, though in the past she’d always put that down to the thrill of working with an undergraduate capable of challenging her intellectually, of pushing the boundaries. Well, now the boundaries had been well and truly pushed. It was her job, her responsibility, to push them back. Even so, she couldn’t help but take a tiny sliver of pleasure from the fact that this kind, brilliant, golden boy had fallen for her of all people. At her age, it was quite a compliment.

      Then there was the day’s other compliment, at the other end of the scale, Jean Paul’s suggestion that she apply for the St Michael’s Mastership. Theresa wasn’t sure which fantasy was the more impossible to picture. Herself as Mrs Horatio Hollander, skipping down the aisle in a white dress, or herself taking the Master’s seat at St Michael’s high table. Both thoughts – the white dress and St Michael’s – drew her mind back to Theo.

      Theresa was no longer in love with him. Those days, mercifully, had passed. But occasionally, especially after a few glasses of Bordeaux, or when she saw pictures of his and Dita’s adorable little children, fragile, blond Milo and the chubby-cheeked little girl, Francesca, she felt a sort of wistful nostalgia. Those could have been my children, she would think, before realizing that of course they couldn’t, and that it was ridiculous and wrong to project her own frustrations or regrets onto two perfectly innocent little people whom she hadn’t even met, and likely never would.

      Tonight, as sleep crept over her, she wondered about Theo. Where he was right now, this moment, as she lay in bed in Grantchester. What he was thinking. She thought of how amazed he’d be if he were to read that she, Theresa O’Connor, had become Master of his old college.

      As pipe dreams went, it was a good one.

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 СКАЧАТЬ