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

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СКАЧАТЬ to kiss Dita’s flat stomach as she lay rigid on the sun lounger. That was a lie. If he got the Mastership – when he got it – it would be forever. But he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Moving his head lower, he started to peel down Dita’s Missoni bikini bottoms and felt her writhe with anticipation, her thighs parting automatically. Oddly, the worse things got between them as a couple, the more thrilling the sex seemed to become. ‘You can still fly back to LA regularly for work. We both can,’ he purred, gently parting her newly Brazilianed labia and teasing her with butterfly kisses. Dita gasped.

      ‘I hate you,’ she whispered, her fingers massaging Theo’s scalp and her back arching with pleasure.

      Theo felt himself getting hard. ‘I hate you too.’

      Maybe, in Cambridge, away from all the Hollywood craziness, he’d finally be able to break away? If nothing else, he would get rid of Dita’s entourage and decimate her spending. St Michael’s had been surprisingly flexible about accommodating his filming schedule – ‘Should you be elected, of course.’ But both the college fellows and Theo knew that that was a foregone conclusion. Theo could open doors for St Michael’s, in terms of funding and global PR, that no other candidate could possibly hope to match.

      A uniformed waiter poked his head around the canvas walls of the cabaña just as Dita started to orgasm. Ever the exhibitionist, she turned and looked right at him, her pupils dilating wildly. He blushed scarlet.

      ‘Oh my God! I … I’m so sorry, Ms Andreas.’ He started backing out.

      Theo looked up. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said, deadpan. ‘She loves it.’

      Sasha heard the news that Theo Dexter had applied for the Mastership of St Michael’s on Christmas Day.

      Home alone in her Upper East Side apartment, more depressed than she cared to admit, she was sitting at her computer, gorging herself on Fortnum & Mason mince pies from the luxury hamper she’d had delivered to herself when her thoughts turned to England and home. Remembering the conversation she’d had with her dad a few months ago about St Michael’s, she googled ‘St Michael’s Cambridge Master Election’ and there it was.

      ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said aloud. Her first reaction was horror. It was bad enough that Theo should still be alive, never mind richer and more famous and successful than ever. But that he should go back to Cambridge, and not just to Cambridge but to St Michael’s? That he should be welcomed back into the academic and scientific fold? That was too much to bear. Sasha would have given away Ceres and every penny she’d earned to stop it from happening. But as ever, she was powerless.

      Angry, frustrated and bitterly depressed, she pulled on her warmest Donna Karan cashmere coat and fur-lined boots and trudged out into the snow. I’m like Mr Scrooge, she thought, biting back her irritation as she watched smiling families building snowmen on the sidewalks, and tried not to glare openly at the elderly couple who wished her a Happy Christmas on their way home from church. I have more money than I know what to do with, but I’m miserable as sin and all alone.

      Stalking past the cheery West Village store fronts with their bright holiday displays, Sasha tried not to think about Jackson and Lottie and how they were spending the day, but it was like trying to turn back the tide. She pictured them like Jim Carrey in the scene from Dumb and Dumber, in an idyllic log cabin somewhere, with Jackson in a snowflake sweater, gazing adoringly at Lottie as she sat by the fire looking wifely and blissful. She was probably pregnant already. Twins most likely, perfect, adorable little Jackson clones.

      Turning the corner, she was mercifully distracted by the incongruous sight of a group of protesters. There were only ten or twelve of them, stomping their feet against the cold as they waved their homemade placards in the air, but their disgruntled faces cheered Sasha inordinately. My people. The kind of people who bitch on Christmas Day. She could have hugged them.

      Crossing the street to get a better look, she saw that the placards read ‘No Condos on Holy Ground!’ and felt slightly less warmly disposed. God squadders had never been Sasha’s cup of tea, and as a real estate developer she found it hard to muster enthusiasm for the no-building brigade either. But curiosity got the better of her.

      ‘What’s this about?’ she asked one of the protesters, a pale, skinny girl with unfortunately prominent buckteeth.

      ‘They want to build apartments on that lot over there, next to the church. The city’s said they’re gonna consent, because it’s vacant land. But there are people buried there. It’s consecrated!’ She imbued the last word with as much outraged awe as her dental challenges would allow.

      ‘Couldn’t they move the bodies?’ asked Sasha innocently. ‘To some other consecrated ground?’

      The girl looked as if she might burst into tears. ‘How would you like it, if someone dug you up and dumped you someplace else, like some hunk of garbage? What if it was your mother down there?’

      Thinking privately that, as she’d be dead, she’d probably be past caring, Sasha murmured something supportive and continued on her way. It was only after she’d gone another two blocks, and was thinking about heading home for a sixth mince pie and some Vicar of Dibley DVDs, that it suddenly hit her. An idea so radical, and yet so obvious, so simple! Running back to where the protesters were standing, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wodge of twenty-dollar bills, thrusting them into the bucktoothed girl’s bewildered hands.

      ‘Thank you!’ she beamed. ‘Thank you, and good luck with your campaign! And Merry Christmas!’ she added for good measure, skipping towards her apartment, her heart still racing.

      ‘Er … you’re welcome?’ said the girl, watching the beautiful girl in the couture coat twirl her way down the street. She was sure she recognized her from somewhere.

      Back in her apartment, Sasha kicked off her boots, dropped her coat on the floor and ran to her bedroom, bouncing up and down on the bed like a five-year-old, whooping and laughing until she was out of breath.

      After all these years, just like that, she’d done it.

      She’d figured out a way to get her revenge on Theo Dexter.

      It wouldn’t be easy, of course. Plenty of things could go wrong. But it was a chance, a plan, a window of opportunity she’d come to believe she would never be granted.

      It was going to be a good Christmas after all.

PART FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY

      Theresa sat in the waiting room of the Bridge Street surgery, flicking through a three-year-old copy of Country Life and marvelling at how cheap the property prices were back then … back when they’d seemed astronomical. The property market had been on her mind lately, ever since an extremely polite American couple had knocked on the door of Willow Tree Cottage a few weeks ago and asked her at what price she would consider selling.

      ‘It is just the most utterly charming house we’ve ever seen,’ gushed the wife. ‘We were planning to buy in the Cotswolds, you know, around Oxford?’ She pronounced it ‘Arksford’.

      Theresa suppressed a smile. ‘Yes, I know the area. It’s lovely.’

      ‘But then we came СКАЧАТЬ