Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin. Tasmina Perry

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      ‘I will be getting some friends on board to sing,’ Maria said mysteriously. ‘Myself … a couple of arias, maybe Bizet, Debussy, Mozart of course, maybe even some other songs in different styles – Gershwin, perhaps. I am doing a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York a few weeks before, so maybe I will do something from that.’

      ‘Any sneak previews?’ asked Nicholas hopefully.

      Bored, and wanting to have a little bit of fun with all these tedious, pompous Brits, she looked at him, an idea forming in her mind. ‘Sneak preview?’ she smiled, flipping a coil of ebony hair away from her forehead, ‘You just might be in luck.’

      Serena glanced at her watch. Two minutes to ten. She smoothed the silk jersey over her thigh, and made her way to one end of the room where Venetia had placed a microphone ready for her speech. She hadn’t prepared anything, but she was a good speaker, and she wanted to make sure her swansong in front of all her old London crowd was nothing short of sensational.

      Just then she noticed Maria Dante turning to the small orchestra, who were partway through a version of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Maria raised a finger to her lips and moved in front of the microphone. Her chest started to wobble as if her lungs were being pumped full of air, then, from out of her scarlet lips, strains of her rich soprano voice began to lift around the room. Charlesworth, recognizing the Rossini bel canto, shut his eyes as if mesmerized by a siren’s call. All heads turned to listen, Maria’s high notes perfectly clear in their resonance and diction, her voice so strong and powerful that there was no need for the microphone. The crowd drifted towards her and, as the room throbbed with an emotional pulse, Oswald looked around appreciatively, basking in the reflected glory. Standing at the back by the staircase, Serena looked on furiously.

      ‘Cate, Cate,’ she hissed, waving at her sister who, like everybody else in the room, was transfixed by the performance. Cate turned around and mouthed, ‘What?’

      Serena grabbed Cate and pulled her behind a pillar. ‘What do you mean “what?”? That woman is making an exhibition of herself.’

      Cate laughed quietly. ‘Serena, she’s fantastic. You’ve got one of the world’s biggest opera stars singing at your party.’

      ‘Oh fantastic!’ sneered Serena, pulling Cate so close that pink fingerprints appeared on her arm. ‘She is trying to steal my thunder. I’m supposed to be speaking in five minutes. Who’s going to want to listen to me after hearing Fat Woman of the Opera?’

      Serena’s lip was quivering, her eyes had started welling up with tears. Then, seeing she was having no effect on Cate, she pushed Cate back into the room. ‘Oh, just get Venetia!’

      Cate found her eldest sister sitting back on a cream chaise longue.

      ‘Serena is furious,’ whispered Cate, trying to play down the drama. ‘Can we get Maria off?’

      ‘What am I supposed to do?’ asked Venetia, a look of panic on her face. ‘I’ll get booed if I try and stop this.’

      Incensed, Serena had decided to take matters into her own hands. She walked to the front of the crowd and stood in front of Maria Dante, the smile on her mouth saying, ‘How delightful!’, her eyes blazing and hostile. Oswald looked on from the bar, enjoying the single malt in his hand, but not as much as seeing the cat-fight brewing between his daughter and girlfriend. Oswald crept over to stand behind his daughter and whispered in her ear. ‘Highlight of the evening, isn’t she?’

      ‘She’s ruining my evening,’ said Serena, her voice wobbling, ‘Daddy, please!’ she implored. ‘Please do something.’

      Oswald smiled, loving the drama of Serena’s discomfort, feeling her misery and disappointment build as the song grew, spiralling into its triumphant crescendo.

      ‘Please,’ whispered Serena. ‘Please.’

      Maria’s voice rose like a balloon, filling every corner of the house with light and beauty. Her voice was so strong yet so intimate, it was as if she was giving each and every guest a personal audience. Locking eyes with Serena, Maria drew her hands together in front of her and brought the music to a close, her eyelids closed, her head bowed in exhausted rapture.

      The crowd exploded into a rich applause, the musicians looked elated, and Maria Dante smiled triumphantly at her audience. For the briefest moment, she glanced over at Serena, who was mechanically clapping and smiling with perfect, gritted teeth.

      ‘Get up there,’ hissed Venetia to Serena, looking at her watch.

      ‘Thank you, thank you,’ purred Maria. ‘Now let me introduce the real star of the evening: Serena Balcon.’

      But her words were drowned out by the chatter of the crowd, who were talking excitedly about the performance and drifting towards the bar.

      Serena was right, no one wanted to hear her after that performance. Fury welling up inside her, she curled her hands into such a tight fist that her nails clawed into her palm. She wanted Maria Dante out of her father’s life as soon as possible, and she was going to do whatever was necessary to make that desire happen.

       18

      Milan still cut a glamorous dash, even in the middle of March, thought Nick Douglas as his eyes panned across the Piazza del Duomo. Although the carnival of Fashion Week had rolled out of town two weeks earlier and the city was wrapped in a grey, damp drizzle that reminded him of Manchester, it still buzzed with a sophistication and elegance that was hard to match in any other city in the world. Not even Manhattan’s Upper East Side could boast so many immaculately groomed women shopping for groceries in full-length sheared mink coats and dark sunglasses. New York might be the land of opportunity, where a tie-salesman like Ralph Lauren could become a retail billionaire, he thought, but Milan was the real centre of the glamorous fashion universe, particularly when it came to glossy magazine publishing. Without impressing the city’s fashion giants – Armani, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace – and securing their lucrative advertising spend, a glossy magazine launch was as good as dead in the frothy, rose-scented water.

      Cate and Nick sat in a tiny café in the shadow of the enormous cathedral and celebrated a productive afternoon’s work with a Bellini. Prada had made positive noises about coming in after the first couple of issues if they liked what they saw, while Giorgio Armani, who insisted on inspecting and OK-ing every magazine personally before he would green-light any advertising, had been even more positive. Not only had he committed to advertising the Armani Collezioni line in Sand’s debut issue, they had even talked about doing a shoot and interview with the fashion legend at his sumptuous home on the Italian island of Pantelleria.

      ‘Have we really only known each other a month?’ smiled Cate, now on her third Bellini and feeling a bit giddy. She was flipping through her pink Smythson diary to make a note to contact the Armani PR and had noticed the line ‘Meet Nick Douglas in Flask’ scrawled on a page in early February. ‘Seems like a lifetime,’ she said.

      ‘I think you’ll find it’s six weeks,’ corrected Nick, looking over her shoulder to peek at the diary. ‘And you’re too right. I feel like I’ve grown another head – yours.’

      She kicked him playfully under the table and reached to scoop up a handful of peeled almonds from the bowl on the table.

      ‘Want СКАЧАТЬ