Olivia Gates - One Night in... Rio

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ANNE MATHERsays: “I’ve always wanted to write—which is not to say I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. On the contrary, for years I wrote only for my own pleasure and it wasn’t until my husband suggested that I ought to send one of my stories to a publisher that we put several publishers’ names into a hat and pulled one out. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, more than a hundred and fifty books later, I’m literally—excuse the pun—staggered by what happened.

“I had written all through my infant and junior years and on into my teens. The trouble was, I never used to finish any of the stories and Caroline , my first published book, was the first book I’d actually completed. I was newly married then and my daughter was just a baby. It was quite a job juggling my household chores and scribbling away in exercise books every chance I got. Not very professional, as you can see, but that’s the way it was.

“I now have two grown-up children, a son and daughter, and two adorable grandchildren, Abigail and Ben. My e-mail address is: mystic-am@msn. com, and I’d be happy to hear from any of my readers.”

‘WHO is that guy?’

Sonia Leyton came to where Isobel was trying to stop one of the drunker guests from pouring another bottle of vodka into the punch and nudged her arm.

‘Who is he?’ she persisted, when Isobel seemed to be ignoring her. ‘Come on, sweetie. You must know. You invited him.’

‘Correction—Julia invited him,’ said Isobel shortly, succeeding in blocking Lance Bliss from turning an already potent mix into pure dynamite.

‘You’re no fun,’ he muttered, raising the open bottle to his lips and taking a generous slug. ‘Lighten up, can’t you? This is supposed to be a party.’

‘But not a wake,’ retorted Isobel, guessing what that amount of undiluted alcohol could do. ‘Honestly, if I’d known.’

‘You still haven’t told me who that guy is,’ protested Sonia, her mind fixed on a single track. ‘You might not have invited him yourself, but it’s your apartment. You must know who Julia asked to come.’

Isobel expelled a weary breath and glanced in the direction Sonia was indicating—though it wasn’t entirely necessary. She’d noticed the man as soon as Julia had let him in.

Their eyes had met very briefly, and she’d told herself the reaction she’d had was because he didn’t look English. But the real truth was he was the most disturbingly attractive man she’d ever seen.

Tall and dark—younger than Julia, she suspected—with thick, straight hair that overlapped his collar and fell in a deep swathe across his forehead. She didn’t know what colour his eyes were, but she was fairly sure they’d be dark too, complementing rather harsh features that were essentially masculine.

Right now, he was slouched on the window sill across the room, one lean, brown hand resting on his thigh, the other holding an open bottle of beer. But he didn’t seem interested in the beer or the party, or in the woman whose arm was draped rather possessively over his shoulder.

‘I don’t know his name,’ said Isobel now, wondering why Sonia didn’t just go and ask Julia who he was. Though the answer to that was fairly obvious: Julia wouldn’t like Sonia wading in on her territory.

‘Damn!’ Sonia looked disappointed now. ‘I’m fairly sure I’ve seen him before.’ She tucked her elbow into her palm and tapped her lips with a scarlet-tipped finger. ‘Was it at the Hampdens’ last week? Oh, but you wouldn’t know,’ she added, giving Isobel a rather scornful once-over. ‘You don’t like parties, do you?’

‘Not parties like this,’ agreed Isobel rather drily, half wishing she’d never agreed to Julia’s request. But her apartment was so much bigger than Julia’s flat, and it would have been churlish to turn her friend away.

‘Oh, well, I’ll have to go and find out for myself,’ remarked Sonia, grabbing a glass and helping herself to a generous measure of the punch. ‘Mmm; is there any alcohol in this stuff? It doesn’t have much of a kick.’

Isobel shook her head, not bothering to answer. If Sonia thought the punch was weak, she was obviously used to drinking a far stronger brew. Isobel knew for a fact that Julia had added a full bottle of rum to the mixture of wine and fruit juice she’d prepared. And that was only what she knew about. She wouldn’t have put it past her friend to spike the punch with some other spirit.

Now, looking round the room, she could see quite a few of the guests were looking the worse for wear. She’d warned her friend that there were to be no drugs, but she had to wonder if some of the unsteady legs and glassy eyes might be due to more than just a surfeit of spirits.

The music, too, was definitely louder. Someone had substituted hard rap for the rock ’n’ roll that Julia had chosen earlier. Watching the guests gyrating about the wooden floor, Isobel felt decidedly old, though she couldn’t remember ever behaving so promiscuously, even when she’d been a teenager. And how sad was that?

Nevertheless, she had to live here long after the party was over, and she was well aware that her neighbours in this block of apartments in Mortimer Court wouldn’t stand for it if the party turned into a rave. Her immediate neighbour, Mrs Lytton-Smythe, had already protested about the amount of cars blocking entry to the underground garage, and the two doctors who occupied the apartment below Isobel’s had patients to attend to in the morning.

Julia had suggested Isobel invite all her neighbours to the party in an effort to defuse any objections, but that really wasn’t a goer. None of Isobel’s neighbours would have wanted to attend the noisy binge this was turning out to be.

Sighing, Isobel left the large room that served as both living and dining rooms in normal circumstances and headed into the small kitchen next door. The sound of music was less intrusive here, and she gazed at the debris of empty cans, wine bottles and the remains of the bought-in buffet Julia’s guests had only picked at earlier. A glance at her watch told her it was already after midnight, and she wondered how long her friend expected the party to last.

Isobel was tired. She’d been up since half-past six that morning, trying to finish the piece about a well-known make-up artist that she’d promised her editor would be on her desk the next morning. Or rather this morning, she amended, wondering if she ought to have asked Julia to postpone her party until the end of the week. But today—or rather yesterday—had been Julia’s thirtieth birthday and it would have been mean to deny her having it on the day.