Tilly Bagshawe - Friends and Rivals

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2012

Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012

Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

FIRST EDITION

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780007326532

Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007341894

Version: 2016-08-31

For my children: Sefi, Zac, Theo and Summer.

Contents

Cover

Title Page TILLY BAGSHAWE Friends and Rivals

Copyright Copyright HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2012 Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012 Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library FIRST EDITION This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Source ISBN: 9780007326532 Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007341894 Version: 2016-08-31

Dedication For my children: Sefi, Zac, Theo and Summer.

Part One PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Part Two

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part Three

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Tilly Bagshawe

Keep Reading page for THE INHERITANCE

About the Publisher

Catriona Charles sucked in her stomach as hard as she could and yanked on the zip of her burgundy velvet dress. It had fitted her perfectly when she’d bought it in Oxford four weeks ago, but now voluptuous folds of flesh seemed to be creeping out everywhere, like excess pastry flopping over the top of a pie dish. Tomorrow, without fail, she would go on a diet. No more Hobnobs. Or cheese. And she would cut out booze for a month. Well, perhaps not a whole month. Two weeks would probably be enough to make a difference.

‘Can I help? Two hands are better than one.’

Ivan Charles, Catriona’s husband of fifteen years, walked up behind her. Pulling the two sides of fabric together, he pulled the zip to the top and fastened the hook and eye.

‘There.’ He smiled triumphantly. ‘You look gorgeous.’

He was right. With her tangle of honey-blonde hair, full, sensual lips and intelligent green eyes, not to mention a pair of breasts that many girls half her age would have given their eye teeth for, at thirty-eight Catriona Charles was still an extremely attractive woman. Admittedly two kids, a fondness for gin and tonic and cheese on toast and a loathing of physical exercise in all its forms had allowed her figure to blossom a little too much in recent years. It would be fair to say Catriona looked better in an evening dress than a bikini. But men had always found her Nigella-esque, just-rolled-out-of-bed look a turn-on, and couldn’t understand Catriona’s own insecurity about her looks.

‘Really?’ she sighed. ‘You’re sure I don’t look like a lump of cookie dough squeezed into a wine bottle?’

Ivan laughed, kissing her on the back of her neck. ‘Mmmm. Cookie dough and cabernet. Two of my favourite things. And here are two more.’ He squeezed her breasts. ‘Happy Birthday to me, eh?’

Tonight was Ivan Charles’s fortieth birthday party, an event that had consumed every waking hour of his wife’s time for the past three months. As co-founder and owner of Jester, a successful music management company, Ivan Charles was one of the most well-connected men in the record business. Ivan’s ‘friends’ were so numerous they could have banded together and formed their own country. Even at Oxford, where he and Catriona had first met, and where Ivan had also met his Jester business partner, Jack Messenger, Ivan was infamous as a bon vivant and all-round party animal. With his model good looks (dark hair, blue eyes, toned rower’s physique) and immense personal charm, he was also well known as a ladies’ man. Hundreds of hearts were broken the day that Ivan Charles walked down the aisle with Catriona Farley. Though the marriage had been stormy at times, they had had two gorgeous kids together and were still going strong the better part of two decades later. Ivan Charles congratulated himself on that. Then again, Ivan Charles congratulated himself on a lot of things for which he was not, in truth, responsible. For all his wit and charisma, beneath the dazzle, Ivan Charles was a deeply arrogant man.

He’s so bloody handsome still , thought Catriona, watching her husband adjust his bow tie and flick a piece of lint from the lapel of his dinner jacket. How lucky I am to be married to him.

Ivan looked at his vintage Omega watch, a gift from a grateful client. ‘Six o’clock. Shall we have a sneaky glass of champagne before the locusts descend?’

‘Are you joking?’ wheezed Catriona. She could barely breathe in the dress. ‘I still have all the place cards to do, the caterer’s having a cow because only half the mixers got delivered and the playroom looks like a bloody bomb’s hit it.’

‘Who’s going to be going in the playroom?’ said Ivan reasonably. ‘Come on, Cat. One drink.’

‘Muuuuuuuum!’ A wild, animal shriek echoed along the hallway. Catriona recognized it as her twelve-year-old daughter, Rosie. ‘Hector put food colouring in the shampoo bottle. My hair’s gone fucking BLUE! It won’t come out!’

‘Don’t fucking swear,’ Ivan bellowed back, earning himself a reproving look from Catriona. ‘What? She needs to be told. Both the children swear like bloody truck drivers.’