Tasmina Perry - Guilty Pleasures

TASMINA PERRY

Guilty Pleasures

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.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2008

Copyright © Tasmina Perry 2008

Tasmina Perry 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

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American 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 ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007264957

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007292950

Version: 2017-09-14

To Fin with love

Whenever you confront an unbridled desire you are surely in the presence of a tragedy in the making.

Quentin Crisp

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

Also by Tasmina Perry

About the Publisher

Sometime in the 1980s

The residents of the South of France are too chic to consider themselves socially competitive, but in the villas that pepper the Côte D’Azur, one-upmanship was rife. Saul Milford, a man of not inconsiderable self-assurance, liked to think that he had the best villa in the whole area. An old mas in the foothills of Provence, Les Fleurs was not the biggest house but with its turrets and bright blue shutters, it was certainly the prettiest. Already that summer he’d had Princess Margaret, Mick Jagger and various other members of London’s beau monde round the kidney-shaped swimming pool. They’d all seemed to enjoy themselves and it was easy to see why. The grounds were studded with fabulous bronzes, sculpted by his dear friend Christopher Chase, one of England’s most prominent artists. There were olive groves, an abundance of poppies on the hillside, and in the sunshine, the Mediterranean sparkled like a sapphire in the distance. This evening, as dusk was settling on the grounds with a honey glow, it looked even more spectacular. It was excellent timing: tonight there was to be another party. Staff in white suits scurried around the pool plumping up cushions and filling silver ice buckets with champagne. The smell of spices from the kitchen mingled with the strong scent of lavender and the air crackled with anticipation of a fabulous evening ahead.

Saul smiled to himself, sipping lemonade freshly made from fruit in his orchard, silently congratulating himself that his purchase of the villa the previous summer had been one of the best decisions he had ever made. He could certainly afford it. His company, the luxury goods house Milford, was doing well. For years the company’s sumptuous leather products had been the preserve of the upper classes who ordered bespoke luggage for their exotic holidays. But the Eighties had seen the rise of a new, more democratic wave of millionaires riding on stock market killings. The City was awash with money and it was making Saul rich. Very rich. And what was the point of taking money to your grave?

Saul looked down from the terrace to where his two nieces Emma Bailey and Cassandra Grand were playing. From this distance, he could just about make out the dialogue between the two cousins. It was funny how personalities were set at such a young age. While the girls were similar in many ways, their differences were equally marked. So marked in fact, that Saul felt confident he could predict how their lives would unfold and the direction in which their desires and ambitions would take them.

Dangling her feet in the swimming pool Emma put a bookmark in her copy of Jane Eyre. At seven she was tall for her age, with clever, grey eyes that posed questions without the need to open her mouth.

‘Do you want to play chess?’ she asked her cousin.

‘No,’ replied Cassandra, rolling her eyes dramatically.

‘What about hide-and-seek?’ Emma persisted.

‘No,’ snapped Cassandra impatiently.

‘Why?’

‘It’s for babies,’ said Cassandra painting a coat of red polish on her stubby square fingernails. The twelve-year-old had been excited about the holiday for months. She loved hearing Saul’s stories about rock stars and princesses and wanted to look perfect if she happened to meet any of them that evening.

‘Why don’t you go and ask Tom,’ she added coldly, pointing to her three-year-old brother who was busily rummaging in a flower bed getting soil in his hair.

‘Tom’s too young to play,’ replied Emma, refusing to be fobbed off.

Cassandra looked up at her cousin, her eyes squinting up in the sun.

‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘Come on, Cass,’ Emma persisted. ‘There’s loads of places to explore. We could go and look for butterflies. I bet there are millions in this garden. I’ve got a book in the villa that tells you how to identify them.’

‘You are such a swot,’ tutted Cassandra, smoothing down her long dark hair. ‘We’re on holiday. Can’t you just relax by the pool like a normal person? Listen, I’ll paint your nails if you give me fifty pence.’

‘I haven’t got fifty pence.’

‘Well, you’d better go and find something else to do then,’ said Cassandra, ‘on your own.’

‘OK then. I will,’ said Emma. Above her on the terrace, Saul Milford smiled and then walked back into the house to get ready for the party.