Grace took a panic-stricken step back and nearly trod on the foot of the woman behind her, who took it in really bad humour.
‘Let’s get out of this scrum.’ Vaughn took Grace’s elbow so he could lead her away from harm. ‘The ballroom’s through those doors.’
‘They have a ballroom?’ Grace whispered frantically. ‘Ms Jones didn’t say anything about a ballroom. Will there be dancing? Will I have to waltz?’ Grace had taken some Lindy Hop lessons when she’d been trying to ensnare a beautiful boy with a quiff and a pair of dice tattooed on his biceps, but she’d stopped going when he’d tried to get off with Lily instead.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Vaughn whispered back, steering Grace adroitly through the crowd into a larger room, with yes, a sprung floor. ‘This is where Boris displays some of his art.’ Grace cast a cursory look around at the hideous canvases, then to the point where the huge doors at the other end of the room opened out into a garden. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out to be a landing strip or an Olympic-sized pool.
‘I need my one drink now,’ Grace breathed as she watched a woman walk past swathed in fur though it was a hot and balmy late-summer night. She snagged a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and took a small sip because it was going to have to last her hours.
Grace stared at a trio of girls, who looked like they might be trannies, before her attention was diverted by a fat, sweaty man in a pink suit. ‘Like blancmange,’ she muttered under her breath as Vaughn raised his hand and waved at someone on the other side of the cavernous ballroom.
He tried to take a step forward and they both realised that Grace had his arm in a death grip. ‘Let me go, Grace,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m going to talk business.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘No, you’re going to mingle and absolutely not have any more to drink,’ Vaughn informed her, skilfully detaching himself and disappearing across the floor.
Grace made a face at his departing back and wondered how she was supposed to mingle when usually her two conversational gambits were, ‘Where did you get your dress?’ or ‘Didn’t we meet at Glastonbury?’ Neither one would work here.
Slowly she ambled down the room, smiling vaguely, which she hoped made her look as if she was perfectly at ease.
Eventually she sidled up to a middle-aged woman who was staring, almost disconsolately, at one of the paintings. ‘It’s a great piece, isn’t it?’ Grace chirped. ‘Some people prefer his earlier work, but whatever.’
The woman turned and stared at Grace for a moment with great consternation, then walked off without saying a word. Still, Grace had made the effort and, more importantly, she was now out of sight of Vaughn’s beady eye so he wouldn’t be able to see what an utter failure she was at being a people person.
Her mind made up, she wandered out into the garden. The sky was a smudgy dark blue somewhere between dusk and twilight, and there were hundreds and hundreds of candles in votive holders illuminating a path across a gently sloping lawn to a canopied seating area. Grace sniffed the air appreciatively. She’d found the official smoking area.
There was a couple huddled in conversation and a man quietly barking on his phone, but apart from that the place was deserted. Grace gratefully sat down on an overly padded gilt chair, swapped her empty glass for a full one on a tray and fished out her cigarettes.
Grace smoked the first one right down to the butt, then started on the second one at a more leisurely pace. She used to be a social smoker, but that had recently upgraded to a packet a day.
‘Hello,’ a voice drawled.
Grace looked up into the heavy-lidded eyes of a young man standing in front of her.
‘Hello.’
‘Mind if I cadge a fag?’ he asked, and didn’t wait for Grace’s answer, but sat down next to her and reached for the cigarettes she’d left on the side table. He ignored Grace’s huff of indignation as he lit up, inhaled extravagantly and then puffed out a series of smoke rings.
Grace disliked him on sight. He looked like he’d just stepped offstage from a local rep revival of a Noël Coward play.
‘I’m Alex,’ he said.
‘And I’m so not interested,’ Grace rapped back because his arrogance was as overpowering as his cologne.
He laughed in a way that made her want to slap him. Repeatedly. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, darling. I’m gay.’
Grace gave him her best bitch goddess glare. ‘And I’m still not interested.’
‘No, actually you’re the new girl,’ Alex said with a sly smile. ‘You’re not his usual type.’
Curiosity meet cat. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘They’re usually older,’ Alex explained kindly. ‘Not to worry though. A few months with him and you’ll lose that dewy glow.’
‘You mean Vaughn?’ Grace tried to disguise the note of dread in her voice. ‘What exactly are you talking about?’
Alex wagged a finger at Grace. ‘You should have done some digging first, darling.’
It was a little late to try and save face but Grace decided to give it the old college try. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she lied. ‘Vaughn and I met, we had a ton of stuff in common, and we’re enjoying each other’s company. End of.’
‘You know something? You’re adorable, we should really do lunch.’
‘Oh gee, I wonder why? Maybe it’s because you’d like to patronise me a little bit more,’ Grace said, snatching her packet of cigarettes away from Alex’s marauding hand. ‘Go away.’
‘You’re a lot more fun than the others. Mostly he goes for these chilly Fembots who smile politely and nod at all times. I think Vaughn has Social Anxiety Disorder but he’s too much of a control freak to give in to it. Don’t you agree?’ Alex had the audacity to nudge Grace like they’d known each other for ages and he could invade her personal space without risk of injury.
‘He’s actually a very nice man,’ she insisted stoutly. ‘He’s super-nice, and we couldn’t be happier.’
Alex snorted, which didn’t work when you were attempting to be effete. ‘Whatever you say, darling. Why not try it again with a little more sincerity?’
Grace was saved from the lack of snappy comeback when Vaughn suddenly appeared through the billowing netting at the entrance to the smoking area, with a scowl on his face. ‘Grace,’ he said thinly. ‘There you are.’
‘Here I am,’ she agreed, jumping to her feet because she couldn’t get away from Alex fast enough. She even slipped her hand in Vaughn’s to complete the picture of girlfriendly devotion. It was like holding a piece of wood, until he squeezed her fingers in an almost imperceptible gesture. ‘There’s a freaky picture in the ballroom that I need you to explain.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, the one with the penguins. Or they might be men wearing bowler hats. It’s hard to tell, which is why you’ll have to provide subtitles,’ Grace said, almost leaning against Vaughn. There was only a wafer-thin gap between them and she could sense the heat and density of him in a way that made her feel grounded for the first time since she’d arrived at this horrible party.
‘I think I know the one you mean,’ Vaughn said gravely. Finally he acknowledged Alex, who’d been watching the whole exchange with a faint and supercilious smile playing about his lips. ‘Alex. Harry’s looking for you.’
‘Oh, he’ll find me soon enough,’ Alex assured him airily. ‘Grace, we’ll do lunch soon.’
It was a dismissal and one that Grace wasn’t even going to bother responding to. Instead she started marching up the candlelit path, almost dragging Vaughn in her speed-walking wake.
‘You’re not having lunch with him,’ Vaughn said, like it was an absolute incontrovertible truth.
‘I know I’m not,’ Grace muttered.
‘He’s the one person at this party that I didn’t want you to talk to,’ Vaughn continued as if Grace hadn’t spoken. And now they were away from both of Alex’s avid eyes, he let go of her hand prett
y sharpish too. ‘The one person, Grace. And yet you managed to hunt him down.’
‘I was the hunted, not the hunter,’ Grace informed him indignantly. ‘What has he ever done to you?’
They’d reached the open doors of the ballroom by now, but Vaughn pulled Grace into a shadowed alcove on the patio. ‘He’s unashamedly vicious. He hurts people, and the person he’s choosing to hurt this time just happens to be a . . . a business associate of mine.’
Grace had thought Vaughn was going to say ‘friend’. But having business associates suited him better. ‘I can handle myself, you know. And I had his number as soon as he opened his mouth - and no, before you ask, I didn’t give him mine.’
It was harder than usual to read Vaughn’s expression in the gathering shadows, but he reached down and tugged on the one piece of Grace’s fringe that wouldn’t lie flat for longer than five seconds. ‘I know you pride yourself on being waspish but he’s way out of your league.’
Then he stepped back, gestured with his hand and walked back into the ballroom, calling something about the car over his shoulder.
The party must have been her official début and she’d failed miserably, Grace decided as she sat in the back of the car, while Vaughn talked rapid French to someone on the other end of his BlackBerry. It was annoying, because couldn’t he just be made of fail at something? And also annoying because talking French in a low and urgent voice was textbook sexy. Grace had had an out-of-control crush on Monsieur Taylor, her French teacher even though he’d had hard-boiled-egg eyes and lived with his mother.
‘D’accord, oui, d’accord.’ He was practically purring now, and for the first time that evening, for the first time since that rooftop kiss, Grace felt the start of that little tickle she got deep down in her belly. The tickle that, if nurtured, would turn into Grace’s blood thickening, her pulse racing and their deal being sealed.
Grace stared resolutely out of the window.
The car wound through the back streets of Kensington, until it stopped outside a restaurant that Grace vaguely recognised from Sunday supplement reviews.
Vaughn finished his call as the door was opened by the driver and he stepped out. Vaughn’s hand was waiting for her as Grace got out and this time he didn’t let go as they were ushered into a foyer, the only focal point a huge arrangement of lilies on the reception desk; their pungent scent clung to everything so that Grace wanted to clamp her hand over her nose. The constant, almost thrilling edge of nerves, which had got her through the first part of the evening, was now transforming itself into stomach-churning fear. Tightening her jaw to stop her teeth chattering, she concentrated on the maître d’s ramrod-straight back as they were led through a dining room that was a cold, white paean to minimalism.
They arrived at a secluded corner table. Grace’s chair was pulled out first, and before her bottom had even made contact with brushed steel, an impossibly white napkin was laid reverently across her lap. It was so much more formidable than the other meals, the other drinks, as if Vaughn was showing Grace what his world was really like.
A world which was waiting for her to quit being such a wet blanket and show some backbone.
It was only the arrival of a waiter cradling a bottle as if he was about to present his firstborn for Vaughn’s approval that chased her nerves away.
‘I ordered champagne,’ Vaughn said smoothly. ‘So we can celebrate properly.’
Grace watched intently as her glass was expertly filled. But instead of downing it in one quick swallow, she settled for curling her hands around the delicate stem and waiting until Vaughn was holding up his own flute.
‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked, with just the faintest hint of a challenge. ‘New beginnings?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Grace agreed, raising her glass and sipping gingerly as if she suspected that the Louis Roederer had been liberally laced with Rohypnol.
Vaughn tried to be charming after that. Grace found it almost endearing as he guided her and her inadequate A-level French through the menu, enquired after life in the fashion cupboard and shot her an approving look when she asked him about the new Damien Hirst exhibition. However, by the time her goat’s cheese salad and his langoustines arrived, the conversation had dried up like a stale sandwich.
Grace looked helplessly around the room and decided that Vaughn wouldn’t want to bitch about the sallow woman at the next table’s brave decision to go with mustard satin. She settled for a non-controversial: ‘So, how’re your langoustines?’ and tried not to wince.
It wasn’t the worst meal ever. That distinction still went to the last Christmas dinner before Grace’s parents had called in the lawyers, which had ended with cranberry sauce on the ceiling and her father putting his foot through her new Barbie dream house, in his rush to exit the premises. But it was definitely in the top five.
Somewhere around the main course, Grace and Vaughn came to an unspoken agreement to stop speaking and concentrated on rearranging their food in pretty patterns. The waiter gave them a reproachful look as he whisked away their plates, food barely touched. All Grace could focus on was her heart banging against her breastbone like it wanted out. It was a perfect match for that telltale tic in Vaughn’s cheek.
There was only the faintest trickle left in the second bottle when Vaughn signed the check without even bothering to look at the total.
‘Shall we leave?’ He sounded hesitant, which had to be a first. Grace knew that there was only one possible answer. Just as she knew that that, ‘Shall we leave?’ was not-very-secret code for, ‘Let’s take our clothes off and have sex when we get back to mine.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ It came out of her mouth like she was all primed and ready for action. And after the best part of two bottles of champagne, she should have been. But apart from her teeth, which had gone numb, the rest of her felt alarmingly sober.
Vaughn’s hand burned through the silk jersey as he touched the small of Grace’s back to skilfully guide her through the tables. Grace bit her tongue hard enough for her eyes to water when they reached the door and Vaughn untucked a stray strand of hair that was caught under the strap of her dress. She needed to stop acting like a virgin about to be sacrificed for the sake of the crops, she thought as she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the floor so she wouldn’t have to look at Vaughn.
In the back of yet another chauffeur-driven car, Vaughn sat closer than usual, his arm almost touching Grace’s even though he seemed shadowy and remote as the car circled Regent’s Park, the trees and hedges indistinct blurs against the night.
For once, Vaughn wasn’t on the phone, but he seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move. Grace thought of at least three really lame conversation starters and quickly abandoned them. Why couldn’t his stupid BlackBerry ring or buzz or . . .
‘You know your BlackBerry: does it do this really annoying thing when you send an email?’ Grace heard herself squeak.
Vaughn turned to her with a startled look as if he’d forgotten she was sitting there. ‘What annoying thing?’
‘It leaves this signature line that I sent the email from my BlackBerry. It makes me feel like a gigantic poseur.’ Grace briefly closed her eyes and wondered when her brain would finally make her mouth shut up. ‘I wish I knew how to get rid of it.’
‘Yes, I can imagine how annoying that would be,’ Vaughn muttered, running a hand through his hair. ‘Have you tried reading the instructions?’
‘Yeah, well, sort of,’ Grace said vaguely, wishing that she’d never gone down this road. ‘I guess I’ll work it out eventually. I know loads of models who have them so, like, how hard can it be?’
‘But apart from that, it meets with your approval?’
Christ, she hadn’t even thanked him for it. Her grandparents would be appalled. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love it,’ Grace assured him hastily, and in the dim light, she was sure she saw him smile. ‘It was really kind of you.’
They were climbing up the hill towards Hampst
ead, the driver suddenly veering left to wind along narrow, crooked roads until they came to a pair of gates, which slowly swung open. This was the part where the very stupid and impressionable fashion assistant was taken to an unknown location, hacked into little bits by a man who had an initial instead of a first name, and was never heard from again.
Grace peered curiously at the elegant Georgian house, while she remembered to stay seated like she didn’t have full use of her limbs, until the driver opened her door. Actually, no, not her door, but Vaughn’s door.
‘I’ll be in touch soon,’ he said, brushing his hand against Grace’s cheek and leaving her open-mouthed, astonished and unkissed as he got out.
The next day, as Grace sat at her desk desultorily opening the post, she wondered if she’d ever hear from Vaughn again. It wasn’t like she’d been panting to get her hands on hot, naked Vaughn flesh but she’d have honoured the terms of their agreement, whereas he’d obviously decided that she was sexually repulsive. When Grace had got home the night before, she’d stood on a chair in the bathroom to look in the mirror and had realised that the dress made her arse ginormous. That was it. She was a great, fat bloater with stupid hair and no conversational skills and Vaughn was going to call the whole thing off. Which was fine by her, though if he wanted her to return some of her monthly retainer she’d have to write him an IOU.