Erin felt her cheeks flush again. ‘Of course you can rely on me,’ she replied in her most professional tone of voice.
Karin watched her run down the stone steps towards the main throng of the party. I’ll have to keep an eye on that one, she thought. She knows something.
Summer had needed to take a walk around the entire grounds to cool off from her brush with Adam. She had just reached the stables when she noticed she was being followed by a very pretty blonde teenager.
‘Hi, I’m Ellie Bradshaw,’ said the girl breathlessly. ‘I think you’re beautiful. I’ve got your picture on my bedroom wall and everything.’
Summer had to laugh. It wasn’t so long ago that she was feeling in awe of her mother’s glamorous modelling friends, who would drop by the house. As she fell into step beside Summer, Ellie bombarded Summer with questions about London and Tokyo and modelling and all the famous people she had met. She was quite lovely, thought Summer, giving Ellie a sidelong glance. Sun-washed blonde hair, a small button nose. Her eyes were too small and close together to be truly beautiful, and the voluptuous figure busting out of her tight pink T-shirt ruled out catwalk, but she was certainly a very pretty girl.
‘So what do you want to do when you leave college?’ asked Summer.
‘I’ve got a job in the pub this summer, but when I leave college next year I want to be famous.’
Summer laughed. ‘Being famous isn’t a career decision, Ellie. You have to do something to become famous.’
Ellie looked confused at this and Summer had to concede she had a point. There were plenty of people littering the magazines and tabloids who wouldn’t be able to tell you what they did if their life depended on it.
‘I was thinking about going on that pop programme on telly, but I can’t sing,’ said Ellie earnestly, ‘And I’m not pretty enough to model.’
‘You’re really pretty,’ said Summer frowning. She recognized that simmer of self-loathing from her own teenage-hood. ‘Anyway, not all pretty girls are models and not all models are pretty,’ she added, suddenly feeling enormously protective of this sweet, vulnerable girl. She hadn’t been much older than Ellie when she had gone to Japan. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll find something you’re good at and you’ll have a great life, I promise.’
Ellie screwed up her face. ‘Well, I wish it would hurry up and happen,’ she said.
Molly’s voice, announcing that the raffle was about to be drawn, suddenly crackled through a tannoy across the lawns.
Summer led Ellie towards the action of the fête. They were just passing the bouncy castle when Summer saw a face in the crowd and froze. Ricardo Lantis. He was dressed in a pair of white linen trousers and a shirt open to the waist, so you could see a thick black line of hair creeping up above the golden H of his Hermès belt.
‘And which two lovely ladies do we have here?’ smirked Ricardo as he saw them approach, turning to leer at Ellie.
‘Who invited you?’ snapped Summer, looking around.
‘Your mother, of course,’ smiled Ricardo.
‘I’m Ellie, by the way,’ said the girl, reaching out her hand politely. Ricardo lifted it to his lips and kissed it gently. ‘Enchanté …’ he purred. ‘Are you one of Summer’s modelling friends?’
Ellie blushed furiously with colour. ‘Oh no!’ she giggled. ‘I only work in the pub in the village.’
‘Well, that’s a pub I really must visit,’ said Ricardo, still holding onto her hand.
‘Ellie, can you go and check my raffle ticket to make sure I’m not missing out on winning,’ said Summer, stepping between Ellie and Ricardo and pressing a yellow cloakroom ticket into her hand.
‘Don’t you dare, you old lech,’ hissed Summer, as Ricardo’s eyes followed Ellie trotting across the lawn.
‘Ah, at last, the mouse roars,’ smiled Ricardo, showing a mouthful of white teeth.
‘I could have shopped you to the police that night, Ricardo. Don’t start pushing your luck.’
‘Shopped me to the police?’ mocked Ricardo. ‘Whatever for? Double parking the Bentley?’
‘You put Rohypnol in my drink, you bastard. You wanted to have sex with me.’
Ricardo laughed, slowly, cruelly. ‘I don’t need drugs to score a fuck.’
‘That’s not the case though, is it?’ said Summer, standing her ground, her hands on her hips. ‘Men like you want to have sex with the woman they can’t have sex with.’
/> Ricardo reached out a hand to stroke Summer’s face and she jerked away. ‘You’re very spiky today, darling. It must be the sun.’
‘Look who we have here!’ said Molly, tottering across the lawns in her heels.