She was back at her desk by noon, when her mobile rang. She hesitated before picking it up. Even though she had officially been ‘off-duty’ at the weekend, she had still been pestered with a hundred and one requests from party guests, who expected Erin to fix the plumbing, press their clothes or order them a helicopter. She looked at her phone, hoping it wasn’t some disgruntled party guest complaining that their Louis Vuitton boîte flacon had been left at t
he palazzo, or that they had lost a pair of holistic flight slippers on the plane. She took a deep breath and pressed ‘connect’.
‘Ah Erin! Finally. I’ve left you a message on your home phone, but I suspect you’ve been out gallivanting?’
Ed Davies, her agent. Erin hadn’t spoken to him since she’d sent the first fifteen thousand words of her new novella over to him and had been discouraged by his silence.
‘Sort of,’ said Erin warily, ‘I’ve been in Italy for the weekend.’
Ed chuckled indulgently. ‘Well, I should have told you this news before you went away so you could celebrate.’
Erin pulled a face. She doubted anything could have lifted her spirits from the mood she’d been in in Como.
‘So what’s happened?’ She hoped he wasn’t going to ask for a rewrite. Any more setbacks from Ed Davies would knock her confidence even further.
‘Well, I got those fifteen thousand words from you. Sorry I haven’t been in touch, but I’ve been in Tuscany for the last couple of weeks. You know how the publishing industry gets very quiet over summer? Anyway. It starts picking up now. Editors want to snap things up before the Frankfurt Book Fair.’
Get on with it, thought Erin with irritation.
‘So I sent your manuscript to an editor over at Millennium Publishing who I thought might like it.’
‘You sent it out?’ said Erin, her heart pounding. ‘But I, I didn’t think, I mean I …’
‘Yes, yes, I know you didn’t mean for me to show it anyone,’ said Ed. ‘But I rather liked what you’d delivered. Not a great deal of it, but what was there was super.’
Erin’s mouth had gone dry with anticipation. ‘So … what did they think?’
Ed paused for dramatic effect. ‘They loved it! Charles, the editorial director over there, said it reminded him of Bonjour Tristesse.’
A smile spread across Erin’s face. Françoise Sagan, the sixties French novelist, was one of her favourites, and Bonjour Tristesse, the story of a troubled little rich girl, was her masterpiece.
‘Anyway, the best news is that he’s made a pre-emptive offer of forty thousand pounds for a one-book deal, which I think is super considering it’s only a part manuscript.’
‘Oh gosh,’ said Erin, her heart flip-flopping at this totally unexpected development. ‘What do we do?’
Ed chuckled again. ‘Ball’s in your court, my dear. But what I would say is that Charles won’t hang around with something like this. He definitely wants to get it out by summer next year. So that means he wants the book delivered by Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’ said Erin, panicking. She’d written just a few chapters and, while it was only ever going to be a short novel, Erin knew that it would mean leaving work immediately to get it done.
‘Yes, well, I wouldn’t normally encourage an author to stop work,’ said Ed, ‘not until they were very established anyway, but there does seem to be an issue of time here.’
‘I … well, I need to think about it,’ said Erin.
‘Okay, but Charles has given us 48 hours to accept his offer.’
Erin’s heart felt as if it had been turned up to maximum volume. ‘Then what?’
‘Then the offer lapses. Of course there may be other publishing companies interested but, to be honest, it’s a gamble. Why don’t you sleep on it and get back to me in the morning?’
By 8 p.m., Karin was exhausted. After the flight home she had popped into the office, answered some emails, called her PR, who had been inundated with calls from journalists wanting details about the party, and then had returned home for a long soak with Jo Malone bath oils. As she wallowed in the silky water, she let her mind drift back to the party. She couldn’t remember a more eventful forty-eight hours, and it had filled her with a rush of different emotions. Guilt and discomfort at Erin’s outburst, rage and heartache at the revelation that Summer was Adam’s secret lover. And, as for Adam and Molly … In the quiet of her bathroom she could still hear the raw, frantic moans of them having sex in that marble temple. She felt sick.
Karin picked up a sponge and squeezed it over her face. She had to get some perspective, she thought: focus on the positive. Because if she played this right, the positive could be very good indeed. Her knowledge about Summer and Molly gave her leverage, and the conversation she’d overheard between Adam and Jonathan Parsons trading company secrets – well! Everything had changed with that one twist of fate. Yes, she thought, on balance this weekend had strengthened her position. And that could only be a good thing in the long run.
Smiling to herself, she got out of the bath, rubbed herself down with a fluffy white towel and slipped on a thin Sabbia Rose dressing gown.
She padded downstairs and noticed that the big vases of Verbena roses in the hallway were dying. She tutted; her housekeeper Reya had the week off to go and see relatives in Estonia, so she supposed she would have to deal with it herself. Not in the mood for supper, she opened a packet of organic rice cakes and began to nibble at one as the phone rang. She perched on a kitchen bar stool to answer it and smiled as she heard the voice. ‘Ah, Molly. What a surprise to hear from you.’
He couldn’t help himself. The papers were full of pictures of her because of the party. He couldn’t believe she was getting engaged. The pain at the thought of her being lost for ever was searing. He just had to come, to see her. To look at her. Pretend she was his. One last time.