It was wonderful to be home--truly home. The doorman tipped his hat and held the door open for her, and she felt an immeasurable amount of pleasure as she walked into the marble lobby, decorated with rococo-style pastel murals of nymphs and cherubs. She took the carpeted, mirrored elevator to the twenty-first floor. The Thompsons' homestead had been in Eliza's mother's family since the early part of the twentieth century. It was a "classic six," but a "luxury twelve" was more like it, since it was double the usual square footage, with a soaring, three-story entry space and a balcony that overlooked Central Park.

Her parents were already in the Hamptons, back in their Amagansett "cottage"

(their ten-bedroom country house could only be called rustic according to the standards of a Ralph Lauren ad), and Cheka, their maid, answered the door sleepily in her nightgown. Eliza was shocked to realize she'd probably been working harder than Cheka all evening and most likely getting paid less for it. It was strange--Eliza would never have thought of

71

herself as someone who enjoyed working, but a day in Sydney's studio had suddenly changed that.

All of her friends from Spence did nothing more than make hair appointments, shop for clothes, and talk about boys. S

ure, there were those brilliant girls who went to Williamsburg for the summer for acting camp or interned at magazines or the White House, but Eliza had never been interested in being one of them.

She never thought a hard night of work would actually make her feel more energized, not less. But having the opportunity to express herself creatively and using her innate talents to make something beautiful brought a level of satisfaction she'd never experienced before. Eliza felt inspired, and she was glad she'd taken the internship at Sydney's company. She couldn't wait until the show itself.

A few hours later, refreshed from a nap and a much-needed shower, Eliza packed the last of her monogrammed Goyard bags and called downstairs for a taxi. She took the taxi to their garage across town, which housed her new ride--a sporty new Land Rover LR3, an upgrade from last summer's leased Jetta. Her parents had bought her the car as a prize for getting into Princeton, her father's alma mater. The SUV was polished to a shine, and Eliza threw her stuff in the back and hopped inside the driver's seat.

A clipped British voice greeted her as soon as she gunned the engine. "Good morning, Eliza. Where would you like to go today?"

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"Good morning, car!" Eliza chirped back. It always cracked her up to have a conversation with her automobile. Eliza punched their address in Amagansett into the automated GPS system.

The car began giving her directions, and Eliza drove it out of the lot and pulled out into traffic. "Telephone," the car informed her as a flashing symbol on the dashboard lit up.

"Answer," Eliza said.

"Answering telephone. You are connected."

Eliza heard the sound of waves in the background and Jeremy fumbling with his cell phone. "Hello? Hello?" he called. "Liza, are you there?"

"Hi, baby."

"Hey." He had a voice that melted her heart. A deep rumble. Eliza felt a twinge of pity for any girl who didn't have a guy with a voice as sexy as Jeremy's. She remembered how Charlie Borshok, her former paramour, had a voice like a hyena and tended to laugh in a high-pitched giggle.

"I just left the garage, and I'm about to go into the tunnel. I should be there in a few hours." Her conversational voice was quickly replaced by schoolgirl cooing. "Did you miss me?"

"Not one bit," he joked.

She steered the car into the cavernous Midtown Tunnel, and the signal started to fade. "Jer, I'm going to lose you. I'll call when I'm on 27, okay? Love you!"

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There was no answer. The symbol on the dashboard was dull. She'd lost the connection. No matter. She'd call him again once she got past the tunnel. She felt a thrill thinking of the special custom-made lingerie set in her luggage. The palest pink silk, with satin ribbons. Jeremy didn't know it yet, but tonight her V card would expire. Hopefully the world wouldn't end before then because Eliza had absolutely no intention of dying a virgin.

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the devil wears louboutin

THE FIRST GIVEAWAY THAT THIS WASN'T GOING TO BE A

normal job was the sight of her boss's heels perched on top of her desk. Mara admired them from the corner of her eye. They were hot-pink patent-leather Louboutins with fire-engine-red soles--the status-conveying detail that communicated each pair's

five-hundred-dollar price tag to observant and shoe-sawy females everywhere.

For a decade Sam Davis had ruled the New York media world. She had single-handedly transformed several sluggish, out-of-touch magazines into cash-cow bonanzas, starting with American Teen and working her way up the "pink ghetto" of women's magazines, from Sophisticated to the Spanish import Anna Claudia to the mainstream Glitter to her most famous reinvention yet-- Them- --a notorious weekly celebrity tabloid that fed the public desire for knowledge about the intimate private lives of nubile reality television stars. Sam Davis was the reason pop starlet Chauncey Raven, newly married to her former backup singer Daryl Wolf and mother to four-month-old Liam Spenser Raven Wolf, had already totaled two Mercedes-Benz convertibles in high-speed paparazzi car chases through Malibu.

Sam Davis bent the media landscape to her will, and her

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