Prologue

Summer 2010, Manhattan

He couldn’t sleep. How could he? Nobody could rest with such a weight hanging over their head. Miles Ashford turned over and looked at the red digital numbers of his bedside clock: 3.45 a.m. He had taken a Xanax at midnight; it hadn’t even made him drowsy. Had it been only twelve hours since his attorney Michael Marshall had called, telling him that a detective inspector from the Royal Bahamas Police Force wanted to question him?

Miles sat up and reached for his cigarettes, hoping it would do something to relieve the anxiety – an emotion he was unused to. A man as successful as Miles Ashford had not got where he was today without being able to handle extreme pressure; he just didn’t get rattled. Not when his $500 million residential project had to be shelved in Dubai last year. Not when the banks were breathing down his neck after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Not even when he had run into a Kosovan gangster when he had tried to buy a series of brothels in London’s Soho. All those things were just setbacks, concerns or irritations. This . . . well, this was different.

He swung his legs off the bed and reached for his navy silk robe, pulling it tightly around his body before walking through to his study. It was Miles’ favourite room in his Fifth Avenue duplex, with a huge bay window that looked out on to Central Park. After dark, it resembled a black hole in the heart of the city. Whoever coined the expression ‘the dead of night’ was thinking of 3.45 a.m. in NYC. Even in the city that never sleeps, this sliver of time after the party people had gone to bed and the early risers – the market traders, the workaholic Wall Street tycoons – had not yet started their day was a moment that was eerie and still.

Miles didn’t turn on the light, content to just gaze out on to the city, letting the darkness and silence soothe him. He closed his eyes and immediately felt himself transported back to the island. For a second, his memory of that night was so clear he could almost smell the sea air, the pineapple bushes, the mangrove. Growing up, Angel Cay had been his Eden, a private pirate island to explore and to run wild in, rich with imagination and adventures. But not any more, not now.

He turned from the window and sat at his desk. His empire spanned a dozen industries and six continents, yet the glass surface of his work station was remarkably uncluttered. In two hours’ time it would be set for breakfast by his butler Stevens and the world’s most influential newspapers would be in a neat pile ready for him to read. But now it just contained a stack of contracts, a phone, a copy of Fortune magazine and a small desk lamp which finally, reluctantly, he turned on. Blinking in the yellow light, he picked up the sleek black phone and dialled his attorney.

‘Miles,’ said Michael Marshall. Not a question; the lawyer was used to being woken up at this hour by his employer. Strictly speaking, of course, Michael wasn’t just Miles’ lawyer. Michael Marshall was his fixer. Miles’ father Robert had once had such a man in his employment: Dick Donovan, a super-efficient, can-do sort of fellow, the kind of man you’d trust with your most intimate business. Robert used to ambiguously refer to Dick as ‘my man’, and when a teenage Miles had once asked Dick what his specific role was in the family company, Dick had simply replied that he was his father’s fixer. Miles had liked the phrase; just the right balance of subterfuge and security. Now, of course, Miles Ashford had his own fixer. He also had an army of Harvard- and Cambridge-educated lawyers working for him in his business affairs department who dealt with the complicated mergers and acquisitions and the endless tedious contract work associated with a company of that size. The more sensitive matters were dealt with by Michael. Michael was his personal guard dog.

‘This isn’t going to go away, is it?’ asked Miles. He didn’t need to spell it out to Michael; there was only one thing on both their minds that night.

The attorney paused. ‘Fifty-fifty,’ he replied cautiously. ‘I spoke to the assistant commissioner in Nassau when you left the office. He’s sympathetic, but they can’t turn a blind eye to what’s been uncov

ered.’

Miles nodded. It was as he feared. ‘Then set up another meeting with that officer from the Central Detective Unit for me.’

Marshall paused for thought. ‘I can stall him, give us a little space to do our own investigations?’

‘No,’ said Miles. ‘We should meet it head on. Tell him I’ll go back to Angel Cay.’ Despite his anxiety, Miles Ashford was a man of action. Sitting around worrying didn’t suit him.

‘As you wish. I’ll set it up as soon as possible. Anything else?’

Miles hesitated. There were some things he hadn’t shared with even his most trusted aide, but now the day had come, he wasn’t going to face it alone.

‘You need to make arrangements for some others to be present too,’ he said. ‘Other people are involved, and if I’m going back to the island, they’re coming with me.’

He was careful that his voice showed no trace of emotion to his employee. There was a time when Miles knew little about self-discipline and control, when he had always given in to anger and impulse. But time, experience and necessity had changed that.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line.

‘Miles, what is this? I can only help you if you tell me everything. ’

‘There’s time for that tomorrow. I’ll fill you in on the plane.’

Marshall took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time Miles had made an unusual request, after all. ‘OK. What other people?’

‘Alex Doyle, Grace Ashford and Sasha Sinclair,’ he said in a low, steady voice, knowing that Michael would recognise the names immediately; anyone would. They were three of the most well-known names in the world, names that stood for fame and wealth and influence on an international stage.

‘Your sister shouldn’t be too much of a problem to get to the island,’ began the fixer, ‘but the other two . . .’

‘Find a way,’ said Miles flatly. ‘I don’t pay you to see problems, I pay you to find solutions. Make it happen.’

He hung up the phone. It had suddenly become warm in the office and he pulled open his robe to let some air on to his skin. Miles tried to picture them, imagine their expressions when Michael called them and gave them the news. He found he could not. All he could see was their faces on the beach that night, the night which had changed all their lives for ever. He turned his chair back towards the window. Now, in the desk lamp’s glow, the city had disappeared, replaced only by Miles Ashford’s reflection, pale and ghostly. It was time to go back.

Part One

1

Summer 1990, Angel Cay, the Bahamas

‘You’re going to dinner dressed like that?’

Grace Ashford looked down at her denim Capri pants and French navy T-shirt and frowned at her best friend Sarah Brayfield.

‘What’s wrong?’

It was what she wore for dinner every night, with flip-flops and a ponytail. How was she supposed to turn up for dinner – in a ball gown and five-inch heels? It wasn’t like they were dining at Langan’s; they were on holiday, and although Architectural Digest had just called her father’s Caribbean bolt-hole ‘the most idyllic private island in the Bahamas’, the reality was it was just low-key and relaxed.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sarah with a dramatic arch of her eyebrow. ‘What’s wrong is that we’ve been on a paradise island for one week now and you have made precisely zero progress with Boy Wonder. We need drastic action. And, more importantly, we need cleavage.’

Grace groaned. Sarah had always been very dramatic. Throughout their entire time at Bristol University her friend had toyed with the idea of being an actress before six job offers on the milk round had made her swap her plans for RADA for law college, declaring cheerfully that she was going to ‘sell out’.

Fearing that the night ahead might take an embarrassing turn, Grace realised that it had been a mistake to tell her indiscreet, theatrical flatmate about her secret lust for Alex Doyle, her brother Miles’ best friend – especially when they were all holidaying on the Ashfords’ private island at the same time: Miles to celebrate the end of A levels and his time at her own alma mater Danehurst School; herself to recover from the late nights and academic rigours of Finals.

Traditionally, Grace had always gone out of her way to avoid spending time with her brother and his friends. Even as a young child, she had always found Miles to be arrogant and underhand, and the people he chose to hang around with were much the same.

That was until he had brought home Alex last summer. Alex Doyle, with his spectacular good looks, sexy northern accent and poet-boy broodiness, was like a cross between the lead in a sixties French movie – Alain Delon perhaps – and John Taylor from Duran Duran, on whom she still nursed a secret crush. She hadn’t meant to fall for Alex – after all, he was three years her junior – but ever since he had visited her in Bristol and followed it up with the letter she kept stashed away in her diary, she had felt the attraction was mutual. Or was it? She wasn’t sure and she certainly didn’t want Sarah tarting her up and making a fool out of her.

‘Action? Cleavage?’ She grinned at her friend. ‘I’m the host this week, remember. It’s bad form to go seducing house guests.’

Tags: Tasmina Perry Romance
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