Authors: Rebecca Chance
Men’s Style
.’ He
grinned. ‘It makes the hetero guys feel okay about buying the
mag. Go on, try it. Bet it fits.’ He nodded to the far corner of
the cupboard, where a makeshift changing room had been
rigged up with a curtain thrown over a clothes rail.
The Max Mara didn’t just fit; it looked fantastic, clinging to
the curves Coco had left, making her breasts look enticingly
full as they swelled against the neckline. She’d thought she was
too big to carry off sequins, but the designers knew what they
were doing; the paillettes were large and dull, sewn flat to the
knit fabric, shining discreetly, instead of glittering so brightly
they added bulk to her figure. Her skin was pale against the
black, gleaming mother-of-pearl, and her arms were lightly
toned now from the Pilates lessons. Luckily, her beige patent
shoes just about worked with the dress, as she couldn’t have
borrowed a pair from the cupboard; the sizes there were all
too big for her. She’d pulled her hair to the nape of her neck,
as Jacob had done, and added dark coral lipstick: Xavier gave a
wolf-whistle of admiration when she emerged, doing a big
theatrical twirl for him.
‘God, I’m good,’ he said. ‘You look like a million dollars.
Come on, Cinderella, I’m busting you out of here. All the gay
guys are going to eat you up with a spoon.’
He turned towards the door, crooking one arm like an actor
in a 1940s film, and, laughing, Coco grabbed her jacket and ran
up to hook her own arm through his.
‘Thank you, X,’ she said in heartfelt tones as they proceeded
out of the cupboard, pausing so she could switch off the bank
of lights by the door. ‘I can’t tell you how much I needed this.’
‘I bet,’ he said, grinning down at her affectionately. ‘You
work too hard, Coco-puff.’ He flicked her ponytail. ‘You gotta
let your hair down a little sometimes.’
No, Coco thought instantly. I need to cut it and pull it back,
like Jacob said. And at the memory of her recent encounter
with Jacob Dupleix, she felt a flush rising right from between
her legs, up her body, heat flowing with it, bringing bright
colour to her cheeks.
His curly hair was sticking right up, his eyes wide behind
the lenses of his round-framed glasses, his mouth in a big O of
excitement and happiness.
‘Vicky! Did you hear me? It’s the most amazing news,’ he
yodelled to his wife, who was sitting in bed, wearing one of her
favourite Jenny Packham silk nightdresses, a pile of the most
recent Italian, French, Japanese and Russian fashion magazines
around her, busily ripping out pages that interested her. She
looked up, her blonde hair falling around her bare shoulders,
her expression distracted, in a haze of glossy images, neonbright make-up, faux-Afro blowouts.
‘Yes, I thought I might be,’ she said. ‘My boobs feel different
already. Hmm.’
Pushing the magazines away, she stared straight ahead,
processing her reaction to the life-changing news. She was
surprised to realise that she felt quite triumphant. Her body
had done exactly what it was supposed to with the same
efficiency with which her brain processed the complex decisions she had to make every day at work. Every part of the
machine was working successfully. It was actually very satisfying indeed.
I can’t quite imagine having a baby yet, though. I suppose the
reality will gradually dawn on me as I get bigger . . .
Victoria wouldn’t get much bigger, though. That wasn’t the
plan at all. Already she had a nutritionist working with her on
a pre-conception diet, and now they would swing fully into
action, with daily meetings to check her weight on the scales
and assess her fat gain with callipers. Plus, and she’d be eating
specially-prepared small meals, six a day, to ensure maximum
nutrition for minimum calories.
And thank God, at least this means no more sex with Jeremy . . .
Completely unaware of the tack his wife’s thoughts had
taken, Jeremy plopped happily onto the bed, sending some of
the magazines shooting away; their covers were so shiny that
they slid right across the coverlet and straight onto the carpet.
‘You know I’ll do all the looking-after,’ he burbled. ‘I’m so
excited, I can’t wait!’
‘Well, that’s obvious,’ Victoria said dryly. But she smiled at
her husband, whose enthusiasm was infectious. Setting down
her copy of
Vogue France
, she reached out to ruffle his wild
tangle of curls.
‘I’m so glad you’re happy, Jeremy,’ she said affectionately. ‘I
do love to see you like this.’
Jeremy beamed, his smile almost as wide as his face.
‘Moving back to New York, getting pregnant – it couldn’t
get any better,’ he sighed blissfully. ‘I’ll zoom things along with
the realtor. I want us to be all moved into a nice house well
before the baby’s due. That way I can sort out the nursery,
make sure we have absolutely everything we need.’ He grinned,
a little abashed. ‘I’ve already started making lists. I’ve been on
all the websites, working out exactly what we ought to get.’
‘And interviewing nannies,’ Victoria specified firmly. ‘That’s
the most important thing of all.’
Jeremy pouted.‘You know I want to do a lot of that myself,
sweetie,’ he said. ‘I’ve checked out everything with Carpenter,
de Vere – they’re absolutely fine with me taking extended
paternity leave. I must say, HR thought it was utterly hilarious.
No bloke who works there’s ever asked for paternity leave
before. They’re awfully keen on it, actually. Makes them look
good for PR.’
‘We definitely need a night nanny,’ Victoria said even more
firmly. ‘You can’t do the whole thing yourself. You’ll be shattered.’
And if you’re shattered, you won’t do a good job of running
the house and supervising the staff, which will drive me mad.
‘All right,’ Jeremy conceded. ‘I’ll look into night nannies.
Ooh, it’s going to be so amazing! A little baby to look after!’
He actually clapped his hands together in glee.
‘Honestly, Jeremy, I so wish you could carry it,’ Victoria
sighed, pushing the magazines away. ‘You’re the one who’s
madly keen on this whole baby idea – it does seem unfair that
you can’t be the one to get fat and go through the awful messy
horror of it all.’
‘Oh, you won’t get fat.’ Jeremy squished his bottom along
the coverlet so he could get closer to his wife, his blue eyes
anxious to reassure her. Grabbing both her hands, he pressed
them comfortingly between his own. ‘You’re so careful with
your weight, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Not that I’d mind, darling,
you know. I actually like you with a bit more chub on you.’
Victoria shuddered, a ripple that ran through her entire
body.
‘Sorry.’ Jeremy grimaced. ‘Not chub, obviously. I just meant,
I think you look even lovelier when you’re a little – a little
more . . .’ He floundered, unable to come up with a single
word that would be acceptable to his pencil-thin wife.
‘Well, I will be a “little more”,’ Victoria said grimly. ‘Oh
well, supermodels and actresses do it all the time. You barely
need to eat any more at all when you’re pregnant, according to
my nutritionist – that whole eating for two stuff is total
bollocks. I’ve put a trainer who specialises in pre- and
post-pregnancy workouts on retainer. I’ll work out like a
maniac as soon as the baby comes.’
‘You’re terribly efficient, darling,’ Jeremy said admiringly,
but even his self-obsessed, hyper-driven wife could see his
expression was a little clouded. In a surge of empathy that was
very unusual for her, she slid her hands out from his grasp and
reached up to stroke his cheeks caressingly.
‘
I am
happy about this baby,’ she said.
‘You’ll be a really good mother,’ Jeremy assured her earnestly.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Victoria said honestly. ‘But I do
know that you’ll be a really good father. The baby’ll be lucky
to have you.’
She swallowed.
‘
I’m
lucky to have you,’ she added, knowing that she was.
Many husbands of her contemporaries had lost interest in
them once the children started to come, left them for younger
models. Jeremy, bless him, was quite the opposite. Right now,
his blue eyes were welling up with tears.
‘Oh, darling,’ he gulped, enfolding her in a hug, pulling back
to shower her face with kisses, then hugging her once more, his
much-washed flannel pyjamas soft against her skin. It was the
kind of display of affection that Victoria would usually have
been uncomfortable with, would have terminated before it
really even got started; but for some reason, with her husband’s
arms around her, his tear-damp face pressed into her hair, she
found herself – not exactly relaxing into his embrace, but
certainly quite able to tolerate it.
God, she thought. Maybe getting pregnant really is going to
make me a nicer person.
But then a rush of guilt swept over her. Guilt and utter
confusion. It had been a couple of weeks since the ‘encounter’
– this was the word she used to describe it to herself, though
she knew what a cowardly euphemism it was – that ‘encounter’ with Lykke in the Dupleix studio. Her eyes closed for a
second or two as she remembered Lykke, her wonderful mane
of white hair, those otherworldly pale eyes and skin, that
incredible, long, beautiful body, her tiny breasts . . .
Victoria hadn’t seen Lykke since, and she didn’t intend to. For
Victoria Glossop, a judge’s daughter, who prided herself on her
extreme self-control, it would be much too dangerous to ever
again place herself in a situation where she lit up like a firework
as soon as a half-albino Finnish model came anywhere near her.
But Victoria had memoed Mireille, Clemence and Dietrich the
day after her ‘encounter’ with Lykke, instructing them that she
wanted to use Lykke in the issue of
Style
they were currently
putting together; just yesterday, Mireille had informed her that
Lykke had been booked for a directional shoot the French
woman was planning under the famous St Louis Arch.
It wasn’t a pay-off, Victoria thought now. But she writhed a
little, knowing she wasn’t being completely honest with herself.
All right, maybe it was a pay-off, in a way. Lykke’s been
completely discreet. I know she hasn’t said a word about what
happened between us: gossip spreads like wildfire in this
industry, and I have a net of contacts that extends all over the
world. I’d have heard if Lykke had even breathed a hint to
anyone that she fucked the editor of
US Style
over a table in
her own studio.
Oh God. I have to stop thinking about Lykke. This is no bloody
good.
Victoria had never been unfaithful to Jeremy in their entire
time together. Despite her abrasive personality, she had a strong
moral code, instilled in her by parents to whom the idea of infidelity, let alone divorce, was anathema. You made a choice and
you stuck by it, was Judge Glossop’s firm belief, and to Victoria,
his favourite child, her father’s word was gospel.
It hadn’t been difficult, not at all. Before meeting Lykke,
Victoria had never even been tempted to stray. The formula on
which she and Jeremy had settled was enough to satisfy them
both. She liked being in charge, making herself come, and
Jeremy, a born voyeur, loved, above all, to watch; apart from
when they had been trying to get her pregnant, Jeremy had
barely ever actually fucked Victoria, and he didn’t even mind
– as long as she let him see everything she did to herself.
Although the fashion world was rampant with sex and
drugs, Victoria was so controlled, so self-possessed, that no
one had been brave enough to make a serious attempt to
crack her icy façade – well, no one except Jacob. And though
she’d been with Jeremy then, they weren’t yet engaged, let
alone married. It had been Victoria’s one slip from perfect
morality, and only in the service of her career; it had barely
felt like cheating at all, more an extra-curricular service
which the boss required from her. Though of course, she had
never breathed a word to Jeremy.
Jacob wouldn’t have dreamed of expecting anything sexual
from Victoria now. He had his affairs with women barely out
of their teens, as Victoria had been when Jacob first spotted
her at
US Style
, singled her out for special attention, groomed
her –
literally
, Victoria thought, amused. It was Jacob who told
her to lose seven pounds and to do her hair in a chignon; Jacob
who seduced her, bought her gifts, mentored her career, and
ensured she rose with lightning speed from one job at Dupleix
to the next. Victoria’s editor had accepted this, aware that it
was Jacob’s modus operandi, just as Victoria would accept it
now for Coco, who was clearly the latest twenty-something to
be picked out by him as a special protégée. He had been keeping tabs on Coco ever since he’d chatted to her outside
Victoria’s office, had rung Victoria that day to check that Coco
would be starting as junior editor from tomorrow.
Oh yes. Coco’s definitely next, If everything goes according to
pattern, he’ll be telling me to bump her up a rung on the ladder in
a few months’ time
. . .
Victoria took this for granted, as did everyone else who
knew of Jacob’s habits. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone at
the Dupleix publications to consider this sexual harassment.
Older men with much younger women was a combination so
familiar in the fashion world that Jacob’s behaviour didn’t
raise an eyebrow. There was no coercion, no insistence that a
girl he’d chosen duly spread her legs for him or face the sack;
Victoria knew perfectly well that if she’d turned Jacob down,
he would have shrugged and moved onto the next prospect,
without harming her career in any way to punish her for refusing. She would still have done well, been promoted, because
she was bloody good at her job.
But it wouldn’t have happened as fast
, Victoria acknowledged.
Briefly, Victoria wondered whether any girl had ever turned
Jacob down. She doubted it. He was hugely seductive, his
charm legendary, his charisma overpowering to the young
women he selected for particular attention. It was a great
compliment if Jacob picked you out from a whole host of
other ambitious young aspirant editors; he was highly selective. Victoria could only think of a handful of other women
who had been through Jacob’s elaborate reward programme. If
he didn’t see that particular light in the eyes he looked for, that
gleam of real personality and ambition, he’d happily confine
himself to working through the latest crop of up-and-coming
models until another candidate for career advancement eventually, unwittingly, presented herself.
And it’s not like he makes you do anything in bed that you
don’t want to do, she remembered with amusement. My God,
he works you up till you’re absolutely begging for it. Coco’s in
for the time of her life.
Victoria had certainly enjoyed her stint as Jacob’s mistress,
but she hadn’t missed it since. Jacob knew exactly how to
manage his affairs, how to bring them to a graceful finish, leaving his girls not only grateful for his attention, well rewarded
for their time, but styled much better than they had been
when he met them. Victoria knew all of Jacob’s protégées, and
every single one was not only highly successful now, but on the
best of terms with their ex-lover, able to call on him whenever
they needed help or advice.
We should really form a dining club, she thought. Jacob’s
Angels, we could call it. We’d meet once a year and have a nice
catch-up . . .
And then she rolled her eyes.
What am I thinking? We’d have
to include Mireille. She’d probably be the founder member of
Jacob’s Angels – she must have been his first protégée
.
Victoria’s relationship with Mireille was still rocky; she had
no wish to socialise with her fashion director, and managed to
avoid spending any time alone with her if she could help it.
Mireille’s attitude of effortless superiority grated on Victoria,
as it always had. But she did have to admit that Mireille was
doing an excellent job of following Victoria’s new diktats for
Style
.
And she booked Lykke as soon as I asked her to
.
Oh God, Lykke
. It was going to be hard enough seeing her
pictures, Victoria knew. Even saying the girl’s name in her
mind, let alone imagining her body, sent a rush of yearning
through Victoria, stronger and more powerful than anything
she had ever felt before. No man had swept Victoria away like
this, not even Jacob, with his sophisticated games, his elaborate, exciting scenarios that had always left her drained and
satisfied. One kiss from Lykke and Victoria’s entire world had
broken open.
My God, anyone could have walked into that studio and
caught them at it
! She’d never taken a risk like that in her entire
life.
And she couldn’t ever do it again.
Jeremy pulled back from embracing his wife, wiping his
tearstained face with the sleeve of his pyjama jacket.