Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin. Tasmina Perry

Cate Balcon simply didn’t deserve it, said the gossipmongers. But then anyone who had ever worked with her knew differently.

      ‘Morning Sadie,’ she smiled at her curly-haired PA who was sorting through a big lever-arch file outside her office. She glanced around the room at the young attractive women on the phone, rummaging through rails of fabulous clothes or typing away at computers; all noticeably more absorbed in their work the moment Cate arrived.

      ‘Afternoon, Cate,’ smiled Sadie, looking up at the clock. ‘I think Nicole’s taken the liberty of taking the twelve o’clock meeting on your behalf.’

      The two women rolled their eyes at each other. ‘Typical,’ said Cate quietly. ‘Better do me a big favour and make me a strong cup of coffee.’

      ‘Cate! You’re back,’ called Lucy Cavendish from the other end of the office. Lucy was Class’s senior fashion editor and the nearest thing Cate had to a friend in the office. The six-foot black girl strode over wearing a thigh-skimming miniskirt and over-the-knee Versace boots, looking every inch one of the supermodels she styled.

      ‘You’ll never guess,’ gushed Lucy. ‘François Nars has said yes to us doing a shoot at his house on Bora-Bora. If you tell me I can’t go, I will die.’

      ‘Before we arrange the funeral, let’s check the budget with Ciara and we’ll take it from there,’ said Cate, smiling, as she walked into her office.

      Lucy followed her in to catch up on the Fashion Week gossip. ‘Did you go to the Zac Posen party? Sorry I missed it but I had to make yesterday’s flight.’

      ‘Yes, I went and yes, it was fun,’ Cate replied, smiling at the memory.

      Lucy gave Cate a mischievous grin. ‘I detect gossip, chief … So who did you meet? What was he like?’

      She motioned Lucy into her office, a corner space on the eighth floor, just high enough to have views over the London Eye and the river. Lucy sat down and Cate flopped into her toffee-coloured leather chair behind her desk, quickly beginning to open the huge pile of mail that had accumulated in her absence. She casually tossed each item in front of Lucy as they spoke. Acres of press releases, stiff white party invitations and parcels of gifts from grateful advertisers and retailers. A Jimmy Choo bag and a white designer scarf, a stiff cardboard bag full of beauty products that Cate doubted would even fit through the bathroom door in her tiny Notting Hill mews house. She pushed the bag towards Lucy. ‘Need any of these?’

      ‘I don’t need products, I want gossip,’ said Lucy. ‘Come on, spill.’

      Knowing she was not going to get away with distracting her friend, Cate relented with a smile.

      ‘The party was excellent. In this huge, amazing loft in the Meatpacking district. And they gave a great goody-bag, you’ll be delighted to hear. A hundred-dollar voucher for some underwear and a bottle of perfume. I’ve got it in my bag somewhere if you want it.’

      Lucy flew a dismissive hand across her face. ‘Goody-bags, schmoody-bags! Catherine Balcon, you met a guy, didn’t you? Praise Jesus, tell me you’ve found someone, even if he does live in Manhattan.’

      Only Lucy could get away with being so brazen and cheeky. A wide smile spread across Cate’s face, her ripe cheeks rounding out like two Cox’s apples as she conceded defeat. It was so long since she had met anybody decent. Serena’s perma-tanned playboy friends held no interest for her, while straight, single men in London’s media world were as rare as hen’s teeth. She’d had sex with two men in the last two years and not had a proper relationship in – well, too long. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her she had intimacy problems, and the longer it went on, the harder it became. Serena was forever telling Cate that she made herself seem as available as Fort Knox. She was certainly right, except New York had been a bit more productive.

      ‘He was a photographer called Tim. He was nice. He won’t ring.’ Cate shook her head. ‘Satisfied?’

      ‘No. Not satisfied. Getting any personal detail out of you is like drilling for deep-sea oil! If I had met a gorgeous New York hunk, I’d …’

      Lucy’s fantasies ground to a halt as a willowy, size zero blonde in a cream Chloé trouser suit waltzed into the office and sat proprietorially on the arm of the sofa, crossing her legs and dangling a Manolo off her foot. ‘So how was New York?’ asked Nicole Valentine, her voice hard and nasal.

      Cate looked up at her deputy editor, annoyed that she had interrupted a rare moment of confession.

      ‘Hi Nicole, it was fine,’ she said. ‘Look, Nicole, we’re talking …’

      Nicole ignored Cate and turned her attention to Lucy. ‘The fashion cupboard is a tip,’ she barked. ‘And why have we got racks of clothes in the meeting room? I need it cleaned, Lucy. Like, yesterday.’

      Lucy flashed a look at Cate and left. Cate turned to her deputy. ‘Nicole. There is no need to talk to a senior member – any member – of staff like that.’

      Nicole raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow at her boss. ‘As you wish,’ she replied defiantly. ‘However, we have more important things to worry about.’

      ‘Is that why you started the meeting without me?’

      Nicole paused dramatically, playing smugly with the five-carat Asscher-cut engagement ring on her finger. ‘I started the meeting because we need to start getting things done. I spoke to Jennifer’s publicist last night and it looks like the April cover isn’t going to happen.’

      Cate felt panic starting to flutter around her body. ‘What do you mean, isn’t going to happen? We’ve done the shoot. We’ve designed the cover. It looks great,’ she started, then rubbed her forehead. ‘Bloody hell. We go to press in a week. What went wrong?’

      ‘We said we’d give picture approval and when we sent the images over to her publicist – well, they don’t like the shoot.’ Nicole pursed her lips into a self-satisfied smile that said, ‘So, what are you going to do about that?’

      Cate looked at Nicole and thought – not for the first time – how much the New Yorker unsettled her. Everything about her deputy, from the platinum-blonde highlights to her Manolo Blahnik heels was hard. Cate was a tough but fair boss: she gave respect and courtesy and received it in the same way from a grateful staff that, she was sure, had been enjoying life on the magazine since Cate became editor a year ago. But her relationship with Nicole was awkward and competitive and she regretted the day she’d hired her from W magazine in New York. Nicole was cold, efficient and ambitious, and it was that ambition that scared her, knowing how often it went hand in hand with deceit and disloyalty.

      Sadie popped her curls round the door. She was holding a steaming china mug. ‘For my jet-lagged editor,’ she said, placing it on a flower-shaped coaster on the desk. ‘And William Walton has called three times this morning. He said could you pop up to see him as soon as you’ve settled in?’

      In the six months since Walton’s appointment to the board of Alliance Magazines from a large advertising and marketing agency in Chicago, Cate had had very little to do with him. As his background wasn’t editorial, he showed no interest in Class, apart from the sales figures at the end of every month and any free tickets for the opera, Formula One or art-gallery openings that the features department could throw his way.

      ‘Really?’ said Cate, feeling a flutter of alarm. ‘What does he want?’

      She caught the look on Nicole’s face, which was one of someone who’d just been given an early birthday present.

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Sadie with a sympathetic look, ‘but his secretary is starting to call every five minutes.’

      All alone in the lift, Cate stared at the buttons and wondered what to say to Walton. Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, she knew she should feel confident: if the reaction she’d got in New York was anything to go by, both the readers and advertisers were finally getting it. She’d spent twelve months redesigning the magazine,