Gold Diggers. Tasmina Perry

like that.’

      He took a long slurp of beer that left a white frothy moustache on his lip. ‘Fuck. What must that be like, to have a supermodel as a mother? I bet your dad loved it,’ he winked.

      ‘Actually, I don’t really know my father.’

      Charlie bowed his head in embarrassment. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

      ‘It’s fine,’ said Summer, surprised at how easily she could talk to Charlie. ‘My mum lived in New York for a couple of years before I was born. She had an affair with this rich guy, Upper East side, rebel son from a good family, you know the sort. Anyway, she got pregnant and he dumped her. Seems like it wasn’t in his family’s masterplan for him to settle down with some crazy model. My mum came back to London and never heard from him again.’

      ‘Don’t you ever want to find him?’

      Summer shook her head defiantly. ‘After he abandoned us? No way. Anyway, I guess you don’t miss what you’ve never had.’

      By the time Summer had finished the pint of lager, she felt light-headed and happy, and found herself growing more and more attracted to Charlie. It crossed her mind what Molly would think of him; when he had bought their drinks, she had seen him anxiously rattle around a few pound coins in the palm of his hand. She snorted. Molly would go spare.

      But she wasn’t here looking for romance, she told herself. She was happy to be chatting to him, enjoying his company; most of all, she wanted Charlie McDonald to be her friend. It embarrassed her to think how few of them she had. She blamed it on her four-year hiatus in Japan, but the truth was that her nomadic youth had left her with few school friends and she rarely met anyone beyond her mother’s party circuit.

      ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

      Summer looked up, expecting to see some spotty youth hitting on her, but it was a forty-something-year-old man in an expensive-looking jacket and jeans and the question was directed to Charlie.

      ‘Rob Harper,’ said the man, offering his hand. ‘I manage bands.’

      ‘Oh, wow, Rob Harper,’ said Charlie, ‘good to meet you, man. Yeah, I’ll have a lager.’

      Summer could tell from Charlie’s response that he had heard of him. What she did not know was that Rob was one of the most influential band managers in the country, looking after three or four platinum-selling artists.

      ‘So what did you think?’ asked Charlie, turning on the swagger.

      ‘I liked you,’ said Rob in a controlled voice. ‘In fact, we need to talk.’ Charlie flashed Summer a panicked expression and she immediately got the message.

      ‘I’m just off, Charlie,’ she said gently, throwing her bag over her shoulder. She didn’t want to leave but she certainly didn’t want to play groupie gooseberry.

      Charlie touched her on the arm. ‘I can meet you in a minute?’

      Summer shook her head. ‘Good luck,’ she mouthed.

      Charlie took a beer mat off the bar, tore it in half and fished a pen out of his pocket.

      ‘Write your number on that,’ he said giving her half the mat. And she stepped out into the cold night, knowing he would call.

       9

      Karin stood by the fountain in the garden of Knightsbridge Heights waiting for Adam. The night had turned chilly and most of the guests were inside drinking and dancing. She knew he would seek her out eventually, quietly confident that she had made a lasting impression at Strawberry Hill House. Of course, Karin did not need to meet Adam Gold at the launch to get to know him better; she was a woman who liked to be prepared. No sooner had she received her invitation to the Knightsbridge launch than she was trawling the Internet for every story, interview and news piece on the Midas Corporation in Forbes, Fortune and the New York Times. Knowledge was a power that she was prepared to use every bit as ruthlessly as her sexuality.

      The headlines she found spoke for themselves:

      GOLD DEVELOPMENT THE BIGGEST IN SE ASIA

      MIDAS SHARE RISE BREAKS HANG SENG RECORD

      ADAM GOLD MAKES ANOTHER KILLING

      The more she read about Adam, the more she felt they were kindred spirits. She recognized a drive, ambition and entrepreneurial spirit in Adam that she felt in herself. His background was one of wealth: his grandfather Aaron Grogovitz, a Hungarian emigrant who had settled in New Jersey in the 1930s and changed the family name to Gold, had made a fortune developing property in the post-war years. A devout Jew, the only thing he priced above family was his religion. So when his son David, a handsome college graduate on whose shoulders Aaron pinned the entire hopes of his empire, declared that he was to marry pretty classmate – and gentile – Julia Johnson, Aaron cut him off without a penny.

      According to most accounts, David didn’t seem entirely distraught, happy to raise his family running a small real-estate agency in Yonkers. His son Adam, however, was a different animal altogether, having inherited every ounce of his grandfather’s drive and ambition, he won a full scholarship to Yale, but dropped out in the first year – why waste time in a library, he reasoned, when there were fortunes being made on Wall Street? Luther and Katz, Adam’s first employers, were a small New York investment house muscling in on the junk bond market championed by Michael Milken, and their traders were making a lot of money very, very quickly. After Milken’s arrest in 1987, Adam got out while the going was good, sinking his $10-million fortune into the business that was in his blood – real estate. He bought buildings in Tribeca for cash, converted them into designer lofts and sold them at a premium to wealthy traders. But his business really took off in 1992, when he bought landmark Manhattan buildings for peanuts out of the rubble of the property crash.

      Suddenly Adam Gold was richer than the bankers, businessmen and celebrities to whom he sold £20-million apartments, richer than the CEOs who occupied his office blocks. His Manhattan home was one of the most talked-about townhouses in ‘The Grid’, the name given to the most exclusive blocks in the Upper East Side, as well as properties in Nassau, Lake Como and Dark Harbor in Maine. At forty-five, Adam Gold was eligible with a capital ‘E’ and speculating who would get him down the aisle had become a sport in the American society pages.

      Karin was still lost in thought, turning all this information around in her head, when she heard a whisper in her ear.

      ‘Earth calling Karin …’

      ‘Adam,’ she smiled, turning to kiss him lightly on the cheek. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

      ‘Literally, I hear. I thought you were in Paris for the collections.’

      She nodded. ‘For work not pleasure. My label shows there, plus I have to attend a trade fair to look at new fabrics for next season.’

      ‘Premiere Vision?’ asked Adam, gently taking her arm to steer her further down the garden.

      ‘You know it?’ asked Karin surprised. ‘I don’t meet many men who know so much about the fashion industry.’

      ‘I spend half my life with interior designers,’ he shrugged. ‘The gap between fashion and interiors is shrinking all the time.’

      ‘Umm, I guess we’re both selling a lifestyle to the same sort of people.’

      Now he had led Karin to a quieter part of the Winter Garden where the background noise of the party had faded to a hum. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he sensing the same crackle of chemistry between them? Was he thinking about how long they could wait before they should end up in bed? She looked at him shrewdly. His face certainly wasn’t giving anything away; it was impassive and thoughtful, like a chess grand master waiting for her to make the next move.

      ‘Well, I think the apartments