The Accidental Mistress. Sophie Weston

      ‘No. Listen. The statistics—’

      Izzy looked round from the sink in disbelief. ‘You aren’t going to hit a bunch of fashion journalists with statistics?’

      ‘They’re significant,’ said Pepper earnestly.

      Izzy shook her head. ‘You’re on a caffeine burn,’ she said kindly. ‘Cogs not engaging. Statistics are strictly for back-up stuff in the press pack. You have to keep your speech short and intriguing.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘I’m going to make you some toast,’ announced Izzy. ‘And eggs. With warm milk. Or hot chocolate. Or champagne. You will have something to eat and drink that isn’t caffeine. And you will please stop gibbering. Out of the Attic is a fantastic idea and this launch is going to be awesome. Right?’

      Pepper gave her a better smile this time. ‘You’re very good to me, Izzy. I’m glad I’ve got a cousin like you.’

      Izzy grinned at her. ‘Likewise, oh retail genius. Now, go and have your shower while I rout Jemima out of her pit.’

      Jemima had swirled the duvet round her like a Swiss roll and was about as welcoming as a grizzly disturbed in its winter quarters.

      ‘Go ‘way.’

      ‘Nope.’

      ‘You’re a nightmare. Push off, Nightmare.’

      Ruthlessly Izzy flung open the curtains. Golden sun blazed in. Jemima screamed and pulled the pillow over her face.

      ‘I hate you,’ she said, muffled but passionate. She was clearly a lot more awake than she wanted to be.

      ‘Sure you do,’ said Izzy with a grin. ‘Get up.’

      ‘I only just got to sleep.’

      ‘Tough. You have work to do.’

      Jemima let out a wail. ‘Tell me something new.’

      ‘And a cousin to support.’

      There was a pause. Then the pillow was pushed aside a fraction. One eye and a lot of tousled hair appeared.

      ‘Izzy?’ said Jemima, as she’d used to do when Izzy woke her on school days.

      ‘That’s the one,’ said Izzy cheerfully. She added cunningly, ‘If you get up now, I’ll do eggy bread for breakfast.’

      There was a moment’s complete silence. Then Jemima groaned and heaved the pillow aside. She sat up.

      ‘Okay. It’s not a nightmare,’ she said, resigned. ‘You’re here and you won’t go away until I do what you want. What do you want?’

      Izzy brought a list out of her pocket and handed it to her.

      Jemima stared at it, then looked up at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious.’

      ‘Starting,’ said Izzy, preparing to leave, ‘with Pepper’s make-up. She’ll be ready for you in about ten minutes.’

      ‘Oh.’ Jemima sagged back among the remaining pillows. ‘All right.’ Her voice began to slur again. ‘I’ll be out in ten minutes.’

      ‘Sure you will,’ said Izzy sweetly. And took the duvet with her.

      She ignored the roar of outrage that followed her into the corridor. And sure enough, heavy-eyed and spitting, Jemima was in the kitchen with full make-up kit and a hugely magnifying mirror inside five minutes. She spurned the eggy bread with dignity, but she swallowed two cups of coffee and then peered at herself in the mirror.

      ‘Eye bags,’ she said, like a surgeon giving a diagnosis. She snapped her fingers. ‘Ice.’

      Izzy got a bag of ice cubes from the freezer and watched, fascinated, as Jemima applied them to her puffy eyes.

      ‘Old model-girl trick,’ she said between her teeth. ‘Being the face of Belinda has taught me a lot of those.’

      She did not sound as if it was a lesson she was entirely happy about. Izzy was whipping eggs for Pepper’s breakfast, but at that she looked up sharply. Jemima had not only stopped listening, she realised with a pang, she had stopped confiding, too.

      ‘Everything okay, Jay Jay?’

      ‘Just great. I live in five-star hotels and when I wake up in the morning I don’t know which continent I’m in.’

      Izzy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is that good or bad?’

      ‘It’s a living,’ said Jemima without expression.

      Izzy was beginning to get worried. When Jemima had been selected by cosmetics house Belinda to be the face of their new campaign, all the papers had said this put her in the superstar league. It was the height of every model’s ambition, they’d said. But this did not sound like a woman enjoying well-deserved success. This sounded like a woman with problems.

      But now was not the time to talk about it.

      ‘Let’s go for a pizza this evening, when the razzmatazz is all over,’ Izzy said.

      Jemima gave a harsh laugh. ‘Who has time for pizza? I go straight from the presentation to the airport.’

      ‘You mean you won’t even be coming back here to pick up a bag?’ Izzy was shocked.

      Jemima shook her head.

      Izzy was filled with compunction. ‘I’m sorry I took the duvet off you this morning.’

      ‘If you hadn’t, I’d have slept for a week,’ said Jemima. ‘You don’t want to know how mad my life is.’

      But before she could say any more Pepper emerged in a bathrobe. She had another sheaf of printed tables in her hand.

      ‘Jemima, Izzy—what do you think? I could just run through…’

      More pressing concerns took over.

      ‘No statistics,’ they yelled in unison.

      ‘You,’ said the woman from the PR agency, ‘are a genius. I didn’t think it could be done.’ She had spiky, lurid green hair and a clipboard and she was terrifyingly professional.

      Izzy was on a roll. She was good at crisis management, and this morning she was getting plenty of opportunity. Now she stopped tacking a piece of chintz across a nook full of wires and looked up. She tucked a stray lock of red hair back under her gypsy headscarf. ‘What?’

      ‘Getting the Beast of Belinda here before ten o’clock in the morning. She looks like a dream, all right. But that woman bites.’

      Izzy was affronted. ‘I’m sorry?’

      But the clipboard had already zipped to the other side of the big glass-walled reception room.

      The in-house cameraman stopped adjusting his focus on the small stage and looked down at Izzy. ‘Molly means thank you for keeping Jemima sweet. She hasn’t actually sunk her teeth into anyone yet.’

      Izzy blinked. ‘Beast of Belinda?’ she echoed.

      He pulled a wry face. ‘Jemima Dare. Face of Belinda Cosmetics. Newest of the supermodels. And doesn’t she know it!’

      And my sister, thought Izzy. Probably not a good moment to mention it, though. Normally she would go to war with her sister’s enemies at the drop of a hat. But twelve minutes before they opened the door on the launch of Out of the Attic was bad timing by anyone’s standards.

      She flicked the chintz into expert folds and stapled it in place. ‘You know Jemima Dare?’ she said with deceptive mildness.

      ‘I’ve worked with her.’

      ‘Phew, yes,’ said the cameraman’s assistant, with feeling. ‘Serious pain in the ass, that one.’

      Izzy held onto her temper