I tiptoed down the path to the taxi, carefully avoiding the cracks in the paving. My heels were sky-high Louboutins, diamanté-studded to match my dress. I didn’t want to ruin them this early in the night. Liv followed me out, still fussing around me. She seemed increasingly stressed, and I could tell she was now seriously regretting not coming along.

As I went round the other side of the cab, she tapped on Kitty’s window. Kitty wound it down and looked out.

‘Don’t leave her, whatever you do,’ Liv said. ‘Promise me.’

‘I promise,’ Kitty said, sounding taken aback. ‘I wasn’t planning to.’

‘Good.’

I could tell Liv was still anxious, and I leaned across to give her a smile. ‘I’ll be okay,’ I said, holding out my hand to squeeze hers.

‘Don’t sweat it, honey,’ said Kitty with a giggle.

I pulled my hand in quickly, as she wound up the window, and the taxi pulled away.

Twenty Two

After making arrangements to collect the money the next afternoon, I spent the rest of the day locking everything down. I called a meeting with Alex, Matt and a few of my other closest confidantes at my penthouse on the top floor of the Dominion hotel. I ran them through what had happened, and what would be happening from now on. I wasn’t about to let a security breach like this occur again, and everyone who worked for me – in whatever capacity – was going to have to be scrutinised anew. It was a mammoth undertaking, but I had a team dedicated to info gathering, and this was going to be their only duty for the next few weeks.

Alex and Matt had left my office in silence. I think they must have wondered, like me, why Rick had got himself involved in something so ridiculous and downright dangerous, when he’d had such a good position in my ranks. Their wages and holidays were second to none, and the price for their loyalty and discretion was an incredibly generous pension. To give that up, he must have been in desperate straits indeed. I almost felt sorry for him, but only almost…I’d feel a whole lot sorrier for Felicity Flint, should anything go wrong with the handover.

Giles got back to me in the early evening. I needed to know if he’d managed to quash Charlotte’s story, and I’d rung him intermittently throughout the day, before giving up and trying to get hold of Max instead. The girl who’d answered his work phone had coolly informed me that he was out of the country on personal business. When Giles finally reached me, he was short and to the point.

‘If there were problems, I’d have contacted you,’ he said in clipped tones. ‘I’ve scotched it for the moment. I can’t give any details now – I’m at a family funeral - but Max will be back Friday morning. Go and see him and he’ll explain.’

I’d waited too long. I couldn’t let him go without pushing him. ‘Did you get her address?’

There was a pause. I could imagine him looking around him to make sure he wasn’t overheard. ‘Not so far. They’re being precious.’ His voice had dropped so low now, I could barely hear him. ‘Seems she’s been involved in some dodgy operations. They’re saying her life’s at risk. Someone at one of the papers has already given it out in error, apparently, and now they can’t get hold of her to warn her.’

‘Okay.’ I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. She’d really messed up – we all had – but if I could just get to see her…talk to her…I was sure I could still sort things.

‘Best you don’t have it, all things considered,’ he said, and rang off.

I had nothing else to do for the rest of the day. Everything I could control was sorted. I’d put a team onto the empty flat, just in case Charlotte showed her face there to pick up her post, but I knew in my heart it was pointless. I had a tail on the blonde in the downstairs flat, too, but by the evening there was still nothing to go on. She’d only left her flat once, to get some shopping and post a letter. Other than that, she’d stayed in all day, providing her personal form of entertainment to a steady stream of shifty-looking men.

By the time evening came, I’d stopped thinking about it all. For one thing, it was an exercise in futility. For another, I knew there was a good chance I might finally get to meet Grace Anderton properly tonight and, for some reason, I really thought it might be a turning point in my life.

I didn’t even know why. I knew next to nothing about her. Only what I’d read online, which wasn’t much. She seemed to have kept herself out of the public eye somehow, despite being hooked up with a fairly well-known footballer. Christ, she even had a job on Max’s team, of all the bitter ironies.

I’d been half tempted to call him to find out more about her. Thank fuck he was out of the country, because that would have been reckless in the extreme. Max had a competitive streak, especially when it came to me, and he’d probably have staked his claim, there and then.

I wondered how she fared on an average day, working under him. From what I’d seen, he was just as hard-nosed at work as he was in his personal life, and I wondered how she felt, being pushed around by him. I had a feeling she’d just take it, though. There was something about her, something vulnerable. She reminded me of…

No, I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t tie her in with all of that. Was that the reason I was so attracted to her? It would explain a lot. I mean, looking at it from an outsider’s point of view, the whole thing would seem laughable. Me, who could have any woman I wanted within reason, and didn’t want any of them, obsessing over a z-list celebrity who’d just been shat on from a great height.

None of it made any sense when I looked at it like that but, at the same time, it was the only thing that made any sense at all. Whatever the reason, if she was there tonight, I was going to make a play for her. I had to. She was my only positive goal right now and, if she let me down, I’d have nothing.

Twenty Three

The F Bar turned out to be the roof bar of the Fforbes Hotel in Mayfair. The Fforbes was one of the most expensive in London, and rooms there cost a small fortune. As we got out of the taxi, a group of reporters surrounded us immediately.

‘Hi,’ said Kitty, beaming around at them. ‘Yes, we’re on the guest list tonight. Going to have us some fun.’ She stopped briefly, and posed for the cameras, turning this way and that and sticking out her hip.

I cowered behind her. The last thing I needed was to get snapped somewhere like this. Even though he had no right any more, Leo would freak. In fact, if he found out I was here, I shuddered to think what he’d do. I held my hand to my face as the cameras flashed, and scurried after Kitty into the revolving doors, while she smiled and waved at the cameras behind her.

‘Apparently, it’s really hard to get in here, if you’re not actually staying here,’ Kitty confided, excitedly, as we went up in the lift. ‘Unless, of course, you’re on the VIP list,’ she giggled. ‘Like us.’

I began to feel nervous. I was never comfortable in swanky places – not without Leo. I preferred the middle-of-the-road night out, where I didn’t have to stand on ceremony. I wasn’t sure I’d fit in here.

The lift doors opened out into a large foyer. The black double doors ahead of us had F Bar over them, picked out in tiny diamond-white lights. The F was followed by forbes, but the letters were tiny, running across the centre of three asterisks, so that it really did look like F***. The F*** Bar. Liv and I hadn’t been so far from the truth, after all.

One of the doormen checked us off on the list, and that was when I first realised something wasn’t quite right. He took Kitty’s coat – I hadn’t brought one – and I got a look at the paper in his hand. Ours were the only names on it.