LITMIR.BIZ

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‘French-style place. It’s very popular—decent food.’

      ‘Great, thanks!’

      ‘Don’t thank me until you’ve tried it. We might not like the same kind of food.’

      She left the room. Just as he was insisting to himself that she was having zero effect on him he realised he was watching the graceful way her legs moved in the slim-cut jeans. He’d have to find a way of getting her out of here.

      The globe lights, the ceiling fans twirling above her, the framed French posters on the walls and the marble-topped bar made stepping into La Brasserie feel like stepping into a little corner of Paris in the middle of London. Strings of white fairy lights and Christmas greenery added a warm festive touch. At a corner table, Jen thought it really was the perfect place to while away an hour or two people-watching.

      She glanced at the menu and drew in a quick breath at the prices—even after her internship they never failed to amaze her. The coffee shop back home in Littleford did a knockout shepherd’s pie for a fraction of the price of the main lunch menu here. Then again, the residents of Littleford wouldn’t know what to do with a place that served frogs legs in white wine and parsley, Coquilles St Jacques—whatever that was—lobster and steak tartare.

      When a waiter in a pristine white shirt and black waistcoat arrived to take her order she chose only coffee and a pain au chocolat, with a pang of regret that she couldn’t afford to sample the full deliciousness of the menu. She needed to eke out her money big-time if she wanted to frequent places like this and actually look as if she belonged. The group of young women having a girly lunch at the table opposite made her feel totally invisible. She was kidding herself, thinking she could pass herself off as one of them in her High Street wardrobe. She needed designer everything. And on the money she’d scraped together that was going to be no mean feat.

      The women were glossy without being in your face. Hair loose and natural, with gentle highlights, perfect smiles, less-is-more make-up and not a hint of orange fake tan. Clothes impeccably cut. Fur seemed to be the accessory this winter. No outfit appeared to be complete without a bit of dead animal attached to it somewhere.

      So this was the world her father inhabited, while she and her mother were an inconvenience he’d written off twenty-four years ago just by opening his wallet. She didn’t think she’d ever had a stronger feeling of being on the outside looking in. Jen felt plain, boring, and like an impostor with her mousy brown hair and her cheap handbag. And the worst of it was that none of that should matter—not to her. But still it did.

      Wasn’t the whole point of her article to look at this world of luxury from the perspective of an ordinary High Street girl? Her fresh eyes would enable her to pick up on all the little things that stood out. Like the way people air-kissed both cheeks as a greeting. Jen had never done that in her life.

      She was furious with herself. She was an investigative journalist—a professional gathering background for an article. She should be finding this interesting, not intimidating. But try as she might she couldn’t quite squash the needling little voice in her head reminding her that if things had been different, with a shift in circumstances, this could have been her world, too.

      Darkness was already filtering in as she left the restaurant, and the cold air burned her cheeks, but she forced herself to do a bit of window-shopping on Brompton Road instead of skulking back to the apartment. In the brightly lit Chanel store, with the interlinked Cs logo huge behind an exquisite suit in the window, she could feel the eyes of the perfectly groomed assistants following her in her cheap jeans as she picked up a black tweed jacket—heavy in her hands, impeccably cut. Beautiful. She checked the label and felt the moisture disappear from her mouth. Maybe if she sold her car. And then some.

      She put the jacket back slowly, so as not to look as if she couldn’t afford it, more as if she’d decided it really just wasn’t her. And she checked out a couple of handbags and a scarf on her way to the exit in an attempt to leave with some dignity. None of the staff approached her, clearly knowing perfectly well that she wasn’t worth attending to. She wasn’t the real deal. And all the while she was thinking that what she really wanted was to be back in sleepy Littleford.

      She snapped herself out of it. She was just a bit homesick. It wouldn’t last. These last three months in London had gone by in a whirl and she’d loved every pacy second of it. Christmas in Chelsea exuded class. It was all twinkly white lights and mistletoe, co-ordinated colours and not a tasteless bauble in sight. It couldn’t be further from Littleford, which by now would have its threadbare Christmas tree put up on the village green by local volunteers. The same balding tree had been resurrected every year for as long as Jen could remember.

      She wanted to stay in London and this was her chance to do that. Her chance to show she could claw her way up in life by herself. She didn’t need a rich father smoothing her path for her.

      An hour or so later and things were looking up. It was amazing what people sold online. She scrolled through the auction listings on her laptop, propped up comfortably against the pillows on her bed, mug of hot chocolate next to her. It was gobsmacking how much of a discount you could get for pre-owned clothes. No time to wait for the auction to unfold over a week. She concentrated on the ‘Buy Now’ options.

      Within half an hour she’d been possessed by a kind of madness. It was all too easy to click ‘Pay Now’. A pair of jeans, a wear-anywhere shirt, a stunning velvet cocktail dress and a heavily knocked-down pair of nude shoes that she hoped would go with everything—all by designers she’d only ever read about in upmarket women’s magazines. She snapped her eyes away from the screen and calmed her racing pulse with the fact that she could sell the whole lot on when the project was over with.

      Before she could stop herself she’d clicked ‘Pay Now’ on a gorgeous leather tote bag. In for a penny, in for … a lot of pounds. Hmm, it was just too easy to get carried away online when the clothes were this delicious. She’d better do a quick recce of the cost. Her wallet was under serious strain. She’d ploughed her meagre savings into her project—after all, you had to speculate to accumulate—but still she needed to watch her spending.

      The cost of renting the apartment, although seriously discounted from what it would really be to rent a place like this, was still taking up the lion’s share of her budget. Add in the anticipated cost of tickets, entry fees, food and drink—all the essentials she needed to actually get herself in the same room as her prey—and she had hardly anything left for her own makeover. And, judging by the young women she’d seen today, she was in serious need of one of those if she was to pass herself off as one of them.

      She tapped the figures into her pocket calculator and stared in disbelief at the total. Clothes alone would never be enough, she needed to look the part inside and out. That meant hair, make-up, fake tan, nails. How the hell was she going to manage all of that on the ten pounds twenty pence she had left in her budget?

      ‘Sorry, could you just say that again? I thought you said you were sharing a flat with Alex Hammond, but that can’t be right, can it?’

      ‘You didn’t hear me wrong.’

      Jen held the phone away from her ear with a grimace, but still the piercing squeal of excitement was audible. When it came to overreaction, Elsie was a professional. Then again, to someone who’d spent a lifetime living in Littleford, and for whom the working week consisted of giving perms and blue rinses to the village’s pensioner contingent, the news that your friend was living with a celebrity was probably the highlight of the year. When the squeal subsided she tentatively put the receiver back to her ear.

      ‘Are you sure?’ Elsie asked breathlessly. ‘The Alex Hammond? The one on the front of today’s newspaper with no shirt on? I’ve never seen abs like it.’

      Jen made a mental note to check out today’s paper, then mentally crossed it out. She didn’t have time to think about Alex Hammond’s abs. She felt mildly offended by Elsie’s disbelief. Was it really that far-fetched that she could move in these social circles?

      ‘Yes, definitely that

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