She arrived at the party early and talked to everyone, making sure they all registered how good she looked in the dragon dress. ‘It’s a Cissé original,’ she said, ‘hot off the sewing machine.’ She span round, showing off the way the skirt billowed up around her. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? I love the colour so much.’

And when they see her – well, if that doesn’t precipitate a divorce, nothing will.

Dan was running out of small talk. Isabelle did not seem to be in a party mood, despite the fact that the Fashion Council was funding her debut show so generously – largely at his insistence. There were some on the board who thought that spending twenty thousand on an untried designer was throwing money away, but Dan had talked up the soundness of the business plan, the originality of the designs, and managed to secure funding that was usually reserved for designers in their fourth or fifth year.

He wasn’t expecting sycophancy, but a decent show of gratitude would have been nice. Instead, Isabelle was distracted, monosyllabic. He introduced her to his colleagues on the board, who made all the right noises, but she just smiled and said very little. Perhaps, thought Dan, she preferred to let her designs do the talking – but that wasn’t enough in an industry so based on networking. She looked marvellous, and Dan was sure that, somewhere beneath the sulky teenager exterior, there lurked a heart of pure gold. But it would take some mining.

Champagne glasses were being topped up, but this did nothing to improve Isabelle’s mood, and Dan realised with a shock that she had spent the entire evening watching her business partner like a hawk.

So that’s the way the land lies, is it?

‘Dan. There you are.’ It was Fiona Walker, Dan’s rather stern colleague. ‘You’re wanted.’

‘Ah, Fiona. Here’s Isabelle Cissé . . .’

‘Quite so, quite so.’ She looked Isabelle up and down as if she was wearing a bin liner. ‘Nice to see you, dear.’

Dear?

Fiona dragged Dan away, leaving Isabelle alone. The party was a disaster. She hated being there, she hated these people, she hated the fact that they were going to talk loudly while her designs were being shown on the catwalk, that they were only interested in money and status and publicity and not really interested in beauty at all . . .

Her miserable little reverie was interrupted by a commotion across the room. There was a shriek and a gasp. Every head in the room turned towards the eye of the storm, where a space had cleared around two women dressed identically in green.

In Cissé.

Victoria, her cheeks burning, her eyes wide and filling with tears.

An older woman with brown hair and pearl earrings.

And between them, a handsome man in a sharp Italian suit . . .

Oh Christ. Rivelli.

‘My dear,’ whispered Maya Rodean in Isabelle’s ear, ‘you’ve made a bit of a boo-boo.’