“Fuck you,” Stockton glowered. But then he chewed his lip, because it was true. “If they fire me, you go as well,” he pointed out. “Nobody’s going to stick with a hireling of mine who can’t deliver. You better hustle, you frog-eating loser. Because if I go, you go.”

They glared at each other with mutual hatred.

Mayberry’s takeover of Massot had been a total disaster. The markets reacted poorly to the loss of Hugh Montfort, but then word leaked of the mass resignation of the key showroom staff; the defection of the chief designers, who weren’t under contract; and the lawsuits filed in London, Paris, and New York on behalf of Tom Massot, demanding reinstatement as chief executive and millions of euros in compensation. Stockton had expected that they would be dismissed, but the Massot boy was fighting pretty hard. Motion after motion headed his way, from Elgin and Hartford of Lincoln’s Inn, Louis Foche of the rue Faubourg, and Roberts, Estrada, and Jones of Fifth Avenue, New York. Massot had apparently got wind of many of their cost-cutting drives and he objected to them all. Mayberry was being sued under every possible mode of international corporate law.

Aggravated, Stockton had offered to settle. But the spoilt brat informed him he wanted nothing except Pete’s resignation and Gregoire’s along with it. “Or you can both be sacked,” the note had informed him, “which I would find preferable.”

The press were loving it, of course. Any excuse to rake up the near-mythical story of the Massots again. Their spectacular wealth, the jewels, the château. And of Pierre Massot’s inexplicable disappearance.

And all of that was before the launch of Montfort Jewels.

Damn, Stockton thought, how he loathed Hugh Montfort. Detested him with every atom of his being. Just when he’d finally managed to kill off that arrogant prick of a limey, the asshole rears his ugly head like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Starting from scratch, he announces to the whole world that he’s founding a jewellery company, and that it’s everything Mayberry/Massot “should have been.” His exact words. And just to emphasize the point, he produces those croaky old Brandts, Claudette Chiron and her gang from the showrooms, and—best of all—Sophie Massot, to whom he’s freaking engaged.

The press went ape-shit.

Stockton couldn’t stop it. His overpaid mouthpiece Judy Dean certainly couldn’t stop it; she was another waste of space. Everybody ran rivalry articles. Everybody ran speculation about Montfort poaching the “best” Massot had to offer. And everybody featured pictures of the jewellery, along with the address of the Web site.