It was not an offer he could refuse.

Chapter 7

Natalia sat on her yacht in the morning sunshine, surveying the vieux port. Saint-Tropez was quite delightful in the mornings, before the hoi polloi descended. White-aproned restaurateurs were setting up tables and chairs outside their establishments, laying the tables with gingham cloths. Others bartered with fishermen at the water’s edge over their daily haul. Shopkeepers exchanged friendly greetings; a lone dog barked somewhere.

‘Beautiful morning, isn’t it?’ said the florid-faced chap on the neighbouring yacht to Natalia’s, a monstrous gin palace that went by the unfortunate moniker of Lady Garden.

‘Beautiful,’ Natalia said politely, then picked up yesterday’s Financial Times and buried her face in it. Her neighbour, a self-made Brit, had been hitting on her the entire week she’d been there and she was thinking it might be time to move on (she’d heard Cap Ferrat was beautiful). She had nothing against the fact her neighbour was self-made, of course, but he was loud, coarse and persistent, and Natalia liked her privacy when it suited her. Though you wouldn’t think it, given her sartorial choices.

Today she was wearing lilac bikini bottoms held together at the sides with the distinctive gold Chanel double C. Her boat-necked striped matelot top was a Chanel classic, made especially for her by Kaiser Karl in stripes of pink, mauve, aqua and yellow. Her platinum-blonde hair was swept up in its signature high ponytail and gold-and-diamond studs glittered at her ears. Her shades, which also bore the Chanel logo, were black and enormous.

Natalia’s yacht was small by the standards of the gin palace next door, but beautiful in every respect. From the shiny polished oak of the deck to the navy-and-white linen upholstery, gleaming brass fittings and old-fashioned-looking (yet state-of-the-art) rigging, every detail pleased her enormously. It was by far the most tasteful thing she owned.

‘Frigid bitch,’ muttered the man on the neighbouring yacht, and Natalia hid a smile behind the pink paper. She liked to keep a close eye on her stocks and shares.

One of her crew, resplendent in his pristine white uniform, walked over with a silver platter bearing the morning post and her breakfast of fruit salad, mineral water and freshly ground black coffee.

‘Merci, Michel.’ Natalia put down the paper and smiled at him.

She opened the first item of post, a bank statement. Everything was ticking over just fine, she saw, with satisfaction. A couple of large standing orders had just left her current account, both to her charitable institutions in Ukraine: a refuge for battered women and a hospice originally set up for those suffering the after-effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, all those years ago. Some were still suffering.

Next up was her property portfolio, which she perused for some time. Her rental properties in Hong Kong were still fetching top dollar; it had been a smart move to shift her investments to the Far East just before the crash hit. She flicked through a couple of letters from large corporations desperate for her money, a bill or two, a photo of Poppy and Damian at the top of the Empire State Building, arms around one another, which made her smile.