They discussed the office until Chase excused himself to check emails. Mara petted Pan then opened the Emilio Pucci order she’d compiled the night before. She showed Chase a picture of a Rugiada-Print dress. “What do you think?”
“Tacky.”
“Well, I love it.” She tapped ‘add to bag’ and checked it out along with a ruby virgin wool sweater and Losanghe velvet sneakers.
“I should go,” Chase sighed. “Tonnes of work. One thing—are you sure you want Terrace Avenue? Word on the street says there’s competition. High rolling competition.”
Mara licked chocolate sauce off her fork. She knew what Chase was really asking—are you willing to annoy more rich people who could make our lives hard? She cut another slice of pancake. “How much am I worth today?”
Chase gave his phone a few taps. “The better part of five hundred million dollars.”
Mara’s heart swooped. Ten years had made no difference. She was still dwarfed by the sheer scale of her money. Still a human swimming in the shadow of a leviathan.
“I want to do it,” she told Chase. “I want Terrace Avenue flattened and turned into three Eco houses by the end of next year.”
Chase’s features hardened. “Then it’s done.”
He reached down and scratched Pan’s chin. “I’m heading off. Do you want to stop by the office and see everyone?”
“No, I have heaps to do for tonight. You and Andy are coming, right?”
“We wouldn’t miss it.”
“Then I’ll see you soon.”
Chase strode away, new purpose in his step. Mara watched, only a little guilty she’d lied. She didn’t have much to do for the party, but whenever she went into the office, she felt like she was pretending to work. Everyone was better off without her.
She and Pan walked to Edinburgh Gardens and knelt in the sweet summer grass wrestling and laughing and pulling each other’s hair. When they were tired, they dozed together, Pan’s head on Mara’s belly. Her puppy didn’t know how rich she was. She didn’t know about her mum and dad or what her ears used to look like. Pan loved her today, for who she was. And that was the best way to be loved.
She arrived home and found two boxes of organic produce on her doorstep. One contained a rainbow of vegetables, the other beef cheeks, saltbush lamb, marinated quail, and pork shoulder. She carried them inside and steered Pan to her bedroom. “You’ll have fun without me, won’t you?”
Pan, already chewing a beef stick, gave her a look that clearly said, ‘Go away, Mum!’
Mara spent the next few hours chopping vegetables, salting meat, and rolling pastry as she listened to Jane Eyre on audiobook. Frank from Blackberry Cellars arrived with a crate of champagne and ten bottles of Sauvignon Blanc. As always, he insisted on carrying them inside himself, offering her a shot of the anise vodka he carried in his flask.
“I can’t believe you don’t have a husband,” he said. “If my son didn’t have children, I’d make him leave his wife for you.”
Mara smiled. She could only imagine how much it would baffle nice, but incredibly sexist, Frank if she told him she never intended to have a husband. He’d probably just think she was lying.
‘You’re only saying that because you haven’t met the right man,’ he’d scold.
And if she told him she had met the right man—and that she’d endured enough of him to last a lifetime—he’d scoff and never offer her free vodka again.
Everyone agreed a woman needed a man, or at least someone. But no one appreciated that she had someone. She had Pan and Chase and everyone who was coming to her dinner party. And she had her memories—tender and exciting, but best of all, safe.
An hour before her guests arrived, Mara slid into her red belted Galanos dress and Dior sandals. There was no sense wearing a full face of make up for her friends, but she applied tinted moisturiser and peach shimmer.
Morgan was the first to arrive with her boyfriends, Liam and Jeffrey. They were loud and happy and whipped Pan into a series of excited jumps. Mara had barely fetched them all champagne when Jennica and Mitch appeared, arm-in-arm with a bunch of lilies. Tegan, Christopher, and Himeko arrived at the same time as Hugh and Crystal, all of them tipsy from after-work drinks. Chase and Andy were last, Andy bounding into the house like a retriever off his leash, Chase clearly rallying after a long day at the office. Mara handed him a big glass of wine.
She’d learned through experience that serving multiple courses was a bad idea. Too time-consuming, too many temperatures, and it kept her from her guests, who were already laughing up a storm on the porch without her.
She’d already supplied them with fresh dates and a platter of soft cheeses. Now, she slid all her main dishes onto her dining table at once. She’d made roast pork shoulder in apple sauce, pumpkin with spiced pistachios, quails in pomegranate syrup, beef stew thickened with red wine, and buttered rice served with goats’ cheese. Her centerpiece was a huge leg of lamb dripping with honey and surrounded by fried potatoes and creamed greens.
She laid out wine and good cutlery and lit pillar candles until the dining room glowed. Her final touch, the Romanian classical music, which gave the room the feel of a royal feast. At least to her.
With excitement bordering on panic, she ushered her friends in from the balcony. They gasped like they’d never seen food before.
“You should be on a cooking show,” Andy said. “You’d win in a heartbeat.”
Mara waved her hand. “You know I’d only cry in front of the judges. Come on, please sit down.”
As usual, she found she was too strung out to eat, but watching her friends devour her food was nourishment enough. The conversation cascaded from work to politics to cat videos to the Kardashians and back again. Mara laughed as she drank cool macadamia wine and dropped tactical lamb slices for Pan. She had everything she needed.
Later, when her guests were gone and her dishes were done, she rose from her bath, vibrating from head to toe. The time had come to close in around her fantasy and give herself the only other thing she needed. Her four-poster bed beckoned; her toys already laid out. She slid steel clamps over her nipples, gasping as they bit into her tender flesh. She pictured Derek’s teeth closing around them as she slid her vibrator deep, waiting for the moment she would turn it on and light herself up like a firework. She caught sight of herself in her bedroom mirror, lithe and pretty with a toned stomach and big breasts. Would Derek recognise her? She had no idea. She closed her eyes and called him back from her dreams, and this time she let herself scream the word.
“Daddy!”
2
Derek woke at five in the morning. His ex-girlfriend had messaged.
“I fucking hate you.”
He groaned at the dark ceiling. “Great. Thanks, Alannah.”
He exited the message, intending to go back to sleep, but before he knew what he was doing, he’d opened his email. His manager, Howard, had sent him an article titled Hardiman Due For a Dive?
Scowling, Derek clicked the link. It was by Peter Zerco, a former player turned shock jock. His hot take was that The Hammers were going to finish in the bottom eight this year. It was speculative bullshit. He and the Hammers had won two premierships in three years and the tall poppy syndrome had well and truly set in. No one, besides the fans, wanted to see them win another flag. He did the second stupid thing of the morning and scrolled to the comments.