Kelly stepped into the steaming cabinet and turned the temperature up high. She pushed her right hand into an exfoliating glove, and with slow deliberate movements she began to scrub her body. Round and round she rubbed, until her skin smarted. Yet she continued to rub, harder and harder, and with each circular motion she repeated in her head the maxim, the one the Pact always used in times of stress. Stay calm, stay cool but above all stay in control.
Weston Kane arrived at the restaurant ten minutes. early. Carlos, the owner, waved, adopted his most ingratiating smile and extracted himself from a tight knot of chattering people. Swiftly he negotiated the closely packed tables, greeting Weston with what she knew was genuine warmth. She had known him since her father, Sinclair Kane, had first taken her to Umberto’s on her eighth birthday. Then Carlos had been a young maître d’ with the looks of a matinée idol and the kind of quick wit and instant charm that made whoever he was talking to feel special; as if he’d known the person all his life. Carlos had approached Sinclair Kane to finance a new restaurant; there had been no hesitation, and ten months later Carlos had opened the doors of Umberto’s.
Now, thirty-four years and five restaurants later, Carlos was no longer handsome. His love of food and late nights had added an extra thirty pounds of all too solid flesh. And age, though he swore it was worry, had taken most of his once thick hair. But time had not dulled his enthusiasm, nor had it robbed him of his sense of humour and unquenchable zest for life.
‘Miss Kane, you look younger every time I see you. How do you do it?’
Weston found herself smiling in response to his trademark flattery. ‘It’s in the genes.’ She pinched his arm. ‘The same as your charm.’
It was his turn to smile. ‘You’re the first, Miss Kane; you want to wait in the bar?’
‘I’ll go straight to the table, Carlos, thanks, and I’ll have my usual.’
Carlos gestured to a passing waiter. ‘A vodka martini, shaken, with a twist for Miss Kane. Her usual table.’
Several heads turned as Weston Kane crossed the crowded room to a corner spot where she always sat. After leaving college she’d often lunched with her father in the several top restaurants he used in Manhattan. In each establishment Sinclair always had the same table. If it wasn’t available for him, which was rare, he didn’t eat there. And on one occasion when he was promised his table and didn’t get it, he left and never set foot inside again. He called it the power table, the best one in the house – far from the noise and activity of the kitchen, far enough from the door to avoid the hustle and bustle, yet close enough to see exactly who was coming and going, as well as being able to scrutinize the entire restaurant in one sweeping glance. Part of the game, the social hierarchy game.
Weston slid her long legs under the table. She was tall, over six foot in high heels, with a square handsome face. The azure blue eyes she’d inherited from her mother scanned the room as always. They were spaced wide under a high brow and complemented the collar-length Titian hair which was her legacy from her father’s Scottish forebears. The tight auburn curls she’d hated as a child had been hacked off several times, once with a kitchen knife when she was eight, and on many occasions since. As a teenager, she had ached for long straight blonde hair, the silken type, without a vestige of curl, and had tried every straightening method known to mankind – from reverse perming to a hot iron and greaseproof paper. She shifted on her seat, picked a fleck of cotton off the taupe skirt of a suit she’d had for ten years. It still fitted perfectly. Weston cared little for clothes; in fact she was happiest in jeans and T’s in summer, and jeans with good cashmere sweaters in winter. When she did buy clothes, she bought good ones. It was the only lasting influence her mother Annette had achieved over her. On their rare shopping trips she was constantly accompanied by Annette’s high-pitched sing-song sighs of approval or disdain.
Such forays had filled her wardrobe with practical, simple well-cut outfits. Pants, invariably St Laurent; Armani jackets; and Valentino or Dior for evening. She knew she was a disappointment to her impeccably dressed mother, but then Weston had no desire to follow Annette on to the ‘Ten Best Dressed Women in America’ list; she didn’t need to. Her height, presence and minimalist style turned heads without fanciful flourishes. The two were completely different in every respect, so much so Weston often doubted her parentage; how could the capricious, totally vacuous Annette Elizabeth Sinclair be her mother? A woman whose main interests ranged from shopping and lunch to more shopping, followed by hair and beauty treatments. And when the shops were shut, Annette’s time seemed to be dedicated to modelling her purchases. How the bored young Weston used to hate the preening and pouting in front of the dressing-room mirror as her mother fished for compliments, interrogating her daughter in search of approval and adoration. She grew to abhor her mother’s lifestyle, her loathing only increased by her father’s worship of the empty-headed beauty he’d loved passionately for forty-six years. Weston had often longed instead for a fun mom, and later in her teens she’d longed for a friend.
From as young as six Weston had lain awake long after she was supposed to be asleep, planning how she could create mischief and mayhem to gain attention. But by the time she was sixteen, she had simply decided that the lifestyle of her mother and her contemporaries was a ridiculous charade. Massaging precious egos, and playing sex games with philandering power brokers was not to be her fate. She set out to become highly successful, extremely rich and very powerful in her own right, and in that order. By twenty-eight she had produced her first television series; it was nominated for three Emmys and won two. A year later she’d joined forces with Imogen Irving, a fifty-two-year-old Hollywood legend and movie producer, who taught her all she knew about motion pictures and also initiated Weston into the joys of sapphism. Weston had never looked back.
She had gone on to head up her own production company Summit, and had recently negotiated a billion-dollar merger with Avesta Inc, a multi-national media giant spanning digital TV, cable, satellite and the Internet.
Now she was hungry for more power, more control. It was like a potent drug, addictive, the ultimate high. But be careful, Weston, power also corrupts, she could hear her father’s voice whispering in her ear.
The waiter had arrived with her drink; she swirled the olive around the glass before taking a sip, her thoughts digressing to her two closest friends, Beth Morgan and Kelly Prescott, who were both joining her for lunch. They were the two most important people in her life, the result of a friendship that had survived untarnished through three decades, since they’d all met at Wellesley College. This year was the twenty-sixth annual celebration of the special bond the three women had forged in their sophomore year. They had been hedonistic young feminists with far-reaching ambitions and ruthless energy, and had formed an immediate rapport. While other girls discussed vacations, boys or clothes, they had spent long hours working out how they would help each other achieve positions of real power. They agreed it would take time, it was a man’s world and they had to find a way to crack it, each giving the others a leg up the ladder whenever they could. The end of the century was their deadline – the millennium. And that was the pact they secretly swore: the Millennium Pact.
Way back in 1972 when they had called themselves sisters, the world was still waking up to female equality and as the balance of power between the sexes began to shift, they had been ideally placed to take advantage of the changing times. At that time the year 2000 had seemed so distant, yet here they all were nearly at the dawn of a new century, having achieved even more than they had aspired to in those early heady days. They still met six times a year, but their lunches never involved small talk or gossip. They spoke only about themselves, their careers, the next rung, and how each could help the other. Their get-togethers were more like board meetings, brainstorming sessions in which each new move was planned with the sharp precision of a military campaign. And now on the birthday of the Pact they could at last congratulate themselves, give each other a resounding pat on the back.
They had made it.
They had beaten men at their own