speck. Kaaya glanced around the room, forcing herself to take pleasure in its perfect designer chic – the Italian sofa in soft cream suede, the sweeping chrome down-lighters, the bunches of fresh yellow rosebuds arranged on the mantelpiece in small square glass vases. It was the perfect setting for an elegant woman like her. After all, Anton, Kaaya’s Parisian jeweller, had once explained how even the highest quality gold was just metal without the embellishment of a perfect stone. But what a waste to be looking as fabulous as she did tonight when there was no one around to appreciate it.
Kaaya got up, sighing as she walked into her bedroom. She peeled off her Chanel jacket and hurled it onto the floor. Manuela would put it on its upholstered hanger and return it to its rightful place in the walk-in wardrobe when she came in tomorrow morning. Divesting herself of the rest of her office clothes, Kaaya riffled through her vast collection of home outfits, wearing only her mauve lace lingerie and a towering pair of purple patent leather Jimmy Choos. Without too much ado, she chose one of her many Joseph silk kaftans and threw it onto the clothes horse. Then she slipped off her bra and panties and surveyed her curvy but gym-toned naked figure with momentary satisfaction before finally pulling the kaftan over her head. Kicking off her five-inch stilettos, Kaaya slipped her feet into a pair of gold chamois slippers and padded her way back across the pile carpet to fetch herself a drink from the cabinet. As she walked, she could feel the soft fabric of her kaftan brush rather pleasurably against her bare nipples. Oh, what a bloody waste to be feeling so sexy on a night when her lover was unavailable. If Kaaya had been a little more adventurous, there were numerous others she could have summoned with a click of her fingers – suave old Rodney Theobald from the art gallery, for instance, or Henry from the accounts department at work, the latter no doubt ready and willing for a quick bonk at five minutes’ notice! Henry had held a candle for her ever since she had joined Lumous PR a year ago and, last Christmas, he thought he had hit the jackpot when she snogged him in the broom closet and allowed him to slip one hot hand under her bra. But he – single, adoring, available – was far too easy for Kaaya. She generally preferred a chase to be more exciting, even when it was a new client she was wooing at work. Which was why affairs with seemingly happily married men were the bigger challenge. But they certainly came with some irritating constraints. Damn Joe and his friend’s birthday party! Kaaya considered calling him anyway, to make him sweat just a tiny bit under the scrutiny of his wife and friends…That would serve him right for leaving her in the lurch on a night like this, she thought, picking up her phone again.
She stopped short, deciding to call Riva first. The juicy tidbit of news she had for her sister could not wait any more. The din of a noisy restaurant was apparent in the background as Riva’s voice came down the line. She was shouting to be heard over the clamour. ‘Hello? Hello? Kaaya, that you?’
‘You sound like you’re in the middle of a railway station,’ Kaaya said, enjoying, as always, being rude about the kind of downmarket places her parsimonious sister tended to hang out in.
‘It’s a restaurant, actually, Kaaya dearest.’
‘Really? I don’t exactly detect the hush of discreet waiters and thick white linen in the background…or the tinkle of crystal, for that matter,’ Kaaya said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘What? Can’t hear…hang on, I think I need to walk towards the door,’ Riva said.
‘I said, it – sounds – too – noisy – to – be – a – restaurant. Oh, never mind.’ Kaaya sighed but Riva had heard her this time.
‘Well, I’m hardly one for shelling out six months’ worth of royalties on a minuscule platter of nouvelle cuisine, just because it’s got some jumped-up cheffy name attached to it, am I?’ she retorted, refusing to rise to her sister’s snobbishness.
‘Now, I can think of various responses to that, Riva darling, but I’ll spare you while you’re dining, lest you choke on your sausage and mash. Who’re you with anyway? Not that sad specimen you call a husband, by any chance? In which case, you must be dining at the finest greasy spoon. Or – I know – a greasy chopstick basement in cheapest Chinatown. Yes?’
Riva laughed. ‘Cheapest Arab Town, actually. Wassup, anyway?’
‘Okay, won’t keep you. Just that I have news for you. You’ll never guess whom I met this arvo.’
‘Who?’
‘A college mate of yours…said he remembered you…Care to wager a guess? Oh, I can’t bear this so I’m just going to tell you. It was Aman Khan, King of Bollywood, no less!’
There was a pause before Riva spoke again, her voice calm. ‘Aman Khan? Where on earth did you meet him?’
‘At my office, believe it or not. He came with a director – some oily bloke called Shah – to talk about getting a publicist for a forthcoming crossover film of his. Indrani down in reception recognised him from her regular diet of Bollywood. She was all aflutter, near fainting point, I can tell you. And I do have to say he’s really quite a looker in the flesh. You never said he was so dishy or I’d have taken more trouble keeping up with his films!’
‘How did my name come up?’ Riva asked.
‘Oh, we got chatting and I told him that my big sister was his classmate at Leeds Uni.’
‘I wish you hadn’t. He’s hardly likely to remember me, is he?’
‘That was the peculiar thing, Riva: he did! He suddenly got all animated too, telling me about how you cornered him on his first day on the campus to stick a placard in his hand. Typical of the shop-stewardy sort of thing you would do, come to think of it!’
‘How curious he remembers that!’
‘Or was the placard just a chat-up ruse on your part? Clever, if it was. He still remembers it anyway…’
‘Of course it wasn’t a chat-up line! There was some kind of protest on in uni when he joined, if I recall.’
‘Well, I told him you were still a bit of a trade unionist and rabble-rouser. Putting pamphlets through people’s doors and doing your soapbox thing down at Speaker’s Corner every Sunday morning.’
‘Kaaya, you didn’t!’
‘Sure did.’
‘Oh Kaaya!’
‘Course I didn’t!’ Kaaya cut through Riva’s wail. ‘What do you take me for? He wasn’t there to talk about you anyway so we swiftly moved on to other things.’ Her voice became smug. ‘Think I may have netted a big fish today, sis.’
‘Well done, you,’ Riva said quietly, not sure if Kaaya meant that she had netted a new client in Aman – or a new admirer. The latter was not an unlikely scenario, given the earthy sex appeal Kaaya oozed in such abundance. Surely Aman Khan, like most men, would not be impervious to Kaaya’s beauty? Riva wondered why the thought should make her suddenly feel so despondent.
But Kaaya was now ending the conversation in her usual abrupt manner. ‘Better let you get on with din-dins, then,’ she said, before adding a cheeky postscript. ‘Love to you but none to that crabby hubby of yours. Oh, and mind you don’t choke on a bit of cartilage, eating all that cheap meat.’
Aman walked up the metal stairs to board his flight for Dubai. He was impressed by the sheer bulk of the massive Airbus A380, remembering a letter he had recently received, signed by Sheikh Al Maktoum himself, which contained all sorts of lavish promises to revolutionise the whole concept of luxury air travel. But even Aman Khan, for whom luxury was now a byword for existence, found himself impressed with the private suite the air hostess was now ushering him into. He looked around with pleasure, feeling comfortably cocooned, as the air hostess hung up his Armani coat in a small closet. Since becoming a star, he had learnt the value of privacy, but air travel had remained the one arena in which no amount of money could