Charlotte Delaney has sworn off men. After one relationship disaster after another- including turning a guy gay!- Charlotte is so over the male species.
Isaac Fletcher had his heart cruelly broken. Yes, it was years ago. No, he never got over it. I...
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I hate this woman. All she's done since I rocked up this morning is look at me really weird and scowl at me whenever I moved a fraction of a millimetre. Who does she think she is? Look, bitch, just because you're tall, blonde and freaking beautiful and you're probably from some filthy rich, posh English family does not mean that you can look down your surgery enhanced nose at me.
"Martha, stop that," Sam Courtenay sighs as he kicks me under the table. I shoot him an innocent smile which only makes him set down his iPad and close the gap between us. "I may be older than you but I'm not blind quite yet. Stop looking at Ros like you want to throw daggers at her."
"I don't want to throw daggers at her," I protest. When I look back at where the curator was standing, her face still looking at me like I was shit at the bottom of her shoe, I decided that, truly, I did not want to throw daggers at Rosamund Aldridge. I smile sadistically. "I want to rip her face off and then make her eat it."
Since I was no longer in full-time education- because, you know, the education system here is totally different to back home- I was trying to keep myself busy with other things. Charlotte, my father's latest baby-mama, has given me some shifts to work at her café while Dad's best mate, Michael Taylor, has given me an internship at his company, all of which were great at keeping me out of trouble. I liked everyone at Charlotte's café, especially Aimee who was close enough to my age, and at Mick's company, I was treated like an adult because no one would dare treat me otherwise. I'm practically like Mick's daughter and only an idiot would piss me off there.
Which brings us nicely back to Rosamund Aldridge. See, I also work at Courtenay Galleries in London, an art gallery co-owned by Sam and his sister, Evelyn. I come here every weekend and act as Sam's right-hand woman, sorting out some paperwork, organising his week ahead, getting him coffee and helping to arrange an upcoming art exhibition. The gallery is really cool and I love being surrounded by such beautiful artwork, they help calm me down, but there is one drawback.
People know her as Rosamund- or Ros, if you're Sam- but I call her Satan's granddaughter behind her back. She's a piece of work never quite seen before and she hates me as much as I hate her. Remembering back to my first day, I was introduced to Ros who promptly spewed out a list of things that I was not to do. At the top of that list- I was not to interfere in Courtenay Galleries in any way possible. I nodded as I listened, frowning when Ros told me that I was never allowed to rock up here in a pair of jeans, her eyes travelling down to my Topshop skinnies, and tried to memorise all her rules.
I was doing quite well, at least for the first three hours. I'd kept out of her way and stuck to mainly going on coffee runs and staying out the back or in the office but then I was summoned downstairs with Sam, and this is where it all went wrong.
The exhibition was a few weeks away and despite having spent months trying to pick out the best items in their possession, Ros and Sam were arguing over one piece in particular. Ros was against putting it on display as it ruined the aesthetic of the exhibition while Sam thought that it was too perfect to keep hidden. This random day in April was the deciding day as to whether or not the item was going to be displayed or not and I was suddenly being dragged right into the middle of it all.
