The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,2

me. The concierge had encouraged me to call the cops and have him charged with stalking, but one morning I’d asked him his full name, then gone to do a bit of internet stalking myself. I’d discovered on Facebook that he was an army vet who’d won medals for bravery out in Afghanistan, and that he had a wife and daughter in Queens. Now, rather than feeling threatened, Tommy made me feel safe. Besides that, he was always respectful and polite, so I’d told the concierge to back off.

The porter stepped out of the elevator and let me pass. Then we did a kind of dance in which I needed to step back so that he could go ahead and lead the way to my penthouse apartment to open the door for me with his own master key.

‘There we go, Miss D’Aplièse. Have a nice day now.’

He nodded at me and I saw zero warmth in his eyes. I knew that the staff here wished that I would disappear in a puff of smoke up a non-existent chimney. Most of the other residents had been here since they were foetuses in their mothers’ stomachs, back when a woman of colour, like me, would have been ‘privileged’ to be their maid. They were all owner-occupiers, whereas I was a peasant: a tenant, albeit a rich one, allowed in on a lease because the old lady who’d lived here had died and her son had renovated the place, then tried to sell it at an exorbitant price. Due to something called the sub-prime crisis, he’d apparently failed to do so. Instead, he’d been reduced to selling the lease to the highest bidder – me. The price was crazy, but then so was the apartment, stuffed with modern artwork and every kind of electronic gadget you could imagine (I didn’t know how to work most of them) and the view from the terrace over Central Park was stunning.

If I needed a reminder of my success, this apartment was it. But what it reminds me of more than anything, I thought as I sank down into the couch that could provide a comfortable bed for at least two full-grown guys, is how lonely I am. Its size made even me feel small and delicate . . . and up here, right at the top of the building, very, very isolated.

My cell phone piped up from somewhere in the apartment, playing the song that had made Mitch a worldwide superstar; I’d tried to change the ringtone but it hadn’t worked. If CeCe is dyslexic with words, then I sure am dyslexic with electronics, I thought as I went into the bedroom to grab it. I was relieved to see that the maid had changed the sheets on the enormous bed and everything was hotel-room perfect again. I liked the new maid my PA had found me; she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement like all the others to stop her blabbing to the media about any of my nastier habits. Even so, I shuddered to think what she – was it Lisbet? – had thought when she’d walked into my apartment this morning.

I sat on the bed and listened to my voicemails. Five were from my agent asking me to call her back urgently about tomorrow’s shoot for Vanity Fair, and the last message was from Amy, my new PA. She’d only been with me for three months, but I liked her.

‘Hi, Electra, it’s Amy. I . . . well, I just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed working for you, but I don’t think it’s gonna work out long-term. I’ve handed my resignation letter in today to your agent and I wish you luck in the future, and . . .’

‘SHIT!’ I screamed as I pressed delete and threw the cell across the room. ‘What the hell did I do to her?!’ I asked the ceiling, wondering why I felt so upset that a two-bit nobody, who had gone down on bended knee and begged me to give her a chance, had walked out on me three months later.

‘“It’s been my dream to be in the fashion business since I was a little kid. Please, Miss D’Aplièse, I’ll work for you night and day, your life will be mine and I swear I’ll never let you down.”’ I mimicked Amy’s whiny Brooklyn accent as I dialled my agent. There were only three things I couldn’t live without: vodka, cocaine and a PA.

‘Hi, Susie, I just