CHAPTER ONE

      TWO hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

       Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

      Imogen gaped at the catalogue, her jaw practically hitting the floor. It had to be a mistake. A typo or something. Because surely no one could be expected to fork out a quarter of a million pounds for that … that thing.

      Bracing herself, she turned back, stared at the canvas hanging on the wall, and winced. ‘The Sting in Society’ was so eye-poppingly ugly it made every cell in her body shrivel in protest. So primitive it looked as if it had been executed by her five-year-old nephew in one of his tantrums. So absolutely hideous that not even the copious amounts of vintage champagne on offer could dent its impact.

      And it was enormous. The artist, who’d splashed a blaze of clashing colours onto the canvas in a seemingly random fashion, clearly felt his creativity was too great to contain, which while undoubtedly satisfying some sort of artistic bent for himself, was excruciating for everyone else.

      It would be one thing if ‘The Sting in Society’ were a one-off. That she could just about deal with while fulfilling her aim to take every advantage of the free-flowing champagne. But it wasn’t. The plain white walls of the gallery were littered with the things. Beneath unforgivably bright lights hung two dozen canvases, all splattered with the same great swathes of colours, all equally dreadful, and all going for the same mind-blowing sums of money.

      Imogen grimaced. She was the first to admit that she was no expert on modern art, but in her opinion whatever its worth, the whole lot should be consigned to the Thames.

      Not that anyone else appeared to think so, she thought, glancing around at the trendily dressed throng. Everywhere she looked, people milled about, tilting their heads and tapping index fingers against their mouths while spouting esoteric nonsense about allegory and metaphysics.

      Swinging her gaze back to the piece she was standing in front of, Imogen stifled a shudder. It was madness, she mused, narrowing her eyes as she tried to work out its appeal and failed. Complete insanity.

      Who in their right mind would pay that amount of money for such a horrendous thing anyway?

      She mentally ran through a list of all the things a quarter of a million pounds could achieve. Only yesterday her department had had to allocate exactly that sum to one of the projects run by the Christie Trust, and the options were still fresh in her memory. Spending it on an eye-watering splatter of colours had not, strangely enough, been one of them.

      But then what did she know about anything?

      Imogen took a step back, bit her lip and frowned. Recent events had proved that her judgement sucked. Big time. So who was she to decide whether or not this stuff was any good? As bizarre as she might think it, little red dots were popping up next to the paintings like chicken pox, so the evidence appeared to be speaking for itself.

      Which only hammered home the painful realisation that her judgement was indeed still in bits.

      Not that that was any surprise.

      Only two months had passed since Connie, her once-upon-a-time partner-in-crime and best-friend-since-school had run off with Max, Imogen’s then boyfriend, and, although the pain had ebbed to a dull ache instead of the agony it had once been, it still hurt.

      More so this evening, thought Imogen morosely, her already battered spirits taking a nosedive. The last time she’d been to a private view, Connie had been with her. They’d laughed and talked loudly and pompously about light and depth and perspective, ransacked the canapés and then hit the latest club.

      Tonight, however, she was alone, and Connie, the sneaky snake-in-the-grass, was in all likelihood at home, snuggling up to Max on the sofa and hatching wedding plans.

      Imogen’s heart twanged. She’d told herself to get over it a million times and she reckoned she was making good progress, but from time to time—usually when she was least expecting it—the whole sorry affair swooped down and smacked her around the head.

      Like this afternoon.

      Like now.

      The backs of her eyes prickled but she blinked the sting away and yanked her shoulders back. What did she care what Connie was up to? So what if the friendship they’d had, the one that had started at kindergarten and had continued for the past twenty-five years, had disintegrated in the ten seconds it had taken to read Max’s note? And so what if her ex-boyfriend and her ex-best friend were getting married?

      She didn’t give a toss, did she?

      No. She’d had plenty of time to reflect on the betrayal, and with hindsight she’d come to realise that actually they’d done her a favour. Because who needed friends who could do something like that to you?

      And as for Max, well, yes, he was undeniably gorgeous—all dark floppy hair, twinkling eyes and oodles of charm—but he was a complete waste of space and she was well shot of him.

      If the press had levelled the same waste-of-space accusation at her—which they had, frequently and not entirely unfairly—that was fine because she had plans to reverse that and to prove to herself and her critics that she did have something to offer the world.

      Max, on the other hand, seemed happy to spend the rest of his life perfecting his air of insouciant ennui. So if Connie wanted to spend the rest of her life massaging that ego, she was welcome to it.

      Imogen shook her head at