Spellbound by Jane Green Read Free Book Online Page A

star in the corner.
    They’re all here tonight, the paparazzi scattered around going into a frenzy, not sure who to photograph first.
    The celebrities turn and flash large sparkling white smiles for the cameras, careful to show off only their best sides, gracefully extending a leg in the most flattering of poses. They chat up the photographers, knowing it will work to their advantage, knowing that they will only stay in the papers for as long as they continue to court the press.
    The women who are not famous glare furiously at the paparazzi, wishing that they were, hoping that their expressions of disgust may convince the photographers they might be famous too, may convince them to take their photographs as well.
    The photographers turn to look at Alice with interest, a couple of them recognizing her from the diary pages, and as soon as one raises his camera to flash a quick snap, the others run over just in case they’ve missed anything, and soon, much to Alice’s horror, the entire room has turned to stare at her.
    No posing for Alice. No white-toothed smiles and smooth brown thigh peeping out from a long, slashed dress. Alice drops her eyes to the floor, lowers her head, and pushes past them, trying to reach Joe quickly, wishing that these people would just leave her alone.
    ‘Alice?’ She looks up as Emily puts her arms around her tightly and squeezes her. ‘What a fucking nightmare.’
    ‘Oh, Em!’ she whispers. ‘I hate these bloody people.’
    ‘Great.’ Emily releases her with a smile. ‘So why did you invite me?’
    ‘Because I didn’t think you’d come. You never come to anything, Emily, how come you’re even here?’
    ‘You’re right, I never come because I hate these people too, but you’re my best friend, and I love you, and I haven’t seen you for ages so I decided to brave it.’
    ‘You haven’t seen me for ages because you’re always so busy.’
    ‘Bollocks, Alice. You’re the one going off to this charity do, and that film première, and dinner at the Ivy all the time.’
    ‘Okay, we’re both busy. That’s the best you’ll get from me.’
    Emily laughs. ‘Okay. That I’ll accept.’
    ‘Come and see Joe.’ Alice can see Joe has stopped talking, is waiting for Alice to reach him. ‘He’d love to see you.’
    Emily can never quite decide what to make of Joe. She’s never been comfortable with his flirtatiousness (and no, of course he hasn’t flirted with Emily – he wouldn’t dare), and although Alice has said she trusts him, Emily does not, but there is something so irresistible about Joe, something so inherently likeable, that as much as she wants to hate him for his smooth charm, she can’t.
    Of course Emily hasn’t heard the rumours. Emily mixes in a different social circle entirely, and although she does, from time to time, enter Alice’s world, she’s not comfortable with these people, and they are not comfortable with her.
    When Alice went off to catering college, Emily went off travelling for a year. By herself. She filled a tiny rucksack with one sweater, two sarongs, three pairs of shorts, four T-shirts, five pairs of knickers and eleven bottles of hair conditioner – her only luxury, although she would claim it as a necessity for her corkscrew curls – and hopped on the hovercraft to France.
    Everyone told her she was mad. Travel? Yes. By herself? Absolutely nuts. Only Alice was completely supportive, and devastated that she couldn’t go too.
    So Emily went to France, fell in love with Laurent, the son of a wealthy hotelier from St-Paul de Vence (whom she met in a bar in Paris one busy, drunken night), travelled down to the Côte d’Azur to stay with Laurent’s family in their fabulously luxurious home, from where they both crossed the border at San Remo into Italy, and travelled to Naples, before driving down the Amalfi coast to Sorrento and Positano.
    It was the most romantic and exciting time of Emily’s life. Laurent had to leave after Positano, had