The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,17

of the grass and the newly budding plants was so fresh in comparison to the stench of New York. I sucked a deep breath of the pure air into my lungs.

‘Come through to the kitchen,’ said Ma. ‘Claudia is already preparing brunch.’

I saw Christian bringing up the rear. As he deposited my holdall at the bottom of the stairs, I walked towards him.

‘Thank you for driving me here. I’m glad I came.’

‘You are welcome, Electra. What time do we leave for the airport tomorrow?’

‘Around ten in the evening. My PA has booked the jet for midnight.’

‘Okay. If anything changes, just tell Marina and she will inform me.’

‘I will. Have a nice weekend.’

‘And you.’ He nodded at me, then disappeared out of the front door.

‘Electra!’

I turned and saw Ally coming towards me from the kitchen, her arms open wide to embrace me.

‘Hi there, new mom,’ I said as she hugged me. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks. I still can’t believe I am one.’

I thought, with a hint of jealousy, that she looked amazing. Her angular face had been softened by a few pregnancy pounds, and her fabulous red-gold hair shone like a halo against her porcelain skin.

‘You look great,’ I said.

‘No I don’t. I’ve put on eight kilos, which don’t seem to be disappearing, and I’m getting about two hours’ sleep a night. I have a very hungry man in my bed,’ she laughed.

‘Where is he?’

‘Sleeping off the night before, of course.’ Ally raised an eyebrow in mock frustration, but I thought I’d never seen her look happier. ‘At least it’ll give us a chance to talk for a bit,’ she added as we walked through to the kitchen. ‘I was thinking today that I haven’t seen you since last June when we were all here after Pa died.’

‘No, well, I’ve been busy.’

‘I try and keep up with you and your life in the papers and magazines but—’

‘Hello, Electra,’ said Claudia in the French she spoke with a strong German accent. ‘How are you?’ She was in the process of pouring pancake mixture into a frying pan and I heard an enticing sizzle.

‘I’m well, thanks.’

‘Come and sit down and tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you.’ Ally indicated a chair at the long table.

‘I will, but before I do, I’m just going upstairs to freshen up.’ I turned and walked out of the kitchen, suddenly feeling panicky. I knew how Ally liked to interrogate us all and I wasn’t sure I was up to it just now.

I grabbed my holdall, then climbed the stairs up to the attic – which really wasn’t an attic at all, but a spacious floor where us girls had our bedrooms – and opened the door to mine. Everything looked exactly as it had when I’d left home for Paris as a teenager. I stared at the walls, painted in the soft cream colour they’d always been, and sat down on my bed. Compared to the other girls’ rooms, whose walls seemed to embody their occupants’ personalities, mine was bare. There wasn’t a clue about the person who had lived in here for the first sixteen years of her life. No posters of models or pop stars or ballet dancers or sports stars . . . nothing to indicate who I was.

Reaching down into my holdall, I grabbed the bottle of vodka wrapped up in my cashmere sweatpants and took a deep swig. This bedroom seemed to express all there was to say about me – that I was just an empty husk. I didn’t have – and never had had – a passion for anything. And, I thought as I stowed the bottle back in its cashmere nest, then reached for the small packet tucked into the front pocket of my holdall to do a line, I didn’t know who I was back then, and I don’t know who I am now.

By the time I made my way back downstairs, the vodka had calmed me and the coke had cheered me up. As Ma, Ally and I sat down to enjoy Claudia’s famous brunch, I did as they wanted me to do and told them all about the glamorous parties I’d attended and the celebrities I’d met, giving them some innocuous inside gossip as I went.

‘And what about you and Mitch? I read in the papers that you’d gone your separate ways. Is that true?’

I’d been waiting for that; Ally was the high priestess of getting straight to the point.

‘Yeah, a few months back.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, you