Read Gold Diggers for Free Online Page A

building for a song fifteen years earlier when a boyfriend had convinced her that Ladbroke Grove would one day be the new Chelsea. Not that Molly had waited around for that to happen. Living for most of the nineties in various apartments paid for by lovers, by the time Molly moved back into the property after the demise of yet another relationship, Ladbroke Grove had gentrified sufficiently to be acceptably bohemian. Summer had moved into the basement flat directly under Molly’s house after her return from Japan. Theoretically that made her independent of Molly’s interference, but it seemed nobody had bothered to tell her mother. It was like being twelve years old again, only this time, she was expected to accompany her mother to parties instead of wait at home with the babysitter.
    Summer closed the front door, then used another key tolet herself into Molly’s apartment. Molly was sitting in the lounge in her bra and knickers, her hair set in a mountain of curlers, feet propped up on a desk as she painted her toenails scarlet. Summer thought she looked like an Ellen Von Unwerth photograph.
    ‘You’re about an hour late,’ said Molly tartly, putting the bottle of polish down on the table.
    Summer noticed that the laptop Molly had open on the desk beside her was blinking on the eBay home page. It was her mother’s latest source of income, converting gifts from boyfriends into cash – a Hermès scarf here, a Tiffany cocktail ring there; in the last twelve months she had made at least £50,000, tax free.
    ‘What are you selling this time?’ asked Summer, trying to deflect her mother’s annoyance.
    ‘Suleiman gave me a Kelly bag,’ sighed Molly.
    ‘And you’re getting rid of it?’ asked Summer, surprised. She herself had always coveted the legendary Hermès bag, but had never been in the position to part with £3000.
    ‘You have a Kelly when you’re over fifty, a Birkin when you’re under fifty,’ said Molly patiently, looking at Summer as if she had suggested that the sky was green. ‘So, what kept you? I thought the shoot finished at six.’
    Summer slipped off her coat and flopped onto the plump cream sofa. ‘It ran on a bit. The crew wanted to go for a drink. I got away as early as I could.’
    ‘You went for a drink when you could have been home getting ready to go out with me?’ snapped Molly. ‘I hope you weren’t wasting your time with any bloody photographers. Did he tell you he can get you in Vogue ? Believe me, the only thing you get from a fashion photographer is an STD.’
    ‘I didn’t even go for the drink,’ said Summer tetchily. ‘Anyway, it’s only eight o’clock and we don’t have to be at the party till ten.’
    ‘Which would be fine if it wasn’t in Surrey. Honestly Summer, you drift back from Japan, I let you live downstairs paying half the rent I could be charging somebody else, and this is what I get: selfishness and inconsideration. Oh well,’ she huffed, ‘you might as well be useful and tell me which dress you prefer.’
    Summer followed her mother upstairs into the bedroom feeling wretched. Molly knew exactly the right buttons to press to make her feel guilty and ungrateful. Not for the first time since she got back from Japan, Summer wondered why her mother actually wanted her in such close proximity, considering she spent so much time making her feel like an inconvenience. But then it was a familiar feeling; Summer had always felt as if she had personally held Molly back, both in her modelling career and her love life. Even though a string of cheap Swedish au pairs had been a fixture in the Sinclair household, it couldn’t have been easy for Molly to jet off on a modelling job to Manhattan or Marrakech with Summer weighing her down like a ball and chain. Worse than that, Summer felt she had scuppered Molly’s chances of finding love. Despite being one of the most fabulous women in the world, Molly had never married and it was obvious why – what man wanted a