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a huge room decorated in turquoise and gold. ‘Isn’t this magnificent?’ she bellowed, when she saw Delilah and Grey approaching.
    ‘You haven’t gone too mad, have you, Rach?’ Delilah asked warily, knowing how the stylist could go completely overboard when not reined in.
    ‘Of course not!’ Rachel said indignantly. ‘But we’re going to make the most of this adorable setting, and the fantastic clothes I’ve managed to get. Look.’
She went over to a rail where tiny model-sized garments hung in a mass of colour and fabric: slippery silks, wispy chiffon, glossy leather and rubber, along with tweeds and knits of every variety.
‘Dior, Chanel, Stella McCartney, Givenchy, McQueen, you name it. It’s going to be glorious. Wait till I show you the props!’
    Delilah sighed, feeling that she could really do without a fight today. It was always the same when Rachel was brought in on a job, and she appeared without fail on the juiciest gigs. The bigger
the house, the grander the setting, the bigger the budget, the more likely Rachel was to appear and spoil it. Give her a bog-standard studio shoot in a stuffy little place in Tooting with the
clothes of a new designer, and she was nowhere to be seen. It came from being the cousin of the magazine’s publisher and a snob into the bargain. She had no compunction in stamping down
Delilah’s ideas and authority and imposing her own vision, even though Delilah was the magazine’s art director.
    Rachel was dressed eccentrically as usual in a vintage Edwardian gown, customised with a black-and-white-striped bustle and a long hot-pink tutu beneath, and she tripped along the corridors on
platform heels in a rustle of satin. Delilah followed behind, feeling ridiculously normal in her jeans, grey silk T-shirt and plimsolls. She’d learned that it was easy to feel plain and
frumpy on a shoot, what with the gorgeous models wafting about in designer gear, so she’d adopted a look that suited her and was both stylish and practical. She might not have a model figure
but she was happy with her tall, fairly athletic frame. Grey was always telling her to show off her legs more, but she preferred to wear jeans or black trousers most of the time. ‘Wear more
colour!’ he’d scold. ‘That endless black and white, don’t you get sick of it?’ But she was fond of her monochrome working wardrobe.
    In the office, she wore white shirts and dark jackets with her trousers, adding a sharp heel for the fashion edge that the magazine required. On a shoot, she’d dress right down; it was how
other people looked that mattered, after all, and she just needed to be comfortable. Today she’d twisted her long, thick fair hair up into a bun and stuck a variety of pens and pencils
through it, partly to keep it in place and partly because, when she was working, not being able to find a pen when she needed one drove her mad. She knew Grey would hate it, even though he’d
carefully not commented when he climbed into the car that morning. He was always urging her to wear more make-up and get her hair properly styled, but she only laughed. She liked her long hair,
even if it did take an hour to blow dry it properly, and too much make-up made her look clownish. Her face was the natural kind, the skin clear with a few freckles over her nose, her lashes
naturally dark. Her face was well defined, with strong cheekbones, a sturdy nose and a well-formed, almost Roman mouth. She could never transform the way the models did, their plain, small-featured
faces becoming ethereally beautiful under the layers of make-up. She glimpsed three of them now, as they passed the makeshift salon, where a team wielding hair tongs and eyebrow brushes were
turning the blank-faced, hollow-cheeked girls into raving beauties.
    I think I prefer being me,
Delilah thought. Grey always told her she was gorgeous, and while she knew that wasn’t quite true, she was also content that she made the best of what
she