The Ugly Sister Read Online Free

thought, Perfect. It made sense for them to live among the self-anointed beautiful people, all style over substance. She remembers thinking that Primrose Hill must be like a kind of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (not that she has ever been) with a bit of
Footballers’ Wives
Cheshire (again, ditto, but she has seen it on TV) thrown in. All McMansions and bling. In actual fact, Abi thinks, looking around now, it all looks rather pretty. The houses are stately and dripping with features that are both original and tasteful. The little shopping street is stuffed full of one-off shops
and restaurants. There are normal-looking people walking their dogs and going about their non-celebrity business. She decides to have a look around the area and try again in a few minutes.
    She’s halfway down the steps when she hears someone walking across the hall. She freezes and standsrigidly to attention, waiting for the door to open. She has been assuming that one of Cleo’s staff would let her in. That’s right. Cleo has staff. ‘My people’ she calls them. As in ‘I’ll get one of my people to call you back’, which is what she said to Abi when Abi called to try to persuade her to go to their dad’s seventy-fifth birthday party a few years back: ‘I’m not sure where I’ll be.’ One of her people did indeed phone back and thanked Abi very formally for the invitation but unfortunately Cleo had a prior engagement and would not be able to attend. ‘Thank you for thinking of her,’ he’d added insincerely.
    ‘Do you know I’m her sister?’ Abi had said, not being able to hide her irritation. ‘Do you know that this is an invitation to our dad’s birthday party not some show-business lunch or the opening of a new art gallery?’ To be fair he had been very apologetic and had completely dropped the sanctimonious tone and Abi had known that this was in no way his fault. Cleo had obviously just given him a bunch of requests to turn down and hadn’t even thought it worthy of a mention that one of them was from family.
    Anyway, Abi is standing there rigid, holding her breath, still thinking of leaving rather than waiting for one of the ‘people’, when the door opens and there she is. Cleo. Abi’s big sister Caroline, aka Cleo the supermodel. Abi is momentarily dazzled by the five-thousand-watt welcoming smile. The smile that always makes you feel you’re the person Cleo mostwants to see in the world. Until you know better, that is.
    ‘Abigail! Come in. It’s so good to see you.’
    Abi feels the breath squeezed out of her as Cleo sweeps her up in a big embrace. She savours the moment, hugging her sister back, which is a bit awkward what with the Debenhams bag and the champagne. She inhales Cleo’s signature ‘Exotica’ scent and marvels, as she always does, about the fact that Cleo still has some left, it having been discontinued years ago. Then she allows herself to be led inside and into the enormous hallway, which is easily twice as big as Abi’s whole house and probably four times as expensive. She has never been to this house before – even though Cleo, Jonty and their two girls have lived here for the best part of six years – and she struggles, trying to find the words in her head to describe it. Palatial, opulent, lavish, regal (although that last one is more or less covered by palatial and so doesn’t really count). Lush, Phoebe might say, Abi thinks fondly. Fierce.
    If the outside is intimidating, then the inside is its scarier bigger brother. All marble and dark wood and classic, ornately framed works of art and antique vases and that’s just the hallway. Abi doesn’t really have time to take it all in though because she is trying to take in her sister. Every time they see each other these days it has been so long since the last time, and Abi’s vision has been so clouded by the airbrushed images of Cleo that pop up in the most unlikely places (her face was on oneof the best-selling posters of the 1980s,