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He didn’t say anything else, just carried on looking at her with that appraising expression in the green eyes which made her self-conscious no matter how hard she tried not to be.
‘And?’ she prompted, when he didn’t say anything.
He sipped his coffee.
‘While I could break the contract—and I’m sure the house-sitting agency would be prepared to be reasonable about it …’ His tone made it obvious who he considered the troublemaker to be in this scenario. ‘You’ve told me how important it is to you that you keep this address. And, as I’m all in favour of enterprise, I’m prepared to be the bigger person here and honour the agreement. I wouldn’t want to make things difficult for you.’
She bridled a little at his taking the moral high ground but kept her irritation under wraps. She didn’t believe a word of it. He needed to keep his nose clean. That much was clear from the newspaper article and his turnaround since last night. Any sniff of scandal and he’d be back on the front pages. She had no intention of going to the press—she just wanted to concentrate on her article, on not letting her big chance, her only chance, slip through her fingers—but she didn’t need to tell him that.
Let him think she had the editor of every London tabloid on speed dial.
‘That’s really good of you. Thank you,’ she said through gritted teeth.
He raised his mug in acknowledgement.
She waited until he began scrolling through his mobile phone.
‘Will Viveca be joining you for Christmas?’ she asked pointedly.
His expression as he looked up from the phone was dark and inscrutable. She saw a flash of the arctic coldness from the previous night.
‘No, she will not!’ he said curtly. ‘It’s a working relationship, nothing more.’
‘That’s not what the papers say,’ she said.
‘And of course they are always right about absolutely everything.’ He slammed his mug down, slopping coffee across the granite counter. ‘It was a few dates and it was months ago. Can’t I go on a couple of nights out without the world reading God knows what into it?’
Clearly not. She would give him her standard live-in-the-public-eye-at-your-peril lecture.
‘That’s the thing, though. You’re happy to court publicity when it suits you. When it’s good publicity. When there’s a film to promote. You can’t then say it’s unacceptable when people want to know more about you.’
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘Seeing as you belong to the vulture camp. Hoping to get the scoop, are you? Well, there’s nothing to scoop. I’m single. I only date when I have to, and I don’t see that it’s anyone else’s business. There’s a line between public and private. Who I date and why I date them is private.’
She gave her suddenly pricked-up ears a mental slap. The fact that he was single was definitely of no interest to her. She didn’t care that he was utterly, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Firstly, she’d be wasting her time. Even in a ketchup-smeared photo Viveca was nothing short of exquisite. He’d never look twice at someone like Jen. And secondly, the only circumstances in which she would look at a man who paved his way through life with his wealth would be false ones—as demonstrated perfectly by her undercover article. She wasn’t about to repeat the mistakes her mother had made. No way.
She shrugged. ‘You’re just too newsworthy. That’s the problem. You need to keep your head down a bit more. Perhaps if you dated someone a bit more run-of-the-mill for a change?’
He raised his eyebrows and gave her a suggestive grin that sent a curl of unwelcome heat through her body. ‘Someone like you, you mean?’
The kitchen felt too warm. The look in his eyes took her right back to the previous night again.
‘I don’t consider myself to be run-of-the-mill, actually,’ she said.
She felt his eyes follow her as she crossed the kitchen. She could tell just by the heat in her cheeks that her face was currently approaching tomato-red. No way was she letting him see that he affected her. She opened a stainless steel door and stuck her head into the cupboard where she’d stashed her food. She took a few calming breaths and when the flustered feeling was gone took out a loaf of bread.
She’d done a big supermarket food shop during a fleeting visit home a couple of days ago, left half the food in the house for her mum and brought the rest back to London with her. She had enough on her plate here trying to track down millionaires without also having to track down budget food.
She put a couple of slices of bread into the gleaming toaster. His attention was back on his phone again as he leaned against the counter.
She hauled her mind back on task. Sparring with Alex Hammond was all very well, but she needed to concentrate on work.
Thankfully, her accommodation remained sorted. She mentally ticked it off. Now for the next step. Somehow she needed to work out how the hell a girl whose most expensive item of clothing was a fifty-pound pair of shoes could identify whether a men’s jacket cost a hundred pounds or a few thousand pounds? She needed to build up a sketch of the kind of man to target, and she had to admit there was a certain satisfaction in the idea of fooling a man of her father’s ilk. Someone driven by money and reputation and success, who held all the cards in life and had no qualms about playing them.
Her first proper undercover expedition was tomorrow night. OK, maybe she was running before she could walk—she hadn’t even got her wardrobe together yet—but a ticket to the first night of an art exhibition had fallen into her lap via the middle-aged arts correspondent of the Littleford Gazette. It turned out boring Gordon was a real culture vulture in his spare time, hanging around galleries and getting himself on exclusive mailing lists. When he’d heard about her planned article he’d thrown a spare ticket her way. She suspected he had a bit of a soft spot for her and feared he might expect a bit more than a cream cake as a thank-you if she had to go back to work at the Gazette. There was a lot riding on this project in more ways than one.
The opportunity to attend a champagne reception which would undoubtedly be stuffed with rich singletons was too good to pass up. If nothing else she’d be able to observe, and if she was really, really lucky she might be able to highlight a couple of suitable men to target. She hadn’t had time to source any designer clothes yet. Instead she was intending to wear her trusty little black dress and blend into the background—use the evening to get an idea of the image she needed to build for herself.
But the thought of going straight from comfort zone to such a glossy affair was terrifying. She somehow needed to ease herself into it. A bit of people-watching would be just the thing to get her in the right mind-set. But knowing where to start was the problem. Where did the beautiful people hang out in London on an average weekday?
A sudden movement from Alex made her glance around to catch him checking the huge gold watch on his wrist—probably worth more than her car. Somewhere in her mind a penny dropped.
Standing in front of her was a walking, talking information source on every aspect of the lifestyle of a wealthy single man. Unfortunately with a messy and very expensive divorce in his past he was unlikely to see the funny side of an article on landing a rich bachelor, no matter how tongue-in-cheek it was meant to be. She’d have to find an underhand way to tap the information out of him.
He looked back up at her, a questioning frown knitting his brows in response to her sudden beaming smile.
‘Would you like a slice of toast?’ she asked him.
Ten minutes later they were seated on stools next to the granite counter. Alex watched Jen finishing her second slice of toast. A few crumbs clung to her full lower lip and he found himself staring at them until the movement of her hand as she brushed them away snapped him out of it. He gave himself a brisk mental shake. He was meant to be keeping on her good side, not ogling her. Mindful of Mark’s warning to keep her sweet, he’d only agreed to the toast to appear friendly after snapping at her about Viveca. He surreptitiously pushed the remains of it to one side of his plate and took a large slug of coffee.
He looked up at her to see that she’d finished eating and was now staring at his wrist. She leaned forward on her stool to get a better look.
‘That’s a lovely watch,’ she said.
He smiled distantly. What was she up to now?
‘Thanks.’
‘Would you mind if I took a closer look?’
Before he could answer she’d jumped down from the stool and taken a step closer. She took his wrist in her slender hands and turned the watch this way and that, examining it.
‘Cartier …’ she murmured.
He realised that she was the perfect height for him right now, standing next to him as he sat on the stool. This close he could see the big blue eyes, the frown touching her brows lightly. The curve of her top lip above the full pink lower lip was adorable. There were fine tendrils at the nape of her neck where she’d pulled her light brown hair up from her shoulders into a messy ponytail. He was reminded suddenly of the last time he’d been at eye level with her—last night, with her slender wrists in his hands, lush body pinned beneath him on the bed, close enough to kiss her with one short movement of his head. Heat sparked on his skin at her touch and seemed to pool deep in his abdomen.
This was not a good sign. Less than four days since he’d sworn off women and he was mentally wondering what she might taste like. He debated for a moment if he should have ignored Mark’s advice and evicted her, anyway.
He tugged his wrist away sharply.
She looked up in surprise, her hands left empty in mid-air.
‘I’ve got a conference call in twenty minutes that I really ought to be preparing for,’ he lied.
She took a step back, still eyeing the watch.
‘OK, not a problem. I’m planning on going out, anyway, so you can have the place to yourself.’
Honestly, she had more front than Blackpool. Acting as if she was the one doing him the favour when it was his own damned apartment.
She tossed his cold toast in the bin and stacked their plates together in the sink.
‘Can you recommend somewhere good for lunch?’ she asked, her back to him. ‘I need to get a bit of background on the area. The kind of people who hang out here, what they wear—that kind of thing.’
He shrugged. ‘Depends what you’re after. Coffee and a sandwich? Or something a bit more substantial? What do you want to spend? Some places are pretty exclusive and expensive.’
She turned back from the sink in time for him to see the sudden shadows in her blue eyes.
‘Not that I’m implying you’d be out of place there,’ he said, wondering why he was worried about hurting her feelings.
‘Why don’t you just tell me where you would go?’ she said. ‘If you were hypothetically going out for lunch in South-West London.’
He thought for a moment, trying to come up with somewhere she might enjoy.
‘La Brasserie,’ he said. ‘French-style place. It’s very popular—decent food.’
‘Great, thanks!’
‘Don’t thank me until you’ve tried it. We might not like the same kind of food.’
She left the room. Just as he was insisting to himself that she was having zero effect on him he realised he was watching the graceful way her legs moved in the slim-cut jeans. He’d have to find a way of getting her out of here.
The globe lights, the ceiling fans twirling above her, the framed French posters on the walls and the marble-topped bar made stepping into La Brasserie feel like stepping into a little corner of Paris in the middle of London. Strings of white fairy lights and Christmas greenery added a warm festive touch. At a corner table, Jen thought it really was the perfect place to while away an hour or two people-watching.
She glanced at the menu and drew in a quick breath at the prices—even after her internship they never failed to amaze her. The coffee shop back home in Littleford did a knockout shepherd’s pie for a fraction of the price of the main lunch menu here. Then again, the residents of Littleford wouldn’t know what to do with a place that served frogs legs in white wine and parsley, Coquilles St Jacques—whatever that was—lobster and steak tartare.
When a waiter in a pristine white shirt and black waistcoat arrived to take her order she chose only coffee and a pain au chocolat, with a pang of regret that she couldn’t afford to sample the full deliciousness of the menu. She needed to eke out her money big-time if she wanted to frequent places like this and actually look as if she belonged. The group of young women having a girly lunch at the table opposite made her feel totally invisible. She was kidding herself, thinking she could pass herself off as one of them in her High Street wardrobe. She needed designer everything. And on the money she’d scraped together that was going to be no mean feat.
The women were glossy without being in your face. Hair loose and natural, with gentle highlights, perfect smiles, less-is-more make-up and not a hint of orange fake tan. Clothes impeccably cut. Fur seemed to be the accessory this winter. No outfit appeared to be complete without a bit of dead animal attached to it somewhere.
So this was the world her father inhabited, while she and her mother were an inconvenience he’d written off twenty-four years ago just by opening his wallet. She didn’t think she’d ever had a stronger feeling of being on the outside looking in. Jen felt plain, boring, and like an impostor with her mousy brown hair and her cheap handbag. And the worst of it was that none of that should matter—not to her. But still it did.
Wasn’t the whole point of her article to look at this world of luxury from the perspective of an ordinary High Street girl? Her fresh eyes would enable her to pick up on all the little things that stood out. Like the way people air-kissed both cheeks as a greeting. Jen had never done that in her life.
She was furious with herself. She was an investigative journalist—a professional gathering background for an article. She should be finding this interesting, not intimidating. But try as she might she couldn’t quite squash the needling little voice in her head reminding her that if things had been different, with a shift in circumstances, this could have been her world, too.
Darkness was already filtering in as she left the restaurant, and the cold air burned her cheeks, but she forced herself to do a bit of window-shopping on Brompton Road instead of skulking back to the apartment. In the brightly lit Chanel store, with the interlinked Cs logo huge behind an exquisite suit in the window, she could feel the eyes of the perfectly groomed assistants following her in her cheap jeans as she picked up a black tweed jacket—heavy in her hands, impeccably cut. Beautiful. She checked the label and felt the moisture disappear from her mouth. Maybe if she sold her car. And then some.
She put the jacket back slowly, so as not to look as if she couldn’t afford it, more as if she’d decided it really just wasn’t her. And she checked out a couple of handbags and a scarf on her way to the exit in an attempt to leave with some dignity. None of the staff approached her, clearly knowing perfectly well that she wasn’t worth attending to. She wasn’t the real deal. And all the while she was thinking that what she really wanted was to be back in sleepy Littleford.
She snapped herself out of it. She was just a bit homesick. It wouldn’t last. These last three months in London had gone by in a whirl and she’d loved every pacy second of it. Christmas in Chelsea exuded class. It was all twinkly white lights and mistletoe, co-ordinated colours and not a tasteless bauble in sight. It couldn’t be further from Littleford, which by now would have its threadbare Christmas tree put up on the village green by local volunteers. The same balding tree had been resurrected every year for as long as Jen could remember.
She wanted to stay in London and this was her chance to do that. Her chance to show she could claw her way up in life by herself. She didn’t need a rich father smoothing her path for her.
An hour or so later and things were looking up. It was amazing what people sold online. She scrolled through the auction listings on her laptop, propped up comfortably against the pillows on her bed, mug of hot chocolate next to her. It was gobsmacking how much of a discount you could get for pre-owned clothes. No time to wait for the auction to unfold over a week. She concentrated on the ‘Buy Now’ options.
Within half an hour she’d been possessed by a kind of madness. It was all too easy to click ‘Pay Now’. A pair of jeans, a wear-anywhere shirt, a stunning velvet cocktail dress and a heavily knocked-down pair of nude shoes that she hoped would go with everything—all by designers she’d only ever read about in upmarket women’s magazines. She snapped her eyes away from the screen and calmed her racing pulse with the fact that she could sell the whole lot on when the project was over with.
Before she could stop herself she’d clicked ‘Pay Now’ on a gorgeous leather tote bag. In for a penny, in for … a lot of pounds. Hmm, it was just too easy to get carried away online when the clothes were this delicious. She’d better do a quick recce of the cost. Her wallet was under serious strain. She’d ploughed her meagre savings into her project—after all, you had to speculate to accumulate—but still she needed to watch her spending.
The cost of renting the apartment, although seriously discounted from what it would really be to rent a place like this, was still taking up the lion’s share of her budget. Add in the anticipated cost of tickets, entry fees, food and drink—all the essentials she needed to actually get herself in the same room as her prey—and she had hardly anything left for her own makeover. And, judging by the young women she’d seen today, she was in serious need of one of those if she was to pass herself off as one of them.
She tapped the figures into her pocket calculator and stared in disbelief at the total. Clothes alone would never be enough, she needed to look the part inside and out. That meant hair, make-up, fake tan, nails. How the hell was she going to manage all of that on the ten pounds twenty pence she had left in her budget?
‘Sorry, could you just say that again? I thought you said you were sharing a flat with Alex Hammond, but that can’t be right, can it?’
‘You didn’t hear me wrong.’
Jen held the phone away from her ear with a grimace, but still the piercing squeal of excitement was audible. When it came to overreaction, Elsie was a professional. Then again, to someone who’d spent a lifetime living in Littleford, and for whom the working week consisted of giving perms and blue rinses to the village’s pensioner contingent, the news that your friend was living with a celebrity was probably the highlight of the year. When the squeal subsided she tentatively put the receiver back to her ear.
‘Are you sure?’ Elsie asked breathlessly. ‘The Alex Hammond? The one on the front of today’s newspaper with no shirt on? I’ve never seen abs like it.’
Jen made a mental note to check out today’s paper, then mentally crossed it out. She didn’t have time to think about Alex Hammond’s abs. She felt mildly offended by Elsie’s disbelief. Was it really that far-fetched that she could move in these social circles?
‘Yes, definitely that Alex Hammond,’ she said.
Elsie sighed.
‘So any chance of you coming home before Christmas Day is even more non-existent, then? I’m dying of boredom here without you. What’s he like?’
‘Nowhere near as hot in the flesh,’ she lied.
She hadn’t counted on Elsie being quite so starstruck. It was a good few minutes before she could get her off the subject of Alex’s physique and onto the subject of the favour she needed to beg. For Pete’s sake, her future career was at stake here.
‘I need your help,’ she said when she could get a word in. ‘The success of my article depends on it.’
She’d bored Elsie rigid with her writing career plans since they’d both been at school.
‘What kind of help?’
‘I need to look like a goddess—on a budget and in minimum time,’ she said. It sounded an extremely tall order spoken out loud.
‘How long?’ Elsie asked.
‘One day would be nice. For a start, is there some over-the-counter product I can use to make my hair look sun-kissed?’
Elsie made a dismissive chuffing sound.
‘Pah! You don’t need to bother with any of that over-the-counter rubbish. Not when you’ve got a professional on your team. I’ll see you right. Don’t you worry.’
‘But you’re in Littleford. And I can’t afford to pay for you to come here even if I was able to let you stay.’ She didn’t bother to enlighten Elsie about the fight she’d had to keep herself under this roof.
There was a disappointed sigh at the end of the phone.
‘I suppose it was too much to hope for a meeting with Alex,’ she grumbled. ‘And it’s been ages since I’ve seen you. The place has been dead quiet since you took that magazine job.’
Jen squashed the sudden pang of homesickness. No matter how much she had missed her, Elsie would eat Alex alive if she got within touching distance of him.
‘Sorry,’ she said apologetically. ‘He’s rarely home, anyway. We barely see each other. And even if you were here, what I’m after is that modern, subtle, glossy-but-undone look the It-girls have. I need to look like myself, but better. I’m not sure there’s much of a call for that kind of look in Littleford.’
