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“Why for only a short while? I have a feeling the camera would love your face.”
Lindsay stiffened, suddenly aware of his hand on the small of her back. Nothing improper, but now the door that had been closed tight for years had opened and a flood of bad memories…of a powerful man taking advantage…poured out.
“Relax, Miss Bingham, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m a happily married man.”
Okay.
She felt a little silly for jumping to conclusions. With her penchant for bad boys, obviously, she was no prude, but those relationships had always been mutual and consensual. Even if the men in her past had ended up being bad choices, she’d never sold herself for a job. And she never would. That’s why she’d left the television industry in the first place.
“You didn’t answer my question, Miss Bingham. Why are you no longer working in television?”
She wished she’d simply told him she had no experience rather than opening this can of worms. Oh, Sophie, what did you do?
“It just wasn’t the career for me.”
Again, his hand pressed into the small of her back as he gently led into a turn on the dance floor.
“Do you work now?” he asked.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
“Well, yes. Of course I do. Not everyone here is royalty or independently wealthy.”
Ugh, that sounded rude. She hadn’t meant it to.
“I work for Trevard County Social Services in North Carolina. That’s how I know Sophie.”
“The same line of work as the princess’s former job?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Well, what exactly do you do?”
She bristled. Why the game of fifty questions? She wasn’t embarrassed by where she came from or that she’d chosen not to be a television talking head. She had an honest job. That was more than some could say—those who had no qualms about sleeping with a married man on their quest to the anchor desk.
“I’m the office manager.”
“And do you enjoy your work, Miss Bingham?”
No.
“It’s Lindsay.” She glanced up at him, frowning. “Do you always ask so many questions, Mr. Chandler?”
“Only when I’m trying to decide if I’ll invite someone to interview for a job.”
A job?
The music stopped. Carson Chandler escorted Lindsay off the dance floor.
Wait! What job?
As they reached the edge of the parquet, he said. “Thank you for the dance. Miss Bingham, er, Lindsay, Chandler Guides produces a three-minute segment that airs on Food TV between full-length shows. It’s called The Diva Dishes. The spots highlight travel, food and festivities of various destinations. Have you seen the spots?”
Lindsay nodded. She was addicted to Food TV.
“The mini-sodes, if you will, have the potential to boost the sales of our travel guides. But in the first year, increases didn’t live up to our expectations. Because of that we let the host go. She didn’t have that diva spark I was looking for. That je ne sais quoi that captivates.”
He paused and put a hand to Lindsay’s chin, looking her over appraisingly. “You really do have the most exquisite eyes, my dear. I’m sure everyone tells you so.”
Lindsay’s guard went up again like steel trapdoors. She was just about to pull away, a split second before Chandler dropped his hand.
“I digress,” he continued. “Monday, right here in St. Michel, we will conclude auditions for the new host. The person we choose will start right away because we’re taping this weekend at the St. Michel Food and Wine Festival. I’m inviting you to audition.”
Every nerve in Lindsay’s body went on hyperalert. The St. Michel Food and Wine Festival? Wasn’t that the event Carlos mentioned?
But…but she couldn’t audition. She was flying out tomorrow. Mary was expecting her back at work bright and early Monday morning. Plus, Chandler made her uncomfortable. Brought back too many bad memories.
He must have read the hesitancy in her expression, or perhaps she didn’t return a properly enthusiastic response.
“Hundreds have auditioned, Lindsay. To be quite honest, you will be the only one we see Monday. I’m sure I needn’t remind you that you have a fabulous friend in the princess. She was quite generous with her praise of you, and quite convincing that you are the diva for whom I’ve been searching.”
An awkward pause followed this unexpected compliment. Boy, Sophie wasn’t kidding when she said she had a surprise.
As Lindsay searched for how to respond to Chandler, the clock in the castle tower tolled midnight. Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsay glimpsed Carlos walk through the doorway that led in from the terrace, but then she lost sight of him as he was swallowed up by the crowd.
Chandler reached inside his breast pocket and produced a business card. In the style of a magician weaving a coin through his fingers, he presented it to her with a flourish.
“Call my assistant for the location of the audition. It will be a very nice, lucrative opportunity.”
She took a deep breath, glancing around, trying to locate Carlos as she gathered the words she needed to nip Chandler’s wild idea in the bud.
“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Chandler. I’m flattered, really I am. But it’s been several years since I was in front of a camera. As tempting as the opportunity sounds, I’m afraid I’m not the person you’re looking for.”
“Oh, but I believe you are. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not offering you the job on the spot.” He smiled. “We’ll have to see how you look on camera, but as I said earlier, I have a hunch the camera will love your face. And, Miss Bingham, my hunches are always right.”
Chapter Two
“You left?” The vein in Max Standridge’s forehead pulsed like it might explode. Normally, Carlos Montigo would rib him about it, but better judgment warned, not today.
Instead he settled into the hotel suite’s couch, shrugged and pierced Max with his best what of it? stare.
Max pounded his fist once on the desktop. “You know the hoops I jumped through to wrangle you an invite to that wedding, Montigo. It was an opportunity, man. Why’d you leave? You could’ve at least made contact with the minister of art and education. We talked about how important that was.”
“Why did I leave?” Montigo stood and grabbed the La St. Michel social page off the coffee table, took a few steps and flung it onto the desk. It careened across the glossy surface until Max stopped it with a slap of his palm.
“That’s why I left.”
He gestured to a front-page photo of Lindsay Bingham in her sexy red dress, wearing that drive-a-man-to-madness smile.
In the photo her arms were outstretched, the bridal bouquet was in midair, poised to fall gracefully into her elegant hands.
Max sneered. “You have something against brides tossing flowers?”
“Yeah, I’m a conscientious objector to weddings in general.” Carlos rolled his eyes. “Especially when they toss the damn flowers eight times to get the right photo to con the world into buying the fairy tale wedding bull. What a crock of sh—”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Max looked perplexed.
Carlos stared at the photo, into the eyes that had captivated him last night…at the face that had danced through his restless dreams making sleep fitful and his mood edgy because he was so damn tired today.
Max was his best friend, but there was no way Carlos could tell him that he’d narrowly escaped letting the woman get under his skin. But she’d ditched him while he went to get drinks, for a media mogul who could’ve bought and sold most of Europe.
Why should he be surprised that yet another woman followed the scent of money? Didn’t they all?
If he told Max that, the guy would have license to mock him for a year, ribbing him about his bruised ego and poor choice of woman. So instead of fessing up, he improvised.
“It’s fake,” Carlos said. “The first toss hit her in the head. Nearly put her eye out. Since that wasn’t the perfect fairy tale outcome, they did it again. And again. Eight. Times. It wasn’t a wedding. It was a three-ring circus full of barracudas, phonies and opportunists.”
Max pressed his hands to his eyes, then raked his fingers through his hair, pulling so tight that for a moment his eyes were drawn into slits. Carlos couldn’t bear to look at him. So he turned around and reclaimed his spot on the sofa. The wedding had been closed to the paparazzi. The royal image makers were, no doubt, doling out the photos and video clips they wanted the world to see. How long would it take for the press to dig up the real deal? A rogue video or an embarrassing picture taken with a camera smuggled in by some opportunistic schmuck hungry to sell secrets?
“I’m your manager, Montigo, not a miracle worker. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
Help me? He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.
“I’m not a charity case, Max.”
“I didn’t say you were, but you have to lose that chip on your shoulder if we’re going to make this work.”
For the love of God, the guy nagged more than Montigo’s ex-wife, Donna.
The ornate hotel room with its frilly pink cabbage rose wallpaper was closing in on him. Just like the ballroom had last night. The only reason he didn’t walk out right now was because Max, unlike Donna, hadn’t walked out on him when the chips were down.
They needed one more good run.
Get in. Make money. Get out.
This cookbook needed to sell. Then Carlos could repay Max and use the rest for a project none of the beautiful people cared to touch.
Damn hypocrites.
And that was fine by him.
All he wanted was a restaurant where he could cook what he wanted to cook and play by his own rules. A place where he could open his doors to kids who’d screwed up and give them a fighting chance in this world.
Because didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?
He’d had it all once—right in the palm of his hand. Until his fall from grace, when he’d lost everything.
The past two years had changed him. Rearranged his priorities. Proven that there were more important things than money and parties.
But it also showed him how much he valued his independence.
Now that the dust had settled and he’d begun to pick up the pieces, he knew he didn’t need the pretty people to succeed. The ones who once called him friend, but now pretended to not remember his name. But that was fine—life in the fast lane came with too many strings and always, always too high a price.
He would make his own way—as he’d started to before Donna and all her glitzy ambitions. He would be beholden to no one.
“So I guess this means I need to cold-call Lejardin’s office and try to get us in sometime in the next week,” Max muttered, pensive, as if contemplating an impossible task.
“No need,” Carlos said.
Max sighed, a weary, exasperated sound.
“Lejardin’s stopping by the booth on Wednesday. Though you might want to call his assistant and confirm, things were pretty crazy at the wedding. They only had to do the garter toss six times. But still. Since he was in the wedding party, he was a little distracted. But I had to get out while I could. Before I hurt someone.”
Carlos smiled at his own joke. Dazed, Max opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He snapped his jaw shut.
Carlos reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. “Here’s his direct line. Should get you right through.”
The trip to the airport where the St. Michel state jet awaited to fly Lindsay home to Trevard was a scenic fifteen minutes by limousine from the Palais de St. Michel. Lindsay settled into the soft leather seat, savoring her final glimpse of the St. Michel coast and the last vestiges of the good life.
Who knew when she’d return? She wanted to commit this parting scene to memory, to drink it all in. Even though she wanted to think she’d visit Sophie regularly, she didn’t expect her friend to send a jet to fetch her every time they wanted a girls’ weekend. And God knew she’d have to miser away every spare cent and every minute of vacation time before she could afford to take another trip abroad.
She sighed as they passed the yacht club, boats bobbing in the azure water, crisp, white sails billowing in the wind. Most of the vessels were larger than the modest apartment Lindsay called home.
Pointedly, she ignored the nagging question that kept forcing its way to the front of her mind—just how did one go back to Trevard after living like this?
Experts claimed it took twenty-one days to make a habit. She’d been here exactly thirty-two days. Not that it had taken anywhere close to twenty-one days to get used to the St. Michel life.
But the habit rule also worked in reverse, she reminded herself. She had a good job back in Trevard. A life there—no matter how much she’d love to stay in St. Michel, no matter how tempting Carson Chandler’s offer to audition for The Diva Dishes, Lindsay had been away long enough.
The longer she put off going home, the harder it would be to go back. Besides, judging by the hoops she’d jumped through to get the time off—even though she had the vacation days—she didn’t dare ask her boss for a single day more.
As the limo passed through a seven-story carved stone archway that resembled the Arc de Triomphe, a blue funk threatened to envelope Lindsay. She fought off the mood by reminding herself to look at the good. How many people had flown by private jet, been chauffeured by limousine and lodged in a five-hundred-year-old castle?
It was good while it lasted, and she needed to make the most out of these last moments rather than waste them brooding.
She grabbed her handbag, a cavernous Marc Jacobs—another bridesmaid gift from Sophie—and foraged for a compact and tube of lipstick to touch up her face before they arrived at the airport.
Instead of the makeup, her fingers found their way to Carson Chandler’s business card and plucked it from the inner pocket where she’d stashed it. She ran her finger over the black letters embossed on the ivory-colored linen, then flipped it over and studied the bold script he’d used to write the contact number for his assistant, Sheila.
It would be a very nice opportunity for the right person. And I believe you might be the right person, Miss Bingham.
Sophie had promised Chandler was a gentleman, “…happily married for nearly fifty years.”
Interesting, since the man had a reputation in the business world for changing his mind as often as the wind changed directions. Even the spot he’d invited her to audition for seemed tentative.
“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” Sophie had confided. “So you can’t breathe a word, but you know he just purchased the Epicurean Traveler Network. Well, he wants to eventually turn the three-minute Diva spot into an hour-long show. You have to do this, Linds, because this little spot could turn into something really big.”
