More Than A Millionaire

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‘Don’t squint, Abby. You’ll lose the line.’

And the tall bottled redhead was sitting with her booted feet on a marble tabletop, reading aloud from a pile of newspapers.

‘Listen to this,’ she said. “‘The Fab Ab turned me down. Boy band heartthrob Deor Spiro, 22, said, ‘I just wasn’t good enough for her. I will never love again’. See pages 4, 5, 9, 10 and 11. Our Tracy says, ‘The girl has everything. Why should she tie herself down?’ What do you think? Ring the number below and tell us.”” She lowered the paper. ‘Wow, Abby. Your own poll, no less. How did you do it?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Abby. The words were muffled because her tongue was stuck firmly between her teeth as she concentrated. She was still not very good at eyeliner. She finished the job, lifted the tiny brush carefully and stopped grimacing. Recapping the gold tube, she said over her shoulder. ‘It was all done by heartthrob Deor Spiro, 22. And his publicist.’ She added dispassionately, ‘Little toad.’

‘He may be a little toad,’ said Molly di Perretti, pushing aside that newspaper and reaching for the next, ‘but what did you do to him?’

‘Squashed him flat, I bet,’ said Sam Smith. She flicked back her blond hair and met Abby’s eyes in the mirror. ‘Am I right or am I right?’

Abby shuffled her fashionable shoes uncomfortably. ‘Well, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was like talking to someone who didn’t speak my language.’

‘He’s a man,’ said Molly, cynical to her black-and-silver fingernails. ‘They don’t engage brain when they’re in coming-on-to-you mode.’

‘Careful,’ warned Sam. ‘Abby’s got all those lovely brothers. She thinks men are great.’

Molly did not blink. ‘I think men are great. I just don’t expect to talk to them.’

‘Well, I do,’ said Abby with spirit.

‘That must have shaken heartthrob Deor Spiro, 22,’ Molly murmured irrepressibly.

Abby gave her sudden wide grin. ‘It did. I don’t think he’d been turned down before.’

‘Oh, he’d been turned down, all right’ said Sam. ‘Many times over the last fifteen years.’ She was ten years older than the other two and spoke with authority of a successful career in the public relations.

Abby did the arithmetic. ‘You mean he’s not twenty-two.’

‘Nearer thirty-five if you ask me. But it’s wonderful what tan stick and a puppyish manner will do for a man.’

‘To say nothing of blond highlights and a photographer who’s an airbrush artist,’ said Molly, surveying a portrait in the next paper critically. ‘Hey, this is a good one, Abby. “The It Girl With Taste.” Love that.’

Abby put her head on one side, surveying her image in the mirror.

‘Taste?’ she said doubtfully.

The other two exchanged looks of fond exasperation.

‘You look amazing, Ab,’ Sam assured her.

Abigail Templeton Burke did a little jig in front of the full-length mirror. It was an experimental jig. When Abby turned into Abigail Templeton Burke, socialite and PR person, she sometimes did not feel quite like herself. It took a mirror and waving her long legs around to remind her.

Mind you, at least these days she could stand upright on high heels, she thought. It had taken her time to get used to it. At home she strode around in trainers or boots most of the time. Wearing heels was second nature to her now but it was a skill she had largely learned in this very cloakroom.

Now she turned to the side to inspect herself.

‘Yup,’ she said without vanity. ‘But would you call it tasteful?’

Tall and broad-shouldered as a model, she wore her clothes well. Today it was silky black pants that flopped around her four-inch heels as she walked. The square of black silk she wore over her breasts to complement the trousers was only turned into a garment by the shoelaces criss-crossing her tanned back.

Molly lounged to her feet and joined Sam in circling round her. They considered the outfit with critical professionalism. Dressing the part was a requirement of the job at Culp and Christopher Public Relations. Finding the right gear to hit the catwalk shows of the London Fashion Week had not been easy.

‘Tasteful, schmasteful,’ pronounced Molly. ‘It will do the business. That’s a real lust bucket of a top.’

Sam took longer to make up her mind.

‘Brilliant,’ said she at last, on a long breath. Her sigh was at least three-quarters relief. Left to herself, Abby had a tendency to dress as if she was just about to go out to the stables. She said so.

‘Give me a break.’ Abby was not offended. ‘Up to six months ago that was exactly what I would have been doing.’

They knew it. The other girls in the agency were even sympathetic, against all the odds. They decided to take Abby in hand almost as soon as she arrived in the PR consultancy. As a result, today’s look was the result of group consultation. It had involved half the office and at least one up-and-coming designer.

‘Maybe not brilliant,’ Abby demurred now. Her golden-brown eyes twinkled. ‘Ravi said I needed to make more of a statement.’ She wafted her hands through the air in a very good imitation of the languid designer.

The others laughed. But Sam said soberly, ‘You stay just as you are now. Any more of a statement and you’ll be putting the client in the shade.’

‘In your dreams.’ said Abby cheerfully. Glancing back at the mirror, she pushed a hand through her soft dark hair and thrust out a hip, posing. After a moment, she shook her head regretfully and straightened.

‘Nah. Diane Ladrot’s safe. Nice enough but dull. No competition there.’

She said it without regret. She had had boyfriends. They did not last and when they went their way, Abby was almost relieved. Perhaps it was spending so long in the comparative isolation of the country. Perhaps it was because she instinctively responded to men the way she did to her brothers. But one way and another she had never seemed to get the hang of dating. Looking at the disasters that the other girls at C&C went through, she was secretly not too anxious to try.

No doubt it would happen at some point. When it did, she would do her best. But she was certainly not looking to set up in competition to Diane Ladrot or any other man magnet. Abby did not regret her lack of pulling power.

The other two exchanged glances. They knew she believed it. Abby had absolutely no idea of her own appeal. Or that, if she put her mind to it, she could have been quite as stunning as their most glamorous client.

Originally the staff at Culp and Christopher had greeted the appointment of the Earl of Nunnington’s only daughter with dismay. ‘Another deb mucking about so she can get her name in the papers,’ was the general consensus. But Lady Abigail, though inexperienced and appallingly unstylish, had neither mucked about nor shown any desire at all to feature in the gossip columns of the national daily papers. It had taken a great deal of concerted work by her new friends to get the sort of coverage that she was picking up today.

Not that Abby was aware of it, as both Sam and Molly knew. She thought it was chance, and did not take much notice of it. She did not realise that the agency found it very useful to have a girl on the strength that the press were already interested in. Abby, though, thought her job was exactly the same as anyone else’s at the agency. She worked hard and did her fair share of the dull stuff.

Indeed, Molly, her closest friend at the agency, sometimes thought that the dull stuff was what Abby preferred.

Take today, for instance. For anyone else, accompanying a Hollywood film star to fashion shows would have been a rare and welcome perk. Sure, there was a job to do. You had to make sure that the client got maximum coverage from whichever media turned up. But the shows were buzzy and exciting.

As Molly herself said, it beat sitting on the phone for hours trying to persuade world-weary radio editors in Scunthorpe to run your story. But Abby didn’t see it like that. In fact, Molly had the distinct impression that to Abby it was a chore—and not a very welcome one.

Which was odd, given the way she looked now that Ravi Kamasarian had done his bit.

‘You could give Diane all the competition she could handle if you wanted to,’ Sam said flatly. ‘Thank God, you don’t.’

‘It’s a shame, really,’ Molly said now. ‘Bit of sparkle and that outfit could be really glamorous. But Sam’s right. Best not.’

Abby turned away from the mirror without sparing her reflection another glance. ‘Just as long as I fit in.’ She flexed her shoulders under the criss-crossing.

‘You’ll be cold though,’ said Sam, ever practical.

Abby shrugged. ‘Oh, these shows are always overheated.’

Sam and Molly exchanged looks.

‘You’ve been before?’

It seemed unlikely, given her attitude to clothes. But they were constantly disconcerted to discover the things unsophisticated Abby turned out to have done without them having any noticeable affect on her life skills.

Abby had a wide, mobile mouth. When she wanted she could make a clown’s face. She did so now.

‘You’d be amazed at what I’ll do for charity,’ she said with a grin. ‘At least, what I used to do.’ The grin faded a bit.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Abigail had never been disloyal. She never mentioned her family in any way. But it did not take a mathematical genius to calculate that the time between her father’s spur of the moment wedding and Abigail’s departure from the Palladian mansion in which she had been her father’s hostess since she was twelve, was a matter of days. Just about enough time for the newlyweds to get back from their luxury safari and the new Lady Nunnington to turn her stepdaughter out of doors, in fact.

So, Abigail Templeton Burke, aged twenty-five and untrained except in the running of thirty-room houses and organising the social life of a jet-setting aristocrat businessman, had suddenly come on the market. Culp and Christopher reckoned themselves lucky to be the first in the race to get her title, her contacts and her cheerful common sense. Abby reckoned herself lucky to get a job.

Now Sam said, ‘Do you think there’s any chance of you getting back for the meeting with Traynors this afternoon?’

That balanced common sense would come in really useful on this one, Sam reflected. To say nothing of the soothing effect of the title on a bunch of a nouveau riche property developers.

Molly looked wise. ‘Think it’s going to be sticky, Sam?’

‘I’d put money on it. Traynors have been getting terrible publicity for weeks. It wasn’t great to begin with. But then they got into this take-over battle and there’s been real mud-slinging. Not our fault, but heck, who’s counting? Now they’ve been bought up, the old management will be doing everything they can to hang on to their jobs.’

‘So?’ said Abby, frowning.

Molly and Sam exchanged glances

‘Management is a macho game,’ explained Molly kindly. ‘You lose, you’re out. So the guys who ran it before it was bought up will be trying to demonstrate to the guys who are their new bosses what hard men they are.’

‘That means they’ll need to do two things,’ said Sam from the depths of her experience. ‘Sack someone. Preferably with maximum publicity. And shift the blame for anything that went wrong onto someone else. I see the buck whizzing rapidly in this direction.’

‘They’ll blame us?’ said Abby. ‘But that’s not fair.’

‘You’re learning,’ agreed Molly. ‘Corporate life isn’t fair. It’s a game without rules and all that matters is winning.’

Abby shivered. ‘Nasty.’

‘Yup. Short of a miracle, Culp and Christopher are going to take the blame for this one. And lose the account,’ said Molly philosophically. ‘That why you want Abby, Sam?’

Sam gave a rueful laugh. ‘You are so right. I foresee a real shouting match before the clients sack us. If you’re there, it might take some of the steam out of the meeting. They don’t know you, so they can’t shout at you.’

‘Besides, people never do shout at Abby,’ said Molly, grinning.

‘I know. It’s like having a security blanket. If you can make it, I could really do with you, Abby,’ Sam said, with feeling.

Abby was touched.

‘I’ll try,’ she said obligingly. ‘Depends on the latest version of Diane’s schedule. Still, perhaps she’ll want a rest, with the premiere this evening.’

‘More likely the film company will be running journalists in and out of her suite at ten minute intervals,’ said Sam, depressed.

The new film was her project and she was not getting on very well with the film’s publicist. There had been a number of clashes on the stars’ timetables but Diane Ladrot’s was the worst because she wanted to take in the London Fashion Week shows as well.

‘She’ll have to have her hair done at some point,’ Abby said consolingly. ‘I’ll see if I can make a run for it then. What time’s your meeting?’

‘Three. But it will go on for ages,’ said Sam with gloomy certainty.

‘Well I’ll get back as soon as I can. I’ll slide in quietly,’ promised Abby. ‘No one will notice I haven’t been there all the time.’

It was fortunate she could not see how wide of the mark that airy forecast would turn out to be.

Emilio Diz said, ‘I will attend this meeting.’

He put the cap on his pen as if there was no more to be said. The Gypsy-dark face was quite expressionless.

The dignified squabble that had broken out between the finance director and the head of marketing immediately ceased. The board of Traynor Property Development looked at each other, unified at last in their dismay.

‘Come to the PR company?’ echoed the head of marketing hollowly.

The managing director thought on his feet. That was why he was still managing director, ten days after the Diz Corporation had acquired Traynor in a ruthlessly effective take-over.

‘But you said your first priority was to see what we had in development, Señor Diz,’ he reminded Emilio smoothly. ‘I’ve organised a tour of our current sites.’

Emilio looked at him for an unnerving moment. The managing director felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise though he could not have said why. There was nothing to be read in the soot-black eyes.

‘I toured the sites before I made a bid for this company,’ Emilio said coolly.

The managing director was shocked. No one should have been able to gain access to work sites without authorisation and everyone at the table knew it.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said stiffly.

‘It’s quite simple.’ Emilio allowed himself a grim smile. ‘I always do my research. Your security is garbage. Put the two together and—’ He shrugged.

The managing director had nothing to say.

Emilio nodded, as if he expected to silence his subordinates and this small victory was no surprise. As indeed it was not.

‘So I will attend this meeting,’ he concluded.

No one had told the marketing director that you did not argue with Emilio Diz. ‘But why?’ he said, genuinely puzzled.

‘Because this company’s public relations stink,’ Emilio said brutally. ‘Before I can put it right, I need to find out whose fault it is. Yours or the agency’s.’

That was too much for the young finance director. ‘What about a hostile bidder’s mud-slinging?’ he burst out.

The black eyes rested on him with even less expression than before, if that was possible. There was a sharp silence. Everyone round the table held their breath.

Then—‘Quite,’ said Emilio coolly. ‘I was seriously unimpressed by your defence. Almost made me withdraw the bid.’