‘Anna,’ he says. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Michelle looks at me, her expression hunted.
‘Michelle just found out her … auntie died,’ I say.
‘That’s right,’ mumbles Michelle.
Swan looks at the two of us again. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Michelle. I can get the phones.’
Michelle nods, grabs her bag and exits without looking back. Poor girl. I know just how she feels.
‘You’d better come in,’ he says to me.
I walk in behind him, sit down on one of his couches. That helps, makes me feel like I’m not going to faint.
Swan sits down opposite me. I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t. I glance over towards his desk, and see something familiar.
It’s the boxed Sony Vaio he bought me as an engagement gift, still in its wrapping paper.
‘You got it back then,’ I say.
He nods.
‘I split up with Charles,’ I try.
‘So I gathered,’ Swan says drily. ‘From your friend Vanna.’
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ I ask, desperately, when he doesn’t add anything. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me how, or why?’
‘Why should I?’ he demands. ‘You expect to just walk back in here, Anna, and have me fawning all over you? Why should I care what you do with your life?’
I stand up. ‘You’re … you’re right. I’m sorry, this was a huge mistake.’
So that’s it then. I turn on my heels, don’t want to cry in front of him.
A large hand comes down on my shoulder. Swan spins me back round, spins me to face him. Forces me to look up at him, to feel him close to me, towering over me.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he asks. ‘You’re not walking out on me again, Anna Brown.’
‘Mark…’ I say. I can hardly breathe.
‘You were going to marry someone else,’ he says. ‘Somebody you didn’t even love. And then you finally break up with him, and what happens? You don’t even call. What was it, Anna? Still throwing that tantrum because I wouldn’t help you hamstring your own career? Your script wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready.’
‘I thought you didn’t care about me,’ I mutter.
‘Didn’t care? Damn, you’re frustrating,’ he says, shaking his craggy head. ‘I’m the one who started you writing. I’m the one who got you to do what you really loved. You’d think you would have trusted me, but no. Because I wasn’t going to send you out there with something half-baked, I don’t care.’
I look at him, not daring to hope. Trying not to hope. In case I get crushed.
‘You only see what you want to see,’ he says, bitterly. He lets me go. ‘And when you break up, and I think maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’
‘But you don’t call. You don’t even give me the courtesy of a phone call. Nothing. I guess I meant that little to you. As soon as I wouldn’t help your so-called career, you didn’t care about me any more.’
‘It wasn’t that,’ I say.
‘Sure it was,’ he says.
I think of Michelle. Poor Michelle. I can’t tell him the truth.
‘I didn’t think you’d want me,’ I mutter.
He pauses. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t think you’d want me.’
Swan blinks. The rage is gone from his face. He looks … he looks astonished.
‘Excuse me?’ he demands. ‘Why the hell would you think that?’
I make a gesture at my face, at my nose. ‘Men don’t fancy me.’
‘The hell they don’t,’ Swan says.
‘But my nose…’
‘Is beautiful,’ he says. ‘Like the rest of you.’
Now it’s my turn to stare. ‘Give over,’ I say scornfully. ‘I’m tall and strong and—’
‘You’re not tall from where I’m standing. And anyway, what’s wrong with tall? I’m tall. Should I be offended?’ Swan asks, with just a touch of humour. ‘And stop fishing for compliments.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, you know how lovely you are,’ he says. ‘Those breasts…’
I blush.
‘Those legs. Those eyes. Your hair. You look even prettier since you started showing it off.’
‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’
‘I notice everything.’
‘But I’m not thin…’
‘So what?’ he says. ‘I can’t stand that anorexic look. You’re gorgeous.’
‘Maybe if I got a nose job…’
‘Over my dead body,’ he says. ‘You’ve got an interesting face, not like all those two-dimensional bimbos.’
‘You fancied me?’ I ask. Pathetic, I know. But I can’t help myself. ‘You’re not joking?’
‘Are you delusional?’ he asks. He moves towards me, stands right next to me again. Looking me over, head to toe. A sweeping look, full of intent. ‘I hate the word fancy,’ he says softly. ‘I don’t fancy you, I want you.’
I go all liquid. Instantly.
‘And not just for five minutes, either,’ he says. ‘I liked how you looked, but I didn’t want you because of that. I felt for you because of … I don’t know. Your sense of humour. Your fearlessness. Your intelligence.’
‘Really?’ I whisper.
‘Because you’re just Anna,’ he says. ‘You’re not like anyone else. You’re … Anna.’
‘I’m in love with you,’ I say.
‘I know that,’ he says. ‘But I thought you didn’t. Or you knew it, but didn’t care. Is that why you came here today?’
I nod.
‘Not to ask me for help with your career?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t want your help. I’m rewriting. I want to make it on my own.’
He chuckles. ‘Not a chance, baby. I’m going to pull strings like you wouldn’t believe.’ He looks down at me, and gently kisses me on the mouth. It’s a very light, very sexy kiss. His lips just brushing against mine, just a feathery, electric touch. A wave of wanting crashes all through me.
‘Will you go out with me?’ I whisper.
Swan gathers me into his arms, pulls me close to him. My weight is nothing to him, nothing at all.
‘I’d much rather stay in with you,’ he says. ‘What are your plans?’
‘For when?’
‘For the next sixty years,’ he says. ‘We can start with that.’
And then he kisses me again.
Also by Louise Bagshawe
Career Girls
The Movie
Tall Poppies
Venus Envy
A Kept Woman
When She Was Bad …
The Devil You Know
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
THE GO-TO GIRL. Copyright © 2004 by Louise Bagshawe. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bagshawe, Louise.
[Monday’s child]
The go-to girl / Louise Bagshawe.—1st St. Martin’s Griffin ed.
p. cm.
“First published in Great Britain by Headline Book Publishing”—T.p. verso.
ISBN 0-312-33991-7
EAN 978-0312-33991-3
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. London (England)—Fiction. 3. Beauty, Personal—Fiction. 4. Motion picture industry—Fiction. 5. Motion picture producers and directors—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6052.A3 17M66 2005
823'.914—dc22
2004056712
First published in Great Britain by Headline Book Publishing, a division of Hodder Headline
First St. Martin�
�s Griffin Edition: February 2005
eISBN 9781466839120
First eBook edition: February 2013
The Go-To Girl Page 39