by Liz Fielding
'You don't mind if I leave you do you? I expect there's a yoghurt or something in the fridge if you're hungry.'
'But Claudia I wanted to ask -'
'Help yourself to a drink. Anything,' she said, impatiently. 'Don't wait up for me.'
'I won't,' Fizz replied, quietly, but the front door banged behind Claudia and even if she had been listening she would not have heard. 'And don't worry about this evening. Fortunately I've made other plans.' So much for feeling guilty about accepting Julian's invitation.
She wandered back to the kitchen, picked up her mug and began to sip her coffee.
'Well, this is cosy,' she said, addressing her sister's vacated stool. 'I do love these long sisterly heart-to-hearts.' A mischievous grin teased the corners of her lips as she recalled her sister's parting remarks. 'Let me tell you all about my date this evening. Yes, I knew you'd be surprised. Me with a date. He's not Prince Charming of course, but he's kind, good looking and well mannered. So, I wanted to ask you - but please don't be afraid to say no - could borrow your black dress, you know, the Herve Leger that you prize above rubies? After all, you did say anything, didn't you? I'd give my fairy godmother a ring, but she's still appearing somewhere in panto.' She took another sip of her coffee half expecting the very walls to vibrate at such an outrageous suggestion. But nothing happened. 'Well, that is kind. I knew I could rely on sisterly devotion to see me through.'
In the end she settled for something a little less revealing. It would be unkind to put too much strain on Julian's good intentions in a dress apparently held together by safety pins.
As promised, he didn't put a hand or word out of place all evening. He treated her like a Dresden shepherdess, making her feel fragile, valuable and very desirable and, at the end of the evening, when he had seen her to her sister's door in a taxi, he produced an envelope.
Fizz hooked her thumb beneath the flap, but Julian stopped her. 'Don't. Not now, Fizz. Let me pretend that at least some of today was just for me.'
She looked up, surprising him with a smile of real warmth. 'I can't remember when I last had such a lovely evening. Truly.'
'Then why don't you kiss me goodnight?' he said, his voice not quite steady. She stiffened slightly. 'I don't bite, Fizz.'
No. He didn't bite. He was a thoroughly nice young man who deserved a great deal better than the way she had used him today. A kiss was a small enough price to pay for his kindness, yet ... She looked up at him, hoping that she could explain and surprised such a look of such tenderness that before she could change her mind she nodded in mute agreement. Maybe, just maybe.
As he took her into his arms, lowered his head to kiss her lightly on her mouth, she held her breath, waited for something, some reaction, a repeat of the lightning strike she had experienced in Luke Devlin's office. But there was nothing.
Curious at her own lack of response she obediently opened her mouth when, encouraged by her acceptance of his embrace he deepened his kiss. But when his hand strayed to her breast and still nothing happened she pulled away. To allow such an intimate touch was to encourage him to hope when there was none, for either of them.
'I'm sorry, Julian.'
'That was just an experiment, wasn't it?' he said, staring down at her. 'God, I thought for a minute -' he broke off, as a tear began to slide down the side of her nose. She put up her hand to dash it away, only too aware that she had never learned to cry as prettily as Claudia.
'I'm sorry, Julian. I thought perhaps...'
Thought perhaps he could wake her body from the coma, the little death by betrayal into which it had slipped so long ago. She hadn't realised how completely her senses had been numbed until her unexpected, almost shocking reaction to Luke Devlin. Hadn't been aware of what she was missing. And now she was and apparently there was only one man could help her.
The wrong man.
Julian pulled her gently into his arms and held her briefly. 'No, sweetheart, I'm the one who's sorry. I'm sorry that I can't fix it for you, whatever it is. But someone will, one day, you'll see. Don't give up.' He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. 'Goodbye, Fizz. Good luck.' Then he released her and turned to walk swiftly away.
'Oh, Julian.' She leaned heavily against the door arch. 'Don't you know you mustn't ever say good luck,' she murmured to his retreating back. 'Don't you know that it's tempting fate?' It was one of the first things she remembered her father telling her. Even before she had properly understood what a performance was, she had known that she must never say good luck before one. You had to say "break a leg"…
*****
'Break a leg, Fizz.' Her father had risen with her long before dawn, insisting on seeing his little girl off on her first exciting job, filming in Italy. There were tears in his eyes as he hugged her, holding onto to her for a moment.
'I just hope I don't make a fool of myself,' she said, anxiously. Plucked untried from RADA, the responsibility of such a major role was a daunting responsibility. 'Suppose I can't do it?'
'Of course you can do it. You're a Beaumont. And you'll be a star,' he said. 'I know it.' Then he walked her down the path and hugged her again. 'Ring to let me know you've arrived safely,' he instructed, 'and stick to mineral water. Too much wine will show in your skin and the camera is never kind. And stay out of the sun. You won't be popular in make-up if your skin keeps changing colour.'
'I know,' she said, standing on her dignity. 'I'm eighteen, not a child.' Then she grinned, realising that her father was winding her up, jolting her out of her uncertainty.
She had been chosen over dozens of other girls with more experience for a major film role and no director would risk that if he wasn't convinced she could deliver the goods. Of course everyone was saying that she got the part because of her name, because she was a Beaumont. It was to be expected.
Claudia had been through it before her. And like Claudia she would just have to prove them wrong.
'Eighteen and she thinks she's all grown up,' Edward Beaumont remarked to no one in particular before looking down at his youngest daughter. 'You're a baby and I must be mad to let you out of the country with a bunch of randy actors and technicians without me or your sister to look after you.'
'You're both working and I'll be fine,' she said, then threw her arms about him. 'I'll be fine.'
'Will you?'
'You said it. I'm going to be star.' She laughed, delightedly, her fears for a moment forgotten.
'Well just, you know, be careful,' he said, meaningfully as she climbed into the car.
'Don't worry! Claudia's given me a huge packet of condoms and a major lecture about safe sex,' she giggled, paying him back in kind.
'Your sister...' But the car began to slide away from the kerb. 'Don't forget to ring me,' he called as she leaned out of the window to wave.
She didn't forget. Not at first. But then for a while she forgot everything.
*****
Fizz sat in her office and for the tenth time that day studied the sheet of paper on which Julian had listed all the directors of his bank.
It was a surprisingly long list of names but she hadn't needed to look far to find what she was looking for. One name leapt off the page at her. Julian had underlined it as if it meant something.
Luke Devlin.
The new owner of Harries Industries. It certainly meant something. But what? She had been trying to work it out ever since she had first seen it last night.
She had tried telling herself that it could just be chance, but she was forced to acknowledge an uneasy feeling that it would be stretching the long arm of coincidence just a little beyond credibility.
Luke Devlin was very neatly placed to push Pavilion Radio off the air if that was what he wanted and Julian's underscoring suggested that he had used his position at the bank to ensure that the station wasn't helped out of its financial difficulties.
She wanted to pick up the telephone and ring him, ask him. But he had done more than enough.
The trouble was, nothi
ng about Luke Devlin's interest in Pavilion Radio made any real sense. If he wanted to take over the station all he had to do was to cut off sponsorship and wait. But he had written a personal cheque, offered her a way out.
Just to prove to Melanie Brett that he could give her anything she wanted? Why did she find that so difficult to believe?
Because she didn't want to believe it?
Fizz found herself dwelling on the memory of a pair of forceful grey eyes, a mouth that smiled so slowly that before you knew it, it would have stolen your heart. She gave a little gasp, then pulling a face at her own stupidity, stared at the sheet of paper she was holding as if that could give her the answer. But it couldn't.
She threw it down on her desk and walked across to the window to stare down at the lights glowing from the restored Victorian lamp holders along the pier and reflected in the sea, momentarily still on the slack of the tide.
Could it be that she was making too much of the whole business? Looking for problems where none existed? Why couldn't she just thank her lucky stars, take Luke Devlin's money and welcome Melanie with open arms.
She didn't understand why was she hesitating. She had gained a little thinking time by convincing him that she would have to speak to her father, but she could have agreed to Devlin's conditions on the spot. In retrospect she had been mad not to. Yet some instinct had warned her to play for time. Why, she couldn't say. Except that his attitude to her, to her father had seemed so personal.
She took the cheque he had given her from her bag and lay it on the desk, smoothing it out very carefully, studying the strong masculine handwriting, determination in every thick downstroke but with the occasional telltale flourish to warn that the writer had a strong imagination. It seemed to her a very dangerous combination.
'What are you up to Luke Devlin?' she asked out loud. 'What do you really want from Pavilion Radio?' The cheque, if it knew, wasn't talking.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT seven-thirty the following morning Fizz put her head around the newsroom door. 'Have you got a minute, Jim?' she asked.
Jim Ryan, a burly man in his late thirties, was sitting behind his desk organising the bulletins and “carts” for the major news and local current affairs programme on the hour. 'Two minutes for you, Fizz, my darling,' he said, easily, without looking up from his task. 'What can I do for you?'
'Tell me everything you've heard about the takeover at Harries Industries. Everything you've heard about Luke Devlin.'
'The long version or the potted one?'
'Which would you advise?'
'Since nobody knows much, they're about the same,' he said, throwing her a grin. 'Apparently we're lucky the whole lot didn't just go down the pan and that if anyone can dig Harries out of the red, Devlin can. The workers, at least those who have met him, are impressed, although naturally there have been rumblings of discontent. Everyone expects there to be some job losses.'
'When are you going to do a feature on him, his plans, what it means for the town, that sort of thing? I assume you are planning one of your awesome face-to-face interviews?'
Jim, the manager of news and current affairs at the station, had been with her from the beginning and was one of the few employees who knew that she, and not Edward Beaumont, was the boss. It didn't stop him from pulling a face at her blatant flattery.
'I'd certainly like to. I've been trying to get hold of Mr Devlin all week, but his secretary is a positive dragon.' He finished organising his bulletins and swivelled around in his chair to give her his full attention. 'Any particular reason for your interest?'
Fizz side-stepped the apparently innocent query. Jim never asked innocent questions as many a local dignitary attempting to bluff his way through a budgetary fiasco had discovered to his cost.
'I was certain you would have assembled a vast amount of information about him from your contacts.'
'And information is power?' Jim grinned. 'What I've got is in that folder, but I warn you, it's not much.' He pointed to a disappointingly thin file. 'You'll not find any scandals that you can use to blackmail him into sponsoring the station.'
Fizz remembered the slate grey eyes, the warning not to do anything rash. But she hadn't needed any warning. From the first moment she had set eyes upon him, she had known that Luke Devlin was not a man to cross. She buried that knowledge beneath an amiable grin.
'Now why would anyone need to be blackmailed into supporting the best local radio station in Broomhill, Jim?'
'It's the only local radio station in Broomhill, Fizz.'
'I rest my case,' she said, laughing. 'But thanks for this.' She picked up the file, then paused in the doorway. 'If you can't get Luke Devlin at his office, Jim, you might try the Metropole. I've a feeling he might be staying there.'
'Where else would a man of his means and style lay his head? Unfortunately he doesn't answer his telephone, or he has the receptionist as well trained as his secretary.'
Maybe that's because he isn't in his own room to answer it, she thought. But that wasn't news, that was gossip and she kept her thoughts to herself.
'And I thought Maggie Church was deep in your pocket, Jim Ryan,' she teased him.
'So did I. I guess I'll have to buy her a bigger box of chocolates next Christmas. If the budget will run to it?'
'We can afford the chocolates, Jim. It's the red roses and candlelight supper when you hand them over that disturbs the accountant's blood pressure. Why don't you marry the woman and be done with it?'
'Just to save you a few quid on expenses? Besides, she's got more sense than to lumber herself with a liability like me.'
'You have asked her then?'
'That's privileged information.' He grinned. 'According to Maggie, this way she gets all the fun and none of the dirty washing.'
'Clever girl, I must remember that.' But she felt a momentary pang of sadness for Jim who was a truly kind man, although having carefully avoided any kind of relationship herself, she was in no position to criticise Maggie for keeping hers at a level of commitment she was happy with. 'In the meantime don't worry about Luke Devlin. When he's ready to talk, he'll call you.'
'Is that the voice of experience I hear?' Jim's eyes narrowed as the faintest blush heated her cheeks. 'Well, well.' He sat back and regarded her thoughtfully. 'You are a dark horse.'
She was rescued from the need to reply by the click of the huge reel-to-reel tape recorder starting up and the warning of an interview coming in from IRN that Jim was waiting for. She escaped as he turned to slide in a cart, ready to record it for the upcoming bulletin.
As she flicked through the folder he had given her, however, she acknowledged that he had been right about the paucity of solid information on Luke Devlin. There were a number of news clippings, but most of them several years old. It was quite clear that the more money the man had made the less forthcoming he had been about his private life.
The very early clippings were all from Australian newspapers and showed him out on the town with the kind of glamorous young women who like to get their picture in the newspaper. The more recent articles were dry as dust pieces from the financial papers about acquisitions and mergers, of interest only to those involved in the City, without even a photograph to enliven them.
The takeover at Harries had been reported as the un-resisted buy-out of a company in difficulties. There was some speculation as to how it would fit in with Luke Devlin's other interests and whether he would invest heavily in the company, push it into the twenty-first century, or whether he would simply redevelop the site. Informed opinion seemed to favour redevelopment. It made depressing reading.
Jim had written a summary of the information he had gleaned from the cuttings and Fizz read this with interest, hoping for some clue as to his interest in her radio station.
Luke Devlin was British, although shortly after taking a degree in geology he had gone to Australia where either by luck, or good judgement he had made a great deal of money prospecting for minerals. St
ill in his twenties he had not been content simply to invest his wealth, sit back and let someone else do the work.
He had diversified into electronics in the Far East and the USA and taken an interest in Eastern Europe. He was now involved with a number of forward thinking companies although, she was interested to notice, his connection with a seriously heavy merchant bank had been missed.
The takeover of Harries Industries was just the latest in a long line of business coups. Jim, more interested in the ramifications of the takeover than Luke Devlin's social life, hadn't dwelt on this. Not that she had discovered much more in her own reading of the material beyond the fact that he was thirty-four years old and unmarried.
Younger than she had thought, then. Perhaps making money in such quantity wore one out.
And there was nothing to provide a clue as to his motives. No indication that he had any ambition to move into the media at all, although even if he had, a small south coast radio station would have been an odd sort of place for a man of his means to start. But then his move on Harries had taken everyone by surprise.
Jim had warned her not to expect too much. It was just as well.
Of course there was one person in Broomhill Bay who knew all about Luke Devlin.
Having ascertained from Luke Devlin's secretary that he was unattainable for the rest of the day, Fizz telephoned the Metropole, chatted amiably to the Maggie for a moment or two, then asked to be put through to Miss Brett as if her call was expected.
She knew she was taking a risk. Devlin might be expecting something like this and have already put Melanie on her guard, warned her not to speak to anyone, especially nosy radio station managers. But it was a risk worth taking.
Fizz wanted to find out what Melanie Brett was like, whether she really wanted to take part in a minor radio soap and she didn't want Devlin at her elbow prompting her. And if she could find out some background on Devlin at the same time … pillow talk...