by Liz Fielding
As she waited to be put through she had a sudden vivid image of the young actress lying in his arms, the darkness of his hair in contrast to the bright sunny spread of hers against a pillow, the tanned skin of his fingers stroking her breast. The same strong fingers that had so recently been fastened about her own wrist. Her own nipples involuntarily tightened at the memory of his touch, the feel of his skin against hers.
'Melanie Brett.' The breathy little voice brought Fizz back to earth with an almost painful jolt.
'Miss Brett,' she began, quickly. 'This is Felicity Beaumont from Pavilion Radio. Forgive me for telephoning so early in the morning, but I understand from Mr Devlin that you are interested in working with us during the summer. I wondered if you would like to come and have a look around the station this morning? If you have no other plans?'
There was a squeak of pure pleasure that could hardly have been faked.
'Luke told me he'd asked you, but I didn't dare to hope Mr Beaumont would agree.' She was really that keen? That naive? Surely she must know her worth? 'I just can't wait to meet him.'
Oh, lord, but she sounded so young. How could a man like Luke Devlin take advantage of such innocence?
Easily. Without a second thought.
'I'm afraid my father won't be here today,' she said, which was just as well as she hadn't yet explained the situation to him. 'But he'll certainly want to meet you as soon as he has some time to spare.' Nothing but the truth. Her father was as susceptible to a pretty young fan as the next actor.
According to her mother's vitriolic outpourings he always had been.
'Oh, I do understand. And I would really love to come to the studios.'
'Don't expect too much,' Fizz warned, with a small laugh that might have been of sheer relief that it had been so easy. 'Actually, we're recording some episodes of Holiday Bay this morning at about eleven-thirty, I thought perhaps you'd like to sit in?'
Another squeak of pleasure, an offer to send a car for her at eleven and her mission was accomplished.
*****
Melanie Brett, fresh as a May morning and twice as pretty caused a minor sensation as she walked along the pier, stirring the heart of every male lucky enough to have decided to go fishing that morning.
Fizz, watching for her arrival from her office window, had seen the easy way she stopped to sign odd scraps of paper thrust at her, perfectly happy to chat with perfect strangers. The girl was a natural and worth twice her weight in listening figures. Her fingers itched to ring the advertising agencies and tell them about her prize. Instead she hurried down to the foyer to greet her visitor.
'This is so kind of you, Miss Beaumont,' Melanie said, shaking hands with a convent school politeness that reminded her painfully of herself just a year or two younger, eager, wide-eyed and utterly innocent.
For a moment Fizz felt a twinge of conscience at her deviousness then realised that the innocence, at least, had to be an illusion, although the girl was certainly as young as she looked. Then there was another feeling. Alien and uncomfortable. A feeling that she couldn't identify, or perhaps didn't want to admit to.
She buried it under a warm smile.
'Actually I have to admit to an ulterior motive in asking you to come to the station. Since you arrived in town everyone has been dying to know what your plans are. I wondered if you might be prepared to sit in on a radio phone-in later? It would give your local fans a chance to ask you a few questions. Only if you would like to, of course.'
'Oh, I love phone-in programmes. But I should really ask Luke.'
No you shouldn't, she wanted to scream at the girl. You don't have to ask anyone. Be your own person. Don't let him take you over and break you apart so there's nothing left.
Instead she kept a polite smile fixed to her lips. 'You could telephone him from my office if you like?' She held her breath and hoped his instruction to his secretary to say that he was unobtainable for the rest of the day included Melanie. It didn't seem likely.
'Phone Luke at work!' Melanie looked horrified. 'Lord, no. He's always so busy and he hates being dragged out of meetings.' Fizz could well believe it. And she doubted if he kept his feelings to himself. 'And if I don't ask him, he can't say no, can he?' Melanie giggled.
'That's true.' And perhaps because of the sudden relaxation of tension Fizz giggled too. 'I'll introduce you to Andy Gilbert later.'
'Oh, I've heard him. He's really good.'
'He's certainly very popular with our female listeners,' Fizz said, dryly. 'If you're not too busy perhaps we could all have lunch together and you can discuss what you're prepared to talk about. He'll field anything difficult, after all we do want you to have fun.'
'Oh, I will,' Melanie answered. 'It'll be my first public appearance since I arrived in England.'
'Then we're very honoured. I would have thought you'd have been snapped up by the chat shows the minute you set foot here.'
'Oh, there are some booked,' she said, vaguely. 'In a week or two I think. But radio is such fun.'
'You've done a lot? In Australia?'
'I've been a guest on a few shows, you know the sort of thing. Music and chat. I haven't done any drama myself, but my mother used to take me along sometimes when she made recordings.'
'She's an actress too?'
'Was.' The girl's face clouded momentarily. 'She died last year. In an accident.'
'I'm so sorry.'
Melanie didn't say anything and after a moment, Fizz said, 'Shall we go through to the sound studio so that you can meet the cast of Holiday Bay? They'll be having coffee and a run through of the script before recording.' She smiled encouragingly. 'We'll have to give some thought about how you're going to fit in. An unexpected arrival at the end of an episode, I should think, like a bolt from the blue. The listeners will love it.'
She introduced her to the cast who instantly absorbed Melanie into their group, keen to quiz her about working in television and life in Oz. She might be a celebrity, but she was still an actress, one of them. Fizz excused herself. No one noticed her leave.
She picked up the telephone and began to work. Twenty minutes later she leaned back in her chair, well satisfied. She had drummed up an extra five minutes of advertising time for the phone-in and rescheduled one or two others in order to earn a few brownie points at a time when agencies were spreading their budgets ever thinner.
*****
Luke Devlin flipped the intercom on his desk. 'Get hold of Melanie for me, will you, Liz? And book a table for two at the Angel up at Broomhill Gate.'
'Of course, Mr Devlin. I didn't know you were back in your office.' There was the hint of reproach in her voice.
As a secretary, Liz Meynell was top of the tree. As a mother figure, she could be a man's worst nightmare. Most of the time he was happy to put up with the one for the sheer efficiency of the other. But not today.
The meeting at the council offices had not been a barrel of laughs. They hadn't much liked what he'd had to say and he didn't blame them. Without Harries the town would have a serious unemployment problem.
It wasn't his fault. It probably wasn't anyone's fault. Harries was a company running out of markets. It hadn't diversified, kept up, retooled. But the residents of Broomhill who relied on the factory for a wage every week wouldn't see it like that.
They would never be convinced of the inevitability of what had happened. They would only see the effect, not the cause. Michael Harries was apparently considered something of a saint in Broomhill while he had found himself cast in the part of devil.
It wasn't a comfortable role to play and he knew things could get a lot worse before they got better. So he needed a quiet place to think and as the choice was between his office and the ministrations of Liz Meynell, and the Metropole, where there were hoards of teenage girls camped on the doorstep, he'd let himself quietly into his office and had been sitting there for the last hour trying to sort things out in his mind.
When he had gone after Harries it had just
been a means to an end. He had seen his objective in black and white, two dimensions. Now it had been made very clear to him that he was responsible for the fate of nearly a thousand families. Good people. It was a complication he hadn't anticipated caring about.
'Did you say something, Mr Devlin?'
'What? Oh, no.'
'I'll get Melanie straight away. Oh, and Miss Beaumont called earlier. I told her you weren't available for the rest of the day. Do you want me to get her back?'
Luke Devlin frowned. Felicity Beaumont. She was another problem. Ever since he had found the woman berating Phillip her presence had seemed to cling to him. It was her eyes that bothered him. One moment looking as him as if she would devour him whole, the next almost as if she were afraid of him. Not of what he could do to her father's precious radio station, although that clearly worried her, but of him, personally.
Try as he might he couldn't get to the bottom of her. She was a mass of contradictions. One moment convincing him with her grasp of figures that she was a totally efficient businesswoman, the next behaving like a schoolgirl who had to ask her father's permission to grab the best offer she was likely to get.
But she wasn't a schoolgirl, she had been playing for time. For some reason she hadn't trusted him.
Her personal life was equally incomprehensible. She lived alone. While her sister still kept an apartment in Edward Beaumont's roomy house, Felicity had moved out when she was twenty. Yet if his researcher was to be believed she was the closest thing to a nun outside a convent. Except for those eyes.
And now she had telephoned him. He had been certain he wouldn't hear from her until the dot of twelve on Friday.
She had wasted no time in contacting the bank about her loan and drawn a blank as he had known she would. But she wouldn't give in until she had exhausted every other possible alternative source of finance. She wanted Melanie, but she wanted her without him pulling the strings. Which was interesting since he had been careful not to attach any strings, only money.
It suggested Fizz Beaumont possessed a highly developed sense of danger.
'What did she want?'
'She asked if you would be in today. I explained that you were in meetings all day and not available.'
'Did she leave a message? Ask for a appointment?'
'No.'
They why had she called? 'Tell me exactly what she said, Liz. Word for word.'
'Well, let me think. She said, "Good morning, is that Mr Devlin's secretary?" I said, yes and could I help. She said, "Can you tell me if Mr Devlin will be in the office today?" and I said you had a number of meetings today and were unavailable. I offered to take a message, but she just said that it didn't matter. Something like that.'
'You didn't ask who was calling?'
'I didn't have to. I recognised her voice.'
'I see. You said I would be in meetings all day. Then what?'
'She said thank you, and hung up.' She waited. 'Would you like me to get her for you now?'
'No. Don't bother. Just call the Metropole and see if Melanie is there.'
Melanie, Liz reported a moment later, had gone out at about a quarter to eleven. He wasn't a bit surprised.
The recording of the soap went remarkably smoothly, mainly because Claudia was in London. They always had to make allowances for Claudia, in more ways than one. Melanie's arrival would undoubtedly cause a fit of the sulks. Well that was something her father, as director, would have to deal with.
She'd have to tell him about Melanie soon, her thinking time was running out. For heaven's sake, her reluctance was ridiculous, she should be shouting it from the roof tops.
It was just the feeling of helplessness that so rankled. The feeling of having her arm twisted. She had spent the last seven years making sure that every single strand of her life was in her hands, in her total control and she was sure she had succeeded, yet the moment she met Luke Devlin she felt as if she had stepped into quicksand.
She sighed. It wasn't just the sponsorship, or taking on Melanie. It was more personal. It was the flash of recognition, the electric charge that jars the senses, the raw desire for a man even before you have spoken to him, even before you know his name. The sensation of having the air knocked out of your body. Leaving you breathless.
She had excused herself from lunch with Andy and Melanie. One look at Andy's star-struck face had reassured her that he would behave himself. Not that he was likely to prove any competition for Luke Devlin. But then, who would? And she couldn't pump the girl for information with Andy in attendance.
After the phone-in she would invite Melanie for tea in the Green Room. On an emotional high after the programme she would be less careful about what she said. Susie would make sure they weren't disturbed. She smiled to herself. Luke Devlin wasn't the only one with a dragon for a secretary.
Returning to her desk to catch up she was, on the whole, pleased with her morning's work and partially reassured by the fact that Melanie was genuinely interested in taking part in Holiday Bay. Now, her coffee cooling, her sandwich untouched beside her on her desk, she tried to work out just how much extra advertising she needed to avoid taking the sponsorship money from Devlin.
'Did you get that information, Susie?' Fizz asked, as the door opened. But the hands that were placed on her desk were not those of her secretary. They were large, darkly tanned and bore the scars of too many close encounters with sharp rocks.
'Where is Melanie?' Luke Devlin asked, in a low growl that shivered against her skin. Fizz jumped. Not physically. The snap as the point of her pencil broke was the only outward sign of a reaction that began as an internal explosion somewhere about her midriff and rippled in a series of shock waves until her entire body seemed to be shaking. Inside.
She had made a life's study of hiding her feelings.
Right now it was being put severely to the test. Because her reaction to Luke Devlin hadn't been a one-off. This time it was worse.
She didn't need to look up to read his expression, to see the clamped down jaw, the angry line of his mouth. They were all engraved forever on her memory, playing havoc with her nerve endings, unravelling them.
Fizz took another perfectly sharpened pencil from a pot at her elbow and waving to a chair she said, 'Good afternoon, Mr Devlin. Do sit down. I won't keep you a moment.'
Without looking up from the page in front of her, she continued to run her pencil down the column of figures. Although she lost count after the third figure, she refused to let him see the effect he was having on her. But, honestly, who could be expected to add up anything more complicated than two plus two with an earthquake going on in parts of her anatomy that should have known better?
She continued to the end before she jotted down the first figure that came into her head. Only then did she look up to discover that his face was inches from her own.
He had not availed himself of her invitation, but was still on his feet, filling her tiny office with his overlong legs and quite unnecessarily broad shoulders. And he was still leaning over her desk, his hands placed before her. All macho threat.
His eyes, however, glinted with something that might have been amusement, although for the moment his mouth was refusing to join in.
'I suggest you use a calculator in future, Miss Beaumont.'
She didn't normally need one, but refused to be intimidated by his apparent ability to calculate upside down. 'There's nothing wrong with my figuring,' she declared.
'The correct answer is twenty three thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven pounds and ninety-two pence,' he said, quietly. 'Write it down and check it later if you like.'
'I will.' She did. He was just as capable of bluffing as she was. She glared at him. He didn't back down.
'Can I get you some coffee?' she asked, using the excuse to slide her chair back towards the coffee-maker behind her, taking her time to pour him a cup. 'I didn't expect to see you before Friday,' she said, her back firmly towards him.
'I'm sure when you
enticed Melanie along to your office, you must have been concerned that I would follow close on her heels. Why else would you telephone my office to assure yourself that I was otherwise occupied for day?'
For one crazy moment Fizz was going to deny it, but even as she opened her mouth she knew that would be a mistake. A man who could add up a column of figures upside down, was not a man to trifle with.
'How did you know that I rang your office, Mr Devlin?' she asked, marvelling that the hand holding out the cup and saucer did not shake.
'When you didn't leave your name? You have a very beautiful voice, Miss Beaumont. My secretary recognised it.' He ignored the cup and she quickly put it down as a tremble threatened to betray her at this totally unlooked for compliment. After all, he need only have said his secretary had recognised her voice. 'So I return to my original question. Where is Melanie?'
Fizz rose from her chair and walked across to the window, partly to disguise the heat that had rushed to her cheeks, partly to put some distance between them.
'She's down there,' she said, indicating the sparkling white dome of the new restaurant. 'Having lunch. I gave her the grand tour of the studios, then she sat in on a recording session for Holiday Bay. I thought she might be bored alone all day at the hotel.'
'How thoughtful of you.'
He didn't believe her. Well, if she was honest, she hadn't expected him to.
'She was keen to come and I'm sure she's had a good time.' Feeling more in control she half turned, only to find that he was at her back and she was staring at his tie. Again. Navy with tiny red spots. He had a nice line in restrained silk ties, she decided.
And it was safer counting the number of spots to the square inch than looking up, risking his eyes.
'I would suggest that you join her, but I know you would insist upon paying for your own lunch and since Miss Brett is my guest...'
'She's on her own?' His concern was immediate.