There was a disappointed sigh at the end of the phone.
‘I suppose it was too much to hope for a meeting with Alex,’ she grumbled. ‘And it’s been ages since I’ve seen you. The place has been dead quiet since you took that magazine job.’
Jen squashed the sudden pang of homesickness. No matter how much she had missed her, Elsie would eat Alex alive if she got within touching distance of him.
‘Sorry,’ she said apologetically. ‘He’s rarely home, anyway. We barely see each other. And even if you were here, what I’m after is that modern, subtle, glossy-but-undone look the It-girls have. I need to look like myself, but better. I’m not sure there’s much of a call for that kind of look in Littleford.’
She was trying hard to be tactful but clearly failed, because Elsie gave a derisory sniff.
‘A couple of months in London and you think we’re all hillbillies,’ she complained. ‘Just because I spend my days doing shampoo and sets for grannies doesn’t mean I don’t have all the skills for modern stuff, you know. A tint is a tint, whether it’s blue, pink or just-back-from-Cannes-gold. I’ll pop some colorant in the post tonight, shall I?’
Jen brightened immediately.
‘Is it something I can do myself, then? Can you write me a list of instructions?’
‘I can do better than that, honey. I’ll instruct you personally via Skype.’ She spoke in bossy and professional tones, as though she were a stylist to the stars, then ruined it by adding with a touch of stalker, ‘Now, give me Alex Hammond’s address.’
After a day of catch-up phone calls and e-mails, in which the subject of his swift departure from the States was skated over, Alex wandered into the kitchen on a fact-finding mission. Mark’s follow-up phone call had come that afternoon.
‘There is no Jennifer Brown that my press contacts have ever heard of, but it’s hardly an unusual name, and the world is stuffed with freelancers trying to get a foot in the door. If anything that makes her more dangerous. She’s getting exclusive first-hand experience of your day-to-day life, and at some point—if it hasn’t already—it will occur to her that she’s sitting on a fantastic scoop.’
The morning papers had brought another spate of articles about him and Viveca, and Alex’s never hugely impressive patience was close to breaking point. There were three films in varying stages of production that he should be immersed in, and instead he was stuck here, keeping out of sight, all because the studios backing them financially were unsettled by the sudden tabloid interest in his sex life. At this time of year more than ever he wanted to be busy. Needed to be busy. Working hard and partying harder. Anything but sitting here twiddling his thumbs in the flat with time to think about what might have been. He just wanted this whole ridiculous thing wrapped up so he could get back to doing what he did best.
‘Then get something on her!’ he snapped at Mark. ‘Get some leverage that we can use if she tries anything.’
‘I can’t do that when I don’t know who she is,’ Mark protested. ‘I need more background. Though it fills me with dread to say it …’ he took a breath ‘… you’re going to have to go and chat her up.’
CHAPTER THREE
FINDING the kitchen deserted, Alex followed the sounds of the TV and found Jen in the small den off the kitchen. It was a small, informal sitting room, cosier than the vast main lounge, with a small sofa, a couple of chairs and a very inferior forty-inch TV set. Where television was concerned, in Alex’s opinion, size definitely mattered.
Jen was curled up in the corner of the sofa under a well-worn patchwork quilt that he didn’t recognise. In fact, glancing around, he saw quite a few items that couldn’t possibly have been put there by the interior designer he’d employed. There were framed snapshots and Christmas cards on the sideboard, tinsel on the mantelpiece and a small potted Christmas tree near the window. A fire crackled in the grate.
From nowhere came an unexpected flash of envy. She’d settled in. Surrounded herself with things that meant something to her, reminded her of her home, her family. When had he last done that anywhere? When had he last bothered with Christmas decorations? These days it didn’t seem worth the effort just for him, although Jen clearly didn’t see it that way. Home for him was whichever house he happened to be in, and family didn’t fit in his life any more. Susan had seen to that.
Jen was wearing glasses and eating cheese on toast from a plate that was balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. She looked tiny and somehow fragile.
She glanced up at him.
‘Hi,’ she said.
He nodded towards one of the empty chairs. ‘You mind?’
She shrugged noncommittally, but turned the sound down on the TV and took her glasses off, so he figured she couldn’t be dead against him joining her.
‘I thought the whole appeal of the executive house-sitting thing was that people get to experience luxury they can’t afford themselves,’ he said, settling back in the chair. ‘You know—get a fabulous pad at a fraction of the rent.’
She was watching him, blue eyes wide. He liked the way she didn’t fuss with her appearance. Her hair was piled up in a messy bun and he could see a tiny spray of freckles over her nose. No evidence of hours spent in front of the mirror with a make-up brush. He was used to ultra-groomed women, for whom venturing out was all about the way they looked. She was a breath of fresh air.
‘What’s your point?’
‘So how come you’re eating cheese on toast off your lap in the den? The sitting room doesn’t look lived-in, and you didn’t even bag the master bedroom. This is the only room apart from the kitchen that looks like you’ve set foot in it. You are free to use the whole apartment, you know.’
‘Where would you suggest I eat, then?’ she asked. ‘That enormous glass table in your dining room? The one that seats twelve?’ She shrugged. Smiled faintly. ‘I’m not that kind of girl.’ She glanced around. ‘I feel more at home in here. It’s cosy. You can keep your huge lounge with that monster TV.’
He felt another uncomfortable twist of nostalgia as for no reason his childhood home slipped into his mind. Not a glass table in sight back then, and they’d been lucky to have one temperamental old television. But Jen had sparked his interest with her indifference to the luxury trappings of the apartment. If anything it seemed more of an aversion. Yet hadn’t she said her article was something to do with the opulent side of living in South-West London? Time to charm it out of her.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked.
When he came back with two mugs she’d finished her toast. The empty plate was on the table.
‘How was today, then?’ he asked, sitting down. ‘What did you think of La Brasserie?’
She held her cup in both hands, like a child, and smiled up at him.
‘It was amazing,’ she said.
‘Did you get the background you were talking about?’
She shrugged. ‘I got some,’ she said. ‘You should have seen the food! There were things on that menu I’ve never even heard of, let alone tried. And the people were something else. I wanted to get an idea of image, you know? What the young women in the Chelsea set are wearing, how they act.’
Her face became animated as she talked about her project. He felt absurdly touched by her excitement over a restaurant he’d visited more times than he could remember. Over things he no longer noticed.
‘And what did you think?’
‘I think I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there were quite a few touristy types there, too, but it was still an eye-opener. They’re all so glamorous. Fantastic clothes! One girl had a dog living in her handbag!’
He burst out laughing and she tentatively smiled back. As the blue eyes lit up he realised she was quite stunning. Good thing he had Mark to keep him on task. She could be a serious threat to his newly sworn singledom if he let her.
‘Where do you live usually, then?’ he asked. ‘When you’re not staking out the Chelsea set? I thought it must be somewhere i
n London—you know, at the journalistic hub?’
Jen paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. It was one thing to share an apartment with the guy, another to start telling him personal stuff. Then again, she could do with some leverage here. This morning’s recce had given her some good ideas about working on her own image—and now she’d got Elsie on board to help with hair and make-up, and hit the online second-hand shops so hard that the thought of it still gave her palpitations.
What she was lacking was information on the type of man she was aiming this image towards. She had no personal experience in that area. Her mother had always avoided talking about her father at all costs, never referring to him without using a variety of colourful expletives. La Brasserie hadn’t really been much help there, either. Wealthy businessmen were apparently too busy making themselves richer to be chilling out in the daytime midweek—no matter how posh the restaurant, and no matter how delicious the food.
Speculate to accumulate. Maybe if she made small talk with Alex she could get some tips out of him and distract herself from the still lingering sense of isolation her afternoon’s research had left her with.
‘I’ve been in London for the last few months, but really I’m from Littleford,’ she said. ‘It’s a small village in the West Country. You won’t have heard of it.’
No one ever had.
‘Not far from Bath?’
‘You’ve been there?’ she said, wondering when the hell he’d have had the need to drop in to a village where the star social attraction of the year was the Farm Festival in July, when everyone got together to admire cows and stuff themselves with local produce.
He shook his head. ‘No, but I know the general area quite well.’
When she looked at him expectantly he added, ‘I grew up in Bristol.’
‘You’re from Bristol?’
‘You make it sound like the moon.’ The green eyes looked mocking. ‘I haven’t always lived like this, you know. My parents are working class. My dad was a lorry driver and my mum was a dinner lady at my school. I could always count on her for extra custard.’
‘Really?’
‘Your surprise could be construed as insulting, you know,’ he said.
‘I guess I just assumed you’d had a … well, a privileged upbringing.’
‘Why? Because someone from my background couldn’t possibly make something of themselves?’ His tone was light, but the eyes had a razor-sharp edge to them.
She backtracked. Hard.
‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just … well, it’s such a glamorous career, what you do. Hollywood, London, Cannes.’
He shook his head.
‘I didn’t have any of that in mind when I started out.’
He took a sip of his coffee. She waited for him to elaborate, but it seemed his own glam world wasn’t as interesting to him as it was to her.
‘What’s Littleford like, then?’ he asked.
‘Quiet. One pub, couple of village shops, church, duck pond,’ she said, trying to fob him off quickly so she could get the subject back on him. ‘So, how did you start out?’
Her plan to pump him for background information on what suits he wore was trampled underfoot by her stampeding curiosity about his childhood. She’d assumed he’d been born to wealthy parents and had had an upbringing involving public school, nannies and a network of contacts that had given him a leg-up until he’d reached the top. Just how wrong had she been?
‘I started out small,’ he said. He looked down at his coffee mug, a smile touching his lips, creasing the corner of his eyes lightly. ‘I guess I just always had big ideas.’
She smiled at that but he shook his head.
‘It wasn’t particularly a good thing. Where I lived you got through school, then you got out and started earning. Big ideas were seen as a waste of time. I had to fight to get my parents onside about going to college. I worked part-time to fund the course, but there was a real sense that I was wasting that money. I was lucky. I had an inspirational tutor and I was determined to succeed. I made a short film. Just a twenty-minute thing I wrote, produced and directed on a minuscule budget. I knew it was good. I believed in it totally.’ He laughed a little. ‘Feature films came much later. Ideas above my station never really went away.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said. She could definitely relate to it. ‘You don’t get anywhere by sitting around.’
She realised suddenly that she was feeling hugely impressed by him, and quickly reminded herself that he might have made his own wealth but he didn’t seem to be in touch with his roots now. Typical. Get there and never look back. He obviously wasn’t above using his money to ride roughshod over other people now he’d got it.
‘So you live alone?’
He asked the question casually, without meeting her eyes. The kind of question that might be asked on a date. A spark tingled its way up her spine at the thought and she felt mildly ridiculous. The idea that Alex Hammond might be interested in someone like her when he could call up a model at the drop of a hat was ludicrous.
‘With my mum,’ she said.
A sudden stab of longing for home made her forget momentarily she was meant to be on a fishing expedition. Try as she might she couldn’t really feel at home in this apartment. She was looking forward to going home for Christmas, but she couldn’t think past her article right now.
‘It’s just the two of us. She lost her job recently, and I’ve been interning, so things have been a bit tight money-wise. I’m hoping this article comes off because it has a great job riding on the back of it. If I can up my earnings, she can slow down a bit.’
An alternative, if their backs were squashed any harder against the wall, had been floated. She could contact her father and tap him for a handout—as suggested often by Elsie, for whom pride had no value in the face of hard cash. For Jen it was out of the question. She’d prefer to be poor with her pride intact, thank you very much.
‘So you’re in the market for lucrative stories, then?’ Alex asked.
She didn’t miss the suspicious look on his face. Understanding flooded in. A friendly conversation? She knew immediately what this was all about.
‘You’re wanting to know if I’m planning an exposé on you, aren’t you? Is that what this being friendly is all about?’
‘I’m just making conversation.’ His voice was totally calm.
She put her mug down on the coffee table and pulled herself up from the sofa. She shoved aside an almighty twinge of disappointment. What an idiot she was for thinking he might actually be interested in her and her country background. He was a stereotypical bachelor with enough cash to get his own way on anything he chose. He must be super-nettled by the idea of her living here to go to the trouble of trying to sweet-talk her. Well, good. As long as she didn’t have to move out, let him be nettled.
‘I told you last night—I’ve got no interest in you as long as I’m working on this project. As long as you’re not planning on throwing me out you have nothing to worry about. Your secrets are safe with me.’
‘You don’t know any of my secrets.’
She walked around his chair and leaned in behind him, laid a hand on his shoulder and bent down to speak in his ear in what she hoped was a confident I-won’t-be-messed-with tone. She’d seen it done in the movies, when Mafia bigwigs wanted to be intimidating. Unfortunately she wasn’t prepared for the sudden happy flip-flops in her stomach that the scent of his warm skin and expensive aftershave would cause, and she had to talk through gritted teeth to keep up the charade and stop her voice slipping towards soft and melty. That would definitely have ruined the effect.
‘I could always make up what I don’t know,’ she snapped, dropped the TV remote control in his lap and stalked out of the room.
As she made her way to her bedroom she forced herself to focus hard on her article. She wasn’t going to get anywhere with the research questions now. She’d just have to wing it at the exhibition tomorrow with no head st
art at all.
Rule #3: Don’t forget … etiquette! If you’re going to join the world of the rich, you must act as if you belong there. Blending in isn’t just about what you wear—it covers how you speak, what you say, your manners. Do not swear, get drunk, do drugs or laugh loudly. Avoid flashy behaviour. You are aiming for girlfriend to be swiftly followed by wife. Not mistress. Stand out for the wrong reasons and your cover will be blown.
It felt like getting ready for the scariest night of your life. A cross between a first date and a job interview pretty much covered it. Jen told herself the nerves were down to the fact there was so much riding on this project—nothing to do with the feeling that she was a fraud, that she didn’t belong in this world. She had a perfectly good reason to be there: research. And this was her first real opportunity to mingle with the kind of men who thought nothing of blowing the odd million pounds on a painting.
In fact, there wasn’t an enormous amount of stressing over what she was wearing. She only had one remotely suitable dress with her. None of her online purchases had turned up yet. She was still in serious need of a makeover. No millionaire worth his salt was going to look twice at mousy-haired Jen Brown in her High Street LBD and shoes, but at least she could stand on the sidelines and learn to identify the kind of man she should be targeting.
There would be no point changing her own image if she couldn’t tell the difference between real money and an ordinary culture vulture like Gordon from the Gazette. She needed to nail the difference between bespoke tailoring and mass production. She felt a bit more positive. This wasn’t going to be a wasted evening. It was going to be a dry run. A learning experience.
And, talking of learning, she had nearly an hour yet before her taxi was due. What would be a more productive use of that time than a bit of investigation? Alex Hammond might not be up for twenty questions, but this apartment was full of the trappings of his rich life, just there to be examined. She padded down the passageway from her bedroom in her stockinged feet. Alex had been out for most of the day and had shut himself in the study the moment he got back. There was no sign of him emerging any time soon.
Secrets of the Rich & Famous Page 4