Persuading Austen

by Brigid Coady

  ‘Noted,’ she said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘Have a great day.’

  Yeah, as if. His closing remark grated on her nerves. That was a shot across the bow.

  Annie collapsed backwards onto her pillows. What the hell was online that had set Eric off?

  Annie pulled up her phone again. Her lock screen was now a selfie with the Feckless Rogues. Last night really had happened. It could have been the perfect night, if only … Austen, she thought.

  No, nope. She didn’t have time to moon over him. This was an emergency. Not only her job was on the line but the reputation of the agency as well.

  She logged in and stared at the mess of texts and alerts waiting for her. As she stared another alert flashed across her screen, then another. Thank God, she never had sound alerts on.

  Text messages first, Annie decided. She clicked on the icon, the red box in high double digits. Skimming down she saw that they all seemed to be about the gig the night before.

  Well at least no one had died.

  Eric was right. People had been paying a little too much attention to what had been going on in the VIP area and not what was going on onstage. And they had put a very different spin on the evening.

  Oh, this wasn’t good. She needed to be sitting up for this. Rubbing her hand across her face, Annie pulled herself further up the bed, stuffing one of the spare pillows behind her back.

  Cassie’s texts were more emojis than words. The lines of wide eyes, thumbs-ups, and devil faces hurting her eyes also had links. Annie clicked.

  Wentworth and Elliot Square Up at KOKO: Pride, Prejudice and Pulling

  Annie read through the Daily Planet article from their showbiz reporter, Don Wattpan. It was full of half-arsed innuendos about how Will and Austen were fighting over her.

  As if.

  Sly digs about why either one of them would find her attractive. He even seemed to be making some kind of hint that Austen was really in a polyamorous relationship with Harry and Lewis and she had been hired as his beard.

  She groaned.

  How had this happened? How did anyone even know her name? She had managed a pretty good run in a reasonably famous family and never had a bit of gossip to her name.

  Now suddenly she seemed to be gossip-site worthy.

  There were allusions to a secret source on set, and all the Will-based rumours seemed to spring from there.

  Shy Annie Elliot has been playing family peacemaker. Bringing family black sheep Will Elliot back into the fold. Set sources say that they could be making those family ties even closer … Hollywood star Austen Wentworth has been getting in the way. Sources say he wants every woman, and even some of the men, on set to only be interested in him. Tensions are rising but our source is confident that Wentworth is just being a dog in the manger. Because our Annie is all about family.

  What a load of tosh. As if Austen was that big-headed.

  Only last night Austen had tried to hunker down and avoid the public. He wasn’t interested in that. And as for wanting everyone to fancy him … well, even she could tell that Austen was uncomfortable with his fame. Now if it had been the reverse, if they’d said that about Will … maybe that was too nasty but he did have tendencies.

  Just like Dad. Always looking for the spotlight.

  As if she would ever be attracted to someone so like her own father? Will was William Elliot 2.0, in both name and action. And she might have issues but looking for someone like Daddy … nope.

  Hell, she couldn’t deal with the first one, no way would she willingly shackle herself to his doppelganger.

  She tried not to think about how even gossip sites, which could make something out of nothing, couldn’t even imagine Austen being genuinely interested in her.

  Her phone lit up with another incoming text.

  So … Will????

  It was followed by a series of side-eye emojis.

  Cassie was up very early.

  See, even her best friend thought her being with Will was more believable than Austen.

  Mind you, she could be right, Annie realized. Because Austen hadn’t kissed her yesterday; he’d walked away. Because this was now, and she’d made her choice. And he’d moved on.

  A heavy load felt as if it had settled on her chest, a large stone weighing down on her, crushing her lungs and making it hard to breathe.

  Fingers trembling, she swiped away from Cassie’s text and back to the article online. To the blurred photos, which first showed Austen and her leaning close together. Annie could feel his breath on her lips still.

  Then Will’s arm round her neck – the ghost of his arm still choked her.

  And finally, Will leaning close with Austen nowhere in sight. As if that photo montage wasn’t a quick synopsis of the past eight years.

  They really could crop and then publish only those photos that told the story they wanted to tell.

  The comments section flashed red at her.

  She shouldn’t click through. It went against all common sense. Annie’s trembling finger moved and suddenly she was in the comments section.

  It was another bad decision in a long line of bad decisions. Would she never learn common sense?

  The comments fairly dripped with vitriol.

  Somehow Annie was a whore and a bitch – admittedly these were some of the strongest descriptions. And how had she ended up as the bad guy and being blamed for the whole sorry night?

  She’d gone to see a band with friends. But according to these comments she was a hanger-on and fame whore, who only wanted Austen and Will for their connections.

  Another commenter was convinced she was shagging both Will and Austen and they should both ditch her. The next one down believed she was actually bearding for Austen who was either in the aforementioned threesome with Harry and Lewis, or she was there to cover the fact that Austen and Will were now an item. The commenter wasn’t quite sure which relationship they wanted Austen to be in but him storming away from the VIP area supposedly proved it all.

  The last commenter was very sure that Austen was with Will and the quick departure from the VIP area was because Austen ‘couldn’t bear to see “his boo” having to pretend to be all over that cow, Annie’.

  Annie would’ve laughed if it wasn’t so tragic.

  She knew the internet loved a scandal and a conspiracy. Normally she’d ignore it but in all the comments and speculation not one person got it right.

  No one speculated that Austen would date her of his own volition.

  But he had. She had proof.

  Annie itched to find the photos she had buried deep on her hard drive. All those photos of Austen and her when they were dating: the sort of couple photos that most people posted on Facebook. But Annie never had, because she didn’t want her family to know.

  Maybe she could send them via anon to a Wentwitch blog on Tumblr?

  God, she was so tired of this. Austen had been the most real relationship she’d ever had. He’d seen her. He’d respected her.

  Why did nobody else ever do that?

  Sighing she slumped back down the bed, lying flat; she clutched her phone to her chest.

  She needed to sort this out. If Eric was threatening the agency over this she had to rein in the ‘secret source’ of gossip and work out who was funnelling away the money.

  Because these stories, they didn’t feel organic. Someone was planting them. They all had a bit too much information for being guesswork.

  And they always seemed to make Will look good. Annie didn’t want to think badly of yet another family member but there was only one person who could be the source.

  Did Will really think he was being subtle? He was the only one who could be feeding things to the press. And bloody Will, she’d never get him to admit he was doing it or deny that there was nothing going on between them.

  He would play up to it.

  Why did he think attention from the press was the only way to get his next
job? Couldn’t he let his talent stand alone?

  If he wanted to go that way then fine, but why did he drag her into it?

  Annie rolled over and pulled her duvet over her head. Now she had another dodgy family member trying to ruin her career.

  ***

  ‘I swear these rumours get better and better,’ Harry said later that morning whilst scrolling on a gossip site on his phone.

  Annie had sat with him and Lewis for breakfast. She figured they at least knew what was the truth about last night.

  ‘Which is in the lead this week? We’re breaking up? You’ve run off with Benedict Cumberbatch again? Because I’ve told you about that: his arse is not in the same league as mine,’ Lewis asked around a mouth full of toast. He smiled at his husband, clearly unruffled.

  ‘Nope,’ Harry said absently taking the other half of Lewis’s toast from his plate. ‘And you know I’d never give up your peaches.’

  Annie realized she had started to stare at Lewis’s bottom. She jerked her head back and stared hard at the piece of toast on her plate.

  ‘The gossip is that we are currently in a “ménage à trois” with Austen. Hmmm his arse isn’t bad I suppose. Oh, and the lovely Annie here is his beard because he has to look straight so as not to offend Middle American tendencies.’

  Crumbs of toast exploded across the table. Luckily Lewis spat onto the empty seat across from him and not over Annie.

  ‘Very attractive, darling,’ Harry said as he patted the choking Lewis on the back.

  Annie could feel the tension in her neck lessen. It had been almost completely locked ever since the call from Eric and then the article.

  Could she learn to laugh at it like they did? Thank God Harry didn’t read out the comments section in full.

  Her face felt hot and her stomach churned. The names they’d called her.

  ‘Oh look! Here comes the fourth musketeer,’ Harry said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

  ‘Hello, lover,’ Lewis’s voice rang out across the restaurant.

  Annie looked up to see Austen striding across the room towards them. He looked like a man on a mission. Annie quickly looked back down and focused on the slice of toast she was carefully buttering. She needed to ensure that the butter filled out to the edges of it.

  Austen came to the table, dropped his tablet and phone in the now crumb-strewn place next to Annie. He leaned across the table to give Lewis a hug, and then put his hand on the back of his neck and drew his in, planting a very over-dramatic kiss on Lewis’s mouth. Without missing a beat, he reached out and snagged Harry round the shoulders before planting another kiss on him.

  ‘Hey, babes. Sorry I’m late but you all wore me out last night,’ Austen said with a projected voice that could reach to the back of the Olivier Theatre at the NT.

  The scrape of cutlery on breakfast plates was halted around the room. It was as if the dining room took a massive collective intake of breath. Would they have their mouths open?

  Annie was pretty sure that cutlery was probably being exchanged for phones as they all tried to surreptitiously record what was happening. She was going to be picked over by trolls again, wasn’t she?

  She started doing calculations in her head; it wasn’t too far to run for the door.

  Then she felt a hand on her wrist. Looking up she saw Harry wink at her and before she could blink back, Austen had pulled her up and was dragging her into the huddle.

  Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Annie was closer to Austen than she’d been last night. His lips so close she could feel his hitch of breath as she almost knocked her forehead against his. And he was staring at her mouth again. The light was much better than last night. It made his eyes luminous and she could see that his pupils were wide.

  She bit her bottom lip.

  Austen gave a small gasp and his fingers tightened on her wrist.

  There didn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the room.

  ‘Do you think that has given them enough of a show?’ Lewis whispered, breaking the tension. Annie realized that they were in a very uncomfortable hug. Was the end of her shirt dragging in the butter dish?

  There was a small pause and as if they had made an agreement to release on three, they broke away from each other. With a small stroke of his thumb on her pulse point, Austen released her. He sat down next to her and reached for the coffee pot. Lewis picked a piece of bacon from Harry’s plate. Harry went back to his phone. It was as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

  Annie felt breathless. She could feel that she was panting. She took a deep breath that made her shudder. Is this what life would’ve been like if she’d chosen Austen? Had she missed out on this kind of support, support she’d never had before?

  Her pulse thrummed through her wrist to her hand and her fingers tingled.

  Annie’s vision blurred, the pattern on the china becoming less distinct. That hug from the self-titled four musketeers had been done for her – not for themselves.

  They had dragged her into their group and thrown their protection up around her.

  Hold on, Harry had said ‘four musketeers’ as if – she swallowed hard – as if he’d picked her to join the gang.

  Did they know how much it meant? Had they planned it before they came down?

  With shaking hands, Annie picked up her knife and smoothed more butter on her already buttered toast. There was a clink of metal and she looked up to find Austen had poured her coffee from the coffee pot and put exactly the right amount of milk in it.

  Maybe she didn’t need to prove anything to the trolls on the internet. The photos could stay locked away because she knew the truth and the past and so did he. Who else really mattered?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Annie stood outside a familiar hotel room door.

  She leant closer – no gasping and moaning.

  Good.

  She leant back. At least she wasn’t going to interrupt anything ‘extra curricular’ that Immy had going on.

  Annie could do this.

  She had to do this.

  Eric’s call meant that she couldn’t put it off any more. She couldn’t do anything about those photos and dealing with Will was on her list. But the financial side? That was going to get solved. Even if it meant finding out her own family were thieves … Did it come to this? Her job or her family?

  Could she live with herself if she covered up for them? Yeah, she might keep her job but … uncovering them didn’t mean she would keep it either.

  But she would know, every day waking up knowing she’d lied. Trying to look at her reflection in the mirror …

  Christ, if she was going to lose her job, she would rather it was over the truth. If she was going down, she’d go down fighting.

  Or more like a controlled flailing.

  No, she had to do this right. She was strong enough. The feeling of security and belonging from her hug this morning still lingered. She wanted to wrap herself in it. Take it and make herself bulletproof.

  With Immy, she should probably also bring a Kevlar vest.

  Taking a deep breath, Annie reached up and knocked on the door.

  She knew Immy was in; she’d watched her go upstairs ten minutes ago.

  Unless she was in her lover’s room.

  Annie put her hand up to knock again when the door was vigorously opened.

  ‘Bring the towels in. I can’t believe how many times I have to phone housekeeping to complain about … Oh it’s you.’ Immy stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Hey …’ Annie began.

  ‘I can’t believe the staff in this hotel. It is ridiculous that they think I’m going to reuse my towel more than once. I think you need to have words,’ Immy finished.

  Annie realized that Immy hadn’t asked why Annie was there or anything about herself.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Come in?’ Immy said it as if it were the most outrageous request she’d heard all day.

  ‘Yes, I
need to talk to you.’

  ‘Well, I suppose so.’ Immy moved back into the room as if she were bestowing an honour on Annie. ‘But it can’t be long. I have things to do.’

  What, thought Annie viciously, more sex? Or more stealing?

  Annie walked into the small hotel room. It looked much like hers: a double bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a door to the bathroom, and a flat-screen TV attached to the wall.

  The wardrobe door was open and Annie could see the clothes that were spilling out of it like they were trying to make an escape.

  The clothes looked expensive.

  Annie could do this.

  ‘What do you want?’ Immy was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at Annie with impatience.

  Just do it. Open your mouth and demand to know.

  ‘So, Immy, I was wondering: are you okay for money?’

  Damn, Annie knew she had flubbed it.

  ‘Of course I’m fine for money,’ Immy said but her eyes wouldn’t meet Annie’s.

  Okay, trying for a different tack.

  ‘Immy, where is all the money coming from for these clothes and a suite at The Dorchester? Because it isn’t coming from the usual bank account.’

  ‘It was only a small suite,’ Immy said. ‘And I thought you’d be happy that I was earning my own way. Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  Annie wished she could say she was proud of her but until she knew …

  ‘Where did the money come from? We’ll sort it out if there is a problem. I’ll make sure that the police don’t get involved.’

  ‘The police?’ Immy looked confused. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing, Annie? Do you think I stole it?’ Her voice rose and reverberated round the room.

  Annie couldn’t help herself; she nodded.

  ‘What? You really thought I’d steal money?’ Immy’s voice started to set off vibrations in Annie’s chest.

  Could sound burst your heart? Annie wondered faintly.

  ‘I can’t believe you, Annie. How could you think that? I earned that money honestly.’ Immy looked tragic. A small tear glistened on the edge of her eyelash. It only missed a camera to capture the artistry.

  Immy moved, swiped her eyes dry, and picked up her computer.

  ‘Here.’ Immy thrust the machine at Annie, the screen set to a website.