Soaring

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “Please hold.”

  I waited, feeling ill, twisting the raffia mat on the desk in my fingers as I wondered whether my name would open doors or have them slammed in my face. After a minute, she came back on the line. I was in luck. She told me she would transfer me directly through to his cellphone.

  I waited, feeling my meal sitting uneasily in my tight stomach.

  It rang four times…five…What was I going to say to his voicemail? What message could I leave?

  And then he answered, his voice brisker and colder than I remembered it.

  “Patrick Maguire.”

  “Patrick.” My voice was so hoarse from nerves, I had to clear my throat and try again. “Patrick, it’s Claire.”

  “Claire,” he repeated. “I’m on my way…” The rest of his words were a scramble. Cell signal was not great here in the Irish hills. At any rate, he didn’t sound like he wanted to talk. Well, if I never saw Patrick again, so be it, but at least I hadn’t ended our acquaintance by childishly running away without trying to discuss the problem afterwards.

  “You want me to call back later?” I asked.

  He said something I couldn’t hear.

  “Sorry, signal is really bad. I’ll call you again this evening,” I said.

  Finally, I could hear him again, and he sounded exasperated—with the poor connection, and not with me, I hoped. His voice came through the line, strong and confident and clear as a bell.

  “I was trying to say I’m on my way to you. I’ll be there in exactly two minutes. Or seven, if there are any sheep crossing the road.”

  My eyebrows just about hit my hairline.

  He was coming here, to me?

  If I stuck my head right out of the window and craned my neck, I could see where the gateway opened onto the road. And there he was, the silver Merc gleaming in the afternoon sun as it turned into the driveway.

  I was red-eyed, swollen-faced, and I had hardly any time to do damage control. In a panic, I implemented a hasty triage system. I ran to the bathroom, grabbed my eye drops from my toiletry bag, squeezed one into each eye. I dragged a brush through my tangled hair and splashed some water on my face. Time for lip gloss? Not really, but I was going to put it on anyway. And a spritz of perfume.

  I heard the car door slam even as I headed full-tilt down the stairs.

  Chapter 9

  I sprinted down the corridor and thundered through the farmhouse kitchen, causing the cat to raise his head curiously from his fridge-top eyrie.

  “Good luck,” Noreen called as I ran out the kitchen door, in time to meet Patrick by the mint bed.

  I stopped dead, facing him, breathing fast from my headlong dash through the house.

  He was holding a large bunch of long-stemmed red roses. He looked as gorgeous as ever, in a slightly tousled, just-out-of-bed way, and looking at his wayward bangs got me thinking all over again of what had happened between us in that private bedroom.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Claire,” he asked, his voice gentle, “do you ever stop running?”

  Did I spy a glint of humor in his eyes?

  “I just…look, I wanted to meet you at your car. I feel bad about what I did. I’m sorry I left you at lunch so suddenly, but I’m still angry!”

  “Lunch? I don’t recall having lunch,” he said.

  He was definitely smiling now. He handed me the flowers.

  “These are an apology. I’m not sure at this stage what exactly I’m apologizing for. But that doesn’t make it any less heartfelt.”

  “I don’t think I deserve them. But thank you. They’re gorgeous.”

  We walked together to the kitchen, where he and Noreen greeted each other, and she exclaimed over the beauty of the roses before fetching me a vase. I carried it up to my room and put it on the desk next to the bed. I spent just a few seconds admiring the beauty of this magnificent bouquet before hurrying back downstairs to where Patrick was waiting.

  We walked back to the car together and climbed in. On the passenger seat was a small, white muslin bag tied with a red ribbon and printed with the hotel’s logo. A quick peek inside, and the blood flooded to my face as I found my abandoned underwear, neatly folded and now discreetly returned to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, rather shamefacedly.

  “I was sorely tempted to keep it,” Patrick said, a comment which momentarily silenced me and didn’t do anything to help get rid of my blush. We didn’t speak again until we were on our way, heading in a different direction from town.

  “So,” I asked, “where are we going?”

  In his company, my attraction was overriding the fury I’d felt. I didn’t know if that was a good thing. Probably not. But now that the shock of his confession was over, all I could remember was the way I’d felt when I’d been with him. How he had brought me to orgasm, so swiftly, so expertly; how I’d come so hard to the slick caresses of his tongue.

  I had to admit it…the thought of never seeing him again had terrified me.

  “I’m going to show you a place I hope you’ll like,” Patrick said. “And while we’re driving, you can tell me why you’re so angry.”

  “It’s because of what you told me about owning media companies,” I snapped. “And not just any companies!” Finally, I could summon up the righteous indignation I needed. “Those publications…Patrick, those are the gutter press! They publish stories that are wrong, inaccurate, hurtful.”

  He was quiet for a while. Then he responded, “So what negative things did they publish about you?”

  “Do you want a list?” I asked, outraged. “In the past two weeks, I’ve headlined…”

  “No, not the past two weeks. What damaging stories did they publish about you in the past few years? In the days when I owned those magazines and websites?”

  “Um…” I thought hard, staring out of the window at the emerald scenery. We were driving deeper into the hills. I racked my brain for specifics that I could quote to Patrick. Obviously, I’d have featured in those rags at some point. But now he was putting me on the spot, I couldn’t name any one instance.

  “There were none,” Patrick stated, and I was taken aback by the confidence in his tone.

  “None? No, that’s not right. There must have been…”

  “Claire, I was the boss,” he explained patiently. “I used to review all content from my media before it went to press. You were featured once in a while in those publications—in a positive light only. And that was because I had the final say over what went into them.”

  “How do you mean?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “I didn’t ever run stories that could have damaged you. I either canned them before going to print, or requested a rewrite. I guess my old-timers got to know, after a while, the unspoken rule that nothing negative must appear about Claire Harvey.”

  I glanced at Patrick, astounded by his words.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  “But why?”

  “Because…” He let out a long breath. “I guess because…that night we shared on the airplane always stayed with me. I couldn’t do it, Claire. I couldn’t write badly about somebody that I had such a strong connection with, and I couldn’t allow anyone else on my payroll to do that, either. It would have felt…I don’t know. Like a betrayal.”

  I was shocked into silence. My mind raced as I made sense of his words. I had to acknowledge they were true. The media owned by Patrick Maguire had done me no damage—the opposite, in fact. Part of the reason that I’d received the College Sport sponsorship had been because of my squeaky clean public image, and my positive media profile.

  “Thank you for that,” I said. “I appreciate it. But Patrick, that’s only because you knew me. What about all the other celebrities who’ve been exposed in those pages? What was written was cruel. Careers have been destroyed. Lives ruined. Marriages wrecked.”

  Patrick nodded. “I’m not proud of what I did. That�
�s why I got out of it, in the end. But Claire, we never wrote anything inaccurate.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, frowning.

  “We had a few lawsuits come our way—not many—and they were usually settled out of court after we were able to prove what we had written was factually true. So, I don’t believe any marriage was wrecked as a result of what we published, or any career destroyed. Not unless they were heading for wreckage in any case, and we simply exposed the cracks.”

  “Well, I…hey, why are you pulling over?” Patrick indicated left and eased the Mercedes to a stop in one of the wider sections of this narrow lane.

  “Because there’s a car that’s been following us for a while now,” he said grimly. “It’s probably just an innocent local on his way somewhere; but I’d rather be sure.”

  I twisted round to look. The car behind us, a white Golf, slowed down, and then abruptly sped up, pulling right and accelerating past us, before disappearing around a bend in the road.

  Like our car, this one had deeply tinted windows, and it was impossible to see more than the shadowy profile of the driver as he passed.

  “You just held a media conference at your hotel.” I tried to stay calm, and not to let my anxiety show. “Who attended it?”

  Patrick sighed. “Representatives from major magazines, websites, newspapers, radio, and TV from all over the world. About fifty delegates from the States. The hotel has been making a good profit after its refurbishment, so I invited them as a P.R. exercise, to bring more business to the hotel as well as Castle Hill.”

  “How many of them are still here?”

  “About half. I offered them a free weekend stay after the conference.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know. I’m sorry the timing was so bad, Claire.”

  I tried to reassure myself that the driver following us had just been a lost tourist. I told myself firmly not to panic; that even if they had known I was here, the journalists and photographers would have better things to do than hunt me down.

  I tried to silence the worried voice inside me that said it would only take one. Just one determined reporter, just one compromising photo. Here I was, with another man after the fallout from this recent scandal, in a town where half the world’s press was roaming around.

  Could my predicament be any worse?

  “I want you to trust me,” Patrick said. “I know you don’t have much trust in my profession—my ex-profession—but I want to try and prove that you can have faith in me. And I want to know who leaked your whereabouts to the media, the morning you were photographed with Hassan?”

  I felt my face flame crimson at those words.

  “I don’t know,” I said softly.

  I knew who had taken the photos, but I had no idea who had tipped that determined paparazzi photographer off. How had he known? The event had been private. The pictures had shocked the readers, but there had been more to them than anyone knew. More than I could ever tell.

  I had known before that night that I was being hounded by the paparazzi. For a few weeks now, a lean, dark-haired, bearded photographer who I knew only as Carlos had been taking a too-close interest in me. He’d managed to infiltrate a private party I’d attended with Monika. Under strict instruction from Dave and my dietitian, I’d been drinking water only.

  “Come on! Live a little,” Monika had pleaded. She was a self-confessed cheap date, who could get merry after just one drink and became the life and soul of the party after two. Watching her enjoying her Smirnoff Spin made me long for one myself. I could imagine how good it would taste, tart and sweet, how the alcohol would relax me and allow me to enjoy myself along with her.

  “Stop tempting me!” I chastised her smilingly. “No, you can’t buy me one. If you’re having another, I’d love a sparkling water.”

  “Nobody loves a sparkling water.” Monika made a face. “You have too many rules you’re trying to obey, Claire. Deep down, I know you want to rebel. Life needs to be fun, not all about boring work.”

  I smiled at the accuracy of her perception.

  “I’ll have a sip of your drink, if that’s okay,” I’d said. “Nobody can complain about that.”

  “You’ll love it. It’s so cold and good. I won’t tell Dave, or your dietitian.”

  Laughing, I’d accepted the bottle she’d handed me, and taken a small sip.

  A minute later, all the fun had evaporated from the evening when I had seen Carlos, camera in hand, threading his way through the crowds toward the exit.

  Two days later, the photo that I’d been dreading had been published in the National Enquirer. “Drowning her Sorrows: Party Girl Claire Harvey Necks the Bottle.” The following day, a different photograph, taken at the same party, had appeared in the Examiner. In it, I’d been speaking to Hassan, who had also been there. The music had been loud and I’d had to lean close to him, but from the angle of the photo, it looked as if we were about to kiss. He’d had his hand on my shoulder, which had not helped. Worst of all, the camera had slyly caught the lacy cup of my bra peeking out from inside the deep V neck of my top.

  I had to acknowledge the photographer’s talent. That blouse was not nearly as revealing as that single image had made it out to be. And the papers and websites had a field day with it.

  “Is Model Fencer Claire Harvey Tiring of Her Husband/Manager?” the caption had screamed.

  As a result of those photos, College Sport had summoned me and Dave to their offices that very evening to do, as they called it, reputation management.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Daniel, Dave’s brother, had asked, tossing the offending magazines onto the boardroom table.

  “Look, nothing at all. It’s all innocent,” Dave had protested. Now that we were confronting our sponsors, he was finally taking my side, after having reduced me to tears in the car on the way to the meeting with his angry accusations. “She went to a party, she had a drink, she spoke to a guy.”

  “But why’s it in the Enquirer?” Daniel had asked, frowning. “We’re trying to keep our brand image squeaky clean. We’re a family company. One of the reasons we sponsored Claire is because she epitomizes clean, wholesome, healthy living.” He looked at me doubtfully. “Or should I say, epitomized?”

  I drew a deep breath and spoke up. “It was a private party,” I told him. “I took a sip of a friend’s drink because she offered it to me. I was talking to another friend while loud music was playing. I’m sorry about how the photographs look.”

  He considered my words for a while.

  “Well, it’s clear you have to be more careful,” he said. “Please, Claire, be aware of what you’re doing and how you’re behaving at all times. These photographs actually could be construed as breach of contract.”

  I heard Dave draw in his breath sharply as Daniel continued. “If you remember, you signed with us that you would not be photographed drinking alcohol. This isn’t just hearsay and gossip, made-up stories, trash like that. We could ignore that, of course, but you’re shown to be behaving in these photos in a way that doesn’t reflect well on our brand.”

  Inwardly, I found myself burning at the unfairness of the situation, and stewing over who could have been gunning for me, and why. This was no accident. The photo had been taken deliberately. I’d thought I’d been among friends, but somebody there had not been a friend. Had that person tipped off Carlos that I’d be there?

  I forced myself to nod apologetically. “I understand that, Daniel. I can see how the photos have come across. I will be more careful in future.”

  “This is your final warning. We can’t have this happen again, seriously, Claire. In the meantime, we’ll try and organize a photo opportunity soon to make up for this. A charity event, something like that. Something to put you in a better light.”

  “Just let me know when and where, and I’ll be there,” I promised, and saw Dave nodding approvingly at my words.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way. When we left College Sport�
�s offices and climbed into Dave’s new BMW, our argument had resumed. In fact, it had escalated. Dave had flung accusations, and in seeking to defend myself from the pain of his words, I had attacked him in turn. I’d shouted out that he was irresponsible with money, that he had spent recklessly on luxuries without asking me, and that he’d wasted our savings on stock market gambling. That had made Dave furious, but instead of taking his anger out on me, he’d vented it on the accelerator pedal.

  Clamping his jaw in rage, he’d sent the car speeding down the road, racing toward the traffic light at well over the speed limit.

  I had seen the picture of the crash an instant before it happened, and that instant might well have saved my life. A flash sparked in my mind: an image of an equally angry and distracted driver heading along the crossroad toward us, unaware that the light on his side was red. He had blond hair and was driving a blue car. Blond hair, blue car. I knew it, even thought it was fully dark. Such strange details to see so clearly, in the instant of approaching death.

  “Car!” I screamed. “Stop, stop, hit the brakes, Dave. You’re going to crash! You’re going to crash!”

  “Oh, fuck! Fuck!” Dave yelled. Headlights blazed to my right as he stamped on the brakes, swerving violently to try and avoid the collision. If he hadn’t managed that evasive maneuver the other driver would have rammed straight into my door, most likely killing both of us. As it was, the blue Toyota SUV slammed into the BMW’s bonnet and sent it spinning across the road until, with a sickening thud, it collided with a street pole.

  I remember the window splintering and my head smashing against the side of the car just as I felt a searing pain in my left arm. I had gasped in shock, my vision starred from the impact. I’d cradled my injured wrist as the ruined engine billowed clouds of smoke and steam.

  The car was a write-off; the engine destroyed. I suffered a compound fracture of my left wrist, and was rushed straight to hospital to undergo surgery. The other driver was badly concussed, with two broken legs. Dave was the only one who walked away unhurt, although he complained for days afterwards that he’d suffered whiplash.