Sometimes your sensibilities make absolutely no sense!

Holly James is looking for her big break. A young journalist for BritTEEN magazine, she is dying to write about something more meaningful than pop stars and nail varnish. So when she spots a homeless teenager outside the office, she feels compelled to tell her story. But her evil boss Sasha has other ideas…

Holly is sent to interview a city solicitor she has never heard of. But Alex Barrington turns out to be the very opposite of fusty and boring and Holly’s interest struggles to stay strictly professional!

With Sasha sabotaging her every move, and her story about teens on the street leading her into London’s dark underworld, Holly is chasing both love and success at the same time. But happy endings like that only happen in books…don’t they?

Also available by Katie Oliver

Prada and Prejudice

Mansfield Lark

Love and Liability

Katie Oliver

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Katie Oliver 2014

Katie Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472083968

Version date: 2018-06-20

KATIE OLIVER loves romantic comedies, characters who “meet cute“, Richard Curtis films, and Prosecco (not necessarily in that order). She currently resides in northern Virginia with her husband and three parakeets, in a rambling old house with uneven floors and a dining room that leaks when it rains.

Katie has been writing since she was eight, and has a box crammed with (mostly unfinished) novels to prove it. With her sons grown and gone, she decided to get serious and write more (and hopefully, better) stories. She even finishes most of them.

So if you like a bit of comedy with your romance, please visit Katie’s website, www.katieoliver.com, and have a look.

Here’s to love and all its complications…

To my editors, Lucy Gilmour and Helen Williams, for taking this book from ‘not bad’ all the way to ‘fabulous’; to my agent, Nikki Terpilowski, who believed in me and my stories right from the start; to my Twitter friends, for their numerous reTweets and mentions and follows and favourites; to my coworkers, who read the very first draft (and still liked it!); and lastly, to my dear, understanding, and very supportive husband, Mark. I couldn’t do it without you, Mr Oliver.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Endpages

About the Publisher

Copyright

Prologue

The girl stepped down from the bus, clutching the strap of her rucksack tightly. The doors closed behind her with a gassy wheeze, and the N38 rumbled off towards Charing Cross Road, leaving her alone on the pavement.

She eyed the deserted street uncertainly. What now? It was nearly dawn, and she had fifty quid to her name. That wouldn’t go far in London. At least she’d managed to sleep on the bus.

Too bad her sleep had been plagued by nightmares…

No one knew she was gone. Not mum, nor dad. Not Erik. She shuddered. Especially not him. So it was okay. She was in London, and she was safe. She had a bit of money. And — she slid her hand into her jeans pocket just to reassure herself — she had her mobile phone.

Her stomach rumbled. She re-shouldered the rucksack and trudged down Shaftesbury Avenue, intent on finding breakfast somewhere.

It’ll all work out, she reassured herself. Once she had a nice greasy fry-up of bacon, eggs and grilled tomatoes in front of her, she’d figure out what to do next.

There was a restaurant on the corner. It stayed open all night to accommodate hungry theatre-goers from the West End and time-pressed employees from the office towers nearby.

She went inside and slid onto one of the sticky red pleather banquettes and ordered fried eggs, bacon, and coffee.

Twenty-five minutes later, except for a bit of congealed egg yolk, her plate was clean. She pushed it aside and withdrew her mobile, and the black screen sprang to life.

She glanced down at the screen and frowned. The icons looked…different. And the background wasn’t the usual photo of a Himalayan sunrise; it was a snapshot of a blonde woman.

A woman she’d never seen before.

Puzzled, she pressed the “Contacts” icon. She didn’t recognize any of the listed names or numbers.

She scrolled through the list, her frown deepening, pausing on the entry named “My Phone”. She pressed it.

Erik’s picture popped up.

She gasped and dropped the phone with badly trembling fingers, and it landed with a clatter on the plate.

“You all right, love?” the waitress enquired as she paused to refill her coffee cup. “You’ve gone white as a sheet.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, and cleared her throat. “I’m fine.”

As the waitress left she retrieved the phone and found the “Settings” icon. Her finger shook so badly she could barely touch it. A glance confirmed her worst fears.

The mobile was Erik’s. She must’ve grabbed it by mistake on her way out of the door. And he’d enabled the satellite navigation…which meant that if he tracked this phone from another device — which he most certainly would — he’d know exactly where she’d landed.

She disabled the sat nav, but she knew it was too late.

Erik already knew she was in central London. And he wouldn’t stop looking until he found her.

She found a Superdrug and went inside. She needed to change her appearance, and fast. She handed over ten quid — money she really couldn’t spare — for a box of cheap hair colour and a tube of hair gel. On her way out she nicked a pair of scissors someone had left on the counter. Ten minutes later she locked herself inside a petrol station lav and set to work.

She stood in front of the dirt-clouded mirror and held out a length of her long, honey-brown hair. After a moment’s hesitation, she whacked it off with the scissors. Grimly she cut off the rest. When she’d finished, her hair lay all over the tiled floor and the sink was stained with black dye. Someone pounded on the door.

“’Ere, what you doin’ in there?” the woman demanded.

The girl paid no mind as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Staring back at her was a fierce creature with a menacing scowl. Her hair, now as dark as boot black, stuck up on top where she’d gelled it into a sort of mohawk; the sides and the nape of her neck were as close-cropped as a boy’s.

Her hair. Her beautiful, long hair…

She unlocked the door and brushed past the woman waiting outside to use the toilet. After exchanging glares, the woman went inside and slammed the door.

Well, she’d done it. Erik would never recognize her now.

How could he, when she barely recognized herself?

Chapter 1

“What do we have for the Christmas issue?”

Sasha Davis stood at the head of the conference table and eyed her editorial team expectantly. “Well? Ideas? Anyone?”

Holly James raised a cautious hand.

Sasha pressed her lips together and nodded at the assistant features editor. “Yes, Holly?”

“What about a round-up of the staff’s worst Christmases ever? You know — missed flights, Christmas dinner disasters…”

“Derivative—” Sasha sniffed “—and predictable. What else?”

“Top five most-wanted Christmas gifts for teenaged girls?” Kate Ashby offered.

“Boring.”

“What about a celebrity round-up of favourite Christmas memories?” Mark suggested.

“It’s been done.”

“Favourite celebrity Christmas songs?” he persisted.

“No.”

“Favourite celebrity Christmases spent in rehab?”

“Look, people,” Sasha snapped, “I know it’s barely July and Christmas is the furthest thing from our minds at the moment, but I. Need. Content.”

Several more suggestions were put forward, only one of which — ten stocking-stuffer items suitable for teenage girls for under £10 — met with Sasha’s approval.

“I want fresh ideas,” she announced as she prowled around the conference table, “not a rehash of the same old tired round-ups and lists. I’m thinking seasonal, but with a girly edge. I’m thinking fiction — perhaps a rollicking good ghost story? I’m thinking—”

Her mobile rang. She glanced at the screen and said, “Excuse me, I have to take this. Five-minute break.” She strode out of the conference room, murmuring into the phone as she shut the door after her.

Kate Ashby, Holly’s assistant and cubicle mate, leaned over and whispered, “Who’s on the other end of Sasha’s phone, I wonder? I bet it’s a new man.”

“Ugh — who’d be crazy enough to date a nightmare like Sasha?” Holly whispered back.

“Someone who’s into BDSM,” Kate murmured. “Think about it — Sasha would be a perfect dominatrix. Black leather bustier, a Swarovski-studded whip, her trademark black stiletto booties—”

They fell silent as the door opened and Sasha, the features editor of BritTEEN magazine, returned.

“As I was saying,” she began, launching back into her editorial vision for the Christmas issue, “I want a harder, less-girly edge in our articles going forward, and I want a fresh slant—”

Holly affixed an absorbed expression on her face and zoned out to study Sasha. In her severe black dress and leopard-print shoes, Sasha Davis looked like a predator…

…a very glamorous, expensively scented predator, to be sure, Holly reflected; but one vicious enough to rip your throat out with her perfectly manicured, blush-pink nails.

“—so I’m assigning Holly to handle the interview.”

Holly blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I apologize for interfering with your customary wool gathering this morning, Holly,” Sasha said as she crossed her arms against her concave chest, “but I’ve just assigned you to interview Henry Barrington.”

“Henry…Barrington?” Holly echoed. She knew the canned bio and name of every pop musician, every actor, and every aristo and quasi-celebrity in London. Yet she’d never heard of Henry Barrington, and she had no idea who he was or what he did.

“He’s a well-regarded financial solicitor in the City. It’s rumoured he might stand for MP during the next election.”

“But I haven’t time to conduct the proper research on Mr Barrington,” Holly objected. She wondered suddenly if Sasha meant to sabotage her by assigning her to interview a dead-boring City solicitor with political ambitions.

No, Holly decided. Not even Sasha could be that petty and small-minded…

“We need a human-interest piece for the next issue.” She fixed a gimlet eye on Holly. “And you’re going to do it.”

“I don’t mean to argue, Sasha — but he sounds…well, dull. No one wants to read about legal briefs and casework. Besides, we usually feature actors, or pop singers, or—” she blanched at the laser-like glare that Sasha riveted on her “—or someone a bit more entertaining to the average British teenager,” she finished lamely.

“So now you, inexperienced and barely out of uni, presume to tell me how to do my job, Miss James?” The room grew quiet.

“I’m sure Holly didn’t mean to do that,” Kate interjected loyally.

Holly flashed Kate a grateful smile before returning her attention to Sasha. “Of course I didn’t! I only meant that it might be difficult to find any entertainment value in an interview with a City businessman. Especially since you want our articles to be—” she curled her fingers into quotes “—‘harder edged’. Besides, teen girls want to read about—”

“I know what teen girls want to read about.” Sasha’s voice was frighteningly calm. “Henry Barrington is your interview assignment. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock sharp, at his office in the City. Be prompt. And don’t forget to ask the One Outrageous Question; I’ve emailed it to you, along with the address.” She leaned forward. “And make it entertaining.” Her narrowed dark eyes seared into Holly’s wide blue-grey ones. “Or, Miss James, you can find yourself another job.”

And she swept out of the conference room on a cloud of expensive scent and cold fury.

“Why does she hate me?” Holly moaned as they headed out of the door to grab a sandwich at the corner deli. “No matter what I do she finds fault.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Kate replied. “She hates everyone. I wonder who her new bloke is,” she mused. “She’s been getting a lot of personal calls on her mobile lately.”

“I hadn’t noticed. I’ve been far too busy trying to source cranberries for the Christmas crafts article. Have you any idea how difficult it is to find fresh cranberries in the middle of summer?”

“Yesterday she got a call and left halfway through the planning meeting,” Kate mused. “Valery was not happy.” Valery Beauchamp was Editor-in-Chief of BritTEEN magazine.

“Well, she hasn’t sacked Sasha yet. But there’s always hope.” Holly glanced up at the menu board. “Tuna on wholemeal,” she told the counterman, “with extra salad cream. And carrot sticks, please, no crisps. And a diet Ribena.”

She turned back to Kate. “I haven’t got time to research Henry What’s-his-name. And what’ll I ask him? I know the lyrics of every song the Arctic Monkeys ever did, but nothing about financial stuff. And the One Outrageous Question Sasha gave me — well, I can’t ask him that.”

“What’s the question?” Kate enquired with avid interest when they were both seated.

“You know I can’t tell you! She’d have my arse.” Sasha always gave each BritTEEN interviewer a single “Outrageous Question” to ask, a question that was kept under wraps until the issue went to print.

Kate shrugged. “Charm him! Make him laugh; get him to open up a bit. Then you can ask him the Question.”

“I don’t know…” Holly took a bite of her sandwich and took a dispirited sip of her diet Ribena.

“Look at the interview you got out of Dominic Heath! It’s what got you hired at BritTEEN, after all. No one’s ever been able to interview him properly. How’d you manage that, anyway?”

“I only know Dom at all because he and Nat were together for two years.”

“Nat? You mean Natalie Dashwood, his ex-girlfriend?” Kate demanded. “Crikey, Hols — you act as though you and she are bezzie mates! I didn’t know you ran round with ‘It’ girls and celebs in your spare time.”

“I don’t!” Holly said crossly, and bit into a carrot stick. “My dad is Nat’s godfather. And she’ll be my sister-in-law soon. So she’s practically family.”

“But she’s that department-store heiress, isn’t she? Dashwood and James? The stores almost went under last year.”

Holly nodded. She took a bite of her sandwich and reflected on the past tumultuous year. Her family had almost lost the stores; she’d learnt she had a half-brother, Rhys Gordon; and her sister Hannah became romantically involved with a working-class boy in the stockroom. Their father was furious and forbade Hannah to see him.

It was all very Romeo and Juliet…until a motorcycle struck and nearly killed Hannah, and all was forgiven.

Holly sighed. She’d had enough family drama to last a lifetime. Hopefully this year would be nice and dull.

“Wait a minute!” Kate’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean—? Are you Holly James, as in that Dashwood and James?”

“My dad and Nat’s grandfather are partners. She’s like a sister. Only nicer,” she added. Her own sister was a pain in the arse most times. “She blagged me the interview with Dom right before they broke up.”

“Shit, Holly! If your dad owns half of Dashwood and James, why are you working for this second-rate teen rag, then?”

“I have to make a living, just like anyone else. I can’t ride on my parents’ coat-tails any longer. And besides — I love working at BritTEEN.”

And mostly, she did love it. Even though she was little more than a glorified intern, and even though her father was always on about getting herself a ‘proper job’, and even though Sasha was a nightmare in high heels who had it in for her…

Despite all that, she loved the work. Besides, writing for the magazine was a proper job, she thought indignantly. It wasn’t her fault that it didn’t pay much.

“Well,” Kate observed as she pushed her chair back, “this interview’s a good chance to prove yourself.”

“I suppose.” Holly sighed and stood up. “But it won’t be easy. Henry Barrington probably has bifocals and a receding hairline. There’s no way to make this interview entertaining.”

“Put your own spin on it,” Kate advised. “Find a way to make the story sexy.”

“Sexy?” Holly echoed. “Dividends and legal briefs are not sexy, Kate. I’m so screwed.”

But as she followed Kate out of the door Holly knew she had to find a way to make it work, or she’d lose her job.

Sasha Davis would see to it.

Chapter 2

Holly noticed the homeless girl as she and Kate left the deli ten minutes later.

“I need the loo,” Kate complained as she hitched the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. “That soda’s gone straight through me.”

“I’ll see you back at the office,” Holly replied. “I need to make a call.”

As she pulled her mobile phone out her attention strayed to the homeless girl once again. She was curled up on a bench across the street, her head resting on a battered rucksack, her feet tucked beneath her, and her eyes were closed.

Her hair was black, cut into a choppy shag that looked as if she’d done it herself with a pair of kitchen shears. It stuck up in a semi-mohawk on top. With a stud in one eyebrow and another in her nose, she looked seriously intimidating.

Holly guessed she was no more than sixteen, seventeen, tops — the same age as her sister.

Who was she? How had she ended up here, sleeping on a bench on Shaftesbury Avenue?

Oh, well — I’ll be late getting back to my desk if I don’t hurry, Holly reminded herself as she scrolled through to her father’s private number and pressed “Call”.

“You’ve reached voicemail for Alastair James. Leave a message.” Holly sighed and dropped the phone back in her handbag. She’d call him later. As she rounded the corner to head back to work she heard a shout ring out behind her.

“Help! Somebody stop him, please!”

Startled, Holly looked up to see a man running across the street, straight towards her. He dodged a minicab and a Fiat, clutching something against his chest, and the homeless girl pelted after him in hot pursuit. Holly realized he’d grabbed the girl’s rucksack. Acting purely on instinct, she sprinted forward to give chase.

“Stop, you!” she shouted.

He saw her and veered to the left. Hampered by her wedge heels, she plunged after him, weaving through the throngs of people on the pavement, gradually closing the gap between them. She was just about to tackle him when a lady walking a dog blocked her way. Holly darted sideways, nearly tripping over the dog’s leash, and fell.

“Are you all right?” the dog-walker enquired.

“I’m fine,” Holly replied breathlessly, with barely a glance at her bloodied knee. “I was chasing a man. Did you see where he went?”

“No, sorry. I was too busy keeping hold of Pip.”

Pip, a bulldog, sat on his haunches and regarded Holly with panting canine indifference.

“Did he take your purse, then?” Pip’s owner asked in concern.

“No. He took a homeless girl’s rucksack, and I was trying to get it back.”

The woman tutted and shook her head. “Stealing from the homeless? Shocking. Whatever is this world coming to? At any rate, he’s gone now.”

By the time Holly made her way back to Shaftesbury Avenue, a crowd had gathered on the pavement in front of her building. Curious, she pushed through the knot of onlookers to see what was going on. Astonished, she came to an abrupt stop.

The homeless girl had chased and tackled the thief and clung to his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Get the hell offa me, you crazy bitch!” he snarled.

But the girl held fast, stuck to him like a determined limpet, until a policeman arrived on the scene.

“All right, miss,” the uniformed officer told her, “get down, now. I’ve got this.”

“Arrest him!” she demanded. “He stole my rucksack!”

“Step aside, please, and I’ll take him in for questioning.”

Scowling, she slid off him and pummelled him with her fists instead. “You thieving piece of shit! Proud, are you, stealing from a street person? How pathetic is that?”

“You crazy cow.” He scowled at her as the policeman grabbed his arm and took him into custody.

“You’ll need to come to the station and file a report,” the policeman told the girl as he led the thief away.

“No problem, I’ll be there.” After retrieving her rucksack, she unzipped it to check that everything was inside, then slid the strap over her shoulder and turned to Holly.

“Thanks,” she said as the crowd began to disperse. “Everything I own in the world’s in there.”

“I didn’t do anything. You caught him,” Holly pointed out. “I’m just glad you got your stuff back.” She hesitated. She should offer to buy the girl a cup of coffee, at least.

She opened her handbag and dug around until she found her last five quid; it wasn’t much, but it was all she had at the moment, until she got a chance to talk to her father.

And five quid was enough to buy a cup of coffee.

“Here.” Holly withdrew the money and looked up, the note in her outstretched hand. She glanced around her, perplexed.

The homeless girl was gone.

Her mobile rang. Holly glanced down at the number and grabbed the phone. “Dad, how are you?”

“You’d know how I am, if you called occasionally.”

“Sorry, I’ve been really busy.”

“You phoned earlier. Why didn’t you leave a message?”

“I had to go. There was a robbery at lunch, right outside our building.” The minute she said it, Holly wished she hadn’t. She winced. Three, two, one…

“A robbery?” he exploded. “Good God! I don’t like you working so near the theatre district, Holly. It’s a very dodgy area, you know. Muggers, vagrants. Actors.”

“I’m fine. The thief’s been caught and he’s on his way to jail.” She bit her lower lip. “While I have you on the line, though, there’s something I want to ask you…”

He sighed. “How much do you need this time, Holly?”

“Well — the rent’s due at the end of the week, and if I don’t make the car payment tomorrow, they’ll tack on a late fee, which seems so unfair, but there you are—”

“How much?” he said again, wearily.

Holly did a quick calculation in her head. “Um…four hundred pounds should just about cover it.”

“Yes, until next month, when we go through this nonsense again,” Alastair bit off. “You’re irresponsible when it comes to money, Holly, just like—”

“—My sister,” she finished, stung by his criticism. “I know. You’ve told me often enough.”

“I don’t mean to be unreasonable, but this can’t go on. You’re working on that teen magazine, making very little money, when you could have a real job here at Dashwood and James, if you’d just stop being so bloody stubborn—”

“Working at BritTEEN is a ‘real’ job! And is it being difficult to want to stand on my own two feet?” Holly demanded.

“But you’re not,” he shot back. “That’s my point! I’m subsidizing you every month. I help with the rent, the car payment, the grocery bills, petrol—”

“And I’ll pay back every penny, I promise! Living in London is expensive, even with a flatmate to share the rent.”

“There’s a simple answer. Come back home. You’ll be near work, you can come and go as you please, and your mum will welcome the company now that Hannah’s off to university. We’ll be gone at the weekends, so you’ll have the place to yourself.”

Because he worked in the City during the week, her family lived in London, and on Friday evening he and her mum escaped to Oxfordshire to spend the weekend at their house in the country.

But during the week they’d be here, Holly knew, and how was she to smuggle Mick past Dad — and Mum, who had a finely tuned radar for such things — into her bedroom? If her father even suspected she was seeing Dominic’s blue-haired bass player, it would be Hannah-and-Jago, all over again.

No, thanks.

“You can save your money,” her father was saying, “and decide on a better course of action. It makes a great deal of sense, financially speaking.”

“I like living on my own,” she objected, “even if it means eating Pot Noodles every day, and buying my clothes at Oxfam—”

“And borrowing money from your well-heeled father’s bottomless pockets to pay your bills every month?”

Holly sighed, defeated. He was right.

“Come to my office tomorrow and I’ll write you a cheque for five hundred pounds,” he said.

“Oh, thanks, Dad, thanks so much—”

“This is the last time, Holly.” His words were steely. “I mean it. You’ll get no more financial aid from me after this. So you’d best find another way to make ends meet next month.”

Chapter 3

“Hey, Alex!”

“You owe us a pint, mate!”

“How was she, Alex? What was it like to shag that sexy new MP? You did shag her, didn’t you? Come on — give us details!”

As he strode past his coworkers’ desks, briefcase in hand, Alex had a smirk on his face. “Sorry, but a gentleman never tells. And the bet was a pint if I failed to seduce Ms Shawcross within two days. I did it in a day and a half. So it’s you lot who owes me a pint.”

“When we made the wager, you said you’d prove the deed was done,” Tom, another solicitor, reminded him. “How do we know you’re not lying through those perfect white teeth of yours?”

Just outside his office, Alex paused and reached into his breast pocket. He withdrew a red silk thong and dangled it out on one finger. “Does this suffice as proof positive, gentlemen?”

As catcalls and dirty laughter erupted behind him, Alex went inside his office and shut the door. He thrust the thong back in his pocket. As he caught sight of the paperwork covering his desk his smile faded.

He had a mountain of casework to tackle, including the pair of high-profile clients his boss, Simon, had dumped on him late yesterday.

There was a discreet knock on the door. Jill, his secretary, edged the door open and peered inside. “Sorry to disturb, but your nine o’clock is here.”

He settled himself behind his desk and reached for the phone. “Ask him to reschedule. I’m rather busy this morning.”

“Her,” she corrected him. “She says it’s urgent, and that she’ll be sacked if she can’t speak with you today.”

Alex sighed and returned the phone to its cradle. “Oh, bloody hell. I don’t want anyone to get sacked. All right — tell her I’ll give her fifteen minutes. But that’s all.”

“Very good,” she replied, and started to close the door.

“Oh, and, Jill?”

She paused expectantly. “Yes?”

“What does she look like? Is she young? Old? Is she attractive? Or is she a bit — you know — woof-woof?”

Jill pursed her lips in disapproval. She hated questions like that, and her boss knew it very well. He was an excellent solicitor, and a wonderful man; all the women in the office adored him. But she suspected he enjoyed teasing her.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” she replied, and shut the door.

Holly looked up from her seat on the tufted leather wing chair as Henry Barrington’s secretary returned.

“He’ll see you shortly,” she informed Holly.

“Thanks.” Holly sighed. At least she’d have a few more minutes to gather her thoughts.

Every time she’d gone to Google Henry Barrington yesterday afternoon, she’d been interrupted. As a result she knew nothing about him. She didn’t even know what he looked like.

She reviewed her knowledge of finance. Money, obviously, and, um — stocks, bonds. Bank statements. And overdrawn bank statements — which hers would soon be, if her father refused to help her, or if Sasha sacked her…

As to her knowledge of law — well, she read John Grisham and watched Law and Order sometimes. She knew the police gathered evidence and built a case, so that men and women in robes and wigs could prosecute them in court. What was up with those wigs, anyway? They made grown men look like…spaniels.

Holly sighed. She was in deep, deep trouble here. Oh, well — she reached down and straightened the collar of her vintage sweater — at least she looked presentable. Perhaps Mr Barrington would be so overcome by her stylishness that he wouldn’t notice her financial ignorance.

As she flicked dispiritedly through the pages of the magazine on her lap, her thoughts wandered. Had Anastasia Steele felt this nervous, she wondered, when she’d first interviewed Christian Grey?

“Mr Barrington,” Holly imagined herself purring as she stood before a tall, icily handsome blond man, “I’m here to interview you. I’m writing an article, ‘Fifty Shades of Henry’.” She met his cold — yet über hot — blue gaze. “I’d no idea you were so attractive. Or so very, very kinky—”

“Miss James? Mr Barrington will see you now. His office is located at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you.” Holly stood on shaky legs and made her way down the hall. Her heels sank soundlessly into the thick carpet. She felt in her shoulder bag for her steno pad — check. Pen — check. Voice recorder — she groped around amongst the keys and lipsticks and crumpled KitKat wrappers, searching — but there was no voice recorder.

Where the hell was it? She knew she’d put it in her bag first thing this morning; she knew she had—

While she scrabbled in her bag like a demented squirrel looking for nuts, Henry Barrington’s office door swung open.

“Miss James? Henry Barrington. Please, come in.”

“You’re Henry Barrington?” Holly blurted out.

His hair was thick and dark, with just the slightest bit of curl, his eyes a velvety brown. “Alex,” he corrected her as his hand enclosed hers. His grasp was firm and warm as he ushered her in. “You sound surprised.”

Holly preceded him inside the office. She had a vague impression of bookshelves and mahogany panelling and the quiet, hushed atmosphere of a library. “That’s because I was expecting someone, erm, a bit…different.”

“Someone,” he observed with a quirk of his brow, “older?”

“Yes! That’s it exactly. I was expecting a man named Henry, who combs his hair over his bald spot, has a high, shiny forehead, and who wears sock suspenders and a regimental tie.”

“Well,” he said, amused, “I may not fit that very detailed description, but, I assure you, I’m fully qualified, despite my non-regimental tie and full head of hair. Please, sit down.”

Under his dark navy-blue suit he wore a shirt pinstriped in paler blue. A wafer-thin watch flashed on his wrist as he indicated one of two wing chairs angled in front of his desk.

Holly sat down. They certainly liked wing chairs here at the Grosvenor Financial Group.

He resumed his seat behind the desk as his secretary appeared. “Ah, here’s Jill.” As she entered and set down a footed silver tray with coffee, milk, sugar, and cups he turned to Holly. “Is something wrong, Ms James? You look puzzled.”

“Wrong? No.” She accepted a cup of coffee with cream from his secretary. “I thought your name was Henry. Not Alex.”

“It is. Alexander is my middle name. Hence—” he smiled a brief but nonetheless devastating smile “—Alex.” He placed the cup of tea with lemon Jill handed him to one side. “Now — what can I do for you today, Ms James?”

“I…er…” All intelligent thought fled as she met those velvety brown eyes. His lips looked as firm and inviting as a Greek statue’s, but better, because they weren’t carved of marble, but were made of warm, kissable flesh…

“Ms James?” he prodded.

Holly mentally shook herself. She couldn’t remember a single thing she’d planned to ask him. “I…like your red handkerchief,” she stalled as she dragged her gaze away from his lips. “It looks very stylish with your navy-blue suit.”

“My red handkerchief?” he echoed. “But I’m not wearing a handkerchief.”

“Yes, you are.” Her glance strayed to his breast pocket.

He glanced down. The red thong peeked saucily out. Alex reddened and thrust the offending bit of silk deeper inside his pocket. “I’m very busy this morning, Ms James. If you’d be so good as to tell me what this is all about…?”

“I’m here to interview you,” she said, and set her mini-recorder on the edge of his desk and switched it on, “for BritTEEN magazine.”

“You want to interview me — a solicitor — for a teen magazine?”

Holly nodded. From his tone of mild distaste and his slightly raised eyebrow, he obviously equated teen magazines with porn.

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I asked my boss the exact same question. ‘Who’d want to read about some boring old solicitor?’ I asked her. ‘Teen girls want to read about lip gloss, and boy bands, not barristers and quid pro quo…’”

When she caught sight of his forbidding expression, her words faded away. Oops.

“Are you implying that we in the legal profession are — or, more specifically, that I am — boring, Ms James?”

“Oh, no,” she hastened to say, “not at all! It’s just that…legal stuff, and stocks and bonds — well, those aren’t things the average teenage girl is interested in, are they?”

Oh, God, she thought, please let the floor open up and swallow me whole, right now.

But God wasn’t listening, because she remained where she was — sitting red-faced with embarrassment on the chair in front of Henry Barrington’s immense, and vaguely intimating, desk.

“No, I expect not,” he agreed, and leaned forward. He gave her a roguish smile. “Perhaps we should sex it up a bit.”

Chapter 4

Holly blinked. “I-I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Go ahead,” he commanded, “ask me a question. I’ll do my utmost to make the answer interesting, despite my tragically dull life as a member of the legal profession. Never let it be said that Henry Alexander Barrington bored the average teenage girl. Carry on, Ms James.”

Holly sat before his desk with her pen poised over her notepad — she always took notes in addition to recording her subject — and before she could stop herself, blurted, “Are you married?”

Heat suffused her face. Oh, shit, what a stupid, stupid question. Where in hell did that come from?

He lifted his eyebrow. “Married? No.”

“What exactly is it that you do, Mr Barrington?”

He regarded her, baffled. “I thought interviewers generally knew a bit about their subjects beforehand.”

“Well,” Holly apologized, “usually they do, but I didn’t have any time to prepare.” Gamely she added, “It’s something to do with the law, and finance, isn’t it?”

He nodded cautiously, as if placating a lunatic. “Yes.”

“So you’re a barrister, then?”

“Solicitor,” he corrected her.

“I see. Do you wear a wig?” she enquired.

“No, thank God.”

“Why do they wear those wigs, anyway?” Holly asked with real curiosity. “They look ridiculous.”

“Well, originally the wigs provided anonymity, and ensured the judge wouldn’t favour one barrister over another. Now they’re mainly ceremonial.”

She glanced at her notes. “There’s a rumour you’re planning to stand for MP in the next election. True?”

“I’m considering it, yes. But I’d rather you didn’t put that in your article.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “My boss mightn’t like it. I’d have to quit if I won, you see.”

She nodded and crossed through her notes. “No problem. So what is it you do here, exactly?”

“Well, in my capacity as a solicitor, I research financial casework for my clients. Then I give my instructions over to a barrister, who presents the case in court.”

She scribbled a note on her pad. “You invest money for clients, too, don’t you?”

“Some of them, yes. And if I’ve done my job properly, my investments make my clients more money.”

Holly put an absorbed expression on her face and took notes as he talked in detail about index funds, buy-outs, and a lot of other incomprehensible and dead boring financial stuff.

Pro, she scribbled, her pen flying across the page, A.B. dresses conservatively, but well. She leaned forward slightly. And he smells divine. Con, she scrawled, no sense of humour; goes on relentlessly about dead boring financial stuff…

“Ms James?”

Holly started. “Oh. Sorry. What?”

“Have you any more questions?”

“Well…there is one thing…” She pressed the tip of her pen against her lower lip. “We always ask what we call our ‘One Outrageous Question’, you know.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

She couldn’t ask it. He was far too posh and upper-crusty. But Sasha would have Holly’s head if she didn’t ask the One Outrageous Question and get at least one memorable — i.e., sexy — quote from Henry Alexander Barrington before he threw her out.

“Well?” he prodded, with a trace of impatience.

She hated to ask him the Question; it was impertinent. It was cheeky. But if she didn’t ask it, she’d be sacked.

“Do you…do you…?” She tried to finish, but couldn’t. The question got choked up in her throat and wouldn’t come out.

“Do I what?”

“Do you believe in sex on the first date?” she asked in a rush.

“What?” he exploded. “What has that to do with anything?”

“Well,” Holly said defensively, “you did say you wanted to sex up the interview.”

“Yes, perhaps I did — but this? This is ridiculous! What kind of a question is that to ask me — a solicitor — for an intended audience of…of spotty-faced teenage girls?”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s why we call it ‘One Outrageous Question,’ after all—”

His face darkened. “As a journalist — and I use the term loosely — don’t you find that question irresponsible? Don’t you think it wrong to present young girls with such salacious information? Wouldn’t they be better served to learn something useful, such as how to manage their money sensibly? You do your readers a disservice, Ms James.”

“We give our readers what they want, Mr Barrington.” Holly heard the defensive tone in her voice. She sounded just like Sasha. “And we publish topical pieces, too,” she added.

He didn’t look remotely convinced. “Indeed.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “Such as?”

Good question. “Well, such as…” Holly groped around in her thoughts for a suitably weighty subject, and suddenly a half-formed but brilliant idea sprang to mind. “Such as teen homelessness in London,” she finished triumphantly.

“Homelessness?” he echoed. “But aren’t there shelters? Don’t the local councils take care of these things?”

“They try. But with so many people on the streets, it isn’t nearly enough. People fall through the cracks.” She thought of the homeless girl, and her glance swept over the bookshelves full of richly bound leather law books and the plush Axminster carpet before coming to rest on Alex Barrington. “We have so much. And they have nothing. It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“That’s all very well,” he agreed, his face still a thundercloud. “But asking me if I condone sex on a first date for the delectation of a bunch of immature teenage girls is ludicrous and…and ill-advised.”

Holly stiffened. She didn’t know what he’d said, exactly — all that lawyerly talk did her head in — but she was sure there was an insult contained in there somewhere.

“I’m sorry, Ms James, but this entire line of questioning is out of order.” He glared at her. “I refuse to condone underage sexual activity in the pages of a teen magazine, in between adverts for spot creams and flavoured lip gloss!”

“But the readers of BritTEEN want answers to these kinds of questions, you know. Our readers are young, smart, hip—”

“And have no need to know whether or not I approve of sex on a first date,” he snapped.

“Well,” Holly retorted, “I doubt that they’d care, anyway. I mean, let’s face it, you’re not exactly Justin Bieber.”

“And you’re not exactly a candidate for the Man Booker prize,” he shot back, “are you?”

Holly closed her steno pad and thrust it in her bag. “No need to be insulting, Mr Barrington,” she said primly.

“You started it—” he began, then let out a slow, aggravated breath. “Good God, I feel like I’m eight years old, having a row with my sister. This is ridiculous.”

“You could tell me the answer off the record, you know.”

“Out,” Alex said firmly, and came around his desk to grip her by the arm. “Off you go.”

“Wait a minute! My recorder—” Holly snatched it up, too flustered to turn it off, and stared at him in confusion. “What are you doing? You’re not throwing me out?”

“I most certainly am. Thank you very much, Ms James, but you need to go. You’ve wasted enough of my time.” And he pressed his lips together and pulled her unceremoniously towards the door.

Chapter 5

Outraged, Holly pulled back, and as she did her handbag slid off her shoulder and landed with a soft thud on the carpet.

She groaned as all of her personal effects — tampons, Mentos, even the raspberry-flavoured condom she’d got as a consolation prize at her best friend’s hen night — spilled out on the thick pile carpet in full, inglorious display.

Holly bent down, hot-cheeked with mortification, and scrabbled to pick up the wayward items.

“Here, let me.” Alex knelt down next to her, and as he did the bit of red silk tucked in his pocket fell out.

Holly’s eyes widened as she saw the red thong lying on the carpet. “Oh, my God! That isn’t a handkerchief in your pocket — it’s a red thong!”

“Yes, it is.” His words were abrupt. He grabbed the thong and thrust it back into his breast pocket. “I had a wager with the boys in the office. Harmless bit of fun, that’s all.”

“I so don’t want to know,” she snapped.

“Ah — I believe this is yours.” His eyes met hers, gleaming with amusement as he handed over the foil-wrapped, raspberry-flavoured condom.

Holly opened her mouth to explain, but nothing came out.

“Never mind,” Alex told her. “I so don’t want to know.” He raised his brow. “I’d say we’re about even on the embarrassment scale, wouldn’t you?”

Holly managed — only just — to nod. Mortified, she shoved the condom back in her bag, murmured her thanks, and fled towards the door.

“Ms James, before you go…”

“Yes?” Holly turned around.

“Have you never thought of pursuing a job as a serious journalist? Your talents are obviously wasted on BritTEEN.”

As her surprise gave way to anger, Holly’s mouth opened and closed like a trout just landed out of the water. Before she could form a reply, he spoke again.

“Oh, and one more thing before I throw you out…”

“Yes?” she snapped.

“Off the record—” he paused “—that means I can say something, but you can’t publish it — I do approve of sex on a first date. Absolutely. But having said that,” he added grimly, “I’m referring to responsible adults, not teenagers with spots and raging hormones. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy, Ms James. I haven’t time for any more of this nonsense.”

Before Holly could object to this latest insult — nonsense, really? — he wished her a curt “good afternoon” and ushered her out, shutting the door firmly after her.

Alex returned to his desk to get ready for his next appointment. As he leaned forward to press the intercom button a pink marabou feather floated in the air where Holly James had stood and drifted, slowly, to the floor.

He went around his desk and bent down to pick it up. It was soft, like the downy back of a newly hatched chick.

“Silly girl,” he murmured, and shook his head.

Absently he thrust the feather in his pocket, then turned back to his desk and pressed the intercom button. “Send in the next appointment, Jill.”

“How can I help you, Mr Russo?” Alex asked the famous chef when they were both seated a few minutes later.

“How can you help me? You can make me more fucking money,” Marcus replied succinctly. “That’s how you can help me.”

Alex was taken aback, but managed a polite smile. “You’ve come to the right place. Making money for my clients is, after all, my job.”

Marcus grunted. “I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version of my finances, then, shall I? I’ve expanded too quickly and my company’s losing money. I’m behind in payments to my suppliers, and I owe the bank seven million pounds. And to top it off, my wife has upped sticks and left me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The bottom line, Mr Barrington,” Russo finished, “is this: my new restaurant, Brasserie Russo, has to succeed, or else my company goes under. And I refuse to let that happen.”

Alex leaned back in his chair. “Well, Mr Russo, I’d recommend you file bankruptcy and restructure your debts. Then we’ll need to make your investments work harder for you.”

Marcus grunted. “And how do we do that?”

“I’ll work out an investment strategy best suited to your needs. Decide how risk-averse you are, and go from there. And I’d suggest you find ways to cut costs in your current business operations, if you haven’t already. Have you any property you can liquidate and divert into stocks?”

Marcus shook his head. “I owe a seven–million-pound overdraft to my bank; if I sold my house today, they’d take every fucking penny.” He eyed Alex. “I just signed a deal with ITV to do a reality show, Chefzilla. The cameras will follow me at work and at home.” He frowned. “Of course, if I’d known my wife would do a runner, I wouldn’t have agreed to do it. We start filming next week. It should be lucrative…and entertaining.”

Personally, Alex had his doubts, but he nodded politely.

“Invest my television fees, Mr Barrington,” Marcus went on. “Slap the cash into whatever stocks you think best.” He stood. “You come highly recommended. I trust your judgment.”

“Thank you.” Alex stood as well and shook Russo’s hand. The chef’s grip nearly broke his fingers. “I’ll draw up a portfolio and have it ready next week.”

But Marcus, heaping abuse on some poor unfortunate at the other end of his mobile phone, was already striding out of the door, leaving a trail of Acqua di Parma and four-letter words in his wake.

Chapter 6

Late that same evening, Holly typed the last line of her interview with Alex Barrington. It was hopeless. She’d done what she could to make the article entertaining; but how entertaining could Quick Service Restaurant stocks and barristers’ wigs really be?

Answer: Not very.

Sasha would hate it. She’d say it was dead boring, not what their teen readers wanted, that it wasn’t sexy or “girly” enough…and even though Sasha was the one who’d given Holly the damned assignment, she’d be absolutely right.

But at least she’d sourced some great photos of Alex Barrington. In one, he stood at the helm —bow? — of a sailboat, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze; in another, he leaned forward with an absorbed expression as he listened to the Home Secretary talk — about financial law, no doubt.

Holly pressed her lips together. She couldn’t believe Alex had a thong tucked in his breast pocket, like a…a trophy!

What kind of man made bets with his office mates about having sex with someone? The same kind, she supposed, who threw journalists out of his office.

Obviously, Alex Barrington was a self-important arse. And he was a disgusting perv, to boot.

“Here you go, bitch boss from hell,” Holly muttered as she typed in Sasha’s email address and pressed send. She’d given up Friday night with her friends to work, sitting in front of the lurid blue glow of her laptop — all because Sasha expected to see the interview in her inbox first thing Monday morning.

Twenty minutes and three quarters of a vodka-and-grapefruit juice later, her email inbox pinged. Sasha.

Holly sighed, topped up her drink with a bit more vodka — well, she’d had a horrible day; she deserved it — and opened the email.

Holly — This is crap. Forwarding to Valery for review and comment, Sasha.

“Shit!” Holly put her glass down, scrambled to hit reply, and typed, “Let me make any changes needed first!” and hit send.

“Not necessary. Want her to see as is,” came the immediate reply.

“Back-stabbing bitch,” Holly muttered.

Her mobile rang. Holly grabbed it and frowned at the number. Caller Unknown. It must be Sasha, already phoning to gloat and inform her in no uncertain terms that she was sacked.

“Look, Sasha,” Holly snapped as she answered her phone, “I did the best I could with that interview with Henry, but teen girls don’t give a rat’s arse about QSRs and derivatives!”

There was a pause. A posh male voice said, “Perhaps they would do, if they understood that the dividends from those dull QSRs would keep them well stocked in spot cream, lip gloss, and useless teen magazines well into their dotage.”

Oh, no! That upper-crusty voice…those multi-syllabic words…it was Henry — correction, Alex — Barrington. Holly closed her eyes and groaned. Could her day — this endless, endless day — possibly get any worse?

“How did you get my number?” she demanded. Was he a stalker, too?

“It’s on your business card. Which I found under your chair after you left, along with a keychain.” His words were stiff. “Which I thought perhaps you might need.”

“No, of course I don’t need it,” Holly said crossly. “I have masses of business cards.”

There was the faintest trace of amusement in his voice. “I was referring to the keychain, Ms James. Not the card.”

Oh, what a mess. It just kept getting worse and worse. Forget the grapefruit juice, she needed straight vodka…or, truthfully, perhaps the vodka was the problem…

“Look,” she said finally, “just put the keys in a Jiffy bag and mail them, okay? I’ve had a really bad day—” her voice wobbled ever so slightly, but she got it back under control “—and I don’t want to bother you any further.”

“It’s no bother.” He paused. “The reason I’m calling is twofold. One is to apologize.”

Holly took a steadying gulp of her vodka and…vodka. “Apologize? Whatever for? You were quite right, I wasn’t prepared, and, anyway, I write nothing but salacious dreck. That was what you called it, wasn’t it?”

He had the grace to sound uncomfortable. “I suppose I did. But you have to admit, BritTEEN isn’t exactly The Guardian—”

“But it isn’t meant to be!” Holly interrupted. “It’s entertainment. And what entertains teen girls are pop stars, and clothes, and the latest shades of lip gloss.” She took a gulp of her drink. “Maybe they’d be better served by articles on finance and — and educational stuff, but that isn’t the magazine’s focus. The focus is fashion. And make-up. And fun.”

“And whether I condone sex on the first date?”

Holly flushed. “I had to ask that,” she said defensively, “or I’d be sacked. Don’t worry, your answer won’t go in the article. It’s strictly off the record.”

“I’m very glad to hear it.”

“At any rate, I accept your apology.” She frowned. “What was your other reason for calling?”

“I wondered if you’re free for dinner next week.”

Holly held out her phone and stared at it in astonishment. Her first instinct was to say yes, of course she was free, and her second was to fling open the windows like Scrooge on Christmas Day and shout, “You, there, boy! Run and fetch me the biggest bottle of champagne you can find. Alex Barrington has just asked me out!”

“You’re asking me out on a…date?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes, a date,” he replied, and added, “wherein two people who like one another decide to go out together.”

She saw herself sitting across from Alex in some fancy restaurant, holding her champagne glass out as he topped it up with Perrier-Jouët, and she could almost taste the tart-sweet raspberries he fed to her across a candlelit table…

She bit her lip. If she said yes and Mick found out, he’d throw a four-colour, photo-op temper tantrum.

On the other hand, why not go out with Alex? It wasn’t as if she and Mick were engaged, or anything. With his electric-blue mohawk and multiple tattoos, Mick was as well known for playing bass in Dominic’s band as he was for chasing women.

Holly sighed. After the cock-up she’d made of her interview with Alex Barrington, not to mention that humiliating business with her bag, she couldn’t possibly go out with him. No matter how much she might want to.

Plus, what would they talk about? His girlfriend’s thong?

Her phone crackled in her ear. “Miss James? Are you there?”

“Oh — yes, sorry. I don’t think I can,” she managed to reply. “I — I think I’m kind of busy next week.” Was she insane? Was she really refusing a dinner date with a gorgeous, sexy man, a man who looked like Henry Cavill and Hugh Dancy all rolled into one?

Puzzlement coloured his voice. “I don’t understand. You think you’re busy next week, but you’re not sure?”

“Oh, I’m busy,” she said quickly. “There’s no question of that.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the thong, does it? As to that, I can explain—”

“Please don’t.” Her words were clipped. “It’s none of my business, after all.”

“But it’s not what you think.”

“What I think doesn’t matter.”

“Very well,” he said after a moment, “I’ll say goodbye, then. If you have any more questions, please call. Sorry if I was a bit of an arse today.”

“A bit of an arse?” she said. “You were a complete prat.”

To her surprise, he laughed. All right, it was a small laugh, not a loud guffaw, but still. He did have a sense of humour somewhere under all that starch and correctness. “I suppose I was, yes.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Of course, Holly had no intention of calling him again, no matter how attractive he was. What would she say? Hello, Alex, it’s Ms James from BritTEEN. You remember…the girl you threw out of your office and who called you a prat. Oh, and by the way, did you find my tampon? I think it rolled under your desk…

“No, it’s fine. I think we had a mutually crap day today.”

“Really? Why was yours crap?”

“Bit of a long story.” He paused. “I’d much rather discuss it with you over dinner.”

She clicked open her interview document and stared at the photos of Alex. He was unquestionably sinful to look at. She couldn’t just hang up, never to see him again. Suddenly she found herself blurting, “Perhaps we could meet up for lunch one day next week. I think I could manage that.”

“Excellent.” His voice was tinged with amusement. “Glad you could fit me into your busy schedule, Ms James.”

“I’m a very busy girl, Mr Barrington,” she informed him as she ran his interview document through the spell checker. “I’ll see you next week, then.”

“I’ll have Jill check my schedule and get back to you on Monday morning, if that suits.”

“That suits perfectly,” Holly murmured. His voice — so warm and sexy and posh — had gone straight to her brain and frozen it, while making the rest of her feel decidedly warm. “I’ll talk to you then. Bye.”

Chapter 7

To: vbeauchamp@BritTEEN.com

From: sdavis@BritTEEN.com

Valery - Attached is Holly James’s “One Outrageous Question” interview with Henry Barrington, a City solicitor/financier. Not sure if Holly’s up to standard on this one, felt it didn’t quite suit our content, but she insisted, so here it is.

Personally, have my doubts.

Sasha

Sasha clicked “send”. There. Her email to Valery would hammer a nice, sharp nail in the coffin of Holly James’s soon-to-be-over career at BritTEEN. She grabbed her mobile, scrolled down the list of programmed numbers, and pressed the last.

“It’s done,” she said without preamble as the line was answered. “Meet you in twenty at the usual place.”

Sasha scanned her desk one last time and prepared to head out. She reapplied her lipstick, Chanel’s latest — she’d raided the magazine’s beauty closet — and pressed her lips together. As she tossed the lipstick and mobile in her bag and gathered up her things, her inbox pinged.

To: sdavis@BritTEEN.com

From: vbeauchamp@BritTEEN.com

Go with it. It’s fresh and vibrant and exactly the kick in the arse BritTEEN needs. Guitar-smashing pop stars and flavour-of-the-week starlets are so bloody yesterday.

Want this as our featured Q&A article next month. Ensure it goes in the book before close of business Monday.

Afterwards, come to my office. We need to talk.

VB

Valery Beauchamp

Editor-in-Chief

BritTEEN Magazine

“Damn it!” Rage suffused Sasha’s face as she reread the email from her boss. She slammed her laptop shut. Valery was supposed to nix Holly’s interview, not feature it in the next bloody issue! And what the hell did she want to talk about?

A tiny tremor of fear crept through her. Valery wanted to get rid of her; she was sure of it. Her boss had been distant and cold — not that she wasn’t normally distant and cold, but even more so than usual — convincing Sasha that Valery was displeased with her work performance. She’d heard rumours that Holly was being groomed to move up into another position…

Which might mean that Sasha was being replaced.

Sasha didn’t like Valery, but she loved her job. When she’d first arrived at the magazine, she’d been straight out of university and thrilled to be hired as a junior editorial assistant. Despite the long hours, low pay, and serious curtailment of her social life, she’d revelled in being a part of the editorial team.

And although she sometimes grew weary of Valery’s unceasing demands and the high-pressure deadlines, with her recent promotion to Features Editor she now had a crack staff — except for Holly bloody James — to oversee, and a sense of satisfaction at how far she’d come. No more council estates or crummy bedsits for her.

Despite its drawbacks, Sasha reminded herself, she liked her job and meant to keep it. She had to keep it, at least until she found something better — like a rich husband — or got a promotion or a hefty pay rise. She needed the money, after all; she had bills to pay. Crushing bills that she could barely keep up with…

Sasha clasped her hands together to stop them from shaking. She knew her team all thought she was a shallow, bloody-minded bitch. And perhaps, sometimes, she was. But she got things done. Despite everything, she got things done…

Her mobile phone rang.

“Hello?” she snapped. She listened for a moment, and her voice softened. “Hello, how are you? That’s great… I’m glad to hear it.” She paused. “No, I can’t see you tonight, love. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. Yes, okay. I promise.”

She rang off and leaned back in the chair. A headache was brewing. As she rubbed her forehead in a vain attempt to ease the tightness, Sasha realized she couldn’t keep this up much longer. It was all getting to be too much.

As she glanced again at Valery’s email on her laptop screen, her resolve hardened. She had to find another way to sabotage Holly. She retrieved her mobile and hit redial.

“It’s me again. There’s been a change of plan. Meet me in my office as soon as you can.” She paused at the protests that filled her ear. “Just do it!” she snapped. “If you want to be the next features sub-editor — and if you don’t want me to tell Valery you didn’t actually graduate from business school — then you need to help me get rid of Holly. Or you’ll continue making copies and fetching coffee for a very long time. I’ll see to it.”

Sasha snapped the phone shut and strode to the smaller office adjoining hers. Scowling, she began to riffle through Holly’s desk, looking for her interview notes. There had to be something, somewhere in this mess of papers and folders and KitKat wrappers… How on earth did Holly stay so thin? She ate like a bloody horse…

“I’m here.”

Sasha barely glanced up. “Good. Get busy and help me find something — anything! — that’ll make Holly look bad. An unpaid parking ticket, a faked expense account, a secret love child with Phil from Accounting…”

“Okay. Move over.” Kate Ashby tossed her bag down and began to yank open desk drawers. “I doubt there’s anything here. Holly’s working on the interview at home, so her notes won’t be here.” She straightened. “I’ll go home and see what I can find. Perhaps she’ll leave her document open—”

“Never mind that,” Sasha said impatiently, “just find her notes. Look for something — anything — that we can use against her. An off-the-record comment, for instance.”

Kate looked at her doubtfully. “Holly told me she uses a mini-recorder to do interviews, as a back-up if she misses something in her notes.”

“There you are. Perfect. Find something, anything, that Holly — or, more importantly, Henry Barrington — wouldn’t want in print, and slip it into the interview.”

“But, Sasha — if we print an off-the-record comment, BritTEEN could be sued for libel.”

“That’s what libel insurance is for.” Sasha strode back into her office.

Kate followed her. “But…what about your job? You could get sacked for this.”

“I won’t get sacked,” Sasha said, “because only you and I know about this. And you’re not telling anyone, are you?” She flicked a glance at Kate and sat down behind her desk.

“Why do you have it in for Holly, anyway?” Kate asked, curious. “You’ve always said that if things ever go pear-shaped, you’ll marry money; so why do you care if she gets your job, then?”

“I don’t. She can have my bloody job, and welcome to it. I just can’t stand girls like her, that’s all.”

Sasha jerked her middle drawer open. Her position as Valery’s assistant was hard won, and often difficult, but it was hers. She’d always loathed the smart, clever girls in school, the ones who never struggled with maths or French the way she did, the ones who effortlessly earned top marks.

Instead, Sasha devoured fashion magazines and learned how to dress stylishly on a budget, how to use cosmetics to make the most of her features, who the top clothing and shoe designers were and what made their designs so sought after. She knew the fashion world like the back of her hand.

And she refused to let a pampered clever clogs like Holly James show up and take her hard-won success away from her.

Ever since Holly had joined the BritTEEN staff, Valery seemed to find favour with Sasha less and less, yet lavished praise on Holly.

And Sasha was bloody sick of it.

“Holly’s no threat to you,” Kate scoffed. “She hasn’t your experience, for one thing.”

“No, she hasn’t. And she’s never walked twelve blocks to a job interview, either, or shopped at Oxfam — not for fun, mind you, but because that’s all she could afford. She’s never lived in a bedsit in a dodgy neighbourhood, or eaten a jam sandwich for dinner because there was nothing else.”

Sasha clasped her hands tightly together, remembering. Had six-year-old Holly ever lain in bed, listening as her mother and a strange man went at it in the next room? Had she ever come home from school to find her mum passed out on the sofa, an empty bottle of gin lying beside her on the floor?

Of course she hadn’t.

“Still, she seems okay,” Kate added doubtfully. “She helped me get this job, after all.”

“She’s a posh little princess. She wouldn’t know hardship if it bit her on the arse.”

Kate opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. “My dad and Nat’s grandfather are partners,” Holly had said off-handedly, as if co-owning a major British department store were nothing special.

And even though she liked Holly, Kate felt, not for the first time, a tiny knife-twist of jealousy.

It wasn’t fair that while she struggled to make ends meet, borrowing money occasionally from a payday lender to cover her bills, Holly James worked, probably as a lark, so she could buy the latest handbag or an extra pair of designer shoes.

“Holly’s not posh,” Kate said, but her words lacked conviction. “Her family’s well off, that’s all. She can’t help that.”

“Perhaps not,” Sasha agreed, “but nor should her family name allow her any special considerations. Valery already thinks Holly’s ‘promising’ and ‘full of good ideas’.” She snorted. “Full of herself, more like.”

“But you’re Valery’s assistant, not Holly. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Sasha assured her smugly. “Once this interview with Henry Barrington hits the stands, Holly bloody James will find herself booted out of BritTEEN so fast her knickers will catch fire.”

Chapter 8

“Oh, shit,” Holly mumbled as she sat up in bed and groped on the table for her mobile. She squinted at the number on her screen and groaned.

Her father was the last person she wanted to talk to this morning. Because just now, it felt as though a DJ was spinning house music right inside her head.

Maybe she’d had one too many vodka and grapefruits last night.

“Hi, Dad.” She blinked against the sunshine streaming through a gap in the curtains. “What’s up?”

“Your mother asked me to call and invite you down to Oxfordshire this weekend. We’re having a few of the neighbours round for a dinner party.”

She winced. “Oh. Okay. I suppose I could.”

“Don’t sound so enthused.”

“I am enthused,” Holly told him as she went into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. “I’m not quite awake yet.”

“It’s nearly noon. Out late clubbing, were you?”

“I wish.” Holly took down a cup. “No, I was working.”

“You work the longest hours for the lowest pay of anyone I know—”

“Don’t start, Dad. Please?”

He sighed. “She’s invited John and Enid to stay the weekend as well. You remember — they lived next door when you were small.”

She didn’t, not really. “Right.”

“I can count on you, then? I’d like to spend some time with you over something other than a chequebook.”

John and Enid. Holly frowned. They had two sons, both grown. One was married, and the other was in banking or insurance or something equally boring.

She scanned the calendar on her mobile. “There’s nothing important going on. What time?”

“Shall we say seven? Get there a bit earlier and we can have a drink beforehand.”

“Great, I’ll see you on Friday.” As she ended the call Holly tried to picture John and Enid’s sons, and failed. One worked in the City and the other was…an architect? Actuary? Something with an ‘A’…

She plunked a tea bag in her cup and went back to her bedroom, noticing as she did that Kate’s door was firmly shut, and sat down at the desk. Her laptop was still open. She jiggled the mouse and the screen sprang to life.

She checked her email to see if there’d been any further response from Sasha about Alex’s interview, but there was nothing. Holly frowned. She knew she’d sent it. Perhaps she’d just have a quick look to make absolutely sure…

Yes, there it was. She’d sent the interview to Sasha late on Friday evening. Twice.

Holly frowned. Odd, that; she’d sent it once, not twice. Oh, well — her email must be acting wonky again. Or she’d hit ‘send’ twice. That was what drinking two vodka-and-grapefruits while you worked did to you, she supposed…

“Make me some tea, love, eh?”

She looked up to see Mick leaning against the doorway in his boxers. He usually didn’t stir before mid-afternoon.

“You’re up early. Rehearsal today?”

Blearily he nodded and followed her back into the kitchen. He sat slumped at the table as she found a mug and fixed his tea.

“You didn’t come to bed,” she added, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

“I passed out on the sofa when I came in this morning. I didn’t want to wake you.” He wrapped his hands round the mug she handed him. “I thought you’d come down the pub last night.”

Holly finished her tea and set the cup in the sink. “I told you, I couldn’t. I had to work.”

“Oh, yeah, work. Right. That’s all you ever do, innit, putting in all those hours for that stupid teen rag.”

“BritTEEN isn’t stupid,” she said defensively, having had this argument before. “We have a high pass-along rate, and our readership is second only to Bliss—”

He thrust his chair back. “I’ve heard it all before, haven’t I? I got things to do. I’ll see you later.”

Holly turned from the sink to face him. “No, you won’t.” She was suddenly furious, fed up with Mick and his dismissive attitude. He’d never taken her job at BritTEEN seriously; he’d never taken her seriously. “Go ahead and leave. But don’t bother coming back.”

He stood there in his boxers, his blue hair standing straight up like a rooster’s comb, and stared at her in bafflement.

“What are you on about? That time of the month, is it?”

As quickly as it came, her anger left. You have to care to be angry, Holly reflected guiltily, and she didn’t care enough about Mick any more to be bothered.

She grabbed her bag, feeling sad and deflated. Another relationship bites the dust. What she desperately needed was some retail therapy. “Look, I’m going out. Please be gone by the time I get back.”

“Right, then,” Mick said, and scowled. “Fine. It’s past time I moved out, anyway.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” She brushed past him and went out of the door.

And she didn’t say goodbye.

When Holly returned to the flat that afternoon, her arms laden with shopping bags, Mick, along with his lads’ magazines, amplifiers, and bass guitars, was gone, and so was Kate. An extravagant bouquet of white roses sat in the middle of the kitchen table. The flowers smelled heavenly and must’ve cost a fortune.

She picked up the tiny envelope with a frown. Had Mick sent them? She snorted. Not likely. He hadn’t a romantic bone in his body. Besides, he only ever spent money on motorcycle parts and bass guitars. Holly lifted the envelope flap with her newly French-manicured fingertip and slid out the card.

By way of apology for being such a rude git,

Alex

P.S. — Found one semi-squashed packet of Mentos under my desk. Believe it belongs to you. Will return soonest.

Holly smiled.

The front door banged open and Kate came in. “Ooh, they’re gorgeous, aren’t they?” she breathed as she heaved a bag of groceries from her hip onto the counter. “Bloke delivered them just before I went out. Good thing I was here. Who’re they from, anyway?”

Before Holly could answer, her mobile rang. The number was unfamiliar. “Hello,” she said cautiously.

“Did you get the flowers?” Alex asked.

“Yes, thanks. They’re beautiful.” She walked into her bedroom — Kate was unabashedly eavesdropping — and shut the door. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“I did. I was inexcusably rude.”

“Well…yes.”

“And I acted like a pretentious tosser.”

“You did,” Holly agreed, “but I’ll forgive you. This time.”

“Thank you,” he said gravely. “For my penance, I’ll take you to the OXO Brasserie for lunch on Tuesday.”

“I see. So taking me to lunch is your punishment — is that what you’re saying?” Holly countered.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “I can’t think of anything more mind-numbingly awful than spending lunch seated across a table from you. I’m dreading it already.”

“It’ll be excruciating.”

“I’ll pick you up at noon on Tuesday.”

“No need.” If Alex so much as set foot in the BritTEEN offices, there’d be no end of speculation from her co-workers, not to mention Kate. Alex Barrington was gorgeous, and he was hers — well, at least for the duration of Tuesday lunch — and she wanted to keep it that way. “I can meet you there.”

“No, I insist on doing this properly. I look forward to seeing you again. Oh, and by the way, Ms James — I believe I have something that belongs to you.”

“What’s that? My Mentos?”

“No. A pink feather, actually. It came off your sweater the other day. I thought you might want it back.”

“I wondered what happened to it,” Holly murmured, and rang off. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

“So, who sent the bouquet?” Kate enquired the moment Holly emerged from her bedroom. “Don’t tell me it was Mick.”

Holly snorted. “As if he’d ever send me flowers! No. Besides, we’re officially over.”

“Good,” she approved. “He’s a knob. By the way, Holly,” she called out as she disappeared into the kitchen, “you never did tell me who sent you those flowers.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Holly replied tartly, and went into her room and shut the door.

Chapter 9

At nine-thirty, Sasha called the weekly staff meeting to order. “We’ve come under fire from the Teen Magazine Arbitration Panel for having, and I quote—” she paused “—‘an increasingly sexually oriented ethos’. The TMA want us to publish more responsible, age-appropriate content.”

“But teen girls want to read articles about sex, and interviews with shirtless boy-band celebs,” one of the beauty sub-editors protested. “The feature on Trevor Wilde was our biggest-selling issue.”

Violet, a middle-aged woman who wrote the magazine’s monthly agony aunt column, leaned in next to Holly and whispered, “Excuse me, dear…but who’s Trevor Wilde?”

“He’s a footie player,” Holly whispered back. “Really hot, married for about ten minutes to that pop singer, Keeley—”

“Ms James.” Sasha turned and focused her gaze on Holly. “Would you care to share your conversation with the rest of us?”

“Oh. Sorry,” Holly said quickly. “I was just explaining to Violet who Trevor Wilde is.”

“Violet should know who Trevor is.” Sasha glared at the older woman. “It’s her job to know these things.”

“But I offer advice,” Violet said, “not celebrity gossip.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sasha shot back. “I expect every one of you to keep up with the latest news, fashion, and celebrity doings. Is that clear?”

Violet reddened. “Yes.”

“Excellent.” Sasha returned her attention to the staff seated on both sides of the conference table. “Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable articles?”

“I do,” Holly offered, and raised her hand.

A deep sigh escaped Sasha’s lips. “Yes, Holly, let’s hear it. I know I speak for everyone when I say we can hardly wait.”

“Well,” Holly said, ignoring the collective titters around the table, “lately I’ve noticed a homeless girl sleeping on the bench outside our offices.”

“Oh, yes!” Zara, the accessories editor, chimed in. “I’ve seen her, too. Isn’t there somewhere else she could go? After all, emergency accommodation is available.”

Holly looked at her. “That’s true. But I’ve done some research, and the night shelters are crowded, plus there aren’t nearly enough to go around. And with budgeting cuts—”

“Oh, you read something besides Heat?” Mark, staff illustrator and the king of snark, asked her. “Fancy that.”

Holly ignored him and returned her attention to Sasha. “I’d like to talk to her, maybe write a feature on homeless teens in central London. I thought I might shadow her for a couple of days, see what it’s like to sleep on the street and eat out of rubbish bins—”

“Ugh! That’s disgusting,” Padma, the assistant beauty editor, said with a shudder. “No teenage girl wants to read about something like that.”

“I don’t agree,” Holly retorted. “Why shouldn’t the story of a girl living on the streets of London be as compelling to read as — as Rihanna’s latest hair colour?”

“You’re missing the point, Holly,” Padma informed her. “We’re a teen entertainment magazine, not The Guardian.”

“I think it’s a fabulous idea, Holly,” Sasha pronounced. “It’s got edge. Let’s go with it.”

“Er…thanks.” Holly blinked. Although Sasha glared at her like a cat who’d just swallowed a hairball, at least she’d given her approval. Holly had expected a full-on battle with Sasha, not this bloodless capitulation.

“Does anyone else have anything to add?” Sasha asked.

She scanned the faces around the table, but no further suggestions were forthcoming. “Good. Holly’s pitch fits in nicely with the arbitration panel’s demand for more responsible content.” She smiled tightly and added, “Well done, Holly.”

When Holly finally escaped the building, it was just after two o’clock and the bowl of cereal she’d had for breakfast was a distant memory. After volunteering to help one of the interns unpack several trunks from a recent accessories shoot, she’d missed lunch, and now she was ravenous.

She glanced across the street. The homeless girl was slouched on her bench. Holly waved and made her way to the Starbucks next door, where she joined the queue and ordered two coffees with extra cream and sugar on the side and a muffin, studded with currants and dusted liberally with sugar.

Juggling the cardboard tray of coffees and the bagged muffin, Holly crossed the busy road.

“Got you a Venti,” Holly said as she handed over the bag and the tray, “and a muffin. What’s your name, by the way?”

The girl hesitated. “Zoe.” She took the bag and a coffee. “Thanks.” She took a cautious sip. “You work in that office building over there, don’t you?”

Holly took the other cup and nodded. “I write articles for BritTEEN magazine.”

“Articles? Like what?”

“Well,” she said as she perched — cautiously — on one end of the bench, “things of interest to the average teenage girl. Like where to find cool clothes without spending a fortune, boy-band interviews, that sort of thing.”

Zoe snorted. “Girly crap.”

“Some of it,” Holly admitted, and took another sip of coffee. “But we do some harder-hitting stuff, too.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Holly chose her words carefully. “For instance, I pitched an idea just this morning to do a story about teen homelessness in London.”

“No one cares about that,” Zoe retorted. “Especially not the ‘average teenage girl’.”

Annoyed that Zoe was echoing Padma’s sentiments, Holly bristled. “You’re wrong. I think it’s exactly what girls want to know about. What it’s like to live on the streets, how does one manage—”

“One learns to skip-dive,” Zoe interrupted, affecting a posh accent, “and one sleeps on a shelter cot.” She shook her head in disgust. “God, you’re a right prize, you are.”

“What do you mean?” Holly demanded, incensed.

“I mean, what do you know about living on the streets, eh? Your idea of a hardship is probably carrying last season’s bag.”

“That’s not true—”

“And there’s your posh accent, and your clothes.”

Holly stiffened. “What about my clothes?” She glanced down at her paisley-patterned, empire-waist dress.

“You look like you shop at Oxfam. All careless and artsy and ‘I-can-afford-Harvey-Nicks-but-I-buy-second-hand’.”

“Enjoy the coffee,” Holly said tightly, and got to her feet to leave. “And thanks so much for the fashion critique.”

“Don’t get mad,” Zoe said, and shrugged. “I like it, actually. It’s bohemian, mixed-up. Very Alexa Chung.”

“Thanks.” Only slightly mollified, Holly eyed the girl and added, “You seem to know a bit about fashion.”

Again, she shrugged. “I read the magazines sometimes,” she admitted grudgingly. “I study all the designers’ stuff. I know what I like and what I don’t. One day, I want to go to Central Saint Martins and get my degree.”

“Wow,” Holly said, impressed. “That’s quite a goal. Do you want to design clothes? Or do sketch art?”

“Design clothes,” she answered. She glanced down at the safety-pinned T-shirt under her worn leather jacket and back up at Holly, her expression defiant. “This is my homage to the Sex Pistols.”

Holly eyed it and nodded. “It’s good. It’d fetch fifty quid in a boutique. So, tell me, how’d you land here? Why are you sleeping on this bench?”

“Well, I checked, and wouldn’t you know it? Buckingham Palace was booked right up last night.”

Holly pressed her lips together. “There’s a night shelter right round the corner—”

“Yeah, and there’s a queue to get in, and then you risk having your stuff nicked while you sleep. No, thanks.”

“But it has to be better than sleeping here,” Holly persisted.

“Look, thanks for the coffee, okay? I’m fine. I can sleep anywhere.”

Holly set her cup down and reached into her handbag, searching until she unearthed her business card. “I work just there.” She nodded her head at the office tower across the street. “Here’s my card. I’d like to talk to you again. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Brill. We’ll have a chinwag and a shop at Harvey Nicks,” Zoe said, and smirked. But she took the card Holly held out to her and thrust it into her rucksack.

That was exactly the sort of smart-arse thing her sister Hannah would say. She turned to go.

Zoe lifted her coffee cup in farewell. “Ta.”

As Holly made her way across the street and back up the steps to her office building she couldn’t resist a glance back. Zoe — if that was her real name — had taken the muffin out, and, after looking furtively around, crammed it hurriedly in her mouth…

For all the world as if she was afraid Holly might come back and snatch it away again.

A stack of mail waited in the slot when Holly returned home that evening. She withdrew the envelopes and flicked through them with mounting dismay. British Gas. Student Loan Association. Car payment. Car insurance…

Which reminded her, the Skoda was acting wonky. Which meant it probably needed repairs, she reflected grimly, which meant spending more money she didn’t have.

It was sad, really — she used to look forward to getting the mail. The post was always full of pleasant surprises like magazines and free samples and college catalogues. Now, with her finances in a tailspin and her father refusing to bail her out, going through her correspondence was an ordeal.

All the Royal Mail brought her these days was bills.

Holly let herself into the flat and tossed the post down on the hall table. She needed a second job…and fast.

A noxious smell greeted her.

“I’m making us dinner, Hols,” Kate called out from the kitchen. “My tofu stir-fry and homemade tzatziki are coming right up.”

Holly winced. ‘Coming right up’ was apt, in more ways than one. The last time Kate made Tzatziki, it was a curdled mess. She had no illusions that tonight’s would be any better.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” Holly said. “I suppose I should stockpile the falafel, though — since I won’t be able to afford to eat soon, much less pay my share of the rent.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

She popped a cucumber slice in her mouth. “I’ve got too little incoming, and too much outgoing.”

“What about your dad? He usually helps you out.”

“He told me in no uncertain terms that my free ride is over. I’ll have to get another job.”

Kate turned to stare at her. “Quit BritTEEN, you mean?”

“No, of course not. I mean, I’ll need a second job.”

“Sasha doesn’t allow moonlighting,” Kate reminded her. “If she finds out, she’ll sack you.”

“I know. And I can’t afford to lose my job.” She looked up with a frown. “You won’t tell her, will you?”

Kate turned back to her tzatziki. “Of course not,” she said cheerily. “We’re mates, after all, aren’t we?”

Chapter 10

Just before noon, Alex Barrington arrived at BritTEEN’s reception desk.

“Hello,” he said to one of the three girls behind the counter. “I’m here to see Ms Holly James.”

Her eyes widened behind her glasses. “Yes, of c-course,” she stammered, and reached for the phone handset, knocking a pencil jar askew in the process. “I’ll c-call her n-now,” she mumbled, and blushed a virulent shade of red as she scrambled to gather up the pens and pencils rolling every which way.

“Thank you.”

Holly arrived in Reception a few minutes later. “Hello, Alex. Sorry if I kept you waiting.”

“Only two minutes,” Alex said, and eyed her above-the-knee skirt with obvious approval. “And well worth the wait, I might add. You look very fetching today, Ms James.”

“Only today?” she asked, and quirked her brow. “So I didn’t look fetching when I interviewed you?”

“I’m sorry, but you only looked moderately attractive that day.” He held out his arm to her. “Shall we go?”

Holly smiled and took his arm, charmed by his light-hearted mood. “Yes, let’s do.”

Alex glanced back at the reception desk as they left. “Thank you. Sorry about your pencils.”

“It’s okay. My f-fault. And you’re welcome,” she murmured, her eyes behind their glasses still riveted on Alex.

“Poor girl,” he murmured as he followed Holly into the lift. “She has a regrettable speech impediment.”

“Oh, Alex — Eleanor doesn’t have a speech impediment.” Holly glanced at him and smiled. “It’s you.”

He looked at her blankly. “Me?”

Holly jabbed at the ground-floor button. “You have a devastating effect on women. You render them speechless.”

“Is that so?” He considered this, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I don’t seem to have that effect on you.”

“No,” she said lightly. “You’ve no effect at all.”

He linked her arm through his. “I’ll have to work on that, then, won’t I?”

As the hostess led them to a table at the Brasserie Holly covertly studied Alex. His back was broad, and his shoulders nicely filled out the grey worsted suit he wore.

She had a sudden, wild desire to grab him by his brown grenadine tie, pull him towards her, and run her fingers through that dark, floppy hair of his—

“Follow me,” the hostess said, and handed them menus as they seated themselves. “A waiter will be with you shortly. Enjoy your lunch.”

Alex studied Holly. “How’s your day going so far, Ms James?”

“Holly, please.” She opened her menu, still fuming over Zoe’s comment. “Actually, something happened yesterday…something that really cheesed me off.”

He leaned forward. “I’m intrigued. What happened?”

“I went out for lunch, and I saw Zoe — the homeless girl whose rucksack was stolen — and I bought her a muffin and a cup of coffee. And do you know what she did?”

“I’m guessing she didn’t kneel before you and clasp you round the legs and thank you profusely.”

“No.” Holly blinked. “Do you always talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“All, sort of, lawyerly.”

“Well, I am a solicitor, after all. So it would seem to follow that I should talk in a lawyerly fashion.”

“There you go again!” Holly accused him.

“Sorry,” he said, and smiled. “I promise to speak normally from this point forward. Go on.”

“She criticized my outfit! Imagine having your clothing critiqued by a street person,” she told Alex indignantly as she studied the list of starters. “That’s like…like Mahatma Gandhi judging a cooking show.”

“I wouldn’t worry. After all,” he added, “she’s living on the street; yet you’re upset over a negative comment about your clothing. Rather puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

Holly blinked. “You’re throwing my own words back at me, aren’t you?” She smiled slightly. “I guess I deserve it.”

“Unfortunately, as you pointed out when you interviewed me, homelessness is a very real problem. I’ve looked into the matter, and you’re absolutely right. With budgets slashed, there’s less help to go around at a time when it’s most needed.” He sighed. “But don’t get me started on my political soapbox. What will you have for lunch?”

Holly studied the menu. “The grilled sea bass, I think.” She laid the menu aside. “So have you decided to run in the next election, Mr Barrington?”

“Alex, please. And yes, I have. However, I’ll need ten parliamentary nominations in order to stand for my constituency.”

“Oh, you’ll manage that easily, no problem.”

He smiled. “Thanks for your vote of confidence. Now, tell me more about this very opinionated homeless girl.”

“Well, she knew my look was boho, and she knew who Alexa Chung was. Only a fashionista would know those things.”

“And what,” Alex asked, frowning, “is ‘boho’, exactly?”

She looked at him oddly. “You know — bohemian.”

He nodded. “Ah. Right. You know,” he added with a frown, “listening to you talk is like conversing with someone who’s fluent in a language I haven’t quite mastered. I understand most of the words, but some of them are entirely foreign.”

“Sorry. I promise, not another word about fashion, if you promise not to talk about law, or politics. Tell me about your crap day.” Holly sipped her water and regarded him expectantly.

“My crap day?” He paused to give their orders to the waiter — grilled sea bass for Holly, salmon for him — and turned back to her. “So far, my day’s actually been quite good.”

“No, I meant the other day, when I interviewed you. You called me that night, and said you’d had a crap day.”

“Oh. Yes.” He winced. “Well, I ended up with two new clients that afternoon. Both of them have proven to be very—” he paused “—difficult. And very high profile…”

“High profile?” Holly echoed, intrigued. “Ooh, do tell!”

He looked uncomfortable. “I really can’t discuss my clients with you. I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“Oh, come on! You can’t say something like that and then leave me hanging,” she protested.

“No, I suppose not.” He sighed. “Let’s just say, one of my new clients is a temperamental — with an emphasis on mental — rock star; the other is a hot-tempered television chef.”

Holly leaned across the table and whispered excitedly, “Wow, so are you saying that Dominic Heath and Marcus Russo are your clients? That’s so cool.”

“No, trust me, it isn’t cool. It’s dreadful. Despite his difficult reputation, Marcus Russo is…even worse. And Dominic…” He paused. “He’s a nightmare in leather trousers.”

“He can be,” Holly conceded. “But under the laddish exterior, he’s actually not that bad.”

“Oh? You sound as if you know him personally.”

“I do,” she admitted, “but not very well. He and Natalie — she’ll be my sister-in-law soon — were together for two years. She blagged me an interview with Dom. That’s how I got my job at BritTEEN.”

“Small world. They broke up, I take it.”

Holly nodded. “He dumped Natalie to marry his ex-wife…who dumped him just before their wedding ceremony, when she caught him shagging the bridesmaid. It was all over the tabs.”

Alex frowned. “Oh, yes. I remember. Quite a stir it caused.”

“And Marcus Russo…he’s a Michelin-starred chef!”

Alex nudged dispiritedly at his tumbler of water. “Yes. Nevertheless, it’ll be a headache to deal with either of them, much less the pair.” He leaned forward. “Enough about me, I want to know about you. Tell me all about Holly James.” He raised his eyebrow. “Sex on a first date? Yes…or no?”

“There you go again, throwing my own questions back at me.”

“It’s only fair.”

She toyed with her fork. “Well, it depends, of course.”

“On what?”

“On…things,” she hedged. “Like whether they — he, and she — are attracted to one another, or not.”

He reached out and picked up her hand. “And if they are?” he asked quietly. “Attracted to one another, I mean.”

Holly met his eyes. God, he was gorgeous, with those dark, penetrating eyes, and those lips, so firm and inviting, and so close to hers…

Just then, the waiter arrived with their lunches. “Who had the sea bass?” he enquired brightly.

“I did,” Holly said, and leaned back with mingled relief and disappointment. She waited as he set their plates down.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Alex observed after the waiter departed.

She picked up her fork and pretended to consider. “I think I’ll need a second date before I’m ready to give you a definitive answer.”

“Spoken,” he said with approval, “like a true politician.” He lifted his glass of water and waited until Holly did the same, then touched his glass to hers. “Here’s to a second date, Ms James,” he added huskily, “and quite possibly, a third.”

Chapter 11

“Have you ’eard, Jamie?” the delivery man called out as he backed his truck behind the restaurant and jumped down. “Your restaurant’s about to ’ave a bit of competition.”

Jamie Gordon wiped his hands on his apron. “Yep. I’ve heard.”

Opening a restaurant had been Jamie’s dream from the time he was a student at culinary school in Edinburgh. Seven years on, his dream was finally a reality. Thanks to his half-brother Rhys’s financial stake, Gordon Scots was open for business.

And now Marcus Russo, the popular, potty-mouthed television chef, was about to open a new brasserie right around the corner.

His mobile buzzed. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered as he saw Rhys’s name on the screen. “What’s up, bro?”

“I understand you have a competitor moving in.”

“Yeah. No worries. We’ve had great reviews and we’re busy as hell. Everyone loves the whisky bar.”

“Good. Nat wants you over for Sunday dinner soon. Oh, and she says to bring along one of your chocolate whisky cakes for afters.”

“Sure, let me know when. Give Nat my love. Talk soon.”

The deliveryman began unloading crates of fish from the truck. “That Marcus Russo may be one hell of a chef, but he’s a bastard to work for, and no mistake.”

Jamie glanced up from his inspection of a case of iced salmon. Russo, although notoriously abrasive and short-tempered, had half a dozen successful restaurants to his name, all boasting at least one Michelin star. He put aside the crate and reached for the next.

“I’m not bothered,” he said, and shrugged. “There’s room for both of us, I reckon.”

“Once I was five minutes late on a delivery,” the man said, and shook his head. “My truck was full up. He made me unload the lot, then refused to sign for the delivery. Had to load it all back on the truck. Right pissed off, I was.”

Jamie smiled slightly as he signed off on the delivery. “I bet you weren’t late again.”

“No,” he admitted, and handed down the last crate. “I wouldn’t hesitate to run ’im over with my truck, though,” he added. He slapped Jamie on the back. “See you Monday, mate.”

When Friday lunchtime rolled around, Holly pulled out her handbag and counted her money — barely eight pounds to her name; good thing she got paid tomorrow — and left her desk to run down to the corner shop. Her stomach rumbled as she emerged from the BritTEEN building.

Automatically her glance strayed to the bench across the street. Zoe had gone missing for the last couple of mornings. But today she was back, her rucksack under her feet and one arm stretched along the back of the bench, her face turned up to the sun. A skinny blonde with a neon-pink skunk stripe in her hair sat next to her, legs crossed, smoking.

If they noticed Holly, they gave no sign.

“Hey, Mr Singh,” Holly said to the tall, turbaned man behind the till as she grabbed three Cokes and a handful of chocolate bars and dumped them all on the counter. “Guess what? I might have my first feature interview soon. And I’ve got a mini-interview coming out in the next issue of BritTEEN.”

He rang up the items. “Congratulations.” He raised his brow as she added several Peperamis to the pile on the counter. “You’re very talented. And also very hungry today, I see.”

“No, it’s for someone else. Could you put everything but the Coke and the Peperami in a separate sack, please?”

Bags in hand, Holly waved goodbye and made her way across the street to join the two girls on the bench.

“Well, if it isn’t the boho queen,” Zoe remarked as her eyes swept over Holly’s outfit of a blue-striped Oxford shirt tucked into a butterfly-print skirt. “I like your bangles. Nice,” she approved. “Come from one of them posh shops?”

“No,” Holly said, admiring her armful of colourful wooden bangles as she held out a bag, “Camden market, two for five quid.” She turned to the blonde. “Hi, I’m Holly.”

She exhaled, releasing a plume of smoke. “Sharon. Ta.”

“We’re mates, Sha and me.” Zoe took the bag from Holly and rummaged inside. She withdrew a Coke and a Crunchie and offered the rest to her friend. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Listen,” Holly ventured as she sat down between the two girls, “how’d you like to be in a magazine?”

As she licked chocolate from her fingers — half of the Crunchie was already gone — Zoe snorted. “Who’d want to see the likes of us in a magazine?” she scoffed. “We’re not models or pop stars.”

“You don’t work for one of them lads’ mags, do you?” Sharon wondered.

“No!” Holly shuddered. “I work for a teen magazine.”

Sharon eyed her curiously. “Doing what, exactly?”

“Well, I write about things that interest teenage girls — interviews with boy bands, stories about back-stabbing friends who steal your guy — stuff like that.”

“Meet many celebs, then?” Sharon asked avidly.

“Well, I interviewed Dominic Heath last summer…but not usually, no. Anyway,” Holly forged on, “I pitched a story idea at the staff meeting.” She turned to Zoe. “I want to write about what it’s like to be a homeless teen in London. I thought I might interview you. Maybe shadow you for a day or two.”

“No!” Zoe’s answer was sudden and fierce. “No fucking way.” Abruptly she stood up, Crunchie wrapper falling to the ground, and grabbed her rucksack. “Come on, Sha, let’s go.”

“Wait!” Sharon said, confused. “Zo — why don’t you want to do it? At least think about it—”

“I said no. Let Holly’s teen rag find someone else to write about.” Zoe shoved the rest of the chocolate and crisp packets in her rucksack, swung it over her shoulder, and stalked away, leaving Holly and Sharon behind.

She didn’t slow her pace until she reached Piccadilly Circus. If she saw the curious looks cast her way, she gave no sign. Fury propelled her forward, and she scarcely registered the people she brushed past, so lost in black thoughts she was.

“Zoe! Hold up!”

She turned to see Sharon, breathless and flushed, running after her. “Sha? What are you doing here? I thought you were still back there, talking to the boho queen.”

“Why are you so hard on her?” Sharon asked. “She’s only trying to help.”

“I don’t need her help.” She began walking again.

“Shit, Zoe, why are you always so tetchy?”

She rounded on Sharon. “Why? Because if it wasn’t for my mum, I wouldn’t be in this fix. That’s why.”

“What happened, then? Tell me.”

They fell into step together, and after a moment Zoe began, haltingly, to talk. “My parents split up a few months ago. At first, I thought Mum’s new boyfriend was cool, you know? He had that Scandi thing going on — tall, eyes like blue ice, blond hair — and a car like something out of a Bond film.”

“Came on to you, did he?” Sharon observed knowingly. “When your mum wasn’t there?”

“Worse. He tried to rape me.” Zoe spoke flatly. “It started off okay — we messed around a bit when Mum wasn’t there. She wouldn’t let me go to Glasto with my girlfriends. I was pissed off.”

“So what happened?”

“What d’you mean, what happened? He wanted sex.”

Sharon shrugged. “So?”

Zoe glanced at her and away again. “I was a virgin, okay? I was scared. Didn’t wanna tell him that, though, did I? So I told him no and asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He’d been drinking…a lot. I got away, locked myself in my bathroom until he left. He said Mum would never believe me, and that he’d tell her I came on to him, that I wanted it.” She shook her head. “And the thing was, he was right. Mum would’ve believed him over me.”

“And so you ran away.”

“Yeah. I ran away. End of story,” Zoe finished.

“Are they looking for you? Your parents, I mean.”

“No. My dad’s so busy, I doubt he’ll even notice I’m gone,” she said, her words bitter. “He’s not home much. But Erik…he’s already looking for me.”

She’d thrown some clothes into a rucksack, along with fifty quid — birthday and Christmas money. Halfway out of the door, she’d realized she didn’t have her mobile.

“So, why’s Erik after you?” Sharon persisted. “If you ran away, why would he even care where you went?”

“I have his mobile,” Zoe retorted, “that’s why. He must’ve left it behind, and I grabbed it by mistake. And it’s got…things, on it. He’s involved in some pretty dogdy stuff, Sha. I think…” she hesitated “…I think he might be a sex trafficker.”

“Bloody hell,” the other girl breathed, and came to a stop. “You’ve landed right in the shit, haven’t you?”

Zoe’s hand tightened on the rucksack strap. “Yeah. Right in it.”

Chapter 12

Traffic out of London on Friday afternoon was epic. Holly resisted the impulse to turn around and go back home as she inched the Skoda along the Euston Road. Good thing she’d brought along some cheese and onion crisps and a Diet Pepsi. At least that red ‘check engine’ light wasn’t showing up today.

Holly sighed. Just get me to Oxfordshire, she silently urged the car. At this rate, she might not make it onto the A40 until tomorrow.

But once onto the exit at Oxford/Cheltenham, she quickly made up for lost time. She reached Chipping Norton just after five and turned up a dirt road edged haphazardly with foxgloves and nettles. As she braked in front of the seventeenth-century house, made of Cotswold stone and half obscured by ivy, she climbed out of the car and breathed in the scent of honeysuckle.

Holly retrieved her duffel bag from the back seat, noticing as she did the sleek Audi sedan and Range Rover parked nearby. Must belong to John and Enid Whatsit…

“Holly!”

Suddenly Mum was there, enveloping her in a Guerlain-scented hug, clucking over the empty crisp and Peparami wrappers strewn on the seat, asking her when she’d left London.

“Two hours ago,” Holly told her as she pulled her duffel out. “Traffic was murder, but—” her gaze swept over the fields, running riot with ox-eyed daisies and bluebells “—it’s good to get away, even if it’s only for the weekend. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s in the study with the dogs, reading The Guardian.” Her mother rolled her eyes. “Some things never change. Oh, and your sister’s coming back home tomorrow, for a few weeks.”

“Good. We text sometimes, but I haven’t seen her since she left for uni.”

Hannah, much to their mother’s dismay, had sailed off to a fine arts university in Norwich, following a tumultuous relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Jago.

“Well, come along inside. John and Enid are here, and I’ve had your old room tidied—”

“Mrs James!” Mrs Henley, the part-time cook, stood on the doorstep, arms crossed belligerently against her large bosom. “We haven’t any eggs. All them soufflés you wanted have used up every blessed one, and there’s naught to be had for your guests’ breakfast tomorrow.”

Cherie turned to her daughter. “We’ll talk later, darling. Drinks in the drawing room at seven, mind, don’t be late. Mrs Henley,” she called out briskly as she headed back to the house, “surely we can send someone to the village to get some eggs…”

“But the market’s closed, and I can’t spare anyone—”

“I’ll send Alastair to Tesco,” Cherie told her. “Problem sorted.”

Holly skirted past the two of them into the house and headed up the stairs to her old room. Once inside her bedroom — its pale pink and green striped walls still plastered with childhood posters of pop stars, shirtless footballers, and horses — she shut the door and threw her duffel bag on a chair.

She’d tossed the latest issue of BritTEEN in her duffel at the last minute but hadn’t had time to look at it yet. Her “One Outrageous Question” interview with Alex Barrington was inside, and she was dying to read it.

It was only five-thirty…plenty of time to shower and change before seven. Holly grabbed the magazine, belly-flopped down on the bed, and flipped eagerly to page thirty-seven.

There was the photo of Alex she’d submitted, showing him bare-chested at the helm — bow? she could never keep it straight — of a sailboat. He looked, as always, deliciously gorgeous. She dragged her eyes away from his photo and read the interview.

Financial solicitor…QSRs…a few sentences dealing with dead-boring monetary stuff…and — hold on! What was this?

Holly sat bolt upright, the magazine clutched in her hands.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be…

When Alex had objected to her original Outrageous Question, Sasha let Holly email him a different question following the interview. He hadn’t much liked that one either.

But he’d answered the question — boxers, or briefs? — in typical Alex fashion — “Boxers. Briefs are naff, as are Speedos. And I fail to see the relevance of this ridiculous question” — and that was that.

Or so she’d thought. Yet here it was, Alex’s off-the-record, I-can-say-it-but-you-can’t-print-it comment, in all its black and white glory:

BritTEEN: Sex on the first date? Yes or no?

AB: I do approve of sex on a first date. Absolutely.

“Oh, no,” Holly groaned. “No, no, no!” How was this possible? She’d submitted the article with the second question, not the first. She knew she had. Yet there it was, along with Alex’s answer, for the entire world to see!

Where was the bit Alex said just before he threw her out, about the couple being responsible and consenting adults, and not ‘spotty-faced teenagers with raging hormones’? Her eyes raced over the text.

It wasn’t in the interview. Anywhere.

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Even worse, Alex’s remark that he might stand for MP — also off the record — had been included as well.

How in hell had that happened?

Holly thought back to that night, typing away on her laptop. She’d emailed the first draft to Sasha, and asked to make changes before it went to Valery, but Sasha hadn’t listened. Annoyed, she’d had a vodka and grapefruit to drink — well, two, actually — and then Alex had called.

Holly racked her brain. She vaguely remembered running the interview through spell check, but the rest was a blank.

She scrambled off the bed and pulled out her laptop. It only took a moment to confirm that the document she’d emailed to Sasha and Valery contained no off-the-record remarks.

She frowned, perplexed. Had she sent another, second email? Her fingertips raced over the keyboard as she checked the ‘sent’ mail folder, and she froze.

There was a second email, sent an hour after the first, to Sasha.

She opened the email and saw, to her horror, another version of her interview…

A version that included all of Alex’s comments.

Oh, shit.

Holly grabbed her mobile. Damage control was needed, and right away. Frantically she searched for Alex’s number. He’d called her just a few days ago…where was his bloody number…?

Ah, here it was. Last Friday night, elevenish — bingo.

After two rings, the line clicked. “Barrington here. Leave a message.”

“Alex,” Holly blurted, “it’s Holly James. There’s been a bit of a…mix-up, and your off-the-record’s been published in BritTEEN. I’m terribly, horribly sorry. Call me as soon as you get this!”

She pressed ‘End Call’ and scrolled to Sasha Davis’s number.

“Hello,” Sasha’s cool, plummy voice intoned, “you’ve reached voicemail for Sasha Davis. Please leave a brief message.”

“Sasha,” Holly said in rush, “there’s been a massive mistake. My interview with Alex is in the new issue…and his off-the-record comments are in there, too. Call me, please.”

With a trembling finger she rang off. Sasha would be livid. Valery would be livid. And Alex Barrington would be the most livid of all.

He’d never, ever forgive her for this.

It was nearly half-past six, time to get ready for the drinks party. At the thought of getting through an interminable evening of polite chit-chat with her parents’ neighbours while her career imploded around her, Holly groaned. She could always make her excuses and leave…

But she didn’t want to disappoint her father. Besides, she needed him to take a look at the Skoda’s engine. The red fault light had come on again. And she certainly didn’t have the money to pay for car repairs — or next month’s rent…

Resignedly Holly stepped out of her clothes and went into the en-suite bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the upcoming evening’s ordeal.

The muted sound of jazz and murmured conversation drifted up to Holly as she descended the stairs to the drawing room.

Tugging at the hem of her dress, a brown pinstriped Biba she’d found in the Camden market, Holly fixed a smile on her face and clicked across the foyer in her t-strap heels. Right, then, let’s get this over with…

“Holly, there you are!” her mother, looking chic in a black trouser suit, swooped forward and took her daughter by the arm. “You look lovely. Come and meet everyone.”

Holly spotted her father, looking dapper in a dark grey suit and navy tie, in conversation with an older man — John, of John-and-Enid fame, she supposed — and excused herself.

“Holly.” Her father came forward and regarded her with approval, then brushed his lips briefly against her cheek. “You look very grown-up.” He indicated the man standing beside him. “You remember John.”

“Well, well, Holly!” He extended his hand. “The last time I saw you, you were wearing a pinafore and clutching a lolly,” he said, and beamed.

“Oh, I gave up lollies and pinafores ages ago.” She smiled politely and shook his hand, then turned to her father. “Dad — sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I need to ask you. It’s important.”

“Sounds like an imminent request for money, Alastair!” John said, and chuckled. “I’ll leave you to it. I need a top-up, at any rate. Nice to see you again, Holly.” He lifted his glass in salute and wandered off in search of the bar.

“Nice to see you,” she echoed. He really was rather sweet.

“Holly,” her father said in a low but firm voice as he drew her aside, “I’m not lending you any more money. I thought I made that abundantly clear.”

“You did. No, it’s my car. It’s been acting up, and I hoped you might take a look at it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s nothing specific; it’s just been acting a bit…wonky, lately.”

“Holly, you need to be more exact in your description than ‘a bit wonky’ if you want a mechanic to fix it. Of course, I’ll have a look under the bonnet…tomorrow.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Excuse me, but I need to rescue John from Lady Blandford’s clutches. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Thanks, Dad.”

“That can’t be little Holly James, can it?”

Startled, Holly looked up as an older woman approached her and brayed, “What a lovely dress. Vintage, is it? Biba, or Ossie Clark?”

“Biba. You have a very good eye.” Impressed despite herself, Holly realized this must be Enid, the other half of John-and-Enid. “It’s been a long time. Are your sons here?” she enquired. “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten their names.”

“I’m afraid William couldn’t make it. He’s married now, you know, with three boys. But my youngest is here…” Enid cast a vague glance around the drawing room. “At least, he was. He went outside with your father just a moment ago…ah!” She broke off as Alastair came back in through the French doors that led to the garden.

“Alastair,” Enid enquired, “is my son with you?”

“Yes, he’s just coming along. He and John and I slipped out to have a quick look at the Morgan.”

“-fantastic car,” the young man coming in after Holly’s father was saying. “Didn’t you have one, Dad, back in the day?”

“I did indeed!” John exclaimed, rosy-cheeked from the excursion and from his second bourbon on the rocks. “In my Cambridge days, I had a dark green Morgan. Loved that car — and so did the girls!”

“Before you men launch into your car talk,” Enid said, “Henry, darling, come here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. You and she were playmates, years ago.”

Henry? Warning bells sounded in Holly’s head. Her startled gaze came to rest on the tall, broad-shouldered man who’d entered the drawing room behind her father. Her eyes widened in shock.

Oh, no. It couldn’t be…but it was. John-and-Enid’s oldest son was…

Henry. Alexander. Barrington.

Chapter 13

Or, to be more precise, it was Hank, the little boy next door who’d sometimes shared her sandbox and backyard wading pool. He’d particularly enjoyed digging up bits of petrified, sand-covered cat poop, flinging them like missiles at Holly with his plastic shovel.

She’d disliked cats — and Hank — ever since.

“Alex?” she blurted.

His smile froze. “Holly!”

“What are you doing here?” they both asked at once.

“Oh — you know each other?” Enid asked, puzzled. “You played together as children, but that was ages ago—”

“Yes.” Alex glanced at Holly, his expression unreadable. “She interviewed me recently for her magazine.”

A slim blonde appeared beside Alex and held out her hand to Holly. “Camilla Shawcross. Did I hear Alex say you work for a magazine?” she enquired. “Which one? Elle? Vogue?”

“Erm, neither. BritTEEN, actually. It’s a teen magazine.”

Her face fell. “Oh? How…nice.” She turned to Alex. “Would you be a lamb and fetch me a drink?”

Holly stared at her. Was Camilla Alex’s girlfriend? Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God — you’re Red Thong!” she blurted.

Camilla stared back. “I beg your pardon?”

Alex shot Holly a sharp glance.

So it’s true, she realized. Camilla Shawcross is the owner of the red thong that was tucked in Alex’s pocket.

“Did you just say ‘red thong’? What on earth are you talking about?” Camilla demanded.

Holly cleared her throat. “Oh! Nothing. I just bought a…a red thong the other day. Love it! Wish I’d gone…erm, Team Thong, a long time ago!”

Camilla looked at her as if she were a dead bug and turned away.

“‘Team Thong?’” Alex muttered as Camilla disappeared into the drawing room. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

“Sorry,” she hissed back, “but it just came out! I’m right, though, aren’t I? She’s Red Thong!” she accused, eyeing Camilla Shawcross’s silk-clad back.

“Yes! No!” He scowled and ran a hand through his hair. “None of your bloody business!”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Holly retorted.

“Don’t you dare to breathe a word of this to Camilla,” he warned. “Or I’ll tell your father that you carry a raspberry-flavoured condom at the ready in your handbag.”

She gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” he said grimly. “Quid pro quo, Ms James.”

“That was a consolation prize at a hen party! You don’t think I carry flavoured condoms around with me, do you?”

He eyed her. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Alex?” Camilla paused in the drawing-room doorway and cast an expectant glance back at him. “Are you coming?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He gave Holly a last, warning glare and made his way to the drawing room.

Desperate to avoid Alex and Red Thong, Holly found her mother. “Is dinner nearly ready? I’m famished.”

“Mrs Henley assures me it’ll be just a few minutes more,” she promised. “Have a glass of something sparkly in the meantime, and mingle, darling.”

“Mingling is the last thing I want to do,” Holly muttered. But she grabbed a glass of Prosecco from a passing tray, took a deep breath, and dutifully made her way into the drawing room.

Relieved to see Alex and Camilla deep in conversation with her father across the room, she took a seat as far away from them as possible on the sofa.

As she made polite conversation with Lady Blandford, Holly took a small square of Cheddar skewered with a frilly toothpick and a very lengthy sip of Prosecco.

“I don’t know how you young people deal with that dreadful traffic every day!” the earl’s wife was saying. “It’s such a waste of one’s valuable time.”

“Yes, the traffic out of the city today was awful,” Holly agreed. “Do you go to London often?”

Her ladyship gave a shudder. “Oh, heavens, no. I make it a point to avoid London at all costs.”

“I’m sure that’s very wise of you, Lady Blandford.”

Holly looked up to see Alex standing before them, a drink in hand.

“London has its faults,” Holly agreed, irritated by his habit of popping up unexpectedly, like the Cheshire cat. “But as someone once said, he who grows tired of London grows tired of life.”

“Samuel Johnson.” Alex raised his brow. “Unfortunately, unlike in Sam’s day, London also means traffic, and train delays, and congestion charges.”

“Oh, don’t be so negative, darling.” Camilla came to stand beside Alex and linked her arm possessively through his. “I absolutely adore the City.”

“Ms Shawcross, I believe?” Lady Blandford enquired, and half rose to extend a regal hand. “It’s a pleasure.” She glanced at Holly. “Ms Shawcross is an MP, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.” So Red Thong was a Member of Parliament as well as Alex Barrington’s girlfriend, Holly realized. The surprises just kept on coming.

“Speaking of which,” Camilla said as she consulted her watch, “I’ll need to leave soon. I’ve a surgery in the morning. I have to make an early night of it, I’m afraid.”

Holly regarded her with interest. “A surgery? Oh — so you’re a doctor, as well as an MP?” Evidently Camilla Shawcross had more abilities than Superwoman.

“A doctor? Oh, my goodness, no!” she said, and let out a peal of laughter. “What a ridiculous notion.”

“A surgery is a clinic held with an MP’s constituents to discuss issues of concern,” Alex explained. “It normally takes place on Saturday, since Parliament sits during the week.”

“Oh.” Hot with embarrassment, Holly pasted an intelligent look on her face and nodded. Inwardly, she seethed. Camilla had an uncanny ability to make her feel incredibly stupid — particularly in front of Alex Barrington.

“I’ll say goodnight, then,” Camilla announced. “It was lovely to meet you, Lady Blandford.” She gave Holly a brief nod. “Goodnight, Ms James.”

“Shall I walk you to your car?” Alex asked.

“No, it’s not necessary.” She added huskily, “After all, we’ll see each other again, soon enough.” She brushed her lips against Alex’s cheek, gave him an intimate smile, and left.

Holly stood up, intent on making her own excuses. Suddenly she wanted nothing so much as to flee back to the safety of her room with its posters of horses and boy bands. She felt out of her depth and invisible whenever Camilla Shawcross was around.

“Would you like a canapé?” Holly’s mother asked as she approached them with another tray. “I have some delicious prawns on offer.”

“Thank you.” Alex nodded politely and took one. “Holly?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m good.”

“Well! I can see you two are getting on like a house on fire.” Cherie smiled at Alex. “I don’t know if you remember, but Holly used to tuck her little pug up in the pram and push him round your garden when she was little. She told me she wanted to marry you when she grew up,” she confided, “and have lots of babies—”

“Mum,” Holly cut in, scarlet with embarrassment, “I was five. I also ate Marmite-and-jam sandwiches and wore the same dress every day, neither of which I do any longer. Let me help you with that tray, shall I?”

She followed her mother into the kitchen and hissed, “Please don’t talk about babies and marriage in front of Alex! It’s mortifying. You’re as subtle as…as Ted Nugent.”

“There’s nothing like a gentle nudge where men are concerned,” Cherie said firmly. “Besides, he’s a vast improvement over that dreadful musician you were seeing.”

“You’ll be happy to know that Mick and I broke up. He and his amplifiers have departed from my life — permanently.”

“Well, I’m not sorry to hear it. You can do so much better, darling. Here, take this out and circulate.”

So saying, her mother thrust a tray with cheese and pineapple cubes skewered onto a grapefruit into Holly’s hands.

“What on earth is that naff thing?” Holly asked as she eyed the tray with distaste.

“It’s a cocktail hedgehog. Offer it to Henry first.” And she nudged Holly out of the door.

Well, Holly reasoned as she circulated with the cocktail hedgehog, Alex hadn’t said anything to indicate he’d seen the BritTEEN interview. Surely he would have confronted her by now.

Ergo, she reasoned as Mrs Henley finally appeared to call everyone in to dinner a few minutes later, there was really no need to tell him about it yet, was there?

No need at all.

Chapter 14

At dinner, Holly found herself seated between Alex and Lady Blandford.

This isn’t so bad, she decided, and began, by degrees, to relax a bit. After all, Camilla Shawcross was gone, she had Alex all to herself at dinner, and she hadn’t heard a word back from Sasha.

Which meant, Holly hoped, that her off-the-record interview disaster with Alex wasn’t, perhaps, such a disaster after all? If it was, Sasha would surely have called her back by now.

Alex reached inside his jacket pocket and leaned over. “Don’t tell anyone, Ms James, but I’m having a quick look at my messages before the soup arrives.”

Holly, smoothing the napkin on her lap, froze. “Messages?”

“Yes. I’m expecting an email, rather an important one.” He began tapping the screen.

“No!” she squeaked, panicked. “You can’t do that!”

“I can’t do what?”

“You can’t look at your messages!”

He looked at her oddly. “Why on earth not?”

“Because…it’s rude, that’s why. Incredibly rude!”

“It’ll only take me a second, I promise.”

Oh, crikey, Holly thought as her panic escalated, if Alex played her voice message now, he’d know that his off-the-record comments had been published in BritTEEN. He’d be livid. He’d tell everyone at the table what she’d done, and they’d all think she was a proper berk—

“I can’t get a signal,” he grumbled after a moment.

“Oh, yes, you’ll find that, living out here in the country, WiFi can be as unreliable as the Lib Dems,” Alastair remarked. A ripple of laughter went round the table.

“Let me try,” Holly urged, and held out her hand for the phone.

Alex frowned. “Perhaps if I just hold it up a bit, I might get one or two bars…”

In an agony of despair, Holly eyed his mobile. “That’s the new myPhone, isn’t it?” she asked, and lunged for it. “Look at what a lovely, big screen it has! Let me have a look, please!”

But he held it fast. “Ms James, I’d really rather you didn’t touch my phone—”

“Don’t worry. I only want to look at it.”

She reached out and attempted to wrestle it away from him, but he held fast. “Just — let me — see — the bloody — thing!” she hissed.

Unfortunately, as Holly grappled with Alex to wrest control of his mobile, it flew out of their hands and sailed aloft, landing with a dull splash in the tureen of vichyssoise that Mrs Henley had just set out on the table.

There was a moment of horrified silence.

“My vichyssoise!” Mrs Henley gasped.

“My phone!” Alex exclaimed, and half rose from his seat. “You’ve ruined it!”

“I’m certain it’s fine,” Holly assured him, although secretly she had her doubts. She leaned forward and fished the mobile, dripping with creamy leek, potato, and chicken stock, out of the tureen and held it up gingerly. “See? It’s perfectly okay. A little vichyssoise never hurt anything.”

Alex snatched it away from her. “Bloody hell,” he snapped as he sat back down, “you’re mad. Bonkers. If you’ve ruined my phone, you’re buying me another.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Just wipe it off and pop it in a zip-top bag with a bit of rice for a few hours. It’ll be right as rain by tomorrow. Hopefully.”

He glared at her. “In the meantime, no thanks to you, I have no mobile phone, and no one can reach me, nor can I reach anyone else.”

“I’m doing you a favour,” Holly reassured him. “Think about it — no unwanted calls from your boss! No sales pitches! No awkward conversations with that not-so-great-looking girl you met at the wine bar last night!”

“And no unwanted conversations with my stark raving mad dinner partner, either,” Alex snapped, and turned pointedly away to converse with the woman on his right.

“Mrs Henley, have we another starter to serve our guests?” Cherie murmured anxiously as the cook reached out to remove the vichyssoise tureen from the table.

“I’ll go and fetch the oxtail soup.” Mrs Henley scowled. “I made it for tomorrow’s luncheon, but it’ll do, I reckon.” Grumbling, she exited the dining room.

A few minutes later, a tureen of oxtail soup replaced the vichyssoise, and Holly turned to Lady Blandford. “Mrs Henley’s oxtail soup is really good. Would you like some?”

“I would indeed! I adore oxtail soup.”

And as Holly dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and listened to her ladyship drone on about her failures and successes with the various recipes for oxtail soup she’d tried over the years, relief swept over her.

Alex might be furious with her at the moment, and he might think her completely mad, but his irritation wouldn’t last. And his phone really would dry out eventually.

And best of all, she’d succeeded in keeping Alex Barrington from hearing her message. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

Despite Mrs Henley’s fears, there were plenty of eggs for breakfast the next morning. Holly helped herself to a generous portion of soft-boiled eggs and toast soldiers from the sideboard. And what the hell, she decided, even though she normally shunned meat, that bacon looked really good, too…

“Good morning, Ms James.”

Holly looked up guiltily, bacon clamped in the tongs she held over her plate, to see Alex entering the dining room. He wore jeans and a faded blue-and-green striped rugby shirt, and he looked…well…fit. Very, very fit.

She noticed he also still looked a bit put out.

“Hello.” Holly indicated the empty dining room. “It looks like we’re the only ones up so far.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s a bit early.” He eyed her plate, heaped liberally with eggs, toast, tomatoes, and bacon. “Hungry this morning, are you?”

She glared at him. “It’s rude to comment on one’s eating habits, you know.”

“Sorry. It’s just that I never knew a girl who ate like a footie player before.” He joined her at the sideboard, picked up a plate, and asked conversationally, “So, do you punt for Arsenal, or United?”

“Ha ha. If we go for a walk with the dogs this morning, believe me, you’ll need every single calorie.”

“I see. Consider me suitably chastened. At any rate,” he added as he took his filled plate and sat down across from her at the dining-room table, “it’s refreshing to see a girl with an appetite. No food issues here.” He picked up a bottle of HP Sauce and poured it liberally over his eggs and fried potatoes.

She raised her brow. “I see you drown everything in brown sauce.”

“It’s rude to comment on one’s eating habits. Or so I’m told.”

“Did you put your phone in a zip-top bag with rice, like I told you?” she asked as she dunked a toast soldier in egg.

“I did. I’ll check it later today.” He eyed her over his toast. “You’d best hope it works, Ms James.”

“It will.” She studied his half-eaten plate of food. “Well, hurry up and eat. The day’s wasting.”

When they finished breakfast, they went into the foyer to let the dogs out of doors for a ramble across the fields. Delirious with joy, the mastiffs streaked across the grass, racing each other and gambolling like children, until Holly whistled for them to settle down. The weather was glorious, all blue skies and mild breezes, as she and Alex set out after them.

“Are you and Camilla an item?” she asked casually.

He glanced at her. “God, no. She was my plus-one for the drinks party last night. That’s all.”

“Yet you had her thong in your pocket at the interview.”

Alex came to a stop. “I told you, that was just a silly wager.”

“And does Camilla know about your ‘silly wager’?” Holly didn’t know why — she didn’t even like Camilla Shawcross — but she was nonetheless outraged on her behalf.

“No! Of course she doesn’t know.”

She crossed her arms against her chest. “Do you keep trophies from all of your…conquests, Mr Barrington?”

“Am I being cross-examined?” he asked evenly. “Because that’s what it sounds like.”

“I just think it’s reprehensible, that’s all. Tucking a woman’s thong in your suit pocket—”

“It wasn’t like that. And it wasn’t Camilla’s.”

Holly eyed him sceptically. “No? Whose was it, then? Or do you have an assortment of thongs from your many conquests?”

He let out an exasperated breath. “It wasn’t anyone’s. I—” he scowled “—I went into Agent Provocateur and I bought it.”

“You bought it? You mean—”

“I mean,” he admitted, “that I haven’t actually slept with Camilla Shawcross. I only wanted my co-workers to think I had. So I bought the thong and took the tags off, and tucked it in my pocket. It worked a treat.”

“So you lied!” she exclaimed. “You lied to win the wager.”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to lose.”

“I’d forgotten that about you,” Holly said suddenly. She leaned forward to open the dog gate when they arrived at the first stile. “We were arguing in the sandbox once, about whether we could dig through to China, I think — and you lost the argument. You were so furious you threw cat poo at me.”

“It was dried cat poo,” he pointed out, and paused. “It was my way of showing that I liked you.”

“Really? Well, I hope you’ve learned more acceptable ways since then to show you like someone,” she said tartly.

Alex came up behind her and closed the gate. “I have, actually,” he said, his voice gone husky. “Much more enjoyable ways, too…”

Holly looked up at him. His eyes were a lovely velvety brown. He stood inches away, and his gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. She tilted her head back and parted her lips in anticipation of his kiss…

When her bloody mobile rang. Sasha.

“Sorry,” Holly apologized as she held up her mobile, “but I have to take this.”

“Well, at least you have that option, unlike me.”

Dismay coloured her voice. “Alex, truly, I’m sorry about your phone—”

“I’m kidding, Holly. Go on, take your call.” He turned away, whistling for the dogs. They capered eagerly after him as he headed up the hill.

“You’re in serious trouble, Holly,” Sasha said without preamble. “Valery is furious. You’ve opened BritTEEN up to a potential lawsuit with your interview. Has Henry seen it yet?”

“Henry?” Holly echoed blankly.

“Henry Barrington, you idiot!” Sasha snapped.

“Oh. You mean Alex. No, he…” she paused as he caught her eye from halfway up the hill and waved “…he doesn’t know, yet.”

“We’ll talk about what’s to be done as far as damage control on Monday. Valery wants to see you, first thing. I shouldn’t be surprised,” Sasha added with satisfaction, “if you don’t get sacked over this.”

“I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t put those comments in, Sasha,” Holly said desperately. “I swear I didn’t—”

But Sasha had already rung off. Cow.

With shaking hands, Holly re-pocketed her phone and hurried off after Alex and the dogs. She had to tell him the truth — which, let’s face it, wouldn’t go over well. How to explain to Alex that, because of a tiny glitch, all of BritTEEN’s readers in England, Scotland, and Wales — and possibly their parents — thought he condoned teen sex on the first date?

How indeed? She couldn’t tell him. Not yet, anyway.

“Is everything okay?” Alex called out as she approached.

“Yes,” she said, slightly breathless after her climb up the last half of the hill. “Work stuff. It’s not much farther to the village, just across the field.”

“Good, we can burn off some of that breakfast. And the dogs don’t have the slightest inclination to head back yet, anyway.” He draped his arm around her shoulders. “Nor do I.”

The mastiffs brushed against Holly’s legs, jumping up, leaving muddy paw prints on her capris and yelping with joy as she fell into step alongside Alex. But she scarcely noticed. She was aware of nothing but his arm around her and his hip bumping now and again against hers as they walked.

Suddenly Caesar spotted a squirrel and went racing after it. Holly, knocked off balance as the other dogs barrelled past her to join Caesar in the chase, lost her footing and fell. An immediate, searing pain shot through her ankle.

“Holly!” Alex exclaimed. He knelt down beside her, his face creased in concern. “Are you all right?”

“I think so. But I’ve given my ankle a twist.”

“Can you stand on it?”

“Give me a hand up, and I’ll try.”

Alex took her hands in his and helped her up; she balanced on her good foot. “Good. At least you’re vertical now.”

“I bet you’ve never said that to a girl before.”

“No. Never,” he agreed.

Gingerly Holly lowered her other foot. An instant, shooting pain made her wince and blurt out a rude word. “Sorry,” she apologized through gritted teeth. “Hurts,” she added unnecessarily.

“Right, then,” Alex decided, “I’ll carry you the rest of the way. How close are we to the village?”

“Not far, maybe ten minutes. You can’t carry me,” Holly protested. “I won’t let you. I can manage—”

But it was too late; he was already lifting her up. She linked her arms around his neck and dropped her gaze, embarrassed at his sudden close proximity. After all, she barely knew this man; yet here he was, carrying her across the buttercup-strewn field like a Saxon warrior, taking his bride-prize back home to his castle…

“Damn it, woman,” Alex said companionably as he navigated the second stile, “did you have to eat quite so much at breakfast this morning?”

She looked at him, indignant. “Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No. I’m just saying I wish you’d made do with a plate of dry toast or a boiled egg, instead of packing it in like Wayne Rooney at a buffet.”

“If I weren’t in so much pain right now,” she informed him through gritted teeth, “I’d throw cat poo at you.”

They reached the village a short time later. Holly directed Alex to the newsagent’s, where he lowered her to a chair just inside the door and went off in search of paracetamol and a bottle of water. She rubbed her ankle. It was throbbing, and swelling up horribly…

Her eyes came to rest on the newsstand. The latest issue of BritTEEN, emblazoned with the bright yellow tagline “One Outrageous Question with Hottie Henry”, sat in the middle of the shelf. Alex was just steps away; if he turned around, he’d surely see it.

Please, Holly silently begged the magazine gods, please don’t let him see it…

The magazine gods must’ve listened, because Alex walked past the newsstand and went straight to the till.

He returned to Holly. “Here you go,” he said, and opened the paracetamol and tipped a couple of pills into her outstretched hand. “Now—” he frowned “—how do we get you back to the house?”

Holly took the bottle of water from him and swallowed the pills. “Well, we can’t take a taxi, not with the dogs. And Dad went to fetch Hannah early this morning.”

“I noticed an estate car parked round the back of your house when we left.”

“It’s Mrs Henley’s. She’ll be far too busy fixing lunch to come and get us.”

“Well, I’ll call the house just the same, and see if someone else can fetch us—”

But calling proved unnecessary when Mrs Henley’s teenage daughter, Lucy, came into the newsagent’s and offered to take them back. “I’m headed that way anyhow,” she told Holly. “I work half-days on Saturday, helping with the lunch service and the clearing up. Mum likes her chocolate,” she added as she grabbed up a Bounty and a Dairy Milk from the confectionery display.

“Thanks,” Holly said gratefully. “Do you have room for three dogs, as well?”

“No problem.” She indicated an ancient VW Kombi parked just outside. “Go ahead and hop in. I just have to pick up a couple of things. Be out in two ticks.”

The Kombi — painted a virulent shade of lime green and plastered with stickers of flowers — earned a distrustful look from Holly but besotted enthusiasm from Alex.

“This is fantastic!” Alex exclaimed as he opened the double doors. “It’s got a Canterbury Pitt conversion.”

Holly looked at him blankly. “A what?”

“A custom conversion,” Lucy explained as she joined them. “A table goes in the middle, but it’s stowed; and I’ve a cooker, and a poptop with two bunks above, for sleeping.” She waited as Holly, Alex, and the dogs clambered inside, then slid behind the wheel. “’Course, it’s old, so it breaks down a lot.”

“Great,” Holly muttered.

“Not to worry,” Lucy assured her as she started the engine. “Daisy won’t get you back home very fast, but she will get you there.”

The stench of diesel filled the air as Lucy put the van in gear, and, true to her word, with a judder and a toot of the horn, they were off.

Chapter 15

“Let’s take you up to your room,” Lucy told Holly when they arrived, “so you can have a nice lie-in and keep the weight off that foot.”

“I don’t need a nice lie-in! I’m fine.” Before Holly could protest any further, Alex scooped her up in his arms and headed up the stairs, Lucy trailing behind.

“Lucy’s right,” Alex informed her. “You need to stay off that foot.”

She glared at him. “And you need to stop acting like Rhett Butler.”

“I’m sure Scarlett O’Hara never ate half a carton of eggs, three pieces of toast, and a rasher of bacon for breakfast,” he retorted.

“Holly!” her mother exclaimed as she emerged from the baize door that led to the kitchen. “What’s happened?”

Alex came to a stop halfway up the stairs. “She had a fall. She’s twisted her ankle. It’s nothing serious.”

“Tell that to my ankle,” Holly said through gritted teeth. “Argghh! It hurts.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, darling.” Cherie tutted. “Your dad’s just texted to say he and Hannah should be here in time for lunch. One of her friends brought her to Hertfordshire, so it’s trimmed an hour and a half from his journey… Mrs Henley’s roasted a chicken and a lovely leg of lamb. Will you join us, or shall I have her send up a tray?”

“A tray, please. Thanks, Mum.”

Alex followed Holly’s directions to her bedroom and lowered her on the bed. He reached behind her to plump up the pillows. “There. Comfy?”

Holly nodded. “Perfect.” Her foot throbbed; the paracetamol obviously hadn’t taken effect yet.

“I’ll go downstairs and fetch some Epsom salts,” Lucy told her from the doorway. “That foot needs a proper soak. Here,” she added as she handed some magazines to Alex. “Give these to Holly. They’ll help pass the time. I got ’em at the newsagent’s just now.”

“Thanks.” Alex took a seat in the faded chintz armchair by Holly’s bed and began idly flipping through the pile. “Your competition,” he said, lifting up copies of Shout and Bliss to show her. “‘How to Avoid a Dodgy Date’,” he read, and frowned. “I could’ve used this one at university. I once went out to dinner with a girl who smelt suspiciously of marijuana and ordered one of everything on the menu.”

“Give me those.” She held out her hand.

He ignored her. “Ah, here’s a must-read — ‘My Bezzie Mate Stole My Lad!’” He shook his head. “It’s a jungle out there.”

“Alex,” Holly warned him, “if you don’t hand those magazines over right now…”

He grinned. “I had no idea teen magazines were so entertaining.” He flipped to the last one in the pile. “Wait a minute — this one’s yours, isn’t it?” He held up the latest issue of BritTEEN.

Her heart throbbing as badly as her foot, Holly tried to grab it away. “Yes. Come on, Alex, enough already! Give me those stupid magazines!”

“Wait a minute…let me just see if my interview’s in here.” He turned to the table of contents. “Ah, yes, here it is — ‘One Outrageous Question with Hottie Henry’.” He looked up in mild surprise. “Hottie Henry?”

“Alex, please, give me that—”

But he found page thirty-seven and glanced at his picture. “I’m glad you used that photo,” he approved. “One of my mates took that one. I remember it well. A bunch of us hired a sailboat in Belize a couple of years ago…”

Holly waited in an agony of dread as he began to read the interview. His smile faltered, then faded altogether.

He lowered the magazine and looked at her. “My off-the-record comments — both of them — are in here. How can that be?”

“It’s a mistake, Alex. It’s all a terrible mistake.”

“A mistake,” he repeated. His eyes narrowed. “You knew about this. That’s why you tried to grab it away just now.”

Holly opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Did you know about this at dinner last night?”

“I — no — yes,” she admitted miserably. “Yes. I did.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Of course I did! I thought about it a lot. I even left you a voice message.”

“A voice message?” he echoed, and frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I? Thanks to you, my phone’s been out of commission since you dropped it in the vichyssoise last night…” His words trailed away, and suspicion dawned on his face. “Wait a minute! You landed my phone in the soup on purpose, didn’t you?”

“No!” Holly protested. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t. It makes perfect sense. You left me a message, and then you had second thoughts. So you sabotaged my mobile!”

“I didn’t want to — to upset your digestion before dinner. And I didn’t want to ruin your evening.”

“Ruin my evening?” he echoed, his dark eyes black with anger as he stood and flung the magazine aside. “You’ve ruined more than my evening, Ms James. You’ve ruined my career!”

Holly bristled. “Now you’re just being dramatic! No one’s career is in jeopardy. Except maybe mine,” she added.

“My quote’s been taken completely out of context!” Alex went on, furious. “Where’s the bit I said about the couple being responsible, consenting adults? It’s not there! And I told you I might stand for MP in strictest confidence!”

“Look — I’m sorry about that stuff being printed, okay? I didn’t put it in the interview, or, at least, I don’t think I did, but it must’ve got left in with the final proof—”

“Actually, Ms James,” Alex cut in coldly, “I don’t care how it happened. You leave me no choice but to pursue legal action against BritTEEN for libel.”

Despite the lurch of fear his words evoked, Holly kept her face expressionless. If Alex Barrington sued the magazine, Sasha would have the perfect excuse — neatly wrapped and tied with a bow — to sack her. “I hardly think you want to do that, Mr Barrington. You’ll only make things worse by drawing attention to the matter. Besides, it’s all in fun—”

“Fun?” Alex regarded her incredulously. “Do you think it’s fun, knowing that every spot-faced teenage girl in England—”

“Scotland and Wales, too, actually,” Holly interjected helpfully. “Our readership encompasses the entire UK.”

“-and, even worse, those girls’ parents, think that I condone a leg-over on the first date? What sort of credibility do you think that gives me as a solicitor? Or even worse, as a potential MP?”

Holly bristled. “In all fairness, it’s not like you’ve admitted to…to embezzling money, or anything.”

“Lunch is served!” Cherie announced as she thrust her head around the door. She set a tray with roast lamb and chicken and assorted overcooked vegetables down on Holly’s lap. “Your father and Hannah just arrived. Alex, do come downstairs and join the rest of us in the dining room.”

Holly heard a commotion downstairs as the dogs began a chorus of barking and her sister bellowed out, “I’m home, everybody! Remain as you are!”

Her footsteps pounded up the stairs, and a moment later Hannah burst into the bedroom, her face flushed and wreathed in smiles as she launched herself at Holly. “Hols!”

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