Secrets of the Rich & Famous

She took a sip of her water and Alex noticed her hands shake slightly. Good, she must be feeling nervous.

But she still shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because I’ve already set myself up with this address and I’m not screwing around with that. Plus I don’t dance to anyone’s tune just because they happen to offer me hard cash. I can get where I want to by myself, thanks very much. This way you get to keep a low profile … that is what you’re doing here, isn’t it? … and I get to finish my article. Everyone’s a winner.’

She folded her arms. She looked as fresh as a daisy, clearly prepared to argue all night if necessary, and suddenly he was done with it.

‘Stay the damn night, then,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll be out in the morning before you’ve had your first cup of coffee.’

The words were barely out of his mouth before she made a move towards the door, immediately taking him up on it. She disappeared, her bare feet padding softly down the passage back to the bedroom.

He stared at the empty doorway. Let her have her victory. It would be short-lived. In a few hours’ time his legal team would have it sorted and he could bolt the door behind her.

Alex switched the phone to his other ear and looked out of the bedroom window onto the square below. It was early and traffic was still light. A couple of hours’ sleep hadn’t soothed his mood and he was more on edge than ever. Mark Dunn had been his lawyer and close friend for a decade, providing confidential advice he trusted on a personal and business level.

‘You’re actually telling me I can’t evict her from my own apartment? What is the law there for? There has to be some kind of loophole.’ He gripped the phone between ear and shoulder so he could flick again through the house-sitting contract.

‘Without looking at it I can’t be certain, but these things are essentially rental contracts.’ Mark’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Fax it over and I’ll check it out. Of course you could insist she leaves regardless of what the contract says, but in the circumstances that might not be wise. What’s she like?’

Young, slim, minxy blue eyes. Legs that shouldn’t be allowed.

‘Knows her own mind and is refusing to back down,’ he said. ‘Hinted that she could make trouble.’

‘She most certainly could if she wanted to. Alex, think how this could look if she put the right twist on it. All this stuff in the press about you and Viveca Holt. It’s just a few weeks until the awards season kicks off and, trust me, the words “casting couch” are not ones you want bandied about in the run-up to that.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

The familiar bite of fury at the backlash resurfaced. How dared people dictate what he did? Who he chose to see? Part of him wanted to issue a statement: Yeah, so I had a fling with Viveca. A great time was had on both sides, if I say so myself, and I doubt it did her career prospects any harm. But really it’s none of your damn business.

‘You need to kill that story stone-dead,’ Mark carried on. ‘Listen to your PR team for once. You’re paying them enough. Go to ground for a few days and then gradually start to be seen again on your own in the right places. Maybe a few carefully chosen public events. Be seen to be having a quiet Christmas away from the limelight. Regain some respectability. Don’t give them anything to write about and it will all be forgotten by New Year. What you don’t need is some loose cannon of a journalist getting a scoop on you assaulting your own tenant and then throwing her out on the street. And that’s just one story she could come up with. There could be worse. These people aren’t big on truth. Any new story will be used as an excuse to rehash this current scandal. It could run and run if you don’t handle it right.’

Alex felt fury begin to mingle with extreme frustration. The last few days had been hell. The constant paparazzi attention had made work impossible, and then there’d been the backlash from the film studios backing the movie. He had no choice but to get things back on track if he wanted to limit the damage to his professional reputation. Since his business empire had been his one priority these last five years, he had no choice but to play the game.

‘OK, so if throwing her out isn’t an option, what do you suggest?’

‘If I were you, while we come up with a solution, I’d let her be and do my best to keep her sweet.’ He paused. ‘Not too sweet, though, Alex. That’s the kind of thing that got you into this mess.’

CHAPTER TWO

Rule #2: Get your eye on the prize. Before you can trap the heart of a millionaire you have to be able to identify him. To observe the visible signs that set a wealthy and eligible man apart from the rest of the dross you must observe him in his own environment.

THE kitchen was a vast cold expanse of gleaming cupboards and spotlights and stainless steel. Not so much as a pepper mill cluttered its surfaces. Its clinical sterility reminded her of a hospital, and Jen hated it more than ever this morning. No matter how hard she told herself that she was the exception to the female rule, absolutely not attracted to Alex Hammond, her subconscious wasn’t getting the message.

The recurring thought of lying on the bed beneath him, his muscular body hard against hers, had invaded her mind and banished sleep for what had been left of the night. The residual adrenaline from facing down a furious Alex hadn’t helped, either. As a result she was now edgy and tired, her relief at being able to stay in the flat short-lived. For the first time in weeks she longed for her cosy kitchen back home, with its threadbare sofa in the corner, perfect to curl up on if you shifted the cat to one side before you sat down.

There was no sign of Alex Hammond this morning. He was obviously sleeping in after the late night. She listened hard for a moment to make sure.

Nothing. The perfect opportunity.

Kneeling down next to the stainless steel dustbin, she pressed the button on the lid to open it and scrabbled around, grimacing as she shoved aside teabags and eggshells and goodness knew what. At last she found what she was looking for: yesterday’s newspaper. She tugged it out, scattering coffee grounds across the glossy grey-tiled floor and smoothed it out with her fist. Folding herself up on the floor, she settled down to read the article she’d only skimmed yesterday.

Now she was sharing a flat with him she wanted every gory detail.

Unfortunately Alex’s face in the photo was obscured by a blob of cold scrambled egg from last night’s supper. And as she began to read the irony of that fact wasn’t wasted on her. Since a costly divorce five years ago he’d been living the life of a rich bachelor to the full. And if you insisted on dating a different woman every week, all of them beautiful and most of them famous, it stood to reason that sooner or later one of those affairs would come back and bite you very publicly on the behind. It was a simple matter of probability.

The latest film from Alex Hammond’s extremely successful production company, The Audacity of Death, was already tipped to clean up at next year’s awards season. Its star, the young and stunningly gorgeous Viveca Holt, had been plucked from obscurity to take the female lead role over a number of well-established actresses. None of this had mattered one bit until pictures had surfaced of Alex Hammond stepping out with Viveca during the film’s production and the rumour mill had begun with a vengeance.

The glamour surrounding the film-maker and the film star being together was far too good to pass up. Whether or not sour grapes were to blame wasn’t clear, but the implication from the press pack was that Viveca had moved from obscurity into the role of a lifetime via Alex’s bed, with him pulling strings along the way. Definitely not the kind of publicity a serious piece of arty film-making needed, with award nominations being announced next month.

Jen nearly hit the ceiling when Alex Hammond walked unexpectedly into the room. She frantically screwed the newspaper into a ball. He looked down at her as he rounded the corner, at the bin open next to her spilling its contents across the floor, and raised his eyebrows. She coloured.

‘What are you doing?’ He moved smoothly across to the counter and switched on the coffeepot.

She squashed the paper back into the bin and slammed the lid down on it.

‘Recycling,’ she lied, getting to her feet. She soaped her hands under the single curved tap in the enormous double sink. Conscious of his far too observant eyes still on her, she added, ‘Everyone can play a part in saving the planet.’

Oh, yes, that sounded just great.

He was looking at her as though she were a moron, then he shook his head lightly, as if to clear it.

‘Coffee?’ he asked, coldly polite.

She smoothed her hair back from her face with one hand, drew in a composing breath.

‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘Black, no sugar.’

He opened one of the many cupboards and took out two mugs. She waited, wondering if he was going to pick up where she’d left off last night on the eviction thing, but he didn’t mention it. He simply filled the mugs with coffee and handed one of them to her. Then he leaned back against the counter, mug in hand, watching her.

Even on a couple of hours’ sleep he looked fantastic, it was so unfair. His hair was still damp from the shower, and he was dressed casually—just jeans and a dark grey polo shirt that on its own probably cost more than her entire wardrobe. She folded her arms defensively across her own cheap white shirt and jeans and took a sip of her coffee.

‘You checked my contract out with your lawyer, then?’ she asked.

He grinned wolfishly. ‘Of course I have.’

Of course. Men like him left nothing to chance. She wasn’t the least bit surprised. She waited, ready to argue her point. He probably had the best lawyers in the world, more than capable of pulling apart a standard rental agreement, but she knew she’d touched a nerve when she mentioned the press even if it had been just a bluff. She was just a reporter on a small country paper, not a tabloid entertainment correspondent. Her last story before she’d started interning had been about a cat who’d hopped on the bus and travelled from Littleford to the next village all by himself. That was the level of celebrity she was used to dealing with.

He didn’t say anything else, just carried on looking at her with that appraising expression in the green eyes which made her self-conscious no matter how hard she tried not to be.

‘And?’ she prompted, when he didn’t say anything.

He sipped his coffee.

‘While I could break the contract—and I’m sure the house-sitting agency would be prepared to be reasonable about it …’ His tone made it obvious who he considered the troublemaker to be in this scenario. ‘You’ve told me how important it is to you that you keep this address. And, as I’m all in favour of enterprise, I’m prepared to be the bigger person here and honour the agreement. I wouldn’t want to make things difficult for you.’

She bridled a little at his taking the moral high ground but kept her irritation under wraps. She didn’t believe a word of it. He needed to keep his nose clean. That much was clear from the newspaper article and his turnaround since last night. Any sniff of scandal and he’d be back on the front pages. She had no intention of going to the press—she just wanted to concentrate on her article, on not letting her big chance, her only chance, slip through her fingers—but she didn’t need to tell him that.

Let him think she had the editor of every London tabloid on speed dial.

‘That’s really good of you. Thank you,’ she said through gritted teeth.

He raised his mug in acknowledgement.

She waited until he began scrolling through his mobile phone.

‘Will Viveca be joining you for Christmas?’ she asked pointedly.

His expression as he looked up from the phone was dark and inscrutable. She saw a flash of the arctic coldness from the previous night.

‘No, she will not!’ he said curtly. ‘It’s a working relationship, nothing more.’

‘That’s not what the papers say,’ she said.

‘And of course they are always right about absolutely everything.’ He slammed his mug down, slopping coffee across the granite counter. ‘It was a few dates and it was months ago. Can’t I go on a couple of nights out without the world reading God knows what into it?’

Clearly not. She would give him her standard live-in-the-public-eye-at-your-peril lecture.

‘That’s the thing, though. You’re happy to court publicity when it suits you. When it’s good publicity. When there’s a film to promote. You can’t then say it’s unacceptable when people want to know more about you.’

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘Seeing as you belong to the vulture camp. Hoping to get the scoop, are you? Well, there’s nothing to scoop. I’m single. I only date when I have to, and I don’t see that it’s anyone else’s business. There’s a line between public and private. Who I date and why I date them is private.’

She gave her suddenly pricked-up ears a mental slap. The fact that he was single was definitely of no interest to her. She didn’t care that he was utterly, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Firstly, she’d be wasting her time. Even in a ketchup-smeared photo Viveca was nothing short of exquisite. He’d never look twice at someone like Jen. And secondly, the only circumstances in which she would look at a man who paved his way through life with his wealth would be false ones—as demonstrated perfectly by her undercover article. She wasn’t about to repeat the mistakes her mother had made. No way.

She shrugged. ‘You’re just too newsworthy. That’s the problem. You need to keep your head down a bit more. Perhaps if you dated someone a bit more run-of-the-mill for a change?’

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a suggestive grin that sent a curl of unwelcome heat through her body. ‘Someone like you, you mean?’

The kitchen felt too warm. The look in his eyes took her right back to the previous night again.

‘I don’t consider myself to be run-of-the-mill, actually,’ she said.

She felt his eyes follow her as she crossed the kitchen. She could tell just by the heat in her cheeks that her face was currently approaching tomato-red. No way was she letting him see that he affected her. She opened a stainless steel door and stuck her head into the cupboard where she’d stashed her food. She took a few calming breaths and when the flustered feeling was gone took out a loaf of bread.

She’d done a big supermarket food shop during a fleeting visit home a couple of days ago, left half the food in the house for her mum and brought the rest back to London with her. She had enough on her plate here trying to track down millionaires without also having to track down budget food.

She put a couple of slices of bread into the gleaming toaster. His attention was back on his phone again as he leaned against the counter.

She hauled her mind back on task. Sparring with Alex Hammond was all very well, but she needed to concentrate on work.

Thankfully, her accommodation remained sorted. She mentally ticked it off. Now for the next step. Somehow she needed to work out how the hell a girl whose most expensive item of clothing was a fifty-pound pair of shoes could identify whether a men’s jacket cost a hundred pounds or a few thousand pounds? She needed to build up a sketch of the kind of man to target, and she had to admit there was a certain satisfaction in the idea of fooling a man of her father’s ilk. Someone driven by money and reputation and success, who held all the cards in life and had no qualms about playing them.

Her first proper undercover expedition was tomorrow night. OK, maybe she was running before she could walk—she hadn’t even got her wardrobe together yet—but a ticket to the first night of an art exhibition had fallen into her lap via the middle-aged arts correspondent of the Littleford Gazette. It turned out boring Gordon was a real culture vulture in his spare time, hanging around galleries and getting himself on exclusive mailing lists. When he’d heard about her planned article he’d thrown a spare ticket her way. She suspected he had a bit of a soft spot for her and feared he might expect a bit more than a cream cake as a thank-you if she had to go back to work at the Gazette. There was a lot riding on this project in more ways than one.

The opportunity to attend a champagne reception which would undoubtedly be stuffed with rich singletons was too good to pass up. If nothing else she’d be able to observe, and if she was really, really lucky she might be able to highlight a couple of suitable men to target. She hadn’t had time to source any designer clothes yet. Instead she was intending to wear her trusty little black dress and blend into the background—use the evening to get an idea of the image she needed to build for herself.

But the thought of going straight from comfort zone to such a glossy affair was terrifying. She somehow needed to ease herself into it. A bit of people-watching would be just the thing to get her in the right mind-set. But knowing where to start was the problem. Where did the beautiful people hang out in London on an average weekday?

A sudden movement from Alex made her glance around to catch him checking the huge gold watch on his wrist—probably worth more than her car. Somewhere in her mind a penny dropped.

Standing in front of her was a walking, talking information source on every aspect of the lifestyle of a wealthy single man. Unfortunately with a messy and very expensive divorce in his past he was unlikely to see the funny side of an article on landing a rich bachelor, no matter how tongue-in-cheek it was meant to be. She’d have to find an underhand way to tap the information out of him.

He looked back up at her, a questioning frown knitting his brows in response to her sudden beaming smile.

‘Would you like a slice of toast?’ she asked him.

Ten minutes later they were seated on stools next to the granite counter. Alex watched Jen finishing her second slice of toast. A few crumbs clung to her full lower lip and he found himself staring at them until the movement of her hand as she brushed them away snapped him out of it. He gave himself a brisk mental shake. He was meant to be keeping on her good side, not ogling her. Mindful of Mark’s warning to keep her sweet, he’d only agreed to the toast to appear friendly after snapping at her about Viveca. He surreptitiously pushed the remains of it to one side of his plate and took a large slug of coffee.

He looked up at her to see that she’d finished eating and was now staring at his wrist. She leaned forward on her stool to get a better look.

‘That’s a lovely watch,’ she said.

He smiled distantly. What was she up to now?

‘Thanks.’

‘Would you mind if I took a closer look?’

Before he could answer she’d jumped down from the stool and taken a step closer. She took his wrist in her slender hands and turned the watch this way and that, examining it.

‘Cartier …’ she murmured.

He realised that she was the perfect height for him right now, standing next to him as he sat on the stool. This close he could see the big blue eyes, the frown touching her brows lightly. The curve of her top lip above the full pink lower lip was adorable. There were fine tendrils at the nape of her neck where she’d pulled her light brown hair up from her shoulders into a messy ponytail. He was reminded suddenly of the last time he’d been at eye level with her—last night, with her slender wrists in his hands, lush body pinned beneath him on the bed, close enough to kiss her with one short movement of his head. Heat sparked on his skin at her touch and seemed to pool deep in his abdomen.

This was not a good sign. Less than four days since he’d sworn off women and he was mentally wondering what she might taste like. He debated for a moment if he should have ignored Mark’s advice and evicted her, anyway.

He tugged his wrist away sharply.

She looked up in surprise, her hands left empty in mid-air.

‘I’ve got a conference call in twenty minutes that I really ought to be preparing for,’ he lied.

She took a step back, still eyeing the watch.

‘OK, not a problem. I’m planning on going out, anyway, so you can have the place to yourself.’

Honestly, she had more front than Blackpool. Acting as if she was the one doing him the favour when it was his own damned apartment.

She tossed his cold toast in the bin and stacked their plates together in the sink.

‘Can you recommend somewhere good for lunch?’ she asked, her back to him. ‘I need to get a bit of background on the area. The kind of people who hang out here, what they wear—that kind of thing.’

He shrugged. ‘Depends what you’re after. Coffee and a sandwich? Or something a bit more substantial? What do you want to spend? Some places are pretty exclusive and expensive.’

She turned back from the sink in time for him to see the sudden shadows in her blue eyes.

‘Not that I’m implying you’d be out of place there,’ he said, wondering why he was worried about hurting her feelings.

‘Why don’t you just tell me where you would go?’ she said. ‘If you were hypothetically going out for lunch in South-West London.’

He thought for a moment, trying to come up with somewhere she might enjoy.

‘La Brasserie,’ he said. ‘French-style place. It’s very popular—decent food.’

‘Great, thanks!’

‘Don’t thank me until you’ve tried it. We might not like the same kind of food.’

She left the room. Just as he was insisting to himself that she was having zero effect on him he realised he was watching the graceful way her legs moved in the slim-cut jeans. He’d have to find a way of getting her out of here.

The globe lights, the ceiling fans twirling above her, the framed French posters on the walls and the marble-topped bar made stepping into La Brasserie feel like stepping into a little corner of Paris in the middle of London. Strings of white fairy lights and Christmas greenery added a warm festive touch. At a corner table, Jen thought it really was the perfect place to while away an hour or two people-watching.

She glanced at the menu and drew in a quick breath at the prices—even after her internship they never failed to amaze her. The coffee shop back home in Littleford did a knockout shepherd’s pie for a fraction of the price of the main lunch menu here. Then again, the residents of Littleford wouldn’t know what to do with a place that served frogs legs in white wine and parsley, Coquilles St Jacques—whatever that was—lobster and steak tartare.

When a waiter in a pristine white shirt and black waistcoat arrived to take her order she chose only coffee and a pain au chocolat, with a pang of regret that she couldn’t afford to sample the full deliciousness of the menu. She needed to eke out her money big-time if she wanted to frequent places like this and actually look as if she belonged. The group of young women having a girly lunch at the table opposite made her feel totally invisible. She was kidding herself, thinking she could pass herself off as one of them in her High Street wardrobe. She needed designer everything. And on the money she’d scraped together that was going to be no mean feat.

The women were glossy without being in your face. Hair loose and natural, with gentle highlights, perfect smiles, less-is-more make-up and not a hint of orange fake tan. Clothes impeccably cut. Fur seemed to be the accessory this winter. No outfit appeared to be complete without a bit of dead animal attached to it somewhere.

So this was the world her father inhabited, while she and her mother were an inconvenience he’d written off twenty-four years ago just by opening his wallet. She didn’t think she’d ever had a stronger feeling of being on the outside looking in. Jen felt plain, boring, and like an impostor with her mousy brown hair and her cheap handbag. And the worst of it was that none of that should matter—not to her. But still it did.