Love And Liability

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: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

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: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

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.”